Tracy Parker was in love with being in love.
That worried her best friend and maid of honor Maggie Sinclair more than
she cared to admit.
In the middle of the temporary dance floor, Tracy
waltzed with her new husband in a satin-and-lace designer gown, gleaming with
seed pearls and twinkling sequins. But the sparkle dimmed in comparison to the
dreamy glow in Tracy’s eyes.
The sounds of wedding music competed with the gentle rustle of seagrasses
in the dunes and the crash of the waves down on the beach. The fragrance from
centerpiece flowers and bouquets battled with the kiss of fresh sea air.
Connie and Emma, Tracy’s two other best friends and members of the bridal
party, were standing beside Maggie on the edge of the dance floor that had been
set up on the great lawn of Maggie’s family’s beachfront mansion on the Jersey
Shore. Huddled together, Maggie and her friends watched the happy couple do a
final whirl.
“She’s got it so bad,” Maggie said, eyeing Connie and Emma
with concern past the rim of her rapidly disappearing glass of champagne.
“Do you think that this time he really is The One?” Connie asked.
“Doubt it,” Emma replied without hesitation.
As the DJ requested that other couples join the happy newlyweds, Maggie
and her friends returned to the bridal party dais set out on the patio.
Grabbing another glass of champagne, Maggie craned her neck around the gigantic
centerpiece piled with an almost obscene mound of white roses, ice-blue
hydrangea, lisianthus, sheer tulle, and twinkling fairy lights and examined the
assorted guests mingling around the great lawn and down by the boardwalk
leading to the beach.
She recognized Tracy’s family
from their various meetings over the years, as well as some of Tracy’s
sorority sisters, like Toni Van Houten, who in the six years since graduation
had managed to pop out a trio of boys who now circled her like sharks around a
swimmer. Although the wedding invite had indicated No Children, Toni had done as she
pleased. Since Tracy had not wanted
a scene at her dream beachfront wedding, Emma, who was doing double duty as the
wedding planner for the event, had scrambled to find space for the children at
the dinner tables.
“Is that Toni ‘I’ll never ruin my body with babies’ Toni?” Connie asked,
a perplexed look on her features. At
Maggie’s nod, Connie’s eyes widened in surprise, and she said, “She
looks…happy.”
A cynical laugh erupted from Emma. “She looks crazed.”
Maggie couldn’t argue with either of their assessments. But as put-upon
as their old acquaintance seemed, the indulgent smile she gave her youngest
child was positively radiant.
Maggie skipped her gaze across the gathering to take note of all the
other married folk. It was easy enough to pick them out from her vantage point
on the dais where she and her friends sat on display like days’ old cakes in
the bakery. They were the last three unmarried women in an extended circle of
business and college acquaintances.
“How many times do you suppose we’ve been bridesmaids now?” Maggie wondered
aloud. She finished off her glass and motioned for the waiter to bring another.
“Jointly or severally?” asked Connie, ever the lawyer.
“Way too many,” replied Emma, who, for a wedding planner, was the most
ardent disbeliever in the possibility of happily ever afters.
Maggie hadn’t given marriage a first thought, much less a second, in a
very long time. She’d had too many things going on in her life. Not that there
hadn’t been a few memorable moments, most of which revolved around the
absolutely worst man for her: Owen Pierce.
But for years now, she’d been dealing with her family’s business and its
money problems, which had spilled over into her personal finances. As she gazed
at the beauty of the manicured grounds and then back toward her family’s summer
home, it occurred to her that this might be the last time she hosted a
celebration like this here. She had mortgaged the property that she had
inherited to funnel money into the family’s struggling retail store division.
Unfortunately, thanks to her father’s stubborn refusal to make changes to
help the business, she spent way too much time at work, which left little time
for romance. Not to mention that none of her casual dates had piqued her
interest in that direction. Looking down from her perch, however, and seeing
the happiness on so many faces suddenly had her reconsidering the merits of
married life.
“Always a bridesmaid and never a bride,” she muttered, surprising herself
with the hint of wistfulness in her tone.
“That’s because the three of us are all too busy working to search for
Prince Charming,” Connie said, her defense as swift and impassioned as if she
were arguing a case in court.
“Who even believes in that fairy-tale crap?” Emma’s gaze grew distracted,
and she rose from her chair. “Excuse me for a moment. Carlo needs to see me
about something.”
