Blissed (Misfit Brides #1) (29 page)

No one. She would’ve picked no one. But that wasn’t an option, which meant she’d pick—

Kimmie.

Dammit, she would’ve picked Kimmie.

“Quarter word?” CJ said.

“Don’t you have to be at work?” She squeezed her eyes shut and blew out a slow breath before opening them again. He’d asked her first. She’d said no. Aside from a brief flirtation where they both knew the score, he hadn’t given her any impression that he was playing in the Games for any reason other than to honor his dead wife. He deserved the opportunity without judgment from her. “I hope Kimmie is everything you need from a partner.”

“She wasn’t my first choice,” he said.

Her heart grew baby wings and beat against that iron casing. “I also hope you don’t have to endure too many family dinners with her mother present.”

His grin was significantly less amused this time. “Me too.” He checked his watch. “Noah had a lot of questions about Serena today. You might get a few more.”

“He likes you.”

“He’s a good kid.”

They stared at each other another moment.

“I need to go—”

“Gotta get to—”

Natalie smiled, and CJ smiled back at her.

“Thank you,” Natalie said.

His hand rose, as if he wanted to reach for her, but then he dropped it and stepped back. “See you tomorrow.” 

When he turned back to Kimmie’s car, Natalie gave herself a moment to ogle his ass, then took one last clear breath and headed inside to have dinner with the little boy who was her world.

She’d earned it.

Chapter Fifteen

A
FTER A COUPLE weeks of playing part-time parent, CJ had a new respect for anyone who’d ever raised a kid. Working the late shift at Suckers every night this weekend had wiped him out, but Monday morning, when Noah barreled at him full-steam, still wearing CJ’s Falcons hat, CJ wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

He squatted, and Noah tackled him with a hug. “Hey, big dude!”

CJ squeezed him back. “Hey, little dude.”

Natalie was on the phone at the register, rubbing her temples as if she were warding off a headache, but her smile for him made him both lighthearted and light-headed. And maybe a tad frustrated.

He wanted to do more than make her smile. Preferably with both of them naked again.

Not exactly appropriate given that he was holding her son in a bear hug—he’d missed his favorite buddy this weekend—but it was the truth. “Ready to go?” he asked Noah.

“Yeah! Can we have cupcakes for second breakfast?”

Cupcakes. With CJ’s temporary stand-in wife, who felt like his twelfth sister.

His life was currently on the messed up side. “You bet, kiddo.”

They waved at Nat. She smiled again, and CJ decided getting out of here for cupcakes was a very good plan.

Otherwise he might start getting ideas about sticking around after the Golden Husband Games for a single mother he had no business getting ideas about.

Next door, Kimmie greeted them with a wide, open, sisterly smile. “Second breakfast?” she asked Noah.

“Yeah!”

“Broccoli cupcakes or eggplant cupcakes?”

Horror and disbelief flashed across Noah’s features beneath the Falcons cap. CJ was stuck between gagging and laughing. He swung the boy up. “She’s teasing, kiddo. How about a s’more cupcake?”

“With extra marshmallows?” Noah said.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Kimmie let just enough disapproval color her words to remind CJ who her mother was.

She disappeared into the kitchen. CJ put Noah down, and the two of them discussed which of the display wedding cakes looked most delicious until Kimmie returned with a box big enough for two cupcakes. CJ nudged Noah.

“Thanks, Kimmie,” the little boy said. 

She handed over her car keys, then gave Noah a hug. “Be good today, okay?”

“Yep. We’re gonna do man things.”

Kid was freaking adorable.

Kimmie cast a quick glance back at the kitchen, then squinted up at CJ. “Hey, listen,” she said softly, “it’s not too late if you want to switch partners.”

Her words were like ice and inspiration at the same time. He shot a look at the kitchen too. “You meet somebody?”

“No, no, nothing like that. You just—you two—you
three—
” She shook her head. “You’ll do best if you’re with somebody you like. You know, like
that
. And you do.”

Noah was watching them as if he understood every implication of what Kimmie wasn’t saying, in addition to what she was.

CJ’s hammering heart swelled up to nearly choke him. “It’s okay if you don’t want to play.”

