Blissed (Misfit Brides #1) (26 page)

“Sure,” Natalie said, though she was having a mild panic attack. And by
mild
, she meant
epic
. “If I didn’t have family responsibilities here, I’d look at moving to Chicago too.”

She choked on her own words though.

Because she didn’t want to move to Chicago. She didn’t even want to move to Willow Glen.

She wanted to stay here. In Bliss. Running her mother’s shop. Being a respected, valued member of the Knot Fest committee and Bridal Retailers Association. Making Dad proud.

Fulfilling her dream.

“I’ll do what I can to help find my replacement,” Amanda said.

But they both knew it was futile. Word had leaked that Dad was selling the shop. Between the boutique’s uncertain future and Marilyn Elias’s interference, there wouldn’t be another manager until the shop had new owners.

Happily married, well-adjusted owners.

“Thank you,” Natalie said anyway.

Because one day soon, she could be asking Amanda for a job.

The front doorbell dinged.

“Nat, I really do hope everything works out for you,” Amanda said.

But there wasn’t much optimism in her words.

“Thanks. Let’s get to work.”

Helping brides plan the day of their dreams was hard today, but Natalie put on a bright smile anyway. Because she had to.

Until a somewhat familiar woman stepped inside the shop an hour later.

The brunette swept an assessing gaze about the room. Her light green eyes met Natalie’s, and Natalie’s heart twisted into knots.

Smiling, she approached Natalie with a painfully familiar confident ease. “Hi.” She stuck her hand out. “I’m Pepper Blue. You fixed my sister’s veil a few weeks ago.”

She didn’t add,
And you boinked my brother Saturday night
, but she might as well have. For all of Pepper’s wide smile, Natalie couldn’t have smiled back if she wanted to. She wanted to plead cramps and run and hide in the back office for the rest of the day.

Or maybe the rest of her life.

“Natalie Castellano.” Natalie shook Pepper’s hand. “Welcome to Bliss Bridal.”

“No, Baby Dinosaur!” Noah suddenly shrieked from beneath a rack of dresses. “It’s not polite to look up girls’ skirts!”

“Sorry,” Natalie said. “Day care issues.”

Pepper grinned. “No problem. You’ve met my family. Trust me, I grew up with worse.”

Natalie tried to smile back. She did. But smiling didn’t usually sting her eyes.

Or her heart. “How can I help you?”

Pepper leaned across the counter and lowered her voice. “I heard a rumor the owner’s selling.”

Natalie opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

Probably good, because if it had, it would’ve sounded like a wounded animal, and Bliss Bridal was struggling enough without Nat going protective cavewoman.

“I’m in management at Bridal Universe,” Pepper said.

Natalie’s veins iced over. “No.” No question, no doubt, no hesitation. No way in
hell
—and forget the damn nickel—would she let Dad sell Bliss Bridal to an impersonal bridal retail chain. Hell no.
Fuck
no.

The brides in the room stared at her. So did the consultants. Pepper drew back a step.

Natalie’s head was shaking. So were her hands. She couldn’t stop either, and she didn’t want to. “I’ll see this place burned to the ground before I let my mother’s shop become a franchise for Bridal Universe.”

Pepper’s cute little nose wrinkled, her perfectly groomed brows furrowed.

And then she laughed. “Oh, no.” She reached out and put a smooth, cool hand over Natalie’s. “Honey, I’m not interested in fattening their corporate wallets with a place like this. I’m asking for me.
I
want to buy the shop.”

Fragments of CJ’s stories from Saturday night floated into the forefront of Natalie’s mind.
Penny stocks. Pepper. Brilliant. Fortune.

Pepper slid a card across the counter. Natalie couldn’t move.

Mom’s shop had an interested buyer.

A viable, smart, interested buyer.

A buyer who would satisfy Dad’s terms of keeping the shop as a bridal boutique, and probably inspire Marilyn to up her game to get the space too.

Natalie was going to throw up.

“Excuse me,” she heard herself say, “I have cramps.”

B
LISS DIDN’T HAVE many opportunities for CJ to scratch his risk-taking itch, but asking Kimmie to be his partner in the Games had proven to be the next best thing to climbing the wedding cake.

Pretty sad when a clandestine meeting to exchange “life history binders” in an alley behind a bakery on a Monday morning was his new version of adventure.

