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Bride by Mistake
Nicole Helm
Book 1 in the Big Sky Brides series
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“It looks beautiful, Kaitlin. You’ve outdone yourself.”
Kaitlin Shuller blinked back tears while forcing herself to smile. “Thank you,” she croaked. She had been managing not to cry in front of him for weeks now, why should the actual day be any different?
But he was in his suit, and she was in her dress.
The man she had loved since the third grade, standing in a tuxedo, surrounded by altar flowers she’d put together herself. Beautiful white hydrangeas, unfurling white lilies, the deep green of the filler twirled and pinned artfully—if she did say so herself. Subtle and rustic burlap accent to the giant urn.
It was country chic perfection, no floral detail left ignored. The church looked and smelled like a magazine spread and high-end greenhouse brought to life.
All for her sister’s wedding to Carter.
Kaitlin had been so certain she’d come to terms with this, but right here, right now, there were no terms. Only pain.
She’d built her life around him. Since she’d been ten, Carter Finley McArthur had been meant for her. She’d been sure of it. Planned everything in her life with the utmost confidence it would be suitable for a McArthur, suitable for the future doctor, suitable for all the good they would do. Together.
The stability and assurance of the McArthur name was supposed to be hers. Instead, Sierra was marrying him.
He pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket. “I came stocked,” he said with a charming smile. “I hear these things bring out tears in everyone, though I never thought you’d be the first victim.”
She stared at the square of cloth, only then realizing a tear had escaped. She never cried. Except at funerals and the occasional sad movie.
Kaitlin had never been known for being a sap. Driven. Determined. Organized. Charitable, when pushed, but never emotional. But she took the handkerchief because it was expected of her.
She had made a life out of discerning what people wanted from her and going after it wholeheartedly. She’d gone to school for accounting to suit her father, fell into floral design because it would please her mother. She’d done the flowers for Sierra and Carter’s wedding because it would make everyone she loved happy.
Except me.
She grasped Carter’s handkerchief, emotions she’d been banking down for six months swirling around her.
It should be me.
All Sierra had done since the day she’d been old enough to walk was cause trouble and follow the beat of her own internal drum. Sierra never cared about grades. She’d skipped school, missed homework assignments, failed tests. Sierra had been caught with beer in the ninth grade. She’d smoked all manner of things, and Sierra had definitely had lots and lots of sex.
Kaitlin had touched none of those things, all so sure she’d be rewarded for it.
She was no longer anywhere near sure.
“You’ve been such a great friend to us,” Carter said with an affectionate pat of the shoulder. Bare because her sister had picked the bridesmaid dresses. Kaitlin would much prefer to be in a nun’s habit. Anything to keep his palm off her shoulder.
Skin to skin.
“I don’t know how you managed to pack it all in,” he went on and on. She had no idea what to say to make him go away, and even if she had figured out some combination of words, no doubt she would have only squeaked.
This was it. End of the road. No terrible hope that Carter saw the error of his ways without hurting Sierra too too much.
They were getting married. He was going to be her brother-in-law. The man that had been a part of every sexual fantasy she’d ever woven. The man she’d idiotically, steadfastly saved herself for.
She caught a flash of a dark head at the back of the church, and when she recognized the face she couldn’t stop a grimace.
Okay, there was one other man who had starred in her sexual fantasies, but only her subconscious ones. Where she had no control. While real-life Kaitlin wanted the sturdy, charitable, Doctor Without Borders, her subconscious had a thing for ugh.
Regardless of her feelings for Beckett Larson, conscious or subconscious, he was her one and only escape. So, she’d take it.
“Beckett!”
Both men in the room startled, but she would not undo the action no matter how much she disliked Beckett. No matter how much the task of having a conversation with him made her want to burn her skin off.
He was terrible, and one of the few people she’d never been able to pretend she liked. She couldn’t stand him, and everyone knew it.
So, it was no surprise Carter and Beckett looked at her like she’d been hitting the champagne early.
“Uh, hello, Kate,” he offered as she marched down the aisle toward him. Insisting on calling her Kate because she hated it, insisting on smiling because she hated it. Insisting on grating along every nerve ending she had.
He was dressed in a suit, an expensive one it looked. All black and well-tailored, but of course he wasn’t wearing a tie. He probably wouldn’t. Beckett took the role of bad boy about as seriously as…as…
Well, as she took the role of good girl, she supposed.
Hate you. Hate you. Haaaate you. But she forced herself to smile in much the same way she’d been forcing herself to smile since Sierra announced she’d been secretly dating Carter and they were engaged.
Engaged! Can you believe it? And then Sierra had giggled in the way only rule-breaking, careless, reckless, selfish youngest sisters could.
“Easy there, tiger,” Beckett muttered, presumably because she was no longer smiling. She was all but baring her teeth.
She took a deep breath. She was not used to all this…emotional upheaval. Usually she was calm and collected. Serene. Pleasantly moving toward her end goal. Happily ever after with Carter.
