The Wedding She Always Wanted (8 page)

What do you want?

Javy’s voice rang through her thoughts, but maybe that question didn’t really matter as long as what she wanted was something she couldn’t have.

“M
an, what time did you get started this morning?”

Javy looked away from the tile he’d been ruthlessly tearing up to meet his cousin Alex’s gaze. After pushing the safety glasses up to the top of his head, he wiped his forehead with the sweatband he wore on one wrist. “’Bout an hour ago,” he said.

His cousin let out a low whistle. “And you got all this done?” Alex asked as he looked at the broken remains of a large section of the dining-room tile.

The two of them had worked together the day before on tearing out the tile in the bathrooms and hallway, saving the largest area for last.

“I was feeling motivated,” Javy said.

When Anna had called yesterday to tell him she was meeting Emily at the house, he’d been happy for Emily. He’d been less than happy as the hours passed and Anna’s
call was the only one he received. He had fully expected to hear from Emily and didn’t quite know what to think of her not calling.

And, yeah, okay, he could have picked up the phone, too, but
Emily
was the one with the big news. It only made sense that she would want to call him.

So he’d gone to bed, secure in his decision
not
to call Emily, only to spend a few restless hours wondering why she hadn’t called. He’d finally reached for the phone, determined to find out, but then he’d noticed it was one o’clock in the morning and he was certifiably insane.

He’d never,
never
lost a moment’s sleep over a woman not calling. He knew he had a reputation as a ladies’ man, but he also knew every woman was different. Each had her own taste and opinion, and if one woman wasn’t interested, more than likely another woman was.

Those same rules applied to Emily. If she wasn’t interested…except, dammit, she
was
interested! He knew she was.

Giving in to frustration, he picked up his hammer and chisel and took another whack at the tile.

“Hey,
primo
, safety glasses, remember?” said Alex. “You won’t be so irresistible to the girls wearing a patch over one eye!”

Javy swore beneath his breath, knowing his cousin was right, and lowered the glasses before picking up the hammer again.

“You know, we just might get this done today,” Alex said over Javy’s relentless pounding. Judging the remaining area with a critical eye, he added, “If we finish the other repairs and patch the floors tomorrow, we can get the new tile laid in the next few days. I’d say you can start planning for a reopening next weekend.”

Javy sank back on his haunches. His calves and ankles were already groaning a protest after the hours he’d spent crouching on his knees. If Alex’s time frame held true, Javy wasn’t going to have much of a chance to sand and refinish his father’s damaged furniture before the reopening.

Of course, all the time in the world wouldn’t make a difference if he couldn’t do the job. Still, he owed it to his father to try, to prove in some way that he was no longer the selfish, irresponsible boy his father had seen all those years ago. That he was more than the selfish, irresponsible man he’d become.

He thought of the confidence and encouragement in Emily’s eyes. He owed it to
himself
to try.

“Think you could help me haul some of the damaged dining-room furniture back to my place? It’s in the way here, and my mother doesn’t think the worst of the pieces are worth saving.”

If Alex thought Javy’s house was a strange place to take the furniture, he didn’t let it show. Instead, he merely said, “Yeah, sure. I’ll hook up the trailer, and we’ll be able to get it all in one trip.”

“Thanks, man. And thanks for all the work you’ve done here.”

“Hey, it’s the least I can do.”

Alex’s words rang in Javy’s mind even as his cousin picked up his own hammer, slid on a pair of safety glasses and started to work. Recently Javy had felt like everything in his life was the least he could do. The
very
least. Yeah, he put in the hours and the effort at the restaurant; he showed up for all the family get-togethers; he made sure to catch a game with the guys or hit the basketball court for some one-on-one every other week or so.

But when was the last time he’d looked forward to any of it? He gave a short laugh. He’d felt more satisfaction in the last few days, trying to get the restaurant reopened, than he
had when the place was running smoothly. And how messed up was it that he needed a disaster to give his life meaning?

“You say something?” Alex asked, ceasing the relentless hammering for a moment.

