One and Only

by Jenny Holiday

  Wendy felt guilty about shuffling Mr. Brecht off—what he needed more than a lawyer was someone to listen to him—but not bad enough to endure another hour of rats when it was 4:58 p.m. on a Friday and her best friend was on the phone. She was going to get Mr. Brecht’s eviction overturned. She was good at her job—no, she was great at her job—and the fact that a rat had appeared under his sink at precisely 7:43 a.m. last Tuesday would have no bearing on the outcome of his hearing.

  Once he was dispatched, she slammed her door behind her and sank into her office sofa, letting that lovely Friday feeling overtake her. “Hi!” she said, hoping that she was going to get Friend Jane and not Bride Jane.

  “I need you to send me your bio.”

  Damn.

  “My bio?” Wendy tried to ask the question in a way that masked her real question, which was: What the hell are you talking about?

  “For the website?”

  Wendy did a lot of pro bono defense work—witness Mr. Brecht and his rats—but she was also an associate at one of Toronto’s most prestigious criminal law firms. In that capacity, she had a bio on the firm’s website—an impressive bio if she did say so herself. But she was pretty sure Jane didn’t care that Wendy was a top-notch criminal litigator with special expertise in the Extradition Act.

  “Your bio for the wedding website?” Jane asked.

  What Wendy said in response was, “Riiiight.” What she meant was, damn it all to hell. The wedding website was part of Jane’s “everything about this wedding is super fun and low-key” philosophy. She thought if she had a website with all the pertinent details, it would ease logistical challenges for the guests. Not sure about parking? Check the website! Want to see some funny pictures of the bridal couple that demonstrate how fun and low-key they are in a way that looks effortless and un-curated but is actually the result of several hours with a professional photographer? Check the website!

  Wendy hadn’t realized, apparently, that the wedding website was also supposed to include bios of the wedding party.

  “And you’re coming to the website photo shoot tomorrow morning, right? That’s why I’m nagging you about the bio. I want to give the bios to the photographer in advance so she can get to know the members of the wedding party a little before she shoots you.”

  Whoa. Bios, and, apparently, portraits.

  Wendy wanted to ask if there was any way the photographer could actually shoot her. Because at this point, a quick and painless death would probably be less excruciating than what Jane was suggesting. Wendy could not imagine anything worse than spending a beautiful spring morning hanging around taking wedding party pictures.

  “I was going to get some bagels and cream cheese for people to snack on while they wait their turn with the photographer,” Jane went on, “but do you think I should have something more solidly brunchy catered in? I’m not good at this stuff like Elise was. Will people expect, like, eggy things?”

  Stifling a sigh, Wendy hoisted herself off the sofa and went to her computer to check her calendar for anything that looked remotely like “photo shoot/brunch/eggy things” listed for tomorrow. She was guilty of maybe not totally paying one hundred per cent attention to everything wedding related. But in her defense (pun intended), she was pretty sure she had taken note of all the major events that required her presence, if only because she was determined not to appear to be the disgruntled bridesmaid she actually was.

  She found an entry that said “Ten am—Jane’s.” Vague enough that it could have meant anything, including, she supposed, “photo shoot/brunch/eggy things.”

  Wendy wanted to ask if she could skip it—she was training for a marathon and had been planning a long run tomorrow. Could she send a selfie or her law firm portrait and be done with it?

  But no. Of course not. She needed to up her game here. Yes, she wasn’t into all this wedding bullshit. But her bigger issue was that in her heart of hearts, she was wasn’t into the wedding itself. She was, selfishly, sad that Jane was getting married. She had nothing against Cameron, Jane’s fiancé. Well, nothing that would stand up in court. He had started out as kind of a jerk, but anyone with a brain could see how happy he’d made Jane.

  It was just that it had always been Wendy and Jane against the world. The Lost Girls, they used call to themselves. The Dead Dad’s Club. They were a duo.

  And now they were going to be…not that.

