Chapter 5
FIVE
Zane matched my stride as I walked into a garden-esque park that oozed romantic vibes everywhere I looked.
I had to hand it to Bri; she sure could pick a wedding venue.
A tall, wrought-iron fence faced the street, capped with decorative flourishes on top of each spire.
It stretched on as far as I could see in both directions.
Stone-paved paths meandered through the space, offering views of flowery vignettes, shaped shrubbery, and towering trees.
A large meadow bordered by stately pines stretched out to our left.
To the right was the oversized gazebo where Bri would say her vows the next day.
Zane’s arm brushed against mine as I admired the row of deep-red mums lining our path.
My pulse shot through the roof, but I forced myself to focus on Percy’s hulking frame instead.
The leash was taut as my faithful pooch lumbered along the path with his nose to the ground, oblivious to the sparks that flew every time Zane’s body came in contact with mine.
“You need some help with him?” Zane asked, eyeing the leash. “Looks like he’s taking you for a walk instead of the other way around.”
I shook my head. “No, he’s just excited to be in a new place. He’s a good boy. If he really wanted to go somewhere else, there wouldn’t be much I could do to stop him—he’d be gone already.”
“Who would go somewhere else when you’re right here? I know I’d pick sticking close to you over going somewhere else any day of the week.”
My stomach dipped, responding to Zane’s smoldering gaze. All I wanted to do was lean into his warmth, but I couldn’t. I took a deep breath. This was it. Time to be the world’s biggest killjoy ever and call a permanent time-out on our flirting escapades.
“Zane, we need to talk.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. “Ouch! Those are the scariest words a man can ever hear.”
“I’m not trying to be scary.”
“Thank goodness. So, what do you want to talk about? Dinner options for tonight? We can slip out before the rehearsal dinner. No one will notice. Burgers sound good?”
“Zane—”
“No? Steak?”
“I don’t want steak.”
“Lobster? Caviar? You name it and you’ve got it,” Zane said. “Nothing is too extravagant for my lady.”
His lady?
Heat erupted in my chest and rushed up my neck. Calling me his lady was almost too much, even for Vacation Wren. I bit back a nervous smile as the tingles in my stomach grew so powerful that I clutched my sweater.
He snapped his fingers as if he’d just come up with a brilliant idea. “I know this little place on third street. Low lights, soft music, intimate atmosphere. And they have the best Creamy Pesto Shrimp you’ve ever tasted!”
I stopped walking and turned to face him. “I’m not hungry.”
“But you will be.”
Placing a hand on his solid upper arm, I looked him in the eyes and said, “I don’t want to talk about food.”
“I know,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “But I had to take my shot and try to keep you from saying something we’d both regret. You know how it is.”
I couldn’t help but smile. He could sense I was pulling back, and I had to admire his efforts to derail my attempt.
“Zane,” a man yelled from the gazebo, “get over here, ya hockey puck! These chairs aren’t going to set themselves up.”
Zane looked at me and beamed. “I’ve never been so happy to be conscripted into manual labor. Catch ya later,” he said, bending down and giving me a quick peck on the cheek.
Electricity raced through my body, tingling from my head to my toes.
I rubbed my cheek where he’d kissed me. Whether I was rubbing it off or rubbing it in, I wasn’t quite sure.
But I did feel a hundred pounds lighter.
If I wasn’t careful, I was liable to float away on the breeze like one of Bri’s golden balloons.
I groaned inside myself as I watched him jog off.
Telling him we needed to dial back our flirtatious ways was going to be harder than I’d ever imagined.
Bookstore Wren knew my life wasn’t a romance novel.
I couldn’t fall for the wildly successful, uber-hot pro athlete and expect a happily ever after to fall into my lap. The real world didn’t work that way.
The voice of reason screamed her warning in the back of my mind, but Vacation Wren didn’t listen.
She was too busy admiring the way Zane’s muscles tugged on his shirt as he carried a load of folding chairs across the gazebo lawn.
It wasn’t so easy to tell him to turn off the flirting when I couldn’t even look at him without my heart fluttering and my stomach doing a flip.
I plopped onto a bench, Percy sprawling at my feet, and tried to forget about Zane for a few minutes.
Bridesmaids lined up at the wedding coordinator’s direction.
The florist had a small army of underlings bringing sample after sample to Bri for her final approval.
And a group of people stood off to the side, chatting and looking generally confused as to their purpose at this rehearsal.
