Shannon blushed, her pale freckled face turning red as a tomato. Snatching one of the menus away from Ella, she ducked behind it. “I know not what you speak of,” she muttered.
“Aw,” Sarah said wistfully. “You have.”
Jaycee jumped on the possibility of Shannon having babies. “Are you pregnant?” she asked hopefully, bouncing up and down in her chair. “That would be so damn perfect.”
You have no idea just how perfect
. Glancing away, Katie-Anne reminded herself why she hadn’t told them yet.
I have to talk to the men first. Then I am spilling the beans to my friends.
She took a slow, hissing breath then blurted out what she’d actually come here to say. “I’m TL Jacobsen!”
“Whoa, baby,” Ella said, peering over the top of the menu she’d just been reading. When Katie-Anne didn’t respond, she smiled and placed her menu on the table. Cocking her head to the side and crossing her arms, she observed Katie-Anne with a perceptive gaze. “What did you just say?”
“I’m the artist, TL Jacobsen,” Katie-Anne repeated, “and I married Shane and Landon when we went to Tennessee for Jaycee’s wedding last November.”
Damn, that felt good
. Deflating in her seat, Katie-Anne exhaled. She let her nerves drain away and enjoyed the relaxation of owning up to the truth—once and for all. Then she realized that no one was talking—no comments or questions. No nothing. And no one was moving. They were barely breathing.
Are they going into shock?
Shifting her eyes in a straight line from Jaycee to Ella to Sarah then swinging her gaze to a still hidden Shannon, she examined one friend after another. Unable to figure out why there was no response or reaction from any of them, she asked, “Hello? Is anyone going to say anything?”
“Woohoo,” Shannon yelled as she flung down the menu and started doing the happy dance. “I was right! She’s TL.”
Jaycee glowered at Shannon. “Well, so was I,” she countered. “So don’t go taking
all
of the credit.”
“Me too,” Sarah piped up.
“Me three,” Ella exclaimed. Then, with a grin, she mumbled, “or four or whatever.”
“Now wait a damn minute,” Katie-Anne snapped. “You knew? And you didn’t say a word? I am calling bullshit on each and every one of you, my dears.”
“You can call what you want,” Jaycee replied, “but we all knew. We just didn’t say anything to you.” Wrapping a long blonde curl around her index finger, she gave Katie-Anne a condescending smirk. “It wasn’t that hard. We just didn’t see the signs until after my wedding. The dress that TL”—she winked theatrically—“designed was too perfect for someone who didn’t know me personally.”
“I could have told him every detail about you,” Katie-Anne commented. “Designers are good like that.”
“That would have worked if I hadn’t snooped around the inside of my dress,” Jaycee reasoned. “You know how I am. I get all twitchy and went searching.”
Fuck. She must have found my friendly addition.
Every present she’d given her friends since high school had a special token from Katie-Anne. She’d always hidden them in odd places so they would be difficult to find. But apparently she hadn’t been as sneaky as she’d thought or her friends were more devious than she’d anticipated. She didn’t know for sure.
Which came first—the chicken or the egg?
Katie-Anne cursed, not from surprise, merely from irritation. “You found the sketch?”
The picture was one she’d drawn in geometry class as a teenager. After being called the three peas in a pod for years, she’d doodled an image of one with their initials in it to keep her boredom at bay while learning about the pesky proofs she’d hated so much. And it had stuck. The girls had shirts and temporary tattoos made up and flashed them around town, which perpetuated the nickname.
And we loved it.
“Yep,” Jaycee responded with an arrogance that annoyed Katie-Anne. “I found mine hiding behind the blue silk that you had sewn in my dress as the something blue.”
“And I found mine in the satin fabric nestled in the bottom of the wooden jewelry box you gave me with my birthday earrings,” Shannon added.
Well, shit.
Nodding, Ella said, “Sarah and I weren’t so cloak-and-dagger, conspiracy theorist. We found out by accident when we overheard you talking to Deke and Adam about a couple of paintings they wanted done for The Edge and their B&B in Luscious.”
