His Wedding Date (The Second Chance Love Series, Book 2) (9 page)

"You know, my dear," Brian's mother said, "when you were six years old, you were sure that one day you were going to marry my son."

Shelly stammered and stuttered for a minute, and then just gave up and closed her mouth. What could she say? She had wanted to marry the man forever. But she didn't know his mother knew that, too.

"We were children," she finally managed to say.

"But you're not anymore."

She said it so matter-of-factly, as if it wouldn't bother her if her son did marry Shelly.

Amazing, Shelly thought. She truly liked Katherine, and the woman was no snob. Still, even the most open-minded person had to have second thoughts about her son marrying the daughter of her former grounds keeper.

Shelly saw no signs of that coming from the woman now.

Did that mean she wouldn't object—assuming there ever was anything between the two of them? Did she know how Shelly still felt? Did the whole world know how she felt about him?

"Well, I really have to be going." Katherine waved at a mountain of shopping bags. "Brian said you didn't have anything to wear, so I picked up a few things for you. If any of them don't fit, they're from the department store two doors down."

"Thank you," Shelly said, still stunned by what she'd heard.

"Is there another way out of here? I don't think I want to get into the middle of that meeting in the next room."

Shelly wasn't sure. The night before was a blur, but she looked around and found a door. "Through there?"

"That's it," Brian's mother said. "See you at the wedding, dear."

Shelly watched her go, then made her way to the door that led to the living room of the suite and cautiously opened it. She wanted to know if Brian still intended to go to this wedding, but she didn't want to see him with Rebecca.

Just her luck, she caught him as he was saying goodbye.

She watched Brian stoop down to eye level with Rebecca's six-year-old son and give the boy a big hug.

"I've missed you, Brian," she heard Sammy say.

"I miss you, too, buddy."

Sammy was a cutie, and he looked so much like his father, Tucker. She wondered how in the world Brian had handled that over the years he'd spent being a substitute father to Sammy. Every time he looked at the boy, he had to be reminded of the man Rebecca had married, and was marrying again.

And yet, from what she saw now, Brian and Sammy were very close. The little boy had tears in his eyes as he clung to Brian.

Shelly didn't want to see or hear this, but something kept her glued to the spot. From the doorway, she watched as Sammy stepped into the hallway and Brian and Rebecca stood at arm's length from each other, their clasped hands between them. Rebecca looked stunning as always.

Shelly couldn't see Brian's face, and she was glad of that. But she could sense the tension in the room.

"I'm sorry, Brian," she heard Rebecca say.

"I hope you know what you're doing," he said.

"I do. I'm certain of it."

Brian didn't say anything more. He kissed her lightly on the cheek, squeezed her hands once, and then she was gone.

Shelly closed the door behind her and stood with her back to it, shaking like a leaf, knowing exactly what that had to have cost him.

She was still standing there at the connecting door when someone knocked on the outer door of the room she was in. Brian's mother must have forgotten something. Shelly went to open the door. She certainly never expected to find Rebecca and her little boy standing there.

"Hi," Shelly said, wishing she'd never opened that door.

"Shelly," Rebecca said, looking as beautiful and as elegant as always. "I was worried about you. Brian told me about the plane, and he said you were hurt. Are you all right?"

Shelly nodded, letting herself be drawn into a quick hug.

"I saw you standing by the other door," Rebecca said. "And I... I don't mean to pry, but I just wanted to tell you that I'm glad you're here with Brian—"

"Oh, it's not—It's not anything like that," Shelly said, stumbling over the words in her haste to get them out.

"Okay." Rebecca smiled. "I just worry about him, still. He's a very special man."

"I know."

"I always thought that you... well, that you felt that way about him, too."

Shelly tilted her chin up a fraction of an inch. The whole world did know how she felt about Brian, it seemed.

"Look, I really didn't mean to pry," Rebecca said. "I just wanted to make sure you were all right."

Shelly nodded, unable to find anything to say, feeling as if someone might as well have plastered her feelings all over a billboard for the whole town to see.

"I guess we'd better be going. It was good to see you again, Shelly."

"Yes," she managed to get out. "It was good to see you, too."

Rebecca turned to the quiet little boy standing beside her and said, "Come on, Sammy. We've got to get ready."

Shelly figured her day couldn't get any worse, unless Brian was still determined to go to the wedding.

Chapter 5

Brian shifted on the uncomfortable church pew. He hadn't felt that bad this morning, but now the muscles in his neck and shoulders felt tight.

"This is a mistake," Shelly said as the organist finally paused in preparation for the beginning of the ceremony.

"I know. I should have admitted it before we got here," Brian said, tugging impatiently at the tie his father had loaned him. His own clothes were probably still at the bottom of the river. The county emergency team was having trouble hauling the plane out of the water.

"So why are we here?" Shelly asked.

"Sammy nailed me on it this morning at the hotel. Said he wanted me to come, and I promised I would. He's excited. He thinks it's going to
be
fun."

