Kelsey Morrison wanted to say it was just her competitive nature that had driven her to go after that bridal bouquet, but that would be a lie. The truth was that she was tired of watching other people paired up two‑by‑two as if they were heading to Noah's ark. She’d hoped to catch that bouquet so a little luck might come her way for a switch. But no. She had a black belt in karate, and she’d been beaten out by a woman with nothing physical going for her but one extremely sharp elbow.

Pitiful. Just pitiful.

Now, hours later, Kelsey sat on a beach chair at the ocean's edge, watching a full moon rise over the Caribbean Sea and holding yet another ice pack over her eye. And for what? She'd flown from New York to Jamaica, put on a stupid girly bridesmaid's dress, walked up the aisle, and then…nothing.

Well, okay. Not exactly nothing. Sarah came to her senses approximately five seconds before saying "I do," dumped her jerk of a fiance at the altar, and ran off with his brother.

What a spectacle that had been.

Not that Kelsey objected to Sarah dumping Randall. But jumping out of his arms and right into Nick’s? Just like that? Kelsey wished them all the happiness in the world, but it still felt to her as if Sarah was rolling the dice. In all the years Kelsey had known her, Sarah had always been the kind of woman who looked before she leaped, but this time she’d sailed right off that cliff without a net in sight.

On the beach chair next to Kelsey sat Liz Prescott, the other bridesmaid in the wedding that wasn’t. She took another sip of her pina colada and sighed blissfully. ”Sarah’s so lucky. Nick is crazy about her. I’d kill to have a man fly thousands of miles to stop my wedding and get me back."

"Please," Kelsey said. "She barely knows him. Wait till she finds out he watches TV in his underwear and clips his toenails in bed. There goes the romance."

Liz frowned. ”Well, that's heartwarming."

“It’s realistic.”

“When they met a year ago it was love at first sight. Don’t you think that means something?

“So why didn’t she stay with him then instead of getting engaged to Randall?”

“It took her a while to come to her senses. I’m just glad she did.”

It was all Kelsey could do to keep from rolling her eyes. Love at first sight? Did she also believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy? Then again, she was Sarah's cousin, which meant they shared the same gene pool. Believing in nonexistent things was clearly hereditary.

Kelsey pulled the nearly-melted ice pack away from her face, cursing that awful woman and her sharp elbow.

“Yep,” Liz said. “There it is. You definitely have a black eye.”

“Of course I do," Kelsey muttered. “That woman was lethal.”

“You're a cop, and she was lethal?”

“You have to watch out for the crazy ones. Sometimes they have superhuman strength.”

A black eye. Damn it. That meant when she returned to work, she got to show up at roll call looking as if she’d gone three rounds with a heavyweight champ. That would be good for at least a dozen snide comments from the male cops she worked with. And the gossip. God. They’d never believe what really happened. Speculating on what they thought might have happened was so much more fun.

”I can't believe Sarah threw her bouquet in the first place,” Kelsey said. “Don't you have to say 'I do' before it counts?”

Liz grinned. "She thinks you should get married, so she figured it was worth a shot. If only you'd caught it—"

“That’s nothing but superstition. Why does every woman on earth believe that stuff?"

"Because most women want to get married.”

"I don't. Half of all marriages end in divorce."

"And half don't."

"Is it really worth all that trouble for a fifty-fifty shot?"

"That's kinda cynical, isn’t it?”

Kelsey just shrugged and drained her glass. She couldn’t remember a time when cynicism hadn’t oozed into every part of her life. If somebody so much as said, Hey, Kelsey! The sun's coming up in the east! she'd think twice about believing it. That was what happened when you grew up the way she had and then spent six years as a New York cop.

But for a moment, Kelsey wondered what it would be like to be as optimistic as Liz about finding the right man. But no matter how hard she tried to put herself in her place, she just couldn't do it.

“Will you ladies be needin' anything else?”

Kelsey turned to see a waitress walking through the sand toward them. She wore a tropical print shirt and a black skirt, the uniform of the resort staff. She wasn't the petite waitress who'd taken their original order. This woman was tall and statuesque with heavy black dreadlocks spilling down her back. According to the tag she wore, her name was “Kiki.”

