All four women were facing away from the bar, so they didn’t see me as I approached them from behind. As I got nearer, fragments of their conversation were audible over the music.
“At least she has a sense of humor about her failures,” Lizzie said, whispering to Kate. “If I was her age without a steady career or a boyfriend, I’d just die.”
I stopped in my tracks. For the second time in as many minutes, my heart stopped beating. Who were they talking about? Not me, surely. These women barely knew me. They couldn’t be judging me so soon after meeting me. I shook my head, dismissing what I’d just heard. It was about someone else. Forget it.
Kate shrugged and leaned in. “I don’t know. Rachel doesn’t seem like the conventional type, so I doubt it bothers her the way it does us.”
They were talking about me. I felt like I was going to be sick.
Lizzie shook her head and laughed. “Oh, it bothers her, all right. Do you see the way she looks at Jenna? Jealousy is written all over her face. I’m just glad she hasn’t let her insecurities ruin our good time.”
Her words actually knocked the wind out of me. A puff of air pushed out of my chest in a kind of groan that I couldn’t control. That was when Lizzie and Kate both turned around.
“Oh, Rachel,” Kate said, her voice soft. She sounded sorry, and that only made it worse. She felt sorry for me. She pitied me.
I didn’t look at Lizzie, and I didn’t stick around to see what Kate was going to say. Because what could she say? I just turned around and walked back towards the bar.
This time, I couldn’t cry. My body was numb from shock. I didn’t have the energy to cry; I’d spent the entire evening trying to fight my own demons and working to connect with Jenna and her friends. And the worst part was that for a brief moment, I’d thought I was impressing them. I’d saved the party by taking everyone to a cocktail lounge where I’d embarrassed a jerky man and gave us all something to laugh about. Then, I’d moved the party to a bar where we could dance, and I’d set up rooms for everyone at a nice hotel to sleep off the night of drinking. I thought everyone would be appreciative, but the entire time, they had been thinking about how sad I was. They’d been comparing me to Jenna.
I dropped into a stool at the bar and accepted the first thing the bartender pressed into my hand. I couldn’t remember whether I’d ordered it or whether he had just recognized that I needed something. I definitely wasn’t the first sad drunk girl he’d dealt with. He probably had a protocol in place. Get her a drink, calm her down, and convince her to go home. That would be me. Rachel Kendrick would be the girl this guy went home and complained about. Another drunk girl cried at the bar tonight and expected me to take care of her. So pathetic. God, everyone pitied me.
I knew I was spiraling, but I couldn’t seem to stop. The world felt like it had swallowed me up, spit me out, and then kicked me while I was down.
“Hey.”
When I turned and saw the gorgeous man from before, I wanted to shrivel into a raisin and slip under the bar, never to be found again. At least, not until the bar closed down and was turned into a hot yoga studio or something. At that point, they’d rip out the old bar, find my ancient, shriveled-up raisin body, and throw me in the trash. Yes, that seemed like an appropriate fate.
But I didn’t shrivel up. I stayed on my stool, forced to endure a conversation with one of the most attractive men I’d ever seen, who thought I was someone else.
“You ran off before we could talk,” he said, sitting in the stool next to me.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, staring down at the bottom of my empty glass.
“Do you want another?” he asked, already raising his hand to call the bartender over.
“No, I’m fine.”
He dropped his hand and let it fall on the bar top. His finger traced the wood grain, and I wished he would walk away.
“So, I’m sorry to keep bothering you,” he said, turning to face me. “But are you Jenna Kendrick?”
I looked up at him and was once again struck by the green of his eyes and the warm tan color of his skin. Why did he have to ruin everything by thinking I was my cousin?
“I am,” I said before I could think about it.
A confusing mixture of emotions I couldn’t decipher flashed across the man’s face. Perhaps I should have told him the truth. Maybe he knew Jenna and they’d had a bad history together. But then again, there was no way someone this handsome could have been in Jenna’s past without me knowing about it. We hadn’t been as close in recent years as we used to be, but she would have had to hide this guy under a rock for me not to notice him.
