Marrying the Wedding Crasher

by Melinda Curtis

  “Horseradish grows wild here.” Jessica smiled over her shoulder as she filled a large paper cup with hot water. “I blog about modernizing old recipes, but I fear I’m becoming the Horseradish Queen. I keep finding ancient recipes that include it.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” said an old woman with short purplish-gray hair. She wore a lime-green track suit. A set of black reading glasses perched atop her bangs. “Eating horseradish leads to a long life.”

  “As does being ornery.” Jessica was still smiling when she unwrapped a tea bag and dropped it in a cup.

  “Classic Harmony Valley,” Vince whispered in Harley’s ear, his lips close enough to kiss her cheek. “Wait for it.”

  If she turned her head, Harley wouldn’t have to wait for anything, including that kiss.

  She stood as still as Vince.

  “You could live a long life if you ate your greens.” Jessica kept the ball rolling. “If you walked. Or sang. Or just spoke your mind without a filter.”

  “Is that a dig at me?” The purple-haired woman raised her voice primly. “Duffy told me the other day he thought I talked too much.”

  “I think Jessica was referring to me,” an old woman with jet-black hair and a widow’s peak said. “I always speak my mind.”

  “There are no digs. This is a dig-free zone.” Jessica moved from behind the counter to hug her concerned customers and then she leaned down to kiss one of the toddlers. “Now, who’s up for horseradish chocolate cake?”

  Several patrons raised their hands.

  The way she was feeling, Harley wasn’t brave enough to try it, but something else caught her eye. “What pretty mermaid cookies. They look just like Brittany’s sculptures.”

  “We’re partnering with her.” Jessica selected a mermaid with purple frosting hair and gave it to Harley. “A free sample with the hope you’ll come back for more.”

  That started a whole new line of banter.

  “Is that Messina boy staying after the wedding?”

  “If so, I hope he’s single. My granddaughter can’t hold on to a man.”

  “There’s no ring on that girl’s finger, Vince.” Someone tsked.

  This last comment seemed like Harley’s cue to leave. Vince had his coffee.

  “Um...” Harley’s tea steeped on the back counter, out of reach. She caught Jessica’s eye.

  Jessica dunked the tea bag a few times. “Almost done.”

  “Vince!” A woman about Vince’s age stood in the doorway. She had short, streaky, teased blond hair and the kind of curves that made Harley blush, mostly because there wasn’t enough material in her blouse to cover them. The woman ran forward, flung her arms around Vince and squeezed.

  “Hey, Sarah.” Vince pried himself free with a jolt and draped an arm over Harley’s shoulders. “I heard you were back in town. This is Harley.”

  If the bakery had been quiet before, the patrons held their collective breath this time while Sarah processed Vince being unavailable.

  Moving his hand to Harley’s waist, Vince snuggled her body next to his, which made Harley momentarily forget her stomach woes, personal boundaries and the appropriateness of kissing one’s ex. Her heart beat faster. Her lips curled upward. And she angled her face up to his. All conditioned responses from weeks spent dating him.

  But, hey, this was part of what she was here for, wasn’t it?

  Instead of planting a big one on Harley or looking at her with googly eyes, Vince flashed Sarah a friendly smile, warm without being too warm, like the ones he’d given Harley after their breakup. “It’s always good to reconnect with school friends, isn’t it?”

  He’d managed to put both his ex-girlfriends in their places without elevating either one.

  Annoyance tangoed with jealousy in Harley’s stomach. Or maybe the smell of all that sugar was turning her belly in a different way. She wanted to grab hold of Vince and give a little PDA to brand him as taken. But what she was going to do was take her tea and hightail it out of there.

  “Almost done,” Jessica said, reading Harley’s mind.

  Sarah stared at Harley as if trying to place a once-familiar face, perhaps having taken Vince’s comment about reconnecting and assuming it included Harley.

  “Um...” Harley took pity on his ex. Sarah wasn’t going to recognize her. “I’m not from—”

  “Sarah?” Vince interrupted, pointing to the sidewalk and an old woman moving slowly with the aid of a walker. “Is that your grandmother?”

