“The…” She sniffed again. Then blurted out. “I hate the plantation, and I don’t care about the flowers at all! I have a dog that’s undergoing chemotherapy, and a pregnant alpaca and a horse that might need to be put down, and I can’t care about flowers!”
Maddie’s eyes were wide, and Juliet opened her mouth and shut it again without making a sound. Twice.
Finally, Maddie asked, “Which of your dogs has cancer?”
“Not my dog. One of my patients.”
Maddie nodded. “Right, because you don’t have a horse either.”
“No.” Tori wiped at the tears that had spilled over her lower lashes.
“And the pregnant alpaca?” Juliet asked.
“That is mine,” Tori said.
“Oh, well… that’s good. Right?”
“I don’t know!” Tori truly seemed miserable.
Maddie shot Juliet another look and then Paige.
Paige shrugged. All of this was new to her. Including Tori crying. She’d never seen Tori cry before. They were friends, for sure, but they weren’t crying-close. Or Tori wasn’t a crier. That seemed more likely, actually. Paige wasn’t really a crier either.
Maddie reached for Tori’s hand. “Okay, so you hate the plantation.”
Tori nodded miserably and wiped her cheek again with the hand Maddie wasn’t holding. “But it’s sweet that Josh wants to get married there. That’s where we spent time together at my friend’s wedding. When we fell for each other and everything.”
Paige nodded. Tori had told her the story of her best friend, Andrew’s, Mardi Gras wedding.
“But I don’t want to get married at the plantation. It’s too big. Too fancy for us. It has memories, but we’re just more… outside-in-the-backyard people.”
“Where your goats and dogs can be there,” Maddie said with an affectionate smile.
Tori nodded. “Yes.”
“Then move it,” Juliet said simply.
Tori shook her head. “It’s too late. It’s three weeks away.”
“So?”
“So, I barely have time to see my patients and help out with… everything… and plan the wedding and…” She trailed off. Then sighed heavily. “Everything.”
“I get it,” Juliet said. “I feel overwhelmed too. I’m representing a couple adopting a little girl with some major health issues, and it’s so amazing and beautiful, and I find myself planning a party for them and totally blowing off choosing a cake for our wedding. I honestly don’t care what cake we have. I just want to marry Sawyer. Any cake is fine as long as at the end of the day I get to call him my husband. But the cake for this adoption party?” She laughed. “That, I want to be perfect.”
Maddie grinned. “That’s because it’s for someone else. You worry more about others than you do yourself. All the time. And you know we’re not picky about cake down here.”
“Thanks.” Juliet gave her a sincere smile. “And you’re right. Even not-great cake is still cake.”
“And I haven’t told you—or Owen—what’s going on with our wedding,” Maddie said.
“What happened with you?” Tori asked.
“We need a new photographer. And I keep thinking I have time to find one, but I don’t know if that’s true. I keep putting off calling.”
“Why do you need a new photographer?” Juliet asked.
“Because I went to high school with the one we hired, and I… kind of called him a prick the other day.”
Juliet sighed. “Why did you call him a prick?”
“Because he was being a prick.”
“Ah.”
Maddie rolled her eyes. “He’s always been a prick. But he said something about upping his insurance to cover whatever might happen at our wedding. I told him that the best way to make sure nothing happened to his pussy-ass at our wedding was for him to not be there, and he said fine, but he wasn’t giving us our deposit back, and that’s when I told him he was a prick.”
Juliet pressed her lips together, but Tori lost her fight with her grin.
“You have to stop being so sensitive when people joke about you setting things on fire and breaking stuff,” Tori said.
“The fire was an accident, and the car I took apart was totally on purpose. So, it’s not like I set things on fire on purpose or break things accidentally.” She frowned. “That sounds weird.”
Juliet snorted.
“It was a long time ago anyway,” Maddie said. “People need to move on.”
“But now you don’t have a photographer,” Tori pointed out. Her eyes welled with tears again. “Everything is falling apart.” She looked at Juliet. “You should not get married on the dock. If there aren’t snakes or something down there, then Chase and Bailey will end up falling off the end or something.”
Juliet got a little pale.
“Chase’s girlfriend, Bailey, is a little… accident-prone,” Maddie told Paige.
“Well, only when she’s with Chase,” Tori added. “But yeah, when they’re together, we’re all just waiting for stuff to fall apart or someone to end up bleeding.”
“And I hate that he can only be here for my wedding,” Juliet said. “He’s in medical school and can’t get away three different times. He’s a groomsman for us, but he’s really disappointed to be missing the other weddings.”
“He’s family now,” Maddie said with a nod. “It will be weird.”
“When are your weddings?” Paige asked.
“Tori and Josh are in February, ours is March, and Sawyer and Juliet are in April,” Maddie said. “We had to get them scheduled before tourist season really picks up. We can’t take weekends off then.”
“I’m surprised you’re not all just having a big triple wedding,” Paige said.
The three women’s eyes widened, then they looked at one another, and their smiles spread in unison.
“That would be great,” Tori agreed. “Juliet would be so much better at flowers and decorating than me.”
“I’ve helped,” Juliet said.
“Of course. I just mean, we could just do one big bunch of flowers then.”
Juliet smiled at Tori. “You really don’t like the flower thing, do you?”
Tori sighed and shook her head. “I really don’t. The ones you’ve picked out for me are great, but I would like anything.”
Juliet laughed. “Well, I didn’t want to butt in. I mean, you and Josh were together before Sawyer and I met, and—” She looked at Maddie. “You and Owen have a ton of history. You don’t need to share your day.”
“Owen and I do have a ton of history, and we’ve had lots of days—really good ones and some not so good ones,” Maddie said, waving her hand. “Which means we don’t need this one day dedicated all to us. Our wedding day is about everyone.”
“You mean we really could be doing this all together? We could have one big wedding day? Why didn’t we talk about this before? I’d love to share it all with you two, and I know the guys would love that too,” Tori said, her tears starting up again.