“Hey, these are the gals I met in the village!” Russ said with a stupid grin, waving to two of the scantily clad women.
“Russ, go help Denise and Nancy with the kids,” Tom said, his voice a tight, forceful whisper.
“Sure, Tom,” the man replied, confusion written on his face, but he complied.
“We’ll go and help with the kids, too. Come on, Scott,” Grace said, taking her shocked husband by the hand and heading to the room.
“I don’t know why you’re so upset, mister,” the dancer in red said with a pout as she sauntered up to Tom. “This is your bachelor party.”
Tom took a step back from the woman. “I’m upset because my fiancée and I asked you and your friend not to come back. And now you’re here with two more people.”
The woman released an annoyed groan before grabbing a bag off the floor and pulling out a cell phone. “I know you told us not to come back, and we were going to leave this little town yesterday, but then, we got this text two nights ago from a Soren Traeger Rudolph.”
Bridget’s stomach twisted into a knot.
“He’s the guy paying us so much. We talked to his secretary. She’s the one who set everything up for him. Not a super nice lady—real testy on the phone. But the money went through, and that’s all that matters,” the woman finished with a flick of her hair.
“You got a text from Soren two nights ago?” Tom repeated, his face awash in shock.
Two nights ago, Soren and Tom had the bro-fest night on the town. An image of the worst best man passed out on the sleeper sofa with his phone clutched in his hand flashed through her mind.
He wouldn’t. This had to be a mistake.
“See, I’ve got the text right here. It says, SOS! Send reinforcements. Bring as many entertainers. By the way, I love that you call us entertainers. Stripper is so 2002,” the woman crooned, oblivious to the firestorm she and her entertainer friends’ presence had caused. “Anyway, SOS! Send reinforcements. I need extra ladies because the groom requires an over-the-top bachelor party. He was railroaded into this wedding by his pregnant girlfriend, and now he has to marry her. Spare no expense! Bring extra body glitter.” She held out her phone. “And then there are about fifty vomit face emojis.”
“I don’t remember sending that,” Soren said, shaking his head.
Now, the quartet of strippers was no longer the biggest surprise of the night.
She went to her sister. “You’re pregnant? Why didn’t you say something?”
Lori took her hand. “I was going to. We were going to tell everyone. We only found out the night we got here. I was a few days late and decided to pick up a test at the drug store in town. That’s when we found out.”
“The night you got here?” Soren interrupted, his voice a hoarse crack. “You didn’t tell me you just found out about this,” he said, turning to his best friend.
Tom glared at Soren, then went to Lori. “Babe, I’m sorry. I shared the news with Scooter because I was excited—because I’ve shared everything with him since I was a kid. I thought he’d be happy for me—for us. I thought it would help him with all the changes. I should have talked to you first. But I never in a million years thought he’d do anything as cruel and selfish as this.”
Lori stared at Soren. “How could you?”
Soren paced the length of the room. “I don’t remember texting these women.”
Tom put out his hand. “Give me your phone.”
Soren stilled. “What?”
“Give me your phone, Scooter,” Tom bit out, and Soren handed it over.
Tom’s cheeks bloomed crimson as he scrolled through Soren’s messages. “You bastard! I wondered what the hell you were doing on your phone.”
“What? I’ve barely looked at the thing,” Soren said, swiping the phone from Tom.
“You texted Janine and asked for the strippers’ contact information. Then you texted the strippers. The evidence is right there. Thank God you went into business. You would have made a shit lawyer.”
“Not stripper—dancers or entertainers,” the head dancer chimed.
Tom turned to Dan. “Could you drive these dancers down to the village and help them find their way home. I’ll pick up the cost of whatever it takes to get them out of here.”
Tanner perked up. “I can take them down. It’s no problem.”
“Let me cover the cost, Tom. It’s the least I can do,” Soren offered.
Tom barked out a laugh. “No, you’ve done enough.”
Soren took a step toward his friend. “Tommy, I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d had way too much to drink that night.”
“Clearly not too much to text Janine and the strippers!” Tom threw back.
“Dancers,” the woman said again from the other side of the room where the ladies were zipping into their coats.
“Let’s head out the back,” Tanner said, waving the dancers out through the side door.
“Tommy, I didn’t—” Soren began, but Tom stopped him.
“It’s time to set the record straight. Lori didn’t railroad me into anything. I love her. I want to marry her, and I want to have a family with her. Yeah, we were thrown for a loop to find out she was pregnant. But I want her and our baby. They are the most important things in my life.”
“I must have misunderstood the situation,” Soren replied, stone-faced.
Tom shook his head and stared up at the ceiling. “No, that’s not an answer, Scooter. You didn’t misunderstand. I’d hoped you’d be flexible. No, not flexible—supportive of me and stand behind my choice to get married. But you didn’t. Your first impulse was to maintain the status quo at whatever cost. You told me that you thought I wasn’t ready for marriage. But it’s you, Scooter. You’re the one who can’t see that I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I’ve always been a friend to you. But you’ve crossed a line. I love Lori. I’m marrying Lori, and it’s not because we’re expecting a baby. And I’m so damned disappointed in you for thinking so little of me as a man. Not everyone who gets married ends up like your parents. After spending sixteen years with my family, I thought you understood that.”
