Chapter 18
PIPER
Anna and Drake's engagement shoot at the Denver Botanic Gardens was gorgeous. Sunlight shone through the leaves of a solidly old-as-hell oak, reflecting over Anna in a glow that had nothing to do with light staging.
"Get closer," Tess called, standing behind Roman.
"Like you actually tolerate him, Anna," Roman added, playfully.
Since Roman was a photographer, and the bride's brother, he got drafted to help. Also, he was amazingly good at what he did and ridiculously hard to book without a long lead time.
"The light through the conservatory glass is perfect." Tess glanced to the sky. "But we'll need to move with those clouds. I'll go get the next spot prepped to take advantage of the shadows." She was a bundle of busy, juggling ten invisible balls at once.
Meanwhile, Drake couldn't seem to take his gaze away from Anna. He stared with the stunned, giddy expression of a man who'd just found that a winning lottery ticket wasn't paper, it was her.
Even Anna's mom drifted at the edge of the group, tilting a peony in its container.
"Just a little this way," she whispered, her gaze then fixing on her daughter. "Oh, Piper… the light." A cascade of gold reflected in Anna's hair that was, frankly, unfair.
Roman took the shot and Piper had no doubt he'd nabbed it perfectly.
"Um… have you heard from Babushka?" Piper asked as Diana and Roman moved more potted peonies into the walkway. "I half expected her to show up with a ceremonial breadbasket to test the lighting."
"I could go for bread," Roman admitted.
"Of course you can, you're a Dvornakov." Diana chuckled, a warm, motherly sound. "Babushka's off with Zach. He's been busy with something important lately. He won't tell any of us what it is." She waved a dismissive hand, a gesture of fond exasperation. "That's how he gets with his projects."
"No kidding," Roman agreed. "One minute he goes silent, the next he's started his own company. Who knows what he's got going down this time?"
"Since Babushka's involved, I just hope it's legal." Diana sighed. "But it's Zach, of course it's legal."
Piper tucked a little bit of pride against her ribs, a secret warmth. She was the one he'd trusted. The invisible thread that had been spooling out between them for weeks gave a distinct, satisfying tug.
Her gaze drifted to the entry.
She should have been focused entirely on the details, on the laminated schedule, on the photographer's cues. But her focus kept going to the door to see if Zach showed. This was a ridiculous, unprofessional habit she couldn't seem to shake today.
The strange sort of unfamiliar ache of hope that Zach would pop by just to say hello was driving her crazy.
Zach wasn't coming. He'd been swallowed whole by the Stallions deal. While the rest of the world, including his own family, saw him as merely busy, Piper knew the truth.
The knowledge was a secret handshake, a silent pact that made her feel closer to him even when he was lost in work, wrestling with contracts and underwear prototypes.
Today, though, wasn't about missing Zach. It was about witnessing what could actually be an honest-to-goodness fairy tale. Not that long ago—heck, not even a month ago—she'd sworn this didn't exist. Not in her orbit, anyway.
With Tess working on the next stage, Piper took it as an opportunity to let Roman have some time alone with the couple, so she called Aspen.
"Aspen, hey," Piper ducked her head and stepped away.
"Surviving the vortex of true love and public relations?" Aspen asked, hopeful.
"You know what?" Piper took it all in—the gardens, the nauseatingly cute couple, the gorgeous setting. "Photos are happening. Tess has the post-announcement blitz planned, and she's doing it with a skeleton crew since the hockey team poached a bunch of her staff."
"I figure the Dvornakovs have the flowers well in hand, but how's everything else? Cake? Anything actively on fire?" Aspen asked.
"Zach's grandma was able to find edible glitter in the right color, so the cake is back on track." Piper let out a breath. Thank goodness for small miracles. "The location is a go, and I think we might actually pull this off."
"I had absolutely no doubt. And our favorite funeral directors? They're happy?" Aspen asked.
