May the Best Man Win

by Mira Lyn Kelly

  Jase turned his head, speaking quietly into her ear. “We’ll be through this in no time. It’s not going to be like with Sally and Romeo where we’ve had to be in each other’s laps for months at a stretch.”

  He paused and Emily tried not to think about what it might be like to venture into his lap. This man who was so much bigger than she was. She never sat in guys’ laps because she was self-conscious about looking like her legs would fold up from the floor. But when Jase said it, she imagined a totally different visual.

  Completely inappropriate.

  “They’ll have an engagement party. A shower. The rehearsal dinner and then the next day, done. It’ll be stretched out over six months. Easy.”

  She knew what he was saying. That she wouldn’t have him in front of her every other day. That when she saw him, it wouldn’t be like reopening this raw wound. They’d smile politely and then, if they were lucky, have five, maybe ten minutes to spit nasty somethings into each other’s ears.

  It would be fine.

  But suddenly Emily couldn’t take comfort in that future.

  It didn’t feel like a relief to think she wouldn’t be seeing him.

  Slowly, Emily shifted within Jase’s comforting hold. She turned her head so she could see his face. Because something was different, something she didn’t understand. And maybe for once, it felt like Jase might have the answer for her. The answer she needed.

  His eyes met hers, the deep blue of them seeming to darken even as she watched. The look in them leaving her feeling vulnerable. Exposed. Uncertain.

  Aware.

  “Jase?”

  He took a step back, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

  “We’re good?” he asked, looking again like the Jase she’d known forever. The Jase who didn’t make her feel things she shouldn’t.

  “Yeah, I’m good.”

  Chapter 8

  December

  Emily woke up with a hangover.

  Not exactly her MO when it came to bridesmaid duties, but the night before had been a trial, to say the least. Half the wedding party hadn’t made it to the rehearsal, thanks to Mother Nature sticking it to Sally with the near-blizzard conditions that had blocked roads and brought down power lines in the western suburbs.

  Emily had only made it out of the city herself because she’d taken the afternoon off to spend with Sally at the Willsons’ house and then stayed overnight.

  From the groom’s side, only Brody and two of Romeo’s cousins had been able to make it through. Which had given her another day’s reprieve from seeing Jase again. One she’d gladly taken, and today, well, he wasn’t a priority.

  Today was Sally’s day. And despite all the rough patches leading up to this point, Emily knew—knew—all the blood, sweat, and tears would be worth it when the wedding went off without a hitch.

  Things had already started shaping up. The snow had stopped falling sometime around eleven, and the plows had been going all night. Now at six thirteen in the morning, Emily was up, showered, and dressed in a pair of gray yoga pants and a mint-green hoodie for their trip to the salon where Sally would have her hair and makeup done. A quick glance at the Victorian-era porcelain clock on the nightstand next to her bed, confirmed by her phone that she trusted about a thousand times more, said she had about twenty minutes before they needed to leave. Plenty of time to grab a banana or some yogurt to go with the Advil she’d toss back as soon as she could find it.

  Downstairs, the kitchen was empty, but the coffee had been put out in one of those oversize silver dispensers caterers used, along with a spread of pastries and fresh fruit.

  Checking her phone again, Emily started getting nervous, wondering if she was going to have to go room to room looking for all the necessary parties. But then voices sounded from the stairwell.

  “It’s nerves, Sally. That’s all.”

  Emily smiled at Mrs. Willson’s wedding-day advice.

  “It’s morning sickness, Mom. It still hasn’t gone away.”

  At least Sally’s mother was trying. For as stiff and generally unpleasant as the woman could be, she had to have a softer side to have raised a girl as sweet as Sally.

  “Well, you don’t have to walk around with your hand on your stomach and that look on your face. Couldn’t you, for one day, try not to look quite so pregnant?”

  Emily blanched, staring down at her coffee, and contemplated dumping it down the drain and sprinting into the frozen tundra to avoid participation in the coming conversation, but she’d only made it halfway to the sink before Mrs. Willson was in the room with her.

