by Mindy Klasky
Damn, she was good. He cleared his throat, wishing he was half as poised as she was. “I’m just sorry things didn’t work out.”
Lindsey nodded toward the champagne. “Maybe you can take a bottle of that. It’s something to make up for roasting half to death in this church.”
Before either of the men could stop her, she handed Zach her wedding dress and veil. She didn’t waste any time lifting the flaps on the case of champagne and slipping her blood-red fingernails in between the bottles. She made a show of handing one to him, displaying it across her forearm like she was a waiter in some fancy restaurant, tilting the bottle so the label was perfectly displayed. She put on a fake French accent. “Monsieur will find eet ees a most excellent year.”
He grinned and took the bottle, because what the hell else was he going to do? One glance at Zach, though, told him it was time to get the hell out of the church. Time to let Lindsey put away her act, to let her be herself on the most miserable night of her life. Folding his fingers around the neck of the champagne bottle, he nodded toward the stairs and said to Zach, “They’re pretty much done down there.”
“Probably ready for a check,” Ormond said.
“I’ll get it,” Lindsey said, and she reached around for the tiny excuse for a purse that hung from her shoulder.
“Right,” Zach said, and he raised his full hands toward the front door. “Get the hell out of here. I’ll take care of it.”
“It’s not right—”
“No.” Zach cut her off. “You’re right. It isn’t.”
She almost lost it then. The veneer of being in control, the smile she’d flashed for Ryan’s benefit, the steel that kept her spine straight, all of it wavered, like he was watching some magic trick collapsing.
“You,” Zach said, nodding to Ryan. “Get her out of here.”
And then it was like old times. Like he and Zach were on the road, back at the beginning of his career, when he was just as likely to take one of the ever-present groupies up to his hotel room as he was to follow the rules and get some sleep and be ready to play the next day. Zach was the one who kept order then, who told him what to do.
So it was second nature to reach out and take the dress from his old friend’s hand. To shift the Dom Perignon so he could tuck the crumpled veil under his arm. To read the tight nod, the unspoken thanks, the brother-in-arms gratitude that he could accept with his own ducked chin. He and Zach had played together for years. They’d been in and out of a thousand scrapes—tough baseball games, tougher times in bars and airports and hotels afterwards.
It was like having a brother, without all the crap.
“Come on, Lindsey,” he said. And he held the door for her, with just enough insistence in his steady gaze that she had to lead the way out to the parking lot.
There were only a few cars left on the steaming blacktop. Zach’s Beemer. His own red Ferrari. And a dark grey Prius, looking all prim and proper, crouching beneath a scraggly tree at the far end of the lot.
“I can take that,” Lindsey said, holding out her hand for the wedding stuff.
“Yeah,” he said. “Right.” He fell in beside her as she huffed and led the way to her car. She’d always had a mind of her own. He’d first met her at the clubhouse, probably the first day he’d been called up from the minors. She’d worked some sort of publicity job for the Rockets then, something that helped pay the bills while she waited for her big break in local theater. She’d worshipped her brother, came to every home game, and all the guys on the team had gotten used to her hanging around.
She was Lindsey. Just Lindsey. He might have been interested in her—half the guys on the team might—but she was totally off limits because Ormond would break any guy’s nose if a player was stupid enough to even sniff in her general direction.
As Ryan watched, she opened her trunk. She shoved in the dress and veil, jamming them into the cramped space around the car’s battery. “Okay, then,” she said, slamming the trunk closed.
“Okay.”
“Go on,” she said, and then she seemed to remember the rules, seemed to remember that she was supposed to be proud and brave and not at all upset that she’d been left at the altar like a girl in one of those bad novels he was supposed to read in high school English class. She ran her fingers through her stiff hair and frowned when they snagged on hairspray or gel or whatever shit she’d used to make it work. “I’m fine,” she said. “You can tell Zach you got me all settled. Tell him I’m fine, and I’ll call him in the morning.”
It was the smile that got to him. The perfect, blinding smile, like she was competing for Miss America or something. She actually held out her hand, and he shifted the champagne bottle to shake it. He wasn’t supposed to feel the tremor in her fingers. He wasn’t supposed to see that her chin was shaking. He wasn’t supposed to notice the wash of tears that made her eyes shine like tiny mirrors.
“Drive carefully,” he said.
“I always do.” And she actually made herself laugh.
Shit. It was like torturing a kitten, standing here with her. Everything he said, everything he did just made it worse because she had to keep on acting, had to keep on performing, when he could see that all she wanted to do was get some place alone, wash that crap out of her hair, scream and cry and probably get drunker than she’d ever been in her life.
So he walked over to his car. He let himself in without looking back. He keyed the ignition and then he sat there, steadying the champagne on the passenger seat like it was a patient in an ambulance.
Because he couldn’t just drive out of that lot. He had to make sure she was all right, okay to drive. Sure enough, after her headlights flicked on, she backed up a little too fast. She skidded on a patch of gravel, but anyone could have done that in the twilight. She raced across the asphalt to the exit, like she was dying to put some distance between them, to get away from the church, and men, and everything that had turned to shit in her life. And anyone could have done that, too, driven too fast in an almost empty parking lot. Without stopping at the edge of the lot, though, she started to pull out into the street, only crashing to a halt when a horn bellowed and brakes shrieked. A minivan swerved around her in the gloom.
Sure, Lindsey Ormond was fine. Perfect.
Ryan couldn’t sit there and watch her drive away like a bat out of hell. He caught up with the Prius at the first traffic light, but he hung back in the left lane, trying to stay out of sight. She barely waited for the light to change before she was gunning her engine, heading for the freeway and the fast track out of town. He settled low in the Ferrari and followed her, keeping just far enough back that she’d have no idea that he was there.
~~~
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ALSO BY MINDY KLASKY
The Diamond Brides Series
Perfect Pitch
Catching Hell
Reaching First
(Perfect Pitch, Catching Hell, and Reaching First available as a boxed set)
Second Thoughts
Third Degree
Stopping Short
(Second Thoughts, Third Degree, and Stopping Short available as a boxed set)
From Left Field
Center Stage
Always Right
(From Left Field, Third Degree, and Stopping Short available as a boxed set)
(Entire series available as a boxed set)
; The Jane Madison Series
Girl’s Guide to Witchcraft
Sorcery and the Single Girl
Magic and the Modern Girl
(Available as a boxed set)
The Jane Madison Academy Series
Single Witch’s Survival Guide
The As You Wish Series
Act One, Wish One (formerly How Not to Make a Wish)
Wishing in the Wings (formerly When Good Wishes Go Bad)
Wish Upon a Star (formerly To Wish or Not to Wish)
(Available as a boxed set)
Stand-Alone Works
Capitol Magic
Fright Court
Season of Sacrifice
The Glasswrights Series
The Glasswrights’ Apprentice
The Glasswrights’ Progress
The Glasswrights’ Journeyman
The Glasswrights’ Test
The Glasswrights’ Master
Harlequin Special Editions
The Daddy Dance
The Mogul’s Maybe Marriage
ABOUT MINDY KLASKY
Mindy Klasky learned to read when her parents shoved a book in her hands and told her she could travel anywhere in the world through stories. She never forgot that advice.
Mindy’s travels took her through multiple careers – from litigator to librarian to full-time writer. Mindy’s travels have also taken her through various literary genres for readers of all ages – from traditional fantasy to paranormal chick-lit to category romance, from middle-grade to young adult to adult.
In her spare time, Mindy knits, quilts, and tries to tame her endless to-be-read shelf. Her husband and cats do their best to fill the left-over minutes.
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