Chapter 1 #6
The music was more distinct now, and I could identify the song.
It was Beyoncé’s country song about Texas.
No question that would be the bridal party.
Because a pop queen singing country music summed up this wedding perfectly.
We were such a band of posers. My family was from Wisconsin, and the bride’s family came from upstate New York.
We had zero Texas Hill Country connections.
At least Queen Bey had been born in Houston.
If I hadn’t been so unexcited about the wedding, I’d have sent my brother a playlist of old-school country music like Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and Loretta Lynn.
I might not own a cowboy hat, but classic country music had always resonated.
On a bad day, nothing rejuvenated my spirits like a whiskey and some Hank Williams.
Behind the cottages, a bonfire blazed. The music was cranked so loud, there was no way anyone was inside sleeping. I turned off my cellphone flashlight and lingered in the shadows at the edge of the party.
Countless flickering candles in mason jars added their glow to the bonfire’s light.
About a dozen people sat on chairs and benches scattered around the open lawn; most held a can of Lone Star.
On the far left, my mom and dad shared a bench.
Her head on his shoulder, a cozy blanket over their laps.
I shrank back, not quite ready to join the fray.
Around the fire, a group of women were dancing. Their hair free and feet bare, they looked like fairies in a folktale. I couldn’t see their faces, only silhouettes—bodies moving and hair whipping. One figure caught my attention, and I couldn’t pull my eyes off her.
The firelight transformed her hair into a golden halo. She swayed to the music, the outlines of her curves revealed by the glow of the flames through her flimsy dress. She was a goddess. Something inside me broke free, and need flooded my veins. Her form called me like a lodestone.
The instant attraction was so intense it stole my breath.
With effort, I forced my attention off the enchantress whirling around the fire and tried to regroup.
But the image remained burned on my retinas like the aftereffects of a camera flash.
I knew for the rest of my life I’d never forget the sight of her and the powerful feeling she’d provoked. Who was she?
I glanced down to clear my head. On the ground, something sparkly caught my eye. A discarded pair of shoes encrusted with crystals winked in the firelight. A punch of recognition hit with the force of a Dallas Cowboys linebacker.
I knew those shoes.
“Cindy,” I whispered her name. The animal instinct part of my brain put the puzzle pieces together faster than my conscious mind. The how and why were too complicated. Later… I’d get an explanation.
I looked back at the dancers; my gaze found her unerringly. My fingertips tingled as I recalled holding her ankle and fitting on the glittering shoe. I replayed the whisper of a kiss we’d shared in the lobby of our building, and my heart raced.
Her shoes. Those were her shoes.
She was here. Dancing.
It should be impossible, but the universe was a confounding place. I would not fight it. This was a gift. The Phipps Gift.
I staggered forward, past aunts and uncles, past the bride’s mother, past old friends from college and into her path as she sashayed around the fire. It was instinct driving me, not anything rational. I had to touch her.
I braced for our collision, ready to catch her. The last woman I’d expected to see, and yet here she was, crashing into my arms. Into my life. It was destiny.
Cindy
I’d hit a wall. Not a metaphorical wall of exhaustion but a real, solid wall. Except this one was shaped like a man’s chest.
The moment his hands closed around my waist, I knew it was Henry.
Happiness and excitement spilled out of me in uncontrollable laughter.
I tossed my head back. The billions of glittering stars seemed brighter—close enough to touch.
His arrival had set a tempest of happy butterflies free inside my chest.
“Henry.” I sighed.
“Cindy.” He said my name like I was a miracle.
“You made it.” An impossibly large smile made my cheeks ache. I probably looked like a giggling lunatic.
He’d texted hours ago about his air travel trials and tribulations. Everyone had worried he’d miss tonight's bonfire. Me, most of all.
“You’re here.” His hands squeezed my waist like he was checking to see if I was real.
“Of course.” My racing pulse was louder than the music. It throbbed in my ears, muting the noise of the party. My entire focus narrowed to the man standing in front of me.
He pulled me closer. My bare toes touched the tips of his shoes. My breasts brushed his shirtfront. Awareness coursed through me. It was a wonder there weren’t sparks arcing between our bodies.
I searched his face for an explanation of what the hell was happening. Every time our paths crossed, the pull between us grew stronger—a tidal wave of desire, need, and want. He was everything.
