The BFF Bride (9 page)

Tabby had already gone through the story once. “The point is—” she drained her wineglass and reached for the bottle sitting between her and Sam and Hayley “—Gillian left him with a
dog
. They’re not through. They’ll never be through.”

Hayley’s eyes were compassionate. She was the town psychologist, so Tabby figured that expression was simply ingrained. “And that is upsetting to you because...”

“Because he’s my friend,” Tabby muttered. “She’s yanked him around on the ‘Gillian chain—’” she air quoted the term with her fingers “—for years now.”

“But if she is his choice, then as his
friend
, shouldn’t you be happy for him?”

Tabby glared at Sam. “Whose side are you on?”

Sam grinned and lifted her hands peaceably. “Just playing devil’s advocate here.”

“Well, don’t.” Tabby took another sip of wine. Okay, perhaps more than a sip. Her adrenaline was pumping so strongly, she felt as though she was going to vibrate off the bar stool. “He’s got terrible taste in women. He always has.”

“Sure, ’cause those women aren’t you,” Sam returned.

Tabby’s lips parted. “I don’t know what you mean,” she lied. But it was a half beat too late, and she saw the look Sam and Hayley exchanged.

She exhaled noisily. “You have a service weapon, Sam. Just shoot me.”

“Ha-ha.” Sam rolled her eyes. “What you need—” she leaned forward again “—is a man. Someone to get horizontal with and make you forget the unattainable one.”

Hayley tsked. “Sam. Honestly.”

“What? She’s single and well past the age of consent. So—” Sam gestured at the bar, where a half dozen men in jeans and boots were hanging out, drinking beer and watching the television hanging on the wall at the end of the glossy wooden bar top “—take a gander.”

“I’ve known every one of them since I was in diapers,” Tabby objected. “I couldn’t have a romantic thought about them if I had
three
bottles of wine.” She poured more into her glass and frowned a little when she got only a few drops.

“What about one you haven’t known all your life?” Sam nudged her boot under the table when the front door of Colbys opened and two tall men—both wearing green hospital scrubs beneath their coats—walked in. “That’s Scott Brown with Wyatt Mead. He just started working at the hospital last year. And he comes from Braden.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I had to write Mr. Brown a speeding ticket this summer. He tried talking his way out of it by saying how he was new here and stuff.”

Hayley chuckled and shook her head. “I guess that’s
one
way of eliciting information.”

“Have you known
him
all of your life?” Sam’s voice was challenging.

The thought of going out with someone held no appeal. But she couldn’t spend her days pining after Justin, either. She’d never move out of the perpetual friend category with him. He’d made that abundantly clear.

But Justin was going to be in Weaver until January. She couldn’t escape that fact. So if she didn’t want to spend her spare time cleaning kennel cages at her brother’s practice to avoid running into him at the triplex, or cocooned in her blankets, or drowning herself in a bottle of wine, she’d better come up with an alternative.

Buoyed by adrenaline and wine and hurt she had no business feeling, anyway, she slapped her hand lightly on the top of their table. “You’re right,” she told Sam, and hopped off the high bar stool.

Scott and Wyatt had reached the bar and were waiting to give their orders to Merilee, who was bartending that night. Tabby stopped next to them. “Hey, Wyatt.” She didn’t give herself a chance to stop and get all girlie and stupid. “How’re you doing? Haven’t seen you in Ruby’s in a few weeks.” The tall, lanky nurse usually stopped by for coffee several times a week.

Wyatt looked chagrined. “Yeah, I’ve been—”

“Getting his morning coffee fix from his new squeeze,” his companion said easily and stuck out his hand toward Tabby. “I’m Scott.”

She set her hand in his. He had a good grip. “Tabby.”

“Buy you a drink, Tabby?”

Despite her intention of introducing herself to
him
, Tabby was a little nonplussed at the way the tables had turned so quickly.

So easily.

“Um...sure. Red wine. Jane’s got a nice house red.” Scott had a nice smile, she decided while he ordered drinks. Not too friendly. Not too wicked. And his eyes were a very ordinary brown. Not an otherworldly shade of purplish blue.

She slid onto the empty bar stool between the two men when Scott pulled it out for her. “So are you an RN like Wyatt?”

Scott shook his head. “I work in the lab.”

“He usually works nights,” Wyatt told her. He pulled a folded clip of cash out of his pocket and paid Merilee when she delivered their drinks. “Next round’s on you, bud,” he told Scott.

“I took a shift today for one of the guys on days,” Scott said. “Now I’m particularly glad I did.” He smiled at her and tapped the edge of his wineglass—also red—against the edge of hers.

Tabby smiled and sipped her wine.

