His Darling Bride (Echoes of the Heart #3) Read online

  And today’s time, Bethany reminded herself, was about her kids in the city—and her afternoon with Shandra.

  “Give me a chance to make being late up to you.” Bethany inched her stool closer to her sister’s. “Even if you’ve already eaten, there’s time to grab some of Nic’s dessert. The kids at the center have been asking about you all week. Especially Darby. She’ll die over this outfit you have on. And you care about her, I know you do. Don’t give up on your friend and today because of me.”

  A lot of foster kids turned feeling that the world was always letting them down into an excuse to bail on the things and people they loved. Bethany didn’t want her sister making that mistake the way she had.

  She realized Shandra was staring at her.

  “What the hell are you wearing?” her sister asked.

  “Language,” Marsha warned.

  “What the heck,” Shandra corrected with attitude, “are you wearing?”

  Marsha set Shandra’s plate and glass in the battered farm sink.

  “It’s a painting outfit.” These days there was oil paint on pretty much all of Bethany’s things, even fresh out of the laundry. But she usually took the time to at least change out of her grungy work clothes. “We’ll be doing a ton of painting with the kids today, so I figured what’s the harm?”

  “Or maybe”—Shandra’s expression was a caricature of teenage disdain—“you figured looking like a cartoon bag lady again would get some random hot cowboy guy to do another face-plant on your lips in front of half the town.”

  Marsha laughed.

  Bethany glared at her charge for the day.

  She handed their mother her glass. “We’ve got to go.”

  “Sounds like Thursday was a girls’ night out to remember,” Marsha said.

  Bethany grabbed Shandra’s arm and dragged her toward the front of the house. “Tight schedule. Running late. Don’t want Shandra to miss her cheesecake on the way into the city.”

  “Is he really your date for the wedding?” their mom called after them. “Dru said she hadn’t spoken to you about it yet, but that she didn’t know anything—”

  “Gotta go!” Bethany shoved a smiling Shandra out the Dixon front door. “I’ll have her back tonight by eight. Tell Dad I hope he’s feeling better today . . .”

  Shandra giggled as they made their way across the freshly mowed lawn to Bethany’s crazy-colored truck, parked at the curb near the brick mailbox. Birds singsonged in the trees overhead. Fall wouldn’t arrive in even the northernmost parts of Georgia for at least another month.

  Bethany pointed her finger at her sister, secretly relishing Shandra’s happy laughter. “You’re not to be trusted.”

  “And you’re so busted.”

  Shandra propped her flip-flopped feet on the dash while Bethany pulled away from the house. The girl’s long, dark legs caught the attention of a couple of teenage boys riding by on bikes. Shandra waved at them.

  “Everyone’s saying you’ve been seeing this guy in Atlanta,” she said, “and that’s maybe why you haven’t been around the house much the last few weeks.”

  “Everyone who? And there is no guy in Atlanta. Thursday night was the first I’ve seen him.”

  And Bethany wasn’t talking about Mike Taylor with her little sister. Nothing had happened with him that she or her family needed to talk about or think about . . . or dream about ever again.

  “Bethany Darling swapping spit with a total stranger in the middle of a bar . . .” Shandra unwound a bright blue bandanna from around her wrist and reshaped it into a fun do-rag that she tied around her hair. “Sure. Cowboy Bob’s just some dude who walked in off the street.”

  Bethany screeched to a halt at the corner of Baxter and Main. “Cowboy who?”

  “That’s what everyone at the house calls him. Boris and Fin played cowboys and Indians last night. Cowboy Bob was Woody from Toy Story.” Shandra snickered. She’d used air quotes for the name Woody. “Bad news. Things got a little bloody. Your guy didn’t survive the shootout.”

  “He’s not my guy. Would you stop it? I . . .”

  A horn beeped. The light had changed. Bethany let off the brake. She told herself that getting to Nic’s as fast as she could so she could fill her sister’s mouth with cake instead of gossip wasn’t an excuse to speed.

