the US Open, twice. The Australian Open had been the only tournament to elude the great Jared Malone for the first few years of his illustrious career and she’d often pondered his apparent distraction in exiting the first or second round of the Melbourne-based tournament.
The ensuing pictures of him with some blonde bombshell or busty brunette on his arm went a long way to explaining his early departures and she gritted her teeth against the fact she’d cared.
Not any more.
She’d seen the evidence firsthand of what choosing the wrong man to spend your life with could do and, considering Jared had run rather than build a future with her, he had proved he wasn’t the man for her.
‘Your ice cream’s melting.’
Blinking, Kristi paid, handed Meg her cone and headed for the sand.
‘You’re walking down there in those?’
Meg pointed at her favourite Louboutin hot pink patent shoes with the staggering heel.
‘Sheesh, hooking up with tennis boy again must really have you rattled.’
‘I’m not “hooking up” with anybody, I’m just going to sit on the wall, take a breather before heading back to work.’
Meg licked her ice cream, her suspicious stare not leaving her sister’s face.
‘You two used to date. Stands to reason there is a fair chance of you hooking up again on that deserted island.’
‘Shut up and eat your ice cream.’
They sat in companionable silence, Kristi determinedly ignoring Meg’s logic. The sharp sun, refreshing ocean breeze, packed beach were reminiscent of countless other days they’d done this together as youngsters and, later, bonded in their grief over their parents’ premature death.
While their parents might have left them financially barren, they could thank them for a family closeness that had always been paramount, ahead of everything else.
‘What do you really think about all this, Megs?’
Crunching the last of her cone, Meg tilted her face up to the sun.
‘Honestly? You’ve never got over tennis boy.’
‘That’s bull. I’ve been engaged twice!’
Meg sat up, tapped her ring finger.
‘Yet you’re not married. Interesting.’
Indignant, Kristi tossed the rest of her ice cream in the bin, folded her arms.
‘So I made wrong decisions? Better I realised before traipsing up the aisle.’
Meg held up her hands. ‘Hey, you’ll get no arguments from me on that point. Look at the farcical mess my short-lived engagement turned into.’
A shadow passed over her sister’s face as Kristi silently cursed her blundering insensitivity.
‘Forget I asked—’
Meg made a zipping motion over her lips as she continued. ‘But Avery and Barton were both decent guys and you seemed happy. Yet the closer the wedding got both times, the more emotionally remote you were. Why’s that?’
Because she’d been chasing a dream each time, a dream she’d had since a little girl, a dream of the perfect wedding.
The dress, the flowers, the reception, she could see it all so clearly, had saved pictures in a scrapbook.
What she couldn’t see was the groom—discounting the magazine pic of Jared Meg had pasted there as a joke when they’d been dating—and while Avery and Barton had momentarily superimposed their images in her dream, they ultimately hadn’t fit.
Avery had entered her life six months after her parents died, had been supportive and gracious and non-pressuring. She’d been lost, grieving and he’d helped her, providing security at a time she needed it most.
It had taken her less than four months to figure out their engagement was a by-product of her need for stability after her parents’ death and she’d ended it.
Not that she’d learned.
Barton had been a friend, supportive of her break up and the loss of her parents, so supportive it had seemed natural to slip into a relationship eight months after Avery had gone.
While their engagement had lasted longer, almost a year, she’d known it wasn’t right deep down, where she craved a unique love-of-her-life romance, not a comfortable relationship that left her warm and fuzzy without a spark in sight.
She’d been guilt-ridden for months after ending both engagements, knowing she shouldn’t have let the relationships go so far but needing to hold onto her dream, needing to feel safe and treasured and loved after the world as she knew it had changed.
Her family had made her feel protected and when she’d lost that she’d looked for security elsewhere. She just wished she hadn’t hurt Avery and Barton in the process.
‘You know why you really didn’t go through with those weddings. It could do you good to admit it.’
Meg nudged her and she bumped right back. She knew what Meg was implying; after Jared, no man had lived up to expectations.
While she’d briefly contemplated that reasoning after each break-up, she’d dismissed it. Jared had been so long ago, had never entertained the possibility of a full-blown relationship let alone a lifetime commitment and he’d never fit in her happily ever after scenario.
Liar. Remember the day he walked in on you in your room-mate’s wedding dress while she was away on her honeymoon? The day you joked about it being their turn soon?
Not only had she envisioned him as her perfect groom, she’d almost believed it for those six months they’d dated.
Until he’d dumped her and bolted without a backward glance.
‘I guess the closer the weddings came on both occasions, the more I realised Avery and Barton didn’t really know me. Sure, we shared similar interests, moved in similar social circles, had similar goals but it was just too … too …’
‘Trite.’
‘Perfect …’ she shook her head, the familiar confusion clouding her brain when she tried to fathom her reasons for calling off her much-desired weddings. ‘… yet it wasn’t perfect. It was like I had this vision of what I wanted and I was doing my damnedest to make it fit. Does that make sense?’
‘Uh-huh.’
Meg paused, squinted her eyes in the Icebergs’ direction. ‘So where does tennis boy fit into your idea of perfection?’
‘Malone’s far from perfect.’
As the words tripped from her tongue an instant image of his sexy smile, the teasing twinkle in his eyes, the hard, ripped body, flashed across her mind, taunting her, mocking her.
Crunching
