“How are you feeling today?” she asked.
“I’m fine. Nervous. But no rain, so that’s good.”
Shannon kept a smile in place. “I was just next door. Everything looks fabulous.”
The wedding party introduced themselves, but the names that stuck in Shannon’s head were Barbie, Bitsy, and Bimbo. Their high-pitched singsong voices didn’t help. “How close are you to putting on your dresses?”
Melia was the name of the girl she’d met the night before, Corrie’s maid of honor, who answered, “Ten minutes.”
“Perfect. And your parents, Corrie?”
“Dad’s ready, but you’d think my mom was the one getting married today.”
Shannon encouraged the girls to clean up the room enough so that she could get a few pictures of them getting ready without the distraction of panties in the background.
One by one, the bridesmaids slipped into their gowns and helped the stylist with Corrie’s.
Shannon focused in on the bride as she watched the others working around her. Her tight smile made the shots fall flat. “Your dress is beautiful,” Shannon complimented, focusing closer to capture a true grin.
“It is, isn’t it?”
“Perfect. Is it what you always pictured?”
Corrie turned and lifted her arms while Melia helped with the buttons up the back. “Yes.”
Still no smile.
“Look over your shoulder,” Shannon instructed. “Smile.”
She did, but it didn’t last. “I think I need to sit down.” She lifted a hand to her head to fan herself. The color in her face started to drain.
Shannon grabbed a chair and pushed it close. “It might be the corset.”
Corrie slid down, her breathing jumping up a few notches.
“Melia, turn the air on high.” Someone handed Corrie a glass of water.
The door to the room opened and Mrs. Harkin stepped in. She frowned when she saw her daughter sitting down and everyone huddled around her. “What’s going on?”
“I think she’s just overheated,” Shannon said.
The door opened wider and Mr. Harkin joined them. “You okay, honey?”
“I’m nervous. Everyone is staring at me.”
Her observation had her girlfriends backing up a step.
“Tell you what. I’ll take the girls outside, get a few pictures of them. We can wait to get shots with you after the ceremony. I’m sure you’ll settle once it’s all done.”
Corrie nodded a few times.
Shannon exited the room and dragged the girls to the spot she’d scoped out earlier. When she returned, Corrie was feeling better but wanted to wait for the very last second to join the humidity outside.
With her work there done, Shannon left the girls in search of the men.
Unlike the women, the men were propped up on a deck, feet on the railing, wearing shorts and T-shirts.
Shannon saw Justin first and shook her head. “You do know there’s a wedding in an hour, right?”
“If it isn’t the sassy photographer.”
She had to own the title. “That’s me. I’m bossy, too.”
Victor stuck his head out the sliding glass door. He, at least, was dressed. Gray dress pants and a button up shirt. “Looks like someone knows there’s a timeline to this thing,” Shannon quipped.
“In an hour,” Victor said.
“Yeah, I heard. I need you guys dressed in fifteen. I have what I need from the women, and now it’s your turn.” She didn’t have any trouble asserting herself when it came to doing her job. In her experience, on their own, men waited until the last second to get ready, or for someone like her to bark an order.
Justin pushed off the chair he was sitting in. “You heard the lady. Let’s get moving.”
Ten minutes later, the men filed out of the room. Hair combed back, dress pants, white shirts. Light jackets. Shannon took the liberty of snapping a few pictures of them standing and joking around with each other. She caught Justin sucking on his finger, a smirk on his face.
Cute.
Using the ocean and a lone palm tree as her backdrop, Shannon posed the men in a series of shots that were both serious and whimsical. Much like Corrie’s, Victor’s smile for her camera felt forced. She couldn’t help but think it was her. It wasn’t like she’d tried hard to make a good impression on the man or put him at ease with her instructions.
Then again, she had a fifty-dollar bet with the brother on how long the marriage would last. Maybe he was having second thoughts.
“Okay, Victor. Let’s get a few shots with your brother.”
She posed them next to a crooked palm tree that stretched horizontally nearly as much as it did vertically. The second she had them in the right frame, Victor turned to her and smiled.
She waved him off. “No, no . . . I want you to talk to each other.”
Victor looked confused.
“Natural. I want to capture something real between the two of you.”
