Michele Dunaway - Sweeping The Bride Away

“You must be so grateful, Cassidy, to have sold this albatross. I’d imagine it gives you terrible memories, especially with your father divorcing your mother clear out of the blue like that after what, thirty-seven years of marriage? No wonder she took off for Cannes. I’d do the same. Not that my Ed would ever leave me. Some marriages are just meant to last. But I’ve always been lucky. I hope your mother isn’t taking too much of a loss on the property. She should have fetched quite a price for this neighborhood, especially selling it furnished like that.”

Cassidy’s smile tightened. Next-door neighbors for almost twenty-five years, Cassidy’s mother had always said that if Senator Ed Morris had thought divorcing his wife was less of a liability than was keeping her, then the tactless Lillian would have already been history.

Cassidy opened the front door. The elderly inspector standing between the columns looked like a smaller version of Santa Claus. Cassidy sighed. He seemed harmless enough. Grateful for the welcome diversion from Lillian and the already insane wedding planning, she bade him to come in without shooing Lillian out. Right after that, Cassidy discovered that not getting rid of Lillian was mistake number two.

FOUR HOURS LATER Cassidy tossed her handbag onto the wooden bar. It landed with a thump, nearly knocking the half-empty bowl of peanuts off the other side. She ignored the curious look crossing the face of the man seated to her right.

“Bud Light.” The words coming from her lips sounded foreign to her own ears.

But the bartender simply nodded as if dodging flying peanuts was the norm, and without a word of judgment, she took a beer from the cooler, removed the top and handed over the longneck bottle.

Cassidy placed the cold brown glass to her lips and took a long slow slip of the golden liquid. Normally she avoided beer, but today an ice-cold one sounded like just the medicine she needed. Besides, it would serve her fiancé and his silly mother right. When she was with them she only drank wine, for in their “crowd” domestic beer was frowned upon as something bourgeois. As if millions of Americans who tossed cold ones back every night could be wrong.

Oh well, drinking beer could be mistake number three in her perfectly ordered world. With satisfaction Cassidy mulled over that thought. After all, what else could happen?

Thanks to Lillian’s inane prattle to the building inspector, which caused him to find even more code violations to cite, Cassie now had a multitude of problems all needing to be repaired by the home closing date in just two weeks’ time. If the code violations weren’t fixed, the house sale couldn’t be completed, and she couldn’t take a well-deserved vacation and close on her cute new condo in Clear Lake.

Cassidy took another long sip. The building inspector hadn’t missed a thing. She had to do everything from painting to fixing a cracked concrete pad under a screened-in porch.

Closing her eyes, Cassidy again let the cool liquid slide down her throat. Perfect. She opened her eyes. At least this one thing was what she needed, which was good because right now the rest of her life was absolutely falling apart.

And, of course, Sara wasn’t on time, and that was after Cassidy, preparing for her former college roommate’s perpetual lateness, had arrived fifteen minutes past their designated meeting time of seven o’clock. There was nothing Cassidy hated more than sitting in a bar by herself.

Making the best of it, she took another long swallow and drummed her manicured fingernails on the bar as she surveyed the place Sara had picked out. “No one will know you there,” Sara had said after Cassidy had called her in the throes of desperation. Now after seeing the place for herself, Cassidy couldn’t agree more. As an image consultant, she’d helped some of Houston’s elite refine their images, and this wasn’t where anyone worth their salt would ever be caught dead.

At least it wasn’t smoky, although that was about all it had going for it. There was no question that the place was a dive. The wooden tables had seen better days, the chairs were vinyl, and the waitress sported a tattoo under her Harley-Davidson T-shirt. All that was missing was sawdust covering the floor and musicians behind chicken wire.

“You know, most people at least try to relax when they come into a bar.”

Cassidy turned toward the deep silken tone coming from the man seated to her right. Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Excuse me?”

“Perhaps, as long as you relax a little,” he said, his drawl rolling over her in waves. He grinned, and inwardly Cassidy groaned. Not another one.

Ever since she’d been a cheerleader in high school she’d attracted the wrong type of men like a refrigerator door attracted magnets. But at least this one was attractive. More than attractive.

From where he was sitting on the stool, he looked as if he would tower over her by at least a foot. His body was lean and wiry, and his shoulders were wide and broad. She liked that. Too bad his upper body was covered by a T-shirt that looked as if had been laundered too many times.

He twisted his beer in his hand, and Cassidy shivered despite herself. Maybe the air-conditioning inside the bar was set too high.

“Can I buy you another one?” Without waiting for her answer, he gestured to the bartender.

As he smiled again, Cassidy immediately gave him credit for having wide sensual lips, twinkling dimples and a roman nose that wasn’t too long. Too bad she wasn’t interested in men with dark-brown eyebrows and eyelashes, no matter how deep and sensual his greenish-blue eyes. Bedroom eyes. For that’s what they were, given the blood racing in her body. She made a show of studying her fingernails.

No, she told herself, as she tried to ignore the man’s magnetism, her fiancé Dan suited her just fine. At five-eight Dan only stood two inches taller than she. She could look Dan right in the eye. Plus he was always impeccably tailored, and his profession allowed him to keep his hands clean, unlike the man next to her, whose cuticles looked as if they’d recently seen some hard washing with Fast Orange.

Besides, she rationalized, she’d been dating Dan for more than two years now, and that was after they’d been friends forever. He’d been the boy next door of her childhood, and no one had been surprised when he’d proposed to her with a flawless diamond in the middle of the annual Morris New Year’s Eve party. Even better, Dan was easy, comfortable, not at all unsettling like the man seated next to her.

She hadn’t been this unsettled since—She brushed that thought aside. In college she’d learned that burning passion did just that—burn you and leave you singed.

Still, Cassidy had been raised in the spirit of Texan hospitality, and the man had just bought her a beer. She gave him a courteous smile and made her tone politely neutral. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” He shrugged, as if it were a gesture he made all the time. “You look like you had a hard day.”

It had been hard, but Cassidy was loath to tell him that. She’d learned long ago not to engage men in bars with idle chitchat. It always gave them the wrong ideas. Besides, would the man really care about her problems?

Doubtful. Even Dan didn’t think the fact that Cassidy’s parents were divorcing after thirty-seven years of marriage was a big deal. After all, her well-to-do parents had been estranged for years. Her mother just hadn’t looked the other way this time.

“Cat got your tongue,” he observed. He signaled the bartender. “Bring me my regular, okay, Dee?”

“Sure, Blade,” she replied with a warm smile.

“My dinner,” he offered, seeing Cassidy’s look.

Cassidy nodded benignly and pinned her gaze to the door. Just where was Sara, anyway? She was never this late.