The Bridesmaid and the Bachelor

by Kris Fletcher

  Some things should never be learned more than once.

  Chapter Four

  Kyrie watched the door close, walked to the window, and glared at the fountains.

  “If you’re expecting me to say thank you, you’re out of your . . . your stupid powerful jets!”

  Had Ben been right to leave? Yes.

  Was it better this way? Undoubtedly. Getting over him had been difficult enough once. The aching for him, the guilt, the shame at realizing she was indeed her father’s daughter . . . She didn’t know if she could do it again.

  “Think of the shop.” She said it out loud, hoping it would penetrate her thick skull. “You want to save your shop and keep it running. He doesn’t want to get slapped in the face again. He wants to discover the world. You want to be anchored.”

  Yeah, it was working really well. That’s why she was walking a tight path between the bed and the chair, like an animal in the zoo.

  Maybe if she got out of the hotel . . . went for a walk, got lost in the crowds for a bit . . . maybe that would help.

  She hit the bathroom, slipped into walking shoes, gathered her stuff. She had slung her purse over her shoulder and was about to hit the road when she became aware of muffled music, coming from the chair where he’d been sitting.

  “Oh, no.”

  Oh, yes. It took all of ten seconds of digging to find Ben’s phone, wedged between the cushions. It took a few more seconds to catch her breath after she recognized his ring tone—an old Garth Brooks song that wondered “what she’s doing now.”

  “Ben?” It came out in a whisper as she sank back to the bed, the phone cradled in her hands. The song flowed around her, unlocking two years’ worth of remembering and wondering and yearning . . .

  And hiding.

  Many years ago, when Kyrie’s life as she knew it fell apart—when her high-profile father the Mayor was charged with things that a child couldn’t understand, when he disappeared for years and everyone thought he was dead, when the feds found him in Costa Rica and hauled him back to the States to toss his sorry ass in jail—over those years, she had learned there was still one thing that was hers and hers alone. Her dreams. She had learned to lock away her most precious hopes and desires, keeping them safe and protected from the world.

  Sometimes they leaked out. She couldn’t keep them hidden when she was singing. Paige always said that the only difference in their singing was their voices, but Kyrie knew it was because Paige was all about the words. Kyrie was all about the feelings.

  She had surprised herself when she first told Ben about the shop, then astounded herself when she spent so much of their week discussing it. She’d been thinking of Brews and Blues for years. A place where she could be her own boss, where she could pour good coffee and share great music and build a feeling of community among those who hung out there. But she hadn’t mentioned it to a soul.

  Until Ben.

  Everything had been different about her that week. Knowing that they had only that week—that she would (or so she thought) never see him again—had made it easier to say, Screw the fear. Her body was the least of what she had shared with him. He was the first to hear of Brews and Blues, and he was the one who convinced her that this dream was entirely within her control. That if she wanted to make it happen, she could.

  And she had. But now it could be slipping away from her anyway.

  The music ended.

  She was pretty sure, based on Ben’s reactions to her presence, that he hadn’t told anyone about them either. Because of the way she’d run off? But hearing this ring tone—one she knew he hadn’t had during their week—left her wondering if, perhaps, she hadn’t been the only one on the edge of something amazing. If he, like she, had kept them a secret because he couldn’t risk having anyone poke holes in something so precious.

  But in the meantime, his phone was in her hands and she had to get it back to him. That part was obvious. The problem was that she had no way of knowing where he was right now, and she wasn’t at all eager to do the hand off at one of the wedding events where they might be discovered.

  She called the front desk and asked to be connected with his room. For once, something went right. He picked up on the second ring.

  “Ben,” she said over his rough greeting. “It’s Kyrie. You left your phone in my room.”

  “Sorry, this is Adam, but I’ll tell him. Hey, Ben!”

  Adam?

  “No, wait,” she sputtered, trying to stop this train wreck before it left the station.

