The Best Man in Texas

by Tanya Michaels

  “I like weddings just fine,” she grumbled, trying to ignore her earlier misgivings that she should be more excited about all of this. More bridal, somehow.

  “Then it’s settled,” Kresley said in the authoritative tone Brooke recognized from countless staff meetings. “I’ll have to look at the budget before we nail down travel specifics, but Jake, you said a friend was flying you to Tennessee?”

  “He’s a flight instructor, owns a Cessna Skyhawk.”

  “What do you think he might charge for Brooke to go with you?” Kresley asked.

  Brooke whipped her head around. “What?”

  “As long as Jake doesn’t mind the extra company, I can approve Thursday and Friday out of the office and look into the budget for a hotel room.” Kresley shrugged. “It’s for work, but you’ll need to take your own pictures. I am not sending a photographer, too.”

  That was no big deal—there were several staffers, Brooke included, who’d done double duty at the Chronicle before, getting the byline for both story and photos. Being sent away overnight with Jake McBride, however, seemed like a huge, towering, everything’s-bigger-in-Texas deal.

  Brooke glanced at Giff. “You wouldn’t have a problem with this?”

  He looked surprised by the question. “It would be silly for me to object—I’m the one who suggested you write it. Besides, it gives me that much more time to work around the clock guilt-free so I can clear my schedule for after the wedding.”

  They planned to honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and also take a few days to get her moved into his house.

  The thought of their honeymoon caused a strange twist in Brooke’s stomach—maybe it’s anticipation—and she turned to Jake. “We haven’t really confirmed that you’re okay with this. I—”

  “Sure,” he said, surprising her with his easy agreement. He’d seemed less than enthusiastic when Kresley first proposed the article. “I don’t know that people really want to read about me, but if you and Kresley think so, then I’m happy to help. We can always kill time on the way up there swapping embarrassing stories about Giff.”

  Brooke’s fiancé groaned good-naturedly. “Is it too late to change my answer?”

  “Last I heard,” Jake told Kresley, “my buddy’s planning to drop me and one paying customer. A Skyhawk seats three in addition to the pilot. I’ll check with him and see if the space is still available. Since Brooke’s with me, I doubt Boom would charge more than a nominal fee, if that.”

  “Boom?” Brooke echoed. He wanted her to put her livelihood and well-being in the hands of a grown man who answered to Boom? Wasn’t that the sound a plane made when it freaking crashed?

  “When you say ‘drop,’” Brooke began, “you are just being colloquial, right? Before I even consider going, you have to promise there would be no parachutes involved.”

  Amid chuckles around the table, Jake said, “No, he’ll land the plane. There will be an actual runway and everything.”

  “Good.” Because being around Jake already felt too much like a freefall.

  JAKE GLANCED UP AT THE STARS, not that he could actually see any from the Grace’s backyard. That was one thing money couldn’t buy. The house was stunning, if you weren’t overwhelmed by three stories and the one or two formal rooms that looked like something from a magazine layout, but the night sky was largely blotted out by city lights and smog. Jake’s own modest home outside Houston and beyond Sugar Land didn’t have four bathrooms, but most nights he could find a half-dozen constellations without trouble.

  After the live music that had been playing for the past three hours and the spirited conversations of guests, the yard was subdued now, with only the clatter of caterers packing up to compete with the sound of crickets. He’d made the offer to stick around and help clean, but since Grace was already paying other people to do that, there wasn’t much to be done.

  Still she’d thanked him for the effort. “Such a good boy. Your mother must be so proud,” she’d added shrewdly.

  He’d managed not to wince in guilt, but her seemingly innocent comment had hit home. He knew he should visit his parents, talk to them more at the very least. They’d been invited tonight, but by the time the party had been announced, Mrs. McBride had already made travel plans to go help her favorite aunt after a double knee replacement. It had been implied that Mr. McBride wasn’t comfortable going solo to an event where there was an open bar, and Jake couldn’t bring himself to volunteer as the old man’s party parole officer.

