The Wedding Date Disaster

by Avery Flynn

  “Wait. What?” She sat up, her jaw hanging so far open, she coulda caught flies. Who in the hell was he to tell her that? She was the one who was going to tell him that! “You don’t want a repeat?”

  He reached over and plucked that black cowboy hat of his off the dresser but didn’t put it on. “I mean, we can both agree that getting naked together isn’t in either of our best interests.”

  “What interests are those?” she asked, trying not to get distracted by watching his long fingers on the soft brim of his hat and remembering where they’d been last night.

  One of his brows shot up. “Are you saying you want to have sex again?”

  Damn it. That’s what she got for getting distracted.

  “No,” she said, her voice sharp.

  “Good. Glad that’s all cleared up,” he said, looking back down at his hat before glancing back at her and giving her a wink. “Now I’m going to go grab some breakfast. That bacon smells so good, my stomach started growling in the shower.”

  Without even looking her way, he strutted out of the room, cowboy hat dangling in his grasp.

  What in the hell had just happened? Hadley flopped back, swiped Will’s pillow from the bed, held it to her face, and let loose with a prolonged and frustrated groan. How had he turned this into her wanting to have sex with him again?

  She didn’t.

  She wouldn’t.

  It was beyond inconceivable no matter how many very vivid, very specific bad ideas she might be having right about now.

  …

  An hour later, Will was back to clutching a preemptive can of ginger ale and staring at the rental car as if it were an acid-drenched carnival ride from hell. Hadley didn’t even look his way before she got in on the driver’s side.

  Great.

  Perfect.

  Everything was going exactly to plan—if his plan had been to forget everything he knew about Hadley’s objective to fleece his brother and instead to fuck her like a man who hadn’t been thinking about anyone except her for the past year—which he had but that wasn’t the point. He’d been thinking strategically, not with his dick. At least he had been up until last night. And now?

  He couldn’t glance her way without wanting to do it again, which was not the reason why he was out in the Middle of Nowhere, Nebraska, about to get into a car for another long-ass ride to a different part of the Middle of Nowhere, Nebraska. The state never fucking ended. It was just one flat, straight highway that continued indefinitely. It was hell.

  “Are you sure you don’t want the front?” Will asked PawPaw as he opened the front passenger door.

  Delay? Him? Absolutely. If giving up the front seat gave him an extra two seconds outside of the car, he’d consider it a win.

  “Why, so I’ll be in the splash zone when you blow chunks while sitting in the back?” PawPaw shook his head. “No, thank you.”

  What sounded like a giggle disguised as a cough came from inside the car, but by the time he sat down, Hadley’s lips were compressed into a straight line and she only had eyes for the road ahead.

  “Let’s do this,” she said.

  The engine roared—okay, as much as a rental could—and they were off. He popped the ginger ale before they’d even pulled out of the Sandhills Senior Living parking lot.

  “So,” PawPaw said a few miles later. “What was your first impression of our Hadley?”

  Hadley let out a groan of embarrassment. “PawPaw.”

  “What? A grandfather has a right to know what is going on in his grandkids’ lives and who they’ve let into theirs.”

  “It’s not fair to put Will on the spot like that.”

  PawPaw snorted. “Like I give two pink figs about anything beyond saying what’s on my mind. You never have to guess what I’m thinking.”

  Will pivoted in his seat, taking a look at Hadley and her grandfather. The two obviously shared more than just a pointy chin and the same big eyes. “Seems to be a family tradition, because that is exactly what it was like when I met Hadley.”

  The old man rubbed his hands together with glee and leaned forward. “Do tell.”

  “She came to my standing weekend rugby match.”

  He’d just come off the pitch when he’d spotted her. The wind was whipping her long brown hair around and she’d wrapped her arms around her waist against the cold. She’d been watching the play but had turned and looked at him, and it was like finding out a secret. She’d waved and he’d nearly walked right into his brother, and that’s when he realized Hadley was waving at his brother and not him.