  “Stop talking about Mike like that,” she told Shandra, trying to sound like she didn’t really care. “Stop talking about him, period. I don’t know the guy. How did the boys even hear about him?”

  “Selena and Oliver and Camille were over for dinner Friday night. Oliver was pretty steamed. He’s the one who called him Cowboy Bob first.”

  “Oliver knows Mike’s name. They talked at McC’s.”

  “Our brother and the guy you don’t know at all? Except that his name is Mike, not Bob. And he’s your date to Dru and Brad’s wedding.”

  “He’s not my anything.”

  “That’s not what I heard. Marsha and Joe, too. And—”

  “All the kids at dinner Friday night. I get it. I’m going to kill Oliver.”

  Shandra dug a stick of gum from the pocket of the five-dollar jeans she’d picked up thrift store shopping with Bethany. The teenager had frayed them by hand to look like something straight off a runway.

  “Some of my friends’ parents were at McC’s,” she said, grinning even wider.

  “Oh my God.”

  Why had Bethany assumed that if she laid low for a few days, things would blow over?

  She pulled into Grapes & Beans. Her stomach plummeted at the packed parking lot. Had every local in the place heard the rumors, too? Was it too late to floor it out of the lot and head straight to the city?

  “Cheesecake!” Shandra bounded out of the truck.

  “Woo-hoo.” Bethany’s stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten since sometime yesterday. “Right behind you, kiddo.”

  And she was.

  Even after she caught sight of the handsome, Stetson-wearing man watching her and Shandra make their way across the parking lot.

  Mike watched the woman who’d monopolized his dreams for the last three nights enter Grapes & Beans with a teenage girl dressed like he’d imagine Bethany might have in high school. All color and bold accessories and complete disregard for what anyone else might think of what she was wearing. Pretty much the same way Bethany was dressed again. Otherwise, the two of them couldn’t look more different.

  But they had their heads together, whispering loudly as they approached the hostess, their affection for each other clear. This was no doubt another foster sibling. He’d heard an earful about Bethany and the Dixon family from people who’d introduced themselves to him at the bar or around town. More than willing to part with a little light gossip, folks had also pumped Mike for details about Thursday night. He’d begged off sharing. Which in such a close-knit community evidently made neighbors even friendlier.

  He’d waved at a few familiar faces today, before settling into a two-top table at the local sandwich, coffee, and wine hub that had come highly recommended. Grapes & Beans was bustling with an enthusiastic Sunday crowd. Its farm-to-table menu options rivaled anything he’d found in Atlanta. The couples and families seated around him clearly agreed, lingering well into the start of their afternoons. There wasn’t an empty table in the bistro’s two dining rooms.

  Tucked away in a corner by the front windows, he’d just turned his attention to a bowl of rustic red pepper and tomato bisque. A pulled pork lettuce wrap would arrive any minute. He’d hoped to be on the road in about half an hour—heading back to Atlanta to grab more of his personal things, and to take care of some business that he’d originally planned to put off while he was in Chandlerville.

  Bethany was pretending she hadn’t seen him. She and her young friend had left the hostess stand behind and were aiming for the coffee bar, wading through the crowd drinking espresso or lattes or a glass or two or three of wine. Friendly hellos greeted them. Bethany responded but didn’t stop until she’
d reached the pastry case and waved at the woman sitting behind it, whom Mike had already recognized as one of her girlfriends from the other night.

  The brunette beauty was wearing the same uniform as the rest of the staff—black pants and a deep purple Grapes & Beans T-shirt. She’d been seated at a dinette table since Mike had arrived, absorbed in a phone conversation while her employees—at least, she appeared to be the one in charge—took orders and hustled out food and drinks to the hungry hordes. Nicole, his waitress had said the woman’s name was. The waitress had added that Nic was working on plans for an upcoming catering job.

  Nic smiled at her newly arrived friends, said a few more words into the phone, rolled her eyes, and hung up. She waved the waiter working behind the pastry case toward other customers and dealt with Bethany herself.

