by Sonya Weiss
Fine. Anything to get out of the pink monstrosity. Haley stripped off the dress and, after a few contortions, wiggled her way into the wedding gown. It was strapless, and normally she didn’t wear strapless in any design, since whether or not the material would stay up was anyone’s guess. She swept the dressing-room door open and sprang out, flinging her arms wide. “Ta-da!”
“Hang on,” Suzie said, standing in a huddle of bridesmaids as they all disagreed with the employee that lavender was not dark purple and that the dress the woman was holding was not going to work.
Barefoot, Haley gathered the sides of the dress and wandered across the thick carpet to sit in one of the richly upholstered chairs. From her position, she could see out through the glass front door and long row of windows.
Tourists window shopped along this stretch of Cherry Main, as the locals called it, not to be confused with Cherry Minor, which was the business district that didn’t have as many shops. On Cherry Main, people could find everything from souvenir T-shirts to the jams and jellies her hometown was famous for. If the weather was good, some of the overall-clad old men who hung out at the barbershop would sit on the wooden benches built around the base of the trees and sing a song or two.
Haley’s cell phone blared, and she leaned down to get it from her purse. The fire-breathing dragon she’d set as the avatar for I Bean Business appeared on her screen.
“Max?” she answered.
“Luke is leaving town and won’t be back for several weeks,” he said in a rush of breath. “If you want to see him, you have to get to his farewell party at the Merry Four now before he leaves for the airport.”
“The bar is… I’m in a wedding dress!” Haley said in a whisper.
“That’s thinking positive.”
“No. You—never mind. I’ll be there in fifteen, twenty minutes, tops.”
“He’s leaving sooner than that. Where are you?”
“I’m at Brides and Dreams with Suzie and her minions.”
“So that’s, what? Two blocks away.”
“I have to change my clothes first.”
Silence.
“Max?”
“His friends are handshaking, back slapping, hugging goodbye. I’ll try to stall him. Get over here!”
Death grip on her phone, Haley sprinted for the door, running faster than she had in years. She was already down a man—strike one for the list. She couldn’t let Luke slip away without at least talking to him. They’d dated after high school for a few months and had hit it off well, only parting ways because they’d gone on to different colleges. What if he’d been the one all along and she’d missed it because her life had taken a different trajectory? She had to find out.
Oops! Dress top slipping. She’d almost given the tourists more to sightsee than they’d bargained for. She yanked up the material and kept running. Ow, ow…pebble…
She ran past the hair salon, the hardware store, and finally the flower shop with its colorful containers of fall flowers.
Breathing hard, she limped the last few steps to the bar and went inside, her loose hair no doubt a Medusa mess and with a major stitch in her side. She put her hand against it. Mental note: get back to the gym.
The noise from conversations and the TV on the wall lowered before petering off into silence. Max had his back to her; she recognized him from the Patriots T-shirt with his last name emblazoned across the shoulders. Chin up, she bobbed in and out of the crowd of men gathered around Max and Luke.
Luke—still wearing what appeared to be the same battered cowboy hat he’d worn as a teenager—stared at her, his eyes widening as he took in her attire. He was lean and apparently trying to grow out the patch of hair on his chin. Open mouth snapping shut, eyebrows disappearing under the edge of his hat, he shot a look at Max. “You weren’t kidding when you said she was ready for something long term.”
Haley rounded on Max. “This is you doing better?”
“I was assuring him you’d changed,” Max explained.
“‘Changed’?”
“You have a track record, Haley,” Luke said, sweeping off the hat to smooth back his mop of hair. He rubbed the chin fuzz. “Other than video guy, I think the longest you dated any of us was what? Three months? Maybe? I was two months and three days.”
She cleared her throat. “I was too young for anything serious then, and we were about to leave for college. You agreed long-term relationships rarely worked.” Aware of the interested bystanders, she said, “Can I speak to you alone?” She pushed her elbow into Max.
He picked up the clue. “Right,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”
Luke tapped his watch. “I only have a second. I can’t miss my flight. I’m going to visit Shauna.”
“Shauna?”
A broad grin stretched across his lips. “We met last year when she was at the Indianapolis 500. She’s working in London but is from North Carolina. Small world, huh?”
“So…”
“She’s the one,” Luke said. He patted his shirt pocket, his eyes softening. “I’m going to ask her to marry me.”
“Ah,” Haley said, feeling like a fool. “Bet you’re wondering what I’m doing here, then.”
“Not really. Max was talking you up like you were something else. How pretty you are, what a neat freak you turned into—he didn’t say that part until I told him I remembered how messy your room used to be. He told me you were a great cook, too. Man, he just couldn’t say enough good things.”
Overkill, Max, overkill. “Well, he’s—”
He lightly whacked her upper arm like she was one of the guys. “I better run now, but it was good to see you.” He moved so quickly through the crowd and out the door that he could have been greased with oil.
Haley climbed onto one of the bar stools. “What’s a girl gotta do to find a soul mate around this place?” She smacked the bar. “Whiskey straight.”
