Breaking All The Rules (Book 1 - Second Chances Series) (3 page)

I wasn’t as convincing as I’d hoped I’d be. A few eyes rolled and some heads shook. You could hear a pin drop until Mother Wright clapped her hands and said, “Let’s get back to what we came here for. Next on the list is the food for the rehearsal dinner, right?” She encouraged me with a close-lipped smile and a nod of her head. I had never been really close to Mother Wright, but I knew the kind of woman she was. She cared about family. It meant everything to her. She was probably the only person in the room who really knew why I was here. No matter what I felt about it all, Janette was my sister. I had to get over the betrayal of the marriage and fight for the relationship that our deceased parents would want us to have, no matter what my sister had chosen to do to splinter it.

“Yes,” I fought to grit my teeth. “Let’s talk about the menu.”

By ten p.m. the house was empty, the food put away and my sister was in bed sleeping with her mouth open like we’d all worn her out. She was still in the bedroom she’d grown up in, refusing to move into the master where my father had taken his last breath during hospice. I understood that. I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in the room either. It was a shrine to our parents and we wordlessly agreed to let it stay that way.

Unlike Janette, I wasn’t tired. Even after the flight and ride from the airport and the fight to keep my emotions in check, I was still a bit wired and unable to sleep. I’d forgotten how quiet it was here. The Upper West side of Manhattan had the undercurrent of city noise twenty-four hours a day. I wasn’t used to this silence. After an unsuccessful effort to watch television and read a novel, I grabbed my sister’s keys, locked the house up and climbed into her car. I didn’t drive very often. I didn’t have a car. I’d purposely chosen to live where I could use other means of transportation. Having a car in the city was a burden. I took taxicabs wherever I had to go from the upper west side to the lower east side. And if I was desperate, the subway system would do.

I took a deep breath to quell the nausea that always kind of engulfed me when I sat behind the wheel of a car, started it and pulled out of the driveway onto the main road. I turned on the radio and listened to music from the Quiet Storm croon through the speakers. This radio station probably wasn’t the right choice as the romantic love songs only served to remind me of what I’d been fighting to forget all day, really, all month…that no one loved me. I was thirty-five years old, hadn’t had a date in over six months and now the only man that had ever really wanted me was marrying my sister. I pulled the car over to the side of the road and burst into tears.

“Durn you, Janette, you could have had anyone. Why Terrance?” I cried and I cried and I cried. I was crying so hard that I hadn’t even noticed a car had stopped behind me until I heard the light rap on the passenger side window. My heart froze with fear. Had I checked all my city slickness with my bags at the airport? What was I doing sitting on the side of the road in a car at eleven p.m. in the country? Waiting for a serial killer? I took the car out of park. I let it leap forward a bit to signal him to get out of the way before he was in the ditch. The only reason I didn’t gun the engine was because I might have dragged him down the road.

“Nectar! Wait! It’s me.”

Nectar
, nobody called me that but…I put my foot on the brake and leaned a bit to my right to get a better look at him. Well, there was one other person who called me by that silly nickname. I pushed the button to let the window down. “Ethan Wright?!!”

Ethan was Terrance’s first cousin on his father’s side. He’d been abandoned by his mother when he was eight and had come to live with Pastor and Mother Wright.  His mother was said to be a weed smokin’ hippie who had run off with a boyfriend to backpack her way across the country. She’d never come “right” back for Ethan as she’d promised. Sadly, she’d been brought back to Garrison in a casket when he was thirteen. The rumor was that she’d died from a drug overdose. Terrance had shared that his father was unknown. It was very sad.

However, early tragedy aside, Ethan was Garrison’s biggest success story. A star athlete who’d gone all the way from middle school soccer to play in college and then professionally for over five years in Europe until his knee was injured, at which point he retired. His career ended on a high. He banged up his knee earning the final winning point in a World Cup championship game. 

“When I first saw the car on the side of the road, I thought you were Janette. I thought the car broken down and you were in trouble.” Ethan slid a glass of water across the granite countertop in his enormous, modern and breathtakingly beautiful kitchen.

“Well, I’m neither,” I replied, taking a sip from the glass. “I thought you were Ted Bundy or his twisted cousin.”

He smiled, shrugged and raised a glass to his lips and said, “I’m neither either.”

Good Lord
, I thought. That was a nice smile. When we were growing up he had kinks and curls that would make most naturally curly girls green with envy, but for whatever reason he was sporting a shaved head. A five o’clock shadow framed his chin and tried as I might to ignore it, I could see a fine curly mass of hair twisting its way from under his shirt. His skin was sun-kissed a shade darker than its normal chocolate brown.

I hadn’t seen Ethan since my father’s funeral. Although he’d been only about twenty-four at the time, I remembered thinking how incredibly handsome he’d grown to be, but now at twenty-nine leaning against the counter in his kitchen wearing a pair of low slung jeans and a muscle shirt he was down right FINE! Terrance’s younger cousin had definitely grown up. All the way up. He wasn’t looking like anybody’s younger anything. He was holding it down as his own man.

I cleared my throat to clear my head. “Thanks for stopping. That was considerate.”

“This is Garrison, Georgia. I don’t think anybody would have passed you by.”

I nodded. He was right. In small towns everyone was friendly and considerate about things like breakdowns, because everyone acknowledged that if you could give the time of day to a dog, you could certainly give it to your neighbor. That was so unlike New York. I’d have waited five hours for a tow truck and then the driver would have been rude.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I, uh, own this house,” the smart aleck replied, smiling again. 

“I know that, but the wedding’s not for more than a week. You’re a bit early to be in town. I thought you were in Africa, or something, building wells or houses for Habitat for Humanity.”

