The Best Man's Bride (5 page)

“I don’t feel so good, Uncle Nick,” Buzz murmured as he crawled out from the middle. Before his wobbly legs touched the ground, Nick lifted him up, and now he had a twin under each arm.

“Okay, guys, let’s take a break for a minute,” he said as he carried the boys toward the grass.

TJ squirmed. “Hey, I want to play. I want to play.”

And if he played, Buzz would try to keep up with him, no matter how sick the poor kid felt.

“You were pushing hard,” Nick reminded TJ. He’d no doubt been pushing hard to try to dislodge his brother from the merry-go-round—the boys constantly competed with each other.

Nick didn’t understand sibling rivalry. His brother had been ten years older. So his only real competition growing up had been Josh, and since his best friend was such a nice guy, he’d never minded losing to him.

He told TJ, “You need to catch your breath.”

And Buzz needed to find his. The poor kid still hung like a limp noodle from Nick’s arm. Nick dropped down onto the grass, keeping both boys close. Buzz rolled onto his stomach, resting his head on Nick’s thigh.

“I wanna play, too,” he muttered weakly, his drool soaking through Nick’s tux pants.

Nick ran his hand over the little guy’s buzzed head, which was soft and warm—too warm—against Nick’s palm. “I know. You want to play, too.”

Buzz would never admit defeat to his brother.

TJ wriggled, trying to loosen Nick’s grip. “C’mon, lemme go. I don’t wanna sit down.”

“Just for a little while,” Nick promised, and then looked up at Colleen, who joined them carrying a backpack. Yesterday she’d worn a floor-length gown, so he hadn’t noticed how long and sexy her legs were, but now they were bared by brief denim shorts. As she settled onto the grass, she folded her legs beneath her.

Nick sucked in a breath, surprised by the small butterfly tattoo that adorned the side of one delicate ankle. The bright-colored wings spread wide, as if the butterfly were in midflight.

“Pretty,” TJ said, reaching out to rub a sticky finger across the tattoo.

Colleen turned and laughed, and her whole face was illuminated. Jealousy churned Nick’s stomach. Was he really jealous of a four-year-old for touching her and making her laugh? Probably. Damn, he’d never been the possessive type. Not even with the women he’d actually dated. And he really had no intention of dating Colleen McClintock—only prying information out of her. Since her sister couldn’t be trusted, no doubt she couldn’t be, either.

“Thank you,” she told TJ. “I have a few things in here you guys might like.”

She definitely had a few things Nick liked.

“Crackers,” she said, handing a box to Nick to open. “And a book. Would you both like to hear a story?” She drew a picture book from her pack.

“Is that Lara’s book?” TJ asked, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “I don’t want to read about Barbies or princesses.” Obviously, he was referring to the flower girl, who was Colleen’s houseguest.

Nick opened his mouth to launch into the lecture on manners that he’d heard often enough while growing up. If he believed his father, he’d been as much of a handful as the twins were. “TJ…”

“It’s about slaying dragons,” Colleen assured the boys. Actually, it was about a princess who slew her own dragons. But when Colleen read the story, infusing such emotion into the tale as she voiced each character’s part, the boys were enthralled. And quiet and still. Two things Nick hadn’t known they could be. The problem was that he was enthralled, too. Not with the story, but with Colleen McClintock.

Nick’s reprieve with the boys lasted only until Colleen uttered those fateful words, “The End.” Then Buzz, finally recovered from the merry-go-round, sprang to his feet and pointed. “Look, there’s a puppy. Can we go see the puppy, Uncle Nick?”

Nick craned his neck in the direction of an old man who was leading a dog that clearly hadn’t been a puppy for a long time. “Wait, boys!”

Before he could leap to his feet, Colleen’s hand brushed against his thigh. His muscles contracted beneath her palm and he had to catch his breath.

“It’s okay,” she assured him, as she swept cracker crumbs from his pants. “Ol’ Lolly doesn’t bite.” From the way she pulled her hand back and replaced it in her lap, however, maybe she thought he would.

And, man, she tempted him.

“But the boys…” Had terrified that poor kitten he’d brought them. But not Colleen. She’d handled the twins better than he could have imagined. If Josh had just been looking for a mother for his sons, he’d probably proposed to the wrong McClintock sister. Nick’s gut tightened, his jealousy for the father instead of the sons this time. He didn’t want to imagine Josh kissing Colleen, touching her. He could imagine only one man holding her the way a man held a woman he loved. Himself.

