The Forever Girl (Wildstone, #6)(64)

He’d gotten her to her doctor, who’d treated her for anxiety. Both the meds and therapy sessions had helped tremendously.

But it still embarrassed her that it’d happened.

Dillon was the only one who knew. He had urged her to keep her therapy appointments, had dragged her to the gym with him, and had encouraged her to cut back her insanely unhealthy work hours. And she would be eternally grateful to him for the support. It’d meant so much because she’d been far too humiliated to tell the people closest to her. Even now she couldn’t stand the thought of them finding out that their pillar, their ringleader, wasn’t as strong as they believed her to be. They were the ones who needed her, not the other way around.

“I’ve been off the meds for six months now and doing good,” she said to Dillon now. “And we agreed to never bring that up again.”

Dillon sighed. “It’s just that you’re really anxious and stressed, and I’m worried about you. I’m only trying to help, and my mom’s good at this stuff. You were outside on the phone with work when she came up with this new plan, and I said she could run with it.”

Caitlin stared at him. Find your backbone, Maze had told her. At the time, she’d been insulted, because dammit, she’d never lost her backbone. But in that moment, she knew she had indeed. “You know who else is really good at this stuff, Dillon? Me. And it’s our wedding. You and I agreed on what we ordered.”

He opened his mouth, but it was his mom who spoke from right behind him. “I was just trying to help.”

Caitlin ground her back teeth together but did her best to smile. “We still need a minute.”

“I know, and I get that you’re the bride,” his mom said quietly. Her voice sounded shaky with emotion. “But I’m really just trying to help make Saturday as special as possible. If you don’t want my opinions, I get it. I’m not your mom. So I’ll just back off and leave you both to it, staying out of your life.”

Oh, great. Now she felt like a first-class asshole bridezilla. To make it worse, his mom produced a tear. A single tear that ran slowly down her cheek. She sniffled and opened her purse to look for a tissue.

“Mom.” Dillon looked pained as he put his arm around her. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not asking you to stay out of our lives,” Caitlin said.

“Of course not,” Dillon added.

His mom sniffed. “I’m so sorry. I really never meant to overstep.”

“We know,” Dillon said, and gave her a squeeze. Over his mom’s head he looked at Caitlin entreatingly.

Oh, for God’s sake. Caitlin took a deep breath. “Maybe we can find a compromise to make everyone happy.”

His mom gave a tremulous smile. “That would be amazing.”

“Mom, just give us another minute, okay? After this, we’ll go get that coffee you love downtown.”

His mom brightened even more. “With that sweet coffee bread from the bakery?”

“Yes,” Dillon said. He waited until his mom had moved off. “Thanks,” he said to Caitlin softly. “I know she can be a bit much, especially with my dad gone, but she’s my mom, you know? She came in today for a nice time with us. You’ve been so busy that we’ve been ignoring her, and I think her feelings are hurt.”

“Well, so are mine.”

Dillon let out a deep breath. “Let’s just go back to the table and sign off on this stuff and then get out of here. We can talk about this later.”

Later. Quickly becoming the story of her life. She nodded and they moved back to the table, where the florist and his mom were still bent over the portfolio, oohing and ahhing. His mom looked up at Dillon with sweet love in her eyes. “Everything okay now, darling?”

“Of course.”

He shifted aside for Caitlin to get in closer. While he was turned away, his mom’s eyes landed on Caitlin. Not surprisingly, the sweet love in her eyes was gone, but she kept her voice light. “You know what the saying is, when you marry a man, you marry his family.”

Yeah, she was starting to get that. “We’re still not having roses,” she said, possibly too loudly, because everyone in the shop turned to stare at her. Right. She needed to use her inside voice . . .

“I hear you on the roses and I’ll handle it, but, babe . . .” Dillon leaned in and whispered, “you’re making this really uncomfortable.”

“I’m making this uncomfortable?” She stared at him, hurt, pissed off, and, worse, far too close to tears. “The wedding’s supposed to be about the bride,” she said, and when he opened his mouth to say something, she pointed at him. “You told me that, Dillon, right after you asked me to marry you. We talked about what kind of wedding we wanted. You said you wanted whatever I wanted, and I said I wanted something small, intimate, cozy, and simple.”

Dillon nodded. “And that’s what we’re doing.”

“Are you kidding me? The invite list is up to two hundred. How is that simple?”

“We’ve got a large family,” his mom said. “There was no way to cut people out without hurting feelings. Look, dear. Look what our darling florist has available for the centerpiece at the wedding party’s table. Isn’t it gorgeous?”

Caitlin eyed the very large, admittedly beautiful, but way over-the-top, centerpiece—complete with roses—and lost track of her inside voice. “Yes, and you should use it if you ever get married again.”