Marrying The Wedding Crasher

She missed reliability.

“Not today,” she muttered. The truck was finicky. It didn’t like to run when the temperature dropped to the thirties or in thunderstorms, but the day had been hot, the skies clear. “Come on, baby,” she chided the old vehicle.

Don’t leave me stranded with Mr. Carrots and that grin.

Vince locked up his tools and leaned on his truck, staring at hers.

Still nothing. Her backside was growing damp with sweat.

Vince came forward. He walked with the swagger of a man who knew what his purpose was in life. And, right now, that purpose was to rescue a damsel in distress.

“Pop the hood.”

She did, hopping out and joining him at the grille. Not that she knew anything about engines. Her mechanical ability stopped at turning power tools off and on.

Vince tsked and gave Harley a look that disapproved and teased at the same time.

“Hey, don’t judge,” she said. “It runs.”

“It’s not running now.” He drew a blue rag from his back pocket. It was the kind of scrap mechanics used to wipe their hands and touch hot engines. “You might want to spray your engine off every once in a while.” He used the rag to check battery connections, hose connections and to prod the engine compartment as if he knew what he was doing.

“I barely clean my apartment. Why would I clean my engine?”

“So a mechanic can see if you’ve got leaks anywhere, for one thing,” Vince said straight-faced. “Why don’t you try it again?”

She hurried back behind the wheel. The truck started right up.

“Traitor,” she accused under her breath.

Vince shut the hood and came around to her window, wiping his hands.

“Thanks.” Harley gave him her polite smile, the one she reserved for helpful salesclerks and the receptionist who squeezed her in at the doctor’s office. “I owe you.”

“Yeeeaah.” He wound out the word and ran his fingers through that thatch of midnight hair. “About that. I need a favor.” Those kind black eyes lifted to her face.

Don’t believe in fairy tales... Don’t believe in fairy tales...

Despite their history, despite knowing better, silly fantasies about princely rescues and Mr. Right fluttered about her chest like happy butterflies on a warm spring day.

She should go. Instead she lingered and asked, “So what’s the favor?”

The devilish grin returned, making the butterflies ecstatic. “I need a date to my brother’s wedding.”

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN HAD A man ever asked Harley to be his wedding date?

When was the last time she’d felt like going to a wedding?

She couldn’t remember on either count.

Harley had turned Vince down, of course. The wedding was in California the weekend after next, but he’d wanted her to fly out with him this Saturday.

Take to the skies with Vince?

Thunderclouds lined the southern horizon.

There was a time when Harley O’Hannigan thought the sky was the limit. A time when everything she’d touched had turned to gold.

Daughter of a couple who owned a tile and granite outlet in Birmingham, she’d been the girl most likely to succeed in high school, valedictorian of her college class, the young architect hired to design beautiful structures for a boutique agency in Houston.

And then reality struck. The balconies she’d dreamed up for a uniquely modern theater couldn’t be built with today’s construction techniques. She’d only shared the drawing with Dan because unbuildable designs could be entered in architectural theory competitions. Winning those awards brought agencies and architects prestige. But Dan had done the unthinkable. He’d presented her design to a client as doable. And they’d bought it.

She’d begged Dan to back out of the deal. But the press he’d received from the sale was amazing, and had led to more architectural business and more requests for impossible, pie-in-the-sky ideas. Instead of admitting the balconies couldn’t be done, Dan had found a contractor willing to begin construction with the interior still up in the air. Literally.

Backed into a corner where all she could do was put Fail on her résumé, Harley had quit, only to be told she’d signed a non-compete clause when she’d been hired. Oh, and since her employment package included the firm paying her college debt, she couldn’t work as an architect if she didn’t work for Dan. Not for four more years. He’d told her he’d reconsider the four-year limitation if she came up with a solution that didn’t compromise the design. Her mind was a blank slate.

She wasn’t qualified for any other job that could support her former lifestyle. She’d moved out of her high-rise condo. She’d sold her Lexus SUV. She’d let go of dreams of greatness in the clouds.

And she couldn’t tell anyone why. There was a nondisclosure clause, too.

