by Lori Wilde
“Rowdy and Breeanne’s wedding shower on Super Bowl Sunday at Rowdy’s house.”
“I have to go to that?”
“It’s a couples affair and as best man, yes, you need to attend.”
“I’m guessing I also need to bring a gift?”
“It’s a suggestion.”
“What is the point of a couples’ shower anyway? Guys don’t give a rat’s ass about tea finger sandwiches and housewares.”
“Personally, I agree with you. I think showers should be a man-free zone—”
“Unless we’re talking an actual shower,” he teased. “In that case—”
“Pay attention,” she said. “We’re not talking actual showers.”
“Because then you’d be open to a man being there, right?”
Jodi cleared her throat and shot him a pointed stare. “Breeanne and Rowdy wanted a couples’ shower and it’s my job to fulfill their every wish and make this their dream wedding. Hence the Super Bowl Sunday date. It will give the guys something to do so we women can sip tea and eat finger sandwiches and ooh and aah over housewares to our heart’s delight. Except for the women who’d rather watch football.”
“Good plan. If you gotta have a couples’ shower at least make it fun for all.”
“I thought so.”
“Your idea?”
“Yes.”
“Should have known.”
Jodi sank her hands on her hips. “What does that mean?”
“It means you excel at making other people happy.”
“On what are you basing this opinion?”
“For one thing you run a B&B, stocked with everything a person might need. I mean who stocks guest rooms with not only the obligatory toiletries, but toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, complimentary water, snacks, cell phone chargers, and house slippers?”
“I want my guests to be comfortable,” she said.
“My point exactly, but from a business standpoint, it’s not cost-effective.”
“Do you have any idea how much repeat business I get? It pays off in the end.”
“For another thing,” he said, lowering his voice, “while you were in the bathroom, Breeanne told me about the guy who stood you up at the altar and how you started seeing a therapist to deal with the fallout so you could serve as her maid of honor. You could have flaked out on her like Warwick did Rowdy.”
“I would never do that.”
“I know. You’re willing to face your own demons in order to make Breeanne happy. That’s pretty brave.”
Sunshine burst in her heart at his compliment. Watch yourself. “It was nothing much.”
“Thirdly,” he said, taking his voice lower still into a super sexy baritone. “Because you certainly did your best to make me happy at the Grand Texan. Caring about others is a good thing. I promise.”
“Yeah? Well, sometimes I’m so busy making things nice for everyone else, I neglect myself.”
“I could help you with that.” He wriggled his eyebrows. “If it’s a flaw you want to work on.”
Jodi shot a quick look around the room. The remaining guests were engaged in private conversations and no one was paying any attention to them. “Look,” she said. “About that closet action—”
“I’m sorry about whacking you into a coat hook.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. It was impulsive—”
“I know.” His smile was so stunning she was starting to wonder if it was his secret superpower.
“It wasn’t an invitation to start up a sexual relationship.”
“What was it?”
“A momentarily lapse in judgment.”
“Like at the Grand Texan?”
“No, that was me cutting loose for one night.” She took a deep breath, inhaled his scent, and for a moment, she was so bamboozled she forgot what she was saying. She toyed with the necklace at her throat, noticed he was watching her intently. The attention was both flattering and unsettling. “Tonight I completely lost it. Loose is one thing, lost is another.”
He nodded, but said nothing, his hot gaze on her face.
She shifted away from him, slid the pendant back and forth on the chain, fully aware she was moving it faster the longer she talked but seemingly unable to stop the nervous behavior. What would Dr. Jeanna say? Um … stop.
Jodi dropped her hands to her side. “We almost got caught in flagrante. We almost ruined the engagement party.”
“We didn’t.”
“I know, but we were so carried away. Us, together. It’s not a safe thing. Or healthy.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree with you on that,” he murmured. “Safety is overrated.”
“You’re a nice guy. I like you.” Way too much. “But I won’t be the cause of wedding distress for my sister. You’re right. I love doing things for other people and making them happy.”
“Even at the cost of your own happiness?”
“My happiness doesn’t matter. Now not. I can’t think of my needs until after the wedding.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“Staying as far away from each other as possible.”
When Jake got back to the orange boxcar at the B&B, the Great Dane was sitting on the steps waiting for him. “Don’t you have a home?”
Skeeter looked at him as if to say, Yeah, but it’s more fun here with you.
“Well come on in. It’s cold out.” Jake held the door open and the dog trotted inside like he owned the place.
Jake got a paper bowl from the stack on top of the mini fridge, filled it with water, and set it on the floor.
Skeeter canted his head in a that’s-all-you-got stare.
“I don’t have any kibble or meat scraps.”
Skeeter’s ears pricked, rotated.
“We’ve got some peanut butter crackers. Those do?” Jake opened a package of the complimentary peanut butter crackers stocked on the shelf and fed them to Skeeter, who ate them from his fingers with surprising delicacy for such a massive dog.
Jake sank down on the edge of the mattress and peeled off his shoes. He paused before taking off his socks. “We have a spark,” he said. “No denying it.”
Skeeter sat at his feet.
