Dr. Horatio vs. the Six-Toed Cat by Virginia Smith

You won’t find a real photographer at this late date. Besides, he’ll probably do it for twenty-five dollars.”
    â€œAnd why are you and Nick’s mom planning the menu? Don’t I get to help plan my own wedding meal?” Her lower lip protruded just like when she was a little girl.
    Millie’s heart twisted, and she pushed back a thousand memories to focus on the moment. “Of course you can, dear. I was just trying to save you from some of the work.”
    â€œWait a minute.” Albert looked up from the list, displeasure heavy on his features. “You know I hate polishing silver. The smell of that stuff gets stuck in my nose, and it’ll haunt me for days.”
    She slid two eggs, over easy, onto a plate and set it in front of him. “You have to help out some way. You can’t expect us to do everything.”
    â€œI certainly can. In fact, I do. What’s wrong with their original plan? They run down to the courthouse, say their vows, the boy signs his life away, and the whole thing’s over without a fuss.”
    Nicholas stared at him with a touch of alarm. “Sign my life away?”
    Albert laid a hand on the young man’s shoulders and spoke as though delivering sage advice. “When a man gets married, his life is never his own again. Trust me on this.”
    â€œOh, Daddy, stop it. You’ll scare him.” Alison wrapped her arms around her beau from behind and gave him a quick hug before returning to the counter to butter the toast. “He’s joking, Nick.”
    Millie turned with another plate of eggs in time to see Albert catchNicholas’s eye and wink. She pursed her lips and delivered an unspoken warning. Be nice. Though truth be told, her heart warmed to see Albert joking with the young man as he would one of their own sons.
    â€œIf you really don’t want to polish the silver,” she told her husband, “you don’t have to. You have another duty—a far more important one.”
    â€œThat’s true.” He straightened in his chair and cast a fond glance toward Alison. “I get to walk my daughter down the aisle.”
    â€œThat’s not what I’m talking about.” Millie slid the final egg onto her own plate and carried it to the table. “You get to pay for everything.”
    Having rendered her husband momentarily speechless, she took her seat and bowed her head. It was her turn to pray.

Epilogue
    M illie waited on the grass outside the church, Albert at her side. Across the sidewalk, Shirley and Three, as the family called Nicholas’s father, stood arm in arm. They made quite a group, the twenty-three people who had gathered to see Alison and Nicholas exchange their vows. Not only her sons, Doug and David, and her daughters-in-law, but Albert’s niece had driven down from Cincinnati and brought her three children. Seven-year-old Tori had served as an impromptu flower girl, spreading petals hurriedly plucked from the wilting mums in the flowerpots along Main Street.
    â€œIt was a beautiful wedding, wasn’t it?” she asked Albert.
    He squeezed her arm. “It was. You did a great job.”
    â€œThank you. And you looked very nice walking Alison down the aisle.” When they passed the front pew where Millie stood, she’d caught the sparkle of tears in his eyes. But to mention that would embarrass him, so she tucked the memory away in her heart.
    Tori, standing on the church steps to peer inside, whirled with a grin and shouted, “Here they come!”
    Moments later, Alison and Nicholas appeared in the doorway. They paused while Alison gathered the skirts of the elegant white prom dress she and Millie found on the rack at a department store in Lexington. No wedding dress could be more beautiful, nor any bride either. Alison positively radiated joy when she looked into the handsome face of her husband, resplendent in his military dress uniform.
    Then the pair