The Best Man in Texas (8 page)

“Explain this to me again.” Meg, who wasn’t working since it was Wednesday night, wiggled over on Brooke’s bed to make room for the open suitcase. “I’m the vivacious one who, let’s face it, puts out, yet you are somehow the one who is engaged to the rich guy
and
going away for the weekend with his hot friend? There are so many things wrong with that I don’t know where to begin.”

Brooke glared. “I am not ‘going away for the weekend’ with Jake. All right, technically, yes. I am. But not the way you insinuated.”

“Uh-huh.” Whether she was convinced or not, Meg had the good sense to change the subject. “Have you ever flown on one of these puddle jumpers before? It won’t exactly be the first-class section.” As if either of them had ever flown first-class.

“I’m aware.” Did private planes come with strategically placed air-sickness bags the same way commercial flights did? Squelching the unpleasant thought, Brooke narrowed her eyes. “Remind me why you’re here, with
your oh-so-helpful observations, instead of back at your place.”

“After a week of Mom’s company, my place seems lonely now that she’s gone.”

Meg had reported yesterday morning that, fed up with their mother’s rants about Everett’s hypothetical affairs, she’d finally offered to tail him, as if Didi were a real client who suspected her spouse of cheating. Instead of taking Meg’s offer, Didi had seemed terrified that her daughter might find something and had quickly fled home to make peace with her husband. Brooke didn’t for a moment think that her dad would really be unfaithful, but his blatant flirting whenever he and his wife fought wasn’t exactly the moral high ground, either.

“I haven’t heard from her since she left,” Meg said. “You don’t think they’ve finally killed each other, do you?”

Brooke paused in the act of folding a pair of jeans, considering. “Nah. I work in the news industry. We would have broken the story of a double homicide by now.”

“Because the
Katy Chronicle
is such a cutting-edge paper.” Meg giggled.

“Hey—unnecessary! I have a steady paycheck, a boss I like and free admittance to a number of hoity-toity social events.” That was, after all, how she’d met Giff in the first place.

“No offense.” Meg held up her hands. “I was just razzing you because I’m your sister and it’s what siblings do. The truth is…”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe I envy you. A little. You found your niche.”

It was unheard of for Meg to sound so woebegone. Brooke plopped down on the mattress next to her. “You’ll find yours, too. This P.I. thing—”

Meg snorted. “I don’t think so. It sounded exciting at first—very Sam Spade and retro sexy—but it’s a lot of paperwork, computer searches and car stakeouts. Do you know how
dull
a stakeout can be?”

“Not through firsthand experience, no.”

“Trust me. You spend half the time trying not to think about how much you have to go to the bathroom and the other half stuffing your face just to keep awake. I’d be a size ten inside a month.”

“Heaven forfend.”

Overlooking her curvier sister’s sarcasm, Meg continued, “Being a P.I. wouldn’t be half as interesting as
your
job.”

“Writing up weddings?” For a moment, Brooke forgot to defend her venerable position as journalist.

“Admit it, aren’t you at least a little bit thrilled to be jetting off with Jake McBride? Focusing entirely on him under the guise of doing a story?”

“Why do I see air quotes when you say that? You do realize I really
am
doing a story, right?” Of course, no story Brooke had ever covered before had left her with a case of butterflies like she had now, not even when she’d interviewed the governor of Texas while she was still a college student in Austin. Every time she thought about her trip to Tennessee with Jake, she simultaneously wanted to grin and throw up.

The nausea is not nerves over being alone with the man. It’s probably just anxiety because of the puddle jumper. Piloted by the inauspiciously named
Boom,
for pity’s sake.
Under those circumstances, who wouldn’t want to toss her cookies? “What is
that?
” Meg frowned at the faded extra-large T-shirt Brooke held. It showed a crazy-eyed stick figure peering over a typewriter and read Hand Over the Caffeine and No One Gets Hurt.

“A nightshirt.”

“You’re killing me, sis. Don’t you own something black and lacy?”

“Megan! This is a business trip, not my honeymoon. I am engaged to Giff,” she said firmly.

“Yeah, engaged to be married. You know how many women in your position indulge in one last fling?”

