Make-Believe Wedding (Montana Born Brides Book 9) Read online

  It could have been a lot worse. There could have been an announcement in the paper, for example, and everyone in town might have found out about it. She shuddered, imagining how bad that would have been. Fortunately, however, the mess she’d created was containable, the damage limited. Heath was absolutely right when he said that the guys would forget about it over the weekend, and even if one or two of them remained curious, it would be easy enough to write it off as a clerical error or practical joke.

  She let out another sigh, then reached for her phone, calling her neighbor, Lily, who also happened to be her best friend.

  “I need copious quantities of alcohol and someone who won’t judge me,” she said when her friend picked up.

  “I know just who to call,” Lily said.

  Andie smiled. Trust Lily to make her feel better right out of the gate.

  “I can meet you at Grey’s in twenty,” Lily said.

  “Done. I’ll be the one in the corner, hiding my face in shame.”

  “I can probably make it in fifteen. Don’t do anything stupid before I get there.”

  “Too late.”

  “Then have a drink waiting for me. My day has also sucked big hairy ones.”

  Andie was still smiling as she ended the call. Growing up, she’d had a couple of close female friends, but both Joelle and Skylar had moved away for college and not come back. They tried to keep in contact with phone calls and Skype sessions, but there had been a profound vacuum in Andie’s life until Lily moved into the apartment next to hers four years ago. She’d come over on the first night to ask for directions to the nearest bar, and they’d been fast friends ever since.

  Thank God, because sometimes Lily’s irreverent, mouthy take on the world was the only thing that kept Andie sane.

  Being Friday, it was hard to find a parking spot near Grey’s Saloon, but Andie got lucky when someone pulled out and she was soon walking into the crowded bar. She got even luckier when she spotted a couple exiting a booth in the back corner. Slipping through the crowd, she managed to get there before any other eagle-eyed patrons, offering up an apologetic smile to a couple of also-rans as she slid onto the bench seat.

  “Andie Bennett. What can I do you for?” Reese Kendrick asked, leaning over to wipe down the table as he waited for her order.

  “I’ll have a beer and a pitcher of margaritas, thanks,” Andie said. “And some spicy chicken wings. Oh, and some curly fries.”

  “Big day, huh?” he asked with an amused quirk of his eyebrow.

  “You have no idea.”

  He flashed a smile at her before heading back to the bar. She stared after him, wondering why she couldn’t have fallen for him, or one of the other eligible men who populated the town of Marietta. Anyone else, really, other than Heath McGregor. Reese was a good-looking guy. He’d even flirted with her one or two times. Granted, that had probably been professional flirting, the kind designed to get women to buy more drinks and leave good tips, but still, it had been flirting. And yet she didn’t feel a thing when she looked into his eyes or when he smiled at her.

  All Heath had to do was brush past her, or laugh at one of her jokes, or sling his arm around her shoulders, and she was gone. Her body on fire, her heart rate through the roof, every nerve ending screaming for more.

  It wasn’t fair. It truly wasn’t, but it had been that way since she was thirteen years old. One day, Heath had simply been her brother’s cool best friend, the one who taught her how to tie a six-turn San Diego jam and who always had time to talk with her, the next he was the sun, the moon and the stars. She didn’t know how or why the transition had happened, it just had, and she’d never gotten over it or transferred her affections to someone else. And it wasn’t as though she hadn’t tried.

  In her senior year of high school, she’d gone out with Jacob Paine for almost eight months. He’d liked her, she’d liked him, and it had been clear to her by then that Heath did not consider her a real woman or a romantic prospect in any way. So she’d settled. Jacob was fun, he looked good, he was into her. They dated, fooled around. The night of prom, she gave him her virginity, because it seemed like it was about time to be done with the damned thing and because she liked him a lot.

  Jacob had naturally wanted to parlay that one night into more, but after a few weeks, Andie had known she couldn’t continue to fool herself or him. Her heart was otherwise engaged, and even though she was as inexperienced as any other near-virgin, she’d known that she should probably feel something more than a little flushed and warm when she was naked with a man. She’d ended the relationship and Jacob had moved on while Andie remained stuck.

