Once Upon a Wedding

  “Yeah.”

  “Judy wasn’t a typical friend. She was this woman I got to know through my job. I was the managed care specialist at her HMO.”

  A sick feeling set up in Denver’s gut as he grabbed another stool and sat across from her.

  “She first called in because of a denied claim. It was a common enough thing. The insurance industry is obnoxiously and needlessly complicated. People were usually pretty upset by the time they got to me. I can’t tell you how many times I got told off. But Judy didn’t do any of that. She was the sweetest thing. Said she was sure there was some kind of a mistake and that she had faith that I could fix it. I told her I’d do my best and that she might want a snack because this kind of thing of thing took a while. She said she was making cookies, and we got off on this tangent where she told me all about her recipe for snickerdoodles and how they were her grandchildren’s favorite. I took down all of her information to look into the situation and promised to call her back. She sent me snickerdoodles the next day.”

  Even as the memory made her smile, that sick feeling continued to grow in his belly.

  “A lot of my job was sorting out the complicated legalese of contracts—I’d gone to law school, if you can imagine that.”

  “I have a really hard time seeing you in a courtroom.”

  “So did I. That’s why I dropped out after my second year. But I understood contracts, and I kind of fell into this job. I certainly didn’t love it. Didn’t even like it most of the time. But I was drowning under my parents’ disapproval and massive student debt for a degree I didn’t get. Anyway, so I started digging into Judy’s case. It took a while. I had lots of cases. Lots of details and minutia to sort through. Sometimes I’d call her. Sometimes she’d call me. But we ended up talking a few times a week. I’d update her on the great big nothing I was accomplishing, apologize for the system, and then we’d just talk about life stuff. Those calls were the highlights of my week.”

  “Did you get her sorted out?”

  “For that first claim, yeah. But while I was messing with all that, her condition got worse. Her doctor said she needed a particular procedure. So she started all the pre-approval paperwork, but it got hung up. That part wasn’t even on me, but I knew the system better than the person assigned to it. She needed that surgery.” Misty’s voice shook. “I managed to parse out that the problem was a conflict between her primary policy and her Medicare supplement. The procedure her doctor wanted to perform was not the conventional treatment. He’d said the conventional wouldn’t work and he wanted to take a more aggressive approach. The way the contracts were written, neither insurer was actually going to cover it without exhausting all the conventional—aka cheaper options—first. Because why on earth should insurance we pay for cover the things we actually need, right? She couldn’t afford a three hundred thousand dollar surgery out of pocket.”

  Denver tasted the bitterness of her tone on his own tongue.

  “I couldn’t tell her that. I couldn’t tell her that there were no more options. So I put her off, and I researched my ass off, trying to find something, anything that could help her. By that time, we were talking every day. And then one day, she didn’t call. And she didn’t answer when I called her house.”

  He knew how this would end before she said it and curled his fists against the futility of it.

  “Another day passed, and another. And I finally found it. The damned loophole she needed to get her surgery paid for. When I still couldn’t get her by phone, I went to her house. We had her address in the system. I was breaking all sorts of rules, but I had to tell her. It was a young woman who answered the door. A few years older than me. She’d been crying. Somewhere deep down, I knew. But I went ahead and introduced myself and asked if I could speak to Judy.” Misty sucked in a breath and blinked back tears. “She’d died two days before.”

  Denver closed his eyes, fighting back the choking rage. “Too little, too late,” he bit out.

  “Yeah. I expected her to slam the door in my face. Instead, she invited me inside. She said her mother had talked of me often, and she’d left me something in her will. I couldn’t imagine what. We were…well more than strangers by that point, but..” Misty trailed off, struggling against emotion. “She’d left me the globe. It was beautiful. All bleeding colors and this sort of vignette inside that looked like the moon and stars. She said it was called Moonbeams and Sweet Dreams, and it had been one of Judy’s favorites. I didn’t know then what it was worth, but I thanked her daughter and took it. Then I turned in my letter of resignation. I didn’t know what I was going to do next, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I could go back to that job. Eventually, I ended up here. I started this shop as a way to honor her memory.”