“I do. I’m in. I just thought—never mind. I read it wrong.”

No, she read it right. He was getting too close. Getting those ideas. “We’re good.” CJ tried for a reassuring grin. “Besides, team T-shirts are already ordered. Can’t waste a good design.”

“That’s the stupidest reason ever,” she whispered. Her unique jagged flush crept up her cheeks. “I just wanted to make sure.”

CJ could appreciate that. He wasn’t so sure of a lot of things lately. “You’re a good friend, Kimmie.”

“Can we eat cupcakes yet?” Noah whispered.

Kimmie smiled down at the boy.

CJ rubbed his hat. “Soon as we decide what we’re doing today.”

“I want to go see Grandpa.”

Kimmie’s gaze darted back to the kitchen, and her cheeks took on a darker hue. “You boys have fun.” She took two backward steps, then dashed back to work.

“Where’s your grandpa at?” CJ asked Noah.

“His cabin. We fish like men when we’re out there. Do you think he’s ever coming back?”

“Sure he is. Let’s see if I can get an address, and we’ll track him down, okay?”

“Yeah!”

The only thing Nat ever said about her dad and his absence was that he deserved to enjoy retirement. But her tone always said something more. Something that implied she and her dad were having some issues. Life with CJ’s sisters had taught him to avoid emotional land mines, so he texted Lindsey for the address instead of asking Natalie.

They exited the bakery’s front door, then circled around to Kimmie’s car at the back of the Heaven’s Bakery parking lot. Noah somehow managed to both walk and dance the whole way, singing an impromptu “We’re Going to See Grandpa” song.

Kid was hysterical and adorable. Might’ve had a pretty firm grip on that little organ in CJ’s chest too.

He got Noah strapped in, and was just about to open his own door when a woman exited the back of the bakery, heels clicking and thunderclouds brewing around her.

“CJ,” the Queen General said. “Lovely to see you this morning.”

There was a set to her jaw that said it wasn’t so lovely at all. She continued her approach. Inside the car, Noah’s song went silent.

The trouble coming smelled so bad, it should’ve set off emergency sirens. But CJ’s sisters had also inspired him to master the art of acting dumb and happy. “Marilyn. Lovely to see you too. You wouldn’t happen to have an address for Arthur’s cabin, would you?”

She stumbled to a stop, and a delicate pink stain with jagged edges crept up her cheeks. “Why would I be in possession of that knowledge?”

She was definitely in possession of that knowledge. What he couldn’t immediately grasp was why a woman like Marilyn Elias would have any reason to pretend she wasn’t. “Because you’ve been shop neighbors for thirty years,” CJ said.

“Oh. Of course.” The pink got pinker. As if she were embarrassed for being embarrassed.

As if she were caught.

Holy
shit
.

Maybe she
was
caught.

Holy double shit. Time to go dig a bomb shelter.

Because if Natalie caught wind of what CJ suspected, there wouldn’t be a safe corner to be found in Bliss. Possibly in the whole state of Illinois, and some of Indiana and Michigan too.

Marilyn’s blush receded so quickly it might not have been there. “I assume you’re going to let the boy visit his grandfather and for no other purpose?” Marilyn said.

CJ squinted at her.

She gave him the laser death stare back.

Not too different from the way she’d smiled at him over dinner at her house last week, but enough to put a chill in the air and make CJ’s nerves stand on end. “What other purpose would I have?”

“You seem to have become quite attached to your ward’s family.”

His
ward
? This lady was nuts. “That a problem?”

The General part of Marilyn’s personality bloomed, which he wouldn’t have been able to recognize before last week when Natalie had demonstrated the difference. Damn funny impersonation she’d done. He’d laughed his ass off.

“It certainly might be,” Marilyn said. She spread her legs, tucked her arms behind her back as though commanding her troops. “By the power vested in me as a community leader in Bliss, it is my duty to remind you that there are certain expectations of the honored participants in the Golden Husband Games.”

“You wanna spell out exactly what those expectations are?”

Marilyn spared a glance toward Noah. CJ wished he could reach into the car and give the kid a hug, but he stood his ground with the QG.

“To be precise,” Marilyn said, “despite my daughter’s misguided and ill-advised intentions, there will be no divorced women participating in the Golden Husband Games.”

