Rules of the Game

by Lori Wilde

  Kasha barely swayed. “It’s strong as steel, steady as stone.”

  “Whatever. Move it. We’re cracking open trunks.”

  “Slim odds the key will fit,” Jodi said. “Leave Kasha to her yoga.”

  “What’s it gonna hurt to try?” Suki challenged. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

  Mainly because Suki was standing there with her hands on her hips, looking like she wasn’t going to let up until she complied, Jodi walked over to the trunk and sank to her knees in front of it.

  She stuck the key in the first lock.

  “Wait.” Suki knelt beside Jodi, put a restraining hand on her arm. “You’ve got to make a wish first.”

  “I don’t have to make a wish,” Jodi argued. “Besides, the saying on the lid seems to suggest a wrongly made wish could backfire.”

  “You can’t do it in retrospect,” Suki warned. “No do-overs. What if the lock opens? You will have missed your opportunity to find true love.”

  “Suki, this trunk can’t grant wishes. It’s an inanimate object. Besides, if I made a wish, it wouldn’t be for true love. I’m not interested in a relationship. At least not right now.”

  “True love knows nothing about timing,” Suki said. “When it’s right, it’s right.”

  “What are you going to wish for?” Kasha asked, coming to stand behind them. “If you could have your heart’s desire, what would it be?”

  It was a good question. What did she want for her future? She’d been in a holding pattern for a year just trying to survive the fallout from Ryan’s betrayal.

  “It’s not that hard of a question,” Suki prodded. “What do you want more than anything in the entire world?”

  What indeed?

  She had her own business, a roof over her head, a family who loved her, lots of friends she could depend on. The only thing missing in her life was a love relationship, and she did not want one of those. Not for a long time. She needed space to heal and grow. In any romantic relationship, no matter how good or how strong, you had to lop off parts of yourself in order to fit with the other person, and she was done pruning. She wanted to see what she would look like grown wild and bushy. Where would her interests take her? She had no idea.

  “I wish for adventure,” she announced, and tried to turn the key.

  It did not yield.

  Suki sighed. “Rats. I was so sure it was going to work. If anyone needs a miracle it’s Jodi.”

  “Hey,” Jodi protested. “What does that mean?”

  “You just had wonderful sex with a hot guy and you didn’t want to keep seeing him after he expressed an interest in seeing you? Something’s wrong with you. You need help.”

  “Keep going,” Kasha said. “There are three more locks to try.”

  To humor her sisters, Jodi wished again for adventure and tried the key in the second lock. Nothing.

  “Dammit.” Suki nibbled a thumbnail.

  “You are too optimistic,” Jodi said. “You set yourself up for a letdown.”

  “It’s better than always expecting the worst.” Suki sniffed.

  “I’d rather be prepared for the worst than always expect the best, and get bitch-slapped by life,” Jodi said, but if she were being honest, she was disappointed too.

  “Chicken counting,” Kasha said. “They haven’t hatched yet. Two more locks to go.”

  Jodi sank the key into the third lock, made the wish, same negative results. “This is silly. Take this and make jewelry.” She handed the key to Suki.

  “One more left,” Kasha said. “Might as well keep going.”

  “It’s not going to open,” Jodi predicted.

  “Stop being such a Negative Nelly.” Suki planted a hand on Jodi’s shoulder. “Or I swear I’m going to pinch you.”

  “You’re right,” Jodi said. “I am being negative.” Enough of that. She squared her shoulders. This was a brand-new year. Brand-new future. Brand-new life.

  Into the lock she stuck the key.

  “I wish for a grand adventure,” she said, but silently she amended, a grand sexual adventure. Jake had stirred something new and different inside her. Something she wanted more of. She turned the key.

  The lock clicked.

  Surprised, Jodi drew back. “Whoa, what was that?”

  “It opened!” Suki crowed and hopped to her feet. “It worked. I told you it was going to work. Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me?”

  “Because you chatter nonstop,” Kasha said kindly. “No one listens to jabber.”

  Suki stuck out her tongue.

  “And you are how old?” Kasha shook her head as if she was the wisest pine tree in the East Texas forest. “And you wonder why no one listens to you?”

