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MERCY
“Babe!”
I stop abruptly, turning on my heel, automatically following the sound of Chase’s voice. As soon as I see him, I know something’s wrong. His forehead is crinkled with worry lines and his thin lips are pressed together in an understated frown.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, hurrying to meet him where he’s just come out of the main pavilion.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” he says, as soon as I’m in reach. His hand moves out to rub my shoulder, a standard Chase move when he’s concerned about something. “You zipped right by me like I wasn’t even there. Called your name three times, but you were so zoned out you didn’t even hear me. What’s got you deep diving into your thoughts? Is it the B and B? Is it in bad shape?”
Guilt flips my stomach in an instant. I was zoned out, totally preoccupied with my own thoughts, furiously ranting on, too buried in my mind to even notice him. Only it had nothing to do with The Rose Petal.
“Sorry,” I wince. “I think I’m just on overload. The Rose is in rough shape, but it’s not anything we can’t fix.” I place my hand on his chest and muster a smile. “What about you? How are you holding up here? Were you able to get any work done?”
He grimaces. “They’re still having signal issues from the storm. I got emails written, but I couldn’t send any. Phone was spotty, too, but I managed to get in touch with two of my clients and let them know to call my assistant if they need anything.” He pulls his hand away from my shoulder, releasing me from his touch to glance at his watch. “Today’s pretty much shot. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.”
My stomach stirs up a dull ache. This is all wrong. “You should go back,” I tell him.
“What? Why?” He frowns, confusion screwing up his handsome face.
“I don’t want to be the reason you fall behind at work or, God forbid, lose a client.” I place my hand on his chest, directly over his heart, which is so much better than I deserve. “You’ll never know what it means to me that you came all the way out here to be with me. Please, sending you home now, it’s the only decent thing I can do to return the favor.”
“Mer, I can sort out my work. My priority right now is you,” he insists, taking my hand and holding it tight against him. “What can I do to help?”
I sigh, the ache in my stomach churning like a knife now. Here he is being his usual perfect self, and all I’ve done today is focus on Frank. And the past. “You’re already doing more than you know.” I curl into his chest, wrapping my arms around him. “I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here right now.”
He chuckles softly, his breath blowing into my hair on the top of my head as he leans in to kiss it. “Babe, I haven’t done anything but show up.”
I pull back just enough to glance up at him. “And that’s exactly what’s keeping me sane right now. Being here, swimming in my past, I’d be drowning if you didn’t keep showing up to ground me.”
“Maybe I could help you more if you talked about it, told me some of your past,” he says quietly as I tuck myself against him again. “What’s hiding back here that you’re so afraid of facing?”
I shrug. “The things I lost.” I reach up to swipe at my eye, furious with the rebel tear that forced its way through despite my best efforts. “They don’t fit into the life I have now, and I’ve taken for granted how easy it is to live without them when there’s no room for them anyway. But here...Everywhere I’m faced with an empty space once filled with people and a life I used to live. I don’t know how to be the me I am now in a life I no longer have.”
“I suppose I don’t fit either,” he says softly.
“But that’s a good thing,” I insist. “I don’t want to fit here anymore.” I slide around until I’m at his side, his arm still wrapped around me. “Come on, let’s go see what they’re serving for dinner tonight. Maybe we can help out. I could use the distraction.”
“Let’s do it.” We start walking toward the next pavilion housing the dining hall. “But you know, if that doesn’t work, I always have my own methods of distraction I’d be happy to use on you.”
I roll my eyes, grinning. “I’m not sure that’s a great idea given our current sleeping arrangements.”
He tips his head toward mine and murmurs, “I believe you said you had a rental car. With a backseat.”
“Oh, right.” The car. Driving here seems like a million years ago now.
“Mercy,” Camden’s voice rings loudly down the hall, putting an end to our conversation. “Painful as I find it to admit, I believe we need your help in here.”
“You do?” I don’t recall Camden ever needing my help with anything. Ever.
“I know, I’m as shocked as you are,” she says about as snidely as she can. “But it’s true. Brenna Mason and Robbie Hart got word an hour ago they’ve got no home left to go back to. Everything’s been lost. Except each other.”
“Oh my God.” I can’t even fathom the devastation. “But how can I help?”
“Well, it seems that being as they’re the only things they have left, they don’t want to wait another minute to be married. So, we’re going to be having a wedding here tonight.” She makes a face, as though she’s in physical pain just talking to me. “I do believe that is your area of expertise.”
“A wedding? Here?” I glance past her down the hall and toward the food pavilion at the end of it. “Tonight?”
“That’s not going to be a problem for you, is it?” she probes.
“Nope.” I mean, it’s sort of impossible. But that’s hardly going to be a problem for me. Actually, it’s perfect. A challenge like this is precisely what I need to remind myself of who I am and who I’ve chosen to be. “Lead the way, Camden. Let’s plan a wedding!”
She nods curtly, and turns on her heel, marching back the way she came.
“You really think you can pull this off?” Chase whispers as we follow her.
“I think I’m going to do everything in my power to give them the most memorable wedding possible.” I step out ahead of him, breaking away from his embrace. “Given everything they’ve been through, they deserve something beautiful to remind them just how much they have to look forward to in their lives together.” I speed up to catch up with Camden. “I’m going to need MaryBeth. And Esther.”
She nods. “Wade’s gone to get Esther already. MaryBeth is still helping fix dinner, but I know she’ll do whatever needs doing when she’s done.”
“Cam?”
“Yes?”
“What exactly is it you do these days?”
She smirks. “Can’t imagine what a cheerleader might have to offer the world after high school?”
“I’m sure the world always needs cheering,” I mumble, wondering just how much awkwardness she’ll make me endure before she answers my question.
