He was in some kind of Stepford Wives: The Bridal Chronicles movie. “Thank you,” he said again, glad he’d stifled his silent snort of disbelief when she’d said adventure.
If this was how she acted when he was on her good side, he didn’t want to provoke her bad side. And that was more than a little jacked up.
“I do hope you’ll stop by and see us at Heaven’s Bakery,” the Queen General continued. “My daughter is most eager to offer you her hospitality as well.”
There went his ball sack shriveling up so high it bumped into his lungs. “Mm,” he murmured.
The Queen General leaned in. A cold sweat flushed his body.
“The upstanding population of Bliss is at your beck and call,” she said. “It will be my pleasure to introduce you around town, and I’ve already ordered the country club to begin plans for a welcome reception.”
CJ swallowed. “That’s not necessary.”
“My dear CJ, we want to show you the very best Bliss has to offer. It’s the least we can do to make up for any awkwardness you may have suffered upon your return to town.”
So this was how deer felt when a semi came barreling down the road at them.
Did she know about Saturday night?
He sure as hell hoped not.
She flashed another of those scary-as-hell smiles. “Do enjoy your evening, and call me if I can be of the least bit of assistance. I’ll be in touch.”
He saw her out the door, then took the cake balls to the kitchen, giving momentary consideration to burning them as a sacrifice to whatever gods had put that woman on the face of the earth.
Basil was tucked into the square Formica table, his red hair just visible over the top of his newspaper.
“Problem, Princess?” he said, back in full Holy Pompousness mode.
When CJ didn’t answer right away, Basil peeked at him over the top of the paper. “Something you need to confess?”
“Nope.”
No chance in hell.
“Make sure it stays that way,” Basil murmured. “Wouldn’t cross that woman without half our fairer siblings and God at my back.”
“Pansy-ass.”
“God bless you.”
CJ stifled an eye roll. Living with Basil made him twitchy, but he couldn’t bring himself to take Fiona up on her offer of their spare bedroom either.
He already felt like he knew his in-laws better than he’d known their daughter. “I’m going for a run.”
“Can’t run from your life forever,” Basil said behind his paper.
“God bless you,” CJ said back.
Best he could do these days.
He popped upstairs into the simple bedroom he’d been assigned, changed into the only pair of shorts and T-shirt he had, laced up his shoes, and set out to visit a few places Serena had introduced him to.
He was here. Might as well look into some of that closure his family kept harping on. He’d start small. Look. Maybe remember, maybe not.
But he got lost trying to find the football stadium where he’d played in the Husband Games and gave up on finding it. Might’ve been his subconscious’s way of weaseling out of memories he didn’t want to face. Might’ve been time had healed his wounds while he wasn’t looking.
Or he might’ve been the pansy-ass he’d accused Basil of being.
CJ jogged through the streets of Bliss, not paying much attention to where he was going once he’d decided to actively avoid the courthouse and the stadium. He concentrated on nothing more than the ground beneath his feet, the burn of the just-this-side-of-chilly air in his lungs, and the strain of his muscles.
It hadn’t been long since he’d gotten down from Kilimanjaro, and he’d trained hard for it, but that was no excuse to slack off. He had plans to hit Utah for some rock climbing soon as he was done in Bliss, and he wanted to stay in top shape.
Soon, he was approaching the monstrosity of a wedding cake.
That, he would never forget. On the rare nights over the past few years, when a beer and a persuasive companion had talked his story out of him, he’d always mentioned the wedding cake statue. A hundred feet high if it was an inch, with a fountain beneath the middle columned tiers of cake and staircases sloping down to fifty-foot columned cakes on either side.
He had the gear to climb it. He could pretend he was in the mountains. Had to be some kind of law or ordinance against scaling it, which would make it about the biggest adrenaline rush CJ could hope for while he was here.
He rounded a corner, and the full thing came into view. He hadn’t paid attention the last couple of times he’d driven past it this last week, but today, he did. Looked just like he remembered except for the missing fountain. Must’ve been taken out by the flood.
A dark-haired little boy twirled on the flat surface beneath the middle statue, his navy jacket unzipped. CJ kept running, but he watched the kid, squinting to make out exactly what the boy was swinging around. Looked like some kind of stuffed animal with a horn and a dress.
Saw it all in this town.
He put his attention back on the road in front of him. St. Valentine’s was another half a mile up the road, and he was stretching his limits. Hadn’t eaten since Fiona stuffed him full of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and apple slices at lunch.
A pop-pop-squizzz! shuddered at the cake, then a child’s scream splintered the crisp evening air.
CJ whipped around. The little boy under the cake danced in place, shrieking and shielding his face while a spray of fountains erupted around him.
“Mommy!” the kid wailed.
CJ darted for him. He was almost there when a flash of denim and dark hair swooped across the fountain and grabbed the boy, hauling him up and hustling him to safety.
Holy shit.
CJ paused.
Stumbled to a shocked halt, really.
Hadn’t pegged her for having maternal instincts.
She put the kid down and dropped to her knees, petting his hair and pulling off her jean jacket to wrap around him. Her eyes lifted, momentarily locking with his, and something both vulnerable and indomitable flashed across her features.
