It had been three days since Kelsey had seen Connor. Three heartbreaking, regret-filled, uneventful days.
At first she’d been too hurt to do more than curl up on her sofa and cry. But Kelsey never believed self-pity helped anyone, so by the second day she had thrown herself into working on her shop, finishing up the details that transformed the place from a simple suite into the office of her dreams.
She’d had photographs from previous weddings enlarged and wrapped in gilded frames: an elegant wedding cake with a single piece missing; a bridal bouquet in midair with ribbons streaming; a close-up of an unseen couple’s hands, fingers entwined, showing off sparkling wedding rings.
She’d hung sheer curtains and floral drapes at the windows and found a bargain on a secondhand wicker coffee table, which displayed a crystal vase and fresh flowers from Lisa’s shop. She’d brought a CD player from home to fill the air with soft, lilting music.
And if her heart broke a little more with every romantic touch she added, not once did Kelsey let that slow her down.
If she had any doubts about her hard work paying off, she’d received encouragement from an unlikely source. When Charlene called earlier, the talk had centered around the rehearsal dinner that night, but nearing the end of the conversation, Charlene had fallen silent before saying, “If I haven’t told you before now, Kelsey, I appreciate all you’ve done for Emily’s wedding. We never would have been able to pull this off so quickly if not for you.”
After saying goodbye to her aunt, Kelsey hung up the phone and looked around her shop. She had everything she wanted: her shop was up and running, Emily’s wedding was only days away and her hard work had gained her aunt’s approval.
Congratulations, Kelsey. Your family must be so proud. Seems like you’re a real Wilson after all.
Guilt wormed its way through her stomach, but Kelsey pushed it away with a burst of anger as she grabbed her purse and keys. She had no cause to feel guilty, she decided as she locked the front door behind her with a definitive twist of the key. None at all. Connor was the one who’d kept secrets, told lies of omission.
And yet maybe he had a reason. After all, hadn’t he encouraged her to consider that her father might have had his reasons for taking the money? At the time, Kelsey thought Connor was talking only about her father. But could Connor have been talking about himself? Hoping that she might understand why he’d taken the ten thousand dollars? And what had she told him?
Nothing he could say would matter, nothing he could do would ever make up for taking the money.
Little wonder, then, that he hadn’t bothered with explanations!
She had to talk to Connor, Kelsey decided as she climbed into her car and turned the air on full blast. If she expected him to tell her the truth, she owed it to him to listen without making judgments based on her own past.
Her phone rang, reminding Kelsey that she couldn’t drop everything to go see Connor. After the rehearsal, she vowed as she pulled out her cell and flipped it open.
“Kelsey?”
Startled by the unexpected male voice, Kelsey asked, “Yes?”
“It’s Javy Delgado. Connor’s friend.”
“Javy?” She couldn’t imagine why he’d call her unless…“Is Connor okay? Has something happened?”
He paused long enough to strip a few years off Kelsey’s life before he said, “Do you still care about him?”
“Of course I care about him! I—” Love him, Kelsey thought.
“I wasn’t sure after the way you treated him.”
“The way I treated him? I know you’re Connor’s friend, but—”
“Not as good a friend as he’s been to me,” he interrupted. “And that’s why I called even though he asked me not to.”
So Connor didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t even want his friend talking to her. That didn’t give her much hope. “Why wouldn’t he want you to talk to me?”
“He doesn’t want me to tell you the truth. He’s afraid it won’t matter. I hope he’s wrong about that. About you. Just like you’ve been wrong about him.” Javy sighed. “The money he took, the money your uncle paid him—Connor gave it to my family. He used it to save our restaurant.”
“I have what you need.”
Even though Connor had been waiting for the damn call for days, it took him a moment to recognize the voice on the other end. He pushed away from the small table in his hotel room, pent-up energy surging through his veins.
“Jake, it’s about time you called. Tell me what you’ve got is good. I can’t wait to get out of this town.”
The words were the biggest lie he’d told in the past five minutes. Which was about how long it’d been since he’d last tried to convince himself Kelsey Wilson wasn’t worth the effort, and he’d forget all about her the second he got back to California.
