by Adrianne Lee
Before I could assimilate that Peter had just told the press about the secret wedding, or assure Peter that Kramer was not paparazzi, Tanya stepped forward. “Hello, Peter.”
“What the fuck?” Kramer growled, whirling on Tanya. “This is the guy who’s marrying your daughter?”
“Your daughter?” Peter went pale beneath his tan, looking as if he might be sick.
Tanya was nodding, stepping toward Peter with a grin. “Surprise.”
Oh. God. I groaned silently. The opening lines of a favorite historical novel flashed through my mind. Although the author and title eluded me just then, the gist of the scene did not. It was only a matter of minutes before the wedding party began killing each other. And this wasn’t even the rehearsal dinner.
CHAPTER THREE
Kramer looked as upset as Peter, but I’d seen the actor’s temper flare, seen heads roll with one flick of his razor-sharp tongue, and while I expected he’d lash into Tanya, instead he snarled at me. “Where’s Meg?”
“Cold Feet Café,” I said, pointing down the street. “Peter, I—” He wasn’t listening. He stormed out. A second later, the Jaguar roared to life, leaving the parking lot on squealing tires, heading up the street away from Big Finn’s diner. I had no time to wonder where he was going.
“What an asscap!” Tanya’s cheeks bloomed a brilliant pink.
But Kramer’s complexion was blood red as he glared at her. “Why didn’t you tell me your daughter is marrying Peter Wolfe?”
Tanya shook her head, blowing him off, but Kramer wasn’t having any of it. He grabbed her arm and made her look at him. “Why?”
“Why do you think?” Tanya muttered, obviously not liking that I was being given a peek behind the façade of their seemingly stellar working relationship. Her jaw clenched. “Let go of me. Now.”
Kramer held on for several more beats, then threw his fingers wide, as though really letting go. I had a vision of Tanya falling to the hard plank floor, her head thunking like a ripe melon. It didn’t happen, but I could dream, couldn’t I?
“I take it Meg hasn’t told Peter about inviting me to the wedding,” Tanya said, looking as though that were my fault.
“That would be my guess as well,” I said.
“Like mother, like daughter,” Kramer muttered.
* * *
By the time, Meg arrived for her final dress fitting, I had a stress headache starting in my temples and spreading across my skull, making me long for some Extra Strength Tylenol. I had found time to shower and change, but all of my questions to my mother about Tanya Reilly Jones had fallen on deaf ears.
Billie was equally zip-lipped on the subject, and it was like the elephant in the room, bigger and whiter than Meg’s Cinderella-style gown. As I gazed at my best friend, I felt something like awe catch inside my chest. She was stunning. The champagne tone gave her pale, lightly freckled skin a peaches and cream hue, but the red around her eyes told me things hadn’t gone well with Big Finn. The need to cheer her up washed through me. “You’re absolutely gorgeous, Meg.”
“Prettiest bride we’ve had in a while,” Mom agreed, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes, which I hoped Meg wouldn’t notice. I could tell my friend was hanging on to her composure by a thread, at best. We had not had a moment alone to discuss anything before Mom and Billie joined us, and given my mother also sported red-rimmed eyes, I had curbed my need-to-know on all fronts.
For now.
But the moment we headed out for our girls’ day, I expected details, at least from my bestie. Mom and Billie would be harder nuts to crack.
“I always thought you’d be marrying Troy in a dress like this,” Billie said, dropping a bomb in the room.
Meg’s flinched as if my grandmother had just pinched her. Troy O’Malley was a hometown boy, the only guy Meg ever dated before moving to L.A. A strange little laugh escaped my best friend as she avoided my gaze in the mirror.
“What do you think, Meg?” my mother asked, moving the subject back to the dress and off of old boyfriends and broken hearts.
Meg glanced at herself in the mirror. A tiny gasp slipped from her, and tears welled in her eyes. I braced for a deluge. But only a single droplet dampened her cheek, pushed out by a swell of emotion. She was a bride seeing herself in a wedding gown that looked and felt as if it were created for her alone. Meg waved her hands near her cheeks, fanning away other impending tears, smiling. “Oh, Susan, Billie, I didn’t know I could feel so… so… pretty. Thank you so very much.”