  Her drinks arrived at the same time as Lily, who slid onto the bench opposite in a wash of floral perfume.

  “Perfect timing,” Lily said, reaching for the pitcher of margaritas and pouring herself a huge drink. Flicking her straight dark hair back over her shoulder, she downed it in one big, long swallow.

  “Wow. You weren’t kidding about your day sucking, were you?” Andie said.

  “I quit.”

  “Lily.” Andie’s smile dropped like a rock and she reached across the table to take her friend’s hand. “What did he do?”

  Because she knew it had to be something to do with Lily’s sleazy, grabby boss. She’d been hearing stories about him for months now, and together they’d formulated strategies for her friend to avoid him, deflect him, repel him. Nothing had worked. And now, it seemed, things had come to a head.

  “He tried to corner me in his office.”

  “And?”

  “I kneed him so hard he may not be able to father children.” ”That’s okay, he already has three with his wife of twenty years,” Andie pointed out dryly. “Are you okay?”

  Lily pulled a face. “Sexual harassment isn’t my favorite office past-time.”

  “You should sue him,” Andie said.

  “I should, but I’m not going to, because I don’t have money for a lawyer.” Lily sighed, her shoulders sinking lower. “And now I need to get my CV out there again. Damn it.”

  “Please let me talk to Beau about a job,” Andie said.

  She’d been trying to encourage Lily away from Mr. Grabby’s employ for months now, offering to fix her up with her brother’s security company. She was sure Beau would be able to find a position for Lily if Andie asked him to.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he doesn’t like me, and I don’t want to be in his debt,” Lily said stubbornly.

  “Beau doesn’t not like you,” Andie said. “He barely knows you.”

  “Come on, Andie. He doesn’t like that I used to be a stripper. It’s in his eyes every time he looks at me.”

  “I don’t see that.”

  “That’s because you’re not looking hard enough. Anyway, enough about me. You were the one who lit the bat signal. Make me feel better about my sucky day by telling me about your sucky day.” Lily refilled her glass and folded her hands in front of her like a schoolkid waiting expectantly in class. Even though Andie wasn’t finished with the topic of her brother helping Lily out, she very badly needed the balm of her friend’s sympathy right now, so she launched into a retelling of her disastrous afternoon, carefully skirting around certain details to avoid incriminating herself.

  Lily gasped in all the appropriate places like the good friend she was, her eyes wide with horror, and Andie was already feeling better by the time she was explaining how she’d left things with Heath.

  “Okay. Your bad day officially tops my bad day,” Lily said. “What a monumental screw-up. How on earth could the Chamber of Commerce get things so ass backwards?”

  Andie downed the last of her beer. She’d been very vague about the accidentally-entering-the-wedding-giveaway part of the story, hoping her friend would conveniently accept her sketchy version.

  “That was my fault, actually. Remember the Valentine’s Day ball? There was this woman handing out entry forms near the end of the night,
desperate for more entries, and I was drunk. I looked up, Heath was the first person I saw, so I stuck his name on the entry form as a joke.”

  “But surely you had to do more than put someone’s name down to be entered in the giveaway?” Lily looked perplexed.

  “I made up some stuff. Like I said, I was plastered.” She shrugged, hoping her friend would let the issue go.

  But Lily’s pansy-brown eyes remained steady on Andie for a long, long moment. So long that Andie had to fight the need to squirm in her seat.

  “What’s wrong? Do I have a beer moustache?” Andie asked, brushing her upper lip with her fingers.

  “I’m trying to work out if I should let you get away with that sad ass story, or if I should call you on the fact that you have the world’s biggest crush on Heath McGregor,” Lily said.

  Andie almost fell off the bench. “What? No. Where are you getting that from?” She was powerless to stop the color flooding into her face, however. “Heath is like my brother. And he’s my boss. Did you take crazy pills today or something? I mean, me and Heath. Pfffft.” Andie waved a hand as if batting away her friend’s insane idea.