She wanted to stomp her feet and scream. She wanted to pound her fists against the pews until they cracked. Her plan was being demolished today and all anyone could do was smile and look gorgeous.
She wanted to curse. In church.
But you would never do such a thing, would you?
She glanced at Beckett, his sardonic smile, his jet black hair and ridiculous blue eyes. Stubble. Dimples. A small scar on his cheek. Underneath the suit he had more scars, tattoos. He even rode a motorcycle of all things, or at least he had on his last whirlwind visit to Marietta.
He was such a cliché she wanted to push him.
Get ahold of yourself.
She had never been violent in her life. She would not start now just because her plans were all coming apart at the seams. She’d designed the floral arrangements for this wedding. She had gotten through months of wedding planning without falling apart.
This day would not undo her. She just needed a new plan. A new goal. Something else to work toward. She would find it. She would find it as soon as possible.
“You all right?”
She looked up at Beckett’s concerned blue gaze. Normally it was the kind of thing that would set her teeth on edge. How dare he be polite to her? How dare he flirt so outrageously with her? How dare he…breathe half the time?
So, instead of gritting her teeth or letting temper steal over her normal calm, rational sense, she smiled. Sweetly.
Her attempt at sweetly anyway.
“Such an emotional day,” she said, waving Carter’s handkerchief. She wanted to light it on fire.
Beckett would have a lighter.
Such a strange thought, but he no doubt would, and as there was no love lost between the McArthurs and Beckett, he’d probably hand it right over.
Kaitlin let out a measured breath. She needed to be alone for a few minutes to find some semblance of her normal control. To find a goal to reach.
Making it through this wedding without imploding would be a start.
“You seem a little pale. Would you like me to get your mother for you?” Carter asked, making a point to stand between her and Beckett.
Again, she wanted to swear. In church. One of the more vulgar swears at that.
“I just saw her,” Beckett piped up, his big hand closing over her elbow, effectively boxing Carter out of the equation. “I’ll take you to her.”
With that, Carter was dismissed, and while usually Kaitlin would as soon chew off her own arm than let Beckett lead her anywhere, today Beckett was just the escape she needed.
*
Beckett had no idea where Mrs. Shuller was, but he kept his hand firmly on Kaitlin’s arm and ushered her away from Captain Douchebag.
Beckett was probably the only person attending this wedding who thought Carter was something of a tool for picking the youngest Shuller sister over Kaitlin. Even Luke, the oldest Shuller and Beckett’s business partner, didn’t seem to get it.
Maybe Beckett saw it because he’d spent some inappropriate time fantasizing about Kaitlin, or maybe it was simply because he was the only person she didn’t like so he could see past all the polish she kept the real Kaitlin hidden under. But he’d known, as apparently most people hadn’t, that Kaitlin had set her sights on Carter a long, long time ago.
The man who didn’t fall for those sights was a douchebag indeed.
He didn’t remember much about the first summer he’d spent with his grandmother here in Marietta. Mostly just being a dick and trying to hurt anyone in his path. Thirteen and angry would never be a good combination, even for a better person.
Kaitlin had been ten or eleven, had stood between him and some kid who’d dared get in his way, and called Beckett a bully without an ounce of fear in her. She had been matter-of-fact, certain, and so contained. At ten.
He’d been in awe of her ever since, and for a long time, determined to wipe that polish right off. As a teen, he would have settled for any outcome. A punch to the face. Tears. A kiss.
He wouldn’t say he’d quite given up on getting a reaction out of her, but time and space and some semblance of maturity had dulled the impulse on the few times a year they ran into each other.
But sometimes, old habits felt like home, when he could really use one.
“I don’t particularly want to find my mother,” she said. He couldn’t pick out her tone. Tired, maybe. Anything but the sharp-edged razor that made up so many of their interactions.
“That’s handy. I don’t have a clue where she is,” he replied cheerfully. Cheerful because it would annoy her and a wilted Kaitlin was…well, it was a thing.
She didn’t say anything. No reaction whatsoever.
“I’m not chancing running into your brother in order to find her.”
She let out a gusty breath. “What did you do now?”
It was an accusation, but it was weary. Disinterested. And his hand was still enclosed around her elbow without her yanking away from his grasp. The frothy dress she was wearing was as out of character as her attitude. Everything about Kaitlin was very practical, a touch staid, not an inch of frilly whimsy had ever emanated from any part of her. At least, not that he’d ever seen.
Today, her usually pulled-back auburn hair was an overlapping twist and twirl of curls and flowers. Like the complicated inner workings of a car engine. The misty grey of her dress made her hair seem redder than usual, and her face was all made up in colors that made her lips and eyes stand out.
She was beautiful, a fact she always seemed so determined to play down. To ignore. So, it was disorientating to see her this way, elegant and bare-shouldered.
