The Best Man Takes a Bride

by Stacy Connelly

  Her steps slowed on the flagstone steps, not wanting to see the caution tape she’d asked one of the groundskeepers to put up, cordoning off the damaged and dangerous steps.

  It was a simple wooden structure. Her hopes and dreams for a future and a family with a man she loved were not tied into its decorative pillars or carved eaves. Even if it might feel that way...

  “Miss Rory!”

  Her mood lifted, concerns about Trisha and the gazebo melting away when she saw Hannah tugging on Jamison’s hand as the father-daughter duo headed her way. Maybe she should have been worried how happy the simple sight of them made her, but Rory had never been one to question a good thing. She’d always been more inclined to embrace it—easy enough to do when Hannah broke free the last few steps and threw her arms around her legs.

  Bending down to return her hug, Rory breathed in the scent of little girl, baby shampoo and sunshine. Words spilled out of Hannah as she filled Rory in on the past two days—time spent going into town, including an all-important trip to the café for a cookie, and a day at the beach.

  “Me and Daddy builded a sandcastle this big!” Hannah threw her arms out wide, and Rory met Jamison’s gaze for the first time.

  “You did?”

  “We built a sandcastle,” he automatically corrected.

  “Daddy,” Hannah sighed, “I just tol’ her that. And it was this big!”

  “Well, I am very proud of you,” Rory said, her words not for Hannah alone, something Jamison picked up on based by the eye roll he gave her.

  She had a hard time imagining Jamison on the beach, let alone playing with his daughter in the sand. And yet she could see a hint of sun in his cheeks and on the forearms left bare by the shirtsleeves he’d pushed up to his elbows. She wouldn’t go so far as to say he looked relaxed—his silver eyes were too intense, too watchful to fit that description—but he did seem more at ease than when he’d arrived at the hotel.

  He was even dressed more casually in a faded gray Henley and jeans. The comfortable clothes molded to his broad shoulders and muscular legs and had Rory wishing he would sweep her up into his arms again...and not because she’d injured her ankle.

  As if reading her mind, he asked, “How’s the ankle?”

  Rory lifted her leg. “Almost as good as new. The scratches are healing and the bruises are already starting to fade...” It hadn’t been her intention to draw Jamison’s gaze to her legs or the strappy white sandals she was wearing despite the still-tender ankle, but she couldn’t argue the results or the masculine appreciation in his expression.

  “Toilet paper must have done the trick.”

  The wry humor in his voice did as much to set the butterflies in her stomach fluttering as the heat in his gaze. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “I’m glad you’re all better, Miss Rory, ’cause me and Daddy have a surprise!”

  “Hannah, you’re not supposed to tell her. That’s what makes it a surprise.”

  Her big brown eyes wide with innocence, Hannah protested, “But I didn’t tell her, Daddy! I didn’t tell her about fixing—oops!” The little girl clapped her dimpled hands over her mouth to keep the words from spilling out.

  Rory laughed. “Okay, well, someone needs to tell me! What are the two of you up to?”

  With a nod at his daughter, Jamison said, “Go ahead.”

  Throwing her hands out wide, she exclaimed, “Daddy’s gonna fix the playhouse!”

  Rory looked from the exuberance written across Hannah’s face to her father’s much harder to read expression. “Fix... You mean the gazebo?” she asked, her voice filled with disbelief. And then even more disbelief as she asked, “You?”

  But if she’d offended Jamison, he didn’t let it show as he stepped closer and bent his head toward hers. “What’s the matter? You don’t think I’m up for the job?”

  A day or two ago, she might have said no, but in the T-shirt and jeans, he looked the part of a calendar-worthy handyman. This ruggedly physical side of him was something Rory would never have imagined. So different from the cool, composed lawyer. Add a tool belt and a hammer swung over one broad shoulder and—

  She had to stop herself right there. No need for a hammer when her heart was doing all the pounding.