  But that train had left the station, so Wendy put on her court face, even though Jane couldn’t see her. Wendy’s court face was like a poker face, but a lot more badass. “Sorry the bio is late. I’ll send it within the hour. And, no, I don’t think people will expect eggy things. Why don’t I bring the bagels?”

  “You don’t need to bring anything except the questionnaire.”

  “The questionnaire is different from the bio?” Wendy asked.

  Her question was met with silence. There were messages encoded in that silence, though, messages that only two-plus decades of best-friendship could interpret. Wendy had failed Jane. She wasn’t quite sure how, yet, but the disappointment in Jane’s silence was unmistakable.

  “Right, yes, the questionnaire,” she lied, typing “questionnaire + Jane” into the search field in her email and coming up with a message from two weeks ago about how each member of the wedding party was supposed to answer a few “fun, low-key” questions. The answers would be posted next to their bios on the wedding website. The bio that Wendy had forgotten all about.

  Wendy sharpened her court face. “Of course the questionnaire and bio are totally different things. I’m sorry; I just got confused for a moment. It’s been a really long week.”

  Mollified, Jane made a sympathetic clucking noise. “When is your next trip?”

  Wendy sighed. She could feel herself getting itchy. The wanderlust was strong with her, and it hadn’t been indulged for a long time. “Nothing until the big one.”

  “Wow,” Jane said. “That’s, like, four months away. Have you ever stayed put for that long?”

  It was a fair question. She probably hadn’t, as an adult anyway. Starting in the fall, Wendy was taking a six-month sabbatical and traveling around the world.

  She. Could. Not. Wait.

  But it also meant that she had a shit-ton of work to get done before she hit the road. “I have to be in court starting next week, and I think it will be a long trial. Plus I have this side thing I’m doing that’s going before the Landlord and Tenant Board on Wednesday, so I’m already going to have to clone myself somehow. So, alas, no trips for me until the big one.”

  “Landlord and Tenant Board?” Jane echoed with a skeptical tone—the Landlord and Tenant Board was not Wendy’s usual scene, and Jane knew it. Wendy was a high-powered defense lawyer, but she frequently volunteered her services in other, less glamorous contexts. “Who’s your latest downtrodden?”

  “My hairdresser’s uncle. His apartment is infested with rats.”

  Jane cracked up. “You’re a superhero, you know? Getting white-collar criminals off by day, de-rat-ifying the city by night.”

  Wendy’s friends found her pro bono work amusingly incongruous. Their friend Elise had even suggested that she did it to balance out the karmic scales. But that wasn’t it at all. Wendy believed that everyone—everyone—had the right to a rigorous defense. And, sure, she did her pro bono work because it wasn’t fair that rich people could afford better defense than poor people. But the essential act of advocating for someone—defending them—was the same no matter the circumstances. Still, she’d long since stopped trying to make her friends see that logic when they launched into their speeches about how “cute” it was that she made two hundred grand a year and still signed up for volunteer shifts at Legal Aid clinics.

  “Dang, I love you.” Jane’s voice had gone all moony, almost like she was talking about her fiancé rather than Wendy.

  “I love you, too,” Wendy said. It was the truth. It was why she was so torn up about this wedding. Inexplicably, her eyes filled
with tears.

  Which was mortifying. Wendy was not a crier.

  But Jane had basically saved her life back when they were kids, extending her friendship when everything in Wendy’s young life had gone to shit.

  “You know who else I love?” Jane said, sniffing. The impulse to cry must have been contagious.

  “Who?”

  “My brother.”

  You and me both.

  Okay, that wasn’t true. Not anymore, anyway. Not since she was fifteen. Still, adrenaline surged through Wendy, as it did every time Noah Denning’s name was mentioned.

  “I wish he could come to the photo shoot,” Jane said.

  Right, so Wendy had to correct a previous thought. It turned out she could imagine something worse than spending a beautiful spring morning hanging around taking wedding party pictures: spending a beautiful spring morning hanging around taking wedding party pictures with Jane’s brother.

