“Mom, if you don’t get out of here and let me be, I swear to heaven I will not be responsible for my actions.” “For a blushing bride, you sure are cranky, darling,” her mother said cheerily, still fussing with Sam’s long curly hair. While Bella had a huge white gown, two frilly petticoats underneath, a floor-length veil and delicate pink roses in her hair, Samantha had gone for a simple knee-length dress in ivory, a few wildflowers twisted in her dark locks and a handful of her Aunt Sophie’s cornflowers clenched tighter than necessary in her hand. Sam utterly refused to admit that she was nervous as hell. Bella had been throwing up all morning. Nerves, she insisted, though privately Sam felt certain that Bella was pregnant. She, however, had no such excuse for her nerves or for the two times she had herself thrown up before the hordes of family and friends had descended on her to “make her radiant”.
