Ashley sniffed and shoved free. “Well, if you’re going to be mean . . .”
“Ash—”
“No.” She stormed toward her room. “Just go, I don’t care. My life isn’t as important as a rehearsal dinner.”
“Honey, your life is very important to me,” Kate said. “But last week you didn’t even like Kyle anymore. Remember? Is it possible that you’re just getting your period?”
Ashley turned back, her eyes filling again. “Yes! And there’s no more Midol! Dad still can’t bring himself to buy it. Or tampons. I used to get both from Kia,” she sobbed.
Kate emptied out her purse, contributing her stash to the cause, and then she left after being assured by her dad that he wouldn’t leave Ashley alone until the Midol kicked in.
Back at her own place, Kate realized she had time to exercise before Holly and Adam’s rehearsal dinner.
Dammit.
She changed into her running gear and hit the trail that ran behind her row of townhouses and through a wooded park to the lake and to her tree. Her place.
She started off at a walk but kicked it into gear and ran. She hated running.
Hated.
But it burned calories. Halfway through her torture, she passed the park and then the concession stand, and she slowed. They had fresh popcorn. Damn.
“Got any spare change?”
She looked down at the guy sitting on the park bench. Larry was somewhere between fifty and ancient, and he liked to watch the geese. He’d been here as long as she could remember. Well, except for when the sheriff occasionally rounded him up and dragged him to the homeless shelter. Over the years he’d been placed in the occasional halfway house, but he wasn’t good at following the rules, so it rarely lasted long. He wore at least three layers of clothing on his huge frame and took up most of the bench where he always sat, clutching a bottle inside a brown bag.
Kate would absolutely give Larry her spare change—if there were a single hope of him spending it on something other than alcohol. Instead, she did what she usually did. She went to the stand, bought two bags of popcorn, and brought him back one.
He dug in with childlike gusto and a sweet smile. “Thanks, Ms. Evans.”
She walked up the hill to the top of the dam, to her favorite place. Her tree. Someone a long time ago had built a makeshift tree house in the tree next to the fallen Jeffrey Pine, but there was a warning posted on it. No climbers allowed.
No problem for Kate; she was afraid of heights. But she’d had to stop bringing Tommy out here because he wasn’t, and he always wanted to climb it.
Walking around the trunk of her fallen tree, she sat facing the lake far below and munched on her popcorn.
Some exercise.
She’d run twice as far next time, she promised herself and her jeans.
* * *
An hour later, Kate got to the wedding rehearsal. Standing in the doorway of the church, she let out a big long breath and hopefully all of her tension along with it. Tonight was for Holly. Tonight was not for throwing herself at any sexy-as-hell soldiers turned groomsmen.
Absolutely not. Just because he’d refused to take advantage of her last night or because he’d rescued her brother today or because he’d looked so out of his element in her classroom and yet had still managed to be an authority figure to the kids . . .
No. She was not going to soften toward him and try again.
Probably.
Luckily, as the maid of honor, she had a list of wedding duties running through her head and a clipboard to help make sure she didn’t forget anything. She’d slapped a little yellow sticky note to the top of the clipboard. It said:
NO ALCOHOL, YOU ’HO.
Things started off smoothly. The music was cued. Each of the bridesmaids took her turn walking down the aisle. When it was Kate’s turn, she was pretend-holding flowers and working on getting the right rhythm when she looked up and found Adam, Dell, Brady, and Griffin standing at the top of the aisle in their places, waiting shoulder to shoulder.
Hot guy overload.
Griffin’s eyes were on her, dark and serious, and when she stared back, his gaze heated.
Kate tripped over her own feet.
Adam smiled.
Griffin was thinking about smiling, she could tell.
Ignoring him, she took her place at the front of the church next to the other bridesmaids to watch as Holly walked down the aisle toward Adam. Even though it was just the rehearsal, the two of them stared into each other’s eyes, completely ignoring the insanity around them.
Kate couldn’t help but well up a little. It was beautiful. What they had was beautiful. So much so that it was like she was intruding on a moment of intimacy. Looking away, her gaze again collided with gray steel.
Griffin didn’t smile, just held the eye contact until she broke it.
The dinner itself was held at a local restaurant, and a few additional close friends joined the group. This worked for Kate. She needed the anonymity of a crowd tonight. She was at the bar grabbing two pitchers of beer to bring back to the head table for Holly and Adam when she bumped into Ryan, once again making headway with one of the cute bridesmaids. She rolled her eyes at him and turned to leave him to it when she nearly plowed over Griffin.
