Her Best Friend's Brother

by Kay Stockham

  Plastic bottle in hand, he forced a smile to his lips and kept going when Mrs. Bumgarner attempted to waylay him. Normally he would have stopped to chat as manners dictated, but time was against him. The moment Shelby was able to yank herself up by her bootstraps, she’d be back to her old self—aloof and unapproachable, spine stiff and attitude in place.

  Luke avoided eye contact and wove his way through the crowded ballroom, the tables gleaming with the decorations of yet another Tulane wedding reception. Memories of the first trip home to Beauty bombarded him and his sudden scowl had Mrs. Daughtry raising her eyebrows. The old bat would run straight to his mother and make something of it, so Luke smoothed his features and flashed her a tight smile as he passed.

  Luke glanced over his shoulder to see Nick sneaking a kiss from his bride and prayed to God the rumor was true. Maybe Jenn really had found a way to help Nick. Given the look of happiness on Nick’s face, it had to be true.

  Luke paused a moment to watch the couple celebrate their wedded bliss, happy for them. But what about him and Nick? Would anything repair the damage? He was welcome here, sure, but there was still a mountain of anger between them.

  Shaking his head, Luke hurried toward the rose garden via one of the French doors lining the dining room. All afternoon he’d watched for Shelby, but she’d stood in the back of the crowd during the service, avoided his gaze even if it meant staring at her pointy-toed shoes, then disappeared into the throng of guests whenever he took a step in her direction. Quite a change from the woman who’d ripped the buttons from his shirt when she’d stripped it off him.

  They’d had sex. Mind-boggling, can’t-feel-your-legs sex. Shelby had been wild. Uninhibited. Everything he’d always secretly fantasized she’d be. But when he’d opened his eyes the next morning, she was gone.

  So get the hint and leave her alone.

  “You left? Shel, come on! I thought you were going to stick around and hang out with me.”

  Luke bit back a curse and paused, searching the greenery for the whereabouts of his sister’s voice. He found Alexandra on a bench tucked into a private corner of the garden.

  “Oh, yeah? No, I understand completely. I hope you feel better soon. Want me to bring you some leftovers when I sneak out?”

  Luke moved closer, pausing before Alex noticed him.

  His sister made a face at whatever Shelby said. “That bad? No, I certainly don’t want to be sick and trying to fly. Rest up, and I’ll call you later…Yeah, I will. Maybe we can get together soon. I have a short assignment lined up this week but will be back in Nashville by the weekend. I’ll try to drive down.”

  She laughed at something Shelby said. “No way. I heard my name mentioned, too. Sounds like the safest place for me is out of town. My brothers are dropping like flies. My money’s on Ethan.…No, really. Some nurse will wise up soon, especially if he keeps leaving his scrubs behind in the on-call rooms. Some of the stories I’ve heard are unbelievable.…I know!”

  Alex snickered again, this one sounding ornerier than the last. “Someone today mentioned Luke being next. I don’t know who they were referring to, but unless a woman’s built like Dolly Parton and animated, he doesn’t seem to be interested at all.…Uh-oh, I hear the band starting. I’d better get inside. Look, feel better and take care, okay? And if you need anything, call me. If nothing else, I can drive out and leave it on the porch for you.…Of course I would. You’d get me out of here early. I’ve had about all the motherly looks and comments I can handle on the subject of settling down and marriage…. Yeah, but try telling her that…. Yeah, I will. Bye, Shel.”

  Luke waited until Alex ended the call before he cleared his throat. “Dolly Parton and animated?”

  His sister started and glanced up at him, color seeping into her cheeks. “Oh…hey.”

  Luke raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s just an observation.”

  “Based on what?”

  She smoothed a hand over her skirt. “Well,” she drawled slowly, “when I visited you and toured your company last year I saw an awful lot of silicone who seemed very interested in you. But nothing took your attention off your work.”

  “Maybe I was focusing on showing my little sister a good time.”

  “Doesn’t mean you’re dead.”

