Megan burst into laughter.
“Although I’m worried Bart might get carpal tunnel if he uses a whip.” Gram lifted up her hand and began to flick her wrist, mimicking the motion.
“Mother!” Knickers shouted.
Gram gave one last wave of her hand, and cereal went flying across the room, a piece of it hitting Knickers in the face.
“Oww!” she screamed, covering her face. “My eye.”
“Mom,” Megan groaned. “Don’t be so dramatic. It was a piece of cereal.”
“It was a piece of cereal that hit my eye.” She staggered past a chair as tears streamed down her cheek. “I need to wash it out.” But as she stumbled across the floor, her foot slid on a piece of loose cereal on the wood slats, and she knocked her shoulder into the kitchen doorjamb. Releasing a loud cry, she started to fall.
Kevin hurried over to her to keep her on her feet, but she cried out again.
“Mom?” Megan asked, running over to her. “Are you okay?”
But as soon as she reached her, she knew she wasn’t okay. Her shoulder was sticking out at a weird angle. “Dad!” she shouted, then looked up at Kevin. “Where’s Dad?”
Kevin’s eyes bugged out and his face turned pale. “I . . . I . . .”
Megan groaned. “Don’t you wimp out on me and pass out, Kevin. I haven’t forgotten what happened when we were kids and I needed stitches in my hand.”
“If you pass out, fall that way,” Gram said, waving her hand to show him where to fall. More cereal spread across the floor. “It would be better if your head hits the overstuffed chair than the coffee table.”
“Put that cereal away!” Kevin shouted, probably in an attempt to take attention off himself. “It’s a deadly weapon!”
“Nobody’s passing out,” Knickers said through gritted teeth. “And your father’s at the store getting me a pair of pantyhose.”
“No one wears pantyhose anymore, Mom,” Megan said as she led her mother to a chair.
“I wear pantyhose.”
“I rest my case. Kevin,” she said, turning to look at him once their mother was settled. “Call Dad. We have to take her to the hospital. I’d do it, but Josh has my car.”
Kevin looked livid. “You gave him your car?”
“He has to get to the church somehow. Besides, in ten hours or so, it’ll be his car, too.”
Kevin scowled at the reminder, then glanced at his mother and turned a shade of pale gray.
Megan’s mother tried to wave her hand and cried out in pain. She glanced up at Megan with one eye. The other was bright red and squinted shut. “No one is going to the hospital.”
“Mom! Your shoulder looks like a Barbie doll part popped out of it socket. You have to go to the hospital.”
“I don’t have time for that. There’s too much to do.”
Megan glared at Kevin. “Call Dad!”
He stood next to the front door, peering through the side window and looking like he was preparing to bolt. “I don’t have to. His car just pulled up.”
Moments later, the front door opened and Megan’s father stood in the doorway, his gaze landing on the group. “What happened?”
“Mom dislocated her shoulder. She needs to go the hospital.”
Her mother shook her head, gritting her teeth. “I don’t have time to go to the hospital.”
Bart took one look at his wife’s shoulder, and his face turned ashen.
“You can’t pass out, Dad!”
Her mother narrowed her one good eye. Leave it to her to make a one-eyed squint look intimidating. “The women are the strong ones in the Vandemeer family.”
Her father took a deep breath. “I’m okay.”
Taking in his pale complexion, Megan wasn’t so sure. “We have to get her to the hospital.”
“I’m not—” Megan’s mom started to say.
“Yes, you are!” Megan shouted. “Now shut up and come out to the car with us.”
Her mother looked shocked, as did everyone else in the room. No one spoke to Nicole Vandemeer that way.
“Now is not the time to be stubborn! If you try to go to the wedding like this, you’ll gross everyone out. If you go to the hospital now, you’ll probably be there in time to help me get dressed.”
“I . . . okay.”
Megan blinked, sure she’d heard her mother wrong, but decided to trust her hallucination. “Okay, then. Dad and Kevin, get her to the car. Mom, what else needs to be done for the wedding?”
As her father and brother lifted the unwilling invalid out of her chair and led her to the door, Megan walked beside them.
Knickers grimaced as she hobbled along with their support. “We need to make sure the cake gets delivered and that the orchestra sets up on the west side and not the east. The staff at the gardens can handle both of those things. Just make sure everything goes according to plan.”
“I can do that.”
“You need to be at the church two and a half hours early. It’s in the itinerary, but I know you didn’t read it.”
For once, Megan wished she had.
“The hairdresser will be there at one.” They led her out the door and down the sidewalk. “Be sure to eat, Megan. You’ll probably be too excited and nervous to eat, but otherwise you’ll get lightheaded standing up there so long for the ceremony.”
“Okay, Mom.”
As Bart sprinted around the car to climb into the driver’s seat, Kevin helped Megan’s mom get settled into the passenger’s seat. She gripped Megan’s hand. “I’m so sorry, honey. I wanted this day to be perfect for you, but I’ve ruined everything.”
Megan squatted next to her. “You didn’t ruin anything, Mom. It is going to be perfect. I promise.”
She nodded, tears now streaming from her good eye, too.
Megan gave her a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
Kevin and Megan watched the car drive away, both in shock.
“Did what I think just happened really happen?” Kevin asked.
“Which part?”
“The whole convoluted mess.”
“Yep.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the house. “Come on, we have work to do.”
“We?”
“You don’t think I can do everything by myself, do you?”
“So you’re really going to marry this guy?”
She stopped on the front porch, a step up from him, putting him at eye level. “I know you’re looking out for me, and you have no idea how wonderful that makes me feel, but Josh isn’t the man you think he is. Take everything you knew about Jay Connors from all my insinuations and unsaid truths and toss them out the window. Josh is not that man.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why not?”
“I hope to explain it to you later, but for now you’ll have to trust me.” She took a deep breath, then poked her finger into his chest. “I’m marrying Josh this afternoon, so let this evil plot to stop my wedding end now.”
“Damn straight,” Gram said from the sofa through the open front door.
Megan leaned toward him and whispered, “And you’re in charge of making sure Gram wears clothes to the wedding.”