The Bride Next Door

by Hope Ramsay

  And that was the thing about Courtney Wallace that he couldn’t quite figure out. Matt was exceptionally good at reading body language. He could tell when a woman was interested in a casual hook-up. And for quite some time now, Courtney had been sending casual hook-up signals loud and clear.

  But he’d never been able to close the deal. He’d tried for a while, right after Brandon had broken up with Laurie, but the wedding planner wanted Mr. Right even though she knew he didn’t exist. Normally, a woman looking for Mr. Right wasn’t looking for casual hook-ups. Courtney Wallace was an enigma and a challenge. She was also a beautiful woman. More than that really, Courtney was a babe.

  “Arwen tells me you’ve moved back to Shenandoah Falls.” Courtney gave him the tiniest of smiles, just a curl at the corner of her sweet mouth. By the spark in her eyes, Matt knew she was up to something.

  “I’m working at my father’s law firm for the moment while I reassess my career choices.”

  Her smile deepened. “I hope that means you don’t plan to hit on Arwen.”

  She was so predictable. Standing there trying to protect her friends from the big, bad wolf. “Okay,” he said with a smile. “But what are you doing on Saturday?”

  “Saturday? Are you kidding? It’s Memorial Day weekend. I’ve got three weddings on Saturday and another three on Sunday. And excuse me, but did you just ask me out?”

  What a stupid blunder. He needed to remember that Courtney’s busiest workdays were Saturday and Sunday. So no long walks up to the falls or anything like that. “How about dinner in Winchester on Tuesday?”

  She drummed her fingers on the top of the table, a nervous tic that suggested she wasn’t all that into him. And yet she’d cocked her head in a way that was most definitely a come-on. What else was new? Courtney was a master at sending mixed signals. A wiser man would cut his losses and move on. But for some reason, Matt didn’t want to. Courtney intrigued him.

  After a very long moment, she said, “Sure. I’ll have dinner with you on Tuesday.”

  The moment Courtney agreed, Ryan Pierce sat up straight. “But—”

  Courtney interrupted whatever Ryan was about to say with the gesture. “It’s okay, Ryan. I know what I’m doing.” She gave Matt a big smile. “I’d love to have dinner with you in Winchester.”

  Matt paused for a moment, his gaze flicking between Ryan and Courtney. Was she trying to make Ryan jealous? Maybe. In some ways, she was a player too, and she definitely had an agenda. He’d need to proceed with caution.

  But then again, it might be fun to discover exactly what game she was playing. He nodded and smiled. “How about the Union Jack, at six thirty?” he said.

  Ten minutes later, Arwen excused herself from the sparring match between Courtney and Matt. She headed to the café’s ready room, a large, concrete-floored area edged in metal storage shelves stuffed with paper products, giant-sized bottles of ketchup, and cans of tomato sauce. The room, which always smelled of French fries, doubled as a spot for musicians to relax and tune their instruments before they performed. A couple of beat-up sofas and a half dozen folding chairs occupied the space.

  On open mic nights, the room got pretty crowded with a mix of serious musicians, wannabees, and amateurs, and it wasn’t all that unusual for Kent Henderson, who had an ego the size of Alaska, to initiate a jam session just to impress everyone by playing Doc Watson’s bluegrass version of “Tennessee Stud.” He always played it too fast and too loud.

  But for some inexplicable reason, his rendition of “Tennessee Stud” made Kent the most popular performer with the Jaybird’s regulars. People listened to Kent even though he played the same songs week after week.

  Arwen would be following Kent this evening, so of course, he was already in the back room playing his guitar so loud that no one else could possibly hear themselves, much less tune their guitars. Not that anyone else cared, since everyone, except Arwen, used electronic tuners.

  Arwen had no problems with electronic tuners, but she used a variety of nonstandard, open tunings for her songs, which required frequent readjustments, so she’d honed the ability to tune her guitar by ear and to change the tunings on the fly. For that she needed to be able to hear herself.

