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Men were much more trouble than they were worth, she concluded. But why did he have to have such an amazing grin? That’s probably what Chloe saw in him; it obviously blinded her to all his multitude of faults. Poor Chloe. “You should be getting ready for your wedding, but what are you doing? Trying to get me not to tell—”
He flashed a card at her. “This ought to clear up the confusion.”
“I’m not the one who’s confused. You owe me an apology and your bride an enormous apology and—”
He waved the card in front of her. “Look closer.”
She squinted to bring the card into focus. Not a card. It was a driver’s license. Some of her fury sagged as she realized the picture, which was, of course, perfect, matched the man standing before her. The name to the left of the photo was Brice Donovan.
What? Her mind screeched to a sudden halt. She sank back onto her heels, staring, feeling her jaw drop. Brice Donovan. Chloe Donovan’s brother. Not the groom.
“I’m the best man,” he said, wagging the card. “Do you finally believe me?”
His eyes darkened with amusement, but they weren’t unkind. No, not at all. A strong warmth radiated from him as he leaned close, and then closer.
That thought spun around in her brain for a moment, like a car’s engine stuck in Neutral. Then it hit her. She’d insulted, yelled at and accused a perfectly innocent man.
It was hard to know just what to say. Talk about being embarrassed. Had she really said all those things to him? She felt faint. Wasn’t he on the city’s most eligible bachelor’s list? It was just in last weekend’s paper. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t recognized him.
Why did these things always happen to her? She clipped her case closed. He was probably waiting for an apology. An apology for the accusations. The fact that she’d been beyond rude to him, one of the wealthiest men from one of the most prominent families in Montana.
Lovely. Her face heated from the humiliation starting to seep into her soul. “Oops. My bad.”
“You think?” He crooked one brow, amusement softening the impressive impact of all iron-solid six feet of him.
The effect was scrambling her brain cells, and that wasn’t helping her to think.
“Chloe’s going to really love what you’ve done with this cake.” He jammed his hands into his pockets, looking like a cover model come to life. “It’s going to make her so happy. Thank you.”
Now what did she say? She’d been awful to him and he was complimenting the cake she’d worked so hard on. It made her feel even worse. “I’m trying to figure out how to apologize, but sorry seems like too small a word.”
“Don’t even worry about it.”
“Thanks,” she said shyly.
Brice Donovan’s smile made her even more muddled. Before he’d walked into the ballroom she’d been so happy, thinking how pleased Chloe was going to be. But now? Her heart twisted with agony. Her face was so hot and red from embarrassment, she could feel her skin glow. What she could see of her nose was as bright as a strawberry.
This was no way for a professional baker to behave. Feeling two inches tall, she looked up to Brice’s kind eyes. He wasn’t laughing at her. No. That was one saving grace, right?
“I am sorry. Really. Tell Chloe best wishes. This cake is my gift to her.”
“But she hired you to bake it.”
“So she thinks. I’ve got to go, I have another project to work on, but this, the groom’s cake and the favors, it’s all from me to her. She was a good friend to me when I really needed one.” Her chest felt so tight, she felt ready to burst. Embarrassment had turned into a horrible, sharp pain right behind her sternum.
Doom. She’d just made a mess of this. Would there ever be one time—just once—when she didn’t make a mess of something? There was no way to fix this, and the cake was finished. There was nothing else to do but grab her case and her baseball cap.
Somehow she managed to speak without strangling on her embarrassment. “Goodbye, Mr. Donovan. And I am s-sorry again.”
“Wait, don’t go yet, I—”
“I have to.” She was already walking away. She had work waiting and she couldn’t face him a second longer. She’d humiliated herself enough for one day and it was only 9:15 a.m. She hadn’t even had breakfast yet. Way to go, Ava.
She wasn’t aware of crossing the room, only that she was suddenly at the kitchen. But she was aware of him. Of his presence behind her in the spill of light through the expansive windows. She didn’t have to look at him as she pushed through the kitchen door to know that he was watching her. She could feel the tangible weight of his touch between her shoulder blades. What was he thinking?
Lord, I don’t want to know. She kept going. She hit the back service doors and didn’t slow until she felt the soothing morning sun on her face.
She skidded to a stop in the gravel and breathed in the fresh morning air. The scents of warm earth and freshly mowed grass calmed her a little. She breathed hard, getting out all the negative feelings. There were a lot of them. And trying not to hear her mother’s voice saying, You wreck everything you touch. Can’t you stop making a mess for two seconds?
She’d been seven, and she could still hear the shrill impatience. She still felt like that little girl who just didn’t know how things went wrong no matter how hard she tried.