Clause-clause-clause. Harley wanted to go back to a time when the only clause she knew was Santa. For the girl most likely to change the world, it was humiliating.

Her parents told their neighbors Harley was discovering herself. Privately, they’d counseled her to find a lawyer, not that she or her parents could afford one. Harley’s friends thought she’d finally cracked under the pressure of perfectionism. They’d offered platitudes and shoulders to cry on. Harley had rejected them all. Taylor, Harley’s older brother, had just shaken his head and told her she should have known buildings always came back to straight lines and right angles. That’s how he and their parents approached tile work and life—eyes on the task in front of them—unlike Harley, who was always dreaming.

Without any professional avenues open, Harley had taken a job as a tile installer, a trade her father had taught her growing up. She’d rented a small studio apartment in an almost up-and-coming neighborhood. She kept her head down, away from the clouds. But her eye occasionally drifted toward the architectural elegance of the Houston skyline. And she wondered what she’d do in four years when her non-compete restriction expired. Straightforward lines or curvature that challenged?

In the meantime she lived day-to-day, job-to-job, paycheck-to-paycheck. But the only way she could do that was to have a functioning tile saw.

She stopped at the tool repair shop Vince had mentioned. It was open late because it catered to construction companies. She carried the saw inside.

“Were you in a traffic accident?” Bart, the owner, looked like he’d forsaken years of trips to the barber and opened a running tab at the tattoo parlor next door. He had long brown hair, a haystack beard and line upon line of ink on his arms. “You need to secure your equipment when you drive.”

Harley didn’t care about Bart’s body art, his hair style or his sad attempts at humor. She cared that his hands were nicked and greasy. It meant he was busy making tools go again. “This happened at a job site. Some idiot trashed it.” Because some idiot couldn’t figure out how to make balconies float like clouds. “Can you fix it?”

“Give me two weeks.” Bart stood back, possibly because he’d given customers bad news like this before. Possibly because construction workers could be as volatile as stiffed loan sharks.

Harley fought shoulders that wanted to hunch in defeat and reminded herself that nothing was ever set in stone. There was always another card to play. “How about two days?”

“It’ll cost ya.” Bart’s mouth rolled around before he admitted, “And I might not be able to fix it.”

Harley felt sick. Her hand drifted to her waist. “And when would I know that?”

“When I’m done.” Bart curled his scarred fingers around the handle of her saw, as if preparing to claim it. “No matter what happens, you’d owe me a hundred dollars just for taking it apart. Fixin’ costs extra.”

One hundred dollars and days of uncertainty. Her eye caught on a used tile saw in the corner with a six-hundred-dollar price tag. “What if I sold it to you for parts?”

“I’d give you sixty bucks.”

That’s all? He must have sensed she was desperate.

Harley tried to look like she wasn’t. “How about a hundred?”

Bart shook his head. “I can come up as high as seventy. And even then, I don’t think I’m gonna get seventy dollars’ worth of parts out of it.”

A good, new tile saw would cost around a thousand dollars. Seventy wasn’t going to get her close. And she hated the idea of taking out more credit. What would she do if the truck broke down again?

Harley thanked Bart for his time and lugged the saw back outside.

Her head was pounding. All she wanted was a cold shower and someone to make her dinner.

She thought of Vince and his talent at the grill, of his invitation to his brother’s wedding, of the tenderness of his kiss.

That cold shower. Sadly, it was the only one of her fantasies going to come true tonight.

Tomorrow, however, she might have one more card to play.

* * *

VINCE SAT ON a corner of the deck he’d built yesterday and wondered if he could parlay Harley being unable to go to the wedding into him not going to the wedding, too.

It wasn’t as if he was a beloved favorite son in Harmony Valley. His return might make it hard on his younger brother Joe, the bridegroom, who’d only just begun to earn acceptance in town. He and his brothers had been hellions as teenagers—cutting class, speeding through streets on deafening motorcycles, wearing black leather jackets instead of the school colors. Vince could use his misspent youth and consideration toward Joe’s tentative standing in town as a excuses not to go. But they would only be excuses.

His real motivation for not wanting to go to the wedding? There were things he hadn’t told his brothers. Secrets he’d kept for years about their mother leaving. Those secrets. They sat on his chest when he couldn’t sleep at night, clambering to be free.