  “At least I’m fun.” Suki tossed her head and the long side of her asymmetrical cut brushed her left shoulder.

  “Granted,” Kasha said.

  “Well?” Suki nudged Jodi with her toe. “Open the damn trunk already.”

  Jodi lifted the lid and it unhinged to reveal the contents of the fourth compartment. Inside she found a square wooden box, three inches wide, three inches deep, and three inches tall. It was identical to the box Breeanne had found when she opened the fifth compartment. Taking the smaller box from the hope chest, she noticed an inscription.

  “What’s it say?” Suki breathed down the back of Jodi’s neck.

  Jodi traced her fingers over the engraved words, surprised to find her fingers trembled slightly.

  A scent to love; a smell above all others,

  only two can know that the fragrance of

  deep passion belongs exclusively to mates of

  the soul.

  Jodi stared at the box for a long moment, feeling strangely sluggish and at the same time, oddly magnetized.

  “I hate this cryptic stuff,” Suki said. “What does it mean?”

  “Breeanne’s box had something to do with the sense of touch,” Kasha said. “From the inscription, my guess is that whatever is in the box has something to do with the sense of smell.”

  “Ooh,” Suki said. “You are so smart.”

  Kasha smiled an inarguable smile.

  Jodi opened the box and bingo, Kasha was right. Nestled on a black velvet cloth was an antique, rose-colored perfume bottle and atomizer. Around the neck of the bottle, tied with a thin white string, was a small piece of yellowed paper labeled with the words: “SMELL ME.”

  Jodi glanced up to meet the curious gazes of her sisters. “What do I do?”

  “Give yourself a spritz,” Suki said.

  “What if it’s not perfume in the bottle?” Jodi asked. “What if it’s something toxic?”

  “Oh for hell’s sake. You are such a worrywart. Give it.” Suki leaned over and snatched the perfume bottle from the box, spritzed some on her wrist.

  The liquid puffed droplets on Suki’s golden skin and filled the air with the most enticing aroma of lavender fields, white linen, summer raindrops, and Madagascar vanilla. If angels had a scent it would most surely be this.

  Jodi’s nostrils twitched. It was the most arousing, and at the same time, comforting thing she’d ever smelled. It smelled like her past and future rolled into one big perfect now. She wished she could wrap the scent around her like a blanket, an aromatic shield against the world’s ills.

  Suki brought her wrist to her nose, took a long whiff. “Eh, it must have lost its oomph after years in that trunk. I don’t smell a thing.” She stuck her wrist under Kasha’s nose. “You?”

  “Nada.”

  “Very funny,” Jodi said, and claimed the perfume bottle from Suki, sprayed the heavenly fragrance at the pulse point at her neck.

  Suki wrinkled her nose. “Do you smell anything?”

  “We should have expected it,” Kasha said. “After Breeanne.”

  Suki took another long whiff of her wrist. “All I smell is me.”

  Kasha took Suki’s wrist and brought it up to her nose. “Yep, all I’m getting is eau de Suki.”

 
; “What does it smell like to you?” Suki asked, sticking her wrist under Jodi’s nose.

  Jodi inhaled deeply, smiled as her head lightened. “Like purple sunshine ice cream.”

  “Very psychedelic,” Kasha said. “Maybe it is toxic.”

  “Purple, huh?” Suki said. “Like grapes?”

  It was too hard to explain the delightful aroma creeping through her nose, seeping into her brain, making her heart beat illogically faster.

  “You know, I’ve heard that perfume smells differently on different people,” Kasha said. “Depending on your body chemistry.”

  Suki leaned over to smell Jodi’s neck. “Naw, not getting anything.”

  Nostrils flaring, Kasha sniffed at her too.

  Jodi raised her shoulders to her ears, muscling them off. “You guys sound like Skeeter,” she said, referring to her neighbor’s Great Dane, who couldn’t seem to get enough of sniffing her trashcans. “Stop smelling me.”

  “Oh wow.” Suki tapped Kasha’s arm. “This is just like Breeanne and the cheetah scarf. We all thought it felt like burlap, but she thought it felt like silk.”