“Good? No, I wouldn’t call it good,” Jake ground out.
Jake sounded nothing like his normal self, and although he and Connor were close, their relationship didn’t include a lot of heart-to-heart talks. Still, he had to say, “You sound like hell, man.”
“Doesn’t matter. I got the job done. I found what I was looking for.”
A garbled voice over a loudspeaker sounded in the background. “I have to go. They’re calling my flight. I’m e-mailing everything you need right now. Just do me one favor.”
“What is it?”
“Use it to nail that guy.”
“I will.”
“Good. It’s about time he gets what he deserves.”
As Connor flipped the cell phone closed, his friend’s voice rang in his ears. Connor supposed most people would say he was getting what he deserved, too. That Kelsey turning her back on him was just desserts for the way he had taken the money and left Emily years ago.
Except maybe Kelsey’s anger wasn’t about his relationship with Emily or the past he couldn’t change. Maybe it was about their relationship right now, and the truth he’d kept from her.
Okay, yeah, she’d told him nothing could excuse what her father had done when he’d taken money to leave her mother, but maybe if Connor had explained about the Delgados’ restaurant…maybe if he’d told her about the money up front so she wouldn’t have had to hear about it from Charlene, of all people…
Could he really blame Kelsey for reacting the way she had? Between the money her father had taken and the secrets her mother had kept, she had every right to be wary.
Sure, it would have been nice if she’d learned about the money and had still been willing to believe the best about him. But he hadn’t placed all his faith in Kelsey, either. He’d been afraid to tell her about the money because he’d feared his reasons—his love and loyalty to the Delgados—wouldn’t matter. He’d been holding on to his own past and his own fears that he wouldn’t matter. He should have trusted her more than that.
His computer e-mail alert sounded, letting him know Jake’s report had arrived. A few taps on the keyboard, and Connor understood his friend’s anger. “Don’t worry, Jake. We’ve nailed the guy.”
After Javy’s call, Kelsey longed to turn the car around to go immediately to Connor’s hotel, but she couldn’t skip the rehearsal, not as Emily’s wedding coordinator and not as a member of the Wilson family.
When her phone rang again, her heart skipped a beat as Connor’s number flashed across the screen. Still, she hesitated a split second. She wanted to be able to look into his eyes when she apologized. To see that he believed her when she told him she understood why he took the money and she wouldn’t expect any less of him than the sacrifice he’d made for his friends.
But after the way she’d treated him, she offered a quick whisper of thanks that he wanted to talk to her at all. Flipping the cell open with one hand, she turned into a nearby parking lot. She immediately sucked in a quick breath, but Connor interrupted any greeting or apology she might have made. “Kelsey, it’s Connor. Don’t hang up.”
She pressed the phone tighter to her ear as if that might somehow bring her closer to Connor. “I’m not. I won’t.”
“Look, I can explain about the money, I swear—”
“You don’t have to—”
“But not now—”
“I talked to Javy—”
“Jake called—”
“What?”
“Jake called. He found Sophia, the Dunworthy’s former maid.”
Trying to switch gears while her thoughts were going one hundred miles at hour, Kelsey said, “Did he find out why she quit?”
“Turns out she was fired after Dunworthy Senior caught her and Junior together.”
“Caught them?”
“From what Sophia says, he’d been hitting on her for months before she finally gave in. Only to lose her job because of it.”
“But didn’t you say she stopped working for the Dunworthys only a few months ago?” Kelsey asked, mentally going over the timing and coming to an unbelievable conclusion. “Todd and Emily started dating six months ago. They were engaged two months ago!”
“Yeah, they were. Evidently sleeping with the maid was the last straw. The way I figure it, Todd proposed to Emily as a way to try to win back his family’s approval.”
“I can’t believe he would do that to Emily!” Anger for her cousin’s sake started to boil inside Kelsey, along with a disgust at the way Todd had smiled and charmed his way into her aunt and uncle’s good graces.
“It gets worse.”
“Worse! How can it possibly get any worse! Is there someone else?”
“In a way.” Connor paused. “Sophia’s pregnant.”
