Authors: Rachel Gibson
Daniel put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, Sam, isn’t that your wife?”
“You have a wife?” Marty turned toward the front.
“
Ex
-wife.” The burning acid in his stomach chewed its way upward.
“I didn’t know you were ever married.”
Daniel laughed like he thought something was real funny.
Sam sliced a gaze at Daniel out of the corners of his eyes. A silent warning that made the winger laugh even harder, but at least he didn’t open his piehole and spill all the sordid details about Sam’s drunken trip to a cheesy wedding chapel in Vegas.
He returned his attention to the front entrance for several more seconds before heading up the stairs. Her name was Autumn, and like the season, she was unpredictable. One day she might be pleasantly warm, the next, cold enough to freeze a guy’s nuts off.
He reached the second floor and passed the lady playing a harp. Sam didn’t like surprises. He didn’t like to be caught off guard. He liked to see which way the hits were coming so he could be ready for the blows.
He moved down a short hall sparsely littered with wedding guests. He hadn’t counted on seeing Autumn that night, but he guessed he shouldn’t be all that surprised. She was a wedding planner or, as she always insisted, “event organizer.” Although, really, what was the difference? Wedding or event, it was the same damn circus. But it was typical of Autumn to make a big deal out of something little.
“Would you like to sign the guest book?” a woman seated at a small round table asked. Sam wasn’t the kind of guy to sign anything without his lawyer present, but the woman with big brown eyes flashed him a smile, and he moved toward her. She wore something red and tight across her chest and had a sparkly headband in her dark hair.
Sam was a big fan of tight and sparkly and returned her smile. “Sure.” She handed him a ridiculous pen with a big white feather. “Nice headband.”
She raised a hand to the side of her head and kind of blushed like she wasn’t used to getting compliments. “Are you making fun of my headband?”
“No. It looks good in your hair.”
“Thanks.”
He bent forward and his tie brushed the white linen tablecloth. “Are you related to the bride or groom?”
“Neither. I’m employed by Haven Event Management.”
His smile flattened. Which meant she worked for Autumn. Autumn Haven. While her first name fit, her last name was a total contradiction. Like jumbo shrimp or silent scream or cuddly cheetah.
“Don’t have too much fun,” Sam said, and handed the pen back to Autumn’s employee. He walked the short distance toward a large room, where an usher showed Sam to a chair near the front. He moved down a red carpet strewn with white rose petals. Most of the seats were already taken up with assorted hockey players, wives, or girlfriends. He spotted the Ross twins, Bo and Chelsea, seated between former captain Mark Bressler and Faith’s assistant, Jules Garcia. The twins worked in one capacity or another for the organization and were better known as Mini Pit and Short Boss.
He took one of the last remaining seats, beside sniper Frankie Kawczynski. In the front of the room, a man wearing a blue suit and holding a Bible stood before an enormous stone fireplace festooned with red roses and some kind of white flowers. The guy had to be the preacher, or he could be a justice of the peace for all Sam knew. One thing was for sure, though, he wasn’t a fake Elvis.
“Hey, Sam. Are Daniel and Marty still hanging out downstairs?”
“Yeah.” Sam glanced at his watch. The boys had better hurry if they were going to make it before the bride. This was one of those events where the guys needed to arrive on time, and completely blowing off the wedding of Faith Duffy, owner of the Seattle Chinooks, wasn’t even an option. If it had been, Sam wouldn’t be sitting there, suited up and looking at his watch, waiting for the show to begin. Dreading the pleasure of his former wife.
Some sort of wedding music poured through the room’s sound system, and Sam glanced over his shoulder as a woman he recognized as the bride’s mother entered the room. Her usual tight clothes and big jewelry had been toned down to a simple red dress. Her only accessories were the small bouquet and the white yappy dog she carried. And like all yappy dogs, it had big ear bows. Red to match its nails.
Ty Savage and his father, Pavel, entered the room behind the bride’s mother. Father and son were both hockey legends, and anyone with a passing interest in the game had heard the name Savage. Sam had grown up watching Pavel play old-school hockey, before helmets and fighting rules. Later, he’d played both against and with Ty, inarguably one of the best to ever lace up a pair of skates. Both men wore customary black tuxedos and, for one uncomfortable moment, Sam’s brain flashed to his own wedding. Only instead of a tux, he’d worn a Cher BELIEVE T-shirt and jeans. He didn’t know which was more humiliating, the wedding or the T-shirt.