  “Don’t you agree, Emily? One day.”

  Emily turned, her most polite smile in place. “Wow, good morning, ladies! Sally, you look radiant.”

  She looked a lot like she’d been exposed to gamma rays, her greenish pallor daring anyone to get too close. But that wasn’t what a bride-to-be needed to hear.

  “How close are we to getting over to the salon?”

  Sally poured herself a glass of milk, and her mother filled a coffee cup about halfway before walking into the pantry to top it off with something not on the buffet. Neither answered.

  Emily tried again.

  “So it looks like your Aunt Louise and Romeo’s cousins’ flights are going to make it. Great news.”

  Sally nodded tightly and took a deep breath through her nose.

  Mrs. Willson shook her head in dismay.

  “Why don’t you sit down and have a few crackers,” Emily suggested, retrieving the open sleeve from the cabinet where she’d seen Sally store it the night before. “Or would it be better to just let everything out”—she made a rolling motion with her hands—“and be done with it?”

  Sally bolted for the bathroom tucked around the corner from the kitchen. And with the sounds of retching in the background, Emily and Mrs. Willson sat silently, smiling politely at each other.

  So after this, the rest of the day was going to be perfect.

  The bathroom door cracked open, and Sally stepped out and leaned against the doorway.

  Her mother took a long sip of her coffee, then pointing with her index finger and a gentle smile, offered, “Dear, you have vomit in your hair.”

  She was right. Which meant rock bottom had most definitely been achieved. There was nowhere to go but up.

  * * *

  Emily handled high-stress situations without batting an eye. They were par for the course in her line of work, where TV spots fell through at the last minute, high-profile spokespeople suffered changes of heart, and anything that could go wrong on a campaign for a client it had taken years to land would. No matter what happened, she was the woman who saw everyone else through to a solution even better than their original plan. She was the one who turned the worst case into the best possible outcome. She got things done. And this wedding wasn’t going to be the only exception.

  Not even if one attendant or critical family member after another had started stumbling through the Willsons’ front door wearing a thicker blanket of snow on their heads than the last, and there was no more denying that the storm they’d been hoping would head around them had solidified its commitment to rage right on through. They were still getting this wedding done.

  The mimosas were flowing, the chatter on the rise. Emily had been hustling for hours, but it was all coming together. Jase was the only outstanding groomsman, and he’d been in communication with Romeo about heading straight to the church with an on-time ETA. Sally had rewashed her hair, promptly thrown up a second time, then pronounced herself good to go. They’d hit the salon, transporting Sally with an arsenal of umbrellas and plastic wrap to prevent the piled curls and generously applied makeup from going limp or runny.

  It was showtime.

  Sally was in the first car with her parents, poor thing. The handful of honored relatives at the house had t
aken a second car. And the bridesmaids were loading into the third where all their coats and boots had been stored in the trunk until after-the-wedding photos when they could afford to have their gowns slightly crumpled. Emily hopped in last, grinning at the girls as the driver closed the door behind her.

  Slumping back in her seat—but not so much that her hair would take a hit—she let out a relieved sigh. And then her phone rang.

  Sally’s panicked voice spilled through the line. “The ring, Emily! I forgot to pick up Romeo’s ring. The jeweler is on his way to the house to drop it off. Someone needs to stay and bring it to the church.”

  Emily looked down the drive into the falling snow. She couldn’t even see the main road. No telling how long it would be before the jeweler showed up. The car couldn’t wait.

  “I’ve got it. The girls will leave now, and I’ll drive myself once I have the ring. Be there before the wedding starts. We’ve got this. Everything is going to be fine.”

  Chapter 9

  Jase threw the car into Park and leaned both arms over the wheel as he stared out the windshield in disbelief.

