The BFF Bride (3 page)

He took the same corner he’d been in before dinner. Since he’d forgotten a fork, he picked up the wedge of pie in his fingers and took a bite.

“Neanderthal.” His cousin JD dropped a plastic fork onto his plate as she carried two plates to the couch closest to him. She handed one to her husband, Jake, then sat down on the floor in front of him, her legs stretched out. Justin knew she’d have sat on Jake’s knee if it hadn’t already been occupied by their sleeping little boy, Tucker.

Justin jerked his chin toward her. “When does Tuck start kindergarten?”

“Next fall.” She looked over her shoulder at the little boy and gently swiped his messy brown hair off his forehead. “He was upset that he didn’t get to go this year.”

“Gonna have any more?”

She and Jake shared a look.

“Yes,” she said.

“No,” he said.

Justin hid his smile around a bite of his grandma’s delicious pie. Tucker had been born very prematurely. Though it looked like JD had gotten over it and was ready to go again, her husband had not.

“When’re you gonna get yourself a wife?” Squire’s voice carried across the room, and there was no question he’d directed his words to Justin. The old man was looking straight at him.

For some reason, Justin found himself glancing toward Tabby across the room.

“Justin’s never gonna get married,” Axel—yet another cousin—drawled before he could answer. “He told us all that when he graduated from high school. He was gonna go off and cure disease and save the world. Remember?”

Justin grimaced.

“He’d just had his heart broken by—what was her name?” His dad’s eyes narrowed as he thought back. “Pretty girl. Short blond hair.”

“Colleen,” his mother called out from the dining room.

“Collette,” Tabby corrected. “Summers. Her dad worked for the electric company.”

“Collette Summers,” Caleb repeated. “She was so hot.”

“What do you know about hot? You were dating Kelly Rasmussen,” Justin reminded.

“Whatever happened to Kelly,” someone asked.

“Can I tell ’em
now
?”

Everyone looked toward Murphy, who’d loudly interrupted the conversation.

Erik grinned. “Go for it, Murph.”

The boy uncoiled from his seat on the floor, standing up to his full height. “We’re getting a baby,” he announced, his cheeks red, his eyes beaming.

Isabella laughed and reached out to squeeze his hand. “I don’t know about
getting
,” she said humorously. “But we’re definitely having one. Should be making his or her arrival sometime next April.”

Justin’s mother had finally finished cutting pies. She stared at them slack jawed for a moment before virtually vaulting over people and furniture to grab Izzy in a hug. “Another grandbaby
.
” She looped her other arm around Murphy and kissed his forehead. “A grandson has been wonderful, and this baby is going to be fabulous!”

Hope had about a half second before the rest of the crew started climbing around them to give their own hugs.

When Justin got the third elbow in the head during the process, he gave up his corner spot and found refuge across the room in one of the vacated chairs.

Which happened to be next to Tabby’s spot on the floor. “If you get up and move now, someone’s gonna notice,” he told her under his breath.

Her lips tightened, but she stayed where she was, recrossing her denim-covered legs again just as she’d done when they were little kids. Only difference now was that the legs those jeans covered were long and shapely, instead of skinny with scrapes all over ’em.

At least, he was assuming they weren’t all scraped up anymore. He hoped not, anyway. Because her skin was smooth and creamy—

He pinched the bridge of his nose, cutting off the memory. It was as unwanted as the envy he’d felt at his own brother’s happiness.

He just wanted things the way they used to be.

Easy. Comfortable and familiar as a pair of old, beloved boots.

He dropped his hand and looked at her from the corner of his eyes. “If I let you punch me in the nose, would you finally get over your mad?”

She stabbed her fork into her pie, seeming to focus fiercely on it. “We’re not five.”

“We were nine.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I remember it vividly, since you managed to break it.”

She huffed out a breath. “I never intended to break your nose,” she muttered.

“I know.” He waited a beat. “We survived that. So can’t we survive another kiss, even one—I hate to admit—as badly executed as it was?” It had been a helluva lot more than a kiss, but he didn’t figure she wanted to get into that territory any more than he did.

He was right. “It doesn’t matter. It was years ago.”

He leaned over the arm of his chair toward her. His gaze caught on the wedge of creamy skin showing between the unbuttoned edges of her shirt. And he couldn’t look away. Which was stupid, because there wasn’t anything like that between him and Tabby.

