Something About You (Just Me & You) Read online

  SOMETHING ABOUT YOU

  By Lelaina Landis

  Text copyright 2013 Lelaina Landis

  For Tonya, my soul sister,

  (on the other side of that thin wall)

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  CHAPTER ONE

  The limousine would pull up any minute now, and Sabrina knew exactly what would happen then. Molly would scramble out, makeup half finished, the back of her hair still set in curlers. The bride and her maid of honor would rush to the altar just in time, and it would be one more near-calamity that the two friends would laugh about later.

  Sabrina paced the walk of the Victorian mansion. Her ankles were already wobbling under the impossibly high heels of her sandals, but the movement was the only way she could stir up a breeze in the afternoon’s dead heat. Using her hand to block the glare of the bright November sun, she squinted toward the parking lot.

  She had never known Molly to be on time, and Molly’s fiancé had refined showing up at his druthers to a fine art. Their tardiness would not impress the two hundred of Austin’s best shod who sat in Green Pastures waiting to see Molly wed Sebastian Cole of the Peyton Heights Coles.

  “Damn it, Molly, call and tell me you’re on the way,” Sabrina begged as the time on her cell phone changed to 3:46. The phone vibrated in her hand. UNKNOWN CALLER registered on the display.

  “Can you hear me, Brini?” Molly was on the other end of the line. “I have something to—”A loudspeaker bawled in the background, drowning out the rest of her sentence. Sabrina tried to discern the language. It definitely wasn’t English.

  “What’s going on, Molls? You’re seriously, unfashionably late. It’s almost four o’clock!”

  “Really?” Her best friend sounded surprised. “I suppose I got the time zones mixed up.”

  Now Sabrina heard the clamor of voices in the background and had a bad feeling.

  “Look, Molls,” she said. “There are two hundred people sitting in the reception room sprouting hemorrhoids. Your future mother-in-law’s Botox looks like it’s about to fail. Can you and groom-errant possibly get to your own wedding?”

  “That could be a major problem.”

  “You are getting married today, aren’t you?” There was a stretch of silence, and Sabrina heard the loudspeaker blare again. Suddenly she pictured Molly, runaway bride, standing in a crowded bus terminal somewhere.

  “There’s been a change in plans, Brini,” Molly said. “Sebastian and I won’t be coming to Green Pastures.”

  Sabrina swallowed her disappointment. The wedding was off.

  Her best friend had been fascinated by romantic love ever since the two women were children. Sabrina had wanted to mix sulfurous concoctions with her junior chemistry set while Molly wanted to make Barbie and Ken fall in love. Then boys came into the picture — bad boys — and had broken Molly’s heart time and time again. Just when it seemed as though Molly would fritter her love away, along came taciturn Sebastian, five years her junior, who reciprocated her crazy adoration. Sabrina could almost hear the film score swell in their presence.

  “What happened, Molls?” she asked. “Please don’t tell me you let Cybil Cole get to you.”

  “Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” Molly said in an ominous tone. “First she picked out those terrible bridesmaid’s dresses. They are terrible, aren’t they?”

  “Straight to consignment. I won’t lie.” The dress was an uninspiring shade of martini-olive green that brought out the sallow tones in Sabrina’s skin, and its dropped waist emphasized her vertical challenge.

  “Then she reserved the Cotillion Room, and the next thing I knew, the invitations were mailed. I’m thirty-six years old, Brini. I wanted a simple wedding, not a coming-out party.”

  “Did you talk to Sebastian about it?”

  “Yes.” Molly sighed. “I finally mustered up the courage to tell him how I felt. We were on the same page — well, about the wedding, at least. I didn’t tell you because you didn’t need to hear about my silly problems. It would have been horrible timing, what with you and Jackson splitting up right after that ill-fated cruise of yours.”

  Ill-fated indeed. Sabrina glanced at her bare ring finger dispassionately. She wanted to tell Molly that she’d abandoned most of her problems on the Polar Star, along with a broken iPod and her least favorite pumps.

  “Your problems are not silly,” Sabrina told her firmly. “I wish I knew what to say. I adore Sebastian, even if he is a bit peculiar. I’m so sorry it didn’t work out.”

  “What are you talking about, Brini?” Molly sounded confused. “No one’s called off the marriage, just the wedding! Sebastian’s with me right now, in fact. We’re at Charles de Gaulle. It’s an airport.”

  “I know what it is.” Sabrina spoke patiently. “Why?”

  There was a pause, and then Molly screamed happily, “We’ve eloped to Paris! Do you believe it? I’m in the City of Lights!” Sabrina held the phone away from her ear while Molly squealed like a game show contestant.

  “You’re really in Paris?” Sabrina asked once she put the phone back to her ear. “I so do not believe this. Cybil and Shuck Cole are going to bust guts.”