  “But of course he’s coming to the wedding itself, and that’s what matters,” Jane said, sniffles transformed into glee. “The whole week leading up to it!”

  Noah Denning: one more huge-ass reason Wendy was not looking forward to Jane’s wedding.

  Usually, when Noah came to visit, Wendy managed to be off on one of her trips. When she couldn’t avoid seeing him—he was her best friend’s brother after all, and she had practically lived at the Dennings’ house when she was a kid—she had to armor herself so extensively that it was exhausting. And that was just for short encounters—a dinner, a brunch, church with Wendy’s aunt Mary, where Jane and Noah often insisted on accompanying her.

  A freaking week, though?

  How was she going to survive?

  “Well, Jane said, “I’ll let you get back to your rats, Wendy Defendy.”

  Wendy Defendy had to take a couple deep breaths to get her shit together.

  “Okay,” she said once she had succeeded. “I should get a bit more done before I knock off for the night.” She picked up Mr. Brecht’s file.

  Yep, Wendy defended people. It was just what she did.

  Too bad she didn’t know how to defend her heart.

  Chapter Two

  Oh my God, you totally saved the day,” Jane whisper-yelled when Wendy arrived for the photo shoot the next morning bearing not just bagels but several bottles of Prosecco and a gallon of fresh-squeezed orange juice. “Everyone is standing around waiting for the photographer to finish setting up her equipment, and I knew I should have done more with catering.”

  “Nah.” Wendy flashed Jane a smile. “We’ll just get ’em drunk. Much more efficient.”

  Elise approached and gave Wendy a quick hug before relieving her of her bags.

  “Is Gia here?” Wendy asked, looking around for the fourth member of their close-knit group.

  “She’s a Calvin Klein shoot in Rio,” Elise said.

  “But she sent a picture!” Jane pulled out her phone. “She asked me for specs on how these shots were going to be done, and she had Steven Meisel create one of her in the same vein. Like, in an off moment during the shoot. Can you imagine?”

  “I really can’t.” Wendy took the phone to better see the photo Jane had called up and refraining from asking the obvious question: Who is Steven Meisel? And also from wondering why she hadn’t thought to fake an international high-fashion photo shoot this morning. That was probably the only thing that would have gotten her off the hook today.

  “Hi, Wendy.” Jane’s fiancé Cameron approached.

  Wendy tried not to stiffen as he leaned down to peck her cheek. Cameron was such a guy. He was a former soldier with all the tattoos and muscles that stereotypically went with the gig. Now he was working construction. He was also in university part-time, though, which Wendy had to grudgingly respect.

  It just seemed like such a weird match. Jane was serious and accomplished. Cameron drifted through the world getting by on looks and charm.

  But really, all of that was neither here nor there. The only admissible fact was that Cameron made Jane happy. He treated her like a queen.

  Wendy sighed as Cameron placed his hand on Jane’s butt and Jane shot him a big, besotted smile.

  She needed to try to muster some genuine enthusiasm for this wedding. She couldn’t keep half-assing everything and forgetting shit or she was going to hurt Jane.

  “Wendy, why don’t you go first with the photographer, being the maid of honor and all?” Jane said, turning away from her betrothed and letting her gaze travel up and down Wendy’s body. Wendy tried not to squirm—she’d done as instructed and shown up in jeans and a white top, but Jane’s silent appraisal still managed to make her feel like she’d made a mistake.

  “What?” Wendy looked down at her white silk tunic. “Too dressy?” She probably should have just gone with a straight up T-shirt. But the only actual T-shirts she owned were from the races she’d run, so she’d resorted to the only white top in her wardrobe, which was something she generally wore under her work suits.

  “It’s fine,” said Jane in a tone that suggested that it was not, in fact, fine.

  “If you have a spare shirt, I can change.” Wendy knew Jane would try to pretend not to be too invested in the photo shoot, but she suspected her friend had a backup shirt or two stashed somewhere in the house.

