Texas Wedding

He swiped a hand over his eyes as if the gesture could scrub away the recollection. But his mother’s sweet smiling face was freshly imprinted on his mind. Memories like this were landmines that he preferred to avoid. He blew out a breath and looked around for something to refocus on.

The possibility of running into AJ again. That should be enough to grab the attention of any red-blooded man, he thought as he walked. And thinking of her did make him feel marginally better.

So, with seeing her to anticipate, what the hell was wrong with him? Feeling of loss like this hadn’t hit him this hard in twenty years. Maybe it was the impending anniversary.

Twenty years. Wow. It seems like yesterday.

After the explosion that had killed his family, he’d learned to shut down his thoughts when the mind apes got restless. He knew from experience if you loved too deeply you got hurt; if you dwelled on the hurt it ended up eating you alive. So, he’d become a specialist at isolating the enemy emotion, neutralizing it so that he didn’t have to give it another thought.

Shane had become an expert at feeling nothing. It made him a damn good soldier. Wasn’t that all that mattered, since he had nothing else to live for?

He’d been eighteen years old when he’d lost his family—his mother, father, sister and brother. Gone. In the snap of a finger, they were gone and his world was shattered beyond repair.

Why am I alive? Why did they have to die? Maybe if I hadn’t stayed behind in Italy?

In the first few years, he’d asked himself these questions nearly every day, until it had gotten to the point where the what-ifs had threatened to bury him. That’s when he’d to lock it all away.

Why, all of a sudden, were the ghosts he’d so carefully sequestered haunting him again?

As he continued his journey up the tree-shaded sidewalk toward the square, he glanced at the small clapboard houses that lined the walk. His mood darkened with each well-manicured lawn he passed. After several tours of the Middle East and living in government bachelor digs when he was in the States, it was no wonder this homey little town was bringing up issues. It reminded him so much of his childhood.

Fort Hood was just far enough away that it was more practical for him to stay in a rent-by-the-week efficiency. It wasn’t much, but at least it was closer to the construction site than commuting from the base.

This assignment was only temporary, he reminded himself. He’d be out of here soon enough. Then came Europe. And after that...he’d wait and see what life and the U.S. Army dictated.

In the meantime, distant strains of country music and aromas of delicious food beckoned him. His stomach growled again. Starving, he inhaled deeply, trying to discern among the mélange of inviting scents if there was a grilled burger in his near future.

It smelled promising.

As Shane closed the distance between his appetite and the town’s offerings, the sound of a bouncing basketball grabbed his attention. In the driveway of a two-story brick house, two boys were engaged in a game of Horse. The sound of a blaring car horn made one of them miss the basket. A mangy looking mixed-breed dog darted across the sidewalk, having narrowly dodged the honking car. Shane watched as the mutt, who seemed unfazed by his near brush with death, loped up to the boys, barking and dancing around them, licking their faces and wiggling in delight.

“Hey! You’d better put a leash on your furry friend,” Shane called to the boys. They froze, ceasing their whoops and giggles, staring at him warily as if they’d just noticed him. “He almost got hit by that car.”

The boys said nothing. They just stood there, the dog in between them and the stranger.

Shane didn’t mean to scare them. See, that was one of the things he hated most about small towns like Celebration. Everyone knew everyone. Everyone was accounted for...part of a family or at least the fabric of the community. It was just like where he grew up.

The boys didn’t answer, so he kept walking, hoping they would heed his suggestion to curb their pet. Loss hit hard when you lived in a sheltered world that fostered a false sense of immortality. By the time he reached the next driveway, the whoops of laughter and barking began again.

In the distance, he saw the town square, a park dotted with white tents. The source of the delicious aromas, he suspected. He waited for a couple of cars to pass before making his way across Main Street.

Closer to the square, the street had been blocked off with large traffic barriers to allow for free-flowing pedestrian traffic. It appeared that the entire town of 1,288 had turned out for the food fest and that everyone was here milling about.

Did the square have room for 1,289?

Shane bought his ticket and entered the fray. The first booth he came to was a restaurant called Quiche Me Quick. They offered a sampling of quiches.

Quiche?

