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We? What we? But she didn’t have a chance to find out.
Stumbling along behind him, Lucie stared down at their joined hands, watched the pleats in his kilt frisk his well-shaped calves, gulped, blinked twice, shook her head, and gulped again. But he held on, steering them both across the ballroom and out the side door.
Uh-oh. What was wrong with her? For one thing, she’d shed her jacket and loosened her blouse, so she wasn’t presentable for pictures. For another, she should’ve told him that no one would be champing at the bit, waiting for her to pose for family pictures.
She knew Steffi and Ginetta like the back of her hand, and they weren’t going to like this. In their minds, there was Family—Dad, Ginetta and Steffi—and then there was the outsider, the nuisance, the nitwit—Lucie. She tried to get along with them, really she did. But they’d made it clear for years that she was persona non grata.
Ian pulled her behind him into a side room where a small cluster of people milled about, including the bride and groom. “Ian!” three different people cried at once.
“Ian, let’s get a move on,” the groom said impatiently. “Come on, we’ve been waiting for you.”
“Hey, I completed my mission as fast as I could.” He smiled, dropping Lucie’s hand, but then slid a casual arm around her. “Look, Steffi, I found your sister.”
“Half sister,” the two of them said automatically, as their mutual father, Donald Webster, started to get pink and fidgety, glancing between the bride and her mother as if he expected one or the other to blow sky-high.
A self-made man, he had a horror of looking tacky to those more sophisticated or higher up the social ladder, like the old-money Mackintosh family. Lucie recognized the symptoms—he always got that nervous shift to his eyes, those beads of sweat on his upper lip, when he felt outclassed.
There was an awkward silence.
“Excuse me. I’ll just…” She’d never had any desire to annoy her father or put a crimp in Steffi’s big day. So Lucie edged backward, ducking around Ian’s arm and making for the door. “I’m sure Steffi wanted, you know, immediate family, and I’m sort of, well, extended.”
“No, no, I’m sure—” Ian began. She heard his brother whisper, “Steffi? Don’t you want your sister in the family pictures?” but the photographer was trying to push them into some sort of arrangement, and Lucie took her chance to escape.
She did pause for one extra second, however, long enough to watch the Mackintosh family pose as gracefully as you please, as if they had just stepped into an ad for greeting cards. They stood tall, exuding wealth and style. From the distinguished parents to their two elegant, fabulous sons and poised teenaged daughter, this family made a picture of perfection. And when they smiled, the whole room seemed to light up without any need for flashbulbs.
Wow. Lucie looked at them with real envy. No wonder Steffi wanted to marry into this family. It wasn’t just that her groom was adorable and wonderful, rich and charming, although he certainly seemed to be. No, it was the whole family. They were perfect. But what would they want with Steffi?
None of her business, was it? She had a table full of wallflowers to get back to. As she slipped away into the reception, she heard the photographer behind her command, “And smile!”
IF ONE MORE PERSON told him to smile, Ian Mackintosh swore he’d start knocking heads together.
God, he hated weddings. Especially this one, with its boatload of pseudo-Scottish junk, outrageous number of bridesmaids, and way too many people smiling and pretending to be thrilled for Kyle.
Thrilled? Ha! His brother was making a huge mistake. Colossal. What else could you call it when a great guy like Kyle signed up for a life sentence with a twenty-one-year-old bimbo with a hot bod and the brains of a twig?
Ian wasn’t that fond of the idea of marriage, anyway. As far as he was concerned, you traded a few minutes of pleasure for a lifetime of effort and commitment, boredom and compromise. He hated compromise. Even his parents, who looked like a flawless match on the outside, had had their share of ups and downs. It seemed like a full-time job for his dad to keep that marriage humming.
He loved his mother and his sister dearly, but they were often on some other planet he couldn’t—and didn’t really care to—understand. He just wasn’t sure he could ever put that much work into something as mercurial and infuriating as a woman.
