If directions to your house include ‘Turn off the paved road’ …”
The line from Jeff Foxworthy’s famous comedy routine about rednecks ran through Jamie’s head as he turned off the narrow road—which barely qualified as paved—and onto a gravel drive that disappeared into the woods.
He should have accepted the ride out here that Bobby offered—let Bobby’s car get dinged up from the gravel. But Jamie wanted to leave his options open, just in case he felt the need to bolt. Which he was pretty sure he would.
Turning on his headlights, he slowed to a crawl, unable to see beyond the next curve, and with the dense canopy of branches and leaves overhead, little afternoon light broke through to help. Last thing he needed today was to wreck his car. Actually, if he wrecked the car and then got home later to find out his townhouse had burned down, he’d have hit the trifecta.
He hadn’t been this far out in the country since Mom sold the house outside Murfreesboro and sent Jamie to live with Cookie in her little cottage in the Crieve Hall area of Nashville. And though the house had been in a rural area, it had been surrounded by small farms, not out in the wilderness like this place—Bobby’s parents’ hunting cabin.
Seriously? They had their own hunting cabin? Jamie tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Must have been nice to grow up privileged and have everything handed to him. Cookie had worked long and hard hours as a nurse to support him after Mom left—
No. He wasn’t going to do this to himself tonight. He’d come to have a good time, to do something to try to get his mind off losing his job. He didn’t know what that something was, but he imagined out here that it would probably be something physical. And since he hadn’t gotten his run in this morning—though he could have gone after he got home from Cookie’s house—he needed some way to expend all his pent-up energy.
Light ahead—the end of the forest, or someone coming toward him? Not that it mattered; the encroaching trees left no margin for passing. He continued on slowly—and breathed a relieved sigh when he broke through the trees into a sun-drenched clearing.
The large yard surrounding the log cabin sent up a scent indicating it had been mowed today, and several cars already sat in a row on the gravel pad beside the cabin. He pulled up beside the farthest car, parked, and climbed out.
“Jamie, man, glad you could make it.” Bobby Patterson opened the side door at Jamie’s knock and then ushered him into the house. “I was kinda surprised when you changed your mind, but it’s great you did—now our teams are even.”
Jamie tried to tamp down a recurrence of jealousy over the size and grandeur of the “hunting cabin.” He’d gone skiing in Colorado once and stayed at a luxury resort that hadn’t been this lavishly appointed. Some guys had all the luck. He put his game face on. “My schedule cleared up at the last minute.”
Bobby’s coworkers from the Tennessee Criminal Investigations Unit greeted Jamie and immediately started grilling him. Had he ever played capture the flag? How was his marksmanship? His stealthiness?
“Wait—we’re playing capture the flag? Paintball or laser?”
Chase Denney pointed to the stacks of vests in the corner. “Laser.”
“With time-out or kill?” A spark of excitement ignited in Jamie’s gut.
Chase and the other two agents grinned at each other. “Time-out. I think Bobby said he has the sensors set to ten minutes.”
Oh, if only Danny could be here. The urge to geek out on these guys rose up in the back of Jamie’s throat, but he controlled it. How many Friday nights and Saturdays during high school and college had he and his childhood best friend spent out in the small patch of woods behind Danny’s folks’ place with their paintball guns? But they hadn’t been playing capture the flag with a bunch of military- and police-trained experts.
A few more guys arrived—including the mountain of a man serving as Bobby’s best man in the wedding and two who hadn’t been at the rehearsal. Jamie’s fellow usher, Dylan Bradley, arrived looking distinctly uncertain with what appeared to be a sketchpad tucked under his arm, but he was the only one of the other three ushers to make an appearance. That didn’t surprise Jamie. This kind of activity didn’t seem suited to Jack Colby or Dennis Forrester—not from what Jamie had observed of them yesterday.
“Okay. Now that we’re all here”—Bobby’s raised voice immediately quieted everyone else—“let’s get started.”
They followed him into the kitchen of the log mansion, where two piles of equipment sat on a long, wide, stone-topped island.
“There are two teams of seven. Since we’re the two former military guys, Chase and I are team captains and, as such, will be defending the flags. The other six players on the teams will be divided into pairs. Each pair will have a GPS into which is programmed the location of the other team’s flag—and a locator signal for each and every team. We’re working with forty-six acres here, people, so don’t expect this to be easy. Remember—the winning team is the one that not only captures the opposing team’s flag but also returns safely to their own base of operations with it.