  Jake wanted to believe his mom’s optimism that his father would make it to—and beyond—his upcoming one-year anniversary of sobriety without slipping up, but it sounded too much like the false promises Jake had heard when he was younger. Even after long stretches of success, his dad had fallen off the wagon every time, each backslide more painful because of the hopeful months that had preceded it.

  Giff had said that since Jake wasn’t in a hurry to leave, he should stick around and have a beer; it felt like they’d only seen each other in passing during the party. But given his bitter reminiscing about booze, Jake went inside and stopped his friend before Giff reached the refrigerator.

  “On second thought, make mine a soft drink,” Jake said.

  “Good thinking. It’s been a long night and we each still have to drive home.”

  “Is your mom going to come down and join us?” No sooner had Jake finished his sentence than pipes above him creaked to life, the sound of a shower or bath being run upstairs.

  “No,” Giff said with his head inside the fridge. “I told her I’d stick around until they’re finished outside and lock up for her. She’s beat. But happy! Did you see what a good time she was having tonight? She looked like herself again. It’s nice to see her laughing, socializing.”

  Giff straightened and shut the door, then carried two bottled sodas from the fridge and brought them toward the oval kitchen table. Déjà vu struck Jake with the force of a blow.

  How many times as a kid had he sat at this exact polished wooden surface, waiting for Giff to bring over drinks or snacks? He could almost smell Grace’s homemade brownies baking in the oven. In fourth grade, they’d done their math homework here. A few years later, they’d been making bets in the sun-filled kitchen on who could get a date first to the middle school Valentine’s Day dance. By high school, Jake was often included in family breakfasts on Saturdays, after staying the night at the Baker house following Friday’s football games. He had a vivid memory of Mr. Baker looking at him over Grace’s whimsical salt and pepper shakers and pronouncing, “I’m proud of you, son.”

  The back of Jake’s throat burned. He’d thought recently that he’d never experienced that sense of being home—of truly belonging—but that was only half accurate. The Bakers had given him that gift. Except that he wasn’t truly one of them. At the end of the afternoon or even the end of the weekend, he’d always had to return to his real place. To the house with two bathrooms, neither of which included reliable plumbing, the mother with consistently swollen eyes she liked to pretend he couldn’t see and the raging alcoholic of a father.

  Jake suddenly saw his shock over Giff’s engagement with new clarity. It wasn’t just disbelief over how quickly it had happened. He’d been projecting his inability to ever envision himself married. Giff, on the other hand, had grown up at this table with parents who adored both him and each other.

  Giff and Brooke would no doubt carry on that tradition, with a table of their own in some kitchen where Jake would be invited for birthdays and maybe an occasional Thanksgiving. Ignoring an unexpectedly fierce stab of resentment—I’m better than that, I want him to be happy—Jake admonished himself to get on board. He was supposed to be Giff’s wingman, to support him no matter what. The engagement wasn’t Jake’s decision to second-guess, and he needed to stop busting Giff’s chops.

  Which was why he hated himself a little for saying, “You know who I was thinking about?”

  “Give me a hint.”

  “Ve
ronica Dean.”

  Giff let out a low whistle.

  “Exactly.”

  Both men had met Veronica right after high school graduation, but Jake had paused to wonder if he was good enough for her. Suffering no such compunction, Giff had asked her out first and the two of them had been hot and heavy until he left for College Station in the fall, after which their relationship had trailed to a natural conclusion.

  Jake gestured with his bottle. “You were gaga over that woman. I remember the way you used to look at her.”

  Giff grinned boyishly, momentarily channeling his eighteen-year-old self. “Can you blame me? It was Veronica Dean.”

  “You don’t look at Brooke like that.” Saying it out loud felt like the worst kind of betrayal, but the resulting guilt didn’t make the words any less true.

  “Dammit, Jake!” Giff slammed his bottle down on the table. The carbonated beverage immediately began to bubble and fizz up over the plastic. “I can’t believe this. I thought you finally liked Brooke—”

  “I do.”

  “—and now you ambush me with…what? The fact that I’ve matured since I was a horny teenager?”

