The floatplane landed in the calm waters of Cathedral Cove just as the sun was setting at our backs, the light fading over the seemingly-boundless waters of the Pacific Ocean. The cove, a tiny inlet lined with towering spruce, hemlock and western cedar trees, was tucked up along the coastline of Vancouver Island, accessible only by water and air.

Even I could admit it was an epic location for a wedding.

The main lodge building, where the ceremony would take place, appeared through the trees on a rocky promontory, overlooking the water with its towering front walls of glass and what I could only assume were heart-stopping views of the cove and the Pacific beyond; it wasn’t called Cathedral Cove Resort for nothing. I could already see why Katie chose it.

And why her best friend, Devi, had sent flowers and steak dinners to my house for a week after I called a guy I knew, who knew the owners of the resort, and twisted a few rubber arms.

Really wasn’t all that difficult to convince them to book out the entire place for Jesse Mayes’ rock star wedding on semi-short notice. Turned out, they were fans. But I enjoyed the steak anyway.

As the plane growled up to the docks, it occurred to me that I really hadn’t been out of the city, into nature, in far too fucking long. This wedding would be a great excuse to—mostly—forget about work for a couple of days, unplug, and breathe some clean, green air.

I should really be happy right now.

Or at the very least, looking forward to spending the next couple of days with my best friends, my friends who’d become, over the years, my family, at what was sure to be one of the best parties of the year, probably the best party of Jesse’s life—because we were celebrating his marriage to Katie Bloom, a woman who made him ridiculously happy.

But I wasn’t happy.

I was far from happy.

Fortunately, the loud drone of the plane and the distractingly stunning view made convenient cover for the fact that I couldn’t manage conversation with Amanda, much less look her in the eye. But as the plane settled and we climbed out, the crisp, cold wind off the water smacking me in the face, I knew I had to get my head together. I couldn’t exactly mope around like some adolescent asshole for the next two days.

If you don’t know me now, you never did.

Jesus, that girl knew what to say to piss me the fuck off.

No; not girl. Woman.

No mistake, she was a woman now, and didn’t that just drop-kick me right in the guts. Because I’d missed it. All of it.

Everything Jessa Mayes would become… she’d gone and become it without me.

And now, with one shitty little comment, she thought she could just wipe away the years I had known her? All the time we’d spent together as kids, and then, as we got older… She could just take that all away from me?

Well, fuck her.

Maybe it meant nothing to her, but she didn’t get to decide what it meant to me. She didn’t get to tell me what I knew or didn’t know, and she sure as shit didn’t get to tell me how I felt about it.

You’re angry with me.

Yeah. No shit.

I was also more than a little pissed at myself for losing my cool. But I just couldn’t fucking handle it. Being that close to her… every caveman urge I’d ever had rearing up in violent protest that I had her, that close, again, and she was gonna slip through my fingers, again.

Consider me dead to you.

Jesus. What a fucking asshole.

Amanda turned to me and smiled, her short blonde hair dancing in the breeze. She looked like a Canadian beer commercial with her white teeth, tight jeans and short bomber jacket, her plaid shirt tied above her navel.

I smiled back.

Our bags were whisked away as a guide from the resort gave us a quick tour of the grounds, which pretty much consisted of a maze-like cedar-planked boardwalk winding through the ancient trees. It was suspended over the rocky, uneven ground, and far below, a stream that meandered through the rainforest, feeding the hot springs on the rim of the cove. We were already late, so once we’d stopped off at our cabin and changed into our dinner clothes, we headed straight up to the lodge. The tiny amber lights that had been strung along the boardwalk had begun to sparkle in the dusk; I had no idea if the lights were always there or if they’d been hung for the wedding, but it was beautiful.

Along with the scents of cool, damp cedar, fresh spruce needles and moss, the bird calls and chirps among the trees, the water crashing on the rocks below… the whole scene was pretty breathtaking. So breathtaking, I was pretty sure Amanda hadn’t yet noticed that I hadn’t said a word to her since the plane hit air.