  “I was there to cheer on your brother,” she said, one hand on the wheel and the other twisting a strand of hair around her finger. “He’s one of my best friends.”

  Yeah. Friends. That’s what she liked to call it. He knew better. The way she looked at Web, so cautious and careful when he wasn’t looking and then morphing into Miss Perfectly Perky when he was, had told Will everything he’d needed to know. Always be on the lookout for false faces, that’s what he’d learned from Mia. Of course, he hadn’t noticed that at first. All he’d seen was the first woman who’d made him look twice since he’d almost lost half his trust fund and controlling interest in Holt Enterprises to Mia.

  “So she’s there,” he went on, working to keep the bitter edge out of his voice. “It’s one of those fall days when it’s in the seventies one moment and then high fifties the next. I offered her my coat.”

  Hadley let loose with a loud bark of laughter. “You told me everyone knew to dress in layers that time of year, and then you shoved your coat at me before you even knew my name.”

  Okay, he might have said something along those lines—he’d probably said something along those lines—but it didn’t change the fact that he was right and though he’d had a perfectly good coat, she’d looked at him like he was holding a tennis ball that had been thoroughly dog slobbered all over.

  He kept going without addressing her comment. “She tells me she doesn’t want my jacket even though she has her arms wrapped around herself and her teeth are chattering despite all the coffee she was drinking from this leaky thermos that dribbled every time she took a sip.”

  “I wasn’t that cold and my teeth weren’t chattering. I’ve used a blow dryer to open a car door that was frozen shut before; I know what cold is,” she said with a soft chuckle. “Anyway, I was wearing an old long-sleeve T-shirt, so it didn’t matter if I dripped on it.”

  “Then my brother comes by and gives her his ancient hoodie covered in stains and she puts it right on.”

  Really, their grandmother’s Pomeranian would have turned up its spoiled nose at the grimy sweatshirt, but not Hadley. She’d smiled up at Web and put it on with a thank-you. That’s when Will had realized something had to be up.

  “I used his sweatshirt because if I spilled on that, it wouldn’t matter, unlike your coat that probably cost as much as my rent,” Hadley said.

  It would have been better for Will if she hadn’t been right about the cost of his coat. He hadn’t thought about it that way before. If he had, he probably would have given her the benefit of the doubt instead of that moment being the trigger for his suspicions. Web had always been adamant that they were just friends, but things changed, and Will had come across his distrust of people’s motives honestly.

  “And you started dating after that?” PawPaw asked.

  It took all Will had not to scoff out loud. More like at that point, they started facing off against each other every time they met. He couldn’t say anything that wouldn’t set her off and she couldn’t seem to do anything that didn’t seem suspicious, from suddenly starting to show up at what had been brothers-only brunch to offering unsolicited advice about how the Holt Foundation should be operating, she seemed to have her nose in everything—just like Mia had.

  Hadley cleared her throat. “Around th
en.”

  PawPaw looked at them skeptically. “Well, since Hadley’s never brought a man around before, I guess it must be serious. Maybe you’re even getting ready to announce you’re getting married.”

  Hadley gasped, and the car swerved over the yellow line before she righted it. “Us? Married?”

  “What?” PawPaw shrugged. “It’s a logical assumption. I mean, the only other one is that the whole thing is a giant head fake and you two aren’t dating at all.”

  Will froze, that oh-shit buzzing sensation of a negotiation about to go pear-shaped making his ears vibrate. He glanced over at Hadley. Her face was perfectly neutral as she drove eighty, going past the cornfields on either side of the highway, but she was white-knuckling the steering wheel.

  “Why don’t you think we’re dating?” Will asked.

  “Because I wasn’t born yesterday.” PawPaw snorted and rolled his eyes. “Are you telling me the others all think that you two are actually dating?”

  Testing the water of were-they-really-in-trouble-or-was-the-old-man-fishing, Will turned on his you-can-trust-me grin. “What makes you think we aren’t?”’

