The Best Man Takes a Bride

by Stacy Connelly

  “I have a first-aid kit in the bathroom.” Rory waved a hand toward the partially open door down the narrow hallway.

  “I’ll get it. You sit.”

  Rory flopped onto the sofa with a huff. Sit? What was she, a dog? But as she reached down to massage the bruise already forming on her ankle, she had to admit it felt good to take her weight off. A clatter sounded in the bathroom—something falling into the porcelain sink—followed by Jamison’s curse.

  “Everything okay in there?”

  “Fine. I dropped the—never mind.”

  Groaning, Rory dropped her head back on the back of the couch as she tried to remember what else she kept in the medicine cabinet along with the Band-Aids and iodine. Just what she wanted—a superhot guy getting a peek at her anti-aging wrinkle cream, Midol and other assorted feminine products.

  He returned a moment later, first-aid kit in hand, and while Rory couldn’t be sure, she thought his face was a shade or two more red than when he’d entered.

  Great.

  “Find everything?”

  “Uh, yeah. I think so.”

  And then Rory wasn’t so worried about Jamison’s embarrassment or even her own as he knelt down in front of her and placed her foot on his khaki-covered thigh. She could feel the muscles and heat beneath her foot and it was all she could do not to flex her toes like some kind of attention-seeking kitten. And while Jamison might have made reference to Snow White, Rory couldn’t help feeling a little like Cinderella as he cradled her foot in his large hands.

  “How’s that?” he asked.

  A perfect fit...

  Rory snapped herself back to reality as she realized he’d already removed the last of the splinters with a pair of tweezers, dabbed some antibiotic ointment on the scrape and was getting ready to smooth a Band-Aid over the area.

  “Good. Fine. Thank you.”

  His nod sent a lock of hair falling over his forehead, and she gripped the cushions at her side to keep from reaching out. Jamison glanced up and their gazes locked, and Rory knew.

  “I’m not imagining things.”

  His forehead wrinkled in a frown. “I wouldn’t think so. I’ve never heard of a twisted ankle causing hallucinations.”

  “You were thinking of kissing me earlier.”

  This time it was Jamison’s turn to look like he’d taken a blow to the head. He sucked in a breath that fanned the flames burning in his quicksilver eyes. “Rory. That’s not—” His gaze shot to Hannah, who was sitting in the rocking chair, her attention still captured by her newfound stuffed friend. “We can’t.”

  Maybe Rory should have been more disappointed as he turned his attention to cleaning up the cotton balls and wrapping from the first aid, but instead a tiny kernel of hope bloomed in her chest.

  Because can’t was a different story than didn’t want to.

  Chapter Six

  “What do you mean, you fired Earl?” Her head pounding almost as loudly as her ankle, Rory stared in disbelief across the wide expanse of her cousin’s cherrywood desk. She’d spent a painful half an hour searching for the handyman before stopping by her cousin’s office, where Evie had stunned her with the news that she’d let the man go.

  “Is that—” Evie frowned as Rory hobbled over to a chair and reached down to rub her ankle. “Why on earth is there toilet paper wrapped around your foot? And why are you limping?”

  Rory straightened, heat rising to her cheeks. “Never mind.”

  Before Jamison and Hannah left the cottage, the little girl had ducked into the bathroom and returned with a long length of the paper trailing behind her. Her blond brows had pulled together in concentration as she’d tried to wrap the “bandage” around Rory’s ankle before her father stepped in.

  The last thing she’d expected was for Jamison to indulge his daughter’s attempts to play doctor, but he’d showed the same seriousness using the toilet paper as when he’d applied the antibacterial ointment and Band-Aids.

  Yes, she should have ripped the silly “bandage” off already, but she’d been touched by Hannah’s sweetness. Not to mention Jamison’s...

  “How could you fire Earl without telling me?”