Or maybe that was wishful thinking.

The scents of cooking—lemon, dill, something buttery and something else kind of sweet, like fresh baking—wafted out from the back of the lodge, and the scent of a wood-burning fire, smoky and inviting, clung in the slightly misty air off the water. I took a few slow, deep breaths, just trying to soak it all in, collect my thoughts the way I might before a particularly unsavory business meeting.

But this unease had nothing to do with business.

As we approached the lodge, I could make out the thump of bass and the unmistakable, bittersweet rhythm of The Black Keys’ “Never Give You Up.” Which was really fucking unfortunate, since a Black Keys song had once imprinted on me in a way that I’d never be able to separate hearing this band from the memory of dancing with Jessa Mayes on a shitty summer night in the dark.

But really… was there anything left on Earth that didn’t somehow remind me of her?

Amanda caught my hand and leaned in, resting her head on my shoulder. I could hardly blame her. It was the perfect setting for romance, never mind that it was a wedding. Katie and her girls had done well planning this thing, and if my goal was to get my date in the mood to spend the next couple of days screwing in front of a fire, mission accomplished.

Except that I was suddenly wondering why the fuck I’d brought Amanda to this thing at all.

Maybe because it would’ve seemed weird if I didn’t bring her? Maybe because, when she heard that Jesse Mayes—lead guitarist of Dirty, the band I’d managed since they and I were little more than kids, and one of my best friends—was getting married, she just assumed she’d be coming with me.

Or maybe because, when she’d assumed she was coming, I let her go ahead and assume, because deep down I’d wanted to send a big fat Fuck you to Jesse’s sister by showing up with the pretty blonde at my side.

Yeah, that sounded about right.

Not that I was proud of it.

As we stepped from the boardwalk onto the wraparound deck of the lodge, I took another fortifying breath. One of the catering staff opened a door for us, and as we stepped inside, I saw them.

Jesse and Katie.

In the middle of the room, dancing slow and kind of making out, laughing as they pawed at each other like no one else in the lodge, or the universe, existed. Pretty much their usual mode.

Everything was as it should be, then.

A few other people were dancing; most were talking, drinking and snacking on hors d’oeuvres. Besides the lodge staff, the catering team bustling in and out, and Jude’s security guys, there were about forty or so guests, all VIPs—close family, members of the wedding party and their dates—here for the rehearsal in preparation for the wedding tomorrow, which would be attended by another sixty or so guests. All of whom I knew.

But as we started across the room, despite all the familiar faces, I had eyes for only one person; one person who clearly wasn’t here.

I didn’t see her. Anywhere. And Jessa Mayes was pretty fucking hard to miss.

I didn’t see Jude either, so I couldn’t even ask him where the fuck she was. Saw Roni in the corner, flirting with one of his security guys, though, so at least their plane had landed.

“You wanna dance?” Amanda asked, just as the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses” started playing.

Christ. What was with all the soul-sucking love songs?

Right. Wedding.

“After I introduce you around,” I told her, steering her past the dance floor. The more people she knew, I figured, the more likely she might have a good time—despite the fact that she was here with me.

I took her over to greet the other members of Dirty—also pretty hard to miss. Zane, our lead singer, with his white-blond mohawk, demonic beard twisted into a braid, eyebrow piercings and ice-sharp blue eyes with just that little bit of crazy in them—wearing jeans and a black leather vest, because that was semiformal wear for Zane. And Dylan, our drummer, his six-and-a-half-foot frame making him the tallest dude in the room; add to that his unruly, flaming auburn hair and athletic build, poured into leather pants and a cashmere sweater, and even if I hadn’t seen them, all I’d have to do was follow the batting eyelashes.

Wherever these guys went, a trail of drooling women was sure to follow, and there were about a half-dozen flocked around now, including Katie’s mom. Yeah; we probably could’ve made these guys a decent career in music even if they had zero musical talent.

Lucky for us all, they had it in spades.