  “That wasn’t my—”

  “If you’re looking for a way to suggest Brooke isn’t good enough for me, you should probably leave now.”

  “That’s not at all what I meant,” Jake said in a low voice. The truth was that he’d heard Giff rhapsodize more about his mother’s joy in the engagement than Brooke’s. While Brooke and Giff seemed perfectly fond of each other, there was no evidence of more than that.

  “Good. You’re going to have to accept Brooke.” Giff, looking ticked off but slightly less murderous, ran a hand through his hair. “Because this whole question of whether she deserves to marry into the ‘fabulous Baker’ family is ridiculous. That’s your issue, pal, not mine.”

  Jake kept his mouth shut. Saying anything else would be as futile and potentially dangerous as throwing water on an electrical fire. Besides, there was no diplomatic way to explain that this was not a question of whether Brooke was deserving.

  It was about her deserving more.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Explain this to me again.” Meg, who wasn’t working since it was Wednesday night, wiggled over on Brooke’s bed to make room for the open suitcase. “I’m the vivacious one who, let’s face it, puts out, yet you are somehow the one who is engaged to the rich guy and going away for the weekend with his hot friend? There are so many things wrong with that I don’t know where to begin.”

  Brooke glared. “I am not ‘going away for the weekend’ with Jake. All right, technically, yes. I am. But not the way you insinuated.”

  “Uh-huh.” Whether she was convinced or not, Meg had the good sense to change the subject. “Have you ever flown on one of these puddle jumpers before? It won’t exactly be the first-class section.” As if either of them had ever flown first-class.

  “I’m aware.” Did private planes come with strategically placed air-sickness bags the same way commercial flights did? Squelching the unpleasant thought, Brooke narrowed her eyes. “Remind me why you’re here, with your oh-so-helpful observations, instead of back at your place.”

  “After a week of Mom’s company, my place seems lonely now that she’s gone.”

  Meg had reported yesterday morning that, fed up with their mother’s rants about Everett’s hypothetical affairs, she’d finally offered to tail him, as if Didi were a real client who suspected her spouse of cheating. Instead of taking Meg’s offer, Didi had seemed terrified that her daughter might find something and had quickly fled home to make peace with her husband. Brooke didn’t for a moment think that her dad would really be unfaithful, but his blatant flirting whenever he and his wife fought wasn’t exactly the moral high ground, either.

  “I haven’t heard from her since she left,” Meg said. “You don’t think they’ve finally killed each other, do you?”

  Brooke paused in the act of folding a pair of jeans, considering. “Nah. I work in the news industry. We would have broken the story of a double homicide by now.”

  “Because the Katy Chronicle is such a cutting-edge paper.” Meg giggled.

  “Hey—unnecessary! I have a steady paycheck, a boss I like and free admittance to a number of hoity-toity social events.” That was, after all, how she’d met Giff in the first place.

  “No offense.” Meg held up her hands. “I was just razzing you because I’m your sister and it’s what siblings do. The truth is…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Maybe I envy you. A little. You found your niche.”

  It was unheard of for Meg to sound so woebegone. Brooke plopped down on the mattress next to her. “You’ll find yours, too. This P.I. thing—”

  Meg snorted. “I don’t think so. It sounded exciting at first—very Sam Spade and retro sexy—but it’s a lot of paperwork, computer searches and car stakeouts. Do you know how dull a stakeout can be?”

  “Not through firsthand experience, no.”

  “Trust me. You spend half the time trying not to think about how much you have to go to the bathroom and the other half stuffing your face just to keep awake. I’d be a size ten inside a month.”

  “Heaven forfend.”

  Overlooking her curvier sister’s sarcasm, Meg continued, “Being a P.I. wouldn’t be half as interesting as your job.”

  “Writing up weddings?” For a moment, Brooke forgot to defend her venerable position as journalist.

  “Admit it, aren’t you at least a little bit thrilled to be jetting off with Jake McBride? Focusing entirely on him under the guise of doing a story?”

