Wedding Party Collection: Once A Bridesmaid...: Here Comes the Bridesmaid / Falling for the Bridesmaid. GINA WILKINS
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it was a close enough association with the night, if not with the moon specifically.’
‘Nice. And yours?’
‘Allyn. Do I look like an Allyn?’
‘I told you—you look like a Sunshine.’
‘Oh, dear. Daunting. Well, Moon said Allyn meant Bright and Shining One. Close enough to sunshine, in her opinion. And she said it suited me.’ She frowned, thinking. ‘I’ve thought a lot over the past two years about making the change. Wondered if doing the thing we planned to do together on my own would help me accept...move on. My parents aren’t so sure.’
‘Tell me about them,’ Leo said.
‘My parents? Oh, they’re very zen! Quite mad. And completely wonderful. Always there. Supportive, but never smothering. They let Moon and me leave the commune when we were fifteen, so we could see a different way and make informed decisions about how we wanted to live. They made sure we had a safe place to stay, a good school to go to, money for whatever we needed, while we worked it out. And they seemed to understand even before we did that Moon was the true hippie and I was...well, something in between a hippie and an urbanite. Moon would have raced straight back to the commune if not for me being anchored in the city.’ She smiled, remembering. ‘We started our business with money our father inherited but didn’t need. It was given to us simply, with love, on our eighteenth birthday.’
‘Lucky.’
‘Yes. But it’s not all sparkles and roses, you know. There’s the haiku to deal with!’
‘Ah, the haiku. What is it?’
‘You’ll find out—that poem is coming.’
‘Can’t wait.’
‘You have no idea!’
‘But...they were okay with you girls changing your names?’
‘They weren’t insulted, if that’s what you mean. They were fine with it if we wanted to do it.’ She bit her lip. ‘But Dad had a sidebar conversation with me because he thought Moonbeam was browbeating me.’
‘And was she?’
‘Not browbeating—nothing that brutish. She was...persuading!’ Sunshine said, and smiled, remembering. ‘But I was happy enough to be persuaded if she wanted it that badly. And I owed her, for staying.’
Sunshine closed her eyes, picturing her sister.
‘Tell me more about Moonbeam,’ Leo said.
Opening her eyes on a sigh, Sunshine adjusted her position in the bed. ‘Well, you know what she looked like—me! But slimmer. And with the most beautiful green eyes—both of them. Other than looks, though, we were completely different. I was the carnivore; she was vegetarian. I was...well, as you see me. Friendly, touchy-feely, chirpy.’
‘And...?’
Sunshine fiddled with her necklace. ‘Moon was...intriguing. I was Mary Poppins; she was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. When the kids made fun of my devil eyes I would laugh it off, but she would go all superhero.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Is there a hippie superhero? What a wonderful idea. I’m going to do a web search on that.’
‘So she was your protector?’
‘Oh, yes. And my cheer squad. And my...everything. She was smart, and had an amazing flair for numbers, so although the business was my idea she was the CEO. And she didn’t even want to be in the city!’
Sunshine adjusted the quilt. Fussed with a cushion.
‘She said that left me to concentrate on the creative stuff because she was not into fashion like I was. She would wear a suit for business if I chose it for her; otherwise she would drag on whatever clothes and shoes came to hand. I, on the other hand, was obsessed with colour and shape and style.’ She shrugged, a little sheepish. ‘And I really love shoes!’
‘Funny, I hadn’t noticed that.’
She hit him with the cushion. ‘Don’t make me take you behind that wall and show you my shoe collection. I haven’t known a man yet who could cope with the sight.’
‘Are you really going there? Talking about the men you’ve had in here? I’ll go there if you want, Sunshine, but I don’t think you’ll like it.’
She opened her eyes at him. ‘Oh, that sounds very alpha male.’
He didn’t smile. ‘You’ll see alpha, beta, gamma, and zeta male if you go near another man, Sunshine.’
‘Oh, alpha, beta, and zeta?’
‘Alpha-beta-gamma-zeta. And don’t roll your eyes.’
‘Sorry.’
‘I said don’t roll your eyes.’
‘All right!’ Sunshine said, laughing.
‘So, I think,’ Leo said quietly, after a long moment, ‘we’re up to the bike, aren’t we?’
Sunshine nodded, sat a little straighter. ‘The bike,’ she said. She pulled a different cushion onto her lap and started playing with the fringe. ‘She bought it because she liked the wind in her face and the freedom of riding. It was too big for her, but she wouldn’t be told.’
She stopped there.
‘And...?’ he prompted.
Sunshine reached for the charms. ‘We were at a party. Her boyfriend du jour—Jeff—mixed us up and tried to kiss me. Moonbeam went into melodrama mode and stormed off, dragging me with her.’
‘Was she angry with you?’
‘God, no! She knew I would never poach. And truthfully...? She wasn’t even angry with Jeff. She was just restless. Bored with being in the city. And tired of Jeff. So what he did gave her an excuse to dump him. She thought...she thought he’d done it accidentally-on-purpose because he actually preferred me. We were dressed so differently, you see, it couldn’t have been a mix-up.’
‘Did that happen often? A boyfriend switching sides?’
‘No. Never before.’
‘And so...?’
‘And so we clambered onto the bike.’ She shivered. ‘She was wild that night, riding too fast. She took a turn badly, and...well. Moonbeam died instantly. Her neck snapped at the base of the helmet.’ She swallowed. ‘I got carted off to hospital, where I went through twenty-eight pints of blood.’ She moved restlessly. ‘Internal bleeding. They had to take my spleen—which apparently you don’t really need, so go figure! And they took half my liver, which was haemorrhaging. Actually, did you know that the liver regenerates? Which means the chunk of my liver they cut out has probably grown back. Amazing!’
‘I’m sorry, Sunshine,’ Leo said.
She rearranged herself in the bed again—flustery, unnecessary activity. ‘Which brings us to the important part of this discussion. Getting rid of your motorbike.’
Leo said nothing.
‘Leo? You understand, don’t you?’
He nodded slowly. ‘I understand why you hate motorbikes—because you blame yourself for the accident. You feel guilty because you couldn’t talk your sister out of that bike. Because she stayed in the city only for you, where she was an unhappy fish out of water. Because of what her boyfriend did. The way all those things led to both of you being on the bike at that precise moment at that speed. Because she died and you didn’t. And you’re here and she’s not.’
Sunshine brushed away a tear. ‘That’s about the sum of it. I just miss her so much. And I’d do anything to have her back.’ She looked at him. ‘But you can’t bring someone back from the dead. So please get rid of it, Leo. Please?’
‘You don’t understand what that bike means to me.’