He just wished Graham would’ve come to that realization a little sooner than the wedding day. “Okay, so you are getting cold feet. Better now than—”
“My feet aren’t cold,” Graham insisted, unbuttoning the top button of his starched tuxedo shirt. “I want to marry Tessa.”
“Then why are you thinking about the redhead?”
“Because she’s here. At the wedding. I just saw her walk up the drive.”
Blake blinked. “You invited her to your wedding?”
“No! Definitely uninvited.” Graham swallowed. “Definitely trouble.”
Blake whistled, low. And it echoed off the ornately decorative tin-paneled walls. “Awkward.”
“It’s more than awkward.” Graham swallowed again, yanking at his black bow tie as if it were choking him. “She’s here to ruin my wedding.”
And this, Blake thought, was why love was to be avoided at all costs.
People made fools of themselves for love. Now even Graham—the king of cool—had been infected with the crazy. “Graham. Pull it together. She’s probably just somebody’s plus one.”
“Guests don’t start arriving until three thirty. It’s only one o’clock. Nobody’s plus one shows up three and a half hours early to a wedding.” Graham looked slightly sick, his shoulders drooping. “Don’t look at me that way, man. We’ve been over this. It was just that one time. Just to get it out of my system, okay? She was a smoking hot redhead who was ready and willing.”
Redheads, Blake thought ruefully, rubbing the back of his neck. Nothing but trouble.
Blake had learned that lesson long ago. And it irritated him to be back in the same Colorado town where he’d learned it. Since graduating high school, he hadn’t come back, and now that he had, everything was going to hell again.
“She didn’t mean anything to me,” the groom was saying. “She knows it. So why is she swooping down on my wedding like some jealous harpy?”
“You might wanna ask yourself—” Blake cut himself off, reminding himself that the best man was supposed to talk the groom through a case of nerves, not talk him out of getting married.
“Listen,” Graham said, emphatically. “Cheating on Tessa was a mistake. I swear to you, Tessa’s the girl for me. I love her, and I’m ready to settle down for good. I can’t let anybody ruin this day.”
In spite of his friend’s seemingly heartfelt declaration, Blake’s gut clenched. Given all the girls he’d lured into his own bed with a near-legendary playbook of moves, Blake didn’t have any right to judge, but he’d kind of hoped marriage would work out for Graham. Because if someone like Graham could do it, maybe he could prove Blake wrong about love being just for suckers. “If you and Tessa really want to be together then nobody can ruin it.”
“She can,” Graham said, pushing his fingers through his slicked-back hair. “This redhead. She seemed like the dramatic type—the kind to make a scene. What if she’s here to tell Tessa about our fling? I need you to help me out here. I need you to go out there, find out what this woman is doing here, and stop her from blowing up my wedding.”
“You want me to play the bouncer?” Blake asked.
“Yeah. If I go out there, it’ll be a confrontation. But you? You can sell ice to an Eskimo, remember? Just work your patented Aw-Shucks Charm on the redhead and get her to leave. Bros before hos, man.”
Bros before hos.
That was another one of the groom’s favorite mottos, and it’d kept jealousy and competition from ruining their friendship in college. But Blake liked to think he’d matured a bit, and didn’t like the way the motto sounded now.
“This is some bullshit,” Blake said, the redneck drawl he’d spent so many years trying to hide slipping past his guard—a sure sign he was more than a little bit pissed at his friend for creating this mess.
“C’mon, Blake,” the groom said, his plea slipping from macho desperation to straightforward emotional blackmail. “You’re my best man. The best wingman in the business. You said you were my go-to guy. You said you had my back. Didn’t you mean any of that?”
Blake’s teeth clenched so hard an arrow of pain shot up into his ear. Friendship and loyalty meant everything to him. And over the years, Blake had learned to be a great wingman. He just never expected to be doing it at his best friend’s wedding. He’d intended to dress up in this monkey suit and teach some blue-haired old aunts how to line dance before hitting the bar and seducing the pretty wedding planner.