  “And Rowdy thought it was so soft too,” Kasha reminded her.

  “You know what that means, Jodi.” Suki angled her head, and the short side of her haircut fell over her rounded chin.

  “What’s that?”

  “The guy who can smell your invisible perfume is your soul mate.”

  “That’s silly.”

  “Too bad you didn’t have this perfume when you slept with one-night-stand guy. He might have been The One.”

  Jodi rolled her eyes, but part of her thought, Yeah, too bad.

  “Ooh.” Kasha shivered. “I just got goose bumps for you, Jo. Your soul mate is just a sniff away.”

  “Stop being woo-woo,” Jodi said. “I know you’re a bit New Age, granola-bar crunchy, but it’s all just coincidence. Most likely the perfume has lost some of its potency and I simply have a stronger sense of smell than you guys do.”

  “Fine. Let’s go test your theory and find someone else to sniff you,” Suki said. “Where’s Ham?”

  “Give the perfume to me,” Kasha suggested. “I’ll take it to the hospital and have my friend in the lab test it.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Jodi said, holding the bottle out of their reach, feeling oddly possessive of the perfume and not wanting to let it out of her sight.

  “I think she doth protest too much,” Suki said to Kasha. “I think she believes.”

  “I do not,” Jodi denied, but she couldn’t help wondering, if she’d had this perfume to wear when she crashed the wedding, would Jake have been able to smell it too?

  CHAPTER 7

  Jodi Carlyle’s Wedding Crasher Rules: What happens at

  the wedding stays at the wedding.

  While Jodi was smelling lavender heaven, Jake spent the day at the batting cage with ten-year-old LeShaun Aimes, assigned to him through the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization.

  The Dallas Gunslingers’ new field manager, Rowdy Blanton, had gotten Jake involved in the program. He’d been doing it for only a couple of months, but he enjoyed spending every other Sunday afternoon with the kid.

  “Battin’ two hundred today,” LeShaun said, and pinched his nose. “You stink.”

  Yeah. He deserved that. No matter how hard he tried, Jake couldn’t seem to shake Gwendolyn from his mind. He wondered where she was and what she was doing. “What’s your score?” he asked.

  “Two forty,” LeShaun said proudly. “I’m beatin’ the pants off you.” The boy did an I’m-a-badass dance.

  “Gotta hand it to you, you’re good, kid.” Jake thumped the bill of LeShaun’s blue and green Dallas Gunslingers cap and sent it flying backward off the boy’s head.

  “Hey,” agile LeShaun said, catching the cap before it hit the ground. “Sore loser.”

  “Gloaty winner.”

  They grinned at each other. Jake had grown up with two older sisters and he had to admit that it was kind of nice having a little brother. He could only hope LeShaun was getting as much out of this relationship as he was.

  He took LeShaun home, but when he got to his condo, it felt so quiet and empty after spending the day with the lively kid that he circled back to a popular sports bar near Gunslinger Stadium for a beer.

  Overall he wasn’t much of a bar guy, preferring to spend his free time at the gym, playing sports, or hanging out with friends. But he needed something to take his mind off the beautiful wedding crasher he couldn’t seem to forget. He kept conjuring up images of long, lovely calves encased in those screaming hot stilettos, kept hearing her soft sighs of pleasures, kept tasting her on his tongue.

  What was up with that? He’d never had trouble letting a casual fling stay casual. Was it because she looked like Maura?

  It didn’t take a PhD in psychology to put two and two together and figure out he was displacing his feelings for his Maura onto Gwendolyn. It wasn’t Gwendolyn that he was attracted to, he rationalized. He didn’t even know her.

  That thought bothered him more than he wanted to admit. He told himself he had moved on when he’d gone through Maura’s personal effects last year—keeping only her wedding rings and their wedding photos. He’d given the rest of her things to her parents, and what they didn’t want he’d donated to charity. The only thing he had left to deal with from their short-lived, ill-fated marriage was the house in Jefferson they’d bought together. The place where they’d sat on the back porch and planned the life they were going to have. He hadn’t been back there since she died.