“Preg—Are you sure the child is Todd’s? Considering the money his family has, and after the way Sophia lost her job—”
“Jake is sure of it. He believes her, and I believe him. Judging from his family’s reactions, I’d say that the Dunworthys believe it, too. The family doesn’t want anything to do with Todd. That’s why they aren’t here for the wedding.” He hesitated. “You were right, Kelsey, and I should have listened to you.”
“It doesn’t matter now. You did it, Connor. You found the proof you needed.”
“Yeah, I’ve got everything I need,” he agreed, his voice sounding hollow. “Look, Kelsey—”
She waited, her heart pounding for everything she wanted to hear, everything she wanted to say. But the silence stretched on, the words unspoken. Finally she said, “The wedding rehearsal is tonight. I’m already on my way to the chapel.”
“I’m at the hotel now. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes,” Kelsey echoed quietly, before hanging up the phone.
She had fallen in love with the small chapel the first time she saw the cottage-style building, with its cobblestone walls and stained-glass windows. The close proximity to the hotel made it an ideal location. Right now Kelsey wished the chapel were a world away, anything to delay the inevitable end. Once Connor stopped the wedding, he’d have no reason to stick around…and if he did, Kelsey feared it wouldn’t be for her.
Minutes later Kelsey stood inside the empty chapel. It was as beautiful now as when she’d first laid eyes on it. She’d immediately known the perfect arrangement of flowers and candles for alongside the carved pews. Just the right placement of the wedding party on the steps leading to the altar. Exactly where the video and photographer should stand to best capture the light streaming through the windows. She’d known all of that months before Emily had gotten engaged. When Emily had bowed so easily to her suggestions, Kelsey had set in motion the wedding of her own dreams.
She was as guilty as Charlene in pushing her own ideas on Emily. It was her dream location for the wedding and reception. All of her friends were working side by side to make the day memorable. Maybe if she hadn’t been so focused on what she wanted, she would have stopped a long time ago to ask if any of it was what Emily wanted.
But she hadn’t, and now all their dreams were going down the drain—the perfect wedding to make her business, Emily’s dream of marrying the perfect man, Gordon and Charlene’s perfect son-in-law. Only Connor had succeeded. He was stopping the wedding as he’d said he would.
He was a man of his word, a good man, and she should have trusted him. Kelsey knew how much it must have hurt when she turned her back on him, just as much as regret and heartache were hurting her now.
A door squeaked behind her, letting in a rush of summer air, and Kelsey took a deep breath. Turning to face her aunt and uncle, she said, “Aunt Charlene, Uncle Gordon, I need to talk to you…” Her voice trailed away when she saw Emily and Todd following a few steps behind.
The one time Kelsey had counted on them being late.
“What is it, Kelsey?” Gordon asked.
“I—” She’d hoped to have a chance to talk to her aunt and uncle alone, to prepare them for what Connor had discovered, so together they could find a way to tell Emily. “I was wondering if I could speak to the two of you in private.”
She tried to make the suggestion as casually as possible, but there was nothing casual about the way Charlene’s eyebrows arched toward her hairline. “What’s wrong? Is it the flowers? The music?”
“Relax, Char,” Gordon interjected. “Weren’t you saying this morning that Kelsey has everything under control?”
Her uncle’s reminder and confident smile sent a sick feeling through Kelsey’s stomach. How was she supposed to tell them about Todd?
Taking note of her watching him, Todd crossed his arms over his chest, a not-so-subtle challenge in his expression. “You have something to say, Kelsey?”
She took a deep breath, but before she had chance to speak, the chapel door swung open again. She heard Connor’s voice a second before he stepped through the doorway. “Actually, I’m the one with something to say.”
“McClane! What are you doing here?” Gordon demanded, a lightning bolt of wrinkles cutting across his thunderous expression.
Todd draped a proprietary arm over Emily’s shoulders. “I told Emily inviting him was a mistake. He’s still in love with her, and he’s probably here because he thinks he can stop the wedding.”
“I’m not in love with Emily,” Connor insisted.
I’m in love with Kelsey. His heart pounded out the words he never thought he’d say, but damned if he’d say them for the first time with the Wilsons and Todd Dunworthy as witnesses.
