Usually, he managed to find ways to duck out of celebrating friends’ happy days. Weddings almost always ended in divorce anyway—and divorce tore lives apart.
Matthew’s first experience with divorce had come early in his life. When his Uncle Travis had split with Heather shortly after they’d wed, the cataclysmic damage and fallout of emotional shrapnel had ranged far beyond the two adults in question. It had wrecked entire families, and not just their own.
Wave upon wave upon wave. He was still experiencing effects of the outcome to this day.
Matthew clenched his teeth, swallowing back the burn in his throat.
Too close to home.
And so not worth it.
But when his closest friend and fellow wrangler Brady Adams asked Matthew to be his best man, he couldn’t come up with any reasonable way out of it. Brady knew how Matthew felt about weddings and had used Matthew’s integrity to good-naturedly guilt-trip him into it.
Brady didn’t want anyone but his very best friend Matthew to stand up with him and he would be let down if Matthew refused.
Matthew should consider it an honor to be asked.
And on, and on, and on.
Blah, blah, blah.
Matthew just wanted to cover his ears and tune it all out, but what else could he do?
He had to say yes.
Talk about getting stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Matthew currently stood leaning his shoulder against one wall, holding it up, so to speak, while the rest of the group mingled cheerfully—and noisily--in the center of the church’s fellowship hall where the rehearsal was shortly to take place.
It wasn’t the first time in his life that he was an outsider looking in. He’d feel more comfortable after the actual rehearsal was over and the dinner started. People didn’t tend to notice as much whether or not he was talking when everyone was focused on eating.
“Matthew Wilde,” Brady’s fiancée Chelsea Higgins exclaimed, threading her arm into his. “What are you doing standing all alone over here holding up the wall? Don’t be shy. Come join the party.”
He wasn’t shy, just a loner. And he was bored. A dry chuckle emerged from deep in his throat, but it held no humor in it, and he was certain Chelsea must have heard how disingenuous it sounded.
But she appeared locked in her own world. She grinned up at him, her eyes capturing his, searching for something.
Reassurance? Encouragement?
Her smile wavered and her lips trembled.
Must be pre-wedding jitters.
He plastered his best smile on his face, squared his shoulders and escorted Chelsea directly into the middle of the chaos, where in their heart of hearts, all brides wanted to be. He couldn’t imagine that Chelsea would be any different, despite her nerves.
“Where’s Brady?” he asked, wondering why the enthusiastic groom-to-be would be late to his own wedding rehearsal. Brady was a laid-back cowboy, but this wasn’t ropin’ and wranglin’.
This was hitchin’.
This time he definitely saw a flash of panic in Chelsea’s eyes as worry lines appeared on her forehead as she furrowed her brow.
“He had to make a quick run to the airport to pick up Riley, my maid of honor. She was supposed to fly in on Monday, but she ended up not being able to get out of work until this morning, so she’s really late getting here. I’m kind of freaking out about it, but I know Riley won’t let me down.”
Talk about cutting it close. Denver International Airport wasn’t exactly a quick run from anywhere on Colorado’s Eastern plains.
Matthew hoped Brady would be here soon. Chelsea needed his strength and his perpetually upbeat attitude. Matthew definitely wasn’t that guy, and wasn’t the least bit comfortable filling his best friend’s boots in the interim.
Matthew needed Brady here, as well. Surrounded by strangers wasn’t his idea of a good time. He was comfortable talking to Brady, even if the conversation would inevitably revolve around the wedding.
At the moment, it was just Chelsea chittering at him.
“Riley grew up in this area,” Chelsea said. “Or at least, she was born here. She went to an exclusive boarding school in Denver, the same one I did. That’s where we met. We’ve been best friends since kindergarten. But Riley lives in Los Angeles now, working in marketing as a social media expert. Much too far away, if you ask me. I really miss her.”
Riley.
Why did that name sound so familiar to him?