  “I’m sure you’re—” Rory snapped her mouth shut, his turn of phrase getting stuck in her throat. Feeling a rush of heat rise in her cheeks, she finished, “Perfectly capable.”

  Desperate to ignore the glint in his eyes that said he knew what she was thinking even if it wasn’t what she was saying, she said, “But I don’t understand—”

  “I was talking with Ryder, and I offered to fix the gazebo. You know, for their wedding.”

  “Oh, Jamison...”

  As if hearing the wobble of tears in her voice, he quickly went on. “Ryder’s going to provide any of the materials or tools I need so long as I swear not to cut my fool hand, foot or head off.”

  Rory laughed in return even if she was still blinking back tears. “You’re not, um, likely to actually do any of those things, are you?”

  “It hasn’t been that long since I had my hands on a power tool.”

  There was nothing overtly sexual about that statement, but Rory had to pull her gaze away from the muscular arms and chest his T-shirt put on display. Definitely some powerful tools there, but it was his offer—his thoughtfulness—that had her throwing her arms around his neck.

  “I can’t believe you’d do this. It is so sweet of you.”

  He started, caught off guard by her impetuous hug before wrapping his arms around her waist. “It’s hard, sweaty, manly work. Nothing sweet about it.”

  “You’re helping give your friends the wedding of their dreams.”

  “Don’t you dare call me Ryder’s fairy godfather. I’d never live it down.” His wry smile faded as he pulled back far enough to meet her gaze. “Besides, I’m not just doing this for him.”

  “No?”

  Rory counted out the time it took for him to respond by the rapid beating of her heart. “No.” He frowned as if annoyed by his own admission. “I’m doing this for you.”

  She sucked in a quick breath. “For me?”

  “You know,” he clarified, “for all the help you’ve given me with Hannah.”

  “Oh. You don’t owe me for that, Jamison.” She took a step back, brushing at the material of her full skirt where it clung to his denim-covered thigh. She could have used the reminder that he was a guest—a member of the wedding party—before she’d thrown herself into his arms.

  She turned her focus to Hannah, who’d wandered a few feet down the path toward the rose garden. “I’ve enjoyed spending time with her, and since she’s one of my flower girls, it’s part of the job.”

  “Is it?” he challenged. “Because if that’s the truth, then maybe I’m the one imagining things.”

  “Imagining things...”

  His hand closed around her wrist, trapping her palm against the muscular strength of his thigh. “Yeah, like that you’re thinking of kissing me right now.”

  Her breath caught in her throat, and her fingers instinctively flexed, her nails digging into warm denim. Jamison’s eyes darkened from silver to steel and suddenly she was imagining so much more than kissing—

  “But we still can’t,” she echoed his words from the other day.

  Can’t, not didn’t want to, because, oh, how she wanted to.

  Without taking his eye off her, Jamison called out to his daughter. “Hey, Hannah, how’d you like to play a game of hide-and-seek? Close your eyes and count to one hundred.”

  “One hundred?” she asked as Hannah’s singsong voice filled the air.

  “She only knows up to twenty.”

  Turning her wrist until her hand clasped his, Rory tugged Jamison toward the closest tree. “Then we better make this fast.�
�

  She was already breathless with anticipation by the time they circled around the large pine, and he hadn’t even touched her. By the time he pulled her into his arms, Rory thought her heart might explode. Yet despite her instructions to hurry, Jamison didn’t kiss like a man in a rush.

  He kissed like a man who’d traveled far and had finally, at long last, come home. Like a man who’d thought of nothing else, who had dreamed only of this moment. He caught her bottom lip, tugging in a gentle tease, before delving farther. His tongue swept inside, and her senses reeled, spinning off into a world she’d never known existed.

  A world of pleasure. A world of sensation. So bright and startling all else seemed dull and gray.

  And Rory had to have more.

  Digging her hands into his dark hair, she pulled him closer. Arousal poured through her veins, centering low in her belly and striking sparks wherever their bodies touched. But the contact, her mouth eagerly seeking his, her breasts straining against his chest, wasn’t enough. She had to have more and almost cried out in protest when Jamison broke the kiss.

