you’re sure...” Maggie didn’t sound as if she believed Penny.
“I’m sure that if we don’t get out there soon, the groom will think you ran away.” Penny picked up the bridal bouquet and handed it to Maggie. “You worry about walking down that aisle and not about me.”
Penny gave Maggie a once-over before picking up her own flowers. The last thing her friend should be worried about today was what would happen when Luke and Penny were in the same room for the first time since she had driven him away.
It was not as if they had the type of love that would last forever. Teenage love never did. First loves never did.
Luke had been heading off to college, and she’d barely earned the grades to graduate high school. If it weren’t for What Goes Around Comes Around, the only work Penny would be qualified for was as either a gas station attendant or a fast-food worker. When she had inherited the quaint store along Main Street from her grandmother, it had been bleeding money, but the shop meant too much to Penny to let it fail. After her grandmother died, she had no family left to rely on. Her father had been a no-show since she was born, and her mother had ditched her years ago to continue boozing without a child in tow. But Penny was an adult now. She had managed to turn the shop around and make it a tourist attraction in their little one-stoplight town.
Through it all, she’d always had Maggie’s support. Maggie and her daughter, Amber, were her family, and she wouldn’t dream of making a fuss on one of the happiest days of Maggie’s life. Even if that meant putting up with Brady Ward’s younger brother.
The moment she stepped into the hallway, she saw him.
Luke stood about a dozen feet in front of her. The air around her crackled with energy. Dark hair, blue eyes, towering height, these were all features shared by the Ward brothers. Luke wasn’t as tall as Sam, the oldest brother, but he still towered over her even in her three-inch heels. The lankiness of high school was gone, replaced by a filled-out but trim figure his tuxedo suited just fine. His dark hair curled slightly at the ends, where it touched his collar. If this were any other man, Penny would be placing bets that she would have him in her bed before the night was over.
But this was her Luke. At least he had been hers. Behind the bleachers, in the backseat of her car, in the field on a blanket looking up into a night sky that seemed to go on forever. They’d made promises neither of them were old enough to keep. Things had seemed so clear to her then. He loved her. He’d promised forever, but she knew forever was just a word. Love didn’t matter. Back then it had been only a matter of time. And when—not if—he had left her, she would have been the one picking up the pieces. She straightened her shoulders and loosened the death grip on her flowers.
Plastering a smile on her face, she stepped forward.
“Penny!” Amber’s voice burst out from behind Luke and the speeding golden bullet of eight-year-old energy raced toward her. “Penny! Penny! You have to meet my uncle Luke. I have two uncles now. And he’s a doctor.”
Penny was powerless as Amber grabbed her hand and dragged her toward Luke. Not exactly the image she’d wanted to project, but Amber didn’t wait for graceful entrances.
“Amber, I’ve met your uncle Luke. We went to school together.” Penny managed to not fall off her heels as Amber stopped in front of Luke.
“She’s got quite the grip, doesn’t she?” Luke smiled down at Amber as Penny tried to compose herself.
Amber spotted Maggie and took off in the direction of her mother.
“You should see her with my puppy, Flicker.” Penny held her breath as Luke’s gaze floated over her dress up to her face. She wasn’t eighteen anymore. What if he didn’t like what he saw?
Nonsense. She never let a man make her feel insecure.
Luke finally met her eyes. “I’m supposed to walk you down the aisle.”
Her world was lost in a sea of blue, so rich and inviting that if she could, she would strip naked and dive into their warm depths. Warmth soaked through her body and her knees felt loose in their sockets.
She shook herself out of his spell and managed a smile that didn’t feel entirely plastic. “Yes, you are.”
“Or from the looks of those heels, keep you from falling on your ass?” That mischievous twinkle she’d always loved lit in his eyes.
“Oh, these little things?” Penny lifted her shoe to contemplate it.
Apparently the past was where it belonged: in the past. She smiled easier. Luke hadn’t changed much since high school, but his shoulders seemed less tight. Maybe he’d finally learned to let things go. When she’d first noticed him as more than just another classmate, he’d been filled with anger and grief after the death of his parents. She knew what it was like to be left by the ones you loved. And even though his parents hadn’t meant to leave, the pain he’d felt had seemed close to her own.
“Looks like we’ll be spending most of the evening together,” Luke said.
Penny blinked up at him as her stomach gave a little flip of joy at the remembrance of nights spent in his arms. Hot nights in the back of her beat-up Chevy. They’d laughed and forgotten about the rest of Tawnee Valley while they lost themselves in exploring each other. Fogged windows. Naked skin to naked skin. His hands and mouth had made her forget how to breathe.
“I’m the best man,” he said, slowly. “And you’re the maid of honor....”
“Of course.” She tried to laugh it off, but it came out stilted as she tried to control the heat bubbling within her. “I’d hate to keep you from your date, though.”
“I didn’t bring one.”
“She couldn’t make it?” Penny fished just a little, knowing that if there was a she, Penny needed to shut down this attraction. She didn’t mess with taken men.
“There isn’t a she.” He looked over her shoulder briefly before returning his gaze to her eyes. “What about your date? Won’t it make him jealous that I’ll have you in my arms most of the night?”
“If he existed, it probably would.” The men she hooked up with were always free agents and never more than that. “I guess that means I’m yours tonight.”
His dark eyebrow lifted as if his train of thought had just arrived at the same station. A spark of awareness raced down her spine.
“If everyone could line up,” Beatrice Miller called out in her singsong voice. The kindergarten teacher helped out at the church for the wedding coordinator. She treated every wedding party like a group of five-year-olds who needed to get in line and wait patiently for their turn. Many of them had had her as a teacher, so it wasn’t hard for her to rein them in.
Luke held out his elbow, and Penny hesitated for only a moment before slipping her hand over his jacketed arm. They were to be the first down the aisle.
“Mom and Dad should be here,” Luke said so softly that she almost missed it.
Her fingers squeezed his arm and she leaned against him. “Yes.”
As they stood by the door waiting for the procession music to begin, the crisp, clean scent