Justin looked at his brother and laughed softly.
“Act normal?”
Shannon watched them from behind the lens.
“What should we talk about?” Victor asked.
“About how I’m the better-looking brother?” Justin teased.
She captured an eye roll.
“You wish.”
She changed her angle, fired off a few more shots.
“What do you think, Shannon? Team Justin or Team Victor?”
Laughing, she knelt. Victor won, hands down . . . but she wasn’t about to give him the point. “Oh, I don’t know. We have to pull the stick out of Victor’s butt before I can judge.”
There it was. Shouts of laughter that had both men with genuine smiles filled with good humor.
“Oh, man, Vic . . . she has your number.”
Victor turned his smile on her, a smirk reaching his eyes.
“Got it,” she said, lowering her camera. “Okay, let’s go next door and get a few more with your parents before the ceremony.”
Scott and Renee Brooks were polar opposites of the Harkins. Warm and inviting, they didn’t seem the least bit interested in taking over anything. They stood beside their son and smiled when asked. Again, Shannon encouraged Justin to stand beside his parents and asked them to talk among themselves. Finding the casual and genuine shot was always more appealing than the staged, plastic moments other photographers reached for.
Guests started meandering toward their seats, saving their places and scurrying out of the direct sun, which would hide behind a white cloud every once in a while. The breeze had picked up a little bit, offering relief, but threatening the flower stands poked into the sand.
With an eye on the time, Shannon let Victor and his wedding party go in search of Corrie and the girls. She found two of the bridesmaids hovering by the door of the air-conditioned room the bride was supposed to stay in right before walking down the aisle.
“Is Corrie here?” Shannon asked the girls.
The taller of the two blondes shook her head. “She’s still in our room with Melia.”
“Is she on her way?”
The girls smiled. “Her mom and dad just left to go get her.”
Satisfied with that, Shannon found Ida and waited for Corrie to arrive.
Minutes trickled by as the guests took their seats. Music played softly in the background.
Shannon kept one eye on the far right of the crowd, where Victor stood in what seemed like deep conversation with his brother, and the other eye on the path Corrie would take to the staging room.
She glanced at her watch.
This wouldn’t be the first wedding to start late.
Ten minutes past the hour, Mr. Harkin rounded the corner. Shannon sighed and lifted her camera in anticipation.
And then watched while Mr. Harkin marched straight down the aisle and up to Victor.
The guests paused in their conversations to watch.
“What?” The question came from Victor’s lips and was heard from several feet away.
Without a pause, Victor turned toward the adjacent hotel and took the quick path along the beach.
Shannon found herself racing after him.
Some of the guests started to stand.
Justin waved his hands in the air. “Just a delay, everyone. We’ll be right back.” Then he was gone.
Shannon was a couple of yards behind, holding her camera and chasing the wedding party along the uneven sand.
Victor ran straight into the room where Corrie and her girls had been staying and stopped dead in his tracks. Justin bumped into his brother. Right behind were their parents.
“Where is she?” Victor asked, his voice tight.
Shannon managed to squeeze in between Mr. and Mrs. Brooks and Justin to find Beverly Harkin sitting in the middle of a discarded wedding dress, tears running down her cheeks.
“Oh, no,” Shannon whispered.
Chapter Six
“We found this,” Mr. Harkin said as he handed Victor a note.
He waved the paper in the air. “‘I’m sorry.’ That’s it?”
“She’ll come back,” Mrs. Harkin managed between sobs.
“Unbelievable!” Victor’s arms collapsed at his sides. “‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry’?” He repeated Corrie’s written words and paced the room.
“It’s okay, son.” Mr. Brooks stepped forward.
Victor moved toward the open sliding glass door that led out onto the beach party going on below. He stopped with his back to the group in the room and said, “Does anyone know what is going on? Why?”
He turned then, made eye contact with each person staring.
His scowl landed on Shannon, and the horns he’d managed to hide all day came out. She saw the moment his brain remembered the words she’d said on the plane. “If you were my boyfriend, I’d find the first cabana boy I could and ditch you at the door.”
“You!”
Shannon swallowed her guilt over whatever part she may have played in Corrie leaving the groom at the altar and shook her head. “She didn’t say anything to me about leaving.”