He hesitated. But since the samples were cut into small pieces and he could take it and eat while he kept walking, he grabbed a plate and did just that.

In fact, he walked right past the next booth. Petite Four, was offering an array of bite-size cakes that were covered in shiny, pastel-colored icing and decorated to look like little presents. Too sweet for an empty stomach. The sight of them made his teeth hurt.

The third booth was even less promising. It was Deloris’s Delicacies, offering what looked like fluffy pink icing that smelled like fish. As if the appearance wasn’t unappealing enough, the smell nearly did him in.

Judging by the first few booths, it looked like the festival was about froufrou food; he craved something substantial. He inhaled again to make sure the delicious smell of something cooking on the grill hadn’t been a sensory mirage. It was still there. It made his mouth water.

“Hi! I’m Deloris. Care to try my salmon mousse?” A petite, middle-age woman, who looked like she would be more at home in a Junior League meeting than hawking fishy fluff, held out a white plastic spoon heaped with the unappetizing stuff. “I made it myself. When I bring it to parties everyone just goes wild over it and asks me for the recipe. They always say, ‘Deloris, you should go into business and sell that mousse of yours.’ So I did. Here, hon, have some.”

She seemed so proud. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her feelings. He wasn’t picky, but the fact that he could smell the goo from a distance made him hesitate, despite how a steady stream of people drifted by and grabbed spoons.

“You know what? I just got here and I’m making my rounds to see what looks good. I don’t want to get too full too fast.”

She smiled. “Well, I understand. But you come back and see me. I’ll save you a bite, okay?”

He tilted his chin in what he hoped was a noncommittal gesture. “By the way, would you happen to know where I could find the Celebrations, Inc., Catering booth?”

“I don’t know right off the top of my head, hon, but I’ll look at the festival map and find out for you.”

She placed the mousse spoon on an iced silver tray, walked to a table at the back of the tent and returned with a map of vendor locations.

“Let’s see...” She traced the page with a nail that was painted the same color as her mousse. “Ah! Here we go. We’re here.” She tapped the paper. “You’ll want to scoot right across there.” She traced a path away from her booth, around the large gazebo in the center of the square—where a Country-Western band was playing and people were line dancing—to the other side of the square. “Celebrations, Inc. is in tent number 78. Right under that big old oak tree, across from where everyone’s dancing. Would you like to take this with you?” She offered him the map.

“You might need it later. But thanks for your help.”

She rolled the map into a cylinder. “It was my pleasure. But hey, before you go, are you looking to secure a catering company for an upcoming event? Because I know AJ and if you told her you wanted her to use my mousse, I know she’d do it.”

“Actually, I’m just stopping by her booth to say hello.”

“Oh. Ooh!” Her eyes sparkled as if Shane had confided that he was there to propose to AJ. “How long have you known our AJ?”

Another thing he hated about small towns was how good news tended to travel fast. He needed to nip this in the bud before Deloris told the entire town he and AJ were engaged.

“Actually, I don’t really know her. We have a mutual friend, and I was just stopping by for a second to say hello.”

“Oh.” Deloris looked decidedly disappointed.

As luck would have it, three women walked up to the booth, all hugs and squeals, apparently delighted to have found Deloris and her delicacies. Shane took that opportunity to wave goodbye and make his exit.

He meandered in the general direction Deloris had outlined, past the gazebo, toward the stately oak tree, counting down the booths until he came to number 78. That’s when he realized that the heavenly scent of burgers on the grill was coming from the Celebrations, Inc. tent.

Like a petite, blonde angel, AJ was setting down a tray of small burgers. Exactly what he was craving.

Maybe I should ask her to marry me right now.

Chapter Three

Fluffy clouds like white cotton candy stood out against the brilliant blue sky. What a glorious day to be outside, giving away food. All morning, AJ kept thinking she saw—of all people—that soldier who’d brought her the chocolate. Out of the corner of her eye, she’d catch a glimpse of a tall, broad-shouldered blond guy and immediately her thoughts would skitter to Shane Harrison. Each time it turned out not to be him, a vague sense of disappointment would press down on her.

