Forever His Bride (3 page)

She sighed. “I just wish things had turned out differently.”

Dr. and Mrs. Towers.
The announcement echoed in her mind, reminding her that for a brief moment he’d belonged to
her
and not Molly. But the DJ had been wrong, and so was she. She couldn’t betray her friendship with Molly—not even for a man such as Josh.

“Now that I think about it,” Josh mused, his eyes twinkling, “isn’t a maid of honor like a second? If the bride can’t honor her commitment, her maid of honor has to step in?”

“You’re confusing a wedding with a duel,” she retorted. “No wonder Molly went out the window.”

Josh laughed, amused more by the expression on her beautiful face, the mock horror widening her green eyes, than by her accusation. “You forget that I’ve been married already. From experience, I can assure you that it’s pretty easy to confuse a duel and a marriage.”

Amy had picked endless fights in order to get what she wanted. And in the end that hadn’t included her children or her husband. She’d wanted her freedom more.

“I’m sorry,” Brenna said again, her eyes tender with sympathy over the thought of the boys’ mother abandoning them. “Molly told me that your wife left when the twins were babies.”

He shrugged off the memories of frustration and fear—could he manage alone? “It was a good thing, really, that she left when they were so young. They don’t remember her, so they can’t miss her.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“It’s my fault,” Josh volunteered. “She was young, and I should have realized she was too young to become a wife and mother. My long hours at the hospital, having twins—it was too much for her. I can’t blame her for being overwhelmed.”

“That’s no excuse for leaving her husband and children.” Brenna’s voice hardened with indignation as she proclaimed, even though she’d never met his ex-wife, “She’s clearly a fool.”

He grinned at the remark. “Maybe you should have been my best man.”

Her face softened as she returned his smile. “Why?”

“Nick called
me
the fool.”

“Some friend,” she scoffed.

“My thoughts exactly.” But Josh knew that Nick
was
a good friend. His best friend. As well as always being honest with him, more often than not the bastard was also right. He’d thought Josh crazy for rushing into his relationships with Amy and Molly. Josh should have listened to him both times. He had to stop rushing into things. He had to fight this attraction to Brenna.

T
HE GROOM STOOD ALONE
atop the five-tier wedding cake, which was bedecked with red and white frosting flowers. In his plastic tux and with his painted-on smile, he looked quite happy. Certainly not like a man who’d been left at the altar. But as with Josh, this groom’s bride also was missing.

A big hand slapped Josh’s shoulder, causing him to stumble forward. Grabbing the edge of the table, he caught himself from falling headfirst into frosting. The tiers jiggled, and the lone groom wobbled on the top. But he didn’t fall down.

“Sorry, boy, so sorry,” offered Emmet “Pop” Kelly, his strong fingers grasping Josh’s shoulder.

Mr. Kelly was a mammoth man with burly arms and a bulging belly that started just below his neck. Despite the lines of age on his face, his hair was still black—all but for one shock of white that fell across his brow. “Mr. Kelly…”

“Pop. I told you everyone calls me Pop.”

“Pop…”

“Damn shame, boy, about the bride. I can’t figure out what happened to her. She was just gone.”

“She left a note,” Josh explained. “She needs some time to think…”

“No, not
your
bride. His.” He pointed toward the plastic groom. “I swear she was on the cake when it left the bakery. I loaded it into the truck myself. Well, that nice kid helped me—Harold’s nephew.”

A headache pounded at Josh’s temple. While he’d fallen for the whole town of Cloverville the minute he’d set foot into it, he would need to live there a while before he’d be able to catch up on who was related to whom and who lived where and what used to be located in some spot before weather, age or redevelopment had brought it down. Hell, he might never catch up. Even so, the first time he’d come to Cloverville, he’d realized that it would be the perfect place to raise his boys, and that had been
before
he’d met Brenna Kelly.

