Kate tugged on Danny’s hand, drawing to a stop just outside the door of Calhoun’s bar. “Okay, we have a six a.m. flight, and we still have to pack. We’re in, we drink, we’re out.”
He chuckled. “You are a party animal.”
“Danny, I’m tired. I’ve been on the road or on the phone with my agent for the past two weeks. I just want to get on that plane and get away for a while.”
“You just want to go home and watch the NBA draft.”
She flashed a sheepish smile. “Well, it’s been twenty years since Wolcott has had a first-round prospect coming out of the men’s program. I’m excited for Ty.”
He leaned in and placed a tender kiss at the center of her forehead. “Okay. We’ll make it quick. Then we’ll go home and turn on NSN while you pack your bikini.”
She snorted, then hauled him back for a better kiss. Right smack on the lips. “My bikini isn’t the star of the show. Wait until you see the Speedo I scored for you. We’re talking Mark Spitz 1976 red, white, and blue for my all-American boy. I thought it would be fitting, with the Fourth of July coming up and all.”
Unperturbed by the threat, he disentangled himself and gestured toward the door to the bar. “I bet I’ll look awesome in it.”
“I bet you will too with your big, powerful, former football player bod,” she cooed. But competitive annoyance surged as she yanked the handle on the heavy wooden door. He would look awesome, even in a ridiculous suit like that. As if she’d allow him to wear such a thing. The man attracted enough female attention just walking around in his coach khakis and a golf shirt.
Glancing back over her shoulder, she found him wearing his mind-reader smirk. She was conjuring a zinger to wipe that smidge of smug off his face when they stepped across the threshold and were hit by a wall of noise. Not the usual cacophony of clinking glasses and shrieking coeds but one cohesive shout of “Surprise!”
Before she realized what was happening, Millie enveloped her in a perfumed hug. “Happy wedding day!”
“Wait, what?” Kate squirmed, trying to break free from Millie’s grasp. Her resistance was futile. She may have had a height and muscle advantage on her friend, but Millie had a strength of will that made fire-forged iron look as flexible as aluminum foil.
“You said you were going to have a wedding, but then you didn’t do anything,” Millie shouted over the barroom hubbub.
“I’ve been gone,” Kate reminded her.
“And tomorrow you leave for your honeymoon. Well, you can’t have a honeymoon without a wedding, missy,” she said starchily. She clamped a hand around Kate’s wrist like a manacle and pulled. “Come on.”
In the blink of an eye, Kate found herself torn from Danny’s side and swallowed by the crowd. Summer sessions had started early in June, but the crowd was still much thinner than usual. She waved to Mike Samlin and his wife, and they raised their hands in return. She spotted the track and field coach, her own assistants, as well as a couple of Ty’s from the men’s team, and, surprisingly enough, Dominick Mann, Wolcott’s enigmatic baseball coach.
“How’d you get Dom Mann to come?” Kate shouted into Millie’s ear.
Millie shrugged. “I asked.”
“I’ve invited him to a hundred things,” Kate complained. “He never comes to anything.”
Millie’s steps slowed as they wound through a knot of revelers near the dartboards. “I’m a lot more charming than you are,” she replied with a saccharine-sweet smile.
Kate laughed. “Bullshit.”
“And less intimidating,” Millie added. “Believe it or not, Katie, not all men are as enthralled by your Wonder Womanness as dear Danny.”
Craning her neck, Kate scanned the crowd for more familiar faces. Her steps faltered when she caught the profile of a man seated at the small table she, Millie, and Avery usually shared, but Millie yanked her along like a steam engine. They were heading for the ladies’ room at the back of the bar, full speed ahead.
Once inside, Millie released her arm, but Kate was immobilized by a spindly missile aimed right at her torso.
“Oh, Aunt Katie,” her niece Kylie crooned as she hugged her tight. “You’re getting married.”
Kate ran her hand over the girl’s dishwater-blond hair, a soft smile curving her lips as she allowed herself to be squeezed with the anaconda-like enthusiasm of an almost-thirteen-year-old. No point in quibbling over the technicalities that took place at the courthouse weeks before. With Kylie here, whatever Millie had cooked up for these festivities would be family official.