  It was Emily, all right. Sprinting across the icy church parking lot with her strapless gown hiked up around her knees, a pair of heels hugged close to her chest and—what the hell?—bare freaking feet.

  A quick glance at his car’s temp display showed it was a whopping thirteen degrees outside—then add, or subtract, from that the windchill factor. She was beyond asinine.

  And she was still only halfway across the sprawling lot to the church.

  With a curse, he slapped at the temp control, cranking the heat, and then flung open the driver’s door, exchanging one curse for a fresher, more potent variety. The wind sliced at him as he started to jog across the lane of cars, undoing the buttons on his coat as he went.

  * * *

  Each step was like a thousand tiny needles stabbing into the soles of her feet, between her toes, and around her ankles.

  She’d been so careful, navigating the roads with skill and attention—determined to get to the church and deliver Romeo’s ring. All the way from the Willsons’ she’d been fine, right up until she’d crept into the far entrance to the church lot and her car had started its horizontal slide across the ice and landed her in a ditch. There was no way her little Fiat was going to pull out without the assistance of a tow. A tow Emily couldn’t call for, thanks to the jeweler’s son knocking her phone from her hand when he slipped on the ice in front of the Willsons’ house. Fortunately, he’d been fine, but her phone…not so much.

  So no phone meant she’d been stuck several hundred yards from where she needed to be, no help in sight, in fresh snow up to her ankles and only one solution she could see working. Run for it.

  Her only consolation in this disaster was the hope that if she was picking up every bit of bad luck within a six-thousand-mile radius, there wouldn’t be any left for the bride and groom, and their special day would go off without a hitch. That and at least there were no witnesses to her total idiocy. Specifically, no Jase Foster. Who would have called her names and laughed in her face, letting her abject misery warm that vacant chamber in his chest.

  The ground was as slick as she’d ever encountered it, and within a few feet of the car, not only was each step terrifying and riddled with face-planting possibilities, but it was clear she’d never be able to navigate it in her heels.

  This just got worse and worse. She stripped off her shoes and started again. The ceremony was set to begin, and with so many people missing from this important day, she didn’t want to be another. She’d make it. She pushed forward with that resolve past the next lane of parked cars, right onto the raised shard of ice that sent her tumbling forward into an awkward split and skid, facing a wipeout of epic proportions. She was going down, and it was going to hurt bad.

  At the last second, her fall was arrested when strong arms and a black…blanket—no overcoat…engulfed her. And then her descent wasn’t just arrested; her trajectory was completely reversed. Instead of going down, Emily was being pulled back. Her breath left her in a rush as she slammed into a solid wall of muscled chest. She wanted to put a hand out to brace against it, but the coat she’d been engulfed in wrapped her arms close to her body and nearly covered her face completely, leaving only a sliver of tuxedo shirt visible. It was a groomsman. Thank God.

  And his coat was so very warm around her. Nothing had ever felt as good as this. She wanted to pull her legs in, because the burn of her feet was bad enough that she was starting to wonder if her toes were going to break off before she got inside.

  Wiggling her arm between them, she tried to work her fingers past the lapel to get a better view of her savior. It had to be Max. The guy was built like a linebacker and so solicitous to all the girls. A real protector. She wanted to thank him, but as she fiddled with the fabric, his grip tightened and a voice that most definitely didn’t belong to Officer Friendly filtered in through the wool.

  “Don’t move.”

  Not exactly a gentle suggestion.

  Jase.

  Instinctively her muscles went still. Frozen in a way that had nothing to do with the bitter elements she’d stupidly found herself caught in.

  Jase was carrying her princess-style across the lot. Her number one least-favorite person in the world—the guy who made her angrier than she’d ever been in her life without doing anything more than locking that damned accusing stare on her—was now doing her a solid, the likes of which she’d never known.

  God.

  She was going to have to be nice to him after this.

  And not fake nice. Real. Honest-to-goodness, would-you-like-something-while-I’m-up, how’s-your-dad, thank-you nice.

