Rules of the Game

by Lori Wilde

  CHAPTER 6

  Jodi Carlyle’s Wedding Crasher Rules: Smile! You’re

  having the time of your life.

  After her night with Jake, Jodi couldn’t stop smiling. Whenever she thought of that evening—which was a lot—a helpless grin stole across her face.

  Memories of the wedding, the diner, that swanky hotel room, swamped over her at the most unexpected time—while checking in guests, having dinner at her parents’ house, during phone calls to Breeanne’s bridesmaids to confirm they’d made it to their fittings. She’d hum or laugh or blush for no reason. Her glee was a little annoying because everybody noticed. Had she really been that much of a Debbie Downer since Ryan stood her up at the altar?

  Well, no more. She’d set herself free, or at least Jake had. That mouth. That tongue. Those hands.

  She still couldn’t believe how quickly she’d hopped into bed with him. Or how liberated she’d felt after sex. No strings. No bonds to nurture. No need to worry when he’d call or if she’d ever see him again. She wouldn’t see him again and she was good with that, and although she wouldn’t have minded a few more nights in his bed, she’d segmented that part of her life into a neat compartment. A fun memory no one else would ever know about.

  Thinking about him got her all hot and wet and bothered again. The orgasms he gave her—volcanic.

  She fanned herself. Whew.

  On Sunday a week after the wedding, her sisters Suki and Kasha dropped by the B&B to discuss plans for Breeanne’s upcoming bridal shower and bachelorette party. They were seated on the floor around a coffee table in the converted train engine that served as her business office, with their tablet computers, and printouts of wedding planning spreadsheets laid out in front of them.

  Breeanne and Rowdy had asked for a couples’ shower. Personally, Jodi wasn’t a fan of couples’ showers. Men at showers tended to stand around at loose ends, jiggling their car keys in their pockets, checking cell phones, and saying things like, “How ’bout them Cowboys?”

  But she didn’t want to disappoint Breeanne, so she came up with the idea of hosting the shower during the Super Bowl. The guys could happily yell at the TV screen over buffalo wings, while the majority of the women oohed and aahed over shower gifts and finger sandwiches. Win-win.

  Because Rowdy had the largest house and the biggest TV, they were holding the shower/Super Bowl party at his place. She’d thought about having it at the B&B, but the boxcar concept didn’t lend itself to large group gatherings. And they had more than fifty guests coming to the shower.

  As for the venue for the bachelorette party, the pickings were slim in Stardust. Unless they wanted to drive two hours to Dallas and stay overnight in a hotel, the options were the Swimmin’ Hole, a fun but divey bar on the outskirts of town; tea at the Honeysuckle Café, which was located in her parents’ antique store; or a spa weekend at the Lodge, a rustic but elegant resort that was part four-star spa, part hunting lodge.

  Weird combo, spa and hunting lodge, but that was Texas for you.

  “The Lodge is the obvious choice,” Kasha said, swinging a curtain of long black hair over her shoulder and revealing a caramel-colored ear studded with four gold earrings. Everything about Kasha was regal. From the way she moved, to the sound of her voice, to the flowy fabrics she wore. She worked at Stardust General Hospital as a physical therapist and she was a yoga devotee. Kasha reached for a celery stick on the crudités tray in the middle of the table, and dipped it lightly in Jodi’s homemade low-calorie buttermilk dressing. “This is a special day.”

  “Obviously the Lodge wins,” Suki replied, piling a small paper plate high with potato chips and French onion dip. Her hair was even darker than Kasha’s, glossy and blue-black in an intriguing asymmetrical style that complemented her Asian features. She was dressed in stylish clothes and wore rings on every finger, and multiple necklaces hung around her throat.

  All four of the Carlyle sisters were adopted. Dan and Maggie Carlyle had taken in Jodi and Kasha when their untenable home lives fell apart. Breeanne and Suki had been adopted as infants.

  “Although,” Suki went on, pausing to crunch a dip-laden chip. A dollop of dip landed on her chin. She laughed, wiped it off with a napkin. “The Swimmin’ Hole does have some rockin’ awesome karaoke on Saturday nights. Just saying. And we could hire a male stripper if we had it at the Hole.”