“Yeah, Katie-Anne, you really should be careful about lying things around, too” Sarah suggested. “I saw a couple of unfinished sketches by TL Jacobsen in the trunk of your car on the day of Shannon’s kidnapping.”
Well, double-dog horse shit.
They caught me. They caught me real good.
The only thing that confused Katie-Anne was why they didn’t say anything to her and why they didn’t confront her. It didn’t make sense. They talked about everything. They shared everything. So why would they remain silent about something of this magnitude?
“Why?” Katie-Anne croaked. “Why didn’t you guys come to me and ask me? Did you just not care?” The last question came out, ripped from her chest, without her permission. But she couldn’t take it back. And, frankly, she probably wouldn’t have if she could. She wanted to know why they didn’t want to know more, why they didn’t want the details
. I’m sure they have their reason, just as I had one for keeping it from them.
Sarah reached across the table at an odd angle and gently clasped one of Katie-Anne’s hands in her smaller ones. “We understood that you wanted this to be a secret, and we figured that you had a darn good reason to keep it from everyone. So we made a pact to let you come to us.”
“Let me tell you,” Shannon said, elbowing Katie-Anne playfully. “It sucked to not say anything once we figured it out. I think that proves our unconditional love and undying devotion to you. My big mouth stayed shut—and it was all for you, my friend.”
“No shit,” Jaycee teased. “That was a fucking miracle.”
Shannon growled. “Bite me, bitch.”
Wiggling her eyebrows, Jaycee quipped, “Oh baby. Your place or mine?”
“How about the bathroom?” Shannon shot back. “I don’t think either of our men would be up for girl-on-girl action between the two of us.”
Jaycee wrinkled her nose. “Ew, probably not.”
Katie-Anne laughed and shook her head. “You freaks.”
“You’re just jealous,” Ella remarked then blew her a bawdy kiss. “But, baby, I can fix that. They can take the women’s bathroom, and we’ll walk on the wild side—the men’s room.”
“I guess that leaves me as the watchdog,” Sarah joked, getting in on the naughty bantering. “Goodness knows that I am not going in either restroom with any of you.”
“Spoilsport,” Shannon razzed.
Snickering, Sarah rolled her eyes. “Someone has to be with the four of you.”
“She has a good point there,” Ella commented as she returned her attention to the menu, her eyes gliding from left to right as she scanned the food items listed on it. “We need a designated do-gooder willing to keep us out of trouble.”
“I can do that,” Sarah said enthusiastically with a confident smile.
“Now wait a damn minute, Katie-Anne Marie Blakemore or Jacobs or Tolliver or whatever your last name is.” An unexpected frown appeared on Shannon’s face, her expression growing serious and a deep look of contemplation settling over her.
Uh-oh. I’m in for it now.
But, instead of jumping on Katie-Anne as she’d expected, Shannon turned on Jaycee. “Is that what you were talking about at my birthday party? Did you know that she was married and not tell me?”
Jaycee nodded sheepishly, a blush creeping into her cheeks. “I saw their marriage license on Landon’s desk when I went to pick up my car from his auto shop.”
Unable to hold back her shock, Katie-Anne interrogated Jaycee. “Landon had it lying around? Where everyone could see? On his desk? Really?”
When Katie-Anne spoke, she seemed to remind Shannon of her presence and her minor deception. Rounding on her, Shannon scowled. “I can’t believe this shit. You got married without us?” she inquired, the insult evident in her every word.
Oops. That might look kind of bad for me.
“Um, well—” Katie-Anne said, ready to defend herself, but was cut off by Sarah.
“Hot dog,” Sarah exclaimed, wiggling around in her seat. “I can finally tell the world that I have a sister!”
Katie-Anne chuckled. “Yes, we are officially able to announce our sisterhood.”
In no time flat, Sarah was out of the booth and tugging on Shannon’s shirt like a buoyant child. “Move,” she said. “Let her out. I want to hug my new sister in front of everyone! I got pretty darn tired of pretending that we were just friends.”
I did, too.
Without a word, Shannon slid out of her seat and stepped out of the way, letting Katie-Anne get out of the booth. As soon as she was free, Katie-Anne grabbed Sarah in a bear hug. The two of them danced around happily, capturing the attention of every eye in Lou’s Café.
