Abby nodded. Even though it would be awfully close to Lara’s bedtime when the rehearsal concluded, if it wasn’t finished already, sugar didn’t affect Lara as it did her mother.
“I’ll get your bags and we’ll be on our way,” Clayton said as he headed toward the carousel.
Abby rushed after him, pulling Lara along with her. She didn’t want to accept his help. She really should have rented a car, but Brenna Kelly, the maid of honor and one of Abby’s oldest and closest friends, had insisted that it would be easier and faster for someone to pick her up from the airport. “I’ll get my own bags, Clayton. You don’t know what my suitcases look like.”
“I imagine they’re the only ones that are left,” he said with a smug smile, turning toward the conveyor.
Abby clenched her free hand into a fist and wished she had something to whip at the back of his head. Clayton McClintock had always irritated the heck out of her, with his smug I-have-everything-under-control personality. Why had her friends sent him to get the two of them? Just how crazy had this wedding made everyone?
“He’s nice, Mommy.”
Clayton McClintock was a lot of things. Judgmental, humorless and uptight. But he was not nice. While all the other McClintocks had always accepted her as one of the family, Clayton made her feel as if she didn’t belong.
Then again, she really hadn’t. But most of the time when she was growing up, she’d had no place else to go.
“Mommy?”
She blinked, then gazed down at Lara. “What, honey?”
“Don’t you like Clayton?”
She turned to watch him lift their suitcases from the carousel, his impressive biceps straining his shirtsleeves. Then she lied to her daughter for the first time in her life. “Sure I do.”
Clayton stood only a few feet away. Despite the grinding of the conveyor belt, he heard her and smothered a laugh. Abby had never liked him, which was fine with him. She’d been such a brat in her day. Her daughter might look exactly like her, but apparently she acted nothing like the wild child her mother had been.
“I wouldn’t let them leave again,” a male voice commented near Clayton’s shoulder.
He glanced over at a gray-haired man who was standing beside him. “Excuse me?”
“Your wife and daughter,” the older man said, gesturing toward Abby and Lara. “I flew in from Chicago with them.”
Clayton’s mouth went dry, too dry for him to respond and correct the misconception. His wife and daughter? He’d never take a wife, never have children of his own. That was one plan he didn’t intend to let his family change.
“Despite the computer problems at the airport, they stayed so sweet and patient. They’re beautiful,” the stranger continued. “You’re a lucky man.”
Clayton simply nodded, not wasting any time with explanations. They were already late. After the rehearsal dinner he would dump Abby, her daughter and suitcases at his mother’s house, and his responsibilities to her would be over.
“SLOW DOWN, CLAYTON,” Abby said. Sun-streaked fields and dappled woods whipped past the windows of the hybrid SUV. She turned toward the backseat, where Lara’s head bobbed in her sleep with each bump in the road. Less than a foot of console separated Abby from Clayton’s broad shoulder. His jaw was rigidly set as he stared straight ahead at the road leading into Cloverville.
He hadn’t even heard her request. She reached over and touched his thigh. Muscles flexed beneath her fingers and the SUV surged forward as his foot pressed harder on the accelerator.
“Clayton, slow down!” she whispered, not wanting to wake her daughter, even though Lara could sleep anywhere and through anything.
“Grabbing my leg isn’t going to slow me down,” he said tersly, as he eased off the gas. “It’s actually a good way to wind up in the ditch.”
Fingers tingling, Abby snatched back her hand and knotted her fingers in her lap. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you, but you didn’t hear me.”
“Telling me to slow down?” he said. “I thought you were kidding, considering the way you drive. You thrive on speed.”
“I used to,” she admitted. Although speed had had little to do with her poor driving. Undiagnosed attention deficit disorder had been the real reason for her erratic youthful driving—that and bad brakes.
“Did having a kid finally settle you down?”
Diet and exercise had gotten the ADD under control, but nothing had affected her as much as becoming a mother. “Yes,” she agreed.
“Responsibility will do that to you,” he said, his voice thick with bitterness.
She’d always figured that after he’d mourned the loss of his father, he’d enjoyed stepping into the patriarch’s shoes and taking control of his family. Even before his dad had gotten sick, Clayton had bossed his younger siblings and Abby around so much that they’d all looked forward to his leaving for college.
Maybe his bitterness was because he’d never gotten over his father’s death. It had affected all their lives so much. “Clayton…”
He turned his head slightly, his gaze skimming over her. The tingling spread from her fingertips throughout her body in reaction to that look. What the heck was that about? He’d never looked at her like that when they were younger, when she’d secretly wished he would; wished that he’d return from college and notice that she was all grown up.
“What?” he asked when she remained silent with remembered self-disgust. In the end, she’d actually missed him when he’d gone away to college. She doubted he’d missed her at all these past eight years.
She expelled a soft, shaky sigh. “So are you speeding to the church?”
He shook his head. “When I went to get the car, I called Brenna’s cell. Reverend Howland had another commitment and couldn’t wait any longer, so they had to rehearse without the missing members of the party.”
“Us,” she acknowledged, bracing herself for his accusatory stare. He’d always blamed her for any trouble his sisters had gotten into. Like the tattoos, for instance. But in Abby’s opinion, this wedding was the most trouble Molly had ever gotten into, and she wanted to get her out.
“We weren’t the only ones who missed the rehearsal,” Clayton admitted. “Neither the best man nor Eric was there.”
“Eric.” Eric South been the lone male member of a group of friends that included Abby, Brenna Kelly, Molly and Molly’s sister, Colleen, who was a few years younger than the classmates. “I hope he makes it to the dinner.” He could help Abby talk Molly out of marrying a stranger.
“I hope we do,” Clayton muttered as he pressed down on the accelerator.
Abby lifted her hand from her lap but stopped herself from reaching across the console again. “I’m surprised an insurance agent would drive so fast. I remember the lecture
