The Stand-in Groom

by Lori Wilde

  He was exaggerating Marsh’s penchant for litigation, but at least she seemed to be giving his proposition serious thought.

  Nick planted one heavy work boot on the stack of lumber and leaned close.

  “Why can’t men and women be friends, especially after what we went through together?”

  “Friendship doesn’t mean there’s anything else between us,” she said thoughtfully.

  “I think we’re already friends.” He smiled, not quite believing how important another man’s fiancée was to him.

  “You’re right. We should be friends after what we went through.”

  She offered her slender hand, and he took it, not even thinking about the oil from the saw.

  “Sorry,” he said when she pulled her hand away with a greasy black smear on the palm. “Here, wipe it on my jeans. Nothing can hurt them.”

  He took her hand and rubbed it on the denim covering his thigh. Bad idea. Her hand came clean at no small cost to him.

  He turned his back hoping she wouldn’t notice he was hot-wired and breathing hard. Part of him was elated, but being just friends would only work if they kept a mountain range between them.

  “Guess I’d better go, friend,” she said.

  “I’ll walk you to your car. Friends do that.”

  Friends could not hold hands, however, and they walked to her vehicle with two feet between them.

  Once she was inside, he automatically checked to make sure her doors were locked.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said through her open window. “Silly for us not to be friends.”

  If he used that word one more time, he’d choke.

  “You’re a very nice person.” She smiled with enough heat to melt glass.

  “Yeah, I’m a prince,” he said sourly as he watched her drive away.

  No one tailed her, but he wouldn’t feel easy until Percy and Harold were behind bars. He didn’t for a minute doubt they’d point the finger at the brains behind the kidnapping, but how did a pair of bunglers like them avoid the police this long? Was it possible they’d never been in trouble with the law before?

  The kidnapping had been a fiasco, but why grab Stacy? Sure, she was going to marry a wealthy man, but he couldn’t see Percy reading the leisure section of the newspaper looking for brides-to-be with kidnapping potential. Their whole plan had been sloppy and purposeless.

  He waved at Zack who was driving away in his pickup. Nick needed to talk this out with someone, and Cole was alone in the trailer.

  “Pretty girl,” Cole said when Nick walked in. “Isn’t she the one who was kidnapped with you?”

  The older of the fraternal twins by a few minutes, Cole got the best deal on looks. Once he’d been up to his ears in women, but he’d taken to marriage and fatherhood like a fish to water. Nick couldn’t imagine being tied down the way both his brothers were now, but he did wonder what Cole thought about Stacy.

  “Yeah, she’s also the one who’s going to marry Jonathan Mercer.”

  “We met him when you were missing, unfortunately.”

  “He’s a colossal jerk.”

  “But he’s not your problem, is he?”

  Cole gave him a big-brother look, and Nick changed his mind about a heart-to-heart. What could he say? He didn’t want to admit, even to himself, that he couldn’t stop thinking about someone else’s fiancée. Anyway, he already knew what Cole’s advice would be: Forget her.

  Now that they were friends, he wondered if Stacy’s and his paths would ever cross.

  By the end of the week, he knew he had to see Stacy again even if she told him to get lost. He couldn’t get her out of his mind and didn’t know what to do about it. If Mercer was right for her, why all the snap, crackle, and sizzle when Nick was with her?

  He didn’t trust Mercer to keep her safe, either. Was Nick the only one who thought there was something fishy about a couple of unarmed clowns dragging her off to a fishing shack that didn’t exist on the tax rolls? According to a police buddy, whoever owned it had been a squatter on land the state owned.

  Even if Stacy wasn’t in danger anymore, he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Too bad they didn’t live in a place like Cairo where he could accidentally bump into her until he was sure there was no stopping the wedding.

  He was home shuffling through his usual quota of junk mail after work on Friday when a thick square envelope slid out from between the pages of a supermarket flyer. For an awful moment he thought Stacy might be inviting him to her wedding, but it came from an old high school buddy he hadn’t seen in ages.