Both of them were grinning like fools as Amanda and I waded through the pheromones. They looked just a little too happy, which in my experience was rarely a good thing. When these two got up to shit they were like a couple of idiots on the playground; neither of them could back down from a dare.

“No bullshit at Jesse’s wedding,” I told them, straight-up. I didn’t have it in me to deal with their shenanigans on top of everything else.

“Nope,” Dylan said. “Just saying how good it is to see Jessa. Jesse’s so fucking happy. Kinda feels like a reunion.”

“Yeah, we could get her to stick around for a bit, we could actually make it one,” Zane said. “You know, get her out to jam, write some killer shit.”

“Yeah,” I said. “If we could.” I looked around for someone to introduce Amanda to, so I didn’t have to tell Zane, here and now, that was a shit idea. And never gonna happen.

Jessa Mayes’ days of songwriting with Dirty were over.

Long over.

She’d made her choice, six-and-a-half years ago. She’d walked away from the band and never looked back. Fucking thing was, I knew for a fact every member of the band was more than willing to let that slide if she’d just come back and write with them again. Especially Jesse; he’d loved that girl from the second she came into the world, and he wasn’t about to stop. When Jessa was born, her four-year-old brother had named her—after himself—forging a bond that would never be broken. He would always have her back, would never turn against her, no matter what shit she pulled.

Not me.

It was my job to look out for the band, and I was never gonna let Jessa Mayes fuck us all over again.

“What’s your deal, Bro?” Zane looked from me to Amanda and back with a devious grin; clearly, something wasn’t adding up. People could say what they wanted about Zane being a lunatic, but the man wasn’t stupid.

“Yeah, man,” Dylan said. “I’m sensing a general aura of funk.”

Great. If it was that obvious something was off, even to Dylan, by far the most laid-back—and least nosy—of my friends, this was gonna be a long fucking night.

“No deal,” I said. “Just airsick. Floatplane.”

Total bullshit, but the best I could do just now was spit out a few two-word sentences and turn away before they asked more questions.

I was glad to find Dolly when I did, waiting for a hug. Zane had brought her as his date, though she would’ve been invited anyway. Dolly was Zane’s grandma; she was also the woman who’d raised him from the time he was two years old, and it was her garage that Zane and Jesse jammed in with all the shitty little garage bands they formed before we put Dirty together.

Grandma Dolly had also helped raise Jesse and especially Jessa while their mom battled her illness. When she died, it was Dolly who’d taken Jessa in, given her stability, a sense of family and three meals a day so Jesse could pursue the gonzo life of a musician on the brink of superstardom.

I had big, big love for this woman. We all did. Tiny and white-haired, she was pushing ninety and still going strong; at least, strong enough to take the flight out here, be a part of this crazy shindig, and keep putting up with Zane’s shit.

I wrapped her up in a careful hug and kissed her soft cheek. “Zane taking good care of you, Doll?”

“Oh, he always does.” I could hear the joy and the pride in her scratchy voice. “Everything has been just lovely, and all my babies together.” She patted me on the back before letting go. “Everyone’s so happy that Jessa’s come home. Have you seen her yet?”

“I picked her up at the airport, actually.”

“She looks like she’s doing well, don’t you think? Such a beautiful girl.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Beautiful. Dolly, this is Amanda.”

I introduced Amanda around to all the usual suspects, including Dylan’s “date,” Ash, lead singer of the Penny Pushers, one of the bands Dirty often toured with. Dylan and Ash had been besties since they’d met playing a festival about five years back and because he was Dylan’s plus one, Ash was the only Pusher who’d be attending the wedding. That’s how selective the guest list was.

I’d told Jesse not to sweat it. If anyone was pissed about not getting invited—and they would be—I’d deal with it.

The only member of Dirty who wasn’t here yet was Elle, our bass player and Jesse’s ex-girlfriend. She was invited, of course, but wasn’t in the wedding party, so she wasn’t here for the rehearsal. She’d be arriving sometime tomorrow with the other guests. Awkward, sure, but this was Jesse and Katie’s thing and that’s just how it had to be.

