The Bridesmaid Page 3

  She knew he’d been looking.

  “What’s in there, anyway?” he asked.

  “In there? In there is the ugliest, most hideous, god-awful poufy piece of peach taffeta in the history of mankind. But I have to wear it or my cousin will die. And I’m not kidding.”

  Joe smiled. “Okay, then. Let’s get out of here, huh?”

  “Please,” she said primly, and slid very gracefully into the passenger seat of that stupidly small car, and stuffed her shoulder bag in at her feet.

  Joe walked around and wedged himself in again, then eased in front of another car.

  “I thought we could grab something to eat on the way out,” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

  “Oh, me too!” she said, sinking back into the passenger seat. “I tried to get some yogurt at the food court, but there is nothing left. Nothing! It’s like zombies went through and ate everything.”

  “Zombies don’t eat,” he said absently as he pulled into traffic.

  She looked at him as if she thought he was crazy. “What do you mean, they don’t eat?”

  “Zombies are dead,” he said. “They don’t eat. Haven’t you ever seen a zombie movie?”

  “No.”

  “No?” Joe had never known a single person who hadn’t seen a zombie movie, with the exception of his mother. It was practically a requirement for his generation, which he assumed Kate was part of. “You have to see a zombie movie. Just one. You can’t go an entire lifetime without it,” he said as they began to inch out of the terminal.

  She laughed. “I’ve made it twenty-eight years without seeing one.”

  Yeah, well, he would keep his opinions about that to himself. “So how are you at navigating?” he asked, and thrust the one-page map the rental counter had given him in her direction.

  She snatched it out of his hand and peered closely. “I happen to be pretty fantastic at navigating. Where are we?”

  He pointed to the terminal and the highway they’d be entering. Which they did, about fifteen minutes later, and began to zip along at a top speed of sixty-five miles an hour.

  They hadn’t gone far when Joe spied the Golden Arches. He veered off the highway and turned into McDonald’s.

  Kate looked up. Her mouth dropped open. “Wait—you’re not going here, are you?”

  “Yep,” he said, and pulled into a parking spot. “I’m hungry, remember?”

  “But not McDonald’s!”

  “What’s wrong with Mickey D’s?” Joe asked as he unbuckled his seat belt. He knew full well what was wrong with it—he’d had enough girlfriends to know that the nutritional values of the food were not in the acceptable range for sleek New York women.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No.”

  She gasped. “Calories! Fat!”

  He was too hungry to debate it. “You don’t look like you have to worry about that,” he said gruffly. “And besides, we don’t have time for a fine dining experience, remember? So—are you hungry?”

  Kate shifted forward and squinted out the front windshield at the restaurant. “Starving,” she muttered, and unbuckled her seat belt.

  A few minutes later, they were in the car again. Kate, Joe noticed, was wolfing down the burger she’d disdained. She happened to come up for breath and noticed his look of amusement. “Don’t judge me,” she warned him, and punctuated that with a big bite of burger.

  Joe laughed. He liked a woman who could eat. “Bon appétit,” he said as he started the car up and backed out of the parking space.

  Kate had polished off the burger and the fries she’d bought by the time they neared downtown Dallas and a dizzying display of highways in the sky, looping up and over each other. Just as they began to enter that mess, her phone rang.

  “Don’t answer it,” Joe said. “I’m not sure what road I’m supposed to take.”

  “45,” she said, and bent over, digging through her bag.

  “Come on, call them back,” he pleaded, but Kate already had the phone in hand.

  “Lisa!” she said cheerfully. “What’s up?”

  “I don’t see it. I don’t see 45,” he said.

  Kate pointed out the front window. “Left,” she whispered, and Joe wondered if she truly thought that was even remotely helpful.

  “Oh, did you hear? Yes, well, not to worry. I’m on my way to Houston right now. Supposedly, planes are still flying out of Houston. Huh? Oh, it’s close. Like an hour or something.”

  “It’s at least three hours,” Joe said.

  Kate waved her hand at him in a manner that Joe believed meant he was not to talk.

