Buried In Buttercream

other, until it was sticking out all over like spikes.
    Granny shook her head. “Heaven forbid.”

    Later that evening, when Savannah was saying good-bye to Dirk in her foyer, he glanced over her shoulder and, not seeing anyone, gave her a long, tender kiss.
    “Marry me,” he said, putting his arm around her waist and pulling her close.
    She chuckled. “Okay.”
    “When?”
    “It’ll take time to put another wedding together.”
    He sighed. “How long?”
    At that moment, Jack and Jillian came roaring through, and ran right into Savannah. They would have knocked her off her feet, if Dirk hadn’t been holding her.
    They tore up the stairs, screaming at the top of their lungs.
    From the living room, Vidalia yelled, “Butch! Butch Allan! Go do something with your younguns! They’re driving me plum crazy!”
    “Oh, hush your screechin’, Vidalia!” Marietta screamed back. “I can’t hear my television show!”
    Dirk sighed, pulled Savannah closer, and leaned his forehead against hers. “Can we just leave all of them and go back to Vegas? We can get hitched in some little chapel there by an Elvis impersonator.”
    It sounded so good that Savannah actually considered it.
    For half a second.
    “I can’t, darling,’” she said. “I couldn’t do it to Granny ... or Alma ... or Waycross.”
    “We’ll bring them with us.”
    “The rest will wanna come, too.”
    “We’ll sneak ’em out in the dead of night.”
    “Granny wouldn’t get caught dead in Las Vegas.”
    “We’ll put a bag over her head and throw her into the trunk till we get there.”
    She gave him a look.
    “We’ll throw her really easy,” he said. “Put lots of fluffy pillows and soft, comfy blankets in the trunk first.”
    “Dirk, be serious.”
    “I’m serious, baby. So, so serious. I can’t wait anymore. Whatcha say?”
    She didn’t reply, but grinned up at him.
    He kissed her on the nose. “That’s my girl. As you Southerners say, ‘Let’s get ’er done.’”

    The next afternoon, a silver vintage Bentley pulled over to the side of the Pacific Coast Highway. The handsome driver with glistening white hair, dressed in a tuxedo, got out and walked around to the rear passenger’s side door and opened it.
    “Why, thank you, John,” Savannah said, offering him her hand and stepping out onto the sand that led to a wide, pristine beach.
    The fellow who had been sitting beside her in the back got out as well.
    She lifted the skirt of her third wedding gown—not as fancy or expensive as the first two, but lovely in its classic simplicity—and walked daintily through the dunes with John Gibson supporting her on one side and Ryan Stone on the other.
    “Savannah, my love,” John said, “I’ve never seen you looking happier or more beautiful.”
    “He’s right,” Ryan said. “You’re a glowing bride if ever there was one.”
    “It’s this darned, tight corset thing. It’s squeezing all the blood up to my face,” she said.
    “Ah, come on, this is your wedding day.” Ryan steadied her as they climbed a dune. “You must be happy.”
    Was she happy? she wondered. Between all the hustle and bustle of the morning, she hadn’t had a lot of time to consult her own feelings.
    “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I haven’t really thought about it.”
    “It’s really going to happen this time, sweetheart,” John told her. “Don’t worry. Let yourself feel it.”
    They had reached the top of the dune and there, standing in a line that seemed to stretch from San Francisco to San Diego, were her loved ones. All fifty thousand of them.
    Okay, she told herself, not fifty thousand .
    Only ... Granny, Marietta, Vidalia, Waycross, Cordele, Macon, Jesup, Alma, Atlanta, Butch, Tammy, Jack and Jillian, Peter and Wendy, and howling at the end of rhinestone-studded, white leashes, Diamante and Cleopatra.
    The crowd caught sight of her and instantly erupted into cheers, waving their arms, hooting and hollering ... making total spectacles of themselves.
    Everyone except the cats.
    And the minister in his long black robe.
    And Dirk.
    He stood at the end of the line, looking amazing in his tuxedo, his hands folded calmly in front of him, smiling at her with a face so filled with love that she nearly burst into tears.
    She allowed it to wash over her, the sunshine, the ocean breeze, the beauty of the glistening water, the smell of the roses in her bouquet. She allowed it all to go straight into her heart—the shouts of