Except that one time they were both trying not to think about.

“And things haven’t been right between us since,” he said.

She slowly sucked a smear of chocolate from her thumb, taking long enough for him to get his eyes off her chest and onto her lips.

Now he was focused on her soft pink lips pursed around her thumb. How freaking stupid was that.

She finally lowered her hand, wiping it on her crumpled paper napkin. Then she rose to her feet with as much agility as she’d had when they were nine. “You’re gonna leave again before any of us can blink, so why does it even matter?”

Slipping his empty plate out of his fingers, she worked her way around the horde of people blocking the way and left the room.

Chapter Three

“S
tupid. Stupid, stupid,
freaking
stupid.” Tabby was still kicking herself an hour later when she got home to the triplex she’d bought the previous year.

If she’d wanted to prove that she wasn’t affected by Justin Clay, she’d failed.

Monumentally.

Running out the way she had while everyone was still congratulating Izzy and Erik over the baby?

“Stupid,” she muttered for the fiftieth time while she made her way through the apartment, flipping on lights as she went until she reached her bedroom at the back.

She tugged the tails of her white shirt free from her jeans and yanked it over her head, not bothering with the buttons. Her bra—a glorified name for the hank of lace and elastic that was all her meager bust had ever required—followed. She’d ditched her cowboy boots at the front door already; now she kicked off her jeans, pitching all of the clothing in the general direction of her closet before pulling a football jersey over her head.

“Stupid,” she said again. Just for good measure and because she evidently liked punishing herself.

In stocking feet, she went back to the living room and flipped on the television to watch the football game she’d recorded.

“He’ll be gone tomorrow,” she said to herself. “You won’t have to think about him for another six months.” The sounds of the football game followed her into her kitchen, but it didn’t drown out the cackle of laughter inside her head.

Since when had Justin’s absence ever stopped her from thinking about him?

She shoved a glass under the refrigerator’s ice dispenser, but not even that racket outdid the cackle.

Which just annoyed her all the more.

She thought she’d prepared herself for seeing him.

Every year, she thought she’d prepared herself for seeing him.

And every year, she failed.

The phone hanging on the wall next to the fridge suddenly rang, and she snatched up the receiver. “What?”

A brief hesitation, then female laughter greeted her. “Criminy, Tab. Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.”

Tabby forced her shoulders to relax. “Sam,” she greeted. “Aren’t you still on duty?” Samantha Dawson was the only female officer with the local sheriff’s department.

“Taking my supper break.”

“Too bad you have to work on a holiday.”

“Not for my bank account. Double-time pay. How was the big get-together over at the Clays’?”

Even though Tabby had gotten pretty friendly with Sam over the past few years, the other woman wasn’t privy to the history between Tabby and Justin.

Nobody was.

“It was fine.” She shook herself. “A lot of fun. Always is. Have you heard how Hayley’s day went?”

Hayley Banyon was a good friend of Sam’s. She was also a Templeton, and as such, would have had as much reason or more to be at the Clay family fete as Tabby, since she was one of the relations the Clays had recently learned about.

“I saw her, actually,” Sam said. “Needed her professional help on a family dispute call that came in. She said she was grateful for the call, if that gives you any hint.”

It did. “That’s too bad.” If there was dissension between Vivian Templeton and Squire, according to Hayley there was even more between Vivian and her own sons. One of whom was Hayley’s father. “So did you call to shoot the breeze, or what’s up?”

“Just checking whether you’re opening the diner tomorrow.”

“Yup.” She’d be there before 4:00 a.m. as usual to get the cinnamon rolls going. “Pool tournament at Colbys kicks off tomorrow and I’m figuring I’ll get overflow business from it like I did last year. Why?”

“Promised a dozen to Dave Ruiz if he covers a shift for me next week.”

“They’ll be hot and fresh by six, same as always.”

“Good enough. See you then.”

Tabby was still smiling when she hung up. The phone rang again before she had a chance to take her hand off the receiver, and she picked it up again. “Let me guess,” she said on a laugh. “Two dozen?”

“Two dozen what?”

Her nerves tightened right back up at the sound of Justin’s voice. “I thought you were somebody else. What do you want?”

“I want you to get over the damn stick you got up your—”

She hung up on him.