My lips parted a heartbeat before he bent to kiss me. This wasn’t the fleeting, feather-light brush of mouths we’d shared the other day. It was the real thing.
Our lips met, and a chorus of angels burst into song. Or maybe it was just Dolly Parton’s version of “I Will Always Love You.” I clutched handfuls of his shirt to stop from melting to the ground in a boneless heap of lust.
My toes curled into the damp grass, and I swayed into him. We kissed as if we existed to breathe each other’s breath. Not once in my life had a kiss felt so life-altering. This was the stuff of fairy tales and midlife fantasies.
He lifted his mouth from mine and nuzzled my neck. I felt every touch with blinding intensity. The brush of his lips, the scrape of his beard scruff. Even the delicate flick of his eyelashes burned into my flesh and my soul.
“That was—” I had no words to finish the thought.
“Yes,” he murmured. His lips moved over my neck, below my ear, raising goosebumps.
Frozen in place, we held each other for a few long minutes, locked in a private bubble the party couldn’t penetrate.
“I see you know Chad’s brother.” Lorraine’s haughty voice dragged me back to reality. A bucket of ice water would have been kinder.
I stepped out of Henry’s embrace and half turned toward my stepmother. Had her newly injected wedding Botox allowed, her right eyebrow would have been raised accusingly high. It was her signature move.
“Yes, we live in the same building in Chicago. Didn’t Marguerite tell you?”
“Hmm.” She drew the sound out, long and judgmental.
“And how do you know Marguerite?” Henry asked me.
“My stepsister?” I wrinkled my brow and cocked my head the way a dog does when it hears a funny sound. This was ridiculous. We’d been texting for over a week.
Henry blinked. Hard. He looked from Lorraine to me and back three times, trying to understand.
Finally, he found his voice. “You’re the orphan stepsister?”
Ouch. That was one way to explain my place in the family.
“Pray tell, who did you think you were kissing just now?” Lorraine pointed a long French-manicured nail at me but addressed her question to Henry.
“Cindy Ash.” He winced.
“Ash was my father’s last name.” I rushed to explain.
“I use my maiden name: Tremaine. And my girls are both Williams, like their father. I can see the confusion.” Lorraine’s tone implied Henry was a dolt.
“I’ve been texting you.” He pulled out his phone, looking at the screen as if an incoming text message might clear everything up for him.
“Yes.” I nodded and smiled, thinking of the silly texts that had flown between us over the last two weeks.
“You never reply.”
A silent chuckle shook my stepmother’s shoulders. She was enjoying this scene way too much. We were not going to sort this out with her hanging on every word. I grabbed Henry’s shoulder and pulled him away from the fire.
“What are you talking about? We’ve been texting non-stop.” My fists rested on my hips. I wished the spot I’d brought us to had better light so I could read his expression.
He passed me his phone, open to a text conversation with my name at the top. I scanned the messages. The first asked how my shift had gone. The next said have a good night and how he’d never had such an exciting time picking up his mail with a winking emoji. There weren’t any replies.
I looked from him to the screen. Those messages had never reached me. I opened the contact info attached to my name. “Wrong phone number.”
“No.” He sounded pained.
“Yes.” I blamed Midnight, that damn cat.
Quickly, I scrolled back to his main message screen and burst out laughing at the name he’d saved my correct number under: New Sister-in-Law.
“What were you going to save Anastasia in here as? New sister-in-law two?”
“Who?”
“Do men not talk? You didn’t know either of our names.”
He shrugged. “I knew there were sisters. You didn’t know my name the night I brought you your shoes. So when did you…” He trailed off, waiting for me to fill in the blank.
“The bow tie. Marguerite had a meltdown and wanted me to strong-arm you into agreeing to wear it. But since I thought you already had my number, I never introduced myself. I just got to work changing your mind.”
“I’m still not sure how that happened.”
“I’m amazing.”
“It was something.” He grinned at me. His white teeth flashed in the gloom. My heart did an honest-to-God backflip.
“I have superpowers.”
As we traded quips, we’d been moving closer. He slid his hand up my hip and rested it on my waist. I leaned in; another kiss was there for the taking. I wrapped my hands around his body.
“Let me see her.” An older lady with thick glasses, white hair, and a kind smile tugged my arm, pulling me away from Henry even as I licked my lips in anticipation of our next kiss.