  Misty lifted her gaze to his. “Today is the four year anniversary of her death. It always gets me down.”

  She needed comfort and kindness. Denver recognized that. But he couldn’t seem to make himself lift his hand to touch her.

  She was one of them.

  “I’m sorry.” They were, if not the right words, acceptable words. They were all he could manage past the noxious swirl of shit her story had stirred up. He needed to get the hell out of here before he spewed any of it out and made everything worse. “I hope the sandwich helps. I have to go.”

  “Go?” She blinked, those big, trusting brown eyes he suddenly couldn’t look at anymore. “You’re not staying to eat with me?”

  “No. I have a…thing.” Denver took a step back, then another. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, and walked away.

  ~*~

  “It’s open!”

  In response to Cayla’s shouted invitation, Misty opened the front door and stepped into chaos. The cushions from the sofa were scattered on the floor. A bowl of popcorn was upended in front of the TV, where Frozen was playing at low volume, and a half-full sippy cup lay abandoned on the coffee table. Even as she watched, a giggling four-year old went streaking down the hall—literally. The kid was naked as the day she was born.

  A harried looking Cayla chased after her. “Madeleine Faith, you get your tush back to the bathroom. It’s time for your bath!”

  Already up to the middle name. Clearly the night wasn’t going well. Now Misty understood why Cayla had asked her to stop by her house instead of bringing the ribbon she’d picked up by the shop.

  Shutting the door behind her, Misty dumped her purse and stepped into the hallway. When the little girl came racing toward her, Misty scooped her up and blew raspberries on her belly. “I spy a dirty little girl.” Indeed, a fair portion of whatever had been for dinner was smeared all over her face. Mac and cheese had definitely been part of the menu.

  “No!” Maddie giggled.

  “Don’t want a bath?” Misty asked.

  “No!” Maddie shouted. “I’m a princess! I don’t have to.”

  “Princesses have to be clean. It’s in the handbook.”

  “What’s a handbook?”

  Misty began walking down the hall, carrying the squirming bundle of little girl. “It’s like the Princess Rulebook. Elsa and Anna are always clean, aren’t they?”

  Maddie screwed up her face in thought, and Misty prayed she hadn’t misremembered the movie.

  “Yeah,’ Maddie admitted slowly.

  “Don’t you want to be a princess like Elsa?”

  Maddie shrieked a fresh giggle. “I wanna be a reindeer like Sven!”

  “But then you’d have to eat hay. You don’t wanna do that, do you?”

  She made a squished face of disgust. “I don’t like hay.”

  “Then princess it is. And princesses take baths.” Misty set her into the tub, which was already filled with bubbles. “And check it. Your mom put in these cool colored bubbles. They’re blue, just like Elsa’s dress!” She scooped up a handful and set them on Maddie’s head. “There, now you have a crown.”

  Maddie preened.

  “If you play quietly and finish your bath, you can have two stories tonight
before bed,” Cayla promised from the doorway.

  “’Kay.”

  “Mommy and Miss Misty are gonna be right out here, okay?”

  But Maddie was already lost in her adventure, which Misty was pretty sure was a reenactment of Elsa and Anna’s parents’ ship sinking.

  Cayla stepped into the hall and blew out a breath. “Thanks for that. It’s been a…day. And thank you for coming by. I’m sure I interrupted plans with Denver.”

  It was Misty’s turn to blow out a breath. “You’d be wrong. I haven’t spoken to him in a week.” Not since he’d so abruptly left her shop.

  Cayla frowned. “What? Why? Did y’all break up?”

  “Breaking up would imply we were formally together in the first place.” Which, yeah, okay, she’d thought they were—or at least had been heading hard in that direction.

  “What happened?”