Ty and Pavel took their places across from the bride’s mother and in front of the fireplace. Ty looked calm. Not at all nervous or terrified that he was making a huge mistake. Sam figured he’d looked fairly calm at his own wedding. Of course, he’d been drunk out of his mind. That was the only explanation for what he’d done. The terror hadn’t sunk in until the next morning. The memory of his drunken wedding was one he avoided like a whore avoided the vice squad. He pushed it away and locked it down tight, where he kept all unpleasant memories and unwanted emotions.
Soft harp music changed to the “Wedding March,” and everyone stood as the bride entered the room. Faith Duffy was one of the most beautiful women on the planet. Tall, blond, gorgeous face, like a Barbie Doll. Perfect breasts. And he didn’t think he was a pervert for acknowledging her rack, either. She’d been a Playmate of the Year, and most of the men in the room had seen her pictorial.
She wore a body-hugging white dress that covered her from throat to knees. Over the gauzy veil on Faith’s head, he caught a glimpse of Autumn as she slipped into the back of the room. The last time he’d seen her, she’d called him immature and selfish. She’d told him he was an irresponsible horn dog, and she’d finished her rant by accusing him of having jock itch of the brain. Which wasn’t true. He’d never had jock itch anywhere, not even in his jock, and he’d taken exception. He’d lost his cool with her and called her an uptight, ball-busting bitch. Which in her case,
was
true, but that hadn’t been the worst of it. No, the worst of it had been the look in Conner’s blue eyes as his son had popped up from behind the couch. As if his parents had just plunged a knife in his three-year-old heart. That had been the worst of it. After that night, they’d mutually agreed that it was best not to be in the same place. This was the first time he’d been in the same building with, or even seen Autumn for what now… two years maybe?
T
wenty months, two weeks and three days. That was how long it had been since Autumn had had the misfortune to be in the same room with the biggest horse’s ass on the planet. If not the planet, at least the Pacific Coast. And that was a lot of horses’ asses.
She stood at the back of the Cutter Room inside the Rainier Club, her eyes fixed on the bride as she handed her bouquet of white peonies, hydrangeas, and deep red roses to her mother. Faith took her place across from the groom, and he reached for her hand. In a completely unscripted move, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed the backs of her knuckles. Autumn had planned a lot of weddings in the past few years. So many that she could pretty much predict which couples were going to make it over the long haul. She knew by the way they spoke and touched each other and by the way they handled the stress of planning a wedding. She predicted that Ty and Faith would grow very old together.
As everyone sat, and the minister began, Autumn lowered her gaze to the bride’s slightly rounded stomach. Just a few weeks ago, she’d received a call from the bride requesting the champagne at the bride and groom’s table be replaced with sparkling cider. At three months, the pregnancy was hardly noticeable yet. The bride was one of those fortunate women who glowed with good heath.
Not Autumn. She’d been unable to button her jeans by month three, and her morning sickness had kicked in before she’d even known she was pregnant with Conner, turning her complexion very pale. And, unlike Faith Duffy, there hadn’t been a man around to kiss her fingers and make her feel loved and secure. Instead, she’d been alone and sick and facing divorce.
Without looking directly at Sam, she was aware of where he sat. Aware of his big shoulders in his expensive suit and the light from the chandelier shining in his blond hair. When she’d slipped into the room, she hadn’t even had to look around to know he sat in the fourth row, aisle seat. She just knew. Like the tension headache pressing against her temples. She didn’t have to see it to know it was there. But unlike her headache, there was nothing she could take to make Sam LeClaire go away.
She tapped a finger against the event folder she held in one hand. She’d known Sam would be there, of course. She’d made sure the invitation had gone out on time and had overseen the RSVPs. She’d gone over the dinner seating with the bride and placed Sam with three other single hockey players and various big-busted Playmates at table seven.
She chewed on her bottom lip. He’d no doubt be pleased.
