Her Best Friend's Wedding. Abby Gaines
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I’m leaving.” She hobbled across the porch on her sore foot. “Good night, Trey.”
He dropped back onto the swing. “I don’t know about good,” he reflected, “but you sure made it more interesting.”
“Glad one of us enjoyed it,” Sadie muttered.
IT HAD BEEN A sweltering day, and now with Gerry Beecham’s famous gin-and-juniper-marinated pork chops sizzling on the grill alongside a mustard-coated beef fillet and a ton of hot dogs for the kids, Saturday night in the Beechams’ backyard was hot as fire.
Trey flipped the hot dogs Gerry had asked him to keep an eye on; only Gerry himself felt qualified to prod the chops or the fillet. Everyone had worked hard today—dividing along strict gender lines into cooks and cleaners, or handymen—to get ready for tomorrow’s lunch. Now they were enjoying a well-earned evening of relaxation.
Trey rubbed the back of his neck. The heat was bringing him out in hives. Or maybe it wasn’t the heat, maybe it was all this togetherness. He was trying to spend less time with his family, not more. He was happy to celebrate his mom’s birthday, but this kind of gathering—full of married couples talking about their kids and their camping vacations and their SUVs—was the worst.
His gaze tracked his mom, talking to her cousin and Mary-Beth, then his flighty sister, standing next to sturdy Dr. Daniel. In Meg’s case, a dose of suburbia would be a good thing. An excellent thing.
Trey didn’t need to look farther to know exactly where Sadie was, which he found slightly disconcerting. She was his kid sister’s sensible best friend, part of the wallpaper of his life—and like wallpaper, he generally didn’t notice her.
But this weekend…something was off about Sadie. She wasn’t herself. Different enough that he couldn’t ignore her. Which was how he knew she’d spent the past fifteen minutes jiggling her baby nephew on one hip while explaining plant reproduction to a bunch of kids, using Mary-Beth’s prize-winning Golden Spangles camellia for demonstration.
“And when the bee carries the pollen from one plant to another,” she concluded triumphantly as Trey listened, “that’s when you get pretty flowers.”
One of her nieces, about five years old—he couldn’t remember her name—put up her hand.
“Do you have a question about vegetative reproduction, Caitlyn?” Sadie asked, pleased. “I admit, I did skip a few steps, honey.”
“What kind of flowers do princesses like best?” Caitlyn asked.
Sadie blinked. “Princesses…uh, princesses aren’t my area of expertise, honey.”
Trey felt his shoulders relax. That was more like the Sadie he knew. She’d never been one of the girlie-girls, which was doubtless why that radiant smile she’d bestowed on him when she arrived yesterday had spooked him. The Sadie he knew was down-to-earth, calm, aloof. Wallpaper.
Meg called to her. As Sadie handed the baby to Merrilee and went to join his sister and Daniel, Trey was too aware of her figure in her white capris and yellow tank.
It felt as if someone had redecorated.
He flipped a hot dog and it burst out of its skin, startling him. Trey took a step back from the spitting fat. So Sadie Beecham had grown some curves that he’d only just got around to noticing. Big deal. Trey was over Cordova women, just as he was over everything else about his life here.
“Trey?” Meg called. “Can you come here?”
“Kyle, how about I leave these hot dogs with you?” Trey asked Sadie’s brother. After a ceremonial fist bump and handover of the tongs—barbecues were a major ritual around here—he took his beer and joined the others.
“Save me from these two, please.” Meg waved at Daniel and Sadie. “They’re trying to baffle me with science and it’s depressingly easy.”
Daniel ran a finger across her shoulder. “Sweetheart, we’re just warming up.” He winked at Sadie.
Meg groaned.
“We’re talking about whether Sadie’s work with new wheat strains for the developing world could help diabetes-prone kids here in the U.S.A.,” Daniel explained to Trey.
“I’ve heard wheat can cause diabetes in some people,” Trey said. He’d read something about it in New Scientist.
Sadie squinted at him, as if she’d had no idea he spoke Science. “That’s type 1 diabetes,” she said dismissively. She turned to Daniel. “In theory, if you raised the protein level, thus lowering the glycemic index, wheat-based foods would pose a lower risk to type 2 diabetes patients.”
“Which would make life much easier for low-income families who can’t afford a low-wheat diet,” Daniel said.
He and Sadie grinned at each other.
Then Sadie reached behind her to lift her hair off her neck, a cooling-down gesture that lifted her breasts. Daniel lowered his gaze to her cleavage. And left it there a second longer than reflex dictated.
What the—? Trey accepted the other man’s dropped gaze was an instinctive response to Sadie’s movement, but the guy shouldn’t linger, not when he was dating Trey’s sister.
Trey stepped in front of Sadie to block Daniel’s view.
“Can’t we talk about books?” Meg asked. “English was my best subject. I wiped science from my brain after I dropped it in tenth grade.” She held up a hand. “When I say books, I don’t mean that Russian stuff you two read.”
“I’m enjoying that book of yours,” Daniel told Meg. “The Politics of Poverty. Brilliant.”
“Hey, that’s mine.” Sadie edged around Trey to get back in the conversation. “I lent it to Meg.”
“Oops.” Meg faked a guilty look, and Daniel laughed.
“You should read it. You’d enjoy it, Meg.” Unconsciously Sadie fingered a lock of her hair. It had been mousy-brown when she was younger, Trey remembered. Today it had gleaming gold highlights.
As if he was mirroring her, Daniel stroked Meg’s dark hair.
Immediately Sadie’s hand dropped to her stomach, as if she felt nauseated. Her eyes on Daniel were wide and unhappy.
Trey’s sister-protection sensors went on high alert. He tried to shut them off—Meg’s expectation that other people would fix her problems irritated him like nothing else—but old habits died hard.
Sadie likes Daniel. That was why she’d been sneaking around his mom’s place last night.
It couldn’t be true…could it?
As Meg leaned into Daniel and they began a murmured conversation of what sounded like mutual, breathless compliments, Sadie blinked suspiciously fast.
Dammit!
Trey leaned into her. “Get a grip,” he muttered.
She started, which at least pulled her attention off the doc. “Excuse me?”
His hand closed around her elbow; he turned her so she couldn’t see Meg. “Quit looking as if you’re about to commit suttee on the grill because my sister’s boyfriend touched her.”
She tugged, but he didn’t release her. “That’s ridiculous,” she hissed.
“Exactly. You’re making a fool of yourself.”
“What are you two whispering about?” Meg asked.
They froze. Sadie turned beet-red to the roots of her hair.
“Sadie’s telling me about her exciting life as a future Nobel laureate,” Trey said. Meg’s gaze traveled to the hold he had on her friend’s elbow, so he let go. “You must have some interesting colleagues at that lab of yours, Sadie.”