Page 28 of Something New

"You're lucky there were two, else you would have had nothing for breakfast," Anna said, deliberately not thinking about the calories and the extra miles she’d have to run. There were no calories on vacation, right?

Delaney paused before taking a bite, her eyes narrowed, looking more determined. "I'm a lot tougher than I was back then, Anna. Don't push me."

Anna cocked her head and studied Delaney for a long moment, giving a half-smile. "I wondered where you had gone." She nodded. "Nice to see you back and fighting."

And it was. She hated seeing Delaney defeated and miserable, even while Anna resented her for cutting off her friends so quickly. The Delaney she knew was quiet, maybe even shy, but she had a core strength that had gotten lost when her father was arrested. Anna had tried to contact Delaney several times and even attended her father’s funeral, but Delaney had remained stubborn, held herself aloof from her friends, acting the part of a whipped puppy, as if she deserved the horrible events that had befallen her. Anna had finally given up and left for California. But it still rubbed her the wrong way.

Delaney stared at her. "Are you freaking kidding? You were being a bitch on purpose?"

Anna shrugged, popping a piece of pastry into her mouth. "I'm good at it. You need to find your inner bitch and tell all of those people to fuck off. None of it was your fault, yet you acted like it was. It wasn’t, Delaney."

Before they could continue the conversation, Caroline bustled into the room with a couple of plastic organizer boxes filled with ribbons and bags and assorted items.

"No time for squabbling. We have party favors to put together, flowers to arrange and food to coordinate." Caroline consulted a clipboard in front of her, and all the girls groaned.

"Shouldn't the wedding organizer be doing this?" Brigid whispered behind Anna and Delaney.

Caroline looked up. "I'm an event planner. How would it look if I didn't plan my own wedding?"

"Smart?" Anna queried, then ducked as Caroline mocked smacked her in the head.

"Okay, ladies. Here's the plan."

“I will literally pay anything to hire a staff to do this.” Anna crossed her fingers in front of her heart. “Besides, I think I have plans in town.”

“Really?” Caroline fixed a mock stern look on her. “Whatever you’re doing, I hope you made it for later in the afternoon, because you know the first rule of being a bridesmaid.”

Brigid, Anna and Delaney exchanged glum glances, then they responded in chorus, “To help the bride.”

Caroline nodded, smiling in satisfaction. “Exactly. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can relax on the beach.”

* * *

Wyatt and the guys headed for the hotel to check out the venue, all under Matthew’s brother, Grady’s, direction. He was a contractor, with a specialty in historic preservation, something Wyatt considered consulting with him about. When he settled in Austin’s Hyde Park neighborhood, mainly because it was close to UT, he bought a Queen-Anne-inspired house built early in the 1900s. It needed a lot of work and, as Anna had so graciously pointed out, he wasn’t much for construction. He’d gotten close to the hardware store guys and was doing okay, but could really use a real contractor who knew what he was doing. Maybe Grady would be willing to work in Austin or recommend someone. Ethan had laughed at him for buying such a large house, but he bought it anyway, not willing to give up on that part of the dream, even if most of it was gone.

Grady assessed the gazebo and the basic layout. Finally, he put them to work, taking down a lot of the structures so they could quickly rebuild them after the storm. Ethan and Wyatt were assigned to the arch, and they got to work.

As they carefully pulled the pieces of wood apart where Grady had indicated, and not the whole thing, and watching the flowers, they grumbled a little under their breath.

“As if neither of us could have figured this out. I mean, why couldn’t we just lift this whole thing and bring it inside?” Ethan muttered.

Wyatt glanced at Grady, who was checking out the gazebo and figuring out how to shore it. “I don’t know. I’m just doing what I’m told. He kind of scares me.”

Ethan grinned. “Hey, neither of us are useless desk jockeys. Well, maybe you are, studying prospects for the team. I get out there in the fields in the vineyard. I work for a living, not watch others play a game.”

Wyatt shoved him, laughing. “Yeah, whatever. You sit on your porch and drink wine. You forget, I spent a summer there.”

Ethan sobered, looking thoughtful. “Well, that was a different time. Things aren’t the same now. I’m not the same now.”

“None of us are.” Wyatt took a breath. “So, you’re going for it with Delaney, huh? I saw you this morning.”

Ethan shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re definitely not over yet. There’s still something there. I just don’t know if I can get past our history again. How about you? What’s going on with you and Anna?”

Wyatt grimaced. “Talk about complicated pasts. I don’t know. I mean, she’s not staying, and I can’t leave. That’s pretty much a deal breaker, right?”

Ethan stopping pulling nails out of the wood and studied Wyatt. “I know she messed you up pretty good. But so did that linebacker. If I recall, you had a beer with him the following year when he came to Dallas for a game. So, if you can forgive him, why not Anna?”

Wyatt snorted. “It’s not that simple. I knew that linebacker for something like ten minutes. Anna and I had plans, a future, until she walked away.”

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