glanced over at Marnie, whose head was dropped over the back of her chair as she pointed to the first star just visible in the sky. ‘That’s Venus, right…evening star?’
Cassie smiled. Marnie was forever talking about the night skies over Savannah and had loved having her own personal astronomer at her beck and call. ‘Yep,’ she confirmed, looking at the pinprick of light in the velvet sky.
‘Will we be able to see Cassiopeia tonight?’ she asked.
Cassie shook her head. ‘It’s too light here. When we’re on our road trip we’ll stop at the Barringer Crater in Arizona. We’ll sleep under the stars and I’ll show you then.’
It was the main reason Cassie was going on the trip. Time with her gal pals would be great, but she’d always wanted to see the crater site formed when a meteorite had ploughed into the earth fifty thousand years ago, and that was her priority.
‘You speak for yourself,’ Gina butted in. ‘The only stars the Park Avenue Princess and I are sleeping under are of the five-star variety. Isn’t that right, Reese?’
Reese nodded. ‘Er…yes,’ she said, looking quickly away and taking another decent slug of her champers.
‘Carter proposed to Missy under the stars at the Grand Canyon. Isn’t that romantic?’ she said, her voice dreamy. ‘Our families were on holiday together. Missy and I stayed up all night talking about how wonderful it was.’
‘Bless their hearts,’ Gina said, mimicking Marnie’s Southern drawl.
It had taken Cassie a few months of Gina teasing Marnie over the quaint Southern phrase to realise it could be used to mock as well as to sweeten. Glancing at Gina’s tense profile, she guessed this was one of the mocking times.
‘Missy wants a star theme running through the reception,’ Marnie continued ignoring Gina’s sarcasm. ‘She’s spending a small fortune on this gorgeous black drapery that billows from the ceiling and twinkles with thousands of tiny lights…’
Cassie didn’t really understand why you’d spend good money on creating the illusion of a starry sky when the real thing was up there for free. It certainly didn’t seem to be very effective budgeting. But weddings were as much a mystery to her as the notion of love, so she gave up trying to figure it out.
She was just going to lounge here with her friends and watch the stars come out.
One last time.
ONE
A decade on…
Cassiopeia watched Tuck… whatever his last name was…of quarterback fame swagger in the general direction of their table with his long, loose-limbed gait. Somehow his big, blond athleticism seemed to dominate the vast expanse of the open tent, with its delicate swathes of royal blue draped across the ceilings and trailing gently to the deck. But then she had a feeling he’d probably dominate any setting.
He made slow progress. Men stopped him to slap him on the back and shake his hand. Women stopped him to bat their eyelashes and put their hands on him. He took both in his stride, shrugging off their adoration with a wide, easy Shucks, I ain’t nuthin’ grin. The man was so laid-back Cassie was surprised he managed to stay vertical.
Very different from the man she’d watched only yesterday playing a very physical game of one-on-one basketball with Reese’s ex-Marine ex-husband Mason.
Reese had left the party that had originally been intended to be her wedding to Dylan to go after Mason, but her instructions to the remaining members of the Awesome Foursome had been clear—make sure no one gets into a fight.
Reese had deliberately sat Tuck, the jilted groom’s best man, next to her—away from Gina—to prevent such a calamity.
With Tuck firmly on Team Dylan and Gina, whose favourite pastime was baiting people, on Team Reese, Cassie could already tell it was going to be a long night.
‘He sure is pretty,’ Gina murmured with relish as she tracked his progress.
A very long night.
Cassie didn’t really see the attraction. But then she’d never been a slave to her hormones. She just wasn’t programmed that way.
Sure, Tuck Whats-his-name had all the features that the female of the species looked for in a mate. He was tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped. She couldn’t see the delineation of the muscles in his chest tonight, although they were obviously there beneath his charcoal suit. She knew from his shirtless one-on-one yesterday that they were plentiful and very well developed.
And, in the animal world, muscles equalled strength.
Another biological tick in his favour.
There was also the symmetry of his face. Square jaw, prominent cheekbones, nose, chin and forehead all proportional. Eyes evenly spaced. Lips perfectly aligned. Facial symmetry was one of the big markers of physical attraction and worthiness for mating, and Tuck had it in spades.
But Cassie still didn’t get it.
‘I have to go to the bathroom,’ she said, turning to Gina. ‘Try not to get into a fight with him while I’m gone. Remember, Reese is counting on us.’
‘I’ll be on my best behaviour,’ Gina assured her.
If Cassie had been better at picking up sarcasm she wouldn’t have been assured one iota, but she nodded, satisfied.
‘Here—reapply,’ Gina said, reaching into her clutch purse and pulling out the deep mulberry lipstick she’d slathered on Cassie’s mouth earlier.
Cassie frowned. ‘Why?’
‘Because.’ Gina sighed. ‘That’s the price of wearing lippy.’ She waggled the item at her friend, who was looking at it as if it were a foreign object she’d never seen before. ‘Beauty is pain.’
Cassie smiled at the old catchphrase. Beauty is pain. She’d learned many things about being a woman under Gina’s tutelage. Gina could wear a pair of killer stilettos out clubbing all night without a single wince. Cassie had pretty much forgotten everything in the intervening decade, but she’d never forgotten how Gina had taken her under her wing—as if she were an Antipodean Eliza Doolittle.
Of course Cassie had failed ‘Female 101’ resoundingly, but Gina had been sweet and patient and there was just something about her vibrant personality that drew people. Cassie and Gina had stayed in contact despite the wedge that had been driven between the Awesome Foursome after Gina had thrown her one-night stand with Carter in Marnie’s face that fateful last night together ten years ago.
And now, a decade down the track, Gina was still looking out for her in the fashion stakes. Gina had taken one look at the shapeless maxi-dress Cassie had been going to wear and declared it an unnatural disaster. Before Cassie had known it she was swathed in soft grape fabric with no sleeves, a plunging crossover neckline, a ruched form-fitting waist and an A-line skirt, the hem of which fluttered just below her knees.
Her straight brown hair had been freed from its regulation floral scrunchie and loosely curled. Sparkly, strappy kitten heels had been supplied. A subtle hand had seen to eyeshadow