“Lolly is so old she barely has any teeth left,” Colleen continued. “The boys are safe.”

Maybe the boys were okay, but Nick wasn’t so sure about himself.

“You were brave to bring them to the park by yourself,” she mused as she packed up the book and the leftover crackers in her backpack.

He laughed. “More stupid than brave.” How had he intended to talk to her with the boys around? He hadn’t been worried about talking, though. He’d been focusing on what else he might have done with Colleen if he’d come to see her without his twin chaperones. But the presence of TJ and Buzz hadn’t mattered; she’d still gotten to him more than he had to her. “I don’t know how I thought I could have managed them on my own for two weeks.”

“What?”

“I was supposed to take care of them while Josh was on his honeymoon,” he explained. “So I guess I really owe your sister a thank-you.”

“Nick!” she admonished.

At least she didn’t take lightly the fact that her sister had left her groom at the altar, humiliated in front of their guests. And if she didn’t approve, maybe she would share Molly’s whereabouts. He could have flat out asked her, as he’d asked Brenna, but with Colleen he figured finesse might work better than bluntness.

“But since I can’t thank her—” yet “—I’ll thank you. Meet me back here this afternoon,” he said. “I’ll pay you back for the crackers and the story.”

C
OLLEEN DIDN’T WANT ANYTHING
from Nick Jameson—she didn’t trust him. His interest in her couldn’t be genuine. But she was enormously flattered that he wanted to see more of her. She bit her lip, reminding herself of what had happened the last time a guy had flattered her. She’d ended up hurt and humiliated and she’d given away something she could never get back. Her innocence. She feared Nick could take more than that from her. Her heart. She stood up and turned away from him, toward the boys, gesturing to the one with the shorter hair. “He sure recovered fast.”

“Yes,” Nick agreed with a weary-sounding sigh as he hauled himself to his feet.

Kids were so much more resilient than adults. Rory, being the youngest of the McClintock’s, had handled his father’s death the easiest of all the siblings. Or so Colleen had thought until he’d started smoking and spiking punch bowls. “What’s his name?”

His voice warm with affection, Nick answered, “That’s Buzz.”

She laughed. “I know, and understand
why
he’s called Buzz, but what’s his real name?”

“Nicholas James, and TJ is Thomas.” His voice warmed even more as he stepped closer, his body nearly brushing her back. “Thomas, for my dad, and Joshua, for Josh’s. Josh is named after his dad, too, and he didn’t want his son to be a third. Not since the kid’s already a double.”

“You and Josh go back a long way,” she said as she stepped forward, edging away from the heat of his body. “You’re really close.”

“Yes.” He followed her, eliminating the small space her step had put between them.

“You’d do anything for him, wouldn’t you?” Or anyone. That was why he’d turned on the charm with her, when for so long he hadn’t even noticed her. Apparently even before Molly had disappeared, he’d been looking out for the groom’s best interests. That was why he’d finally begun to pay attention to her, after all those years of staring straight through her as if she didn’t exist.

In her mind—the only place where she entertained reckless actions she never intended to carry out—she’d often fantasized about him finally noticing her. He’d glance up one day when they passed in the hall or as he sat at a table in the cafeteria, and he’d see her across from him and tell her she was so beautiful that he had to have her. No other woman would ever do.

She forced away all such thoughts now, manifestations of her unrequited crush, and focused on his real reason for paying attention to her. “You’re such close friends that you’re even staying in Cloverville for him.”

“Maybe I’m not staying for Josh,” he said as his hand settled at the side of her waist, where her shirt had ridden up above her shorts. His palm warmed her bare skin.

“You’re not staying for me,” she insisted. She had nothing to offer him. She would not betray her sister.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” he said, leaning close so that his breath stirred the hair against her neck. “From what I can tell, you’re the
only
attraction in Cloverville.”

Attraction. She wished that were all this was, this compelling emotion that shimmered like midsummer humidity in the air between them. Despite the heat of his touch, she shivered. “I’m not an attraction, Nick.”

“You are, for me.” He pulled her closer, so that her back settled against the hard muscles of his chest. So that she touched him from her head to her heels, and felt his body taut and warm against hers.

She turned and her face suddenly brushed his throat, where his pulse pounded madly.

“Nick,” she murmured in protest of the way he made her feel. Weak. Dizzy. As if she’d been the one TJ had spun on the merry-go-round instead of his twin.