Besides, as he’d watched friends get married over the past few years, they’d so often seemed to be doing it for the wrong reasons—because somebody’s parents were pushing it, or the girlfriend wanted a baby, or he was the right age, or she had a nice smile, or he was lonely, or all their friends were married…
It didn’t take long for one or the other to be miserable. It didn’t take long for Ian to run in the other direction. The merest hint of matrimony on the mind of a woman he was dating had him saying goodbye.
And he was even more convinced he was right now that he’d seen Steffi in action. Sure, he’d tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, and he’d been kind of amused by her sister, the sneezy redhead. At least she seemed like a real human being. But when he’d brought Lucie back for family pictures, snotty little Steffi had acted ruder than rude—to her own sister.
“Half sister,” he said under his breath.
Fine. A bimbo, a social climber and a bitch, and she’d just married his brother. Wonderful.
What the hell was Kyle thinking, marrying Steffi? “She must be something special in the sack,” he muttered, taking a long swig of his drink. Forget champagne. He’d turned to Scotch on the rocks a long time ago. Well, hey, at least it fit the theme.
“Ian, Ian, Ian, what are you doing all alone?” a silky female voice purred.
He glanced up. Ah, yes. The maid of honor. What was her name again?
The leggy blonde perched herself on the chair next to his. “Lucky I ran into you.”
She’d apparently slipped upstairs to her room at the Inn long enough to change her clothes. All he had up in his room was an extra pair of jeans and a T-shirt to wear home tomorrow, or he would’ve gotten rid of his own kilt hours ago. But this nubile young thing had planned ahead, shedding her long wool skirt and hot jacket for a slinky little cocktail dress. He had to say, it looked good on her. And partially off her.
Although Ian was fully aware the maid of honor was cut from the same cloth as the bimbo bride, he also knew she could be useful for a few hours. She’d already telegraphed her interest, and then some. She might be feeling no pain at the moment, but she’d been perfectly sober when she tried to trap him in the coat room at the rehearsal dinner, and then pinched his butt as they walked out of the church after the ceremony.
The way he figured it, he was bummed and she and her bubble-headed beauty were a distraction. Where was the harm in that?
“Can I get you a drink, um…?” Damn. He really could not recall her name.
“Feather,” she finished for him.
How could he have forgotten anything that silly? “Feather. Right. Let me get one of the waiters.”
Feather downed several more Cosmopolitans (which was exactly what he would’ve guessed she’d drink) as she gossiped about Steffi and the other bridesmaids. “I think Steffi should’ve cut back to about five attendants and only picked the really good-looking ones, y’know?” She sat up straighter, only slightly wobbly. “A person has to have standards.”
What was he supposed to say to that? Sure, have all the standards you want. Who cares? He raised his glass to his lips, preferring not to comment.
“Did you know that Steffi and I are soro…soror…sorory sisters?” She tried to get a grip on her drink, giggling when it sloshed over its rim and splashed red liquid onto the white linen tablecloth. “Oopsie! What was I saying? Oh, yeah—me and Steffi. We are just like that.” She squinted, trying to focus long enough to put her index fingers together. “Like that.”
“I got it.”
Tipping over to one side, she propped herself up on an elbow. “You are so cute, y’know?”
“Uh, sure. Whatever.” When she waited expectantly, he hastened to add, “And you, too. You’re beautiful. But you already know that.”
“Well, duh. Come on, don’t I see myself in the mirror? Like, news flash.”
Okay, not even for a few hours could he put up with this. He started to rise.
“Hey, where you goin’? Am I invited?”
He tried to remind himself that he wasn’t looking for conversation, just one night of guilt-free seduction, nothing too taxing, nothing too clingy, just fun and a few fireworks. What was he going to do otherwise? Go back to his room by himself, drink the other half of the bottle of Scotch, and fall into a depressed stupor. Yeah, that sounded enticing.
