and his attention. She’d told him everything but yes.
His gaze leaped to her former husband. Chase Cooper had taken his father’s construction firm and used his engineering degree and his muscles to turn it into a company with a national reputation. He’d ridden jackhammers as they bit deep into concrete foundations and hoisted pickaxes to reduce the remainder to piles of rubble. Hoffman swallowed hard again. Cooper still had the muscles to prove it. Right now, the man looked as if he wanted to use those muscles to pulverize him.
“Chase?” Annie said, beaming. “Aren’t you going to wish us well?”
“Yes,” Chase said, jamming his hands into his pockets, balling them so hard they began to shake. “I wish you the best, Annie. You and your cadaver, both.”
Annie’s smile flattened. “You always did know the right thing to say, didn’t you, Chase?” Turning on her heel, she propelled herself and Milton off the edge of the dance floor and toward the buffet.
“Anne,” Milton whispered, “Anne, my dearest, I had no idea...”
“Neither did I,” Annie whispered back, and smiled up into his stunned face hard enough so he’d have to think the tears in her eyes were for happiness and not because a hole seemed suddenly to have opened in her heart.
Married, Chase thought. His Annie, getting married to that jerk.
Surely she had better taste.
He slid his empty glass across the bar to the bartender.
“Women,” he said. “Can’t live with ‘em and can’t live without ’em.”
The bartender smiled politely. “Yes, sir.”
“Give me a refill. Bourbon and—”
“And water, one ice cube. I remember.”
Chase looked at the guy. “You trying to tell me I’ve been here too many times this afternoon?”
The bartender’s smile was even more polite. “I might have to, soon, sir. State law, you know.”
Chase’s mouth thinned. “When I’ve had too much to drink, I’ll be sure and let you know. Meanwhile, make this one a double.”
“Chase?”
He swung around. Behind him, people were doing whatever insane line dance was this year’s vogue. Others were still eating the classy assortment of foods Annie had ordered and he hadn’t been permitted to pay for.
“I’ve no intention of asking you to foot the bill for anything,” she’d told him coldly, when he’d called to tell her to spare no expense on the wedding. “Dawn is my daughter, my floral design business is thriving and I need no help from you.”
“Dawn is my daughter, too,” Chase had snarled, but before he’d gotten the words out, Annie had hung up. She’d always been good at getting the last word, dammit. Not today, though. He’d gotten it. And the look on her face when he’d handed her all that crap about his engagement to Janet made it even sweeter.
“Chase? You okay?”
Who was he kidding? He hadn’t had the last word this time, either. Annie had. How could she? How could she marry that pantywaist, bow-tie wearing, gender-confused—
“Chase, what the hell’s the matter with you?”
Chase blinked. David Chambers, tall, blue-eyed, still wearing his dark hair in a long ponytail clasped at his nape the same way he had since he’d first become Chase’s personal attorney a dozen years ago, was standing alongside him.
Chase let out an uneasy laugh.
“David.” He stuck out his hand, changed his mind and clasped the other man’s shoulders. “Hey, man, how’re you doing?”
Chambers smiled and drew Chase into a quick bear hug. Then he drew back and eyed him carefully.
“I’m fine. How about you? You all right?”
Chase reached for his drink and knocked back half of it in one swallow.
“Never been better. What’ll you have?”
Chambers looked at the bartender. “Scotch,” he said, “a single malt, if you have it, on the rocks. And a glass of Chardonnay, please.”
“Don’t tell me,” Chase said with a stilted smile. “You’re here with a lady. I guess the love bug’s bitten you, too.”
“Me?” David laughed. “The wine’s for a lady at my table. As for the love bug... It already bit me, remember? One marriage, one divorce...no, Chase, not me. Never again, not in this lifetime.”
“Yeah.” Chase wrapped his hand around his glass. “What’s the point? You marry a woman, she turns into somebody else after a couple of years.”
“I agree. Marriage is a female fantasy. Promise a guy anything to nab him, then look blank when he expects you to deliver.” The bartender set the Scotch in front of David, who lifted the glass to his lips and took a swallow. “The way I see it, a man’s got a housekeeper, a cook and a good secretary, what more does he need?”
“Nothing,” Chase said glumly, “not one thing.”
The bartender put a glass of Chardonnay before David, who picked it up. He turned and looked across the room. Chase followed his gaze to a table where a cool-looking, beautiful brunette sat in regal solitude.
A muscle knotted in David’s jaw. He took another swallow of Scotch.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “there is one other thing. And it’s what most often gets poor bastards like you and me in trouble.”
Chase thought of the feel of Annie in his arms on the dance floor, just a couple of hours ago.
“Poor bastards, is right,” he said, and lifted his glass to David. “Well, you and I both know better. Bed ‘em and forget ’em, I say.”
David laughed and clinked his glass against Chase’s. “I’ll drink to that.”
“To what? What are you guys up to, hidden away over here?”
Both men turned around. Dawn, radiant in white lace and with Nick at her side, beamed at them.
“Daddy,” she said, kissing her father’s cheek. “And Mr. Chambers. I’m so glad you could make it.”
“I am, too.” David held his hand out to her groom. “You’re a lucky man, son. Take good care of her.”
Nick nodded as the men shook hands. “I intend to, sir.”
Dawn kissed Chase again. “Get out and circulate, Daddy. That’s an order.”
Chase tossed her a mock salute. The bridal pair moved off, and he sighed. “That’s the only good thing comes of a marriage. A kid, to call your own.”
