She starts shoving me into the car. “Oldest sibling privileges. In you go.”
“Okay, okay. Fine,” I grumble, taking my seat in the fricking middle. And is it my imagination or is Cara smirking as she turns to gaze out the window?
I huff and lean forward, since my shoulders barely fit between the other women’s anyway.
The whole drive, Nate keeps sneaking glances at me in the rearview mirror. Every time our eyes catch, I feel color rising in my cheeks at the memories of his hands and mouth against my skin. And mine against his. It’s been five days since we kissed in the lake under the fireworks—and in various locations on our way backupfrom the lake—but I can still feel the memories as sharply as if they’d just happened this morning. The girls’ advice from last night echoes in my mind. Maybe I should lean into this welcome distraction…
Right now, he’s in a ratty T-shirt and paint-stained jeans—work clothes. He’s been making good progress on the gazebo repairs, just like he promised. He smells like a combination of sunlight and freshly sawn wood, and I can’t get enough of it. I squirm against my seatbelt, and Linney shoots me an annoyed look as I bump into her.
We pull onto the main drag, and Nate slows to a stop in front of LuAnne’s. Everyone else piles out of the car, but I stay in my seat. “I’ll show Nate where to park and meet y’all inside!”
Linney shoots me a meaningful look as she exits the truck, but I just widen my eyes with as much innocence as possible.
I direct Nate the two right turns toward the nearly empty public parking lot.
“I appreciate the expert direction,” Nate says, once again opening the door for me. “Not sure I could’ve made it without your help.”
“Lake Thomas is a bustling metropolis,” I say, accepting his hand as I hop down out of the truck. “I wouldn’t want a small-town boy like yourself getting lost and overwhelmed.”
For a second, he doesn’t let go of my hand, and I don’t mind. We’re standing so close; I breathe in the now familiar scent of him, and I’m tempted to pull him even closer.
Instead, he lets go. “Have fun in there.” He nods toward the shop. “But not too much fun without me.”
“Trust me, I don’t know what you’re picturing, but this isnotgoing to be any fun.”
“I’m picturing you in your underwear while drinking champagne.”
I blush, then laugh. “Are you picturing the rest of my family in their underwear too?”
He barks out a laugh. “Okay, no.”
“Last time I was at LuAnne’s, I’m not kidding, I ended up with sequin chaffing in places you really don’t want to know about.”
“Or do I?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow.
I swat his shoulder. “Enough. I better go in, or who knows what they’ll think.”
“Yeah, who knows what people would think.” He pauses, runs a hand through his hair, still looking at me, squinting a little in the bright sun. “Alright, I’ll be back to pick y’all up in a couple hours. Unless, of course, you need me to come rescue you from a sequin emergency sooner.”
“You’d be my knight in sequined armor?”
He laughs. “Anything for you.” And I wonder what he means by that; if it’s just his easygoing, laid-back charm, or if it’s something else.
I want him to rescue menow. I want to hop back into the truck with him, drive off into the sunset, and pretend this wedding isn’t happening.
But that’s not on offer.
So instead, I wave goodbye and jog over to the shop. Before I pull open the door, I glance back over my shoulder. Nate’s walking in the opposite direction, toward the hardware store. But as if feeling my gaze on him, he turns. He gives me a smile and a little salute, then turns, and I watch him walk away.
18
ASIENTER THEshop, bells chiming over my head, I’m nearly knocked over by a powerful jumble of memories. It’s been so long, and yet it feels like nothing’s changed.
The shop is just as I remember it. Sequins and beading glint off the rows of dresses that ring the perimeter of the store while a large glass counter loops around the center of the store. There is a bridal section that had seemed enormous when I was a teenager but now looks strikingly quaint.
“Oh my lord, if it isn’t Miss Nikki Bennet.”
I turn to see a middle-aged man with perfectly coiffed hair and square-rimmed glasses.
