Walter’s distant—both in geography and in emotional support—parents argued about which of them would attend, so that, in the end, neither of them were present. His groomsmen equaled Lena’s bridesmaids in number, and all of them he considered “brothers.” Lena measured them with unease as she’d only met them the day before the wedding and found them both loud and annoying with their private jokes and vague assertions of Walter’s partying past life. When Hallie had asked, “Are you sure?” Lena had told her, “You can’t dictate love. You can’t tell it when and when not to appear. You have to grab it when it comes—such a rare and wonderful gift.”

From the moment Lena had met Walter Littleton from Atlanta, Georgia, she’d been adrift in feelings she’d never felt before—most strongly, the desire to share her life with someone else, with this particular someone else.

Lena was twenty-five years old, the age she’d always told her little brother, Shane, and Hallie she would be when she married. When she and Walter had burst through the door of the pub to announce their engagement that January night, Shane had laughed and said, “Right on time.”

Now at the church, Lena’s ballet slippers—she’d refused high heels, convinced that she would fall in them halfway down the aisle—were smooth along the stone hallway as she looked for her sister.

The vestibule appeared ahead and Lena backed away. Legend and lore told that seeing Walter would be bad luck. She wanted to fully experience that moment—the one when she walked down the aisle and Walter eyed her all aglow with the veil wafting behind. Lena wasn’t traditional by any means, but some wedding mythology was ingrained in a girl’s mind, so permanently and elementally etched into the psyche that even she couldn’t resist.

She turned swiftly and lifted her skirts to walk back down the hallway to the bridal room. The organist had shifted to her second song—“Amazing Grace.” The pew dwellers would be getting antsy. It was five past the hour.

Lena pulled open two wooden doors to spy two empty rooms before she opened a third one where two lovebirds were entangled in an embrace so tight that Lena smiled at love so evident on her wedding day. They were kissing, the woman’s face lifted to the man’s. His hand was in her hair, pulling her close. His other hand raised the skirt of her dress so that white silk panties flashed. Lena almost turned away in embarrassment for intruding on such an intimate moment, but something in the scene didn’t allow denial. The man’s lips traveled down the woman’s neck, and the flower crown Lena had created with her sister the night before fell to the floor.

A tiny woman with blond hair in a pink dress and a man in a tuxedo.