Samantha didn’t hesitate. “Of course. Show me where to go. I have a spare needle and thread in my bag.”
Ian had to blink, wondering what sort of woman carried a spare needle and thread in an evening bag little bigger than a credit card.
“Let’s go see if there’s anything we can do to help outside,” he said to the children after his mother and Samantha hurried away.
“Is Mrs. Gilbert here yet?” Amelia asked.
He looked around. “I don’t see her. But she’ll be here.”
They walked around the expansive lawn overlooking the lake where chairs had been set up under an awning for the wedding ceremony.
Ian wasn’t normally the kind of guy who noticed that sort of thing, but even he could tell this was a stunning setting for a wedding.
A quartet of musicians with stringed instruments was setting up on one side, tuning their instruments as a few guests started to arrive.
Already the low hum of conversation and laughter filled the afternoon.
He refused to draw comparisons between this joyful event with his somewhat stiff, formal wedding to Susan. The past was past. His marriage might have been a mistake but he had gained two amazing children out of it, so he couldn’t regret any of it.
He spotted his father rearranging chairs with McKenzie Kilpatrick and Eliza Caine and immediately headed in their direction.
“We’re here to help. Three Summerhills reporting for duty. What can we do?”
McKenzie threw him a look of vast relief. “Thank you! We had a bit of a crisis when one of the dogs escaped from the garage and came barreling through. I’m afraid he messed up the garlands on the chairs.”
“I’m so sorry,” Eliza said. “Boomer can be such a rascal.”
“No harm done,” McKenzie said. “We can fix it.”
“We can help you put the chairs into their correct positions,” Thomas said, looking serious and concerned in his adorable little gray suit.
She looked down at him with a broad smile. “That would be extremely helpful, kind sir.”
He and the children helped set the chairs back into rows while McKenzie rearranged the garlands. After that, they carried out more flowers to put on the guestbook table and even helped usher people to their seats.
They were so busy he didn’t have the chance to see Samantha again until just prior to the ceremony, when he and the children were finally seated and most of the guests had arrived.
He had saved the seat next to him for her and was relieved when she slid into it, a bit more disheveled than she had been when they arrived.
Somehow her slight disarray only managed to make her look even more glorious.
“Everything okay?” he asked in an undertone.
“It is now. I had to sew like the wind to make some major repairs on the mother of the groom’s dress. I hope I never have to do that again,” she said vehemently.
He spotted the woman in question walking in on Josh’s arm. She looked lovely in a rose-colored dress that perfectly matched some of the flowers in the garlands draped on the rows of chair.
Even looking at her dress closely, he couldn’t see any evidence of Samantha’s handiwork.
“I’ll assume she didn’t buy that dress from you,” he said.
“No. She ordered it online apparently, without even trying it on. First they sent the wrong size. Then, because of a shipping delay, this one didn’t arrive until yesterday. It needed a slight alteration in the bodice but the person who worked on it last-minute did a slipshod job of it. I think she should be good now. It should hold together, as long as she doesn’t go crazy on the dance floor later.”
“Once again, you save the day.”
She gave him a grateful look, but before she could answer, Josh and the woman who would be marrying them whom Ian had met the evening before at the rehearsal dinner, the reverend at the church Gemma attended in town, moved to the front. A moment later, the quartet began playing the music his sister had chosen for her bridal processional.
Ian held his breath as Gemma came gliding down the aisle on his father’s arm, alight with happiness and stunning in the dress Samantha had made. It was perfect for her, as if the dressmaker had somehow managed to bottle her personality and weave it into cloth.
He heard a sigh coming from Amelia and looked down to find her hands clasped together, pressed tightly to her chest, as she watched her aunt make her way down the aisle, her arm tucked through their father’s.
Hardly showing any sign of her limp, Gemma glided toward her groom, who stood with eyes suspiciously moist as he watched her.
The moment was profoundly perfect, as lovely and romantic as he could ever imagine a wedding.
Beside him, he saw Samantha wipe away happy tears. He reached for her hand and held it in his, not caring who might see.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SAMANTHA ALWAYS SHED a tear or two at weddings, caught up in the romance and the beauty of two separate lives combining to become one. This one, though, seemed to hit her particularly hard.
She found a sweet tenderness in watching the stunned joy on Josh Bailey’s handsome face as he watched his beautiful bride make her way down the flower-strewn aisle toward him.
Gemma must have been crying a little, too, though Samantha couldn’t see it. She only guessed it when Josh pulled a handkerchief out of the inside pocket of his tuxedo jacket and pressed it with heartbreakingly gentle care to one of Gemma’s eyes and then the other.
The gesture was so tender and emotional it stole her breath.
Sam didn’t have anyone to wipe her tears away. That was suddenly, starkly apparent. If she wanted to see the world clearly, it was up to her to wipe her own blasted eyes.
She reached into her
