Love in Training

PROLOGUE

TWO YEARS EARLIER

My name is scrawled in a familiar script on the envelope I discover at the bottom of my purse.

I retrieve it and the decorative comb for my hair with a curious smile.

That would be just like Kyle, hiding a little love note even when it breaks the no-contact tradition.

But I drop it back into my bag as Lydia scurries back into the room.

“Oh, good. You’ve got your something old.

” She takes the comb, placing it carefully in my upswept hair.

“And your something new—this gorgeous dress. Something borrowed—your mom’s earrings.

All we need is—” Lydia hands me the bouquet of white roses and blue forget-me-nots, then steps back, beaming. “Oh, Caprice. You’re perfect.”

I close my eyes, letting out a contented sigh.

I feel perfect. Everything is finally coming together.

The church, the dress, the planning, the people—well, most of them.

I could never have guessed ten years ago, after that first awkward date in high school, that this is where Kyle and I would wind up.

But we’d stayed enamored with each other through college and even figured out the long-distance thing once he enlisted.

Now, after managing to exist separately for so long, we’re finally tying the knot and will spend the rest of our lives together.

My mom comes over, not-so-subtly wiping tears from her eyes, fussing with the lace on my gown.

My one enormous splurge in an otherwise modest wedding.

It’s a champagne color that makes my brown skin glow, with a plunging back and a skirt that hugs my curves before giving way to a three-foot train of silk and lace.

I’ll still be paying for it several years from now, but it’ll be worth it.

I’ve waited so long for this moment. I feel more beautiful than I have in my entire life.

I’ve kept the dress a secret from Kyle just so I can see his expression for the first time today as I walk toward him down the aisle.

“Is everyone here?” I ask Lydia, my one and only bridesmaid, matron of honor, and best friend.

“I think so.” She glances over her shoulder. “Anton just went to make sure everyone’s in place.”

A flutter passes through my chest, and I reach out to squeeze my mom’s hand.

“Wedding jitters?” she says with a smile.

“Maybe a little. I don’t know why.” I let out a small laugh. “Kyle and I have wanted to get married for years, but it’s still . . .”

“A big day?” My mom winks. “Even my wedding felt like it at the time.”

My cheeks heat when she mentions this. Her own marriage ended four years in, after my dad confessed he preferred to sleep with men.

While this was a difficult revelation, things might have worked out if he hadn’t decided to skip out on being a father.

She hardly ever talks about him, and when she does, it’s usually under duress.

But right now, there’s nothing but mirth in her eyes.

“Everything about my wedding day was perfect,” she says with a wistful smile. “And you’re an even more beautiful bride.”

Anton ducks back into the room, looking like a Ken doll in his dark blue suit, his brown hair perfectly styled. Which wouldn’t be funny if Lydia didn’t very much resemble Margot Robbie from the Barbie movie. They’re the most stereotypically beautiful couple. They’re also two of my favorite people.

“Looks like a full house out there,” Anton says. “The minister is all set . . .” He looks at me, Lydia, and my mom, but his gaze skates past us to an empty chair in the corner of the room. “Where’d Theo go?”

“He stepped out earlier to take a call.” Lydia shrugs.

My twin brother is pulling double duty in the ceremony, walking me down the aisle and serving as best man. Theo and my fiancé had been friends way before Kyle and I fell in love with each other, but he’d taken our romance in stride. The two of them were already practically brothers.

“Right . . .” Anton says. “I’ll just go see if I can find him.”

My stomach does a little flip as he leaves, and I imagine the rows of people who drove out here to see Kyle and me get married in this beautiful mountain chapel.

It’s mostly my mom’s family and our friends from high school and college.

Kyle’s parents and brother were invited, but declined the invitation.

I have told myself a hundred times it wasn’t because of me, and he’s told me the same thing.

But deep in my heart, I know he’s hurt by their absence. Especially his brother’s.

After this is over—after the reception, the cake, and a week together on the beach—Kyle will report back to North Carolina, and I’ll fly back to Denver to pack up the rest of my things.

Then I’ll be all the family he needs.

“Mom, one of your pins is loose,” I say, grateful for something simple to focus on while we wait.

She steps closer, and I take a minute to fix her updo.

My mother is a tall, elegant white woman whose nearly black hair has only one thin streak of gray to betray her age.

