Blissed (Misfit Brides #1) (22 page)

There was no way in
hell
Natalie could be CJ’s partner.

But she still wanted to date him. She wanted to date him and have sex with him and laugh with him. And the Queen General wasn’t her biggest obstacle.

“But I don’t date well,” Nat whispered.

Lindsey’s lips quivered, and Natalie caught her telltale eye crinkle.

“Don’t laugh,” Natalie said. “The only reason I had prom and homecoming dates in high school was because their parents made them take me.”

“Please. Even if that was true, it was high school. No one dates well in high school.”

“Or after, for some of us.” Kimmie still had her hands over her ears, but she leaned closer.

“Derek was the first guy to ask me out after I graduated college.
Two years
. No guys asked me out for
two years
after I came home. The single sons on the The Aisle? They’d all duck and cover when they saw me coming. Max, Luke, all of them. Jake Sydney convinced me he was dating his cousin when I asked him to the Husband Games reception once. None of them want me to get my claws in them.”

“Natalie—”

“I made Derek marry me, because I was afraid no one else would.”

Lindsey didn’t say anything.

Neither did Kimmie.

Probably because it was the truth. “How do you do it? How do you get a guy to just go on a couple of dates with you? How do you get what you want and then just move on?”

Lindsey’s eyes pinched. Briefly, but long enough for Nat to notice. Lindsey had never talked about settling down. About having a wedding. About raising babies. Even before she picked her law specialty, she’d never had the princess dreams.

But Nat had wondered a time or two if her sister’s love life was truly that simple. “Lindsey, I didn’t mean—”

“There’s a difference between enjoying a man’s company because you
can
and taking a chance with the right guy because you
should
. I don’t have a right guy. You? You might. But you won’t know if you don’t jump.”

Natalie looked closer at her big sister. “How do you know you don’t have a right guy?”

“I just know.”

Not the
If-I-haven’t-found-him-yet, he-doesn’t-exist
excuse Natalie expected. Because for someone who claimed to be good at spotting bad matches, Lindsey was damn good at spotting the perfect temporary hookup.

She’d also never said she
didn’t
want a husband and a family of her own.

A déjà vu kind of shiver prickled Natalie’s skin. “
Oh
,” she whispered. “Who was he?”

A rare show of color impeded Lindsey’s normally placid complexion. “Who?”

“Don’t lawyer me. You were in l-o-v-e once, weren’t you? What happened?” Nat sucked in an excited breath. “Or who
is
he? Is he married? Is he a client? Ohmigod, Lindsey. Did he die?”

Lindsey’s eye roll was so big, it nearly smacked Natalie off her stool.

“I believe we were talking about you,” Lindsey said. The guy on her other side bumped her, and Lindsey hunched her shoulders in.

Sympathy and gratitude that Lindsey was here, braving the crowd on a busy night, overwhelmed Natalie’s urge to keep prying. “Playing that card?” Nat murmured.

“Yep.”

“Spoilsport.”

A burst of laughter at the top of the bar drew their attention. A few of the guys from the Bliss Bachelors baseball team were gathered around, listening to CJ and howling.

It was wrong that she’d spent so many years blaming someone so fun and full of life for the worst part of hers.

So wrong that he’d had to suffer all he had as well.

Lindsey squeezed her hand. “Your life’s changing, Nat. Take a chance. Worst case, you’ve lost a few nights. Best case, you end up with something special for both you
and
Noah.” She jerked her chin toward CJ. “Won’t know if you don’t try.”

“What’s with you? This isn’t your normal kind of anti-pep talk.”

“The guy has eleven sisters, he’s living with a priest, spending half his week doing odd jobs for his deceased wife’s parents, and he apologized to you for the kiss that wasn’t his fault. If he’s psycho, he’s hiding it
deep
. So I formally have no objections. Further, I’d like to see you happy. Because you deserve it.”

Did she?
Could
she? Natalie didn’t know. “That’s quite possibly the nicest thing anyone has said to me all day.”

“It’s true.” Lindsey nudged her. “Mom would tell you to go for it.”

Natalie blinked at the hot tingle behind her eyeballs. 

“Not till after Knot Fest though, okay?” Kimmie said. “I’m not kidding. My mom will toast your coconuts worse than she did Bonnie and Earl’s.”

Natalie swung all the way around, her blood suddenly zumba-ing through her veins. “She what?”