“God, Colleen, I wish we were alone,” he said, his hand tightening on her hip, pulling her closer for just a moment before he groaned and set her away from him.

“Please meet me back here at two,” he urged, his voice thick with desire. “I’ll bring the picnic lunch.”

She didn’t answer Nick, but he walked off as if she’d agreed. Had a woman ever turned him down? She doubted it.

He rescued Lolly from the boys. Buzz and TJ turned back to wave at her before leaving the park with Nick, each of them holding one of his hands. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed how good he was with the twins. At the hospital, his intention to remain single was a legend. What a waste.

Her heart would be wasted, too, if she fell for Nick Jameson. His picnic invitation might be tempting, but she had to resist.

“You’re sure you’re okay with me staying here?” Nick asked as he dropped his duffel bag onto the polished hardwood floor of Clayton McClintock’s apartment, a loft above his insurance agency. He placed the picnic basket atop the marble countertop, careful not to knock around the contents inside. He didn’t want to break the wine bottle. “No hard feelings over our not leasing your open space downstairs?”

That had been his decision more than Josh’s. While the commercial space had been okay for a one-doctor private practice, Nick and Josh needed more room for the two of them and the physical therapist they intended to hire.

Clayton shook his head. “No. I understand that you need more room than Dr. Strover. And you’re more than welcome to stay here.”

But Nick could tell from the quizzical tone in his host’s voice that Clayton wondered
why
Nick wanted to stay. Cloverville was just a little over an hour’s drive from Grand Rapids. But an hour away would be too far if Josh suddenly needed him. Bruce hadn’t been that far away, and Nick still hadn’t managed to get to him in time.

If only he’d been able to talk Josh into leaving Cloverville right away, then he wouldn’t have to stay. But Nick suspected the only person who’d be able to talk Josh into leaving was his runaway bride. Nick had to find her, and soon—before he put himself at risk.

“Thanks for the hospitality.” He offered his host gratitude but not an explanation. He’d always been guarded about his personal history, about his pain.

“You didn’t have to bring me anything,” Clayton said, gesturing toward the picnic basket as he leaned against the front of the walnut kitchen cabinets.

Nick laughed. “I appreciate you letting me stay here, but this isn’t for you.”

He’d picked up the basket at his favorite deli in Grand Rapids, when he’d gone back to his condo to pack a few things. He was hoping he wouldn’t be here long enough to wear everything he’d brought with him, but the tux wasn’t his. He’d had to drop it off at the rental place, grass stains, Buzz drool and all.

“Hot date?”

Somehow Nick suspected that Clayton, the protective older brother, would not appreciate Nick seeing Colleen. At least not as Nick saw her. Hell, he knew he was too old for her, too cynical, that he had nothing to offer her. He didn’t need Clayton McClintock to tell him what he already knew. Doubting that he’d have a place to stay at all if Clayton were aware of his date’s identity, Nick shook his head. “How about you? Did you talk to your girlfriend this morning?”

After a restless night in the guest room, Nick had come out of the kitchen at the crack of dawn to find Clayton watching his blond bridesmaid through the living-room blinds. He’d pointed out then that the bridesmaids knew where the bride had run off to, and he’d urged Clayton to find his missing sister—and not just for Josh but to make sure she was okay.

“Abby Hamilton is not my girlfriend,” Clayton hotly denied, just as he had when Nick had asked him that morning.

“But I did talk to her.”

Suppressing a grin at the other man’s vehement reaction, Nick amended his question. “Did you get through to Abby?”

“No, there’s no getting through to Abby Hamilton.”

“Stubborn, huh?”

“Aggravating. Frustrating.” Clayton groaned.

The man had it bad. Nick’s best friend had been engaged twice, married once, and he’d never talked about either woman with as much emotion as Clayton showed for Abby Hamilton or as Nick had invested in Colleen McClintock.

“It’s okay, though,” Clayton said, apparently to reassure himself. “She won’t stick around Cloverville.”

“I bet she’ll be here until your sister comes back.” Old memories stepped out of the shadows of Nick’s mind. “If she comes back…” His brother had never come back, not after his wife left him. Nick always thought that in some ways Bruce had really died that day, long before his car had struck the tree.

“Molly will come back.”

“Why?” Nick couldn’t imagine why anyone would willingly return to Cloverville once they’d left. Then images began to flash through his mind—of Colleen in her strapless dress standing on the sidewalk in the moonlight, and then in the park on the grass next to him, her long bare legs folded beneath her, her beautiful face animated as she read to the boys. She shouldn’t be that compelling of an attraction; she shouldn’t mean that much to him already.

