Snowbound Bachelorette Party

by Veronica Tower

  Snowbound Series

  Book Fourteen

  Snowbound Bachelorette Party

  By

  Veronica Tower

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is

  Snowbound Bachelorette Party by Veronica Tower

  Red Rose™ Publishing

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  Publishing

  Red Rose™ Publishing

  Copyright© 2014 Veronica Tower

  ISBN: 978-1-4543-0311-4

  Cover Artist: Shirley Burnett

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  This is a work of fiction. All references to real places, people, or events are coincidental, and if not coincidental, are used fictitiously. All trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, and registered service marks are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for identification purposes only.

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  Snowbound Bachelorette Party

  By

  Veronica Tower

  Chapter One

  Eve Tanner sighed, turned off the engine of her tiny Ford Escort and sat back in her seat in disgust. Snowflakes were already covering her windshield. Normally that would be a beautiful sight, but under the circumstances it just made a rotten month that much more unpleasant. Could things get any worse?

  Mustering her resolve, she opened the car door and got out to look at the damage. The wind immediately swirled wet flakes of snow inside her coat, making her scramble to button it. Cars raced past her on Highway 96 driving entirely too fast for the weather—just as she had been doing. She didn’t feel safe with the sun setting and the storm growing and the big trucks whipping by with only a couple of feet between them and the side of her car, but there was really nothing she could do about it.

  She crouched down next to the driver’s side wheel to survey the damage. Whatever she had run over had ripped her tire up good. She hoped that was all that it had done and that it hadn’t damaged anything else under her vehicle, but she really wouldn’t know until she got the tire fixed and she was on the road again.

  She grimaced. In forty-two years she had never had to change a tire and she wasn’t certain she could do it. She was an accountant, after all, not a mechanic and wasn’t this why she paid for Triple A every year?

  She got back into the greater warmth of her vehicle and took out her phone. She was going to be seriously late for Kara’s bachelorette party now, but what could she do? It was just that kind of night.

  No, let’s be honest. It had been that kind of year. First, she’d lost her job when the government had sued her employers for conspiring to cover up the financial wrong doings of a half dozen important clients—nothing to do with Eve except that the people who had provided her paycheck were all going to prison and couldn’t operate their company any more.

  Unfortunately, being home all day had given her ample opportunity to discover that she didn’t have quite as strong a relationship as she’d thought with Charles, her live-in and equally unemployed boyfriend. Charles, it seemed, didn’t like having Eve home all the time because it cut into his one-on-one time with at least three women he’d been keeping on the side for the past six years—every one of them was younger, prettier and almost certainly stupider than Eve was. And that was saying a lot because Eve felt awfully damn stupid now.

  Tears threatened to well up in her eyes. There had just been so many signs if she’d been willing to notice. The email accounts he always minimized if she passed near. The fact he could never pick up his phone and answer her if she called no matter what time of day it was. The many errands he was constantly inventing that all took three times as long as they should have …

  She shook her head, disgusted with herself. At least Charles was gone now—although why he’d thought she would let him go on staying with her while she happily paid his bills she’d never be able to figure.

  He’d actually tried to get physical again after she’d found out as if she’d ever let him touch her after learning about all the other women. As if this was just a routine argument and should lead to great make up sex. What the hell was wrong with him? And what was wrong with her for having put up with him for so long? Was she that desperate? Was she that certain that at forty-two she’d lost her chance to attract another man? Or had she just been that comfortable? It wasn’t like they were even having sex that much anyway.

  Ironic, wasn’t it? She’d actually felt bad for him when he’d stopped making love to her. She’d thought that all those failed attempts to get a new job were depressing him, stealing away his sense of masculinity, so that he just didn’t have the energy to get it up with her like he used to.

  Now she knew the truth. Charles didn’t have the energy because he was too busy satisfying all his other girlfriends.

  It made her nauseous to think about—stomach-wrenching, throw-up-your-lunch-and-breakfast nauseous. The years she had wasted on the man and now she’d probably end up spending the rest of her life alone.

  She knew it was selfish of her, but the idea of going to her college roommate’s wedding and celebrating someone else’s love was just about killing her. She should have pleaded illness and stayed home to brood in her apartment, or pretended to have car trouble when she was far enough away to use it as an excuse to stay home. She should have done anything but drive to Detroit on Highway 96 where the pavement was in such bad repair that she’d busted up her tire and trapped herself.

  Her phone rang partially distracting Eve from her funk. A glance at the Caller ID showed her Liz Brennan’s number. Liz was Kara’s younger sister and the woman who’d arranged this asinine bachelorette party tonight. If Eve remembered correctly, Liz was the wild member of the Brennan family. Half her fun tonight would probably come from embarrassing her sister and the other half from getting raunchy with the strippers. Normally that would sound like fun to Eve, but now, under these circumstances?

  Eve took the call. “Hi, Liz.”