  “We’re not having it at the Hole,” Jodi said. As the oldest, she was accustomed to issuing edicts, especially to Suki, who could go off on wild tangents if she wasn’t reined in.

  Suki pushed out her bottom lip and shot her a look that said, You’re no fun. “So no strippers?”

  “No strippers.” Jodi put metal in her voice.

  “Spoilsport.”

  “Breeanne isn’t the stripper type,” Kasha soothed. “Can you imagine? She would blush nine hundred shades of red.”

  “But that would be the point,” Suki said. “To embarrass the fire out of her.”

  “We’re not embarrassing Breeanne. This is her big day. She deserves the best life has to offer. Remember how many times we almost lost her?” Jodi asked.

  Breeanne had been born with a heart condition, and she’d been a sickly kid. Many times, their parents had awakened Jodi in the middle of the night telling her to mind the babysitter and help watch over Suki and Kasha while they took another late-night ambulance run to Dallas Children’s Hospital with Breeanne. Remembering those scary nights, she wrapped her hand around her glass of iced tea and took a long drink. She was happy that Breeanne had found her Mr. Right.

  “Jo?” Kasha said.

  Jodi blinked. “Huh?”

  “Where’d you go?”

  Jodi straightened her shoulders, cleared her throat. “Okay, the Lodge. It’s settled.”

  “Still lost in your wild weekend?” Suki winked, noshing on a carrot and looking chic in black leggings and plaid miniskirt, her blue-black hair shining in the lamplight.

  Jodi felt warmth bloom on her cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “C’mon.” Suki playfully poked her in the ribs with her elbow. “You can tell us. We won’t judge. What’s his name?”

  Jodi shook her head. “There is no guy.”

  “Uh-huh,” Kasha said in a you-are-so-lying-your-ass-off tone.

  “There’s not,” Jodi insisted, feeling the flush spread down her neck and up across her forehead. “Concentrate, we’ve got work to do.”

  “Let’s review the evidence,” Suki said, completely ignoring her. “You were gone overnight to Dallas without giving a reason why, and when you came home you couldn’t stop grinning, and, oh yeah, you had a big hickey on your neck.”

  “I did not.” Jodi slapped a hand to her neck and realized as she did it that she’d effectively confirmed Suki’s suspicions.

  “Gotcha.” Suki wagged an index finger back and forth like a metronome. “Don’t bother denying it. I know the signs. You got laid.”

  “I … I …” Great. Stutter. That’ll throw ’em off the scent.

  “Good for you.” Kasha clapped her on the shoulder. “It’s past time you moved on after Ryan and got a new boyfriend.”

  “Shh, don’t even mention that douchebag,” Suki said.

  “There is no boyfriend,” Jodi insisted.

  “Sure there’s not.” Suki looked as pleased with herself as the family cat, Callie, whenever she brought in a dead mouse.

  “I’m not moving on. Well, yes, I am, I’m so over Ryan. But it’s not what you think. I don’t have a boyfriend, I—”

  Suki’s eyes widened and she slapped a palm over her mouth. “Omigod! You had a one-night stand!”

  Jodi wanted to deny it, but she had such a hard time lying that she merely nodded and inwardly cringed.

  “High five!” Suki raised her palm.

  Sheepishly, Jodi slapped her sister’s upraised palm. She wasn’t especially proud of her one-night stand, but neither was she ashamed. It had liberated her in a way she h
adn’t expected, but she wanted the incident to remain isolated. A single event she would never repeat. She’d needed this for her development. Like a snake shedding its skin, a watershed moment symbolizing out with the old and in with the new. Reborn. A dividing line between the old Jodi who put everyone’s needs before her own, and the new Jodi who wasn’t afraid to ask for what she needed.

  “Tell us all about it.” Kasha rested her arms on the table, sank her chin in her upturned palms, and leaned forward inquisitively.

  “Not much to tell.” She shrugged, not wanting to dilute the memory by rehashing it with her sisters.

  “How did you meet him?” Suki ate a cracker, and when she was finished, ate a square of white cheddar.

  Jodi reached over, picked up a small sesame cracker, topped it with cheese, and ate it in one bite.

  “She’s feeling backed into a corner,” Kasha said. “She had to fix the way you ate your cheese and crackers by eating one her way.”

