Mother of the Bride by Lynn Michaels Page B

than pluses with having your wedding in the middle of the Ozark wilderness.”
    “Branson is hardly wilderness, Cydney,” Georgette said. “You were there last summer and you raved about the shops and boutiques.”
    “I was a tourist, Mother. I bought crafts and gifts. I wasn't buying a wedding gown.”
    “I have my dress, Aunt Cydney. Gramma bought it for me today. And my shoes and my veil.”
    “That's three things, Bebe. Three.” Cydney held up as many fingers. “We have decorations and candles to buy—a million things. We know exactly where to find everything we need in Kansas City and we don't have to drive fifty miles to order the wedding cake.”
    “Tall Pines is perfect,” Bebe said stubbornly, squaring off on her aunt over the corner of the table. “And it's my wedding.”
    “And Aldo's,” Gus threw in, but no one paid any attention to him.
    Not even Aldo, who was plowing through his carrot cake, oblivious to the snit Bebe was working herself into. She stood glaring at her aunt, who glared right back at her. Amazing, Gus thought. My plan is working already. He'd meant to cause dissention between Aldo and Bebe. Nothing major, just mix things up enough to pull their heads out of the clouds. Create a snag or two to make them realize they were planning a life together, not just a big party with cake and punch and nuts—provided by the Parrish family—for all their friends, but this squabble between Bebe and Cydney might work just as well. Get the whole family into it.
    “Yes, Bebe, it's your wedding. And I admit Tall Pines sounds wonderfully romantic.” Cydney finished stackingplates. “But I have a business to run and clients who depend on me.”
    “I depend on you, too!” Bebe's lip protruded and started to tremble. “I can't get married without you, Uncle Cyd!”
    “If you get married in Kansas City you won't have to.”
    “That's blackmail, Cydney,” Georgette said severely.
    “It's the truth. I have to work to support myself and Bebe.”
    “You're forgetting something.” Georgette rose and started gathering dishes at her end of the table. “In twelve days Bebe will be married and it will be Aldo's responsibility to take care of her.”
    “I know that.” So Cydney claimed, but the quick, caught-short blink she gave her mother suggested that maybe she'd forgotten. Or had yet to accept it. “But if I don't take care of my clients, someone else will.”
    “So let someone else. You don't need to work sixty hours a week. You need time to finish that book you've been writing for ten years.”
    “Five years, Mother. It's only five years.”
    “Your father has written four books in that time,” Georgette said. Slackard, Gus thought. He'd written six and the screenplay for Dead Calm, his fifth best-seller. “How many chapters have you written?”
    “This isn't about me, Mother.” Cydney ducked Gus a flustered, discomfited look. This was more than she wanted him to know about her and she didn't like it. “It's about Bebe and Aldo's wedding.”
    “I didn't bring you and your clients into this conversation, Cydney. You did.”
    “Yes, to make a point. Don't take this the wrong way, Bebe.” She glanced at her niece, then faced her mother. “It's not fair to expect me to put my life on hold because Bebe wants to get married the second Gwen steps off the plane from Moscow.”
    “Of course it's not fair, but since you've put your life on hold for Bebe for the last five years, what's another twelve days?”
    “Twelve days isn't the issue, it's the principle,” Cydney retorted, her jaw set and fire in her eyes. The same blaze Gushad seen there last night when she'd told him to shove the codicil to Artie's will where the sun don't shine. “And I still think Crooked Possum is too small, too far away and too hard to find.”
    “It doesn't matter what you think.” Georgette stopped gathering dishes and looked down the length of the table at her daughter. “Let Bebe have her wedding at Tall