Abby, Get Your Groom!

by Victoria Pade

  Abby smiled at that, too. “Did she not like your family?” she asked as if that were unthinkable. Because to her, it was—since they’d all been so nice to both her and China. But maybe she and China were wrong.

  “Honest to God, I don’t have any explanation for it. Lara seemed to like them fine. She and my sisters and Jani knew each other before Lara and I hooked up. They weren’t best friends, but they were all friendly whenever their paths crossed. You’ve met us, you’ve been to Sunday dinner—nothing was any different with Lara than it’s been with you, so...” He shrugged. “I thought it was okay.”

  Their meals arrived and he stopped talking while the server was there. He started again when the server had left.

  “But it seemed like Lara just had to stir things up,” he went on without prompting.

  “How?”

  “Nasty little girl stuff—that’s what GiGi called it. Lara did a lot of going between people, confiding that they weren’t really liked, that someone had said something rotten about them—that kind of stupid, just mean stuff that made trouble and hurt feelings.”

  “So it wasn’t you who was the family troublemaker, but in this case, you introduced someone into the mix who was.”

  “Bingo!”

  “And you didn’t know what she was doing?”

  “I didn’t. I didn’t have a clue that she was riling everybody up. I knew she was kind of a gossip but I didn’t know that it went far beyond that. I did notice that all of a sudden there was something weird going on in the ranks—”

  “Like what?” Abby asked, not understanding.

  “I’d really see it at Sunday dinner. One of my brothers and his wife or girlfriend would be avoiding another one of my brothers and his wife or girlfriend. Or one of my sisters would be really cold to one of the other girls. But I didn’t think much of it—I guess I was kind of oblivious. Then Lara started with me—”

  “Nasty little girl stuff?”

  “More like poor-me stuff. She’d show up at my place after shopping or whatever with the girls and claim one of them had said something to her that had hurt her feelings or that had been really bitchy. And it wasn’t only the girls. She claimed that Dane had made a comment about her being fat. She said that Derek snubbed her. She said that Lang had screamed at her for giving Carter a treat—”

  “And they hadn’t?”

  “I was never there when it supposedly happened. But I hadn’t ever seen anything like that go on, and it didn’t sound like my family so I thought she was being oversensitive. I tried to tell her that I was sure—and I was—that no one could have meant anything because it just isn’t how we are.”

  “That didn’t appease her, though,” Abby said with some authority.

  “Oh, no. That just seemed to make it worse. Then she pulled out all the stops to show me they didn’t like her. Which, to be honest, by then they didn’t because she’d apparently been making problems with everybody for a while—telling Vonni that Jani had said something vicious about her, claiming to Gia that Lindie couldn’t stand her, pretending she was doing Heddy a favor by letting her know that everybody was sick to death of her cheesecakes—”

  “Ohhh, but she makes the best cheesecake,” Abby protested because she’d tasted one of them at the Sunday dinner.

  “I know. And we all love them, we’re always thrilled when she brings one around, so it wasn’t true. But that’s the kind of below-the-belt stuff Lara was doing while pretending to be nice.”

  “And they were all getting upset and mad but not saying anything to you.”

  “Right. But they did start giving Lara a wider berth, understandably—”

  “Which meant there were real slights to upset her.”

  He nodded. “And then there was a lot of she said this to me, or she snubbed me that was for real from Lara and she wanted me to defend her. To force my family to be nicer to her—that’s what she said. I didn’t want to make waves but...hell, I didn’t know what to do. Like I told you, I’ve always been the protective type when it comes to the people who are important to me. By this point, Lara and I were engaged. I was planning to spend the rest of my life with her. And when it went on and on and she was coming to me more and more hysterical and mad and wounded...”

  “You had to rescue her.”

  He sighed and took a drink of wine. “I cared about her and I thought I knew her. I couldn’t imagine why she would say these things if they hadn’t happened, couldn’t figure out why my family was being so rotten to her...”

  “So you stepped up to fight her battles.”

  “In the beginning, I tried to be diplomatic while also saying that it really wasn’t cool to tell my fiancée that she was fat, or could they try a little harder to be nice to her. You know, that kind of thing. Then Lara made a really big to-do with Cade’s wife—I don’t know if you have the roster straight, but Cade’s wife, Nati, is also my grandmother’s husband Jonah’s granddaughter—”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, Lara had been spreading rumors that Nati was cheating on Cade and it got back to Nati.”

  “Who wasn’t cheating?”

  “Not by a long shot. Anyway, there was a big blowup one Sunday after dinner, when it was only the family left. Everyone had had it with all this going on by then. Jonah and Cade both got mad on Nati’s behalf, pretty much the whole family was anti-Lara and it showed. I had Lara hanging onto me like an abused kid, begging me to stand by her—”

  “Which you felt obligated to do since you were engaged to her.”

