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  Emily draped her arm over Maria’s shoulder and the two of them doubled up with laughter.

  Mel pulled out her phone and found Tate and Joe’s contact information. She texted them both.

  Bakery. Now. Your mother is drunk.

  Mel’s phone immediately lit up in response but she ignored it. Someone had to rein these women in and she had her hands full with the hysterical bride.

  “What were you two doing before you got my message, vodka shooters?” Mel asked.

  “No,” Maria said. She slid into a booth, dragging Emily with her. “We were gardening, and I was teaching Emily how to make mimosas.”

  “Make them or drink them?” Mel asked.

  “It turns out we share a love of gardening and mimosas,” Emily said. Her eyes lit up and she clapped her hands. “Since we’re going to be family, we’ve been getting to know each other. I love Maria.”

  “And I love you,” Maria said. “Emily has a lovely rose garden. You should see her Michelangelo rose bush. The blooms are big and buttery yellow with a lemony scent. Simply gorgeous.”

  “I will have my gardener get some cuttings for you,” Emily said.

  “You will?” Maria looked delighted.

  “Of course,” Emily said. She patted Maria’s arm. “You’re my very best friend in the whole wide world.”

  Then she slumped forward and passed out on the table.

  “Nap time?” Maria asked. “Yay.”

  Then she, too, passed out in the booth. Mel checked to see that both ladies were breathing. They were. In fact, Emily was even snoring.

  Marty came back with a tray of coffee. He stopped beside Mel and regarded the two ladies.

  “Are we letting them sleep it off now?”

  “I think that might be for the best,” she said. “What do you think?”

  “I think I feel violated since they were checking out my booty,” he said. “I’m going to hide in the kitchen.”

  “A solid plan,” Mel said. “See if you can talk Angie out of the bathroom while you’re back there, would you?”

  Marty set down the tray on a nearby table and disappeared in back. Mel sat down in the booth across from the moms. She didn’t want to leave them unattended while they drunk-slept.

  The front door to the bakery burst open and a disheveled Tate hurried inside.

  “Mel, I got your message—what the he—”

  “Cupcake, if you wanted to see me, you could have just— Oh, you weren’t kidding,” Joe said as he came in right behind Tate.

  They both tipped their heads to the side as they considered their mothers.

  “Drunk?” Tate asked.

  “Snookered,” Mel confirmed. “Apparently, they have discovered they have a shared love of gardening and mimosas.”

  “Mom?” Angie’s voice interrupted, and they all turned around to see Angie enter from the kitchen. “Marty said, but I didn’t believe— Are they blitzed?”

  “Completely,” Mel said. “Gassed, juiced, hammered, pissed, plastered, take your pick.”

  Angie sank into a chair. She had a smear of chocolate frosting on her cheek and there was a blot of cherry on her shirt as well as some chocolate cake crumbs. Her long curly hair was in disarray and her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed.

  “Hey, sweetheart, are you okay?” Tate knelt down in front of her, studying her face. “Have you been crying?”

  “No,” Angie said. But her voice quavered, giving her away.

  Tate lifted her out of the chair and hugged her. “Come on, tell me what’s wrong.”

  Joe sidled over to Mel and whispered, “Shall we leave them alone?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want Tate to bungle it.”

  “Retreat to the shadows then?”

  Mel nodded, and she and Joe slipped back into a corner of the bakery. He pulled her back against his front and looped his arms around her waist. He propped his chin on her shoulder as they watched the moment between Angie and Tate unfold.

  “So, what happened?” Joe whispered in Mel’s ear.

  “Typo on the invites—bad one. I called the moms for backup, they showed up drunk, I texted you and Tate,” she whispered back.

  “Rough morning.”

  “Hmm.” Mel thought about her time at Diane’s office and decided not to dump that on him as well. “Promise me something?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Let’s not get crazy like this when we plan our wedding,” she said. “I just want to be Mrs. Joseph DeLaura.”

  Joe didn’t answer, so Mel turned to face him. The look of love and affection in his warm brown eyes made Mel’s insides go all aflutter.

