Finally a Bride

“And the hat?” Eric asked, flicking a fingertip against the brim and snapping her attention back to him and the present.

“The sun is bad for you, you know,” she maintained. But she wasn’t quite sure why she’d packed the hat. She hadn’t even known where they were honeymooning, just as she hadn’t known much about the wedding.

She glanced around the American Legion Hall, its whitewashed paneling and worn linoleum complemented by well-placed white-and-red fairy lights and balloons. White linen tablecloths covered the dark laminate tables where the townspeople ate fish dinners every Friday in the spring. Her mother had been right. Everyone, and most especially Molly’s maid of honor, Brenna Kelly, had worked hard to make the wedding and reception special—beautiful.

Everyone had worked so hard on her wedding—everyone but her. She hadn’t been able to focus on it because she’d been wrestling with another tough decision.

“With your complexion, you don’t burn,” Eric persisted, unwilling to drop the subject of the hat. “You tan.”

“The sun is still bad for you,” she maintained. She hadn’t needed to attend medical school to learn that. Maybe she hadn’t needed to attend medical school at all….

“Did we come here to discuss the sun?” Eric asked, wondering how they had gotten onto that topic when what he really wanted to know was why she’d talked him into crashing her wedding reception. Then he added, with admiration for Molly’s hard work and determination, “Dr. McClintock.”

The playful smile drained from Molly’s face, which paled despite her honey-colored skin. He glanced around, thinking maybe she’d seen someone who upset her. But no one stood around where they loitered in a short hall leading only to a fire exit. Everyone was on the dance floor—enjoying Molly’s reception. Was that what upset her?

“I’m not a doctor,” she said, her voice unusually sharp and defensive.

“Not yet,” he agreed, lifting his glass of punch to his lips. “But you will be soon.”

She shook her head. “I’m not so sure about that anymore. I’ve dropped out of med school.”

He blinked, more stunned by her admission than by the sip of punch he’d just taken. Someone had spiked the nonalcoholic punch bowl. He glanced around for her kid brother, Rory, and the Hendrix boys, Rory’s usual partners in crime. But then he returned his attention to her, half closing his eyes as he studied her face. He could not have heard her right. “What did you say?”

“I dropped out,” she repeated. “I quit medical school.”

He shook his head. “I thought you were just going to take a little time off—for the wedding.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” she said, her eyes darkening with anxiety. “But I’m not sure I can go back.”

Had her wedding just been an excuse to quit medical school? Was that why she had accepted a marriage proposal from a man she’d only dated a few short months? No wonder she’d backed out. She had obviously come to her senses.

“Molly—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she stated, lifting her chin defensively. “Not now.”

Maybe not ever, Eric thought. After all these years, had she finally changed her mind about becoming a doctor? He should have been surprised, but he wasn’t. He hadn’t ever believed she’d decided to be a doctor because she wanted to. Had she done the same thing with her wedding? Agreed to marry because it was what someone else wanted, and then run away when she’d realized it wasn’t what she wanted?

“Molly…”

“Come on, let’s dance,” she implored, winding her arm through his to tug him toward the dance floor.

He dragged his feet on the worn linoleum, resisting her, just as he had when she’d begged him not to join the Marines. “Someone will see us.”

“They won’t recognize us in these outfits. I’m so glad you found your uncle’s old hat.” She placed her punch cup on a tray, reaching for his glass next to add to the pile of discarded dishes.

Eric touched the brim of the well-worn fedora, then ran his fingertips down the side of his face. “It doesn’t cover this, so it’s not much of a disguise.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to dance cheek to cheek,” Molly said, her lips curving in an impish smile.

Eric’s body tensed, even though he knew she was only teasing. So he teased back. “Not with that big floppy hat of yours,” he said, touching the brim. “The way we’re dressed, we’re far more likely to draw attention to ourselves than disappear into the crowd. Do you want people to see you?”

“No, but I want to be able to see what’s going on and I can’t see anything from back in this hallway. Come on.” She tugged on his arm again, pulling him into the reception hall. “I think you’re more worried about being seen than I am.”