He worked in the lab.
Where Justin is temporarily working.
She gave the voice in her head a mental shove.

“So you own Ruby’s?”

She shook her head, letting out a rueful laugh. “I only manage it.”
For Justin.

She shoved harder.

“Haven’t made it over there,” Scott said. “But everyone around the hospital says it’s the best place for breakfast.”

“I like to think so. We have a great crew working there.” She looked at Wyatt. “But I guess our coffee is taking second place to someone else’s. Who is she?”

Wyatt flushed a little. “She’s new in town. Works out at Cee-Vid designing computer games.”

“Well, I think that’s great,” she said sincerely. Wyatt was a genuinely nice guy. He deserved to find a genuinely nice girl. “I hope it works out for you.”

“She’ll be with me at the hospital fund-raiser next weekend,” he said. “You’re going to be there, right?”

She’d forgotten about the fund-raiser again. “I am.” She looked at Scott. “My brother has the vet practice in town. He bought a table and needs people to fill the chairs so it won’t be empty. What about you?”

“Dr. Clay wants to trot out the lab rats at the event,” he said humorously. “So, yeah. I’ll be there.”

“You two should go together,” Wyatt suggested, looking enthusiastic. “And double with me and Kristen.”

Scott lifted his eyebrows. “What d’ya say? You won’t have to sit at your brother’s table
all
evening long, will you?”

Tabby hesitated. She glanced over her shoulder at Sam and Hayley. Sam was giving her a none-too-subtle thumbs-up. But it was the sight of Justin walking through the front door of Colbys that made the decision for her.

She looked back at Scott.

“I think it sounds perfect,” she said. “I’d love to go with you to the fund-raiser.”

Chapter Nine

“H
ey, Justin. Heard congratulations are in order.” Sally Gunderson smiled up from the table where she sat outside the large white tent that had been set up behind the hospital to house the fund-raiser. He remembered her easily from high school, pretty much because she hadn’t changed a lick. “Here are your drink tickets.” She handed over two red tickets that she peeled off a big roll. “Is your fiancée with you?”

After a week of explaining to everyone who mentioned it that he was
not
engaged, Justin was heartily sick of it. “No.” He tucked the tickets in the pocket of the suit coat he’d borrowed from Jake. JD’s husband was one of the few guys in town to actually own a suit that wasn’t twenty years old. Justin’s dad had plenty, but he’d have looked like a kid playing dress-up if he’d tried to wear one of Tristan’s jackets. Justin was tall. But he wasn’t a freaking Paul Bunyan the way his dad was.

He focused on Sally. There were several racks standing behind her tables that were loaded down with coats. “I’m supposed to sit at one of the tables the Double-C purchased. Are they marked, or what?”

“Yup.” She handed over a small tented place card. “Double-C” had been printed on one side and a number on the other. “Number four,” she said, needlessly, since he could read well enough. “You’re the last one to get here.” She waved her hand over the table where only a few place cards remained. “But you’re still here in plenty of time for dinner. They haven’t even finished the speeches yet.”

“Thanks.” He wanted to attend the fund-raiser the way he wanted to have a hole drilled in his head. He knew that his dad had bought two tables on Cee-Vid’s behalf, but the seats were already divvied up among various members of his staff. Which left the seats at the tables his grandfather had gotten on behalf of the family ranch.

Squire had called Justin personally to command his attendance. Just because they hadn’t expected him to still be in town when the tickets had been purchased months ago didn’t mean that Justin wasn’t expected to attend now. He was a Clay. And Clays had always shown their support for the hospital.

So Justin had borrowed the suit coat, bought a tie at Classic Charms on his lunch break that afternoon and here he was.

He stepped through the heavy plastic sheeting that served as the doorway for the party tent just as the attendees—at least two hundred, he was guessing—started clapping.

His aunt Rebecca was standing at the podium on the raised dais. She’d obviously just finished her speech, and he made his way past the empty dance floor area and around the perimeter of the tent to the table in the front row bearing a number four on the stand in the center of it. There was only one empty seat. It faced away from the dais and would have him looking back across the rest of the tables. Feeling self-conscious, he quickly crossed in front of the dais, yanked out the chair and sat.

“You’re late,” his cousin Casey said out the side of his mouth. “How’d you rate?”

Justin smiled across the table at his grandfather and grandmother, who were seated directly opposite him and Casey. Squire’s gaze was steely; Gloria’s smile was much more forgiving. “Lost track of time working.”

It was partly true. The other part was having to clean up puppy poop, because the puppy had managed to get herself out of the temporary pen he’d fashioned in the living room of his apartment.

“Must be nice,” Casey muttered and started clapping again when Jane elbowed him in the side.

