Barefoot in White (Barefoot Bay Brides) (10 page)

“Hush.” He put his hand on her mouth, narrowing his eyes. “You’re a runner, Willow.”

She frowned. “I like to jog. I hardly call myself a runner.”

“No, you run. I noticed that about you. When things get sticky, or interesting, depending on your point of view, you take off.”

She leaned back, freeing her hand so she could cross her arms.

“Or you do that.” He gestured toward her protective position. “You wrap yourself up and won’t let anyone in.”

“That’s pretty amazing analysis considering you’ve known me for two days.”

“And eleven years. But it doesn’t take a shrink to see what you’re doing or why.” He stroked her arm, tempting her to let down that shield and wrap him in another hug.

But that would be…stupid.

“You can’t always detach yourself from someone who wants to be attached to you,” he said.

“I don’t.” He gave her a
get real
look, and she shrugged. “Okay, sometimes. But I don’t understand what difference it makes to you.”

He looked perplexed by the statement. “I like you,” he said simply. “And I’m frustrated that you don’t like me back.”

She couldn’t help smiling. “Is life always that simple for you, Nick?”

“Rarely, but when it is, I grab the moment.”

She finally stood, remembering that “moments” were all they had, because he’d be gone tomorrow, and she’d see him once for a wedding after that, then never again. So…he was a bad candidate for what she wanted.

Except that until that kiss, she hadn’t known what she wanted. And now she wanted…more.

“Let’s get you back to your villa so you can write all this up and have it make sense.”

He laughed as he got up. “This shit never makes sense, Willow.”

Chapter Eight

Sunday morning, Willow slipped out of her apartment early to grab some coffee and hit the office for some quiet time. There, she plugged in her headset to get lost in a Mozart concerto and skim through a fairly light email in-box.

She powered through messages and typed with flying fingers, ignoring the questions.

She never even heard her business partners arrive in the office until Gussie slid her backside onto Willow’s desk, draped over, and yanked out one of her earbuds. “We missed you for Sunday breakfast. No one was home in your apartment, and Ari and I had to eat in town.”

“I needed to work.” Willow made a face at Gussie’s choice of a jet-black wig with bangs and rhinestone cat-eye glasses. Willow gestured to the eyewear. “Over-the-top, even for you.”

Gussie ignored the comment and stuck the earbud in her own ear. “So’s this music. Still rebelling against your rock ’n’ roll upbringing, I see.”

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t get away from it, I’m afraid.” She unhooked her other earbud and pushed back from the desk. “I didn’t think you guys would be in for a while.”

“You’re avoiding us,” Gussie accused.

“Not at all. But since you’re here now, we better get focused on Misty. She’s coming in later with her decision on whether or not to have the wedding here. I’m sure Nick’s coming with her, too.”

Ari came up behind Gussie, and they shared a look. “Less than ten seconds,” Ari said, holding out her hand to Gussie. “Pay up.”

Gussie mumbled and reached into her pocket, pulling out a black and yellow-wrapped candy. “Do you know how hard it is to find Black Cows? I had to go to Fort Myers for these.”

Candy-obsessed, both of them.

“A bet is a bet.”

Neither one of them seemed to notice Willow’s unlocked jaw. “You two are gambling on…us?” Not that she and Nick were an “us” or that she should be surprised, considering how these two went to war over rare candies.

“On how long it would take you to mention his name,” Gussie said, reaching to grab Ari’s hand. “Do not unwrap that. I still might get it back.” Then, to Willow, “Did you kiss him?”

“I…I…”

Gussie grinned with sheer satisfaction and flipped her palm upward to Ari. “Give ’er back. I told you.”

Ari held tight to the candy. “Not so fast. Are you going to see him again or not?” She squeezed Gussie’s fingers. “Remember, another date wins me a bag of Squirrel Nut Zippers, which could require an online order. You can’t find those anywhere.”

