Authors: Lindsey Brookes
“So where do you come in to this?”
“I’ve already made your
flight reservations. Now get packing.”
Tears pricked at the back of Angie’s eyes. She didn’t want to lose Trey, but she wanted him to be happy. “If this is what he wants—”
“You’re what he wants.”
“Is that why he’s marrying another woman?” Angie couldn’t keep the hurt from her voice.
“He’s marrying someone else because he loves you!”
“That doesn’t make any...” Her eyes widened. “Trey loves me? He said that?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After you two came back from Vegas.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Better yet, why hadn’t he told her?
“Because Trey asked me not to. I know about you and Rick at the airport.”
“Me and Rick at the airport?”
“Trey told me he saw you in Rick’s arms.”
It took a moment to register. “Oh, my God. That’s why he was acting so strange after he came back from taking that call. He saw me with Rick.”
“Angie, how could you? Rick of all people.” Kathy’s tone was one of disgust.
“I didn’t do anything. Rick was trying to convince me that I was wasting my time with Trey. I told him he was wrong. Then he grabbed me and I pushed him away. I had no idea Trey saw that.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
“Are you kidding? He’d try and kill Rick. I just wanted to move on with Trey. But then when we came home he pushed me away. Now I know why.”
“It wasn’t only that,” her friend explained. “I talked my brother into letting you know how he felt about you. But when you didn’t respond to the card he sent along with the roses, I thought maybe I had somehow misread the depth of your feelings for him.”
“Roses? I never got...”
“Angie?”
“Rick!”
“What?”
She was going to kill him. “Rick said the flowers were from him. I should have known better. He’d never given me flowers before.”
“But Trey’s card was with them.”
“Not when I got them. Instead of a florist’s card, Rick’s business card was inside the envelope that was attached to the bouquet with his profession of love scribbled across the back of it.”
“You never said anything.”
“That’s because Rick pissed me off and I threw them in the trash. They didn’t mean anything to me. If only I had known they were from Trey...”
“That lying, conniving, son-of-a—bitch. Wait until I see him Monday.”
“Never mind Rick.” He was the least of their problems right now. Trey’s sudden decision to marry made sense now. He was acting out of hurt. He thought she didn’t love him. “I have to stop Trey from marrying Traci.”
“Thatta girl, Ange! I knew I could count on you.”
She certainly wasn’t going to sit around and let the man she loved marry someone with orange hair. “I have to call him.”
“I’ve tried,” Kathy said. “He’s not answering his cell. I have a feeling that he turned it off so I wouldn’t try and talk him out of getting married.”
“Damn.” Angie grabbed a notepad and pen from the kitchen drawer. “Okay, what time is my flight?” One way or another she was going to stop this wedding.
*
* *
Trey paced the floor of his hotel room, waiting for word from Kathy. If everything had gone as planned, his sister’s flight should have landed in Vegas twenty minutes earlier. Why hadn’t she called yet?
“Angie will be here,” his father said, walking over to clasp a firm hand on his son’s shoulder.
Trey wished he felt as confident as his father sounded. “What if she doesn’t come?”
“Son, that little girl has loved you from the first time your sister brought her home to meet us.”
“She was just a kid.”
“Who grew up to be a beautiful young woman,” his father added with a grin. “One who never gave up on you. That’s how I know Angie will be here, no matter how crazy this plan of yours is.”
He sure as hell hoped so. The arrangements had all been made. Now he just hoped he’d have a bride.
His cell phone rang and Trey nearly dropped it in his hurry to answer it. “Hello?”
“Is that the Bridal March I hear?”
It was Kathy. “Angel’s coming?”
“Did you really have any doubt?”
Hell, yes, he’d had doubt. And now that he knew Angel was on her way, his heart was beating overtime.
“Where are you?”
“At the airport.”
“What did Angel say when you told her I was getting married?”
“That if anyone was going to be pushing your wheelchair it was going to be her.”