His eyes narrowed as he glanced again at the lonely plastic groom.
Could they have
…Spying small fingerprints in the frosting on the bottom tier, he asked, “Have you seen Buzz and TJ?”

The older man laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “The boys have been having a great time.”

At least someone was, then. Josh had barely been able to eat for all the townspeople staring at him and casting him sympathetic glances. Mrs. McClintock turning the event into a welcome-home party for Abby and Lara had taken some of the attention away from him. Before he’d met them, Molly had filled him in on all her friends. Eight years earlier Abby had left Cloverville in disgrace, but apparently the town had forgiven her her transgressions because now they genuinely welcomed her back. Well, everyone but Clayton.

And the town had welcomed Josh and his boys, as well. Even though Molly had backed out of marrying him, Josh couldn’t back out of moving there. He’d been right to believe this town was the perfect place to raise his boys.

“When did you see them last? And where?” he asked Pop. “They weren’t heading to the bathroom?” With a little plastic bride. He patted the pockets of his tux and breathed a sigh of relief. At least they didn’t have his cell phone. Or his pager. Or his wallet. But, man, if that bride had a train on her plastic dress, they could clog the whole plumbing system of the American Legion Hall.

Dark paneling showed through the thin coat of white paint on the walls, and underfoot the linoleum was worn and cracked with age. His ex-wife would have hated this place. He’d had to book a swanky hotel in Grand Rapids for their small wedding. But with white and red lights and balloons, Brenna had transformed the dark hall, the only place in town for a reception, so that it was as enchanting as…she was.

As the older man rambled on, Josh scanned the hall. He should have been searching for his mischievous boys, but instead his gaze locked on Brenna. In her red satin gown, with her hair flowing around her shoulders and her pale skin shimmering with the glow from the fairy lights, she looked like a princess. Not like one from the old fables, which Buzz and TJ had grown bored with long ago, but one from the hormone-fuelled dreams of a teenage boy. Something about Brenna Kelly brought Josh back to that time before med school, before marriage, before kids, when life had been simpler—when his breath had caught and his pulse had raced at the mere sight of a pretty girl.

Brenna turned, and across the hall, their gazes met. Her lips, nearly as red as her gown, lifted in a smile. And Josh’s breath caught. And his pulse raced.

“Son?”

“Yeah,” Josh, distracted, responded to the older man.

“So it’s settled then.” The old man clapped his meaty hands together. “I’ll tell Mama. She’ll be thrilled.”

“Huh?” Josh pulled his attention away from the daughter to concentrate on her father. “What?”

“Mama was already fretting that she didn’t have enough time with the boys,” Pop elaborated. “They bring so much energy and life to the old house.”

“I’m sorry.” Josh shook his head. “I don’t understand…”

“Well, if Molly just needs time, you’ll want to wait for her. She’s a smart girl, nose always in a book. She’ll figure things out quickly,” Pop said.

Josh knew Molly had already figured out one thing—that she didn’t want him. When she turned up again, he doubted it would be to marry
him.
“Mr…. Pop…”

“Despite all the development on the east side of town, Cloverville still doesn’t have a hotel or motel. So you’ll stay with us,” the older man concluded.

Spend more time in close proximity to Brenna Kelly? He couldn’t. He shook his head. “You’re generous to open up your home to me and my sons, but I can’t impose,” he insisted. “You’ve already done too much.”

Pop’s meaty hand smacked Josh’s shoulder. “Nonsense. The house is too big for just us and Brenna.”

Josh couldn’t argue with him. The old Victorian house, with its turret and wide wraparound porch, was huge, but the Kellys had done their best to fill it to the rafters with antiques.
Breakables
had been his first thought when he’d seen their home initially the day before. The boys had thought it a gingerbread house, with its bright yellow siding and teal-and-purple trim. He’d had to watch them to make sure they didn’t try to break off a corner in order to taste it.