She was right. She probably thought he was self-conscious because of the scar, but that wasn’t the reason. Even though he didn’t know how he would weather two weeks with Molly, he’d resigned himself to spending her “honeymoon” with her. Platonically, of course. But if someone saw her and convinced her to come out of hiding, she wouldn’t need to stay with him.

Worse yet, she might decide to stay with him, her jilted groom, and have a real honeymoon—even though she’d skipped the wedding.

“I’m just worried that you haven’t thought this through,” Eric said.

She stopped at the edge of the dance floor and turned toward him, admitting, “I’ve given you good reason to worry about me, the way I ran away from my wedding and let down so many people.”

“They don’t look too let down,” he said, pointing toward all the dancing couples. From the hospital, he recognized the GQ doctors. The blond best man, Nick Jameson, held a brunette tight in his arms—Molly’s younger sister, Colleen. And the jilted groom, Dr. Joshua Towers, danced with the maid of honor, Brenna Kelly. Towers grinned at the redhead, neither of them looking too upset. How would Molly feel about that—that the man she’d been about to marry wasn’t destroyed by the fact that she’d abandoned him at the altar?

“That’s why I had to come here.” Molly tilted her head, so she could peer out from beneath her hat brim. “I had to see if I was right.” Relief eased some of the tension from her shoulders.

“Right about what?”

Brenna and Josh. But she didn’t want to tell Eric that she hoped her fiancé had fallen for her best female friend. She didn’t want him thinking…well, the truth. That she’d been about to marry a man she didn’t love. Because then she would have to explain why—that she was a chicken. She didn’t want Eric to be as disgusted with her as she was with herself.

Molly scanned the rest of the guests on the dance floor, gasping in surprise as she noticed a certain couple doing more than dancing. The dark-haired man leaned over the small blond woman who was in his arms, kissing her as if he never intended to stop. Molly grabbed Eric’s arm. “See—”

“Abby and Clayton?” he asked, whistling through his teeth.

“And you thought I was crazy for wearing this long dress. I suspected it might be cold in here, but even I didn’t realize that hell was going to freeze over.”

Eric laughed. “Man, seeing that almost makes it worth dressing in this crazy getup. I’m seeing it and still not believing it—Clayton and Abby?”

Molly giggled at his shock. “Men can be so oblivious.”

“Are you talking about me or Clayton?” he asked, his mouth lifting in a partial grin. “I always thought he hated her.”

“He wanted to,” Molly explained. “But…” She’d always suspected that attraction, not animosity, existed between Abby Hamilton and her older brother, Clayton.

“That’s not hate,” Eric mused. “I can’t wait to razz Abby about this.”

“You can’t say anything to her.”

“That’s right—we’re not supposed to be here.” His hand closed over her elbow, steering her back toward the deserted hallway.

Her skin tingling beneath the thin material, she pulled away. “We can’t leave yet. It’s just getting good.”

Eric gave her a long, assessing look. “You planned this,” he accused.

She shook her head, and the floppy brim of her hat fluttered. “I didn’t plan.” A smile tugged at her lips. “Hoped, maybe.”

That was why she’d left her note addressed to Abby, asking her to stay until Molly came back. She wanted her friend to move back to Cloverville—for good.

Eric grinned. “You’re a chip off the old block.”

“What?” Her heart clutched at his grin and his words, but she knew he was wrong. She wasn’t like either of her parents. She wasn’t strong, like her father, who had stayed so brave even when he was so sick—or like her mother, who had survived having to watch the man she loved dying, unable to help him, to save him. Even though many years had passed since her father’s death, the memory of that feeling—that sense of utter helplessness—was still as oppressive as it had been the day he’d died.

That helplessness was part of the reason she had decided to become a doctor. She hadn’t ever wanted to lose anyone else she loved because she was unable to save them. She gazed up at Eric, and her heart shifted again. She’d nearly lost him, too—the best friend she’d ever had.

“You’re like your mom,” Eric explained as she studied him with an odd expression, a mixture of confusion and something else he couldn’t name. “You’re a matchmaker.”

