The Wedding Planners

“Sounds exciting.”

“It’s actually a lot more exciting once you feed all the information into a computer and start manipulating the data, using it to run statistical probabilities and forecasts. And if I get lucky, hopefully I’ll come up with enough data to create some real, hard evidence to bring to a peer-reviewed journal. Something more respectable than the basis of the next ‘Twenty Tantalizing Bedroom Teasers.’”

“‘Bedroom Teasers’?” Callie chuckled, then raised a dubious brow. “This from the man who dressed up as a biker on Halloween in college? What happened to the leather jacket? The boots? The chaps?”

“Probably shoved in a closet somewhere. I’m strictly a suit and tie guy now. No more of that crazy open road, living by the seat of my pants talk.”

His brief, one-night foray into that different persona had been a bad idea. He’d thought that by slipping on a black jacket, climbing on a Harley, he could get Callie to notice him in a way she never had in high school. She had—for a heartbeat—until Tony had stolen her back again, leaving Jared with an extra helmet and a lot of regrets.

No more. He wouldn’t journey that road again.

“Pity.” Callie took a sip of her drink.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She shrugged. “You were a lot of fun when you were a…well, not exactly a bad boy, but a bad-ish boy.”

“You make me sound like a five-year-old who wouldn’t obey his bedtime.”

“If I remember correctly, there wasn’t much trouble getting you to bed.” Then Callie’s face colored and she directed her attention to her drink again.

Jared remembered, too. Remembered too well. One night—a night he’d never forgotten, but she had begged him to never mention again, so that she could marry Tony, with a clear conscience.

Tony—Jared’s former best friend. Tony—the man who had stood between them both and been everything Jared wasn’t.

And everything Callie wanted.

The memory sucker-punched Jared in the gut and he had to swallow hard before he could breathe again. He’d let Callie go, left college, leaving them behind without a second glance, because he’d thought she was better off—

Had she been? Had he made the right choice?

Hell yes, he had. She would have never been happy with Jared—she’d made that clear. Jared thought that after nine years that last night with Callie wouldn’t still sting, would have become some distant memory, fog on his past’s horizon.

But nothing about Callie Phillips was foggy in his mind. And he’d be fooling himself if he thought otherwise.

He cleared his throat and took a swig of beer. “So what are you doing now? I take it you’re not the bohemian I remember.”

She chuckled. “No. I’m now a responsible tax-paying florist.”

“A florist?” He assessed her. “That, I can believe. You transformed that hovel I called an apartment into a respectable home, something that didn’t scream bachelor dive. You always did have an eye for color and design.” Jared straightened his glasses again, then asked the one question that had lingered on the tip of his tongue ever since she’d walked into the bar. Was she still with him? “So, how are things with Tony?” he said, nonchalant, taking a sip of beer. “Did you guys have any kids?”

“We’re divorced. No kids.”

Pain flickered in her gaze, and he wanted to ask more, but they’d only been sitting together for five minutes. It wouldn’t be right to probe. No matter how curious he was, how the need to know nearly overwhelmed him. What had happened? When had the tarnish appeared on the golden couple? And did Callie ever regret what had happened? Did she ever think about how her leaving Jared had affected him?

Jared took a sip of beer and navigated toward safer subjects. “Do you live here, in the city?”

She nodded. “I settled back in Boston three years ago when Tony got a job in the city. That’s when I was hired to be a florist for the Wedding Belles.”

“The Wedding Belles?”

“It’s a wedding planning company over on Newbury Street. There are six of us, all working for a woman named Belle, hence the name.”

“Wow. We’re practically neighbors,” Jared said. “I live right around the corner from here and the research division of the company I work for is five blocks from Newbury Street.”

“All those times we could have run into each other and never did.”

“Until now.” Jared’s gaze met hers. Heat brewed between them, a connection never really lost, even though many years had passed since they’d last seen each other. “Serendipity brings us together again.”

“Either that or bad taste in bars.” She raised her drink toward his.