  The invitation wasn’t important, but the idea it gave him was. He could accidentally bump into Stacy, even in the metropolitan area, because he knew where she’d be. Mercer’s law firm was giving a big bash for the happy couple, and he knew the man who could track it down.

  A couple of hours later he’d showered, shaved, and put on tan dress slacks with a conservative navy knit shirt. He needed a favor, and Marsh Bailey didn’t take kindly to a grandson who looked like a bum.

  The big Tudor-style house in Bloomfield Hills looked inviting, but Nick knew he wasn’t high on his grandfather’s approval list.

  Now that Cole and Zack were happily married and his mother was anticipating a wedding of her own, he was Marsh’s main target for reform. But tonight he wanted help more than he wanted to avoid another lecture.

  Nick parked in the driveway and walked around to the back where his grandfather had a well-equipped workshop in a separate building. When he wasn’t working on a project at the factory, he could usually be found puttering in his home shop. Tonight was no exception.

  “Hi, Gramps.”

  Marsh liked to be called by his first name but would tolerate Grandfather. Nick had long refused to use either, and he wasn’t going to curry favor by changing now. He’d gone as far as he could by shaving.

  “What brings you here?” Marsh didn’t waste time on niceties.

  “I need your help.”

  “Figures. Don’t the twins pay you enough to make ends meet?” He slid off the stool beside a bench cluttered with electrical parts.

  “Not money.”

  In fact, Nick tended to be frugal like his accountant father had been. He’d invested most of his pay from the ore boat for his future and had never touched his inheritance from his dad.

  “Not job advice, I bet. Any new prospects?”

  Talking to his grandfather was like following a familiar script.

  “You’ve done some business with Wheaton, Miner & Greene, haven’t you?”

  “They’ve handled a couple of matters for me,” he said guardedly. “You need an attorney?”

  “No, I want to go to a party they’re giving for one of their associates, a pre-wedding party.”

  “I see.”

  Nick was the only grandson Marsh hadn’t tried to maneuver into marriage. So far Nick had avoided his matrimonial machinations, but his grandfather had that look.

  “Marriage helps a man settle down,” he pontificated. “You need a solid career to support a wife.”

  Cole’s wife owned a successful baby store. Zack’s was a popular TV personality. But this wasn’t the time to explain twenty-first century marriages to a man who thought he ruled his clan.

  “You know everyone in Wayne and Oakland counties. I was pretty sure you could find out about the party.”

  “I can.”

  For the next three hours Nick helped his grandfather make some modifications on the house’s security system. It wasn’t the worst way to spend an evening, and Marsh didn’t ask any questions about his party-crashing plan.

  Stacy walked through the large dining room of the upscale restaurant on Jonathan’s arm to the private room where his firm was holding their party, hardly seeing the candle-lit tables with gleaming tablecloths.

  Her thoughts were anything but happy. She wouldn’t be able to eat. No one would want to talk to her. It was eight o’clock now. How long would they have to stay?

&nbs
p; Jonathan, looking particularly lawyer-like in a navy suit and conservative blue tie, smiled at her, but she could tell he was nervous, too. Would it hurt his career if his boss didn’t like her? What if she didn’t fit in with his co-workers?

  She returned his smile. How bad could a three- or four-hour party be? She wasn’t walking into a torture chamber.

  Taking her hand from Jonathan’s arm at the wide entrance to the party room, she smoothed her black sleeveless sheath and tried not to remember Aunt Lucille’s caustic remark about how appropriate a funeral dress was for this event.

  “Do all these people work for your firm?” she asked, bowled over by the large crowd of expensively dressed guests. “That looks like...”

  “Sonny Hayes, the weatherman. We’ve handled a few matters for him, mostly divorces. Quite a few of our better clients are here. After all, a law firm is only as successful as the people who consult it. Would you like to meet an automobile czar?”

  “Sure.”