He gripped the handle of his basket. He should
not
go back to the park. He doubted he’d get any information out of her, but he might give up more than he’d ever intended to give anyone—his heart.

“You’re a city snob, huh?”

“What?”

“You can’t live outside a city? We’re not that far from Grand Rapids, you know.” Clayton’s voice vibrated with pride in his town.

“Seems like a lot more than an hour,” Nick said. Maybe because only a two-lane highway connected the cities, rather than a freeway, and the only scenery between the two places was fields and woods. “While you’re half right, I’m no snob.”

He’d worked his way through school. As a welder, his dad had barely made ends meet for his family. He hadn’t been able to help Nick. “But I have always lived in cities. In fact, Grand Rapids seems small to me. Josh and I grew up in Detroit.”

“Detroit?” Clayton whistled. “Yeah, Cloverville must seem like not much more than a dot on a map to you.”

“It has a dot?” he teased.

Clayton grinned. “I think if you really look you’ll find that it has a lot to offer.”

Again Colleen’s image sprang to Nick’s mind, her face alive with warmth and humor as she laughed at TJ. He closed his eyes, but then he could hear her, reading the silly story, her voice soft but vibrant.

Clayton’s knuckles, rapping against the wooden cover of the basket, drew Nick’s attention back. “Or maybe you’ve already figured that out.”

The only thing Nick had figured out was that he was in trouble. For the first time since he was a teenager, he’d lost his focus. “No, there’s nothing here for me.”

“You’re opening an office here,” Clayton pointed out.

“Maybe that’ll change.” He hoped like hell it would. “Josh needs to talk to your sister.”

“She’ll come home,” her older brother assured him. “There’s a lot in Cloverville for Molly. Her friends. Her family.”

Nick nodded. “I know family and friends are important. So you’re not worried about her?”

Clayton shook his head. “No. Molly’s smart and real levelheaded.”

Nick lifted a brow. He hadn’t seen much to support Clayton’s opinion of Molly McClintock. But Nick understood seeing a sibling as you wanted them to be, instead of how they really were. He’d always idolized his older brother. But Clayton
was
the older brother; he should have a little more objectivity than Colleen might.

Clayton laughed. “You might find that hard to believe right now, but Molly’s quite responsible. She’d never…”

“Back out on a promise?”

“She has a good reason,” her loyal brother insisted.

“You’ll see.”

Nick bit his tongue, holding back a rant about how she’d hurt and humiliated the man she’d promised to marry. Siblings might insult each other, but they didn’t let outsiders talk that way. Despite their friendship, Nick had once blackened Josh’s eye over his brother. It was a wonder they were still friends.

Nick owed Josh so much. If he hadn’t been there for Nick, helping him focus after the grief and guilt over how he’d lost his brother, he shuddered to think what he might have become. He’d started drinking and picking fights—he would have probably wound up like Bruce, dead too young—if Josh hadn’t pulled him back from the depths of his grief and guilt.

“You’re sure Molly’s okay?” Nick asked. He figured Clayton, who’d taken on so much responsibility when his dad died, would never forgive himself if something happened to Molly.

Clayton nodded. “She would never do anything crazy.”

She went out a window on her wedding day, but maybe that was a smart thing. Running instead of committing. Nick glanced down at the picnic basket. If he were smart, he’d run, too. Far away from Colleen McClintock.

C
OLLEEN PULLED OPEN THE
screen door and walked into the Kellys’ house. They would have been offended if she’d knocked. She’d spent so much time at the Kellys’ when she’d been growing up—especially after her dad died. Even though Brenna had been away at college in central Michigan, her parents had continued to welcome Colleen’s visits. They’d always wanted lots of children, but they hadn’t had Brenna until they were in their forties.

Colleen thought that her mother put too much pressure on Clayton and her for grandchildren. She couldn’t imagine how much pressure the Kellys must exert on Brenna.

“Hey, Brenna!” she called into the quiet house. Too quiet, really, if the boys were still staying with the Kellys.

And if they weren’t, that meant that Josh had changed his mind about staying in Cloverville. And if he wasn’t staying, neither would Nick. She told herself she should feel relief, but it wasn’t relief that was pressing hard on her chest, making her breathing difficult.

Nick must be gone.

Sure, she could see him at the hospital. But
he
wouldn’t see her there. He never had. She swallowed hard, then called out again. “Hello?”

