and kissed and cuddled and fussed over while they both recuperated. As soon as he was able to, he got up and put things away, then he checked to see if she was cold, adjusting the covers over her as he sensed she needed, pulling her into his arms and cradling her to him as she fell into an exhausted sleep.
Seconds later, though, they were both rudely awakened by the sound of his shrill alarm.
It was nine fifty-nine.
She had to get them to lift that damned bedtime!
Chapter 10
Laurie still wasn't quite sure how she felt about being a somewhat absentee bride. It wasn't as if she wasn't at all involved in the preparations; she was. But she didn't think she was acting like the usual bride at all. But then, she wasn't the usual bride, come to think of it.
It was just that she wasn't the type of woman who had been planning her wedding since she was three. She wasn't against it at all; it just wasn't something she thought about much.
It turned out that Lita's husband, Hop, was a Justice of the Peace, and she volunteered him to do the ceremony, which was just going to be very short and sweet. Laurie had asked him if he was okay with doing it, and then she'd asked him if Lita had threatened bodily harm if he didn't.
But he'd hugged her, which was more of a display of affection than she'd ever had from him, and said no, that he was glad to do it; he was glad she was going to be getting married, too, like Lita was.
There was a lot more to unpack there with Lita, but she didn't have the time to address it at the moment. She was just glad to know that he wasn't being coerced into doing it.
They ordered their wedding cake from the same place that did the Napoleons she and her friend loved, and it was a medium sized pink cake. Adam had come with her. No one else really wanted to, and she knew that he wasn't much into it, either, but was humoring her.
That was until he realized that they would be tasting all sorts of cakes while they were there and would even be able to bring home two samples. That perked him up quite a bit.
They settled on three tiers of strawberry cake with strawberries and cream filling, with pink butter cream on the outside, that, hopefully, wouldn't leave too much in the way of leftovers. Not that leftovers lasted very long around them, but they didn't want to still be eating wedding cake at Christmas.
The men had offered to fly her and Lita and another friend to New York to go to Kleinfeld's if she wanted to. They knew from Lita that that was the place to buy a wedding dress. But Laurie demurred, saying she'd rather patronize a local place. And she felt that Kleinfeld's dresses would be too expensive and extravagant for her, anyway. She was a simpler kind of woman, and this was a simpler kind of wedding.
They were surprised when she turned them down, but they gave her cart blanche to look anywhere else she wanted to. Since they were paying for the rest of the wedding, she insisted—much to their disgruntlement—in paying for her own dress. They did extract a promise from her, though, that if she found something she loved and couldn't afford it, she'd use their money.
Unlike a lot of women, Laurie really hadn't even paid much attention to wedding dresses throughout her life, since she really hadn't planned out her wedding, either. But she knew what she wanted—something short but not too short, not poufy, but that still looked like a wedding dress. And she liked lace.
Apparently, though, she was asking for the holy fucking grail!
Luckily, during a weekend shopping trip, she and Lita found exactly the right dress for her. She didn't want anything too fancy; that wouldn't be right for the ranch. And she didn't want it to be risqué—some of them were utterly see-through! Nor did she want anything too casual—some of the styles she saw online made her think of nightgowns or slips rather than actual dresses. But they were able to find one for her that was just right.
And the boys were insisting on white, which surprised her.
But the dress she picked came in that color, so she was fine, despite how much of an outrageous lie it was, frankly.
Before the wedding, though—which had