  She took her guitar out of its case and headed through the back door into the alleyway behind the Jaybird. A single streetlight dispelled the night like a spotlight. She stepped into it and adjusted the strap around her neck and shoulders. She tuned the guitar to open G and began practicing her new song—an ode to the rocking chair that used to sit on her grandmother’s porch. This new song had nothing to do with love or relationships. It told a sentimental story about a chair found by the side of the road, restored and repaired and handed down. It was sweet and not remotely commercial, but it pleased Arwen because it made her feel warm inside when she sang it. She’d loved her grandmother, who had passed away in February.

  She finished the last chord and was startled by the sound of a single pair of hands clapping. “That was sweet, lass.”

  She turned to find the Jaybird’s main bartender, Rory Ahearn, sitting on the back stoop. The night cast dark shadows across his deep-set blue eyes and accentuated the dimple in his chin. The rolled-up sleeves of his Henley tee exposed a pair of matching tattoos in a Celtic knot pattern, which wound around his arms like a pair of snakes.

  He took a long drag on his cigarette, holding the smoke inside and then exhaling. No, wait, not a cigarette. The breeze blew the pungent scent of weed in Arwen’s direction.

  “Want some?” he asked, holding the joint out in her direction.

  She shook her head, her heart thundering in her chest. Was it some deep-seated need for adventure that had her second-guessing her response? Rory had been tending bar at the Jaybird for at least two years. He had a gift when it came to margaritas and a sexy-as-hell accent. He also listened when she played on open mic nights. She’d watch him going through the motions behind the bar, but she knew he paid attention when she sang. Which made him the only person, besides her friends.

  And for that reason, she lived for the moment when Rory would look up and nod his head in approval. Still, she could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she’d actually spoken to him, beyond ordering a drink.

  They came from different worlds. She was a nice Jewish girl from the Washington, DC, suburbs who had never ever in her life broken any rules. And Rory gave every appearance of being a bad boy from across the ocean who truly didn’t give a damn. He had a dark Irish look that was at once both unsettling and deeply poetic.

  Arwen had a weakness for poetry.

  “You should give that up,” she said, nodding toward the joint.

  That earned her a dark bark of a laugh. “Love, the occasional joint is the only thing that gets me through the day.” He leaned forward into the light, which sparked in the dark, endless blue of his eyes. “Just like the occasional margarita helps you over the day-to-day heartbreak of life as a single girl.”

  That was the thing about bartenders. They knew everything. And of course, he actually listened to her songs. Which meant he knew all her fears and insecurities because she poured them into her lyrics.

  She took a step in his direction. “I guess you’re right about me and margaritas. But the thing is, margaritas are legal in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

  “Aye, true enough. But I like to live on the wild side.” His half smile grew into a full grin. He was incredibly handsome with that scruffy black hair hanging down over the collar of his shirt and the shadow of stubble across his cheeks. She ought to write a song about him, but she wasn’t sure yet what it would be about.

  “The wild side can get you in trouble,” she said, as much to herself as to him.

  He nodded. “That’s a fact, lass.” He hauled in a big breath, stubbed the joint out on the brick step, and stood up. “Looking forward to hearing you sing tonight,” he said with a little wink.

  And then he turned and slipped back into the café, leaving A
rwen to wonder if Rory Ahearn had followed her out here to flirt, give her encouragement, or just to take his pot break.

  Maybe it was wishful thinking, but she didn’t believe her encounter with him was entirely accidental.

  Chapter Two

  Losing his job in DC had completely blindsided Matt. One day he’d been a member of the Heartland Industries government affairs team, and the next he’d been out on his ass. The big manufacturer of tractors and other earth-moving equipment had decided to close its DC office to save money, and headquarters hadn’t invited anyone, least of all an entry-level legislative representative like Matt, to move back to the company’s Kansas City headquarters.

  Not that Matt would have moved to Kansas City, but still.