“Not you and me,” Jake clarified. “Although you’re not half bad. I’m talking about Jodi and I. Or is it Jodi and me? I can never remember that grammar stuff.”
Skeeter yawned.
“What? You don’t care about grammar either? Shocking.”
The Great Dane stretched long, taking up half the room with his extravagant Downward Dog.
“You know her better than I do. Throw me a bone. Am I barking up the wrong tree?”
Skeeter straightened, barked.
“Is that a yes or a no? Bark once for no, twice for yes.”
Skeeter barked twice.
“Is that yes, I’m barking up the wrong tree, or yes, I have a chance with her?” Even as he said it, Jake thought, What the hell am I doing talking to a dog? “Or are you barking because I said ‘bone.’”
Skeeter barked twice more.
“Shh, we don’t want to wake the other guests.”
The dog wagged his tail.
“Jodi makes a good point. Our priorities should be making sure Rowdy and Breeanne’s wedding goes smoothly. We’re grown-ups. We can do this. She said she couldn’t think about her own needs until after the wedding. That means there’s hope there for later on, right?”
Skeeter looked skeptical.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’m blowing smoke.”
Jake fell back on the bed, still dressed, feeling down in the dumps. He finally met a woman he could get serious about, a woman who lit his fire in a way no other woman ever had, and as startled as he was to realize it, that included Maura. He found somebody he wanted to know better but she was off limits.
“On the other hand, if there is a chance, now is the perfect time to deal with the house in Jefferson. Got to do it anyway. That way, afte
r the wedding, I will be one-hundred-percent ready for her. Problem is, can I keep my hands off her until then?”
Skeeter whined.
“Yeah, I know. It’s a lot harder than it sounds.”
The dog looked at him sad-eyed.
“Well come on.” Jake patted the mattress beside him. “I supposed any warm body on a cold night is better than nothing.
Skeeter hopped up beside him, and immediately Jake felt better.
Generally, he didn’t have a lot of trouble looking on the bright side of life. Focus on what was working. Shift his attention off unpleasant things. Stick to the sunny side of life. That was his motto. His modus operandi. His natural optimism was the only thing that had gotten him through those dark days after Maura’s murder. During the lowest of the low, he finally understood how grief could lead some people to do the unthinkable and take their own lives.
It had been his friends who’d parted the veil, reminding him of who he was buried down inside the sorrow. Without them … well … he might still be mired in depression.
Baseball, his teammates, had been the glue that held him together.
Even before it became his career, baseball had played a major role in his life. The camaraderie of Little League, the comfort of watching baseball on TV and seeing his heroes take the mound, the satisfaction of memorizing statistics. Baseball had gotten him through the bumpy years of his parents’ divorce. He had not grown up with a close-knit, meddlesome family like the Carlyles.
Maura had shaken her head over that, told him woefully that he’d missed out on so much. Her family had been close too. He’d thought of their meddling as interfering. She called it caring. They’d fought over the fact that whenever her family called, she felt compelled to answer the phone immediately, even if they were in the midst of making love. Or how she’d loan her shiftless cousins money without batting an eye. She said he was insensitive. He told her she was codependent. That made her look at him as if he was the saddest thing she’d ever seen, and she blamed his lack of a solid foundation as the reason he hadn’t wanted children.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted children. He just didn’t think it was something people should rush into heedlessly. She thought love could solve any problem. But Jake knew better.
Jodi had the same all-up-in-your-business relationship with her folks that Maura had had with hers.
Just thinking about it made him claustrophobic, but it didn’t stop him from wanting her, and that scared him too.
The lights were out in the orange boxcar when Jodi came home. She let out a long breath. Had she thought Jake was going to wait up for her? She was glad he wasn’t waiting up for her. Didn’t want him waiting up for her. He’d promised to stay away and that’s what he was doing.
Good man.
She stopped by the office to make sure everything was in order for tomorrow. She stuck her key in the lock and was surprised to find the door already unlocked. Dammit, Ham. Yes, Stardust was a safe town, but locks were on doors for a reason. Ham had such a bad habit of forgetting to lock up.
Happy to have something to think about besides Jake, she pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“Where have you been?” Ham asked from behind the desk.
Jodi shrieked, threw her hands in the air. Her purse went flying. “You scared the stuffing out of me.” She fumbled for the light switch, turned it on. “What are you doing sitting there in the dark?”
“Saving electricity. What happened to you?”
“Nothing,” she lied, yanking on the hem of her skirt, trying to make it look less wrinkled.
Ham narrowed his eyes. “It’s almost midnight.”
“So?” She picked up her purse, tried to calm the erratic pounding of her heart.
“You never stay out this late.”
“It was Breeanne and Rowdy’s engagement party.”
“That was over at ten.”
“How do you know?” She ironed a hand over her hair, smoothing it back into place.
“Because Vincente’s closes at ten.”
Oh yeah. Her cheeks burned. “Um … I hung around to help clean up.”
Ham stood up, stared at her hard.
“What are you doing up so late?” she asked, attempting to turn the tables.
He wasn’t falling for it. “One of your false eyelashes is missing.”