  “We agreed when we both started working here that staffing decisions fall under my purview.” Evie gazed back at her, slender hands folded in front of her. Sometimes her cousin’s crystal-cool demeanor was enough to make Rory want to scream. It made her want Evie to scream, to show some emotion, to go back to being the warm, funny girl Rory remembered instead of the calculating woman she’d become.

  “Earl wasn’t a handyman you can replace with a snap of your fingers.” The potbellied, fiftysomething man had worked for the hotel almost as long as Rory could remember. “He was—”

  “He was stealing from the hotel,” her cousin cut in.

  Rory’s jaw dropped. “Stealing?” she choked, the word lodging against the lump in her throat.

  Pamela Worthington’s voice whipped through her mind so clearly, she half expected her former employer to be looming behind her, anger and disappointment written across her aristocratic features. I trusted you, Aurora. I gave you a chance despite your limited experience, and this is how you repay me? By stealing from our clients?

  “Are you—” Rory cleared her throat before her words could break into ragged shards. “Are you sure? Maybe there was some kind of mistake—”

  But Evie was already shaking her head. “He turned in an invoice from Hendrix Hardware a few weeks ago.” She tucked a strand of perfectly straight dark hair behind her ear. “Not long after that, I ran into Howard Hendrix, who told me he was sorry the parts Earl special ordered for the new irrigation system didn’t work out and if we needed him to order more, to let him know.”

  “Maybe the parts didn’t work. Maybe he bought them somewhere else.”

  “Where? And why wouldn’t Earl have a copy of that receipt? You know Hendrix gives us a better deal than the big-box store over in Redfield. No, Earl returned those parts and pocketed the money.”

  “But I saw him working on the irrigation.”

  “And for all we know, he patched everything together with duct tape and used chewing gum. I already have a call in to a landscaping company. Which means spending even more money.”

  Focusing on the money side of her job was not Rory’s strong suit, but Evie had been clear on how tightly the two were tied together.

  I know you like picturing yourself as some kind of fairy godmother, but you can’t solve things with a wave of a wand. Aunt Evelyn wants to expand the wedding destination aspect of the hotel, but doing so only make sense if it makes money.

  Her cousin had also told her about an offer on the hotel. Their aunt Evelyn had fielded offers from large hotel chains before, but with her recent health issues, Rory feared she might be considering it. Selling Hillcrest...

  Rory couldn’t even imagine not having the hotel in her family.

  “I spoke with Susannah Erickson this morning. She’s almost committed to having the ceremony here,” Rory told her cousin. “I’ll give her a call this afternoon. If I can get them to sign off on the paperwork, I can request a deposit—”

  “Rory,” Evie said slowly.

  Just the sound of her cousin’s voice had her stomach sinking. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “As Earl was leaving, he said something under his breath.”

  Rory frown in confusion. “You just fired him, Evie.” She held up a hand as her cousin opened her mouth to protest. “Rightfully so, but I’m sure he had a whole bunch of things to say.”

  “It wasn’t about his being fired, at least not exactly.”

  “What did he say?”

  Evie dropped her gaze to her hands, her inability to make eye contact making that sick feeling in the pit of Rory’s stomach even worse. “He said that if his last name was McClaren, he wo
uldn’t be getting fired. He’d be getting promoted to wedding coordinator.”

  Rory sucked in a quick breath that fanned the flames of humiliation rising in her cheeks. “How—how could he know? How could anyone here know?”

  Silence had been a stipulation in keeping the Worthingtons from going to the police. The last thing they wanted was for their clients to know one of their employees had stolen from the multimillion-dollar homes they were hired to stage.

  Somehow, though, word had gotten out. And the Worthingtons quickly pointed the finger at Rory—the designer they had fired after finding pictures of the stolen items posted to online auctions from her computer.

  She’d not only lost her job, but her career, her friends, her boyfriend, as Peter had taken his mother’s side. Only later, once the hurt and humiliation started to wane, had Rory realized why he’d turned on her so easily...

