Chapter 2 #2
All signs pointed toward go. And maybe that was why it had been so important that she get all of the details right. Anyway, it was Walker’s job to make sure that everything was right. It was in the best interest of his business. So surely, he hadn’t minded too much.
She put all thoughts of Walker to the side and focused on her moment, her day.
Her mother had not been invited to the bridal shower, but there was only so much family togetherness that Addison could do. She didn’t want to be actively healing that relationship when it was supposed to be about her.
Is this about you?
She ignored that.
Her stepmother was here, and she and Addison had a reasonably good relationship.
It wasn’t maternal. Her dad had married Linda when Addison was nineteen, and she hadn’t lived at home, so it wasn’t like they had a traditional parent-child dynamic, but she was a nice lady, and she made her dad happy, so there was that.
And she bought Addison a lovely bridal shower gift.
All her gifts were lovely. There was a lot of lingerie, and quite a few kitchen products as well, even though Addison wasn’t sure that she needed those.
She and Alan had combined households a couple of years back, and he was a great cook, and had brought an arsenal of supplies, but it did feel nice to get an aesthetic stand mixer, and some other things that would photograph well.
Alan’s kitchen wasn’t entirely to her taste, but he cooked, so there was no reason to be finicky about it.
She missed her little house, honestly, though it was now occupied by tenants, closer to town.
It had been such a cute little place, it still was, it was just that other people lived there. And it wasn’t the kind of place that the mayor of Mustang River ought to live, she supposed, nor was it the kind of place that Alan would want to live in.
He was a doctor, after all, and had one of the most successful private practices in town.
It was sort of a one-stop shop, where people could see a doctor, get vitamin injections, get some other more homeopathic supplements, and even get Botox injections.
It had been so successful that he was actually opening up another location in Bend, though he would continue to work at the one here.
And in his free time he liked to cook. A doctor who liked to cook.
Really, she had won the lottery, and she knew it.
He had a jock build, a doctor mind, and a chef’s hands. What more could she want?
She ignored the strange hollow echo in her chest where there was no answer, but very little excitement either.
It was just nerves.
She told herself that as she finished unwrapping the present.
They had lovely hors d’oeuvres, and cake, and soon it was time for the bridal party to do their trail ride. They would be taking a ride up one of the mountains, and having a sunset dinner served for them there, which was going to photograph beautifully.
Addison was excited about that.
She said goodbye to the extra guests, and then she and her bridesmaids went back into the hotel, the cool air-conditioning a relief. She lifted her heavy hair up off her neck and let the cold kiss her there.
Then she made a meeting time for her friends and went up to the bridal suite that she was staying in. It was a preview for next week, because she would be spending her wedding night here as well.
The room was beautiful.
It had a spectacular view of the mountains, a massive bed with plush blankets, a squishy sheepskin rug on the floor, and a fireplace in the corner.
It also had a massive, deep tub, and she was looking forward to soaking in that tonight.
After a long horse ride, it would be a relief.
The thought of it did something to quiet the strange jumble of nerves that she felt running in the background, and had felt for the last couple of months.
She didn’t know what to call them, didn’t know what they were, and essentially, decided to ignore them, because maybe it was just normal.
Maybe it was just wedding jitters and also the intensity of the campaign, combined with the pressure of such a public event.
She believed in what she was doing. That didn’t mean she actually always enjoyed having everybody look at her.
She knew that was kind of contradictory.
Everything she did was about getting eyes on her.
Or at least, on her posts. On her work, the boutique, the town, and then, the wedding, and yet, she found that when she actually succeeded at those things she found them to be more draining than she would’ve imagined.
Maybe that was what she was dealing with now.
That and the intense pressure of knowing that she needed this to be perfect. That she needed everything to go off without a hitch.
She had chosen the cutest pair of denim shorts, cowgirl boots with flowers up the sides, and a button-up shirt that tied above her high-waisted shorts and showed just a little bit of her midsection for the horse ride. She also had a buff-colored cowgirl hat that paired nicely with her boots.