It was peculiar that she kept thinking she saw him. Usually when that happened, she would end up seeing the person who’d been on her mind.

She didn’t claim to be psychic or think that the false sightings were some sort of precognition; it was just uncanny how often it happened that she thought about someone and later they’d turn up. With the number of false soldier sightings she’d had today, AJ shouldn’t have been surprised when she turned around to set out her ninth tray of samples and found him standing at her tent. Nonetheless her stomach did a triple gainer.

“There you are,” she said.

He narrowed his eyes and cocked his head slightly to the right. “You were expecting me?”

Ugh. “Did I say that out loud?”

“You did.”

She set down the tray on the table and adjusted her latex gloves and smiled at the other people who came up and grabbed the small plates of food she was offering. The festival was so busy and she’d been working at such a brisk clip her thought must have slipped out. Out loud.

Great.

Note to self. Check internal filter. Make sure it is firmly in place.

“Actually, I was speaking in generic terms,” she hedged. Oh, peachy. If she kept this up she’d end up digging herself into a deeper hole. Heat began to creep up her neck. “I knew someone was behind me—lots of people have visited my tent today—and I—I meant to say, ‘There you are.’ You know...as in ‘look what we have here.’ This is for you.”

She nudged the tray toward him. “Have some.” But he continued to squint at her for a few more beats before shifting his gaze to the proffered platter.

“Okay. So, what do we have here?”

“Sliders. Three kinds. I call this one the Tailgater. It’s a beef patty with bacon, cheddar and caramelized onions with barbecue sauce on the side. This one’s the Parisian. It has Brie, ham and sautéed mushrooms. Then there’s the Antipasto. It’s topped with roasted red peppers, spicy salami, provolone and a garlic-basil aioli.”

As he contemplated the platter of mini burgers, it was the first time AJ had the chance to get a good, uninterrupted look at him. She drank him in, his close-cropped sandy hair, the high cheekbones and his straight, slightly too-big nose that balanced his good looks with just the right amount of brawn. He would be too pretty with a nose any smaller—especially given the particular fullness of his lips. Yes, the lips were...sexy.

He looked up and caught her staring.

“May I try one?”

“Of course.”

Her gaze slid down his broad shoulders to his arms, which were tanned to gorgeous end-of-summer bronze perfection. Her focus finally found the tray of sliders.

“In fact, I’d appreciate it if you would try all three and tell me which one you like best,” she said.

“I’d love to,” he said. “I’m somewhat of a burger expert.”

“You are?”

She grabbed a larger paper plate from the supply she’d stashed under the table and used the tongs to dish up three sliders. When he reached for the plate, she noticed his hands were rugged, but the fingernails were short and clean.

Mentally, she checked off the clean hands item on the list of “Man Criteria” she kept in her head. Clean hands told a lot about a guy. Soft, manicured hands would be weird, but clean with short nails were still manly and indicated good grooming. As far as she was concerned, nasty hands were a definite deal-breaker—well, it would be a deal-breaker if she were looking for something more than his opinion on her new recipes.

“Since we’re getting into football season, Celebrations, Inc. is offering catered tailgate picnics. The sliders and crispy onion straws are just some of the items on the menu.”

Realizing the onion straws were missing, she turned to her friends, Sydney and Pepper, who were helping her out today.

Pepper was right behind AJ with a freshly filled tray of burgers. As she placed the burger tray down, she looked appreciatively at Shane, most likely realizing that he was one of the few people in this small Dallas suburb that she didn’t know. She cleared her throat. AJ had known her for so long she didn’t even have to look at her friend to know she wanted an introduction.

“Pepper Merriweather, this is Shane Harrison. He knows Maya. Can you believe it?”

“Really? Enchanté.” Always up for a bit of drama, Pepper extended her hand, not in a handshake, but palm downward and fingers dangling, as if she expected Shane to kiss her hand.

AJ suppressed a smile. Especially when Shane hesitated a moment as if unsure what to do, and finally gave her fingertips a slight squeeze. “Very nice to meet you.”

“You’re obviously not from St. Michel,” Pepper said.

“Pepper!” AJ said. Despite having been through finishing school and having made her debut into polite society, sometimes her friend didn’t realize how off-putting her words could sound.

