Falling in Love on Willow Creek by Debbie Mason

Chapter Six

Chase stared out the bakery window at the three women and his daughter heading down Main Street. “What just happened?”

“You messed up,” Teddy said around a mouthful of cake.

“He’s right,” Hunter said. “What were you thinking not telling Sadie about your ex-fiancée?”

“It was years ago. Long before Sadie and I ever met,” he said defensively, at a loss as to why everyone was making an issue of it. To his way of thinking, what Hunter said was worse than an old girlfriend slipping Chase’s mind. “At least I didn’t say getting married wasn’t a big deal.”

Teddy nodded. “Yeah, that was pretty dumb.”

Gabe grimaced. “I’m not crazy about you using the word dumb, son. But in this instance, you have a point. He’s right, Hunter. Pregnant women are extremely sensitive. You have to choose your words carefully.”

“Whoa, you’re really lucky Abby and Mom aren’t here, Dad. You’d be in bigger trouble than you already are.”

“Okay, would someone like to tell me what I said that was so wrong?”

Hunter and Chase pointed at Teddy. “He’ll tell you.”

“Before or just now?” Gabe’s son asked.

“All right, I get your point. I was being insensitive to Mom’s feelings when I said I’d done the deed. But the whole renewing-the-vows thing caught me by surprise. I can see it if we’ve been married for years but—”

“It’s not like it was a real wedding. You only did it because you found out about the baby,” Teddy said.

Gabe looked stunned. “Is that what your mom thinks?”

Teddy shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s what some of the boys at school said to Dylan,” he said, referring to his eleven-year-old brother.

“Is that so, and who would those boys be?”

“It’s okay, Dad. Oliver took care of them.” Oliver was Mallory’s sixteen-year-old stepson.

“But you guys know that the only reason I married Mallory is because I love her, right?”

“Sure. But love is a verb, Dad. Without action it doesn’t mean anything.”

Gabe narrowed his eyes at his son. “Have you been reading your mother’s romance novels?”

“Maybe.” Teddy grinned and then said, “We did a class project on love in February. That’s where I learned about love being a verb and stuff.”

“Okay. So, Teddy, what do you think we should do to make this right?” Chase asked.

“You’re asking a six-year-old for relationship advice?” Hunter said, then winced. “No offense, Teddy.”

“None taken,” Teddy said amicably.

“Teddy might be six but he seems to have more insights into Abby, Mallory, and Sadie than we do. I don’t know about you two, but I’m open to any help I can get,” Chase said.

“I’m almost seven but I don’t really know much about kissing-and-making-up stuff. I don’t have a girlfriend. If me and my friends hurt each other’s feelings, we just say sorry and then we go and play. Maybe you should read my mom’s romance books.”

Gabe ruffled his son’s hair. “Maybe we should.”

Or talk to Teddy’s teacher, Chase thought. But surely between the three of them they could figure this out. After all, Hunter was former special forces, Gabe was chief of police, and Chase was an FBI agent. They’d worked a high-profile case together last summer and had a successful outcome. This was really no different.

“We need to approach this like we would any other case. First, let’s identify the crime and the players.” Chase was used to having a board and photographic evidence when presenting a case, so he moved the three cake slices to the center of the table to represent the unhappy women in their lives. “Because of our ineptitude”—he gathered up three coffee cups and lined them up to the side of the plates—“we’ve given Sadie, Mallory, and Abby the impression that we don’t want to get married on the twenty-third.”

The laughter Hunter was obviously trying to hold back came out in his voice. “I’m beginning to understand why you didn’t think it was necessary to tell Sadie about your ex-fiancée.”

Chase wasn’t sure what Hunter meant by that, but at least Hunter now understood where Chase had been coming from. However, it wasn’t Hunter he needed to convince. But if they could solve this problem, Chase was positive everything else would fall into place. “We need to stay focused. It all comes down to convincing Sadie, Mallory, and Abby that we’re on board with their wedding plans. Now we just have to figure—”

“But are we on board with all of us getting married on the twenty-third?” Gabe said, moving one of the coffee cups out of line. “Mallory, Abby, and Sadie are smart. If we’re just going through the motions to make them happy, they’ll see right through us, and we could wind up making things worse.”