“Did I say toast? I meant flambéed. Mom turned the Games over to Duke and Elsie. You—you hadn’t heard?”

Natalie shook her head. It explained why Duke and Elsie had been at the sunflower field. And it was probably good news for the Games.

Very good news.

But it still should’ve been Natalie’s job.

“And Bonnie and Earl are putting their shop up for sale,” Kimmie said. “Apparently none of their kids want it, and after the shame of, well, you know, they’re retiring.”

Being kicked off the Knot Fest committee could do that to a couple.

Kimmie leaned closer. “Rumor is, they’re not handling being empty nesters well. They’ve been secretly having marital counseling over in Willow Glen. And since you had everything with the Games under control…They kinda checked out a while ago, you know?”

Natalie had noticed. Hearing it was because of marital issues—that put a new light on things. Her sympathy for Bonnie and Earl went up a few thousand points.

But it still didn’t change all that Natalie had done and would never get credit for.

“Just the rumor I heard,” Kimmie added. “They didn’t tell mom the part about you.”

“Nat?” Lindsey said. “You okay?”

CJ had moved down the bar to his fan club again. To real women who had real chances of being a good partner to him in the Games. Mom’s Games. That Duke and Elsie Sparks would get all the credit for. That Dad would be playing in with a woman who wasn’t Mom.

That second whiskey sour was a bad, bad idea. “I’m tired,” Natalie said. “Have you guys watched
Outlander
yet? I have it on DVR. We could swing through Wok’n’Roll and get some sweet ’n sour chicken.”

Lindsey looked across the bar at CJ, then back at Natalie. “We’re already out. Let’s stay and enjoy. I’m officially designating this an Aisle-free, Husband Games-free, man-free zone. If you’re still tired in ten minutes, I’ll take you home. Promise.”

“Man-free?” Natalie smelled a trap.

Lindsey waved a hand at the three men crowding her on her other side. “We’ll just pretend they’re all eunuchs. Or have Kimmie yell
vagina
a couple more times.”

“
Jesus
.” The guy closest to Lindsey pushed his drink back, set a few dollars on the bar, and went the way of Kimmie’s former barstool neighbor. The guy who was now closest to her shot her a scowl and scooted over one more, so now there were two seats between them.

“See?” Lindsey’s shoulders relaxed, and the pinched look in her eyes faded.

Natalie laughed. “Man-free. Got it.” She could ogle CJ all she wanted. Which was still a very, very bad idea. She pointed to the clock. “Ten minutes.”

“You haven’t had dinner yet, have you?”

“Nine minutes, and you’re beginning to annoy me.”

Lindsey grinned. “Oh, honey, I’m just getting started.”

She lifted a finger at CJ, and he crossed back to them. “Yes, ma’am?”

“We’d like some cheese fries,” Lindsey said. “Bonus points if you can get some bacon on them.”

“You got it.” He signaled the kitchen.

The kitchen where he’d nearly made Natalie explode. Her thighs squeezed. “He can’t do that in seven minutes,” she said.

“Eight and a half. And it’ll take the same amount of time to get to Wok’n’Roll and wait on an order there.”

“Plus, this way you don’t have to worry about fortune cookies.” Kimmie dropped her voice and glanced around. “I probably shouldn’t be here tonight. I got one the other day that said I should avoid public places until I’d made peace with my past.”

Natalie smiled again. “What could you possibly have in your past to make peace with?”

“You’d be surprised. Oh! Fries! Yum.” 

CJ slid a plate of cheese fries, complete with bacon crumbles, onto the bar. “Enjoy, ladies.”

Gap-jawed, Natalie checked the clock over the mirror. “No way.” That was
entirely
too fast.

Impossibly
fast.

“He’s
really
good,” Kimmie said.

“He is,” Lindsey agreed. “Wouldn’t you say, Nat?”

Her lady bits sighed in agreement. “How’d you do that?”

“Fate. We were supposed to have cheese fries tonight.”

Natalie pointed to the empty seat on Lindsey’s other side. “He ordered some before you chased him away, didn’t he?”

Lindsey grinned. “Eat up. You’ll feel better once you get some food on top of your whiskey.”

It was a decent enough theory to test, and the fries smelled pretty dang good, so Natalie dug in. And it turned out, cheese fries were way better than Chinese tonight.

So was hanging out at Suckers with Lindsey and Kimmie again. Between the food and the whiskey and the scenery, Natalie hardly noticed the next hour slipping by.

