The Wedding Shop Read online

  ACCLAIM FOR RACHEL HAUCK

  THE WEDDING SHOP

  “I adored The Wedding Shop! Rachel Hauck has created a tender, nostalgic story, weaving together two pairs of star-crossed lovers from the present and the past with the magical space that connects them. So full of heart and heartache and redemption, this book is one you’ll read long into the night, until the characters become your friends, and Heart’s Bend, Tennessee, your second hometown.”

  —BEATRIZ WILLIAMS, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  “The Wedding Shop is the kind of book I love, complete with flawed yet realistic characters, dual timelines that intersect unexpectedly, a touch of magic, and a large dose of faith. Two breathtaking romances are the perfect bookends for this novel about love, forgiveness, and following your dreams. And a stunning, antique wedding dress with a secret of its own. This is more than just a good read—it’s a book to savor.”

  —KAREN WHITE, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  THE WEDDING CHAPEL

  “Hauck’s engaging novel about love, forgiveness, and new beginnings adeptly ties together multiple oscillating storylines of several generations of families. Interesting plot interweaves romance, real life issues, and a dash of mystery . . . Recommend for mature fans of well-done historical fiction.”

  —CBA RETAILERS AND RESOURCES

  “Hauck tells another gorgeously rendered story. The raw, hidden emotions of Taylor and Jack are incredibly realistic and will resonate with readers. The way the entire tale comes together with the image of the chapel as holding the heartbeat of God is breathtaking and complements the romance of the story.”

  —RT BOOK REVIEWS, 4½ STARS AND A TOP PICK!

  THE WEDDING DRESS

  “The Wedding Dress is a thought-provoking read and one of the best books I have read. Look forward to more . . .”

  —MICHELLE JOHNMAN, GOLD COAST, AUSTRALIA

  “I thank God for your talent and that you wrote The Wedding Dress. I will definitely come back to this book and read it again. And now I cannot wait to read Once Upon a Prince.”

  —AGATA FROM POLAND

  THE ROYAL WEDDING SERIES

  “Perfect for Valentine’s Day, Hauck’s latest inspirational romance offers an uplifting and emotionally rewarding tale that will delight her growing fan base.”

  —LIBRARY JOURNAL, STARRED REVIEW

  “Hauck writes a feel-good novel that explores the trauma and love of the human heart . . . an example of patience and sacrifice that readers will adore.”

  —ROMANTIC TIMES, 4 STARS

  “A stirring modern-day fairy tale about the power of true love.”

  —CINDY KIRK, AUTHOR OF LOVE AT MISTLETOE INN

  “How to Catch a Prince is an enchanting story told with bold flavor and tender insight. Engaging characters come alive as romance blooms between a prince and his one true love. Hauck’s own brand of royal-style romance shines in this third installment of the Royal Wedding series.”

  —DENISE HUNTER, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE WISHING SEASON

  “How to Catch a Prince contains all the elements I’ve come to love in Rachel Hauck’s Royal Wedding series: an ‘it don’t come easy’ happily ever after, a contemporary romance woven through with royal history, and a strong spiritual thread with an unexpected touch of the divine. Hauck’s smooth writing—and the way she wove life truths throughout the novel—made for a couldn’t-put-it-down read.”

  —BETH K. VOGT, AUTHOR OF SOMEBODY LIKE YOU, ONE OF PUBLISHERS WEEKLY’S BEST BOOKS OF 2014

  “Rachel Hauck’s inspiring Royal Wedding series is one for which you should reserve space on your keeper shelf!”

  —USA TODAY

  “Hauck spins a surprisingly believable royal-meets-commoner love story. This is a modern and engaging tale with well-developed secondary characters that are entertaining and add a quirky touch. Hauck fans will find a gem of a tale.”

  —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY STARRED REVIEW OF ONCE UPON A PRINCE

  ALSO BY RACHEL HAUCK

  The Wedding Dress

  The Wedding Chapel

  NOVELLAS FOUND IN A YEAR OF WEDDINGS

  A March Bride (e-book only)

  A Brush with Love: A January Wedding Story (e-book only)

  THE ROYAL WEDDING SERIES

  Once Upon a Prince

  Princess Ever After

  How to Catch a Prince

  A Royal Christmas Wedding (Novella)

  LOWCOUNTRY ROMANCE NOVELS

  Sweet Caroline

  Love Starts with Elle

  Dining with Joy

  Nashville Sweetheart (e-book only)

  Nashville Dreams (e-book only)

  WITH SARA EVANS

  Sweet By and By

  Softly and Tenderly

  Love Lifted Me

  ZONDERVAN

  The Wedding Shop Copyright © 2016 by Rachel Hauck

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

  Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

  ePub Edition © July 2016: ISBN 978-0-3103-4349-3

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Hauck, Rachel, 1960-author.