  Bethany kept her back to Mike, when she’d clearly noticed him sitting by the window—after she’d driven up in the outlandish pickup that he wanted to snap a few shots of for his Instagram feed. Her young sidekick kept sneaking glances Mike’s way and smiling. So did several nearby tables of diners. Bethany caught the teenager in the act and hustled the kid behind the counter.

  “But it’s Cowboy Bob,” he heard the girl say.

  Subdued laughter followed and lots more stares—people’s attention shifting back and forth between him and Bethany.

  Suddenly the woman he’d been schooling himself not to pester was marching his way, wearing paint-spattered overalls cut off above the knee to create shorts that she hadn’t bothered cuffing. The hems were frayed in long tendrils of cotton that swayed each time she moved, and her curvy legs were accentuated by opaque tights patterned like a checkerboard. They disappeared into chunky combat boots.

  Mike let his gaze slide all the way down. She was like one of the savory dishes being served up around him, tempting him beyond bearing to sample something he shouldn’t. He took his time tracing her body, all the way back up until their gazes collided. Hers was icy, set off beguilingly by the purple she’d washed into her bangs. It knifed through him—the memory of those same eyes smoldering after they’d kissed.

  They were the kind of bottomless gray that could cut a man to ribbons one minute, then melt him into a puddle of need the next.

  He unfolded his long legs from under the table and stood. She stopped inches away. He reached out his hand to shake, which was lame. Her incredulous expression agreed.

  “We’re not dating,” she announced loud enough for everyone to hear. “We never met in Atlanta. We were total strangers until the other night when you . . .”

  Her tirade fizzled.

  Self-conscious silence followed.

  “When we kissed?” he offered. “Because you asked me to help you fake out your ex?”

  She bristled on cue. No independent woman wanted to need a guy’s help. This one less than most, he suspected.

  She crossed her arms beneath delightfully rounded breasts. He tipped up the brim of his hat, wondering whether nature had hit the jackpot, or if she worked out to keep her petite frame so toned.

  “I asked you to help,” she conceded. “But you didn’t have to take it so far.”

  “You kissed me first.” But he couldn’t say that if she hadn’t, he wouldn’t have done the deed himself.

  “You invited yourself to my sister’s wedding.”

  “I didn’t hear you contradicting me after your brothers showed up.”

  “I was doing you a favor. They were already pissed enough. I figured I’d wait for a better time to tell them I found out your name at the same time they did. Meanwhile, the entire town and my family are gossiping about us. Whoever you are, whatever you’re doing in Chandlerville, this stops now.”

  “You’re breaking up with me before we even have our first date?” He manufactured a look of shock. “I feel a little tawdry. Used. Were my make-out moves that rusty?”

  “We didn’t make out!” She glanced around. People had the decency to look down at their food. “It was just . . .”

  “It was just what?”

  He’d been wondering that very thing, while he’d lain awake at night telling himself that it had only been a kiss. A great kiss, but a fake one. He’d been helping a beautiful stranger give a loser a much-deserved public flogging. That was all.

  Mike had had no intention of hunting down this beautiful stranger in particular, to ask her if those fake, endless moments in each other’s arms had felt as shockingly real to her as they had him. But he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Worrying about her. Hoping to meet her as he continued to explore Chandlerville and worked Friday night’s shift at McC’s.

  “You’re crazy,” she said. “You know that? Taking on my foster brothers the way you did, your first day in town.”

  “Because two of them are cops?”

  “Chandlerville’s finest,” she confirmed with pride. “You’d have run across Travis and my almost-brother-in-law sooner rather than later. Oliver, too. And they’d have—”

  “Threatened to rearrange my nose like he did the mongrel’s?”

  “Mongrel?”

  “Benjie. Your dirty dog.”

  “He’s not my anyth . . .” She pressed her thumbs to her beautiful, tired eyes. “Never mind.”

  “You looked like you were gonna toss up your wine when that jerk showed up. Then you were practically spitting in his face. Whatever he did, however long ago he did it, I was happy to help send him on his way.”

