Happily Ever Afton (3 page)

Afton had carefully extracted the box containing the veil her mother had shipped to her from San Diego out of the compartment on the back of her scooter. Bracing herself, she’d thrown open the door to the store, the bell ringing merrily to herald her arrival.

Every time the bell rings, a divorce attorney gets a Porsche
.

Afton had looked around her nervously, wondering if she’d actually spoken the words out loud. The cynical thought had popped into her head out of nowhere it seemed. Pushing it aside, she’d waded into the gown-packed establishment, almost blinded by the unrelenting sea of white dresses, intent on finding one of her own with her wedding date looming ever nearer.

It was when she’d glanced out the large window facing the busy street she’d spotted her future husband strolling by arm-in-arm on the sidewalk with her best friend – the two stopping just outside the bridal shop to share a passionate –
tongue-involved
kiss – before ambling on.

Afton had raced out the store to confront them hindered in her mad pursuit of the cheating pair by the voluminous dress. Fortunately, her scooter had been parked at a nearby meter, so she’d tucked the train beneath her and hopped on, almost catching up to them as they entered the coffee shop – until she’d run right smack into
him
on the sidewalk that is.

The tall guy with the backwards/forwards name. Stewart Cooper…
no
…er…Cooper Stewart. Who was looking down at her expectantly now, wanting to know if she was hungry?

‘I could eat.’

Chapter Two

COOPER PULLED OPEN
the door to the diner and steered Afton to a booth near the back of the restaurant. Both of them ignored the other diners whose mouths dropped open upon seeing a bride walking by, veil still perched at a crooked angle on her head, dusty pink tennis shoes on her feet beneath the trailing train. He slid onto the red leather bench across from her after she smashed down rows of ruffles to slide in, staring deeply into her eyes, his own still shielded from her by the tinted lenses of his glasses.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked quietly, watching as she quickly twisted off the ring once again, tossing it on to the table where it twirled in a happy circle before falling flat with a clink on to its side.

‘Y–e–s,’ she answered slowly, a little surprised herself by her answer, ‘what about you?’

‘I’m okay.’

‘Well
was
she your girlfriend?’ Afton probed. ‘She seems a bit on the…er… high maintenance…side,’ she added trying to be diplomatic.

‘No,’ Cooper shook his head in a decisive fashion. ‘She definitely was
not
! We really went on just three dates and on what will definitely be the last one
ever
, she was already asking for a list of my favorite baby names,’ he recounted with a shuddering grimace.

Afton released a peal of uninhibited laughter he clearly enjoyed, a smile appearing on his face, joining in himself with his own very pleasant deep laughter. A frizzled blonde waitress in a faded pink uniform, who looked like she had seen it all in her day, came over and handed them two laminated plastic menus.

‘You two on your honeymoon, huh? 
Mazel tov!
  I’ll give you and the new missus a few more minutes to make up your minds,’ she said between snaps of her gum. Neither of them bothered to correct her mistaken assumption, instead sharing a secret smile hearing her squeak away to get the coffee pot on rubber-soled shoes.

Afton flipped her menu open; ‘chef salad for me,’ pushing it to one side after quickly making her decision. ‘So don’t you
want
kids?’ she resumed her questioning, propping her chin in her hand staring over at him.

‘Sure, once I’m married and settle down, but I don’t see that happening for a while yet,’ Cooper said, ‘I still have a lot of things I want to accomplish first.’

‘Ah, so you’re one of those,’ Afton gave a sage nod of her veiled head.

‘One of what?’

‘A list maker,’ she responded promptly. ‘Adventure, fun, women then marriage, kids, white picket fence – in that order,’ she pretended to check off a list in the air.

‘I guess that’s a fair assessment,’ his wry grin did something to his eyes behind the lenses – but what color were they anyway?

Only one way to find out
.

‘Say, you’ve got something on the lens of your glasses – here, hand them over.’ Afton reached over and before he could protest, she whipped them off his face. He blinked, closing his eyes in the bright fluorescent lights shining from above. When he opened them again, she held back a gasp.

They’re absolutely beautiful
!

