Falling for the Wrong Brother

by Michelle Major

  “It’s a strange phenomenon,” he said quietly, “the focus on the details surrounding a wedding. Seems to me the only important part is a man and woman committed to loving each other for the rest of their lives.”

  Emotion clogged her throat. “Yes, well... Trevor and I love each other. We’ve been friends forever. Everyone knows it.”

  Griffin raised a thick brow. “Then what are you doing here?”

  A car door slammed, saving her from answering.

  “My family,” she whispered, glancing around wildly like she could find a place to hide. A ridiculous idea, because there was no hiding from what she’d done today. Not in Stonecreek.

  “I’ll go out the back, then circle around to get my car.” Griffin was already moving toward the hallway leading to the kitchen. “No one is going to want me here for this.”

  I do, Maggie wanted to tell him, although she couldn’t figure out why. Griffin was nothing to her.

  “Are you staying in town long?” she blurted, using the arm of the sofa to lever herself to standing. She needed to be on her own two feet—or at least the one that wasn’t screaming in pain—to face her grandmother.

  Griffin looked over his shoulder, raking a hand through his already-tousled hair. The air between them sparked, his gaze going dark as Maggie sucked in a breath.

  “Put some ice on that ankle,” he said instead of answering, then disappeared down the hall.

  A moment later the front door burst open and various members of her family flooded through.

  “Are you okay?” her father asked, tugging at his black bow tie.

  “Are you crazy?” Vivian Spencer, Maggie’s grandmother, asked, pushing past her son. “You can’t call off the wedding, Mary Margaret. It isn’t done.”

  “She just did.” Maggie’s sister, Morgan, followed Grammy into the house, picked up a cardboard box from a wingback chair and then sat down.

  “No sass from you,” Vivian scolded, wagging a finger at Morgan.

  Sixteen-year-old Morgan, the picture of teenage petulance, responded with an eye roll and a dismissive sigh. Grammy’s eyes narrowed, although her angry gaze returned to Maggie.

  “I’m sorry,” Maggie said, looking at each of her family members.

  Her fourteen-year-old brother, Ben, shrugged out of his rented tux jacket. “You should have seen how bad people were freaking out,” he told her, his eyes going wide. “Trevor’s mom looked like she wanted to shank someone.”

  “Definitely me,” Maggie muttered.

  “Jana Stone wasn’t going to shank anyone,” their father said. “Naturally, she’s upset and confused.” He glanced toward Maggie and then away. “We all are.”

  Ben didn’t look convinced. “If someone handed her a rusty knife, she would have gutted Maggie like—”

  “Not helping, Ben.” Jim Spencer leveled a glare at his teenage son.

  Undeterred by the gruesome talk, Vivian moved toward Maggie until they were inches apart. Grammy barely reached Maggie’s chin and she’d proudly been a size-two petite for as long as anyone could remember. Her hair was teased into a silver pouf, and she wore a rose-hued coat and matching crepe dress that made her look like she took fashion advice from the Queen of England.

  Her diminutive stature belied the fierceness of her spirit. Maggie’s grandmother was more than the family matriarch. She was the backbone of the Spencer clan, still with a hand in actively managing most of the family’s business holdings in town and the land they owned throughout the valley.

  The Spencers, along with the Stones, had founded Stonecreek in the mid-1800s. It still grated on the nerves of various relatives, Grammy included, that the town had officially been named Stonecreek instead of the planned Spencerville.

  The Stones claimed that founders Jonathan Spencer and Charles Stone flipped a coin for naming rights. According to Spencer family lore, Charles got Jonathan drunk, then sneaked out to file the town’s name in the early-morning hours while his friend slept off a night of whiskey and women.

  That spark lit the fuse on the Hatfield-and-McCoy-esque rivalry between the two families. The friction had ebbed and flowed over the decades until settling into a civil, if awkward, truce.