The last word came out like an obscenity, and Shelly laughed.

"You're the one who wanted to be here," she reminded him. "And you are. You even managed to get yourself invited."

"I swear we're drawing more attention than Rebecca will when she walks down the aisle. Everybody in the whole place is staring at us," he said.

"They probably want to see what happens when Tucker spots you. Either that, or they want to see if you're going to jump up and yell when the minister asks if anyone knows of any reason why Tucker and Rebecca shouldn't be married."

Brian did smile then.

"You wouldn't," she said.

"No, but I like the idea of Tucker wondering if I would."

The longer Brian sat in the church, the worse he felt, and not just physically. He had one moment of satisfaction when Tucker spotted him in the crowd and looked annoyed. But even that didn't last. Not Brian's satisfaction, nor Tucker's flash of irritation.

Because soon after that, Rebecca walked down the aisle in a simple, pale-yellow dress, and Tucker didn't see anyone but her.

Even more telling, Brian noted from his seat near the back of the church, Rebecca didn't seem to see anyone but Tucker and Sammy, who served as best man and wore a suit that matched his father's.

Rebecca looked beautiful, of course. She was an exquisite, elegant woman. But more than that, she looked... so happy, and like a woman absolutely sure of what she was doing and what she wanted.

Brian knew her, knew her face. A sinking feeling inside told him he'd never seen her look like that.

Not at him.

God,
had she really fallen in love with her husband again?

It was crazy.

All of them must be crazy, her for trusting that bastard who'd hurt her so much before, and Brian because he'd spent years wanting her and waiting for her.

Years.

How could he have done that? How could he have been so wrong?

Maybe it was the plane crash and facing the possibility of dying, but all that time seemed like a terrible loss.

As he sat there trying not to let anything about how he felt show in his face, Shelly slipped her hand into his in a kind, simple gesture of support.

He'd put her life at risk, too, to come here for this fiasco.
Idiot
.

He bent his head close to hers. "I'm really sorry," he whispered.

"For what?"

"You know... Talking you into coming here, crashing the plane we were in—"

"I don't think the plane crash was your fault—"

"Yeah, but you were in it because of me." And he would have never forgiven himself if she'd been seriously hurt because of him. It was bad enough seeing her bruised and sore and knowing it was his fault.

"Right," she said. "No more getaways to other women's weddings with you."

"No. No more other women's weddings for me."

He watched the scene unfolding in the church in front of him. Vows being exchanged. Voices sounding happy and sure. Sammy practically dancing with excitement between his mother and father.

Damn.

It was like watching a life he'd expected to be his drift farther and farther away with every passing moment, leaving him with a big, empty space in front of him, no image at all of what the rest of his life would be like. It was all so odd.

He searched his heart for some other emotion, but that was all he could come up with.

Odd.

Well... Surprising, too, he supposed. Puzzling. Detached. Reality as he knew it shifting while the couple down front exchanged their vows and he just sat there with Shelly holding his hand.

Vaguely, he realized the service was ending.

He watched through an odd haze as Rebecca turned to her husband, leaned her hands upon his chest and raised her face to his for a kiss.

It was done.

* * *

If coming to the wedding was a mistake, coming to the reception was a colossal one, Brian decided.

At least at the church, people pretty much kept to themselves and stayed fairly quiet. At the reception on the patio of Rebecca's parents' home, people mixed and mingled with too many curious looks and prying questions.

Brian put a hand to the back of his neck and pulled at the ever-tightening muscles there. The stiffness was setting in with a vengeance now. He'd taken a couple of aspirin before leaving the hotel, but they hadn't seemed to help. So he finally gave in and fished around in his pockets for the muscle relaxers the doctor had given him the night before.

He swallowed two and tried not to frown as the bride and groom arrived and the guests lined up to greet them.

"We're not going through the receiving line," Shelly said, as she came to stand beside him.

"That would be incredibly rude," he said, tucking her arm through his. He was enjoying her attempts to protect him. No one but Shelly had ever tried to do that.

"Getting slugged by the groom while you try to kiss the bride would be incredibly rude. Avoiding the reception line altogether would be a smart move."

"I kissed the bride this morning," he said, causing something of a stir when the couple behind him overheard what he'd said.

"Oh, great," Shelly said. She watched as the couple whispered to themselves and to people around them, and the news spread through the crowd. "Wait till that gets back to the groom."

Although, honestly, what did it matter now?

They were married.

"I really thought she was marrying him out of some misguided idea about putting their family back together for Sammy's sake," he admitted to Shelly.

"Me, too," Shelly said.

"It sure didn't look like that was the reason."

Brian had imagined she would walk down the aisle reconsidering every decision she'd made in the past six months, doubts dogging her every step.

He'd been wrong about that, too.

Shelly slipped her hand into his, which he realized had been clenched tight in a fist.

"Seen enough?" she asked.