  “I have no idea. Things were good. Great, even. Or so I thought. Then last week he came by the shop with lunch from the diner. It was the anniversary of Judy’s death, so I was pretty down. He wanted to know what was wrong, so I told him about her. And something about that set him off.” Misty had played the whole thing over and over in her mind and couldn’t figure out the problem. What had she said? What had she done?

  “Was he ugly to you?”

  “No. He just hightailed it out of there. Left his own lunch in the process. I’ve tried to call him all week, but he’s not answering or returning my calls. I even went by one day, but he didn’t answer the door.”

  “Have you been by the tavern?”

  “No. I’m not going to confront him in his place of business. And even if I were the kind of woman to do that, Trish Morgan is the biggest gossip in town. We both value our privacy.”

  Cayla crossed her arms and scowled. “That just doesn’t make any sense. That’s not how it was supposed to work.”

  “How what was supposed to work?”

  “Oh, Denver has had a thing for you for years. So Kennedy and I conspired to throw you two together so he’d finally get to know you instead of just watching from afar.”

  She’d wondered what that whole steam roller routine was about. “Yeah, well, obviously reality didn’t live up to expectation.”

  “Misty Pennebaker, you stop that right now.”

  Misty had to smile a little at the mom voice. “Yes ma’am.”

  “I’m serious. You are awesome. And by all indications, Denver agrees with that assessment. So we need to figure out what’s got his panties in a wad.”

  “We don’t need to figure out anything but the last-minute details for Kennedy’s wedding. Seriously, Cayla, I just want to do this job and go back to my shop.” So I can lick my wounds in private.

  “So you don’t want to know what happened?”

  Misty threw up her hands. “Of course I do. But what if I don’t like the answer? What if he decided he doesn’t like forward, pushy women? Because I had to make all the first moves in this relationship. I asked him to dinner. I kissed him first. I’m not going to make the move to chase after him. That smacks too much of desperation, and I’ve got some pride left.”

  Cayla sighed. “Well, I don’t like it, but fine. I promise I won’t do anything.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Even if he does need a crowbar to pry his head out of his ass,” she muttered under her breath.

  Misty mustered a smile. “Maybe he’ll get there on his own. Eventually.” But she wasn’t holding her breath.

  ~*~

  Denver opted to do the final assembly of the arbor on-site at the barn of the inn. That way, he could do everything himself and not have to actually talk to anyone. Talking was the last thing he felt like doing. After six years in this town, keeping his head down and out of the local gossip, he’d managed to put himself right, square in the middle. He’d resorted to glaring his employees into silence and otherwise avoided everyone else by sticking to his tiny office in the back, catching up on the books. He thanked God for the fact that he owned a tavern, otherwise he’d have been forced to actually go to the local market and face the masses or starve. In his current mood, starving was the more appealing option.

  He backed his truck up to the barn doors and quietly dropped the tailgate. There were multiple cars in the gravel lot, among them Kennedy’s. But he knew her sisters had made it into town, so he was hoping she stayed tied up with them long enough for him to get in and out. His plan held for about half an hour.

  “Oh my God, it’s gorgeous!”

  On the ladder, Denver closed his eyes and repressed a curse. Five more minutes and he would’ve been gone. Instead of looking at Kennedy, he continued to tighten the nut that held on the elaborately carved front lintel. “Glad you like it.”

  She circled around and looked at the thing from all sides, and all the ooing and ahing was gratifying to his ego. He’d done a damned good job on this thing. She stayed silent as he attached the cross pieces that lined the top. When he was finished, he climbed down and they both stood taking in the finished product.

  “I can’t thank you enough. I had no idea you were this talented.”

  Denver shrugged. “You’re welcome. The whole thing has been weather sealed, so after the wedding, if you want, you can use it somewhere in the yard—here or at your place.”

  She clapped her hands and grinned. “That’s brilliant!”

  He thought about saying something about how Misty had said they could plant some kind of flowering vines to train up it, but that would be opening the very subject he wanted to avoid, so he just nodded and began to gather up his tools.

  “Now that’s out of the way,” she said, “what the hell’s the matter with you?”