Matthew had grown up in this area, as well, on his family’s parcel of land handed down through many generations, land that—
His vision turned pitch black and then to shades of flaming red. He bit the inside of his lip, shoving his dark thoughts to the back of his mind.
“She grew up in these parts?” His voice had deepened and he cleared his throat.
“I think it was on a ranch around here somewhere. Eastern Colorado, anyway, although I realize that doesn’t exactly narrow it down much. I remember she used to complain about having to go home to the ranch for the holidays.” She shrugged. “I’m not entirely familiar with the area. Not like Brady is.”
“Did I hear my name?” Brady suddenly appeared behind his wife-to-be, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her cheek affectionately.
Matthew let out a deep breath. Finally.
Brady flashed Chelsea a toothy grin that was all Brady, making women’s hearts flip the world over. Happy-go-lucky, not a care in the world Brady Adams.
Matthew wanted to snort and roll his eyes. Somehow, Chelsea had managed to lasso wild-at-heart Brady and was about to hog-tie him good.
“You better have been nice,” he teased.
Chelsea turned in Brady’s embrace and stood on tiptoe to give him a proper kiss.
Way too much PDA for Matthew’s taste. His stomach churned like a combine, just the way it had when he was a little boy, when kissing gave cooties and girls were gross.
“I’m here. The party can officially get started,” came a woman’s clear, sweet chirrup from just inside the door of the fellowship hall.
A hazel-eyed beauty with long, thick curls of amber-colored hair embraced the entire group with her smile, her expression beaming sunshine so bright Matthew wanted to hold his hand up against the glare.
“Riley,” Chelsea exclaimed, running to embrace her friend.
“Sorry I had to slide in just under the wire like this,” Riley said, and Matthew detected the hint of tightness to her voice. Whatever it was that was bothering her, it was gone the next second. “But I’m here now, and that’s the important part. What can I do to help?”
Matthew felt a sudden twinge of guilt. He’d been so wrapped up in his own discomfort that he hadn’t even thought to ask if there was anything he could do to make Brady and Chelsea’s rehearsal—and wedding—go any smoother. His role as the best man was more than just giving a speech at the reception and he’d been standing around mulling over nothing.
Shouldn’t somebody be decorating for the wedding, or was that all done tomorrow, at the last minute? And what about a reception?
Matthew didn’t know the first thing about weddings and hesitated to ask lest he appear ignorant, but it seemed to him, after Riley’s reminder, that somebody, maybe everybody, ought to be doing something instead of just standing around.
Chelsea glanced at her step-counting fitness watch, a gadget that nearly everyone these days was wearing. Matthew didn’t see the point of those devices. He got plenty of exercise riding the range on horseback and herding cattle. He didn’t need his watch talkin’ to him.
Chelsea frowned. “I have to say I’m a little concerned. Allie, my event planner, should have been here at least a half an hour ago.”
“She probably just got caught up in rush hour traffic in Denver,” Brady suggested smoothly, giving his wife-to-be a reassuring smile. “Riley and I were listening to the radio on the way out here from the airport. It sounds like I-25 was a real bear today. Traffic piling up
everywhere.”
“That must be it.” Riley smiled and gave her friend’s arm a squeeze. “Father James is officiating, right? Why don’t I go find him and see if we can get this show on the road? The rehearsal should be fairly straightforward. We can do without Allie for now.”
The brightness Matthew had first observed in the amber-haired woman hadn’t dimmed.
“Come with?”
Matthew’s gaze widened when he realized Riley was looking straight at him.
Startled, he tapped his chest and raised his brows. “Me?”
“You’re the best man, aren’t you? Come on.” She took his elbow and guided them both toward the door.
Matthew couldn’t help but dig his booted heels in a little bit, but he wasn’t really surprised when she didn’t appear to notice.
“Uh, yeah. I guess so,” he muttered, too little, too late. And it wasn’t as if she was listening, anyway. “But how did you know I was the best man?”
