Читать книгу: «The Bachelor's Sweetheart»

Chapter One

The heat was unbearable, worse than anything Josh Donnelly had ever experienced, even during his National Guard tour of Afghanistan. A rivulet of sweat ran down his back. He wanted to pull at his collar so he could breathe, cool off his back. But people would see him.

“The ring,” the guest minister prompted him.

Josh felt like he was aiding and abetting the enemy as he dug in the pocket of his tuxedo jacket. All through high school, after their older brother, Jared, had left Paradox Lake, he’d protected their younger brother, Connor, from their father and the fallout of his being the town drunk. He should be protecting him now from making a potentially huge mistake. Josh handed the wedding band to Connor. Not that his baby brother’s soon-to-be wife wasn’t a good person. Nor did he doubt that Connor and Natalie Delacroix loved each other—for now.

But the Donnelly men weren’t cut out for marriage. That was what he and Jared had always said. They’d agreed they had too much of their father in them to let any woman get close enough to love them. They couldn’t risk ultimately hurting someone the way Dad had hurt Mom. That is, they had agreed until last summer when Jared had married Becca Morgan. Now Connor had fallen victim.

Pain squeezed Josh’s chest as he caught the loving look on Connor’s face when he slipped the ring onto Natalie’s finger. Don’t do it. Josh glanced around to make sure he hadn’t said that out loud. He was good. No one was staring at him. No one except his bud Tessa Hamilton, who was sitting halfway back in the church, her bulletin covering her mouth, eyes sparkling. She was laughing at him.

Tessa knew how he felt about marriage and didn’t hold it against him—one of the many reasons they got along so well. But that didn’t mean he was going to let her get away with laughing at his discomfort. Josh smiled to himself. He had the perfect revenge. He’d ask her to dance at the wedding reception. Tessa didn’t dance. She said her dancing wasn’t for public consumption.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the minister declared. “You can kiss your bride.”

Connor pressed his lips to Natalie’s. Then they turned and faced the guests hand in hand.

“I present Mr. and Mrs. Connor Donnelly,” the minister said.

The guests stood and applauded. Josh’s gaze went to his mother, who was standing next to his grandmother and stepgrandfather, Harry, in the front pew. Harry smiled down at Grandma with almost the same expression Connor had had when he’d slipped the ring on Natalie’s finger. Josh glanced across the aisle to Natalie’s parents. Terry and John Delacroix stood hand in hand much like Connor and Natalie. Connor was different than him and Jared, more like their mother—although Jared appeared to have become the poster boy for marital bliss. And Connor was a minister, the pastor here at Hazardtown Community Church. Maybe he and Natalie would make it work.

The organist began the recessional and the applause stopped. As Connor and Natalie started up the aisle, Josh stepped front and center and offered his arm to Claire Delacroix, Natalie’s sister and maid of honor. Jared fell into step behind them with Natalie’s oldest sister, Andrea Bissette, and the rest of the wedding party.

Josh bit the side of his mouth to keep from laughing as he passed Tessa and she glanced from him to Claire with a raised eyebrow. Tessa had been trying to fix him up with Natalie’s sister since Connor and Natalie became engaged last Christmas. And Connor had been warning him off as if he wasn’t good enough for Connor’s future sister-in-law. At one point, Josh had considered asking Claire out just to irritate Connor but had thought better of it. Why jeopardize the brotherly bond for a woman he’d only move on from in a month or two? Not that there were many available women left in Paradox Lake for him to move on to. Even more reason for him to finish his engineering technology degree and blow this burg.

The wedding party lined up with his mother and Natalie’s parents outside at the bottom of the church steps to greet the guests. Their grandparents were the first in line.

“You’re next,” his grandmother said when she reached him in the line. Her husband chuckled. A chill ran down Josh’s spine, remembering Gram saying something on that order about Jared before he succumbed to Becca’s charms.

“Josh and Claire do make a cute couple,” Claire’s grandmother added, kissing Claire on her cheek.

“Oh, Marie, I thought I’d told you he’s seeing Tessa Hamilton, Betty’s granddaughter.”

