A Game Of Brides (Montana Born Brides)

by Megan Crane

  “Have you done something horrible I haven’t discovered yet? I hear confession is good for the soul. Have at it.”

  “I’ve never found that to be true,” Margery said, sipping at her champagne. “Case in point, Ella Kay.” She tilted her glass in the direction of her girls, pointing Emmy’s attention toward a tall, pale redhead with a sugary smile and over-tweezed brows. “She spends one half of her time cheating on that husband of hers and the other half weeping and confessing and dragging the both of them in front of their pastor to talk about her sins in gruesome detail. Whose soul is that good for?”

  “Maybe it’s time she considered a different, less tolerant spiritual guide,” Emmy said dryly. “Or a divorce.”

  Margery laughed, and it was her real laugh, the one that spilled out like a little bit of sunshine and reminded Emmy exactly why it was so hard to stay mad at her. About anything.

  “You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Margery asked in a low voice when her laughter faded. “I think she’s acting out because her pastor is young, hot, and single. I think she wants to be his spiritual project. And maybe another kind of project, too, while she’s at it.”

  “What about her husband?”

  “Ella Kay always liked the boys who submerged themselves in whatever drama she had going on. Doug is no different. He’ll never leave her. She’s the most exciting thing that ever happened to him in the midst of his khaki, preppy little life. I wouldn’t be surprised if he got off on all her fooling around.” She shrugged when Emmy looked at her askance. “Hey, some men do.”

  “Does Philip?” Emmy asked. She knew she shouldn’t have said it. She felt her sister tense next to her, though Margery didn’t appear to move a single languid muscle, and she hated herself for ruining a perfectly nice moment. For always having to stick the knife in. Was she that dissatisfied with her own life? But of course, she knew she was. These weeks in Montana hadn’t created that dissatisfaction, but they sure had emphasized it. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “Of course you did.” Margery sighed. “I hate to break it to you, Em, but I’m actually in love with Philip. And no, not just because he’s rich. It’s fun to pretend to be a vapid, materialistic little social climber, because that’s what people think I am anyway. But you should know better.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you?” Margery’s blue eyes were far too calm. Resigned, even, as if this wasn’t even hurtful. As if it was no more than what she expected. That made the bottom of Emmy’s stomach fall away and her cheeks feel crisp with shame. “I wonder. Don’t worry, Em, I don’t expect you to be my best friend or a cheerleader for my life. But you’re my sister. Try to remember that I asked you to be my maid of honor because I love you, not because it’s my goal in life to hurt you.”

  “Margery.” Emmy couldn’t remember a time she’d felt smaller or more wretched. “I really am sorry.”

  Margery smiled as she sat up, and then she leaned over and pressed a big, smacking kiss to Emmy’s cheek. “You should be,” she said quietly. “You’re a little snot. And your pocket is buzzing.”

  And then she patted her blonde waves, all artfully arranged at the top of her head in a manner that would have taken Emmy all day and every bobby pin ever made, and wandered back over toward the hot tub filled with her friends. While Emmy sat on the chaise, still rolled to the side as if she was sharing it with Margery’s ghost, and reflected on what a little snot she’d become, indeed.

  This was Margery’s wedding. Yes, it was over the top. Yes, it was ostentatious and ridiculous. Yes, Emmy had spent hours every morning tramping around the Grans’ land with a handful of her aggrieved and surly cousins looking for wildflowers so her already frazzled mother could make the centerpieces for the tables. Yes, she’d even spent an annoying afternoon with her parents rearranging those same tables that were being set up under the big tent out on Gran Harriet’s bluff that offered the best view down into the valley. And yes, those were outrageous things to ask wedding guests to do, even if they were family. But none of this was about her. It was time she stopped acting like it should have been. Like a spoiled little brat who took it upon herself to remind everyone how much fun she wasn’t having every five seconds.

  Like the teenager she’d been at such pains to claim she wasn’t any longer.

  She was ashamed of herself, and that was why she dug into her pocket and pulled out her phone, so she could marinate in it and keep her face averted for a few more moments while she digested that uncomfortable truth. But she blinked when she saw her phone’s display, because it was filled with a list of texts from her coworkers.

  Are you okay? asked one of the art directors on her team.

  Are you quitting? queried another. I thought you were just on a vacation?

  CALL ME THE MINUTE YOU READ THAT INSANE EMAIL, her closest friend at work and fellow copywriter, Annabel, had texted.

  Frowning, and alarmed, Emmy clicked through to her work email account and scrolled through all the messages she’d been more or less ignoring until she got to today’s. There was something about an old ad campaign, the usual annoying memos from the office manager passive aggressively cc-ed to the entire company, two requests for charitable contributions to different causes the CEO liked that therefore weren’t really “requests” at all, and then, at the top, an email from Emmy’s immediate boss, Stephanie.

  The power-hungry, two-faced, untrustworthy Stephanie.