Feather gave him a sly wink, winding her tongue around a cherry she’d plucked from someone else’s drink. After fooling with it for a few seconds, she popped it out of her mouth with the stem neatly tied in a knot. “Everybody has to have a talent,” she giggled.
Ian sat back down.
“LUCIE,” DELILAH ANNOUNCED, “I think we need to find some guys and fast. You and I—and especially you—need a fling.”
“A fling?” By this time, Lucie had ditched her shoes under the table and rolled up her sleeves, and she was feeling much better. She’d also switched from champagne to strawberry margaritas, and she swirled sugar onto her tongue while she considered her fellow bridesmaid’s idea. “You mean like a one-night stand? Why exactly do I need that?”
“Dying on the vine, my dear. Dying on the vine. I mean, here we are, bridesmaids at this big, ugly ol’ wedding with a million guys running around, and what are we doing? Talking to each other.” Delilah shook her head sadly. “We need to get out there and find us some guys. You know, for overnight. Or maybe not even overnight, just a couple of hours. Heck, just a couple of minutes!”
“You are so bad,” Lucie returned in a stage whisper. She said with determination, “If I’m doing it, I’m not settling for a couple of minutes. Not tonight.”
“You go, girl!”
“Darn right.” Lucie lifted her chin. “Did I tell you it’s my birthday? And not just any birthday. The big 3-0.”
Delilah’s mouth dropped open. “Get out! You’re thirty? Today? Okay, now I know I’m right. Lucie, honey, you are in dire need of a little nookie, a little fun, some snap and crackle, y’know? I mean, good grief.”
“I don’t know….”
“Oh, come on!” Delilah’s speech picked up speed and volume as she gained enthusiasm. “Go for it! Have a fling! You’ll never turn thirty again. Besides, you’re a bridesmaid. It’s what bridesmaids do. Look around you—everyone is pairing up.”
Through the mist of a few too many alcoholic beverages, Lucie surveyed the rapidly thinning crowd in the ballroom. “Oh, my god. You’re right. There are trysts forming before my very eyes!”
In fact, directly in her line of vision, she saw Ian, the handsome best man, sitting very close to Steffi’s maid of honor, the one with the silicone-inflated cleavage and legs up to her chin. From here, it looked as if the two of them were getting cozy. Very cozy. Yuck.
And if she looked the other way, her gaze hit snippy little Steffi, out on the dance floor in her white lace wedding dress, clinging to her handsome groom like there was no tomorrow.
Steffi, twenty-one and married to a drop-dead gorgeous guy in his thirties. Her hideous maid of honor, also twenty-something, also attached to a gorgeous guy in his thirties.
And here sat Lucie, thirty and alone. “Well,” she said with spirit, “isn’t that a kick in the pants?”
AS IAN TRIED to decide where he was going with this, Feather made her move. Bending in close enough to give him a full view of her dangerously round breasts, she slid a hand onto his knee, teasing the edge of his kilt. She whispered, “Are you feeling what I’m feeling?”
“What are you feeling?”
“Hot. Hot, hot, hot.”
He smiled. Okay, so he was human, and when a woman put her hand under his kilt, he had the obvious reaction. “Maybe.”
“I know you’re as turned on as I am,” she mouthed. “Tell you what—just give me your key, and we’ll take this upstairs.” As he made no move, she pouted and tried, “Come on, Ian. Everybody knows the best man and the maid of honor are supposed to make it on the wedding night. It’s kind of a…” She winked at him. “A tradition.”
He told himself not to be an idiot. She might not be the swiftest boat in the fleet, but Feather was a beautiful, willing, sexy woman. Was he really going to turn her down?
Not on your life. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the key. The number 2-0-3 caught the light of a nearby candle as he slipped it across the table.
Feather offered a triumphant smile, nabbing the key and sticking it quickly into the small plaid handbag looped around her wrist. “You go ahead,” she said in a breathy voice. “I’ll just freshen up and then I’ll be right with you.”
