Page 37 of Poppy Kisses
“Calm down, tiger. I’m used to stumbling over words around people.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I whipped my head toward him. He should not have to be used to getting called out for a simple error. “Mr. And That Summer Overseas can learn some manners. Maybe his brother’s in the basement to keep from dealing with people like him. I can’t believe that guy. Clover must be dickmatized.”
“That’ll do it.”
“Ugh. Do you think she’s going to ask him to marry her so she can get her home?”
Clover could not be that desperate. We still had time before the terms of the trust ran out. “He took one look at the motel and insisted on going to Bismarck to get a room.”
“Was it the ‘don’t clean fowl in the shower’ sign that scared him off?” He shook his head. “I’m surprised, honestly. I remember Clover as precocious. She knew her own mind, and then to show up with…him.”
“I wonder if it’s all of us,” I mused and took a seat on the porch swing. Clover hadn’t had more luck than me, but Elijah was the most blatantly obvious cocksucker. “Lily’s the youngest, and she’s been married twice. Violet was almost married twice. I don’t think she and Willis would’ve lasted long.” I had to think Violet would’ve eventually seen what we all had. “Even Alder married twice. Now you and me.” That was odd. Talking about our impending nuptials so casually.Hey, we’re getting married. How ’bout a beer?
“She’s feeling the pressure?”
“Only from herself. But…” I debated telling him what was on my mind. He was waiting for me to continue. This guy listened. Actually, he always had. He had listened when we were on the playground, and that was why he had always amped me up, goading me to push myself harder and go farther faster. He thought I could do it. “When we were kids, we’d talk, you know. Little-girl stuff about our weddings and what our husbands would be like.”
“And you mentioned an outdoor wedding at your aunt’s old place?” The corner of his mouth lifted, but he wasn’t teasing.
“Yes. Small, almost intimate. Clover had said she wanted something similar with the lake as a backdrop.”
“Which lake? Nelson?”
Laughter bubbled out of me. “Why, yes. With the power plant as a backdrop?” Nelson Lake was a cooling reservoir for the plant, making it a warm body of water that drew a crowd all year. It was pretty, but maybe not a wedding setting unless the theme was rural industrial.
“Sakakawea, then?”
“Yep. At the resort by Twelve Mile Bay.”
I toed the floorboards to rock the swing. He gazed at the property, leaning his elbows on the railing. I got a front-row view of his ass, and it was amazing. Round and firm, I just wanted to walk by and swat it. My hand would probably sting and?—
He looked at me over his shoulder, and I jerked my gaze up.
“What else do you want for the wedding?”
I swallowed hard. The guy I was marrying was asking me what I wanted for my wedding. Quivers ran through my belly worse than when we’d had the audience of my dad, aunt, and uncle. “Umm… What about you?”
“Like I said, I’ve been through it once already.”
And he didn’t want to think about the perfection he’d had? Or…was there something else? He’d thought the sun rose and set only to make Hassie even prettier than she already was. “You already got your dream wedding?”
He chuffed and gazed back out across the drive to the shop and the rolling hills behind it. “At the time, I might’ve thought so.”
“Was a horse a bridesmaid?” Oops. I hadn’t meant for the cattiness to slip out.
“Close. There was a horse-drawn carriage. A friend of hers had drafts, and that’s how we rolled.” His tone was back to neutral. His wedding had to be the happiest day of his life, second only to Auggie’s birth, but no one would know from the sound of it.
“Sounds fun. Country chic style?”
“Yep. Auggie likes to look through the pictures. Maybe he’ll show you sometime.”
Maybe, but hopefully he wouldn’t. I didn’t need to see how blissed-out Jensen was over his real bride. I didn’t care to witness the hearts in his eyes cemented for eternity in photos, and definitely not right before our wedding or when he was married to me.
Still, I didn’t want him to have to grit through our day. “It’s like a party we’re throwing together. What’s something you want?”
He pushed off the railing, and I lost the sight that would taunt me at night when I also remembered how solid he was next to me with his arm around my shoulders.
He draped a hand around the back of his neck. “I said I don’t need?—”