  “Right. So I did, saying that I was sure there was some mistake, that Lara hadn’t done anything wrong. No one was buying that and then GiGi blew a gasket and told me what had been going on that I didn’t know about—including that Lara had told GiGi that I felt as if GiGi had neglected me when I was a kid.” He sighed again, shook his head and both of his eyebrows arched high. “Wow, I just never thought one woman could make so much of a mess...”

  Abby nodded knowingly, but just for her own sake, to make sure her impression of his family was correct, she asked, “You were sure it was her and not your family?”

  “I got sure. First of all, I’d never said—or felt—as if GiGi neglected me. She didn’t, plain and simple, so there was nothing I’d ever said that could possibly have led Lara to think that—it was a flat-out lie. Then I talked to everybody else and, believe me, there was a lot of steam ready to be blown off by then. But what my family was finally saying made more sense than what Lara had been telling me. Sure, it was all ‘he said, she said,’ but what it came down to was what I knew of them all, so I made my own call and no, I didn’t come away with any doubt that Lara was to blame. It wasn’t a misunderstanding. She’d done it all deliberately. She was just a train wreck...”

  Once again he shook his head, his expression relaying his disbelief even now.

  “I still couldn’t tell you why, what was behind any of it, but whatever it was, by the time I’d figured it out and heard everybody’s story, I’d already done a lot of taking Lara’s side—against my family—and they were just about as disgusted with me as they were with her. They hated the idea that I hadn’t just known that they wouldn’t have ever done what she accused them of. It ended up seeming like I’d turned on them, I guess.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s why you think they like me better than you right now?”

  He laughed and she was once more happy to see his mood could be lightened. “Pretty much. Then I had to get away to keep her from coming at me, so I left for Europe before I’d been able to make things up to everyone, and that’s what I came home to—a lot of anger and resentment that I’m trying to wade through to repair my relationships with everyone.”

  Abby merely raised a knowing chin as their waiter came to remove their plates and
ask if they wanted dessert. They didn’t, so Dylan paid the check and they left to walk back to her apartment in the cool evening air.

  When they got there it just seemed as if there wasn’t a question about Dylan coming in, so Abby unlocked her door and led the way, closing it after them and offering him post-dinner coffee.

  “No, thanks, I’m good.” He declined the drink as they both went to sit on her sofa—Dylan nearly collapsing there with one arm along the top of the back cushions as if he was spent.

  “Anyway,” he repeated. “Lindie and I could hear what was going on out front today and I want you to know that I appreciate that you didn’t give us away, or buy in to any of what Lara was slinging or encourage her to sling more when that was what she was looking for an opening to do.”

  “You’re welcome. But I wouldn’t have done any of that regardless. I learned through experience when I was just a kid to make up my own mind about people. I’ve met your family and I like them. What she was saying didn’t ring true.”

  “And I’m guessing there are a few bridezillas you deal with now, too, that aren’t unlike Lara,” he said, as if he was relieved to veer from the subject of the calamity caused by his relationship.

  She smiled. “A few bridezillas, yes. And now and then a bride who seems like she’s getting married for revenge because all she can talk about is the ex who’s going to be sorry and how awful he was. Or his mother or his sister. Those brides tend to be repeat customers.”

  He laughed. “I’m guessing they’re repeat brides.”

  “And then it was Mr. Right One who turned out to be evil and awful—or his family—”

  “And the next time it’s Mr. Right Two who’s the bad guy,” Dylan added, laughing again.

  “Some people have a pattern,” Abby confirmed.

  He reached to brush her hair away from the shoulder of the sleeveless turtleneck top she was wearing. In the process his hand barely brushed her bare skin, but it was enough to send little sparkles of pleasure through her that she tried to ignore.

  “All I know,” he said with a tenderness aimed at her, “is that it was really me who dodged a bullet with Lara. Thank God everything came to light before we actually got married.”

  “Sure. But it still must have hurt. You didn’t get to the point of proposing because you didn’t love her, so it couldn’t have been easy or painless to break it off.”

  “No, it wasn’t. But I’m a big boy. I can handle what I have to handle.”

  And why was she thinking that she’d like him to be handling her right at that minute, only in a far more literal way?

  She nudged at those thoughts to get rid of them, but sitting there the way they were, looking into his handsome face in the heavy shadows of the sunset coming in through her windows, she just couldn’t do it. Any more than she could make herself get up and switch on the lights to interrupt the mood that was turning quiet and intimate and oh, so nice...

  Dylan was looking into her eyes with those beautiful blue ones of his and smiling a small smile that seemed full of a kind of admiration she wasn’t accustomed to seeing. A kind that warmed her from the inside out.

  He drew a deep breath and sighed as if he was releasing a lot of pent-up tension. “No matter what went into it, today I was grateful to you for being the wall between my family and the garbage Lara likes to throw around. I just wish I could’ve come out to deal with Lara on my own. But if I’d come out, it would’ve given away that Lindie was there and opened the door for Lara to make one of her scenes.”

  “It was no big deal,” Abby assured.

