don’t have my dryer lint in your pocket,” she teased.
“About that…” he answered, trailing off as the muffled sounds of her fiancé shifting and, most likely, parting with the incriminating evidence made her press her lips together to stifle a chuckle.
If Jordan Marks was a superfreak dryer lint hoarder, then he was her superfreak dryer lint hoarder.
She glanced over at a full-length mirror and sighed, taking in her appearance. With Jordan under strict orders not to come over to her side of the RV, all they had to do was wait another thirty minutes until they’d made it to the Botanic Gardens.
In an ivory empire waist gown, harkening back to the age of Jane Austen, and her hair just as she and Jordan liked it, wound into a wedding-chic, messy bun with tendrils framing her face, she’d never felt more lovely or more ready to become Mrs. Jensen-Marks.
Of course, she was going with a hyphenated last name. But it wasn’t only her sense of autonomy guiding her in the decision. Jensen wasn’t only her last name. It was her father’s last name, and she intended to keep it to honor the man she knew was looking down on her and smiling.
“Not too bad, huh?” she whispered to her trifecta, who wholeheartedly approved of her attire.
“Are you talking to them?” Jordan asked.
She could hear the smile in his voice.
“I hope you don’t think it’s strange that you’re marrying someone who converses with her childhood imaginary friends.”
He chuckled. “Not at all. I asked for their help today.”
She gasped. “When?”
“When I saw you in the hospital lobby. I knew if you sensed I was there and if you turned around, it meant our connection hadn’t been broken.”
“You asked Lizzy, Jane, and Hermione to get me to look at you?” she shot back.
“Yep, and it worked,” he replied, sounding quite proud of himself.
Georgie blinked back tears, wondering if her father hadn’t played a little part in that, too, when the RV lunged forward, and she scrambled to stay upright.
“Are you okay?” Jordan called.
“Yeah, but why are we stopped?”
“It’s the engine. It’s completely seized,” the driver called.
The wedding frau appeared from the back of the RV.
“No, no, no! This cannot be happening!”
After the beauty experts had finished getting them nuptial-ready, they’d dropped them off in the city. But with time to spare, the wedding frau had directed the driver to make another loop before she and Jordan were to meet a pair of Bentleys, waiting in Denver near the gardens, to make their grand entrance.
“We’ll call for a car,” Hans said, from over on Jordan’s side.
“There’s no time. We’re in the foothills,” his wife replied.
The foothills?
Georgie went over to a tinted window and nearly fell over when she saw a familiar sign.
Actually, two familiar signs.
A pair of signs she’d never forget for the rest of her life: the welcome sign for Knotty Pines Resort and a cardboard sign, directing poor souls to hell on earth, otherwise known as wilderness boot camp.
“What are we doing all the way out here?” she asked.
The frau ran her hand through her asymmetrical bob. “I told the driver to go this way. It’s exactly thirty minutes from Buck and Syd’s land to the Botanic Gardens. I had everything timed perfectly.”
“What about calling up to Knotty Pines? Surely, they’d have a car to lend,” Hans offered.
Mrs. Lieblingsschatz whispered something in German that sounded like a curse. “This is the week they’re closed down for maintenance to prepare for the winter season. It’s only tradesmen and cleaning staff.”
“What about Buck and Syd? I bet they’ve got a stripped-down Hummer or a military Jeep hidden on the property in some bunker,” Jordan tried.
“No, they’re already in Florida,” the frau lamented, holding out her phone to reveal a text message along with a picture of Buck and Syd, donning tennis whites and holding champagne flutes.
“Do you think they’d mobilize the National Guard or send a flight for life helicopter?” the wedding frau mused.
“Liebchen, you can work magic with weddings, but activating the armed forces in the name of a wedding may be beyond your reach,” Hans replied.
But what were they to do?
Georgie glanced out the window as a white van rumbled down the road from Knotty Pines.
“I’ll stop that van and see if we can get a ride!” she said, heading toward the front of the RV.
“I’ll come with you,” Jordan called.
Georgie froze. “You can’t! I don’t want you to see me.”
“You’re not going out there on your own,” he answered, picking this moment