Soren met his friend’s eye. “Is that all?”
Tom shook his head. “No, I have one more thing to say to you. You think you love this family, but you don’t. Your happiness stems from when it serves you to be a part of us.”
“Tom, honey,” Lori said, coming to her fiancé’s side. “That’s enough.”
Soren shook his head. “No, Tom’s right. I’ve been fooling myself all these years—thinking I was some adopted Abbott. I’m not. I’m a Traeger Rudolph through and through. Nothing will change that.”
“I think you should go. This friendship is over,” Tom said with his angry gaze trained on the door.
Bridget stood stock-still, hardly able to believe the scene that played out before her.
“This has to be a misunderstanding. Was this supposed to be a joke—a terribly inappropriate joke?” she asked, her words coming out in a tumble when a steadying hand pressed against her back.
She blinked away tears to find the judge standing next to her.
“Scooter, let’s go. I’ll drive you down to the village,” the man said, his calm voice vibrating through the frenzied energy of the night’s revelations.
At the judge’s words, Lori led Tom away from the group, and the two sat on a sofa in the far corner of the room. Their heads bent close together as they spoke in hushed whispers.
Bridget scanned the room—the room that should be hosting a lovely rehearsal dinner. They were supposed to dance and share stories late into the night, just as her parents had done the night before they wed.
Soren couldn’t have done this on purpose—could he?
“Are you okay, Birdie?” the judge asked.
She nodded, unable to speak.
“Come on, Scooter. I’ll wait in the truck,” the older man said as Dan handed him the keys to the vehicle as the judge walked out the front door.
She released a pained breath.
He was gone.
“Birdie, are you okay?” Lori called from the couch.
“I…I’m…” she tried.
But she couldn’t let him go.
Not yet.
“I’ll be right back,” she called over her shoulder as she flung open the door and ran into the swirling snowstorm.
She cupped her hands over her eyes, shielding them from the cold, heavy flakes, then spotted Soren as he walked across the snowy drive, lit only by the truck’s headlights.
“Wait!” she cried, taking the porch steps two at a time.
He stood, expressionless, bathed in the golden beams.
“This has to be a misunderstanding. Don’t go. Let’s figure this out,” she pleaded, her heart in her throat.
But Soren didn’t budge. Instead, he crossed his arms.
“Tom saw the texts. He’s right. I set this up because I didn’t want him to marry your sister.”
Why was he acting like a heartless robot? This wasn’t him! This couldn’t be him!
She shook her head. Maybe he was ready to give up and accept defeat, but she wasn’t. She’d seen the good man in him. There had to be a way to make this right.
“No, you promised me that you were done with that—that you wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the wedding.”
The light caught the rigid set of his jaw.
“I never said that I promised, Bridget. I just agreed.”
“It’s the same thing,” she threw back.
He leaned in, and the cold tip of his nose brushed against hers. “It’s not the same,” he answered, the words coated in ice.
She reached to touch his cheek, but he took a step away from her, and her heart shattered.
It was like watching a building collapse in on itself.
“Why are you doing this, Soren? Why are you throwing everything away?”
In the space of a breath, he was millimeters away from her. He gripped her elbows, and his eyes, those green cat-like eyes she loved, shone hard and empty in the truck’s headlights. “Because, Birdie, this is who I am. You can’t add a glop of frosting to me and smooth out all the bad parts. I am the bad parts. Selfish and self-serving, I used you like I used the Abbotts.”
His words hit like a punch to the gut, but she stood firm. “I don’t believe that.”
“Believe this. There won’t be any Christmas miracles happening for me. No Christmas fairy wish can change what I am. There’s nothing here for me, and there was never anything more than sex between us.”
“You’re a liar,” she bit out, willing herself not to cry. She would not give him the satisfaction.
A smug expression ripe with contempt and condescension graced his dark features. “You’re a little slow on the uptake, but now you seem to get it, Birdie. I am a liar. Better you learn that now,” he replied. His words, colder than the frigid snow, sliced through the broken pieces of her heart.
Soren left her side and slammed the truck’s door shut.
But she couldn’t move. She couldn’t go back inside. She could only stand there, tears frozen on her cheeks, and watch as the truck disappeared into the darkness.
18
Soren
Soren attempted to bend his neck, but a sharp kink in the muscles had another agenda. He groaned and cracked an eyelid, then immediately shut his eye at the blast of bright light. And it wasn’t just his neck that wasn’t pleased with him. Cottonmouthed, he tried to swallow, and instead, tasted whiskey and gingerbread—a terrible combination. But when the judge brought him to Kringle Acres of all places to crash last night, he’d fallen in with a few retired Santas who were partaking in drinks and cookies while playing poker in the main gathering area.
And at this point in his clusterfuck of a life, he was sure of three things.
One, a contingent of the retired fraternal order of bearded Santas really knew how to hustle a guy out of his hard-earned cash.
Two, he’d completely decimated a sixteen-year friendship.
