Falling for Mr. Wrong(22)
And now here he was in a more pedestrian world, back home almost as if he’d never left. Running an inn. Preparing for a lovely union of yet another happy couple. He always wondered a little bit about people who went into marriage with blinders on, only able to see how joyful they were at that snapshot in time, na?ve to think they’d get through a lifetime together untainted. There was a time that probably would have stopped him from ever moving forward in a relationship—even one as serious as what he and Harper shared. He’d always assumed that his father and mother were equally smitten with one another when they were young, so that didn’t help instill confidence in the institution. It wasn’t until his mother was sick and dying that she confessed the truth about his parentage: they hadn’t been young and in love. His mother and father had had a one-night stand that took a bad turn when she got pregnant. His father was never on board with the whole thing but gave it a go for a while. He’d been young and irresponsible and didn’t actually even like Noah’s mother, let alone love her. It wasn’t enough to keep him around.
Noah sometimes felt bad that his father didn’t want him and Matthew, but he could also understand it, intellectually. Just as he had freaked out on behalf of his very brother. One thing he knew: parenthood was not for the faint of heart.
But now each time he oversaw another wedding at the inn, he smiled and sent his warm wishes into the universe that the couple would weather their particular storms and grow stronger. He’d seen it with his own eyes with Matt and Katie, so he knew that a deep foundation of love could help two people get through tough circumstances.
He wished he could get Harper to understand the Noah he was now, to realize that he was an improved version of the one she fell in love with when they were children. Maybe someday she’d come around.
Chapter Seventeen
Harper hit a shot of hot air from her blow dryer onto her eyelash curler, then squeezed the thing over her eyelashes. She only did this on important occasions—half the time when she used that damned contraption she ended up with an eye injury. Nothing more attractive than a big red mark from a pinched eyelid. But it did result in a much nicer-looking set of eyelashes, and it beat attempting those fake ones again, which was a disaster last time. Not that it would matter where she was going, but she wanted to give it her best. She was going to be the plus-one for her assistant, Georgia Childress, at the wedding of Georgia’s cousin Marcy.
“Dude. I need reinforcements,” had said. “My cousin’s fine enough, but her mother is a primo A-number-one beyotch. She’ll be so busy gloating about her daughter and her perfect marriage and dreamboat husband and bragging that Marcy was able to find someone but oh, poor Georgia, maybe you’ll find someone someday.” She put that last bit in air quotes. “I can’t stand being in the same room with her, and today of all days, I need someone to grab me by the shoulders and pull me away from her in case I feel the need to deck her.”
Harper adored Georgia—she was tall and well filled out. Not fat but certainly no petite shrinking flower of a woman. She brooked no bullshit from anyone and she sort of filled her body well with her sassy personality. She could care less that she wasn’t married, but she cared a whole lot that her aunt wanted to flaunt it. Harper wasn’t usually much on weddings for obvious reasons. But to go as a bodyguard? Sounded perfect.
She pulled on the form-fitting navy satin bias-cut slip dress that fell right above the knees and made her legs look a mile long, slicked on a couple of layers of mascara, pulled her hair back in a ponytail, slid into a pair of silver strap-heeled sandals, and checked herself in the mirror.
“Not bad,” she said, nodding at what she saw. “Not bad at all.”
Georgia—Georgie for short—insisted on driving and picked her up about fifteen minutes before the six o’clock wedding was scheduled to begin. “Hoping if we get there late enough we’ll get the seats farthest as possible from my aunt,” she said as Harper pulled on her seatbelt.
Harper would be happy to miss the ceremony altogether—each wedding she attended felt a little bit like salt in an old wound. Sure, she’d made it past the whole Noah thing in a general sense, but still, it was always hard to not reflect on what could have been. And now it was even harder because of the lust-filled way she’d so recently been reminded. So much so that she’d been running down the batteries on her vibrator, it had become such a necessary appliance in her life over the past few weeks. It seemed like every night when she tried to fall asleep, all she could think of was what had transpired between the two of them. And what red-blooded girl wouldn’t then feel the need to act upon that? It wasn’t as if she could call him up and demand round two.
They parked about a block from the inn where the wedding was being held.
As the venue came into view, Harper admired it. “Cute old home,” she said, eyeing the sprawling, pale lavender Victorian-style house with the inviting wraparound front porch. “I didn’t even know this place existed. And look”—she pointed to the roof—“a widow’s walk. They’re so romantic. The whole place screams charming.”
“Of course it does,” her friend said. “Leave it to my Aunt Jeannie to find the perfect, most romantic venue that no one else even knows about. God forbid her precious spawn marry at a venue others have used.”