  “Well, I do have a couple.”

  Bingo.

  “Which I just got in case anyone spills orange juice or something on their shirt.”

  Wendy refrained from pointing out that since she had surprised Jane with the orange juice, her logic was flawed. “Give me one. It’ll look better—more in tune with everyone else.”

  Jane tilted her head. “You sure?” But she was already pulling a shirt out of an Old Navy bag sitting on the kitchen counter. “Elise is in the bathroom, I think. You can go change in my bedroom.”

  Wendy glanced around. Everyone else had gone outside—Jane’s house was tiny, and it looked like the actual picture taking was happening in the backyard. “Nah, I’ll just change quickly here. Shield me.” She whipped off the offending garment. Darn it. The new shirt was inside out. “What size is this?” she asked as Jane turned around and put her arms out in an “airplane” stance in an attempt to provide privacy to Wendy’s presto-chango.

  “Small. But if it’s too big we can pin—oh my Gaaaawd!” As Jane shrieked, not only did the airplane arms crash, but she ran away, leaving Wendy exposed, struggling to turn the new shirt right-side out. Wendy jammed her arms into the sleeves and lifted the shirt over her head, but it was still twisted so she got sort of stuck.

  “Noah!” Jane yelled. “I can’t believe you came!”

  Danger! Danger! Wendy’s body screamed, reacting in such a clichéd way, she may as well have been a cartoon. She could feel her jaw drop, her eyes widen. All she needed was for her cartoon-heart to literally hammer its way out of her chest.

  He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not yet. Jane had just said he wasn’t coming until the week of the wedding.

  She peeked over the edge of the shirt. There he was, tall and handsome and freaking perfect, framed in the doorway of Jane’s kitchen like it was no big deal.

  She was not prepared for this. She had no armor. Hell, she didn’t even have a goddamned shirt on.

  “Janie,” Noah said, his voice the same warm baritone it had always been.

  There was a pause in which Wendy considered whether she could somehow run away. Her arms were caught in the T-shirt high above her head, so maybe he wouldn’t recognize her.

  But no. Because then he said, “Hey, Wendy.”

  Wendy had no protection against Noah Denning. She might as well have just handed him her renegade heart to him and said, Here’s my heart. Break it. Again.

  Fall in Love with Forever Romance

  DRIFTWOOD COVE

  By Debbie Mason

  FBI agent Michael Gallagher never dreamed that his latest investigation would bring him back to his hometown of Harmony Harbor. Or that one of his best leads would be
the woman he once loved. Shay Angel is tougher than anyone he knows, but she still needs his help. Even if it means facing the past they can’t forgive…or a love they can’t forget.

  A DUKE IN THE NIGHT

  By Kelly Bowen

  Headmistress Clara Hayward is a master of deception. She’s fooled the ton into thinking she’s simply running a prestigious finishing school. In reality, she offers an education far superior to what society deems proper for young ladies. If only her skills could save her family’s import business. She has a plan that might succeed, as long as a certain duke doesn’t get in the way…

  ONE AND ONLY

  By Jenny Holiday

  In this laugh-out-loud romantic comedy, USA Today bestselling author Jenny Holiday proves that when opposites attract, sparks fly. Bridesmaid Jane Denning will do anything to escape her bridezilla friend—even if it means babysitting the groom’s troublemaker brother before the wedding. Cameron MacKinnon is ready to let loose, but first he’ll have to sweet-talk responsible Jane into taking a walk on the wild side. Turns out, riling her up is the best time he’s had in years. But will fun and games turn into something real?

  SECOND CHANCE COWBOY

  By A. J. Pine

  Once a cowboy, always a cowboy in A.J. Pine’s first Crossroads Ranch novel! After ten years away, Jack Everett is finally back home. The ranch he can handle—Jack might be a lawyer, but he still remembers how to work with his hands. But turning around the failing vineyard he’s also inherited? That requires working with the one woman he never expected to see again.

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