Sleep-deprived, Vince blinked at the blazing sun. He had the case of Jerry’s auger motor open and was cleaning the spark plug because the hunk of junk wouldn’t start. Pretty soon, Jerry was going to be wondering why Vince wasn’t setting fence posts. Soon after that, Vince might lose his patience and tell him his equipment sucked. If Jerry took offense to that Vince might admit why he’d applied for a job with Jerry in the first place. After that revelation, it was a toss-up as to whether he’d quit or be fired.

Secrets. They were dangerous to his family’s happiness. Nothing had turned out the way he’d once hoped it would.

He’d left Harmony Valley sixteen years ago, fresh out of high school, determined to find his mother. She’d had a three-year head start, but he recalled she had family somewhere in Texas. He’d needed to know if she was okay and if the decisions he’d made the day she’d left had been the right ones. He’d located her in Sugar Land, Texas, outside of Houston. He’d located her, but he’d never contacted her. Not directly. Though he kept tabs on her all the same...thanks in part to Jerry.

Out front, a truck door creaked and slammed. Harley.

She was trouble. She still saw stars when she gazed at the night sky. She’d earned a degree in architecture, only to give up after what she’d called a colossal failure.

She’d failed once? Boohoo. She needed to learn that life required a strong backbone and the ability to pick yourself up after you got knocked down, no matter how many times it happened.

And yet, looking back, he’d enjoyed his time with her. They’d clicked. After a few weeks of dating, he’d asked her to go to Waco for a weekend. They’d taken the home tour and visited the showrooms of that famous designer. They’d eaten great Tex-Mex. They’d walked along the river and he’d kissed her beneath a rambling oak. And then they’d driven by Baylor University. One conversation thread had led to another and Harley had confessed she’d graduated from Rice in Houston. She was an architect!

She was an architect working as a laborer?

Vince had gotten mad on her behalf. He’d lectured her about how privileged she was to have the opportunity to go to college. He would’ve liked to have been a mechanical engineer, but his high school grades hadn’t been that hot. And Harley had just thrown her chance away? It made no sense.

She’d told Vince he’d never had to stare down the face of ruin, forced to admit defeat. She’d told him to take her home.

And that had been the end of dating Harley O’Hannigan.

Vince shoved the spark plug home. The heat was rising even though it was only midmorning. Digging post holes and setting them in concrete was going to make for a shirt-drenching day. Vince had heard one of the big airlines was hiring aviation techs and mechanics at the airport. Better pay. Better working conditions. But no—

“Vince.” Harley appeared as she always did for a job site—jeans, T-shirt, braid. She carried a bucket with her tiling tools and a manual tile cutter. She set everything down near the outdoor kitchen on the deck, frowning at her next project.

He’d been relieved she’d turned him down for the wedding. After the way things had ended between them, he never should’ve asked her in the first place. “How’s that bump?”

She reached up to touch the back of her head. “Better.”

He resisted the impulse to see for himself. “And how goes the tile saw repair?”

“Worse.” Harley came to sit nearby, a light sheen of sweat on her forehead. “I’ve been thinking about your brother’s wedding.”

The humidity in the air pressed in on Vince.

“Is it a formal affair?” she asked.

“It’s outdoors and I’ll have to wear a suit. Does that qualify as formal?” Whatever the answer was, he hoped she hadn’t reconsidered being his date.

“That’s not too formal.” She smiled the way a woman does just before she says yes to something she isn’t exactly thrilled about agreeing to.

Reflexively, Vince smiled back. And then he remembered he’d changed his mind about taking her.

“Since you’re in a bind—”

“A bind?” Normally, Vince was slow to anger. Not today. Today anger shot through him like nitrous oxide, making him talk faster, grip the auger harder. “I’m a grown man, not some kid looking for a prom date. I can walk into a wedding alone.” Or, even better, not go at all.

She tucked stray strands of golden hair behind her ears and avoided looking at him. “But you did ask me.”

“And you turned me down!” There was no reason that should poke at his pride, but it did, the same as her assuming he was in a dateless bind.