It took only a second before the phone rang again.

She disconnected the phone line, and it went silent.

Then she turned back to the refrigerator and poured cold tea over the ice in her glass, flicked off the light in the kitchen and went back to the living room to watch her recorded football game.

She fell asleep on the couch before halftime and woke up around 3:00 a.m. to the fuzzy, bluish-white light from the blank television screen.

There was no point in going to bed when she needed to be at the diner soon, anyway.

Rubbing the sleep from her face, she went to shower and got dressed for the day.

Thirty minutes later, with her damp hair hidden beneath a bright blue knit cap and her gloved hands shoved deep in the pockets of her wool coat, she walked the three blocks from her triplex to the restaurant and let herself in the rear door. She didn’t need to turn on any lights to make her way through the back of the diner, because aside from updating an appliance here and there over the years, nothing significant had changed since she’d started working there as a teenager.

She went out to the front of the restaurant, where the glass windows overlooked Main Street, and started fresh coffee brewing. With that delicious aroma following her, she went back into the kitchen, turned on the lights and got down to work.

By the time she heard the back door open again, she had three baking sheets of cinnamon rolls cooling on the racks and was sliding two more into the oven. “Grab that third sheet from the counter, would you?”

She looked over her shoulder, expecting Bubba.

But it was Justin who picked up the large metal pan. “This one?”

Her lips tightened, and she took the sheet pan from him, sliding it into the oven along with the others and closing the door. “Come to check on your investment?”

She didn’t wait for an answer and went back out through the swinging door to the front, where she poured herself a cup of coffee. It wasn’t quite 6:00 a.m. yet, but she unlocked the door and flipped the Closed sign to Open, anyway.

When she turned back, Justin was sitting on one of the red vinyl–upholstered stools at the counter. He was wearing dark gray running pants and a zippered jacket with
CNJ
printed on the stand-up collar.

His clothes looked expensive. And darn it all, they fit his tall, exceptional physique as if they’d been tailored for him. Which, for all she knew, they had been. He’d admitted quite a few years ago that he not only had his suits tailored, but his shirts, as well. His precious Gillian had seen to that.

Since Tabby didn’t want to think about that, she focused on everything above his neck. His thick, short hair was damp, making the blond strands look brown. He’d obviously showered. Her nose was even prickling from the vaguely spicy scent of his soap. Or...whatever.

“You need a shave.” She flipped over a thick white mug, filled it with coffee and pushed it in front of him.

His long fingers circled the mug. “You should keep the door locked when you’re here by yourself.”

“Please. Be mighty hard for customers to come in to Ruby’s if I kept the doors locked whenever I happen to be alone.” Hard for customers. Hard for intruders.

She pushed aside the thought and went back through the swinging door, pulled on clean plastic gloves and turned out the first batch of rolls, deftly packing several up individually, then punched down the dough that was rising in an enormous steel bowl.

He hadn’t budged when she went back out to the front.

She deposited the pastry boxes next to the register, threw away the gloves, refilled her coffee and leaned back against the rear counter, studying him over the brim of her cup. His eyes were bloodshot. Which, annoyingly, just seemed to make the violet color stand out that much more. “Tie one on last night?”

His jaw canted to one side. He shook his head and squinted as he sipped the steaming-hot coffee. “Should have. Couldn’t sleep, anyway. At least then it would’ve been worthwhile.”

She smiled sweetly. “I slept like a baby.” On the couch. Plagued by dreams about him, only to wake with a crick in her neck that still made it hurt to turn her head too far to the left.

“Were you always this much of a witch, Tab?”

Despite everything, she felt a stab of some unidentified emotion. “Isn’t that how spinsters are supposed to act?”

He leaned on his elbows and looked at her through his lashes. “Twenty-eight is spinsterhood now?”

She sipped her coffee. It was to some old-fashioned folks around Weaver. But truthfully?

She felt that stab again. Regret, perhaps. Maybe loss.

It was hard to tell. When it came to Justin, things had started getting complicated long before they’d become adults. “Close enough to be a regular at Dee Crowder’s spinster poker night.”

“‘Spinster’ sounds like you’re seventy-five and still pining for your first kiss.” He gave her that through-the-lashes look again. “And I know you don’t qualify there. Hell.” His lips twitched suddenly. “I remember when Caleb kissed you when we were freshmen in high school.”

