Hot Wheels and High Heels (38 page)

“What a shame. But don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll meet Mr. Right very soon.”

The subtext was so thick Heather could barely wade through it, and all of it was directed squarely at her mother.
My Regina’s getting married and your Heather isn’t even dating anyone
.

“Actually, Heather is concentrating on her career right now,” Barbara said. “A lot of young women are waiting until their thirties to marry.”

“Is that what all the women’s magazines are saying?” Aunt Bev said, looking befuddled. “If so, I’m afraid I wouldn’t know about it. It’s all I can do to get through every issue of
Modern Bride
.”

“What they’re
saying
,” Barbara said, “is that some women choose to be successful in their own right before settling down and getting married.”

“And I think Heather is very smart to do that,” Aunt Bev said with an indulgent little smile. “That way if the worst happens and she doesn’t find a man, at least she won’t be struggling for the rest of her life to put food on the table.”

Heather had long since learned to let Aunt Bev’s comments roll right past her. Her mother hadn’t. Heather could almost feel her mother’s brain working, trying to manufacture a comeback, but when it came to sheer bitchiness, she couldn’t hold a candle to Aunt Bev.

Heather took off her dress and put on her clothes again. As the seamstress marked the other bridesmaids’ hems for alteration, Heather sat down on the bench next to her mother.

“Don’t listen to Aunt Bev,” Barbara muttered under her breath. “She’s just jealous that you have a fabulous career while Regina barely made it out of college.”

Truthfully, there was a limit to the fabulousness of a career as a CPA, if it even counted for anything in the first place where her family was concerned. Career women weren’t put on the same pedestal as those who chose matrimony and the mommy track. What was valued the most was the ability to wed, procreate, raise progeny to adulthood, maintain a clean house, and sustain enough of a relationship with your husband that he didn’t leave you for his secretary.

“Why don’t I just tell Regina I don’t want to be in the wedding?” Heather whispered. “She doesn’t want me there in the first place. If I backed out, it would make both of us happy.”

“No. If Regina asked, you have to do it.”

“Angela told her no. Why can’t I?”

“Angela is with the Peace Corps in Uganda.”

“So that’s all I have to do to get out of this? Live in squalor in a foreign country?”

“You’re being unreasonable.”

“What about Carol? She said no, too.”

“You know Carol is having trouble getting her meds straightened out. God only knows how she’d behave the day of the wedding.”

“So if I pop a few Prozac, I’ll become ineligible, too?”

“As if anybody would actually think
you’re
unbalanced?”

True. Everybody in her family had a reputation for something. Heather’s was being sane.

“If you come up with some story now,” her mother went on, “everybody will think you’re jealous of Regina because she’s getting married and you’re not.”

Heather started to say she didn’t care what her family thought, but she knew her mother did. In front of Aunt Bev, she portrayed her daughter as a high-flying career woman who couldn’t be bothered with something as mundane as marriage. But Heather knew the truth. Her mother didn’t want to say, meet my daughter, the CPA. She wanted to say,
“Meet my daughter, her handsome husband, and her four lovely children,”
preferably within earshot of Aunt Bev.

Fifteen minutes later, after the fittings were over and they’d suffered through a lecture from Regina on the jewelry they were expected to wear for the wedding, Heather and her mother left the bridal shop. As soon as the door closed behind them, her mother rolled her eyes.

“Could you
believe
those dresses?” she said. “My sister may have money, but she has no taste. None whatsoever. But it doesn’t matter. You still looked beautiful in that dress, no matter how horrible it was.”

Beautiful? No. Heather was nothing if not a realist. She wasn’t beautiful. But that didn’t stop her mother from continually professing it, as if repetition would make it come true. As Heather was growing up, she could only imagine how her mother must have watched and waited for her ugly duckling to blossom into a swan. Instead, Heather had ended up somewhere between a chicken and a cockatiel. She had a headful of corkscrew curls the color of a paper sack that were impossible to tame, a bump on the bridge of her nose she kept swearing she was going to have fixed, and a body polite people called “curvy.” In the past ten years, she’d lost approximately fifty pounds. If only it hadn’t been the same five pounds ten times, she might actually have gained a foothold on being thin.