An erotic and wholly inappropriate picture tried to surface in Brooke’s mind. She banished it. “That is tacky and deceitful. I would never do that. Especially with Giff’s best friend!”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?” Brooke was a grown woman. In theory, she knew better than to let her sister bait her.

In theory.

“Well, if things are as platonic between you and Jake as you say—”

“They are!”

“Then why did you dismember me with your eyes every time I smiled at him during your engagement party?”

For a moment, words eluded Brooke. She recalled exactly the kind of smile Meg had flashed at the handsome fireman. And exactly how it had made Brooke feel. Angry. Possessive.

Brooke swallowed and managed to stammer, “You have an overactive imagination.”

Shaking her head, Meg stood. “You know what I recall about your toddler years? The stories you started making up as soon as you could talk. Mom always said I had her artistic streak, but you had the imagination. Brooke, if you’re telling yourself that you aren’t attracted to Jake McBride, you’ve become an even better storyteller than I remember.”

J
AKE HAD CONSIDERED CALLING
Brooke—or her editor—to try to get out of this trip. He’d realized in the past few days that this was probably a bad idea. On the other hand, he was already on thin ice with Giff, who would no doubt take Jake’s cancellation as a sign of hostility toward Brooke. Which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Still, now that he was actually here on her doorstep, hand raised to knock, he found himself smiling at the thought of seeing her again. He’d had a lot of fun the night of the concert and had discovered the potential for rare and deep friendship the evening she’d come to check on him at the station. Part of him—the throw-yourself-on-the-grenade idiot part—was looking forward to this weekend.

She answered the door so quickly it was as if she’d been hovering on the other side, waiting for him. Had
she been eager to see him, too? His heart sped up at the thought—probably an adrenal response to impending disaster. After all, his pulse also quickened when faced with the possibility of a backdraft or flashover.

“Hi.” Her tone was warm and inviting; she seemed like a different woman than the one who’d answered the door for him the night of the concert.

He lifted his chin, gesturing to the lightweight purple jacket she wore. “Color. I like it.”

She laughed, but stopped abruptly. “It’s my raincoat. The weather forecast called for scattered showers. Do you think it will be safe to fly?”

Knowing how sincerely she meant her question, he tried to keep from smiling. “Boom’s flown through enemy airspace while being shot at and always got where he was going in one piece. I don’t think the forty percent chance of light showers is going to slow him down.”

“Okay, then.” She took a deep breath. “If you say it’s all right, I’m done worrying. I trust you.”

Don’t.

If he were a better man, he would have said the word out loud. Didn’t he owe her some warning about his growing suspicion that he might try to talk her out of marrying Giff this weekend?

Jake had always had a strong sense of loyalty, an innate code of honor that he followed. Normally that would be enough to keep him from interfering. The problem was that he was becoming more and more confident that Brooke and Giff getting married would be a mistake, that given the chance, they could each find
something stronger and more meaningful with other people.

Like you?
his conscience sneered. The line between “good intentions” and “selfish bastard” had become amazingly blurred.

Jake tried to summon the mental picture of her and Giff at a kitchen table, surrounded by the undoubtedly cute kids they would have together. Instead, he imagined a tall, scuffed table in a dingy nightclub where Giff sat awkwardly, making a concerted effort to like a loud indie rock band while Brooke told herself that she didn’t mind not dancing, that there were more important qualifications in a potential mate.

“Jake? I know I just got through promising that I wouldn’t worry, but I take it back. You look troubled. Is something wrong?”

Other than the risk of my sabotaging your engagement?
“Not at all.”

T
HE FLIGHT TO
Chattanooga was far smoother than Brooke had imagined it would be.

The landing was not.

Brooke had been on roller coasters at the now defunct AstroWorld that had rattled her less. The older man who’d been seated with Jake and Brooke—Boom’s paying customer—had begun snoring five minutes after take off and hadn’t seemed at all disturbed by the screeching jolt of touchdown. Brooke had actually had to wake him up to announce their arrival.

Jake, darn his unflappable hide, looked as if he was
trying not to laugh at her as helped her out of the plane. “You doin’ okay?”