“What?” she asked, her expression all wide-eyed innocence.

AJ gave her a look.

“What I meant, AJ, was judging by his accent, I gather that he is an American.”

She turned her attention back to Shane, suddenly all smiles and Southern sweetness. “How do you know Maya?”

Shane gave her the short version of how he’d been passing through St. Michel on his way back to the States, and Maya had asked him to bring chocolate to AJ when she learned that he was stationed at Fort Hood.

“AJ, you got chocolates from Maya and you didn’t share them with me?”

“Hey! What kind of burgers are you cooking up?” asked a man who had just walked up to the table.

AJ smiled at Pepper and with an almost imperceptible nod of her head, she silently asked Pepper to tend to the customer, which she did graciously.

“Hey, Syd, how are the onion straws coming along?” AJ asked.

The pretty brunette lifted the metal basket out of the deep fryer. “I have a fresh batch right here,” she said, her British accent upbeat and melodic.

For most of the morning, AJ had been cooking, and Pepper and Sydney had been expediting and greeting the potential customers who stopped by. That’s why AJ felt comfortable giving Shane her full attention now, while Sydney tended to the makeshift kitchen, and Pepper answered questions.

A few seconds later, Sydney gave AJ a who’s-the-hunk? look as she set a basket of onion straws on the table. Again, AJ made introductions and then put a healthy heap of onion straws on Shane’s plate. Sydney uttered a polite, “Very nice to meet you,” and returned to frying the onion straws.

Shane tasted the Tailgater slider first. AJ watched him bite into it. She got enormous pleasure from feeding people. Rapt, she watched Shane as he chewed and swallowed.

“What do you think?” she asked, not even trying to stifle the eagerness in her voice.

He nodded. “It’s delicious, but didn’t you say it had barbecue sauce with it?”

“Oh. Yes, it does.” She glanced at the crowded contents of the table and saw that the barbecue sauce was, indeed, missing.

AJ got the sauce and turned around to find herself staring into the ice-blue eyes of the one person she’d hoped not to see today: her grandmother, Agnes Jane Sherwood. Grandmother’s steely gaze assessed AJ. Judging by the way the matriarch frowned down her aquiline nose, AJ knew her grandmother found her lacking.

No big surprise. She always had. The only thing AJ could do was shake it off.

This was the woman for whom AJ was named—her mother’s feeble attempt to get back into her estranged mother’s good graces after AJ’s mother had eloped with Joey Antonelli. A plumber. A man Agnes had considered so far beneath her daughter that she couldn’t even see that far down the social food chain. When her daughter came back married, Agnes quit speaking to her for years.

Even though her mother and grandmother were on better terms today, Agnes still liked to grouse, “What was I supposed to say? When my friends’ daughters were marrying into families such as the Connecticut Collinses or the Dallas Dashwoods, my daughter has married into the Antonelli Plumbing Antonellis. It was mortifying.”

Apparently, it had been a huge disgrace. One so grave that even after the young bride had saddled her innocent first born with a name like Agnes Jane Sherwood-Antonelli, grandmother hadn’t let AJ’s mother back into her good graces.

It was no help, either, that Agnes Jane Sherwood’s namesake had decided to become a chef. Cooking was a chore the hired help quietly took care of. Not something a Sherwood fretted over and certainly not something they found enjoyable. Grandmother said, “Obviously AJ has inherited her father’s working-class DNA.”

Today, what made matters worse was that Grandmother was the chair of A Taste of Celebration. Obviously, the chair in name only, because she seemed just as surprised to find her granddaughter part of the festival.

“Flipping burgers? Really, Agnes Jane, how could you embarrass me— How could you embarrass yourself like this?”

A sudden hush seemed to settle over the square as the eye of Hurricane Agnes settled under the Celebrations, Inc. tent. As ever, her grandmother’s energy was harsh and commanding, a presence that seemed to vibrate. Or maybe the vibration was simply the sound of blood rushing through AJ’s ears as she stood there mortified, watching Shane watch this embarrassing confrontation.

“Have you been reduced to serving fast food?” Agnes continued.

