Читать книгу Forever His Bride - Lisa Childs, Lisa Childs, Livia Reasoner - Страница 10

Left alone with her houseguest, Brenna could only stare up at the jilted groom. The one on the cake. She couldn’t look at Josh and manage to think. “Pop’s really upset about the bride.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Mama wanted the bakery to carry the one-piece groom-and-bride cake toppers, but Pop insisted they be individual so that we can mix and match, you know,” she rambled uncharacteristically, at the mercy of her nerves. “Brunette to brunette or brunette to blonde…”

“Or brunette to redhead,” Josh teased.

Heat rushed to Brenna’s face as his flirty tone flustered her. “Yeah, well, we don’t carry that many redheads. Not much demand.”

“Then I guess I’m not the only fool.”

“What?” she asked, totally confused by the comment and the twinkle in his striking blue eyes.

“I can’t understand there not being a great demand for redheads.” He grinned.

“Pop blames it on our notorious temper, you know.” While she didn’t have much of a temper, she’d rather blame the lack of demand for her on that than on her weight. She wasn’t about to starve herself into a size six, or she would have a hair-trigger temper and an ornery disposition. She knew from experience.

In her teens, during the rage of crash diets, she’d nearly lost her friends instead of losing any weight. But they’d remained loyal and supportive, no matter how bitchy she’d been. She had to be loyal and supportive, too—especially of Molly.

“Pop warned me that you might be mad,” Josh shared.

Had her father picked up on her feelings? “He thought I’d be mad that you and Buzz and TJ are staying with us?”

“That he asked me first.” Josh sighed. “But I can see that’s not the case. If you’d rather I find someplace else to stay…”

Her heart skipped. “Does this mean you’re still going to stay in Cloverville?”

“Nick and I are building an office here,” he reminded her. “We’re starting our private practice here.”

“You haven’t changed your mind…?” When Molly had told her of his plans, she hadn’t understood why an orthopedic surgeon and a plastic surgeon would start a practice in Cloverville. Although the town was growing, she couldn’t imagine there being much demand for their services.

“Nick would love it if I did,” Josh admitted. “He’s not thrilled about my choice of location for our venture. But it’s not that far from the hospital where we have privileges—just a little over an hour away. And when Molly told me your town doctor had retired, I saw an opportunity here.”

Brenna thought she knew what he’d seen in Cloverville—a life with Molly. “So you’re going to handle more than just your specialties?”

He nodded. “Yes. I am. I’m going to hire a physician’s assistant, and Nick wants to bring in a physical therapist, too.”

Although he might have rushed his proposal to Molly, Josh apparently had given more time and consideration to the plans for his practice. Brenna could appreciate a man with a brain for business.

“And I bought a house here,” he continued.

“You bought a house?” He wasn’t just going to work in Cloverville, he was going to live here, as well?

“I don’t have possession of it yet,” he explained. “At closing the sellers and I agreed they wouldn’t have to move out for two more weeks.”

“After your…” she almost choked on the word “…honeymoon? Does Molly know?”

“About the house?” He shook his head. “I was going to tell her tonight.”

“The house was her wedding present,” Brenna realized. “You were going to surprise her.”

Sure, some women might have considered his buying a house without his bride’s input to be high-handed. Ordinarily Brenna would be one of those women. But this was Josh, and for some reason his doing it didn’t make him seem chauvinistic, just incredibly romantic. Jealousy churned in her stomach, but she settled it with a sigh. “And instead she surprised you.”

“Brenna…”

“So you’re going to stay with us for two weeks?” She drew in a deep breath, but the pressure on her chest wouldn’t allow her lungs to expand. “Or are you going to go on your honeymoon anyway?”

“Bermuda alone?” he said with a wry laugh. “Now that would be sad. Do you want to join me?”

“Josh…”

The sparkle in his eyes clued her in to the joke. “You’re the second, remember? Gotta take up the sword for the bride.”

She shook her head. “There’s a reason Pop didn’t ask me to fetch his knife. I’d cut myself.”

Not to mention the fact that her heart would bleed if she fell for a man such as Josh Towers, a man who must still long for another woman. Her best friend. No, she didn’t intend to be anyone’s second. Not even his…

“I NEED TO TALK TO MOLLY,” Brenna stated her demand into the cell phone pressed to her ear as she paced the alley behind the American Legion Hall. She needed Molly to come home and reclaim her groom, before Brenna did something stupid like trying to claim him for herself.

Eric’s deep voice vibrated in the phone. “Bren, I told you the first couple of times you called that she isn’t here.”

So even though she’d called his cell this time, he was home at the small cabin on the fishing lake just outside of Cloverville. Perhaps Brenna should have just driven over…

“You told me, but should I believe you?” This was Eric, and everyone in Cloverville but Molly knew how he felt about her. “Eric, you’d lie for Molly. We all know you’d do anything she asked you to do.”