In fact, he could almost convince himself he was dreaming. He had all but rescued her from Carter, and she’d let him. She was acting strange, allowing him to keep holding onto her arm long past necessary. So, to test a theory, he loosened his grip and let his fingers trail down the smooth skin of her forearm. She jerked away, and there was the glare he was normally greeted with.
“I’m not in the mood for you, Beckett.” Ah, there, his name hissed like a curse. Home at last.
“You never are, but I think you owe me. I just got you out of the clutches of a McArthur.”
Her glare died, her posture wilted. “I have to go check on the bouquets.”
“Save me a dance.”
“In hell, Beckett.”
Beckett grinned after her as she stalked away. Until he heard Luke utter his name. Much like his brushing his fingertips down Kaitlin’s arm had knocked her out of her acquiescence to him, Luke’s voice knocked any cheer out of Beckett.
“We need to talk.”
Beckett did his best to affect a blank expression, make his voice casual as he turned to face his best friend. His business partner. A person he never thought would think the worst of him. “Thought you wanted to wait until after the wedding.”
“It’s too important.”
Beckett looked at his oldest friend. Some might even say his only real friend. They’d built a business together, because Luke had trusted him in a way no one else in his life ever would.
Funny that he’d finally killed that trust and it wasn’t even his fault.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be here.”
Beckett didn’t even want to be at a Marietta wedding, let alone a McArthur one, but the dismissal stung. Luckily, Beckett had a lifetime of dismissals under his belt and knew how to appear as though he didn’t care.
“I thought I had another job in Marietta. Some old motor—”
“Maybe we should postpone.” Luke’s face was utterly unreadable. “Do you have the keys?”
Beckett did his best to take a page out of the Shuller handbook and not show any emotion or reaction. He leisurely pulled the keys out of his pocket. As a favor to the Shullers, he’d restored some old truck of the McArthurs’ the soon-to-be-married couple wanted to use as their conveyance for the day.
The McArthurs who’d given him a bad name in this town before he’d even had a chance to change. But he’d swallowed his pride and his old hurts and done it, because the Shullers had always been nice to him.
He thought of Kaitlin. Maybe not nice, but Kaitlin’s disdain had always felt different than everyone else’s. A protective response, more about her than him. There was something about him that got to her, and she didn’t let anyone else get to her.
“Beckett, you can’t be pissed at me for this. You put my whole company at risk…” Luke’s normal even-temper was obviously strained.
His company. Risked. As if Beckett would steal from a thing he’d built that hadn’t failed.
Bad blood. He’d heard that from just about everyone in this town, but he’d never expected Luke to think it of him. Not at this point. Fifteen years of friendship. More than half their lives.
The irony of it was for all the things he’d done, the trouble he’d caused, the way his temper or hurt lashed out, quite often at people who didn’t deserve it, the thing Luke was mad about wasn’t his fault.
But he couldn’t find a way to prove it.
“Why did you do it?” Luke finally demanded. Beating around the bush had never been his strong suit.
Beckett tossed the keys to Luke. He tried to affect the don’t give a shit he’d had back in the day. The year Mom had gotten married and shipped him off to Grandma and Marietta for good, when every bad thing that ever happened at school had been heaped on his shoulders.
Every once in a while, he hadn’t even been to blame. But he’d taken the blame and the hate, because he’d had some warped idea it made him strong. Stronger and better than all these people.
It was Luke inviting him to be a part of his business venture that changed him. It had come at the right time, he supposed. Grandma had died and he’d been falling rather deep into bad, and Luke had trusted him enough to ask him to join Shuller Restoration.
Beckett had known part of it was good business sense. He had an affinity and natural talent for figuring out what was wrong with a car and fixing it, and he could help Luke when his dyslexia got in the way. Mostly, Beckett had an eye for changes to make cars look better. And, because his grandmother’s house had been filled with his late grandfather’s ridiculous piles of magazines about cars and motorcycles, he knew everything about the old vehicles Luke wanted to restore.
But, he’d also known it was trust and friendship that had prompted Luke to make the offer. God knew it wasn’t money, as Beckett had been wasting his minor wages at a mechanic’s shop in Billings on booze and bad ideas.
He didn’t know how long they stood there, apparently both lost in old memories and wondering how they got here.
Why did you do it?
Not did you? Not how were you involved? No, it was a foregone conclusion he’d taken the money, despite the fact he wouldn’t need to. The past three years of his life he’d finally moved from barely scraping by, to solvent, to well off.
Bad Blood Beckett Larson had a job he loved and a padded bank account. Why would anyone think he’d steal now?
He could try to explain himself, but he could afford to be kicked out and hurt a lot more than Craig could, if Craig was the real perpetrator, so… So, this was it.
He turned his back to Luke and walked away.
For once in his life, he was taking the high road, and what he thought might actually be the noble one.
Funny, it felt as much like shit as the low road he was so used to.
Find out what happens next…