But no matter where I chose to look, my eyes always drifted back to Zane.
Every. Single. Time.
“He’s Bri’s brother,” I muttered to myself.
“He’s an off-limits heartbreaker, and after two days, you’ll never see him again.
Leave him alone!” I ran through a mental checklist of all the romance novels I’d seen at the bookstore over the years, where these tropes were the very reasons couples struggled so hard to find their happy endings.
“If living happily ever after is that hard in the books,” I said to myself, pretending to talk to Percy so I didn’t look like the lunatic that I was, “it’s got to be impossible in real life.”
But no amount of self-talk could dissuade my heart from writing Zane and Wren fan fiction that had us driving off into the sunset with Percy drooling all over the backseat.
“Percy’s up,” Bri called, snapping me out of my conversation with myself.
Zane pulled a rustic wagon toward us. The rough wooden slats were draped with tulle, fairy lights, and strings of faux pearls. In the back was a satin pillow the flower girl was supposed to ride to the altar on and a doll who would be a stand-in during rehearsal.
He handed me the harness. “Has Percy ever pulled a wagon before?”
“Nope,” I said, with fresh nerves coming alive in my stomach. “There’s nothing quite like your friend’s wedding depending on whether or not your dog behaves.”
Zane’s brows rose.
I shrugged. “I told Bri I wasn’t so sure this was a good idea from day one. Percy has never done anything remotely like this. But you know Bri. Once she gets an idea in her head—”
“There’s no changing her mind,” Zane finished my thought with a soft chuckle. He patted Percy’s head. “We’ll make it work.”
Somehow Zane’s quiet confidence soothed my anxiety. I wrestled with the harness as Percy’s tail thumped against the wagon.
“Let me help you with that.” Zane’s hot hands touched mine, lingering for a moment as he took hold of the straps and buckles. My breath hitched in my throat as I watched him at work, securing Percy to the wagon. He gave Percy’s side a solid pat when he finished.
I sat the doll up on the pillow, sucking in a deep breath and releasing it through pursed lips. “I guess this is the moment of truth. Wish us luck.”
“I’ll cross my fingers and my toes,” Zane joked.
Music played from speakers set up in the gazebo, and I started down the aisle, holding the lead on Percy’s harness. He played it cool, as if he’d been pulling adorable wagons all his life. I breathed a sigh of relief, silently thanking God that at least one thing about this weekend would be easy.
Tension melted off me once we were halfway down the aisle. “We’re home free, buddy,” I said. “Who’s the best boy?”
Percy froze, and I made a note to myself not to distract him with praise as we made our way to the altar during the wedding. I glanced over my shoulder at the doll. She was still there. Perfectly upright on her pillow.
“Come on, Percy.” I jiggled the lead. “We need to go.”
He stood his ground with his head cocked to the side and his ears perked up. I followed his intense gaze to an ancient oak tree in the meadow. My heart sank the moment I spotted a fluffy-tailed creature skittering around in the grass beneath it.
It was then that I realized that I wasn’t the one who had distracted him enough to stop him dead in his tracks. It was the squirrel.
His head lowered and his body stiffened as he snorted, taking in an absurd amount of air to catch the scent.
“Percy, don’t do it. Don’t even think about it.
Don’t—” Before I could utter another word of caution, a second squirrel made an appearance on the ground.
Percy’s self-control was no match for two chattering rodents zigzagging across the grass and then chasing each other in a winding path up the tree trunk.
He bolted, snatching the leash from my hands.
The wagon lurched, bouncing around behind him and falling apart as if it were made of wood no stronger than match sticks.
“Percy, no!” I shouted after him.
I stood frozen in place, horror-stricken as I watched one wheel wobble and the other fly off and roll into a nearby pond, almost smacking a Canadian goose on his tail feathers.
But what was worse than witnessing the waterfowl’s near-death experience was the sight of the baby doll Percy had in tow.
She bounced around like a crash-test dummy, and all I could think of was the child that was supposed to ride in that wagon during the ceremony.
No way was that happening—not unless we could figure out how to evict all squirrels from the park before the wedding.
While I was still trying to see past visions of a tiara-wearing toddler being thrown into the pond like that unfortunate wheel, Zane shot past me. His athletic build was on full display as he closed the distance between him and my squirrel-crazed dog.
“If only you’d skated that fast last night,” Uncle Bob called out after Zane, “you would’ve scored twice as many goals.”