Best Man, Worst Man

by Stacy Gail

  “I’m so sorry, Matt.”

  “You and me both. What I wouldn’t give to rewind everything and go out on your fancy river cruise and be there at that dancing thing with all you girls. Everyone here has already bailed, so I’m stuck with Mr. Mopey all by myself. I’ve seen this guy drunk before, but he’s never been a sad drunk. I’m so bummed all I want to do now is go home and go to bed.”

  Good grief. “Why don’t you come and join the party here?”

  “I can’t leave Ryder, he’s a mess! All he keeps saying is that he wants to go to your place so you guys can talk, but he doesn’t even know where you live, and then he goes into a self-loathing tirade about what a jerk he is for not even knowing that much about you. Did you guys have a fight or something?”

  “That’s one way of putting it.” An ending to a soul-fulfilling relationship before it even began was more accurate. Painful as hell was an absolute bull’s eye.

  “That would explain the Claire-monologue the beer uncorked, then. He’s pretty miserable, so I was wondering… Geez, I’m sorry to ask this, Claire, but would you mind coming over to pick him up, or shut him up, or…something?”

  A tiny wince crossed her face before Claire could rope it in, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from telling Matt she would rather set her hair on fire than deal with Ryder Price. “Here’s what we’re all going to do,” she said, not offering a direct answer. “It’s a quarter to midnight now, so this is a good time to call a halt to the party here in order for Rachel and the other ladies to get their beauty sleep. Are you good to drive?”

  “Trust me, I’m stone-cold sober.”

  Claire nodded. “Get Ryder into your car and take him to your place. I’ve hired a stretch limo for all the ladies here, so once they’ve been dropped off, Rachel gets returned home via the limo. That’s when you’ll get Ryder into the limo, along with his address, so he can be safely dropped off at his house. No muss, no fuss.”

  “Will you be there to make sure everything goes okay?”

  For a moment she didn’t give a damn if anything went okay ever again. Then she swallowed and rearranged her slippery grip on sanity. “Well, uh…I wasn’t planning…but if you think that’s absolutely necessary…”

  “Thank you.” Matt heaved a sigh of relief. “Geez, what a night. Tell Rachel I’ll see her soon, and uh, Claire?”

  “Yes?”

  “Listen, Ryder is…oh, never mind. I’ll see you soon too.”

  Claire frowned as she hung up, her mind automatically trying to finish Matt’s hanging sentence. Ryder is…a jerk? A pathological playboy? A walking horror story all good mothers warned their daughters to look out for? Heaven knew all those fit. The one thing he was not—and would never be—was her future.

  It took over an hour to get all the members of the bachelorette party dropped off, so it was around one in the morning when the limo pulled up in front of Matt and Rachel’s. Glancing out the tinted window at the well-lit front, Claire tried to hide her flurry of nerves by producing a smile for her client. “I hope this night was all you dreamed it would be, and that you’ll smile even when you look back on it on your fortieth anniversary.”

  “I will, but Matt won’t, from the sound of it.” With a rueful laugh, Rachel exited the car along with Claire just as the front door opened. As one, they turned as Matt walked out with a damp-headed Ryder, who certainly looked rough around the edges. The butterflies in Claire’s stomach turned into rampaging elephants, and it was all she could do to keep her face an impassive mask. But when Ryder’s gaze lifted unexpectedly to her, she turned away as her frozen heart threatened to shatter into a thousand icy shards.

  “I’ll need his address to give to the driver,” she said as an excuse to focus on Rachel, and not the man whose very presence made every cell in her body scream with hyper-awareness. Maybe she was having some sort of attack, she thought with near-hysterical humor. Some kind of weird Ryder-allergy that made her sweaty, feverish and tremble like an aspen leaf.

  “I’ve got the address right here,” Matt volunteered, handing an index card to the smartly liveried chauffeur. “You shouldn’t have too much trouble finding the place, it’s only five miles or so from here. And you shouldn’t have any trouble with Ryder, either. He’s soaked his head, and he’s had about an hour to sober up, so he should make it okay.”