Pepper came up behind AJ and put a supportive hand on her shoulder. Something in that kind show of I’ve-got-your-back loyalty made AJ snap out of her stupor.

“Grandmother, I am test-marketing options for a football season tailgating menu that my company is going to offer.”

It was her company.

She hadn’t asked the woman for a penny of her millions to get Celebrations, Inc. off the ground. AJ had laid a careful plan, worked hard, scrimped and saved with the intention of gathering enough seed money to open her doors.

The opening had been put on a faster track after AJ’s fiancé died, naming her the beneficiary of his life insurance policy. But not until after the money sat in a savings account for a little over three years. At first, AJ couldn’t fathom spending a penny of it, paralyzed by the thought that Danny was gone and money was all she had left of him. It hadn’t seemed right. It hadn’t seemed fair that he’d had to die, and she was left here to try and go on without him.

For three years, AJ had lived in a daze, going through life’s motions—getting up, working long hours, coming home, sleeping only to get up and do it all over again. Sleep was the only place where she found peace... At night, when her head hit the pillow, she could lose herself in dreams where Danny was alive, her family accepted him and she was happy. As a result, during the waking hours, she shut down, living in her head. This didn’t escape her friends.

That’s when it had hit her. He would never have wanted her to sit idle. She needed to invest that money in making her career dreams come true—something Danny had been so supportive of.

After she’d done that, it was as if Danny were right there with her every step of the way.

So, even if she were “flipping burgers,” she’d rather be doing that, relying on herself and her own creativity to make or break her than living on her grandmother’s terms.

AJ knew it galled her grandmother that she was that solvent. Thanks to Danny, a man Grandmother had deemed beneath her namesake, AJ was free, and her grandmother didn’t have an ounce of control over her.

Her grandmother didn’t dignify the justification of AJ’s burger flipping with a comment. She just stood there with an expression so sour, AJ feared the old woman would suck on her cheeks hard enough to suck herself inside out.

As AJ stifled a smile, she realized she was still holding the bowl of homemade barbecue sauce she’d promised Shane. Why did he have to witness this ugly scene?

She turned away from her grandmother to set the bowl of sauce in front of Shane. As she did, the toe of her hot pink Dr. Martens caught on an exposed tree root. As if in slow motion, she lurched forward, splattering sauce down the front of Shane’s white polo shirt.

* * *

Shane knew the barbecue sauce mishap wasn’t intentional, and he tried to reassure AJ of that. He wouldn’t allow her to have his shirt cleaned, and she didn’t deserve her grandmother making an awkward moment worse by insisting that the Taste of Celebration committee would replace the shirt.

He declined both offers.

However, it soon became clear the woman—who he was tempted to call “the old battle-ax,” but refrained because she was AJ’s grandmother and that would be disrespectful—was a trying piece of work. But soon he realized Agnes Sherwood would not take no for an answer. He decided to give her his address just so she would shut up and go away.

At first he was going to give her the central address at Fort Hood. But then he decided he would give the woman a full-on dose of the working-class stiff he was. “I’m staying at the Celebration Suites, off of the highway. I don’t know the address off the top of my head, but it’s unit 201.”

Agnes sniffed and Shane swore he saw her bristle. “Are you referring to that place one rents by the week?”

Never before had he heard the word place said with such contempt. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he was renting a place in Celebration’s Red Light District—if there was such a place in Perfectville, U.S.A.

“Yes, ma’am that’s where I live. For the moment anyway. I’m sort of...transient.” He looked her square in the eyes and smiled.

He loved messing with people who carried a superiority complex. This woman wore hers like crown jewels. For a split second, he wondered how someone like AJ could be related to Agnes Sherwood. AJ was humble and sweet, someone who wasn’t too proud to serve burgers and onion rings—or to roll up her sleeves and get the work done. Agnes Sherwood, on the other hand, seemed the type who’d never gotten her hands dirty.

After all the things he’d seen in the Middle East and his years in the army, he couldn’t stand it when the idle rich put themselves above others. But it wasn’t his duty to reform her.

“Agnes Jane, write down his information. Apartment number, size and brand of the shirt. I will have something sent by midweek.”