Marrying the Wedding Crasher

by Melinda Curtis

  “Did your father have other employees? Someone to help pick up the slack when he couldn’t perform the duties that kept food on the table?”

  Vince shook his head.

  “Who did your father rely on when he couldn’t function?”

  “Me,” he said softly.

  “But...you were a boy.”

  He nodded, gaze fixed on his family.

  “They don’t know it was you.” Harley gestured to their audience, tried to wrap her head around that. “Joe and Gabe don’t know you helped at the garage. How could that be?”

  Vince’s black eyes came back to rest on her. He didn’t fidget or shrug. He contained all the bad memories and all the messy emotions behind a mask. Only his eyes hinted at the extent of his pain. “I’d show up late to school, waiting to see what cars would come in and what mood Dad was in that day. I’d ride my bike home at lunch...”

  “And sometimes you wouldn’t go back,” she finished for him.

  He nodded. “Which didn’t go over well with my teachers.”

  “And gave you quite the reputation.” As a slacker. Just this morning someone in the bakery had mentioned he’d barely graduated.

  “The school thought I went home sick a lot. When I was in high school, Mom got me a flip phone. She’d text me when she needed me.” His gaze was back on his family. “I liked school.”

  He’d mentioned in Waco that his grades weren’t good. He’d sacrificed a chance at a future to protect his family. No wonder he’d been upset that she’d seemingly thrown her career away. She’d never done anything with a higher purpose. Every move she had ever made had been for her own future.

  On the day Dan broke her saw, Vince had said there were only two things a man needed—honor and pride. Standing next to him, Harley felt as if she had neither. At least, not in the amounts Vince had.

  “Growing up in a house like ours...” Despite being a mere foot away, Vince’s voice sounded distant. His eyes saw something other than Harley. “Never knowing what the day would bring...” His dark gaze returned to her and she almost wished it hadn’t. The emotion there was too raw. The pain evident in every tense line on his face. “I’m thirty-three. A year older than my dad was when he was diagnosed.”

  The gentle breeze that had felt refreshing moments before felt as cold as the Arctic.

  “It’s why you don’t want to get married.” Harley rubbed her bare arms. She couldn’t imagine thinking about her future and not having the vague impression of a child at her feet and a man at her side. What an adolescent she was. With silly dreams. “In case it happens to you.”

  His eyes filled with regret. He knew the personal loss his choice would cause. He mourned. And he mourned alone.

  “You should tell them what you sacrificed. How you held the family together.”

  His mouth hardened into a firm line.

  “They’d understand. There’d be no need for fake girlfriends.” No need for her. Anguish traced a fragile line around her heart.

  Meanwhile, that hard line of Vince’s wasn’t budging.

  Which could only mean one thing. Vince hadn’t told her everything. Her heart clenched.

  Why would he bare his soul? She was nothing to him but a pretend wedding date.

  Vince held out his hand.

  He’d fulfilled his part of her request. He’d told her a secret. He’d put this trip in context. But he didn’t claim her hand per their bargain. He was giving Harley a choice. Stay with him and endure the past at his side. Or go.

  Harley feared the elusive riddle of floating balconies. It kept her awake at night. But after hearing Vince, balconies seemed inconsequential.

  She’d gotten what she’d wanted. He’d opened up to her.

  Why wasn’t she satisfied?

  * * *

  “TALLY HO!” A golf cart with three elderly men turned onto the road in front of the garage.

  Had Harley been about to take his hand? She didn’t touch him now.

  Vince bent to pick up his books. “Let’s find you a flight home.” The defenses he’d erected around his past had crumbled like a disintegrating engine gasket. He didn’t want to say anything else in front of his brothers that might hurt her.

  “Tally ho! Tally ho!” Whoever was driving that cart was in a better mood than Vince.

  “Let’s not.” Harley placed both hands on his chest and halted him in his tracks. “What you’ve done for your brothers is honorable. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You need to tell them.”

