by Lori Wilde
Rowdy squeezed Jake’s shoulder, gulped, and damn if there wasn’t a glimmer of moisture in his eyes. They said nothing for a long moment, just sat sipping beer. The pain slid away quickly and Jake let out a relieved breath. It took less and less time for him to recover from those flashes of grief. He’d made it through the worst. He was going to be okay. And in the course of his healing, he’d learned the best way to handle his grief was to do things for others. Keep his mind busy and off himself.
“I hate to ask. I know it’s an imposition on short notice,” Rowdy said. “The wedding is only five weeks away. Warwick has already planned the bachelor party, so you don’t have to worry about that—”
“Rowdy,” he said. “It’s no problem. It would be my privilege to serve as your best man, but shouldn’t you pick someone you’re closer to?”
“For one thing, I respect the hell out of you, Jake. And although we haven’t kept in touch over the last couple of years, I consider you a good friend.”
“And I can fit into Warwick’s tux.”
“True enough.” Rowdy laughed, but something in his tone said there was more behind the request than that.
Jake pressed. “You have a lot of good friends. Why me?”
Rowdy rubbed a thumbnail over the label on his beer bottle, peeled it back, but didn’t meet Jake’s gaze. “I heard you hadn’t sold the house in Jefferson.”
Ah. Meddling. Rowdy was sticking his nose in Jake’s business.
Jake turned to face forward, studying the myriad liquor bottles lining the wall behind the bar. Tequila. Vodka. Whiskey. Rum. He’d tried them all when he went in a tailspin after the trial. Making sure he put away Maura’s killer had given him purpose, and it was only after the murderer had gotten a life sentence that it had sunk in on Jake that Maura was truly gone.
Rowdy was the one who got through to him before his drinking got completely out of control. Thank God. He owed his friend. Owed him big-time. If it weren’t for Rowdy, he might be dead by now.
But thanks to his friend, he had gotten it together. And he was proud of himself. He was ready—no, he was eager to find love again.
He thought again of Gwendolyn. Smiled. Wished he’d gotten her real name and number, even as he knew it was probably best he hadn’t.
“I heard you still haven’t put the house in Jefferson on the market,” Rowdy said.
Past. Gone. Poof. Over.
Jake turned to face Rowdy again. “What of it?”
Jefferson was a quaint town thirty miles northeast of Stardust, where Rowdy had grown up. Rowdy still owned a house there, even though he also had a residence in Dallas, just as Jake did.
“Since the wedding is being held in Stardust,” Rowdy said, “you could stay at the house in Jefferson during the activities. It would give you a reason to go back and figure out what it needs to be put on the market.”
“So you’re asking me to be your best man because you think being that close to Jefferson will light a fire under me?”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
“You’re sticking your nose in my business,” Jake said amicably.
“As I recall, you didn’t appreciate me sticking my nose in your business three years ago, but where would you be if I hadn’t?” Rowdy countered.
“You saved me,” Jake said. “I owe you for life.”
“I’m not using that as a trump card. If you don’t want to be my best man, I understand. But do yourself a favor and put the house on the market. I care about you, Jake. It’s time.”
Caught by an updraft of emotions he didn’t want to feel, Jake rolled his eyes. “If you go all touchy-feely on me, Blanton, and I’m gonna buy you a box of tampons for a wedding gift.”
Rowdy laughed. “Fair enough. So you’ll fill in for Warwick?”
Part of him wanted to say no, but he owed Rowdy so much and his friend was right. It was time to unload the house. The last letting go. He needed to put the past to rest before he could fully step forward into the future.
“Sure,” he said easily. “I’ll be your best man. Whatever you need.”
“Wow, thanks.” Rowdy thrust out his hand for a shake. “Just FYI, Breeanne has a big family and they’re pretty traditional.”
Jake arched an eyebrow. “Meaning?”
“Her folks are hosting us an engagement party.”