We share bone structure and the same smile, and one day I kind of hope I get that gray streak too.

“There,” I say, tucking her updo back into place. “All fixed.”

We smile at each other. Then we both look at Lydia, whose face betrays a glimmer of anxiety the longer we stand here in silence. Theo and Anton have been gone a while.

“Not to worry,” my mom says, taking my hand again. “Theo will be back in a minute. I’m sure he just had to get Kyle situated with the minister.”

I nod, trying to ignore the twisting in my middle.

“Yeah, exactly.” Lydia clears her throat and picks up her phone. “I’ll just go—”

At that moment, my twin brother blusters into the room, all spiffed up and elegant in his service dress blues, his shaved brown head gleaming in the light. Almost as good-looking as the groom. Except when I look up, his handsome face is not at all excited. It’s serious and drawn.

“What’s wrong?” I ask before he can even open his mouth.

Theo hesitates, and for a second, it’s clear he’s attempting a smile. My brother is well known for blowing sunshine where it doesn’t belong, but the sinking feeling in my gut is not going to hear that. Not on my wedding day.

“Uh . . . Reece? Can I talk to you alone?”

My fist tightens around my bouquet. “No.”

He tugs at his collar, looking past me to Lydia and my mom. Behind him, Anton fills the doorway, a pair of small lines pushed together between his brows.

My heart jumps from a low thud to a stuttering gallop as I realize I’m about to hear something awful.

I slept at my mom’s last night. Kyle and I agreed not to call or text in case it was bad luck .

. . but he left a note in my purse. What if he was in an accident?

What if he’s hurt? What if—I sway on my feet and close my eyes as the unthinkable crosses my mind.

“Theo, is Kyle—”

“He’s not coming, Reece,” my brother says quietly. He steps forward, his normally playful demeanor soft and somber.

“Why?” I bring my hand to my chest, trying to breathe, but my lungs are a vacuum.

Grief pricks the corners of my eyes. Because the only reason Kyle wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t already be at the altar waiting for me, ready to say I do—is the very worst reason.

The one that, until this moment, had only existed as a distant nightmare in the darkness that sometimes consumes him.

Next to me, my mother whimpers. But then Theo awkwardly shatters my whole conception of worst things.

“Um . . . I just spoke to him. He was getting on a plane to head back east.”

Air sucks back into my lungs at the realization that Kyle’s alive. But only for a moment before an empty ache squeezes in like a fist.

“He what?” Lydia’s indignation is a shadow of what’s going on inside me. She’s just one hundred percent more capable of speaking.

Theo bows his head. “I’m sorry—I didn’t know, or I would’ve dragged his ass here myself. Maybe I can still—”

“You think she still wants to marry a guy who abandoned her at the church?” Lydia snaps. Then her face flickers, and she whips her head toward me. “Do you?”

My knees give out. I sink to the floor, champagne silk and lace pooling around me. Aside from some restless noises filtering down the hall from the sanctuary, the room is dead silent. No one around me moves.

I stare at the bouquet still clutched in my hands, the forget-me-nots somehow already more gray than blue as the emptiness in my chest expands, working down into my limbs.

“Did he say why?” I whisper in a voice that doesn’t sound at all like me.

“He just, uh—” My big, fearless Navy SEAL brother chokes. “He said he was trying to protect you? I don’t know. Reece, I’m sorry.”

I look up into Theo’s sorrowful brown eyes. Our mom has moved next to him, clutching her hand to her chest, and as she does, some deeper part of my heart breaks. Kyle hasn’t just hurt me; he’s hurt everyone he loves.

“Trying to protect me?” I murmur.

Theo’s mouth presses into a line. “Look, Caprice, maybe he just got cold feet—”

“Staff Sergeant Kyle Forbes?” I snarl. “You think a Silver Star-decorated Army Ranger got cold feet about saying I do?”

“Well, no.” He frowns. “You’re right. But you know, since his injury—”

“Fuck his injury,” I say, starting to sound more like myself. “He made a full recovery. We worked through his grief over the dog. He helped me plan this wedding. If he had reservations, he had months to let me know.”

“I’m not defending him.” Theo’s eyes flash. “But I think he’s struggling—”

“And what am I doing right now?” I smash my bouquet onto the floor, grinding it into the carpet. “Am I supposed to feel bad and forgive him? I’m the one who has to face the people out there.” I gesture toward the sanctuary with my decimated flowers.