“Sorry for making you meet me out here.” Kimmie gestured at the sweet-smelling Dumpster with her pink binder. “Mom’s still on her equivalent of a sugar high over the news. You’d think I told her I was pregnant with the next generation of Keebler elves. Not sure she’s grasped the whole it’s-only-for-the-Games thing yet. Although she was hoping for someone more financially—I mean, she’s delusionally happy for us. It’s kinda scary, actually, and I’m used to her.”

She leaned in and lowered her voice. “Plus I dreamed Lindsey put a hit out on me to make you a ‘single man’ again.”

“Are your dreams often psychic?” Wouldn’t surprise him. The hit or the psychic dreams.

“Not like fortune cookies.”

Before he could decide if he wanted to go down that path, the door one shop down banged open. Natalie shot out into the alley. She stopped short and doubled over, heaving like she’d run a marathon.

“Holy cupcakes, Nat.” Kimmie shoved her binder at CJ and half-trotted to her friend. “You okay?”

Natalie looked up sharply. Her normally smooth hair was rumpled, her creamy shirt wrinkled, her face was so pale it wasn’t far from blue. “I’m good.” There was a punctuated crack in her voice. After one quick glance at CJ, she focused on Kimmie and Kimmie only.

Felt like a sucker punch.

He sauntered after Kimmie, binders tucked under his elbow.

“Mondays,” Natalie said. “You know.”

“Yeah, my Tuesdays are usually like that. Sometimes my Sundays, depending on the week.” Kimmie put a palm to Natalie’s forehead. “You’re clammy. And you look like fried marzipan. Are you sick?”

Natalie swiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “Stressed.” Her gaze drifted toward CJ, but snapped back to Kimmie before it got there. She took a deep breath, as though she were putting her world back in focus.

Lining up which problem she wanted to share with them.

She blinked twice, and her voice was almost steady when she spoke. “Noah’s sitter had a heart attack last night.”

“Oh, no,” Kimmie whispered. “Oh, Nat.”

“She’s going to be okay.” Natalie shivered, her gaze somewhere not in the alley. “I just—I’m worried about Noah.”

CJ didn’t know a lot about parenthood, but he knew something about grief.

A few months after Serena died, he’d been in the Swiss Alps. Checked his e-mail right before heading out for skydiving and found a message from Margie that one of their high school friends had almost died in a car accident.

Couldn’t remember the guy’s name now, but he remembered being so shaken up, he cancelled the dive. Sitting in his hostel, wishing he could sleep, thinking about going out and getting drunk, unable to quit trembling.

Because he kept remembering the moment he’d gotten the news about Serena.

He hadn’t wanted to remember.

He’d been useless for about a day—felt longer, but it had only been a day. And the sad truth was, he hadn’t been useless to anybody but himself. The moment that realization had hit him, he booked transportation to France and went skiing.

Ordered himself to get over it. Told himself afterward that it worked, but the truth was, it had taken a while.

Nat looked as if she could use some skiing. Maybe a day at the beach. A massage.

He was decent with his hands. And he wouldn’t have minded having his hands on her skin again.

All of her skin. Maybe get his mouth on her skin again too.

“Does Noah know what happened?” Kimmie asked.

CJ gave himself a mental head slap. Not the time.

“No.” Natalie’s color was coming back. “I need to find temporary care for him. He’s never gone anywhere else. I don’t know how he’ll handle it.”

“Children are adaptable,” an unfortunate voice said behind CJ. “Kimberly had dozens of sitters growing up. Your son will be fine.”

Natalie squared her shoulders and stared back at Marilyn with a mixture of animosity and respect sparking across her face. “Yes, he will.”

“In the meantime, Kimberly and CJ can help you with your little problem.”

An awkward silence settled in the alley. Natalie glanced between Kimmie and CJ, then looked closer.

CJ felt his cheeks turning the same shade as his hair.

“Are you—” Nat stopped herself. Set her dark eyes like black onyx. Her nostrils flared. Just a little. He had to watch her close to notice.

But he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“The official announcement was in the
Bliss Times
this morning,” Marilyn said.

Natalie’s shoulders squared tighter, her color came all the way back, and she faced the Queen General straight on. “That’s kind of you to offer, but we wouldn’t want Bliss’s most celebrated couple to be linked to
that divorced woman
on The Aisle, now would we?”