“We are using laser guns.” Bobby lifted one of the lifelike toy weapons. “If your vest registers a hit, you and your partner must get to the infirmary—which is here at the house—as fast as possible to wait out your ten-minute penalty and get your vest reset by our acting medic—Dylan.”
Jamie joined in the chorus of groans, smiling as he did so.
“Equipment.” Bobby moved to the stack of stuff closest to him. “Vest and gun, obviously. Night-vision goggles. GPS. Canteen. Two-way radios. Oh, and I should mention—cell phone service out here stinks. So don’t lose the radios.”
Clenching his teeth together to keep his jaw from hanging open, Jamie looked around at the other guys, wondering if any of the rest of them found this abnormal. He and Danny had worked an entire summer to be able to afford the low-end paintball starter kits and walkie-talkies they’d used throughout high school and college.
“Gage, Jamie, Patrick, Jim, Mike, and Steve—you’re with me.” Bobby motioned them to join him on his side of the island.
Thank goodness the teams had been determined ahead of time. There hadn’t even been time for the knot of uneasiness to form from worrying about whether or not he’d be picked last because no one here knew him.
Jamie shrugged into the vest—lighter weight than it appeared—hooked the strap of the realistically weighted gun over his head and one shoulder, and took the goggles, canteen, and radio Bobby handed him, all of which he found straps or pockets for on the vest.
“I think this is the wrong vest.” Patrick tugged at the front of his, trying to get it closed.
“That’s the one that has your name written on the tag.”
“Well, it shrank or something.”
Bobby laughed. “Or something…like the fact that your fiancée loves to bake?”
“Nah. I think this kind of material shrinks up after a few years.” Patrick sucked in his slight paunch and got the plastic buckles to snap closed.
Jamie tightened the straps on his vest and adjusted the gun so that it lay at a comfortable angle across his back, leaving his hands free for the moment.
Bobby looked across the kitchen at Chase’s team. “If y’all are ready?”
“We’ve been waiting on you guys.” The African American guy gave Bobby a wicked grin.
“Well then”—Bobby lifted his left arm, revealing a large, expensive sportsman’s watch, and Chase did the same—“on my mark, we set the timers for twenty minutes to get to our bases of operation. Let the better team prevail.”
“Oh, we will, don’t worry,” Chase teased.
“Three, two, one…mark.”
Instead of trying to beat the other team through the door in the kitchen to get outside, Bobby led them back through the living room, out a sliding glass door, and across the back deck.
“Gage and Jamie, you two are partners. Patrick and Jim, Mike and Steve, same.” He set a quick pace into the woods, and Jamie hurried to keep from being left behind.
The guy named Gage dropped back beside Jamie. “Rick Gage. I work with Bobby at the TCIU.”
“Jamie O’Connor.” He shook Gage’s hand. “Do y’all do this kind of thing often?”
“First time for me, at least with this group. Used to do it all the time with my church youth group as a kid—though not with the guns and electronic equipment and all. You?”
“Had a friend growing up I went paintballing with on the weekends.” And this whole experience made him miss Danny more forcefully than he had in the five years since he’d failed to respond to Danny’s last e-mail. Why had he let that relationship go?
Ahead, Bobby continued streaming instructions and ideas and strategy as he broke through the undergrowth toward where their flag was hidden.
Running half a dozen miles in his neighborhood every day made Jamie feel like he was staying fit. But tromping through the wilderness—uphill—showed him just how out of shape he was.
The fresh air—with a much different quality than the “fresh air” of the suburbs—rugged landscape, and companionship of guys who weren’t interested in image or appearance cracked something open inside Jamie. Something he’d packed up and plastered over a long time ago. Something he needed to unpack and explore again.
His life had just changed—drastically. Maybe taking a step back into the past to see if there had been another choice he’d missed could help him pull the pieces apart and put them back together again.
The extra-sweet, extra-tall swirl of cream cheese–flavored buttercream frosting made Flannery slightly nauseated by the time she finished licking it off the white cupcake. But she just couldn’t help herself. She needed the second cupcake to restore her energy after running around downtown all evening.