  “It was a big deal to me. And to poor Lindie—she was ready to run out the back door and hide in the van in case Lara stormed through the place to find us. I think she was worried Lara would yank those pieces of foil off her head and take her hair with it. Then she realized you were taking care of things and she didn’t have to worry.”

  Somewhere in the middle of that his hand slipped underneath her hair to the nape of her neck where he was giving her the most wonderful massage. So wonderful that she was thinking more about his touch and how much she liked it than about what he was saying.

  Then he leaned forward at the same time he used that hand to pull her toward him and kissed her. A kiss unlike any that had come before it.

  There was no good-night in this one. Instead, it was slow and alluring, weaving a spell that invited her in and asked her to stay awhile. And despite the fact that she kept swearing to herself that she wasn’t going to do this again, she just wanted to so much she couldn’t turn down that invitation.

  She moved in slightly more, all on her own, and even pressed a hand to his chest.

  That chest she’d had fantasies about being up against.

  And, oh, what a nice chest it was! Rock solid and strong.

  His other arm came around her as his lips parted over hers, pulling her even closer and settling in to that kiss that by all indications was the beginning of a make-out session.

  Abby couldn’t muster any resistance to that, either, and let her other arm snake under his so she could reach around to his back, also big and broad and all man under the palm that memorized every contour of massive muscle and tendon.

  Lips parted even more and his tongue came testing the waters.

  It was Abby’s turn to send an invitation and she did, meeting his tongue with the tip of her own, fencing with him, parrying every thrust playfully.

  And play they did. With kisses that intensified and mouths that opened wide and tongues that held nothing back as time flew by. No matter how much kissing they did, it still didn’t seem like enough, and every minute only whetted Abby’s appetite for more.

  For his hands doing things other than cradling her head or brushing her cheek or tracing the column of her neck or cupping her shoulder.

  For his clothes to disappear so she could know the texture of the skin of his back, his chest, his whole body.

  For her own clothes to disappear so she could be up against him, flesh to flesh, his hand the only thing to come between them as he found her naked breasts...

  But it was that thought, that yearning as darkness filled her apartment and they were more sprawled on her sofa than sitting on it, that finally gave her pause.

  Clothes could not come off! a small voice in the back of her mind shouted at her.

  Hands could not go wandering any farther than the not-intimate places they already had.

  And this kissing had to stop or both of those things were going to happen.

  Reluctantly she pushed against that very, very fine chest of his and whispered, “Air!” as if she needed to come up for that.

  He kissed her again, anyway, long and lingering and oh, so sexy, but then he stopped and just held her nestled against him, her cheek to his chest, his head resting on top of hers.

  “That improved this rotten day,” he said in a quiet, raspy voice.

  She’d gotten to spend the afternoon looking at his reflection in her station mirror, then have dinner with him, and now this—she didn’t consider it to have been a rotten day at all. Even factoring in the tantrum of his former fiancée. So she didn’t say anything. She merely let herself remain a few minutes longer in his arms, drinking in the scent of his cologne and the heat he gave off.

  But she was so comfortable she was afraid that if she didn’t send him on his way soon she never would, so she said, “It’s late.”

  “I know,” he answered, as if he knew everything that was going through her mind. And agreed with it, but wasn’t any more eager than she was to put this night behind them.

  But eventually it was Dylan who found the will, because he held her so tight she really could hardly breathe for a split second and then he took her by the shoulders and sat her up and away from him as he sat straighter himself.

  “Big
day tomorrow,” he said as he stood. “Rehearsal dinner tomorrow night. You and your team have the first lap and then I’ll be at GiGi’s house to take you with me.”

  There was something that almost sounded possessive in the way he said that. And why that gave her a flush of pleasure she didn’t know. But it did.

  She tried to ignore it and stood, too, going with him to her door and opening it, hoping that the exposure would keep her from doing what she was most inclined to do—just drag him back to her sofa for more kissing.

  And more than kissing...

  “Thanks for dinner,” she said.

  “Thanks for everything else,” he countered, not touching her but leaning over to kiss her again—a deep, lingering kiss that made her feel as if she somehow belonged lip-locked with him.

  Then he straightened once more, studied her face for a moment as if he needed that one last look at her, and said, “Sleep tight.”

  “You, too,” she responded, as if there was no doubt that would follow.

  But it wasn’t likely.

  Because she already knew that after an evening with him, closing her eyes would only bring her back to the feel of being in his arms, back to each and every detail of kissing him, to so many other things she wanted to do with him.

  And sleep only took her away from the memories and the fantasies that went even further.

  The memories and fantasies that she didn’t want sleep to rob her of...

  Chapter Eight

  Abby and China and the rest of the special occasions team spent Friday afternoon doing Camden hair, makeup and nails for the rehearsal and dinner. During the course of that they were invited to attend the wedding and reception the next day.

  The Camdens proposed that after the prewedding preparations, the team could get ready themselves while pictures were being taken. To help make it work for them, the Camdens were providing a limousine that would pick them all up, bring them to the family home to do their jobs, then transport them to the church, to the country club reception and take them home afterward.