  “Where are you, Eve?” Liz asked. Her voice was boisterous, like she’d started drinking quite a while ago. “We’re heading from the church to the rehearsal dinner and that means the bachelorette party is only a couple of hours away.”

  Eve frowned and shared her news. “I just got a flat tire on Highway 96. I was just about to call Triple A.”

  “Triple A when it’s snowing?” Liz clarified. Eve could picture her shaking her head as she mulled over the problem. “I know they promise to get help to you in an hour, but I don’t know if we can count on that with the snow coming down like it is now. I’ll send Travis to you. You’ve got a spare, right?”

  Eve felt simultaneously grateful to Liz for her help and embarrassed that she needed it. “Travis doesn’t have to come find me. He’s supposed to go to the rehearsal dinner with you, right?”

  Liz was unmoved by her protestations. “The rehearsing is all done. He’s just an usher anyway. I’ll order his dinner and he can eat it when he gets back.”

  Eve still felt bad dragging Liz’s boyfriend away from his meal.
“Are you sure?”

  “Of course, I am. Now let me know where you are on the highway and I’ll send Travis right out.”

  Eve reluctantly gave her the information and disconnected the call. Then she got back out of her car to look at her damaged tire again.

  She really should have just stayed home.

  A large black pickup truck pulled off the highway in front of Eve and two white men got out. It was nearly an hour since she’d gotten off the phone with Liz and Eve had begun kicking herself for not just going ahead and calling Triple A. They could have come out and changed her tire and afterward she could have decided whether or not she wanted to carry on and attend the wedding or just say to hell with it and start back home to make her excuses later. Now she was stuck—trapped—she couldn’t possibly skip Kara’s big day when her sister’s boyfriend had driven out to change her tire.

  One of the men—the passenger—approached her car door and she turned on the engine so she could inch down the window for him. He was tall with rich black hair and a good-natured smile—even considering the snow falling heavily all around him. “Hi, are you Eve? I’m Travis Lawton. Liz sent me.”

  Eve opened the car door and got out. “Hi, I’m Eve Tanner. Thanks for coming out to help me—especially on a night like this.”

  They shook hands. Eve could immediately see what had attracted Liz to Travis—at least on the surface. He was quite handsome with bright eyes and a friendly voice.

  “Think nothing of it. We’re glad to help.” Travis gestured toward the man standing next to him. “This is Ken Collins. Friend of Ron’s, the groom.” He shrugged. “I guess he’s my friend too.”

  “My truck has four-wheel drive so I volunteered to come out and help you,” Ken explained as he took off his glove to shake Eve’s hand. He had the bluest eyes she had ever seen with curly blonde hair sticking out from under his wool cap. He was tall too—taller than Travis—with broad shoulders beneath his winter coat that suggested he had played sports in school. Examining his face, Eve decided that school probably hadn’t been that long ago. He was in his mid-to-late twenties—a good fifteen years younger than herself. Not that that mattered any. She hadn’t come to find a date, not that he’d be interested if she had.

  A cold wind reminded Eve that it was still snowing. “Well it was very kind of both of you to come help me out. I should have just called Triple A—”

  “Nonsense,” Ken interrupted. “We’re happy to help. I’m not quite sure how I ended up at the rehearsal anyway. I’m just an usher and I don’t think they really needed me even for that.”

  “Technically, Ken is an usher because he’s Ron’s oldest friend,” Travis explained. Then he winked at Eve. “But the real reason he was asked was so he could take over the bachelor part responsibilities. The best man is engaged and his pregnant wife told him not to let things get out of control tonight, so Ken had to be drafted to see Ron off in style.”

  Eve offered Ken the askance glance that both of the men seemed to expect of her. “I’m sure Kara would prefer that Ron’s last unwed evening be quiet and uneventful as well.”

  Both Ken and Travis began laughing. “Don’t forget that I live with the maid of honor,” Travis told her. “She’s tried to be secretive, but I suspect that Ken will have a hard time making Ron’s party half as exciting as what Liz has planned for Kara this evening.”

  Eve frowned. “Kara says Liz promised she wouldn’t have any strippers at all.”

  Both men kept laughing.

  Eve found herself reluctantly smiling with them. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Liz not getting wild is like Rocky Road ice cream without the nuts.”

  The wind gusted again and she shivered.

  Ken immediately noticed. “Maybe I should start changing your tire. You have a jack and spare in your trunk?”

  “Yes,” Eve confirmed. She reached into her car and popped the trunk. Ken immediately went to the rear of the vehicle and took her suitcases out so he could get to her jack and spare.

  Travis kept talking. “We should have made Liz’s brother-in-law, Al, drive out here with us. He owns a garage. He ought to be able to change a tire.”

  Ken’s response was sharp and quick. “I can change a tire.”

  Travis held up both hands as if playfully warding off a blow. “I didn’t say you couldn’t.”

