The Wedding Date Disaster

by Avery Flynn

  “Aren’t you just the sweet talker?” she said, unwinding herself from his light hold and ignoring the tingling sensation imprinted on her skin.

  “Only when it comes to you.” Will tucked a stray hair behind her ear, his fingertips gliding over the shell of her ear and then lightly down the side of her neck as if he were so far gone for her that he couldn’t help but touch her at every opportunity. “You just bring out the best in me.”

  “Oh, there’s nothing quite like young love,” Aunt Louise said with a grin.

  Then her aunt hurried off, which was good because there was no way Hadley could stop herself from nailing Will with a death stare. That whole cow-eyes look was not the plan. Plus, there was not to be any touching whatsoever.

  “What are you doing?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  “Thinking ahead. Web said you needed help taking a break from all the immersive family time, so if they think we’re so into each other that we can’t stand to be apart, then they’ll be even more likely to give you some space. Brilliant, right? It’s okay to admit it.”

  She would not, even if it were true. A woman had to have some pride, especially when it came to Will. Him hot for her? Ha. That would be the day.

  Every time she saw him, he shot snarky little comments at her that only she could hear, as if she wasn’t more than aware that he didn’t approve of her friendship with his brother. Well, he could go stuff it. The second she and Web had met in the world’s longest and slowest coffee line, they’d bonded over the superiority of warm chocolate croissants, the need for subtitles on any show where the cast had a Scottish accent, and the fact that if Bill Bryson and Mary Roach had nonfiction book babies, they would be the most interesting books ever written.

  Then she’d made the mistake of going to one of Web’s rugby games and discovered his brother, who was also on the team, was actually his twin and his twin was actually evil. Will had hated her on sight and wasn’t shy about letting her know—at least not when it was just the two of them. There were snarky comments, questions about her background, and disapproving looks whenever he spotted her. She had no idea when or how she’d peed in Will Holt’s cornflakes, but apparently she had, and he and his sexy wink, cute dimple, and too-smackable-for-his-own-good ass could go hump it.

  As if he knew what she was thinking and wanted to rub it in that she couldn’t do anything about it, Will took her hand in his and then lifted it so he could kiss the back of it. It wasn’t much, just a quick brush of his lips, but it made her breath catch all the same.

  Damn that man. It wasn’t fair.

  “Good Lord, you two, I feel like I could make fried bologna sandwiches just from the heat coming off you,” Aunt Louise said, peeking out of the screen door and fanning herself with her hand. “Some of us are having to deal with menopausal hot flashes. Come on inside—I need to get some sun tea to cool me off.”

  Once Aunt Louise had her back to them, Hadley yanked her hand from Will’s barely there grasp and shot him a dirty look. The jerk just winked at her and held open the screen door for her to walk through. As she passed by, she would have laid her hand on a stack of Bibles and sworn that it felt like walking outside right before a thunderstorm, when the whole world felt electric. She didn’t mean to look up at him at that moment, but she did anyway, and her heart sped up. She’d never, ever admit it out loud, but there was something about him that had that effect on her. No doubt he knew exactly what he was doing with the little touches, and he was probably going to continue to push her buttons the entire week.

  That was okay. She could take it.

  After all, it wasn’t like she was in any danger of falling for him. Will Holt was the most bullheaded, annoying, frustrating person she’d ever met, and no amount of hotness wrapped up in Wranglers was going to make her forget that.

  …

  He wasn’t flirting; he was a man with a plan—at least that’s what he kept telling himself as he flexed his still-buzzing fingers and followed Hadley inside. Maybe it was because he’d been distracted by watching her walk in front of him, but it wasn’t until he was standing in the middle of the open-concept living room that the full beauty of the house hit him.