  Recently, the animosity had heated up again. The Spencers had been the more successful family for years, owning most of the businesses in town, as well as much of the land in the surrounding area. But Griffin and Trevor’s father took over the struggling family farm when the boys were still in diapers. Dave Stone began growing grapes in the volcanic soil and within a decade had turned the vineyard into one of the leading producers of pinot noir varietals in the lush Willamette Valley.

  Suddenly, power shifted, and the rural farming family began to assert its muscle in ways the Spencers didn’t appreciate. The power play was subtler these days, with deals over dinner and drinks more than fistfights at town meetings. It had been Vivian who’d pushed Maggie to view Trevor as something more than a platonic friend.

  Both of them had gone away to college, then returned to Stonecreek to work with their respective families. It had been easy to ramp up the childhood friendship to a more intimate level.

  They’d dated for three years, and Trevor had been at her side when she’d won her first mayoral election, becoming the youngest person to hold that office in the town’s history.

  If you asked her grandmother, it was the two families’ combined support that had propelled Maggie, relatively inexperienced in politics, to victory in the election. But Trevor had made her feel like she’d won on her own merit, and remained quite possibly the only person in either of their families who believed it.

  He’d proposed last Christmas. Of course, Maggie had said yes. So what if their relationship was more of a comfortable partnership than romantic or exciting? She didn’t need excitement and believed Trevor felt the same. Oh, how wrong she’d been.

  “You embarrassed me today,” her grandmother said, pale blue eyes flaring with temper, “and brought shame to the Spencer name.”

  Maggie swallowed and purposely put weight on her right foot, focusing on the physical pain instead of the emotional sting of her grammy’s words.

  “Mom.” Maggie’s father let out an exasperated sigh. “Let her explain.”

  “Can you explain yourself, Mary Margaret?”

  “I changed my mind,” she whispered, her gaze trained on the corsage pinned just below the collar of her grandmother’s dress. “Trevor and I realized we don’t love each other in the way two people who are getting married should.” She couldn’t look Grammy in the eye as the half-truths spilled from her mouth.

  Not complete lies. She went into the wedding with a bone-deep understanding that her marriage to Trevor had more to do with her family than any kind of grand passion. But she would have gone through with it if she hadn’t walked in on him locked in a furtive embrace with the curvaceous date of one of his groomsmen.

  “What did Trevor do?” Grammy demanded, much like Griffin had earlier. Good thing Maggie wasn’t a gambler because she clearly had no poker face.

  “Nothing.” She lied outright this time. She’d decided at the church that she’d rather be the bad guy in this scenario than the poor, duped and undesired fool. Trevor had agreed. He would have agreed to anything Maggie had asked. “I’m sorry, Grammy. I’ll take back the gifts and write apology notes to each of the guests. I’ll do whatever it takes to make this right.”

  Vivian held up a weathered hand, the manicured tips of her fingers trembling. “This cannot be undone, Mary Margaret.” She turned to Maggie’s father. “Take me home, Jim.”

  He glanced between his mother and older daughter. “Maybe Maggie doesn’t want to be alone right—”

  “She made her choice,” Vivian said through clenched teeth. She waved a hand at both Morgan and Ben. “Let’s go.”

  Morgan stood and placed a hand on her dad’
s sleeve. “I can stay with—”

  “We’re all going,” Vivian insisted, walking toward the front door without a backward glance.

  “It’s fine,” Maggie whispered when Morgan’s delicate brows drew together. “I’ll text you later, Mo.”

  Her father took a step toward her, but Maggie shook her head. “It’s okay. Go. I’m fine.”

  He looked like he wanted to argue, but she forced a smile and motioned for him to follow Grammy. Right now she needed time alone.

  “I love you,” her dad whispered, then walked out behind Grammy and Morgan. Ben turned back to her with his hand on the doorknob.

  “I wouldn’t have let Mrs. Stone shank you,” he said gravely.

  Maggie managed a watery smile. “Thanks, buddy.”

  He nodded, shutting the door behind him. As soon as the latch clicked, Maggie’s knees buckled. She collapsed to the hardwood floor with a sob, her life in pieces around her.