But her mother’s matchmaking had never succeeded. Despite all her efforts, Mary McClintock hadn’t ever managed to make her daughter see Eric as anything but a friend. He pulled his attention away from Molly’s beautiful face to focus on the couple on the dance floor, but they weren’t a couple anymore. Clayton stood alone as Abby pushed her way through the other dancers to escape him. Molly’s matchmaking wasn’t any more effective than her mother’s, it appeared.

“Matchmaker? Who? Me?” she asked, widening her eyes in feigned innocence.

At least she probably thought she was feigning it. To Eric she was innocent, full of optimism and hope—qualities he’d forsaken long ago when he lost first his parents, then his guardians. If not for Uncle Harold bringing him to Cloverville, he wasn’t sure where he might have wound up, bounced from foster home to foster home.

He certainly wouldn’t have ended up here, crashing a wedding reception with the runaway bride. “Hmm…I guess it’s true, that whole thing about returning to the scene of the crime,” he murmured.

“Crime?” she asked. “I’m not admitting anything, but since when is matchmaking a crime?”

“Since you set me up with Trudy Sneible for homecoming our sophomore year.” When he’d brought up her crime, he’d actually been referring more to her running out on her wedding than coming to the reception. But he didn’t want to make her feel worse than she already felt; he preferred her mischief making to the heart-wrenching tears she had sobbed when she’d first showed up at his door.

“Trudy was cute,” she defended their old classmate.

“She was.” Not as cute as Molly had always been, though. “She was also six feet tall, and I hadn’t had my growth spurt yet.”

“You were a squirt,” she reminisced.

“She about trampled me on the dance floor.”

Molly’s fingers wrapped around his hand, and she tugged him into the midst of swaying couples. “Dance with me. I promise not to trample you.”

“I’m not worried,” he lied. He wasn’t worried about her physically trampling him; she probably didn’t weigh much over a hundred pounds, while he’d finally had that growth spurt in his junior year of high school and was now six foot himself. But he was worried about her trampling him emotionally.

He could not fall for Molly McClintock again. He was too old for unrequited crushes, and he had even less to attract her now than he had back in school. He couldn’t compete with the handsome and successful doctor.

Not that he wanted to compete. He had learned long ago that if you allowed yourself to feel anything, you opened yourself up to pain. It was better to feel nothing at all.

“If you’re not worried, why are you way over there?” Molly asked as she stepped closer, settling her breasts against his chest. She tipped her head back to look up at him, knocking off her hat in the process.

Eric caught the straw monstrosity and clutched it against the back of her head. “Someone’s going to see us,” he warned her just as a couple dancing near them slowed their steps.

Two elderly women, holding hands, danced to the waltz the deejay was playing, probably at their request. One wore a hat as wide as Molly’s, but hers had flowers, wilted now, covering the brim.

“Damn,” Eric murmured. “We’re busted.”

Molly drew his attention away from the town busybodies as she slid her palms up his chest to clutch his shoulders. Then she pulled herself up until her soft lips brushed his. Eric’s heart slammed against his ribs and his hand, still on her hat, clutched her closer. Summoning all his control he kept himself from deepening the kiss, from taking it further than he knew she intended it to go.

Her mouth slid from his, across his cheek, across his scar, and she whispered in his ear, “Are they still watching us?”

“They never were.”

WAS ERIC RIGHT? Had she kissed him for nothing? Her lips tingling from the all-too-brief contact with his, Molly pressed her fingers to her mouth. Had Mrs. Hild and Mrs. Carpenter not noticed her, them, at all? When she pulled out of Eric’s arms, she hadn’t seen the old women. Of course she’d been too distracted, with her face all hot with embarrassment, to focus on anyone but Eric.

She had murmured something to him before she’d run off the dance floor, away from him. For the moment. Until she went home with him. How could she go home with him now—after she’d kissed him?

Of course he probably hadn’t thought anything of it. He would have realized why she’d done it. He was Eric—he knew everything about her. He knew her better than she knew herself.

