They were three weeks shy of the wedding and Callie still couldn’t make up her mind.
Brandy fought down the urge to scream and took off the powder-blue dress before stuffing it back onto the hanger and reaching for the hot-pink number sitting nearby.
Her twenty-ninth dress.
Seriously.
She slipped it on and tugged the bodice up over her breasts but it wasn’t about to fit. Not when the dress was made to fit a twig with zero figure.
She was just about to shove it back down when she heard the deep, husky voice.
“Not bad.”
Excitement rushed through her for several fast and furious heartbeats before two all-important facts registered.
First, she wasn’t doing fast and furious with Tyler McCall. Not anymore. Not since fast and furious led to long and slow and, well, she couldn’t go there with him any more. She wouldn’t.
That’s why he’d spent Sunday night alone while she’d walked the floors at home all by herself.
Actually, she hadn’t walked so much as she’d moved. All of the boxes from her grandpa’s room out onto the front porch. With the exception of the one box containing a few pairs of shoes, James Harlin’s grandmother’s old Bible, and three belts that Sheriff DeMassi had confiscated on Saturday morning. The rest Brandy had transferred to the front porch to wait for the church van to pick up the donation.
She’d finally decided on the church when she’d come to realize that it really didn’t matter which one she picked, just as it didn’t matter if her grandfather had really and truly loved her—or not. It was something she might never know and she had to be okay with that.
She was, she told herself for the countless time. So what if he hadn’t given her the time of day? He’d eaten a cookie or two in his time, so she knew he’d at least noticed her.
And that would have to do. She accepted it, just as Tyler had been forced to accept that their booty calls were officially a thing of the past.
She blinked, praying that he would disappear. He wasn’t real. This was just a figment of her imagination. Another fantasy to add to the long list that had haunted her each night as she waited for Tyler to ride out of town and leave her like he always did.
He didn’t disappear.
The curtains swished closed behind him and he simply stood there. He looked so tall, dark, and delicious in his white button-down, his shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal tanned forearms, his faded Wranglers worn and snug in all the right places. He’d left his hat behind and so there was nothing except a thick fringe of black lashes shadowing the intense aqua of his gaze.
He eyed her, his attention sweeping from her head to her toes and back up again.
Her heart thundered and goose bumps chased up and down her bare arms. Bare, as in naked. She was naked in front of him. Again.
When she’d vowed to keep her clothes on.
Hello? You’re wearing underwear. Granted, it’s a pair of skimpy bikini briefs, but still.
The last thought killed some of the panic she was feeling and she drew a deep, calming breath. She wasn’t completely nude, and she certainly wasn’t going to forget everything she’d worked so hard for. She wasn’t giving up the bakery and he wasn’t giving up his career, and so they were at a standstill.
On opposite sides of the spectrum.
Hopeless.
She reached for the straps on the dress and pulled it up, eager to cover up as much as possible.
“You look good in that,” he said as he took a step toward her.
“It doesn’t fit,” she responded. “It’s too small.”
“That’s why I like it.” He took another step.
“I can’t go prancing around in front of everyone like this.”
“Not everyone. Just me.” The deep, husky words slid into her ears and thrummed the length of her spine. He stood even closer now, his body so hard and warm and tempting in the frigid air-conditioning of the dressing room.
He stepped up behind her, his chest kissing her shoulder blades.
The scent of him surrounded her and his hard warmth teased her shoulder blades. When she felt his large, callused fingers at her waist, her own grasp went limp. The straps of the dress slid from her desperate grip. Her head snapped up and her gaze collided with his in the mirror.
His aqua-blue eyes glittered back at her, bright and hot and mesmerizing. “You’re really something, you know that?”
“I…” She swallowed. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help myself. I can’t stop thinking about you and that photographer your sister tried to set you up with. You can’t go out with him.”
She hadn’t meant to tell him, but the subject of Callie and the wedding had come up over pancakes and, well, she’d needed to talk to someone. Especially since she was dreading the blind date.
“Says who?” she countered.
“Please don’t go out with him.” He shook his head, a strange light glimmering in his gaze. “When I think about the two of you … about him touching you.” His hand slid around her waist and trailed down her abdomen to her panties. His fingers skimmed the pink silk triangle covering her sex. “About him touching you here—” His voice caught. “It’s driving me crazy.”
“I…” she started, but his intimate touch stalled her frantic thoughts before she could come up with something coherent. Reason fled in the face of so much sensation, and the only thing she could do was feel.
His fingertips burning through the thin material of her panties. His hard pelvis pressed against her buttocks. His strong arms surrounding her. His warm breath ruffling the hair at her temple.
“You’re mine, Brandy. You’ve always been mine.”
“You’re leaving,” she pointed out. “Cooper got on the bus this morning. Duff told Ellie.”
“It doesn’t change anything. I still don’t want you to see anybody else.”
Because he loved her? Because he wanted her?
The questions rolled through her head and she waited, her breath stalled, to hear the words.
Not that it would matter.
That’s what she told herself.
“I love you, Brandy. I don’t know what the hell to do about it. I just know that I always have and I always will,” he murmured once more and then he walked away.
It doesn’t matter.
She repeated the mantra to herself, but as he walked away, she couldn’t shake the crazy rush of joy that went through her, followed by an emptiness so profound that Brandy found herself blinking frantically when Callie and Jenna threw open the curtain and walked in from the opposite room.
Because it did matter.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Brandy sniffled and shook her head and did the only thing she could—she played off her rush of emotion as dress-inspired. “It’s just so beautiful,” she cried, motioning to the latest disaster.
Callie smiled as Jenna fought back a look of horror. “I think we’ve got ourselves a winner.”