“And now...” Her gaze wound around to meet his and her lips made a slow turn upward. “I want to propose a new deal for us.”

The muggy morning air suddenly became too thick to inhale. Vince was a man, after all, and Harley was a beautiful woman proposing something.

“Go on,” he rasped when he should have said, “No go.”

“I’ll...I’ll be your plus-one—” Harley couldn’t hide the desperation in her voice “—if you fix my tile saw.”

Air moved freely in and out of Vince’s lungs again. This wasn’t a personal proposition. “Couldn’t find anyone to fix it?”

“Not for anything less than the price of my firstborn.”

She was as boxed in as he was.

A part of Vince was intrigued, the way he was always captivated by things not working how they should. The saw wouldn’t be easy to fix. No telling what kind of damage was inside until he took off the outer casing.

Another part of Vince was reminded that he enjoyed Harley’s company, their quick banter, their obvious chemistry. The bargain wasn’t completely out of the question.

He ran a hand through his hair, wondering what their relationship would be like today if they’d never talked about higher education and college degrees.

“Well,” he said gruffly, “we can’t have you selling off your firstborn.”

Harley’s cheeks pinkened from more than the sun and she looked away. “I’d need the saw before we leave on Saturday.”

“That might be a stretch.” It was Tuesday. “What if I need to order parts?”

She considered this with the same deliberation with which she ordered from a menu. “Could they arrive while we’re gone, so you could fix it first thing when we return?”

Again, the feeling that he shouldn’t take her to Joe’s wedding gripped him. Vince fiddled with the screw on the auger motor hood, not looking at her. “Can you really afford to miss a week of work?” That seemed unlikely given she couldn’t afford to repair or replace her saw.

“Jerry owes me a couple days off and I’ve lined up some side jobs.” She’d put thought into this. She hadn’t asked him on a whim.

Unless he had a good reason to retract his offer, he felt honor-bound to take her.

Vince held out his hand for her to shake because he had to keep this on a platonic footing. “I’m paying for transportation, the hotel and food.”

“Okay, but...” Harley hesitated, offering a question in those blue eyes, not a handshake. “Why do you want a wedding date?”

He returned his hand to the auger, unwilling to tell her the truth and latching on to the first idea that came to mind. “There’s this girl, Sarah, from high school—”

“And you broke her heart.” Harley tsked.

He let her assumption stand. “Having a beautiful woman on my arm will keep my visit simple.” On so many levels.

Harley leaned back and surveyed him as if he was a blouse she was considering from the bargain rack. “And you’ll fix my saw?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Fair enough.” Harley stood and sealed the deal with a businesslike handshake.

Her going complicated things for him.

He just knew it. So it made no sense that he felt like smiling.

CHAPTER THREE

VINCE BOUGHT HARLEY a plane ticket.

He packed a bag that included a dark blue suit, matching socks and tie, dress shoes, and an overly starched white shirt.

He took apart Harley’s tile saw.

Like his head, it was a mess. Bushings. Armature. Casing. All ruined. He spent a lot of time searching online for parts and thinking about the week ahead.

But a little voice kept whispering that this trip was as disastrous as Harley’s tile saw. He didn’t just want her to sell the idea that they were dating. He wanted her to sell the idea that they’d been dating for months. And that would require more than a businesslike handshake. That would require more fence-mending between them. That would require answers to questions she hadn’t asked and hadn’t thought of; ones he didn’t want to deal with.

Intending to get her on board with his plan before they left, Vince picked Harley up at her apartment complex on the east side of Houston. She was waiting out front in a yellow tank top and blue jeans, a small duffel bag and a backpack at her feet. Her hair was in its usual long, blond braid and her blue eyes were covered by sunglasses.

She hopped into the truck with a simple, “Hi,” setting her things on the floorboard and making herself comfortable.

He’d expected at least one suitcase, if not two. And maybe a dress or something a bit more feminine for the trip. It was her day off. Usually on her day off or nights out when she had time to change, Harley wore bright colors, interesting patterns, and often skirts and flouncy dresses. They were on their way to a wedding. It was early, but it was already nearly eighty degrees outside and with the humidity, it felt hotter. Why were her legs covered up? And why was she acting as if they were going to a job site?