“Fine, although I’ve realized…”

“What?”

She gave a quick toss of her head, feeling stupid. “Nothing. Just one of those old ‘what I want to be when I grow up’ things. It’s for the best that it never panned out.”

“Tell me you wanted to be an astronaut,” Jake said. “You’d be adorable in a NASA helmet.”

“Sorry if things got a little bumpy there at the end,” Boom told her. It looked as if he might even be a little red-faced about his landing job, but it was difficult to tell with his naturally ruddy complexion. “So, Jake, see you again Saturday afternoon?”

Jake nodded. “We’ll be here. Thanks for the lift, buddy.”

The two men shook hands, and then Boom smiled at Brooke. “It was especially nice to meet you, ma’am.”

She thanked him sincerely—landing aside, she’d just received a free flight. How often did that happen? And she’d truly enjoyed herself. Jake had given her a lot of information about what a typical day for a firefighter involved when he wasn’t fighting fires. For instance, last month, they’d done a practice burn at a house that had been sold to the city and was scheduled for demolition; it had been used as an all-day training activity. And while Brooke had known that firefighters routinely spoke to kids, she’d never really thought about the importance of a child seeing a fireman in his full gear, which could be intimidating.

“The thing with kids,” he’d told her, “is that when they get scared, they hide. In closets, under beds. The room is filled with dark smoke, which can be terrifying even to an adult, and then here comes this person in boots and heavy gloves with a tank on his back, breathing through a full face mask. The munchkins are thinking Darth Vader, not good guy.”

So the firemen would demonstrate what each piece of equipment was used for, then put it on so that at the conclusion of the presentation, students could actually walk up and interact with the suited-up fireman.

“Hopefully none of these children will ever be in a fire, but if they are, they’ll know not to hide from us, which increases the number of lives we can save. Another popular demonstration for the little guys is that we have a race to see which firefighter can get into his or her gear the fastest. I currently hold the station record,” he’d boasted.

If Meg had been on the plane, she would have made some bold inquiry about how fast Jake could get
out
of whatever he was wearing. Brooke, however, had more restraint. And a fiancé.

After they’d parted ways with Boom, she and Jake rented a car to get them around Chattanooga. He grinned at her while he unlocked the white sedan. “I’m not used to having someone along for the ride. It’s kind of nice.”

“Thanks. Let’s hope you still feel that way on Saturday. Sometimes you have a distinct ‘lone wolf’ vibe, and Kresley put you on the spot about taking me along.” Brooke frowned thoughtfully. “I think it must
be hormone-related. She’s not usually an impulsive person.”

“Lone wolf, huh? Is that the polite term for antisocial?” Jake teased. “Trust me, I’m plenty used to having to share close quarters with others, and I get along with just about anyone if I need to.”

Brooke buckled her seat belt and turned to him expectantly. “So, what’s the plan from here?”

“Plan?” He sniffed with overacted derision. “You’re missing the point, Ms. Nichols. This isn’t an op or a three-alarm. We don’t have to follow any plans. We can do whatever we want or do nothing at all, eat dessert before dinner. Wear mismatched socks!”

She pursed her lips, well aware that he was picking on her but amused despite herself. Not that she planned to admit that. “Are you quite finished?”

“Probably not,” he said unrepentantly. “Expect random bouts of mockery.”

“You and Giff are so different.”

Jake slanted her a glance as he started the car. “Meaning he’s a gentleman who would never heckle a lady, whereas I’m a cad who doesn’t take anything seriously?”

“No. Well, yes,” she amended, returning some of the hell he’d been merrily giving her. “But it’s more than that. I know the two of you grew up together, which probably accounts for how close you are. Do you think if you’d met say, in high school or college that you would have become such friends?”

He was quiet for a long moment, his expression unexpectedly serious. “I don’t know. I hope so. He’s a hell
of a guy, and probably a good influence on me. Without his family caring about me, I think I easily
could
have become an antisocial lone wolf. I was…angry a lot as a kid.”

From what he’d told her about his father’s drinking, he’d probably had good reason to be. “I’m glad the Bakers were there for you,” she said.