Willow shut her eyes, not sure if she should laugh or be disgusted. “Another date? There wasn’t a first one, not technically. I’m going to see him in a few minutes, if he even comes to the meeting with Misty. After that? He’s going back to California and may be deployed again, depending on what his last hearing test said.”

One of Gussie’s brows shot up behind the sparkly glasses. “Know an awful lot about his life, don’t you?”

“Well, we were together for hours, and we talked. Did you bet on whether or not we had a conversation? Because we did.”

“Didn’t bet on that,” Gussie admitted, taking the candy. “With no second date, this is mine, Ari.”

“Put it on the table,” Ari said. “There’s still this afternoon.”

Willow pushed back from the desk as the other women headed to their own workstations. “He’s leaving this afternoon, thank God.”

They both whipped around to look at Willow. “Thank God?” they asked in unison.

“Why?” Ari demanded.

“He’s hot and awesome,” Gussie added. “Not to state the obvious or anything.”

Willow rolled the cords of her earbuds in a neat circle around her iPod, giving a half-assed shrug.

“Willow?” Gussie prompted.

“Tell us what’s going on,” Ari insisted.

How could she when she didn’t understand why she felt how she felt? Hell, she didn’t even know how she felt, so she used the excuse she gave Nick. “He’s so much a piece of a past I’d really like to forget.”

Gussie squirreled up her pretty features into a mix of disbelief and disgust. “Seriously, Willow? That was a zillion years ago.”

“Eleven years and a lot of…” She gave a wry smile. “Pounds.”

“Exactly!” Gussie said, coming closer so fast her neon-green maxi dress swooshed. “And look at you. You’re perfect.”

“Hardly.” But she only battled the same ten pounds that many women went to war with, and she knew it.

Ari got next to Gussie in a show of solidarity. “Willow, you
are
your past. I’m sorry, but you can’t disconnect from it even if you really want to, any more than you can disconnect from the earth under your feet or every thought you have during a day. It’s part of the tapestry of you.”

Gussie nodded. “She’s right. You didn’t emerge from the sea, fully formed as this new person. I think it’s kind of wonderful that he knew you before. I wish we knew you before. Don’t roll your eyes, Willow. I’ve never even seen a picture of you when you weighed more.”

Nor would they. “You’re not missing anything.”

“Don’t say that.” Ari’s eyes sparked. “I mean it when I say your past is everything about you. History and time and events all fold together into one spirit—”

Willow sliced the air with her hand. “Please, Ari. Can the woo-woo. If my past is everything, then I am nothing.”

They both stared at her, slack-jawed, making her realize just how harsh and wrong and stupid that sounded. But they didn’t understand what it was like to hate—truly, deeply, madly
hate—
yourself for most of your life. They didn’t understand what it was like to use food to escape the manipulation of a woman who lived to manipulate.

Willow had finally let go of that hate and had grown into tolerance, even like, for herself. Nick Hershey brought all the self-loathing back to the forefront. Everything would be easier if she could get away from Nick, the human embodiment of one of the Worst Days of her life. The only person who might send her reeling even further back would be her mother, and Misty certainly brought that possibility to the forefront.

“Much as you’d like to make it out to be more, this guy’s nothing. He’s not an issue. He’s leaving today, and if Misty chooses Casa Blanca, he’ll be back in a month for a weekend wedding, and then this will have been nothing but one afternoon of shopping and ice cream.”

“Ice cream?” Gussie gasped.

“He got you to eat ice cream?” Ari asked on a choke of disbelief.

Willow gestured toward the candy. “Should have bet on that.”

Gussie shook her head, hands on hips. “Neither one of us is dumb enough to bet on you and ice cream.”

“I can’t believe you ate ice cream,” Ari teased. “Next, you’ll be breaking the pact.”

“What pact?” Lacey Walker, owner of the Casa Blanca resort, tapped on the frame of the open door to announce herself.