But then Kimmie sat straight and went pale. “Oh, pumplegunker.” She dove under the bar.

Natalie craned to see what Kimmie had noticed, above or below the bar, but she couldn’t pick out anything—or anyone—in particular. It was just the normal, non-Aisle crowd mixing with out-of-town wedding guests of the male variety, with CJ’s fan club thrown in for good measure.

“Kimmie?” Natalie said.

“Everything okay?” Lindsey added.

“Dropped something,” Kimmie murmured from her hiding place. “Oh, no. Here it is.” She glanced up, but didn’t straighten or retrieve anything. “Um, guys? I think I left my shower on. I should—you know—go check on that. Don’t want my house to burn down.”

“Because you left your shower on?” Natalie wasn’t
that
inebriated. She hadn’t even finished her second drink.

“Oven! I meant my oven.” Kimmie cast a desperate look across the room, still hunched over. “Stupid fortune cookie.”

Natalie shared a look with Lindsey, then caught CJ’s attention.

“Back door?” she asked him.

He didn’t quirk a single eyelash at Kimmie. He did, however, scan the building before giving a subtle nod toward the back. “C’mon, Kimmie. I’ll get you out through the kitchen.”

“Thanks,” she squeaked.

CJ strolled to the kitchen, upright like nothing was wrong. Kimmie attracted only a mild bit of attention by walking like a duck with back problems on her way out.

But it was Kimmie.

So the sight was only mildly unusual.

“His sisters trained him well.” Lindsey scanned the crowd too, frowning, but her gaze didn’t pause on any suspects.

CJ casually sauntered back past them. “Any idea if somebody needs his ass kicked?” he asked.

“Nope,” Lindsey said. “She say anything?”

“Her toaster’s been malfunctioning and she’s afraid she left it out for the cats to turn on.”

“She’ll tell us when she’s ready,” Natalie said.

CJ nodded. “Smart thinking there.” He tapped the bar twice. “You ladies holler if
you
need anyone’s ass kicked.”

“Aren’t you sweet,” Lindsey said. “But we’re perfectly capable of kicking ass on our own.”

“I know. I want to watch.”

There went Natalie’s lady bits again.

Suckers was crowded enough that other customers quickly claimed the empty seats on either side of Natalie and Lindsey, but since one of them was Gabby, they didn’t mind. She’d had her first fitting this week, and she was even happier with her dress than Natalie was. Gabby had final projects to tackle for her last semester of school, though, so she didn’t stay long. Shortly after she left, Lindsey got a phone call. She glanced at the display, and a frown the size of the wedding cake statue darkened her expression. “Right back,” she said to Natalie, then slid off her stool and toward the bathroom.

A minute later, she was back, but obviously not to stay. She snagged her purse and coat. “Client emergency,” she said tersely. “I’ve gotta run. You okay here?”

Natalie had only a vague idea what kinds of emergencies Lindsey dealt with, but she knew it wasn’t good and the police would probably be involved. “Don’t worry about me. You go.”

“Rain check on finishing,” Lindsey called over her shoulder. She already had her phone back to her ear.

“Don’t make threats you can’t follow through on,” Natalie called back.

But when the door shut behind Lindsey, Natalie realized that inebriation wasn’t the only thing keeping her from getting home tonight. “Shit.”

“That one of your quarter words?” CJ asked on his way past with a plate of onion rings.

“How do you know about my quarter words?”

“People talk. Heard your dollar words are really bad.”

“Yep. I save ’em for Knot Fest meetings.”

He flashed a smile at her—
for
her—but moved down the bar to deliver the onion rings to the CJ fan club. 

Natalie needed to call a cab. Put an end to a night of fun, leave CJ to his real choices for a stand-in bride.

He was watching her watch him in the mirror behind the bar.

She blew out a slow breath. She shouldn’t do this. The Queen General would torch her tiara. Or kick her off the Knot Fest committee. Or—or keep her from taking what could be the best risk of her life.

“Well, now, what’s a pretty girl like you doing all alone in a place like this?”

Startled, Natalie tore her gaze from CJ. The guy sliding into the seat to her right was neatly groomed from his sandy blond hair and designer beard to his custom-fit blazer over a plaid button-down shirt and distressed jeans. There was something both approachable and off-limits about him. His cheesy grin said he knew exactly how bad the line was, and Natalie couldn’t help smiling back.