Chapter 17

“Have I mentioned it’s good to have you back?” Jordan asked, linking arms with Simon.

He reached across his body to pat her hand with his. “Had I known you were sporting the cowboy boots I sent, I’d have come sooner. I knew you could pull them off.”

“And you haven’t even seen the teal ones yet. I’m saving them for a special occasion.”

“I’m wounded I don’t qualify.”

She smiled up at her friend. “Please. We both know you only came back for the claw-foot tub.”

“True, very true. Okay, so tell me what our game plan is tonight. Do we need any code words? Good-cop bad-cop routine?”

“Definitely not.”

Simon had flown in that morning, partially for moral support, partially because the bosses were slowly building enthusiasm over the potential scorned bride spin-off idea and wanted to make sure a legal consultant was on hand in case one of Luke’s exes was seriously considering it.

She and Simon were on their way to a casual dinner at Tucker’s with Stacey, and if the vibe felt right, Jordan figured, it couldn’t hurt to mention it.

Stacey was pretty, vibrant, confident—and, judging from her enthusiasm over Luke being a part of Jilted, didn’t seem entirely opposed to the idea of reality TV.

Still, Jordan had kept the invitation casual, just dinner among friends. Isobel would be joining them, and she figured the BFF support probably couldn’t hurt. At the fair, Jordan had gotten the distinct vibe that Isobel was ready for her friend to put her history with Luke far behind her. Jordan was hoping for an ally there.

“You figure out who the first bride is yet?”

“Nope. She must live around here, because nobody mentions her disappearing the way bride number three did, but they also don’t mention her name.”

“Have you asked?”

It was her turn to pat his hand. “All in good time. All in good time.”

Tucker’s was its usual noisy self, even on a weekday night, and though she knew he was working, her eyes scanned the room for Luke anyway.

She needn’t have bothered—somewhere along the line she’d gotten to the point that she felt the man’s presence, and he wasn’t nearby tonight.

Stacey and Isobel hadn’t arrived yet, so she and Simon grabbed a table for four, as well as a bottle of pinot grigio.

“Well, this is darling,” Simon said reverently as he took in the down-home coziness of the local bar. “Is that a moose head?”

The vegetarian in Jordan winced, even though she felt a strange sense of pride at Simon’s praise; it was as if she somehow had come to adopt Tucker’s as her own.

“Cowboy at seven o’clock’s checking you out,” Simon said into his wineglass.

Jordan scanned the room, met the gaze of Travis Olander, who wasn’t even trying to be subtle in what appeared to be a very practiced come-hither gaze.

“Pass,” she said, turning her attention back to Simon.

“He’s sort of cute. In a Daniel Boone kind of way,” Simon said, tilting his head.

“He is. He’s also a conversation wasteland.”

“Ah, you’ve met.”

“Oh yes. First night here, he made it all of four minutes before asking me back to his place for a Jim Beam nightcap.”

“Yikes,” Simon muttered.

“Exactly.”

“Still, this is highly disappointing, Carpenter. You’ve been here over two weeks and have yet to ride a cowboy.”

Jordan took a sip of her wine and tried not to blush, thinking about the kiss with Luke.

Simon’s eyes narrowed on her. “Or have you?”

She was saved from having to explain the Mistake to her friend by the arrival of Stacey and Isobel.

“No matter how cute I dress, you always dress cuter,” Stacey said with a pout as she pulled back from the greeting hug. “How is this possible?”

“It’s the legs,” Isobel said, giving Jordan a quick hug of her own. “I hear you’re a runner?”

“Word gets around.”

“Small town,” Isobel said with a wink before turning her attention to Simon. “You must be the god with the perfect skin?”

Simon laid a flattered hand over his chest before pulling her in for a kiss on the cheek. “Keep that up, and I’ll turn for you. I might be able to like girls again, so long as you promise never to show me your boobs or other stuff.”

Isobel laughed. “Pour me a glass of that wine and I’ll turn for you, but same rules apply. I don’t want to see your thing.”

“Um, I’m right here,” Stacey said, good-naturedly swatting Isobel’s arm as the four of them sat down.

At first, Jordan didn’t process this entire exchange as anything more than usual friendly banter, but then her consciousness demanded that she replay it—as did Simon’s quick kick to her shins.

Oh. Ohhhhhhh. Stacey and Isobel were…romantically entangled.