“Your house is beautiful,” Josh complimented the older man, “and full of lovely treasures. I adore my boys, but they’re not very careful with fragile things. I’d hate it if they broke one of your collectibles. Really, we’re better off going back to Grand Rapids for the moment.”

And he’d be better off away from Brenna and temptation.

Pop laughed. “That junk? Mama and I inherited most of it from our families. We don’t have much left now.”

“Family?” Josh asked.

The old man nodded, his eyes glistening.

“You have all those keepsakes to remember them by.” Josh offered comfort, he hoped, to his new friend. “And that’s all the more reason not to trust my boys around your heirlooms.”

“You don’t remember people with
stuff,
” Pop scoffed. “You remember them with your mind. So don’t worry about our junk. Your boys can’t hurt a thing.”

Josh’s cell phone company sure hadn’t agreed with that. Neither had any of the twins’ nannies. Stumped for another excuse, he said, “If you’re sure you have room…”

Despite the size of the house, there were only three bedrooms. He’d spent the night on a foldout bed in the parlor.

“Even with all our belongings, there’s plenty of room. Mama and I are usually rattling around all alone in the house since Brenna’s either at the bakery or traveling for the business,” her father explained. “She came home from college just bursting with ideas to expand the bakery. She built onto the back of the building and hired a slew of people. So Mama and I stay in the kitchen now and let her manage the rest. She’s got Kelly Confections in nearly every grocery store in the country now. That girl thrives on being in charge.”

“Does she know that you’ve made this offer?”

Pop sighed. “No, so she’ll probably be upset.”

Josh turned toward her again, but she wasn’t standing where she’d been on the other side of the room anymore. Although he scanned the crowd carefully, he couldn’t spot her. “I don’t want to upset Brenna.” That was the last thing he wanted to do, after everything she’d done for him.

“You won’t. I have.” Her dad laughed. “She’ll be mad that I beat her to the offer. She’ll love having you and the boys stay with us.”

“We won’t stay long,” he assured the other man—and himself. Even though Molly hadn’t become his wife, she was a friend and he’d like to make sure she was all right.

“You’re staying?” a throaty feminine voice asked.

He’d lost sight of Brenna Kelly because she’d come up behind him. He turned toward her and nodded. “Your father invited me, Buzz and TJ to stay with you.”

“Pop?” she questioned, her eyes widening as she stared at her dad.

Her father ignored her question and asked, “Honey, did Mama fetch my knife yet?”

Josh’s stomach tightened. “Knife?” Maybe the old man had noticed him ogling his daughter.

“To cut the cake, boy,” Pop explained, with another smack on Josh’s back. “I better see what’s keeping that woman,” he grumbled as he walked off. “She’s probably fixing her hair, as if she could get any prettier…”

Her daughter certainly couldn’t. Josh dragged in a deep breath, bracing himself for more time spent with Brenna. He’d been crazy to accept her father’s invitation. He couldn’t stay with her—and not fall for her.

Left alone with her houseguest, Brenna could only stare up at the jilted groom. The one on the cake. She couldn’t look at Josh and manage to think. “Pop’s really upset about the bride.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Mama wanted the bakery to carry the one-piece groom-and-bride cake toppers, but Pop insisted they be individual so that we can mix and match, you know,” she rambled uncharacteristically, at the mercy of her nerves. “Brunette to brunette or brunette to blonde…”

“Or brunette to redhead,” Josh teased.

Heat rushed to Brenna’s face as his flirty tone flustered her. “Yeah, well, we don’t carry that many redheads. Not much demand.”

“Then I guess I’m not the only fool.”

“What?” she asked, totally confused by the comment and the twinkle in his striking blue eyes.

“I can’t understand there not being a
great
demand for redheads.” He grinned.

“Pop blames it on our notorious temper, you know.” While she didn’t have much of a temper, she’d rather blame the lack of demand for her on that than on her weight. She wasn’t about to starve herself into a size six, or she
would
have a hair-trigger temper and an ornery disposition. She knew from experience.