  He should tell her about the last day his mother spent in Harmony Valley. The harsh words. The limit he’d reached when he’d told his mother to go and never come back. Harley wouldn’t look at him so kindly then. And if he told his brothers that, they wouldn’t look on him kindly, either. “The chance of me telling them is less than the chance of me getting married.” And if she’d been listening, she knew how slim matrimony was for him.

  “Pizza’s here!” Sam shouted, pointing to the approaching cart, which was zipping toward the garage. “Come on, Uncle Vince!”

  “Let’s go eat.” Harley turned him back the way they’d come, grabbed his free hand and tugged him home. “Everything looks better after pepperoni.”

  “You won’t look better,” he blurted, still in the numb zone of oversharing. “You look beautiful all the time.”

  She scoffed, cheeks blossoming with soft color. “After seeing my reflection in the mirror this morning, I’d have to disagree with that statement.”

  The golf cart parked near Vince’s SUV. Sam ran around to the back where an old man rode next to a small stack of pizza boxes.

  “Finally, the original bad boys of Harmony Valley are back together.” The front-seat golf-cart passenger, a slight man with a belly that hung over the belt holding up his blue-plaid shorts, raised his hands as if praising the Lord. “Just look at them. Most men would be quivering in their boots. And most women—”

  “Watch yourself, Irwin.” Gabe laughed and went to greet the elderly men with handshakes.

  Vince groaned. “Just what we needed. Groupies.”

  Harley chuckled. “It’s exactly what you need.”

  The driver swiveled his sizeable girth sideways, the better to take in Vince. He wore a baggy Hawaiian shirt over yellow-and-pink-checked golf shorts. “That looks like the middle Messina, all right.”

  “I hadn’t realized when we were dating that you were a celebrity,” Harley teased.

  “Only within Harmony Valley.” Had her hand not been in his, Vince would have retreated to the bed-and-breakfast.

  The gangly limbed man in the back of the golf cart got to his feet, swaying as if he might fall. “You two are idiots.”

  “Grandpa Phil.” Brit had been approaching the golf cart. She rushed to his side to steady him.

  “I’m fine.” The old man sounded annoyed but didn’t shrug her off. “Just getting my sea legs after the wild ride Rex gave us.”

  Gabe admired the golf cart. “How fast does this thing go, Rex?”

  “She’ll go twenty,” the big man said with a booming voice. “Thanks to Joe’s fine-tuning.”

  “Thanks for nothing, Joe.” Brit’s grandfather spotted a chair in the driveway and tottered toward it.

  “Do you know them?” Harley asked.

  “I think Brit’s grandfather used to be the town barber,” Vince replied. “He’s giving her away, but I have no idea who the other two are.”

  They didn’t have to wait long to find out. The old man who’d ridden shotgun was beelining right for them.

  “I’m Irwin.” He planted his feet in front of Vince and hitched up his blue-plaid shorts. “We have something in common.”

  “Really?” Vince glanced at Joe for some clue, but his little brother was busy rearranging tables in the parking lot.

  “We’re both b
ad-ass bike riders,” Irwin announced with brass. He waited for Vince’s response.

  “Irwin named his motorcycle Barbara.” The corners of Gabe’s lips twitched as he hefted a cooler from the golf cart. “Because all bad-ass bikes need a name.”

  “What was your motorcycle’s name?” Irwin stared at Vince the way children gazed at actors who played superheroes.

  “Mother.” Gabe snorted derisively.

  Vince nearly choked when what he really wanted to do was choke Gabe.

  Harley smoothed the conversation gap. “Gabe means Vince named his motorbike after their mother.”

  “Gwen,” Irwin breathed. “That is so cool.”

  “Brit is bringing salad and fruit from the apartment,” Joe announced. “Let’s eat.”

  Irwin didn’t need to be asked twice. He hurried to join them.

  Vince didn’t budge. Or look at Harley. “I have never named a motorcycle in my life.” Talk about being unmanned. Worse, he stood holding his schoolbooks.

  “What does it hurt that an old man thinks you have?” Harley tried to slip her hand free.

  Vince held on tight, although he had no right to. Her dreams were so different from his. “A man needs two things.”

