Blissed (Misfit Brides #1) Page 26

  She’d be moving on. Starting over. Having a new life adventure.

  And the fact that he was thinking about Natalie in conjunction with his future meant he’d been here too long. He’d gotten too comfortable.

  He’d gotten delusional.

  He wasn’t what she needed. She’d made that abundantly clear. Because even if it had been his fault Marilyn made her choose, she hadn’t chosen him.

  And that still hurt.

  He could hear his sisters holding their breaths.

  Hurt to shake his head. He did like this place. But—“Can’t, dude. Not sticking around in Bliss.”

  He recognized the disappointment and sadness in his siblings’ faces, because he felt it too. He’d miss them. All of them. Even Basil.

  “But I’ll be back for the holidays,” he said.

  For the first time in four years, he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

  AFTER A CRAZY, did-I-remember-to-put-my-pants-on kind of Friday, Saturday morning was remarkably slow. Every wedding venue was booked, the hotels and bed and breakfasts overflowed with wedding parties and guests, reservations for a round of golf at the Rose and Dove were going for twice their normal rate, the paddleboats had been released on Harmony Lake, and the scent of love was in the air. The Aisle itself was packed, but not the stores on it, because everyone was gathered outside to watch the Bridal March, the parade that launched Knot Fest week. More people came in asking to use the bathroom than to browse the dresses, though there would be a massive influx once the parade was over.

  Lindsey had used vacation time to help watch Noah so Dad could help Natalie man the store the last two weeks. They’d been booked since the cupcake incident, and Natalie had even been able to hire more help.

  Dad had ducked out an hour or so ago to join Marilyn before the parade. Natalie still wasn’t happy about it, but every time she expressed the slightest bit of displeasure, Dad had insisted that friendship and forgiveness were the two strongest weapons a man had in his arsenal.

  Natalie didn’t entirely agree, but since he’d been back, he’d seen Marilyn a handful of times—she was too busy with Knot Fest to see him much more—and every time he saw her, he came back happy. He didn’t get misty-eyed and sad talking about the future or the past or the shop. He was excited about something other than spending time with Noah or at his cabin. She’d heard him whistling while making coffee this morning.

  Didn’t mean Natalie was ready to see him with Marilyn firsthand though. The prospect that Dad would get hurt—by the Queen General, no less—had put more cramps in Natalie’s gut. The sale of the shop wasn’t final yet, and Natalie didn’t trust that Marilyn wouldn’t pull something still. Lindsey might’ve been able to overlook all the injustices the QG had piled on her since she’d come home a divorce lawyer, but Natalie was still learning how to be that big of a person.

  She wasn’t sure she had it in her.

  So she’d asked Gabby if she wanted to march in the parade, and when Gabby said no, Natalie had scheduled her final dress fitting for this morning. Their wedding was still two weeks away, but Natalie wanted all her projects cleared up long before the Games were over so she could mourn her past and look to her future without distraction.

  “I’ll pay you back for this one day,” Gabby said while they settled into one of the fitting rooms.

  Natalie closed and locked the door. “No need. It was an honor to make it. Just promise to never have reason to burn it, okay?”

  She had enjoyed making the dress. If she hadn’t gotten divorced—no. No, she was done with if she hadn’t. She had, and now she had the chance to start a new future.

  Gabby stripped down to her underwear, then answered Natalie’s questions about their small ceremony and reception and honeymoon while she changed into the right undergarments and, finally, the dress.

  “Can I ask you something?” Gabby said while Natalie fussed with the row of pearl buttons up the back.

  “Sure.”

  “What happened between you and CJ? He’s been moping around Suckers like a lost puppy dog.”

  Natalie’s fingers stilled. They weren’t entirely alone in the shop. Someone could overhear. “Who said anything happened between us?” She’d read every blog on the Knot Fest Web site, followed every article in the Bliss Times about CJ—along with the few interviews he’d given to the Chicago papers—and nowhere had she picked up hints that he was anything less than perfectly devoted to Serena’s memory while being Kimmie’s pretend husband, or that he’d been caught sneaking around with Bliss’s most notorious divorcée.