  “What? I did not,” Jodi denied.

  “Yes, you did. It makes you nervous when things don’t come out even.” Kasha nodded knowingly. “Why are you nervous?”

  “Did the one-night stand go badly?” Suki lowered her voice, her eyes turning sympathetic.

  “No. It was great.” That helpless smile overtook her face. “Best sex ever.”

  “So why are you nervous?” Kasha asked.

  “I crashed a wedding,” Jodi confided.

  “What!” Suki squealed, as gleeful as a mouse that stumbled onto a giant wheel of cheese. “No way.”

  “It was Dr. Jeanna’s idea.”

  “You have the coolest therapist.” Suki bobbed her head. “If anyone ever stands me up at the altar, I’m calling her.”

  “Whose wedding did you crash?” Kasha asked.

  “The one Breeanne and Rowdy got invited to and couldn’t attend because they were committed to another event,” Jodi said.

  “The son of the lieutenant governor and Betsy Houston’s daughter?”

  “That’d be the one.” Jodi helped herself to another cracker and cheese.

  “No kidding.” Suki laughed. “This is way too juicy, my rule-following big sissy crashing a high-profile wedding? Love it.”

  “I had to do something.” Jodi dusted cracker crumbs from her fingers onto a paper napkin. “Following the rules landed me with a guy like Ryan. On paper he seemed so perfect. In reality, what a dud!”

  “Dud, hell. He was a criminal,” Suki said.

  “Which goes to show how clueless I was.” No more. Her eyes were wide open now. She’d never trust so easily again.

  Kasha rubbed her hands together. “So dish the dirt on the guy you picked up at the wedding.”

  Jodi shrugged, as if it was no big deal, but an image of Jake as he looked laid out across the bed, studying her with those hot, sexy eyes, popped into her head. “Not much to tell. Chemistry. Sparks. Sex. End of story.”

  “So just how hot was the sex?”

  Jodi grinned and ducked her head.

  “That good, huh?” Kasha poked her gently.

  Pressing three fingers to her mouth in a useless attempt to quell the heat burning her cheeks, she whispered, “Fab-u-lous.”

  “And you’re not going to see him again?” Suki sounded disappointed.

  “No.”

  “Why not?” Kasha asked.

  “Because a one-night stand is for one night,” Jodi said. “That’s why they call it a one-night stand.”

  “Hey, that’s another arbitrary rule,” Suki pointed out. “Feel free to break it.”

  “I don’t want to break it.” Jodi ironed her lips flat, making sure she wasn’t smiling. Damn Jake. Whenever she thought of him her mouth had a mind of its own. “This was about asserting my freedom. Other women can go off and have casual affairs. Why can’t I?”

  “Um,” Kasha said, “because you’re not built that way.”

  “Kash is right.” Suki plucked a grape off the tray and popped it into her mouth. “You’re a long-term kind of woman.”

  “Yeah, well, look where that got me.”

  “Yes, okay, Ryan was a monumental tool, but you can’t let him sour you on love. If you do that, he wins.”

  “I’m not writing off relationships forever,” Jodi explained. “Just for right now. I need to explore. Meet all kinds of men. Ryan is only the second guy I ever slept with. How pathetic am I?”

  “Hey, now you’ve got three notches on the bedpost.” Suki held up three fingers, and the numerous wire bracelets on her wrist jangled as they knocked together.

  “I’m thirty and single. I should have a few more notches than that.”

  “You’re not pathetic,” Kasha soothed. “You’re just not adventuresome. You like your routines and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  But there was something wrong with that, wasn’t there? In her attempt to find the safety and security she’d never had in her early childhood before the Carlyles adopted her, she stuck to the rules, toed the line. She was the good girl who struggled to make sure she always did the right thing. The same girl who didn’t open the door to strangers until she ran out of cereal and survival forced her into it.

  And because of that she’d become staid and boring. Honestly, Ryan’s criminal behavior aside, was it any wonder that he had run out on her? She was the proverbial stickin-the-mud.

  Until her night with Jake.

  Jodi grinned again. For Pete’s sake, stop smiling. But she couldn’t. She’d walked away from the Grand Texan feeling like a phoenix rising from the ashes. From now on her new leaf was staying turned. No more woulda, coulda, shoulda.

