HAPPENS at weddings, Luce. It’s like they pump something into the air. All the sexual tension, the weepy till-death-do-us-part stuff, everyone thinking about honeymoons and garters and sloppy kisses and white lace and roses and…Well, the open bar doesn’t hurt, either.”
“Okay, so everyone else is doing it. That doesn’t mean I have to,” Lucie protested. “I’m just not that kind of person.” She hiccuped delicately. “Besides, my father would have a fit.”
“What’s he got to do with it?” Delilah argued. “And why would he even have to know?”
“He wouldn’t, I suppose. It’s just…he’s very hung up on toeing the line, not making waves, not doing anything that would embarrass him.”
“Let me get this straight. This is the same man whose daughter just foisted this Scottish monstrosity of a wedding on about four hundred people?” Delilah shook her head so hard she looked dizzy. “Lucie, you are thirty years old. What your father does or doesn’t like is hardly important at this point—especially when the old jerk let Steffi have her wedding on your birthday.”
“Oh, I’m sure none of them remembered. It’s not like it was intentional,” Lucie assured her new friend.
“That’s even worse.”
“Not really—”
“I’m telling you, Luce,” Delilah interrupted. “Tonight, for a few hours, you deserve to think about you, to celebrate the big 3-0, to be as wild and wicked as you’ve always wanted to be.”
Still, Lucie hesitated.
The other bridesmaid demanded, “Come on, Lucie, what are you afraid of?”
What was she afraid of?
“Don’t be shy—don’t even think about it,” Delilah counseled. “After all, it’s no biggie.” There was a spark of mischief in her smile. “Just a harmless little fling.”
2
JUST A LITTLE FLING.
It might not sound scary to Delilah, but it was like jumping off a cliff to Lucie.
“I don’t know if I can,” she hedged. But a tiny, reckless voice inside her whispered, You know you want to. “I—I don’t know.”
“Which is exactly why you’re sitting here by yourself on your birthday, with nobody warm and friendly to curl up to.” Delilah pushed herself to her feet. “Harsh words, my dear, but true. Don’t look now, but my best shot at my own fling is heading for the bar, and I think I can intercept him. Paolo has my name written all over him.”
With a determined glint in her eye, Delilah stalked off in search of big game.
“Paolo?” Lucie muttered, squinting after Delilah. “Who is Paolo? Oh, good heavens. It’s the cranky busboy.”
Dejected, Lucie watched the candle flame sputter into a wisp of smoke in front of her. The bride and groom had left. Ian and his bimbo had left. Delilah was hot on the trail of a busboy. And Lucie was alone at her table.
Alone on her thirtieth birthday. This was just wrong.
“I’m going to do it,” she said suddenly. Fortifying herself by chugging the last of her margarita, Lucie stood up and unsteadily surveyed the ballroom. “Who’s it going to be?”
She frowned, weighing the prospects. It couldn’t be just anyone. Her head might be buzzing with champagne and tequila, but she still wasn’t stupid enough to put the moves on just anybody. Nobody with a wedding ring. Nobody who looked too old or too young or too…scary.
But then who? Shaking her head from side to side, Lucie tried to clear her mind enough to make a rational decision. Not that there was anything rational about any of this.
It’s my birthday, the brash, foolhardy side of her brain argued. You didn’t get even one present. You deserve this!
Okay, okay. The fling was on. So who was the lucky guy?
There was a relatively cute guy over by the dance floor giving her the eye, but he looked kind of strange. Or maybe just a little too eager.
And then there was Baker Burns.
Good old Baker. Feeling sentimental all of a sudden, Lucie smiled. He gave her a friendly wave from the cake table, where he was casually eating dessert, not a care in the world. He, too, was all by himself. Hmm…Okay, so he wasn’t terribly exciting. But he was safe, and that seemed like a good idea at the moment. Safe, predictable, boring Baker Burns…
“He’s perfect,” she whispered. All she wanted was one night of—what had Delilah called it?—nookie. One night of nookie. No future. No trouble. Just one night. Who else but Baker Burns fit that bill?
So she grabbed her tartan purse, the useless little thing Steffi had given them all as bridesmaid’s presents, and padded purposefully to the cake table.
“Hello, Baker,” she began, working hard to keep that breathless, tipsy tremble out of her voice.
“Hiya, Luce,” he said calmly, holding up a plate in each hand. “Did you want white or chocolate? Don’t worry—only the icing is plaid.”
Naturally he assumed she was trolling for extra wedding cake. “Oh, no. None for me, thanks.” As he set down the plates, she forged ahead, determined to be bold. What did vampy, flirty girls do in these situations? Maybe a little eyelash batting? “Having a good time, Baker?” she inquired coyly, leaning in nearer and flapping her lashes to beat the band.
He’d turned away to retrieve his own cake, but he stopped, his fork in midair. With concern, he asked, “Is there something wrong with your eye?”
Oh, hell. Eyelash batting was a bust.
“Listen, Baker,” she said, coming right out with it, “I’m by myself, you’re by yourself, and it’s my birthday. I was wondering whether you were interested in getting together tonight. You and me.”
“You? A-a-and me?” It sounded as if a hunk of cake had lodged in his windpipe. He choked, “D-did you just…?”
“Right. You and me. What do you say?” When he still couldn’t manage to get out any words, Lucie snapped, “Come on, I haven’t got all day. Do you want to sleep with me or not?”
Baker’s eyebrows rose past his receding hairline. “Are you drunk?”
“Heavens, no.” Lucie paused, wondering if the cake behind Baker was really tilting or her eyesight had gone wacky. Best not to think about it. “Well, maybe I’ve had a little more to drink than normal,” she admitted. “But that’s not what this is about. I’m serious, Baker. What do you think about a wedding-night fling with an old friend?”
“Y-yes. Sure! Now? Do you want to leave now?”
“Yes, I want to leave now. Right this minute.” Before I lose my tequila-induced nerve.
“Okay.” He paused, carefully placing his plate back on the table behind him. Taking a deep breath, he peered at her, as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening. She knew the feeling. “Where? I mean, your room or mine? I mean, you do want to go to a room, right? You don’t have fantasies about, like, the 18th green or a phone booth or the hood of a Corvette or something, do you?”
Lucie’s mouth dropped open. Clearly, there was more to Baker than she’d realized. Eighteenth green? Phone booth? Hood of a Corvette? She swallowed. “Actually, I was thinking of a, uh, bed.”
A bed. Good lord. Bed. She’d no more said the word than hazy, smoky images assailed her. Images of sheets tangled around sweaty, naked skin. Pillows and blankets scattered to the four winds in reckless, passionate abandon. Springs squeaking in protest as bodies thrashed above them. And a man, pressed so close she could hear his heartbeat, feel his heat, touch his…
Baker