  “Why do I see air quotes when you say that? You do realize I really am doing a story, right?” Of course, no story Brooke had ever covered before had left her with a case of butterflies like she had now, not even when she’d interviewed the governor of Texas while she was still a college student in Austin. Every time she thought about her trip to Tennessee with Jake, she simultaneously wanted to grin and throw up.

  The nausea is not nerves over being alone with the man. It’s probably just anxiety because of the puddle jumper. Piloted by the inauspiciously named Boom, for pity’s sake. Under those circumstances, who wouldn’t want to toss her cookies? “What is that?” Meg frowned at the faded extra-large T-shirt Brooke held. It showed a crazy-eyed stick figure peering over a typewriter and read Hand Over the Caffeine and No One Gets Hurt.

  “A nightshirt.”

  “You’re killing me, sis. Don’t you own something black and lacy?”

  “Megan! This is a business trip, not my honeymoon. I am engaged to Giff,” she said firmly.

  “Yeah, engaged to be married. You know how many women in your position indulge in one last fling?”

  An erotic and wholly inappropriate picture tried to surface in Brooke’s mind. She banished it. “That is tacky and deceitful. I would never do that. Especially with Giff’s best friend!”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “And just what is that supposed to mean?” Brooke was a grown woman. In theory, she knew better than to let her sister bait her.

  In theory.

  “Well, if things are as platonic between you and Jake as you say—”

  “They are!”

  “Then why did you dismember me with your eyes every time I smiled at him during your engagement party?”

  For a moment, words eluded Brooke. She recalled exactly the kind of smile Meg had flashed at the handsome fireman. And exactly how it had made Brooke feel. Angry. Possessive.

  Brooke swallowed and managed to stammer, “You have an overactive imagination.”

  Shaking her head, Meg stood. “You know what I recall about your toddler years? The stories you started making up as soon as you could talk. Mom always said I had her artistic streak, but you had the imagination. Brooke, if you’re telling yourself that you aren’t attracted to Jake McBride, you’ve become an even better storyteller than I remember.”

  JAKE HAD CONSIDERED CALLING B
rooke—or her editor—to try to get out of this trip. He’d realized in the past few days that this was probably a bad idea. On the other hand, he was already on thin ice with Giff, who would no doubt take Jake’s cancellation as a sign of hostility toward Brooke. Which couldn’t be further from the truth.

  Still, now that he was actually here on her doorstep, hand raised to knock, he found himself smiling at the thought of seeing her again. He’d had a lot of fun the night of the concert and had discovered the potential for rare and deep friendship the evening she’d come to check on him at the station. Part of him—the throw-yourself-on-the-grenade idiot part—was looking forward to this weekend.

  She answered the door so quickly it was as if she’d been hovering on the other side, waiting for him. Had she been eager to see him, too? His heart sped up at the thought—probably an adrenal response to impending disaster. After all, his pulse also quickened when faced with the possibility of a backdraft or flashover.

  “Hi.” Her tone was warm and inviting; she seemed like a different woman than the one who’d answered the door for him the night of the concert.

  He lifted his chin, gesturing to the lightweight purple jacket she wore. “Color. I like it.”

  She laughed, but stopped abruptly. “It’s my raincoat. The weather forecast called for scattered showers. Do you think it will be safe to fly?”

  Knowing how sincerely she meant her question, he tried to keep from smiling. “Boom’s flown through enemy airspace while being shot at and always got where he was going in one piece. I don’t think the forty percent chance of light showers is going to slow him down.”

  “Okay, then.” She took a deep breath. “If you say it’s all right, I’m done worrying. I trust you.”

  Don’t.

  If he were a better man, he would have said the word out loud. Didn’t he owe her some warning about his growing suspicion that he might try to talk her out of marrying Giff this weekend?

  Jake had always had a strong sense of loyalty, an innate code of honor that he followed. Normally that would be enough to keep him from interfering. The problem was that he was becoming more and more confident that Brooke and Giff getting married would be a mistake, that given the chance, they could each find something stronger and more meaningful with other people.