  Chapter Two

  Griffin pushed open the church doors and strode through, ignoring the gasps and stares of the small crowd still gathered near the front of the sanctuary.

  His younger brother stood in the center aisle between the pews, talking to a woman Griffin didn’t recognize, although she seemed vaguely familiar.

  Growing up it felt like Griffin had known everyone in the close-knit community, and he’d chafed at both the expectations and scrutiny of being part of one of Stonecreek’s founding families. How could he expect anonymity when the town bore his family’s damn name?

  He hadn’t asked for any of it. Small-town life had been stifling enough to a rambunctious kid without the added pressure of trying to live up to what his parents wanted from him. It had been presumed he’d be groomed to take over the helm of the family vineyard. Everyone in town—except his father—had seen his future like it had already come to pass.

  Griffin knew Dave Stone would never have allowed him to take over the business. Griffin hadn’t been able to please his demanding father, and by the time he’d hit his troubled teen years, he’d stopped trying. Let Trevor be lauded as the family’s favored child. Griffin had always been more suited to the role of black sheep.

  He watched as Trevor smiled and inclined his head as the older woman patted his shoulder, playing the part of the brokenhearted groom to a T. If he hadn’t been set on becoming the family scion, Trevor could have had a career in Hollywood. This little performance showed he was a consummate actor, although Griffin didn’t believe a moment of it.

  People turned as he stalked up the aisle, but his full attention was on Trevor. He hadn’t seen his brother since their father’s funeral four years ago. Trevor was a couple of inches shorter than Griffin, his hair a shade lighter, making him look even more the golden son.

  “Griffin.” Trevor’s deep voice boomed through the nearly empty sanctuary. He opened his arms, preparing to greet the prodigal brother with a hug. As if that would ever happen. “Good to see you, man. Sorry you came all this way for—”

  Griffin slammed his fist into Trevor’s face without a second thought, the sharp pain in his knuckles a welcome outlet for his frustration.

  Trevor muttered a curse as he stumbled back a few steps, covering his left eye with one hand. “What the hell was that for?”

  “You tell me.” Griffin shook out his hand, then turned to meet the shocked gazes of the people still standing in the back of the church. “If you folks will excuse us, my brother and I need to speak in private.”

  “Maggie left him,” said the older woman, whom Griffin finally recognized as his high school health teacher. “She walked out just as the ceremony was starting. It wasn’t his fault. Trevor’s the victim here. His poor face.”

  “Victim,” Griffin repeated. “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t know anything,” Trevor said, the skin around his eye already turning a satisfying shade of purple.

  “Really?” Griffin crossed his arms and arched a brow, letting Trevor know without words that he wasn’t fooled by the jilted-groom act. “Do you want to have this conversation here or in private? Think long and hard about your answer, Trev.”

  Griffin was bluffing. Maggie had told him nothing, but he couldn’t shake his suspicion that she’d had more of a reason for playing the runaway bride than she’d let on. Walking away wasn’t in her character, and he didn’t buy his self-important brother as the jilted groom for one minute.

  Trevor stared at him for a moment, his eyes unreadable. Then a muscle ticked in his jaw, and Griffin wanted to punch him again. He recognized Trevor’s tell from when they were kids, and Griffin knew without a doubt his brother was guilty of something.

  “I’m not going to bore these nice people with our family drama,” Trevor said, his tone smooth like Harvest Vineyards’ flagship pinot.

  “It’s not boring,” the health teacher—Mrs. Davis if Trevor remembered correctly—said enthusiastically.

  Trevor flashed the most charming smile he could with his swollen eye. “You’re a sweetheart, Mrs. D, and I’d appreciate a few of your famous oatmeal scotchies the next time you bake a batch. Right now, I’m going to take a minute with my brother.” He glanced around the church, as pious as a choirboy. “This isn’t the place for violence.”

  Immediately, Griffin regretted letting his temper get the best of him. Or at least he regretted hitting Trevor in a church. His mother would have a fit when she heard about it, and he’d already caused Jana Stone enough trouble to last a lifetime.