“Well, Daryl Anne’s the one who saved the day.” Billie held up her wrist, indicating that I’d done most of the alterations needed on the gown. “You can thank her, dear.”
“Oh, I do. Every day.” Meg squeezed my hand, and I swallowed over a knot of loving emotion that had lodged in my throat.
I led her back to the dressing room and helped her out of the gown, putting it into a protective covering where it would stay until the final pressing before the wedding. But I couldn’t contain my curiosity a moment longer. “So what happened with your dad?”
Meg rolled her eyes as she wiggled into her jeans. “He was pissed. That-vein-at-his-temple-might-burst furious.”
This didn’t surprise me. “Did he scream at you in front of all the customers?” In other words, the whole town?
“I took him into his office to tell him. I gave Zelda a heads-up first though, and she burst in when she heard him swear. I don’t know what it is about that woman, but Dad listened to her. She said just the right things, and he calmed down. He’s not happy about seeing Mom, but he said he won’t make a scene.”
“As long as she doesn’t?”
Meg nodded. “Yeah, something like that.”
I tried not to imagine the disaster I felt brewing on the horizon like storm clouds whirling into a tornado.
“He says he won’t come to the rehearsal dinner if she’s there, but I don’t know how to tell her.”
Not telling people things seems to be a very big problem for you lately, my darling BFF. I refrained from saying it. I cleared my throat. “Uh, sweetie, Big Finn isn’t the only guy unhappy about your mother coming to the wedding.”
Meg frowned, fixing her hair in the mirror. “What do you mean?”
“Peter was here today.”
“In town?” Her eyes widened as she caught my gaze.
“In the bridal shop. When Tanya was here.” I gave that a moment to sink in, then said, “And of course, she and her cameraman recognized him right off.”
Meg seemed to be holding her breath.
Since I didn’t want her turning blue, I rushed on. “At first Peter thought they were paparazzi, but then the camera guy asked Tanya if Peter was the actor marrying her daughter.”
“Holy shit.” Meg groaned, covering her eyes, mumbling something I couldn’t discern. When she lowered her hand, I read dread in her eyes. “What did Peter do?”
There was no guilt or contrition on her part, just curiosity. She wasn’t taking any responsibility for this fiasco. I recalled Kramer words: like mother, like daughter. I resisted the urge to shake her. “Strangely, your fiancé got in his car and left. Hasn’t he texted or phoned you?”
“I had a text from him, but I didn’t see it until I was done speaking to Dad. All Peter said was that he was staying in Seattle at some fancy hotel where he could have privacy, and that he’d see me at the rehearsal dinner tomorrow night.” Meg looked up from tying her sneakers.
Well, at least he wasn’t calling off the wedding. I supposed that was something to be thankful for, even if this odd behavior was completely unlike the quick-tempered man I knew on the set of our sitcom.
Meg gave herself one last glance in the mirror, probably wishing for something to clear the redness from her eyes. She said, “I didn’t know Peter was driving up from Los Angeles. I thought he was flying in tomorrow and renting a car at the airport.”
“Obviously, he changed his mind.” My headache stabbed like needles, and I realized th
e only thing that would help was food. “Let’s go get some lunch. All this drama has given me such an appetite.”
In fact, I’d be lucky to eat much at all, even though my head was begging me to.
Meg made a face. “Please don’t be mad. I need to cancel our girls’ day. I’m meeting Mom for lunch. She wanted to have some time together to catch up before the rehearsal dinner and wedding. And you and I will be together tonight at the bachelorette party.”
Disappointment stabbed through me. I’d really been looking forward to some alone time with Meg and instead found myself chocking up another resentment against Tanya Reilly Jones. But I just nodded. I couldn’t put myself in Meg’s shoes. My mother hadn’t run out on me. I didn’t ever feel that ache for a mom that Meg must have felt, even as she denied it. If she needed to do this, I needed to support her in it.
And yet, something had been swirling around in my curiosity zone. “How did you find Tanya? I mean, I didn’t even know you were looking for her.”