  “How did I get so lucky to win your heart, Melanie Cooper?”

  He sounded genuinely in awe at what he considered his good fortune. Mel wanted to correct him and tell him she was the lucky one; she knew she was, but instead she kissed him. It was supposed to be a chaste I-love-you sort of kiss but it did not maintain its PG rating for long.

  Joe pulled her right up against him, cupped the back of her head, and kissed her as if his life depended upon it. Hot. Hot Hot.

  “Joseph DeLaura, what on earth are you doing?” Maria’s voice broke through Mel’s lusty haze and she pushed away from Joe.

  Her face was hot, and she was panting like she’d just run, well, across the room, because she was not a runner and panting pretty much happened at the fifty-foot mark.

  “I’m kissing my girl,” Joe said, not looking the least bit embarrassed. “And what have you been up to, Mom?”

  Maria looked at Emily still snoring beside her. She fluffed her gray curls and said, “Nothing. Not a thing.” Then she nudged her friend. “Emily, Em, wake up. We have a situation.”

  “Huh.” Emily lifted her head off of the table and glanced at Maria with one eye open. She took in the bakery and then glanced at Tate and Angie. She smiled. “Aren’t they just perfect together?”

  Mel left Joe to bring the tray of coffee over to the two moms. She had a feeling they were going to need it.

  “What’s going on?” Maria asked. “Why do Tate and Angie look so tense?”

  “We had a small—okay, that’s a lie—we had a huge bridal meltdown,” Mel said. “Angie locked herself in the bathroom with a dozen cupcakes because of a typo on the wedding invitation. That’s why I texted you. I thought we might need an intervention.”

  “Oh, my poor girl,” Maria said. “We’ve been so worried about her but she won’t let us help with the wedding. She just pushes us away whenever we try.”

  “Mom, I do not,” Angie protested.

  Maria rose from the booth and took Angie’s hands in hers. She looked at her daughter and cupped her face in her hands, and then gave her a steely-eyes look and snapped, “Basta, mia bambina!”

  Twenty-three

  “Uh-oh,” Joe whispered in Mel’s ear. “She’s busting out the Italian. Mom only does that when she is really unhappy.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “‘Stop, baby girl,’” Joe said. “I think she’s finally calling Angie on her crazy.”

  “Amen,” Mel said.

  “But—” Angie protested, but her mother cut her off.

  “No more,” Maria said. “Emily and I have been beside ourselves because you won’t let us help you with anything. Well, look at you. You’re covered in cupcake crumbs and are clearly having a nervous breakdown. No more.”

  She glanced over her shoulder and motioned for Emily to join her. The two mothers stood united.

  “And you,” Emily said to Tate. “Why is your bride a mess and you look fine? How could you let her get into such a state? Have you been acting like your father and hiding?”

  “No. Maybe. Okay, yes,” Tate admitted. He looked at Angie. “I’m sorry, baby, I love you more than life itse
lf but you have been straight-up terrifying these past few months.”

  “Finally, the boy is talking sense,” Marty said from behind the counter. They all turned to look at him and he ducked his head. “Sorry. I’ll just . . .”

  His voice trailed off as he disappeared back into the kitchen.

  Angie looked at everyone in the room. “Have I been that bad, really?”

  “Worse,” Joe said. Mel elbowed him in the middle and he grunted. “Ow.”

  “Shh,” she hushed him.

  “Angie, what is it that’s bothering you?” Tate asked. “I’ve tried to figure it out but you just duck and weave and give me that fake smile and say, ‘I’m fine.’ I’ve been trying to stay out of your way and let you work through it but I have to tell you, you don’t seem to be getting there. Every time I turn around, you’re freaking out about flowers, colors, cardstock, the photographer—truly, the list is endless.”

  “But—” Angie began, but Tate shook his head. He had the floor and he was not giving it up.