  Who, Emmy saw when she scanned the email, had taken Emmy’s extended absence as an opportunity to “restructure” the team. She had to read it twice to make sure she wasn’t missing something, and then it was as if a haze of red descended onto her from the soaring high ceilings of the spa. Red and something else, something that connected hard to that clawed thing in her stomach that had made her snipe at her sister. All that dissatisfaction and fury she’d been swallowing back for years, that she would have outright denied until she’d admitted it to Griffin in the shadows of a microbrewery, because she prided herself on her practicality and practical people didn’t walk away from a good job simply because it wasn’t perfect.

  She didn’t text back any of her friends, because there was no point gossiping about this. She’d been gossiping about Stephanie for at least the last two years and what had it solved? She called Stephanie directly instead, distantly aware that she’d sat up straight on her chaise and was scowling toward the nearest delicate flower arrangement.

  “It’s Emmy,” she said when Stephanie answered her phone in her typically clipped, I’m-too-busy way. “I got your email.”

  There was a pause. Emmy could see the office in her mind’s eye. Stephanie’s desk in that windowless room that she treated like it was a corner suite in Bank of America Plaza, the tallest building in downtown Atlanta, which it decidedly was not. Emmy’s own cubicle outside of it, where she’d been sitting for five years that seemed very long now, in retrospect. She had more experience than anyone else on their team. She’d been expecting a promotion to Creative Director in the next year or so and really, she was aware, should have gotten it already. Stephanie knew that better than anyone, as she’d been the one to institute what she called “monthly chats” but which all the copywriters and art directors referred to as “trips to the principal’s office”—and because she was the reason Emmy hadn’t been promoted already.

  “How can I help you?” Stephanie asked, in that choppy New England accent of hers that set Emmy’s teeth on edge. That and the malice behind it that Stephanie no longer bothered to conceal.

  “How can you help me?” Emmy repeated, fighting to keep her own voice smooth, so Stephanie couldn’t make any of her usual comments about Emmy’s attitude. “Stephanie, I’m preparing for my sister’s wedding, as you know. I’m two thousand miles away. Yet you’ve decided this is the perfect time to restructure our team in a way, I can’t help but notice, that’s a promotion for everyone else and a demotion for me.”

  “It’s my job to make sure the team runs smo
othly, Emmy,” Stephanie said in her patronizing way. “That’s not something you can help with while you’re off on one of your month long vacations, is it?”

  “This is the first time I’ve taken off work since I had that flu two winters ago,” Emmy pointed out, and it was an uphill battle to keep her voice as calm as possible. “And, as you insisted, I made this personal, unpaid time. It’s not a vacation.”

  “The firm doesn’t exist to cater to your demands for personal time,” Stephanie said. “Maybe you should spend the rest of your vacation thinking about how to become a better team player.”

  Make something else instead, she’d told Griffin. That’s what you do.

  It had never been what Emmy did. This was the first job she’d ever had, and sure, she was pretty good at it. But while various coworkers came and went, Emmy had stayed, and the other thing she’d told Griffin was true: she was tired of it. She was tired of writing copy. She was tired of the deadline drama and the never-satisfied clientele. She was tired of Creative Directors like Stephanie who stole credit for her work and had hated her on sight simply because she’d refused to ingratiate herself the way the others had done, claiming it was office politics instead of kissing ass.

  Emmy hadn’t made it big. She’d made practical decisions, one after the next, ever since she’d found herself naked and without Griffin in that barn ten years ago. She’d resolved to keep herself safe after that scarring experience. What kind of person threw away a good job just because she didn’t love every moment of it? Emmy had never been that person. She’d told herself repeatedly that she didn’t want to be that person.

  But she’d also never been the kind of person who sunk so deep into a blistering three-week affair that she almost didn’t care who caught her doing it. Like last night, when she and Griffin had gotten a little too lost in a stolen kiss in his grandmother’s house that had almost resulted in them being walked in on in a very compromising position by Emmy’s aunt and uncle. The old Emmy would never have allowed that to happen. The new Emmy had laughed and hidden in a closet like a teenager.

  She liked the new Emmy better, she understood then. She liked who she was with Griffin. And she decided right there on a chaise in a Bozeman, Montana spa that it didn’t matter what happened between them. Griffin was temporary. She’d find a way to deal with that. But this version of herself—the one who did as she liked because she trusted herself enough to know she could handle the consequences—didn’t have to be as temporary as he was.

  “I have a better idea,” she said into her phone, and she didn’t have to fight for that cool, calm tone. It came naturally, at last. “Make me a reasonable offer, Stephanie, and I won’t come back at all.”

  It took less than fifteen minutes. When she ended the call, she had an appointment with Human Resources for her exit interview the following week, a very nice package, and a brand new life to figure out because she’d thrown away the old one.

  Maybe it was no surprise she felt dizzy. She sat on the chaise and stared at the phone in her hand and wondered what the hell had just happened.

  “That sounded very intense,” Margery said, making Emmy jump.

  Emmy hadn’t heard her come back over. She stared up her sister in a kind of horror, still clutching her phone while panic pounded through her. Had she lost her mind? She had rent to pay! She’d had that job for years! Could she call Stephanie back and get her job again before any of this was made permanent? That was obviously the smart thing to do. What had she been thinking?