  Gabby shot a look toward the open air over the door, then back at Natalie. “I know he took you home from Suckers that night,” she whispered. “Jeremy said you both looked really happy. And then all that time he spent with your son. Then—nothing. Except for sad CJ. He’s a great guy.”

  He was more than a great guy. And he would never be Natalie’s, because she’d screwed it up.

  Pushed too hard for something that wouldn’t make her happy for the rest of her life. Picked the wrong battle.

  She shouldn’t have asked him to stay in the Games after Marilyn’s threats.

  Nat did Gabby’s last button, then reached for the veil. “Quit squirming. Almost done.”

  “Was it something he did?”

  “It’s complicated. We just—I don’t do well in relationships.” She set the veil on Gabby’s head and pinned it in place. “There. Here, turn around, then we’ll take you out in front of the big mirrors.

  Gabby peeked in the small full-length mirror behind her and gasped.

  Her skin was pale against the eggshell color of the vintage-cut gown and fabric flower crown of her veil, and her eyes stood out big and bright. Her arms glowed beneath the flowery lace. But Gabby’s chin trembled, her forehead creased, and her eyes went red and leaky.

  Natalie’s heart flopped. She’d ruined the dress.

  She’d ruined Gabby’s wedding.

  “Here.” She flung the door open. “It’ll look better out in this light.”

  Gabby didn’t move. She stared at her reflection, eyes crinkling harder and lips pouting wider and wobblier. Voices carried into the dressing room, but Natalie couldn’t understand them over the roar of panic in her ears.

  Gabby turned abruptly and tackled Natalie with a hug that smelled like satin and itched like lace.

  “Thank you,” Gabby sobbed. “It’s perfect.”

  Air rushed back into Natalie’s lungs.

  “Sorry,” Gabby sniffled. “It’s just so—I—It’s like Nana’s here again.”

  “You—you like it?”

  Gabby choked on another sob. “I love it.” She pulled back, forehead still creased, dress in danger of the same. “Sorry. I know. I’m an ugly crier.”

  Natalie blinked, still catching that relieved breath.

  She caught sight of three women outside the dressing room. Pepper, and two others who were obviously her sisters. All three staring at Gabby with jealousy-colored wonder. The hallmarks of a crowd admiring a bride and her perfect dress.

  “I owe you so much more than I can ever repay.” Gabby’s words were wet and cracked and sincere. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  Natalie felt a little choked too, but she couldn’t tell if it was happiness that Gabby loved the dress, or her own simple jealousy over Gabby’s happiness. “My pleasure.”

  “Can I just look at it for a while longer?”

  “Absolutely. Here. Come see in the big mirrors.”

  Natalie led her to the large, wide panel of mirrors in the corner and let Gabby get a good look from all angles.

  Pepper stepped up beside Natalie. “Beautiful,” she said. “That’s the one you’ve been making?”

  “Finishing,” Natalie said. “For her grandmother.”

  Pepper’s sisters were wandering around the shop. They waved off the two bridal consultants on hand to prep for the post-parade crowd.

  “Bliss doesn’t have any original d
esigners, does it?” Pepper said.

  A tingle tickled Natalie’s neck. “We have contracts for exclusives with a few designers, and so do Mrs. and La Belle Bridal.”

  “But not originals,” Pepper pressed.

  “Not originals.”

  “Girl, we’re gonna put you to work.”

  How she wished. Someday. But not in Bliss. “That dress was half-designed already. I just had to finish it.”

  Pepper stared her down. “I heard about your design degree. And I’ve seen Noah’s dinosaurs’ dresses.”

  “You don’t own this place yet,” Natalie said. “And even when you do, you won’t be bossing me around.”

  One of her sisters—the redhead—snickered. “I was under the impression you’d made Pepper’s acquaintance before,” she said, sounding strangely like CJ’s impersonation of his oldest brother.

  “Margie?” Natalie said without thinking.

  Pepper’s grin spread slowly. “Impressive.” She jerked her head toward their other sister. “Which one’s that?”

  Cori. Short for Coriander, though Natalie wasn’t supposed to know that part. Brown hair, looked a lot like Pepper. They both favored their dad, CJ had said.