Patting her niece’s bony back, she nodded. “That’s what I hear. Too bad no one told me, or I would have dressed better.”
Kylie drew back and stared at the cropped capris and washed-thin T-shirt Kate wore with a look of horrified distaste only an adolescent girl could pull off. She hesitated when she spotted Kate’s brightly colored sneakers.
“Well, the shoes are pretty,” Kylie said at last.
Kate preened, both at the compliment and the fact that she and her beloved girl shared some similar interests. She and her sister, Audrey, had struggled their whole lives to find common ground, but Kylie seemed to be the perfect meld of the two of them. Someone cleared their throat with a loud “Ahem,” and Kate looked up to find her sister standing beside the lone toilet stall, a long white garment bag suspended by her fingers.
“Oh. Hey, Aud,” Kate said, reluctantly untangling herself from Kylie’s gangly embrace. “You’re here.”
“Well, I finally got invited to one of your weddings,” her sister said with a sniff. “I could hardly pass that up, right?”
“Audrey, I tried—”
But her sister stopped her with an outstretched hand. “I know. I get it.” She shot an affection-filled glance at her daughter, then smiled. “We’re just glad to be here.” Tipping her head toward the door, she said, “Mark’s here too,” referring to her husband. “He was excited to get to watch part of the draft with all you basketball types.”
“Speaking of the draft,” Millie interrupted. “We need to get you changed and this show on the road, or we aren’t going to be able to pull this off before the first pick.” She tugged the zipper on the garment bag all the way down. “Dress.”
Kate caught a glimpse of traditional white satin and organza, then realized something was missing. Kate found herself awaiting a lecture on patriarchal traditions and the suppression of feminist ideals by the wedding industry. “Where’s Avery?”
“She’s handling things out front. She said to tell you that if you find it hypocritical to dress yourself up as a vestal virgin en route to ritual sacrifice, you can find her by the pool table and she’ll protect you from Bridezilla.” Millie pursed her lips. “I think she means me, but as usual, Avery misses the point.” She pulled a flat, white box out of her ever-present tote bag and thrust it at Kate. “Bridal undergarments.”
“Wait until you see the shoes, Aunt Katie,” Kylie gushed. “They’re like Cinderella shoes.”
Millie snorted. “As if Cinderella could afford Jimmy Choos.”
Kate blinked. She’d spent enough time with Millie to know that the name meant some serious shoe dollars spent. “Jimmy Choos?”
A beatific smile lit Millie’s face. “I got them at a trillion percent off. You are so lucky to have those enormous feet. The sale racks were practically begging me to relieve them of their burden.” She nodded to the stall. “But shoes last. Get changed, and we’ll get you hitched up.”
“Millie’s a romantic,” Kate called to Kylie as she stepped into the stall. “Every day, she whistles ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’ to all the little mice and bluebirds.” She smiled at her sister as she draped the garment bag over the top of the stall. “Thanks, Audrey.”
Audrey nodded. “We’ll be out here if you need help with the zipper or something.”
As Kate swung the stall door shut, she heard Kylie say, “That song was from Snow White, and she didn’t sing it to mice and bluebirds. She sang it to the dwarves. Cinderella had the mice and birds, but Aunt Katie can never keep them straight.”
Eyeing the garment bag with a mixture of excitement and trepidation, she stripped out of her clothes and opened the box first. Millie had chosen lacy, white bikini panties and a matching strapless bra. Simple. Beautiful. Exactly what Kate might have chosen herself.
Clad only in the new lingerie and her sneakers, she tuned out the running commentary coming from the other side of the door and zeroed in on the dress bag. It wasn’t overly puffy, thank God. And Millie hadn’t selected any kind of special underpinnings, so whatever was inside had to be fairly simple.
Nudging the bag open wider, she gasped when the faint opalescent sheen of the satin came to life under the harsh fluorescent lights. A thin layer of organza covered the satin from the softly draped neckline to the hem, like early-morning mist clinging to a rippling river. She pushed the protective cover off the hanger, anxious to get the full impact.