“Oh, she found me.” Meg gazed up at me with a smile in her green eyes. “She said she saw an article in the Hollywood Review. You know, the one about ‘TV heart throb gets engaged to unknown makeup artist, Meg Reilly.’ Remember that one?”
I did. “Considering she left when you were eleven, I find it quite a leap for her to assume the Meg Reilly engaged to Peter Wolfe would be you.”
“She said she’s subscribed to The Weddingville Weekly for years and read that I’d moved to L.A. to follow my dream of becoming a makeup artist. Not such a leap. But she researched like a little bloodhound until she knew for certain.”
More like a ferret. As I walked Meg to the door, I wondered if Tanya was really here for Meg, or to establish herself as Peter Wolfe’s mother-in-law and garner all the personal benefit she thought would come with that honor. Money. Social status. Power. I kept the thought to myself.
At the door, Meg turned, grinning. “I wasn’t going to tell you until we were at lunch, but guess who I ran into as I was leaving Cold Feet Café?”
Seriously, did she expect me to name the whole town? It could be anyone. “Um. I give up. Who?”
“Troy.”
My mouth fell open.
“I almost fainted when Billie said that about my marrying Troy. As if she knew I’d seen him right before I came here for my appointment.”
Meg had been in love, off and on, with Troy O’Malley since they were both five years old. They’d gone together most of their junior and high school years. The whole town had always assumed that they’d marry one day. Their sudden breakup had shocked everyone. Last I’d heard Troy was deployed overseas somewhere with the navy. “He’s back in town? On leave?”
“Nope. Remember how he planned on being a career naval officer?”
How could I forget? It was what had caused their final split.
“Well, he decided not to reenlist after his four-year stint.” Conflict floated across her eyes like a stream of swift-moving clouds. Meg nibbled her lower lip. “How come you didn’t you know he was back in town and working with the local police department?”
“Because no one told me,” I said, wondering how I’d managed to not hear this bit of gossip. “And since I’ve been home, I haven’t run into him.”
“Well, when you do, you’re in for a treat. He’s sexy as hell in his uniform.”
“Says the woman who is two days away from getting married.”
“I know, I know. But I’m not dead. I can still look and appreciate.”
And remember. The twinkling in her emerald eyes suggested more than female admiration for a well-built, handsome male. Maybe yearning? Or desire? No, please, no. Disquiet scurried through my tummy like stampeding mice. Why had I suggested Peter and Meg tie the knot in Weddingville?
I asked, “You’re not having second thoughts about marrying Peter, are you?”
“God no.” Meg balked. “That would be insane… right?”
“Yes.” Insane. Nuts. Chaotic. Just like Meg. I groaned silently. Forget lunch; I was heading straight to the wine bottle in the fridge.
Meg gathered her purse and squeezed my hand. “I’ve got to run. Mom’s waiting for me. Oh, wow, saying that out loud just gave me chills.”
Yeah, me too. I glanced back and saw something on the dressing room counter. “Hey, don’t forget this.”
Meg snatched her phone from me and sighed. “Sometimes I wish I could.”
I nodded. Unlike most of our peers, she hadn’t owned a cell phone until just before moving to Los Angeles. Big Finn said he wouldn’t have his daughter wasting her time staring at some small screen when all the news that was relevant could be learned at his café over breakfast, lunch, or dinner. She was forever setting the phone down, forgetting where she’d put it, and walking off without it.
“Don’t forget, we have to be at Violet’s at eight pm,” I reminded her. “The limo is picking us up there.”
“Oh, I’ll be there. Tonight we celebrate!”
* * *
It’s funny how you can make arrangements, double check to be sure everyone is following through on their end, and then, being anal about details, triple check, and still have it not turn out as expected. What did the universe have against me? The limo was late to Violet’s to pick us up and take us to the Emerald Queen Casino for the bachelorette party. Champagne flowing. Check. Giggling, rowdy women. Check. Loud music and dancing. Check.
Ex-boyfriend of bride-to-be? Not supposed to be there. Chills went through me—not the excited kind either, but the bad, bad feeling kind. What was Troy O’Malley doing at the casino with a group of his buddies? Who told him where we’d be?
And why had he dragged Tanya Reilly Jones along?