  He paid a landscaping company to keep up the yard for appearances, and had a handyman to keep an eye out for any needed repairs, but he still hadn’t dredged up the courage to put the house on the market. Maybe he was afraid that disposing of the house would close the last door.

  He needed to get a move on if he hoped to sell it this year. Spring training started in late February. He had less than two months to get the house in shape. If he waited any longer, it would be October before he would have another crack at it.

  After Gwendolyn had left him at the Grand Texan, he’d been uncharacteristically bummed out, and he called his mom in San Antonio. They had a nice conversation about his visit at Christmas, but when she asked him how he’d spent his New Year’s, he hadn’t been about to tell her, I met a girl I really like, but she looks so much like Maura it scares the hell out of me.

  He was damn grateful now that Gwendolyn had refused to give her name or number. If she had, he would have called. And how could he build an honest relationship with her if he was subconsciously looking to replace what he’d lost?

  He took a sip of his beer, swallowing past the lump clogging his throat. “I’m sorry, Maura,” he whispered. “I’m so damn sorry for everything.”

  “What didja say?” asked the bartender.

  “I’ll have another.” Jake nodded at his beer that had warmed while he brooded.

  “Sure thing.” The bartender turned to get him a drink.

  Jake felt someone settle onto the bar stool beside him. Praying it wasn’t a woman he’d have to fend off, he swung his gaze to his left and was relieved to see Rowdy.

  “Hey.” Jake grinned.

  “You’re a hard guy to track down. Do you ever answer your text messages?” Rowdy asked.

  “Sorry,” he said. Truthfully, he wondered if he was the only guy on the planet under forty who hated how the world demanded 24/7 access to his time. “I turn my phone off whenever I’m with LeShaun and I forgot to turn it back on.”

  “How’s that going?”

  “Good.” Jake nodded. “I really like the kid. I hope he’s getting as much out of it as I am.”

  “Glad to hear that. I hoped the program would be a nice fit for you.”

  “What’s up?”

  Rowdy ordered a beer, picked up a cardboard coaster, toyed with it. “I’ve got a big favor to ask of you.”

  “Yeah?” Jake shifted toward him. “What’s
that?”

  “Please don’t feel obligated to say yes, but … well, you were the first person I thought of.”

  “In regard to what?” Jake would do anything for his friend. They’d played for the Cardinals together when they were both starting out and Rowdy had saved Jake’s bacon on more than one occasion when they were both young and punch-drunk with success at a sport they both loved.

  And then later, after Maura, Rowdy was one of the people who managed to get through to him when he hit rock bottom.

  “My wedding,” Rowdy said.

  “I got my invite last week. Sorry I haven’t RSVP’d yet. I am planning on coming.”

  “I’m glad because Warwick’s backed out of being my best man.” Rowdy rotated his left shoulder. A little over a year ago Rowdy had been assaulted by a baseball bat–wielding attacker outside a Dallas nightclub. The attack had left him unable to pitch in the major leagues.

  Jake shifted on his stool. “Is Warwick all right? What happened?”

  “Stage fright.”

  “Warwick? He’s scared of something?”

  “He finally confessed that the thought of giving the best man speech made him want to vomit and the closer it got to the wedding, the more he started freaking out about it.”

  “Seriously? I can’t imagine Warwick being scared of anything.”

  “He only agreed to do it in the first place because we’ve been friends since the dawn of time. He said he’d still do it, but he had to let me know how he was feeling. The big guy was sweating bullets just talking about it. He’s my best friend and I want him there, but I can’t torture him like that.”

  Jake laughed. “So you want to torture me instead?”

  “C’mon, you love being in front of a crowd. And you’re great at giving speeches. I still don’t know how you were able to give such a touching eulogy for Maura. If it was Breeanne—” He broke off, shuddered. “You’re a stronger man than I am.”

  “No.” Jake pressed his lips together, fighting off the ache that pushed against his chest at the memory of that terrible time. “I was shattered, and I don’t even know how I managed to pull it together. But I was saying good-bye to the woman I loved most in the world. I did it to honor Maura. You would do the same for Breeanne.”