  “I’ll talk to you all soon,” Trevor called to the rest of the onlookers. “Thanks for the support today.”

  Griffin looked over his shoulder as he followed Trevor toward the vestry. The few people who’d witnessed his outburst were whispering among themselves and met his gaze with a round of angry glares. Only an hour back in Stonecreek and he was bristling to escape again.

  He didn’t bother closing the door as Trevor walked to a small refrigerator positioned in the corner of the room and pulled a bottle of water from it.

  “Did you talk to Maggie?” he asked, wincing as he pressed the water bottle to his eye.

  “Yes. I was late for the ceremony and saw her walking down the sidewalk.”

  “I’m surprised you recognized her.”

  “She was wearing a damn bridal gown.”

  Trevor sighed. “I told her she could take my car when she left.”

  “A gentleman to the end,” Griffin muttered, pacing to one side of the room and running a hand along the edge of the bookshelf lined with hymnals.

  “What did she tell you?”

  Griffin forced himself not to stiffen. “I want to hear it from you.”

  “Maggie promised she wouldn’t talk. She said she understood.” Trevor blew out a frustrated breath. “Neither one of us meant for it to happen. I tried to cut things off. Hell, she was here with Tommy. He was one of my groomsmen. I introduced them four months ago. You remember him, right?”

  “The fool who accidentally set himself on fire at homecoming your freshman year?”

  “The bonfire after the football game got out of hand,” Trevor said almost reluctantly. “He’s grown up a lot since then. Sort of.”

  “So you set your mistress up with an idiot? Nice backup plan.”

  “I chose Maggie,” Trevor insisted. “But if she won’t forgive—”

  “She didn’t tell me anything,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Trevor’s mouth fell open. “Then how did you—”

  “I didn’t,” Griffin interrupted. “Not until this moment. Maggie’s version was that she realized the two of you were better as friends and she couldn’t go through with the marriage.”

  “It’s the truth,” Trevor said, dropping into a chair positioned next to a rack of black robes.

  This cramped room wasn’t quite the pulpit, but Griffin still felt a stab
of guilt for his violent thoughts under the church roof. “Not the whole truth.”

  “Hell, Grif, I tried. We both did. This wedding meant more to the families—more to the town—than to either of us.”

  “What a lame excuse for cheating.”

  Trevor’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “I wasn’t cheating today. Not really.”

  “Then what did Maggie see?”

  “Julia and I were kissing. A farewell kiss.”

  “In the church before your wedding ceremony?” Griffin laughed without humor. “You’re going to act holier-than-thou because I punched you in the sanctuary? The angels were probably cheering me on.”

  “What do you care?” Trevor demanded. “You told me you weren’t even going to be here today. Suddenly you feel the need to come to Maggie’s defense? You never liked her when we were younger. You have no relationship with her. I don’t get it.”

  Griffin turned away toward the window overlooking the glen behind the church. The towering maple trees provided a lush green canopy, and tulips in a variety of colors lined the cobblestone path. Lilac bushes bloomed with lavender flowers, a short burst of color that would be gone by summer.

  He’d spent most of the past decade in war-torn countries across the Middle East. Places baked by the sun, where it was as common to breathe in sand as air. There’d been moments where he’d felt like his throat would always be coated with the stuff, and he’d closed his eyes late at night and imagined himself back in this verdant valley.

  He’d foregone college and joined the army against his parents’ wishes. Life in Stonecreek had felt like it was choking him after a stupid mistake fractured any possible relationship with his father. It wasn’t until he’d traveled halfway around the world that he’d realized how much home meant to him.

  He hadn’t wanted to come back here. Too many demons from his past lurked in the shadows. It seemed like he’d never be able to shrug off the disappointment and failure that were part of who he was in this town.

  Trevor was the living embodiment of that. Three years younger, his brother had a knack for causing trouble but not being caught up in it. It was like Trevor wore a coat of armor preventing people from seeing anything but the best in him. The polar opposite of Griffin.