The Best Man's Bride

by Anne McAllister

  So Celina wasn’t fooled into thinking Maggie was just making an offhand comment. But even knowing exactly what Maggie was doing didn’t make her immune to the dowager’s wiles.

  There was the politeness thing, of course. “I’ve never known you to be rude,” she’d said.

  That alone, spoken to a child raised in the Harris family, was guilt-inducing. Don’t be rude could have been stitched on a sampler and hung on the dining room wall in whatever house they’d been living in when Celina was growing up.

  Celina wasn’t rude. Ever. She’d been polite to Jack. She just hadn’t been encouraging. There was nothing to encourage after all. So Celina had been able to dismiss that.

  But the other one, Maggie’s accusation that she was being a coward – that one cut deep.

  It wasn’t true. It wasn’t!

  Or at least she’d tried to tell herself it wasn’t.

  But the longer she’d thought about it today, while she was waiting for Maggie at her fitting and then later when she had run errands for Anna and had taken Katja to play on the swings, she began to fear that Maggie might have a point.

  Had she walked out on Jack in Barcelona without listening because she’d been afraid of what she might hear?

  Had she hugged her righteous anger tightly around her in all the months that followed to protect herself from some less palatable truths about her own culpability? Her own failings?

  God knew she had failings.

  The biggest one – the one she had forced herself to face when she’d got the divorce – was that she wasn’t enough for Jack.

  She hadn’t been the woman he needed in his life, to be the man he wanted to become.

  He deserved someone different, if not necessarily better.

  And she needed to have back her original perception of the man she’d fallen in love with. She needed to carry that memory in her heart, if she wasn’t going to have the man himself in her life.

  So she needed to sit still and listen to what he had to say. Maybe it would even help. It wouldn’t change the outcome – that wasn’t going to change.

  But she couldn’t be a coward any longer.

  So after she had returned Katja to her parents a little while ago, she had taken a deep breath and sought out Jack.

  She was prepared to see Jack.

  She had not been prepared for the towel.

  Now, as she sucked in a steadying breath, she realized that she was wrong: she wasn’t entirely prepared for a fully clothed Jack either.

  He was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans, the soft denim fitting him like a glove, and a dark gray polo shirt that she recognized from when she used to launder it herself. The memory didn’t help.

  His feet were bare, his damp dark hair stood up spikily all over his head. He hadn’t bothered to comb it. Ordinarily he combed it ruthlessly, but within minutes he’d be running his hands through it.

  Or she would be. Celina had always itched to run her fingers through its silky softness and ruffle it. Now, feeling her fingers tingle with that very desire, she laced them together tightly.

  “I saw you at the swings with Katja,” Jack said. He shoved his hands in his pockets as if he didn’t know what to do with them. It stretched the denim tautly over his thighs and drew her attention to the placket of his zipper. That didn’t help, either.

  Celina dragged her gaze up to his face and smiled wryly. “That was my helping Anna.”

  “Cute kid,” Jack said with a shrug. He nodded her toward a seat and she sat.

  “Yes. She is.” She was a darling. Bright and determined. She bossed her older brothers around regularly. Katja had been born with her mother’s desire to run things, but she had a sweetness at four that Anna had lost along the way, if indeed she’d ever had it.

  It was always bittersweet, even a little painful, whenever Celina found herself watching Carlo and Anna’s daughter. Katja’s birth had come only a week after Celina’s marriage to Jack. It had been the catalyst for the first conversation they’d had about starting a family.

  She’d been eager. Jack had been dismayed – or worse – at the mere thought. Every time she’d broached the subject, Jack had pushed it away.

  Finally he’d given her a puppy.

  Briefly, Celina shut her eyes, remembering the warm wriggly fur baby Jack had deposited in her arms. He hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t needed to. They both knew what he was saying with his gift. And then he left on tour.

  Her eyes flicked open again. “You were right,” she said abruptly. “We need to talk.”