“You have a point.” Chase nudged the coffee cup Gabe had moved back in line with the others. “So I guess the question is: Do our reasons for not getting married on the twenty-third outweigh our objective to make the women we love happy? I can only speak for myself, but I don’t have an issue with it. If Sadie wanted to get married today, I would.”

“I guess my only issue is that Mallory and I are already married,” Gabe said. “I thought it was a nice wedding, private and kind of romantic. But after what Teddy said, maybe I was wrong. So yeah, I’m good with whatever makes Mallory happy.”

“Honestly, since all this wedding crap began, Abby hasn’t been happy. She hasn’t been acting like herself. But if the three of them getting married on the same day makes her happy, I’m game,” Hunter said.

“Good, so we’re all agreed.” Except Chase felt like he was missing something. He went back over each of their responses to his question, and then his gaze went to the slices of cake. He picked up his fork, using it like a pointer. “Cake is beautiful. It smells amazing, tastes even better. Eating cake is an emotional experience.” He moved his pointer. “Coffee cups are solid, stoic, and—”

“Are you going somewhere with this?” Hunter asked.

Chase looked up to see the two men and Teddy watching him with their brows furrowed.

“Sorry, I tend to talk through a case.”

“You were talking about cake and coffee cups,” Gabe pointed out.

“Yes, and now I know what’s wrong with our plan.”

Hunter scratched his head. “I didn’t know we had one.”

“That’s true too. But now we do. When I went over our responses, I realized we were making the same mistake. We were willing to go through with the wedding, not because we necessarily want to but because Sadie, Mallory, and Abby do. We want to make them happy, which is a noble reason. Except they’re the cake and we’re the coffee cups. We need to become the cake. We need to become as invested in the wedding as they are. If they sense a lack of enthusiasm on our part, they’ll assume we don’t want to get married, and we’ll be back to square one. And, as we’ve seen, square one is not a good place to be.”

“So how do you propose we become invested in the wedding?” Gabe asked.

“We need to learn everything we can about weddings.” Chase Googled wedding planning, scanned through several links, found what he was looking for, and sent the page to Gabe and Hunter.

They went line by line through the list together. “Already have the venue,” Hunter said. “We’re having it outside at the farm so we don’t need to decorate.”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” Gabe said. “Mal loves to decorate.”

Chase pulled up Abby’s social media and checked out her upcoming events. “They’re voting on the decor next week so we should probably put together a few ideas.”

“Pumpkins,” Teddy said. “You have to have pumpkins.”

“Okay, sounds good,” Chase said, and checked the box.

“Music is taken care of. My brother’s band, Culloden, will be playing,” Hunter said.

“Would that be the same brother that had me chasing a nonexistent moose down Main Street?” Chase asked. Hunter’s brother was with the forestry service, and Chase had done a stint as a park ranger when he was undercover last summer.

Hunter laughed. “Yep, one and the same.”

Gabe chuckled and then looked back at the list. He made a face. “Flowers? We’re not choosing flowers.”

Chase and Hunter agreed and crossed it off their lists.

“There’s no beer on here, just soda and wine. How about a taste testing at Highland Brew? Anyone else up for that?” Hunter asked.

“Put me down,” Chase said.

“Me too,” Gabe said.

Teddy raised his hand. “Me four.”

Gabe laughed. “Good try, honey, but we’re doing a men’s night out.”

Chase looked at the next line. “Tuxes and colors? I don’t know about you guys, but I vote for a simple black tux.”

“No way, you’re both wearing kilts like me. Chase, you’re a Roberts, your grandfather’s a Knight. You’ve probably got Scots in your line somewhere. Same goes for you, Buchanan. Besides, even if you didn’t have a drop of Scottish blood in you, you live in Highland Falls so you’re an honorary Scot now at the very least.”