  “45,” he said to her. “Where is it?”

  “That’s another passenger,” Kate said into the phone. “Lisa, can you hold on one minute?” She covered the phone with her hand. “45 is a left exit. Left! And it says Houston in big white letters.”

  “You don’t have to be sarcastic,” he grumbled, and began the arduous task of slipping a tiny little car across five lanes of much faster and much thicker traffic. The sign, he noticed, did not say Houston.

  “So I’ll be there in plenty of time—” She paused. She bent her head, rubbed her forehead. “Okay, what did he say?” she asked, and listened attentively. After a few moments, she nodded and said, “Okay, listen, Lisa. Listen to me. Getting married is a big deal. He is probably just a little nervous, right? I mean, he wouldn’t have asked you to marry him if he didn’t love you and didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with you.”

  “Not necessarily,” Joe said.

  Kate gasped and jerked her wide-eyed gaze to him.

  He shrugged. “I’m just saying,” he said casually. “Sometimes, women will put unbelievable pressure on a guy to put a ring on it.”

  Kate’s brows suddenly dipped. She pressed a finger to her lips, and said, “He’s kidding. And who is he, anyway? But I know Kiefer, and I know he is crazy about you.” She glared at Joe once more. “What?” she suddenly cried. “God, Lisa, can you please not do anything crazy until I get there? Please? You always do this when you get stressed. You freak out about things that aren’t even real and make a mess! I will be there in less than twelve hours!” she said.

  Joe looked at her and winced a little. He thought she might be overselling things a little.

  But Kate glared again and pointed at him and mouthed the words, Not a word.

  “Okay, thank you,” Kate said into the phone. “Go get a massage or something. Just chill out. Relax. Where is Mom, anyway?”

  Kate stayed on the phone another couple of minutes, and finally hung up. When she did, she tossed her phone into her bag, folded her arms, and stared at him.

  Joe felt a prickly bit of heat under his collar. “What?”

  “You know what.”

  “I was just saying—”

  “You don’t say that to a bride forty-eight hours before her wedding!” Kate exclaimed, her hands moving wildly. “You don’t know her—she’s nuts. She can make mountains out of tiny little anthills without as much as a match.”

  That made absolutely no sense, but Joe wasn’t going to point that out. “So what did the groom say?” he asked.

  Kate moaned and sank back in her seat. “That he was feeling antsy,” she said. “Whatever that means.”

  Joe knew exactly what it meant. “It means he is feeling antsy. That’s it. I mean, think about it—he has to put on a monkey suit and stand up before a bunch of people and say things he wouldn’t say to his best friend, you know? That would make any guy antsy.” He should know. He once came dangerously close to it himself. Sort of close. He hadn’t actually asked Mona to marry him, but he’d thought about it, and just thinking about it had made him antsy.

  “That’s ridiculous. If you love someone, you ought to be able to say it. Like a grown-up.”

  “I am sure he can say it,” Joe said. “Like a grown-up. But why does he have to say it in a monkey suit?”

  “Ohmi—Forget it. Men are
so alike,” she muttered, and looked out her window.

  “Oh, and women aren’t?” he asked. “And by the way, while you were convincing your friend with cold feet to go ahead and take the plunge, you were not navigating. The sign we just passed said Tyler. Would you please look and tell me how far to Tyler?”

  “Tyler?” she repeated, and dug out the map. She studied it a moment, then glanced at him. “We’re going the wrong way.”

  “Wrong way!” he said disbelievingly.

  “We should be going south, not east.”

  Joe slapped his hand against the wheel. “Holy—”

  “You were supposed to get on 45. Why didn’t you get on 45? The sign said Houston; I don’t know how you missed it.”

  “I wasn’t the only one who missed it! You said left.”

  “Did I?” she said breezily.

  Joe sighed and began to look for an exit to turn around.

  They found their way onto Interstate 45… along with a million other people who probably had the same idea to catch a flight out of Houston. But at least they were moving. Joe checked the clock. It was almost three. If they could make it by six, they had a decent chance of getting out tonight, before the strike—

  “I need a bathroom,” Kate said.