“We’re friends,” he said, as if that explained everything. “That’s what friends do.”

“She asked you to be in her wedding party, but you backed out,” she reminded him. Pulling out at the last moment had messed up the wedding party so that Clayton had had to pull double duty, walking Abby down the aisle and then going back to give away the bride.

“So why would you think I’d lie for her?”

Brenna, hearing the smirk in his voice, smothered a scream of frustration. Like the younger brother she’d never had, Eric had always enjoyed teasing her. But not in the way Josh teased her. Josh’s teasing felt different—made her feel different.

“Eric,” she said, lowering her voice in a way she hoped would seem threatening. She didn’t care that he’d grown—considerably—from the puny, little kid he’d once been. She was mad enough to win a wrestling match with the ex-Marine anyway. “Make her come to the phone, or I’m coming over there. Now. I have to talk to her.”

Eric’s laugh echoed in the cell. “God, Bren, you’re still just as bossy as when we were kids. Still the spoiled only child who’s used to getting her way.”

He was an only child, too. And so was Abby Hamilton. Brenna could have pointed that out, but Eric was right. She was the only spoiled one in their group, the one with the doting parents who’d given her everything she’d ever wanted. But she had yet to give Pop and Mama what they really wanted—grandchildren. Maybe that was why they’d invited Josh and the boys to stay longer. They wanted as much time as they could manage with Buzz and TJ.

Maybe if they’d been able to have more kids, they wouldn’t have been in such a hurry for grandkids now. As it was they hadn’t been able to conceive Brenna until they’d been in their forties. If they were younger, maybe they’d be willing to wait until she was ready to settle down and had the time to find a guy who didn’t already belong to someone else.

Just the way the house she wanted now belonged to someone else.

When Molly had announced her engagement, Brenna had taken a hard look at her own life. She’d thought Molly would be the last of their friends to marry—she’d been so focused on becoming a doctor that she hadn’t even dated in college. But here was Molly, engaged, and Abby, a mother, while Brenna still lived at home with her parents. She’d decided then to start spending some time on her personal life, and so she’d gone house hunting. But the house she’d fallen in love with had sold to someone else before Brenna could even put in a bid.

“Bren, you still there?” Eric’s voice rumbled through the phone. “I’m just kidding. You know I love you…”

But not the way he loved Molly. Brenna smiled. “If you loved me, you’d let me talk to her.”

“Bren…”

“Eric, she chose me as her maid of honor.” Probably only because Eric wouldn’t have looked all that good in a dress. “And she’s left me with this disaster.”

A door opened from the Legion Hall, and music and laughter spilled into the alley. Maybe the reception wasn’t a disaster. But everything else was. Her feelings for the jilted groom, for example. She shouldn’t be so fascinated—or was that infatuated?—with Josh.

“She left a note, too, asking for some time alone to figure things out,” Eric reminded her. “A good friend would give her that time.”

“You know about the note.” Molly was there, probably standing right next to him, listening in on Brenna’s call.

“Colleen or Abby must have told me,” he explained. “They’ve been calling, too. Wanting to make sure she’s all right. But you don’t seem as concerned about Molly as you do about someone else.”

Josh.

“I am worried about Molly.” Because she’d obviously lost her mind. Why else would she have left Dr. Joshua Towers at the altar?

“You don’t need to worry,” Eric assured her before hanging up. “She just needs some time alone. Then she’ll be all right.”

But would Brenna be okay? If Molly stayed away and Brenna had Joshua Towers in her house, all to herself, would she survive with her heart intact? She doubted it. Still, she wouldn’t have him all to herself. No woman would. She’d have his sons, too.

From the other side of the Dumpster drifted the excited chatter and giggles of two little boys. Brenna crept around the large metal container, ducking as a spray of pop arced toward her like a liquid rainbow. While most of the cola ran in rivulets down the corner of the Dumpster near Brenna’s head, a few drops caught her face, one sliding down her cheek to drip from her chin. She turned toward the boys, meeting two pairs of blue eyes that widened in astonishment and fear. They hadn’t meant to hit her.

Brenna sank her teeth into her bottom lip, keeping herself from smiling. She cleared her throat to stifle a laugh and admonished them, “Nicholas James! Thomas Joshua!”

“You know our real names?” TJ asked, his voice quavering with nerves and surprise.

Brenna had overheard Josh calling them by their full names when he’d been trying to get them to settle down in the guestroom the night before. Now, through the wall of her room, she’d have to listen to him—every night for two weeks?—reading bedtime stories to his sons. But it was better that they, and not their father, slept in the room next to hers. Or Brenna wouldn’t be able to sleep at all, for his being so tantalizingly close.

The twins exchanged a glance. Then Buzz twisted his lips, speaking out of the side of his mouth to his brother. “We’re in trouble now.”