Trey raised a questioning brow. “My wheelchair? She planning on breaking my legs?”
“That’s our Angie,” his father chimed in with a chuckle.
His sister laughed. “I’m sure she wanted to when I told her you were running off with Traci, but I think your legs are safe. What Angie meant was that she intends to be the one taking care of you when you grow old.”
Emotion knotted up in his throat.
“Trey, you still there?”
“I’m here.”
“What about Rick?”
“He’s still an asshole.”
“I’m talking about Angel’s feelings for him.”
“Angel doesn’t have any feelings for Rick. Remember that little scene you witnessed at the airport?”
He raked a hand through his hair, his jaw clenching. “Yeah.”
“I thought you should know that when you saw Angie with Rick at the airport, Rick was trying to talk her into forgetting about you and giving him another chance. Apparently, the ass pulled her into that embrace you saw.”
“That bastard.” And all this time he’d believed...
“If you had stuck around long enough, you’d have seen her push him away, followed by her telling him it was you she wanted.”
“She did?” Damn his stubborn pride. If only he’d asked her instead of reading things into what he thought he saw that day.
“Yes.”
“No wonder she never replied to my card. I acted like an ass.”
“True, but that’s not why she never replied.”
“What do you mean?”
“Angie never saw your card.”
He sank down on the edge of the hotel bed. “But the florist said—”
His sister cut him off. “That the flowers were delivered and they were.”
“Are you telling me they lost the card?”
“No, Rick took it.”
Trey shot to his feet, fury surging through him. “He what!”
“Apparently, he was there when the roses we delivered. He intercepted them and then switched the card to make Angie believe he was the one who sent them to her.”
“Just wait until I get my hands on his scrawny little neck,” he seethed.
Mike Landers stepped over to his son. “Is there a problem?”
“Nothing I can’t take care of when I get home,” he assured his father. Rick was lucky he was several states away at that moment or he’d be the one needing a wheelchair.
His sister groaned on the other end of the line. “That’s great. Just how Angie wants to spend her honeymoon, visiting you in prison. Forget about Rick. Angie has always and will always love you, even if she’s never said the words.”
“She has.”
“What?”
“She told me she loved me when we were in Vegas.”
“And you still doubted it? Trey,” she groaned.
“I was an idiot, okay?”
“Better, I suppose, than being a pathetic little slime ball like Rick is.”
“Trey?” his father prompted, his expression one of concern, understandable since he was only hearing part of the phone conversation.
“Everything is going as planned, Dad. Kathy’s at the airport now.” He shifted the phone to his other ear. “Is Cindy with you?”
“You bet. We’re at baggage claim right now, waiting for our other suitcases.”
“Other? How long are you two planning on staying?”
“Just a couple of nights, but we brought two suitcases just in case the airlines lost one along the way. We travel agents know how often that happens. This way we’ll be sure to have something nice to wear to your wedding.”
“If there is a wedding. Angel has to agree to marry me first.”
Kathy laughed. “As if there’s any doubt. Look, I’ve gotta run, I see my other suitcase coming down the conveyor belt.”
“See you soon,” he said with a smile. “Oh, and, Kath...”
“Yeah?”
“You’re the best.”
“I know.”
* * *
The jet engines roared to life as the plane thundered down the runway for takeoff. Angie leaned closer to the window, watching the palm trees that lined the roads become nothing more than specks of green in the distance.
Mrs. Thompson, a true believer in romance, had offered to keep Jackpot for as long as it took for Angie to get her man back. She just hoped she made it to Vegas in time to do just that.
This was all Rick’s fault. She should have known those beautiful roses weren’t from him. He was cheap when they dated and everyone knows leopards don’t change their spots.
She checked her watch as she turned from the window. “Please, please, let me get there in time.”
She couldn’t bear the thought of Trey marrying anyone else. Even worse, she hated the thought of him marrying someone he didn’t love, someone who didn’t love him. At least, not in the way she did.