“Does Arthur know you talk about his daughter like that?”

Her lips tightened, and a hint of color touched her cheeks again. “My personal and professional obligations unfortunately do not always perfectly align.”

“How do you sleep at night?”

“Tread carefully, Mr. Blue. Your time in Bliss is limited, is it not?”

Yeah, he got it. She was the Bliss Queen, and even if he was the Exalted Widower, she’d still keep him as much in his place as she could while he was here. But aside from personally, Nat wouldn’t be a
problem
for the Queen General much longer.

However, Natalie had something in Bliss that Marilyn didn’t.

She had friends. Quiet friends, but friends nonetheless. If enough of them stood up to Marilyn—

Holy shit again.

That
was the issue.

The
whole
issue.

“You don’t care that she’s divorced,” CJ said. “You do this because you’re afraid of her.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

But it wasn’t absurd.

It wasn’t absurd in the slightest. “If you’re not, you should be. She’s strong enough to shake up everything in Bliss. Has the friends to pull it off too.” Friends like Kimmie, born and bred and indoctrinated in Bliss, yet willing to defy her mother for a smart, strong, compassionate woman who had once made a mistake.

Friends like CJ, who had found a place here and had friends in his own right.

Marilyn’s laser death glare should’ve inspired terror, but if Natalie could stand up to this woman, hell if CJ would back down.

“Don’t underestimate me, Mr. Blue.”

“I have eleven sisters, Mrs. Elias. I never underestimate a woman.
Any
woman.” He gave her a mock imitation of her own regal nod. “Enjoy your day. Noah and I are gonna go catch some fish.”

He pulled out of the parking lot with Marilyn scowling in his rearview mirror, but a grin on his own face.

Score one for Team Natalie. Damn if that didn’t make him happier than he’d been in a long, long time.

N
ATALIE’S GOOD MOOD had been growing by the day, but today, she was giddy.
Giddy
.

She was still stressed—Pepper would probably buy Mom’s store and Nat still had Golden Husband Games and janitorial committee issues, but Noah was happy. Gabby’s dress was nearly done. The QG had apparently launched an unspoken truce since the cupcake incident, which probably either meant she knew something Natalie didn’t about the future of Bliss Bridal, or she’d changed her mind about wanting it for herself. And Natalie had safely ensconced herself in a farce of epic proportions about her relationship with CJ.

Someone knocked at the door, and her heart smiled. The boys were home.

Her
boys.

She was delusional, but she couldn’t stop thinking of them
both
as hers.

CJ hadn’t touched her since that night at Suckers, and he never stayed long when he dropped Noah off, but he was melding into her life as if he’d been there all along. As if he’d found where he belonged. Listening to him and Noah talk about their day was so natural, she felt more
home
than she’d been since before Mom died.

And he was here. Again. Now.

She pranced on light feet to fling the door open, but her smile died a quick death.

“Miss Castellano,” the Queen General said in all her queenly, General glory. “A word, if you please.”

Natalie didn’t please, but Marilyn sailed through the door anyway. Nat wrapped her arms over her chest to ward off the chill slinking into her bones. “Mrs. Elias. How may I be of assistance?”

“I’m concerned about the Golden Husband Games.”

Natalie’s pulse missed a stitch. “It’s my understanding that Duke and Elsie are working hard to catch up.”

“I’m not discussing the planning of the Games, though we could have another interesting conversation on that topic, now couldn’t we?”

So much for that truce. “I did what my mother would’ve wanted me to do, and I’d do it all again.”

“Your loyalty is charming, but the Games were never about your mother.” Marilyn eyeballed Natalie’s parents’ wedding picture on the entryway table. Something flickered in her eyes. “The Games are about bringing Bliss back to its full and complete place in the wedding industry, and this, Miss Castellano, is where you’ve failed.”

“
I’ve
failed?”

“You’ve grown rather fond of disregarding my instructions to you. Going behind the Golden Husband committee’s backs to complicate the planning of them.”

“The Games would’ve flopped without me, and you know it.”

“Continuing to associate with CJ after your ill-advised visit with him in a confessional.”

“You
told
Kimmie and CJ to watch Noah.”