The dress was perfect. A long, slender column of fabric so sumptuous it needed no beading or embellishment.
A sob rose in her throat and caught on a loud hiccup.
“Everything okay?” Millie called out worriedly.
Okay? The word was nowhere close to what she needed to describe this dress. It was everything she had dreamed of and like nothing she’d ever imagined.
“Katie?” Audrey prompted.
Kate swallowed hard. “Perfect,” she managed to croak at last. “It’s perfect.”
* * *
While Kate was in the bathroom with the girls, Danny sauntered over to the bar and found Mike standing there beside his wife, a suit bag hanging from the brass rail beneath the bar.
“Hey, thanks for bringing this for me. I didn’t know how I was going to get over here with the full suit on without Kate getting suspicious.”
“No problem,” Mike said. “Happy to help.”
Danny smiled at Mike’s wife, Diane, and leaned in. “Hey, sweetheart, how are you?”
Diane stretched onto tiptoes to hug him hard. “I’m so happy for you, Danny. So happy to see you happy.”
Chuckling at her gushing, he shook his head as he drew back. “You are the happiest girl I know, so if you’re happy, and you’re even happier that I’m happy, this place might explode from happiness.”
Mike hesitated only for a second, then leaned in to speak in a low tone. “Hey, listen, it may not all be great news. There’s someone here that you may not want to see.”
Danny looked at him quizzically. The only person he might not want to see would be the big boss, and only because he was getting tired of that guy looking down his nose at him. “Chancellor Martin?”
“No, it’s not the chancellor.” Mike shot a glance at the back of the barroom. “Danny, your mom couldn’t make it. She said that the travel was too much for her, and she wanted you and Kate to come up to see her when you get back from your trip.”
Danny nodded. “I kind of figured. She’s having trouble with her hip, and I knew she wasn’t crazy about the idea of flying.”
“But she sent a proxy,” Mike said darkly.
It took only a moment for Danny to key in on his friend’s pointed look. “Tommy. She sent Tommy,” he concluded flatly.
The fixed smile Diane wore melted off her face. “Yeah, she did. And LeAnn is with him.”
“Of course she is,” Danny muttered.
He looked down at the floor for moment, digesting this latest development in the McMillan family drama. A couple of hours. If he could take hit after hit from massive defensive linemen, he could handle a couple of hours in the same room with his brother, right?
“I can make them leave,” Mike offered.
“But I don’t think you should,” Diane interjected.
When both men turned to look at her, she raised her hands in a gesture of futility. “What does it matter anymore?”
Danny blinked, and Mike scoffed, but Diane went on undeterred.
“Seriously, Danny, does it matter?” she prodded. “You’re happy, right? You have everything you want right here. They have everything they want out in Seattle. Think of them as just another couple of boosters. Smile, nod, move on.”
Unhooking the hanger from the bar, Danny draped the suit over his arm, nodded to his two oldest friends, and started toward the back of the bar. Along the way, he shook hands with new friends and colleagues, accepted back slaps and high fives from the few students in the bar, and, with each step, came to realize that Diane was right. As usual. This was his turf now. His home. He had the woman of his dreams and a future he couldn’t wait to share with her.
He and Tommy didn’t have to be close. Hell, they didn’t even have to see each other, unless their mother organized some kind of command performance. All he had to do was be polite and cordial. He’d shake the man’s hand and treat LeAnn with the same respect he’d give any acquaintance’s spouse.
The crowd shifted, then parted as he neared the table Kate and her friends usually occupied. His baby brother sat with his back to the bar. Danny used the opportunity to take in the changes the last few years had wrought. Though he’d always been smaller than Danny, Tommy was now thicker through the waist. His hair was the same dark brown. Maybe a bit thinner than it had been, but no gray yet. Unconsciously, Danny ran his hand over his own hair. He still had the thick waves he’d inherited from their mother, but he could almost feel the strands of silver tickling his palm.
Tommy.
He’d carried him around as a baby. Carried him his whole life. In a way, Danny understood his brother’s need to break free from the fraternal grip. He just wished Tommy hadn’t felt total annihilation was the only option.
