by Dawn McClure
Misty smacked her forehead dramatically, drawing several of the guests’ gazes. “Matthew, oh my God! What did you say?”
See, this was why he liked Abby so much. She was a girl, but she wasn’t as dramatic as the other women in his life—namely his sister. “I told her I wouldn’t go on that camping trip with Jennifer if it made her happier. You know, if she needs me here. But mom wants me to go out to the cabin to clean it out and winterize it before the cold weather sets in. I don’t have to do it next weekend, but I’d rather get it done and over with.”
And he would stay. It wasn’t like he was looking forward to an entire weekend of just him and Jennifer, though what she lacked in personality, she surely made up for in that body of hers. But she was getting pushy lately, and that was something he didn’t like. He wasn’t looking to settle down anytime soon, and he’d made that pretty damned clear to her from the start.
Misty still had a pained look on her face. “What did she say?”
He shrugged. Why did Misty care? “She told me she could handle it and I left it at that. Misty, she’s not a two-year-old. She’ll be just fine. I mean, it’s been a damn long relationship, but it’s over. It’s sad, but—ouch!” he yelped, stepping back when Misty pinched him hard enough to leave a bruise. “What the hell was that for?”
“She laid her feelings out on the line and you basically told her she’s a big girl? What did you say exactly? Did you flat out tell her that you wouldn’t go on a date with her? Did you say you’d just stay friends?”
A date? Stay friends? What the shit was she talking about now? “Misty, like always, you’re speaking another language,” he said, barely refraining from pinching her back. If they were alone he’d done it in a heartbeat, but there were too many witnesses here on the dance floor. He couldn’t chance it. She’d probably wail like she’d done when they were growing up, drawing everyone’s attention and making him look like the bad guy. “What do you mean, a date? She told me her parents are getting divorced.”
Before the words had come out of his mouth, he hadn’t quite digested them yet, but having said them, his feet stopped moving on the dance floor. “A date?”
“Divorce?” Misty said at the same time.
“What are you talking about?” he asked. She wasn’t making a lick of sense. If Misty hadn’t known about Abby’s parents getting divorced, then what in the hell had she been referring to?
Misty cocked her head. “Her parents are getting divorced? She never said anything to me about a divorce.”
“Misty, pay attention,” he said, snapping a finger in front of her face. “What about a date? What are you talking about?”
Misty drug him back to the two-step they’d been dancing and they both smiled for the cameraman before they got back to chatting. “Nothing. Forget I said anything.”
“Think again.”
“I really shouldn’t say anything. It’s girl code.” Misty thinned her lips into a straight line and shook her head for emphasis. “Yeah, girl code. This conversation is over.”
“Girl code?” All his mind could conjure up was that Abby had been planning on asking him out on a date. But that assumption didn’t quite register. He needed clarification. “Well, we’re under bro code right now, and as your twin brother, you have an obligation to tell me whatever the hell you were going to tell me.” Because he didn’t like where his mind was going. That route made no sense to him at all.
Misty took a deep breath. “Well, I guess I’ll just come out with it, since she won’t. She, uh…she’s got it bad for you. I mean bad. Always has. Probably as long as I crushed on David, which was solidly from the first day of kindergarten when you wouldn’t sit next to me on the school bus and he did. Not your best day as a protective brother.”
If he had to hear that story one more time he was going to have to go back to ripping the heads off her Barbie dolls. “Abby? Abigail Spencer? The woman I was just dancing with?”
He had to clarify before he became just as dramatic as his sister, and since he wasn’t about to lose his nuts out here on the dance floor, she’d better start explaining. Abby didn’t have a thing for him. Abby was his pizza-run pal, his favorite person to go fishing with, his first pick for when he wanted to close down a bar—especially now that David was wrapped around Misty’s little finger. Hell, not a week ago he’d crashed on Abby’s couch because they’d watched a marathon of The Godfather, their favorite movie.
They were…pals. He and Misty even had a running joke on who Abby considered her best friend—him or her. Personally he thought it was him and not Misty, since he and Abby had been incredibly close in college while Misty had been licking the emotional wounds that the man she’d just married had given her.
Abby had never expressed any interest in him. Ever. The were strictly in the friend-zone. She was like his second sister. His favorite sister, to be honest—heavy emphasis on the sister.
“Abby. You know, that chick you hang around with constantly. Your drinking buddy, your DD, your go-to when it comes to anything off this farm? That Abby.”
He shook his head. Stood a little straighter. It was almost as though his body had moved into the flight or fight response, and as sad as this made him sound, he actually thought about running. Misty was wrong. Just plain wrong.
But she’d know if Abby liked you that way. That’s what chicks always talk about. The guys they’re interested in.