  “No.” Sarah glanced over her shoulder and then back at Vince, unconcerned. “She’s my client. I work for Becca Harris as a caregiver. That’s Mrs. Edelman. She used to teach third grade.”

  “She was one of my favorite teachers.” Vince hurried to the front, angling his head as if to tell Harley to follow him out the door. He stepped outside and greeted his former teacher.

  The bakery customers jumped into the void.

  “Did he dump the blonde?”

  “Which blonde? They’re both blondes.”

  “He left them both for Carly Edelman.”

  “He’s got good taste.”

  Laughter filled the room, bouncing off those high ceilings.

  Harley’s cheeks felt warm.

  By contrast, Sarah seemed oblivious, either because she was hard of hearing or she’d become immune to the long-living blurting residents in Harmony Valley.

  “Ignore the peanut gallery,” Jessica advised, finally handing Harley her tea. “Not much happens around here, which means every little thing is a big deal.”

  “Vince is just the nicest guy, isn’t he?” Sarah sighed. She gave Harley a competitive woman’s once-over.

  Harley tried to look unthreatened.

  “Well...” Sarah pouted. “Let me know if you cut him loose. I was a fool to let Gabe turn my head.” She went to find her client a chair, waving to catch Mrs. Edelman’s attention when Vince held the door for her.

  “For what it’s worth, they talked worse about Joe when he first came back.” Jessica nodded, smiling. “They’d all defend Joe now.”

  That didn’t mean their words didn’t hurt Joe’s pride or Vince’s, for that matter.

  Harley carried her tea and cookie, and joined Vince outside. She tried to make light of his reception. “You must have broken Sarah’s heart. She latched onto you like a bride at a wedding dress clearance sale.”

  “She’s scary.” Vince took Harley’s arm and led her down the sidewalk, adding in a lowered voice, “She pinched my butt.”

  “You lie.” Harley stopped, completely taken aback. “She wouldn’t do that in front of a roomful of people.”

  “Oh, yes, she did.” With a furtive glance over his shoulder—possibly to see if Sarah was following them—Vince tugged Harley back into motion. “Didn’t you see me jump?”

  Harley chuckled. She had.

  “Don’t laugh. You’re supposed to protect me from her.”

  How she wished someone could have protected her from failure with Dan. “You should have bargained for a kiss in front of Sarah.” She knew the words were a mistake as soon as they left her mouth.

  “I still could.” Vince’s gaze fell to her lips, his steps downshifted to slow-mo and his expression turned serious.

  Harley’s breath caught in her throat. Against her better judgment. Against all experience to the contrary. Harley wanted to be held by Vince.

  Not for show. Not to fulfill her end of a bargain. But because she liked him and because, when he kissed her, when his arms came around her, she felt that all her mistakes didn’t matter.

  All her mistakes...

  Pride had led her to accept a job with Dan. Pride had made her show her sketches to him. Pride had made her quit.

  “You were wrong the other day about men needing pride,” Harley stated. “Pride steals you
r footing. It makes you doubt. It brings you down.” To a place where you needed someone to lift you up.

  She wanted that someone to be Vince. But that would go against the pep talks she gave herself about being resilient, not to mention, Vince didn’t want to be her rock.

  “You don’t need another kiss.” Her voice was a thready whisper.

  He cocked a brow. “I don’t?”

  She hadn’t been talking to him. She’d been talking to herself, talking herself down from the kissing ledge. “No. You need this.” She didn’t kiss him. She hugged him. She hugged him tight.

  And, for just a moment, she didn’t worry about balconies in the clouds, dreams lost or hearts that might be broken.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WHEN VINCE DATED a woman, he held her hand, he slung his arm over her shoulder, he looked a woman in the eyes when she talked and listened to the subtext of what she was saying.

  He tried to be in the moment, to be authentic and intimate. But he tried to do it without being the guy a woman classified as “the One.”