His eyes were the color of…of… she searched for the perfect description…they were the dreamy blue-green mixture of a peacock feather. 
No!
  Of the rippling ocean under the setting sun, no – oh heck, they were gorgeous! And they were staring right at her expectantly.

‘Er, here you go,’ she handed the glasses back after quickly swiping a napkin over each lens.

‘Thanks,’ his white smile was made even whiter contrasting with the warm bronze of his skin. The waitress wandered back over to check on them, and Cooper held up the menu ordering for them both while she waited silently watching him.

Okay, something funny is going on here
.  Afton swallowed nervously.

He wasn’t her type
at
all! But there was something about this man. Some little
something
she couldn’t quite put her finger on that was starting to grow on her. Or maybe it was the rejection talking? After getting dumped, you start to wonder if you’re losing it.

Am I losing it
?

Her brow furrowed her thoughts miles away as the waitress left with their order and Cooper turned his attention back to her across the table.

What color is her hair anyway
?

Cooper mused twiddling his fork absently on the Formica-flecked tabletop. It was hard to tell under that veil, but with those hazel eyes, he just bet she was a redhead. Had he ever
been
with a redhead? He scanned his memory bank – no, the actress in New York hadn’t been a
true
redhead – he’d found that out the first night. But back to Afton –
well only one way to find out for certain!

‘Um, I think you have something caught in your veil,’ he pointed in the direction of her head.

‘Something like what – a
bee
? Oh God, tell me it’s not a bee, I’m scared to death of getting stung!’ She ripped the headdress free from her head, beating it viciously against the edge of the table.

Cooper broke into laughter tickled something as small as a bee is apparently what it took to finally rattle her. But his tactic worked. The hair beneath the veil was styled in an enchanting pixie-cut highlighting the fragile arch of her long neck and exquisite high cheekbones, and was the deepest, richest chestnut he’d ever seen outside of an actual chestnut, stroked through with warm honey-gold highlights. He wondered if it would feel as soft as it looked if he ran his fingers through it.

‘Did I get it?’

His gaze lowered to wide, dark-lashed hazel eyes staring anxiously over at him from across the table. ‘Get what?’ He murmured preoccupied, chin in hand.

‘The bee!’ she said in exasperation, examining the veil intently in her hands.

‘Er…yes,’ Cooper jerked his thoughts back to the question, ‘I think it flew off when you hit it on the table.’

‘Thank goodness,’ she took a sip of water from her glass with a shaky hand, ‘I got stung once when I was little, and since then, me and bees just do
not
get along. I try to not even wear perfume if I know I’m going to be outside long.’

‘So what else scares you – besides bees?’ Cooper tilted the cup of coffee the waitress had poured to his smiling lips.

‘Not much else,’ Afton’s reply held a ring of truth. She carefully placed the headdress and veil on the bench next to her for safekeeping after apparently remembering their delicate condition.

‘You’re certainly not scared of commitment – your wedding proves that –
cancelled
wedding that is.’

‘Oh, don’t remind me!’ she groaned with palm pressed flat against her forehead, ‘I can just imagine what my mother will say when I call to tell her.’ She gave an exaggerated shudder as though already able to hear the disappointed note in her mother’s voice.

‘When was it scheduled for?’ Cooper’s curiosity got the better of him.

‘In a little over a month,’ Afton replied sighing, ‘funnily enough on July fourth – Independence Day. I guess I already had a feeling when I picked that date,’ the unintended irony made her smile and he joined in.

The waitress reappeared with pencil stuck behind her ear. She slid a large chef salad off a tray before Afton and a medium–rare sizzling steak, huge stuffed baked potato and generous slice of apple pie in front of Cooper. The appetizing smells made his mouth water reaching across the table for the butter dish.

‘I see you’re a steak and potato man,’ she observed pushing the dish with square of yellow his way, delicately arched brows lifted at the
humongous
amount of calories filling his plate.

‘I’ve been eating out of tin cans for the past few weeks, so you’ll have to excuse my table manners cause this is all about to be inhaled in mere moments,’ he warned her with a grin, lathering a generous amount of the butter and adding a huge dollop of sour cream on to his overloaded potato.