In her teens, during the rage of crash diets, she’d nearly lost her friends instead of losing any weight. But they’d remained loyal and supportive, no matter how bitchy she’d been. She had to be loyal and supportive, too—especially of Molly.

“Pop warned me that you might be mad,” Josh shared.

Had her father picked up on her feelings? “He thought I’d be mad that you and Buzz and TJ are staying with us?”

“That he asked me first.” Josh sighed. “But I can see that’s not the case. If you’d rather I find someplace else to stay…”

Her heart skipped. “Does this mean you’re still going to stay in Cloverville?”

“Nick and I are building an office here,” he reminded her. “We’re starting our private practice here.”

“You haven’t changed your mind…?” When Molly had told her of his plans, she hadn’t understood why an orthopedic surgeon and a plastic surgeon would start a practice in Cloverville. Although the town was growing, she couldn’t imagine there being much demand for their services.

“Nick would love it if I did,” Josh admitted. “He’s not thrilled about my choice of location for our venture. But it’s not that far from the hospital where we have privileges—just a little over an hour away. And when Molly told me your town doctor had retired, I saw an opportunity here.”

Brenna thought she knew what he’d seen in Cloverville—a life with Molly. “So you’re going to handle more than just your specialties?”

He nodded. “Yes. I am. I’m going to hire a physician’s assistant, and Nick wants to bring in a physical therapist, too.”

Although he might have rushed his proposal to Molly, Josh apparently had given more time and consideration to the plans for his practice. Brenna could appreciate a man with a brain for business.

“And I bought a house here,” he continued.

“You bought a house?” He wasn’t just going to work in Cloverville, he was going to live here, as well?

“I don’t have possession of it yet,” he explained. “At closing the sellers and I agreed they wouldn’t have to move out for two more weeks.”

“After your…” she almost choked on the word “…honeymoon? Does Molly know?”

“About the house?” He shook his head. “I was going to tell her tonight.”

“The house was her wedding present,” Brenna realized. “You were going to surprise her.”

Sure, some women might have considered his buying a house without his bride’s input to be high-handed. Ordinarily Brenna would be one of those women. But this was Josh, and for some reason his doing it didn’t make him seem chauvinistic, just incredibly romantic. Jealousy churned in her stomach, but she settled it with a sigh. “And instead
she
surprised
you.
”

“Brenna…”

“So you’re going to stay with us for two weeks?” She drew in a deep breath, but the pressure on her chest wouldn’t allow her lungs to expand. “Or are you going to go on your honeymoon anyway?”

“Bermuda alone?” he said with a wry laugh. “Now that would be sad. Do you want to join me?”

“Josh…”

The sparkle in his eyes clued her in to the joke. “You’re the second, remember? Gotta take up the sword for the bride.”

She shook her head. “There’s a reason Pop didn’t ask me to fetch his knife. I’d cut myself.”

Not to mention the fact that her heart would bleed if she fell for a man such as Josh Towers, a man who must still long for another woman. Her best friend. No, she didn’t intend to be anyone’s second. Not even his…

“I
NEED TO TALK TO
M
OLLY
,” Brenna stated her demand into the cell phone pressed to her ear as she paced the alley behind the American Legion Hall. She needed Molly to come home and reclaim her groom, before Brenna did something stupid like trying to claim him for herself.

Eric’s deep voice vibrated in the phone. “Bren, I told you the first couple of times you called that she isn’t here.”

So even though she’d called his cell this time, he was home at the small cabin on the fishing lake just outside of Cloverville. Perhaps Brenna should have just driven over…

“You told me, but should I believe you?” This was Eric, and everyone in Cloverville but Molly knew how he felt about her. “Eric, you’d lie for Molly. We all know you’d do anything she asked you to do.”

“We’re friends,” he said, as if that explained everything. “That’s what friends do.”