“I was,” he replied. “But I’m kind of in the middle of some business I’ve invested in and it’s local, so I’ve been in Garrison for a while.”

I nodded. “Local business. I can’t imagine anything around here that would hold your interest.”

He took another sip of water. “You’d be surprised at what holds my interest.” The look in his eyes was salacious. He was flirting.

I let my mouth curve into a smile. I had not expected that, so it was time to move on to another topic. “I’ve never been in this house.” I stood and walked back into the living room. I could hear him follow.

“You want a tour? I completely remodeled it. It’s not the house my grandfather owned.”

I could see that. The floor to ceiling glass windows, marble floors and countertops were definitely not the materials any house in Garrison had when his grandfather was alive.

“Not tonight.” I stopped in front of his piano. It was a beautiful ebony wood with a glossy polish. “You play?”

He nodded and pushed himself off the wall he’d momentarily stopped to lean against. “You wanna hear?” He’d closed the distance between us. His closeness threw heat in my direction that the large, leaf shaped, ceiling fan couldn’t cool.

“It’s late. I should be getting back. Janette might wake up and find me gone. I walked out without my cell and I didn’t leave a note.” I was talking too quickly. I sounded like a schoolgirl instead of a mature woman.

“It’ll only take a minute for me to serenade you.” He took my hand and pulled me with him onto the seat. Then he pushed the lid up and began playing chopsticks.

I had been taut as a rubber band. Sitting next to all those manly biceps and triceps had unnerved me a bit. Plus, he smelled as sexy as the men’s cologne counter at Macys, but now I laughed and it was amazing how much tension I’d just released. “You’re silly.”

He chuckled and it was a deep sexy sound that reminded me how long it had been since I’d sat with a man that wasn’t somebody’s groom. 

“No, for real, I wanted to make you laugh.” He turned his face toward me. I tried to look straight ahead, but I couldn’t. I knew he was waiting for me to meet his gaze. “You needed that laugh.”

Ethan returned his long, handsome fingers to the delicate ivory keys and after a few seconds I recognized the tune he was playing as “Ribbon in the Sky”. After he played a little of the song he began to sing. “Oh so long for this night I prayed.”

“Wow, Ethan. I didn’t know you —”

He raised a hand against my interruption and continued to sing for the next few minutes until he completed the song.

I was impressed and overcome with all kinds of emotion. I’d never had a man play the piano for me unless he was auditioning for a wedding and I definitely hadn’t had anyone sing in such a sexy timbre. I couldn’t believe he had such a beautiful voice and could play so perfectly. He took my hand and continued in  acapella. “If allowed, may I touch your hand...”

I’d been staring straight ahead, but now I turned toward him and looked into those amazing limpid pools God had given him for eyes. He leaned forward and kissed me. It started off gentle and easy, just two people exploring the outside of each others lips with smooches, but then he raised his hand to my chin and whispered, “Open your mouth.”

I did as I was told. The sensation that erupted from our tongues touching caused blood to shoot to all kinds of places on my body. I gasped and pulled back, shook my head. “No, this is wrong.” I slid from behind the bench and stood. 

Ethan shrugged. He didn’t look surprised. He didn’t even look disappointed.

“I’m going to go.” I looked around for my purse, but then realized I left it at the house. All I had were the keys in my pocket. “Janette might be out of her mind with worry.”

“Is that really why you’re leaving?”

“What?” I asked as if I hadn’t heard him.

“Never mind.” He waved my question off and closed the lid on the keyboard. “Speaking of Janette, before you go, let’s get back to those tears I witnessed. Are you alright?”

I was hoping he wouldn’t bring that up. I was embarrassed enough as it was that he’d seen me wailing by the side of the road like a lovesick puppy. “I’m fine.”

“You didn’t look fine.”

“Well, I’m fine now.” I wasn’t really and it had nothing to do with my crying. He’d kissed me. He seemed totally unaffected by it. I was still trying to get my head together.

Ethan paused as if considering my response and then said, “I could make you feel lots better.”

I cocked my head back. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“You want the clean version?”

I pursed my lips. “Definitely.”

“Suit yourself.” He smiled devilishly. “Actually, I only have a clean version. I’d never disrespect you with any other.” His smile continued to contradict his words. “I was thinking we could hang out while you’re in town. You know since you came in so early too.”

“I’ll be busy. I’m planning the wedding.” I squared my shoulders, preparing for what I knew was coming.

Ethan stood to his feet, leaned forward and put a finger behind his ear. “Come again.”

“I said I’ll be busy organizing the wedding.”

Ethan whistled and stuck his fists in his pockets, which caused his jeans to ride even lower across his unbelted hips. “I mean, why would you do that?”

“I’m a wedding planner. That’s what I do for a living.”

“And?”

“And she needed my help. You have to have a professional if you want things to go smoothly, especially at this late date.”

Ethan chuckled. “You should be kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“I know you’re not that’s why I said should. Why would you put yourself through that?”

“It’s not a big deal. It’s actually a good thing. It’ll keep me busy.”

“A good thing. Your sister is marrying your ex.”

I cocked my head to the side. “You don’t have to tell me that. I’m well aware of it.”

“So, because you’re a wedding planner that means you have to plan their ridiculous wedding? I don’t think so.” Ethan was making sense. Of course, to someone on the outside looking in, it seemed a simple choice for me. Pass on the planning, pass on the wedding if I wanted, but it wasn’t, not for me.

“Because, I’m her sister. People would expect me to do it.”

“Forget people,” Ethan angled his head. “What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.” My tone was resolute and I thought convincing.

“Bull, they should have protected you from this. They should have eloped. Not like they don’t have a reason to.”

Not wanting to continue the debate I shook my head. “Ethan, this isn’t a big deal.”

“Need I remind you that you were crying on the side of the road less than an hour ago?”