“A penny for your thoughts,” a man’s voice said near my ear. I inhaled the sandalwood scent, so much like my father’s had been that I actually flushed, half-expecting to find Daddy there when I turned around.
I eased slowly in the man’s direction, noting a head of tawny, windblown hair, and found myself gazing up into the warmest brown eyes I’d ever seen. Seth Quinlan, the owner of Weddingville’s Cherished Moments photo studio, hovered near my shoulder. My heart did a happy little skip at the sight of him. He gave me his crooked smile, the one that melted my insides, the one that wouldn’t work on a more handsome visage but that on Seth’s rugged face was just the right asset to turn almost homely into stunningly sexy.
He’d always thought of me as one of the guys, however, totally ignorant of my secret crush on him. And no wonder. If anything, he was more attractive than ever in faded jeans that hugged his lean hips and a Tommy Bahama shirt that showcased broad shoulders and muscled arms. Whew. Sexy romantic lead. I couldn’t have dressed him better.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, meaning what are Troy and his gang doing here?
“I came with Troy. He said something about Meg’s mom inviting him.”
Meg’s mom had invited him? Really? And who’d invited her? I eyed Tanya, taking in her head-turning, skintight leopard-print dress and hot-pink five-inch heels. If this were a Hollywood set, I’d tag that outfit for Courtney Cox’s character on Cougar Town. “This is supposed to be a bachelorette party. No men allowed.”
“Unless you’re stripping.” Katie Lancaster, bridesmaid number one, was a ditzy brunette, with wide gray eyes and a grating voice. She squealed, grabbing the edge of Seth’s shirt, and tugging it upward, aided by Jade Warren, bridesmaid number two. The wide blue streak in her long dark hair bounced as she gave me the evil eye. We were tolerating each other for Meg’s sake.
Violet Pringle, bridesmaid number three, blushed and giggled, then clamped her hand over her mouth and looked away as though she might burn in hell if she were caught staring at a man’s naked six-pack.
I glanced up at Ash Moon, all five-foot-ten inches of her. She was Meg’s assistant, and she seemed neither shocked nor titillated by the shenanigans of the bridesmaids. Growing up in Los Angeles, she’d probably seen it all. Too many times
. Her doe eyes were heavily made up, her flyaway hair shoulder-length, her lean curves willowy in a vintage Chanel dress that she’d confided cost only pennies. Note to self: go shopping with Ash when you return to L.A. Ash gestured toward Troy, and whisper-asked, “Who’s the hunk flirting with Meg?”
“Ex-boyfriend.” I kept my tone even, struggling not to judge Troy’s motives.
Ash frowned. “I guess he didn’t get the memo.”
“What memo?”
“That Meg is getting married in a couple of days. I should set him straight.”
I caught her arm, intent on avoiding a scene. Ash tended to be protective of Meg. Not a bad trait in an assistant, but not good in this situation. “Let’s let Meg handle it, okay?”
She glanced at Meg, then nodded. “Okay. But who’s the cougar who came with him? His mom?”
“Meg’s mom.”
Ash gasped. “But… I thought Meg hated her?”
I sighed. “It seems they’ve recently reconciled.”
An emotion flashed through Ash’s pale green eyes. Betrayal? Envy? I couldn’t be sure. “Wow.”
Yeah, wow. My attention returned to Seth and the overly zealous bridesmaids tugging on his shirt. He laughed, while I bit down the insane urge to slap Katie and Jade. Especially Jade. As if I had some kind of claim on the man. In my dreams.
Seth did his own untangling, backing out of the reach of grabby hands, but Troy had no such inhibition. “If that’s what it takes,” he said, as he boogied up to Meg, his T-shirt halfway up his stomach, exposing a six-pack that would make Coors drool.
Meg seemed to feel that way about it too. She blushed and stared, her fingers waggling upward, gesturing for Troy to go all the way. He’d filled out during his stint in the navy, I noticed, broader shoulders, big guns, and his chin a bit stronger. There was something worldly in his eyes that was very sexy, and he’d traded in the sloppy, unkempt hair of his youth for a short, trim cut that enhanced his steely, black-haired, blue-eyed appeal. It wasn’t lost on Meg either.