  Ken pulled the spare out of the trunk and carried it to the front of the vehicle. Then he squatted down and popped off the hubcap. A few seconds later and his arms were straining as one after another he loosened the bolts so he could remove the damaged wheel. He questioned Eve while he worked. “So how long have you been on the road? We were listening to the traffic reports on the way out and there are accidents everywhere.”

  “It did get bad toward the end,” Eve agreed. “I only live in East Lansing. Normally that’s a two hour drive, but it started getting bad about halfway here and, it’s gotten a lot worse in the past hour.”

  Ken pulled the tire off. “That’s Detroit for you. You can always count on us for a few good snowstorms each year.”

  “I wonder how the city is going to pay for it?” Eve said. Her accountant brain was always tuned in to financial news. “All you hear about these days is talk of bankruptcy.”

  Ken stuck the spare tire onto the car and began to screw the lug nuts back in place. “Oh, we’ll stumble through. We always do.”

  Eve suspected that that was the kind of attitude that had helped get Detroit into its current problems, not that she blamed Ken for it. Unless he was a politician, he was in no way responsible for the current mess. Which made her wonder…?

  “What do you do, Ken? For a living, I mean.”

  “I’m an engineer at Ford.”

  That impressed Eve. “That’s a good company, despite the problems with the car industry in general.”

  Ken picked up the tire iron and began tightening the nuts. “Every industry has its ups and downs.” He grunted as he pulled particularly hard on the iron. “What do you do?”

  Eve flushed with embarrassment. She knew it wasn’t her fault she was unemployed but she hated admitting it. So she tried to fly past the topic without mentioning her current problems. “I’m just an accountant—nothing exciting like being an engineer.”

  Ken tightened another bolt. “Engineering is not as exciting as you seem to think. And if you accountants screw up, the company can get in just as much trouble as if we turn in bad designs.” He put his wrench on the last bolt. “Who do you work for?”

  Eve hesitated and Travis came to her aid. “Eve’s company just went under. There was some shenanigans among the partners and…”

  “And the staff took it on the chin for them,” Ken muttered. There was bitterness in his voice as if he’d seen bad things happen too often.

  “I’ll find something new,” Eve told him. “If nothing else, tax season is coming. There’s always work in the spring in my field.”

  Ken stood up, grinning. “You accountants are probably the only people who get excited about taxes.” He flipped her damaged tire onto its side and showed her a huge gash in the tread. “I don’t know what you ran over but this tire is dead and needs to be buried. Sorry. You’re lucky you didn’t have a wreck when it blew out.”

  He picked it up and carried it to her trunk where he fit it and the jack into their places.

  “Thanks for changing it for me,” Eve told him. “It was really nice of both of you to come out and help me, especially on a night like this.”

  “Always happy to help a beautiful woman,” Ken told her.

  Eve froze for a second, surprised by the comment. While she’d certainly noticed how handsome Ken was, she hadn’t noticed he was handsome—not in the sense of flirting or a potential date. The idea that he thought she was attractive genuinely startled her. She knew she wasn’t beautiful. Charles wouldn’t have cheated on her if she were a beauty. Charles wouldn’t have done a lot of things if she’d been truly attractive.

  She decide
d that Ken was simply using a figure of speech and decided to ignore the comment, but Travis picked it up and teased her about it.

  “So it’s a good thing you’re not hideously ugly or something or Ken would have made me change the tire.” Travis nearly doubled over laughing at his little joke.

  Ken put the suitcases back in the trunk and closed it. “Oh, I would have still helped you, Eve.” He grinned at her, but whether mockingly or flirtatiously, she couldn’t be certain. “I just wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much.”

  He suddenly got very practical, reinforcing in Eve’s mind the idea that he was only teasing. “Seriously, the snow is getting a lot worse. Are you comfortable driving in this? Travis could take my truck back to the hotel and I could chauffer you in your Escort. I really am a good driver.” He winked. “It’s part of the job description when you design cars for Ford.”

  The conflicting signals Eve was receiving frightened her. Was Ken teasing her or flirting with her? He had to be teasing. He was fifteen years younger and all-American-perfect. She didn’t think she could handle being teased for the rest of the drive into town, even though the offer was otherwise tempting. “That’s okay. Appearances to the contrary, I can handle my vehicle.”

  Ken didn’t exactly back off. “Of course you can. Anyone can get a flat tire. I just thought you might enjoy some company after your long drive.”

  His earnestness further confused Eve. “I appreciate the offer, but you should drive with your friend. I’ll be just fine.”

  Ken changed tactics in a way that convinced Eve that he really hadn’t been flirting with her. “At least let me give you my cell phone number. That way if you break down again you can call us immediately and we can circle back to help you. I’ll keep an eye on you through my rearview mirror, but with this storm.” He shrugged as if to make the point that anything could happen.