“Um, I can handle that . . .” Anton offers behind me.

“Thank God for a competent man,” I hiss, dragging myself to my feet. I face my tiny wedding party and lift my chin. “Lydia, could you please get me the leggings, sneakers, and hoodie I was wearing this morning? I need out of this dress now.”

My matron of honor hustles off to find my clothes. Her husband follows her out, on his way to inform my friends and family that I’ve been dumped.

I turn back to my brother, ready to let loose another torrent about Kyle, but when I see his face, I lose my resolve. He looks wrecked. Like he’s been abandoned by a beloved brother, much as I’ve been left by the love of my life.

“Go get changed, Theo. We’re finding the nearest mountain, and I’m not stopping till we’ve climbed to the top.”

“Quandary Peak isn’t far from here,” our mother cuts in, sounding shell-shocked. “You can reach the summit without any gear.”

I look at her gratefully and nod.

Theo follows her out as Lydia reenters and hands me my bag—the one I was supposed to take this evening on a flight to Cancun. She turns me around without a word and starts unlacing the back of my dress.

“If Kyle thinks he can do this to me . . .” My voice quakes as she works. “He’s the one who’s going to need to be protected.”

Lydia places a gentle hand on my shoulder, and when I turn to look at her face, I burst into tears.

“I love him, Lydia.” She guides me to a nearby couch where I collapse, sobbing into her arms. “Goddammit, I hate him. But I still love him so much.”

Once Lydia frees me from my prison of fine fabrics, Theo and I sneak toward a side door, intent on making a break for his car while Anton does damage control with the guests left behind in the church.

My hair is still picture perfect, but I washed off my ruined makeup.

At least in my hoodie and sneakers, I can pretend I feel like myself.

“Let’s get out of here,” Theo says, squeezing my hand as he opens the exit door.

But the moment we step outside, we nearly collide with a tall figure in a suit. I gasp in confusion at the familiar large frame, the dark hair—but the glasses, those are wrong. My brother steps forward with his chest puffed up.

“What are you doing here?”

Air reenters my lungs, and my brain catches up. If not for the uncanny resemblance to my former fiancé, I would never have recognized his estranged brother.

Drew Forbes looks from my brother to me, taking in our casual attire, brows drawn together. “I . . . came for the wedding.”

And with this, my heart has had quite enough.

“There is no wedding,” I sneer. “There never will be.”

I brush past him, making a beeline for my brother’s car. I don’t notice until we’re pulling out of the parking lot that I’m still wearing Kyle’s ring.

Theo and I spend my wedding day hiking the arduous trail to the top of Quandary Peak. We hug each other, crying, at the fourteen-thousand-foot summit and hardly say a word on the way back down.

I don’t remember Kyle’s envelope until the next day, when I dump out my purse.

Maybe he thought I’d see it and be able to call off the ceremony before anyone arrived at the church in fine dresses and suits. But if his intentions were good, I don’t feel like giving him any credit. He could have spared me a lot of pain by just saying something to my face.

My name is on the envelope in simple black script. On the back, it says I’m Sorry.

I can’t bring myself to open it. My inclination is to rip it to shreds. Burn the pieces. Maybe mail him the ashes. My mom stops me before I get the chance.

“You’re not ready to read whatever’s in this right now,” she says. “You might not ever be. But in case that ever changes, let me hold on to it.”

I don’t say anything. Don’t nod. But I let her take it out of my hands. Put it away somewhere in her house. I don’t ask where—I don’t want to know. I just zip my beautiful wedding gown into its garment bag, take it home, and shove it to the back of my closet.

Sunday, June 6, 20__, 10:58 PM

To: Kyle.Forbes@

From: Caprice_Phipps@

Subject: no subject

Dear Kyle,

Since you weren’t brave enough to say goodbye to my face, I’ll say it here, in a bland fucking email. Maybe I ought to say thanks for “protecting” me from a lifetime of love. All you’ve really done is deny yourself something you clearly didn’t deserve.

I’m blocking you now, so don’t reply. Nothing you write could ever fix this. For someone so valiant, you are such a coward. I thought we had everything. I can’t believe you did this to me.

C