by Amy Vastine
She studied the green juice in her cup, hoping that the ginger-infused coconut water fortified her immune system and her resolve.
* * *
Matt squatted down and rubbed the golden coat of Lady, Steve and Becca’s eight-month old Great Dane rescue puppy. But his focus remained on Ruthie as she circled around the tables, Duke straining on his leash. Matt took in everything from her thick, loose braid that hung over her left shoulder to her scarf wilted against her belted jacket to her ease with the pony-sized dog that easily outweighed her by a good twenty-some pounds.
When he bent down, Duke thrust his black and white head in Matt’s face. He caught the dog’s drool with his hands before the dog dampened his t-shirt, wiped his wet palms on his jeans and stood. “Ruthie, you look exhausted.”
“I’ve been awake for over twenty-four hours thanks to flight delays.” She toasted him with her shot cup. “Becca made energy drinks so I’ll be fine.”
He muffled a snort. She’d be fine when her head dropped against a pillow and a down comforter covered her. She’d be fine when she closed her eyes for twenty-four hours straight. She’d be fine when she let someone take care of her. “Everyone would understand if you wanted to head back to Becca’s. You don’t need to stay here.”
“It’s Becca’s special week.” She fussed with Duke’s collar and avoided looking at him. “It’s about my sister, not me.”
In fact, it had been about Ruthie earlier in the year, she’d even had her own special week planned like Becca. Except Ruthie had gotten engaged to the poorest example of a groom there ever was. Matt knew. He’d used his connections at the bureau to research Justin Samuel Cook, long time San Francisco resident and day trader, who’d traded his morals for money and Ruthie for another woman on their wedding day. “I can take you back.” I can take care of you.
She glanced at his motorcycle and then at him. “On your motorcycle?”
Her tone hinted at her dismay, but something like interest flashed in her pale blue eyes. He’d gotten her full attention. Finally. “Best way to experience the city is on the back of a bike.”
It was also the best way to discover why he was compelled to bring laughter into Ruthie’s life. In high school he’d been content with her scowls and glares and occasional shy smiles. He’d known even then that Ruthie was special and he hadn’t been quite good enough for her. Yet he’d always believed he had time to win over Ruthie one day. When he was ready. But then she’d almost married another man.
He wasn’t standing by and watching that happen again. Not without first finding out if Ruthie felt the same connection he did.
“You only have one helmet,” she said.
She’d always been practical. Always analytical. Always intriguing. “You can borrow mine.” While he borrowed some time alone with her.
“I need to stay.” She yawned into her cup then forced a smile. “Becca and Steve need help with the dogs so they can visit with their guests.”
Becca handed Matt a shot that he passed on to Ruthie. “Here, you need this more than I do.”
She refused to take the cup. “Scared of a little coconut water and ginger?”
The teasing tone in her words pulled her mouth into a real smile. The kind she rarely shared with him.
Energy shots hardly scared him. But he feared Ruthie would only ever see him as that aggravating boy from freshman chemistry that had shattered a beaker with dry ice on her lab station, stole her pencils and colored in her notebook to get her attention. She’d always ignored his attempts to make her smile in high school, too focused on her studies to be distracted by the under-achievers like him.
He swallowed the juice then leaned in to whisper in her ear. “No, I’m not scared. But I have to wonder is it me or the motorcycle that scares you more?”
She tossed back her juice and looked him in the eyes. “I don’t scare that easy.”
A scratch sounded in her voice as if she’d swallowed a handful of lemon seeds. Matt grinned. He’d gotten to her. It was enough for now.
Becca linked her arm through Matt’s and wiggled between Ruthie and him. “What are we whispering about?”
“Wedding details,” Matt said.
“Ruthie has everything planned,” Becca said. “She keeps me sane. It’s one of the many reasons I love her.”
Ruthie made him insane-it had to be insanity that made him compare every woman he’d meet to the Ruthie Cain standard-and that was one of the many reasons she fascinated him.
“But now I get to surprise you.” Becca grabbed Ruthie’s arm. “You’re sitting beside the pilot for tomorrow’s flight to the lake. How great is that?”