Emma rushed off to the side of the dance floor, where her caterer
extraordinaire, Carlo Teixeira, raked a hand through his thick brown hair in
clear frustration. He wore a pristine white chef’s jacket and pants that
enhanced his dark good looks.
Emma laid a hand on Carlo’s forearm and leaned close to speak to him,
apparently trying to resolve a problem.
“She doesn’t believe in fairy tales, but her Prince Charming is standing
right in front of her,” Connie said with a sad shake of her head.
Maggie took another sip of her champagne and viewed the interaction
between Carlo and Emma. Definitely major sparkage going on, she thought.
“You’re totally right,” she said with an assertive nod.
Connie smiled like the proverbial cat, her exotic green-gold eyes
gleaming with mischief. “That’s why you hired me to represent your company as
soon as I finished law school. Nothing gets past me.”
“Really? So what else do you think you’ve seen tonight?”
Raising her glass, her friend gestured toward the right of the mansion’s
great lawn where some of the fraternity brothers from their alma mater had
gathered. One of the men slowly turned to sneak a peek at them.
“Owen has been watching you all night long,” Connie said with a shrewd
smile.
“Totally impossible, and you of all people should know it. Owen Pierce
has absolutely no interest in me.”
She set her glass on the table to hide the nervous tremble of her hand as
her gaze connected with his for the briefest of moments. Even that fleeting
link was enough to raise her core temperature a few degrees. But what woman wouldn’t respond like that?
In his designer tuxedo, Owen was the epitome of male
perfection—raven-black hair, a sexy gleam in his charcoal-gray eyes, broad
shoulders, and not an ounce of fat on him, which made her recall seeing him in
much, much less on a hot summer night on Sea Kiss Beach. She had been staying
in the quaint seaside town on the Jersey
Shore with her grandmother that
summer, much as she had all her life. As they also had for so many years, the
Pierce boys had been residing next door for the entire season.
The two beachfront mansions had been built side by side decades earlier,
before the start of the Pierce and Sinclair rift. The cost of waterfront real estate
had escalated so drastically since their construction that neither family was
willing to sell their beloved home to put some distance between the warring
clans.
Well, make that the warring fathers, because as far as Maggie was
concerned, she had no beef with Owen. They had played together down on the
beach as kids. She couldn’t count the many sand castles they’d built or the
time they’d spent out in the surf.
But after her mother had died, things had changed, and the carefree
spirit of those halcyon days had disappeared. The Pierce boys had stopped
coming down to the Shore for the next few years, and combined with the loss of
her mom, it had created an emptiness inside her that hadn’t really gone away.
By the time the Pierce brothers returned
years
later, the feud had gotten worse, and Owen and Jonathan had been instructed to
stay away. But an ill-timed and half-drunk kiss with Owen on a moonlit summer
night had proved that staying away was impossible. It had also helped the
emptiness recede for a bit. Since then, fate had seemed to toss them together
time and time again in both their business and personal lives, keeping alive
her fascination with him. She felt not quite so alone when he was around, not
that she should get used to that.
Owen Pierce had left her once before when she’d needed his friendship the
most: right after her mother’s death. His on-again, off-again presence in her
life proved that she couldn’t count on him.
Owen stood next to his younger brother, Jonathan, who couldn’t be more
different. While Owen was clean-cut and corporate, Jonathan had the scruffy
hipster look going on. It was appealing in its own way, but not to her.
“Trust me, Maggie. Your families might be at war, but Owen would clearly
love to sleep with the enemy,” Connie said.
She blew out a frustrated sigh. “More reason to avoid him. You know I’m
not the kind to sleep around.”
Emma returned, color riding high on her cheeks, but not in a good way.
“Something wrong?” Maggie asked.
Emma kneeled between the two of them and whispered, “It seems the groom
had a bit too much to drink and Tracy
caught him being hands-on with an old flame.”
“Not Amy? Tracy always lost
it if she spotted him with Amy,” Maggie whispered.
“Definitely Amy. Now Tracy is
refusing to come out and cut the cake. I have to say, this takes the cake,
literally. Married a few hours, and already there’s trouble.”
“Ever the hopeful romantic, Em,” she kidded.
“If you think you can do better, why don’t the two of you come help me
talk Tracy off the ledge?”
research three-fold: reference books, experts in a particular field, and
articles on a specific subject from several reputable sources.