Brown eyes twinkling and her reddish-blond curls tumbling, Lacey was an unlikely resort owner. But her status as a lifelong resident of Barefoot Bay and a survivor of a hurricane that had made way for Casa Blanca gave her tremendous street cred. Plus, she was a damn nice lady who’d given them an office and welcomed an on-site wedding planning firm with open arms.

“I don’t know about a pact,” she reiterated after they’d waved her in with a warm greeting.

“Should we tell her?” Gussie asked.

Willow and Ari shrugged and nodded. “It’s not a secret,” Ari said. “The three of us decided we’d stick with planning and never actually have weddings of our own.”

Lacey looked surprised. “You never want to get married? Not one of you is over thirty yet. You don’t know what can happen.”

“Oh, we might get married,” Ari explained as she pulled out her chair to settle in. “But we don’t want weddings.”

“We’ve seen one too many bridezillas,” Willow explained. “They’re all fraught with anxiety and stress. Wasn’t your wedding stressful?”

Lacey laughed. “My wedding? Well, I thought I was attending the Casa Blanca groundbreaking ceremony when the mayor appeared, Clay proposed, and we said ‘I do’ in the same two minutes.”

Ari pumped her fist in the air. “That’s the way to do it, baby.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go making pacts you might not be able to keep,” Lacey warned.

“We’ll keep it,” Willow assured her. “We are the anti-wedding wedding planners, but please, don’t tell the clients.”

“I won’t,” Lacey said. “And speaking of clients, how can I thank you?”

They all looked perplexed. “For what?” Ari asked.

“For the one-month rental of Artemisia.” Lacey opened the file in her hands and flattened it on the conference table. “This is especially nice for us in the spring when we don’t always book every villa.”

“Misty is staying for a month?” Willow asked.

“No, she already took off in her limo and asked that we let you know the wedding’s a go, and she’ll handle everything by phone or conference call or—”

“Then who is it?” Willow asked, hating that her voice sounded so tense.

“Her man of honor. That hot Navy SEAL that has every female head in the resort getting whiplash when he runs the beach.”

Willow could feel Ari and Gussie grinning. She didn’t even have to look. “He’s…staying for a month?”

“Misty said Nick Hershey could handle the little details that need to be done in person.” Lacey slid the file forward. “I guess he’s a writer or something. Did you guys know that?”

Willow kept her eyes on Lacey, refusing to meet her friends’ eyes. “Yes, I did know that,” she said.

“Apparently, there’s something in the air in Barefoot Bay,” Lacey said with a laugh.

“Something.” Ari spoke under her breath, but Willow heard her.

“He’s had a creative breakthrough.”

“Is that what they call it now?” Gussie whispered.

“So he doesn’t want to leave,” Lacey continued with a huge smile. “We
love
long-term bookings, so thank you. You guys are such an awesome addition to Casa Blanca.”

While the others turned the moment into a little love fest of mutual appreciation, Willow nodded, still not sure of her voice.

He was staying for a month?
No one, not the strongest woman on earth, could avoid temptation that long.

Then maybe she shouldn’t.

Lacey wasn’t five feet down the hall when Ari made a dive for the candy on the desk. “I won that bet! There will so be a second date.”

“Double or nothing on a third,” Gussie said.

“You guys.” Willow nearly stomped her foot. “Stop and let me deal.”

“What’s to deal?” Gussie asked. “He’s staying to write his book. Whatever happened yesterday must have
really
inspired him.”

Willow fought a smile, the idea of Nick staying for a month settling slowly on her heart. Would it be
that
bad?

Ari looked positively satisfied as she opened the candy. “The universe is speaking. It is
demanding
that you come to terms with your past and give this guy a shot.”

Without responding, Willow gathered Lacey’s file and flipped it open, reading the information.

Nicholas S. Hershey

Gussie leaned over her shoulders. “S for Smokin’.”

No, Spencer. But she didn’t tell them she knew that many details about him. That would just fuel their gambling habit. “I think I’ll go talk to him,” she said.