  “Yes,” she nodded. “Honor and pride. I’m on record disagreeing with pride.”

  Honor and pride. It was what his father used to say when he was in his right mind and lamenting drifting to the edge of elsewhere. “Honor and pride. Without them, a man is nothing.”

  “I think a man needs more than two things.” She tried to lighten his mood. “What about food? A man needs food.” A woman does, too, apparently. Her stomach rumbled.

  Despite a belief that he had no right to make this woman any promises, Vince gazed at her with a smile. “A man does get hungry.” His gaze dropped to her lips.

  A motorcycle named Gwen. That stomped on his pride. What he wouldn’t give to get Gabe back.

  He could use a kiss. Or at the very least, a twenty-second hug.

  “Even a hungry man goes on a diet,” Harley said with a smile that quickly disappeared. “Because not every food is good for him.”

  He laughed.

  She took advantage of him loosening up to draw her hand free, marching toward the food.

  He wasn’t laughing a few minutes later as he tried to get some pizza.

  “This is exciting. The bad boys of Harmony Valley together again.” Irwin followed Vince around the garage parking lot like a lost dog waiting for a scrap of food to drop. Except Irwin had a plate full of food. Presumably, he was following Vince around so he could sit next to him while they ate.

  The old man treated Vince’s brothers like the backup band, which might have given Vince some satisfaction if not for the way he treated Vince—as if he were the lead singer.

  “Do you eat breakfast?” Irwin elbowed Vince. “What am I thinking? Of course, you eat breakfast. I mean...heh, heh, heh...would you like to have doughnuts with me in the morning?”

  At the picnic table, Joe bent his head, trying poorly to hide a smile. Gabe choked on a bite of pizza. Even Harley was biting her lip.

  “I don’t eat doughnuts for breakfast,” Vince managed to say without bug-slapping irritation. He scooped watermelon onto his plate next to two slices of meat-laden pizza.

  “I should have known you were a protein man.” Irwin leaned around Vince’s shoulder, watching him select a bottle of water from the cooler on the table. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll hook up eventually. With the three of you back, there could even be bar fights again.” He said these last words gleefully, as if there’d be advance warning and seats sold.

  Bar fights? Vince hadn’t yet eaten, but it felt as if pizza grease was congealing in his stomach.

  “There could be bar fights,” Rex, the golf cart driver, said speculatively. “If we had a real bar in town. El Rosal doesn’t count. It’s more restaurant than bar.”

  “There will be no bar fights,” Joe said sternly.

  Irwin sighed dreamily. “And motorcycle races up Parish Hill.”

  “If any of us had motorcycles,” Gabe pointed out with a significant glance at Vince.

  “And we’re going to be part of everything this time,” Irwin finished breathlessly, clearly hanging on Vince’s every word.

  “Idiots,” Phil mumbled.

  Vince agreed.

  Harley sat on the end of an otherwise empty picnic bench. Across from her, Joe and his family sat together. The only person vying for a seat near Vince was Irwin.

  Vince came to stand beside Harley. “Shove over.” He didn’t wait for her answer. He sat on the few free inches of wood on the end and nudged Harley to the left with his hip. He frowned across the table at Sam. “Who does Irwin belong to?”

  “Us.” Sam grinned as if she’d been taking lessons from Gabe.

  “It’s good to be loved.” Irwin sat on the opposite end of the bench, spreading out like an overly watered oak tree. His fork and napkin were placed to the far right, along with his soda can.

  Brit smiled at Irwin as if he was no trouble at all. “Irwin and Rex adopted Sam and Joe when they arrived in Harmony Valley.”

  “We’ve had trouble getting rid of them ever since,” Joe admitted, but he was smiling, too.

  “We’re family now.” Rex had already cleaned his plate. He eyed the pizza boxes. “I’ll be here for the Messinas as long as it doesn’t interfere with Jeopardy.”

  “Or a Game Show Network marathon,” Irwin agreed.