LeAnn spotted him first. She looked exactly the same. Young, bright as a copper penny, and sharp as a tack. As he approached, it occurred to Danny that his ex may have once been a grad student ten years his junior, but she had to be at least a year or two older than his brother.
“LeAnn,” he said, drawing to a stop beside the table. Tommy looked up, startled by his sudden appearance, but Danny didn’t wait for him to adjust. “Tom.” His heart ached as he looked into his brother’s eyes, but he held it together. “I understand Mom couldn’t make it, but thanks for coming.” He extended his hand, and Tommy gave it a long stare before returning the grip.
“You’re welcome. Congratulations.”
“We’re very happy for you, Danny,” LeAnn chimed in. “And so glad we could make it out here for this. I promised your mom I’d take lots of pictures.”
Danny forced a tight smile. “Great. She’ll love that.” He took a step back and held the suit bag up like a shield. “Sorry, I have to get changed.”
Always fast on her feet, LeAnn recovered first. “Oh! Yes. Go,” she said, making a shooing motion. “We can’t wait to meet Kate. I’ve always admired her.”
The tightness in Danny’s cheeks eased at the mention of his wife’s name. “Yes, well, there’s a lot of her to admire,” he said, his nerves getting the best of him at last. “A lot of things about her,” he corrected in a rush. Turning to his brother, he inclined his head. “Thanks for coming.”
Tommy returned the nod. “We’re happy to be here.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Avery making a beeline for him, and thank God she hadn’t heard his slipup. “I have to go,” he repeated. “We’ll catch up after.” He raised a hand to halt Avery’s march. “I’m going. I’m going.”
“You have exactly five minutes to be out in front of that jukebox, or I’m coming in after you,” she warned.
He glanced at the relic from the 1980s, then back at Avery. “That’s where we’re having the ceremony?”
“I have it all queued up to play ‘I Am Woman’ the second I pronounce you woman and chattel.”
He leaned down and pressed a smacking kiss to Avery’s cheek. “What church was it that gave you license to kill?”
“The Universal Church of Life,” she pronounced primly. “If you want to continue living, I suggest you get changed and get out here before Millie finishes with your bride.”
“Going,” he repeated, brushing past her to get to the men’s room.
Once inside, he changed with a haste he hadn’t tapped since his locker room interview days. Unlike most jocks, he didn’t relish getting caught on camera wearing nothing but a towel.
Humming under his breath, he turned to face the lone mirror in the room as he measured the ends of his necktie. The glass was foggy and smeared with God-knows-what, but there was no clouding the anticipation rising inside him. Soon, he’d see Kate in an actual wedding dress. Until Millie mentioned it, he hadn’t realized how much he wanted that. Not just for her, but for himself as well. And yes, they’d be in a dank, musty bar and not a church, but it didn’t matter. They’d be surrounded by friends, colleagues, and…family.
Snugging the Windsor knot up to his collar, he sighed as he studied his reflection, then reached into the pile of discarded clothes to retrieve his phone.
His mother answered on the second ring, breathless and a little agitated. He smiled when he realized he was most likely interrupting her bridge group. “Hey, Ma,” he said by way of greeting.
“Danny?”
Her bewildered tone carried a note of annoyance that made him smile. “I know it’s not my day to call, but we’re here, and we’re going to do the ceremony thing, and, well…” He paused to brace himself for what he needed to say next. “Thanks for sending Tommy out for the party. It’s good to see him.”
His mother covered the phone and called out, “I bid two hearts!” Danny chuckled, and his mother huffed as she came back to the call. “Sorry, it was my turn.”
“I won’t keep you, Ma. I just… I’ll call when we get back, okay? Set up a time when Kate and I can get up there to visit.”
“You’ll call on the Wednesday after you get back?” she confirmed.
Ducking his head, he nodded. “Yeah, Ma. I’ll call you on the Wednesday we get back.”
“Okay, Danny. Love you,” she said, though she was clearly in a hurry to get back to her game. “Take care of Tommy. Oh, and give my love to Kate,” she added just before ending the call.