  With a noncommittal sound Claire nodded, keeping her attention focused on moving out of the way so Matt could pour Ryder into the limo. Every nerve quivered as Ryder paused at the limo’s open door beside her. Don’t look, Claire schooled herself, fists clenching while her heart nearly beat her to death. Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look…

  Weak-willed weenie that she was, Claire’s reluctant gaze slid upward to brush against Ryder’s, sparking like flint against steel.

  “Claire…”

  She wheeled around. “Let’s get this done. Matt, Rachel—get a good night’s sleep, and be sure you’re out at Serenity Springs Resort at ten, sharp. Call if anything comes up, okay?”

  She gave serious thought to climbing into the limo’s passenger seat up front, but since that would undoubtedly be noted by her clients, she crawled into the other side of the limo and thanked her lucky stars for the roomy interior. If she had to be trapped in a car with Ryder Price, at least it was the largest stretch limo she could find.

  This wasn’t exactly how Ryder had hoped his next meeting with Claire would go. Something along the lines of being astride a white charger would have been cool, but here he was, the complete opposite of that—still sloppily buzzed, but heading at warp speed toward one hell of a hangover.

  What a loser.

  As soon as the door was shut and the car began to move, silence closed around them like a fist. He searched for something to say to break the ice Claire was building between them like she was the original Snow Miser, but he came up empty. Not surprising, he decided, rubbing at eyes that were beginning to throb. When a man put a foot as wrong as he did, there wasn’t a word magical enough to wipe the slate clean.

  Putting a foot wrong, he thought with a silent snort. Now that was putting it mildly. Trying to show Claire—a romantic wedding planner—what he was used to in a relationship had been a miscalculation of epic proportions. Would she bust a gut laughing if she knew how many times he’d picked up the phone to grovel for forgiveness? Heaven knew Ryder found it funny, in a grim sort of way. He couldn’t think of a time when he’d felt the need to smooth things over with anyone, much less explain his actions. But that was where he found himself now, and it had him stumped. Why the hell should he apologize for his life’s philosophy of living for the moment? That philosophy was what had gotten him to where he was now.

  And where was that, exactly?

  Alone.

  With difficulty, Ryder swallowed the curse that sprang to his lips. He wasn’t too proud to admit that simply enjoying pleasure had been a good way to live. Better than good, damn it. What had him flummoxed was that somewhere along the way it had begun to be…not good enough. He wasn’t sure when that vague dissatisfaction had taken root, but he had definitely become aware of it during his stay up in Dallas. For the first time in memory, he’d found himself alone while everyone else around him seemed to belong with someone else.

  Somehow, he’d become the human equivalent of an odd sock.

  Maybe he really did lose his mind in Dallas. Ryder sighed, pushing the heels of his hands into his throbbing eyes. He had to be crazy to think his chronic restlessness sprang from a primordial need to find a mate. Socks were one thing, but human beings didn’t do well in pairs. He knew that better than anyone. People just couldn’t take the pressure of trying to stay together forever, so there was no point in even thinking about it.

  Yet he could think of nothing else.

  And it was all Claire’s fault.

  “Just so you know.” Claire’s frost-encrusted voice suddenly dropped into the silence, surprising him. “I lose the five-hundred-dollar deposit if you t
hrow up in here.”

  “Been there, done that.” With another rough sigh, Ryder rested his head against the plush seat and slid a sidelong glance her way. “I thought you didn’t want to talk to me.”

  “I’m bored and I have nothing better to do for the next five miles.”

  Something that could have been a laugh huffed out of him. “Claire Pomeroy, you are one pocket-sized piece of work.”

  “I try.”

  “Hard to believe a little thing like you can juggle monster weddings as if they were nothing more than sock balls.”

  “How did you know I can juggle sock balls?”

  He snorted, then rubbed a hand over his face. “Crap. Remind me not to laugh.”

  “Don’t laugh.”