“Nothing more for me,” Kelsey said. She’d already hit her two-drink-per-day maximum, not to mention the fact that she still had a plane to catch that night and she needed to be sober enough to navigate a tight connection in Atlanta.

Liz declined, too, but instead of walking away, Kiki said, “You ladies looked lovely at the wedding today."

"You mean the wedding that never happened?” Kelsey said.

Kiki gave them a knowing smile. "There'll be one soon enough.”It's just a shame you ladies are alone in this romantic place without your own men to share it with.”

“I don't have a man,” Liz said. “I haven't had much luck in the relationship department lately.”

“I can do without a relationship altogether,” Kelsey said. “Men are just too much trouble.”

“Oh, no!” Kiki said. “You should never give up on love! Wonderful men are out there just waitin’ for you.”

Kelsey gave her a suspicious look. “Yeah? So where are we supposed to meet these wonderful men?”

Kiki laughed softly, those long dreadlocks swaying in the Caribbean breeze. “Oh, there's no meetin' anybody, sweetness. You know 'em already.”

“Well, that does it,” Kelsey said. “If it has to be a man I already know, I’m going to be alone forever.”

Liz tilted her head. “Men we already know? How would you know that?”

Kiki gave her a sly smile. “I know a lot of things, milady.”

"I'm a bartender, so I do know a lot of men. But most of them aren't my type." She considered that for a moment. "Actually, none of them are my type."

“The only single men I know are cops,” Kelsey said, “and I'm not going there.”

“Are you sure it’s going to be a man I already know?” Liz asked. “That’s kinda depressing.”

Kiki gave her that sly smile again. “Whatever Fate decides.”

Fate? Kelsey thought. Yeah, right. Fate was that horrible bitch who'd stuck her with a mother who made her believe more in divorce than in marriage. Was that same Fate in charge of her love life, too? No wonder it sucked.

“Keep your eyes open, ladies,” Kiki said, looking up at the sky. “You see the full moon tonight? By the time the next one rises, you'll be in the arms of those wonderful men who’ll love you with all their hearts.”

Okay. Now it was official. This woman was nuts. “That’s right,” Kiki said. “The next full moon belongs to both of you. This one,” she said, nodding toward the sky, “is Sarah’s.”

That made unexpected shivers run down Kelsey’s spine. After all, she had to admit Kiki was right. Sarah was in the arms of the man who really loved her, and it wasn’t her jerk of a fiance. And it was happening tonight of all nights, with a full moon—

No! Wait a minute! Was she actually buying all this? She’s nuts, remember? This woman is nuts!

“Walk good, sweeties,” Kiki said as she swished away, her dreadlocks swaying in the night breeze. “Walk good, now.”

Walk good. Jamaican slang for Take care. Be happy. Have a nice life.

“Okay, she was kinda weird,” Liz said.

Kelsey made a scoffing noise. “No kidding.”

“But what if she's right? What if our soul mates are right under our noses?”

“Not a chance.” Kelsey turned to watch Kiki take the long walk back to the beach bar, only to get a shock.

She was nowhere in sight.

Kelsey blinked with surprise, a little woo-woo tremor sizzling between her shoulders. Where did she go?

Then she looked down at the sand on the beach. Kiki had been heading straight for the beach bar. But if that were true…

Where were her footprints?

Kelsey felt that woo-woo sensation all over again. But with her vision a little blurry from the rum she'd consumed, she finally decided she'd been mistaken about the whole thing.

“I have an idea,” Liz said brightly. “The night of the next full moon, we’ll text each other. Just one word. If Kiki was right and you found the love of your life, text YES. If she was wrong, text NO.”

Kelsey wanted to say, Can I just send NO now and get it over with?

Instead she dutifully exchanged phone numbers with Liz, even though she knew it was an exercise in futility. She eyed her empty glass, wishing she could have another drink to keep the pain away a little while longer, and not just the pain from taking an elbow to the eye.

No matter what she told Liz, watching Sarah get swept away by her own Prince Charming, along with all this talk of Mr. Rights and soul mates, had made her more than a little depressed. Out there in the world people were loving each other with all their hearts, and she wasn't one of them. So she looked up at the moon, closed her eyes, and made a wish. Let it be true, let it be true, let it be true…

She knew it was dumb. She didn’t even believe in love. But some small part of her still held out hope that maybe—just maybe—the right man was out there waiting for her.