“Always the optimist.” He smiled, teasing her, then tapped her glass with his own. “You haven’t changed, Callie.” He paused, and searched her face, looking for the woman he used to know. The one who had made his pulse race, encouraged him to take chances, to think bigger, wilder, to dream of possibilities he’d never dared to have—not until she’d come along. And never dared to have again after she’d gone. “Have you?”

“I should probably go,” Callie said suddenly, pushing her margarita to the side. “You have work to do and this…” She looked around the empty bar. “This was not a good idea.”

“What do you mean?” She’d just arrived and already she was leaving?

“I just stopped by to drop off the invitations. Thanks for the drink, Jared, and the trip down Memory Lane.”

He wasn’t going to let her get away that easily. He couldn’t, not again. When Callie had been in his life, she’d brought something special, something he’d never found again. Losing her had hurt, hurt like hell. And for just a moment, even though he knew it was crazy and knew she was all wrong for him, he wanted her. “Don’t go. Not yet.”

“I have a busy day ahead of me tomorrow.” She started to slip off the stool, grabbing her clutch purse from the bar.

He reached for her arm, intending only to stop her, to keep her from leaving too soon. But the fire that rocketed through Jared’s veins told him that nothing had died between them, at least not on his end. Every bit of the attraction that had been left undone in high school, barely explored in college, lurked under the surface, like tinder simply waiting for that spark.

“Callie—” He cut off the sentence. What ending did he have? He hadn’t had a “Cool” transplant in the last nine years, which meant he was still the man he’d always been, the kind of man she hadn’t wanted.

Only a fool went for a third strike. Yet, Jared found himself drawn again, wondering if the distance of years would give each of them another shot.

“I should get home,” Callie said, stepping out of his grasp. “Nice seeing you again, Jared.”

And then she was gone. The door shut behind her, whisking in a cool burst of air as a goodbye.

In an instant, regrets blasted Jared. What the hell was he thinking, letting her get away again? At the very least, he should have asked her out, just to see…

What?

He didn’t know, really. They’d been over for a long time—if they’d ever really been anything at all—yet something inside him still wanted to know. Still felt that sense of something undone, that insistent need to complete the storyline.

Why didn’t he just leave the past alone—leave her alone?

When he met her gaze, he knew why. Because a part of him still wanted answers to his questions. Wanted to know how Callie felt about those days. Jared didn’t want a relationship. He wanted closure.

“Hey, where’d sh-she go? The pretty lady?”

Sam. Jared had forgotten all about him. He turned to find the man, looking a little better with his face washed, and a cup of coffee in him. “She had to leave.”

Sam sighed. “The pretty ones always have to go, don’t they?”

“Seems that way.”

Several people trickled into the bar. None of them Callie. Jared didn’t look for couples, no longer cared about his research.

Sam sank onto one of the stools. Jared signaled for a refill of the coffee cup. “My Angie, sh-she’s gone now. Lost her, lost my res-sh-tauraunt, lost everything,” Sam said. “That’s why I’m a…a drunk.” He ran a hand through his hair, then shook his head. “My Angie, she’d yell at me, tell me to straighten up. Get it together for the grandkids.”

“Why don’t you?” Jared asked, his voice almost bitter and angry. As the words left him, he knew the question wasn’t just for Sam, but for someone else, someone who wasn’t here, and who couldn’t answer.

Sam shrugged, then paused for a long moment, staring into the coffee. “Would they really care?” he asked, his voice low, full of regret. “After all I’ve done?”

“Yeah,” Jared said. “They would.”

Sam looked up, the bleariness in his eyes cleared and for a second, he seemed as sober as a minister. “You think we all get second chances, Jared?”

Jared’s chest tightened. He hoped so. If his father had lived longer, Jared knew now, with the wisdom of age and experience, that he would have given him a second chance, too. “I’d like to think so.”

O’Malley cleared his throat. “Cab’s here.”

“That’s my cue,” Sam said, rising. He put out a hand to stop Jared from paying the tab. “I’ve got it from here. You’ve done enough. Go after her. Don’t wait too long, like me.”

Jared watched Sam leave. The words “we all get second chances” rang in his ears. Maybe it was possible.

Jared scrambled off the stool, tossed a few more bills onto the pile for the tip and moved to grab his clipboard. As he picked it up, a germ of an idea sprang to his mind.