Lungs heaving, muscles burning, CJ looked at the little boy again. Dark brown eyes. Mussed dark hair. Lips curled in a howl of fear and pain.
He stumbled another step back.
“Cindy,” the kid was sobbing. “Save Cindy.”
Natalie looked back at the fountain. CJ did too. The stuffed animal lay in the middle, getting soaked. From one of the side cakes, an older woman in a floral print dress and Coke-bottle glasses waddled toward them in her orthotics. “Land sakes, ain’t nobody told us the boy was playing there.”
A squat, furry guy in need of a belt hustled around the other cake. The top two buttons of his blue uniform shirt gaped open. “Aw, hell,” he said, then disappeared back around the cake.
CJ ignored them all and set out to play hero for Cindy.
His lack of fondness for Natalie didn’t mean her kid had to suffer, and God only knew how long it would take to get the sprays shut off. He’d seen firsthand what water could do to stuffed animals.
He’d been responsible for it more than once in his childhood. And any other time, he would’ve smiled at the memories, but watching Natalie with her son, glimpsing her with the family he’d always wanted but would never have, it scratched something more raw than the rest of his scabs.
The spray shut off about the time he stepped off the splash pad with Cindy—an orange stegosaurus dressed in a lime green girly-ass dress that appeared to have taken most of the damage. The little boy had quit screaming, but he was visibly shivering under Natalie’s coat.
CJ could sympathize. That water was like frickin’ ice.
But what had him totally off-kilter wasn’t the water.
It was the way the boy’s head was tucked into her neck, the way she smoothed her fingers down his damp hair, the way his lanky little body huddled into her as if she were his very world.
The purple smudg
es beneath Natalie’s eyes had spread down her cheeks and her shoulders drooped so low her elbows nearly touched the ground. The rest of her was still completely put together—silky dark hair in place, blouse crisp, shoes unscuffed—but there was one major difference between Natalie Saturday night and Natalie today.
Today, there wasn’t a thing nuts about her.
He also had the striking impression that he’d underestimated her. Probably shouldn’t have attempted to fight her without half his siblings and God at his back. Given that ninety-two percent of his siblings were female, he doubted they’d take his side over a single mother’s.
Especially after what he’d done Saturday night.
The older lady had circled the splash pad and now stood over Natalie. “Little fella gonna be okay?”
“Yeah.” She smoothed his hair again without looking up at either the woman or CJ.
The woman shot a covert glance toward The Aisle, which extended straight out from the small park at the edge of the statue. “He need anything?” she half whispered.
Natalie shook her head. “Thanks. I’ve got it.”
CJ approached and held the stuffed dinosaur out.
Natalie took it, gave it a small shake to get off the worst of the water, then tucked it between her and the boy.
“Thank you.” She spoke softly without looking at him, which was somehow worse than if she’d found a way to blame him for her son getting caught in the water fountain too.
Coke-bottle glasses lady let out a small gasp. “Oh, dearie me. CJ Blue! How nice to meet you!”
She pumped his hand while Natalie stood and put her arm around her son’s tiny shoulders. “Let’s go home, sweetie.”
The kid patted the dinosaur’s back, still shivering, still sniffling. “It’ll be okay, Cindy. Mommy will fix you.” His hands weren’t visible for the length of the sleeves of Natalie’s jacket, but he kept patting the dinosaur’s back anyway.
While they walked away, an affection for the boy launched so thick and fast in CJ’s chest, it practically gave him the Heimlich.
He could’ve had an adorable kid like this if Serena were still around. Maybe a couple. If he hadn’t pushed her so hard to give up her career. If he’d tried to fit into the role of a military husband. If he’d taken the time to appreciate her commitment instead of putting his desires for his own career ahead of hers.
If he hadn’t come home with a job offer in Atlanta and told her to pick.
The lady was still pumping CJ’s hand as if he weren’t standing in fifty-five-degree weather, soaking wet.
“We’re right honored to have you with us here in Bliss, we are. I’m Vi. You come right on up here and we’ll get you all dried off.”
“Not far to get back to my brother’s place. I’m good.” He gestured up the road, but his gaze snagged on Natalie and how she bundled the little boy up into a charcoal Mazda 3 at the edge of the street.
“Those two,” Vi said. “Doing the best they can, aren’t they?”
CJ cocked his head at the older lady. She had a wedding ring on her stocky finger, some kind of ornate bird pin peeking out from beneath her gaping white cardigan, and she smelled like a pile of flowers two days past their prime.
“Ain’t easy, what she’s doing, but she’s doing it,” Vi said.
There was definite respect there.
Interesting.
But not as interesting as getting back to the rectory. Out of the cold and back to the safety of somewhere he could suppress both old and new guilt. He squeezed Vi’s hand. “Nice to meet you. Gotta get going.”
“You sure I can’t help you dry off, hon?”
Was it his imagination, or was she ogling his chest through his T-shirt?
“My Gilbert was built like you back in the day,” she said. “Mm-mm, good memories. You stop on by again sometime, you can meet him. Wouldn’t mind watching the two of you arm wrestle, though you’ll have to go easy on him on account of his bursitis.”