“You’re having a Valentine’s Day wedding. Shouldn’t you have already had an engagement party?”
“We would have, but things were in such a turmoil after that mess with Dugan Potts, we didn’t have a chance to squeeze it in.”
Last year, Rowdy had been instrumental in exposing the former general manager of the Dallas Gunslingers, Dugan Potts, for his role in a massive steroid doping scandal that had rocked baseball to its core. It happened about the same time that Rowdy and Breeanne had gotten engaged. The Gunslingers were just now shaking off the stigma under completely new management.
“I get that,” Jake said, even though the scandal had occurred before he joined the team. “Last year was crazy for you. I can see why you postponed the engagement party.”
“Anyway, the party is next Saturday in Stardust. Can you make it?”
Jake blew out his breath and tried not to look pained. He hadn’t really braced himself for heading back to East Texas this soon, entering the empty house that he hadn’t been in for three years.
He didn’t know if was ready for that quite yet. Maybe he could just grab a motel room in Stardust for one night. Then make a decision about going on to Jefferson or coming back to Dallas the following day.
“No sweat,” Jake assured him. “I’ll be there.”
It had been two weeks since Jodi crashed the wedding. Two weeks since she’d had sex with a stranger. Two weeks since she’d taken a walk on the wild side and loved every second of it.
She had reported back to Dr. Jeanna, skipping the part about having a one-night stand, but she’d been totally honest about how liberated she felt. Rather than scheduling a follow-up appointment, Dr. Jeanna said she was encouraged by the strides Jodi had made and suggested that she return only if she felt a need.
And it had been a week since she found the odd perfume bottle in the hope chest. No one had been able to smell the sweet, evocative scent that so captivated her, and she’d begun to think it was all in her head. Maybe so, but that didn’t stop her from spritzing herself with the delicate fragrance that morning. It was the most perfect scent she’d ever owned.
After clearing away the breakfast buffet she’d put out for the guests, Jodi set about cleaning the boxcars. Starting with the blue Southern Pacific railcar that was located nearest the renovated train engine that was the guest services office.
Old Blue was the first boxcar that she’d ever own. She bought it for two thousand dollars when she was nineteen and, with Ham’s help, had renovated it in eight months’ time. They’d perfected the renovation process since then, and now they could overhaul a boxcar in eight weeks. Of course, she also had more money now too, which helped speed things up.
Last spring, they’d finished the latest addition to her B&B, a Texas Northeastern railcar they’d painted TCU purple, bringing the number of guest rooms up to nine. She and Ham renovated a new boxcar every year, and she envisioned a full dozen of them eventually. The cars were ringed in a circle on property abutting Stardust State Park on the west and a fingerling tributary of Stardust Lake to the south. She’d inherited the land from her biological maternal grandmother on her eighteenth birthday.
The minute she saw the undeveloped property, she’d instantly known what she was going to do with it. She had a passion for customer service that she’d honed while working at Timeless Treasures as a teen, and her natural talent for order and organization had served her well in the hospitality industry. She loved making sure guests were well fed, comfortable, and entertained.
For Jodi, running a B&B was a calling as much as a livelihood. She couldn’t imagine herself doing anything else, even though her job was a
sixty-to seventy-hour-a-week commitment, and cut deep into a social life. Unlike many of the men she’d dated, Ryan had understood her devotion to the B&B. Which was one of the things that appealed to her about him. In retrospect, his understanding probably stemmed from the fact that he had not been so devoted to her.
She should have listened to Ham, who had not liked Ryan from the moment he clapped eyes on him.
“What’s with the oily, slicked-back hair?” he’d asked her the first time Ryan came to pick her up at the B&B. “He looks like Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter.”
Ham was a movie buff and he’d been the one to suggest they make a theater boxcar. The theater car also served as a library. One half stocked with books, the other half containing seating for sixteen, rescued from the demolition of the old Stardust Theater. Besides the nightly showings for guests, every other Friday night, they ran old movies for free to the community, along with complimentary popcorn and soda. Most everyone who attended put more money into the donations jar than what the refreshments cost, showcasing the generous spirit of Stardustians.
