The BFF Bride Read online

  “Never thought so before, particularly.”

  His father’s gaze wasn’t unsympathetic. But then, back in his day, Tristan had left Weaver for a good long while, too. Until he’d married Hope Leoni and they’d settled in Weaver permanently. He’d established a little company called Cee-Vid that became a huge player in consumer electronics, and Hope had taught at the elementary school and then ended up the head of the school board.

  “Someday—” Tristan’s voice was unusually reflective “—you might sit up and realize one of the most disturbing things in life is finding out that something you’d counted on never changing has already done so, without you ever having noticed.” Then he tossed the towel on the counter and left the kitchen, too.

  Frowning, Justin turned toward Erik. “What’s with him?”

  “Nothing that’s new. You’re just not usually around to see it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just a fact,” Erik said mildly. “You’re in Boston. You don’t see the day-to-day effects of the crap he deals with. And I’m not talking about Cee-Vid.”

  No. Erik was talking about the real work their father did. The secretive, frequently dangerous world of Hollins-Winword’s black operations, where their father was second in command. Cee-Vid was the legitimate front that hid the covert work, which Justin and Erik knew about but rarely discussed.

  “It’s been a hard year,” Erik said.

  “Isn’t it always hard?”

  “Harder than most,” his brother amended. “I think he’s getting tired of it.”

  “Then he should quit.”

  “Who should quit what?” Izzy entered the kitchen, her brownish-black gaze bouncing from her husband’s face to Justin’s and back again.

  Erik just looped his hands around her waist and tugged her close. “Are you hungry again?”

  She smiled impishly. “For pecan pie. I came to help with the dishes in order to get at dessert more quickly.”

  “Too late.” Justin stuffed the last glass in the dishwasher and closed the door. He’d arrived barely an hour before they’d sat down for dinner, so he hadn’t had an opportunity to catch up very much with anyone, including his sister-in-law. “You’re looking better than ever, Iz.”

  She turned in the circle of his brother’s arms and beamed at him.

  It took a few seconds for Justin to notice the way their linked hands were clasped over her belly. But when he did, it took less than a second for him to realize why. “Holy—” He broke off. “You’re pregnant?”

  Izzy glanced up into Erik’s eyes. “Looks like we’re announcing it today whether we planned to or not.”

  Erik smiled slowly and Justin felt an unfamiliar—and unwanted—jolt of envy. His brother looked so damn happy. So content. And Justin felt so...not.

  Still, his brother was happy. And Justin was genuinely glad for that. And Isabella...well, she’d always been a looker with her white-blond hair and dark eyes. And now she had an extra shine around her.

  He blew out a breath because his throat actually felt tight. “Damn. Congratulations.” He wrapped them both in a big hug, which made Izzy laugh and complain, because she was a good foot shorter and couldn’t breathe while stuck between two big men. When Justin finally stepped back, envious or not, he knew he had a big, stupid grin on his face. Probably one that matched Erik’s. “So when’s he—”

  “She,” Erik corrected.

  “Due?”

  “The baby,” Isabella said with a soft laugh, “is due the end of April. We’re not going to find out early what we’re having.”

  “Murphy knows there’s a baby, though?”

  Isabella nodded. “We told him yesterday.”

  “He figures it’s his right to make the announcement today,” Erik said wryly. “Being the big brother and all.”

  “Sounds like he’s got the Clay tendencies down, born into them or not.” He leaned over and kissed Isabella’s cheek. “You’re going to be a great mom, all over again.” The circumstances leading to her becoming Murphy’s mom had been tragic. But they’d ultimately prompted their move to Weaver, where they’d found Erik and become a family.

  She blinked, looking teary through her smile. “Thanks.” She sniffed quickly. “We’ll all learn together, anyway.”

  “So...pretty much status quo,” Erik said wryly.

  Isabella chuckled and swiped her cheek. “Pretty much.” They all looked back at the sound of footsteps as Tabby entered the kitchen.

  The easy smile on Tabby’s face faded a bit as she hesitated. She didn’t look at Justin. “Um... I just came to help get the pies—”

  Isabella quickly moved out of Erik’s arms. “Squire’s probably getting testy,” she said with a knowing laugh. She picked up two of the pies sitting on one counter and handed them to Erik before she grabbed two more. “Bring the plates,” she said as she and Erik left the kitchen.

  Tabby quickly snatched up a stack of pie plates and started to follow, but Justin grabbed her arm. “Wait a sec.”

  “They can’t eat pie without plates.”

  “My family? You’re kidding, right? They could eat without hands. You’ve been giving me the cold shoulder since I got here. Don’t you think it’s time we got past that?”

  Her brown eyes—usually warm and shiny as melted chocolate—were unreadable. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Your lying’s on par with your French. You remember French, right? I had to help you pass it in high school.”

  Her lips tightened. She pulled free and opened a drawer to extract a cake server. “If you want a slice of Gloria’s chocolate cream, you’d better get out there quick.”

  He was tired of the chasm that had developed between them, even though he knew he was the cause of it in the first place. “Come on, Tabbers. We were friends long before—”

  She lifted her eyebrows and gave him a look that stopped any further discussion. “Pie’s a big deal in this house at Thanksgiving. Or have you forgotten that, living the fancy life in Boston?”

  She turned on her heel, and her glossy hair flipped around her shoulders as she left the kitchen.

  He exhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose.

  There were a few things he’d always counted on. The love and support of his big, crazy family. His own ability to figure out a convoluted puzzle. And the easygoing friendship of one Tabitha Taggart.

  Yeah, he knew he’d messed up with her pretty good, but that had been four years ago. Stacked up against the rest of their lifelong friendship, couldn’t one monumentally stupid move on his part be forgotten?

  Or at least forgiven?

  He blew out another breath and grabbed the last two pies that were sitting on the counter and carried them out to the dining room.

  “Oh, good. Set them there, honey.” His mom pointed with the long knife she was using to cut the pies, and he set them on the table. She’d already divvied out two pumpkin pies onto plates. “There’s a gallon of homemade vanilla ice cream in the freezer. Would you mind getting that, too? Oh, and the glass bowl in the fridge with the whipped cream.”

  He turned around and retrieved the items. When he got back to the dining room, she’d finished plating the chocolate cream. He grabbed a slice while the grabbing was good and went back into the living room. It was a huge space. Always had been, with three couches long enough that even his dad—nearly six and a half feet tall—could stretch out, and an eclectic collection of side chairs and recliners. With all the family around—or close to it, anyway—there still weren’t enough seats. So folding chairs had been dragged in. And cushions to lean against on the floor.

  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

  “Stupid. 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?”