Covering up Graham’s infidelities hadn’t been on the agenda.
Still, what choice did he have? Blake’s friendship with Graham had been the steadiest relationship in his life—and certainly the longest lasting. Their bond was important to him. So that was that, Blake thought. If he hadn’t wanted to handle a wedding-related crisis, he shouldn’t have agreed to be the best man.
Blake popped a mint into his mouth and shrugged into his tuxedo jacket. “You owe me, Graham. You owe me big. What’s this girl look like, other than red hair? What’s she wearing?”
“I only caught a glimpse of her out the window, but she’s wearing some kind of choker necklace, a lacy blouse and a long skirt. Boho chic. Totally your type.”
Yeah, that did sound like Blake’s type. “What’s her name?”
“I don’t remember,” Graham answered, practically shoving him out the double doors. “Hurry, man.”
Blake wove his way past the ornate couches and expensive vases of blue and white wedding flowers in the foyer. Redhead. Choker. Long skirt. Not a lot to go on, but the sprawling Victorian manor house was relatively empty. The bride and groom’s family weren’t due for photos for another hour, so it shouldn’t be hard to find somebody that didn’t belong.
The empty foyer was festooned with garland and a table piled high with cocktail napkins each embossed with the bride’s and groom’s names. But no redhead. No redhead in the weird octagonal dining room with the creaky wood floors, either. No redhead in the lounge where harried Briarwood staff rushed past the piano under the ferocious gaze of the bear’s head mounted on the wall. And definitely no redhead in the cozy little library where a decorative globe formed the centerpiece of one wall near a row of oddly shaped mirrors.
But in the mirror’s reflection, Blake caught a flash of red hair. Spinning to get a better look out the window, he saw a woman loitering by the gazebo, where the white folding chairs were being set up on the patio.
Redhead. Choker. Long skirt.
Check.
Stepping out onto the patio into the warm summer air, he planned his approach. Thanks to the infamous playbook he and Graham had been refining since freshman year in college, Blake knew how to approach women cold, how to win a girl over with a killer smile or a great pick-up line. But a situation like this one might be more than a smile or a line could defuse.
He’d have to play it like he didn’t know anything. Pretend to mistake her for a Briarwood Manor staff member. Then ask if she’d seen the photographer, the wedding planner, or the groom’s drunk uncle. Anything to smooth the way into a conversation. Build a little rapport, mirror her body language, draw her to confide in him, then talk her out of doing anything crazy. As far as he knew there wasn’t any security working this gig, so if that didn’t work, he’d have to escort her off the premises . . . and that could get ugly.
As he got closer, he saw the redhead reaching for the microphone near the gazebo where Graham and Tessa would say their vows. Uh-oh. Was it possible Graham was right, and this chick was about to cause a scene by yelling into a microphone that she’d been wronged?
Picking up his pace, Blake sprinted across the paved patio in his dress shoes, dodging big, round flower arrangements and blue-tulle-bedecked folding chairs. He lunged to tap the redhead on the shoulder, when he caught an alarmingly familiar whiff of perfume—a blend of incense and sandalwood that reminded him of sultry guitar riffs, l
ate night jam sessions, and making out in the back of a tour van the summer before college.
And it stopped him in his tracks.
Graham had been right. The beautiful redhead was his type. She was exactly his type. She was, in fact, the only woman that he’d ever loved . . .
***
Today, Penny Parker would achieve karmic balance.
She’d play her guitar, sing from the soul, and send so much love out into the universe that the positive energy would boomerang back, filling her life with good things. That was the beauty of karmic balance.
And Penny loved karmic balance.
More importantly, she needed karmic balance. Without it, her life had become a relentless parade of pressure from graduate school, pinched finances, and relationships that went nowhere.