“Wedding planning isn’t as difficult as I thought it would be,” Chase said, holding up his phone. “We’ve pretty much completed the list. Cake’s next.” He glanced at the plates on the table. “We could get this one done right now. Bliss.” He waved over the bakery’s owner. “Have Sadie, Mallory, and Abby picked out their wedding cakes?”

“Yes.” She cast a nervous glance around the table. “Is there still going to be a wedding?”

“Of course there is. Why would you think there isn’t?” Chase asked, surprised at her question.

“The reporter from the Herald called. He seemed to be under the impression the wedding was off.”

“I don’t know why.” Although he could guess. Earlier, they obviously hadn’t looked like happy couples about to get married. But that was about to change. “We can’t wait for the big day, can we?” he said to Gabe and Hunter.

Hunter, who was digging into a piece of cake, gave Bliss a thumbs-up.

Around a mouthful of cake, Gabe said, “Can’t wait.” Then he added, “This is really good.”

“I’m glad you like it, especially as it’s the cake Mallory picked. In fact,” she said with a smile, “you’ve all chosen the same cake as your brides-to-be did.”

Chase shared a we’re good grin with Hunter and Gabe. “Would you mind showing us what the cakes will look like?”

“Oh, they’re all the same. I’ll just change the flavor for each of them.”

“That sounds great, but would it be possible for us to choose our own cake designs? It’ll be a little more personal then.” She seemed to be hesitating so Chase added, “As you can see, we’re all excited about the big day and want to be as involved as possible.”

“Right. Of course. I’ll, um, get you the book, and you can choose what you’d like.”

It took them almost an hour to decide. Hunter overruled Abby’s design choice, proclaiming it too girlie. He wanted more of a woodsy feel, which he felt suited them both better. The white frosted cake would be decorated with leaves, ferns, and feathers, and would sit atop a wooden platter that Hunter would make.

Gabe, with help from Teddy, picked an elegant cake decorated with gold-speckled accents and fall-colored roses, while Chase went with something called a semi-naked cake that was wrapped in branches. It had an outdoorsy feel that he thought would appeal to Sadie but was more delicate than Hunter and Abby’s.

Bliss proclaimed their choices spectacular and went to make up their bills. Before she did, they each took a photo of their cake.

“I’ll admit I had my doubts, but I enjoyed that. I actually feel part of the wedding now,” Hunter said.

“I think we did good. Now to see what our brides-to-be think,” Chase said. “And yes, I know Mallory is already your wife, Gabe, but let’s just go with that.”

“It’s a good idea, Dad. Mom never really got to do all the fun stuff, and now she can.”

Gabe scrubbed his face. “I really messed up. We’d both had big weddings before, and I just thought…Maybe this is a good idea after all. I don’t want Mallory to feel like she missed out.”

“It’s going to be the best wedding ever!” Teddy proclaimed.

“Yes, now we just have to convince our brides-to-be that we’re as excited about the wedding as they are, or they might go ahead and marry themselves,” Chase said.

“Is that really a thing?” Hunter asked.

“If Abby mentioned it, it probably is,” Gabe said.

Chase Googled marrying yourself. “Gabe’s right. It’s a thing.” He looked up from the screen. “Should we do an in-person cake reveal? They’re just up the street.”

“You can’t see their dresses. It’s bad luck,” Teddy said.

“Right, the dresses. Should we offer some suggestions?” Chase asked. Even though Sadie would look beautiful in anything she wore, he wanted her to know he was invested.

“Abby already bought hers,” Hunter said.

“Okay, well, we could pay for them then,” Chase suggested.

“Money doesn’t buy love. My teacher said so,” Teddy informed him.

“We just bought the cakes so I don’t know if that argument holds water,” Chase said, sounding a little defensive. He couldn’t afford for this to go wrong. “But what you said about you and your friends was a good idea, Teddy. We need to apologize for earlier, and then we should probably ask them to marry us again. They seem to have forgotten we asked when we put a ring on their fingers.”

“And I actually put a wedding ring on Mal’s.”

“Dad.”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember. It’s a do-over. Maybe you two should take a page out of my book and start fresh,” Gabe said to Chase and Hunter.

Chase nodded. “I’ll Google best wedding proposal ideas.”