  To do that, he had certain rules. He was always honest about where he saw himself five years from now—a common dating question. His answer? Pretty much the same as his life was now.

  He was always honest when the inevitable question arose about marriage—a question many women his age posed. His answer? “I don’t see myself getting married. And I’m not interested in having kids.”

  And he’d found that certain behaviors made sure a woman got the subliminal message that things just weren’t going to work out. He didn’t call or text every day. He didn’t take women to fancy restaurants or away for fancy weekends. And he didn’t hug.

  Holding a woman for emotional support implied a connection, which implied a relationship, which implied there’d be a future.

  Harley had said he needed a hug. But how she held on to him wasn’t possessive. It wasn’t suggestive. It was truly an offer of support. Two shoulders to lean on, as if she suspected he could use an outlet from the stress of being home.

  Vince drew her closer. He hadn’t realized how much he needed those two shoulders, those two arms, that she could read him so well.

  “That did the trick, I bet.” Harley released him and immediately focused on straightening her blouse.

  Which didn’t need straightening.

  He blinked. Disoriented. The woman in his arms was gone. Walking away from him. A swing to her step.

  “Hang on.” He jogged to Harley’s side. “What just happened there?”

  It suddenly dawned on him that he’d managed to break every one of his rules with Harley.

  He should send her home on the next plane.

  “You looked like you could use some TLC,” Harley said. She reached the crosswalk and checked both ways, more careful crossing the road than she was with her affections. “Did you know a twenty-second hug has been proven to reduce stress?”

  “It had the opposite effect on me.” Vince was tied up in knots. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted her to want the same things he did.

  “It was just a hug.” She sounded exasperated. “If it bothers you that much, pretend that hug happened weeks ago.” She walked faster than he’d ever seen her go. In no time, she’d nearly reached Snarky Sam’s, which was half antique store, half pawn shop. “Pretend we stepped into a time machine and that hug occurred in Waco just before I shared my greatest triumph and biggest failure, and you decided I wasn’t worthy.”

  “I never said you were unworthy or a failure.”

  She huffed.

  Snarky Sam had filled the sidewalk in front of his store with items for sale. A three-wheeled adult bicycle with a large basket behind the seat. A potbellied stove. A fireplace grate and a matching set of tools.

  Harley slowed down to drink some tea before they reached the sidewalk obstacle course.

  “Since we’re in your time machine...” Vince studied her features, trying to isolate the motives behind her impulsive hug. “I was being honest when I said you should be out conquering the world of architecture, not the curvature of someone’s luxury spa.”

  “And I told you I couldn’t do it. Not for four years. Don’t you remember?”

  “Yes, but... You didn’t tell me why it’ll take four years.” He recognized that tone she used. Harley was in the you-can’t-win-this-argument zone.

  Vince caught her arm, slowing her to a stop next to the three-wheeler. He noticed the veterinary office down the road, to the left. The parking lot was filled with cars. A mile ahead and they’d be out of Harmony Valley.

  Oddly, Vince wasn’t pining to escape town. He was more interested in straightening the record with his ex.

  Best to remember the ex part.

  “I told you to try architecture again,” he said in his most rational voice. “Being knocked down once doesn’t mean you’re out forever.”

  “And I told you I couldn’t.” She tugged her arm, barely, as if she didn’t really want him to let go. “In my entire life, I’ve never faced a problem I couldn’t work out. Until...” Her features bunched and she looked away. “Never mind.”

  “Tell me.” He stopped abruptly, wanting to show he understood she was stressed. “Or I’ll give you a twenty-second hug.”

  Her gaze found the rooftops of the brick buildings lining Main Street and the clouds drifting high above them. “As a kid, I used to imagine grand structures. Domes that tilted and swirled crookedly. Buildings that had curved walls. Second stories that seemed to float on air.” Her words came to a halt and her gaze came crashing back to Vince. “My family thought I didn’t understand how a conventional building happens. Tiles need flat surfaces to adhere, you know. So I kept my ideas in a sketchbook. And then I took years of math and science and art, all the while hoping to learn how to bring my impossible ideas to life.” Unsuccessfully if her quitting was any indication. “I studied the work of Zaha Hadid. She was a pioneer in liberating architectural geometry.”