  “You did more than that.”

  “We did more than that.”

  He should let it go, he told himself. They’d gotten the chance to talk it out, in public. It was exactly the kind of closure she seemed to have needed, just as he did. He was fine slamming the book closed on their encounter. But he wasn’t going to pretend that it wasn’t the best damn read he’d ever had.

  “Don’t tell me I’m the first guy who’s lost his head over kissing you. What was a cowboy to do, ma’am?”

  “You’re no cowboy.” She studied him the way he’d felt her eyeing him the other night—before she’d gotten around to acknowledging that he existed. A whisper of a smile transformed her heart-shaped features into the timeless beauty of a pocket Venus. “That was . . . the lamest line I’ve heard in a long time.”

  “So now we’ve established that I’m nice and lame?” He ticked the two words off on his fingers.

  And she smiled.

  Damn, he was a goner if she didn’t stop doing that. Bowing out of this mess would be the best thing for both of them. He knew that. He knew who she was now, and that he should leave well enough alone. Sure, flirting with her was fun. But it was risky fun, and he didn’t do risky.

  “I’m sorry people are talking.” He really was. “I didn’t mean to make trouble for you.” Not when she seemed to have more than enough of it already. “I haven’t said a word to people about Thursday night. I wouldn’t do that, when you made it the best first shift of any job I’ve ever worked.”

  She rewarded him with a rueful head shake and a soft laugh, making today the best Sunday brunch of his life.

  “I don’t know why . . .” she said, sounding mystified. “But I believe you. I should have thanked you the other night. It was sweet, what you tried to do. Sweet, if misguided.”

  She had no idea.

  “You’re welcome.” He ignored the impulse to keep her there talking, even if she only kept telling him how crazy he was. “And no worries. Tell your brothers I’ll stay out of your way while I’m—”

  “Wow!” Her young friend rushed over with two plates of cheesecake, handing one to Bethany. She grinned at Mike. “You really are a cowboy.”

  “I’m not.” He touched his finger to the brim of his Stetson in a clichéd greeting. “The hat just comes in handy. I do a lot of outdoor work and hiking.”

  Bethany’s attention dropped to his scuffed hiking boots. “Well, that explains that.”

  It didn’t explain anything important, to Mike’s way of thinking. He knew a lot
more about her than a stranger should. And he didn’t know how to tell her that without disrupting her life even more. But he didn’t know nearly enough about Bethany to satisfy his curiosity. He could stand there talking to her the rest of the day, and he doubted it would be long enough.

  Which was a definite cue for him to be on his way.

  He reached into his back pocket for his money clip, pulling out enough bills to cover whatever the check would be plus a healthy tip.

  “Wow.” The teenager snatched away the clip for a closer inspection. “That’s cool. It looks like an oversized paper clip. Where did you get it?”

  “Shandra . . .” Bethany handed it back to Mike, her fingers brushing his palm, his entire body responding. “Don’t grab other people’s things.”

  “It’s no big deal,” he mumbled.

  He dropped his money and bent to pick it up, his ears buzzing the whole time while he wondered if Bethany’s skin was just as soft everywhere.

  “It’s something I’ve had for a long time,” he said to the teenager she’d called Shandra. “My . . . someone important gave it to me.”

  It was a Tiffany piece. Sterling silver. His brother had left it to Mike in his will, along with another priceless possession that their Park Avenue parents would have likely thought was meaningless and thrown away.

  Nicole showed up, delivering the rest of Mike’s lunch.

  “Welcome to Grapes & Beans,” she said, eyeing Bethany. “Fancy you two hooking up again in my place.”

  “Accidentally,” Bethany corrected.

  “The way you accidentally made out with him Thursday night?” Her friend smiled between Bethany and Mike. “Did you trip and fall?”

  “He was lurking in the corner,” Bethany insisted.

  “I was eating soup,” Mike corrected. Soup that was now cold. He’d have someone pack up the rest of his food to go.