What if…he combined a little research with the answers he wanted? What if he found a way to not only peek inside Callie’s mind but also use their time together to analyze her reactions? He could do his research—

And find his answers to the past, all at once.

It would solve his problem perfectly. Give him exactly the kind of intimate knowledge his game research needed.

What harm could come of a few days with Callie Phillips? Not a real relationship, just a few dates. After all, Callie hadn’t been divorced for very long. Surely she wasn’t interested in anything permanent. And neither was he. Once his research was done, he’d be hip deep in work anyway, which meant no time for a life—

Again. Which was what he had done in his last two relationships. Yet, even as he told himself this was the perfect solution for both of them, a tiny bell of doubt rang, telling him things with Callie always had been more complicated than that.

Jared ignored the warning signals and strode out of the bar. Had to be the buzz of beer. Or the part of himself that wasn’t interested in signing up for Broken Heart Duty a second time in a decade.

But seeing her, for just a little while—

He couldn’t resist that, no matter how much he tried.

He caught up to her a little ways down the sidewalk, her arms wrapped around herself, to ward off the evening chill. He slipped off his jacket and slid it over her shoulders before she could protest.

“Thanks,” Callie said. “You were always Sir Galahad.”

“That’s me. The nerd in waiting.” He tipped at his glasses.

“You’re not so nerdy, Jared. Just…nice.” She smiled. “And that’s not so bad, or so easy to find.”

Damn, he was tired of her thinking he was nice. Tired of being seen as “just Jared.”

Nice guys finished last. And Jared had been left in Tony and Callie’s dust.

For one brief moment, she had seen him as something—someone else. Maybe he could give her that peek again. His mind scrambled for a way to connect, to find a path back to who she used to be, to the people they had been nine years ago. And in the process find out what had gone wrong. Why she had found him so lacking and Tony, the heartbreaker, such a better choice.

Then maybe that continual ache would stop hurting.

Music drifted out of O’Malley’s bar as the door opened and closed, releasing the fighting couple, who had apparently made up and were now holding hands and snuggling as they left. Other people headed in, the place finally beginning to fill as the night deepened. The music’s volume swelled, bass nearly drumming the sidewalk.

Jared took a step forward, and leaned close, his pulse ratcheting up with the nearness of her. “Do you still do that one thing you used to do?”

Her eyebrows arched. “What one thing?”

Jared took another step closer, invading her space now, inhaling her perfume, his research forgotten, his reason for being here long since left by the wayside. “You know what I’m talking about, Mariah Callie.”

Callie took in a breath, her chest rising with the movement, and it was all Jared could do not to bend forward and kiss her, just to see if she would still taste as she did. Feel like she used to, her mouth beneath his, her sweet lips against his.

Damn. What kind of game was he playing?

“Yes,” she said.

He grinned. “Good. Then let’s go do it now.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Maybe,” Jared said. “But since when did that ever stop you?”

Callie returned the smile, hers now curving up into one filled with a bit of a dare, a challenge. “Are you sure you can keep up with me?”

Jared leaned forward. His lips brushed against the edge of her hair, nearly kissed the delicate curve of her ear. “Absolutely. I’ve been practicing.”

Callie laughed, the deep, throaty sound Jared remembered, sending his mind roaring down a heady path he thought he’d forgotten. Clearly he hadn’t forgotten it. Not at all.

Telling him his plan had one hell of a serious flaw.

CHAPTER THREE

CALLIE hadn’t laughed this hard in years. She sat back down at the table in O’Malley’s, the bar much more crowded now, clutching her stomach. “Do you really think you had to go that far?”

Jared grinned. His blue eyes captured hers and Callie’s pulse quickened. “Absolutely. What’s a good Madonna performance without adding in the high-pitched ‘oops’ at the end?”

“For one, I don’t think that’s what she says and for another, the whole gyrating thing was more than enough.” Callie shook her head, chuckling. “You have to be the worst karaoke singer in the universe. And contrary to what you told me, you have not improved since the high school talent show.”

“Which is why I have you.” He waved a hand in her direction, then at himself. “Baby, you make me look good. You are the Cher to my Sonny.”