  This was not the kind of ranch house he’d been expecting. Too much TV had planted the idea that it would look like a log cabin on steroids. Oh, there was plenty of wood and antlers on the walls, but it was the floor-to-ceiling windows at the back of the house that grabbed his attention. The outdoors looked bigger out here. The nearly flat green land with its gentle rolls seemed to go on forever, and the puffy white clouds that hung in the atmosphere almost looked painted on against the clear blue sky. As a guy who’d grown up with Harbor City’s Center Park as the biggest green space he’d ever seen in person, the view was awe-inspiring.

  Hadley stopped beside him, taking in the sight, a slight smile curling her pink lips. “A little bit different than the view from your penthouse, right?”

  “I could get used to this,” he said, imagining himself out on the range painting fences or tracking gophers or whatever it was that someone did on a ranch. “Might need to get a place out this way. I have the clothes for it now.”

  That pulled her attention from the view to him, which would have been more ego-boosting if it hadn’t resulted in her looking at him as if he were wearing a head-size belt buckle.

  “Please, you’d freak out as soon as you figured out you couldn’t get your favorite Chinese place to deliver.”

  “So I’d learn to love pizza delivery.” There. He could be a man who compromised.

  Hadley laughed so hard, she snorted. “Let me know when you make the call for an extra-large pepperoni. I want to be there to hear how hard they laugh when you give them the address.”

  Oh really? He was going to have to pull the rich-guy helicopter-food-delivery option out of his back pocket? Determined to prove her wrong about not being able to get pizza to the front door, he pulled out his phone. That’s when he spotted notification after notification rolling in now that they were within a cell phone service area again. As he scrolled his brother’s Instagram posts, realization dawned with a smack to his face. Web hadn’t just set him up for a long and miserable drive in the country.

  “Have you seen this yet?” he asked Hadley.

  “What?” She took a step closer, her hip brushing his leg, and peeked at his phone screen. “You don’t think he faked it?” She looked up at him, her pink lips parted and her eyes wide. “He wouldn’t.” She glanced back down at the photo of his didn’t-look-like-he’d-been-sick-for-even-a-minute brother. Her eyes narrowed. “I’m gonna kill him.”

  Shaking his head, Will grimaced. “You’ll need to get in line.”

  Then they stood there in a silent what-the-fuck moment, staring at the photo of a very healthy Web out on the family yacht with a handful of people in cowboy hats and bathing suits behind him. Web was obviously having the time of his life. The caption read: Celebrating the two people I love most in the world finally getting to spend some time together. That definitely calls for a little vitamin D! Yeehaw.

  She made a sound that bordered on a growl. “He faked having food poisoning.”

  “Looks like it.” Will might be the bad twin, but that didn’t mean Web didn’t get into plenty of shit himself.

  “But why?” she asked, looking up at him as if they were on the same side for once.

  The combination of her closeness and that nonhostile expression on her face was disconcerting. It made his fingers itch to reach out and run a thumb across the line of her jaw, tilt her face back, dip his head down, and— Whoa there, Holt. Remember who you’re looking at and why.

  Rubbing his palm across the back of his neck, he tried to steady his pulse. “Guess someone wants us to be friends.”

  Hadley snorted. “Not gonna happen.”

  “Finally,” he said, not meaning to but somehow dropping his ga
ze to her glossy pink lips. “Something we can agree on.”

  But that wasn’t the only thing they’d agreed on. A week ago, they’d agreed on that kiss, that stick-your-brain-in-a-wind-tunnel-and-let-it-get-blown-away-because-you-aren’t-using-it-and-you-don’t-care kiss. As if she were thinking about the same moment, Hadley lifted her fingertips to her mouth and let out a shaky breath.

  “Enough with the gadgets—come on into the kitchen,” Stephanie called from the area behind them.

  He and Hadley jolted apart, the air coming back into the room with a whoosh, and looked away from each other. After a few seconds, Hadley led him from the living room. Everyone had gathered around the huge kitchen island and was eating handfuls of a Chex cereal, peanut butter, and chocolate mixture that they called Puppy Chow. There was Hadley’s mom, her sister, several people introduced as cousins ranging in age from six months to late teens, and one older lady who’d spent a lot of time staring at his junk and then unashamedly giving him a wink when he caught her.