“You are?” he asked again, as if he wanted to be sure.
I sighed. “Yep. Jenna Kendrick. That’s me.”
He nodded. “I saw the bachelorette party going on and heard your name mentioned a few times. Congratulations on getting married.”
If it would have knocked me out, I would have punched myself in the face. The guy didn’t know Jenna, after all. He’d heard her name around the bar because Lizzie and the other girls had been screaming to everyone who would listen, “Jenna Kendrick is getting married!” I could have told him that I was Jenna’s very single cousin, Rachel, but now, he thought I was getting married. And telling him the truth would only mean he would think I was crazy.
I had wedged myself into a space so tight, there was nowhere to go but further down.
“I don’t know that ‘congratulations’ is the right word,” I said.
The man furrowed his beautiful brow, but said nothing, so I continued.
“Marriage is so ordinary. So mediocre. Especially since I’m so young, you know? I could have explored the world, backpacked across Tibet, or joined the Peace Corps. Instead, I went to college, got a job, and now I’m getting married. Talk about humdrum, right?”
The stranger looked alarmed. He even glanced quickly around the bar as if he was expecting to see a camera crew and a host somewhere, waiting to reveal that he was on a new prank show. When he didn’t see anyone else, he looked back at me, opened his mouth as if to say something, and then closed it again.
It felt good. Not only to make the man feel as uncomfortable as I’d felt when he’d mistaken me for my cousin, but to finally say some of the things I’d been thinking about Jenna. Sure, she had a nice life by almost anyone’s standards, but it wasn’t perfect. She had never traveled outside the United States, she’d only had one serious boyfriend before meeting Evan, and she’d bought a house in Pineville, Ohio. Sure, Pineville was a great place to grow up, but there was more to the world, and Jenna was missing it by settling down so young. It felt good to finally say it out loud.
I slapped some money down on the bar, patted the beautiful man’s sculpted bicep, and then walked back to the dance floor feeling…well, if not good, then less terrible than I had when I’d sat down.
Lizzie was swaying her hips along to the music, but the rest of the women were huddled around Kate. I knew instinctively that she was telling them what had happened. Filling them all in on the drama. Heat rushed to my cheeks. Then, Kate pulled back, and I saw Jenna standing in the middle. Her mouth was open in horror, and she looked from Kate to Lizzie and back again. The momentary afterglow I’d experienced from talking to the beautiful stranger at the bar began to fade.
I knew Jenna wasn’t an idiot. She knew everyone compared the two of us, and she had to know she was winning. But still, knowing that she was standing there, hearing confirmation from her friends that they thought she was better than me was humiliating in a way I couldn’t describe. I had to get out of there.
Just before I could turn to leave, though, Jenna spotted me watching them from across the bar. Between us were drunk couples groping each other and people raising their glasses, having a great time. Their joy was a strange kind of juxtaposition to the scene playing out between us as Jenna navigated her way through the bodies, headed straight towards me.
I wanted to walk away, try to escape so we didn’t h
ave to have this conversation after we’d both had so much to drink, but Jenna would catch up with me. And running away would only let Jenna know how upset I was, and I didn’t want her to know how much her friends’ words had hurt me.
“Rach,” she said, tilting her head to the side and looking up at me. “What they said—”
“Who?” I asked, playing dumb. It was a childish move, but I wasn’t feeling very mature at the moment.
She twisted her lips to the side. “They’re drunk. They didn’t mean it.”
I shrugged. “It’s fine. I don’t care.”
“They don’t know you like I do,” she said, grabbing my arm. “Anyone who knows you knows that you’re killing it in Chicago. You are forging your own path and making a name for yourself. It’s inspiring.”
I wished I could believe what she was saying, but I knew better. I was only inspiring in the sense that people would look at me and feel inspired to stay in school and pursue a more conventional career.
My throat felt thick with unshed tears, and I didn’t want to cry anymore, I just wanted to go to sleep. I pulled out my phone and began tapping out a message to Jenna.
