Larissa frowned. “I don’t get it. Aren’t you engaged?”
Consuelo stared at the diamond ring on her finger. “Yes, we’re engaged.”
“A wedding seems like the next logical step,” Dellina murmured. “From a professional’s perspective, at least.”
Consuelo crunched on a chip. She chewed and swallowed, then gulped from her glass. “I’m not ready,” she said when she’d put it back on the table. “He’s pressuring me. Why does he have to pressure me?”
Felicia smiled. “You’re afraid. This is fear. You’re not feeling pressured about planning the wedding. It’s the actual marriage that concerns you. You don’t think you can be in that kind of stable situation. You’re going to be moving in with Kent and Reese. Be a part of a family. You haven’t had that in many years and you’ve forgotten what it’s like.”
Once again Taryn waited for the attack, but Consuelo only nodded as her brown eyes filled with tears. “I know. It’s horrible. I’m so emotional and moody and yes, scared. I hate it!”
“Kent’s a great guy,” Isabel said. “He’s crazy about you. If you’re worried about expectations, you don’t have to be. He’s not looking for you to take over things at his house. He can handle all of that himself. He’s done that for years.”
“I know,” Consuelo said. “But what if I can’t do it?”
“Do you love him?” Taryn found herself asking.
Consuelo sniffed. “Uh-huh. More than anything. At first my feelings were frightening, but now I’m used to them. To us. I need him and I can’t stop needing him. It’s the being normal part I don’t know how to deal with.”
Something Taryn could relate to. Normal wasn’t part of her world, either. That and being vulnerable. Neither made her comfortable.
“Kent chose you,” Felicia told her friend. “He knew you weren’t normal when you first met.”
Consuelo smiled. “That makes me feel a little better. But I still don’t want a big wedding. Or a small one. I don’t want to get married, I just want to be married. If I was sure he wasn’t expecting me to be normal, I think I could handle that.”
Felicia nodded slowly. “But you’re afraid Kent would miss the ceremony. The rite of passage in front of his friends and family.”
“Reese, too,” Consuelo admitted.
“You’re going to have to find a point of compromise. Talk to him. Find out what part of getting married is most important to him. I suspect it’s not the ceremony as much as you think. I believe he wants you in his house and his bed on a permanent basis, that he wants to begin his life with you.”
Taryn was impressed with Felicia’s grasp of the complexities of human relationships. For all her freakish intelligence, she was starting to be intuitive, as well.
Another pitcher of margaritas was ordered as they ate their way through the nachos. Taryn felt herself relaxing. These women were nice, she thought. Her friends. She could almost trust them.
She had the thought that she should do more than that. She should just emotionally put herself out there. These women were honest and caring. They wouldn’t hurt her. Not on purpose.
Without wanting to, she remembered slipping off that ladder. Of reaching for her father so he could keep her from falling. She remembered the look in his eyes as he’d deliberately ignored her pleas and how she’d screamed the whole way to the ground. And she wondered if she would ever be able to let that go enough to reach out to another person. Figuratively or literally. Or if she would always hold herself back rather than risk the fall.
* * *
TARYN SPREAD OUT several sheets of paper in front of Mayor Marsha. Each one had a different slogan on it.
“We did some preliminary work with the graphics,” Taryn said, pointing at the different fonts and backgrounds. “That’s just to show you what is possible. For now we need to focus on the actual phrase itself.”
She’d arrived a few minutes early for her meeting, just so she could go through her briefcase. She’d been worried Sam and Kenny would slip in a mock-up for Fool’s Gold—Where Men Are Finally Coming. They’d been threatening it for days. Fortunately only the real slogans seemed to have made their way into her tote.
Taryn and the mayor read over the slogans together. All That Glitters. Town with a 24-K Heart. Go Gold Or Go Home. Join the Rush. Home of the Happily Ever After. A Destination for Romance.
“I like that one,” the mayor said, pointing at the card that read Fool’s Gold—A Destination for Romance.
“It’s close to the old slogan,” Taryn said. “But without the second meaning. We can work up some artwork if you’d like.”