  “Rory,” he ground out, words barely registering beyond the pulse pounding in her ears, “we better stop...”

  Though the haze of desire, Rory heard Hannah’s voice. On a breathless whisper, she said, “We still have ten seconds left.”

  “Nine,” Jamison corrected, his breath warm against her skin as he trailed kisses down the length of her throat.

  Her head fell back in pure pleasure. She thought she just might melt into the rough bark of the tree at her back, but Jamison pulled her tight and she melted into him instead. “Nine?” she asked weakly.

  “Hannah always skips fifteen.”

  Sure enough, the little girl missed the number, and Rory started her own countdown. “Four, three...”

  Recognizing the challenge, Jamison covered her mouth with his in the hottest, fastest kiss of Rory’s life. One that left her gasping for air even as Hannah yelled out, “Twenty!” and started to search for them.

  Ready or not.

  Rory stepped back and sucked in a single lungful of air that wasn’t superheated by the attraction burning between them before Hannah rushed around the tree and stopped short at the sight of them.

  “Daddy, you’re s’posed to hide.” Shaking her head in disappointment, she said, “You and Miss Rory aren’t very good at this game.”

  Jamison met Rory’s gaze, and beneath the shared amusement was enough heat to set another round of fireworks shooting off in her stomach. Rory didn’t want to argue with a four-year-old, but this game was one Jamison was very good at.

  * * *

  As it turned out, Jamison was quite as bad at hide-and-seek as his daughter feared. That wasn’t as much of a surprise as the enjoyment he found in the game. Of course, part of that was the grown-up version he and Rory were playing—stealing kisses while Hannah’s eyes were closed, finding a hiding spot of their own before tracking the little girl down in the rose garden.

  But they’d both been careful to keep those stolen moments lighter, more playful. Not that the spark had dimmed. If anything, it built with every touch, every glance.

  A controlled burn instead of an out-and-out wildfire like their first kiss.

  “You know, I was so excited earlier—” Catching sight of his raised eyebrows, Rory rolled her eyes, but not before her cheeks turned a flattering shade of pink. “About the gazebo,” she stressed, “that I didn’t ask what you plan to do about Hannah while you’re working.”

  Hannah had skipped ahead on the flagstone path only to get distracted by a colorful butterfly flitting by. The joy and awe on her sweet face brought a lump of emotion to the back of his throat. He’d seen his daughter break free and spread her wings over the past few days, and he was terrified of doing anything that would send her back into the cocoon of sadness and loss.

  “I talked to Ryder about hiring a teenage girl they’ve used before.”

  Seeming to remember how reluctant his daughter sometimes was to leave his side, Rory asked, “Do you think Hannah will be okay with someone new watching her?”

  “I hope so. If not—” Then he might soon have bigger problems than finding time to fix the gazebo.

  “Does she have a babysitter back home she’s comfortable with?”

  “I haven’t used any sitters back home...not since before the accident. Hannah’s been staying with her grandparents. With everything that was going on, it seemed better that way.”

  “She’s here with you now. That’s what matters.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “She’s with me for now.”

  “For now,” Rory echoed, “but not for long? Is that what you’re saying? What happens when you go back to San Francisco, Jamison?”

  Even though she’d asked the question, the disappointment in her expression said she knew the answer as well as he did. “Monica’s parents want Hannah to live with them.”

  And they didn’t even know about the promotion, one that would mean long days and even longer nights. Times when he would be leaving for work while Hannah was still asleep in the morning and wouldn’t be home until after she was in bed in the evening.

  “Hannah’s grandmother is a retired nurse. She can be with her all day, every day. And Hannah loves her grandparents. After Monica and I separated, Hannah spent as much time with them as she did with Monica. And far more time than she spent with me.”