  True.

  “And then there was your boss—what’s her name?”

  “Anne-Marie.”

  “She flirted with you bold as you please but you didn’t bat an eyelash.”

  He tugged at his earlobe. “She’s my boss. And she only did that because she was having problems with her husband and he was watching.” But if Alex thought Anne-Marie was a flirt then, she’d really think so now. Anne-Marie liked “playing with the boys” as she called it.

  “I bet she still flirts with you.”

  She did but he knew not to read into it. Anne-Marie had gone a little crazy after her divorce and wasn’t coping well. Still, she was a good person. Misguided at the moment in what she wanted out of life, but good. He only hoped her recent stint of questionable decisions wouldn’t come back to haunt her.

  “We’re just friends. It’s all innocent.” Unlike his time with Shelby. He didn’t want to discuss his lack of interest in his boss with his younger sister, not when there were more important topics to talk about. “Was that Shelby on the phone?”

  Alex physically drew back, her eyebrows shooting up faster than a rocket. “Yeah, it was. Why do you want to know?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  LUKE REALIZED the switch in topics was too abrupt. The last thing he needed was his globe-trotting journalist little sister on the hunt for a story to get the rest of the family off her back for gallivanting around the world all the time. She might be a travel reviewer now, but she’d been a tattletale first. “I heard you talking and thought I caught a mention of her name.”

  Alex made a face and sighed heavily. “The traitor went home. She was supposed to hang out with me after her shift, but she isn’t feeling well. She’s been a wreck all week getting the club and the staff ready for the wedding. You know how uptight she gets. She’s such a perfectionist, especially if things don’t go according to schedule.”

  Yeah, he remembered. But stressed or not, if Shelby was as sick as she’d been in the rose garden, she shouldn’t have driven herself anywhere. Knowing he wanted to discuss that night, he wouldn’t put it past Shelby to drag herself to her car by her fingernails if she had to.

  Couldn’t they approach what happened like two adults? Two consenting, it-was-a-great-night-and-let’s-do-it-again adults?

  Dream on, loser. You’ll always be the geek and she’ll always be the beauty queen.

  Albeit a reluctant one. Pat Taylor-Brookes had entered Shelby into every pageant in the state until Shelby had gotten bold enough to flat out refuse to go. He still remembered watching the drama unfold on his parents’ lawn after Shelby had snuck out and hidden in Alex’s room until Pat had come after her. Man, Shelby’s mother was a piece of work. Hard to believe she gave so selflessly to others that she’d do five-K walks for her clients and volunteered to cut hair on the hospice ward.

  Luke shook his head. He didn’t want an embarrassing scene and knew how much Shelby hated being front and center. Was that why she’d avoided him? Since their night together the only time he’d seen her had been in public.

  But what about not answering his calls? He eyed Alex’s cell phone. Would Shelby answer if he made the call using his sister’s phone? “Didn’t Mom give you the no-cell-phone lecture this weekend? I heard that thing vibrating during the ceremony.”

  Her chin lifted. “She told all of us, if I remember correctly, but I’ve seen you check your iPhone at least a dozen times. If not for this big deal you keep talking about, Mom would’ve confiscated it. Now,” she said, crossing her legs as though settling down to do business as Queen Pest, “why are you asking about Shelby again?”

  Again? Right. He’d mentioned Shelby just that morning in a bid to fish for i
nfo. Way to play it cool. “I found her getting sick a bit ago.”

  “You went into the ladies’ room? Oh-ho, what I wouldn’t give to have seen that!”

  “She was in the rose garden, not the ladies’ room,” he clarified, pulling at his collar. Used to cargo shorts, T-shirts and flip-flops, he hated having to wear a tie. “And you wouldn’t have wanted to see anything. Trust me.”

  Alex wrinkled her nose at the image. “She did sound miserable, poor thing. She said she’d picked up that nasty bug going around. But let’s stay on topic. To see her getting sick in the rose garden, you’d have had to follow her there.” Her smile turned sly and mischievous. “Did you?”