“Easy,” he said, deftly removing the two pitchers from her hands before she could spill down the front of the both of them.
Easy? There was nothing easy when it came to her reaction to him. “Sorry,” she said. “I have a propensity for spilling.”
He just smiled. “And for fancy words.”
She felt herself flush. “I have a word-of-the-day calendar.” She paused. “And a fact calendar.”
“What’s today’s fact?”
“An ostrich egg is bigger than its brain.”
“Good to know,” he said. “How about naughty facts? Got any of those?”
She had to bite her lip before it escaped, but he laughed again, low and sexy as he moved in closer. “You do. Tell me, Kate.”
She closed her eyes, but he merely brushed up against her as if he knew the power his body held over hers.
“Your invisibility cloak isn’t working,“ he said. “Spill it.”
Dammit. She opened her eyes. “Our earlobes line up with our nipples.”
He grinned. “Why, Ms. Evans. You said nipples.” While she was still blushing—and kicking herself—he brought the pitchers of beer to the head table for her, and letting out a slow, careful breath, Kate absolutely did not watch his ass as he walked away.
“You’re drooling,” Ryan murmured in her ear as he came up behind her.
Kate swiped at her chin, but he was of course lying. “What are you doing talking to me, where’s your conquest?”
“Restroom.”
“What are your odds?”
“Better than you accepting your scholarship in the twelve days you have left.”
She rolled her eyes and then leaned in to take a sip of his beer.
“Hey,” he said, trying to pull away.
“Just a sip,” she said, wrapping her fingers around his wrist. “I’m not allowing myself my own alcohol tonight. It doesn’t count if it’s yours.”
“You realize that’s stupid,” Ryan said, fighting her for his drink. “And stop it— Get your own!”
“I can’t. Last night I attempted to seduce a groomsman.”
Ryan stopped fighting her and looked up in surprise. “You did? Which one?”
She sighed. “The perfect one.”
Ryan made an I-don’t-want-to-hear-this grimace.
“And he tasted better than double-fudge ice cream,” she said. “Do you know who tastes better than double-fudge ice cream? No one.”
“Hey,” Ryan said. “I’ve kissed you. I taste good, right?”
Kate patted his arm. “Can we concentrate here? I have a problem. I want him. Bad. Badder than bad.”
Ryan made the face again and then went still.
Kate closed her eyes. ?
??He’s right behind me, isn’t he?”
“Yep,” Griffin said.
Ryan shrugged and took back his drink.
With a wince, Kate glanced over her shoulder. “Um. Hi.”
“Would you like your own drink?” he asked with absolutely no mockery in his voice.
Because it was all in his eyes.
“No.” Face flaming, she stuck her arm through Ryan’s. “I’m good, thanks.” Ryan tried to free himself, but Kate held on tight, digging her fingernails into him.
Looking amused, Griffin shrugged and moved to the bar, presumably to order his own drink.
“Shit,” Ryan hissed, pulling free to pull up his sleeve and check his arm. “You almost broke skin.”
Guilt had her leaning over him to see, but suddenly, Ryan gave her a little push. “Sexy bridesmaid at two o’clock,” he said. “Don’t touch me.”
Out of Kate’s peripheral view she could see Griffin leaning against the bar, all easy charm . . . watching her. “Quick, smile at me.”
“What? No!”
“You have to,” Kate said urgently. “He rejected me last night. I don’t want him to think I’m still pining.”
“How about crazy? Are you worried about him thinking you’re crazy?” Ryan asked.
“Okay, you know what? You’re fired as my wingman.”
“Thank God,” he said fervently. “Now, don’t go away mad, just go away.”
Eight
Grif was doing his best to be present for Holly and Adam, but the truth was he’d rather have had a root canal without meds than attend a wedding rehearsal. But any idiot, even those who’d completely failed at the love game like himself, could see that his sister and best friend were meant to be together.
He was happy for them. And okay, so he’d not completely failed at the love game. He’d given it a half-ass shot a couple of times. It hadn’t worked out, that was all. His life hadn’t exactly lent itself to a long-term relationship anyway. Still didn’t, since he had no idea what his future held, and at the moment he didn’t care too much.