A clatter rang out from the kitchen, as if pans were dropping on the hardwood floor. A smile formed on her lips; everyone was always in the kitchen at the Kellys’. It was usually that way at her house, too. She walked through the parlor, with its polished antiques, down the hall to the kitchen. “Hey!”

Joshua Towers stood by the center island of the gourmet kitchen, its state-of-the-art appliances were totally at odds with the rest of the Victorian house. Josh leaned forward, his palms pressed flat against the granite counter. His black hair rose up in tufts, as if he’d been running his hands through it.

“Are you okay?” Guilt swirled through Colleen. She recognized the feeling instantly because she’d lived with it for so long. Sure, she hadn’t stood him up—but her sister had. Maybe she was a little like Clayton after all, assuming responsibility for other people’s actions.

Josh sighed. “Yeah, sure.”

Colleen stepped forward, her foot sending a frying pan spinning into the side of the island. She leaned over and picked it up.

“It must have fallen,” Josh murmured, gesturing toward the pot rack, which hung over the island, swaying slightly on its chains.

She placed the pan in the industrial-size stainless-steel sink. “Where is everyone?” she asked.

“Mr. and Mrs. Kelly took the boys into town.”

Probably to protect their antiques. But actually the Kellys weren’t like that. People meant more to them than possessions did. Still, the house had made some of their group of friends uncomfortable. Eric and Abby always had preferred the McClintock house to the Kellys’. They’d said it was because they hadn’t had to worry about breaking things there.

But everything Colleen had ever cared about had broken in that house. Her family. Her heart.

“And Brenna, where is she?” she asked. She needed to talk to someone.

Colleen would have talked to Abby, but when she’d gone home after the park, the house had been empty. She’d checked her bedroom to see if Molly had returned. Despite Clayton’s room usually being empty—when Abby wasn’t staying in it—Molly still shared their old bedroom when she wasn’t away at school. But her sister still hadn’t come home, and a note held with a magnet on the refrigerator door explained that her mom had taken Rory, Abby and Lara out for Sunday brunch. They would have waited for her, but Rory had been starving. As usual.

“Uh, Brenna had to…Brenna went upstairs, I think,” Josh stammered.

She narrowed her eyes and studied the doctor’s handsome face. Tension held his jaw taut and clouded his blue eyes. “Is everything okay
here?
”

Josh’s gaze slid away from hers. “Uh…”

“Because if it’s not, you and the boys can stay with us,” she offered. “Rory can sleep in the family room.” He wouldn’t be happy about it, but her brother deserved some sort of punishment for spiking the punch at the wedding. Their mom spoiled her “baby” entirely too much. “It’s really not a problem. If not for the superstition, my mother would have had you stay with us anyway.”

“Maybe she was right to be superstitious.”

“So you saw Molly before the wedding?” Colleen had wondered if Josh hadn’t had some inkling that Molly might flee. He hadn’t seemed entirely surprised—or upset—that she’d abandoned him at the altar. And during their slumber party the night before the wedding, Molly had disappeared for a while. When she returned, she claimed she’d just gone outside for some air. But she’d been gone long enough to walk over to the Kellys’.

His face flushed with embarrassment, darkening his tanned skin. “Uh…”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry.” She had no right seeking out other people’s secrets when she’d guarded hers for so many years.

“She’s your sister. You’re not prying. Really,” he insisted, as nice and generous as ever.

She suppressed a wistful sigh, totally understanding how Molly could have fallen so quickly for a man like him. Molly had always been the smart one. Too bad Colleen had never gone for the “nice” guys. But then maybe Molly hadn’t really fallen for him. “She is my sister. I thought I knew her pretty well. It isn’t like Molly to take off the way she did, without any warning.”

That was more like Colleen.

“She didn’t,” Josh assured her. “I mean…I had some warning.”

“You knew she might change her mind?”

Footsteps sounded overhead, a door closed. What was Brenna doing? Not being particularly hospitable to her houseguest. That was so unlike Brenna, who’d always been the surrogate mother of their group, taking care of everyone else.

His chin pointing up, he focused on the pressed-tin ceiling. “I knew.”

“Then why…” Hadn’t he or Molly canceled the wedding?

His broad shoulders lifted and dropped in a brief shrug.

“You don’t want to talk about it,” she guessed. “I understand.”

“That makes one person.”

“What? Is someone pressuring you?” She remembered his best friend. “Oh. Nick.”