Marrying The Wedding Crasher. Melinda Curtis

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.”

      Her slender brows drew together. “Are you telling me you aren’t man enough to confess to your brothers you don’t have a girlfriend?”

      She made it sound so cowardly.

      He rejected cowardice in favor of practicality and shook his head. “I’m telling you...” His tongue slowed and tried to spin her a lie. “I’m telling you...” Usually, he never stumbled over words, or anything, for that matter. This whole trip was like looking under the hood of a foreign, high-end electric car and not recognizing anything. “I’m telling you that I don’t want my brothers to know I’m single. Everyone is happy with how things are. Your job is to help me keep it that way.”

      “You’re such a girl, Messina.” She grinned and slugged his shoulder.

      It took Vince a moment for the meaning of her words to sink in. Even then, he wasn’t sure and had to ask, “So you’ll go?”

      “I’ll go.” She stretched her legs and put her elbow on the windowsill. “This should be fun.”

      Fun? Not hardly. This was survival.

      Vince put the truck in gear and headed toward the airport and the wedding, which he was now convinced was as disaster-laden as the combustible oil rig he’d once worked on.

      * * *

      HARLEY WANTED TO make sure a week spent with Vince would not be fun.

      For one thing, she’d packed clothes that were practical, ones she could dress up or dress down. Today, she wore jeans and a tank top because she wanted to reinforce a boundary with Vince—this СКАЧАТЬ