Besides, it wasn’t every weekend a girl’s best friend got married. And since she didn’t drink, she needed some way to drown her sorrows. Gigi’s cupcakes to the rescue!
Of course, after fried green tomatoes and fried shrimp for dinner at Chappy’s, she would not only have to increase the incline on the treadmill tomorrow, but she’d also have to add at least two or three more miles to her regular ten-mile morning run. But that’s why she’d started running back in college—so she didn’t have to give up eating the foods she loved.
“He’s not juggling, is he?” Caylor moved closer to Zarah’s thirty-two-inch flat-panel TV to get a better view of the digital photo. She pressed her fingertips to the corners of her eyes, then rolled them and blinked several times—a clear indication her contacts were bothering her. “And this one doesn’t count, even if he is really juggling, because Flannery’s already been in three pictures.”
Stacy and the other girls on Flannery’s team protested. “This guy really could juggle—several of us got video of him on our phones juggling five shot glasses. But flip to the next picture, and you’ll see I’m with him. But that was his price for juggling for us—a picture with Flannery and one of her business cards. You know how these guys get when they see someone like her—tall, blond, and built like a supermodel.”
Teeth half sunk into the cupcake, Flannery raised her eyes, narrowing them and trying to shoot lightning bolts out of them at the petite brunette.
“And in addition to being a bouncer at Rippy’s, he’s a musician, so you know Flan will go out with him when he calls.”
Flannery swallowed her bite and debated with outrage for a second before joining in the laughter. “Three musicians—and y’all act like that’s all I ever date. I’d like to see someone who grew up in Nashville who’s never dated a wannabe singer or musician.”
Caylor raised her hand.
Flannery shook her head. “Doesn’t count—you sing in at least four different groups, not including your church choir, Caylor.”
Even Zarah, who’d reverted back to quiet and pensive after exerting her social skills and having fun during the photo scavenger hunt bachelorette party downtown, laughed this time.
After sorting out the scores—with Caylor’s and Zarah’s teams tying and Flannery’s winning by one point—Caylor and Flannery called it a night, though barely nine o’clock. The other women understood and departed with well-wishes and well-intentioned advice from the married gals on how to sleep the night before the wedding.
As soon as the last one left, Flannery turned off the porch light and joined her two best friends on the sofa.
Caylor’s phone chirped. She looked at it, smiled, and then dropped it into her purse sitting on the floor beside her feet. “That was Dylan. They’re just finishing and should be headed back to Nashville shortly. No injuries, and no one got lost in the woods.”
“Good.” Though Zarah didn’t look as relieved as she sounded. “At least I won’t have to worry about Beth losing it tomorrow if one of the guys had to cancel with a sprained ankle or something.”
“So…has Bobby told you yet where you’re going on your honeymoon?” Caylor waggled her eyebrows. Zarah went from pale to full-on blush in under one second. Had to be a new land-speed record. “We’re going to New Mexico—Las Cruces first, to revisit all the places we went when we were dating the first time, just for a couple of days. And then we’ll be spending a week at a resort in Santa Fe—somewhere we talked about visiting back then.”
“Aw, that’s too sweet.” Caylor’s eyes took on a dreamy quality.
Flannery sighed. Here they went—now Caylor would speculate on where she and Dylan might go on their honeymoon—
“Flan—are you okay with this?”
The concern in Zarah’s voice blasted through Flannery’s annoyance. What had she missed? Been volunteered for? “Okay with what?”
“With me getting married. With Caylor’s being engaged. With…well, with having other people in our lives now. You’ve been acting kind of…different lately. Withdrawn.”
“I’d almost call it sulking”—Caylor turned to sit with her back against the plush arm of the sofa, her feet tucked up under her—“except I’ve seen you sulk many times over the past thirty-odd years, and that usually lasts only a couple of hours, not a few weeks or months.”
A cold hand of sorrow linked with a hot hand of embarrassment and wrapped around Flannery’s throat and squeezed, making even shallow breaths difficult.
Zarah reached over and took Flannery’s hand in both of hers. “You know that you’re not going to lose us, right? That we’re not going to drop you in favor of the guys the way your sisters did, right?”
Here they were, the night before Zarah’s wedding, when Flannery and Caylor should be scraping Zarah off the ceiling, and instead, Zarah and Caylor were trying to comfort Flannery.