“I’m texting you the name of the hotel I booked and the room number. I’m going to go back there and go to sleep, so I’ll see you when you get in.”
“Stay,” she said, grabbing my hand with both of hers. “Please don’t let my stupid drunk friends ruin the night.”
I smiled, but the simple action made me feel like my face would shatter into a million pieces. “My night isn’t ruined. I promise.”
Jenna stared at me for a moment, unconvinced. Then, she dropped my hand and began to turn around. “I’ll come with you. Just let me tell the girls we’re leaving and then—”
I grabbed her arm and turned her to face me. “No. I’m not going to let you cut your bachelorette party short because of me.”
“There wouldn’t have even been a bachelorette party without you,” she said. “We’d probably be waist deep in yarn doing some knitting if it hadn’t been for you swooping in at the last moment. You are the party, Rach.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” I said with a chuckle. Then, I grew serious. “It would break my heart if you left your friends to leave with me when all I’m going to do is go back to the hotel and sleep. Please, stay. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
Jenna opened her mouth to argue, but I turned and walked for the front door before she could stop me. I needed to be alone. I needed to feel sorry for myself and cool off. I needed to not see Lizzie’s face until I was sober, otherwise I might accidentally take off my very uncomfortable heels and stab her in the eye with them.
And, as much as I didn’t want to, I needed to cry. I tried to hold back the tears, but by the time I made it through the front doors and stepped into the parking lot, I already had tear tracks down my cheeks.
Chapter 6
Colton
Finding Jenna Kendrick’s bachelorette party was more difficult than I anticipated. I used her social media posts to track the girls to the pottery painting studio in Pineville, but by the time I drove the ten minutes across town to get there, they had left. The blond teenager working behind the front desk told me I’d just missed them, and asked if I was “the fiancé or something.” She leaned across the counter and batted her eyes at me in a way that let me know she wouldn’t mind whether I was engaged or not.
I drove around town, hoping I’d get lucky and stumble upon the party, which honestly seemed like a good bet in such a small town, but there was no sign of them anywhere. I pulled over periodically to check Jenna’s accounts and see if she had checked in anywhere online, but her social media was quiet for over an hour. Then, just as the sun was beginning to set, Jenna posted a new picture. It was a blurry photo of a building with a neon martini glass hanging in the front window, which she captioned: Bar hopping with my ladies! #jennasbachelorette #futuremrshoss #letsgetwild. Fortunately, she also tagged the location. Unfortunately, the bar was in Cincinnati, which was another hour away.
When I finally made it to Cincinnati, I was starving after only having a gas station pizza for lunch, but I didn’t want to miss the women again. I sped across town to the bar, my stomach growling the entire time, and burst through the front doors like I was about to rob the place. I drew a few dirty looks, but I couldn’t tell whether it was because I seemed to be incredibly underdressed compared to the business suits walking around or because I’d made a scene coming in. Either way, the place was small, and a quick glance around the room let me know that, once again, the women had left.
Honestly, she was so good at evading me that I had to wonder whether Jenna Kendrick didn’t know I was coming for her. Presumably, she didn’t, because if she did, she wouldn’t have been posting their location all over the internet. Which, thankfully, she did one final time. It was a picture of her with a few other women, including one very blurry brunette on the far left who looked like she was in the middle of a sneeze as the photo was taken. This time, she simply captioned it, #crunk #allweneednowisastripper #justkidding #futuremrshoss.
I clicked on the club she’d tagged in the photo, plugged the address into my phone, and took off yet again—hopefully, for the last time.
The parking lot was packed with cars, but I got lucky when someone pulled out of a space just to the left of the door under a broken street light. Being close to the door would mean the chance of someone seeing me drag Jenna to my car would be minimal.