Matt rubbed his chin and watched Ruthie’s face pale. Her cheeks looked as if someone had injected the green energy juice directly into her skin. Clearly she’d yet to outgrow her fear of flying.
Ruthie crumpled the empty paper cup in her hand. “I planned to rent a car and drive up there.”
“That’s silly.” Becca scooted to the side to let Steve in. “Zack learned to fly before he learned to drive. It’ll be fun.”
“Besides, we’re two days away from Thanksgiving; you won’t be able to rent a car now.” Steve wrapped his arm around Becca’s waist.
Ruthie looked across the picnic table at Sophie. “When are you heading up?”
“Ella and I won’t leave until early Saturday morning.” Sophie glanced at Becca. “Sorry I’ll miss the rehearsal dinner.”
“We’ve already made plans,” Becca said. “Steve and I will meet you at the start of the trail around ten a.m. on Saturday. We can walk through the ceremony with Ella as much as she needs.”
“I can help that morning too,” Matt offered. The courage in Sophie’s nine year old niece, Ella, humbled Matt. He’d do anything for the little girl. He was surprised the only lasting effect of Ella’s too early arrival into the world was her impaired eyesight.
“Count me in too,” Ruthie said.
“Perfect,” Becca said. “Why don’t you and Matt bring the dogs so they can get accustomed to the scent of the grounds before the ceremony?”
“The dogs?” Ruthie cleared her throat as if those lemon seeds had gotten stuck again.
Apparently Ruthie wasn’t aware that certain plans had changed. She’d always hated disruptions to her schedule. Matt handed her another shot. “Didn’t Becca tell you that she amended the guest list?”
Ruthie glared at him. He grinned back.
Becca waved her hand between them. “It’s nothing. Guests were having trouble boarding their pets for the holiday week so I suggested they bring them along.”
“You invited dogs to your wedding?” Ruthie asked. Her voice was more of a wheeze like a deflated squeaker inside a stuffed bear that Duke had punctured with his teeth.
“It’s outside and the estate allows animals.” Becca hugged Steve. “And it gives us a chance to include Duke and Lady too.”
Ruthie rubbed her forehead, even her braid seemed to be unraveling. The woman needed sleep, not something else to keep her awake with worry. Matt said, “We don’t need to deal with the ceremony now. We need to talk about the plan for tomorrow. What time is your flight?”
“We have a pre-wedding photo shoot tomorrow morning then we’ll head to the airport around one,” Becca said. “Matt, you can pick up Duke and Lady around noon. We’ll have coolers packed with the salmon for tomorrow night’s dinner and the organic Turkeys for Thursday.”
Ruthie looked at Matt. “You’re driving to Tahoe?”
“I’m transporting the dogs and the turkeys,” Matt said. “The front seat is open.”
Her eyes narrowed, her chin tipped up. She’d heard the challenge in his voice. “You’ll definitely need help.”
“So I’ll pick you up at noon too,” he said.
Ruthie nodded.
“Then it’s a date.” Matt caught the football Steve tossed him and walked away before Ruthie could argue or change her mind.
CHAPTER TWO
M
att opened the door to Becca and Steve’s townhouse the next afternoon and called out to Ruthie.
“You’re late.” Her curt reply came from the family room. “And now we’re off schedule.”
“I had to pick up two more organic turkeys over on Market. They didn’t open until ten.” Matt stepped into the family room and coughed to cover his laughter.
Becca knelt on the floor beside Duke’s futon bed. Duke was stretched out on his back across the twin-sized futon, his head rested on the hardwood floor. The dog had been mummified with what Matt assumed was Becca’s veil, given the yards and yards of gem-covered white netting wrapped around the dog’s body. Duke’s white tipped tail thumped against the wall at Matt’s arrival. Lady tilted her head at him from her spot on the couch. A half-eaten notebook flopped sideways in the puppy’s giant paws.
The spa music coming from the cell phone beside Ruthie’s knee stopped and a pleasant voice filled the silence. “Thank you for calling Bay City Pet Hospital. Can you tell me again what your dog ingested?”
Ruthie picked up a gold box with one corner chewed off. “Chocolate.”