  And they both hated being teased with one particular wrong spice name. “Nutmeg?”

  Pepper and Margie both laughed. Cori didn’t. “I’m gonna kill him.”

  But the shop girls were watching them, and so was Gabby now, and Natalie didn’t want any more attention about how well she knew CJ. “Pepper told me to say that.”

  Pepper gave her a look that suggested Natalie was in for it. “Yep,” she said. “All me.”

  As if it mattered. Natalie would never see CJ again. He was done with her. “Gabby, whenever you’re ready, we’ll get your dress hung back up. I’ll make sure it’s pressed before your wedding.”

  And she went back to the business of running her mother’s shop for a few more days.

  She’d get over CJ.

  Eventually.

  In the meantime, she had a new life to create.

  Chapter Seventeen

  CJ WASN’T READY when Arthur picked him up Friday afternoon to check in for the Games. Physically, yes.

  Emotionally, he was as big a mess as his sisters during their high school years.

  He’d signed up to honor Serena. Fulfill a promise. Forgive himself.

  Funny thing was, since Fi had given him permission to move on, he felt like he’d already done all three.

  “All this buildup, and it’ll be over by ten o’clock tomorrow night,” Arthur mused. He navigated the Jeep through the back roads, avoiding Harmony Lake and The Aisle and the crowds that had taken over Bliss this week.

  “You nervous?” CJ asked. His knee was bouncing as hard as his heart, and he couldn’t help feeling that his life was tilted on the wrong axis.

  “I’m playing to honor and remember my wife,” Arthur said. “After thirty-four years of being a good husband, this is nothing to be nervous about.”

  And there was the big difference between them.

  They arrived ten minutes early at the back door of Heaven’s Bakery to pick up the Queen General and her daughter. CJ and Arthur both climbed out of the Jeep, and Arthur glanced toward Bliss Bridal.

  Soon enough it would be Pepper’s. That was wrong.

  Everything was wrong. Even the scent of cake was wrong. Cold sweat simmered beneath CJ’s skin. This wasn’t how he wanted to play these Games.

  Arthur knocked on the bakery door. It flung open, and wrong was suddenly too weak of a word.

  The kitchen was in pandemonium. Two of the bakers’ assistants were crying, a third appeared to be hyperventilating. Pink frosting splattered the walls, smoke drifted up from the industrial-sized mixer in the corner, and in the middle of the chaos, Marilyn and another girl leaned over Kimmie on the floor.

  CJ’s lungs froze.

  He’d killed another one.

  “It was the fortune cookie,” Kimmie said.

  His breath wheezed out. He steadied himself against the door frame.

  Kimmie was okay. She was okay.

  “It said a lack of prioritization would land me on my rump,” she said. “I should’ve listened.”

  “Hold still,” the QG commanded.

  Kimmie complied with a whimper.

  “Marilyn?” Arthur said. “What happened?”

  “A series of unfortunate incidents,” she said. Dryly. As if she had a sense of humor. “Kimberly requires medical attention.”

  “It’s just a little flesh wound,” Kimmie said.

  “She hasn’t slept in three days,” the older lady who’d opened the door whispered to CJ. “Somebody forgot to put the shield up on the mixer, and poor Kimmie slipped on the frosting and bonked herself in the head with her icing spatula. Some of it got in the electrical outlet and shorted everything.”

  Marilyn stood and issued orders to her staff, things about contingency plans and Cake Readiness Condition Four. She clapped her hands, and the motion in the room went from disorganized panic to smoothly coordinated purpose, despite the two girls still crying.

  “Holy shit,” CJ muttered.

  Arthur gaped at the scene, some fear leaking into the admiration in his eyes.

  One of the younger girls helped Kimmie up. She clutched a bloody rag to her ear.

  CJ jumped forward, but Marilyn held up a hand.

  “Gentlemen, by the power vested in me by me, it is my extreme displeasure to announce to you that Kimberly will be unable to compete in the Games.”

  Something akin to relief prickled CJ’s skin.

  If Kimmie couldn’t play, neither could he. A guy couldn’t play in the Games without a wife, stand-in or real.

  “I’m so sorry,” Kimmie said. She winced and readjusted the rag. “I’m not a klutz. I’m not.”