As she toddled off in the direction of the ladies’ room, Ian pondered the odds of her actually making it up the stairs to his room. Fifty-fifty, he decided. But hey, that was like letting fate decide whether a horizontal tango with Feather was meant to be.
He grabbed the bottle of Scotch on the table, stopped by the front desk for another key to his room, and strolled up to the second floor, still in a very dark and cynical frame of mind.
If Feather made the climb or if she didn’t, it was no big deal to him.
“IT’S WHAT HAPPENS at weddings, Luce. It’s like they pump something into the air. All the sexual tension, the weepy till-death-do-us-part stuff, everyone thinking about honeymoons and garters and sloppy kisses and white lace and roses and…Well, the open bar doesn’t hurt, either.”
“Okay, so everyone else is doing it. That doesn’t mean I have to,” Lucie protested. “I’m just not that kind of person.” She hiccuped delicately. “Besides, my father would have a fit.”
“What’s he got to do with it?” Delilah argued. “And why would he even have to know?”
“He wouldn’t, I suppose. It’s just…he’s very hung up on toeing the line, not making waves, not doing anything that would embarrass him.”
“Let me get this straight. This is the same man whose daughter just foisted this Scottish monstrosity of a wedding on about four hundred people?” Delilah shook her head so hard she looked dizzy. “Lucie, you are thirty years old. What your father does or doesn’t like is hardly important at this point—especially when the old jerk let Steffi have her wedding on your birthday.”
“Oh, I’m sure none of them remembered. It’s not like it was intentional,” Lucie assured her new friend.
“That’s even worse.”
“Not really—”
“I’m telling you, Luce,” Delilah interrupted. “Tonight, for a few hours, you deserve to think about you, to celebrate the big 3-0, to be as wild and wicked as you’ve always wanted to be.”
Still, Lucie hesitated.
The other bridesmaid demanded, “Come on, Lucie, what are you afraid of?”
What was she afraid of?
“Don’t be shy—don’t even think about it,” Delilah counseled. “After all, it’s no biggie.” There was a spark of mischief in her smile. “Just a harmless little fling.”
2
JUST A LITTLE FLING.
It might not sound scary to Delilah, but it was like jumping off a cliff to Lucie.
“I don’t know if I can,” she hedged. But a tiny, reckless voice inside her whispered, You know you want to. “I—I don’t know.”
“Which is exactly why you’re sitting here by yourself on your birthday, with nobody warm and friendly to curl up to.” Delilah pushed herself to her feet. “Harsh words, my dear, but true. Don’t look now, but my best shot at my own fling is heading for the bar, and I think I can intercept him. Paolo has my name written all over him.”
With a determined glint in her eye, Delilah stalked off in search of big game.
“Paolo?” Lucie muttered, squinting after Delilah. “Who is Paolo? Oh, good heavens. It’s the cranky busboy.”
Dejected, Lucie watched the candle flame sputter into a wisp of smoke in front of her. The bride and groom had left. Ian and his bimbo had left. Delilah was hot on the trail of a busboy. And Lucie was alone at her table.
Alone on her thirtieth birthday. This was just wrong.
“I’m going to do it,” she said suddenly. Fortifying herself by chugging the last of her margarita, Lucie stood up and unsteadily surveyed the ballroom. “Who’s it going to be?”
She frowned, weighing the prospects. It couldn’t be just anyone. Her head might be buzzing with champagne and tequila, but she still wasn’t stupid enough to put the moves on just anybody. Nobody with a wedding ring. Nobody who looked too old or too young or too…scary.
But then who? Shaking her head from side to side, Lucie tried to clear her mind enough to make a rational decision. Not that there was anything rational about any of this.
It’s my birthday, the brash, foolhardy side of her brain argued. You didn’t get even one present. You deserve this!
Okay, okay. The fling was on. So who was the lucky guy?
There was a relatively cute guy over by the dance floor giving her the eye, but he looked kind of strange. Or maybe just a little too eager.