He felt the irresistible pull of Kelsey’s gaze and he couldn’t help meeting her gaze any more than he could resist the earth’s gravity. Not now. Not like this, he mentally pleaded as he looked into her eyes, willing her to understand.
“Then maybe you’d like to explain exactly what is going on here?” Gordon repeated.
This was his moment, Connor thought. His chance to prove he was right and the Wilsons were wrong. Wrong about Todd. Wrong about him. But his triumph rang hollow. He didn’t need the Wilsons’ approval. He wasn’t sure why he’d ever thought he did. All he needed was Kelsey. Her faith. Her trust. Had his past and his secret destroyed that?
“Connor?” Kelsey’s voice called to him.
Dressed in a blue-green print dress that hugged her curves, her hair free to curl around her face, she looked absolutely beautiful—strong and vulnerable at the same time, and he couldn’t look away.
Whatever Gordon and Charlene saw in his expression had them quickly closing ranks around Kelsey. Surrounded by her aunt and uncle, the Wilson misfit suddenly looked at home within the golden circle, and Connor was alone on the outside.
Tearing his gaze away, he focused on Gordon and pulled the information he’d printed from his back pocket. “Your golden boy has a history of using women. His blue-blood family, who mean so much to you, has completely cut him off after he got one of their maids pregnant.” He slapped the pages into Gordon Wilson’s reluctantly outstretched hand.
Charlene gasped, color leaching from her face, but doubt pulled Gordon’s silver eyebrows together.
“Todd, what is Connor talking about?” Emily asked, her eyes wide as she stared at her fiancé.
“He’s lying,” Todd scoffed. But instead of trying to console Emily, he looked to Gordon with a can-you-believe-the-nerve-of-this-guy expression. “You know you can’t trust anything McClane says.”
“But you can trust me, Uncle Gordon,” Kelsey insisted as she stepped closer.
“What do you know about this?” her uncle asked, taking a look at the papers.
“I know Connor is a good man.” She spoke the words to her uncle, but her gaze never broke from Connor’s. “He’s here because he’s worried about Emily. That information is true.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Todd issued sharply. When Gordon’s steely gaze cut his way, filled with the same distrust he’d pinned on Connor’s seconds earlier, he quickly backed down. Relaxing his features into a more conciliatory expression, he said, “I’m afraid Kelsey has fallen for McClane’s lies, but it’s all a smear campaign to stop the wedding.”
“How exactly is Connor McClane behind the significant amount of money your family paid this Sophia Pirelli?”
Todd’s confident look faded, clay showing through the once-golden facade, but he still didn’t give up. “My family let her go, so she went after us for money, claiming the kid she’s carrying is mine. The money was a way to keep her quiet.”
“A simple paternity test would have done the same thing and been much cheaper,” Connor pointed out. “The kind of money your family paid…That’s not hush money. It’s guilt money.”
Connor watched with satisfaction as the truth spread across Dunworthy’s face and disgust and disappointment over the Wilsons’. Realization hit Emily last, leaving her pale and shaken as she looked from Todd to her parents. Finally her gaze locked with Connor’s, and she burst into tears before rushing into his arms.
Seated in Gordon Wilson’s study a half hour later, Connor nodded when the older man held up the bottle of scotch. Gordon poured two glasses, handed one to Connor and took a swallow from his own glass before claiming his spot behind the large mahogany desk.
Connor took a sip of his own scotch while he waited for the older man to speak.
“We owe you our thanks,” Gordon said after a minute of silence. “When I think of my little girl married to that liar—”
At the chapel Gordon had made it clear to Dunworthy that the engagement was over and the wedding off, and that he’d live to regret it if he ever went near Emily again. Gordon and Charlene had reluctantly agreed to Emily’s request that Connor drive her home after Charlene immediately tried to take charge. Emily had surprised them all, demanding some time alone. Connor thought—hoped—that she was learning to stand up for herself.
“I’m glad I found the proof I needed. I only wish I had found it sooner.”
“And I wish you had come to me with your suspicions sooner.”
Connor couldn’t choke back a disbelieving laugh as he set the glass of scotch aside. “I’m not sure how you think that conversation would have played out, but I don’t see you taking my side over your handpicked future son-in-law.”
