I'd watched Astrid build it from the outside—every panicked phone call, every time she called me from her bathroom to ask what to wear like she'd never owned clothes before, every Wednesday I sat on her kitchen stool eating a sandwich and pretending I couldn't see his truck across the street.
I told her she deserved someone who would fight for her, and I meant every word of it. I meant every word of the toast I was going to give tomorrow about how Astrid Matthews was the bravest person I knew because she let herself be loved when it would have been easier to run.
I meant it for her. I couldn't mean it for myself.
I wanted what they had. I wanted it completely, involuntarily, the way you want something you've trained yourself to stop reaching for—with the full understanding that wanting it was the most dangerous thing I could do. Because wanting leads to needing, and needing leads to the kitchen at eleven o'clock, the phone on the counter, the empty chair. I knew where that road ended.
So I stopped watching.
I turned toward the back porch because I needed air. The maid of honor was allowed to step outside for one minute to check the chairs, the wine, or whatever smallest errand would justify leaving the room where her best friend was, proof that need didn't always end the way it ended in my mother's kitchen.
The bungalow's back steps were narrow and uneven. My heels were made for standing, not for navigating century-old staircases. I should have taken them off, but taking them off meant admitting the night was winding down, and the maid of honor doesn't clock out until the last guest leaves.
The first step was fine. On the second, the heel caught between the boards.
I pitched forward. My hand went for the railing and missed. My center of gravity was gone before I could correct it, and then a hand closed around my elbow—firm, fast, low enough to catch my balance without pulling me off my feet. I grabbed his forearm on reflex, my fingers wrapping around muscle and warmth, and for one second, my entire weight was held by a man I'd not asked to catch me.
Duke steadied me, letting the momentum settle. He held on for one beat past necessary—his palm against the inside of my elbow, his fingers warm through the fabric of my sleeve—and then let go.
"Graceful, Callahan."
I straightened my dress. My skin was still registering where his hand had been. "I had it."
"You had the ground. I prevented the introduction."
"Don't you have a story to go tell someone?"
He stepped back, hands in his pockets, the grin in place. "Just making sure the maid of honor makes it to tomorrow. Self-interest."
"Goodnight, Rhodes."
"Night, Callahan."
He went inside. I stayed on the porch, hands on the railing, letting the cool air settle over my arms and my neck.
The spot on my elbow was still warm.
His hand had been on my arm for two seconds. Maybe three. I was still counting.
I went back inside. Cleared plates. Topped off Astrid's mother's water. Duke was at the fireplace again, finishing a story I'd missed. He caught my eye across the room and raised his beer a quarter inch—a salute, or a truce, or nothing at all—and I looked away.
One more day. The wedding, the toasts, the send-off, and the best man and the maid of honor would go back to opposite sides of a town small enough to share but big enough to avoid each other in. One more day, and I would never have to deal with Duke Rhodes again.
CHAPTER 2
Duke
Easton Ford was getting married in an hour, and I couldn't get the tie right.
The knot kept coming out crooked. The silk was a dusty blue-gray Audrey had picked, something with a name I'd never bothered to learn, and I'd been standing at the dresser mirror in the bungalow's spare bedroom for five minutes, working it loose and starting over.
I could start an IV on a kid in a moving rig without flinching. I couldn't tie a tie.
Through the window, I could hear the day coming together. The caterer had the kitchen. The band was on the back porch running a sound check that was mostly a guy sayingone twointo a microphone at intervals. Mendoza had hauled the chairs over in the bay truck at six and set them up in rows, eight across, twelve deep, with the aisle of grass running down the middle to the arch he'd built over the winter. The roses on the arch had come in pink.
I pulled the tie apart and started over.
I'd been trying to get Easton Ford to go on a date for the better part of a year before Astrid came home.