  “I have to be honest. I don’t care about any of this stuff. I just want to have a party to celebrate the fact that I have somehow, miraculously, convinced the hottest, funniest, most loving girl in the world to be my wife. And I don’t care if we make our vows with parachutes strapped to our backs as we jump out of a plane or if it’s in a castle with a three-hundred-piece orchestra. I just want you to be Mrs. Tate Harper and the sooner we can make this happen, the happier I am going to be.”

  “Oh, Tate.” Angie began to cry again. “See? That’s what’s wrong.”

  Mel and Joe exchanged a confused look. On the scale of awesome I-love-you speeches, Tate had just laid down one of the best—truly, even Mel had felt her throat get tight—but instead of making Angie happy it made her cry.

  “What’s wrong?” Tate asked. He looked like he wanted to hit his head on something hard.

  “Don’t you see?” Angie asked. “I don’t know how to throw a wedding fit for society. I’m a backyard-shindig, come-as-you-are, wildflower type of girl. I don’t know how to do any of this. I’m not good enough for you.”

  Maria and Emily both drew in sharp breaths. Then they looked at each other. Maria opened her mouth, looking like she was gearing up to give Angie a blistering speech, but Emily held up her hand.

  “I got this,” she said. “Angie, I am shocked and more than a little hurt.”

  Angie turned from Tate, who handed her a napkin to blow her nose with, to Emily.

  “I’m sorry,” Angie said. She sounded so meek, Mel wanted to hug her friend hard until she was back to being her usual feisty self.

  “No, I’m the one who is sorry,” Emily said. “It is quite obvious to me that I have failed as a future mother-in-law.”

  “What?” Angie cried. “No!”

  “Oh, yes,” Emily said.

  “No, it’s me,” Angie said. She dropped her chin to her chest. “I don’t know how to do any of this. I’m the failure.”

  Emily gently took Angie’s chin in her hand and lifted her face until her gaze met hers.

  “Tell me the truth,” Emily said. “If you weren’t marrying Tate—”

  “Mom!” Tate cried in protest. Emily gave him a look and he clamped his lips together.

  “If you were marrying someone from a less privileged background, would you have made yourself this crazy over the wedding?”

  Angie blew out a breath. “No.”

  “Then why are you doing it now?” Emily asked. “It hurts me that you think we are such shallow snobs that we would judge you on your special day.”

  “But I don’t, I just . . . I wanted to fit into Tate’s world,” Angie said. Her voice cracked and again Mel had to force herself not to cross the room and hug her friend.

  “But, Angie, you are my world.” Tate’s voice was so soft, Mel could barely hear him, but Angie did. She spun around and threw herself at him, and Tate caught her in a hug that crushed.

  Then he kissed her.

  “Look at the T-man,” Oz said from the kitchen door. “Getting the priorities straight.”

  He walked across the room to join the group and held up a fist to Joe. Joe tapped his knuckles with Oz’s but then frowned as the clinch between Tate and Angie continued.

  “Yeah, she’s still my baby sister, Tate,” Joe said. His voice was low with warning, and Mel laughed when Tate pulled back from Angie and raised his hands in the air as if Joe had a gun on him.

  “Sorry, man,” he said.

  “I’m not.” Angie hugged him hard around the middle.

  “My dear,” Emily said as she took Angie’s hands in hers. “You must plan the wedding you’ve always dreamed of, not the one you think the rest of the world wants. It’s your day and I am so sorry that you ever felt like you had to meet some unspoken ideal.”

  “Thank you,” Angie said. She turned to her mother with a shy smile. “Do you think the Italian-American Club might have an opening?”

  Maria DeLaura beamed at her daughter. “Your brother Ray has some connections. He’ll make it happen. You just tell him the day.”

  Mel felt Joe heave a sigh beside her. Ray was the black sheep of the family, the one who thought the law was flexible when it suited his purposes. He was also the one Joe lost the most sleep worrying about.

  “Not Ray, Mom,” he said. “You know his contacts are sketchy at best.”

  “I know nothing of the sort,” she said. “Come on, let’s sit and have some coffee. I bet we get this wedding nailed down within the hour.”