And three, Soren Christopher Traeger Rudolph was wholly unworthy of love.
Yes, he’d been a wreck after Tom shared that Lori was pregnant.
Yes, he’d jumped to the conclusion that Tom’s only motivation to wed was tied to the obligation he owed to the child.
And yes, while he did contact the strippers, he hadn’t remembered doing it. That was the God’s honest truth. But he wasn’t surprised he’d done it. He’d already been out of sorts about the wedding—not to mention his yo-yoing emotions when it came to the maid of honor. Tom’s baby bomb had thrown him for a loop, and a big stripper blowout seemed like the only card he had to play. It was a stupid, drunken decision. But he’d done it, and he had to own it because that was who he was at his core.
Just like his mother.
Just like his father.
Selfish and self-serving.
He’d used the Abbotts’ acceptance as a mask—a way to play the part of a good person. If they cared for him, he couldn’t be all bad, right?
Wrong.
He’d held on to that false prophecy for far too long.
There was a reason he didn’t practice law after graduating from law school—a reason why he chose to build a business that made money hand over fist tearing other companies apart. It was his true nature. He was a taker. He took and took until there was nothing left but what fell into his greedy hands.
He’d taken Tom’s friendship and fed it to a shredder. He’d taken the Abbotts’ affection and turned a blowtorch to it.
No more Uncle Scooter. No more holidays circled around the kitchen table playing scrabble or putting together one of the kids’ LEGO sets.
He’d come full circle. From this point on, during the holidays, he’d sit alone in a room surrounded by expensive things. At least when he was a kid, he’d spent those dreary holidays with a maid or a nanny. Now, he’d have only his own miserable company.
And what of her? Bridget Dasher, not your average vixen. Not by a long shot.
He had to hurt her—had to sever the connection between them. It was his only choice after seeing the heart-wrenching pain in her eyes. She cared for him deeply—more than he ever deserved. For a beautiful moment, he thought he could be hers. He believed that he could shed the Traeger Rudolph heartlessness and shield her from the part of him that dwelled in darkness.
Had he told her that he wanted to change, that he wanted to make it right with Tom and Lori, she would have stood by his side. She would have vouched for him, had he asked.
That was the heartbreaking beauty of her soul. That was her radiant goodness. He’d seen it the first night they spent together in the hotel, cocooned in anonymity, far away from the truth of who he was.
She was all sweet chocolatey kisses and bright twinkling eyes.
He was one-night stands, power suits, and bank statements.
A soulless Grinch of a scoundrel.
He squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to keep out the world and give himself one more moment of tortured solitude before he had to put together the pieces of what came next.
“Is he awake, or is he talking in his sleep?” a man asked as the sound of clinking silverware and the clank of plates being stacked dialed up in his hazy, half-awake state.
“Let him rest! You all swindled the poor thing at poker last night. The least you could do is allow him to sleep.”
“It’s nearly three in the afternoon, and he’s the one who finished off the whiskey, then ate the gingerbread house.”
“He ate it? That gingerbread house was for decoration. I’m pretty sure one of Frank’s grandchildren made it with glue,” the woman replied.
What the hell was going
on out there?
Soren swallowed again. Yep, glue would explain the severe cottonmouth.
This is what hitting rock bottom looked like. A man who’d wolfed down an ornamental gingerbread house sprawled out on a couch in a retirement community populated by ex Santas in the middle of nowhere, Colorado.
Could he just sleep until the new year?
“Should we give him the Kringle drunk tank treatment?” a man asked as a rush of frigid air whooshed into the room.
“The what?” he exclaimed, bolting upright, hangover be damned.
The only thing that could make this situation more pathetic was spending Christmas Eve in a cell cooped up with a bunch of hungover Santas.
“Good morning, Scooter!” came a cheery voice as someone shoved a glass into his hand.
He stared down at the orange liquid. “Is this juice?”
“See, he’s sober enough to recognize orange juice. I don’t think he needs the drunk tank treatment,” another woman remarked.
“You didn’t watch him eat the glued-on gumdrops off the gingerbread house. Don’t you worry! This naughty lister will thank me for this.”
“Naughty what?” he mumbled, but before anyone could answer, a snowball hit him square in the forehead.
Forgetting the juice in his hand, he flung his arms up to protect his face. The liquid splashed across his cheeks—another rude wake-up call. Sticky and wet, he blinked and assessed his surroundings.
A group of white-bearded, red-cheeked, slightly pot-bellied older men stood alongside women donning frilly aprons and warm grins while several other very Santa-like couples sat nearby, drinking from steaming mugs and reading the newspaper.
“Now that’s one way to make an orange smoothie,” a shorter Santa remarked to a taller Mrs. Claus doppelgänger.
“Here, dear, let’s try a nice glass of milk this time,” another apron-clad, sweet little grandma-looking lady offered with a smile.
He handed over his empty cup to whoever the hell this drinks lady was, then accepted the tall glass of milk. He swallowed it down in two big gulps, grateful to get the taste of gingerbread, glue, and hard alcohol off his tongue.
Not Your Average Vixen: A Christmas Romance Page 27
