Page 36 of My Best Friend's Mardi Gras Wedding

Jeremiah and Leo came in just then and took the seats on either side of Tori.She felt stupidly comforted by that.They were also both strangers to her.She’d known them about twenty minutes longer than she’d known the other men in the bar.Still, it felt like they’d moved in to say she was one of them.

“Everybody, this is Tori,” Leo said to the gathering at the bar.“Tori is Josh’s.Mind your manners.At least for a few minutes.”

Her eyebrows went up.She was Josh’s?Wow, that sounded very possessive.And a ribbon of heat curled through her.Damn, since when had she been okay withbelongingto someone?

Since Leo had said she was Josh’s, apparently.

She smiled at everyone as they greeted her withHeys.She felt the need to clarify the information being given.Josh wasn’t the one saying she was his.Leo was assuming a lot.“Um, actually, Josh and I don’t know each otherthatwell.Yet.But he’s going to my friend’s wedding with me.”

“This is the one he’s been mooning over for the past year,” Ellie said, apparently to everyone, as she passed a glass of…something…to Tori.

“Ah,” one of the older men said.

“Makes sense,” another said.

“Finally,” a third added.

“Mooning over?”Tori asked Ellie, picking up the glass and sniffing.It looked and smelled like sweet tea.

Ellie gave her a wink.“Mooning over.”

“He told you that?”Josh had seemedveryhappy to see her a little bit ago, but he’d been talking about her?He was the one who had sent her back to her hotel room, alone,twicelast year.

“Didn’t have to.It’s obvious,” Ellie said, leaning onto the bar.

Tori suspected Ellie had a stool or some kind of raised platform because the little woman shouldn’t have been able to rest her elbows on the bar.

Tori studied her.Ellie seemed sincere.“It was obvious that he was mooning over me?How?”She picked up the tea and took a little sip.It was delicious.And didn’t taste spiked.Though Tori had the impression that if Ellie wanted to spike something without you knowing, you wouldn’t realize it until you were falling flat on your face trying to walk back to the tour bus.

“I know him,” Ellie said.“I know all my kids.But Josh and Owen are easy.What you see is what you get.I always knew when they fell in love, it would be the most obvious thing in the world.”

Tori choked as the tea went down the wrong pipe.Jeremiah calmly patted her on the back as she coughed and dragged air into her lungs.

Ellie shook her head.“Thein lovepart is a surprise to you?”

“We barely know each other.We spent only a few hours together almost a year ago.”

“Well, how long do you think it takes?”Leo asked her.

“To fall in love?”she asked, her eyes wide.“I…” She frowned.“I don’t know.But…longer than that.”She looked around.“Right?”

“Why?”Ellie asked.“I’m not saying it’s always fast, but it sure can be.Some things you can tell about someone right away.”

Tori opened her mouth, but then shut it again.What the hell did she know about it?These people were a lot older than her and had seen a lot more life than she had.“Did you fall in love quickly?”she asked Ellie.

Ellie gave Leo a big smile.“Took about fifteen minutes.”

Tori hadn’t known for sure that Leo and Ellie were together, but now she looked at Leo.“Wow.”

He nodded.“She was wearing short shorts and tryin’ to pull a big ol’ catfish outta the bayou.She was cussing like a sailor and standing up in her little boat and I knew she was about to tip over.”

“He came over and steadied the boat, but let me pull that catfish out by myself,” Ellie said.“That’s when I knew he was a good one.He didn’t try to help me or bust in there like he was a big man or say shit like girls shouldn’t be fishing out there by themselves.”

Leo nodded, rubbing his jaw as if remembering.“It was a big one too.Bigger than anything I’d caught that summer.That was impressive.”

“That was when you knew she was the one?”Tori asked, enchanted by the story.

“Nope,” he said with a grin.“That wasn’t until she laughed.Soaking wet from the bayou and with her catfish swimmin’ away.”

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