About the time when she’d wished Justin would have been interested in kissing her. But he’d never been interesting in kissing her for
her
. She’d always been a substitute on that score. A substitute he’d left behind the same way he’d left behind Weaver.

“Doesn’t count,” she said promptly. “It was a practice kiss. He was afraid he’d mess up when he planted his first one on Kelly Rasmussen.”

Justin’s head came up, his expression genuinely surprised. “I always figured you gave him the same response you gave me when we were nine. Without the broken nose.”

It was nearly six. She figured Sloan McCray, one of the deputy sheriffs, would be showing his face soon before he went on duty. And frankly, she would be grateful for the interruption.

She flipped on the radio and glanced over the stack of to-go cups she kept near the big brewer. “If he’d done it without permission in order to make Kelly jealous, I probably would have given him the same response.” She lifted her shoulder. “Apples and oranges, though.”

“I didn’t kiss you to make Sierra jealous.”

“And you didn’t sleep with me four years ago to make—what’s her name? Oh, right. Gillian.” The name was seared on her brain. “That wasn’t an attempt to get her to sit up and take notice of you?”

“How many times do you want me to apologize for that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a few million.” She looked past him when the front door opened, making the little bell on top jingle softly. “Good morning, Deputy. Get you the usual?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Tabby.” Sloan stepped up to the counter and handed her his insulated travel mug for the coffee. She turned and filled it while he greeted Justin. “How’s life in Boston?”

“Cold,” Justin admitted. “Not as cold as here—” he glanced at Tabby “—but still cold. How’s your wife?”

“Keeping me warm,” Sloan drawled. “Very warm.”

“And the boy—Dillon, right?”

“Growing like a weed,” Tabby said, turning to hand the deputy his coffee mug, along with one of the pastry boxes. “He and Abby came by last week. Dillon’s going to be a heartbreaker one of these days.”

“Fortunately, I think we’ve got a few years yet before we have to worry about that.” He pulled out his wallet.

She waggled her finger at him. “You know your money is no good here, Deputy.”

“And you know I’m gonna argue.”

“Justin’s half owner of this place. Tell him, Justin.”

“What Tabby said,” Justin said obediently, without moving a muscle. “Easier to go along with her than argue, because you’ll never win. Trust me.”

Sloan stuffed a few dollars in the empty tip jar by the register. “You won’t give that back, because I know it gets split among your crew.” He took a sip from his mug, turning his gaze to Justin again. “You in town for the long weekend? Going to play in Colbys’ pool tournament?”

Tabby busied herself restacking the pastry boxes. Justin would be gone by nightfall just like always. He never stayed the entire Thanksgiving weekend. At least on that score, she could relax a little.

“I’m here until January. But no, I leave the pool games to my brother.”

She accidentally dropped the boxes and they scattered. “January!”

As Sloan leaned over and picked up the boxes that had landed on the floor, the radio attached to his belt crackled. He adjusted the sound and set the boxes on the counter. “Sure I’ll be seeing more of you then,” he said. He gestured with his mug and picked up his own pastry box. “Thanks, Tabby.”

“You bet.” She waited until the deputy departed before she focused on Justin again.
“January?”

“I know the thought’s horrifying to you, but try to dial it down a little.” He came around the counter and refilled his coffee mug.

And even though she wanted to tell him to get back on his own side of the counter, she couldn’t very well do so.

Like it or not, he
was
her boss. It didn’t matter that he’d always left the decision making to his brother when it came to Ruby’s. But Justin was still half owner. It wasn’t something she dwelled on, but when they were standing right there in Ruby’s, it was kind of hard to forget.

She mentally counted to ten and tried again. “You’re here until January?” Calmer or not, her voice had still gone a little hoarse at the end. But she held up her chin as if it hadn’t. “Why is that?”

“I’ll be working on a project here for CNJ. At the hospital, mostly. My aunt cleared it last night, though she’s going to have me jumping through a few more hoops than I expected because of it.”

Tabby let his answer roll around in her head a few times. “Why can’t you work on it in Boston at that big state-of-the-art laboratory you love?”

“Too many distractions there.”

“Gillian being one of them?”

“Yes, but not the way you th—” He went silent when the bell over the door jingled again, and Sam strolled in.