Autumn’s earpiece beeped, and she turned down the volume as Ty and Faith spoke the traditional vows. The ceremony was short and sweet, and when the groom reached for his bride, Autumn waited. Even after all the weddings she’d organized over the past several years, even the ones she knew would fail, she waited. She wasn’t the most romantic woman on the planet. Still, she waited for that fraction of a second. That briefest magical moment just before a kiss sealed a man to his wife for the rest of their lives.
Ty’s and Faith’s lips touched and a little pinch squeezed a corner of Autumn’s heart. She was a sucker. No matter the statistics, no matter the pain of her own divorce, no matter the cynical voice in her head, she was a sucker for the happily-ever-after.
Still.
For a fraction of a second, Autumn’s gaze lit on the back of Sam’s blond hair. Her temples squeezed a bit more, stabbing at her right eye, and she walked out of the room. For a lot of years, she’d hated Sam, hated him with a seething passion. But that kind of all-consuming hate took up too much emotional energy. After her last altercation with him, she’d decided, for the sake of their son, and her sanity, to let go of her anger. To let go of her hatred. Which also meant letting go of her favorite fantasy. The one that involved her foot, his balls, followed by an uppercut to his pretty jaw.
She’d never fantasized about Sam’s death, nor even long-term maiming. Nothing that involved driving over Sam with a steamroller or Peterbilt semi. No, nothing as violent as that. Conner needed a father, no matter how crappy, and other than the foot-in-groin fantasy, she just wasn’t a violent person.
Letting go of her hatred hadn’t been easy. Especially when he made plans with Conner, then canceled. Or when it was his weekend, and he’d take off somewhere with his buddies and break Conner’s heart. She’d had to work hard at letting go of her anger and was pretty successful at feeling nothing at all, but then again, she hadn’t actually seen Sam in twenty months, two weeks, and three days. Hadn’t been anywhere near him.
Applause broke out behind Autumn as she moved down the hall and into the Cascade Room. She walked between twenty round tables set with fine white linen and red napkins folded on Wedgwood china. The lights from the chandeliers and flickering tapered candles shone within crystal glasses and bounced off polished silver flatware.
The first day she’d met with Faith, the bride had expressed a desire for understated elegance. She’d wanted gorgeous flowers, beautiful table settings, and excellent food. Faith’s lack of a clear theme hadn’t been a problem, and she’d quickly become Autumn’s favorite kind of bride.
A bride with good taste and no budget. The only real difficulties had arisen because of time constraints. Most weddings took eight months to plan. Faith had wanted everything done in three months. Looking around at the floral centerpieces of varying shades of roses and peonies interspersed with white honeysuckle, Autumn was proud of what she and her staff had pulled together.
The only thing that would have made the wedding perfect was if Faith had consented to let the local and national newspapers splash the wedding photo all over their pages. The marriage of elite player Ty Savage, who’d quit the sport to marry a former Playboy Playmate turned hockey team owner, was big news. Especially in the sports world. It would have been the kind of advertising that Autumn couldn’t buy. The kind that could propel her business to the next level. The kind of break she’d been waiting for, but Faith hadn’t wanted her wedding splashed anywhere. She’d wanted to keep it low-key. No photos released to anyone.
Autumn spoke into the tiny microphone in front of her mouth, and the catering staff, dressed in tuxedos, filed down the stairs from the kitchen above. Each carried trays filled with flutes of Moët et Chandon or hot and cold hors d’oeuvres. They moved into the wide hall and passed among the wedding guests.
Through the open door, Autumn watched the photographer, Fletcher Corbin, and his assistant, Chuck, scramble for candid photos. Fletcher was tall and thin, with a thinner ponytail. He was one of the best photographers in the business, and Autumn always booked him when he had the time, and the bride had the money. She liked working with him because she didn’t have to tell him what to do or what shots the bride wanted. She loved that about Fletcher and most of the vendors on this particular job. They knew what they were doing. They adjusted and adapted and didn’t cause drama.
The bride and groom stood in the middle of the wide hall, surrounded by a knot of guests. Autumn turned her wrist over and pushed up the long sleeve of the vintage black sweater she’d found at one of her favorite boutiques in downtown Seattle. It had tiny sequins around the collar, and she’d considered it a steal at forty bucks.