Chapter 14
"Oh, Jordan, that would be marvelous!" Meredith gushed.
Trying to smile through her doubt, Mac stated, "I hope that you'll invite me too, when that time comes."
"Of course we will!" Jordan assured her.
Even though Meredith was fascinated with her niece's love life, she knew that there was a lot to be done in the little time that Jordan was there. So, guided the younger women back to the task at hand. They ended up ordering pizza to be delivered for dinner that way they could continue working instead of going out and losing valuable time. It was still after ten when Mac finally headed home, promising faithfully, to be at the dress shop at nine the next morning for the dress fittings.
On Sunday Mac and Jordan were both happy with the dresses they would be wearing for the wedding. Their fittings went well although both of them would have to wait for the alterations on the hem of the dress to be finished until they purchased shoes for the event.
Jordan waited until Meredith went into the dressing room to put on her gown to explain to Sarah that they had AJ to thank for not looking like parade floats. She told her how he had influenced his fiancé's choice by mentioning his fashion reporter daughter's advice. Mac smiled saying she would be sure to thank the Admiral the next day at work.
Meredith's fitting went badly. She didn't seem pleased with any of the changes the seamstress had made since her first fitting. A very vocal argument ensued when Meredith insisted that the woman change back an alteration the seamstress had advised against in the first place.
The store manager was called in and after reminding his employee that the customer was always right, Meredith was finally placated. The change would be made and she would return for another fitting to see that it had been done to her specifications in a week.
The three of them went out for a late lunch before Mac excused herself for the rest of the day, explaining that she had some work that she just had to get done for the next day or her boss would be very upset if she wasn't ready for the trial that was going to take place. The other two women laughed, as they were meant to, because they all knew that AJ Chegwidden was a teddy bear in his off duty life, but that definitely did not carry over into his military one!
Meredith spent the last few hours before Jordan's flight home pumping her niece for information on her relationship with Harm. She was more than happy to talk about how well things were going and assuring Meredith that if, and when, he did propose she would be among the first to know.
During the two days that Jordan had been in Virginia, Clark Palmer had kept himself very busy. For the past few weeks he had been putting together the odds and ends of this little aspect of his grand scheme ever since she had questioned him about the keepsakes he didn't have with him when he moved in with her. He had rented a storage unit under another name and began to gather 'Rabb keepsakes'.
He had discovered that a flea-market was a great place to collect some of these items. The best discovery was some old picture frames. A day trip to Virginia to do a little breaking and entering, while the real Harm was busy with his crop dusting, allowed him to copy all of the pictures his nemesis owned. It was so nice that there were photograph copiers that were so small and portable these days. It made making copies so quick and easy. At a military surplus store, he was able to purchase all of the medals and ribbons that Commander Rabb had been awarded in his career, as well as a case to keep them in.
The guitar he purchased at a music store on the trip back to Boston was the same model as the one Harm owned. Palmer had even taken some lessons from a woman that lived an hour out of Boston, so if Jordan ever asked him to play it he could do more than just strum his fingers over the strings.
In the storage unit he boxed everything up, taped and labeled them, and then on the Saturday afternoon while Jordan was in Virginia, he paid the final bill on the space. He hauled the boxes to the apartment leaving them in the middle of the living room floor for her arrival home.
To be continued…