  “Emmy, what’s the matter with you?” Margery asked, frowning down at her. “You look pale.”

  “I have no idea what just happened or why or if I’ve been taken over by a body snatcher,” Emmy said after a moment, and her throat was so dry that her voice was raspy and sounded like someone else’s, “but I just quit my job. For absolutely no reason.”

  Margery gazed down at her for a beat, as if waiting for more. “That’s not why you’re upset, is it?”

  “I can’t tell how upsetting it is yet,” Emmy gritted out, “because I’m too busy having a full scale panic attack.”

  Her sister only shook her head, visibly unmoved. “Did you ever even like that job?”

  Emmy blinked at her. “I’m good at it!”

  “I’m good at being a bitch,” Margery said, her mouth moving into one of her cat-like smiles, “but that doesn’t mean I should make it my life’s work.” Her smile deepened as Emmy only stared back at her in disbelief. “And it’s time for your massage. Try not to get snippy with the massage therapist, if you don’t mind. I can only tip so much.”

  The realtor was a tool.

  Griffin had hated him on sight, but that wasn’t a good enough reason to punch him. So he refrained, slumped there in the passenger seat of the idiot’s Bronco listening to a thousand things he didn’t need to know about Marietta’s retail market because he had eyes, thank you. He could see the empty storefronts and the For Sale signs, although there were far fewer of those today than there had been last fall.

  “Stay there,” he ordered the other man when they stopped in front of the space he’d gone into the realty office to ask about, a few doors down from the rowdier bar in town. The perfect place to collect the kind of clients he’d want to attract. A little walk on the wild side for the more conservative types and an easy stroll for people like him who hadn’t seen their skin without some bold color on it in too many years to count.

  He watched the realtor’s too-red cheeks get even brighter with a certain fascination, but then forced himself to smile politely, to take the sting out of the order. Because this was Marietta, not the big city, and his grandmother would tear a piece out of his hide if he growled at her friends.

  Not that he thought Gran Martha would give this guy the time of day, but he’d lived in Marietta long enough now to understand that small town politics were like tangled roots. He might not see them beneath the pretty trees that graced the parks and would be that deep, lush green all summer long, but they were always there beneath the surface, interconnected and overlapping in a thousand ways an outsider could never hope to understand.

  “I’ll check it out myself, if that’s okay,” he said, forcing another smile, and he wasn’t surprised when the realtor—why couldn’t he remember the guy’s name?—dropped a set of keys in his hand and waved him toward the front door, swallowing hard like Griffin was as disreputable as the pair of bikers who stumbled out of the front door of the Wolf Den a few doors down and stood there on the sidewalk, looking ornery.

  If he was honest with himself, he thought as he opened the front door of the little shop and stepped through the doorway, he didn’t particularly mind what the realtor thought about him.

  Inside, he took a deep breath and looked around, soaking it in. It was only a shop, like any other. A glass window in front and a narrow space within. Brick walls and wood floors. But Griffin knew. He stood there with the door shut behind him and that irritating realtor on the other side, and he knew.

  He liked the art. He liked tattoos. He’d never wanted to do anything else.

  And he had no idea how he’d ever thank Emmy for getting him to finally say that out loud. For making him face that truth he understood, now, he’d been running from for much too long, because facing it would mean a whole host of consequences. For finally allowing him to look beyond GriffinFlight and figure out what might come next.

  He hadn’t realized how little hope he’d had until she’d showed him how much there was to hope for.

  That shook him. He stood there in the middle of what would become his future—he knew it, the way he’d once known GriffinFlight would be big whether he wanted that or not—and realized what he’d known on some level since he’d set eyes on her in that airport: that he didn’t want a future without her in it.

  She has a whole life back in Atlanta, he told himself then. She told you this was nothing but a fling. You shouldn’t have broken her heart all those years ago, dumbass.

 
But there was no going back in time. There were only the few days he had left with her and when they were done, he had to let her go. Drive her to the airport himself and smile while she walked back out of his life, because that was what they’d agreed. That was what she’d signed up for. That was what a good man would do, and Griffin might not have as much experience with being a good man as he probably should, but it was high time he started. He owed her at least that much.

  He would let Emmy go home. He’d wave her goodbye like he meant it and he’d keep his damned feelings to himself.

  No matter how much it was going to kill him to do it.

  Chapter Eight

  By the time Emmy made it home to the cabin—not that it was her home, not that it was even really his home, not that she should let herself think that treacherous word and all the things it implied about this relationship that had been over before it started—she was not in a very good mood. Or she was in a very dangerous one.

  Six of one, half dozen of another, Gran Harriet would say.

  She slammed her way into the cabin, absurdly let down when Griffin wasn’t sitting there at his desk the way she’d expected he would be, hunched over his Wacom tablet or a sheet of paper. She stood there for a moment, unwilling to investigate the feelings that surged inside of her, as if quitting her job had unleashed a thousand other things within. The longing for a kind of domesticity that wasn’t and never had been on the table here chief among them.