“What?” She reached up both hands to check her eyelids. Sure enough, the right eyelash had fallen off. Most likely in the closet. Oh gosh, had everyone else noticed?
“Are you seeing someone?”
“No!” she said much too loudly. “Why would you think that?”
“You smell like men’s cologne.”
Did she? Jodi sniffed her arm.
“Were you having sex?” Ham interrogated.
He was protective of her, she knew that, downside of working with her best friend. And he was only concerned for her well-being, but she was a grown woman and didn’t owe him an explanation.
A knock sounded on the office door and before either one of them could say, “Come in,” it opened and Suki bounced in.
“Oh good,” Suki said. “You’re still up.”
“What are you doing here?” Ham asked.
“I want to talk to Jodi about Talbot.”
“Who’s Talbot?” Ham shifted his gaze to Suki.
“He plays for the Gunslingers and is one of Rowdy’s groomsman. And he’s really hot.”
Ham rolled his eyes. “You too?”
“Me too what?” Suki looked confused.
“Did all the Carlyle women get laid tonight?” Ham asked the ceiling.
Suki’s eyebrow shot up and she grinned at Jodi. “Did you finally get laid tonight?”
Jodi hit the ball back into her sister’s court. “Did you?”
“Sluts.” Ham threw his hands into the air. “Both of you.”
They turned to him in unison and said, “I didn’t have sex.”
“I’ll be glad when this wedding is over,” Ham muttered. “Stardust is being overrun by baseball players. How are the rest of us supposed to compete?”
“What? You want to date us?” Suki asked.
“Eww!” Ham looked utterly alarmed. “You’re like my sisters. Which is why I’m concerned about the company you’re keeping. I’m speaking in generalities.”
“I’m going to bed,” Jodi said. “Some of us have to get up at five a.m. to make breakfast for their guests.”
“But what about our heart-to-heart?” Suki asked.
“We’ll talk tomorrow.” Jodi went out the door. “And don’t forget to lock up,” she called over her shoulder to Ham.
She walked to her own sleeping car at the back of the property, leaving the van parked in front of the office, disturbed by how disheveled she’d looked and how easily Ham had discerned that something was going on with her. He did know her better than anyone else in the world, but still.
What was happening to her? What was making her act so uncharacteristically? Crashing a wedding was one thing. She’d done it with intent and purpose. Even going to bed with Jake—while out of her ordinary realm of behavior—was still part of her design to move on after having been ditched at the altar.
But what she’d done tonight in the closet … well, that was beyond the pale.
Jodi walked into her boxcar, sagged down on the couch, and dropped her head in her hands. God, what she had done tonight, wildly pulling Jake into the closet with her, practically demanding he have sex with her, was completely out of control. It was the kind of thing Vivian would have done.
Feeling sick to her stomach, Jodi groaned and closed her eyes against that thought. That’s really why she’d told Jake to back off—although to ensure Breeanne and Rowdy’s wedding went smoothly was close to the top of her list—because being near him dismantled every bit of her self-control. Around him, she was shameless.
A secret part of her feared that if she didn’t keep herself locked down tight, her DNA would take over and
she’d become Vivian. And there was no scarier thing in the world to Jodi than ending up like her biological mother.
She had to ask herself some hard questions. Was it just Jake who stirred these impulses in her? Or was it her own genetics rising to the surface? Stardust was a small town and she’d heard through the grapevine that her mother was an ordinary girl until she hit her twenties and went off the deep end. Personality changes, wild behavior, partying into the wee hours, plowing through a string of men. No one seemed to know what had precipitated it. What if Vivian had some kind of mental illness that she’d passed on and Jodi was just a ticking time bomb? For the first time in a long time she wished she knew someone she could talk to about her mother.
What if Jake had been the fire that lit her fuse and now, once lit, she couldn’t snuff it out?
Jodi raised her head, pressed a palm to her forehead, and spied the hope chest perfume sitting on the coffee table where she’d left it.
What if it was the perfume? What if the combination of Jake and perfume had caused her to go mad with lust?
Seriously? It was just perfume.
A perfume she’d found in a mysterious hope chest.
C’mon. You’re not superstitious.
No, but why take the chance? She picked up the bottle of perfume, intending on dumping it down the sink, but then realized her house would reek of the stuff. Fine. She’d put it back in the hope chest and never wear it again. If the perfume was responsible for her behavior tonight—and yes, she was fully aware that she was grasping at straws—the problem was solved.
To be on the safe side, she’d leave the B&B early and give Jake plenty of time to clear out before she returned.
Decisions made, she locked up the perfume, left a text for Ham that she was going to be out of pocket after she put out the six a.m. breakfast service the next morning, and went to bed.
CHAPTER 12
Jodi Carlyle’s Wedding Crasher Rules: Having a good
time is not an excuse for losing control.
That night Jake dreamed hot dreams of Jodi, completing in slumber what they’d been unable to finish in the coat closet.
He woke feeling hot and achy and desperate. What on earth had that woman done to him? He was twisted inside out and didn’t know how to bend himself back into the right shape. Worse, he didn’t know if he even wanted to.