“She asked you to be in her wedding party, but you backed out,” she reminded him. Pulling out at the last moment had messed up the wedding party so that Clayton had had to pull double duty, walking Abby down the aisle and then going back to give away the bride.

“So why would you think I’d lie for her?”

Brenna, hearing the smirk in his voice, smothered a scream of frustration. Like the younger brother she’d never had, Eric had always enjoyed teasing her. But not in the way Josh teased her. Josh’s teasing felt different—made her feel different.

“Eric,” she said, lowering her voice in a way she hoped would seem threatening. She didn’t care that he’d grown—considerably—from the puny, little kid he’d once been. She was mad enough to win a wrestling match with the ex-Marine anyway. “Make her come to the phone, or I’m coming over there. Now. I have to talk to her.”

Eric’s laugh echoed in the cell. “God, Bren, you’re still just as bossy as when we were kids. Still the spoiled only child who’s used to getting her way.”

He was an only child, too. And so was Abby Hamilton. Brenna could have pointed that out, but Eric was right. She was the only spoiled one in their group, the one with the doting parents who’d given her everything she’d ever wanted. But she had yet to give Pop and Mama what they really wanted—grandchildren. Maybe that was why they’d invited Josh and the boys to stay longer. They wanted as much time as they could manage with Buzz and TJ.

Maybe if they’d been able to have more kids, they wouldn’t have been in such a hurry for grandkids now. As it was they hadn’t been able to conceive Brenna until they’d been in their forties. If they were younger, maybe they’d be willing to wait until she was ready to settle down and had the time to find a guy who didn’t already belong to someone else.

Just the way the house she wanted now belonged to someone else.

When Molly had announced her engagement, Brenna had taken a hard look at her own life. She’d thought Molly would be the last of their friends to marry—she’d been so focused on becoming a doctor that she hadn’t even dated in college. But here was Molly, engaged, and Abby, a mother, while Brenna still lived at home with her parents. She’d decided then to start spending some time on her personal life, and so she’d gone house hunting. But the house she’d fallen in love with had sold to someone else before Brenna could even put in a bid.

“Bren, you still there?” Eric’s voice rumbled through the phone. “I’m just kidding. You know I love you…”

But not the way he loved Molly. Brenna smiled. “If you loved me, you’d let me talk to her.”

“Bren…”

“Eric, she chose
me
as her maid of honor.” Probably only because Eric wouldn’t have looked all that good in a dress. “And she’s left
me
with this disaster.”

A door opened from the Legion Hall, and music and laughter spilled into the alley. Maybe the reception wasn’t a disaster. But everything else was. Her feelings for the jilted groom, for example. She shouldn’t be so fascinated—or was that infatuated?—with Josh.

“She left a note, too, asking for some time alone to figure things out,” Eric reminded her. “A good friend would give her that time.”

“You know about the note.” Molly was there, probably standing right next to him, listening in on Brenna’s call.

“Colleen or Abby must have told me,” he explained. “They’ve been calling, too. Wanting to make sure she’s all right. But you don’t seem as concerned about Molly as you do about someone else.”

Josh
.

“I
am
worried about Molly.” Because she’d obviously lost her mind. Why else would she have left Dr. Joshua Towers at the altar?

“You don’t need to worry,” Eric assured her before hanging up. “She just needs some time alone. Then she’ll be all right.”

But would Brenna be okay? If Molly stayed away and Brenna had Joshua Towers in her house, all to herself, would she survive with her heart intact? She doubted it. Still, she wouldn’t have him all to herself. No woman would. She’d have his sons, too.

From the other side of the Dumpster drifted the excited chatter and giggles of two little boys. Brenna crept around the large metal container, ducking as a spray of pop arced toward her like a liquid rainbow. While most of the cola ran in rivulets down the corner of the Dumpster near Brenna’s head, a few drops caught her face, one sliding down her cheek to drip from her chin. She turned toward the boys, meeting two pairs of blue eyes that widened in astonishment and fear. They hadn’t meant to hit her.