“I did not handpick Todd. You make it sound like some kind of arranged marriage.”
“Wasn’t it?”
A flush rising in his face, Gordon struggled for a calming breath. “Look, I’m trying to say that I appreciate what you’ve done. I don’t know how we can repay you.”
Pay him…
Shoving to his feet, Connor ground out, “I don’t want your money.”
“I wasn’t offering any,” Gordon shot back. He rose to glare at Connor from across the expanse of his desk.
The silent stalemate lasted several tense seconds before Gordon sighed. The tension drained from his body, leaving his shoulders a bit stooped and signs of age lining his face. “Sit back down.” He gestured to the leather chair Connor had abandoned. “I’ve had enough drama for one night.”
Hesitating, Connor glanced at the study doorway.
“Expecting someone?”
“I thought Kelsey would be here by now.”
In the aftermath of the argument with Dunworthy and Emily’s collapse into tears, Connor hadn’t had a chance to talk to Kelsey. He’d expected her to head back to the Wilsons’ with the rest of her family, where he’d been counting on the chance to talk to her.
But maybe he’d misunderstood what she’d said during the phone call. He should have known Javy wouldn’t keep his mouth shut just because he’d told him to, but the more time Connor had to think, the more worried he became. Did her absence mean that Javy’s explanation hadn’t made a difference? That she still couldn’t forgive Connor for the money he’d taken?
Gordon sucked in a deep breath as if preparing for a painful blow and admitted, “I was wrong about Todd.”
They were the words Connor had come to Arizona to hear. The perfect lead-in to tell Gordon he hadn’t been wrong just about Todd Dunworthy; he’d been wrong about Connor, too. But as he’d already figured out, it no longer mattered. Only Kelsey…
When he stayed silent, the older man repeated, “I was wrong about Todd. I realize now you came back to help Emily, and you have. But you still have some work to do to convince me you’re good enough for this family.”
“Good enough—” Connor’s words broke off when he caught sight of what almost looked like respect gleaming in the older man’s blue eyes. Shaking his head and wondering how a single sip of scotch could so seriously impair his judgment, he said, “You don’t have to worry about me being good enough. Emily and I are friends. That’s all.”
As if the night hadn’t already been surreal, Gordon Wilson circled his desk to clap a hand on Connor’s shoulder. “Who said anything about Emily?” At Connor’s surprised glance, Gordon said, “At the chapel I saw the way you were looking at my niece. You never looked at Emily like that. So don’t you think it’s time for you to go find Kelsey?”
Sitting in her car outside her shop, Kelsey stared at the freshly painted window. Weddings Amour scrolled across the glass in a flowing, curlicued font. The script matched the business cards and letterhead she’d had made—by the thousands, since it was cheaper to buy in bulk.
Kelsey sighed. She should have gone with the rest of her family—and Connor—back to her aunt and uncle’s house. But this was Connor’s moment. His moment of triumph…of success. And her moment of failure.
Not that Kelsey had expected her cousin to go through with the wedding once she realized Connor was right about Todd. Still, she felt sick with disappointment. She’d worked so hard on the wedding. Her friends had worked so hard! Lisa and Sara…Like her, they had been counting on Emily’s wedding, and Kelsey hated letting them down. She dreaded calling them with the news, but that, too, was part of her job. Along with canceling the reservation at the chapel and the hotel reception, phoning all the guests, arranging for gifts to be returned. The mental list went on and on, with Kelsey’s hopes and dreams sinking deeper beneath the crushing weight.
But it had to be done, and sitting in her car wouldn’t accomplish any of it. Grabbing her purse off the passenger seat, she climbed from the car. As she opened the door to her shop, she tried—and failed miserably—to forget her excitement and gratitude only days earlier as her friends had pitched in to help decorate. The smell of peach potpourri drifted toward her the moment she stepped inside, but it was the memory of Connor’s aftershave that filled her senses, playing games with her mind and her heart.
No matter how many unpleasant tasks lay ahead of her, Kelsey would gladly face the professional failure head-on as long as she could turn a blind eye to the personal heartbreak tearing her up inside.