  “She is not.” Marilyn’s eye twitched. “Usually.”

  “It’s okay.” CJ took another step into the kitchen. Marilyn stopped him with the death eye. He held a hand out to Kimmie. “C’mon. I’ll get you to the ER.”

  “One of the girls will deliver her to the hospital,” Marilyn said. “We practice drills for this kind of thing. Now, we need to find you a stand-in for your stand-in wife.”

  Was she out of her ever-loving mind?

  Kimmie was bleeding from a head wound, but keeping CJ in the Games was more important?

  “What’s wrong with you?” CJ said.

  Arthur cleared his throat, but the QG donned the full force of both the queenly and the General parts of her personality and glared at CJ—God, he missed Natalie—with all the power that came with her title. “Kimberly has a simple laceration requiring stitches, which the emergency room is fully equipped to handle. The Games must go on.”

  “You okay, Kimmie?” Arthur said.

  She nodded. “Yeah. Ellie will take me to the hospital.” She gave CJ a sorry look. “You should go. See if you can get a new wife.”

  “Kimmie—”

  “Stitches are a hazard of the job. Well, that and frosting in unfortunate places.” She and her companion stepped toward the back door. “You’re not playing for me, CJ.”

  Even Marilyn didn’t correct that.

  “Go on,” Kimmie said. “Go find a wife.”

  The girl helping her nodded. “Kimmie’s in good hands.”

  “They’re all well-trained,” Marilyn said. “Kimberly, call us from the hospital.”

  When Arthur stepped aside so Kimmie and Ellie could pass, CJ did too. Arthur was a smart man. If he trusted Kimmie’s judgment, CJ would do the same.

  Wasn’t sure what it all meant about the Games for him.

  But his heart had an idea. And his world was shifting back toward the right axis.

  Marilyn dusted her hands of imaginary flour. Despite the carnage throughout her bakery kitchen, she was still spotless. “Now then. Let’s find you a wife.” She peered around the room, at all of her assistants mixing and frosting and washing and doing God only knew
what. Marilyn’s frown grew almost as dark as Jeremy’s had been at Suckers every day this week. “Unfortunately,” she said, “I am unable to spare any more of my assistants.”

  He didn’t want one of her assistants. He wanted—

  “Natalie’s available,” Arthur said.

  Natalie.

  He wanted Natalie.

  He cut a glance at the QG. She looked at Arthur. Cleared her throat. Lifted her chin.

  Arthur tilted a brow at her.

  “If that is his wish,” Marilyn said.

  Huh. CJ would’ve thought she’d morph into a human praying mantis and eat Arthur whole for that suggestion.

  Arthur gave Marilyn an approving nod.

  And CJ realized he was a moron.

  He didn’t need some Queen General’s stamp of approval on his choice of stand-in brides. He could’ve taken Basil out there with him if he damn well wanted to.

  But CJ wanted Natalie.

  He walked out of Heaven’s Bakery. Turned left. Strolled one shop down. Banged on the door.

  When it didn’t open fast enough, he let himself in. Natalie was talking to someone—he could hear her.

  And he could smell her, that lingering bit of oranges and baby shampoo hanging in the air, as if she’d just walked out of the kitchenette and back to the office.

  He followed the music of her voice. She sat ramrod straight on her metal folding chair, phone to her ear, frown on her lips, but—unlike the last time he’d seen her—eyes clear, bright, and well-rested.

  His heart stirred again.

  She was beautiful. Strong, determined, and unstoppable.

  Just how he liked ’em.

  She stopped mid-sentence, leaving something about a shipment of dresses dangling in the air, and stared at him as though he were a mirage.

  “Kimmie’s on the DL,” he said.

  She blinked, her brows furrowing briefly before she cleared her face of all emotion. “I’ll call you back,” she said into the phone. She disconnected, then gave him a once-over. “DL?”

  “Disabled List. She’s on her way to the hospital for stitches. You’re up. Say no, and I’ll hog-tie you, toss you in your father’s car, and drag you to the Games anyway. So, are you going to be my partner the nice way, or are you going to be a pain in the ass about it?”