Home for the Holidays: The Forgetful Bride / When Christmas Comes

“You’ll have to change clothes, of course. Maybe the suit you wore on Easter Sunday…”

“What?” Joseph shrieked. “I’m not wearing any suit. Listen, Caitlin, you’ve gone about as far as you can with this. I get married exactly the way I am or we call it off.”

She sighed, rolling her eyes expressively. “Oh, all right, but I’ll need to get a few things first.”

“Just hurry up, would you?”

Martin followed her into the house, letting the screen door slam behind him. He took his Bible off the hallway table and rushed back outside.

Caitlin hurried up to her room, where she grabbed a brush to run through her hair and straightened the two pink ribbons tied around her pigtails. She always wore pink ribbons because pink was a color for girls. Boys were supposed to wear blue and brown and boring colors like that. Boys were okay sometimes, but mostly they did disgusting things.

Her four dolls accompanied her across the backyard and into the wooded acre behind. She hated getting her Mary Janes dusty, but that couldn’t be avoided.

With a good deal of ceremony, she opened the rickety door and then slowly, the way she’d seen it done at her older cousin’s wedding, Caitlin marched into the boys’ packing-crate-and-cardboard fort.

Pausing inside the narrow entry, she glanced around. It wasn’t anything to brag about. Martin had made it sound like a palace with marble floors and crystal chandeliers. She couldn’t help feeling disillusioned. If she hadn’t been so eager to see the fort, she would’ve insisted they do this properly, in church.

Her brother stood tall and proud on an upturned apple crate, the Bible clutched to his chest. His face was dutifully somber. Caitlin smiled approvingly. He, at least, was taking this seriously.

“You can’t bring those dolls in here,” Joseph said loudly.

“I most certainly can. Barbie and Ken and Paula and Jane are our children.”

“Our children?”

“Naturally they haven’t been born yet, so they’re really just a glint in your eye.” She’d heard her father say that once and it sounded special. “They’re angels for now, but I thought they should be here so you could meet them.” She was busily arranging her dolls in a tidy row behind Martin on another apple crate.

Joseph covered his face with his hands and it looked for a moment like he might change his mind.

“Are we going to get married or not?” she asked.

“All right, all right.” Joseph sighed heavily and pulled her forward, a little more roughly than necessary, in Caitlin’s opinion.

The two of them stood in front of Martin, who randomly opened his Bible. He gazed down at the leather-bound book and then at Caitlin and his best friend. “Do you Joseph James Rockwell take Caitlin Rose Marshall for your wife?”

“Lawfully wedded,” Caitlin corrected. She remembered this part from a television show.

“Lawfully wedded wife,” Martin amended grudgingly.

“I do.” Caitlin noticed that he didn’t say it with any real enthusiasm. “I think there’s supposed to be something about richer or poorer and sickness and health,” Joseph said, smirking at Caitlin as if to say she wasn’t the only one who knew the proper words.

Martin nodded and continued. “Do you, Caitlin Rose Marshall, hereby take Joseph James Rockwell in sickness and health and in riches and in poorness?”

“I’m only going to marry a man who’s healthy and rich.”

“You can’t go putting conditions on this now,” Joseph argued. “We already agreed.”

“Just say ‘I do,’” Martin urged, his voice tight with annoyance. Caitlin suspected that only the seriousness of the occasion prevented him from adding, “You pest.”

She wasn’t sure if she should go through with this or not. She was old enough to know that she liked pretty things and when she married, her husband would build her a castle at the edge of the forest. He would love her so much, he’d bring home silk ribbons for her hair, and bottles and bottles of expensive perfume. So many that there wouldn’t be room for all of them on her makeup table.

“Caitlin,” Martin said through clenched teeth.

“I do,” she finally answered.

“I hereby pronounce you married,” Martin proclaimed, closing the Bible with a resounding thud. “You may kiss the bride.”

Joseph turned to face Caitlin. He was several inches taller than she was. His eyes were a pretty shade of blue that reminded her of the way the sky looked the morning after a bad rainstorm. She liked Joseph’s eyes.

“You ready?” he asked.

She nodded, closed her eyes and pressed her lips tightly together as she angled her head to the left. If the truth be known, she wasn’t all that opposed to having Joseph kiss her, but she’d never let him know that because…well, because kissing wasn’t something ladies talked about.

A long time passed before she felt his mouth touch hers. Actually his lips sort of bounced against hers. Gee, she thought. What a big fuss over nothing.

“Well?” Martin demanded of his friend.

Caitlin opened her eyes to discover Joseph frowning down at her. “It wasn’t anything like Pete said it would be,” he grumbled.

“Caitlin might be doing it wrong,” Martin offered, frowning accusingly at his sister.

“If anyone did anything wrong, it’s Joseph.” They were making it sound like she’d purposely cheated them. If anyone was being cheated, it was Caitlin, because she couldn’t tell Betsy McDonald about going inside their precious fort.

Joseph didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he slowly withdrew his prized baseball cards from his shirt pocket. He gazed at them lovingly before he reluctantly held them out to her. “Here,” he said, “these are yours now.”

“You aren’t going to give ’em to her, are you? Not when she messed up!” Martin cried. “Kissing a girl wasn’t like Pete said, and that’s got to be Caitlin’s fault. I told you she’s not really a girl, anyway. She’s a pest.”

“A deal’s a deal,” Joseph said sadly.

“You can keep your silly old baseball cards.” Head held high, Caitlin gathered up her dolls in a huff, prepared to make a dignified exit.

“You won’t tell anyone about us letting you into the fort, will you?” Martin shouted after her.

“No.” She’d keep that promise.

But neither of them had said a word about telling everyone in school that she and Joseph Rockwell had gotten married.

Chapter One

F or the third time that afternoon, Cait indignantly wiped sawdust from the top of her desk. If this remodeling mess got much worse, the particles were going to get into her computer, destroying her vital link with the New York Stock Exchange.

“We’ll have to move her out,” a gruff male voice said from behind her.

“I beg your pardon,” Cait demanded, rising abruptly and whirling toward the doorway. She clapped the dust from her hands, preparing to do battle. So much for this being the season of peace and goodwill. All these men in hard hats strolling through the office, moving things around, was inconvenient enough. But at least she’d been able to close her door to reduce the noise. Now, it seemed, even that would be impossible.

“We’re going to have to pull some electrical wires through there,” the same brusque voice explained. She couldn’t see the man’s face, since he stood just outside her doorway, but she had an impression of broad-shouldered height. “We’ll have everything back to normal within a week.”

“A week!” She wouldn’t be able to service her customers, let alone function, without her desk and phone. And exactly where did they intend to put her? Certainly not in a hallway! She wouldn’t stand for it.