Marie Delacroix nodded with a sympathetic look at Claire. Josh smiled at the lovingly tolerant look Claire returned. Being in their early thirties, he and Claire were fortunate to still have their grandmothers.

“Gram,” he said, “Tessa and I are friends. That’s all.”

“Famous last words. Jared and Becca and Connor and Natalie were friends first, too.”

Josh looked over his grandmother’s head at her husband, who chuckled again. “Edna, we’re holding up the line.”

Gram gave Harry “the look,” the one that Josh recognized as a silent “you’re pushing it.” But she continued down the line, giving Jared a hug and telling him how handsome he looked. Friends and family filed by behind his grandmother, shaking his hand and exchanging small talk.

“Natalie, I’m so happy for you and Connor.”

Josh’s ears perked up at the sound of Tessa’s voice. A smile spread across his face as he thought about his plans for the reception.

“Josh, this is my uncle,” Claire said, breaking his private gloat.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking the man’s hand.

Tessa stepped up next. “Claire, you look beautiful. I love the bridesmaid dresses.”

Some guy Josh didn’t recognize stood close behind Tessa, as if he was with her.

“I know.” Claire dropped her voice. “I was thinking I wouldn’t be embarrassed to wear the dress again in public.”

Josh narrowed his eyes, thinking back to the ceremony. A date? He didn’t remember seeing anyone sitting close enough to Tessa in the pew to suggest they were with her. Tessa stepped in front of him, and the man bent and gave Claire a hug.

“Hi,” Tessa said. “I see you didn’t expire up there. For a minute it looked touch and go.”

He ran his gaze across her face, masking the irritation her comment ignited. He’d had things in hand up at the altar, totally in control. His mood softened. Tessa looked different. Her rich chestnut hair was down, softly framing her face. And her eyes...he couldn’t put his finger on it. They were different, more defined. He dropped his focus to her lips and took in the pink sheen along with the creamy tan of her flawless skin. Makeup. He stared at her. Tessa was wearing makeup.

“What?” she said. “Are you so traumatized you can’t talk?”

“You look nice.”

She blinked and drew her head back.

Smooth, Donnelly. Way to give a compliment. But he was used to seeing Tessa on a buddy level.

“As in not how I usually look?” Tessa tilted her head and drilled her gaze into his.

“Yeah.” It slipped out as if his mouth had no connection to his brain. Time to bring out the reinforcements. Josh drew his mouth into the slow half smile that always worked on women. “Unbelievably, you look even more beautiful than usual.”

Tessa rolled her eyes. She rolled her eyes. Not dating for the past few months had put him more out of practice than he’d thought. The Smile always used to work.

“Catch you later at the reception.” He nodded toward the people lined up behind her and squelched the urge to glare at the man in front of him.

“This is my cousin Pierre, from Montreal,” Claire said.

Josh sized up the competition as they shook hands. “Nice to meet you.”

“Ravi de vous rencontrer également,” Pierre said.

Josh’s gaze pierced the back of Pierre’s head as he moved on. Was the guy showing off, or didn’t he speak English? Josh shook his head. He didn’t know what had gotten into him. There was no competition. Josh liked Tessa too much to let their relationship become anything more than a friendship.

* * *

Tessa waited for her grandmother on the sidewalk in front of the church, a small distance from the group of friends and relatives gathering there. She didn’t quite feel part of them, even though she’d been in the area and belonged to Hazardtown Community Church for several years. She’d caught the glare Josh had given Claire’s cousin. Pierre must have gone along with her suggestion he speak to Josh in French. She’d told him that Josh was working on his French for a possible promotion to a position in Quebec. It was essentially true. Josh’s employer, GreenSpaces, had an office in Quebec, and Josh’s ambition was to fast-track himself up the corporate ladder by whatever route was available. And his French was awful.

