Of course, they had the perfect meet-cute.
Dancey covered his face and groaned. “She was there for my best friend, and we were all over each other. I still feel terrible about it.”
I recalled Taylor’s bridal shower when she’d said that her first kiss with Bigley had been by a soda machine at one of Dancey’s concerts. It made sense that she would remember who had really kissed her at the airport.
“When I told her who I was, she was so mad. But,” Dancey laughed at the memory, “I was so stupid that I couldn’t stop making it worse for myself. And you know what happens to Taylor when she gets all worked up; her nose wrinkles like …”
I listened to Dancey go on about Taylor. He talked about the foosball championship where Taylor had begun to thaw towards him. He’d ruined the moment when he’d stolen another kiss. “It made sense when she told me that poppies were her favorite flower. You know the word ‘poppy’ where I’m from also means a smart and hot girl?” he asked.
Shaking my head, I listened to him talk about the song he’d written for Taylor—it was after she had accepted Bigley’s marriage proposal. His emotions had bled onto the paper as he’d tried to make the words purge her from his life. When Bigley had started acting up—drinking and flirting with other women—Dancey had discounted his anger at his best friend as just wanting Taylor to be happy. But he had been jealous. Terribly, terribly jealous.
I had misjudged Dancey. We all had. My prejudice had marked him as a player, but his romantic streak ran just as deep as mine. He actually had a list of things that he loved about Taylor. Her flashing eyes. Her temper. Her throaty laugh.
Yeah, I was the rebound. At the same time, I was relieved to be free. Thankfully, I had listened to my gut instincts before this had gotten out of hand. I picked a blue cornflower from the weeds and rubbed the soft petals between my fingers. They reminded me of Austen.
Dancey stopped talking as if he had just realized what he had done. His mouth moved, but nothing came out.
I turned to him. “Dancey, I’m glad you told me.”
Remorse stole through his expression. “I’m sorry, Jane. I didn’t know how deep I was. I thought that I could move on. I have to move on …”
I shook my head. “You can’t do that. Now that I know how you really feel, you owe me.”
He looked wary. “How?”
“I want you to steal Ms. Taylor from Mr. Bingley.”
Chapter 23
“We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of a man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.”
—Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
I flipped open my phone and texted Austen after I parted ways with Dancey.
ME: MEET ME IN TEN MINUTES AT CHURCHELL’S SHACK.
The sand was getting in my shoes, and I ripped them off and dumped the sand back to the beach where it belonged. The bachelor parties were tonight. The wedding was tomorrow. We didn’t have much time to sabotage this thing. I had left a confused Dancey behind. He wasn’t so keen on my idea, but I didn’t need his cooperation. I needed Austen’s brain.
My buzzing phone signaled that Austen had written me back: I’M ON MY WAY.
A warm feeling permeated through my heart and shot energy into my limbs at the thought of Austen coming for me. Dancey had told me that I was insane for suggesting he steal the girl he loved the day before her wedding, but I wasn’t through with him yet. Taylor loved Dancey back. I was sure of it. And no girl was safe until Dancey was off the rebound. I would be doing everyone a favor.
I ran up the steps at Churchell’s Shack and shoved into the crowded place, not stopping to look for danger—namely Colin, Redd, Crawley, or Bigley. Honestly, I couldn’t keep track of them anymore.
“You’re here again?”
I hunched my shoulders, seeing the dirty blonde femme fatale scrubbing at the counter. “Hi, Junie.” I sped past her and found a seat beside a fern. It was my traditional rendezvous spot with Austen. I fiddled with my phone a bit more as twenty minutes or so passed with no sign of the man I was crazy about. I was ready to wriggle out of my seat with impatience until I saw his lanky figure on the beach in the distance. He wore a Henley shirt and board shorts, and I drank in the sight of him.
He tackled the steps to the shack in the same manner that I had and cleared the doorway, his eyes roving over the crowd until they lingered on me. His smile was inviting. Everything about him looked and felt great. He greeted Junie in his usual charming way and wound through the tables to greet me. “Jane.” He slid into the bench, facing me. He studied me like he was assessing if I was the same girl he’d left. I was. Sort of.