Justin couldn’t count the number of similar events he’d attended in Boston on behalf of CNJ. The company was always sponsoring one thing or another, and Charles wanted those he considered his key people to be familiar faces at them. Justin even had several custom-made suits hanging in his closet back in Boston. But he was happier wearing his borrowed suit coat from Jake.

It didn’t hold a speck of Gillian’s influence.

Finally, the applause died down. Rebecca thanked everyone for their support—which spurred another round of applause—and announced that the main course was being served.

That’s when Justin noticed the catering crew positioned around the tent. At Rebecca’s signal, they began pulling china plates from big metal carts. Salads and rolls were already on the tables.

“Where’d the catering come from?” The fancy carts made the thing Tabby had used for the tree lighting seem like a toy.

“Cheyenne.” His cousin Courtney was sitting on his other side. She was an RN at the hospital. “They came up with a ton of equipment and used the hospital kitchen to finish up. I heard it was a huge task to coordinate.”

“Impressive.” There was at least one server per table, so delivering the meals was accomplished with remarkable efficiency. Justin hoped the rest of the evening went with similar speed.

Mostly because he’d just spotted Tabby sitting one row over. She wasn’t facing him. All he got was the fine line of her profile. But that was enough.

It had been a week since Gillian had come to town, just long enough to rain her particular brand of chaos all over his life. He had a no-name puppy that howled at night unless he let her sleep on his bed. No matter how often he corrected them, he still had people all over town thinking he was engaged to be married. And he had a landlord named Tabby who treated him like a stranger.

No, he corrected himself, as he watched her smile and converse with the other people seated around her. She treated strangers with more warmth than she offered him.

It was even worse than it had been four years ago, when he’d betrayed their entire friendship by getting her into bed.

Then, he’d felt like the biggest crumb on the planet.

Now, he was just pissed. Plain and simple.

She believed he’d lied. She’d rather believe the baloney that Gillian had spewed than the guy she’d known her whole life.

What the hell kind of friendship was that?

Courtney kicked him lightly beneath the table. “You’re scowling,” she said under her breath.

He wiped the frown off his face and realized everyone at his table had nearly finished their meal while he’d been sitting there fuming. He stabbed his fork into the salmon like it still needed killing and ate enough to avoid a questioning look from the server when she picked up his plate along with the others. It was replaced in short order with dessert—an assortment of crème brûlée, chocolate mousse and some little fruit tart—that he had no interest in, either. But before he could push it away, Courtney stole the entire lot, smiling innocently.

People were starting to move around the room, anyway, making visits to the bars spaced along one side of the heated tent, and he excused himself and went to the nearest one. He handed over one of the red tickets in exchange for a neat shot of whiskey that he tossed back in one gulp. Then he traded his second ticket for a bottle of beer.

When he looked around again, Tabby was no longer sitting at the table with her brother and his cousin Leandra, but he spotted her quickly enough in the center of the dance floor, where she stood out like a white beacon among a sea of little black dresses.

There was a DJ spinning music. It had been pretty much in the background through dinner, but now that the meal was over, the volume and pace had picked up, and Justin watched her dance. It took him a minute to realize the guy she was dancing with was Scott Brown from the hospital lab.

It was the lack of pale green scrubs, he decided.

Someone clapped him on the shoulder. “Yo, Justin. Heard you got hitched. Congratulations, man.”

He just shook his head and shook off the hand. “Not married,” he said. “Not getting married, either.” He waded his way to the center of the dance floor, stopping next to Scott and Tabby. “Mind if I cut in?”

Scott looked surprised, but he started to move aside.

Tabby, on the other hand, gave Justin a searing look. “I mind,” she said and quickly linked her hands behind Scott’s neck.

Justin watched the other man’s hands slide down the shimmering white fabric covering her back and took a long pull on his beer. Tabby’s dress reached her thighs, leaving a whole lot of long, shapely leg uncovered.

She definitely didn’t have skinned knees anymore.

The fact that people were having to dance around him didn’t faze him in the least. “Guess I’ll just wait, then,” he said, meeting Tabby’s fuming eyes with his own.

It was obvious as hell that Scott recognized he was caught in the middle of some sort of skirmish. And equally obvious to Justin that the other man wasn’t particularly bothered by that fact.

Not if the guy’s hands wrapped around Tabby’s waist were anything to go by.

Fortunately, the song ended fairly quickly. During the commotion of people moving on and off the dance floor as the next song cranked up, Scott murmured something close to Tabby’s ear that Justin couldn’t hear and moved away from them.

Justin grabbed Tabby’s hand before she could follow and yanked her close. “Whispering sweet nothings to you already?”