A commotion drew her attention, and she turned toward the front door. Suzie and her bridesmaids rushed in, followed by Karlene Melbourne, the owner of the bridal shop.
“You can’t steal a wedding dress, no matter how badly you want a man,” Suzie scolded loudly, marching toward her.
“Make that two whiskeys,” Haley told the bartender.
“Come on.” Brandi tugged on Haley’s arm. “There’s a better way. Have you tried online dating?”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to pay for the dress,” Karlene said. “It’s used now, so I’ll never be able to sell it for full price.”
“Why did you go tearing out of the shop?” Suzie demanded.
“I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t know he was going to propose,” Haley said.
“Propose? Who?” Suzie demanded.
“Never mind.” She should have done her homework and made sure none of the men on the list were dating, thinking about proposing, or—Crap! What if one of them has a fiancée? Or worse…a wife?
She walked out of the bar with Suzie and her entourage. The other women debated uses for a slightly worn wedding dress, then moved on to how they hated attending weddings alone before Suzie, voice lowered but still loud enough to carry, said, “That’s going to happen to poor Haley if she can’t find her soul mate.”
That is not happening. There were still five men on the list, and one of them had to be him. Haley dialed Max’s number as she limped along the sidewalk. “Marriage is on the horizon,” she said when he answered.
“Wow, that was fast.”
“Luke and Shauna of London. Not Luke and pretty neat-freak Haley, as you described me.”
“He asked about you, and I blanked. I didn’t know he was asking in a polite Haley’s-my-past kind of way. I thought it was present-day interest.”
She hmphed. “Maybe the problem is you don’t speak man any better than I do.”
Max lau
ghed. “Third time’s the charm, right? Derek, Dirk…what’s his name?”
“Dean is the next name on the list.”
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t have a significant other, and you and I can rendezvous to come up with how to get the two of you together.”
“We should have plenty of time to talk while working together with Dad.”
Long pause. “You’re going back to work at the business?”
“I don’t have a choice. I have a wedding dress to pay for.” Haley ended the call without waiting for a response. She exhaled as she walked back into the bridal shop. Once she paid Karlene, she wouldn’t have enough money left to buy a vowel.
…
“Yes, there are rumors swirling in town about Haley and me, but you know me better than to believe there’s anything to them. I already explained what I’m doing with her,” Max said. He and Ripley Turner had become friends the first day they’d met on a youth baseball team, and he considered the other man one of his brothers. His good brothers. Not the one he hadn’t seen or talked to in over a year.
He had a difficult time even thinking about Hugh. How much worse would it get once his brother arrived? His family had urged him to forgive and “let it go.” Though Max was a firm believer in family loyalty, in working stuff out, some things…well, there was just no way to come back from a chasm like that. Betrayal’s barb carried a bitter sting that burrowed deep, destroying his relationship with his brother as well as his desire to ever let himself be vulnerable to love again.
“I do know better. But you’re right—rumors are going around.”
“You going to give me grief about it?”
Ripley shook his head. “Nah, man, I have enough trouble right now without sticking my nose in yours.”
Max leaned back in his desk chair, thankful the coffee shop was quiet now that the afternoon rush was over. “What’s your trouble?”
“Jackie created an online dating profile for me.”
“Your sister is determined to set you up.”
“Yeah, I know. When Jackie gets an idea in her head, she doesn’t let go of it no matter how many times I tell her I’m not interested.”
“You get any bites?”
“I don’t need online dating. I didn’t even check…” Ripley hesitated.
Max grinned and waited.
“Okay, yeah, three so far. Jackie uploaded that picture of all us groomsmen at her wedding, and one of my potential matches asked if I was the cute one in the photo. She was talking about Harry.”
“Harry?”
“I know. Dude’s got forty pounds on me and a hairline inching backward.”
“Maybe you should agree to meet with one of the matches,” Max suggested.
“Nah. You know how it is.”
Max did know how hectic Ripley’s life was. Ripley worked for the town’s search-and-rescue department, where stress and heartache were an almost-daily occurrence thanks to tourists who didn’t know the area or locals who took the mountain roads up to the waterfalls too fast.
“How’s your sister doing?”
Max clenched his jaw. Wynne’s struggles tore at his heart. “I think she’s doing as well as she can. Her ex might still have an emotional hold, though I can’t figure out how she could care for someone who treated her like that.”
“Because it’s not about her ex. Wynne sees the good in people even when they don’t deserve it.” He was quiet for a second. “I wish there was something I could do for her.”
“She’s your friend, Rip. Just be there when she needs you.”
“You know I will.”
Max nodded.
“I’ll tell Jackie to set up a profile for you,” Ripley added with a smirk. “Throw her off my trail.”
“Uh-huh.”
Ripley laughed at the sarcasm Max infused in his short answer.
The last thing he wanted right now was her trying to set him up. Haley, horns and all, was enough woman to deal with. That reminded him he had work to do.
Whipping out his cell phone, he pulled up his notes app to look at the name Haley had given him. “Do you know Dean Frazier?”
