Three Little Words

His sisters followed him inside. Once he reached the hallway, he couldn’t decide where to go, which meant they had him trapped.

“She’s really upset,” Montana told him.

Dakota nodded, her gaze uncomfortably direct. “It wouldn’t kill you to humor her.”

“It might,” he muttered.

“All she wants is for you to be happy,” Montana said. “Is that so bad? She loves you. We all love you and we don’t want you to go away again.” Tears filled her eyes. “We missed you so much.”

That low blow was followed by Dakota setting up for the kill shot. “Just one date. How bad could it be?”

“Bad.”

“Ford, she’s your mother,” Dakota said, as if he were in danger of forgetting.

He could feel the doors of the prison closing. For maybe the thousandth time since coming home, he had the thought that life would be a hell of a lot easier if he didn’t like his family. If he could ignore them or yell at them.

What they couldn’t understand and he didn’t know how to explain was his mother’s plan was never going to work. He wasn’t going to meet a nice girl and settle down because he wouldn’t do that to anyone he liked. Most people wanted to fall in love and then stay in love. He didn’t.

When he got involved, he had a short attention span. When things got serious, he got gone. That had been his pattern since the day he’d left Fool’s Gold. He knew he wasn’t still in love with Maeve, so it must be a character flaw.

He’d tried to stay involved, to emotionally commit, but no matter what he did, he got restless and wanted to leave. He couldn’t summon more than passing interest. He’d liked the women he’d been with, but he’d never once been in love. Not even with Maeve.

But his family wouldn’t understand. He came from a long line of happy marriages. His mother had been a widow for a decade before she’d been willing to start dating again. Except for Kent, all his siblings were blissfully married. Both sets of grandparents had successful unions that had lasted more than half a century.

“I’m seeing someone,” he said, the words as unexpected to him as to them.

Montana looked pleased while Dakota’s expression turned skeptical.

“How convenient,” she murmured.

“It was hard to start dating a local girl before I got home,” he told her.

“Uh-huh.” She didn’t sound convinced.

“Really?” Montana asked, always the most trusting of the three. “You’re not just saying that to get us to leave you alone?”

He hated to lie, but if he managed to convince Isabel, then he wasn’t technically lying to them. He was telling a pretruth.

“I’m very interested in Isabel Beebe.”

“How interested?” Dakota asked.

He thought about how Isabel always made him laugh and the way she called him on his crap. The woman had mocked his car. She was also sexy and he would like to do a lot more than kiss her.

“I saw that,” Montana said, her voice delighted. “Did you see that?”

“What?” he asked.

“You got a predatory look in your eyes.” Montana smiled at her sister. “He’s really interested in Isabel. I guess there’s something about the Beebe girls.”

He opened his mouth to protest that it wasn’t like that, but he remembered in time he was trying to convince them that it was.

Dakota poked him in the stomach with her index finger. “You better not be lying.”

He rubbed the spot. “Is this how you act with your patients?”

She ignored the question. “Fine. We’ll tell Mom what you said. But if she finds out this is all an act to get us off your back, you are in such trouble.”

“I’m trembling.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Not now, big brother, but you will be.”

His sisters walked away. He told himself the sound of the front door closing didn’t at all sound like the gates of prison. Because he had bigger problems than sibling threats. He had to figure out how to convince Isabel to play along.

* * *

ISABEL IGNORED THE GROWING sense of concern. Her appointment that morning was with a new bride named Lauren. The twentysomething had brought along a disinterested younger sister and no friends, which was never a good sign. Lauren also had handed over pictures of her favorite dresses. While Isabel could duplicate the look, she knew that the styles wouldn’t look right on Lauren’s larger frame.

But she’d done as the bride requested. As her grandmother had taught her, better to let the bride figure out that the dress she wanted looked awful than tell her in advance. Only after the wrong dress had been discarded could the right one be selected.

Thinking of her grandmother relaxed her and made her smile. The older woman had loved Paper Moon. Making brides happy had been her life’s work.

Despite the passage of time, the store looked very much as it had then. The basic setup hadn’t changed in fifty years. There were displays in the large windows and samples on mannequins up front. A separate room housed bridesmaid and prom dresses. Mothers of the bride had their own space and separate dressing rooms.

Three beautifully carved antique armoires displayed veils, while a fourth had shelves for headpieces, including combs and tiaras.

Madeline appeared at her side. “It’s not going well. She won’t come out of the dressing room.”

There were no mirrors in the bridal dressing rooms on purpose. The true beauty of the gown could be seen only from an array of mirrors arranged under perfect lighting. Isabel’s grandmother had believed every bride was beautiful and had done all she could to make sure that happened.

“I’ll get her,” Isabel said, wishing Lauren had brought along a friend or another relative. The baby sister showed no interest in her sister’s plight. The teen was curled up in a plush chair, texting on her phone.

Except for the technology, she could have been Isabel herself, fourteen years ago. Isabel hadn’t been interested in Maeve’s wedding gown, either, although the reasons had been different. She’d been in love with Ford and desperate to avoid thinking of him marrying her sister. She suspected Lauren’s sister was simply bored by the process.

Maybe, in time, they would grow closer. Not that she and Maeve ever had. Perhaps there were too many years between them, or it could be because their lives were so different. Regardless, she and her sister were more like distant relatives than siblings.

Now that she was in Fool’s Gold, that could be changed, she thought, telling herself to give Maeve a call in the next few days.

She knocked on one of the three large dressing rooms. “Lauren, honey, come on out so we can see how you look.”

“I can’t.”

“Sure you can. Let’s have a look.”

Lauren made a small, unhappy sound, then flung open the door.