  In a family where everyone valued success, being fired made Matt feel like a complete failure. Even worse, Matt’s inability to find another government affairs job rankled. Despite the fact that his uncle was a US senator and his cousin a member of Congress, despite his politically connected last name, despite his Ivy League education and his two years of government affairs experience, he’d failed. Six weeks of searching and dozens of interviews had netted him exactly zero offers—a turn of events that shook him to his core.

  He could have fallen back on the trust fund Grandpa Artzen had set up for him, but Matt had promised Dad he wouldn’t touch that money unless it was for something important. And after the way Danny had gone through his inheritance, Matt was determined to save that legacy for a rainy day. The money was safely in the care of his financial adviser, tied up in investments that weren’t particularly liquid.

  So he needed a job. Besides, he wasn’t about to waste his assets on Washington, DC, rent. That would be foolish. So he’d done the one thing he’d been trying to avoid for most of his life. He’d accepted an associate’s position in his father’s law firm. It had always been Dad’s hope that one of his sons would join him in practice. Matt had never seen himself as that son, and to be brutally honest, neither had Dad.

  Jason was the one Dad really wanted. But Jason had other ideas, which involved the criminal justice system. He had taken a job with the FBI. So Matt, middle child extraordinaire, was left holding the bag.

  Yesterday—his first day on the job—Matt had filled out employment forms and endured a two-hour lunch with Dad at the Red Fern Inn. It had been the longest lunch of his life. Dad had pontificated about the firm, talked about his hopes for Matt making partner, and stressed the necessity of hard work and good service.

  On his second day at the firm, Matt strolled into the tiny cubicle of an office that Dad had given him in order to send a message that even though Matt was the son of the firm’s founding partner he’d get no special perks. In fact, knowing Dad, Matt expected to get absolutely no special privileges. He sat down at a standard-issue, boxy brown desk and stared at the framed photograph of the Shenandoah Mountains that hung on the opposite wall. No doubt the print was there as a stand-in for a window.

  He desperately missed his K Street office with the big windows and its view of Farragut Square. Despite his low pay grade, there had been a few perks with his last job. He leaned back into his chair and stared at the photograph, waiting for the rest of his life to begin.

  He didn’t have to wait long. Arwen Jacobs popped her head into his doorway and said, “Meeting in the small conference room. Five minutes,” and then disappeared down the hall.

  He opened the drawers of his desk looking for a legal pad, but Cousin Andrew—the previous occupant of this office—had evidently cleaned up after himself. No surprise there. Andrew had a reputation for being clean and organized.

  Matt’s desk drawers were completely empty. He didn’t even have a pen. And when he showed up for the meeting without an attorney’s basic tools, he’d be ridiculed. He wandered out into the hallway, carpeted in a deep-pile off-white that muffled his footsteps. He looked left and right, trying to remember where the small conference room was located. He had no idea where the supply closet was. He mentally flipped a coin and turned left, which took him on a roundabout tour of the office. Gillian, David’s assistant, finally pointed him in the right direction and told him not to worry about legal pads or pens.

  When he arrived at his destination, a small conference room with basic dark brown furniture, he understood. A pile of legal pads sat in the middle of the table along with a leather cup holding a collection of pens.

  He should have known this. Practicing lawyers, even lowly associates, didn’t have to know where to find legal pads. They would eventually find him.

  Arwen was already seated, dressed in a man-tailored navy-blue suit jacket with a pencil skirt and a white silk blouse. She looked competent and professional, and like a woman who was trying to hide her femininity.

  Matt hated man-tailored suits on women. In his view, women shouldn’t try to become men. And they shouldn’t feel as if they had to hide their beauty behind lapels in order to be taken seriously. His boss at Heartland Industries had been an extremely smart and capable woman who had taught him many things about government affairs. But she dressed in pantsuits and long tunics, as if she was ashamed of her curves.

  On some level, Matt understood why professional women felt the need to do that. But it irked him. He liked and appreciated women for all that they were and could be. He despised men who took advantage of women or behaved badly in the workplace, especially when they blamed their brutish behavior on the woman’s clothing. He had no use for any work colleague who believed that women were intellectually inferior too. Guys like that were idiots.