“Twitchy Frazier?”
“What’s that a nod to?”
“He’s got that mustache he’s always twitching back and forth like he wants everyone to pay attention to it. Wears his hair in a ponytail through that backward ball cap he always has on.”
Max tried to picture him and failed. “None of that rings a bell.”
“You’ve seen him around. He works at Petey’s garage during the week but runs with that amateur racing team every weekend. Won first place for his float a couple years ago in the Fourth of July parade.”
“The guy with the race-car float that looked like a firecracker?”
“That’s him.”
“Huh.”
“Wynne’s not…thinking about dating him, is she?”
“Not Wynne.” Max had talked to Ripley about what he was doing with Haley only because he knew it wouldn’t go any further than that. Ripley didn’t share anyone else’s business. “He’s on Haley’s list.”
“That’s weird. I can’t see him as her type.”
Max sat straight up in the chair and scooted it backward. “Who knows what she ever saw in him.” He rose and picked up his keys, shoving them deep into his pocket.
“It might help you with this plan of hers if you take Haley out and get to know her a little better. Dinner and a movie or something,” Ripley said as they left the office and walked out into the coffee shop. “Wouldn’t be a hard task. You have to admit, she came back from California looking even better than she did when she left.”
“I do admit that.” His stomach knotted. Max didn’t like it that he had noticed. But he’d also noticed a bear in the woods behind the Bowman business, and he knew better than to dance with the bear or Haley. Both had claws and weren’t the friendliest of creatures.
Still…there was something he couldn’t put his finger on that drew him toward her. And when he was around her, it was like the air was electrified. Almost…an interest—Whoa! He couldn’t be interested in Haley. Or anyone else for that matter—not while his heart bore the marks from Annalise cheating on him with his estranged brother.
“But the only thing I’m focusing on is that partnership.”
Ripley nodded. “You’ve wanted that for a while.”
“Years,” Max said. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he’d started working there as a teenager and it had been a respite during his family’s financial struggle. Later, when he’d discovered the depths of Hugh’s betrayal, it had been Craig Bowman who’d walked through that with him.
“We’re going the wrong way if you’re heading to Supply Depot,” Ripley said once they were in Wynne’s freezing car. “I thought you said you had to get some things for the shop.”
“Got them earlier, and I picked up some stuff for Wynne at the same time. I’m going to drop them off at her house before I track down Dean.”
Ripley turned the heat knob on high and held his hands in front of the vent, then quickly shut it off at the blast of arctic air. He tucked his hands in his coat pocket. “Lonnie at therapy today?”
“No, they went to the retirement center to visit with Celeste Nemer.”
“The fortune-teller who told you at the fair last year that love was on the way for you?”
“Yep,” Max said, not believing a word the woman had said. He slowed the car as he hit Cherry Main. Tourists visiting the area for the upcoming mountain arts and crafts weekend showcase often darted across the road without warning.
The Bowmans had presented their designs at the showcase every year for as long as he could remember. The final day of the event was followed up by the annual moonlight waterfall tour, which usually kept tourists hanging in town until the middle
of the following week. After that, everything quieted back down until the Christmas Festival, which drew in another crowd.
He pulled the car into Wynne’s driveway and shut it off, glad the cold ride was over. He planned to take the car to Petey’s garage and have the heater repaired and talk to Dean about Haley. Two birds, one stone.
Max pressed the doorbell.
Wynne opened the door, a cell phone hugged to her chest, her smile widening when her gaze drifted to Ripley. “Hi, come in.”
They stepped inside the foyer, and Wynne closed the door. “Give me one second. I’m talking with Haley.” She put the phone back up to her ear.
Max said, “Be sure and give her my love.”
Wynne listened to whatever Haley was saying and laughed out loud. “She said her gesture to that can’t be conveyed properly over the phone.”
“I’ll bet.” Max grinned.
“Of course. Max and I would love to come to dinner at your house tonight, and stew sounds wonderful.”
“Wonderful” wasn’t the word he would have chosen. Max did not want to go and spend any more time with Haley than necessary. He’d already shared enough meals with her in the past week to last him a lifetime.
Wynne waved off his tell her no gesture. “Would it be okay if Ripley came too?” she asked.
Max didn’t like the idea of supper with Haley but knew Ripley had been pulling double shifts since that rockslide on one of the roads and could probably use a home-cooked meal and some company.
He motioned for Wynne to listen to him. “Tell Haley I grudgingly accept.”
“She heard you and said your invite was a grudging offer anyway.”
Max grinned. “That I would believe.”
Wynne laughed and handed him the phone. “Here, talk to her. I have to do something. Will you help me, Ripley?”
His sister left the living room with Ripley, and Max put the phone to his ear. “Looking for some hemlock and eye of newt to add to the cauldron for supper?” He held the phone away as she spewed a you-suck list of insults. When she drew in a breath, he put the phone back against his ear. “Hearing sweet nothings like that, I gotta tell you, I truly envy the men on your list. I’ll see you this evening.”