Thirty years ago, she and Ham had been born the same week, at the same hospital, and they’d lived next door to each other in the same sad-ass part of town where Breeanne’s fiancé, Rowdy, had grown up. Rowdy was three years older than they were and she hadn’t known him when she lived in that neighborhood. From the time she and Ham could walk, they were best friends, close as brother and sister.
Jodi had lived in that house with Vivian until cops and social workers had shown up at their door on that fateful day. Later, she learned that Ham’s mother had been the one who called CPS, and even later still, she’d learned the reason his mother had not come home was that she’d been found dead of an overdose in the home of a known heroin dealer.
There’d been no one else to care for Jodi. Jodi’s maternal grandfather was dead, her maternal grandmother in an Alzheimer’s care facility. She’d ended up in foster care system. Thankfully, it had been with Maggie and Dan Carlyle. Her biological mother had been an only child, and because of Vivian’s lifestyle, there had been a revolving door of men in and out of the house, and no one knew who Jodi’s biological father was.
Over the years, she’d tried to search for him with her adoptive parents’ help, but Jodi had never been successful. In the end, she figured it was all for the best. What if he was a druggie like her mother? Or in prison or dead? She had a family who loved her deeply and as the years went by, she cared less and less, until she rarely thought about it.
When she’d first gone to live with Mom and Dad, they had just adopted Breeanne, who was a premature newborn with special health needs. Jodi watched over the baby as if she was her own and she loved Breeanne with all her heart. Jodi did her best to fit in with the family, kept her room clean, and did as she was told without complaint. She knew what a wonderful thing she had going and didn’t want to mess up. Her good behavior paid off and the following year, Maggie and Dan adopted her too, and she’d felt like the luckiest girl in the entire world. Still did.
But through it all, she never forgot Ham.
Stardust had only one high school, and it was during her freshman year that she met up with Ham again. The minute they saw each other it was as if they’d never been apart. They struggled through history class together, but both aced geometry. They studied together, spent Saturdays at the movies, shared secrets and hopes and dreams. Jodi would never tell her adopted family this, but Ham was the only one with whom she could fully be herself. At home, she was the caretaker, the responsible one, the older practical sister who did her best not to step out of line. It was a role she perfected to keep her darkest fear at bay—that if she failed to measure up, she’d be sent away and end up like Vivian.
She finished cleaning Old Blue and picked up the used linen to take to the hamper. For no good reason at all, she thought of Jake, and that sent her daydreaming. He’d been on her mind every single day since their hookup.
And she was smiling again.
Jodi hoisted the laundry in her arms, locked the door behind her, and started across the decorative railroad tracks to the canvas laundry hamper parked on the sidewalk.
That’s when she saw him getting out of the red Corvette as it pulled up to the office.
Jake.
As if by thinking of him, she’d conjured him up.
She went both hot and cold at the same time as it fully hit her. Oh shit! He’d tracked her down. But how? She’d been so careful. She hadn’t told him anything personal about herself. Maybe he’d gone into her wallet she was sleeping. Damn him. That had to be it. How else had he located her?
Great. The last thing she wanted was to have a conversation with him.
He hadn’t seen her yet, but if she didn’t do something quickly, he would spot her.
For a half second, she stood frozen in the January morning, the air crisp with a bite of cold. The nearest boxcar was ten yards away. She could streak behind it, but he would see her and then he’d know she was intentionally hiding from her.
What to do? What to do?
The canvas wheeled laundry cart was right in front of her. Empty because Old Blue was the first room she’d cleaned.
He hadn’t seen her yet. His gaze was fixed on the office door. He walked up the steps leading to the front door of the engine car, and opened the door. As soon as he discovered the office was empty, he would come back out.
Quick! Quick! Do something.