If she didn’t know better, she’d think Josh was jealous. Tessa studied the rugged lines of his profile and gave in to the momentary pleasure of having a man as attractive as Josh show an interest in her. But he’d better not be going in that direction. She had it from his own mouth that his love-’em-and-leave-’em reputation was dead-on, and her record in romance was dismal. Tessa followed the line of people from Josh to her grandmother and lifted her hand to let Grandma know where she was in the growing crowd on the sidewalk. No, she wasn’t going to let Josh think about the possibility of them being anything but friends. Not now when she was going to need his friendship and help more than ever.

Her grandmother joined her. “Edna said the wedding party is going down to the lake for some photos, but we guests can go to the church hall for hors d’oeuvres while we wait.”

Tessa listened to the birds chirping as they walked around to the hall door at the back of the church building. The early-afternoon sun promised the day would meet the record spring temperature the TV meteorologist had forecast.

“Connor and Natalie certainly have a gorgeous day for their wedding, considering it’s only late April and we had piles of snow left a week and a half ago. I’m sure their photos at the lake will be beautiful,” Tessa said.

“The wedding would have been lovely, even if we’d had a blizzard,” her grandmother said. “Natalie and Connor are perfect for each other, although it took them long enough to figure that out.”

Tessa stifled a laugh. Her grandmother, along with many of the other parishioners at Hazardtown Community Church, had started working on marrying off Connor almost as soon as he’d accepted his calling there.

“Connor and Jared have come so far, despite the stigma of their father,” her grandmother said. “They do their mother proud.”

Tessa didn’t miss that her grandmother had left out Josh, who was as successful as his brothers, if not as outwardly upstanding and charitable. Jared had selflessly invested a great deal of his racing winnings in bringing his motocross school to Paradox Lake to help the local economy and employment situation. Connor was their beloved pastor, at least now, after getting off to a rocky start with some of his congregation. Josh was a good man, too. Sympathy welled in her. He didn’t show enough people the real Josh she knew.

She wished Grandma could see that. Tessa knew her grandmother didn’t really approve of their friendship. But if Josh would agree to her plan, she was sure Grandma would change her mind about him. Maybe because they were just friends and that’s all they’d ever be, Tessa was confident Josh was the one time her man intuition was correct. Taking and releasing a breath, she opened the hall door for her grandmother.

“Oh, good,” her grandmother said, looking at the place cards at one of the round tables next to the long wedding party table near the door. “I’m sitting with Edna and Harry and Marie. I didn’t know if I would be, them being the grandparents.”

Tessa wasn’t surprised. Natalie knew how close the three women were, and not many of their generation were left in the church. “You go ahead and get something to eat, if you want. I’ll look for my seat.” A pang of loneliness struck Tessa as her grandmother joined her friends at the hot hors d’oeuvres station. Tessa walked around the hall, looking for her place card, and found it at a table with other members of the church singles group. Without the bride and groom, and Josh and Claire in the wedding party, the group barely filled the eight-person table.

After grabbing a cup of tea and some veggies to munch on, Tessa returned to the table to find Lexi Zarinski, one of Josh’s many former girlfriends, and a couple of acquaintances seated at the table. The table makeup reminded Tessa that almost all of her friends were married now. Hitting thirty was apparently the clock striking midnight on the single life. She chatted with the group through dinner, intermittently glancing across the room to check on her grandmother, who appeared to be thoroughly enjoying her friends, and on Josh. She needed to catch him and find out when they could talk, preferably tonight.

When they’d finished eating, the DJ put on “Yours Forever.” Connor rose, took Natalie’s hand and led her to the dance floor in the middle of the room. “Natalie is so beautiful,” Lexi gushed, going into a monologue of every detail of the bride’s gown and why it was perfect for her.

“And don’t Claire and Josh make a great couple?” Tessa interrupted Lexi’s soliloquy as Josh led Claire to the dance floor when the DJ invited the wedding party to join the bride and groom. If Josh ever got his act together concerning women, he and Claire were perfect for each other.

Lexi pinched her lips together, and Tessa regretted her casual observation. Apparently, Lexi still had feelings for Josh. One of the guys at the table asked Lexi to dance, ending the awkward moment. Tessa tapped her foot to the music under the table, totally out of time, she was sure, but no one would notice.

