From outside the door, she could hear the organ softly playing. The Wedding March was about to start. Iva checked her phone one last time. No messages. Noah was probably waiting for her in the chapel---phone turned off---the entire audience wondering where the bride was, the minister impatiently tapping his toe.
Her heart pounded against her ribs as she left the dressing room and made her way down the hallway. The smell of her bouquet of lilies and roses was heady and romantic.
Everything was perfect.
When she reached the open doors to the chapel, Iva could see guests sitting inside the polished pews, shuffling and whispering.
A knot formed in her throat when her father spotted her and came forward. He was tall with distinguished gray sideburns, wearing a three-piece gray suit. He looked neither happy nor sad and Iva frowned, raising her hands in a question.
She could see heads turning to stare as Cody Remington moved down the aisle toward his daughter and Iva ducked out of sight back into the hall.
"Am I that late?" Iva said, trying to joke when her father stood in front of her.
"You know promptness has never been my
forte" Her father gave her a gentle smile and Iva craned her neck to see inside the chapel. All she saw were dressed up guests, and a spectacular sunset tinting the stained glass and sending shards of light across the wooden floors.
Her throat closed when she spotted Cora and Alina sitting in a pew, heads bent together. They weren't walking down the aisle or standing at the dais waiting for the bride to take her place beside the groom.
"What's going on?" Iva asked her father. "Are we waiting for the minister, or Noah in the dressing room? What time is it?"
"You're only ten minutes late, sweet-heart, but," he stopped, his Adam's apple moving up and down as he swallowed.
"But what?" All at once, her brother Reed turned to glance back at her. The lines between his eyes deepened and his expression was not happy.
Iva's gut dropped.
Her father reached out a hand to steady her even as Iva moved to the doorway, fully exposing herself to the guests. A few rose petals littered the gleaming parquet floor. All she could see was her mother's rigid back in the front pew, and the minister backing away from the dais to sit down on the seat behind the pulpit.
Noah Graham was nowhere to be seen.
"What's happened?" she cried. "What's happened to Noah? Is he okay? Tell me he's okay, Daddy! Has there been an accident?" The questions came fast and furious and her voice echoed in the high-ceilinged chapel.
She became aware of her cell phone, heavy in the hidden pocket of her gown. Iva yanked it out, willing it to ring. But instead of a missed call, there was a text message.
It said three words. I'm sorry babe.
"Noah is fine," her father said, wrapping an arm around her.
The case he's on.
"That damn case!" Iva blurted out. The chapel went silent at her sudden curse word. She wobbled on her feet, and then lurched back down the hallway, unable to face the staring guests.