Abby Gaines - Her Best Friend's Wedding

She took a step away, then turned. “So who is visiting your mom?”

“None of your business. Though you’d be very interested,” he taunted.

It really was the minister, here to talk about weddings.

“Sadie? You okay? You’ve gone white.”

“Huh?” She blinked.

Trey cursed. He grabbed her hand and led her around the front of the house, where he pushed her down onto the porch swing. “I always thought it was a good thing your parents sent you to genius school—it stopped you turning out like Meg’s scatterbrained friends,” he said. “But you grew up a hell of a weird woman.”

Just what Sadie needed—another reminder she didn’t fit in. And she didn’t believe that backhanded compliment, since he’d dated several of Meg’s “scatterbrained” friends.

“Just tell me who’s visiting your mom.” Her voice wobbled. I’m losing my grip. She grasped the edge of the swing seat as if it was an extension of her sanity.

“I would have thought you’d recognize that LeSabre.”

She held her breath, waiting for the ax to fall.

His knee nudged the swing, setting it rocking. “The minister’s car, remember?”

“The minister is visiting your mom?” It came out high-pitched.

“Not him, his wife.” He left the railing to sit next to her, disrupting the swing’s motion.

Sadie planted her feet on the porch, stilling the swing. “The minister’s wife is visiting with your mom.”

“That’s what I said.” He rubbed his chin. “For a girl who got the highest SATs I know of and won a full scholarship to Princeton from the Outstanding Tennesseans Foundation, you’re kinda slow.”

“I just took a blow to the head.” She scowled and rubbed the sore spot where she’d collided with the window.

He grinned, and it made him look like the quarterback again.

“So why is the minister’s wife here?” she asked.

“Mom’s paying her to do the flowers for the lunch on Sunday. There’s a list of jobs a mile long for the likes of you and me, so Mom thought she’d need the help.”

Nancy had been an active member of the community her whole life, and her sixtieth birthday was a two-day event—the Saturday-night barbecue for “family,” which included the Beechams, and a lunch for her wide circle of friends, as well as family, on Sunday.

Two events where Sadie would have to watch Meg and Daniel canoodling, and fool everyone into believing she didn’t care. “It’s great we can all celebrate Nancy’s birthday with her,” she said, reminding herself of the one positive in all of this.

Trey sobered. He scuffed the porch with his shoe. “Yeah.”

Five years ago his mother had suffered a stroke. Fairly severe, but she’d recovered faster than the doctors expected, with only a barely discernible limp and a slight slowness of speech to show for it.

Sadie cleared her throat. “What do you think of Daniel?”

“Nice guy, far as I could tell.”

“He’s not Meg’s usual type, though, is he?” She twisted to face Trey. He was sitting closer than she realized, and she ended up looking right at his lips. Which made her think about Daniel and that kiss…

He grimaced. “Sadie, I think I know the real reason you were skulking around tonight.”

She pressed her hand to her mouth, but not fast enough to prevent a mortified cry escaping.

“I have to tell you—” he drew back and the swing creaked “—there’s no point.”

She closed her eyes. Please, make him stop.

“I know you got dumped recently….”

Her eyes flew open. Her mom had told the whole world about her supposed breakup?

“But—” Trey spread his hands in a gesture of regret “—I’m not interested.”

It took a second for his words to pierce her humiliation. “You think I was spying on you? That I like you?”

She couldn’t decide if she was relieved he hadn’t guessed the truth or outraged at his inflated opinion of his own charms.

He shrugged. “I find it hard to believe this trespassing incident is about your curiosity over who visits my mom. I figure you’re looking for a distraction from your broken heart.”

“Did my mother really say I got dumped?” she demanded.

He winced. “Uh, I heard it from Mom. Maybe she just said it was a breakup. The point is, Sadie, even if you weren’t my sister’s best friend, practically family, I’d never date—”

“—a geek like me,” she finished. It wasn’t just her own family who insisted on making her feel like an outsider. She stood up. “You’ve been in Cordova too long, Trey. Out in the big wide world, people don’t get hung up on labels that—”

“Whoa.” His eyes glinted as he looked up at her. “I was going to say I’d never date someone on the rebound.”

“Oh. Right.” Time to put an end to this discussion before she laid out all her insecurities for his scrutiny. Sadie took a step backward, and her ankle bumped the iron swing stand, hard.

“Ouch!” She reached down to rub her ankle, exposing more of her midriff to Trey. Which he would probably interpret as an attempt at seduction. “You don’t have to worry about my interest in you,” she said. “Like the male worker ant, it doesn’t exist.”

“What?” He stood, and as she was barefoot, he had more inches on her than she remembered.

“All worker ants are female,” she explained.

“Is this your convoluted way of saying you weren’t spying on me?”

“Exactly,” she said, relieved.

His brow relaxed and he chuckled. “You might need to simplify things if you want to be understood by the folks around here, Ms. Sadie.” His deep voice lengthened to a country drawl.

She rolled her eyes. “This discussion is unproductive—”

“Like the male worker ant,” he suggested helpfully.

“—so I’m leaving.” She hobbled across the porch on her sore foot. “Good night, Trey.”

He dropped back onto the swing. “I don’t know about good,” he reflected, “but you sure made it more interesting.”

“Glad one of us enjoyed it,” Sadie muttered.

IT HAD BEEN A sweltering day, and now with Gerry Beecham’s famous gin-and-juniper-marinated pork chops sizzling on the grill alongside a mustard-coated beef fillet and a ton of hot dogs for the kids, Saturday night in the Beechams’ backyard was hot as fire.

Trey flipped the hot dogs Gerry had asked him to keep an eye on; only Gerry himself felt qualified to prod the chops or the fillet. Everyone had worked hard today—dividing along strict gender lines into cooks and cleaners, or handymen—to get ready for tomorrow’s lunch. Now they were enjoying a well-earned evening of relaxation.

Trey rubbed the back of his neck. The heat was bringing him out in hives. Or maybe it wasn’t the heat, maybe it was all this togetherness. He was trying to spend less time with his family, not more. He was happy to celebrate his mom’s birthday, but this kind of gathering—full of married couples talking about their kids and their camping vacations and their SUVs—was the worst.

His gaze tracked his mom, talking to her cousin and Mary-Beth, then his flighty sister, standing next to sturdy Dr. Daniel. In Meg’s case, a dose of suburbia would be a good thing. An excellent thing.

Trey didn’t need to look farther to know exactly where Sadie was, which he found slightly disconcerting. She was his kid sister’s sensible best friend, part of the wallpaper of his life—and like wallpaper, he generally didn’t notice her.

But this weekend…something was off about Sadie. She wasn’t herself. Different enough that he couldn’t ignore her. Which was how he knew she’d spent the past fifteen minutes jiggling her baby nephew on one hip while explaining plant reproduction to a bunch of kids, using Mary-Beth’s prize-winning Golden Spangles camellia for demonstration.