Brenna sank her teeth into her bottom lip, keeping herself from smiling. She cleared her throat to stifle a laugh and admonished them, “Nicholas James! Thomas Joshua!”

“You know our real names?” TJ asked, his voice quavering with nerves and surprise.

Brenna had overheard Josh calling them by their full names when he’d been trying to get them to settle down in the guestroom the night before. Now, through the wall of her room, she’d have to listen to him—every night for two weeks?—reading bedtime stories to his sons. But it was better that they, and not their father, slept in the room next to hers. Or Brenna wouldn’t be able to sleep at all, for his being so tantalizingly close.

The twins exchanged a glance. Then Buzz twisted his lips, speaking out of the side of his mouth to his brother. “We’re in trouble now.”

They weren’t the only ones.

Brenna continued to hold in a laugh as she took in their condition. TJ’s spiky hair dripped cola onto his face and the shoulders of his saturated tuxedo jacket. Buzz blinked pop from his eyelashes—it streamed down his cheeks like tears, and then trickled along the pleats of his once-white shirt. “We need to get you two cleaned up before your father sees you.”

Josh had enough on his mind with his missing bride, plus he was probably going crazy looking for his boys. He didn’t need to find them like this. As it was, he certainly wasn’t going to get his deposit back on their matching tuxedos.

“Okay, guys, let’s go,” she ordered, herding them back into the hall.

They balked at the door to the ladies’ room, as if Brenna were trying to drag them into a dentist’s chair for a root canal.

“We’re not going in there,” TJ insisted.

“We’re boys,” Buzz pointed out, as if she hadn’t noticed.

“We need to use the
men’s
room,” TJ explained.

“
I
can’t go in
there,
” Brenna replied. “And since I just saw your dad and Uncle Nick go into the men’s room, I think you’d rather use the lad—”

Buzz and TJ hurled their bodies against the door in their haste to scramble into the other restroom and away from their father. Brenna caught the door before it swung back in her face and followed them into the empty room. Fortunately, everyone was on the dance floor, shaking their bodies and singing along with a classic Bob Seger song. Brenna hummed a few bars as the twins shucked their jackets and cummerbunds. TJ got his tie caught around his head, the bow planted in the middle of his forehead.

Laughing, Buzz dropped to his knees on the green-tiled floor and pointed at his brother. “You’re a girl. You’re a little sissy girl.”

TJ slammed his hands against his brother’s sodden shirtfront. “
You’re
a sissy girl.”

“You’re a sissy girl!”

“No one’s a sissy girl,” Brenna insisted as she turned on the water tap and reached for the paper towels that were folded in a basket on the Formica counter.

“
You’re
a girl.” The boys turned on her, as if her gender was a dirty word. TJ tugged the bow tie over his head, and Buzz rose to his feet.

“But I’m no sissy,” Brenna warned them as she cupped the flow from the faucet and sprayed water all over the twins.

They squealed but they didn’t run, catching water in their open mouths and letting it drip from their chins.

She stopped spraying them, in order to mop them up with wet and then dry towels. “At least you didn’t have punch.” She could just imagine the bright red stains on their clothes.

“Uncle Nick said it had nails in it.”

“Spikes,” Buzz corrected his brother. “Uncle Nick said someone put spikes in it.”

“Someone spiked the punch?” Brenna asked. Obviously the boys hadn’t had any, as their little bodies fairly hummed with energy from a pure caffeine high.

“Who’d put spikes in punch?” TJ asked, wrinkling his nose as Brenna wiped off his face.

“Rory,” she muttered. Since the boy had hit his teens, poor Mrs. McClintock had been struggling to keep her youngest on the straight and narrow. Even though Mary McClintock had been a single mom since her husband died, she had always had help from her other offspring. Especially Clayton, the eldest and most responsible of the McClintocks.