“You should be happy for him,” Kelsey whispered as she sank behind her desk and grabbed the box of tissues. She’d placed it there with the idea that a bride might be overcome with emotion and shed some tears of joy. She hadn’t anticipated that she’d be sitting alone in her shop, tempted to put her head down and cry.
Connor had done what he’d set out to do. He’d listened to his gut, proved her aunt and uncle wrong, saved the damsel in distress. If life were a Hollywood movie, now would be the time for him to once again ride off into the sunset…this time with Emily.
He said he didn’t love her.
But his lack of feeling for Emily wasn’t exactly an undying declaration of love for Kelsey. Especially now that Todd was out of the picture and Emily was back in Connor’s arms.
She heard the front door swing open and fought back a groan. The sign in the front window still read Closed, but she hadn’t remembered to lock the door behind her. She couldn’t afford to turn away potential clients, but she’d never felt less like talking about weddings with a head-over-heels-in-love couple.
Pasting on a smile, she pushed away from her desk and walked to the front of the shop. “Can I help…” her voice trailed away as she caught sight of Connor standing in the doorway “…you?”
“I hope so.” He wore his sunglasses, as he had the first time Kelsey saw him, but the reflective shades didn’t offer the protection they once had. She knew now, behind the polished lenses, his eyes were a vivid, vibrant green. Just as she could read the uncertainty behind his cocky smile and the nerves his confident stance—his legs braced wide and arms loose at his sides—couldn’t disguise.
Her heart was pounding so hard, Kelsey half expected the shop’s glass windows to shake from the force of the vibrations, but only her entire body trembled in reaction. “What are you doing here? I thought you were—”
“With Emily?” he filled in, taking a step farther into the shop.
“She is the reason you came back. To stop her from getting married.”
“To stop her from getting married to the wrong man,” he clarified. He took another step forward, and it was all Kelsey could do to hold her ground.
“Are you—” Kelsey licked dry lips and forced the words out, even though they scraped like sandpaper against her throat. “Are you the right man?”
“I like to think so. But not for Emily.”
No longer holding her ground, Kelsey was frozen in place as Connor drew closer. His movements slow and deliberate, he stripped off his sunglasses and set them on the wicker coffee table amid the bowl of potpourri and a dozen bridal magazines. Without the glasses, she could see not only his gorgeous green eyes, but the vulnerability and doubt she’d caused with her lack of faith.
“I like to think I’m the right man for you.”
Kelsey opened her mouth to agree he was the only man for her, but her voice broke on his name and she surprised them both by bursting into tears. Panic crossed Connor’s features for a split second before he pulled her into his arms. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”
Clinging to the warm cotton of his T-shirt and breathing in the sea-breeze scent of his aftershave, Kelsey swallowed against the tears scraping her throat. “I am so sorry, Connor. I should have given you the chance to explain why you took the money. I should have known you would have a good reason, an honorable reason.”
“I took an easy way out. Don’t make it into something it wasn’t.”
“You were looking out for the Delgados—for your family. I shouldn’t have expected anything less.”
“And your family was looking out for Emily. I get that now,” he said, running a comforting hand up and down her spine. “Besides, I think Gordon and I have an understanding, even if it is going to take a while for your aunt to get used to the idea.”
Lifting her head from the comfort of Connor’s chest, Kelsey asked, “Wh-what idea?”
“The idea of me and you.” His eyes steadily searching her face, he added, “The idea of me loving you.”
They were the words Kelsey longed to hear, words she’d thought she would never hear, and she had trouble believing her ears. Surely her imagination had to be playing tricks. Maybe this was nothing but a dream and she’d wake up in her bed—alone—any minute.
“Kelsey?” Connor prompted.
“In my dreams, you’re wearing a tuxedo.”
Glancing down at his usual jeans and a T-shirt, he swore beneath his breath. “Leave it me to mess this up. Your aunt told me—”
“No, you didn’t mess up at all!” Kelsey insisted.
Connor wasn’t some fantasy groom who could spout poetry and had a picture-perfect smile. He wasn’t perfect at all. He was real. Loyal and determined, and she loved everything about him—including his bad-boy past. A past that had shaped him into the good man he was now.
“It’s perfect and—You talked to my aunt?”