  “Let them,” Molly said with pepper. “It’s my wedding, and I want Paris. I need a favor, Brini. It’s minuscule, really. Make the announcement to everyone?”

  “Seriously, Molly? Send a text or a telegram if you don’t feel like dealing with the in-laws. They aren’t mine!”

  “But you quell the irate masses for a living,” Molly reasoned. “You’re a great public speaker. I’ve seen you on television dozens of times.”

  Somehow Sabrina didn’t think that introducing the Honorable Representative Theodore Ward at political events was on par with announcing the cancellation of a wedding in front of the Coles and their ilk.

  “I make press announcements,” she pointed out. “When I try the warm and cuddly stuff, I sound like a hostess on QVC.”

  “Please, Brini? I need you,” Molly pleaded.

  “Molly Parker, if — and I did say if — I do this, you owe me in a very big way.” Sabrina kept her voice stern.

  “You’ll do it.” Molly sounded confident. “Face it, sister. The only reason you agreed to be in this wedding anyway was because it was mine.”

  **

&n
bsp; Sabrina surveyed the mansion in front of her with dread. A stain of perspiration had spread across the bodice of her hideous bridesmaid’s gown. Austin weather was always unpredictable, but autumn was particularly schizophrenic. Today, the heat had climbed into the mid-eighties. If she didn’t find shade fast, she’d poach.

  The well-tended St. Augustine grass that surrounded the mansion was just as plush as it was in summer. Diva of all ground covers, its thick network of roots was perfect for stabilizing croquet wickets and snaring heels. She uttered an epithet and pulled her shoe free, sending a pair of peacocks skittering toward the gazebo. She could hear strains of a harp quintet coming from the mansion. Sabrina had attended many functions here and understood what it represented.

  Old school. And old money.

  Sabrina had to admit that Molly had the right idea. A fairy-tale wedding in one’s late thirties was a bit much. Sabrina’s own brush with marriage had taken place on the cruise her best friend had so aptly described as “ill-fated.” On his thirty-ninth birthday, Jackson, Sabrina’s ex-fiancé, had asked her once again where she wanted to tie the knot. Sabrina, who had been mindlessly perusing Condé Nast to distract herself from the thump-thump-thumping of his biological clock, mused that a destination wedding at sea would be fine. It had all seemed easy enough until he began pressing her to pick an actual destination. Ambivalent about both Jackson and the wedding, she had gone to her office one morning, spun the antique globe on her desk, closed her eyes, and pinned her finger on the most formidable continent of them all: Iceland.

  But her brush with matrimony had occurred two months ago.

  Practically ancient history in the grand scheme of life, Sabrina reasoned. And it was rendered irrelevant, now that Molly needed her for damage control.

  “Here goes nothing,” Sabrina muttered, wondering how the hell she would tell a room full of guests that the bride and groom had bailed on a wedding with a price tag well into five figures in favor of vin and fromage on another continent. She looked through the French doors into the Cotillion Room. A smattering of people remained in the seats in front of an altar. The groomsmen had broken ranks and gathered around the champagne table.

  She opened her clutch and frowned as she peered into the tiny mirror on the liner. Her thick thatch of bangs had wilted from their side part, and wet tendrils clung to her brow. The trendy young stylist she’d seen had “touched up” her highlights with a heavy hand. The result was a conspicuous platinum-on-brunette effect that made her look like a rave queen.

  God, it was sweltering. The porch creaked as though the house itself were complaining. Sabrina’s shoulders tensed as she heard a deep exhalation. She tilted the mirror slightly to her right. A man’s broad shoulder appeared in the reflection. She snapped the clutch shut and whirled around.

  The tallest, most massive man she’d ever seen stood mere feet away, looking at her with hooded eyes of an indeterminate pale shade — obviously a member of the wedding party, given his formal attire. She had been paired up with Jace, one of the dishier Cole cousins. With his patrician nose and widow’s peak, the best man could have strolled out a men’s cologne ad. Except that Jace always carried around a bag of marijuana — his preferred contraband — and disappeared from functions for hours only to return red-eyed, muttering nonsense.

  This meant that the tall man standing beside her was either an usher or a groomsman, although Sabrina didn’t know which. Molly and Sebastian had declined a rehearsal dinner at the eleventh hour, insisting that the attendants could play it by ear. Sabrina hadn’t known their real reason until now. The happy couple had probably been busy hunting for passports.

  She didn’t know that menswear shops carried tuxedos in Linebacker, either. The tall man’s bowtie hung around the collar of his shirt, which was already wrinkling. He caught her glance and winked. Something about her must have amused him, because a slight smile pulled at his lips.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Just admiring the view.” He returned his gaze to the south lawn. “Where I grew up, you don’t see this kind of green in early November. This time of year, we’re getting out the lip balm and snow chains.”