  Like a dog with a bone. “I did,” he admitted but was quick to add, “because she looked sick. What would you have done?”

  Luke could tell by his sister’s expression that Shelby hadn’t shared the news of their night in his hotel room. That was good—because the less Alex knew, the better. But it also confirmed Shelby’s lack of interest in him. His sister and Shelby had been friends from the moment they met. If it was important, they talked about it.

  Meaning he wasn’t important enough to mention?

  “No, of course not. But if she was sick, why did you leave her?”

  Now that he thought about it, he remembered the way Shelby had practically growled her request for a drink. Then ordered him to go? Sick or not, she’d sent him off in order to make her getaway. And you fell for it. Luke lifted the bottle like the idiot he was for believing Shelby’s lie. “She wanted something to drink.”

  “Oh.” Alexandra chewed her lower lip and studied him a long moment before looking down at her manicure.

  Wait a minute. Was that disappointment? Was he actually reading her right? “What?”

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just you had that look again and I thought maybe…” Her hand fluttered like she was flicking away the thought. “Never mind. I’m being stupid.”

  “What look?” For a guy already feeling at a disadvantage where the female race was concerned, this was the kind of detail and fault he needed to be aware of.

  “It’s silly but—The weird one. The same one you wore the last time we were all home. You walked around in this fog and no one could figure out why.”

  He knew exactly why. The sight of Shelby for the first time in several years had knocked him for a loop. One glimpse of her long legs and rounded hips was all it had required. That, and Shelby’s too-wide smile. Every time he’d seen it he’d found himself smiling.

  Then he’d noticed the hives and realized her smile was a fake. She’d been upset over something, so when the opportunity arose, he’d pulled her aside and…the rest was history. “Work has been intense lately, that’s all,” he said to explain the look. “We’re almost ready to present this project and things are tense. But while we’re playing Twenty Questions, why don’t you answer a few? Like why you’re out here and not in there with Mom and Gram?”

  Alex immediately squirmed and fussed with her hair, guilt written in every movement. He knew movements, actions and reactions. Details were everything in his job. As Lead Creative Director overseeing the entire game development team, every aspect from the original concept ideas, sketches and storyboards to the final touches before a video game was presented to the purchasing powers in charge fell under his umbrella. And one of the reasons he was so good at what he did was his unshakable stance that success was in the details.

  The little things gamers probably couldn’t identify technically were the very things that got people buzzing about a particular game. Like water rippling as someone walked through it, the murkiness of a bog or the sight of mist rising above water cascading over a cliff, or the ruffled tips of ivy leaves and the deep grooves in the bark on the trees. He made sure everything was visually enhanced and rich in color and texture, detail—otherwise he sent it back to the proverbial drawing board.

  “There you went again. You’re in Game World, aren’t you?”

  Once a geek, always a geek. But he could flip between worlds easily and Alexandra’s comment did the trick. “Answer the question.”

  “I needed some fresh air.”

  Hot, humid, stifling late-August-heat type air? “I see.”

  “Don’t take that tone with me. You sound like Mom.”

  Her irritation brought a smile to his lips. “Mom bugging you about why you didn’t bring David?”

  Disgruntlement marked her features. “Yeah. Now shut up about it.” His sister released a long, loud groan. “If you love me at all, you will not mention his name in front of her. Mom has this idea that David and I are a perfect match because we’re both interested in travel.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “Hello? Weren’t you the one just talking about Anne-Marie being your boss? I love my job. I love the traveling and seeing new places, new countries. David, on the other hand, is an armchair traveler. He’s all for reading about it, but he rarely leaves the state.” She shook her head in bemusement. “What kind of match would we be? He’s a homebody while I have yet to find a place I can’t leave.”

  He thought of the two trips he’d made to Japan and the headaches associated with travel. “You don’t get tired of living out of a suitcase?”

  “Sometimes, yeah,” she admitted softly. “I realize not everyone would like being on the go constantly, but why not see the world while I’m young? The fact I get paid to do it makes it all the better.”