“No, I was just…I’ve been thinking of talking to my mother about my ideas for the bar and patio again. Now would be the perfect chance. We’re already closed, and if we keep on your schedule, the repairs will be done sooner than we thought. Why not move on to the renovations?”

“If Maria says yes, I’ll have a crew ready to start the next day,” his cousin said, even as he raised a doubting eyebrow.

“But you don’t think she will?”

Alex shrugged. “She was pretty adamant about not changing a thing. And can you blame her? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he said, a familiar stubbornness underscoring his words. One that had nothing to do with Maria’s perspective or the restaurant.

“Yeah, well, speaking of things you broke by
not
fixing them,” Javy scoffed, “I saw Monica the other night.”

He’d waited until his cousin was taking a swing to make that comment, and Alex’s well-aimed hammer clanked off the side of the chisel before bouncing off the tile. “Where? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

Javy shrugged, taking his time and executing a few solid hits before answering. “You
did
break up with her, right? Because she wanted a commitment, and you wanted your freedom.”

“That’s right,” Alex said with an arrogance that could only come from being completely wrong and knowing it.

“So, what difference would it make if Monica found someone who’s serious about her?”

“Has she?” Alex jumped to his feet, hammer clutched in his hand, as if his competition was going to come busting through the door any minute. “Was she out with some other guy?”

With Emily Wilson seated across from him, Javy wouldn’t have noticed if Monica was out with the entire Arizona Cardinals defensive line. But as distracted as he’d been, he wasn’t completely blind. Monica was a beautiful woman. It wouldn’t have surprised anyone—except maybe Alex—if she’d found someone else.

“No, but why would you care? You’ve got your freedom, man.”

“Yeah, right,” Alex muttered before sinking back down on his knee pads and attacking the tile with a vengeance.

Javy shook his head. What was it with the people in his family? So stubborn, so averse to any kind of change.

And what about you?
a subversive voice whispered.
What would it take to make you settle down?

Emily’s face flashed before his eyes, despite his attempts to push thoughts of her aside.

Emily’s not looking for a relationship
, he mentally insisted.

After calling off her engagement days before the wedding, he was sure she wasn’t looking for anything other than a good time. And maybe to reaffirm that she was a beautiful, desirable woman, despite her fiancé’s infidelity. She was
not
looking for anything permanent.

And if that changed? If Emily started wanting more?

Would he fall back into old habits? Or would he be willing to embrace something new?

Later that afternoon Anna breezed into the restaurant, pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head to look around. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe you’ve done so much since yesterday. Did you have a chance to look at the paint samples I left?”

Javy rolled his eyes toward Alex. Earlier the two of them had agreed they wouldn’t want to paint the restaurant—or anything else, for that matter—any color Anna had chosen.

“We’re going out on a limb this time and painting the walls exactly the colors they already are,” Alex said.

Anna huffed a sigh. “Honestly, the two of you are pathetically afraid of change.”

Alex voiced an immediate protest, but Anna’s words mirrored Javy’s earlier thoughts too closely for him to offer a defense. Instead, he asked Anna, “So what’s going on? Or did you just stop by to check up on us?”

Javy expected some kind of comeback and was surprised when his cousin frowned. “Actually, I need to talk to you, if you’ve got a minute.”

“Yeah, I guess I could take a break,” Javy told her.

“He needs one. He’s been at this since dawn. If I didn’t know better—” Alex laughed “—I’d think he had woman troubles. But we know that can’t be it. The only trouble Javy’s ever had with women is not having enough hours in the day to date them all.”

Javy frowned. It was an old joke, one he’d made himself. Yet, somehow, hearing it now sounded…wrong. Especially when Emily’s face flashed through his mind.

Leading the way into the kitchen, he grabbed a water from the stainless-steel fridge. After downing half the bottle in one swallow, he asked Anna, “What’s up?”

“It’s about your friend Emily,” she began.

“Did she make an offer on the town house?” he asked, purposely keeping his voice casual. Annoyed he had to ask a question he should already know the answer to.

“No.”