  Jack raised a dark brow as if wondering why she was suggesting this now when he’d wanted to do it yesterday and she’d refused. He cracked his knuckles and walked over to the window, then back toward the chair where she sat, as if he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – find a place to land.

  Celina watched him wordlessly, waited, hoped her courage didn’t fail her now.

  Finally Jack shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and looked down at her. “Okay.” His voice was slow, cautious, as if he were disarming a grenade. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Tell me about the girl in your bed.”

  Both of Jack’s brows flew up this time, then drew down. A tiny furrow appeared between them. He didn’t speak for a long moment, and she wondered if she’d only made things worse. Was it even possible to make things worse?

  “You didn’t sleep with her,” Celina said.

  He gave her a look that said: Now you believe me? But he didn’t say the words.

  He said, “No.” He cracked his knuckles again, then came to stand in front of her, the backs of his knees against the foot of the bed. He dropped down to sit on it and, resting his forearms on spread thighs which pulled the faded denim of his jeans tight, he leaned toward her, his blue eyes dark as night. “I didn’t. I told you that.”

  “Anybody would have told his wife that,” she pointed out. “Anybody who wanted to survive to take another breath.”

  Jack’s mouth tipped at one corner. “Yeah, I guess.” He shook his head ruefully. “But in this case it’s true.”

  “All right,” Celina said slowly. “So, how did she get there?”

  Jack scrubbed his hands through his hair and sighed. “You know what it’s like after a concert. There are hangers-on. People with backstage passes. People without ’em, just eager to get it. She was with a bunch of girls who came back there after. They – her friends – were keen. She was –” he shrugged and seemed to be searching for a word “– lost.” He grimaced. “Out of place. You know what I mean?”

  Celina did. She’d always felt out of place herself.

  South Face had plenty of groupies. Some were just squealy eager fans. Others were desperate hungry girls who wanted to scream and grope and touch. And then there were others – Celina wouldn’t have called them groupies exactly – who seemed as if they had been merely swept along with the tide. They looked a bit starry-eyed, too, but mostly dazed and confused.

  Celina thought of them as driftwood. She’d said that to Jack once and he’d nodded.

  She said it again now. “Driftwood?”

  He nodded. “Pretty much. She was along for the ride, had been given someone else’s ticket, someone who couldn’t come. Crowds weren’t her thing. From the look of her, they pretty much set off the panic bells, but she was trying to be ‘one of the gang.’ They had invites to an after-concert bash Wiggins was having. You know Wiggins.”

  Celina knew Cal Wiggins. He was the drummer in the band that was opening for South Face these days. She winced, knowing Cal’s propensity for hard-drinking, hard-living parties. She could imagine what was coming.

  “He came through like the pied piper and the girls all followed, except for that one. She was huddling out of the way in the hall.”

  “As you do,” Celina said dryly.

  Jack grinned. “Some actually do.”

  “I know.” Not every girl at a South Face concert was angling to get into a band mem
ber’s bed. Some of them actually were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the right one.

  “She was still there in the hall, cowering – and shaking – when we were leaving.” He gave Celina a wry look and spread his hands helplessly.

  Celina shook her head. “So you rescued her.”

  Of course he had. She should have seen it sooner. It was who Jack was – a rescuer of damsels in distress. Hadn’t he rescued her?

  A hint of red crawled up Jack’s neck. “They went off and left her,” he said gruffly. “She was a wreck. There was just me and Mark left. Mark speaks Spanish; I don’t speak much. I thought he’d sort her out.” Jack shrugged. “But he had plans for after the concert.”

  Celina had a pretty good idea of the sort of plans Mark Reyes, South Face’s drummer, had. Mark had a girl in every city – and half the places in between. But she just nodded and Jack went on.

  “He talked to her. Listened to her, really,” Jack amended. “Then he tried to get hold of Tobe, and stick her with him.”