“Is there a problem?” Harley asked when he didn’t immediately drive away.

“I was thinking how weird this is.” And he didn’t mean his thoughts dwelling on her legs.

“I don’t have to go.” Her voice was very small and very un-Harley like.

It tugged at him, that voice. She didn’t want to go and he didn’t want to take her. He should offer to buy her a saw and leave her in Houston. He drew a deep breath. “I should have told you I asked you to go to this thing because of my family, who are—”

“Nuts,” she finished for him, shrugging.

Vince’s jaw dropped. An image of his dad leapt to mind.

“Isn’t that what everyone says?” Harley shrugged again and turned her gaze toward the Houston skyline, visible through the smoggy haze.

“I suppose.” Although he never said it. Not even in jest.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.” She said the words forcefully, as if trying to convince herself.

Vince let the truck idle, his plan stuck in neutral. He felt obligated to let her know what she was walking into. “Before we go, I need to tell you something.”

“If you want to get back together, I’m going to stay here.” She drew herself up and glared at him.

There. That was more like the Harley he knew.

“You’ve been friend-zoned,” she continued. “I don’t think about you that way anymore.”

Ouch. He hadn’t expected that statement to sting. Not even if it was a good thing. “I’m not looking for a commitment with you or anyone else.”

Down the block, a motorcycle accelerated, winding through the gears quickly, as if there was fun to be had ahead.

Vince held on to the truck’s steering wheel with both hands. He hadn’t ridden a bike in ages. “In fact, I’m not the marrying kind.”

His brother Joe was the Messina intent upon promising “till death do we part.”

“Interesting.” Harley crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze cutting from Vince to the skyline once more. “Are we going to the airport or not?”

The motorcycle revved, calling all listeners to the freedom of the open road.

Vince couldn’t remember a time free of responsibilities, even when he was a kid. “Before we go, I need one thing to be clear. My family will expect us—”

“We’re not sleeping together.” Harley moved her hand to the door, as if preparing to jump out.

Ouch. Vince hadn’t expected that to hurt, either.

“The friend-zone isn’t a deal-breaker, so be it.” Her eyes were glued to the skyscrapers downtown, as if she longed to return to her former life as an architect, where everything had been rosy until she’d encountered one bump in the road.

If she thought being an architect was hard, she was learning that construction could be just as demoralizing. There was a price to be paid for every decision you made in life. Best if she learned that now, before she hit thirty.

The motorcycle came into view. One of those colorful Japanese models young guys rode to pop wheelies and do spin-outs and cheat death.

“It’s not a deal-breaker. But this might be.” Vince waited until Harley met his gaze, waited an extra few moments for the feeling that he shouldn’t take her to materialize, but it didn’t. “I was expected to bring a plus-one to the wedding.”

“You say that as if you told your family who to expect.” Her eyes narrowed. “Who was supposed to go with you?”

He couldn’t tell if there was resentment or jealousy in her voice. “They’re expecting the woman I’ve been dating...or, rather the woman who broke up with me last month.”

“I broke up with you last month.” The corner of her mouth twitched up and then just as quickly turned down. “And you never told me you weren’t interested in marriage.”

“It never came up.” And it had never come to mind. They’d had fun together, seemingly without strings. She’d made no mention of settling down. “I like women, but I’m not going to have kids, which means most women either don’t want to date me or date me with the hopes of changing my mind. And when they realize my mind’s made up, they tend to leave. Promptly.”

“It’s a moot point now.” Her words had an impersonal quality, which gave everything away—her desire for a picket fence, her longing for children, her expectation that he might have shared either dream.

But she didn’t get out of the truck.

So far, so good. “Unfortunately my brothers don’t agree with my decision to stay single and childless.”

“Ah, here’s where the nutty part comes in,” she surmised.

“There’s no nutty. Forget the nutty!” Vince took a deep breath and forced himself to speak calmly. “Over the years, I’ve told my brothers I was too busy to come home, citing long hours on the job or an intense relationship” To keep them from delving too deeply into why he stayed in Texas and to discourage them from coming to visit. “Each time they press, I fend them off, this time with a relationship.”