She burst into tears and flung her arms around Zarah. “I am so, so sorry. I’ve been narcissistic, making this whole thing about me, when I should have been focusing on you.”
As usual, she’d been unable to clarify her feelings in her own mind until the words tumbled out of her mouth. “I’ve been a horrible best friend, thinking only of myself and my fears of how your engagements and weddings are going to change everything for me. I’ve forgotten to be happy for you—and for Bobby. I have to remember that I’m not losing a friend; I’m regaining a high school classmate.”
The statement came out just as ridiculous as it’d sounded in her head, and she sat back, releasing Zarah and joining in with Zarah’s and Caylor’s chuckles. Flannery wiped the tears from her face with the backs of her hands. At least Jack wasn’t here to do his I-told-you-so dance.
“I don’t know where you’ve gotten the idea that you’re losing either of us, just because we’re getting married—wait, yes, I do.” Caylor cut Flannery off before she could interrupt. “It’s because of your sisters. But come on. Think about what we’ve been through and done together over the years. Friendship like that doesn’t go away.”
Flannery shrugged. “I guess.”
“You guess?” Caylor scoffed, and even Zarah smiled. “Who else would, in their thirties, take a day off work, have a sleepover, and stay up all night so that they could watch a royal wedding together at five o’clock in the morning?”
“Or what about that trip to Gatlinburg last month?” Zarah raised her brows. “Who else but us would put up with your being on the phone the entire tour of Cade’s Cove?”
A snort escaped before Flannery could stop it. “Caylor, you’re a romance novelist. You would have stayed up—or gotten up—to watch the royal wedding. You just talked us into doing it with you so that you wouldn’t feel like such a nerd. And about the phone thing…I’m trying to get better. You notice I haven’t been on it all night, except when we were coordinating our meet-ups downtown with the other girls.”
“You know what the solution to your problem is, don’t you?” Caylor looked down at her fingernails.
Flannery was pretty sure she knew what her lifelong friend was going to say—and certain she wasn’t going to like it. “What’s that? Chocolate? Sushi? Chocolate sushi?”
The left side of Caylor’s broad mouth quirked up in an expression that was more familiar to Flannery than one of her own from a lifetime of knowing her. “No—let us help you find a guy. You know, Dylan does have three brothers….”
Flannery snorted. “Younger brothers. I’m not interested in being a cradle robber like you, thank you very much.” Although Dylan’s brother Spencer was quite handsome—but there was that pesky eleven-year age difference. Besides, she’d already determined: no good-looking men. Ever.
“Hey, you never know till you try it.” Thank goodness Caylor, a year older than Flannery at thirty-five, had gotten over her issue with the seven-year age gap between her and Dylan. Much as Flannery hated to admit it, Caylor and Dylan were perfect for each other.
“It’s only fair that you let us try to find you someone—after what you put me through last year trying to set me up with someone.” Zarah poked Flannery’s knee and then hid a yawn behind her hand.
“If I recall, I only managed to match you up with one or two guys—and nothing ever came of those.” But if she read the expressions on her friends’ faces correctly, they weren’t going to let go of this idea anytime soon. “Oh, all right. I’ll do it. But I reserve the right to veto any of them I don’t think I’ll like.”
Caylor and Zarah exchanged an exasperated look.
“One condition to the veto exception.” Caylor crossed her arms.
Flannery turned and matched her position. “What’s that?”
“That you agree to go out with Dylan’s brother Pax. You’re always insisting that geeky scientist guys are more your type—and he fits the bill perfectly, in addition to being cute. And I don’t want to hear about the age difference. As you once said, using his age as a reason not to go out with him is just an excuse. And you’re not getting any younger, you know. So tick-tock, honey.”
The reference to her age infuriated Flannery. How dare Caylor use Flannery’s own words—spoken when trying to get Caylor to admit she had feelings for Dylan a few months ago—against her?
Caylor extended her right hand across Zarah toward Flannery. “Deal?”
Flannery narrowed her eyes, chewing the inside of her cheek. Go out with Dylan’s younger brother? Let Zarah and Caylor—who’d managed to snare absolutely fabulous men—set her up on dates?
She sighed and shook Caylor’s hand. “Deal.”