  Maria pushed Emily back into their booth, and Tate and Angie took the seats across from them. It was the first time Mel heard Angie laugh while planning her wedding. One glance at Angie’s face and Mel saw the radiant bride her friend would be now that she was planning the day for her and Tate and no one else.

  Oz drifted back into the kitchen and Mel walked Joe to the door. He wrapped his arm around her and kissed the top of her head.

  “Crisis averted,” he said.

  “Yeah, and now maybe we can get back to normal around here,” she said.

  Joe glanced past Mel at Tate and Angie, then he looked down at Mel. He traced her cheek with his thumb while he met her gaze.

  “Is it bad that I’m really wishing our Vegas elopement had worked out for us?” he asked.

  “Nope,” she said. “I feel the exact same way.”

  He planted a quick kiss on her and then lifted her hand to examine the ring he’d so recently put on her finger. A small smile parted his lips. “See you at home, my future wife.”

  A ridiculous thrill rocketed through Mel at his words and she grinned at him.

  “Yes, you will, my future husband,” she said.

  Joe hit her with his brain-frying, patent-worthy grin, and Mel slumped against the doorjamb and watched as he walked away. She was going to marry that man.

  Ray sauntered into the cupcake bakery an hour later wearing his usual leather jacket and overdose of cologne.

  “Leather in June. Seriously, Ray?” Angie asked. She was sequestered in a booth with all of her bridal magazines, going over what she planned to keep and what she planned to scrap in the wedding she had planned so far.

  “Hey, no cracks about the leather if you want my help,” he said.

  “Oh my god, it’s like I have the Fonz for a brother,” Angie said to Mel.

  Mel turned away so Ray wouldn’t see her smile. Marty was behind the counter helping a short line of customers. When the door opened and a passel of school kids arrived, Mel got out of the booth and gestured for Ray to take her place.

  “Ray, can I talk to you before you leave?” she asked.

  “Sure thing, doll,” he said.

  Mel nodded to keep from laughing. Ray was the only one of the DeLauras whose New York accent had gotten thicker in the twenty years since they’d m
oved from New York to Arizona.

  Ray hunkered into the booth with Angie, and Mel went back into the kitchen to help contain the ridiculous amount of cupcakes Oz had baked. She had finished frosting several dozen when Ray peeked around the door.

  “You have any of those Mocha Latte Cupcakes laying around?” he asked.

  Mel smiled at him. “After you went on a bender a few weeks ago, I didn’t think you’d ever want another again.”

  “I worked through it,” he said with a shrug.

  Mel looked at Oz, who was sweaty and rumpled-looking from working by the oven.

  “Oz, why don’t you go help Marty out front so you can cool off,” she said. She gestured to the rows and rows of cooling cupcakes. “I’ll take care of this.”

  “Thanks, boss,” Oz said. He passed by Ray with a nod. “Hey.”

  “Hey back atcha, kid.” Ray nodded in return.

  Mel went to the cooler and plated two Mocha Latte Cupcakes for Ray. She also poured him a cup of coffee. Ray was known for the immense amount of coffee he drank.

  She set the cupcakes and coffee down on the table and gestured for him to sit while she finished frosting the Key Lime Cupcakes Oz had baked. It was a lime-flavored cake that was topped off with a vanilla-lime icing, so it packed a double whammy of sweet, tart goodness.

  Ray took a bite of his cupcake and then washed it down with the hot coffee. The look of happiness on his face captured perfectly the reason Mel loved what she did for a living. A good cupcake with the right frosting-to-cake ratio never failed to hit a person right in the feels. Mel never felt better than when she saw that first look of joy pass over a person’s face when they were eating one of her cupcakes.

  “So, I’m guessing now that you’ve got that dazzler on your finger, you’re wanting my help with your wedding to Joe,” he said.

  Mel opened her mouth to answer but Ray kept talking, cutting her off.

  “I know some people who might be able to help out,” he said. “What do you need? Venue? Photos? Music? How about a dress? Do you have a dress? I’m thinking you’re going to want something that shows off the female assets without showing off the ass—”