  Lordy, lordy, lordy, she thought, drawing on Aunt Lucille’s picturesque use of the language in her distress. Wasn’t it enough that Jonathan’s co-workers might grill her like a hostile witness in court? Cross-examine her? Did she have to debut in high society at the same time?

  “I should’ve worn my green dress,” she whispered, staring at the sea of black and navy suits and peacock-colored dresses.

  “You’re fine, silly goose. You’re easily the most beautiful woman in the room.”

  She strongly doubted that. She’d gladly allow that honor to go to one of the women who’d paid dearly and suffered much for a face-lift.

  As edgy as she was about the party, tonight Stacy had to talk to Jonathan about her job. She was determined to keep it, and he had to understand that before their wedding plans were final. But this wasn’t the moment.

  Jonathan started introducing her, and she began the difficult task of trying to put names and jobs with faces. One senior partner reminded her of a bored bulldog except his eyes were never still. Another was a round-faced, beardless Santa with tiny metal-frame glasses. The big gun in tax law had coal-black hair slicked down on his long skull and a sharp pointy nose.

  Red-jacketed waiters with trays of champagne circulated tirelessly, and Stacy found herself clutching the stem of a glass of bubbly. Jonathan finished one and took another before she could stop smiling at strangers long enough to taste hers.

  Somewhere she lost him—or he lost her—but people kept coming up to her, rattling off names she’d never remember. Duty done, they would move on to more engrossing conversations.

  “Hi, I’m Janice Carpenter, intellectual property law. I’m sure Jonathan has told you all kinds of terrible things about me, but they’re only half true.”

  Stacy was absolutely sure he’d never mentioned anyone with legs like a Vegas showgirl and flaming red hair piled high on her head.

  “He’s always very kind when he talks about his associates,” Stacy said, trying not to play whatever game this woman had in mind.

  “Sly devil, but then we both knew I put my career first. Jon wants a stay-at-home wife. What is it you do?”

  “I’m a preschool teacher,” Stacy said proudly.

  “Oh, then I’m sure you won’t mind giving up your little job.”

  Maybe it was nerves, maybe it was the woman’s grating tone.

  “My little job is teaching future adults to tell the truth, share, and be kind to others. If my fellow professionals do their jobs well enough, it will severely cut into your business.”

  “Well.” Janice turned and huffed off. Scratch one potential new friend, Stacy thought. Jon? Even his parents called him Jonathan.

  For the moment no one else wanted to check her out, so she waylaid another redcoat, got rid of her champagne, and helped herself to a cracker with shrimp. She was in the process of swallowing when she saw a guest Jonathan couldn’t possibly have invited.

  “Nick!” She choked on the dry appetizer and had to eject it into a cocktail napkin.

  She had three choices: run for cover, find Jonathan, or confront Nick. It was a no-brainer. If Nick was there because of her, she would tell him...

  What? The way her heart was pounding, he could probably hear it at thirty paces. She hurried toward him, hoping no one would notice, not a vain hope since the party had deteriorated into a shoptalk session that had nothing to do with her wedding.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

  Who knew he could look this spiffy? He was wearing a charcoal suit, dove-gray shirt, paisley tie in shades of burgundy and pink, and wingtips, shiny black wingtips. He’d even had his hair tamed into trendy waves.

  “Sipping champagne, scarfing down cheese puffs, the usual,” he said.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m just a friend who came to wish a friend well.”

  He said it so sincerely, she felt as if she’d known him forever. Maybe a day of being kidnapped together counted the way dog years did, seven times the equivalent of real time.

  “But who invited you?”

  “The firm represented my grandfather a couple of times. He finagled an oral invitation—sort of.”

  “You’re crashing the party.”

  “Let’s say, if it were a sit-down dinner, there wouldn’t be a plate for me.”

  Waiters were hustling around a table at the far end of the large room, setting up an elaborate buffet.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she said.

  “You’re in the wrong place, too. If you’re going to dress for a funeral, at least show a little leg.”