“I’m hideous,” she announced as tears spilled down her cheeks. “I look ugly. I love Dave and I don’t want to disappoint him.”

Isabel hated to admit that Lauren was right, but it was painfully obvious that the dress she’d picked wasn’t flattering on her curvy figure. The layers of ruffles only added bulk where it wasn’t needed and the stark white color made her look pale and sickly. Mouse-brown hair and small eyes didn’t help.

“This is the third dress I’ve tried on and they’re all awful.”

Isabel glanced toward the pictures carefully torn out of a bridal magazine. “Your choices are really lovely, but I have some different ideas. Would you mind if I picked a couple of dresses for you to try?” She smiled. “Trust me, Lauren. I know how to make your bridal dress dreams come true.”

Lauren sniffed. “It doesn’t matter. Dave is going to change his mind when he sees me in this dress.”

“He’s not, but it doesn’t matter because I won’t let you buy that dress. No bride is allowed to buy a dress here at Paper Moon unless she loves it and looks like a princess. My grandmother was very strict about that.”

Isabel unzipped the dress, then handed her a thick terry cloth robe. “Put this on and meet me outside.”

Three minutes later Lauren appeared. The robe looked as bad on her as the dress, but as she wasn’t wearing it down the aisle, it wouldn’t matter.

“This way,” Isabel said, leading her to a small alcove to the left side of the dressing room. She guided Lauren into a chair in front of a mirror.

“Open that top drawer. You’ll find mascara samples. Put some on. You get to keep the sample, by the way, so let me know if you like it. I can tell you where to buy it.”

Lauren leaned toward the mirror and dried her eyes, then applied the mascara. Isabel got a brush from a drawer and ran it through the other woman’s shoulder-length hair. With a few well-placed pins, she managed a fairly nice twist that added a little volume on the sides.

When that was done, she pulled up a stool and sat, then opened more drawers. She swept dark shadow along the creases of Lauren’s eyelids, then added blush on her cheeks.

“No lip gloss,” she said gently. “You’ll get it on my dresses and then I’ll have to kill you.”

Lauren managed a shaky smile. “That might solve my problems.”

“You won’t say that when I’m done with you, young lady. Now come on. I’m going to show you a Vera Wang dress that is going to leave you breathless.”

Hope filled Lauren’s brown eyes. “You promise?”

“Yes. I promise. I’m very good at what I do and I refuse to let you ruin my record. Because this isn’t about you—it’s about me.”

This time the smile was more genuine. “Thank you,” Lauren whispered.

“You’re welcome.” Isabel squeezed her hand and started to stand. As she did, she saw movement in the mirror and realized Ford was standing in the doorway to the dressing area.

She ignored the sudden tightness in her chest and the way she felt lighter inside. As if some bubble of happiness gave her a little lift. She also ignored the broadness of his shoulders and the way his worn jeans hugged his h*ps and thighs.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “There’s too much estrogen in the air. If you hang out back here, you’ll grow breasts.”

He gave her a slow, sexy grin. “I’ll risk it.”

Lauren looked at him in the mirror. “Wow,” she whispered.

“I know,” Isabel told her. “Now let’s go find you a dress.”

She picked out three simple gowns made of gorgeous fabric with just enough detailing to make them elegant. Lauren looked doubtful but agreed to try them on and went back into the dressing room.

“Why are you here?” Isabel asked again, walking up to Ford. “Do not tell me it’s about the fake-girlfriend thing because there are sharp objects in this store and I’m not afraid to use them.”

He studied her. “You were great with her. The bride. I saw how you calmed her down.”

“Thanks. I learned from a master. My grandmother believed a beautiful bride was a happy bride.”

He glanced around. “You sell a lot of stuff.”

“It takes a village. And accessories. So what’s up?”

“I need you to be my fake girlfriend. Hear me out,” he added when she started to protest. “Two of my sisters came to see me today.”

“And that is my problem how?”

“They’re my sisters. They’re relentless. They started going on about how Mom just wants me to be happy and that I had to go out with some of the women who had applied.” His expression turned helpless. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Grow a pair and tell them no?”

“They’re family.”

A simple statement she completely understood. Family made life complicated.

“I said it was you,” he told her.

“What?”

“I told Dakota and Montana I was dating you.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Honestly, what was she supposed to say to that?

“Listen,” he said, taking her hands in his. “I’m desperate. I’ll do anything. Wash your car, paint your house. I’ll give you money. Please. Just for a few weeks. Long enough to get my mom off my back.”

She wasn’t sure why she resisted. What did she care if people thought she and Ford were together? He was nice to look at and fun to be around. She supposed the problem was that she felt funny when she was close to him. Both intrigued and afraid. He was a sexual being and she...wasn’t.

Her friends had urged her to indulge in a transitional relationship. Fake-dating Ford would certainly be that.

“What do you think?”

The soft question didn’t come from Ford. Isabel turned and saw Lauren approaching.

The V-neck dress was perfect. The simple lines skimmed over her curves, making her look voluptuous. The sheen on the fabric added a glow to her pale skin.

Isabel pulled free of Ford’s hold and walked to the veils hanging along the wall. She selected one with a simple circle of flowers and set it on Lauren’s head, then helped her up to the raised platform in front of the array of mirrors.

Lauren stared at herself, her expression disbelieving. “I love it.”

Ford disappeared for a second, then returned with the teen sister in tow. The girl blinked.

“You look great,” she said, her voice filled with surprise. “I like the dress a lot.”

“Sexy bride,” Ford added.

Lauren flushed. “I don’t know what to say,” she admitted. “Isabel, you were right. This one is perfect.”