“Ah, I’ll remember that.” And he would. Unfortunately.
He cast one last glance back at Natalie and her son.
He’d remember that too. Among too many other things.
NOAH WAS UP bright and early Tuesday with no sign of lasting trauma from his accidental soaking in the wedding cake splash pad yesterday afternoon. Natalie wished she could say the same about herself.
She was used to her brain pinging with to-do lists she’d never get done for the Husband Games, problems she couldn’t solve at the shop, worries over whether Noah was getting enough vegetables or watching too much television. But since they’d left the wedding cake last night, she was fixated on replaying the image of a tall, broad, Highland warrior marching into battle against the evil waterfalls of doom to rescue a stuffed dinosaur.
He’d saved Cindy.
For Noah.
CJ Blue was making it very difficult for Natalie to continue to dislike him. And she suspected disliking him was the only thing saving her from liking him entirely too much. First he helped Dad, then Noah. She was willfully repressing the memory of talking to him in the confessional before she knew who he was. When he’d asked if she needed him to kick his own ass.
She’d never gotten many offers like that, and the sweetness of it had gotten buried beneath her mortification and horror.
Plus she’d be lying if she said he was a bad kisser. Not that she’d admit to anyone—herself included—how many times she’d found herself remembering that.
Noah was still bouncing around, happy as only a four-year-old could be when she dropped him at Mrs. Tanner’s home day care. Nat was trying to focus on the positive—it was dark and rainy today, but Nat had gotten word that the sunflower field was planted yesterday, and Bliss Bridal had a full schedule of brides today. When Mrs. Tanner called before Nat made it to work with news that Noah had already spilled his juice and his spare clothes didn’t fit anymore, she told herself this was also an excellent distraction from thinking about CJ.
So was running late.
Nat whipped around the corner to the alley behind Bliss Bridal three minutes before opening, then came to a screeching halt at the chain roping it off.
She muttered a cuss worth a dollar, but gave herself a fifty percent discount on what she owed Noah’s college fund since she didn’t have a whole dollar on her. Plus she would’ve stuck to a couple of quarter words anyway, were it not for the slick roads. She carefully backed out of the alley entryway, made a half circle around the block and drew up short—again—when she found the parking lot beside Bliss Bridal also chained off.
Damn it.
She was so friggin’ tired of Marilyn Elias punishing her for things that weren’t her fault.
Don’t talk to CJ Blue, you divorced hussy.
Natalie eyed the rain splatters on her windshield.
Watched her wipers swish back and forth.
Peered up at the ominous clouds.
Oh, God.
The Queen General had heard Natalie had been spotted with the Exalted Widower again. She was going to bring back the flood.
A low grumble of thunder rolled in the distance.
No. The Queen General could not cause a flood. Again.
Natalie left her car angled between the chain and the street, blocking the sidewalk, and dashed through the rain on her heeled boots past Bliss Bridal and into Heaven’s Bakery.
And promptly blinked against the pain of the blinding white everything inside.
“Um, Nat?” Kimmie Elias said softly.
Natalie shielded her eyes against the harsh lights. Kimmie, a dishwater blonde with bright blue eyes, a smile for everyone, and a coping mechanism that Freud probably would’ve had a field day with, straightened behind one of the glass display cases of cupcakes. Her covert head-bob toward the kitchen fired Natalie’s blood.
Kimmie hustled out from behind the counter and nudged Natalie toward the door. “I got a fortune cookie Monday night that said my workplace would be the epicenter of a new adventure,
” she whispered, “and nothing catastrophic has happened yet, so you should probably go before an earthquake or an asteroid hits.”
Natalie shook her off. Had customers been present, she would’ve walked away. She was, after all, a representative of Bliss Bridal, and still a member of The Aisle. But the bakery was empty. “It’s going to be the epicenter of tornado Natalie if your mother doesn’t unchain my parking lot.”
“I’m not kidding,” Kimmie said. “It said epicenter. Fortune cookies don’t say epicenter. I’ll talk—”
“Miss Castellano,” the QG interrupted, “may I help you?”
Her voice was soft enough, but the utter lack of disapproval and animosity in her was abnormal enough for Natalie to wonder if Kimmie was right about that asteroid.
There was a reason Natalie didn’t visit Heaven’s Bakery.
The QG did a freakishly scary I’m-pretending-I’m-happy-to-see-you-but-I’m-actually-plotting-your-demise face.
Another grumble of thunder rattled the windows.
Natalie matched the QG’s ramrod posture and pleasant tone. “Do you know anything about the alley and my parking lot being chained off?” They were both city property, maintained and kept by Bliss so there would be ample parking for all out-of-town brides without arguments among the business owners.
And they were both items that Marilyn Elias could manipulate with a simple call to City Hall.
“I believe the public works department is repaving them,” Marilyn said. “There was an announcement in the paper.”
Natalie’s jaw popped from the effort of unclenching it. “It was repaved last summer.”
“The city deemed it a subpar job.”
Blissed (Misfit Brides #1) Page 9