  “Imagine how your life would change if you knew how to record shows.” Gabe’s comment seemed to be directed to Irwin and Rex, but he looked at Joe when he said it, devilment sparkling in his eyes.

  “My grandkids tell me it’s possible.” Rex handed his plate to Sam and nodded toward the pizza boxes. “But going to the moon is also possible and I don’t do that, either.”

  Sam got up and filled Rex’s plate with pepperoni pizza, just the way she might have done for a favorite grandfather.

  The breeze rustled eucalyptus leaves. Shadows seemed to shift inside the service bays. The smell of spicy pizza and inane commentary was a balm to Vince’s conversation with Harley on the bridge. He took a bite of pizza and could almost pretend his confession had never happened.

  Beside Vince, Harley shivered in her sleeveless dress. Vince spread out, planting his feet more than hip distance apart. He set his elbows on the redwood table. His left arm and leg touched Harley’s, offering her some warmth.

  The planks in the table were cracked but had been filled and stained a traditional redwood color.

  Vince leaned back and tried to get a good look at it. “Is this our old picnic table? The one we used to have in the backyard.”

  Joe nodded. “Took a sander to it and refinished it.”

  “Why add to the landfill?” Brit patted the surface. “The wood is still good.”

  They’d often retreated outside when Dad’s emotions got the better of him. Vince would sit on the table and watch Mom try to talk Dad down from paranoia, wishing she’d let him inside to help her, but little Joe had needed a responsible babysitter, which Gabe had never been. Now this... This, Mom would like. That Joe had kept a part of his childhood instead of gutting it and throwing it in a Dumpster. “I suppose that swing set over by Brit’s art display was once ours, too.”

  “It is.” Brit looked proud.

  Vince knelt sideways and looked underneath the table where he found a carved heart and a set of initials. “You didn’t sand off Gabe’s graffiti.”

  “Graffiti? Those are works of art,” Gabe said, smiling. “Do you know how hard it is to carve a heart with a pocketknife? Much less a girl’s initials? I’m lucky I have all my fingers.”

  “I bet some of those girls wished you’d taken off a digit when you dumped them.” Vince couldn’t resist poking fun at his Casanova
brother. “Like Frances Edwards.”

  Some of the exuberance drained from Gabe’s face. Franny was the one girl in Harmony Valley to break his heart. “I didn’t carve that many hearts.”

  “That’s not true.” Sam laughed. “Brad and I find Gabe’s hearts all over town. He’s a legend.”

  Gabe scowled. He so rarely wore any expression other than a big smile that it was as if a cloud had cast its shadow over them. But mostly over happy-go-lucky Gabe.

  “I wonder where Franny is today,” Vince said, because he rather liked the idea of Gabe suffering.

  “I’m tired of hearing about Messina romances that don’t feature me.” Brit seemed intent upon turning the conversation to safer waters. She caught Harley’s eye. “Tomorrow is a big day. Reggie is throwing me a bachelorette party.”

  “Ha!” Gabe laughed and gave Vince a meaningful look.

  “And tomorrow night is the Couples Dinner.”

  “Ha,” Vince said with less gusto than Gabe had used. “I guess Gabe will be eating leftover pizza.”

  “Ha,” Gabe said again. “Nice try. I’m the master of ceremonies.”

  “Anyway...” Brit waited to make sure everyone was listening to her. “I wanted to make sure Harley knew she was invited to both events.”

  Harley thanked Brit. “Are you sure you want me along for the bachelorette party?”

  “It’s not really a party,” Sam explained. “Reggie’s hosting a lunch, but Brit wants to go salvage something she saw upriver first with Dad and me.”

  “When you get married, you can do anything you want for your bachelorette party,” Brit said kindly.

  “I will.” Sam pulled apart two pizza slices. “I’ll make everyone go to a car race and we’ll pay extra to be in the infield.”

  “Over my dead body,” Joe muttered.

  “I got your back on that,” Gabe seconded.

  Maybe Irwin was right. Maybe the bad boys of Harmony Valley were back together, because Vince agreed, too. You didn’t have to be a Messina to know the racetrack infield was where the wildest parties were held.