  “Andie, I love you dearly, but you are not going to be in the running for an Academy Award any time soon,” Lily said. “I’ve known how you feel about Heath for about two years now. Give or take. I’ve just been waiting for you to get around to admitting it to me.”

  Andie stared at her friend. “Two years? You’ve known for two years and you haven’t said anything?” ”Hey, it’s your deep, dark secret, not mine. We all have our skeletons in the closet, and I am a big respecter of skeletons.”

  Andie let her gaze drop to the table, feeling horribly exposed. There was a reason she’d never confessed her feelings to anyone else before. Then something occurred to her, and she lifted her gaze.

  “It’s not a crush,” she said.

  “Sweetie, you practically maul the man with your eyes when you think no one is looking.”

  “It’s not a crush,” Andie said stubbornly. If she was going to feel exposed, it might as well be for the truth. “I love him.”

  “Oh, Andie.” Lily’s voice was heavy with sadness. “I thought—I hoped—it was just a lust thing.”

  “No. I mean, it is, but it’s more than that. It’s lust and love. I want to jump him so much it hurts, but I want to spend the rest of my life with him, too.” It was hard saying it, but Andie also felt a strange sense of relief and release. She’d been sitting on these feelings for years.

  Lily didn’t respond immediately, instead pouring a decent slug of margarita mix into Andie’s empty beer glass and pushing it toward Andie.

  “What are you doing?” Andie asked.

  “Preparing you.” She reached across the table and caught both Andie’s hands in hers. “What I am about to say may seem harsh and cruel, but I want you to know that it’s said with so much love. So much.”

  “Okay,” Andie said warily.

  “All right, here we go. Brace yourself. If Heath were interested in you, he would have made a move by now. He sees you every day. You guys go camping together. He’s had opportunities up the whazoo, Andie. And the man hasn’t so much as glanced at you with carnal intent.”

  Andie waited for Lily to continue, but she appeared to be done.

  “That’s it?” Andie clarified.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, okay.” Andie smiled, relieved.

  “You’re smiling after I just crushed your hopes and dreams?” Lily asked, incredulous.

  “I know all that stuff. I’ve known it for years.”

  Lily looked baffled. “So… wow, I’m really confused now. So if you’re not holding out hope of Heath having a hallelujah moment, then why did you get all gussied up for the Valentine’s Day ball?”

  Andie narrowed her eyes. She’d begged Lily to come to the dance with her, but her friend had claimed the tickets were too expensive. Hence Andie being free to make a complete fool of herself that night without the intervention of a level-headed wingwoman.

  “Is that why you wouldn’t come to the ball with me?” Andie asked. “Because you didn’t want to encourage me?”

  “No. I didn’t go because it was too damned expensive. But I knew why you were going. You were hoping for a Pretty Woman moment.”

  There was no point denying it—that was exactly what Andie had been hoping for. But that didn’t mean she was deluded where Heath was concerned. She was in love with him, and a part of her still hoped every day that he might return her feelings—but that part was infinitesimally small. Microscopic, really. The rest of her—the overwhelming majority of her—knew it was futile, hopeless, pointless to love him.

  “I know the score,” Andie said slowly, trying to explain. “But every now and then—once every five years or so—I have a moment where hope overrides common sense and I do something stupid… And then I get things under control again and life goes on.”

  “Jesus, Andie, that is so freaking sad,” Lily said, taking a slug from her glass and blinking rapidly.

  “Don’t cry for me, Lily, for God’s sake. I’m not that pathetic.”

  “You’re not pathetic at all. You’re smart and funny and brave and hot. I would totally be all over you if I were a lesbian. Or if I had a penis. It just kills me that Heath can’t see all that and that he has no idea what a freaking treasure he has sitting right under his nose.”

  “Oh.” Now Andie was the one blinking, trying not to cry. “Thanks.”

  “You need to get past this, Andie.”

  “I know.”

  “We need to find some hot new guy for you to fall for. Someone who will blow Heath McGregor out of the water.”