On the positive side, she had clear skin, blue eyes everyone commented on, and nice white teeth that had never needed braces or fillings. But she’d always felt as if the bad outweighed the good, and if attention from men was any indication, she wasn’t the only one who thought so.

They stopped beside Heather’s car. “You
are
going on the bridesmaids’ trip tomorrow, aren’t you?” her mother asked.

Heather groaned inwardly. A weekend jaunt to Las Vegas with Regina and her five picture-perfect friends? She couldn’t wait.

“Yeah, Mom. I’m going.”

“Good. Aunt Bev and Uncle Gene are footing the bill. Take advantage of it.” She gave Heather a quick hug. “Do you want to have dinner with your father and me tonight?”

“No, I’m meeting Alison for a quick drink at McMillan’s and then heading home. I need to get ready to go tomorrow. I’ll see you when I get back from Vegas.”

“You have a good time, now,” her mother said, then shrugged nonchalantly. “And who knows? Maybe you’ll meet a nice man.”

There it was again. Heather could say she was going to a gay pride parade, and her mother would still say,
maybe you’ll meet a nice man
.

Heather hated to burst her mother’s bubble, but for her this trip was going to consist of going to a few nice restaurants, sitting by the pool, catching up on her reading, and watching a lot of men watching five blond bridesmaids instead of watching her.

There was nothing like sitting on a barstool at McMillan’s to put Tony McCaffrey in a good mood. He loved everything about the place—the antique bar with the inset mirrors, the big screen TVs, the polished oak tables, the clacking of pool balls, the beat of the music, the hum of the crowd. When he went to heaven, he imagined God would welcome him inside the Pearly Gates and then escort him to a bar and grill just like this one. Somebody would hand him a beer and a pool cue and surround him with a host of tall, leggy women with halos of blond hair whose only desire was to keep him company in paradise.

As soon as he bought this place, he wouldn’t have to die to go to heaven.

Jodie slid his usual Sam Adams in front of him, then folded her arms on the bar and tossed him a sexy smile. She’d started working there about a month ago, and she was just his kind of woman—quick with a beer, out for a good time, and
very
nice to look at. Someday soon he intended to do more than just look.

“You’re sure seem to be in a good mood today,” she said. “What’s up?”

He smiled and took a sip of his beer, which tasted even better than usual. “Can’t say just yet. But trust me, sweetheart. This is going to be a red-letter day.”

She grinned. “Can’t wait to hear all about it.”

Tony wished he could spill the news, but he wasn’t going to open his mouth until the deal was final. The only person he’d told about his plans was his boss, John Stark. John ran Lone Star Repossessions, where Tony had worked as an auto repossession agent for the past few years. It was a good fit for his skills and personality. He kept his own hours, the money was good, and when dangerous deadbeats tried to cause trouble, he generally managed to talk his way out of the situation with a smile and a little bit of Texas good-ol’-boy charm. But when this bar came up for sale, he realized he was destined for bigger things. For once he’d be running his own show rather than being part of someone else’s.

John told him he was sorry to see his best employee leave, but he admired the fact that Tony wanted to go into business for himself. Then he’d pulled a bottle of Scotch out of his desk drawer, poured each of them a drink, and toasted Tony’s future success.

God, that had felt good.

“Got some champagne in the back,” Jodie said. “Is it going to be one of those evenings?”

Tony grinned. “How about you toss a couple of bottles in the fridge? I’ll let you know when it’s time to pop the corks.”

“You got it.”

As Jodie headed for the kitchen, Tony turned on his barstool and looked out over the room. Even though the crowd was a little light at five o’clock, he knew it would pick up considerably in the next hour. Right now, two guys were drinking beer and playing pool. A young couple was deep in conversation at a table near the door. And Tracy had just sashayed over to set a couple of martinis in front of two women who sat in a booth against the wall.

The women weren’t exactly his type—a little too ordinary looking—but any people who came through the door with money in their pockets looking for a good time were going to be his new favorite customers. He intended to become Mr. Hospitality, courting every one of them with great food, drink specials, and a big, welcoming smile. A neighborhood bar was all about making people feel right at home, and that was exactly what he intended to do.