I’d be checking in with Elle and I knew my partner, Maggie, would too, to make sure she was doing okay. But this was what it was.

Jesse was happy as fuck, he was marrying Katie, and Elle just had to deal.

As long as it didn’t fuck with the music, we’d be fine.

Maggie had materialized to greet us, looking pretty as usual in a silky gray cocktail dress that matched her striking eyes, her dark hair slicked back in a ponytail. Even in her heels she was petite; I had to lean down to kiss her cheek. Despite the pretty package, Maggie was pure kick-ass. I’d never met anyone who could rally people and bend them to her will the way she could—not even Jude’s security guys, and they often carried guns.

She showed us around the room, essentially a giant yet cozy banquet hall, with a massive fireplace at one end, opposite the towering windows overlooking the cove. She gave us the lowdown on where the ceremony would take place—in front of the windows—and showed us the stage toward the back of the hall where Zane’s side project band, Wet Blanket, would play tomorrow night. The floor in the middle would be used for seating during the ceremony, then dinner, and later cleared for dancing. Right now it had a cluster of eight round tables set for the rehearsal dinner. The tables were lit with dozens of candles, chandeliers glowing above.

If Maggie ever decided to quit the music business, she could probably make a solid career as a wedding planner. I wasn’t gonna tell her that, though; I needed Maggie taking on more work, not planning her escape. On paper, she was my assistant, which was fucking ridiculous. In reality, she did a lot more for all of us than her fair share. I’d been trying to officially promote her for years, but apparently she didn’t want any more “responsibility.” Which I translated as: I already put up with enough of Zane’s shit, don’t make it any easier for him to abuse me.

Katie’s best friend, Devi, joined us, and the two of them chattered on for a while about wedding stuff. Jesse had given them a blank check to do whatever they wanted—meaning whatever Devi thought Katie would want, and what Katie wanted, evidently, was an intimate yet glamorous wedding in the Canadian wilderness. Glad no one asked me how to pull that off, but somehow, Maggie and Devi had.

The both of them had been obsessed with it over the past five months, calling me ten times a day with inane questions. I gave them the best answers I could, but really, I did not give the last shit about weddings. Weddings, and marriage in general, were, in my limited experience—as the child of not one but three ugly divorces—pretty much a farce.

I did give a shit about Jesse though, which was why I’d agreed to be one of his groomsmen when he asked. And what Jesse gave a shit about was Katie Bloom, that cute-as-all-hell girl in his arms with the dark hair and blue-green eyes. Apparently, the spoiled fuckwit she’d almost made the mistake of marrying a few years back—or rather, his fuckwit parents—had insisted on a big, grandiose summer wedding, but Katie had always dreamed of a cozy winter wedding. So a cozy winter wedding was what Jesse was giving her.

Pretty sure he’d give her any-fucking-thing, if she asked.

Thing about Katie was, she never asked. Which was one of the many things I liked about her. Refreshing change from the other women Jesse had dated over the years, who were, for the most part—other than Elle—opportunistic airheads.

The man was brilliant on guitar; not so brilliant in his choice of women.

When I saw him with Katie, though, I could say he’d finally gotten it right.

He was smiling ear-to-fucking-ear when they came off the dance floor; he let her go long enough to give me a bear hug, lifting me right off the floor. It struck me, when he smiled, how much he resembled his sister; the both of them kinda dorky as kids, all lanky and over-serious about music, now tall and statuesque, more than their fair share of beautiful, with their flawless, chiseled features, big, dazzling smiles and soulful brown eyes.

“Brody. About time you graced us with your presence. Had to stop and get a new tattoo on the way, brother?”

“Just a quick one, of Katie’s name,” I poked back.

Where normally he might’ve dropped me on my ass for that, he just laughed. Of course, he had Katie. He had Jessa. The two people he loved most in the world were here, and nothing was gonna piss on his parade.

Even my general aura of funk.