“And now, by request,” the DJ said several songs later, “The Chicken Dance.”

“I didn’t think anyone did the Chicken Dance at weddings anymore,” Lexi said.

“I haven’t heard it since I was a kid,” someone else remarked.

Tessa surveyed the room, trying to figure out who might have made the request. She saw Josh making a straight line for her table. Lexi did, too. She sat up and fluffed her hair.

“Hey,” Josh greeted everyone around the table.

When he got to Lexi, she smiled and started to push her chair back, obviously assuming he’d come over to ask her to dance. She and Tessa were the only two women at the table right then.

“Tessa, it’s our dance,” he said with a grin.

She shook her head with sympathy for Lexi. Josh might be able to tear out all the roots of a relationship when he called it quits, but didn’t he realize most other people couldn’t?

“Come on,” he urged. His dark-lashed, deep blue eyes challenged her.

He was up to something. He knew she didn’t dance.

Tessa stood and offered Josh her hand. “You’re on.”

Whatever Josh was up to, she was game. If making a fool of herself in front of everyone she knew in the area by dancing the silly Chicken Dance would humor Josh and make him more agreeable to what she needed to ask of him, she’d do it. For Grandma.

* * *

Josh eyed Tessa. This was too easy. She was giving in with no protest. What fun was that? He led her toward the center of the room. “We don’t have to...” He gestured at the people flapping their elbows on the dance floor.

The corner of her mouth quirked up.

“Okay, so I asked you to dance because you laughed at me up at the altar.” He rubbed the back of his neck as the childishness of his words registered. When had he regressed to being ten years old?

“So, you don’t really want to join them?” She mimicked his gesture to the people hopping around in front of them.

“You have to ask?” Josh toed for a foothold on some semblance of his dignity.

“No, not about that, but I have something else I want to ask you about. Let’s take a walk outside where we don’t have to talk over the music and everyone else.”

“As long as it’s not about Claire’s cousin.” Josh scuffed the toe of his shoe against the tile floor. His wedding-aversion mouth-to-brain disconnect had kicked in again.

“What do you mean?” She faced him, hands on hips. After a second, her eyes brightened. “Oh, Claire told you.”

His mind flipped back through his dinner conversation with Claire and came up blank.

Tessa laughed. “I told Pierre to speak French, said you were working on improving your French for a possible job transfer to Quebec.”

“Oh, that.” He waved her off.

“Yeah, what did you think?”

“I just wasn’t following. All this—”

“Wedding stuff,” she finished for him as they crossed the hall to the door.

“Enough said.” Tessa so got him. He couldn’t ask for a better friend. Josh gave her a side glance. Or one easier on the eyes. “What do you need to talk about?”

“I have a business proposition.”

He held the door open for Tessa, and they strolled outside to a picnic table. It had to be about the movie theater in Schroon Lake she’d inherited from her grandfather Hamilton a few years ago and reopened as the Majestic. Josh knew the business was touch and go in terms of providing a living for her and her grandmother. If he were her, he’d have sold the theater and gone back to the civil engineering career she’d had before she’d moved in with her grandmother to run the theater. But he wasn’t her. Josh swung his leg over the wooden bench.

“You still with me?” Tessa asked, breaking the silence of his thoughts.

“I’m listening.”

“I’ve come up with financing for my plan to renovate the Majestic to do dinner theater in addition to movies during the summer tourist season.”

Josh leaned forward on his forearms. “The credit union approved a mortgage on the theater building?” He was surprised. All of the banks in the area had already turned Tessa down.

She shifted on the bench. “No, the loan officer suggested a mortgage on Grandma’s house.”

That made sense to Josh since the well-kept Victorian would be much easier to sell than the old theater building.

“I couldn’t ask Grandma to do that.”

“But you said you got financing.”

Tessa studied her nails, which were a soft shade of pink. With sparkles. He’d never seen her nails polished before. She’d gone all out for this wedding. Why? He took in the complete package from the soft wisps of hair framing her face to the delicate red-and-silver hearts dangling from her ears to her sparkling fingers. Whatever, she should do it more often.