  Vince was lost, period. And a bit lost in the passion he saw in her eyes.

  Harley blinked. “I’m boring you.”

  “Not in the slightest.” He paused, figuring the best means to get to the bottom of this was a direct question. “Did you think you’d be a pioneer in the field, too?” Did she honestly believe it would only take a few years?

  Her mouth worked. Her nose wrinkled. Her eyes rounded with watery disappointment. “Yes. I thought I could blaze new trails in architecture. Does that sound conceited?”

  “No. It sounds like a really great goal.” Lacking one himself, he was envious she had one.

  “A goal.” She blew out a breath and shook her head. “More like a pipe dream.”

  The glass door to Snarky Sam’s swung outward. A small, spritely old man wearing a red-flannel shirt and a deep scowl pinned them with a glance. “Are you buyin’ or sellin’?”

  “Neither.” Vince held up his hands.

  “No loitering allowed.” The old man pointed to a sign in his window that said as much. “Loitering decreases my sales. You get me?”

  “Gotcha.” Vince tugged Harley across the street.

  “Is your stomach all right?” Harley passed a hand side-to-side over her waist. “I must have eaten something yesterday that didn’t agree with me.”

  “I’m fine.” Other than being confused about his feelings for Harley, twenty-second hugs and the unaccountable loss of pipe dreams.

  * * *

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER voices drifted from inside the house Vince had grown up in.

  Carefree laughter. Indistinct words spoken with happy tones.

  And yet Vince heard the sounds of the past.

  His mother’s voice, so clear. Her words roughened by too many cigarettes and too many cares.

  I can’t do it anymore.

  Vince’s steps slowed. Stopped. Guilt pressed a
t his temples. He should have reacted differently all those years ago, been stronger, thought about what his brothers needed instead of himself.

  Harley kept walking without realizing he wasn’t next to her. They hadn’t talked since Snarky Sam’s. She’d been lost in her thoughts, and, for once, he’d been wondering about his future, only to find he was still anchored by the past.

  “What’s wrong?” Harley stood in front of him. Real and solid, and not falling apart like the people in his past.

  Vince didn’t budge. “I haven’t been in that house since I left.”

  “They said they gutted it.” Harley studied his face. “But you can stay outside if you want to.” Her gaze moved to the house with a flicker of interest. She wanted to go in.

  I can’t do it anymore.

  Twenty years had passed and he couldn’t shake his mother’s words. He’d thought Mom had meant she couldn’t handle their father any longer. He hadn’t thought she’d meant she couldn’t handle her sons, as well. Up until then, he’d been her fixer, but he couldn’t fix her.

  Gabe stood in the doorway, crowbar in hand. “Here come the professionals just in time to criticize all my hard work on the doors.”

  “He hasn’t put in any doors yet, but come see.” Joe appeared at Gabe’s shoulder, looking joyful to be remodeling the house they’d grown up in. “My friends and I laid laminate all through the night.”

  “I can tell you don’t want to go in.” Harley moved between Vince and the house. “Let’s take a walk over to the bridge. Your brothers are watching and you can...you can...kiss me.” She said this as if she were telling a nurse she was ready for a tetanus shot.

  “Now you’re letting me choose when I get a kiss?” Vince managed to keep his voice low but failed to smile reassuringly, or at all. There was nothing reassuring about his memories or his guilt. “Where were you when Sarah goosed me?”

  “I’m a little slow on the uptake.” Harley stared at his Adam’s apple. “It won’t happen again. Now, how about we put on a show for your brothers.” She tilted her face upward, still not looking at him.

  “Too late. They went back inside.”

  Harley turned to face the house. The wheels were spinning in her head, all right. She was regretting that impulsive hug outside the bakery and was probably disappointed she’d been unable to clear the air between them.