  “Oh my god,” Joe muttered. “I thought you went at McDonald’s.”

  “I did! I have a small bladder.” She smiled sunnily, as if she were proud of it.

  This was going to be the longest drive of his life, Joe thought. No contest. He took the next exit.

  Chapter 4

  When Kate emerged from the bathroom at the Shell station, she felt sticky. It was overcast, warm, and very humid, which made it difficult to believe that a blizzard was engulfing half the country.

  Joe was leaning against the front bumper. He’d removed his tie and stripped down to shirtsleeves, which he’d rolled up. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his biceps, Kate could not help noticing, were bulging against the fabric of his shirt. What did he do, spend every spare minute in a gym?

  If a girl was going to be caught up in a catastrophe, it didn’t hurt to be caught up with a guy as handsome as Joe… Somebody. Even if he did exhibit some Typical Male-ish tendencies from time to time.

  But he looked good with his dark hair and blue eyes, and Kate, out of habit, smiled at him. Joe seemed surprised by her smile for some reason, and his gaze flicked over her face… lingering a moment too long on her mouth. “All better?” he asked.

  “Much. Are you ready?”

  “Baby, I was ready an hour ago,” he said casually, and pushed off the bumper of the rental car.

  “I’m just going to move my bag first,” Kate said as she walked to the passenger side of the car. “There’s not enough room for me and this.”

  She reached down to the floorboard and attempted to lift the bag with two hands, but it was wedged in.

  “Here, I’ll get it.”

  She hadn’t heard Joe come up behind her and abruptly straightened up and twisted about, knocking into him when she did. Yep. His body was as hard as a turtle shell, just like she’d guessed. She blinked up at him as he reached around her and lifted the bag out. He tossed it onto the floor behind the front passenger seat. “What is in that thing, anyway?” he asked as he walked around the back of the car to the driver’s side.

  “Work,” she said, sliding into the passenger seat.

  Joe started the car. “What kind of work?”

  “I am an editor,” Kate said proudly. “Well, assistant editor,” she amended. “But on track to be a full editor.”

  “What, like books?”

  No, like nursery rhymes. “Yes. Like books.”

  He glanced at her and smiled wryly. “You don’t have to say it like I am one step above a cow on the food chain.”

  “I didn’t say it like you were one step above a cow,” she said pertly, although she was aware that she had.

  “What kind of books?” he asked.

  Kate sat a little straighter in her seat as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Women’s fiction.”

  “Women’s fiction,” he repeated carefully. “Would that be fiction about women?”

  “It’s fiction about relationships. And love. That sort of thing.”

  Joe gave her a dubious look. “You mean romance novels,” he said, as if he’d just figured out a complicated puzzle. “What do they call them? Bodice rippers.” He laughed.

  “First of all, they are not only romance, and secondly, that is so ignorant,” Kate said. “It’s a cliché, and you wouldn’t say it if you actually bothered to read one.”

  “What makes you think I haven’t read one?”

  “Have you?” she demanded.

  “No!” he said with a laugh as if that was ridiculous. “I don’t read,” he added. “I mean, tech manuals, yes. But not books.” He laughed again as if the mere suggestion was ludicrous. “Especially not books about relationships. I’d rather watch sports.”

  “Do you know how primitive you sound right now?” Kate said.

  “Why? Because I would rather watch sports than read about other people having sex?” He winked at her. “See, I don’t need to read about it.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “And what do you do, Mr. Never Cracked a Book?”

  “Hey, I take issue with that,” he said with playful bravado. “I’ve cracked a few books in my time. I’m in technology, which—and this may surprise you—actually requires a fairly high level of reading comprehension. I create security systems for banks.”

  “Knew it,” Kate said pertly.

  “Knew what?”

  “That you were probably in something like technology.”

  “What’s that mean?” he asked. “Why did you think that?”

  He looked so genuinely surprised that Kate couldn’t help but laugh. “Because you’re like an IT guy. You know.”

  “No, I do not know,” he said waspishly. “I do not fit the stereotype, and frankly, I don’t know anyone in my field who does.”

