exceptional people skills.”
He actually regretted the way he’d handled the argument with Tara, even if her endless self-absorption had bored him out of his mind. She’d asked where their relationship was going and he’d been stupid enough to tell her.
Hey, the mistake was his. He knew the rules: never bring a date to a wedding.
“So what do you know about Maggie?” Jake asked, happy to move onto a more exciting topic. “She’s a real spitfire, isn’t she?”
“Maggie?” Mason echoed. “Oh, no. She’s off the menu.”
“But I like that menu,” Jake said, remembering the way she stood there, quivering with lust and indignation. “I’m pretty sure the chef’s specials are on that menu.”
“She’s Cassidy’s sister, Jake. And you’re my best friend from college. If you do to Maggie what you do to most women you date, I’ll never be able to invite the two of you to the same party again.” Mason aimed, fired and nailed the fencepost. “Besides, Maggie wants kids. Do you want kids?”
“About as much as I want leprosy.”
“Exactly. So leave her alone.”
Jake started calculating probable odds of that ever happening. He was not a man who brooked interference or suffered fools or backed down when somebody told him to. Maybe Maggie was the kind of woman who was looking to feather a nest. That didn’t mean she wasn’t up for something a little more…diversionary, did it?
He found himself welcoming that prospect with a keenness he hadn’t felt in a while.
“Now might be a good time to give you something.” Jake reached inside his jacket and produced an envelope, which he handed to Mason.
“What’s this?” Mason asked.
“Best man stuff.”
Mason opened the envelope and peered inside. “What am I looking at here?”
“Two weeks’ worth of anywhere in the world you and Cassidy want to go,” Jake said grandly. “My private jet is at your disposal.”
Mason gave a kind of war whoop. “Cass is going to go crazy. She’s never set foot outside of Texas.”
“Stay where you want, buy what you want. The cards in there have no fixed spending limit. I recommend you begin your honeymoon in the Maldives.”
“Don’t you own property there?”
Jake shrugged. He owned a lot of things. It was hard to keep track of them all. “Just don’t tell anyone, okay? I like it better when people think I’m an asshole.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Maggie Roby was the Grinch Who Stole Weddings.
To her relief, the opening bars of the wedding march began. The sooner they got this show started, the sooner it would be over with. All she’d have to worry about then was getting through the reception. Tomorrow, she could go back to her pug and her bakery and her nice comfortable life where the only thing constituting a crisis was the milk spoiling.
“You’re first, sweetheart,” she told Lexie, who stared up at her with palpable anxiety.
“I think I forgot everything you told us at the rehearsal, Aunt Maggie,” Lexie whispered.
“You walk. You throw the flowers. You stand all the way to the left. Got it?”
She nodded.
“Smile till your face hurts.”
Lexie started down the aisle, tossing rose petals, her little shoulders held so high, they practically quivered. Maggie waited a few seconds and then directed the next couple. Giving orders kept her from having to think too much. Thinking was bad. It led to feeling as though everyone was insane here except her.
Then it was just her and Jake. Her heart gave an annoying flutter.
He looked amazing in that tux. The boutonniere, made of eucalyptus and tallow berries, she’d put together herself with her own two hands. His blue gaze fell from her eyes to her lips and then back again. “I haven’t been to church in a while,” he said in the devil’s own voice. “I wonder if the walls will crumble.”
“It’s not a church,” she snapped. “It’s a barn.”
“You can’t really expect a barbarian like me to know the difference, can you?”
Suppressing an eye roll, she fell in beside him and did the step-together, step-together walk down the aisle. People craned their necks to look at them. She forced herself to smile. The smile didn’t fit right, like maybe she’d put it on at the last minute.
Reverend Macauley stood beaming, one hand cradling an open, gilt-edged Bible, his robes immaculately pressed. They were all like a bunch of well-dressed cattle in here, she thought. The barn seemed deathly hot. Her hands holding the bouquet were practically dripping. The candles, maybe? There must have been a thousand of them, glowing like fireflies against the old dark wood of the barn.
Cassidy started down the aisle, head held high, luminous and unearthly beautiful. Her long train trailed behind her, gathering rose petals as she went. When Cassidy reached the altar, Maggie hurried to take the spilling cascade of white orchids. She returned to her post, still smiling, still perspiring, and now suffocating under an armful of flowers.
Her heart was racing. She felt a little faint. Her vision went fuzzy around the edges.
My God, she thought, am I having a panic attack?
Maggie locked her knees but even that couldn’t keep her from weaving on her feet. The heat, the lack of space, the crazy amount of perfume and aftershave and flowers and candles and Reverend Macauley droning on and on, his voice becoming dimmer as the roaring in her ears grew deafening.
No!
Maggie forced herself to breathe. It felt as though something dark and terrifying had crawled inside her. She shoved the panic back. She was not going to faint. Not at her sister’s wedding. She was going to stand here and hold these damn flowers if it was the last thing she ever did.
Yet memories kept flooding back of her own wedding, of finding her ex-best friend Avery sobbing in the ladies’ room and not understanding why. So many clues, yet she’d managed to miss them all because Todd Banister had stood beside her in a place a lot like this one and said I do while pretending to mean it.
That was the problem with good-looking men like Todd and Mason and Jake—women threw themselves at them all day long. Who had the willpower to say no forever?
She drew a deep breath. Better. Faces came into focus again. Her heart slowed down to legal limits. Wow. All that because…what? A wedding? Who on earth had panic attacks at a wedding?
She still felt shaky during the vows and the ring ceremony, but then, thank God, the worst part was over and they were all heading out, first Cassidy and Mason, then the children, and now she and Jake. The triumphant wedding music crashed around her ears.
“You look a little stressed,” Jake said to her under his breath while they were waving to the guests. “That high-powered guest list getting to you?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Maggie muttered through a brittle smile, “which is why I’m ignoring you.”
“Hard to step out from behind the counter, isn’t it? All these people staring. Only thing on your mind right now is how fast you can get the hell out of here.”
How did he know this stuff? Was she that transparent? She tried glaring at him, but got distracted waving to Mason’s parents, whom she’d known most of her life. They’d been divorced recently and seemed a little forlorn standing there next to each other. It was hard not to feel bad for them.
Yet every time Jake moved, Maggie found herself gulping the delicious scent of him, that now-familiar mix