  Their manager, he meant.

  “But Tobe wasn’t answering his phone. It was pretty clear Mark didn’t want to be stuck with her. So he sort of ... foisted her off on me. ‘You look lonely,’ he said to me.” As he said the words, Jack’s color deepened, and he looked at Celina defiantly. “And I was,” he admitted. “I was tempted.”

  Celina swallowed, forcing herself to listen.

  Jack laced his fingers together and stared at them for long seconds before he raised his gaze and met hers, and continued flatly. “I said she could stay in my room.”

  Outside Celina could hear Mads and Casper shouting something at each other. From overhead there came the sound of an airplane. Inside her head she felt as if she could hear the blood thrumming in her ears. Something akin to dread trickled through her veins. She felt hot and then cold, clammy and then icy. And all the while her gaze locked with Jack’s. Like a deer caught in headlights she couldn’t look away.

  “I was lonely. I was angry. I missed the hell out of you. And, damn it, she was there!” He said the words fiercely. Then he dropped his head and stared at the carpet between his bare feet. She heard him swallow. “But when we were alone and she perked up and was actually interested, I wasn’t. I knew it was no good. I didn’t want her. Taking her to bed wouldn’t have solved anything. Well, maybe it would have in the physical sense – for a few minutes,” he allowed, “but not in the long run. So I just pointed her toward the bed, told her to get some sleep. Then I left.”

  “Left?” Celina let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding.

  Jack looked up, his mouth twisting. “Went down to the bar and drowned myself in a bottle of whiskey. What was I supposed to do, sleep beside her? I’m not that much of a saint.”

  Celina’s mouth twisted wryly. “No.”

  He met her gaze. “I didn’t want her,” he said roughly. “I wanted you. And as far as I knew you were halfway around the world.”

  “Until you opened the bathroom door and there I was.”

  “Looking like I’d stuck a knife in your heart.”

  “Feeling like it, too,” Celina admitted quietly.

  Jack muttered a curse under his breath. “I tried to tell you –”

  “I didn’t hear anything you said,” Celina replied honestly. “I was gutted. I’d been so eager, so excited, dying to see you. I got a key from Tobe. Opened the door, saw the girl and ... and you ... and I just ran.” She could still feel the distress, the panic, the instinct to flee, even now. “And ... you didn’t come after me.”

  “Because I was wearing a damn towel! And, hell, I was gutted, too! I was over the moon one second at the sight of you – and punched in the gut the next. I thought you knew me!” he said roughly. “I figured you should know I’d never ...” He spread his hands helplessly. “I didn’t think I had to explain.”

  She tried to put herself in Jack’s shoes, to see things the way he had seen them that morning. It wasn’t easy. But, she allowed grudgingly, it made sense. To a degree.

  “I see,” she said quietly. “Thank you.”

  At least she had the memory back of the Jack she’d fallen in love with. She hadn’t totally misjudged who he was. He had been faithful. That was a comfort.

  Or it probably would be in eighty years or so.

  Celina smiled wryly. It didn’t change anything between them. But she had asked. And she had listened. She wasn’t a coward anymore. She stood up, feeling oddly stiff, and started toward the door.

  Jack’s gaze jerked up. Then he leapt to his feet and stepped in front of her, blocking her way to the door. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  Celina stared at him. “To my room.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to take a shower before dinner. I’ve been playing on the swings all afternoon.” She tried to move around him. He moved, too. Solid and impenetrable between her and the door. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Let me go, Jack.”

  But he didn’t move, only shook his head. “You just got here.”

  “It wasn’t a social call. You answered my questions. I ... understand better now. It makes sense. I should have listened before. Thank you.” Again she tried to step around him.

  “That’s it?” He was scowling. “You say you believe me and now you’re walking out?”

  “It doesn’t change anything.”

  Jack opened his mouth, stared at her, then frowned and closed it again. He considered her for a long moment, his gaze narrowing.