  “Are you telling me that the instincts and experience my eight decades on God’s green earth are wrong?” PawPaw asked. “Or the fact that you two can barely look at each other unless the other one is looking somewhere else isn’t a dead giveaway? There are sparks as big as those wind turbines Gabe allowed to go up on the western edge of the ranch, I’ll give you that, but you two are too naive to notice them, I’d guess.”

  Hadley’s shoulders slumped as she let out a long sigh. “You can’t tell anyone else.”

  PawPaw let out a triumphant holler. “I knew it. I’ll keep my trap shut, but on one condition,” PawPaw said. “You’re both on my team for game night.”

  What the— “Game night?” Will asked.

  “It’s a family tradition, a sort of a game Ironman. Rummy. Monopoly. Scrabble,” Hadley said, sounding every bit as if someone had run over her three-legged swift fox.

  Okay, he was obviously missing something. “What’s so bad about being on PawPaw’s team?”

  “Who said there was?” the older man asked with an indignant huff, but he didn’t make eye contact.

  Yep, something was definitely going on here.

  “PawPaw,” Hadley said in that über-patient tone people used with toddlers who refused to grasp the realities of logic. “I love you, but you know no one wants to be on your team. You take it all a little too seriously.”

  “What is the point of playing a game if you’re not doing what it takes to win?” PawPaw asked.

  Will couldn’t argue with the old man.

  “You end up mad at whoever is on your team.” She glanced at her grandfather in the rearview mirror and held up her hand to stop him before he could interrupt. “And before you fib and say ‘not me,’ I want to remind you of that game night four Christmases ago when I refused to turn my hat inside out like a rally cap when we were down to our last five hundred dollars and rolling to get past Park Place. You retaliated by putting coal in my stocking.”

  The older man sank down in his seat. “You can’t prove that was me.”

  Hadley let out a little chuckle. “PawPaw.”

  “Fine, it was me, but that doesn’t change anything.” His gaze bounced from Will to Hadley. “If you want my silence, you’re on my team.”

  There weren’t a lot of times when Will had ever felt like he was in over his head or that he couldn’t read the room’s undercurrent. At this moment, though? Yeah, there was obviously family history here, and the game night must have some really high stakes. Hadley’s beseeching gaze slid over his way. He shrugged.

  She let out a sigh. “We’ll be on your team.”

  “Excellent.” PawPaw’s smile was wide enough to cross both lanes of the highway. “Did I ever tell you about the time I danced with Dolly Parton while I was dressed up as Dolly Parton?”

  And that was how the rest of the drive went, with PawPaw telling one farfetched story after another until they were on the gravel path leading to Hidden Creek Ranch and then pulling into the drive in front of the main house.

  “Before we get out, are you sure you don’t want to just come clean?” PawPaw asked, leaning up close to the front seat, his voice low, as if the people inside the house might hear him. “You could tell them things didn’t work out, and no one would say a word.”

  “Yeah, that’ll be the day when this family doesn’t have an opinion to offer. We’re not a couple. We never will be a couple, but Mom doesn’t need to know that,” Hadley said a little too fast for Will’s ego.

  PawPaw muttered something that sounded a lot like “young fools” but didn’t press it further. Will had just gotten out and Hadley had crossed the front of the rental to join them on the way to the house when Adalyn came hustling out of the house and down the stairs, her smile huge but tight at the corners.

  She stopped in front of Hadley. “Try to remember all the reasons you love Mom.”

  Neither of them got a chance to ask why, because that’s when Stephanie walked out onto the porch.

  “There you are!” Stephanie said, shooting an apologetic glance at Hadley. “Look who stopped by out of the blue.”

  Right on cue, a man who looked like a smug version of the Marlboro Man if he Juuled followed her through the front door.

  “Matt?” Hadley asked.

  The man strutted down the stairs and across the gravel, ignoring PawPaw, Adalyn, and the fact that somehow in the middle of all this Will had started holding Hadley’s hand. When had that happened? He had no fucking clue, but he wasn’t letting go now.