I gave Katie a hug and a kiss and told her she looked gorgeous, which she did. I’d been informed that she wasn’t wearing a white dress for the wedding, so the little white cocktail dress she’d chosen for tonight was a nice touch. “Luckiest groom around,” I told her, and she smiled her sweet, disarming smile at me.

Then I introduced Amanda around to Katie’s family; I’d had a chance to meet them at the engagement party back in the fall. Nice people. Solid. Loved Jesse something fierce. And they took to Amanda right away, like everyone did.

Why wouldn’t they?

Amanda was charming in a genuine way, and easy to talk to. Not to mention easy on the eyes. Definitely deserved better than some distracted asshole who couldn’t even fucking see her.

Because the entire time I introduced her around the room, eventually landing at the bar where she got chatting with Katie’s parents, playing on repeat at the back of my mind—actually, at the front of it—was: Where the fuck is Jessa?

Where. The Fuck. IS she.

I would’ve liked to believe myself when I explained to myself that my interest in the answer to that question was purely for Jesse’s benefit. That as one of his best friends and groomsmen, not to mention his manager, it was my duty to help make sure this thing went off without a hitch, that Jesse was happy, that Katie got the wedding of her dreams; that as soon as they got back from their honeymoon, Jesse was going back into writing mode for the new album and it was important he not be distracted or dealing with the fallout of some bullshit family drama, courtesy of his disappearing-act of a sister… or some such shit.

But the truth was, I had to see her again.

Had to.

One glimpse of her, standing in the rain at the airport, her face tipped back as she grinned at the sky like she didn’t have a fucking care in the world, wearing my shirt—or at least, a shirt that looked a fuck of a lot like a shirt I’d once had, that she’d been wearing the last time I saw it—and I was done.

Done.

Sitting all of two feet from her in my truck? I was well and truly fucked. Because I’d forgotten how many colors there were in those soulful dark eyes. Forgotten how fucking pretty she was; how painfully fucking pretty. And I could still see the little girl she once was in those eyes—the little girl who’d looked at me like I ruled the fucking world.

I could barely look at her, could barely fucking breathe—that smell of her, fuck me, the smell of her that hadn’t changed in all the years since I’d met her, sweet and pure, like apples and blossoms and rain and fucking stardust and moonbeams; I couldn’t say what it was, but yeah. All I could do was grip the wheel and concentrate on driving and just try to keep from foaming at the mouth when I lit into her—try to pretend that none of it mattered; all my pissed off, miles-deep frustrations; all the disappointment; all the repressed agony and the pent-up clusterfuck of rage… that none of it destroyed me at all… that she didn’t destroy me, when she so fucking did… all of it, just broiling beneath the surface, ready to blow.

And her voice.

That fucking voice I hadn’t heard in six-and-a-half years, melodic and soft and so fucking her.

I had never in my life had to jack off so badly that I pulled my vehicle off the road, onto the shoulder of a fucking highway, and took my cock out while cars blasted by and I did not give one fuck who saw me.

But I did just that.

Not five minutes after dropping her off with Jude, on my way to pick up Amanda… because no one needed to see me like that. So totally fucked up.

Christ, who does that?

A maniac, that’s who.

And if I was a maniac, it was because Jessa Mayes, once upon a time, turned me into one. But shit happens, yeah? I was a kid then. Since then, I’d become a man. I wasn’t gonna unravel at Jesse’s wedding.

And I didn’t.

I was good. I had this.

Until I heard her name, just somewhere in the ether, and I knew she was here.

Jessa.

Someone said it, somewhere, and I turned to look across the room like a dog tossed a scrap. Pretty sure I salivated. My wine glass broke in my hand. It made an audible popping sound, and both Amanda and I looked down to find the delicate bowl of the glass, still in my hand, cracked, wine dribbling out.

At least I wasn’t bleeding.

“Omigosh,” Amanda said, and grabbed a bunch of napkins from the bar to help me. “Um… I think you’re supposed to finish drinking the wine before you break the glass.” She smiled at me, then got the bartender to whisk the broken glass away and hand me a fresh one.