  “I don’t know, Rory,” Evie said, pulling her from the dark memories and how badly things had ended in LA. “I certainly haven’t said anything.”

  A touch of self-righteousness underlined her cousin’s words. Of course, Evie wouldn’t say anything. Evie would never do anything wrong. Evie would never cross a line and date someone she worked with. Evie would never find herself framed for a crime she didn’t commit.

  Rory blinked back the tears burning her eyes. She’d thought she’d left it all behind her—the accusations, the whispers, the “thanks but no, thanks” responses to every job she applied for.

  But it was her family’s reaction that hurt the worst. Not that they didn’t believe she was innocent. But she couldn’t shake the feeling they thought she’d somehow brought this on herself. By being too naive, too trusting, too something.

  “Regardless of what Earl does or doesn’t know... I think it would be best if I’m the one who deals with collecting the deposits from now on.”

  “Evie...” Rory gaped at her cousin, as stunned now as she’d been when Pamela Worthington had confronted her with the “proof” that Rory had been behind the rash of thefts.

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you. You know that.”

  “Do I?” She couldn’t help asking.

  Evie lifted her gaze and straightened her shoulders. “You should. But these couples are spending a great deal of money, and it’s their trust we can’t afford to lose. Besides, collecting deposits falls more into my job description.”

  That’s not the point! The words were on the tip of her tongue, but Evie had already turned back to her computer screen. I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t deserve to be fired, to be blacklisted from every design firm in Southern California!

  But deserved or not, those things had still happened. Yes, she’d been glad to come to Clearville to help her aunt Evelyn, but the truth was, she’d slunk out of LA with her tail between her legs. And now the fallout had followed her, and Rory felt she had no choice but to duck and run once more.

  She was halfway to the door when Evie asked, “Why were you looking for Earl, anyway?”

  “I’d asked him to fix up the gazebo last week.”

  “The gazebo?”

  For a split second, Evie’s gaze lost focus, a sadness shadowing her expression, and Rory couldn’t help wondering if her cousin was thinking about her own plans for her wedding and the ceremony that was to have taken place there years ago. And how, back then, it had been her relationship—and not the gazebo—that had ended up in shambles.

  “It was looking a little worn around the edges, and with Ryder and Lindsay’s wedding coming up...” She shook her head. “Anyway, it turns out it’s in worse shape than I first thought.”

  Rory didn’t know if Evie picked up on the sympathy in her voice, but if she did, her cousin knew all too well how to make people stop feeling sorry for her. “If the gazebo is in bad shape, that makes it a liability. A—”

  “A lawsuit waiting to happen,” Rory filled in, recalling Jamison’s words earlier.

  Her throbbing ankle echoed its agreement. Not only did they have to protect their guests, they also had to protect themselves. If Aunt Evelyn were still in charge, she would feel the same way Evie did. The two strong businesswomen didn’t have any trouble following their heads. And maybe they had it right. After all, where had following her heart gotten Rory except into a boatload of trouble?

  “Lindsay and Ryder’s wedding can still take place as planned,” Evie said pragmatically. “They can always use the rose garden.”

  The garden was lovely. A place where numerous weddings had taken place. But it wasn’t the gazebo. It wasn’t where Lindsay and Ryder wanted to say their vows. It wasn’t where Rory dreamed of having her own ceremony.

  Rory wasn’t giving up. Not on her dreams of the future and not on the wedding Lindsay and Ryder wanted. “There’s still time.”

  Evie raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “Less than two weeks.”

  “Like I said,” Rory responded with a confidence she didn’t entirely feel, “plenty of time.”

  Her cousin shook her head. “I know you want to believe everything ends in happily-ever-after, but you need to be practical about this. Talk to Ryder and Lindsay about moving the ceremony now. Don’t put it off with the hope that a bunch of talking rodents are magically going to fix the place.”

  Rory offered a quick curtsy. “As you command, my evil queen.”