  “Oh, before I forget.” Jodi hopped up to retrieve the antique beaded purse from the desk where she’d stowed it when she’d come home after her rendezvous with Jake. “Return this to Timeless Treasures for me, will you, Suk?”

  Suki still lived at home with their parents, and she ran the Internet side of the family antique business. She also had a side business of her own, making jewelry and selling it on Etsy.

  “Will do.” Suki accepted the purse. “Hey, something’s in here.” She opened the snap and pulled out the skeleton key. “Where did this come from?”

  “I’m assuming the store.” Jodi shrugged. “It was in the purse when I borrowed it.”

  “Can I have it?” Suki asked, curling her palm around the key. “My skeleton key necklaces are selling like mad. In fact, I’m out of inventory.”

  “It’s not my key. Ask Mom.”

  “Did you try the key on the hope chest?” Kasha asked, unfurling her long legs and getting to her feet to stretch out her lean body. She struck Tree Pose, balancing perfectly.

  Last summer, Breeanne had found an antique hope chest at an estate sale. It was an unusual trunk, possessing five locks instead of the customary one. Five individual compartments contained inside one wooden box. Carved into the lid was the inscription:

  Treasures are housed within, heart’s desires

  granted, but be careful where wishes are cast,

  for reckless dreams dared dreamed in the

  heat of passion will surely come to pass.

  The old woman who sold Breeanne the chest told her that if she made a wish before she unlocked the compartments, her wish would surely come true. She also cautioned Breeanne to be certain of her desire, because once made, the wish could not be undone.

  Romantic, head-in-the-clouds Breeanne had instantly fallen in love with the crazy myth. The old woman had no keys for the trunk, but hoping that any skeleton key should work on a skeleton lock, and captivated by the tale, Breeanne had bought the hope chest.

  They’d gone through every skeleton key they could find in Timeless Treasures—which was when Suki hit upon the idea of making skeleton key necklaces and selling them in her online store—but none of the keys they’d found had opened any of the five locks on the trunk.

  Mysteriously, neither could either of the two locksmiths in Stardust open the trunk without drilling into the l
ocks, nor could they adequately explain why they couldn’t unlock it.

  The hope chest sat unopened for several days after Breeanne bought it, until Suki used up all the skeleton keys they’d had in the store and she put a sign in the window offering to buy skeleton keys for a dollar. A customer brought one in that had fit the lock on the fifth compartment at the bottom of the trunk.

  As Breeanne turned the key, she wished for a boost in her writing career. Right after that, she’d gotten a call from the agent who’d snubbed her for over a year, telling her local sports hero Rowdy Blanton was looking for a ghostwriter from their area.

  Inside the compartment, Breeanne had found a smaller box with another cryptic saying etched into that lid and when she opened the smaller box, Breeanne found a cheetah scarf that felt soft only to her and Rowdy. To everyone else, the scarf was rough and scratchy. Breeanne took it as a sign that she and Rowdy were meant to be, even though they had something of a bumpy road to their romance.

  Romantic myth aside, Jodi had to admit Breeanne and Rowdy were a perfect fit and made for each other.

  After Breeanne and Rowdy got engaged, her sister passed the hope chest on to Jodi and told her not to give up on love. Because Jodi loved her sister so much, she’d gracefully accepted the trunk, but that didn’t mean she believed it had the power to grant wishes. In fact, the hope chest had sat untouched in the corner for months, gathering dust.

  “I have no interest in the trunk,” Jodi said. In fact, the only reason she hadn’t asked her mother to sell it in the antique store was that she didn’t want to hurt Breeanne’s feelings.

  “Let’s try the key on it.” Suki’s eyes sparkled. “Where is the hope chest?”

  “By the bookcase.” She waved at the far corner of the room.

  Suki pressed the key into Jodi’s palm. “Open it.”

  Kasha had moved into Warrior One and was busy staring fixedly at the wall.

  “Hey, yogini,” Suki said. “Give it a rest. We’re opening the trunk.”

  Kasha ignored her.

  “Sure, go ahead, be steady as steel, strong as stone.” Suki gave Kasha a little push to tip her off balance.