  She instinctively looked at her hemline barely two inches above her knees. Okay, the dress was a little austere, but did he have to sound like Aunt Lucille?

  “I wanted to look dignified.”

  She said it so primly, he laughed.

  He was wearing an aftershave that teased her nostrils and made her inhale deeply. Must be her imagination, but the spicy musk made her want to rub against him like a cat in heat.

  “Pre-wedding jitters.” She said it aloud without meaning to.

  “Well, one friend to another, I just wanted to wish you good luck,” he said with a smile that warmed her cockles.

  Why was she thinking like Aunt Lucille? Was it because she was the only one in the family who didn’t like Jonathan? Whatever cockles were, she was pretty sure hers were red-hot.

  He took the lumpy cocktail napkin out of her hand, discarded it along with his plate on a passing tray, and took her hand in his.

  How could she have a platonic relationship with a man who made her think new and naughty things just by smiling at her? Happily, she didn’t feel awkward around him, but she did feel a lot of other things: attraction, desire, hot monkey love.

  Where did that come from? Her mind was operating like a corn popper without a lid, spewing out all kinds of scorching ideas. From now on, she was going to do her best to concentrate on planning her wedding to Jonathan. Nick was the kind of guy she might have sighed over in high school, but now they were only friends—good friends.

  She spotted her fiancé deep in conversation with a cluster of dark suits.

  “Jon!”

  He turned, but the surprise on his face told her he hadn’t expected to see Stacy when he heard a shortened version of his name. Exactly how many women called him Jon? That was something they’d have to discuss after they settled her career future.

  He was at her side instantly when he saw Nick.

  She didn’t know if the two men were going to speak or spend the rest of the evening dueling with their eyeballs.

  “Nick just stopped by to wish us good luck,” she said.

  “And represent my grandfather, Marsh Bailey. He’s no stranger to your firm when it comes to patent litigation.”

  “Well, I hope you enjoy the party,” Jonathan said with a strained smile.

  “Very much. Well worth missing the ball game.”

  Sports was common language among men—the bond
that never failed—but Jonathan wasn’t going to get cozy with Nick.

  “You haven’t heard anything about the kidnappers, have you?” Nick asked, speaking to Jonathan but looking at her.

  “No, nothing,” he said. “Excuse us. I want to introduce my fiancée to a retired partner who’s eager to meet her.”

  He steered her away, not releasing her elbow until several dozen people were between them and Nick.

  “I hope you don’t intend to invite him to our wedding,” Jonathan said.

  “I didn’t invite him here. I’m grateful for the way he helped me through the kidnapping, but we’re only friends.”

  “Men and women can’t be friends,” he said crossly.

  The party seemed to flow around her as guests lined up at the buffet, loaded plates, and found places at the round tables for ten scattered throughout the large room. Being lawyers, they’d probably make speeches, but for now the main business was culinary.

  Jonathan drifted off again, and she found herself alone. When ignored, head for the little girls’ room.

  She made her way to the hallway outside the party room, looked around for the restroom, and collided with Nick.

  “Leaving already?” She spoke without thinking, a little breathless from the surprise of running into him.

  “I have some standards. I’ll crash the appetizers, but I draw the line at the main course.”

  “Then your grandfather...”

  “Just learned the time and place for me. Are you going to ask why?”

  “Think I’d better pass on that one.”

  “I’m glad we’re friends,” he said warmly.

  “Yes, so am I. Jonathan says men and women can’t be friends but...”

  He reached out, took her hand, and engulfed it with his. This wasn’t exactly a private location, so it made her doubly uncomfortable when he caressed the sensitive side of her wrist with the ball of his thumb.

  “I have to disagree with him on that. Friends are people you care about and wish well. I consider you a very good friend.”

  “I—you—consider, too.”

  She’d endured dozens of handshakes and a couple of unwanted hugs this evening, but none like this. Nick’s touch radiated through her, clouding her mind and making her spine tingle. When he bent and touched his lips to her forehead, she was in big trouble. There was no way she could take it casually.