  Her cousin rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to her spreadsheet. Evie might not believe in fairy tales, but Rory still did. She wasn’t about to lose faith in giving Ryder and Lindsay the wedding of their dreams.

  * * *

  “Ready, Robbie?” Ryder Kincaid called out to his son. “Okay, go long!”

  Cocking back the golden arm that had carried him all the way from small-town Clearville to a college football scholarship, Ryder threw a perfect spiral to his son. The ball arced through the late-afternoon summer sky, hitting the boy right in the hands...and then bounding off to land in the sand a few feet away.

  Smiling sheepishly behind too-long bangs and pair of wire-rimmed glasses, Robbie scrambled after the pigskin. “Almost had it!”

  “So close, bud!” Ryder called back, his smile as wide as if his son had caught the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. “Kid’s smart as a whip. Can’t catch to save his life.”

  Jamison couldn’t help thinking the boy’s skills would have benefited from playing catch with his dad from the time that he was Hannah’s age, instead of just over the past few months. “Maybe if he—”

  “Maybe what?” Ryder asked as Robbie chucked the ball back in an end-over-end toss.

  “Maybe Robbie takes after Lindsay.”

  “You got that right.” Ryder’s grin was just as big as he thought of his fiancée, and Jamison knew he’d made the right decision in not speaking his mind.

  Ryder was crazy about Lindsay. That much Jamison could see, but he couldn’t understand it.

  In the months after he and Monica separated, she’d done everything she could to keep Jamison from seeing Hannah. Canceling visits, conveniently forgetting when he was scheduled to come by the house, insisting Hannah was sick, asleep or any other excuse she could come up with to keep him from seeing his daughter.

  He hadn’t wanted to fight with Monica. After his parents’ endless battles, he’d learned to bury all emotion, knowing even as a kid that anything he said or did would only throw fuel on an already out-of-control fire. He’d retreated into himself, playing the childish game of closing his eyes in the hope no one could see him.

  He’d never intended to fall back into that same pattern with Monica. He’d done his best to ignore her constant complaining, her out-of-control shopping sprees, the way she’d started spending more time out with friends than at home with Hannah. He’d buried himself in his work, not wanting to admit his own marriage was headed down the same rocky path as his parents’. By the time he’d finally ope
ned his eyes, his daughter had grown from a toddler to a little girl he hardly recognized.

  He glanced over to where Hannah was playing off away from Robbie and his cousins, building a Leaning Tower of Pisa sandcastle on her own. Was that missing time the reason why he struggled so much to connect with her now? Or was it something more, something lacking in him, that all his relationships seemed destined to fail?

  All Jamison knew for sure was that he’d never forgive Monica for keeping Hannah from him for all those months. And if he’d been Ryder, and Lindsay had kept Robbie away from him for years... There was no way.

  “I’m sorry we haven’t had more time to hang out since you’ve been here,” Ryder said as his older nephew took over and the three boys started a game that looked far more like dodgeball than football. “But we’ll have time with Cowboy Days coming up.”

  Jamison had seen the signs advertising the event during his trips into town. Normally attending a benefit rodeo—any kind of rodeo—would be last on his to-do list. Here in Clearville, it was evidently a can’t-miss event, but his response was noncommittal. “We’ll see,” he told Ryder. “Hannah isn’t comfortable in big crowds. And I know you’re trying to get as much as you can done before the wedding and honeymoon.”

  “Yeah, I can’t believe the wedding’s coming up so soon. But when Rory told us about a cancellation, we couldn’t pass up the chance to have the wedding at Hillcrest House even if it did mean putting a rush on things.”

  “It did happen fast, didn’t it?” Jamison couldn’t help murmuring. And why was he somehow not surprised Rory had a hand in the abbreviated engagement?

  “Depends on how you count. As far as Lindsay, Robbie and I are concerned, we’ve already waited almost ten years to be a family.”