  He ignored her by snorting again. “I’m sorry you had to cut your night short because of me, Claire.”

  She shrugged. “Not a problem. The bride-to-be was about to turn into a pumpkin anyway.”

  “And about me being an ass the other day…” When she remained stonily silent, he sighed. “Damn. I was hoping to slip that in, since you seemed to be in such a forgiving mood.”

  “One screw-up was impersonal. The other wasn’t. It doesn’t matter,” she added when he opened his mouth to speak. “You are who you are, and I am who I am. We’re oil and water. Night and day. Boo-Berry and Count Chocula.”

  He laughed outright, then grabbed his head. Damned if she wasn’t killing him by being adorable. “Haven’t you ever heard that opposites attract?”

  “You really think it’s a good idea to talk this out now when you’re drunk? We have enough trouble communicating when you’re sober.”

  “Who knows, I might actually do better.” He certainly couldn’t do any worse.

  “I was sweating this bachelor party, you know.” She shot him a quelling look as she changed the subject hard enough to engender whiplash. “I was worried you’d sabotage Matt’s party with a bunch of strippers and get him drunk enough to do something stupid. It never occurred to me that you’d be the stupid one.”

  “Yeah, I can’t seem to stop doing stupid things lately,” he muttered, then winced when they hit a bump. “My headache’s getting worse.”

  In response, Claire reached over to one of the car’s built-in ice buckets and fished out a bottle of water before reaching for her purse. “I have just about every OTC pain reliever with me, in case anyone needed it tonight. Drink all the water as well, to dilute the alcohol in your system. If you do that, you should be fine by morning.”

  With a grateful nod, he took a couple of tablets and downed half the water before sagging back in the seat. “Claire, I’m beginning to think you’re my angel.”

  “I just believe in being prepared.” There was a softening in her tone, and if he weren’t feeling so crappy he would have delighted in the gentle caress of her gaze brushing over him. “Can I do anything to help?”

  “Mmm.” What the hell, he thought. He had nothing left to lose. “I think I need to lie down.”

  And with that Ryder tilted sideways, sprawling across the seat with his head on her lap. He felt her freeze for a full second, probably caught between the urge to push him onto the floor and feeling sorry for his foolish carcass. Then the tension drained out of her, and her hand came to stroke the hair off his brow.

  Ah. Claire’s touch. No wonder she reminded him of an angel.

  “We’re almost there.” Her voice was as soft as the fingers sifting through his hair. His headache eased as if by magic while an unnamed peace whispered through him in a way he’d never known before. “You’ll be home soon.”

  “It’s just a house.” His voice was muffled, barely audible. He was more asleep than awake, but that was okay. He was safe with her. “I am home.”

  He drifted off to sleep, never hearing the small catch in her breath.

  Chapter Eight

  “A blue jay?” Walkie-talkie in hand, clipboard with a checklist marked almost all the way to the bottom, and dressed in a mint-green pencil-skirt suit, Claire stared at the walkie in horror. For the most part, the morning set-up for Rachel and Matt’s wedding had gone smoothly at the luxurious Hill Country resort. The delivery of the five-tiered, spring-flower-themed cake happened soon after Claire arrived at the venue around eight. A profusion of white spring flowers was everywhere, from the massive freestanding arrangements at the doors of the Grand Ballroom where the reception would take place, to the white rose, green hydrangea and calla lily centerpieces on each of the twelve-seat round tables, to the white-rose-and-magnolia-covered wedding arbor set in the resort’s picturesque garden.

  The wait staff, dressed in white and green, had already put the mint-filled chocolates in the shapes of bees and flowers at each place setting, along with the beribboned guest menus, cleverly printed on packets of perennial wildflower seeds for the guests to take home. The kitchens were in a state of ordered chaos as the three chosen entrees—Texas Black Angus mesquite-smoked brisket, bourbon-braised chicken and farm-raised blackened catfish—were being prepared for the expected headcount of three hundred. Both the groom and bride were on-property, with Mari glued to Rachel’s side in order to help the bride dress, as well as act as an unobtrusive babysitter. Everything was exactly as it should be.