  Andie nodded, but she could feel her forehead wrinkling. Heath was extremely hot, with his dark, curly hair and big hard body and deep chocolate eyes. It was going to take a seriously molten level of hotness to surpass him.

  “I know, we’ve got our work cut out for us,” Lily said, reading her mind as only a best friend can. “But it’s doable. I know it is.”

  Andie was about to respond when a shadow fell over the table and she glanced up to see Sharon Martin standing there, hands on her hips, her pretty face contorted into a frown.

  “Tell me it isn’t true,” Sharon said, her green eyes bright with strong emotion.

  “Hi, Sharon. Long time no see,” Andie said, shooting Lily a look. Not for nothing had they called Sharon ‘The Nutbar’ the whole three months Heath had been dating her last year. The woman couldn’t order a cup of coffee without turning it into a three ring circus.

  “Is it true, or not, Andie? Are you and Heath engaged or not?” Sharon demanded, her voice razor sharp and loud enough to carry.

  Andie blinked, her stomach lurching with sudden alarm. “Wh-where did you hear that?”

  “It’s all over town, people saying that you two are semi-finalists in the wedding giveaway. But I figured it had to be a mistake, because there’s no way on earth Heath McGregor would marry you when he wouldn’t marry me.”

  Lily gasped at the other woman’s rudeness. “You want to think for a moment about what you just said, Sharon?”

  “I want answers, that’s what I want. Are you pregnant, Andie? Is that how you trapped him into marriage? Don’t you have any pride at all?”

  Sharon was speaking so loudly, half the saloon could hear, and Andie could feel people turning to stare and listen. Cold adrenalin washed through her, and for a moment all she could do was stare at the other woman while her heart pounded thickly in her chest and warmth flooded into her face. Then Sharon’s words really hit her and her temper kicked in, welcome and hot, and her chin came up.

  “No, Sharon, I am not pregnant, not that that’s any business of yours.”

  “Then you must have done something to Heath, held some kind of gun to his head, because there is no way he’d asked someone like you to marry him when he could have had me.”

  Lily gasped again, and out of the corner of her eye Andie saw her fr
iend move.

  “I’ve got this,” Andie told her.

  She slid to the end of the booth and stood, making sure that Sharon had plenty of time to register the fact that Andie had a good eight inches on her.

  “You know nothing about Heath McGregor, Sharon, and you know nothing about me, so why don’t you quit making a fool of yourself and get out of my face?” Andie said.

  Someone hooted their approval of her fighting words, but Andie didn’t take her eyes from Sharon’s.

  “You really think you’re woman enough to hold onto a man like him? I give it two months, tops,” Sharon said contemptuously.

  Andie smiled slowly, insulted and furious in equal measures. How dare Sharon stand there and impugn Andie’s womanhood for all of Grey’s to hear? How dare she suggest that Andie was less-than, some kind of feeble, pathetic consolation prize?

  This bitch was going down.

  “Not woman enough? That’s not what Heath said last night in the car. And this morning in the shower. And the other day on the kitchen table. And it’s definitely not what he’s going to say tonight. You want to know what he does say, Sharon? That he can’t get enough. Ever.”

  For the first time Sharon looked uncertain, and Andie felt a surge of triumph.

  Then she glanced over the other woman’s shoulder and realized the bar was as quiet as a church, every eye and ear attuned to the war of words. Her gaze went from face to face, recognizing friends, neighbors, men who worked for her brother, sisters of her work colleagues…

  Holy crap.

  Talk about putting your foot in it.

  Her gaze found a too-familiar face at the bar, and her heart stopped. Heath stared back at her, his expression utterly unreadable, and time seemed to stand still as she understood that she was five seconds away from becoming the laughing stock of Marietta, Montana.

  Her stomach clenched painfully as Heath pushed away from the bar. The crowd seemed to part as he walked slowly, deliberately toward her.

  Oh, God. Why did I let my temper get away from me? Why did I have to say all those things? And why did he have to be here to hear them?