The best that could be said about the wedding rehearsal dinner was that the food was good and his father kept to the other side of the room.
Grif had shoveled horseshit for hours that morning, and he had the pleasantly sore shoulder and arm muscles to prove it. It had felt good to do something after weeks and weeks of forced inactivity. But this, the socializing, was going to kill him. A fiery poker had been stabbing slowly and steadily behind one of his eyeballs for an hour now. He put a finger to it, pressing hard, but it was too late. He’d ignored the signs of the impending migraine, and it had hit him like a fucking freight train.
The last of the day’s light slanted in through the restaurant windows, slicing at his brain. The laughter and music around him might as well have been a herd of elephants. Lowering his ever-present baseball cap farther over his eyes, he left their private dining room, walking on shaky legs down the hallway in the opposite direction of the party, needing a quiet place where he could crawl into a ball and wait it out.
He found a small office masquerading as a coatroom, or so he supposed by the layers and layers of jackets and sweaters and other various outer gear on every single available surface. There were a few chairs and a love seat. It would have to do. He was halfway through clearing the love seat when the nausea hit him.
He got lucky that there was a bathroom attached to the office. He was entirely too large for the postage-stamp-size room, but comfort was a distant need behind the waves and waves of pain rolling over him. As always when hit with a massive migraine, he was nearly blinded by it, and he was struck deaf and dumb as well. All he could do was turn off the light, lie on the cold linoleum floor, and pray for a quick finish.
He wasn’t lucky enough for that.
It might have been only minutes or an entire year later when he heard someone open the bathroom door. The light came on, which was like being stabbed with lightning bolts. With a groan, Grif squeezed his eyes shut. “Off,” he managed.
“Griffin!”
Mercifully, this was followed by the light going off. Next came the wince-inducing click, click, click of Kate’s heels, and her soft, warm hand brushing his forehead. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Shh.”
He heard the rustle of her clothing as she crouched at his side. “Are you hurt?” she asked.
Nope. Just sick as a dog, and if she didn’t zip it, she was going to see just how sick firsthand. That would suck. So did the fact that he couldn’t even open his eyes and see how sexy she looked with that sweater hugging her curves. He couldn’t even steal a peek up her skirt—which killed him because this wasn’t her usual cargo teacher skirt. Nope, this baby was short, black, and slinky. Reaching out, he clamped a hand over her wrist, halting her from patting his body, trying to find where he was hurt. Or so he assumed. Maybe she was into copping feels of sick guys.
“Griffin.” She sounded so worried, which he had to admit was kind of nice. “You’re shaking.”
Yes, and sweating, too, and utterly incapable of functioning, thank you very much. But he forced his eyes to slit open. “Just a headache.”
She stared at him. “It’s more than a headache. Is it your . . . injury?” she whispered, saying the word like it was a state secret since she knew he didn’t want to talk about it.
Christ, she was sweet. The sweetest person he’d ever known. Holly was right. She was way too sweet for the likes of him. “I’ll be okay.”
“Griffin, you’re flat on your back and so pale your skin’s see-through.”
“I’m fine.”
She made an annoyed sound. “Of course you are. You’re a guy. Has this happened before? How do you treat it?”
“Sex.”
“What?”
He shouldn’t be teasing her when he couldn’t even lift his own head, but he couldn’t seem to temper himself around her. He wondered if this was what it was like for her when she let loose with those science facts of hers. “Yeah,” he said. “Down and dirty, no-holds-barred sex. Cures me every time.”
“You’re kidding.”
Unfortunately, he couldn’t have pleased her right now to save his life. And wasn’t that just the bitch of it.
“I’m going to get Adam,” she said, calm and sure, and started to rise.
He tightened his grip on her wrist. “No, don’t. It’s his night.”
Her hands went to his chest. They were small but strong and sure, and he loved the feel of them on him. Too much. And he began to revise what he might be able to accomplish with a migraine.
“It’s his best friend lying on the floor,” Kate said. “He’d want to help.”
“No.”
“Fine.” She shifted, and her clothing rustled again. Unable to beat back the curiosity, he slit his eyes open in time to see her shimmying her pencil skirt higher on her thighs. When he shifted to take in the delicious flash of thigh-high stockings, the movement penetrated his skull, giving him a stab of such fierce, icy pain, he gasped with it. Oh Christ. He’d been afraid he was going to die on this bathroom floor, but suddenly he was afraid he wasn’t going