“True. But I found it didn’t pay much.” She turns toward me, superior smile lending a gleam to her dark eyes. “So, I decided to take up lawyering instead.”
“Seriously?”
“What, I don’t strike you as someone capable of being a lawyer?” Her raised brow arches ever higher when I don’t answer right away.
“Capability has nothing to do with it. We all know you’re more than happy to argue with everyone, only makes sense you’d make a profession out of it. Just never pictured you pursuing something where you could be outranked by someone like a judge.”
She shrugs. “It’s only a problem when you lose.” Her eyes lock on mine. “Which I don’t.”
“Obviously.” I’m not even joking. Camden doesn’t know how to lose. She never let anyone around her know how to either. It’s why she was head cheerleader all through high school. She made the football team believe winning was the only option too.
“And you won’t either, not where this wedding is concerned.” She stops short of reaching the door. “Look, Mercy. I know you and I don’t see eye to eye on most things, but where Brenna and Robbie are concerned, I need to know that you’re going to make this the best wedding we can possibly make it. Their troubles didn’t just start with this last storm, they’ve had some real heartache this year. It’s high time they have something they can celebrate again.”
“Camden, you have my word. We’re on the same team this time,” I promise.
And then, because we’re on a roll with surprising each other already, she looks at me, and smiles.
––––––––
FRANK
“Don’t suppose I need to ask how your day was?” Wade’s voice calls out from behind me just as I’m stepping out of the horse trailer after feeding for the night.
“Where’ve you been?” No better way to answer a question that doesn’t need answering than by posing another question.
“LicketySplit. Had orders from Cam to get Esther.” He stops when he reaches my trailer. “You know, for the wedding.”
“Come again?” It wouldn’t be the first crazy thing to ever take place in this town, but a wedding two days after a hurricane, while most of Lacey is under water, hardly anyone has power to speak of, and most everyone is walking around in the same clothes they wore three days ago when they were forced to evacuate their homes, would be near the top of crazy things.
“Robbie and Brenna,” he says, leaning his ass against the side of my trailer. “Bryce came through today with updates on town. Their place didn’t make it.”
“Damn.” They only just bought the place beginning of the year. Been fixing it up ever since.
“Yeah.” He nods, his expression grim. Then it turns unexpectedly. “Robbie decided enough was enough. Announced to everyone he was marrying his woman tonight, come hell or high water.”
“So, there’s going to be a wedding.” Somehow it doesn’t sound so crazy anymore. “How can I help?”
“Better ask the wedding planner that.” His eyes move past me through the parking lot to the building. “From what I heard, Cam was going straight to the best for the job.”
“Mercy.” Can’t imagine the two of them working on anything together, but if there was ever an occasion that might have them set their differences aside, this would be it.
“I’m glad you brought her up,” he says, a sly grin moving in. “How’d all that go today?”
“’Bout as well as expected. Told her I love her, she told me I was a lying, cheating piece of scum she couldn’t bear to even think about.” Ordinarily, I’m not one to just lay all my business out for the world to see, but it’s Wade. And what he doesn’t hear straight from me now, he’ll just drag out of Mercy later.
“You add anything after that?” he asks, crossing one ankle over the other and folding his arms over his chest as he settles in.
“Wasn’t much to add.”
“Like hell there wasn’t.” Wade pushes up from the trailer abruptly, instantly undoing all the crossing and folding he just did a second earlier. “Pretty sure the bit about you not cheatin’ would have been worth mentioning.”
I shake my head turning away to busy myself with the tack still laying out. “What would be the point after all this time?” I bend down and lift a saddle with each hand, then start moving toward the tack room of my trailer.
“You tell me. I mean, what point was there in telling her you love her?”
I’m tempted to shut the door behind me once I’m inside, but it’d be a futile attempt to make him go away, and it’d likely only piss him off. “Wasn’t no point to it. Just kind of slipped out in conversation.”
Next thing I know, Wade’s standing in the narrow doorway staring me down. “Just slipped out, huh? Just right there, between talking about the weather and tonight’s dinner special at the LicketySplit, all casual like?”
I make sure both saddles are secure before I turn around to face him full on. “Why are you doing this? Huh? Why do you care what I do or don’t say to her?”
He gapes back at me as if I’ve just grown a second head out of the side of my neck. “I can’t believe you’d even ask me that.” He shakes his head, staring down at his feet for a moment before he raises his gaze to meet mine again. “You’ve been my best friend since before I was old enough to remember. I’ve seen you through every milestone of your life, been there to celebrate every high and stand by you through every low. And I remember the man you were when she was with you. I miss him. I want him back.”
“That’s never going to happen.” I clench my jaw tight to keep from saying all the things running through my head. None of them are kind and all of them will lead to fighting with my best friend in ways that may cause damage even we can’t recover from.
“Maybe not.” He slips from the doorway and steps back. “But it’ll be on you if it doesn’t.”
I lunge forward, following him outside. “On me? Are you goddamned serious right now? She’s with another man, Wade. She’s not in love with me anymore. She’s got a new life a thousand miles away from here and she has no intention of ever coming back. She didn’t do it for The Rose when Nettie passed, she sure as hell isn’t gonna do it for me. Doesn’t matter what happened in the past, it’s what she wants for her future. And I’m never going to be a part of it.”
“You can’t really believe that,” he insists, though I can tell from his tone he’s backing down.
“I don’t see how you can’t.”
“She only ever left because she thought the two of you were done for. If she knew the truth, how would that not change everything?”
“She left because it’s what she wanted to do. I just did what I had to, to make the decision easier for her. In the end, she got the life she wanted. And frankly, that’s enough for me to not want to change anything.”