‘Were you camping?’ Afton picked up her own fork awaiting his answer.

‘Er…something like that.’ If you call trekking up one of the highest mountain ranges in the world,
camping
, Cooper thought. The combination of achingly white snow and piercing sunlight found at the summit had resulted in a minor case of snow blindness, which is why he was now wearing a pair of tinted glasses from the optician until his vision got better. For some reason he found he wasn’t quite ready to tell her any of that yet.

‘So how did you meet Jason?’ He found a way to change the subject instead.

‘We work together at the paper,’ Afton stopped to munch on a crisp leaf of lettuce before continuing, ‘I met him my first day there almost a year ago.’

‘And you were getting married so soon?’ Cooper knew already she was impulsive, but he hadn’t pegged her for being quite
that
impulsive. ‘Do you think that was enough time to really get to know each other?’

‘According to my mother I was well on my way to owning a bunch of cats and working in a library with a bun on my head being still single at the decrepit age of twenty-six,’ she replied with a grim smile.

‘That old?’ Cooper gently mocked as she nodded glumly.

‘Besides I don’t think you can look at the time you’ve known someone to measure their loyalty or affection,’ Afton went on to defend. ‘I mean Mollie has been my best friend since second grade –
was
– my best friend,’ she corrected with a sour expression, ‘and that didn’t stop her from stealing my fiancé!’

‘True,’ Cooper nodded having to agree with her very valid point. He fell silent enjoying the perfectly cooked steak that was really hitting the spot after some of the questionable freeze-dried cuisine served at base camp.

‘I suppose I should have known something was going on – we hadn’t –’ she blushed and snuck at look at Cooper beneath a thick screen of lashes, ‘you know – for a very long time now – Jason said he wanted to wait for our wedding night to make it
special
.’

Cooper’s brows rose at that, thinking he knew for certain the other man was truly a fool shunning this
very
desirable woman.

‘And it is going to be
very
awkward now,’ Afton fretted chasing a fat cherry tomato around her plate with her fork, ‘with both Jason and I employed at the same place and all the work events coming up – I mean there’s our company picnic.’ She reeled off a list, ‘Founders Day, the publisher’s annual ball. I don’t know how I’m going to stomach seeing him and Mollie looking just like the perfect plastic couple that was going to stand at the top of my wedding cake,’ she grumped.

‘I know
exactly
what you mean,’ Cooper commiserated. ‘I’m going to have to attend a lot of events with Katherine there as well in the next few months. I know she’s not going to give up that easily. She’s still hoping to pry those babies out of me before she hits thirty!’

Afton let loose another raucous laugh, Cooper laughing along with her. Suddenly she stopped, dropping her fork to her plate with a rattling clink.

‘Oh my goodness –
Strangers on a Train!
’ she said, her voice pulsing with excitement.

‘Strangers on a what?’ Cooper repeated confused.

‘The movie,’ she was practically bubbling over now, ‘don’t you see? We could pull a ‘Strangers on a Train’ to help us get through our separate social commitments!’

Cooper shook his head, still stumped.

‘It was a Hitchcock film from the fifties…’ Afton proceeded to spell out the plot to him patiently, ‘two men meet on a train and make a pact to kill someone for each other and since they are each strangers to the person they’ll kill, it’s the
perfect
murder since no one could ever make the connection.’

Afton glanced over at Cooper, his alarm visible on his face, fingers frozen on his utensils. Her silvery laughter burst out again. Reaching over she patted his hand comfortingly. ‘Don’t worry, we’re not going to actually
kill
anyone – but we can kill off our relationships. Pretend we’re engaged and madly in love to throw off our ex-partners – just like we did today.
Criss–cross
!’ she uttered what she told him was a famous phrase from the film.

Cooper watched the wheels turn in her head as she ran through each possible scenario of how her plan could work. He had to admit the thought of having her on his arm dressed to the nines in something slinky was something he would definitely love to see. It was a crazy plan, but what did he have to lose? And it would keep Katherine at bay – for now.