  Title: The wedding shop / Rachel Hauck.

  Description: Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2016. | ?2015

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016008490 | ISBN 9780310341543 (softcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: Bridal shops—Fiction. | GSAFD: Christian fiction. | Love stories.

  Classification: LCC PS3608.A866 W44 2016 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016008490

  The author is represented by MacGregor Literary, Inc.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible®. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

  Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  16 17 18 19 20 21 / RRD / 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To the friends of my youth, with whom I dreamed, rode bikes in the street, and created make believe worlds in our basements and bedrooms, pretending to be Mary Tyler Moore or dating an Osmond brother. We may not have seen each other in decades, but the echoes of our laughter rebound in my heart, still.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three
/>
  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Discussion Questions

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  An Excerpt from The Wedding Chapel

  Chapter One

  Prologue

  HALEY

  Summer 1996

  Heart’s Bend, Tennessee

  The scent of rain laced the afternoon breeze as it shoved through summer-green trees, ramming ominous black clouds together like a craggy mountain ridge. Haley scanned the heavens as she dropped her bike on the edge of Gardenia Park, a swirled chocolate-vanilla cone in her hand.

  “Gonna rain, Tammy. Hurry!” Haley glanced over her shoulder toward their “fort,” an abandoned building once known as The Wedding Shop.

  The wind kicked up and a bass rumble thundered through the park. Haley shivered, curling her toes against her flip-flops.

  “Tammy!”

  “Hold your horses. He’s making my dip cone.”

  Haley liked Tammy, the prettiest girl in their class, from the moment she met her in first grade.

  “Just get regular chocolate.” A thunderclap approved Haley’s words, adding a lick of lightning for effect.

  “But I like the dipped ones.”

  “We’re going to get wet.”

  From the ice cream stand, Tammy shrugged, grinning, reaching for her cone as Carter Adams finally handed it through the window. Haley couldn’t stand Carter. He was friends with her oldest brother, Aaron, and every time he came over to the house he teased and picked on her until she screamed.

  Then Mama would burst into the room. “Haley, for crying out loud, be quiet. What’s with all the screaming?”

  Did Aaron defend her? Or Carter confess he’d been teasing her? Noooo . . . That would be too much to ask. When she grew up, she was going to defend people. Help others. Stand up for the picked on.

  A girl learned a lot about self-defense when she was the youngest of four brothers. She liked them all right, except when they were being boys.

  “Where do you want to go?” Tammy sat down on a bench, motioning for Haley to join her, careful with her cone, catching the vanilla dripping through chocolate cracks with the tip of her tongue. “Your house? We can play Mario.”

  “Naw, we did that already. Besides, one of my brothers is bound to be playing on it.” Haley glanced back at their fort, the old wedding shop. “What about your house?”

  Haley preferred the neat, quiet calm of the Easons’. An only child, Tammy had the run of the place, including her own bathroom.

  Her very own bathroom! Haley had to share with Seth, two years older, and Will, four years older. They had what Mama called a Jack and Jill bathroom. More like a Jack and Jack with no room for a Jill. One of these days Haley was going to defend others, yep, and have her own bathroom. And that’s that.

  “I think your brothers are nice.”

  “Nice? Try living with them.” Haley wrinkled her nose. “They’re loud and they smell. Bad too.”

  More thunder rocked overhead, this time with a sprinkle of rain. From her bicycle basket, Tammy’s beeper went off.

  “That’s Mama,” she said, working hard on her ice cream to keep it from dripping down the sides and soaking the napkin wrapped around the cone. She reached for her beeper. “It’s a three.”

  Ah, a three. Which meant “Be safe.” Usually Mrs. Eason sent a one, which meant “Get home.”

  Darkness hovered over the large town-center park, over Heart’s Bend’s center square, as the wind blew sprinkles of rain. Lightning whipped through the black-and-blue sky.

  Tammy shivered. “Better get someplace safe. Mama will ask me later.”

  “Want to go to the fort?” Haley motioned over her shoulder toward the abandoned place.

  As if on cue, the heavens burst open with buckets of rain. Tammy dropped her ice cream as she skedaddled for her bike, screaming, laughing as water poured from the clouds.

  “Let’s go!”

  “Wait for me.” Haley gripped her cone as she hopped on her bike and pedaled down First Avenue for all her life. “Wooooooo!” She ducked against the spiking rain, the water cooling her hot, sticky skin.

  Dashing across the avenue as the light turned red, she bounced up on the Blossom Street curb, dropped her bike in the shade of the old oak tree, and ran her hand under the dripping Spanish moss, racing Tammy for the back porch.

  The clouds crashed together, declaring war, wielding their swords of light and showering Heart’s Bend with their battle sweat as the girls tumbled onto the wide-board floor.