“Austen, what took you so long? I was afraid you fell into quicksand on your way over here.”
“Worse.” He pushed his hair from his face. “Taylor wanted me to cancel her subscription to Em’s Matchmaker’s online dating site, and I got stuck on the phone with customer service. They tortured me with call-waiting music. Twenty minutes! It took me twenty—no, twenty-two minutes to get a refund! I’m shaking.” He lifted his hands. They were hardly shaking.
That didn’t make me feel any better. “How much did you get back?”
“Fifteen dollars.” He saw the look on my face and broke into a laugh. “It was the principle of the thing! They had her on automatic renewal!”
I snickered. “Okay.” That’s what I liked about him—he didn’t give up. I needed that. “I guess it can pay for lunch. I just met with Dancey.”
He looked tense. “Yeah?”
I reached for his hands, not able to stop from touching him any longer. “And you were right about everything. Taylor is unhappy. Dancey is unhappy. We need to help them.”
“Them? When did this become a them thing?” Before I could explain, he shook his head. “No, no, I’m not helping Taylor get away from one jerk to go for a worse one.”
“He’s not a jerk! He’s just misunderstood. We got it all wrong. You told me to find out the truth about him and I did. Dancey was on the rebound.”
“With you?” he asked. I hesitated, and he threw back his head, his eyes meeting the ceiling in exasperation. “I can’t believe this. So you’re not interested in him. Great, but there are easier ways to get rid of a guy. I’m sorry, but I can’t forgive him as easily as you can. He’s on his own on this one.”
“What about Taylor?” I asked. “She’s in love with him. You saw her this morning—she’s willing to sacrifice herself to the wedding gods because she’s so depressed. She doesn’t care if Bigley isn’t the one if she can’t have Dancey.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Well, it must to her, because she’s doing it.”
He studied me. “Even if Dancey was the right guy for her, what makes you think this will work?”
“Because every romantic bone in my body says so. If the guy wants the girl back—he chases after her. It’s how it’s done. He runs after the taxi. He follows her on a plane. He’ll lay down all his money, his need to be right; he sacrifices everything. He’ll die for her!”
His lips turned up, but he bit the smile down. “If he’s dead, he won’t get the girl.”
“Oh yes, he will …” I struggled with my words, especially when I saw that he was getting that stubborn look. “Austen, why don’t you help me instead of being such a cynic! Yeah, normal people don’t follow the pages of a romance novel. I get it, but this isn’t my story or yours. This is Ms. Taylor’s. And she doesn’t belong with Bigley. She belongs with Dancey.”
“Can you hear yourself?” he said. “Taylor made her decision. She told us this morning. She’s going through with it, and there’s nothing we can do to change that. This isn’t a book, Jane, this is real life and these are real people. We can’t make these kinds of decisions for other people.”
“The story’s in our hands,” I argued. “We’re Jane and Austen—it’s what we do. We’re the ones who live vicariously through other people’s more exciting lives because we’re too afraid or
too cynical to live it ourselves.”
“Whoa! What?”
“There is no way that we are going to end this badly,” I continued as if he hadn’t said anything. “We’re going to have our happy ending.”
He stilled, and I wondered if he was about to declare his feelings or if he even had any for me besides a mild flirtation between jobs. A myriad of emotions passed through his eyes, but instead of sharing any of them with me, he licked his lips. “What’s your plan?”
“Well, first things first.” Taylor and I had a similar problem, and I hoped that it didn’t seem like I was talking about Austen and me instead of our friend, because that would be awkward. I plunged ahead. “Taylor doesn’t think that Dancey loves her. He needs to show that he cares, or she won’t go for him.”
“Okay, and how do we do that?”
“That’s the hard part.” I thought a moment. “A romantic gesture is good—like reliving a special moment that they shared together, or if Dancey repeats something significant back to her that she said to him first—which we can’t help him do because we’re doing this without either of their knowledge.”
