The music shifts, and Collin spins Noli around in his arms and grins at her. “Hey! It’s our song!”
I arch my brow at my baby sister as she sets down her drink at the bar.
“Since when is ‘Get Low’ your song?” I ask.
“Since Collin told a reporter that it was what made him fall in love with me.”
“Now’s my chance to prove to you I knew exactly what I was talking about.” He kisses her jaw. “Dance with me.”
I glance away at the aching sweetness of it all, looking back in time to see Noli with a wide smile on her face, shimmying her way onto the dance floor.
Good for her.
Good for Collin.
Good for Poppy and Mack.
This is all good.
My mind conjures up a crystal-clear image of the face of a man I fell for years ago. I can practically hear his delicious European accent ringing in my ears. We were too young. I was too young. Our circumstances…polar opposites. He was a job. Nothing more. Nothing less. I should never have let myself get involved beyond that. Feelings are messy. Dangerous. Someone could have gotten seriously hurt. It was never meant to be.
I close my eyes and demand my brain to scrub it—scrubhim—from my memory.
When I blink my eyes open, I survey the dance floor again. The DJ transitions to a love song, and couples are pairing off while the singles flock toward me where I’m standing in front of the open bar. I shift off to the side to let them pass.
Mack’s brother, Holland, a professional golfer, is holding court at the end of the bar. He’s surrounded by what feels like half of Cashmere Cove. There’s a beautiful woman with a scowl on her face standing outside the circle.
I nod at her as I pass by and skirt the dance floor, heading for the tables that are tucked to the outside of the room. The high heels that are hidden by my velvet, rust-colored, floor-length bridesmaid dress are killing me.
I’m eyeing a chair like it’s a fountain in the middle of the desert when I see a familiar—and not welcome—figure lurking in the open stairwell that leads down to the granary museum.
I grit my teeth and change course, cursing my shoes and, more so, him for showing up tonight. I don’t stop as I walk by him. I know he’ll follow.
“What are you doing here?” I say, whirling around to face him in a darkened corner of the stairwell.
“My oldest daughter is getting married. You thought I wasn’t going to show up and see that she was well taken care of for myself?”
I shake my head. “You forfeited the right to care about Poppy, Noli, and me a long time ago, Dad. Now tell me why you’re here so I can tell you to leave.”
I look unflinchingly into the blue eyes of my father—a man who I have incredibly mixed feelings about. I feel a migraine coming on.
“I told you, I came to see Poppy.”
“She doesn’t want to see you.” I’m certainly not about to let him barge in on Poppy’s wedding day. Not after she shouldered the entirety of his abandonment for the better part of our lives.
My father has enough of a conscience to look wounded at my comment, but I don’t let myself care about hurting his feelings. He could have handled things so differently.
“I’m going to ask one more time. What do you want?” It’s always something.
More times than I can count, do I wish I would have turned around and walked the other way the first time—when he showed up in my life again, the day of my high school graduation.
But I didn’t. And here we are. I know him well enough to know he’s got ulterior motives.
He sighs. “There’s been a development.”
The skin on the back of my neck stands up. I don’t respond. Instead, I wait silently for him to go on.
“A past threat has resurfaced, and our intelligence shows that it’s even more credible this time.”