That answer wasn’t the one he’d expected to hear, not from Anna or from Emily. “What the hell happened?” He set the plastic bottle down on the stainless-steel countertop with a watery thunk. “She was ready to pull out her checkbook the minute we saw the place!”

“She seemed pretty excited until her parents showed up. They really did a number on her, telling her she was rushing the decision and not thinking things through. She said she wanted to take a few days to think it over, but I’ve heard from the agent representing the seller. She’s showing the house to a couple this afternoon. I don’t want to push, but I’d hate for Emily to miss out if she really wants this house.”

“Emily wants it.” He had seen the excitement shining in her turquoise eyes and knew she had her heart set on the small town house. A slow anger started burning inside him when he thought of her parents crushing that desire. “Let me talk to her and—”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Anna asked, her forehead creasing in a worried frown.

“She needs to know someone else is looking at the house. I’m surprised you haven’t called already.”

“I promised her a few days to think about it,” Anna said defensively. “Besides, what I meant was, are you sure it’s a good idea for
you
to call her?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve done this whole ‘rescue the damsel in distress’ thing before, Javy,” his cousin said softly. “I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

Javy tensed at the reminder of his past. “You are not comparing Emily to Stephanie,” he said, his voice flat with denial.

Thanks to ten years’ worth of wisdom and hindsight, Javy now knew that his ex-girlfriend had likely suffered from depression. From moment to moment, she had alternated between anger over the past, despair over the present and impossibly high hopes for the future—their future.

After her troubled home life, Javy couldn’t blame her for her desperation to escape. Stephanie’s parents had spent her childhood in and out of court, fighting each other and fighting over her. And he had promised her he would take her away
from all that, promised her they would have a life together. In return, she’d sworn she would wait.

In the end, Javy supposed neither of them had kept their word.

But that decade-old history had nothing to do with here and now. Nothing to do with Emily.

“So you don’t think Emily is trying to escape her parents’ control by buying a house?” Anna asked.

“Even if she is,” he said, “she doesn’t need me for that.”

Emily didn’t need him, period. And that was fine. He’d made a habit of not needing or being needed by anyone. He’d learned that lesson the day Stephanie had ran off with another guy, one who could give her all Javy had promised and more.

“Oh, really?” Anna challenged. “Then why were you going to call her?”

His mind went completely blank. He was unable to explain—or deny—his urge to call Emily. Fortunately, Anna’s phone rang before he had a chance to respond…or admit he had nothing to say in his defense.

His cousin immediately flipped her phone open. “Hello? Oh, I see. Yes, I’ll let my client know.”

She talked for a moment more before disconnecting the call and taking her sweet time putting her cell away. “That was the seller’s agent.” Disappointment filled Anna’s expression. “The couple has made an offer.”

When Emily had promised her parents she would take a day or two to think about the town house before making a final decision, she hadn’t realized how those days would crawl by.

Sitting in the living room, she flipped through a magazine, which couldn’t keep her attention from wandering. If she didn’t take this chance now, where would she be one, two, ten years from now? Emily had the sinking feeling she’d still be
where she was right then, living with her parents and watching her life tick by.

When the doorbell rang, Emily jumped to her feet, the magazine falling to the floor. She scooped it up and tossed it onto the couch before rushing down the hall. She’d welcome any excuse to break the monotony, but as she neared the carved wooden door, Javy’s face flashed in front of her eyes. Which was crazy. He hadn’t even called; there was no reason to think he’d suddenly show up at the house.

But when she turned the door handle, her heart refused to listen to her head. Her heartbeat quickening in anticipation, she met the gaze of a young woman in a delivery uniform. Thinking the disappointment her due for setting her hopes far too high, Emily signed for the package and closed the door. She glanced at the return address and felt her stomach sink even further.

As part of the wedding reception, Kelsey had taken old photos of Emily and Todd to an audiovisual specialist to create a program meant to play throughout the night. Kelsey’s friend had promised to return the photos, and that must be what was inside the envelope printed with the words “Do Not Bend.”