  Alexandra straightened her watch, and he noted that while it was slim and feminine in style, it had three different time zones on the mother-of-pearl face.

  Luke opened the bottle of water he held, offering her a drink, which she declined. “Mom alone is one thing, but I’m getting the impression there’s more to the story. Good old Dave is putting pressure on you, too?”

  Alex blushed and continued to fiddle with the sleek silver. The Celtic pattern of the band links on either side of the face caught his attention. It was the perfect detail to add to Mystic Magi. The door leading into the Scribe’s Sanctuary had always struck him as being too plain, but nothing had seemed particularly right for such an important passageway.

  “Don’t get me wrong, David’s great, but I’m seriously not interested. I just need to figure out a way of getting Mom and David to back off. Shelby says I need to lie low and take a few consecutive trips until they both lose interest.”

  “Might work for David but I doubt it’ll work for Mom. Parents don’t usually lose interest in their children.” Especially not their mother. Marilyn Tulane worried about her brood, her single offspring more than the others because they were “all alone.” She made a point to call them every Sunday, and Wednesday evenings after church, and sent an e-mail or forwarded a cyber joke almost daily. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. They’ll figure it out. And if David gives you any major problems, let me know.”

  His little sister shot him a surprised look that screamed What would you do about it? Coming from Nick, Garret or Ethan, she wouldn’t have blinked an eye, but him? Mom must have forgotten to mention he’d combated his sedentary lifestyle by taking karate. He was now a fourth-degree black belt with the muscle strength and abilities to prove it. Good ol’ Dave wouldn’t know what hit him.

  “No, thanks. I don’t want any more of my family involved in my personal life. I think I’ll take Shelby’s advice and snatch up all the long-distance trips I can get.”

  He opened his mouth to go into lecture mode about her staying safe while she worked, but figured he’d get shot down. “Just be careful.”

  “I am. It helps that I travel as myself and write under a pen name. So long as David doesn’t do something stupid and tell people who I am, I’m good. Some of my reviews have been less than complimentary.” Alex rubbed her forehead. “Do me a favor, though. If I ever even consider getting married, lock me up in one of those games you create and throw away the key.”

  “You don’t think that’s a bit drastic?”

  “No
t when Mom’s looking at me the way she is. I’m not a kid anymore.”

  “You’ll always be the baby to us,” he teased, knowing he’d get a rise out of her.

  “That’s even worse. It’s only fair that I should be the last to have to deal with this pairing-up business. You and Ethan are dateless today, too, but I haven’t heard anyone ask either of you why. It’s such a double standard.”

  “Most women get into these things and want a date for a wedding.”

  Alex snorted. “They should know by now that I’m not most women. And you’d better be worried about how you’re going to handle Mom. She has grandchildren on the brain, and wants us all attached. With me traveling so much, you and Ethan will have her full attention.”

  Luke froze, the bottle halfway to his mouth. After several beers at last night’s bachelor party, their eldest brother had shared a bit of news. Ethan planned to head off to do some gallivanting himself.

  Leaving only one bachelor for Mom to worry about. In trying to take her mind off Ethan, their mother would throw herself full tilt into Luke. Her first order of business would be to ask her prayer circle to add him and hopes for his future marital bliss to their list and from there the mountain would be moved. “Oh, man.”

  “See what I mean?”

  Luke scowled and drank the water. He did not need that kind of attention. He wanted to get things settled with Shelby and the only hope he had of accomplishing that was to act discreetly, completely under the radar. He thought of how Shelby ignored him, and his blood pressure rose. Shelby regretted what they’d done. He got that. But couldn’t they still be…friends? She was too involved in their family for the others not to eventually catch on that something had happened between them if she kept acting the way she was. They had to reach an understanding, set aside the awkwardness and move on.

  Maybe he’d go check on her after the reception was over. God knows he didn’t want to be in the house after Ethan announced his plans for the future.