"Back-burnered a bit, but they are good with that. We put in the dates for the big conference, and they've given a solid lead time for me to secure great speakers who are experts on…well, you know." Piper waved her hand dismissively, even though Aspen couldn't see it. "No worries there."
"Piper?" Aspen's voice went quiet, her teasing tone gone. "I'm really proud of you."
Piper's chest did a funny little squeeze-and-release thing. "Thanks.
"Do you like the peony placement?" Diana called from beside the walkway where the whole down on one knee bit would happen.
Piper glanced that way and gave a thumbs up.
"You're busy. I'll let you go," Aspen said, finishing up the call. "You're doing great."
Piper stuck the phone in her pocket and, clipboard in hand, forced her nerves to stay calm.
This wasn't about forever; this was only about photos. About the job at hand.
"They're sweet together," Diana said, striding toward Piper. "It makes me happy."
The reality of them was undeniable. It was in the way Anna's laugh lit her eyes, in the way Drake's hand found the small of her back without thinking.
They gazed at each other, laughed with each other, even frowned at each other over a misplaced curl, and it was all so seamless. So beautiful. A quiet part of her, the part that wasn't calloused over by her history, started to believe.
"This makes me happy, too," Piper said.
"Can I say something that I probably shouldn't?" Diana asked.
"With a lead-in like that I think you have to," Piper countered.
"Zach mentioned early on that you're not a fan of weddings.
" She held up her hand before she could say anything else.
"And I get why that might be when it's just another day at the office.
But there's so much more to a love story than the wedding.
So much more." She put her hand down. "I just, I can see that you want to like it. But for whatever reason, you don't."
Piper blinked. Hard.
"I'll stop now. I like to talk too much." Diana crossed her arms around herself.
"No." Piper glanced to the concrete path, then back to Diana. "Thank you for saying that. I'm really not a fan, and I guess maybe I've started to re-evaluate that position."
"You know, it's funny, we've been through three weddings already with the kids and it just never gets boring," Diana said, wistfully. "Alex and I just love this part."
Hold on. "Three weddings?"
There were four Dvornakov children, two were married and Anna was on her way there. Which meant… the math didn't add up.
"When Jase got married the first time, they never looked at each other quite that way." Diana stayed lost in a memory. "I mean, they were in love, and it was clear, but it wasn't like this."
"Jase was married. Before Heather?" Or did he and Heather sign up for the Daws style wedding plan where they tried it a few times?
Really, it was none of Piper's business and it was her turn to hush.
Diana didn't seem to mind. She nodded. "He was. But he was military, so he was gone a lot, and she wasn't good at being alone."
Piper's stomach started to hurt.
"Sometimes everyone can do everything right and it just doesn't work," Diana mused.
Piper couldn't entirely be certain how she looked in that moment, but she would guess she'd probably turned a shade of green that matched Anna the first day they'd met. "Oh?"
"And then they meet the right person, and you can't really remember a time anymore when they weren't together." Diana smiled, wistfully. "Except we have photos to prove it." She laughed. "The photographic evidence is where it gets you." She winked.
Her gaze drifted to the man orchestrating the magic. Roman was so muscled he was built like a tank, but he moved with the quiet grace of a predator, knelt with his camera—he called her Louise—cradled in his hands.
He was all intense focus and cropped hair, a man on a mission, but a genuine smile softened his features when he looked up from the viewfinder.
"It hasn't been easy for Roman, either," Diana said, like they were talking about the peonies again. "He and Sadie took two tries to get it right."
Two tries.
The words snagged in Piper's brain, tripping over the carefully organized files of evidence she'd been collecting her entire adult life.
Her entire philosophy—the one built on the wreckage of her parents' catastrophic marriages—was predicated on a single, brutal theorem: if it failed, she was the failure.
She was the curse. The common denominator.
But Jase… Roman… they'd failed and she was nowhere around.
But then they'd just… tried again? With someone new? And it had worked?
Diana must have seen the shock ghost across Piper's face, because she turned from watching her son, her expression gentling.