  His hand tightened on the socket wrench and he chilled his voice down to a glacial tone that had cowed lesser men. “Excuse me?”

  Kennedy was no man. “What did you do to Misty?”

  “I didn’t do anything.” Well, he’d run like a coward and avoided her for a week. That left a bad taste in his mouth, but he just couldn’t deal with what she’d told him. How could he look at her now and not think about the reason his father was dead?

  “You hurt her.”

  Damn it. Was this going to be some kind of girl code ass kicking? Denver turned away, putting his tools back into the box. He knew he’d hurt her, and it made him feel like an asshole. But what could he say to her? Hey, now that I know this thing about you that you can’t actually change, you remind me of the worst time of my life, and I can’t look at you anymore?

  Kennedy moved to the opposite side of the truck, right in his line of sight so he couldn’t fail to see the pinch of disapproval on her face. “I saw you two together. Things were good. Y’all were happy. So what changed?”

  She wasn’t gonna let this go unless he gave her some kind of a reason. “I found out something about her past that I’m having trouble dealing with.”

  “What? Did she kill somebody?” Sarcasm fairly dripped from her voice, but something must have shown on his face because Kennedy sobered. “Wait, did she?”

  “No. No she tried to help.” She’d tried to help, but it hadn’t been enough.

  Kennedy frowned, clearly trying to work through his logic without him spelling it out. “Did she do something in trying to help that directly caused someone to die?”

  “No. It wasn’t directly in her hands. Not really.” Misty had done her job. Gone above and beyond, actually, trying to find some way to get Judy what she needed. She hadn’t set the rules she’d been bound by, and she’d broken them trying to do the right thing. It was more than anyone had done for his father.

  “Then it’s in the past. Speaking as someone who’s spent a lot of her life being driven by the past, it’s best to let it go. Unless whatever it is she did fundamentally alters who she is for you. Does it?”

  Someone else would have stayed in the job. Someone else wouldn’t have acted in the first place. Someone else would simply have said, “Sorry, this is the policy,”
and left it at that. Denver had dealt with those someone elses. Endlessly. But Misty had quit. And she’d changed her whole life to build something beautiful to honor a woman whose life had touched hers. The whole thing had made her into the woman he so admired.

  Arms braced on the side of the truck, he dropped his head. “Shit. I know I need to apologize.”

  Kennedy nodded. “I have it on good authority she’s working late tonight prepping stuff for the wedding.”

  “What the hell am I going to say?” Denver muttered.

  “The truth,” she said simply. “Whatever it is, it’s better to get it out there. Trust me on this.” When he said nothing, she shot him a piteous look. “Don’t waste the chance Cayla and I bent over backward to create for you.”

  Denver met her gaze. “We aren’t talking about that.”

  “Are you going to go talk to her?”

  “Yeah.” His conscience wasn’t going to give him a choice. He didn’t know if he actually could go back to thinking of her as the clever, intriguing woman who made him feel connected again for the first time in years. But he owed it to her to apologize for blowing her off without an explanation. And he owed her the damned explanation, even if it meant baring things he’d kept buried for years.

  “Then we won’t talk about how it took two nosy women to get you over your own inertia.” She slapped the truck. “Go on. Go fix this.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said and slipped into the driver’s seat.

  ~*~

  The wire frames had been a pain in the ass to build, but Misty thought she’d finally managed what she wanted. The pair of them ought to give the structure she needed to hold up the massive sprays she intended to mount to either side of the arbor. She’d be doing most of the rest on-site the night before and the day of the wedding, but having this piece finished was a load off. Her supplier had dropped off the flowers earlier in the day, and the entire massive lot of them were currently residing in the big walk-in cooler, waiting to be stripped and prepped. She’d get started on that tonight before heading home.

  Someone knocked on the front door of the shop. She’d been closed for more than an hour. Thinking it might be Cayla with some last-minute wedding emergency, Misty went to answer. But it wasn’t the slim blonde darkening her door. It was Denver.