  Haley jumped to her feet, hanging out of the door, her arm hooked around the weak screen doorframe. “Ha-ha-ha, you can’t get us now!”

  “Come on, let’s go inside.” Tammy slipped through the shop’s back door by jiggling the doorknob, weakening the lock.

  Haley followed, pausing just inside, next to what Mama called a butler’s pantry, shaking the rain from her stick-straight blonde hair. The shop’s stillness settled on her, speaking something Haley couldn’t understand but definitely felt. And like every time before, Haley felt as though she’d walked into a place like home.

  Daddy called it a sixth sense. Whatever that meant. But somehow Haley understood time and space and anything that might be beyond the world she could see. The notion excited her. And scared the living daylights out of her. Let’s just be honest.

  “Look, I can’t get it off.” Laughing, Tammy flicked her hand in front of Haley’s face, pieces of the cone’s white paper napkin stuck to her sticky fingers.

  Reaching up, Haley yanked the piece free, wadding it up in her pocket. She didn’t want to trash the place—like everyone who’d tried to run a business here once it was no longer a wedding shop. A shame, a crying shame, how folks could disrespect a building and all it stood for.

  Haley may be only ten, but she’d heard the stories of the shop’s brides, of Miss Cora, and all the good she’d done. The place needed respect.

  “Let’s play bride.” Tammy ran up the wide, thick grand staircase. The carved and curved banister put Haley in mind of a great palace. That’s what this shop was to Heart’s Bend. A grand palace. For girls getting married. “You be the bride this time, Haley. Walk down the steps from up there—”

  “The mezzanine.”

  “Yeah, that place.” Tammy licked the chocolate from her fingers and wiped her hand on her shorts. “How do you know it’s a mezzanine again?”

  “I heard Mama say it when we watched some documentary.” Haley made a snoring sound. Mama was all about education, and just about everything in the Morgan family had to be “educational.” Even Christmas gifts. Praise be for Daddy who drew a line at Mama’s educational obsession during the holidays.

  See, Mama was a doctor and Daddy an engineer. They worked long hours and employed a maid-slash-cook, Hilda, and a nanny, Tess. They were all right. Kind of cranky. Last time Haley asked either one of them to help her bake a cake, they tossed her out of the house.

  “Go swim. Got that big ole pool out back and you kids all hang around inside. Crying shame, I tell you, a crying shame. In my day we’d have . . .”

  Hilda’s “her day” stories shot Haley and her brothers out of the house faster than a greased pig.

  Anyway, that was routine around the Morgan house. Daddy and Mama were home for dinner every night, though, because Mama believed in families eating together. But they had to discuss something intelligent. Mama always reiterated, “There’s nothing more important than education.”

  Yeah? Except goal setting. That was Mama’s other bugaboo. Everyone had to set goals come New Year’s Eve. She made the family sit and write down what they wanted to accomplish. Even Daddy. So there was
no way of ever getting out of it.

  For the past three years, Haley wrote, “Get a puppy.” So far, she never got one. What was the point of a goal if her parents never helped her achieve it?

  “Are you going to be the bride or not?” Tammy said. “I was the bride last time. It’s my turn to be the shopkeeper.”

  Haley jogged up the stairs. She preferred shopkeeper to bride. “Okay, but who am I going to marry?”

  “Who do you want to marry?”

  “No one. I told you, boys smell.”

  Tammy made a face. “Pretend they don’t. Now who?” She twisted the knob on the closet door under the dormer eaves. They liked to pretend the wedding dresses were inside.

  But the door was locked. Like always.

  Haley could only think of one boy at school who didn’t annoy the heck out of her. She peered over at her friend through the light falling through the mezzanine windows. “Cole Danner?”

  “Cole?” Tammy sighed, making a face and planting her hand on her hip. “He’s mine.”

  “I don’t really want him. Geez. This is just pretend. He’s the cutest boy in class and, as far as I can tell, stinks the least.”

  “Okay, I guess it’s all right since it’s just pretend. But when we grow up, I got dibs.”

  “On Cole? You can have him. I’m not getting married until I’m old, like thirty, maybe even forty.”

  Tammy laughed. “But you have to be my maid of honor, promise?”

  “Promise.” Of course she’d do anything for her bestie Tammy.

  Overhead, the thunder rumbled. But the old wedding shop walls remained steady.

  Haley’s Grandma Morgan and her friend Mrs. Peabody bought their wedding dresses here. Mama was in medical school in Boston when she met Daddy, who was at MIT. They got married in a courthouse or she’d have bought her dress from Miss Cora too.

  At least Haley liked to think so. Even at ten, she had a strong sense of tradition.

  Daddy and Mama moved back to Heart’s Bend when Haley was two, wanting to be near family, wanting out of the cold. And Mama started her own sports medicine clinic. She was pretty famous as far as Haley could tell. Athletes from all over came to see her.