“Hey, Tony. Let’s talk.”

At the sound of the gravelly voice behind him, Tony turned to see Frank slide into a booth near the bar, his belly bumping the table as he maneuvered his way in. Over the years, he’d consumed mass quantities of the food and alcohol his establishment sold, leaving him with a physique that made him a cardiologist’s dream patient. He grabbed a Marlboro from his front shirt pocket and lit it with a flick of his Bic. If heart disease didn’t eventually get him, lung cancer would, which was probably why he was selling the place. Best to head for retirement now while he was still alive to enjoy it.

A short, balding man slid into the booth beside Frank. He wore a suit, carried a briefcase, and his pinched expression said that antacids were one of his four major food groups.

Yep. Frank was ready to get down to business.

Tony grabbed his beer, gave Jodie a wink, and slid off the barstool. This was it. A deal in the making. In just a few minutes, he’d be one step closer to making his dream come true.

“Bridesmaid dresses are supposed to be ugly,” Alison said, as she twirled the spear of olives in her martini glass. “It’s the law.”

Heather took a healthy sip of her own martini, hoping by the time she got to the bottom of the glass, the memory of those dresses would be obliterated.

Oh, hell. Who was she kidding? She could chug an entire bottle of gin and she still wouldn’t be able to forget.

“It wasn’t just that the style was weird,” she said. “It was the color, too. They were
pink
.”

Alison’s forehead crinkled. “Pink’s not really your color.”

“That pink wasn’t anybody’s color. Take a blender. Throw in a chunk of watermelon. Toss in a dozen flamingo feathers. Top it off with a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. Hit the button, and there you go.”

“How about we make a pact?” Alison said. “When we get married, we have veto power over each other’s bridesmaid dresses. That’ll lessen the chances of either one of us making a tragic mistake.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Heather said.

They locked pinky fingers, entering into the umpteenth pact they’d made since junior high. The first one had been a pinky swear that unless both of them got dates to the Christmas dance neither one of them would go, which turned out to be a non-issue since nobody asked either one of them.

“Do you remember when we were in high school,” Alison said, “and we made lists of the qualities we wanted in the men we married?”

Heather remembered. Her list had included
intelligent
,
well-dressed
, and
good sense of humor
. Alison’s list had consisted of
nice body
,
good kisser
, and
well-hung
. Even though they’d both been virgins at the time, Alison’s intuition told her that size really did matter.

“Yeah,” Heather said. “I wanted a professional man. You wanted a porn star.”

“Hey! Stamina is a very worthwhile quality in a man. I mean, if it’s over in five minutes, then what’s the point of—” She stopped short, her eyes following something across the room. “Oh, my,” she said. “Speaking of men we’d like to marry . . .”

Heather turned to see one of McMillan’s regulars slide into a booth across the room. Her heart always skipped a little whenever she saw him, but only because there were certain basic reactions a woman couldn’t fight. Looking at Tony McCaffrey led to heart rhythm disruptions every time, in spite of his reputation with women. Or maybe because of it.

“Please,” Heather said. “Marriage? A man like him?”

“You’re right. Forget marriage. I’d settle for a nice, steamy affair.”

Which was about all a man like Tony would be able to deliver, since guys like him were all about playing the field. With those captivating green eyes and dazzling smile, he could have a woman stark naked before she knew what hit her.

“Yeah, he’s gorgeous, all right,” Heather said. “But would you really want a man like him?”

“Please. Would
you
kick him out of bed?”

“I’d never go to bed with him in the first place.”

Alison rolled her eyes. “You are such a liar.”

“No, I’m not. I like men with brains. Guys like him are so good-looking they’ve never had to rely on anything else.”

“I don’t know about you,” Alison said, “but I’d be having sex with the man, not asking him to derive a new law of physics.”

“Fine. Why don’t you hop over there and see if he’s free tonight?”

“Right,” Alison said. “And the entire time we were talking, he’d be looking over my shoulder at one of the waitresses’ butts.”