That’s why she’d been so thrilled when Julie Winter, wedding planner extraordinaire, called her at the last minute to fill in for the violinist who was supposed to play the pre-ceremony music for this wedding. Penny liked that it was a gig with a paycheck, but she loved weddings even better. There was nothing better than sending a happy couple off into connubial bliss to fill the universe with some positive intentions!
That’s why Penny was early, guitar at the ready, eager for the guests to shuffle past the blue and white hydrangea-filled urns and find their seats. That wouldn’t happen for another few hours, but she could already imagine it. And she was so lost in her reverie that she startled at the sudden appearance of a tall man in a tuxedo.
Penny blinked into the sun, sure the universe was playing tricks on her. Otherwise, how could she explain the fact that the man in the tuxedo looked suspiciously like Blake Quinlan, her sexy, sentimental, high-school sweetheart? She hadn’t seen him since the night of their ugly breakup five years ago. And remembering that painful rainy night wasn’t a good start to Penny’s mission of filling the universe with love and happiness!
As her eyes adjusted to the sun’s glare, she couldn’t deny the familiarity of the boyish face and the intense squinty blue gaze. Swallowing hard beneath the beaded choker at her throat she squeaked, “Blake?”
He stood ramrod straight, blinking at her. “Penny?”
In spite of everything, the way he drawled her name with a slight Southern twang warmed up her insides. And when the universe warmed her insides, she had to go with it. Barely restraining the urge to hug him, she cried, “Oh my gosh, Blake, it is you! What are you doing here?”
Please, universe, don’t let him be the groom!
“My college roommate’s getting married,” he said. “I’m the best man.”
Penny exhaled with relief so sharply she nearly laughed at herself. Not like she had a shot with Blake now; she’d blown that long ago. But she was still relieved that he wasn’t the one getting married. And she was so excited to see him that she could scarcely make her tongue work. Where was her vaunted stage presence when she needed it? “Congratulations. To the groom, I mean. For getting married. And, um, for getting to have you as a best man.”
Blake tilted his head, as if she were speaking Martian. Given how things ended between them, a friendly reunion had obviously been too much to hope for. She’d wanted to stay friends after the breakup, but Blake had been too honest for that. He’d always been the type to wear his heart on his sleeve, unable—or unwilling—to engage in a single moment that wasn’t genuine. That’s why it surprised her that now, after years of bitter silence, Blake gave her a plastic smile, whistled between his teeth and said, “Wow. Penny Parker . . . how long has it been?”
Five years, nine months, and two days, Penny thought, because the anniversary of their breakup was etched in the big Blake-shaped hole in her heart. She couldn’t admit that, though, so she gave what she hoped was a cute little shrug of her shoulders and chirped, “A few years?”
“You haven’t changed a bit,” he said, looking her over, head to toe. She hoped he liked what he saw, because Penny had changed. Or at least, she’d been trying to. She’d spent a lot of years learning to appreciate what she had and live in the moment, instead of chasing after the next best thing. Trying not to let herself be drawn to drama for the sake of drama. Trying not to fall for the usual jerks that always attracted her.
In fact, the last guy she’d been with had seemed nice—calm, cool, and collected. They’d met at the airport and dated for a few weeks before he broke things off to take a job in another city. She’d been looking for the kind of warm and symbiotic relationship she’d had with Blake years ago. Maybe seeing him now was a sign from the universe that she was making progress, so she let herself get a good look.
Still tall and lanky, Blake no longer tried to hide it with slouched shoulders. He seemed more confident. More polished. And he looked even better in a tuxedo than he did in the torn denim and scuffed cowboy boots of his youth. He now sported a well-manicured goatee, which scarcely disguised his dimples. And though his honey-brown hair was no longer a mass of country boy curls, it still fell just short of his collar in an enticing cascade of devil-may-care waves that made her fingers itch to tangle in them.
Looming over her and shoving his hands into his pockets, Blake asked, “So, what brings you to Briarwood Manor?”
Penny pointed to her beat-up guitar case, the one with the big green flower-power stickers. “I’m doing the ceremony music.”