  “So now you are offended by stereotypes?” Kate laughed. “That figures.”

  “What figures?”

  “You don’t like stereotypes. And I’m saying not all romance books fit the stereotype of bodice ripper, either.”

  Joe grinned. “Okay. Touché. I won’t judge a bodice ripper by its cover until I read one. Who knows? It could happen.”

  Kate laughed. “No, it couldn’t.”

  Joe grinned, too—a warm, charming smile—and winked at her. “You’re probably right. But I will reserve judgment just the same.”

  “Thank you,” she said graciously.

  “So tell me something, Kate. What is it about IT guys that get such a bad rap? I think we’re kind of fun, actually.”

  Kate didn’t get the chance to answer—her phone beeped. She picked it up and read the text message:

  Mom says air controller strike. Maybe good reason to call it off?

  “What is the matter with her?” Kate demanded of no one, and dialed Lisa’s number.

  “I knew you’d call,” Lisa said somberly.

  “What the hell, Lisa?” Kate said sternly. “Why are you suddenly so unsure of everything? Just two weeks ago you were telling me that Kiefer was the best thing that ever happened to you. Are you going to tell me that now, after four years, in the space of two weeks he has gone from perfect to you wanting to call it off?”

  “No! Sort of,” Lisa moaned. “I don’t know, Kate—I just have this bad feeling that he doesn’t really want to marry me.”

  “Why? Why why why?” Kate asked angrily.

  “Okay, like the other day,” Lisa said. “I was trying to get him to help me with the drink menu for the rehearsal dinner. I mean, it’s his responsibility, but do you think he has taken charge? Nooo. So I said, okay, this has to get done, and I sat down with him, and I said, ‘I’m going to help you, but we have to decide what we are serving. Do you like wine?’ And he was like, ‘I guess,’ and I said, ‘Okay, what
about liquor? Are we serving liquor? Because I don’t want everyone getting wasted before my wedding day, which means you, by the way—’”

  “Me?” Kate exclaimed.

  “No, no, not you. Kiefer. I said that to Kiefer, because you know how he is, Kate. You know. So anyway, he wouldn’t make any decisions at all and he finally said, ‘Why don’t you do it, Lisa? You’ve made up your mind.’ I mean, he was totally abdicating to me, like he has the whole way with this wedding. He wouldn’t help me decide about the church, or the flowers, or how big or small the guest list was. He just tells me to do it and then goes off and watches basketball. What does that say to you? It says to me he doesn’t really want to get married.”

  “Wow,” Kate said. “Yes, I agree he could be just a little more supportive of you. After all, this is his wedding, too,” she said. “But it sounds to me like he’s just being childish about it, and not that he doesn’t want to marry you. If he didn’t want to marry you, he’s the kind of guy who would tell you, don’t you think?” Kate looked to Joe for confirmation. He gave her an affirmative nod.

  “I don’t know,” Lisa said.

  “Well, I do. You’re overreacting. Just relax. Pick the drinks for the rehearsal dinner. Tell Kiefer you guys need to talk about things—”

  Joe suddenly shook his head, quite adamantly.

  “But later. Much later,” Kate added, and Joe nodded. “Right now, just focus on the wedding and how long you’ve been planning it, and how gorgeous you are going to be.”

  That seemed to appease Lisa. “You’re right. It is going to be beautiful, isn’t it? And I am going to be gorgeous. Did you just love the centerpieces? I can’t wait to see you in that dress, Kate.”

  Kate rolled her eyes heavenward.

  “Just be careful with it. That taffeta really wrinkles.”

  “I know,” Kate said patiently.

  “So when is your flight out?”

  “Ah…” Kate quickly debated telling Lisa the truth. She rubbed the nape of her neck. “I’m not sure yet. They are rerouting a lot of people. But I’ll let you know. So listen, I have to run—”

  “I just hope you get out before the air traffic controller strike, because that is the last thing I need to deal with,” Lisa said. “I cannot be without my maid of honor. I’d just as soon reschedule.”