Marilyn made a noise that would’ve been a
pfft
coming from any other woman. “Bliss’s most celebrated couple will be lauded for their charity work.”

“Charity,” Natalie echoed.

The frozen steel in her voice gave CJ the chills. Made him a little hot under the collar too.

This could get interesting. Dangerous, even. CJ suspected Natalie had just stomped the shit out of that line she’d mentioned the other night, and she was about to start flinging flaming justice out of her fingertips.

Natalie’s eyes subtly shifted toward CJ, commanding his full attention.

He gulped.

He’d wanted adventure in Bliss. He was about to get it.

“Mr. Exalted Widower,” she said in another of those female tones, this one loaded with the power and danger of the mother of all nuclear weapons, “are you sure you’re up to the task of taking on my son as a charity project?”

Something’s burning
was the right and wrong answer. He was physically incapable of putting Natalie and char—chari—He couldn’t do it. Charity deserved its own sentence. Far, far away from any thought of what Natalie needed.

On the one hand, he couldn’t tell her no. Couldn’t refuse a challenge.

That would make him seem like a chicken.

But when staring at Mama Bear Natalie, who was wearing a touch of Pissed Off Lover Natalie beneath the Mama Bear thing, being a chicken might’ve been CJ’s wisest option.

Of course, if he refused the Queen General’s suggestion, he’d be screwed in an entirely different way.

Kimmie took one of those about-to-launch-into-a-story breaths. The back door of Bliss Bridal opened, and Noah stuck his head out.

His head that was still sporting CJ’s Falcons hat. “Mommy?”

Natalie beckoned him with one hand, still glaring at CJ. She slipped an arm around Noah’s shoulder. The little boy curled into her.

Despite this being a highly appropriate time to remember how she’d felt with her legs wrapped around him against his car Saturday night, he had plenty of brain cells—among other body parts—dedicated solely to the task of wondering what it would take to get them there again.

The combination of royally pissed and motherly was
hot
.

He clearly needed to talk to a professional about this.

“Well?” Natalie said to CJ.

“Of course they’ll do it.” Marilyn dusted her hands. “Problem solved.”

“You don’t get to solve my problems,” Natalie said. 

“Miss Castellano, I already have.” Marilyn consulted her elegant wristwatch, then pinned CJ and Kimmie collectively with an I-will-be-obeyed look. “It would behoove the two of you to experience parenthood. For the sake of your relationship. You have my blessing to babysit.”

She turned on her heel and strode to her car, apparently oblivious to the animal she’d just unleashed in Natalie.

“Excuse me,” Natalie said to Kimmie. “I have work to do.”

The QG’s engine purred to life. Kimmie stepped forward before Natalie could disappear back into the shop. “Nat, I know you don’t like it since my mom suggested it, but I—erm,
we
would love to help you with Noah. CJ mostly works nights, and we
could
use the practice pretending to be parents if we’re going to pull this thing off at the Husband Games, so…win-win, right?” She glanced back at her mother’s retreating car, then gave CJ a questioning glance. “I don’t think Mom will interfere more. And Noah’s not short enough to be an elf. Technically. So we can do this, right?”

Natalie leveled a flat stare at CJ that a lifetime of living with too many women had fully prepared him to interpret. She wanted him to say
no
.

But despite the danger rolling off Natalie in heavy waves, he still had full possession of his balls, and truth was, her kid was adorable.

CJ squatted down to Noah’s level and tipped the hat back so he could see the boy’s face. “You wanna see the Bachelors practice, little dude?”

“Can Baby Dinosaur come?”

“You bet. You, me, and Baby Dinosaur will do all kinds of man things.”

“Awesome!” He yanked on Natalie’s hand and jumped. “Mom, isn’t that awesome?”

“Sweetie, I know you don’t understand,” Nat said, “but this is complicated—”

“The hell it is,” CJ said softly.

Natalie’s glare went so icy he wished he had a jacket.

But more, he wished he had the right to kiss the ice out of her. To melt her frozen heart. To heat her from the inside out until she couldn’t find her frost.

He wanted another night. A week. A month.

Her hostility wavered. She stepped back, her pulse fluttering in her throat.

As if she’d read his thoughts.

“And you know I love Noah,” Kimmie said.