“Seriously?” Blake’s eyes narrowed, as if she were some kind of problem he aimed to solve. “You’re quite a get for a wedding gig. Do the bride and groom have any idea who you are?”
Penny tried not to blush at the reminder of her ill-fated brush with stardom. Especially since she wasn’t sure if he was mocking her. This was so awkward. “Probably not. I was a last-minute substitution. The wedding planner called in a favor. Besides, I doubt they’d have heard of me. I didn’t even rate a special on VH1’s Where Are They Now?”
With a slow grin, Blake said, “Do they still even do that on VH1? I thought it was E!, now. Anyway, so, you’re saying you don’t know the groom.”
“Nope.”
“You don’t know the bride, either.”
Penny tilted her head. “Last-minute substitution, remember?”
Blake’s grin widened. “You’re just here to sing?”
Okay, this was getting weird—and not a good weird—but she couldn’t resist flirting with him. “Why else would I be here? I’m going to sing and play the guitar. I’m pretty good at it—and a few other things—as you might remember.”
***
Oh, Blake remembered everything Penny was good at. He remembered how she could belt out a tune that would blow the doors off an arena. How she could whisper her way through a ballad until there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. How she made peanut butter, bacon, and banana road-trip sandwiches and convinced him to try them by claiming they were Elvis’s favorite. How they made love for the first time in the dark corner of a high-school library after band practice.
To this day, the scent of musty old books still turned him on . . .
Under the tulle-decorated gazebo, Penny snapped her fingers and brought him back into the present. “Blake?”
He exhaled, realizing only then that he’d been lost in memories. And before he could help himself, he smiled. “Just so you know, I’d watch the hell out of a VH1 special about you. Do you still have that footage of you prancing around in that grasshopper costume?”
“It was a green leotard,” she protested, giving him a good-natured shove like in the old days. And he warmed at the lingering impact of her palm on his shoulder. How did that happen? How did they fall right back into their old intimacy as if she wasn’t the one woman in the world who had crushed his soul? As if she wasn’t the woman who had now, on top of everything else, allegedly slept with his best friend . . .
No. She couldn’t have. If he knew anything about Penny it was that she could barely share the limelight, much less a man�
�s attention; she wouldn’t get involved with a guy who was already spoken for. Blake was sure this was case of mistaken identity. Because if his best friend slept with his girl—or at least the girl that used to be his . . .
A deep, primal, jealousy rose up in him at the idea of any man, much less Graham, putting his hands on Penny. Another deep, primal resentment came up right behind it that out of all the guys in the world, Penny could have found and fallen into bed with his best friend. It had to be a mistake because Blake couldn’t deal with it otherwise. “You made a cute cricket, Penny. That’s all I’m saying.”
She gave a dramatic but good-natured roll of her eyes. “You know grasshoppers and crickets aren’t the same, right? If you’re gonna taunt me, pick one and stick with it, Country Boy.”
“A bug is still a bug.”
She laughed. “Geez, make a fool of yourself on national television just one time, and nobody lets you live it down!”
“Personally, I thought the judges on that show were pretty harsh,” Blake admitted, remembering the one particularly nasty one from England. Blake still hated that guy for the way he’d treated Penny. “They just didn’t know a star when they saw one.”
Of course, he’d known Penny was a star the first time he saw her in the high-school gym, wearing jeans and flats, a guitar on her knees. She was the prettiest girl in school, the popular girl with talent to spare, and he’d spent two weeks just working up the gumption to try out for her folk-rock band. He’d been so awestruck, he’d mumbled on in his hillbilly accent about his songwriting until she’d cut him off with the first words she ever spoke to him: Are we gonna talk all day, Country Boy, or are we gonna play?
Now Penny shrugged in a way that bared her shoulders to the sun with that same sense of self-assurance. “My days of stardom are over and I’ve made peace with it. I’m getting a masters degree in music therapy now. I play for seniors, kids with cancer, and traumatized soldiers.”
This Wedding is Doomed! Page 12