  Note to self: Do not dance at the wedding with the old lady. Possible package grabber alert.

  The radio was tuned to a country music station, but with so many people talking at once, he only caught a half a verse here or there. It was loud enough, however, that Hadley was moving along to the beat, her hip occasionally bumping up against his as they stood next to each other on one end of the island that separated the kitchen area from the living room.

  “Don’t be a chicken,” Hadley said, nudging toward him the bright-green bowl everyone was snacking from. “It’s made from only the best organic dog food.”

  She was giving him a hard time—he knew this because what was in the bowl looked like a giant vat of Muddy Buddies. Still, her cocky we’re-on-my-home-court stance had him second-guessing himself, something he never did.

  He dipped his hand into the bowl and scooped up a few pieces. “You’re giving me shit, aren’t you?”

  Hadley elbowed him in the side, shooting him a what-is-wrong-with-you look, at the same time her mom cleared her throat.

  “Language, young man,” Stephanie said, her tone cutting him not even an ounce of slack.

  He winced. Cursing in front of the family was definitely a mistake Web wouldn’t have made. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “Yeah, I’m Stephanie. There’s no reason for that ma’am stuff.” She rolled up the sleeves of her denim work shirt, never taking her eyes off him, as if he were the kind of person who needed to be kept track of at all times. “Now, Web—sorry, Will, we haven’t heard hardly anything about you except that you’re a fabulous dancer.”

  That was one of the talents he and his brother had in common. Their grandmother had insisted on lessons, which he’d hated then but got the most possible use out of now. Women loved a guy who knew how to move on the dance floor.

  “Mom,” Hadley said with a groan. “Don’t interrogate him; he just got here.”

  Stephanie grinned. “That seems like the perfect time. He’s tired out from the trip and vulnerable.”

  “Now I see where Hadley gets her instincts.” Will gave Hadley’s mom his best charming smile and it had absolutely no impact at all. Okay, then. Maybe it only worked on women from the city. Maybe that’s why Hadley had always blown him off. “I grew up in Harbor City, and I work in the family business.”

  Usually, this is when he dropped the Holt Enterprises name and people got dollar signs in their eyes. That didn’t seem right here. Not because of Hadley’s warning but because everyone here seemed genuinely nice. They weren’t looking at him like they were wondering how they could use him to their advantage. It was more like they were considering him. It was weird, and he kinda liked it.

  “What do you do for fun?” one of the cousins—Raider?—asked.

  “I play rugby.” When they gave him a look that all but screamed weirdo sport, he continued. “It’s like football, just take away the pads, change the rules completely, and swap out the ball.”

  “So how did you two meet?” Stephanie asked, obviously still sizing him up going by the friendly-but-not-really tone in her voice.

  “Yes,” Adalyn said with a happy sigh. “Tell us everything. I love these meet-cute stories.”

  Tension poured off Hadley in waves as she stood next to him, biting down on her bottom lip. He could understand why. He had all the power right now. One word from him and he could have her family believing that she met him at a nudist beach or at a vegan grocery. He was more than just a little tempted to do it just to mess with little Miss Perk and Perfect—but he’d promised Web.

  “I was in the coat check room at a party hosted by her company and in walked Hadley.” There. That was close to factual, and the plan was to stick to the truth as much as possible.

  Hadley’s eyes went wide and her foot came down on the toe of his right boot. “And that’s the end of the story.”

  Everyone in the kitchen looked from Hadley to him. The old lady who up until then couldn’t keep her attention off his junk was leaning forward in her chair as she popped one piece of Puppy Chow after another into her mouth. The pressure on his toes increased, though, and for as much fun as it would be to tell everyone about that kiss just to watch Hadley get all worked up, he couldn’t do it. The woman was going to know where he was sleeping for the next week, and he had no doubt she would use that information to her advantage by smothering him in his sleep. So he just shrugged and kept his mouth shut.