“Besides, it’s redundant and unoriginal.”
“It’s called being thoughtful,” I argued.
He readjusted himself in his seat. “What about the usual—turn down the lights, burn some candles, throw around rose petals?”
“This isn’t a wake.” I laughed at his provoked expression. “What if Dancey came in like some kind of white knight to save her … somehow?”
“So what do we do?” Austen asked. “Throw her out into the ocean and half drown her and then he has to nurse her back to health?”
“Let’s avoid killing her,” I said.
“We put someone she loves in danger—we throw her cat in a tree so Dancey can save it.”
I giggled a little at his sarcasm. “How about he saves her family from ruin?”
Austen grimaced. “No one can save them.”
“Okay, put a hold on the saving plan for now. We let Taylor see Bigley for what he is … and that Dancey loves her, and then find out who she goes for.”
“How?”
“There’s this lady with the paparazzi—her name is Jennings. Dancey and I agreed to let her take exclusive pics at Taylor’s wedding.”
“Why would you do that?”
I wriggled uncomfortably. “I don’t really want to talk about that right now.” His eyebrows went up, and I rushed hurriedly past that topic. “But the point is that we have the paparazzi on our side. They can get anywhere. She can follow Bigley and take pictures with him flirting with whomever he flirts with—the maid, the bartender, whatever, as long as it breathes. You have a bachelor party, right? You can do it there.”
“Getting pics at a bachelor party is low.”
“It’s all we’ve got.”
“You’re forgetting one thing,” Austen said. “Taylor knows who Bigley is; she forgives his drinking and everything already. You said so yourself—this isn’t about Bigley, this is about Dancey.”
“Then the paparazzi can discover Dancey loves Taylor.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, but I have a few ideas. I’ve got the lyrics to his latest song and a great meet-cute at the airport to work with … if I accidentally leaked that info to Jennings.”
“Jennings?”
“The reporter.”
“Ah yes, the mysterious reporter,” he muttered.
“And then we compromise them.”
He looked confused. “Besides spy movies, I’m unfamiliar with that phrase. Compromise them?”
“It’s from the Jane Austen era. Basically we put them into a romantic situation and as soon as they give in to their feelings then we catch them in the act and force them to marry. Well, they’d marry in Jane Austen’s time, but in our time … Jennings will get her exclusive pics. If Taylor is still willing to take Bigley after what he’s done, he won’t take her! What do you think? The pictures will be out there for the world to see. She will be thrown into Dancey’s arms.”
Austen was silent for a moment. “Have you been compromised?”
My lips tightened. “Not yet.”
He reached for my hand. “Remind me to fix that.”
That threw me off balance. Austen was turning into a romantic, which I liked … but it also confused me. He wasn’t the romantic type. “Jane.” His fingers trailed a pattern over my skin. “You realize that this is a horrible plan.”
“Can you think of something better?”
Austen sighed and turned, staring blindly into the lunch crowd. “Taylor would kill us if we did this. She’d slice and dice us and serve us up cold at her wedding breakfast. Besides,” he put his other hand over our entwined ones. “It’s not nice. How would you like it if someone sabotaged your wedding?”
Noticing Colin to the side of us, I shrugged. “Well, it all depends on who I was trying to marry.”
I watched DeBurgy lean over the counter. Colin was busy buying him drinks and getting ignored. “You know,” I said, “Colin can sing a song or two.” Austen looked confused. “We have our distraction,” I said as way of explanation.
Junie plunked two waters at our table and a plate of nachos. We hadn’t ordered them. I would’ve suspected a change of heart, except she looked unfocused; more than unfocused. Her lips trembled, and her face was all red.
“Junie?” Austen turned to her. “Are you all right?”
Junie’s eyes rested on him. “I’m fine.”
She rushed away, and my heart sank. She didn’t like that I was with Austen. He glanced over at me, and I knew he wanted permission to follow her. “She doesn’t look good,” I said. “You—you can go after her if you want.”
He smiled. “Jane, no matter what arch-rivalry you’ve got going with Junie, you’re a good friend to her.” He startled me with a quick kiss before heading after her.