She stood in front of the cake table. Someone, probably Mr. Kelly, had sliced up the infamous Kelly confection. Crumbs of chocolate and smears of buttercream frosting marked the plates left on the table. The top tier hadn’t been touched except for the bride. She was gone. The plastic groom stood alone atop the last piece of cake.

Would Josh have done that in exasperation? Had he thrown away the bride? While she’d never seen him as anything but kindhearted and patient, her desertion might have driven him to react strongly. After all, she wasn’t the only woman to break a promise to him. His first wife had abandoned him and his sons shortly after the twins were born. Poor Josh. She winced with a pang of guilt over humiliating such a nice man.

Accepting Josh’s proposal had been a mistake. She’d wanted to be a mother to his sons, but she had no experience with children. Unlike Brenna and Molly, she hadn’t babysat any kids other than her younger siblings. The time she’d spent with Buzz and T.J. had been awkward—she hadn’t known what to say to them and they hadn’t talked to her at all. Josh had assured her that they only needed to get used to her. But it was better that they hadn’t. They wouldn’t miss her.

Would Josh? He’d intended to move both his practice and his home to Cloverville. For her, or for his sons?

Fingers, knotted with arthritis, wrapped around her wrist. “Molly McClintock, I thought that was you beneath that great big hat.”

Molly closed her eyes as the heat of embarrassment rushed to her face again. “Mrs. Hild…”

“And I suppose that was Eric South dancing with you.” From the delight in the older woman’s voice, she had undoubtedly witnessed more than the dancing.

For a moment, vindication lifted Molly’s spirits—she’d had every reason to kiss Eric. Then she remembered that she had been caught, just as Eric had warned her she would be. He had been right. Again.

“Please, Mrs. Hild, don’t tell anyone you saw us,” she implored the other woman.

“Honey—”

Of course, how could she expect the town’s busiest body to keep this delicious gossip to herself? “I know it’s quite the story, the bride crashing her own wedding reception, but I’d hate to hurt anyone—” emotion choked her voice “—any more than I already have.”

Mrs. Hild’s grasp tightened on Molly’s wrist. “Honey, somehow I think you’re hurting the most.”

Apparently Eric wasn’t the only one who knew her better than she knew herself.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, because she had her pride. Well, as much pride as a runaway bride crashing her own wedding could have. “Really.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” the elderly widow assured her.

Somehow Molly suspected those were words Mrs. Hild had never spoken before. And yet Molly believed her. “Thank you.”

“So who do you suppose stole the bride?” the woman asked as she, like Molly, stared at the top of the cake where the groom stood alone.

Despite breaking her promise to marry him, Molly doubted Josh had been angry enough to throw away the plastic bride. No, probably someone had snitched it as a joke. Probably the same someone who had spiked the nonalcoholic punch.

“Rory.” Molly smiled with affection for her naughty teenage brother, despite his tasteless prank.

Mrs. Hild shook her head, and the flowers on her hat brim bobbled. “No. I don’t think it was that boy.”

Molly turned from the cake to study the other woman’s gently lined face. Mrs. Hild’s pale blue eyes sparkled with another secret. “You know,” she realized. “So tell me. Who took her?”

The widow lifted her bony shoulders in a shrug. “I didn’t see him do it.”

“But you have your suspicions,” Molly prodded.

“Oh, I know.”

“So tell me,” Molly urged, “who stole the bride?”

Mrs. Hild closed one faded eye in a wink. “Eric South.”

ERIC RUBBED his hands, which were wet from the running faucet, over his face. Then he gripped the sides of the porcelain sink and stared into the mirror above it. With that scar, he had a face only a mother could love—and he’d lost his mother a long time ago. Molly had kissed him just to hide their faces from Mrs. Hild and Mrs. Carpenter. He knew that. He’d known it the moment her lips had brushed his, but still that hadn’t stopped him from reacting, from desire rushing through him, heating his blood and hardening his body.

Hands shaking, he shoved them into the water again. As he lifted them toward his face, the door creaked open behind him. He glanced into the mirror—not at his own face this time, but at the face of the man who’d just entered the lime green–tiled bathroom.