Callie groaned. “Jared, even your karaoke jokes are bad.”

He laughed, then flipped open the menu and slid it her way. “Time for some appetizers. We need fortification if we’re going to do the Ike and Tina Turner catalog later.”

Callie looked away. Twice, Jared had gone and made references to them as a couple. She hadn’t seen the man in nine years and now, wham, it seemed as if they were picking up like a knitter who’d started again on a forgotten afghan.

But wasn’t that what her body wanted to do? Heck, every part of her was reacting as if not a moment had passed between the last time she’d seen him and now. Every time he looked at her, every time he smiled, the room seemed to disappear.

And when they’d been on stage, singing together—even though he’d had all the talent of a second-grader in Carnegie Hall—a connection had extended between them, the thread tightening whenever Jared’s smile winged Callie’s way.

Callie’s gaze roamed O’Malley’s. The now-busy bartender sent her a friendly thumbs-up, apparently approving of her stage performance, too. Callie waved back, trying to look anywhere but at the man across from her. Maybe if she directed her attention away from Jared, she wouldn’t feel so attracted to him.

Behind them, a young man with a blond Mohawk and a goatee had taken the stage, holding the mike in both hands with a white-knuckled death grip. He stuttered through the first few lines of a Police song, then gave up, to the razzing of a group of drinking buddies in the back corner.

“Poor guy. Probably gearing up for the American Idol tryouts, too.” Jared shook his head. “Everyone thinks they’re a singer.”

Callie returned her gaze to Jared. “Et tú Brute?”

He laughed. “At least I admit I stink. I’m really only here for moral support for you and for the nachos.” He signaled to one of two waiters who were busy juggling the room’s tables. “Do you want to order some?” he asked her.

“Nachos are always good, of course.” Had he read her mind again? She sat back against her chair, watching as Jared ordered the cheesy chips and some colas for them, impressed for a second time at how much he remembered about her. Nearly a decade had passed since they’d been together and yet, he’d recalled a lot of details. Her favorite drink. Her favorite snack. Her favorite hobby.

When the waiter left, Callie leaned forward. “Okay, what gives? I know you’re not some kind of savant, so tell me why you’re all over my favorite things. What do you want from me?”

Jared’s gaze didn’t divert from hers. “Nothing. Just an evening getting to know you again. Catching up on old times.”

“Then how come you remembered everything I love?”

“Is it that hard to think you might have been a memorable person in my life, Callie?”

Silence extended between them, taut, filled with heat, with expectation. He hadn’t forgotten her? He’d remembered all those details?

She grabbed the menu again, pretending to study it, which was a lot easier than trying to figure out this odd tension between her and Jared. “I wonder what they have for desserts here.”

He tipped the laminated edge downward. “Are you changing the subject?”

“Of course not.”

“Then tell me. Have you ever thought about us? About that night? About what might have happened if we—”

“Jared, that’s in the past—”

“I meant if we’d gone on tour, of course,” he said, his voice shifting into a tease, and Callie wondered if she’d read him wrong, and he didn’t mean a relationship “them” at all. Jared reached out and took one of her hands and pulled her out of her chair.

“What are you doing?”

“Do you remember that night, Callie?”

Of course she did. She’d never forgotten that Halloween, that one night in college when she and Jared had stepped over the line from friends and become lovers. One night.

One completely unforgettable night.

Sometimes she wondered what might have happened, had they ended up together, but then her better sense got a hold of her and reminded Callie that happy endings, tied up with a nice neat true love bow, weren’t always realistic.

“We sang ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside,’ and we were terrible,” she said, focusing instead on the funny memory of their mangled duet, but then feeling her cheeks heating when she remembered the innuendo in the song, the heat singing it had brewed between them that night. “We were drinking margaritas and probably not thinking entirely straight. I don’t know why we even got up on the stage at that college contest.”

“We were having fun. A lot of fun.”

They had laughed. Laughed so hard, she’d tumbled into his arms outside the bar, seeing Jared in an entirely different light. It had been as if he’d put on that leather jacket, picked up that microphone and become someone else. For the first time, she’d seen him as not a friend, but a man, a very desirable man. When they’d touched, an electricity had erupted between them, bursting into a kiss, a kiss that became more, became everything.