  Celina, feeling like a bug pinned to an examining board, stood her ground without flinching.

  “Have dinner with me,” he said abruptly.

  “What? Jack, no,” she protested, shaking her head.

  “Why not? What do you have against me?”

  “Nothing, but –”

  “Do you need to eat with Maggie? Are you on duty?”

  “No, I –”

  “Then there’s nothing stopping you,” he said implacably. “Have dinner with me.”

  Celina could tell from the determined light in his eyes that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. This was the Jack she knew all too well, the one intent on getting his own way. He always had.

  She’d told Jonas it had been salutary to see him again.

  Maybe it would be salutary to go to dinner with him. She knew there was a pub in the village. Jack had gone there last night. She’d heard several people say the food was good. If they went there, they would be out in public, not under Maggie’s interested scrutiny, and Jack would have to deal with the adoration of fans. And she would get one last reminder that it didn’t matter that she still loved him – they wanted different things in life. Win/win/win.

  “Celie?” he pressed.

  “Fine,” she said. “We’ll have dinner. We can be friends.”

  Chapter Seven

  She thought they’d get a taxi, but when she came out the front door an hour later, Jack was leaning against the fender of a hunter green sports car.

  He was still in jeans, but he’d traded the polo shirt for a light blue button-down with the sleeves folded back over strong forearms. It was very un-rock-star-like, but it looked good on him. He’d combed his hair, too. But it was still unruly – still totally Jack – and it still made her fingers itch to touch it.

  Down, girl. Celina squelched all her touching-hair thoughts almost before they could rear their tempting heads. But she couldn’t quite squelch the way just looking at him still made her heart beat faster. Friends, she reminded herself. Friends!

  His mouth quirked into a grin as he looked her up and down.

  “What?” she demanded. She’d shed her sundress and, after serious indecision where she’d picked through everything she’d brought with her to find something appropriate to have dinner with her ex-husband, she’d settled on a dark gray tailored skirt and a pinstriped blouse. Over her arm, she carried a jacket that matched the skirt.

  Jack didn’t
stop grinning as he shoved away from the car and opened the door for her. “Just trying to decide if you look more like you work for an airline or go to a parochial school.”

  She felt her cheeks burn but didn’t dignify his comment with a reply. Instead she got into the low-slung car, and regretted the skirt, which didn’t give her much maneuverability.

  Jack shut the door, then went around to get in behind the steering wheel.

  “Not your car?” Celina guessed even though he handled it like it was.

  “Belongs to Simon, the earl. He let me borrow it.” He flicked on the key and the engine purred to life.

  “I didn’t know he was here.”

  “Got here a little while ago. He’s here for the wedding. Wasn’t going out again tonight, so he offered the car.”

  “Nice of him,” Celina said as Jack headed out the drive and onto the narrow lane toward the village. “I didn’t know you could drive on the left.”

  Jack glanced over at her. “You’d be amazed at what I can do.”

  Probably not. Jack did pretty much everything well. It was what had made her fall in love with him. Now she channeled her thoughts into a friendship stream. He would be a good friend. And he wouldn’t be around, so she could remember the best bits of him and not be in danger of falling for him again.

  There was almost a traffic jam in the village when they drove in. Cars and vans were everywhere.

  Jack shook his head. “Poor Jonas.”

  “Why? What do you mean?” Celina didn’t see any parking places anywhere near the pub.

  Jack kept threading his way through the traffic. “You don’t imagine it’s like this every Sunday evening, do you? Hell, no. It’s press. Media. I saw a helicopter earlier. The vultures are gathering.”

  “For the wedding?” Celina blinked. Jonas was the third son of the ruler of a small European principality. Hardly a William-and-Kate event. And Hope was lovely, but she wasn’t Grace Kelly marrying her prince. Well, she was marrying her own prince, but still ... “You think?” Celina couldn’t believe it.