  A distant “Yeah?” had to be Ben. She closed her eyes and sent every telepathic thought she had ever had winging in his direction. Don’t react, please don’t react.

  Adam’s voice penetrated her panic. “You left your phone in—”

  She could see it so clearly, even six floors away. The confusion in Adam’s face as he realized who had called. Ben waiting, then getting an inkling of what was going down.

  “Your phone.” Adam spoke slightly slower now, but he didn’t sound suspicious, merely puzzled. Maybe she could save this.

  “My phone,” Ben repeated, and he was so obviously stalling that she wanted to crawl through the line and say, Wait, pretend it’s a prank. Then you’ll know what to do.

  “Yeah. Kyrie has your phone.” Hearing the shift in Adam’s tone was like watching a snowstorm coming across the lake. She could see it approach, knew what was about to be unleashed, and couldn’t do a damned thing except prepare to ride it out.

  “Tell her I’ll be right there.”

  “Sure. Sure thing. Kyr, he says he’s on his way. So tell me . . . what are you doing in Vegas?”

  She glanced at the running shoes in her closet. Not because she was planning to make use of them, but to remind her that nothing was ever solved by running away.

  Even though, right at this moment, she could definitely understand the appeal.

  “Oh, it’s really, um, funny,” she said. “But, not to do the TMI thing, but I really need to hit the bathroom, so, you know . . .”

  “Sure. Right.”

  For a fraction of a second, she thought she might have bought herself some time. Had she escaped completely? No. Unless she wanted to be like Robin Williams at the end of Mrs. Doubtfire, pretending to be both herself and Paige for the rest of the weekend, there wasn’t going to be any way out of this but the truth. But if she could only grab a few minutes to think how to handle it . . .

  Then Adam’s voice echoed over the line right before she hung up.

  “Hang on, Ben.”

  They were screwed.

  ***

  Ben knew that voice. It was the same tone Adam had taken when they were teenagers and he’d found out that Ben had deliberately taught him the wrong formulas for his chemistry midterm. Never mind that Ben hadn’t taken the class yet, or that Adam had blown off studying all semester to focus on football, friends, and the three girls he was juggling at the time. It had taken years for him to trust Ben again.

  Looking back, Ben couldn’t blame him.

  Looking ahead, he saw a lot of cold silences this Thanksgiving.

  “I didn’t know you knew Kyrie.”

  “We met at the lake. That time I went there to work on my dissertation.” Facts were good. Facts were his friend.

  “Funny you never mentioned it.” Adam’s jaw became a little more rigid. “Funny Paige never mentioned that her twin sister was here.”

  Could he say anything without making things worse for Kyr? Probably not. He dealt in facts, not fantasy. This was so far out of his comfort zone, he couldn’t even see it with the Hubble telescope.

  “I think I’d better get my phone.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, you should.” Adam nodded, did the shoulder-hunch thing that took his intimidation factor from five to eleven, and ambled toward the door. “In fact, let’s go together.”
<
br />   “Adam . . .”

  But there was nothing to say. It was going to come out. His choices were to bumble things worse with hasty words, or hope that Kyrie would have a better approach.

  “It’s not what it looks like, Adam.”

  The door closed behind them.

  “Of course not.” Adam stared straight ahead and spoke in a terrifyingly controlled tone as he stalked down the hall. “Because there’s no way you would swear to me that you weren’t up to anything, only to turn around and, oh, sub in one twin for another. Even though that has your smell all over it.”

  “I didn’t—” Ben began, but the elevator arrived. Adam took one look at the three elderly women in sparkles and feathers—yeah, just another afternoon in Vegas—and clamped his mouth tight.

  Maybe one of the women would like to adopt him. Like, immediately.

  The six floors to Kyrie’s level whooshed past far too quickly. Not for the first time, Ben wished he believed in Grandma’s stories. He could sure as hell use the comfort that would be provided by imagining himself sending psychic messages to Kyrie right now.

  And to think, if he had only listened to his other head, they could have been working up a hell of a sweet sweat right now. So much for being rational.