While not so much as a shaving nick marred the perfection of Dr. Joshua Towers’s face, a frown knitted his brows. He pushed open the empty stall doors before turning toward Eric. But Eric pulled his gaze away and stiffened his back and shoulders, mentally erecting the notrespassing sign he’d been accused of using before, to keep people from getting too close.

Towers ignored the sign. “Uh, sorry to bother you…” His voice cracked with an odd laugh. “Sounds funny for me to say sorry to someone else…”

“Been getting a lot of that yourself?” Eric asked, reaching for the fedora, which he’d set on a metal shelf beneath the mirror. Not that he needed to disguise himself for this man. As a plastic surgeon Towers didn’t spend much time in the E.R., where Eric brought patients. And while Eric had seen him a couple of times before, they had never officially met.

“Yes, I’ve been getting a lot of apologies.” The jilted groom sighed. “Which is crazy, you know, when no one did anything to me. They have no reason to feel sorry about anything.”

“Maybe they feel sorry for you,” Eric pointed out.

“They have no reason for that, either. But you’re right,” the groom admitted with a heavy sigh. Then he added, “They feel sorry for me.” Towers focused on Eric, on the part of his face that everyone focused on as if unable to look away.

Eric touched his scar. “I get a lot of that myself.”

“I don’t know how much you know about me…”

More than he cared to. “That you got left at the altar, but you must not be that mad about it since you attended the reception anyway.”

Josh laughed again. “Oh, my best man thinks I’m mad—the crazy kind of mad.”

From what he’d heard around the hospital about the best man, legendary bachelor Nick Jameson, Eric figured Nick had thought his friend crazy to consider marriage in the first place. He wasn’t wrong.

“Why did you come?” he asked.

Had he hoped that Molly would show up, having changed her mind about marrying him? Was that why Molly had wanted to come—had she changed her mind?

Eric would understand if she had. Towers had a lot to offer a woman. He was successful, rich and handsome, with no obvious scars. But since Eric’s real scars weren’t on the outside, he didn’t know that for certain about Towers.

Josh shrugged. “I told my best man we had to attend the reception—which got changed to an open house, then a welcome-home party for Abby Hamilton—because we need to get to know our potential patients. We’re opening a medical practice in town. Maybe you’d like to make an appointment. We could discuss some options for dealing with your scar.”

Eric, almost absentmindedly, brushed his knuckles across the ridge of flesh on his cheek. “I know my options.”

“I’m a plastic surgeon,” Towers explained. “It’s my specialty.”

Eric already knew that if anyone could repair the damage to his face it was Dr. Josh Towers. The guy was quickly becoming a legend for the relief he’d brought burn and accident victims. But Eric didn’t feel like a victim.

So he changed the subject. “When you came in, you were looking for someone or something.”

Molly? But why would she be hiding in the men’s room? Eric was hiding in here from her.

“Yeah, I didn’t want to bother you, though. You seemed pretty intense.”

Josh wasn’t the first person to think that. Apparently even his boss had thought so, since the man had insisted Eric take his vacation, forcing him to spend time with Molly. It didn’t matter how long Eric hid in the bathroom, he would have to face her eventually. Guilt nagged at him; he wasn’t having the easiest time facing the groom, either.

“Can I help you with something?” he asked.

“Did you see two boys, about this high?” Josh asked, dropping his hands to within three feet of the floor. “They look kind of like me.” Dark-haired and blue-eyed, then. “One has a buzz cut and the other one has spiky hair.”

Eric shook his head, but concern made him ask, “Are they lost?”

“They gave Pop and Mama—Mr. and Mrs. Kelly—the slip.”

Pop and Mama. Towers already referred to the maid of honor’s parents by their nicknames. Of course, Eric had heard that Towers and his boys were staying with them, but Eric detected real affection more than simply gratitude in the other man’s tone.

Knuckles rapped against the door before it pushed open a crack. A woman’s husky voice drifted through the small space. “Josh, I found them.”

Eric slapped the hat on his head and pulled the brim low over his eyes, just in case Brenna stepped inside. He wouldn’t put it past her to enter the men’s room. The maid of honor was one of the boldest women he knew.

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