“Dark or milk chocolate? Baking chocolate? White chocolate?” the receptionist asked.
The perky lilt in the receptionist’s voice failed to cover her condescending tone. Matt grinned. Used to be that Ruthie reserved such a tone for him when she was trying to get him to stop copying her notes in science class. He’d always liked the fluid precision of her handwriting. Every sentence complete with the proper punctuation, no detail forgotten. No matter what he’d done, she’d never lost her composure. Never let go. Never gave in to him.
He still wanted to make her let go, more now than he ever had in high school. In high school she intrigued him, now she needed him.
Ruthie Cain needed him to show her that there was more to life than living between the lines of her precious notebooks.
Ruthie scowled at the phone. “Chocolate.”
The bite in Ruthie’s voice had the precision and speed of a nail charged from a nail gun into a two by four.
“How much, ma’am?” The receptionist injected more cheer into her voice.
“A box.” And that nail gun fired again.
Silence reigned for a second before the calming music swirled from the tiny phone speaker again.
Ruthie snatched up her phone. Not even the delicate black and gold hearts decorating the phone case were enough to keep Ruthie from strangling the device with her tense grip.
“It’s in French, ma’am, like I already informed you.” Ruthie shouted at the phone. “I can’t read it and I stink at the metric system. I just want to know if my sister’s dog is dying.”
The panic in Ruthie’s voice stopped Matt’s laughter. “He’s fine.” He couldn’t say the same for the veil.
Ruthie tossed her phone on the floor and untwisted the veil from Duke’s front paw. “You don’t know that unless you have a vet degree hidden in your tool belt.”
A dark drool spot spread across the white material near Duke’s chin. His tail thumped against the wall. Matt picked up the mauled box and scanned the ingredients on the torn insert. “It’s milk chocolate.”
“There’s no English on that box,” she said. “I brought them home from Paris.”
“Still there isn’t enough dark chocolate in the ganache to do a dog Duke’s size any real harm.”
She pushed on Duke’s side to get him to roll over. The dog stretched out as if to encourage her to rub his belly. “You don’t speak French.”
“Not like I did when my father was married to Adele Barrett. She was wife number three, but you were already on the east coast when they got together.” Matt pulled the notebook away from Lady, saw wedding notes printed in sharpie on the cover and tossed it back to the puppy.
“Hey, we need that.” Ruthie tried to stop Lady as she sprinted into the kitchen with her prize. “That’s the to-do list for the week.”
“The only thing to do today is enjoy the drive to Tahoe and then relax tonight in the hot tub that Becca promised me is on the back porch of the house she rented.”
“Those aren’t actual tasks,” Ruthie said. “And a trip to the vet wasn’t on the list, but I built in extra time as a contingency.”
“This isn’t an emergency,” Matt said. “Your schedule is intact.”
“Just because you took French in ninth grade and remember a few words doesn’t make you an ingredient expert.” Ruthie stopped trying to move Duke and picked up the phone with the hold music still playing. “Hello, vet lady. I’m glad this is an emergency. I should’ve called Sophie.”
“Sophie can’t speak French,” Matt said. “She sat next to me in Mrs. Faust’s class. Whenever Sophie read a passage out-loud, we all covered our ears. I’ve never seen a teacher cringe like that since.”
“Okay, Mr. French Professor.” Ruthie strode into the kitchen and returned with another cookie box that she handed to Matt. “That’s a new box. What does the ingredient list say?”
Matt untied the gold ribbon from around the box. Inside, pale purple satin pockets cushioned a dozen pastel colored cookies. It was like a color swatch for a baby’s nursery, sweet and soft and sappy. Everything he imagined Ruthie hid inside her. “I should’ve known you’d like such a pretentious cookie.”
“It’s a pastry, not a cookie. There’s an art to macrons. It takes years of practice and an attention to detail to understand how to create the perfect one,” Ruthie said. “You’ll think three dollars for a quarter-sized macron is insane, but people pay it. You know why? Because they’re worth every bite.”
Ruthie was worth something to. She just didn’t believe it. Matt stuffed a lime colored pastry into his mouth.