It was a little costume-y, she could admit that, but it was going to look amazing.
She got dressed, and met Anna, Denisha, and Lydia in the lobby. They were similarly dressed, cowgirl up, even, and when she took a selfie outside the hotel, she knew that was going to be the caption.
They were picked up from the hotel in a luxury van, driven by a ranch hand called Pike, who was handsome and chatty, and told riotous stories as he drove them over to where the trail ride would originate.
There were horses, tacked up and ready to go, waiting for them by the trail, and Nolan Carter was the leader of the trail ride.
Nolan had always been a handsome menace, but then, they all had been.
Nolan wasn’t really part of the Grayson family, but he had always been lumped in with them.
They lived in the same apartment complex, and he and Cody, and Walker along with them, had been inseparable all through school.
And they had reputations.
Reputations for being the kind of guys that you got with if you wanted to have a good time, not a long time. The kind of guys you went for if you wanted to get dirty with a bad boy.
Addison had never wanted to get dirty with a bad boy. That was the sort of thing that her mother would have liked, she supposed. Finding the most unsuitable man and breaking marriage vows over physical chemistry.
That could never be Addison.
Granted, her mom had stayed married to Thomas, but to hear her dad tell it, it hadn’t been her first infidelity.
She had been attracted to a rough element, men from the wrong side of the tracks, because she had been raised in privilege, and hadn’t appreciated all the protection that it afforded her, at least, that had been her maternal grandparents’ take on it.
Even they had sided with her dad.
Everybody had.
He had been left with two small children, so there really wasn’t another side to it.
Either way, Addison wasn’t interested, though that didn’t mean she hadn’t heard the rumors about Nolan and Cody.
And Walker.
Just thinking about Walker made the back of her neck feel prickly.
“Who is that?” Lydia asked, her eyes large as she looked over at Nolan.
“Oh, I went to high school with him. He’s a year older, but… you know, just one of the Cowboys.”
“Just one of the Cowboys? This is a common sight? Like he’s basically a bushtit?”
“I don’t think he’s—”
“You just have men that look like this wandering around – oh dear God.”
The look on Lydia’s face turned liquid, and her cheeks were scarlet, and Denisha looked about the same. Even Anna was suddenly blushing, and Addison didn’t need to be a psychic to know who had just shown up. Because Nolan was good-looking. Cody was handsome.
Walker was on another planet. He was otherworldly. His looks were the kind that made everyone stop, just like this, and stare. It didn’t matter if you had seen him one time or 100 times, he was going to have an effect. Women, straight men, everybody stopped to look at Walker.
He was tall, with broad shoulders and a wicked gleam in his blue eyes. His blonde hair was shot through with gold, always with the perfect amount of wave running through it. And even if it was covered with a cowboy hat, you could tell that it was perfect.
Just like now.
Riding up to the group like a knight in shining armor, or a cowboy out of a fantasy.
And she would be lying if she said that her heart didn’t jump up into her throat, making her limbs feel tingly and her whole body feel like it was on edge.
The trouble was, even though she knew several things about Walker, that he was off-limits, that he was absolutely the wrong man to have a dalliance with, that she couldn’t afford the kind of reputation-damaging gossip that would come from having even a physical-only hook-up with him, that they would kill each other if they even tried, it didn’t stop her body from reacting to him. It never had.
“And how is everything so far?”
Her bridesmaids were no help at all. They fluttered, they practically swooned.
“Everything is great,” Denisha said, smiling brightly and looking at Walker as though he had brought her a special delivery of the moon and the stars.
“That is great to hear. I’m Walker Grayson, and I am the coordinator for this event. Please reach out to me if there are any issues. I thought I would join you on this lovely trail ride.”
“Thank you,” Addison said, smiling, and not showing any of the discomfort that she felt, because why?
It was best to just pretend that she was neutral about him.
That she didn’t remember him from any other point in time.
Didn’t have a whole history with him in high school that was negative, honestly.
It was how she had approached this entire thing.
As if there had never been a thing wrong between them.
“Great. Let’s get moving.”