Chapter 13

Lisa got behind the wheel of her car, wondering what in the world to say to a fourteen-year-old girl. Then she realized she dealt with women like Sierra all the time. Maybe a decade or two older, but in the exact same position.

“So, tell me what kind of dress you’re dreaming about.” She put the car in reverse and backed out of Cal’s driveway. Her giddiness was a little ridiculous, but she didn’t care. She’d been thinking about having a serious conversation with Cal about his daughter and how she might come between them.

Maybe now, she wouldn’t have to.

“I think I look good in blue,” Sierra said. “Or black. Something a little darker.”

“So no pink or yellow or like, light blue.”

“Ew, no.” Sierra shook her head, and Lisa thought she’d actually look good in something pink, because her hair was dark. But she knew better than most that what looked the best was what felt the most comfortable to the person wearing it.

“We’re meeting with a woman named Amarillis. She’s been a dress consultant for a long time, and I’m sure you’re going to love her.”

“What does a dress consultant do?”

“She’ll measure you and ask you what you like. Then she’ll pull dresses for you to try on.”

“So I can’t just look?”

“Sure, you can,” she said. “But it’s not browsing.” She glanced at Sierra. “You have to let her take care of you. They’ll offer you a drink, and I can help you in the dressing room, or Rilla can.”

“I can put on a dress,” Sierra said.

“Okay,” Lisa said, because she didn’t want to argue with her. But she wouldn’t be able to put on these dresses. They weren’t department store dresses, and she’d need at least a little bit of help.

A few minutes later, she pulled up to a building that looked like it should be condemned and said, “Here we are.”

“Are you sure?” Sierra looked out the windshield at the nondescript building with no signage and only two other cars in the lot.

“Yep.” She opened her door and got out. “And let’s go. We barely have a minute to spare.”

Sierra joined her, and Lisa opened the door to the dress shop, the sight of all the dresses spreading before her making her pulse quicken the tiniest bit. “We get a lot of our bridesmaids dresses here,” she explained as she removed her sunglasses and balanced them on her head.

“Wow,” Sierra said, pausing just inside the door.

Rilla came toward them, a huge smile on her face. “Lisa,” she said with a laugh. “How are you?” She hugged Lisa, who also giggled.

“So great,” she said, backing up. “This is Sierra Lewiston. She needs the perfect prom dress.”

“Nice to meet you, Sierra,” Rilla said, so perfectly poised and professional. Her dark auburn hair fell in waves over her shoulders, and Lisa had literally never seen her without a smile. “What can I get you guys to drink?”

“I want that lemonade you guys have here,” Lisa said.

Rilla shook her head with another laugh. “I put one in the freezer when you called so it would be cold.” She looked at Sierra. “Water? Soda? Lemonade?”

“I’m fine,” she said, and Lisa wished she’d told her to take the drink. She wasn’t sure why, but she was always more relaxed when Riley—or now Sunny—had managed to get a drink for her clients before they came back. She supposed she just liked the personal touch.

Rilla bustled off to get her lemonade, and Lisa stepped next to Sierra. “I see a lot of black and blue right now. And red. Look at that one.” She pointed to a red dress in the left corner of the shop. “What are you thinking for sleeves? Length?”

“My dad says it has to have sleeves,” she said. “Wide straps, nothing spaghetti-like.”

“I wonder what he’d think of a cap sleeve,” Lisa said.

“He’d freak out,” Sierra said dryly. “I swear, sometimes I think he thinks I’m still four.”

Lisa’s heart skipped a beat. “Who knows what he thinks?”

Sierra blinked at Lisa. “Wow. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know. You to tell me he just loves me. Just wants the best for me.”

He does, Lisa thought, but she kept those words cooped up in her mind. “You don’t need advice from me.”

Rilla returned and handed Lisa the frosty lemonade bottle. Her mouth watered as she twisted the lid, as Rilla said, “Okay, Sierra. Tell me what you like.” She led her further into the shop, and Lisa sipped her lemonade while they picked out a few dresses to try on.

She learned quickly that Sierra wanted something long, though they got a shorter one in a nice shade of burgundy just to try. Rilla’s assistant hung all their choices in a dressing room, and finally, Rilla said, “I think we have some really good options. Should we try on?”

“Yes.” Sierra looked from her to Lisa, clearly not even sure where the fitting rooms were.

“I’ll hold your purse,” Lisa said, taking it from the teen. “You go with Rilla.” She followed, because there were comfortable armchairs in front of the dressing rooms, and she needed to be able to take pictures for Cal.

She’d already snapped a few on the sly, and she texted them to him while she waited.

“Uh, Lisa?” Sierra’s voice came from the room where she’d gone.

“Yeah?”

“I need some help.” She pulled back the curtain, and she was practically falling out of her dress.

Lisa launched herself out of the armchair and over to Sierra. “Turn and let me see.” Sierra did, and sure enough, the sleeve was all bunched and twisted from how she’d put it on. “Okay, this needs to go here…” She fixed it and finished zipping up the dress.

Sierra looked up and at herself in the mirror, and Lisa’s whole heart melted. “What are you going to do with your hair?” she managed to ask without sounding like she was emotional.

“My friend is going to curl it and pin it all up.”

Lisa gently gathered Sierra’s hair and lifted it so she could see the dress without her hair covering her shoulders. “It’s really pretty.”

“I don’t know if I like the skirt,” she said, brushing at the blue fabric. “It doesn’t lay right or something.”