You’re just a big dope, Ava, she told herself. What kind of grown adult had the problems she had? Wasn’t she going to turn over a new leaf? Start out right this time? Stop making so many dumb mistakes?
Well, no more. She wasn’t going to think about the way she’d embarrassed herself back there. She’d been hoping that by doing a good job with Chloe’s cake, she’d get some word-of-mouth interest and her business would naturally pick up.
But after this, what were the chances that anyone was going to remember what the cake looked like?
None. All Brice Donovan was going to do was to talk about the dingbat cake lady who mistook him—the city of Bozeman’s golden boy—for a philandering groom.
Her SUV blurred into one bright yellow blob. She blinked hard until her eyes cleared and reached into her pocket for her keys.
The only thing she could do was go on from here. Simply write off this morning as a lesson learned. What else could she do? She reached into her other pocket, but it was empty. No, it couldn’t be. Her heart jackhammered. Where were her keys?
She did another search of her pockets. Jeans front pockets. No key. Back pockets. No key. Those were the only pockets she had. Panic began to stutter in her chest. Where were her keys?
There. Sitting right in plain view on the rear passenger seat. Inside the locked vehicle. Right next to her cell phone and her sunglasses.
Super-duper. What did she do now?
“Looks like you need help,” said a rumbling baritone from behind her. A baritone she recognized. Brice Donovan.
Could the morning get any worse? How was she going to save her dignity now—or what was left of it? “H-help? Oh, no, I’m fine.”
“Fine, huh? Aren’t those your car keys inside the car?”
“I believe so.”
“I don’t know too many people who can actually lock their keys in the car with a remote. Don’t you need the remote to lock the door?”
“Yes.” She plopped her baseball cap on her head and pulled the bill low, trying to hide what she could of her face. Her nose was bright red again.
Brice studied her for a moment before realization dawned. Oh, he knew why she was acting this way, shuffling away from him, head down, avoiding his gaze. She was embarrassed. Well, she didn’t need to be. “Hey, it’s no big deal. This kind of thing happens, right?”
The tension eased from her tight jaw and rigid shoulders. She shrugged helplessly. “I’ve only had this car for a few months and I haven’t figured out all the settings yet. It’s too technologically advanced for me.”
“I doubt that.” Tender feelings came to life and he couldn’t seem to stop them. Maybe her keys getting locked inside the car was providential. Just like the fact that he was here to help at just the right moment. “I have a knack for this kind of thing.”
“Thanks, but please don’t bother.”
She still wouldn’t look at him. Instead, she stared hard at the toes of her sunshine-yellow sneakers. Yellow, just like her SUV. There was nothing mundane about Ava McKaslin.
He liked that. Very much.
She surprised him by sidestepping away, heading back to the service doors.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“To find a phone.”
“To call…?”
“My sister to come with the extra set of keys.”
Wow. She really didn’t want his help. Getting a woman to like him used to be easier than this, although he had been out of the dating circuit for a long time. After all, he’d dated Whitney two years before he’d proposed to her, which had turned out to be a much longer engagement period than either of them had expected. That put him nearly four, no, almost five years out of practice.
But still, he just didn’t remember it being so difficult. “Your sister doesn’t need to go to the trouble of driving out here. I’ll break in for you.”
She paused midstride.
He could sense her indecision, so he tried again. “Let me help. It’ll take a minute and then you can be on your way.”
“But I was so rude to you.”
“So? If you’re worried about retaliation, forget it. I’m a turn-the-other-cheek kind of guy. And I won’t leave a scratch on your new car. Promise.”
“And just why does a man like you know how to break into a car without leaving any evidence?”
“Chloe used to lock herself out of her car, too. I need a coat hanger. I’ll be right back.” He shouldered past her, pausing at the base of the concrete steps.
Why was her every sense attuned to this man? She felt Brice’s presence like the bright radiant sun on her back, almost as if she was interested in him, but, of course, she couldn’t be. She was done with thinking about any guy, and done with dreams of falling in love.
She was done with dreams like Brice Donovan.
Chapter Three
“Mission accomplished. No trouble at all.”
His voice moved through Ava like a warm breeze. She turned toward him as her car’s alarm went off. While the vehicle honked and the headlights flashed, he calmly opened the back door, grabbed the key ring with the remote and pressed the button. The horn silenced, the headlights died.
For him, it had been simple. But for her? She’d had to stand here and watch him, knowing he was helping her out of sympathy. Because he’d felt pity for his little sister’s friend.