“I’ve seen pictures. Chelsea loves to talk about her favorite subject—Brady Adams. Apparently, you are a big part of his life.”
Matthew shrugged. “I don’t know about that. We work together.”
“It has to be more than that or else Brady would have chosen someone else to stand up with him.”
He grunted. “I guess.”
“You don’t sound enthused.”
His mouth kicked up in a half-smile. “Is it that obvious?”
“You should work on it,” Riley suggested wryly. “As it is, we have to do our best to uplift poor Chelsea. She’s a wreck. I’ve been on the phone with her several times a day, every day this week. The ridiculous part is that she hired an event planner, Allie Something-or-other, to handle all of the details for this very reason, so she wouldn’t turn into bridezilla. Allie was supposed to take care of everything from the wedding rehearsal to the reception.
“But recently, Chelsea’s been having trouble contacting Allie. Chelsea’s leaving messages, but they aren’t being returned. I told her not to worry about it, that Allie was probably busy putting together all the facets of her wedding and that Allie would show up today with everything well in hand.”
She screwed up her lips into a little pout that did something funny to Matthew’s insides. “But now I’m beginning to wonder.”
Riley hadn’t even taken a breath the whole time she’d been speaking.
Way too many words for Matthew’s linear male brain to follow.
But when the gist of the message finally hit him, it gutted him. He slammed to a stop and turned to face Riley.
“Are you telling me Chelsea’s event planner has bailed on her?”
Riley shrugged and tittered nervously. “Honestly? I don’t know. But I’m starting to worry that might be the case.”
Matthew groaned. “Oh, man. Brady’s gonna flip.”
“Brady? Goodness. I didn’t even think about Brady. Poor Chelsea. Brides make all the plans, you know, even though it’s technically supposed to be the couple who designs a wedding. The groom usually only wants whatever the bride wants—whatever makes her happy makes him happy. He doesn’t want to be involved in all the gory details.
“Details,” she repeated, with more emphasis. “What are we going to do if everything falls through at the last minute?”
“Wait. We?”
“I’m probably borrowing trouble, but--”
“Yeah, let’s not even do that,” Matthew cut in.
If she was suggesting what he thought she was suggesting—that Brady and Chelsea’s wedding was about to take a nose-dive the day before the actual nuptials, and that he and Riley, as best man and maid of honor, were supposed to pull rabbits out of hats—
So not going to happen.
He was definitely not the cavalry-coming-to-the-rescue type. He’d be less than useless in any part of wedding planning. That event coordinator had better have arrived by the time he and Riley returned to the fellowship hall with the priest or he might be making an in-person and not-very-pleasant call to her office. He’d drag her out here by her ear if he had to.
His thoughts had apparently not crossed his expression, or else Riley was ignoring his internal grimace.
A grinning Riley held out her hand to him.
“Partners?” she asked. If Matthew didn’t know better, he would think there was a touch of glee in her voice and exuding from her vivid hazel eyes, sparkling with myriad greens and golds.
But she couldn’t be suggesting they pull off a wedding in a day, because everything she was implying would be nothing short of an unmitigated disaster.
“I’m Riley, by the way.” Her grin widened, and Matthew’s throat closed around his breath. She was one hot commodity. He was the furthest thing from a lady’s man, but that didn’t mean he had trouble getting dates, or that he didn’t enjoy the company of beautiful women now and again.
Usually, he was the one in control—of the beginning of the relationship, the duration, and how it ended, with very little emotion clouding his judgment.
Right or wrong, that was how it had always been.
But Riley?
Something about the woman threw him off his game. Perhaps it was the impish gleam in her eyes, or maybe the way she attacked life at full-throttle, no holds barred. Whatever it was, he liked it.
“Weaver,” she finished. “Riley Weaver.”
The mention of her last name stung like he’d been unexpectedly slapped on his face, followed immediately by a bucket of ice-water dumped over his head.