Surreptitiously, her eyes flicked between the two women, perhaps not subtly enough, because Stacey caught her eye and grinned. “Wondering how you missed it?”

“I—”

“It’s not common knowledge,” Stacey said. “Or perhaps it is, but it’s not…out there.”

Stacey fiddled with a coaster, and Isobel brushed her fingers against the back of her hand before turning to Simon and Jordan. “Stacey’s father is a reverend just outside of town.”

“And not the forgiving, love-is-love type of preacher,” Stacey muttered, taking a large gulp of wine.

“No, he’s definitely more the brimstone variety,” Isobel said with a tight smile.

“Oh, honeys,” Simon said, reaching across the table and extending a hand to each woman.

Stacey accepted his hand immediately, Isobel with an eye roll and more reluctantly.

“I came out of the closet when I was nineteen, and my parents haven’t said a word to me since,” Simon said.

Jordan gave him a quick look. They’d been friends for years, and he’d never told her that. She knew that he and his family were estranged, but to be disowned because of whom you loved…

Jordan felt like a bit of an outsider as her three tablemates sat for a moment in silence, sharing something she’d never understand, but she didn’t mind.

Mostly her head was reeling, wondering if she’d missed signs, or if they’d just hid it that well, or…

“Okay, enough about it,” Stacey said, pulling her hand back and shaking out her arms as though wanting to rid herself of sad thoughts. “We’re not all the way open about it, but we like you, Jordan. Figured if you’d be friends with Simon here…”

“For the record, you’re the gayest person I’ve ever met,” Isobel said to Simon.

He patted her hand affectionately. “Just about the nicest compliment you could ever pay me.”

Jordan was still trying to process it all. Stacey obviously wouldn’t be a candidate to prance around in a bikini searching for her true love among a couple of dozen men, but she found she didn’t care as much about that as…

“Does Luke know?” she blurted out.

Then she winced, for both the irrelevance of the question and what it revealed.

The entire table gave her a surprised look, but then Stacey smiled knowingly. “You like him.”

Jordan swallowed. “He’s…”

“Hot.”

Jordan looked at Isobel in surprise, and the redhead shrugged. “What? I can like girls and still see it.”

“He is hot,” Jordan agreed, because…what was the point in fighting the facts? “But he hates me.”

“As someone who dated him for two years and nearly married the guy, no, he most definitely does not,” Stacey said firmly. “He’s got no idea what to do with you, but that’s a different problem altogether. And to answer your question, yes. He knows about Isobel and me.”

“Is that why you didn’t get married?” Simon asked kindly but bluntly.

Guilt flickered across Stacey’s face, and Isobel put a protective hand on her arm. “I’ve got this, hun. Yes,” Isobel said, turning her attention to Simon and Jordan. “Stacey told Luke the morning of their wedding that she couldn’t keep living a lie. He was good about it. I’ll always be grateful for that.”

“More than good,” Stacey added quietly. “He knew my parents wouldn’t handle having a gay daughter very well. He preserved my relationship with them by letting everyone assume it was him who’d broken it off. I hated the idea of making him a scapegoat, but I suppose the assumption was inevitable. I was already in my wedding dress by the time I got the courage to tell him—to tell myself.”

“The picture of the deserted bride,” Jordan murmured, even as she felt a stab of defensiveness on Luke’s behalf.

“I don’t love it,” Stacey whispered. “He tells me all the time that it doesn’t matter, that he doesn’t care…”

“Perhaps because he’d had some practice,” Isobel muttered into her wineglass.

“Hey,” Stacey said, just a tiny bit sharp. “You know perfectly well that the first wedding wasn’t what it seemed either.”

It was the opening she’d been waiting for, and Jordan took it. “You guys know why he left his first bride at the altar?”

“That’s not—” Stacey broke off when Isobel elbowed her. “It’s not my story to tell.”

Jordan slumped back in her chair as she tried to navigate everything Stacey and Isobel weren’t saying.

“Well, crap,” Simon said, sounding a little awestruck. “The first wedding’s not what it seems either. That’s why our boy doesn’t want to play the part of runaway groom. Because he’s not one. We’ve been chasing the wrong guy.”

“You’ll have to ask Luke about that,” Stacey said, her smile gentle but stubborn.

“Oh, believe me,” Jordan said, tossing her wine back and reaching for the bottle. “I fully intend to.”