  Something Louisa was quick to point out. He carried around plenty of guilt on his own and didn’t need his in-laws piling on, but Louisa knew what button to push—reminding him what a detached and absent father he’d been even before he and Monica separated. And now that Hannah needed him to be both mother and father...

  “I’m sure they do love her, but Jamison, you’re her father and your daughter needs you. I’m not trying to compare what I went through to Hannah losing her mother, but after Chance’s accident, I needed my parents, too. As an adult, I get it. They could only handle so much, and almost all of their time and energy was focused on Chance getting better. But for me, as a kid, I felt like they were as lost to me as Chance was in that coma.”

  Even after so many years, Jamison picked up on the tremor in Rory’s voice, the whisper of a little girl who’d gone unnoticed, unheard. He hated thinking of her feeling that way. Hated thinking of Hannah feeling that way.

  “Rory—” He swallowed against a lump in his throat. “I—I just want what’s best for her.”

  “I know. I see that, Jamison. I do.” The certainty in her gaze turned sorrowful as she added, “What I don’t understand is why you don’t think that would be you.”

  * * *

  Rory knew she shouldn’t have been surprised when Jamison didn’t answer her question. Just because he’d kissed her senseless didn’t mean he was going to spill his guts. And just because she’d poured out the old ache in her heart when she spoke of the horrible days following Chance’s accident didn’t mean Jamison would pour out his.

  Instead, his expression closed off, reminding her of the man she’d first met and not of the man she’d just kissed. Avoiding the emotional discussion, he’d gotten down to the business of inspecting the gazebo. Or at least trying to with Hannah hanging by his side, wanting to “help.”

  “Got it, Hannah?” he asked, as he ran a measuring tape along the length of the gazebo railing. “Are you holding on tight?”

  “Got it, Daddy!” Stretched up on her tippy toes, Hannah held on to one end of the tape.

  Jamison jotted down some figures in the small notebook he’d pulled from his pocket. “Okay, kiddo. You can let it go.”

  Hannah released the small tab and the yellow metal tape zipped back into the casing, bringing a giggle from the little girl and drawing a smile from Jamison, but the shadows lingering in his expression made Rory’s heart hurt.

  Did he think Hannah would break
if he were to unbend enough to hug her—or was he afraid that he would? His love for the little girl was obvious, but so was the fear.

  He needed more time. Time with Hannah, not time spent fixing the gazebo. As touched as she was by his offer to help his friend, to help her, his daughter needed him far more than Ryder and Lindsay needed the perfect setting for their wedding.

  Swallowing against the lump of disappointment in her throat, she opened her mouth, but Hannah beat her to the punch.

  “Did ya see, Miss Rory?” The little girl bounced on her toes. “I’m being a big helper!”

  Rory met Hannah’s wide smile with one of her own as the perfect solution bloomed. “I did see, Hannah. You are such a good helper, and I just had the best idea ever!”

  Chapter Eight

  Maybe it was something in the water.

  Something that made him say yes to harebrained schemes and even come up with a few of his own. Bad enough he’d offered to fix up the gazebo, but what the hell was he thinking yesterday when he agreed to let Rory and Hannah help?

  I just had the best idea ever!

  Rory’s eyes had glimmered with such hope that Jamison had found himself holding his breath in a combination of dread and anticipation. Even before she started talking, he’d had a feeling that whatever the crazy idea swirling in her pretty little head was, he was going to hate it. And an even worse feeling that whatever it was, he was going to be fool enough to agree to it. Just to keep that light in her eyes and the smile on her face...

  Jamison fought back a groan as he and Hannah made their way down the flagstone path. He adjusted the tool belt at his waist even as he gave serious thought to smacking himself upside the head with a hammer. How was he supposed to work and keep an eye on his daughter...when he couldn’t keep his eyes off Rory?

  He’d reached for his phone a dozen times already, prepared to call Rory and then Ryder and tell them both the whole thing was off. He could tell his friend the work was too much and the ceremony could take place in the rose garden with Lindsay and the guests none the wiser.