“To your aunt and uncle both. When I asked them for permission to marry you.”
Heart pounding crazily in her chest, Kelsey saved wondering about that conversation for another time. For now, she could only focus on one thing. “You want to marry me?”
“I love you, Kelsey. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“But what about what you said? About love and marriage being nothing but a lie?” she babbled over the voice in her head all but screaming, Say yes, you idiot!
“Yeah, well.” Looking a little sheepish, he admitted, “I let my parents’ relationship color the way I looked at marriage. Of course, my job didn’t paint a rosy picture, either. It’s one of the things that makes you perfect for me. I’ll have you to remind me that sometimes happily-ever-after does come true. That is, if you say yes.”
The screaming voice in her head could no longer be silenced, and Kelsey burst out, “Yes, of course. Yes! I love you, Connor. I think I loved you from the minute my aunt showed me your picture and told me it was my job to keep an eye on you. You’ve been on my mind and in my heart ever since.”
The slow smile he gave her was vintage Connor McClane, but the love and tenderness and emotion Kelsey tasted in his kiss…that was brand-new. She clung to his shoulders, never wanting to let him go, and knowing now that she wouldn’t have to. He wasn’t a man of the moment; he was the man she would love forever.
As Connor slowly eased away, his breath still warming her lips, his fingers still buried in her hair, he asked, “About your shop…How much damage will Emily canceling the wedding cause?”
It took a second for Kelsey to focus on anything outside the joined circle of their arms. “Well, um, people will understand her calling off the wedding when they find out about Todd. I don’t think they’ll hold that against me. But the chance to show all the guests an amazing wedding and the word-of-mouth publicity the ceremony and reception would have generated, that’s a lost opportunity. For me and my friends. I hate disappointing them,” she said, a small touch of sadness dimming her joy.
“What if you don’t have to?” Connor asked, a familiar gleam in his eyes. The same look he’d had before he suggested they pair up as a team. The kind of look that told Kelsey he was about to offer some crazy solution that just might work.
“What do you mean?”
“I love you, Kelsey. And while I’ve never thought about it before, I suspect long engagements aren’t my style. I want to marry you, and I have it on good authority that the best wedding coordinator in town has the perfect wedding already planned.”
“You mean—Emily’s wedding?” A startled laugh burst from her lips. “You cannot be serious!”
“No?”
“No! I mean, sure, everything’s all planned, but it was done for Emily.”
“Was it?” he challenged with a knowing lift to his eyebrows. “Was it Emily who insisted on hiring all her friends? Emily who ran around with a hundred lists to make sure every last detail was exactly the way she wanted it?”
How could Kelsey argue when Connor was right? Along the way, the lines had blurred and Kelsey had planned the kind of wedding she’d dreamed about as a starry-eyed, hope-filled little girl, not the kind of wedding she’d dreamed about as a professional career woman.
“Hey, it’s just a thought,” Connor said. “For all I care, we can go to Vegas or a justice of the peace—”
“Stop!” Kelsey protested in mock horror, even as excitement bubbled inside her like champagne. “A Vegas wedding? If word got out, my career would be over for sure!”
“But what about switching places with the bride? Think your career can withstand that scandal?”
“Well, as long as it’s just this once…”
Her words ended in a laugh as Connor spun her around the room. “Oh, I can guarantee we’ll only need to do this once,” he vowed, love and commitment shining in his eyes.
“You’d really be okay with a big—and I mean, big—wedding, with all the Wilson family and friends in attendance?”
Lifting a hand, he traced a pattern on her cheek—the five-point star he’d confessed drove him crazy. But there was only tenderness in his touch as he knowingly said, “They’re your friends and family, too.”
Kelsey smiled. “You’re right. They are.” And now that she no longer felt she had to live up to her mother’s motto of Wilson women against the world, she knew they would only grow even closer. “And soon they’ll be yours, too,” she teased with a laugh when Connor groaned. “Are you ready for that and all the happily-ever-after, love-of-a-lifetime, till-death-do-us-part stuff?”
Kelsey could read the answer in Connor’s eyes—the promise of a future filled with happily-ever-after.
“With you?” he vowed. “I can’t wait.”