  “Hey, Hads.” Matt leaned down and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “You know I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to come by and say hi.” He turned to Will, holding out his hand. “Don’t suppose you’re the Web everyone keeps telling me about. Hads and I used to date eons ago. Nothing to worry about at all.”

  “I’m sure there’s not,” he said, dropping Hadley’s hand to shake the man’s offered one. “My friends call me Will.”

  “Good to know,” Matt said and squeezed his grip before letting go. “Web.”

  Grinding his molars to dust, Will watched as Matt slung an arm around Hadley’s shoulders and walked with her back to the house. This was a good thing. A very good thing. Really. And if he said it enough, he’d start to believe it.

  He fisted his hand and hung back by the rental, going through all the ways that the appearance of her ex-boyfriend would be good, as if that would make his gut twist less. The biggest being that if she went for the guy, then Will wouldn’t need to worry about exposing Hadley’s gold-digging ways to save Web. Hadley would be off his radar and not his responsibility. He started toward the house, pulverizing the gravel under his boots with every stomping step. What the hell did he care if she ended up ripping a hole into Matt the Asshat’s bottom line? That would be all the better.

  If that’s the case, then why do I want nothing more than to punch his lights out?

  At the front door, PawPaw looked back at him and shook his head. “Well, this should get interesting.”

  Why did Will suddenly feel like he’d chewed glass the whole trip, and that was going to be the best part of his day?

  Chapter Twelve

  Once inside, Hadley made a beeline for the kitchen while everyone headed out back for a game of horseshoes.

  She found her mom peeking into the oven to check the two pans of Frito pie baking. Hadley almost forgot why she was there when the smell of melted cheese, seasoned ground beef, corn chips, enchilada sauce, and beans hit her. This was heaven in food form. Damn, that wasn’t fair. Her mom had definitely planned her move well. It was hard to concentrate on being annoyed that her ex had finagled his way inside with her favorite comfort food in the oven. She took a deep inhale, closed her eyes, and
could almost taste the salty crunch of the chips.

  Rubbing her now rumbly stomach, Hadley sat down on one of the barstools at the island. “Is that Aunt Louise’s recipe?”

  “You know it is.” Her mom tossed the flour sack tea towel over one shoulder and moved to the celery sticks by the sink.

  “With the secret ingredient?” The one her great-aunt had lorded over everyone at every family gathering where food was involved since the dawn of time.

  Stephanie nodded. “Yep.”

  This was epic. They were finally in possession of the only family secret any of them had ever managed to keep for longer than a week. “If you share what it is, I’ll forget all about Matt being here.”

  Stephanie snorted in amusement and handed the rinsed celery to Hadley. “Good luck with that.”

  “Mom,” she said as she started to chop the ends off the celery. “What were you thinking? Why didn’t you kick him out?”

  Stephanie didn’t look even the least little bit embarrassed. “Honestly, I tried to get him moving, but he came all the way out to personally deliver the mason jars your sister said had to be a part of the wedding decorations. It’s not like I invited him.”

  “Mom, you know I’m not interested in Matt.”

  “No one said you should be,” her mom said. “Although who would object to Matt is a mystery to me. He’s the kind of man who stays close to home, talks to his family on a regular basis, and isn’t embarrassed by where he came from.”

  “I’m not embarrassed about where I’m from.” She wasn’t. It’s just that she wanted to live in a place where everyone didn’t know absolutely everything about her from the time she was born.

  Stephanie looked up from the mixture of peanut butter and honey she was spooning into the celery sticks and raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you?

  How many times had they had this conversation? At least a million since she had left for college. It never changed. Her mom just kept repeating the same lines, praising the virtues of small-town life over and over again, never understanding that despite all the open space, being out here crowded her in. In Harbor City, she had the freedom granted by anonymity and the opportunity to try new things or meet new people. Out here, it was the same faces, the same scenery, the same old same old every day until you died. Arguing about it would never change that, so what was the point of fighting about it?