  “Welcome to the firm,” Arwen said. She seemed nervous, her shoulders tense. Probably because he’d used her as an approach for Courtney Wallace at the Jaybird last night. He needed to set her at ease.

  “Thanks. I enjoyed your performance at the open mic last night. Your songs are very insightful.”

  Pink crawled up her cheeks, and she looked away. Interesting. Her quiet performance had been the musical highlight last night, but she didn’t seem to know it. Her songs would probably never top any pop music charts, but they spoke to the heart; they had poetry. And Matt loved poetry. He had Grandma to thank for that.

  Just then, David strolled into the room, ending further conversation. Matt’s cousin was twelve years older and had always intimidated him. For many years, David was the family’s fair-haired child, the one everyone thought would run for Congress, become a senator like his father and grandfather before him, and eventually make a bid for the White House. But those plans had changed after his first wife died.

  David had walked away from politics to focus on being a small-town lawyer. Two years ago, he’d married Willow Petersen, the owner of Eagle Hill Manor, the bed-and-breakfast that had become one of the most successful businesses in Shenandoah Falls.

  He carried a fat brown manila expansion folder, which he dropped on the conference table right in front of Matt before taking a seat at the head of the table. “In that folder, you’ll find several new cases from the Blue Ridge Legal Services Corporation. Mostly landlord-tenant disputes. Study them; get up to speed on them. You will be the main attorney on all of them.”

  “Landlord-tenant disputes?” Matt’s voice cracked adolescently. He knew nothing about resolving disputes. That was Andrew’s thing.

  “Yeah, and just because these cases are part of our pro bono commitment doesn’t mean we don’t care about them. These tenants are dealing with absentee landlords, landlords who have no business owning buildings, and potential safety violations. We’ll solve most of these cases through arbitration. But some of them, like the dispute at Dogwood Estates, are headed for court.”

  “Court?” His heart jumped in his chest. He’d only argued cases in moot court competitions, and he’d sucked at it.

  “Yeah, court.” David’s eyebrows lowered into a scowl that looked surprisingly like the frightening expression on William Lyndon’s portrait, which hung over the mantel at Charlotte’s Grove, Uncle Mark’s three-hundred-year
-old home.

  “Don’t worry,” Arwen said. “I’ve been working with the Blue Ridge Legal Services Corporation for years, and I’ve been involved in dozens of landlord-tenant suits. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  She gave him a shy smile. Oh yeah, she’d seen right through him. But he was grateful for her kindness, especially since David continued to glower.

  “I want to make this clear,” David said. “Maybe in DC paralegals are treated the same as secretaries or personal assistants, but out here in the country, people like Arwen are assets. You may have a law degree, Matt, but you’re as green as an unripe apple. You listen to Arwen. She’ll teach you everything you need to know about how to be a compassionate attorney.”

  Matt nodded, but deep down he resented his cousin’s words even if the part about him being green was accurate. He was green. But he hated the way David assumed he would treat Arwen badly. Or that he’d try to take the easy way out.

  That attitude came from Dad. His father seemed to think he was lazy. Or stupid. Or incompetent. Or something. No matter what he did, Dad always found a way to criticize. He would have to work his balls off in order to get anything close to a pat on the back.

  * * *

  The Union Jack Pub and Restaurant sat in the middle of Winchester’s historic old town promenade. Matt arrived fifteen minutes late, on purpose, because he never arrived precisely on time for any date.

  But Courtney had outfoxed him once again. She wasn’t waiting for him, and since Matt refused to stand around in the entrance foyer, he asked the hostess to seat him at one of the outside café tables. The car-free historic area was a perfect venue for people-watching, especially on a warm May evening when the entire female population of Winchester, Virginia, had busted out their sundresses.

  He enjoyed the view as the sun sank low and he sipped a local beer with a hoppy, thirst-quenching taste. He made a point of ignoring his watch. He had nowhere to be, no schedule to worry about. He could kick back and enjoy.