They weren’t the only ones.

Brenna continued to hold in a laugh as she took in their condition. TJ’s spiky hair dripped cola onto his face and the shoulders of his saturated tuxedo jacket. Buzz blinked pop from his eyelashes—it streamed down his cheeks like tears, and then trickled along the pleats of his once-white shirt. “We need to get you two cleaned up before your father sees you.”

Josh had enough on his mind with his missing bride, plus he was probably going crazy looking for his boys. He didn’t need to find them like this. As it was, he certainly wasn’t going to get his deposit back on their matching tuxedos.

“Okay, guys, let’s go,” she ordered, herding them back into the hall.

They balked at the door to the ladies’ room, as if Brenna were trying to drag them into a dentist’s chair for a root canal.

“We’re not going in there,” TJ insisted.

“We’re boys,” Buzz pointed out, as if she hadn’t noticed.

“We need to use the men’s room,” TJ explained.

“I can’t go in there,” Brenna replied. “And since I just saw your dad and Uncle Nick go into the men’s room, I think you’d rather use the lad—”

Buzz and TJ hurled their bodies against the door in their haste to scramble into the other restroom and away from their father. Brenna caught the door before it swung back in her face and followed them into the empty room. Fortunately, everyone was on the dance floor, shaking their bodies and singing along with a classic Bob Seger song. Brenna hummed a few bars as the twins shucked their jackets and cummerbunds. TJ got his tie caught around his head, the bow planted in the middle of his forehead.

Laughing, Buzz dropped to his knees on the green-tiled floor and pointed at his brother. “You’re a girl. You’re a little sissy girl.”

TJ slammed his hands against his brother’s sodden shirtfront. “You’re a sissy girl.”

“You’re a sissy girl!”

“No one’s a sissy girl,” Brenna insisted as she turned on the water tap and reached for the paper towels that were folded in a basket on the Formica counter.

“You’re a girl.” The boys turned on her, as if her gender was a dirty word. TJ tugged the bow tie over his head, and Buzz rose to his feet.

“But I’m no sissy,” Brenna warned them as she cupped the flow from the faucet and sprayed water all over the twins.

They squealed but they didn’t run, catching water in their open mouths and letting it drip from their chins.

She stopped spraying them, in order to mop them up with wet and then dry towels. “At least you didn’t have punch.” She could just imagine the bright red stains on their clothes.

“Uncle Nick said it had nails in it.”

“Spikes,” Buzz corrected his brother. “Uncle Nick said someone put spikes in it.”

“Someone spiked the punch?” Brenna asked. Obviously the boys hadn’t had any, as their little bodies fairly hummed with energy from a pure caffeine high.

“Who’d put spikes in punch?” TJ asked, wrinkling his nose as Brenna wiped off his face.

“Rory,” she muttered. Since the boy had hit his teens, poor Mrs. McClintock had been struggling to keep her youngest on the straight and narrow. Even though Mary McClintock had been a single mom since her husband died, she had always had help from her other offspring. Especially Clayton, the eldest and most responsible of the McClintocks.

What about Josh—who did he have? His parents hadn’t bothered coming to his wedding, which Brenna felt should have taken priority over their anniversary, and while the twins called his best friend Uncle Nick, he wasn’t really their uncle. He certainly wasn’t maternal. The boys needed a mother.

Buzz shivered in his damp shirt. “I’m cold, Brenna.”

“You’re a sissy girl,” TJ accused his brother through quivering lips. He struggled to keep his teeth from chattering when gusts of cool air blew out of the vents above them.

Hunkering down beside the boys, Brenna wrapped an arm around each twin and pulled them close for a hug.

“Umm-hmm,” Buzz nodded, before he and TJ wriggled loose. “You smell good.”

“You’re really pretty, too,” TJ said, probably in competition with his twin for the better compliment. His sticky fingers tugged on a lock of her hair. “I like red. It’s my favorite color.”

TJ’s father had said it was his favorite color, too, which was why she’d chosen it for the flowers and the bridesmaids’ dresses.

“I wish you were going to be our new mommy,” the boy said, easily winning the compliment competition.

“We like you more than Molly,” Buzz agreed. “Why can’t you be our new mommy?”

“Uh…” she stammered, having no idea what to say. “Your daddy and I haven’t even known each other very long.”

“He doesn’t know Molly, either,” TJ pointed out.

They were so smart.

“But he doesn’t love me, honey.” And Brenna, growing up with parents who were as devoted to each other as they were to her, had vowed long ago to marry for nothing less than love.

“He doesn’t love Molly, either,” Buzz insisted.

“Honey, your dad wouldn’t have asked her to marry him if he didn’t love her.” Would he have? Or was he just as desperate to find a mother for his sons as they were? “Besides which, you guys don’t really know me.”

“We love you,” TJ declared.