  Kyrie must have been hovering by the door, for she pulled it open before Adam finished knocking.

  “Hi.”

  No surprise at seeing Adam with him. He had figured she would put things together, but nonetheless, he felt a faint flicker of pride as she ushered them into the room. She’d been caught, she knew it, but she wasn’t going down slobbering.

  She twisted her hands together but spoke steadily, as soon as the door closed behind them.

  “Adam, I’m sorry. I don’t know what Ben might have told you—”

  “Nothing, which is actually starting to piss me off, if you want to know the truth.”

  She nodded. “That’s good. Because the first thing you need to understand is that he wasn’t in on this. He was even more surprised than you are right now when he found out I’m not Paige.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  “I guess so. But I . . .” She peeked at the ceiling for the briefest of moments. “Let me explain, okay?”

  She went through the story quickly, unemotionally, and efficiently. Ben wanted to read Adam’s face while she spoke, but he kept being drawn back to Kyrie. She stood so straight, spoke so forthrightly. Watching her was like . . . like watching some medieval queen explaining a loss in battle to her people. She knew she’d done wrong, she was truly sorry for the hurt she had caused, but she wasn’t going to fall apart or try to justify her actions. She would let the facts speak for themselves.

  He could never resist a woman who dealt in truth.

  “So let me get this straight,” Adam said when she stopped. “Paige ditched our wedding to spend the weekend with some guy she picked up at a buffet like a cheap—”

  “Hey.” Ben couldn’t let that one go. “You’re talking about her sister.”

  Adam’s jaw tightened but he nodded. “Right. Sorry, Kyr. But I—shit.” He ran a hand over his face as he dropped to the bed. “Okay, I confess, I’m pissed. I don’t like this, and even though I see why Paige thought this might be a good solution, it still sucks. But the big thing is Siobhan. If she finds out, she’ll be . . .” He shuddered. “I don’t think I want to know.”

  “I don’t like it, either,” Kyrie said. “And to be honest—okay, I know, I’m not one to talk about honesty, but still—I like it even less, the more we get into it. But at this point . . .”

  “Adam.” Ben had to say it. “Telling the truth now would only make things worse.”

  “I know.” Adam flopped onto the mattress, looking for all the world like a giant black hole in the middle of the creamy bedspread. “Unless you think you could convince Paige to show up.”

  “The only way she would do that would be if I were to leave. Or break my arm or something.”

  “Well,” Adam said, “I do have all those groomsmen sitting around.”

  “No goon squad.” Ben spoke lightly. A freakin’ miracle, given that even a joking reference to one of those guys hurting Kyrie made his vision blur .

  “It would probably be easier to just, you know, keep going,” Kyrie said.

  “If Siobhan ever finds out, she’ll kill us all.”

  “Maybe not,” Ben pointed out. “Paige is her friend. She wants Paige to have some happiness, too.”

  “Yeah, but not until after the wedding.” Adam shook his head. “I knew we should have eloped.”

  “With you helping, it will be easier to pull this off. She’ll never find out,” Kyrie said. “And if for some reason she does, well, you guys can dump it all on me. I’m not the one who has to see her at every holiday and wedding for the rest of our lives. I have no problem with being the scapegoat.”

  “You don’t have to—” Ben began, but she cut him off.

  “Yes, I do. Because seriously, Adam, Ben didn’t know anything about this. Find me the Bible and I’ll swear on it. Yes, he figured out I wasn’t Paige, but only because—”

  He knows me. Ben was sure that was what she was about to say. He wanted to say, Hang on there. Probably anyone with two brain cells and the information he’d had would have put it together—but he had this feeling she was right. From the moment he had spotted her at the dinner, even when his head and her convincing lies had had told him he was talking to Paige, something else had recognized that it was her. Kyrie.

  Grandma would call it lover’s intuition. Ben was sure there must be a more scientific explanation, but he’d be damned if he could figure it out now. Too many frickin’ emotions clouding his thoughts.