My stomach flipped at the thought. I was going to kidnap someone. Up until that moment, I’d been focused on simply finding Jenna and her friends, but now, I had. I knew she was inside the bar and it was time for phase two of the plan. Which, honestly, I didn’t have planned out very well. I’d brought a blindfold and some handcuffs with me just in case she resisted, but I was hoping she would be a willing captive so I wouldn’t have to use them. Tony had promised me he didn’t intend to hurt her, so perhaps, if I told her that, she wouldn’t fight as hard. I doubted it, but I had to lie to myself if I was actually going to go through with my mission. I pinched the bridge of my nose, took a deep breath, and got out of the car.
Country music blared through the speakers and the entire room seemed to be filled with an unidentifiable haze. I squinted through to the dance floor, trying to find Jenna and her friends, but I didn’t see them. Then, I turned my attention to the bar, and that was when I saw the food menu hanging between two shelves of liquor. My stomach growled.
From the bar, I’d be able to see the front door, so I’d know if the women left. Plus, once I kidnapped Jenna, I wouldn’t be able to run through a drive-thru with her sitting in the backseat. This was my last opportunity to eat something. I was already tired and driving while tired and hungry seemed like a recipe for disaster. So, I dropped down into one of the black vinyl stools and ordered a hamburger and fries.
The bartender put my order in, sliding it through a small window into the kitchen beyond, and I realized where the haze had been coming from. It was smoke from the kitchens. Then, he brought me a beer, and I downed it in a few drinks. I kept my eye on the small corner of the dance floor I could see from my chair, but didn’t see any sign of Jenna or her friends. After what felt like only a few minutes, the bartender returned with my food—a giant hamburger and a bowl of crispy, golden steak fries. I continued glancing over my shoulder to the front door, making sure the women didn’t sneak away again, but I also devoured my food. I couldn’t remember ever being so hungry in my life. I was just finishing off the last few fries when two women a few stools away from me stood up and caught my eye. I looked over and stopped chewing, my mouth hanging open in disbelief.
It was Jenna Kendrick. She and one of her friends were standing less than ten feet away from me. Before I could do anything, the two women went in separate directions. Jenna, who was facing me, walked around her friend and past me down the hallway towards the bathroom. Her friend, whose face I couldn’t see, walked straight back towards the dance floor a
nd disappeared into the crowd.
I almost couldn’t believe what had just happened. One of the biggest points of stress about my plan to kidnap Jenna had been getting her away from her friends, but she had just walked right past me on her way to the bathroom…alone.
My heart lurched into my throat and my hands began to shake. This was it. I wouldn’t get a better opportunity than this one. I spun around in my stool so I was looking down the hallway, and then I sat there. For ten minutes. Without moving.
I wanted to get up and walk down the hallway to the bathroom. Or, at least, I wanted to want to, but I couldn’t. My legs refused to carry me towards my target. Was it nerves? Some kind of kidnapper’s stage fright? If Tony could have seen me, he would have been so disappointed.
I sat there like a useless lump for ten minutes until the bathroom door opened and Jenna walked out, looking more beautiful in person than she had in all of her pictures. I hadn’t paid much attention to what she’d been wearing in the photos, but now, I couldn’t take my eyes off her dress. It was short, hitting the very tops of her thighs, and bounced around as she walked. The V-shaped neckline ended in the middle of her sternum, giving a nice peek at her chest while still leaving plenty to the imagination. And my imagination was definitely beginning to run away. She wore a pair of nude heels that lengthened her already long legs, and her long brown hair was wavy and pinned back on one side just above her ear. Jenna Kendrick was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.
I spent so long staring at her that she was almost past me by the time I stepped forward. She jolted to a stop, her blue eyes widening, her delicately pointed chin dropping as her mouth fell open in surprise.
“Sorry,” I said, backing up immediately, my back hitting the hard edge of the bar top. I ran my fingers over the material of my shirt, grabbing at the fabric and trying to figure out how I was going to do this. Flirt. I needed to flirt. Women don’t talk to men in bars who stumble into them and then awkwardly ask them to go outside. I needed to be charming.
The Wedding Steal - A SEAL Romance Page 5