“No more.” Ruthie grabbed the box. “We’re supposed to eat these while we sip champagne and get ready for the wedding ceremony on Saturday.”
“Champagne and pastries.” Matt considered swiping another one from the box. Pastry or cookie or whatever, he liked the pistachio flavor a lot more than he’d expected. “That’s your plan for the pre-wedding ritual?”
“What’s yours? Donut holes and beer.”
“Considering we have to hike a mountain to reach the ceremony site that isn’t a bad idea.” Matt rubbed his chin and eyed Ruthie. “You are aware we have to hike, right?”
“The bridesmaids have matching pink tennis shoes for the trail.” Ruthie sighed and picked out a yellow cookie then took a small bite. “But it can’t be much of a hike or Sophie wouldn’t have allowed Ella to be the flower girl.”
He wasn’t going to spoil her illusions. Her sister’s wedding clearly flustered all of Ruthie’s rigid rules for what a wedding should be. “Arrangements have been made for Ella.”
Sophie and Ella had called Matt last night. Ella had asked if he’d be her personal lumberjack and carry her up the trail to the ceremony. He couldn’t refuse Ella and Sophie’s relief made him think he should’ve been the one to offer first.
Ruthie looked at Duke, who’d fallen asleep on the bed. More drool leaked onto the veil and his hind legs twitched as if he chased something in his dreams. “He seems fine.”
“Duke did Becca a favor.” Matt picked up her cell phone, ended the call and handed it to her. “The veil would’ve gotten caught on a tree branch and given Becca some serious whiplash.”
Ruthie stroked her fingers over the lengthy material. “But it’s gorgeous. It would’ve been stunning on a bride like Becca.”
The veil belonged on a bride walking down the long aisle of the cathedral or on a bride standing on the stone steps of some historic castle. The veil belonged on a different woman, in a different place, at a different time. A woman like Ruthie with her sophisticated braids and classic taste and romantic illusions. “That fabric would be a great playground for spiders and ants. It’d be like living bridal art.”
“Okay.” Ruthie yanked her hand away. “We’ll leave it here.”
“Maybe we should take it. If the mosquitoes attack during the cerem
ony, we could wrap the entire wedding party inside.”
Finally Ruthie grinned. “I have bug spray already packed.”
“Of course you do,” Matt said. “But a little extra protection never hurt.”
Ruthie laughed and pulled her chewed up planner from under Lady’s lax body. The puppy had passed out mid-chew. “She ate all of my lists, even my shopping list.”
“We can make another shopping list during the drive.” Matt took the notebook and tossed it on the couch. “I have the turkeys and potatoes already in the truck. What else do we need?”
“About another hundred things.”
“Then let’s hit the road.” Matt walked down the hallway toward the guest bedroom. “Where’s your bag?”
He stopped in the bedroom doorway and burst into laughter. Ruthie’s room looked as if it had been ransacked. He’d been called to a few locations after the bureau had searched the premises and those rooms looked much the same as Ruthie’s did now. Nothing remained inside her duffle bag. Her suitcase had been knocked from the wooden stand in the closet. A make-up bag lay open on the floor containers of every size littered the carpet. A trail of clothes led from the bed to the bathroom.
Ruthie rushed into the bedroom and gasped. “Duke stays here.”
“He’s part of the wedding party,” Matt said. “Maybe it was Lady.”
“She stays too.” Ruthie stuffed several shirts into her duffle. “No dog should poop out a small animal. That just isn’t normal.”
“He might be passing a few socks in the near future too.” Matt held up one of Ruthie’s socks, its partner nowhere in sight.
“I’m staying.” Ruthie swiped a pair of pink shorts from the floor.
“You’re part of the wedding too.”
“I won’t be missed.”
“You’re the maid of honor.” Matt moved toward the bed, tiptoeing around her clothes as if he walked through a minefield. As it was, he’d noticed how tiny those pink shorts had been. And he recognized that more than jeans and t-shirts littered the floor. And it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine Ruthie in those shorts or even a few of the more colorful pieces leading into the bathroom. But Ruthie stayed between the lines. She wasn’t supposed to own anything fire engine red.