Her body was as stiff as a board, and the grimace of a smile she gave him was just as bad. “Whether he is or isn’t, it’s none of
your
business. You’re bruising my wrist.”

“I’m not holding you that tight,” he retorted. But he lightened his grip all the same. Not enough to let her weasel out of it—a tactic she immediately tried. When she failed, she planted her sharp, high heel on the toe of his shoe. “Play nice,” he warned. “At least for the benefit of the people watching.”

She turned up her nose and looked away.

He wasn’t able to shake some feeling back into his foot, though he wanted to. She clearly didn’t care if
she
left bruises. “I’m the one who has a right to be mad.”

She let out a disgusted sound, then turned on a brilliant smile as another dancing couple brushed by them. “Dee Crowder. Honest to Pete, you’re the prettiest woman here tonight. I’ve never seen you look better.”

The short, curly-headed blonde beamed back at Tabby. She taught elementary school along with one of Justin’s cousins. But she was dancing with a balding man Justin didn’t recognize. “The wonders of an engagement ring.” Dee waggled her finger on which a diamond ring sparkled.

Tabby seemed to forget the need to mimic a wooden plank at the sight of the ring. “Oh, my goodness! You two are engaged?”

Dee nodded and her curls bounced. “Joe proposed on Thanksgiving Day.”

Tabby laughed and gave the balding guy a pointed look. “It’s about
time
y’all got your act together.”

“Joe felt he needed to go to the school board first.”

Justin’s curiosity got the better of him. His mom was head of the school board. “School board? What for?”

Tabby blinked. “Oh. Sorry. I guess if you spent more time in Weaver, you’d have met.” She delivered the jab along with the introduction. “Joe Gage. Principal at the elementary school. Justin Clay.”

The balding guy stretched out a hand, which meant Justin had to release his grip on Tabby so he could reciprocate. “Nice to meet you. My mom used to teach at the elementary school. Hope Clay.”

“Hope is your mom? She’s a good lady.” Joe dropped his arm over Dee’s shoulder. She was nodding enthusiastically.

“Hope’s one of the only voices of reason on the board,” Dee said. “She thought it was ridiculous that Joe needed their permission before he proposed to me. Just because I teach at his school.”

“It wasn’t permission so much as hoping to avoid a gossip scandal,” Joe said wryly. “You know what this town is like.”

“Well, I for one couldn’t be happier for the two of you,” Tabby said. “Have you set a date?”

“It won’t be until summer,” Dee said. “After the school year is finished.”

“Guess you’ll have to find a new name for your poker group,” Tabby said with a laugh.

Dee laughed, too, and swung back into Joe’s arms. The couple two-stepped off to the latest song the DJ was playing.

Which left Tabby and Justin standing, again, in the middle of the dance floor.

“
You’re
the prettiest woman here tonight,” he said abruptly. “And for the record, I’ve never once lied to you. Not about Gillian. Not about anything. Not in our entire lives.” Then, before she could respond, he turned and walked off the dance floor.

Scott was there waiting, two drinks in his hands.

“You hurt her, you’ll answer to me,” Justin said softly as he passed him, and he didn’t stop until he’d left the tent altogether.

* * *

Tabby’s cheeks felt as though they were on fire as she watched Justin walk away, leaving her standing there by herself in the middle of the dance floor.

The last time she’d felt remotely like this had been four years ago. At least then there had been no one to witness it.

She saw Scott on the periphery of the dance floor. A perfectly nice guy who deserved a girl equally as nice. Equally as interested.

Someone entirely different from Tabby.

She sighed and headed toward him. “Scott, I’m sorry, but I—” She stopped when he pushed two drinks into her hands.

“Dr. Clay’s calling out her lab rats,” he said, making her realize that Rebecca had taken the podium again and was calling up various members of the hospital staff. “Shouldn’t take long.”

Tabby smiled weakly and gave a last glance toward the tent’s entrance. She wasn’t going to walk out on Scott without at least explaining first. Which meant she was stuck there, at least for now.

“It’s so exciting, isn’t it?” Wyatt’s girlfriend, Kristen, came up to stand next to Tabby.

Tabby shook herself a little and looked at the young woman. “I’m sorry. What’s exciting?”

Kristen gave her an odd look. “Vivian Templeton’s donation.” She raised her eyebrows a little. “For the lab? It puts them over the top of what they needed to raise.”

“Oh, right.” Tabby smiled, even though she didn’t have a clue. “It’s very exciting.”

“I wonder why she didn’t come tonight,” Kristen went on, apparently satisfied with Tabby’s level of excitement. “If
I
were going to donate a couple million dollars to something, I sure would want to show my face.” She giggled. “If I ever even had a couple million dollars. Talk about a fantasy, right?”