“From Jared.”

Josh straightened. “You went to my brother.” Good old Jared; always ready to step in and save the day. Old wounds of sibling rivalry ripped open.

“No, he came to me. I thought you knew. He said you told him about my plans and the trouble I was having with the financing.”

“Yeah, I did.” But not in a good way. He’d been feeling Jared out for a way to discourage Tessa from what he saw as a potential financial disaster.

“Anyway, he called the other night, and we got together yesterday. You know how he is about supporting local businesses. I think he’d hate to see the Majestic go under almost as much as I would. He suggested a couple of things that could make the plan more successful.”

Josh ground his teeth then relaxed his jaw. Admit it, Donnelly. You’re jealous. Tessa is your friend, and you want to be the one to rescue her from her financial plight, although with a more lucrative plan than saving her struggling theater business. Tessa had too much potential to stagnate in Schroon Lake.

“Hey,” Tessa said. “Lose the face. I would have called you last night, but you had the wedding rehearsal and all.”

“Sorry, I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

“Like how to talk Connor out of marrying the love of his life.”

Josh grinned. “That and other things. Tell me what Jared suggested.”

“He can’t give me as much of a loan as I was asking the banks for.” Tessa gave a number that was about twenty thousand short of what Josh knew she needed.

“We went over those numbers,” he said. “I can’t see how you can get the job done for any less.”

Tessa gestured palms up, fingers splayed. “That’s where you come in, why I needed to talk with you.”

He read the excitement on her face, and his stomach churned. He had some money invested from the couple of lakeside cabins he bought cheap, remodeled and flipped for a profit. But not money to lend, like his brother, the ex-international motocross champion. His stash was to finance his move away from Paradox Lake when the right promotion came along. He needed to have a good long talk with his brother about putting him in this situation.

“Tessa, I don’t have that kind of money.”

“I know that. I wouldn’t think of asking you for money.”

But she’d ask Jared. He placed his hands palms down on the table. Just give him another five years and he’d be as successful in his own right as his older brother was.

“What I need from you is your brawn and brains.”

He burst out laughing. “Brawn and brains.”

“That doesn’t appeal to your masculinity?” She batted her eyelashes at him.

She was going to have him rolling on the ground soon.

Her expression grew serious. “Here’s my proposal. First, since I’d only be doing the dinner theater a couple of nights a week, Jared suggested I have the dinners catered by that new restaurant that’s opening on State Route 74, rather than add full kitchen facilities. I’d only need a refrigerator-freezer and an industrial warming oven.”

“That makes sense.” So much sense, he wished he’d thought of it, except he hadn’t been encouraging Tessa in her project.

“Second, in exchange for you helping me make the other necessary alterations to the theater building, you could live rent-free in the apartment over the garage adjacent to the theater and Grandma’s house. Then, once I open, I’ll give you a twenty percent cut of the Majestic’s profits until you’ve been fully paid for your time.” She tilted her head so the rays of the setting sun reflected the expectant look in her soft brown eyes. “What do you say?”

A great plan except that he didn’t expect there to be any profits to pay him from.

In response to his hesitation, she prompted, “The sale closing on the cabin is still next week so you have to be out, right? And you don’t have anyplace to live.”

No place but with one of his brothers or back with Gram and Harry again as he’d done when he first returned to Paradox Lake to take the job at GreenSpaces.

“Or did you find a rental?” she asked.

“The closing is next Thursday, and I haven’t found anything long-term, only a couple of places that are available to rent until late June when the summer people start arriving.”

“Then you’ll do it? I’ll have the attorney who settled Grandpa’s estate draw up a contract next week.”

Since he didn’t have much confidence in the project paying out, as a friend, he should say no. But as a friend, he knew how much it meant to Tessa to stay in Schroon Lake and run the Majestic, even though he didn’t fully understand why. She could do so much more with her life.

“Sure. It’s a deal.”