  Suspended in Jase’s arms, she shivered as he adjusted his hold, swinging her around so his arm banded beneath her rear as he held her upright facing back over his shoulder, allowing the coat to slip open revealing…the wrong view.

  Her breath sucked in as she swiveled around, confirming that Jase hadn’t been carrying her toward the church at all.

  “Hang on to my shoulder, Emily.”

  “W-w-what are y-y-you d-d-doing?” she stuttered as her body dropped a few inches, sliding down Jase’s front before he secured his grip. “The ch-church. The cerem-m-mony. We have t-to—”

  Emily’s heart dropped as she was swung forward and pushed into the front seat of an SUV. The door slammed quickly beside her, and she looked out the window to where Jase was already rounding the car, his eyes locked on hers through the glass, a dark scowl etched across his features as he pointed a single finger at her and mouthed the command “Stay.”

  Then he was jerking his door open and sliding in fast, bringing another gust of biting cold into the car that was amazingly, incredibly warm.

  “I wrapped the damn coat around you for a reason, Emily. Turn around in the seat and give me your feet.”

  Okay, maybe the cold and the adrenaline and the worry and the hangover were getting to her. Because she had no idea what Jase wanted with her feet. Which had become a general pain that seemed to exist outside of anything as specific as shape. She tried to move her toes, but they were stiff and the shaking was making it hard to do anything.

  “A-a-are you g-going to d-d-drive up t-to th-the f-f-front d-doors?”

  The eyes that met hers were hostile and as dark as the curse he gritted out before turning to lean into the backseat for what ended up being a blanket.

  It seemed she didn’t need to wonder whether he’d be painfully polite with her after all.

  “Give me your legs.”

  Normally, she’d have come back at him with an offer to give him something else altogether, but right now, she was shaking so hard she couldn’t bring herself to make the effort. Jase wasn’t worth it. Even if he had rescued her from the arctic church parking lot, and even more than that, from falling on her face i
n the middle of it.

  “Can you even move them?”

  This time, his voice wasn’t quite so harsh, and she realized there was an undercurrent of concern she never would have associated with this man—at least not in the context of her well-being.

  Looking down at her legs, she started to pull at them, but it seemed as though her entire body had lost mobility. She just needed another minute…

  A minute Jase apparently wasn’t going to wait for. Shoving the blanket into her hands, he reached down and gripped both her knees, pulling them up and, in a series of swift moves, laying them across the console so they rested in his lap.

  “J-Jase! Wh-what are you d-d-doing?”

  He looked down at her feet, which had taken on a mottled, angry appearance, and growled, “What the hell were you doing?”

  Opening her mouth to speak, she snapped it closed again when those big hands started rubbing over her abused flesh.

  “Barefoot. No jacket. Running across the—” His eyes went to the roof of the car, and Emily had the distinct impression that Jase was within a hellfire’s throw of blaspheming the sacred parking lot. “What? Didn’t want to ruin your shoes? Couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of a jacket? Is your vanity skyrocketing so high that the oxygen’s too thin to feed your brain?”

  Her chattering teeth ground together as heat born of too many years listening to Jase Foster sell her short started to burn inside her. Her arm snapped out, one finger pointing in accusation. “I appreciate the r-rescue, but I-I’ve about had it w-with the rest of your b-bull. I d-don’t need you l-looking to tear me d-down every opportunity you can f-find. Not that you d-deserve it, but here’s the d-deal.”

  Through chattering teeth, she detailed the chain of events leading up to her rescue, starting with the missing ring, the limo driver taking off before she could get her things out of the back, her car, and the fact that no one seemed to even notice she’d gone into a ditch. With each clarification she warmed a little more, her teeth chattering a little less. “With all the ice under the s-snow, I thought I’d probably kill myself t-trying to cross the l-lot in those heels and figured my only option was to r-run. It wasn’t about vanity, you arrogant, accusing j-jackass. It was about necessity. So screw off!”