She would rather fall through a big black hole in the ground than have to look Brice Donovan in the eye one more time. Sure, he was being gallant and incredibly nice, but it wasn’t as if she could erase the things she’d said to him. She heard all the adjectives she’d called him roll around in her head. Mr. Yuck. Riffraff. She’d told him to get some morals. How could she have not recognized him? How could she have made such a mistake?
“All done. And without any damage, thanks to the caterer.” He finished bending a wire hanger back into place, but his gaze seared her from six feet away. “Lucky for us she had this in her van.”
“Yep, lucky for us.” But she didn’t feel fortunate. Her nose was still strawberry red, but now it felt hot, too, as if it were glowing under its own energy source.
He opened her driver’s side door, looking every inch the handsome millionaire in the designer tux he wore, which fit him like a vision. Of course. He appeared every inch the proverbial prince. And suddenly she knew how Cinderella felt in her ragged dress, wishing she could put on a fancy dress and change her circumstances.
“Here are your keys.” They rested on his wide, capable palm.
She couldn’t help but notice how strong his hand was. Calluses roughened his skin, as if he worked hard for a living. But that couldn’t be. Wasn’t he a trust fund kind of guy?
“Thanks, again.”
It took all her willpower to meet his gaze. His eyes were so kind and tender. Clearly, he wasn’t holding the mistaken identity thing against her. What a relief.
“Goodbye, Brice.” She scooped the keys from his hand as quickly as she could, but her fingertips brushed his hand.
It was like touching a piece of heaven. A corner of serenity. The shame within her faded until there was only a hush in her soul. She didn’t know why this happened, but it couldn’t be a good sign. She hopped into her car, grabbed her belt as Brice closed her door. Their gazes met, held through the tempered glass, and her world stilled. Her heart forgot to beat.
Probably from the aftereffects of a lethal dose of embarrassment and nothing else—surely not interest, she told herself as she started the engine. But she knew, down deep, that wasn’t the truth. The truth wasn’t something she could examine too closely.
She drove away, into the sun, purposefully keeping her gaze on the road ahead. She resisted the urge to peek at her rearview mirror and see if he was standing there, watching her go.
* * *
Chloe had cried in happiness at her first glimpse of the wedding cake. The cake had been cut, pictures taken, and everyone in the ballroom had been served, and still he could hear the conversation buzzing about the unbelievable cake. It had looked like a porcelain creation of art and beauty, impossible that it was edible. But every piece, from the intricate lace ruffles to the golden beads to the delicate curls of rose petals, had tasted as sweet as heaven.
Each of the two hundred carefully stacked serving boxes, printed to match the lacework of the cake, held an individual cake for the guests to take home. A heart-shaped version with sugary miniature rosebuds and golden ribbons. He thought of the woman who had done so much work as a gift to his sister. Chloe didn’t know it yet since he hadn’t found the moment to tell her. She looked as happy as a princess in her frosty-white gown at her husband’s side.
Brice thanked God for his sister’s happiness. He wouldn’t mind having some of that kind of joy of his own. He took a gulp of sparkling cider, draining the glass. This was the spot where Ava had stood earlier this morning, with the pale morning sunshine sprinkling over her like a blessing.
Then she’d driven away. What had she been thinking? Did she like him at all? She hadn’t acted like it, and yet he’d thought he’d glimpsed something in her eyes. Something that made him think she might be feeling this, too.
Then again, she’d driven off pretty fast. That couldn’t be the best sign.
“There you are, big brother. You’ve been hiding.” Chloe swept close in her cloud of a dress.
“You know me. All this fancy stuff makes me itch.”
She slipped her arm through his. “You look dashing. Five of my former sorority sisters asked me if you were seeing someone.”
“And you said…?”
“That you seem to be interested in someone. But if I’m wrong, I have a long list of available women I can set you up with, Mr. Most Eligible Bachelor.”
“You know I had nothing to do with that. It’s not me.” That only made him feel more out of place. Like he was a rich playboy looking for a fast lifestyle or a great catch for a debutante—both equally wrong.
All he wanted was to trade in this getup for his favorite T-shirt, jeans and his broken-in work boots. That’s who he really was, and all this glam and glitter made his palms sweat. He swept his hand toward the cake. “You don’t need to set me up with a date. I can do it myself.”
“Would you rather Mom did it? She’s working on it, you know. I was just trying to help out.”
“I know.” If anyone knew how rough of a time he’d had after the breakup with Whitney, it was Chloe. She meant well. “I can handle it from here.”
“I never doubted it.” She rose up on tiptoe to brush a sisterly kiss to his cheek. “I want you to be happy. I saw how you looked at Ava at my shower.”
“Exactly how was that?”