Danny pocketed the phone, scooped up his discarded clothing, and shoved it all into the suit bag. Wadding it into a ball, he tucked it under his arm and stepped into the noisy bar. A few catcalls and whistles followed him as he made his way to the jukebox. He raised a hand to acknowledge the jeering, but his smile stretched a mile wide.
Avery nodded to a pile of bags jumbled in a corner, and he added his to the collection. When he turned, he spotted the crepe paper wedding bells hung from the ceiling rafters and pinned to walls among the Wolcott banners and pennants. Mike stepped up to take his place at his side, just as he had at the courthouse. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tommy and LeAnn slide off their bar stools and make their way toward the gathering crowd.
The ladies’ room door opened, and Millie flew out, her mouth drawn in a taut line of disapproval. When she bustled up to take her place across from him, she pierced him with a glare.
“Your bride is a pain in the ass,” she announced to the assembled group.
“Uh-oh,” Avery said under her breath. “Someone didn’t comply with the plan.”
Millie swiveled to glare at her, then froze when she saw the dashiki-styled caftan Avery wore over her clothes. “Our lady of cultural appropriation, preserve us!” she said in a rushed whisper. “What in God’s name are you wearing?”
Avery extended an arm and beamed as her flowing sleeves billowed. “Like it? I found it in my mom’s closet and thought it was perfect.”
Millie rubbed the bridge of her nose with two fingers. Amused by their byplay but growing inexplicably nervous, Danny searched the crowd for familiar faces. When he caught sight of the NSN talking heads chatting it up on one of the muted televisions, it occurred to him that he hadn’t seen Ty Ransom yet.
“Hey, is Ty coming, or is he in New York for the draft?” he asked Millie, hoping to distract her from the topic of Avery’s wardrobe choices. The question worked like a charm. Millie’s head swiveled around, and her gaze narrowed as she searched his face. The hair on the back of his neck rippled. “What? What is it?”
She stared at him for a second longer. “Oh, he’s not in New York, but I doubt he’s coming.”
“What’s going on?”
At that moment, the bathroom door opened, and Kate’s sister and niece emerged. Audrey nodded to Millie, who cast a worried glance at one of the television screens.
“Things aren’t good on the home front. Tell you about it later,” Millie murmured, then turned to signal someone in the corner.
Danny jumped when a six-piece pep band launched into a jaunty rendition of the school fight song. The bar’s patrons fell silent as the band ramped up the tempo. The ladies’ room door opened again. This time, Kate stood silhouetted in the frame, her long, lithe figure a shadow against the bright lighting behind her. And then, she started to walk toward him.
Though he preferred skirts that showed off her spectacular legs, even Danny had to admit the dress was perfect. The top of it draped softly below her collarbone. He was sure the effect was supposed to be soft and demure, but the way it left the tantalizing hollows exposed practically dared a man to kiss her there. And he would. Maybe even before he stripped her out of that tempting column of floaty, white fabric.
But for now, he was content to look at her. Stare at her, really. He always thought she was beautiful, but he’d never seen her look quite this stunning before. At least, not without a ball in her hand. He wanted to soak it all in and let her milk the moment too, because if he had his way, she’d never be a bride again.
She held a small clutch of flowers at her waist. He didn’t know what they were called, but he recognized the thin stems of bell-like blossoms from the flower beds his mother kept along the side of her house. He gaped like a love-struck teenager as she moved slowly across the dimly lit barroom, working every step. It wasn’t until she drew close that he caught a flash of color and tore his gaze away from her long enough to look down.
Kate smiled, handed her bouquet off to Millie, and lifted the hem of her dress just enough to expose the toes of the multicolored trainers he’d given her.
Swallowing the boulder in his throat, he took her hands in his and pulled her close. “Great shoes,” he whispered.
“Thanks. I like them.”
“I love you.”
Kate beamed at him, her hazel eyes dancing with devilment. “Well, then, I guess that makes me the winner.”
Clearing her throat loudly, Avery stretched her arms wide as if calling down the deities. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to deliver this woman and this man into the bondage of eternal teamwork…”
Order Maggie Wells’s next book
in the Love Games series
Play for Keeps
On sale April 2018