Still feeling the pressure of his lips against mine, I watched Austen approach Junie, my emotions all over the place. He put his hand on her shoulder so that she turned to face him. After talking for a bit, she hung her head and broke down, covering her face with her hands. Austen hugged her. I wanted to believe that there was nothing between them, but the tender way that Austen held her made me suspicious. His hand smoothed her back. And Junie? Well, she clung to him like she’d never let him go.
I gulped, realizing that my own life wasn’t running as smoothly as I wanted. After too long, Austen broke away from her and headed back, his jaw set firmly. He didn’t sit across from me this time, just stood there at my table and glared at nothing. “I’m in.”
“You’re in?” He talked to Junie and just like that, he was going for my plan? He was fuming. My eyes searched her out in the crowd, and I saw that she had returned to polishing the counter, her eyes on the rag in her hand.
Austen gave a hard laugh. “You don’t want me to give an acceptance speech, do you? I’m in. Let’s go sabotage Taylor’s wedding.”
Chapter 24
“Well! Evil to some is always good to others.”
—Jane Austen, Emma
Pemburkley Hall hopped with music and laughter. Taylor’s bachelorette party was well underway. The glass wall partitions had been opened to give the party a more airy feel. It let in the night sky with its twinkling stars and fresh ocean breeze. Streamers sprayed over our heads like a big waterfall. Big tissue-wrapped poppies, twisted with the real wildflower, adorned the tables—so far Taylor hadn’t noticed that I’d put them out.
I was in shorts and a T-shirt, looking less-than-festive compared to the other female guests, who were dressed in leis with grass skirts and wraps over swimming suits. They carried drinks with little umbrellas propped merrily inside. The pool had been opened for the occasion. The hot tub bubbled beside it, ready to boil the next occupant lobster-red.
Taylor stood next to the refreshment table near the Bigley women, pointing out the little fish fillets and fried calamari. Her laughter was too for
ced, her smile too tight. Everything about her convinced me that we were doing the right thing. Austen had reported via text that Dancey had also arrived at the bachelor party at Churchell’s Shack across the way. Taylor planned for him to come to Pemburkley Hall in an hour to sing. Austen and I were going to make sure that we made it a private concert.
Picking up my phone, I texted Austen.
ME: TAYLOR IS BY HERSELF. CAN I MAKE MY MOVE?
Austen didn’t answer back right away. Two bites of ice cream and three pretzels later, my phone vibrated.
AUSTEN: NOT YET. THE TARGET HASN’T TAKEN THE BAIT.
That meant that Bigley wasn’t flirting with any of the waitresses at the party. Once he did, Jennings would be sure to get the appropriate photos. It was low, but we had to save Taylor from herself.
I popped a cashew into my mouth, chewing absently. Besides our mission to stop this wedding, I had a lot on my mind—mostly Austen. After talking to Junie, he had acted differently. Maybe I was imagining their deep connection, but did it matter? Austen was giving the resort away to Colin so he could leave us all behind. I could try to chase Austen across the country, but what if that wasn’t what he wanted?
Taylor played with the umbrella in her drink, dunking it and biting on the end of the toothpick. Her nails were bitten down to a jagged edge. The beautician would fix that tomorrow, put concealer under her eyes to cover the dark shadows, apply a little more color to her pale cheeks. If we didn’t help her, Taylor would be completely done up so that no one would see the pain beneath all her make-up.
I texted Austen one-handed.
ME: IF THE TARGET DOESN’T TAKE THE BAIT, I’LL GO PLAY BAIT. I’M SERIOUS!
This time my phone rang—apparently the threat meant a call to action. I answered it. “Austen?”
“Absolutely not.”
I smiled—at least he was protective. “It probably wouldn’t work anyway,” I said. “He knows me and he hasn’t tried anything yet. I’m not his type.”
“Bigley’s choosing to play the good guy at his own bachelor party.” Austen grunted out his annoyance. “It’s probably because, uh … the waitresses here are all over fifty.”
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