While I just stood there.

Staring across the room.

Because Jessa Mayes had just walked in wearing a dress that couldn’t possibly be legal on that body.

Not that there was anything scandalous about the dress on its own. It was fitted to her goddess-like curves, but it was longish, ending just below the knee, the neckline dipping no lower than her collarbone, with half-sleeves. It wasn’t exactly an upstaging-the-bride sort of dress. It wasn’t white, slutty, or showing miles of leg—and Jessa Mayes had miles and miles of leg under that thing.

It was just what it did to my brain when I saw her in it.

It was made of what looked like thick, bunched-up silk. Not quite peach, not quite pink… salmon? Iced-rose-cantaloupe-sorbet? I had no idea what the fuck a chick would call it, but it was motherfucking hot.

Along with her silky, slightly wavy hair that reached pretty much exactly to her nipples, worn smooth, the ends curled under and one side tucked behind a perfect ear, she looked like a screen siren out of some old black-and-white movie—but in vivid flesh tones, like some technicolor wet dream.

Hard to tell when I’d picked her up at the airport in that furry jacket, but now I could see how she’d changed since she went away—in all ways holy and good. As a little girl she was cute, a little dorky, scrappy, with her mane of wild brown hair and those big brown eyes. As a teenager, she got lithe and limber, swanned right out into an angel-faced beauty.

As a woman…

I’d seen photos of her these last six-and-a-half years. Professional photos from high-end shoots for major fashion brands. It was pathetic how often I’d searched her on the web, found new shots of her from some swimsuit shoot or lingerie campaign I hadn’t yet seen, and saved them.

None of those photos came close to capturing what I was looking at right now.

Jessa’s eyes found mine across the room… and that wide-eyed look of hers went straight to my dick.

Christ.

She turned away, hastily. Then she bent down to give Dolly a hug, giving me a first-rate view of her perfect, heart-shaped ass, and I just about broke another wine glass.

It was fucking official. The woman was trying to kill me.

Wasn’t enough that I was dead to her; she was actually trying to end me.

As I watched her across the room the most fucked up thing was, after being that close to her again—close enough to breathe the same air, close enough to smell her, close enough to glimpse all those colors in her eyes—I’d probably let her.

I put the wine glass down on the bar and stared at my hand wrapped around it, afraid if I let go the whole thing would fall apart. Stared kind of blankly at the tattoo on the inside of my forearm, a single line of runes that read abstinence. A tattoo that only I, or someone who happened to know how to read ancient Germanic runic writing, would understand. And for the life of me I couldn’t remember what it was supposed to mean or why the fuck I had it permanently inked into my arm, other than the fact that it had nothing to do with abstaining from alcohol or any other such substance—and a lot more to do with the goddess across the room in the silk-sorbet dress.

I let go of the wine glass and ordered up a beer from the bartender. Why the fuck was I drinking wine anyway? I didn’t even like wine.

Amanda. Amanda liked wine.

My gaze fell to her. She was standing next to me, sipping her wine and watching me over the rim of her glass. It really wouldn’t take a genius to match my line of sight to Jessa Mayes’ ass and Amanda was far from stupid, so I wasn’t even gonna pretend that wasn’t where I was staring for the last half minute.

“That’s Jesse’s sister, right?” she asked lightly, like what I’d been staring at didn’t bother her at all. But yeah, it did.

Because perfect, heart-shaped ass.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to keep my tone business-neutral. Like, Yeah, that’s the sister of one my best friends, and isn’t that nice she made it to the wedding? I haven’t seen her, or even thought about her, in six-and-a-half years. Have you tried the crab cakes yet?

No idea if Amanda knew me well enough yet to see through that shit. But she smiled softly and the uneasy, suddenly self-conscious look in her eyes made me feel like that much more of an ass. “Maybe you could introduce us?”

Yeah. I’d get right on that.

“Have you tried the crab cakes yet?” I asked her. “I’ll get you some.”

Then I took my beer and got the fuck out of there.