  “Yeah, so what’s the story about that?” Adam asked. “You two met at the lake?”

  God, he hoped Adam keep looking to Kyr for the answer. Ben was pretty sure he was blushing, and if that were the case, he might as well put the truth on flyers and hand them out to strangers on the street. TOPLESS DANCERS! AMAZING MAGIC! PRIVATE SECRETS REVEALED!

  “Right. And we certainly never expected to run into each other again, but life is full of surprises, right?”

  Oh, she was smooth.

  “Okay.” Adam heaved himself off the bed and lumbered to where Kyrie sat straight-backed in the chair. He hesitated the briefest of seconds before holding out his hand.

  “I’m in,” he said. “I still don’t like it, but the lesser of two evils, and all that crap.”

  Kyrie took his hand, rose, and gave him a hug. “Thanks, Adam.”

  Hey, piped up Ben’s nether regions. Adam got a hug. Don’t we get one, too?

  “So Adam, now that you’re on board, can you help me know the things I need to know to pull this off? I coerced Ben into giving me a lot of information, but there were a few things he wasn’t sure about. Like, when people mention the engagement party and do this secret smile, is it because of the duck thing?”

  Oh, hell. “Hey. What did I tell you, Kyr? Do not mention—”

  His words were lost in Adam’s laughter. “Seriously? You thought that’s why people are acting funny about that?”

  “You mean there was something else?”

  “I’d say. I wasn’t there, but a bunch of folks got into a hell of a game of strip poker.”

  Kyrie made a small, strangled sort of sound. Ben found he couldn’t really talk at all.

  “Yeah, from what I heard, there was some kind of drink that messed with a lot of heads. Strip poker was just the start for some of them.” He winked. “In fact, Kyrie, you know how Paige was replacing a bridesmaid who got pregnant? Well, I can’t be sure, but I’m pretty sure they could name that kid Fish House Punch.”

  “Wait. So Kyrie is replacing Paige, who was replacing—”

  “Jordan.”

  “Jordan, w
ho got pregnant at the engagement party?”

  “That’s how it looks from here.”

  Ben thought of the string of events that had led to Kyrie being here with him once again and decided that if he ever found himself back at the inn that had hosted the engagement party, he might have to give that bartender the biggest tip of his life.

  ***

  Kyrie was all for live and let live, but she had to admit—after Adam’s revelation about the engagement party, she was kind of glad that Paige wasn’t best buddies with any of the other bridesmaids. There was only so much a girl could forget while trying to carry on a conversation.

  Like the way Ben had watched her when she told Adam the truth. Or the sounds Ben had made when she kissed him, like they were being dragged out of him but he didn’t want her to stop. Or the way he had felt beneath her, hard and full and so damned ready for her . . .

  Yeah. Her mind was a little preoccupied as she boarded the party bus with the other female guests for Siobhan’s version of a bachelorette party. Maybe it was good that there were nonstop activities from now until she flew out on Sunday. She didn’t need to think or remember.

  Or wish she had closed the window to her room before Ben arrived.

  The agenda for the evening had been somewhat vague. All Siobhan had said was that it was Girls’ Night Out, dress in your sparkles, don’t be afraid. Which of course made Kyrie think, Help, drunkfest central. But when she saw both Siobhan and Adam’s mothers climb on board, followed by Adam’s grandmother, she perked up. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  The champagne flowed and the laughter built as the bus joined the traffic on the Strip. Kyrie sat alone—fine by her—and watched the lights. So this was what all the fuss was about. All those people, all that flash, all the—holy crap, was that a volcano in front of that hotel?

  She wasn’t ready to become a world traveler like Ben, but she was starting to understand the allure of in-person discovery. Photos and YouTube videos really couldn’t substitute for the real thing.

  She was startled out of her inspection when someone popped onto the seat beside her. She turned to see a woman about her age who looked the slightest bit lost, while Siobhan leaned in from the aisle.