So that was why her name sounded familiar.
“Riley Weaver?” he sputtered, barely able to believe his ill luck. This day was going from bad to worse with every breath he took. “Unbelievable.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “I’m sorry?”
“You should be,” he ground out, his temper flaring. He lifted his black cowboy hat by the crown and jammed his fingers into his thick dark-brown hair.
He shook his head. What were the odds of running into a Weaver at this wedding?
Sure, they were in the general area of the—Weaver ranch—a name that still stuck in his craw and made him want to choke.
But Brady was perfectly aware of Matthew’s history. There was no way he would ever act so underhandedly as to knowingly put his best friend in the same room with a Weaver.
“Does Brady know?” he ground out.
Her gaze clouded with confusion and her brow furrowed.
“Know what?”
“That your last name is Weaver?”
“I can’t see what that has to do with anything, but no, I don’t think so, unless Chelsea told him. Like I said, I’ve lived in Los Angeles since I graduated from college, so I really haven’t had any interaction with Brady.”
She stepped forward, well into his personal space, and stared up at his face as if to divine the truth from his expression, to read in his eyes the things he had not said.
As if she didn’t know.
Every part of his being wanted to step back, to physically remove himself from a situation that was growing more uncomfortable by the second.
But that was what had happened last time.
With Uncle Travis.
With Matthew’s father.
They’d stepped back.
And they’d left Matthew with nothing.
“What’s the deal here?” Riley demanded, propping her fists on her hips and striking a pose that would have been intimidating if she wasn’t such a tiny slip of a thing. “We have work to do here. Why are you freaking out on me all of the sudden?”
“My name is Matthew,” he said, drawing out the word as if, when he said it slower, it would have more of an impact. “Matthew Wilde.”
*
So, his name was Matthew.
Big whooping deal.
As if that explained everything.
Except it didn’t.
His name meant absolutely nothing to Riley. It didn’t ring a bell at all. She didn’t know one single thing abou
t a Matthew Wilde.
Zip. Zero. Nada.
Clearly, though, her name had set off firecrackers in his head. His hands were tightly fisted at his sides and she watched with interest as a plethora of emotions clicked like presentation slides across his face as he attempted to school his features.
Shock. Offense. Downright anger.
It might have been amusing in other circumstances, but right now, her focus was on making sure Chelsea’s wedding went off without a hitch, not duking it out with some random guy who clearly had her mixed up with an entirely different Riley Weaver.
“I don’t have time for this,” she informed him dryly. “I’m going to look for Father James. You can come, or not, as you wish.”
She turned and strode toward Father James’s office, not even bothering to look behind her to see if Matthew was following.
Or not.
This was neither the time nor the place to sort out whatever bee had gotten into the cowboy hat of the handsome, rugged cowboy who had turned into something akin to Jekyll and Hyde.
Jekyll, she had liked. Hyde, not so much.
He jogged to catch up to her and reached for her shoulder. His touch was surprisingly gentle, considering the stark look on his face.
“You can’t just walk away like that.”
“No?” She tilted her head up to meet his gaze. “I think I already have.”
“You and I have a lot to discuss.”
She couldn’t even begin to imagine what he meant. And besides, she had enough on her plate trying to fend off the possible—probable, at this point--appearance of bridezilla, without taking into account trying to deal with an insane best man.
“So you say, although I honestly don’t have the foggiest notion of what’s bugging you. Still, since it’s obviously so important to you, I promise we’ll talk later,” she said, deciding that the best course of action, at least for the moment, was to humor him. “Just help me get past this wedding rehearsal without everyone having a major breakdown and I’m all yours.”
His blue eyes widened and then he frowned. He seemed to consider her words for a moment, his teeth clamped so tight she could see his pulse drumming in the corner of his jaw.
Cowboys Under The Mistletoe: Five Christmas Christian Romance Novellas Page 25