Became an absolutely wonderful, incredible night. Never in her life had Callie ever felt as loved as she had with Jared. He’d made love to her with incredible care, taking his time to treasure her, cherish her.

Love her.

It had been as if he’d memorized her body, knew the sentences of her soul and could finish them with every touch. She’d found herself wondering how she could have missed seeing this side of him, missed this man, and for a moment, considered a future between her and Jared.

But then, in the morning, he’d pulled her into his arms and started talking about where he wanted to go after college. About his plans to buy a house, get married, settle down. Create a forever future.

It had all sounded so fast, nearly chokehold fast, and Callie had panicked and run straight to Tony—the one man who turned out not to be so good at forever.

“Callie?” Jared said, drawing her back to the present. “Are you ready to reprise our greatest hits?”

“Of course.” Keep it to music only. Even if the rest of her remembered the details of that night and conveniently kept forgetting the morning after.

“If we’re going to do this, then this time,” he said, weaving their way past the tables and back toward the small stage at the back of the bar, “I think we need to choose a couple that ended happily. Think Faith Hill and Tim McGraw.”

“If you’re planning on singing, I think we’d be better off with a couple where one of them is a mime,” she said, pressing a finger to Jared’s lips, knowing this was a crazy idea even as she stepped back onto the stage with him.

Ten songs later, Jared accepted that he would never have a career in music. “There goes my dream of being on the radio. Even O’Malley threatened to buy earplugs on that last one.”

Callie laughed and slipped into place beside him as they left the bar. “You clearly have a masochistic urge to embarrass yourself in public.”

“It’s not so bad as long as I’m in front of total strangers I’ll never see again, and as long as you’re beside me.”

She laughed. “Still playing it safe, huh, Jared?”

“That’s me. Safe to a T.” He grinned.

“Well, I think you accomplished the total humiliation goal tonight. But you really should have drawn the line at that last pop song.”

“That one was purely for your amusement.” He caught her eye. “And were you? Amused?”

“Very.” The lights above twinkled in her eyes, like stars dancing.

Jared moved closer, unable to maintain his distance another second. All night, she’d enticed him, drawing him closer with every breath, every note. He kept telling himself it was all because he’d missed her, but even Jared knew it was about much, much more. He knew better…and yet, he kept doing the exact opposite of what was smart. “You, on the other hand, were incredible. You can really sing. Why didn’t you ever pursue that professionally?”

Callie shrugged, noncommittally. “I don’t know. Not my thing, I guess.”

“Not your thing? Callie, you are amazing. Seriously. Maybe you should add singing to the wedding business that you’re doing.”

“Oh, no. The other women don’t know I sing at all.” She blushed and turned away. “No one knows.”

For some reason, it thrilled Jared that he knew. That she’d shared this with him, and no one else. “So you’re a closet karaoke-er?”

She laughed. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

He reached up and cupped her jaw, finally touching the face he’d been dying to feel all night. Her skin was satin against his palm, her delicate features cast by the soft evening light. He moved closer, closing the gap between them, the night providing its soft, quiet blanket of intimacy. “Seems a shame,” Jared said. “To have a gift and keep it wrapped up so tight.”

“Jared, it’s complicated.”

“If I remember right, everything with you was complicated.”

She lifted her chin, so close he could kiss her with nothing more than a whisper of effort. He shouldn’t. He needed to maintain his distance. His professionalism, the research. That’s what he told himself he’d come here for, not a relationship with the woman who had always been the complete opposite of him, who’d broken his heart, left the shards in her wake when she’d run off with his best friend.

But she was smiling and he kept having trouble remembering any of that.

“If I remember right,” Callie said, “that was part of what you liked about me…and part of what drove you crazy.”

“That wasn’t all that drove me crazy,” he murmured.

A heartbeat passed between them. Another, and all Jared could see, hear, think about, was the movement of her crimson lips, the sound of her breath. Her mouth opened again, lips parted ever so slightly, like an invitation.