Traci was pretty, if one overlooked her neon, color-changing hair, but she was nowhere near ready to settle down. Angie had witnessed that firsthand during girls night out with her co-workers. Traci loved men. All men. Especially men with money.
Was that it? She was marrying Trey for his money? Whatever the reason, it was her duty as Trey’s best friend to talk some sense into him before he ended up in a loveless marriage. She had to convince him that what they shared in Vegas hadn’t ended for either of them.
Angie reached above her for a pillow and then placed it against the window beside her, closing her eyes. It was a long flight and she would drive herself crazy going over all the ‘what ifs’. She needed to try and get some sleep if that were at all possible.
The next thing she knew, the fasten seat belt sign was chiming above her, rousing her from the deep sleep she had miraculously fallen into.
The pilot came on overhead. “May I have your attention please? We will be landing at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport in approximately ten minutes.”
One of the flight attendants stepped up to the microphone nearest her seat and went into her spiel. “Please note the fasten seat belt lights are now lit. All seats should be returned to their upright position...”
Her heart began to beat even faster. All she could think about was seeing Trey again after so many weeks. She sat up and fastened her seat belt, laying the travel size pillow on her lap. This was it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Angie practically flew through the airport doors, her suitcase wheels thumping along the sidewalk behind her as she raced toward the row of awaiting taxis.
The next in line pulled up and stopped beside her. She whipped open the door and shoved her suitcase inside first, pushing it across the seat as she climbed in behind it.
“Where to?” the driver asked as he reached down to start the meter.
Where to? Good question. What was the name of the chapel she was supposed to be going to?
“Miss?”
Oh, hell, she couldn’t remember. “The chapel,” she blurted out. “And hurry.”
He turned to look at her. “Lady, do you realize how many chapels there are here in Vegas?”
A horn blared from the taxi behind them, making her all the more nervous. “Just a minute,” she told the driver as she rifled through her purse for the paper she had written the Trey’s wedding information down on.
Nothing.
She dug deeper and panic set in. Where had she put it? She’d had it with her at the ticket counter in Miami.
“Lady,” the driver prodded impatiently as horns blared behind them. “What chapel?”
She let out a frustrated groan. “It’s the one my best friend intends to ruin his life in.”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s not an address.”
“I’m sorry. I’m trying to find the name of it. I have to. My entire future happiness is at stake here.”
More taxis were now sounding their horns behind them, while others simply whipped out around the parked cab.
“Ooh, just start driving,” she said with a frustrated groan. “It’ll come to me. I know it will.”
But just in case...
Angie pulled her cell phone from her purse and dialed Kathy’s house. No answer.
“Come on, Kath. Where are you?”
Think, Angie, think.
As if she could. She was just too nervous. Despite having written the information down just hours before, her mind was determined to remain blank.
She punched in Kathy’s cell phone number, thankful she could at least remember that, and then waited.
“Hello?”
“Oh, thank God.”
“Angie?”
“Yes, it’s me.” She glanced at her watch with a frown. “I need your help.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Vegas. Where do you think I am?”
“What’s wrong?”
“My flight arrived late, only five minutes, but those five minutes could affect my whole future,” she said, rambling on nervously as she continued to dig through her purse. “I’m sitting in a taxi and I have no idea where I’m going.”
“To stop my brother from getting married.”
“I know that! What I mean is I lost the paper that had the name of the wedding chapel on it, and I’m suffering from brain freeze.”
“Just try and calm down. You have plenty of time to get here.”
“Here?”
“There! You’ll make it there on time. Damn, I think I’m even more nervous than you are.”
“Kathy, where am I making it to?”
“Oh, it’s the Little White Wedding Chapel.”
“I’m on my way. Thanks.”
She snapped her phone shut and leaned toward the front seat. “Take me to the Little White Wedding Chapel. And hurry.”