Naw, screw that. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it and he didn’t want to try. “You’re high, and I mean it this time. You’re smoking something.” Abby had never made a move—never even hinted around that she was interested in him that way. And from his experience with women, once they were interested, they clung like a soaking wet sheet to bare skin. The though of Abby being like that around him, and not the fun-loving girl he’d grown up with…it would be like losing a limb. An important limb like a leg or his right arm. He might get by with losing the left, but—
Misty pinched him again, snapping him out of his morbid comparison. “Matt, she told me. Hell, she’s been telling me since we were in elementary school. When I was scribbling Buchanan behind my name, she was writing Evans behind hers. Listen, I’m only telling you because I’m hoping she’s going to ask you out, and you better—”
“Sorry, Misty,” he said, cutting her off, that image of a severed arm taking over his thoughts. That flight or fight response was getting stronger by the second. What she was saying was almost physically painful to listen to. “That’s just not going to happen. Ever. Not Abby. She’s ah…” What was she? Important to him, that’s what she was. His closest friend. A relationship between them would ruin that. Girls were clingy. Had he mentioned clingy?
Besides, he just wasn’t attracted to her like that.
To prove that to himself he looked around under the white tent until he found her again. She was standing by the dance floor, next to Shane Taggert, her bare feet poking out from under that maroon dress, the top of her head barely reaching Shane’s shoulder. She was smiling up at Shane, and if Matt was a betting man, he’d bet that she was flirting with him.
He stopped to consider if he were jealous. Nope. Not even a little. Shane flirted with everyone, and even if those two hooked up, Matt really wouldn’t be jealous.
Her long, dark hair was swept up in several little curls and sparkly hair thingies, and she’d worn more makeup than usual. She was definitely pretty. In college she’d been hit on every time they’d gone out. Her eyes were hazel, almost green when the sun was shining in her face. Average body.
Actually…he looked a little closer at her petite frame than he usually did. Well, maybe average wasn’t entirely true. She didn’t have legs that went on for miles, like Jennifer, but she had a killer waist and generous hips—“Ow, what are you pinching me for now?”
“You’re looking at her like you’re sizing up a bull on the selling block.”
He made a face. Well…not exactly like that. He shook his head. This was just surrea
l. Sure, Abby was a good-looking woman, but she was Abby. They’d played together as children. “Sorry Misty. I just don’t see her like that.”
“That’s because you’re shallow. You see her as one of the boys, and she doesn’t exactly help because she acts like one of them. Maybe if you stopped looking at her as one of your pals you’d see what a great catch she’d be. She’s intelligent, funny, slightly more mature than me—"
“That’s not saying much,” he interrupted.
“way more mature than you,”
“Hey.”
“—and she puts up with you for extended amounts of time and still loves you, so she’s kind of Wonder Woman.”
The song changed to something slower. The cameraman jogged up to them. “Can you dance slowly and face me a little, so I can get a few shots? I promise it’ll be quick.”
Nothing about this cameraman had been quick, but Matt nodded and positioned them on the dance floor so the guy could get a few more pictures, but his brain was stuck on only one thing: his relationship with Abby. He didn’t want it to change. Everything in his life fit into place. “Alright. I get that you’re all caught up in a cloud of forever,” he said, waving his hand at their surroundings. He spoke louder to be heard over the music. “But I’m just not interested in Abby in that way, so don’t encourage her. She’s not my type.” He’d never want to lose their friendship. In fact, he’d choose to lose one of his limbs over losing Abby—even if that meant his right arm.
Someone bumped into him and he moved to make room on the dance floor. He turned to say excuse me and saw Shane, who looked a little sick to his stomach, and then Matt’s gaze settled on Abby, who looked as though she wanted to fall through the dance floor. She wouldn’t look at him.
A rush of adrenaline made him lightheaded. She’d heard what he’d said. There was no way in hell she hadn’t. A strange sensation hit him straight in the chest at the devastation etched on Abby’s face. “Abby—"
“Sorry, this dance is Shane’s,” she said tightly, with a forced smile on her face. She then managed to move Shane, who outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds, in the opposite direction, two-stepping their getaway as though they’d practiced the retreat.
The cameraman came up to them, a big smile on his oblivious face. “I think I got it.”
About the Author
Dawn McClure writes contemporary, small town romance set in South Dakota. Having lived in Illinois, California, Italy, North Carolina, Florida, Colorado and Michigan, Dawn can safely say her favorite place to live has been South Dakota. The weather is wild and so is the land. The people are great—and they're a little wild too. The town she currently lives in is home to a scant three hundred people, which was what prompted her to write small town romance. Having made the move back in 2009, small town living took some getting used to, but there’s just something about a quiet country evening you can’t get anywhere else.
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