"Love isn't a test you can fail, you know," she said, her voice as warm and comforting as the afternoon sun.
Her gaze drifted back to Anna and Drake, who now laughed as Roman directed them into another pose.
"We all think it's supposed to be a straight line, a perfect plan from start to finish.
But it's not. Sometimes you have to get a little lost to find the right path.
" She looked at Piper then, her eyes full of a simple, profound truth that landed with the force of a revelation.
"My Alex, he broke two engagements before me.
Drove his mother nuts. But he told me early on that he's a terrible driver when it comes to love.
I told him he just hadn't found the right road yet.
The detours are part of the map, Piper."
Piper's internal ledger, with its neat columns of proof that she was wedding kryptonite, suddenly looked like nonsense.
The clipboard in her hands felt ridiculous. All her neat columns and color-coded tabs were proof of a debunked theorem.
Maybe she wasn't cursed. The paths weren't linear, and she'd thought it was her fault. But it was life. Not her. The idea was so foreign, so radically optimistic, that it stole the air from Piper's lungs. All this time she'd seen her history as a verdict, a final judgment.
But what if Diana was right?
What if it was all just… mileage? Practice?
The thought didn't settle comfortably.
"You two look like you're plotting a government takeover. What'd I miss?" Zach asked, striding toward them, his hands tucked in his pockets. He had that easy grin that always seemed to make her squirm.
No warning, no text, no explanation. One moment the world was a soft-focus memory she was observing from the sidelines, and the next, there was Zach, stepping into the middle of the shoot like he belonged there.
The sight of him was a dash of something warm and solid in the middle of her suddenly shifting universe.
Diana's smile was serene, as if she'd been expecting him. "I was just telling Piper how Roman and Sadie reconnected after all that time apart. How the second try was the one that stuck."
"She also told me Jase was married before," Piper's gaze met Zach's, and the words tumbled out before she could stop them, a confirmation of the impossible.
Zach let out a low whistle, his grin turning wry.
"Wow, Mom's spilling all the family secrets today, huh?
" He glanced between the two of them, his expression relaxing as he seemed to read the room.
"Yeah, well. Once my brothers pulled their heads out of their asses, they finally got it right. Just took them a while to get there."
Diana made a simple noise under her breath, a fond, exasperated sound as she turned to fuss with nearby flowers. "It's not like you're winning the race when it comes to finding love, Zachary."
"Now you sound like Babushka," he said, feigning hurt.
"Take that back," Diana admonished, but her words were kind.
"And, for the record." He took Piper's hand in his. "I'd say my timing has been perfect."
Perfect timing.
Not cursed timing. Not failed timing. Perfect.
"Well, I think it's time for a break." Diana clapped her hands. "We're going to take five, everyone."
"I guess we're taking five." Piper's gaze moved from their joined hands to his face. The easy grin was gone, replaced by an intensity that stole the air from her lungs.
Roman nodded in agreement, and Anna and Drake headed inside the building.
Zach gave Piper's hand a gentle tug, leading her around the edge of the garden, toward the sprawling trunk of a large tree.
"And where are we going now?" Piper asked, playfully swinging their arms as they walked together.
"Somewhere a little more private," Zach replied, guiding her into the secluded space behind the thick trunk. He moved in front of her, so her back was to the tree and his body shielded hers.
"You know, I'm at work right now. I can't just run away," she said.
"Strategic exit during an earned break," Zach said, eyeing her carefully. "And no one is watching."
The air between them shifted to something deeper. Zach's eyes searched hers, asking for permission without actually asking. Giving her the space to say no.
"Is this also part of your 'perfect timing'?" she teased, touching her fingertip to his lips.
"It's the most important part," he said, nipping at her finger before he leaned in and kissed her.
Before Piper could form a single, coherent question, his mouth was on hers.
It wasn't a gentle kiss.
He didn't ask. He didn't hesitate. His mouth came down on hers, a firm, undeniable pressure that wasn't a question but an answer. It was the taste of a future.