“Let’s take a picture and show your father.”

Sierra smiled and gave the peace sign; Lisa clicked and texted. Cal must’ve been glued to his phone, because his response was instant.

WOW.

“All caps,” Lisa said with a smile. “Wow.”

Sierra turned and twisted, looking at herself, and finally said, “Let’s try the black one.”

She put it on, and the huge billowy skirt required a second skirt to be worn underneath. Lisa stepped out to get one, and she helped Sierra put it on underneath the dress.

“Oh,” Lisa said, because this dress took her breath away.

“It has straps,” Sierra said, staring at herself in wonder.

“Smile,” Lisa said, and she took another picture. She sent that one to Cal, noticing that Sierra wasn’t doing the self-examination this time. Lisa knew why. She’d seen that look on her bride’s faces too.

“The red one?” she asked anyway, because they were here, and she might as well try on as many dresses as she wanted until she was convinced that silky, flowing, wide-skirted dress was “the one.”

Four dresses later, and many texts with Cal, Sierra came out of the dressing room back in her regular clothes.

“So?” Lisa asked, her eyebrows raised. She was beyond ready to get out of these wedges, but she would never show it. She needed to stop by Riley’s place to make sure everything was still standing and working and all of that, but she’d never tell Sierra that either.

“I think the black one,” she said slowly, hurrying to add, “But it’s so much, and I need that second set of skirts, and I still need shoes…”

“Did your father give you a budget?” Lisa asked.

“Well, kind of.” Sierra bit her fingernail, and Lisa simply couldn’t have her worried about this.

“Sierra, this is your first prom. Let me give you a little advice when it comes to men and shopping.”

The girl looked up at her, keen interest in her eyes. “Yeah?”

“You ask forgiveness, not permission.” She grinned at her. “So let’s tell Rilla we want the black one. And I trust you will find the perfect pair of red heels to wear with that dress.”

“Red heels? Really?”

“Uh, yeah.” Lisa nodded at her and turned as Rilla approached. “She wants the black one.”

“Oh, that’s the one I was hoping you’d get.” Rilla clapped her hands a couple of times, and Lisa would’ve never known if Rilla actually liked the black one the best or not. “Whoever your date is, he’s the luckiest guy on the island.”

Sierra ducked her head, her smile filling her whole face. It took several minutes to get the discount worked out, buy the dress, and get it into the back of Lisa’s car. She sighed like she’d just climbed to the top of the volcano on the northeast side of the island.

“Well,” she said. “That was fun. Thanks for asking me to help you.” She started the quick drive back to Cal’s.

“It was fun,” Sierra finally said. “You know, you’re not as fake as I thought you were.”

Lisa felt like someone had reached right into her lungs and snuffed the air out of them. “Oh…okay.”

“My dad didn’t tell you?”

Lisa shot her a quick glance, her chest barely able to expand. “Tell me that you thought I was fake? No, he didn’t mention it.”

Sierra’s face colored again. “I just…it’s…my mom—you can’t tell my dad I said that. He’ll take the dress away.”

Lisa swallowed through a very narrow throat. “I won’t mention it.” After all, he hadn’t mentioned what his daughter had said. She wore the professional clothes to be professional. And it wasn’t a crime to like cute shoes. Was it? So she liked having manicured nails and wearing jewelry. Also not worth calling the police over.

She pulled into the driveway, and Cal came down the front steps while Sierra was still wrestling with the dress in the backseat.

“How’d it go?” he asked, and Lisa had no choice but to get out of the car. Well, she could’ve run him over, but she didn’t think that would end well.

“Fine,” she said, folding her arms across her stomach. She hadn’t eaten dinner, and her feet hurt, and she decided on the spot to check Riley’s house another time. It had survived the tsunami just fine because it was situated at a higher elevation, up in the rain forested hills.

“Hey, nugget.” He gave his daughter a quick kiss on the forehead. “I’ll be right in and you can model for me, okay?”

“Dad.”

“No arguing,” he said. “Fashion show!”

Sierra rolled her eyes, but Cal turned back to Lisa, all smiles. “Thank you. Really. I kinda have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to stuff like this.”

“It was fun,” she said.

Cal cocked his head, those eyes searching for something she didn’t want him to find.

“I have to go,” she said.

“Why are you talking in that voice?”

“What voice?”

“It was fun,” he repeated, his voice a few pitches higher. “That one. What happened?”

Lisa glanced toward the house, because she suddenly felt trapped between a rock and a hard place. She wanted to be honest with Cal. She liked him more than any other man she’d been out with in a long time.

The guy she’d dated last year—Richard—had broken up with her a couple of weeks before her family’s holiday parties, claiming he didn’t want to go because then they’d “be serious.”

And Cal was serious, and Lisa didn’t want to find out he thought she was fake too.

“Lisa?” He put his hand on her arm, and Lisa looked at it. Analyzed the way heat spread up her arm toward her shoulder, like someone had rubbed warm honey over her skin.

“She thinks I’m fake,” she finally said, looking right into Cal’s concerned eyes.

His widened, and a dangerous, hard glint entered them. “She said that?”

“She actually said I’m not as fake as she thought I was.” Lisa watched him, and he was definitely not happy. “Did she tell you I was fake?”

When he didn’t immediately deny it, Lisa’s hopes—and the self-confidence she’d worked so hard to get back—plummeted.