  Except for the blue jay.

  The walkie-talkie in Claire’s hand bleeped. “What should we do about this, Ms. Pomeroy?”

  “I’m almost there.” Walking as fast as her slingback pumps would allow, she erupted from the Spanish-tiled hallway leading to the main garden. Normally, the sight of white beribboned chairs neatly arranged in military-straight rows filled her with satisfaction, but she was too busy scanning the cloudless sky to notice.

  “Where is it?” Claire asked the resort’s event coordinator without preamble, hurrying down the magnolia-lined snow-white carpet dividing the bride’s and groom’s sides.

  The resort employee pointed out into the grove of twisted live oaks surrounding them. “It just flew through the trees and disappeared. It must have a nest nearby.”

  “It’s probably the daddy,” Claire said, remembering too late just what spring meant for the vast majority of wildlife. “It is the time of season to make babies, after all. I don’t suppose we can move three hundred chairs fifty yards that way in less than ninety minutes?”

  “We’re good, Ms. Pomeroy, but not that good.”

  “Thought so.” With a short sigh, she considered her limited options. “Okay, I’d like to keep your people out there during the ceremony, and if they happen to spot the nest, so much the better. We can keep a close eye on our little party-crasher if we know where he’s coming from.” Frustrated that this was one problem she couldn’t really solve, she turned, and froze when she saw Ryder at the head of the aisle.

  Why? The thought echoed with sinking despair through her heart, while their gazes clashed and knotted. Why did he have to be another problem she had no hope of solving? Why did he seem so perfect when everything about him was so wrong for her?

  Why did she have to fall in love with a man who had no idea what love was?

  The bright clarity of his eyes and the natural, arrogant lift of his dark head showed no lingering effects of the night before. The black dinner jacket of his tuxedo clung to his broad shoulders like a possessive lover, and the gray-green of the vest underneath brought out the gray of his eyes. Without a doubt, he was the most breathtaking man she had ever seen, or would ever want to see. He was her personal idea of perfect, and even if she had a lifetime to just look at him, it still wouldn’t be long enough.

  Oh, but how could she forget? Ryder didn’t believe in a lifetime.

  Slowly, because it took more strength than she knew she had, Claire turned back to watch the resort workers fan out. Maybe things would be better when this wedding was over, she thought dully. Maybe, when she no longer had an excuse to see him, she would stop bleeding to death inside.

  Maybe. But she doubted it.

  “Claire.” As if her thoughts
had compelled him to her, Ryder appeared by her side. The heat radiating from his body was a delicious distraction, and for a moment she closed her eyes in helpless need. “Looks like you have everything in hand.”

  “Everything except a hot-headed blue jay.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke. Anything was better than getting caught up in his eyes and drowning in the terrible beauty of their unloving depths. “Dealing with the Wild Kingdom was the one hiccup that didn’t appear on my list.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the nesting instinct,” she explained even as a resort employee ran out of the trees, hands over his head while a shrieking blue streak dive-bombed him. “There must be a nest nearby with a mommy bird and babies. Daddy bird is usually the one to go out and get the food and defend the home front, so…” She shrugged. “Apparently we’re just close enough to bug him.”

  Ryder watched the bird dive once more before it disappeared back into the tangle of live oaks. “You can’t really wave a broom or tennis racket at this sort of pest then, can you?”

  “Absolutely not,” she agreed, sighing. “His little family would die without him, and besides, why punish him for being a good protector? He’s only doing what comes naturally. The best I can do is keep the workers out there in the trees as courageous decoys, while we hustle things along here and hope for the best.”

  “Doing what comes naturally, huh?” She could feel his gaze brush over her, as subtle as a caress. It took everything she had not to shiver. “Do you think it’s natural to just…pair off and start something as permanent as a family?”

  “Why don’t you ask the blue jay?”

  “I’m asking you.”