Instead of being shy about her news, Katie-Anne turned to everyone and explained jubilantly, “I married Shane Jacobs and Landon Tolliver. So please excuse our celebration over here.”
A round of cheers came from the few people in Lou’s, but Katie-Anne barely noticed because her other three friends had joined in the hug-fest. And, in the end, all five girls wound up smooshing each other together. Yet they didn’t complain or whine. They didn’t do anything but giggle and chatter and do what best friends do—they shared in each other’s joy.
When the girls calmed themselves and fell back into their respective seats in the booth, their waitress appeared. With an exuberant “congratulations” to Katie-Anne, she took their orders then bounded away with a spring in her step. “Be back in a few with your food,” she called out just as she vanished into the kitchen.
“So,” Shannon said. “I hate to be the nosy...”
“Oh no you don’t,” Jaycee interjected. “You love being a nosy bitch.”
Ella snickered. “Shit, we all do.”
“Fine. Whatever,” Shannon said dismissively. “I’m nosy. You’re nosy. We’re all nosy.” Rotating to the side, she faced Katie-Anne. “Why all of the secrets? I know there has to be more to the TL Jacobsen thing. And I cannot imagine that you just randomly decided to get married without a word to us or anyone else, for that matter.”
A tell-tale blush flooded Sarah’s face, and Katie-Anne knew that she was trying hard to not tell everyone that she knew and that she’d been there. Obviously, her face gave her away, so Katie-Anne admitted, “Technically, Sarah knew. She helped Landon and I plan the whole thing.”
“Wow,” Shannon murmured. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Katie-Anne answered for both herself and Sarah, considering her sister-in-law seemed to be having an aneurysm at the table. “We needed someone to coordinate with Deke and Adam. See, Landon and I decided back in late October, early November that we wanted to get married, and we wanted to have kids. Since we knew that Shane would never agree to be with either of us, it made sense to start our lives together.”
Searching around her for something to do to distract her, Katie-Anne snagged a napkin out of the holder and started folding it Origami-style. “It wasn’t something we took lightly, but we were dying without each other, like we were dying without Shane. But we figured we would give it a shot with just the two of us. So Landon contacted Deke and Adam, and they worked out all the details with Sarah acting as our liaison. When we got to the resort, we snuck down to the chapel.”
Katie-Anne sighed as she realized that the napkin wasn’t really made to make an Origami crane. Giving up, she wadded up the half-folded piece of paper and tossed it aside. “When it came down to it, we couldn’t go through with the wedding, and we stopped in the middle of the ceremony. Only, Shane walked in—at the precisely wrong time and blew up. He stormed off, leaving us brokenhearted in the dust. After an hour or so, he showed back up and convinced us to marry him.”
Picking at the corner of the plastic menu Nikki had accidentally left behind, Katie-Anne recounted the part she wanted to forget. “The next morning we got up, and Shane didn’t remember most of the evening. He accused me and Landon of a lot of absurd things. While they were bickering, I snuck out of the room and—”
“Got caught on the walk of shame?” Jaycee supplied helpfully.
With a laugh, Katie-Anne nodded. “Yeah, my two best friends caught me on the walk of shame. After the day of the wedding, Shane, Landon, and I all went our separate ways—well, as best as we could. Hell, I even tried to give Shane his freedom with an annulment. Of course, stubborn Shane didn’t sign them. And, now, we have worked out most of the kinks, and we are happily married.”
“Aw,” Ella said on a sigh. “That is a sweet story.”
“Sweet?” Katie-Anne queried. “I just said that my elopement blew up in my face, and I almost ended up a miserable, annulled maiden.”
“Maiden, my ass,” Jaycee mumbled with just enough volume that Katie-Anne could hear.
Childishly, Katie-Anne stuck her tongue out at Jaycee who snickered.
“But you worked it out so it doesn’t matter,” Ella murmured with a careless shrug, breaking up the teasing between Katie-Anne and Jaycee. “Love conquered all. And all that good stuff.”