  The crowd let out a collective groan of disappointment.

  “You’re no fun,” Aunt Louise said, settling back in her chair, her disappointment obvious. “How can you say you don’t want to get serious with this one? I swear, I’ll never get you, Trigger.”

  Next to him, Hadley groaned.

  What was this? An embarrassing childhood nickname? Oh yes, he was going to have to find out more—just to get under her skin, of course.

  He turned to Hadley. “Trigger?”

  His pretend girlfriend shoved a handful of the surprisingly delicious Puppy Chow into her mouth, pointed to her puffed-out cheeks, and shrugged as if answering was beyond her abilities at the moment. Luckily, her mom wasn’t as hesitant to give up the goods.

  “When we first moved out to the ranch, the kids were all scared of the horses. So to try to help them get used to their new surroundings and the animals, Gabe and I gave the kids nicknames of famous horses to make them seem friendlier,” Stephanie said. “Hadley is Trigger. Adalyn is Buttermilk after Dale Evans’s horse. Knox is Goldie and Weston is Buckshot.”

  “So it’s not for your temper?” That really did seem to be the most likely possibility to him.

  “No.” Aunt Louise cackled. “But it could be.”

  Everyone had a good chuckle about that—including Hadley. Relaxing his guard, Will took another handful of the Puppy Chow, which really was amazingly good. All of Hadley’s relatives were talking over one another again, happy and at ease. It was so strange compared to what he was used to.

  After his and Web’s parents had died, their grandmother had raised them. She was not the chatty sort. When they’d come home for break while attending boarding school, she’d mainly stayed in her wing of the mansion that took up a huge chunk of a city block near Center Park. Other than Grandma, there were a few distant cousins, but that was it. He’d never sat around in the kitchen and shot the shit with his family ever and had no idea that he’d been missing all of this.

  Hadley was lucky, not that he could tell from looking at her. While everyone else was smiling and having fun, she was hanging back, her face carefully neutral. What the hell?

  “So yeah, we’ll be having game night, a bonfire, and Gabe’s been setting up a cowboy obstacle course,” Stephanie said, talking to Aunt Louise, her voice carrying over the din. “It’s going to be so much fun this week.”

  Now, if all of that didn’t sound like the perfect way to make her family f
all in love with him so he could win his bet with Hadley, then he didn’t run a company that controlled more cash than the GDP of a small country. The joy of a plan coming together flooding through him, he wrapped an arm around Hadley and pulled her close.

  “That sounds amazing,” he said. “We can’t wait to do all of it.”

  Hadley made a sound that reminded him a lot of a feral animal growling, but it was too late. Her mom was beaming at both of them as if Christmas had come early.

  “Oh, that’s wonderful! Usually we have to guilt Hadley into participating. This is going to be a blast. Now, you guys must be tired,” Stephanie said. “Let me take you where you’re staying, and you can clean up and maybe take a nap.” She led them out the back door. “We have the grandparents and older relatives staying in the main house, so you guys are in one of the outbuildings that Knox has been renovating.”

  Will followed along in silence, but the gleeful look Hadley sent him over her shoulder at her mom’s words didn’t reassure him. If he ended up spending a week sleeping on a bunch of hay, he really was going to train his grandmother’s dog to trip Web every time he walked by.

  Again, the reality of the ranch didn’t fit with what he’d imagined. He figured the barn or workshop or whatever would be steps away from the house. It wasn’t.

  Instead, once they cleared the trees along every side of the house except for the one with the huge windows, they walked out into a big expanse of open space. A ways off, there was a barn, another huge building with doors big enough to drive a city bus through and park it inside, and then a bit farther off from that were three small cabins, all but one of which looked like they were minutes away from being blown over by the wind.