Brenna blinked back tears of longing. She didn’t have to worry about just falling for Josh. She was falling for his sons, too.

BRENNA MOVED through the crowd, looking for Josh. If not for Nick just telling her he was still looking for the boys, she wouldn’t have sought him out. She would have gone on trying to avoid him. And his sons.

She found him near the bar, cornered by two of the town’s busiest bodies. Mrs. Hild, the organist, stood so close to him that the brim of her flower-trimmed hat poked into his chest. “It’s such a scandal.”

“A real scandal,” her cohort, Mrs. Carpenter, wholeheartedly agreed, patting her home-permed white curls. Her husband, the owner of Carpenter’s Hardware on Main Street, had the well-earned reputation of being the thriftiest man in town.

“I can’t believe Molly would run out like that on her own wedding.” The flowers wobbled as Mrs. Hild shook her head. “Now it’s the wedding-that-wasn’t.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” Mrs. Carpenter agreed. “Molly has always been such a smart girl.”

“Nose always in a book,” Mrs. Hild added. “Read everything in the library. Heck, she just about lived in that library.”

“Makes no sense,” Mrs. Carpenter repeated, her eyes wide as she assessed Josh’s good looks.

“Can I borrow Dr. Towers?” Brenna asked, reaching between the older women to grasp Josh’s arm and pull him away. “Your children need you.”

“Such adorable little scamps,” Mrs. Carpenter murmured as Brenna led him from the bar.

“And their father.” Mrs. Hild’s loud sigh reached them. “He’s the spitting image of JFK junior. Such a handsome, handsome boy…”

“Molly McClintock must have lost her mind,” Mrs. Carpenter declared.

Brenna swallowed her agreement, along with a chuckle at the lasciviousness of the two women.

“Where are the boys? I’ve been looking all over for them,” Josh said, his eyes dark with concern for his children. He obviously didn’t care what Mrs. Hild, Mrs. Carpenter or anyone else said about him. Or he wouldn’t have shown up at his reception.

“Evidently you haven’t looked in the alley,” Brenna informed him. “Or the ladies’ room.”

He closed his eyes. “They were outside? By themselves?”

“I was with them every minute,” she assured him, although she hadn’t been quite fast enough to prevent the pop fight.

“And the ladies’ room?” he asked. “Are the toilets working?”

Brenna laughed. “Yes. Everything’s okay. You probably won’t get the deposit back on their tuxedoes. But otherwise they’re fine.”

He pushed a hand through his black hair as a grin stole across his mouth. “Never a dull moment. Not since the day they were born. They need constant supervision, or they get into trouble. Where are they now?”

“With my folks. Mama and Pop can handle them,” she assured him. “Nick said you were looking for them, though.”

“Where is he?”

“Are you still avoiding your best man?” she asked.

Josh shook his head. Just as the town gossips had cornered him at the bar, Nick had cornered Josh in the men’s room earlier. His friend didn’t understand why Josh had insisted on coming to the reception. Hell, he didn’t understand why Josh hadn’t changed his mind about opening the office and moving to Cloverville. He expected Josh to sell the building and the house he’d finally admitted to buying. He hadn’t realized what Josh already understood—that Cloverville had a lot to offer.

“Dance with me,” he said. “I haven’t danced once tonight.”

She shook her head. “I just rescued you from the town busybodies, but you’re determined to get their tongues wagging again.”

Josh shrugged. “Sweetheart, I’m going to be the talk of this town for many years to come, no matter what I do.” Maybe Nick was right. Maybe he should change his plans, sell the office building, sell the house and salvage some of his pride. “Why is dancing with you going to get the tongues wagging again?”

Her usually throaty voice slightly prim, she informed him, “A groom is supposed to dance his first dance with the bride.”

“That’s a little hard to do when the bride’s taken off,” Josh pointed out. “Pretty sad that a woman was so desperate to get away from me that she ran away from all her family and friends, too.”

“Maybe not all her friends,” Brenna muttered.

“What?” Was Brenna referring to the guy who’d backed out of the wedding party at the last minute—the guy Molly had often talked about, Eric South? Although South was a paramedic at the hospital where Josh worked, he couldn’t remember ever having met him. Of course he didn’t often work out of the E.R. “Do you know where she is?”

“Sure, I’ll dance with you,” she said now, as if desperate to change the subject.

Josh wouldn’t pressure her for Molly’s whereabouts in the way that Nick would. His best man thought Josh needed to talk to his fiancée, in order to accept that the engagement was over. But even though their engagement wasn’t officially broken, Josh knew he and Molly wouldn’t ever be getting married.

He linked his fingers with Brenna’s and led her through the twirling and swaying couples on the dance floor. “Now I see where Nick’s gotten to. He’s dancing with Colleen,” he observed. He had known Nick a long time, but he couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen that particular expression on his friend’s face before—a mixture of awe, fear and fascination.