Spurred by thoughts of humiliation and embarrassment, she flung the sheets on the ground and jumped into the laundry cart.
CHAPTER 8
Jodi Carlyle’s Wedding Crasher Rules: If you get caught,
play dumb.
Gwendolyn?
Jake stood on the steps of what had once been a Hondo Railway engine, lovingly restored. He cocked his head to stare curiously at the wheeled canvas laundry hamper parked at the top of a slope several yards away.
From the corner of his eye, he’d seen a woman climb into the hamper, and he could have sworn it was Gwendolyn.
You’re seeing things. You just want it to be her.
True enough. He couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her. But the odds that she was the woman in the hamper were three hundred million to one.
And if by some strange quirk of fate she was the woman in the hamper, obviously she jumped in there because she didn’t want to see him.
She told you to buzz off. Respect that.
He started to head toward the hamper, but thought better of it. She couldn’t stay in there forever and he was a patient man. He’d wait. Jake sank down on the top step and watched curiously as she thrashed around inside the hamper. It couldn’t be comfortable in there.
Amused, he glanced at his cell phone. Ten-fifteen. He’d time her.
While he sat waiting, a huge brindle Great Dane sauntered around the side of the engine.
“Hey, fella,” Jake called, and the dog loped over.
The Great Dane plunked down in front of him, rested a massive paw on Jake’s blue-jeaned knee, and gazed up with huge milk chocolate eyes.
“You are such an attention hound.” Jake leaned forward to scratch the big beast behind his years. The Great Dane thumped his tail against the metal steps—whang, whang, whang.
A minute passed.
And then another.
Inside the laundry cart, the woman wriggled. And the cart moved. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to send the cart rolling down the incline and end up taking a nasty spill on the cement.
Jodi lay curled up in the canvas cart feeling like a tuna caught in a net, listening to her heart pounding, trying to stay still so that she didn’t look like what she was—a nutty woman hiding out in a laundry hamper from her one-night stand.
Jeez. Why had Jake come after her when she’d made it perfectly clear that she did not want to see him again? Couldn’t the dude take no for an answer?
Maybe he was a stalker. That would be her luck. She finally did somethi
ng out of left field, let go of her good-girl ways for half a second and simply acted on her feelings, and look what happened. A stalker. See? Right there. This was why she did not do impulsive things.
She wadded herself up tight, held her breath. How long would it take for him to leave?
Hiding had not been a brilliant solution. Bad idea. If he was intent on talking to her—and clearly, since he’d bothered to track her down all the way to Stardust, she had assumed that he was intent on talking to her—the man was not going to give up easily.
Craptastic.
Why had she jumped into the laundry hamper? She should have just dealt with him. Now she was stuck waiting for him to leave.
Why hadn’t he gone already? Ham was out running errands. There was no one else here for him to talk to. What if he was snooping around the office? Going through her things?
Damn. Damn. Damn.
Straining her ears, she listened for the sound of a car door closing, or a car engine starting. Any indication that he’d gone on his merry way.
No such luck.
All she heard was the call of a grackle. Wait. What was that? Rhythmic clicking. Like dog toenails on cement.
Skeeter.
Oh no. Not Skeeter. A sniffy nose nudged the outside of the laundry cart.
“Go away, Skeeter,” she muttered. “Go home.”
The nose, overjoyed at having discovered her, bumped at Jodi through the canvas that formed a sling around her butt.
“Beat it, Skeeter,” she hissed.
The Great Dane whimpered joyously and bumped the cart again. The huge dog was little more than a puppy and wanted to play.
She felt the wheels of the cart move. Please let Jake be gone. If she had to look like an utter fool, please don’t let anyone see her.
Another bump from Skeeter and the laundry cart took off down the sidewalk. Seriously? Talk about bad luck. Her only hope was that Jake had already driven away.
But she hadn’t heard the car door shut or the engine start. He was still on the property and she didn’t know how to get out of this gracefully.