  He looked back at her with a high-beam smile. He wasn’t the sort of man who usually caught her eye, but there was something about him that made her body stir. Broad, flat cheekbones. Plush lips. A slightly crooked nose that told her he’d been on the receiving end of several well-aimed punches. Dark auburn hair dusted the shoulders of his black jacket. The strange hue contrasted wildly with a complexion that was much too fair and fine for someone so muscled and masculine. Sabrina found herself wanting to stretch up to touch his cheek to see if his skin was as soft as it looked.

  She preferred conventionally handsome men with lean runners’ builds. Men who silently suffered the choke hold of a bowtie. The specimen in front of her, leaning over the railing as though he owned the place, struck her as one-night-stand material. A rowdy good time.

  She surreptitiously checked his hand for a wedding band. None. So why hadn’t he at least given her an appreciative once-over? Then she remembered the uninspiring dress that camouflaged her finer female assets.

  Whoever he was and wherever he came from, this man was not her type anyway.

  She quickly looked away.

  “Never seen a state where Indian summers last this long,” he commented, sliding his elbows off the railing. “I suppose somebody’s got to keep breweries in business.”

  She watched him retrieve two bottles of Dos Equis from a large delivery cooler by the service entrance and neatly pop the caps of both on the scrolls of an ornate wrought iron baluster. Then he spoke again.

  “So I assume you got the inside scoop on why Molly and Sebastian went AWOL.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Voices carry with the right acoustics.” He nodded his head at the veranda below. “There’s not going to be a wedding today — at least not here.”

  “Who are you?” Sabrina studied him.

  “Where are my manners?” He placed the beers on the handrail. One of his large paws completely enveloped her much smaller hand. Now that he was closer, Sabrina noticed that his cheeks and nose were peppered with freckles and that his eyes were a grayish green.

  “Gage Fitzgerald, backup for the best man. Jace won’t be gracing us with his presence unless we happen to catch a whiff of him standing downwind.” Then he gave her a sly glance and added, “I suppose attendant designations aren’t important at this point anyway.”

  Fitzgerald. The name teased Sabrina’s memory. She finally recalled Sebastian mentioning an old university friend. The Irish surname explained the combination of dark red hair and creamy skin. Sabrina tried to pick out a regional accent, but there wasn’t one that she could discern. Just a rich, rumbling timbre that was rather pleasant.

  “Pleased to meet you. I’m—”

  “The bride’s best friend, Sabrina March, right?” His smile grew wider. She pulled her hand from his grasp. “I thought so,” he went on. “Sebastian couldn’t have painted you any better.”

  “Really.” Sabrina wasn’t sure she wanted to know what descriptors Sebastian Cole, literary savant and two-time Fulbright scholar, had plucked from his arcane lexicon. Comparisons to fictional characters were likely involved.

  “Here. It’s on the house.” Squinting into the sun, Gage absently passed her one of the beers. Sabrina accepted it reluctantly. The thought of tossing back a cold one when it was still daylight was totally inappropriate. And extremely enticing.

  “Beer? It’s not even six o’clock,” she pointed out.

  “Isn’t it?” He pulled back his jacket sleeve to check a freckle past a hair. He wasn’t even wearing a watch. “Then we’re behind schedule. You’ll need liquid reinforcement before you go into the lion’s den and tell Cybil and Shuck the bride and groom are in gay Paree.” He rubbed his chin. “I think Sebastian said something about getting hitched in Montmartre.”

  Again, that sly,
sidelong look. Only this time it lingered longer. Then it dawned on her.

  “Wait a minute. So you knew all along that — damn it!” she fumed. She imagined Molly and Sebastian huddled in their respective call boxes calling both her and Gage — stacking the decks to make sure that at least one of their friends stepped up to do their dirty work.

  Now the man beside her was chuckling softly.

  “I’d say that as the bride’s number one, you have a situation on your hands, wouldn’t you? Cheers.” Gage clinked his beer bottle against hers and downed most of it in several smooth swallows. Sabrina stared in fascination as he wiped his mouth with the cuff of his tuxedo jacket. She took a small sip of her own beer. Then a few more.

  “You’re an objective third party,” she reasoned aloud. “You should make the announcement.”

  “Me?” Gage looked slightly alarmed. “Hell no. I’m on the Coles’ shit list.”

  She could believe it. Even in her protocol-driven profession, she’d met men like him. Men with a severe case of the fuck-its. All of Molly’s bad boys had qualified. Moody poets, tortured artists, struggling musicians. Oh yes, Gage Fitzgerald had the fuck-its in spades.

  “What did you do?” she dared herself to ask.

  “I took Sebastian on a road trip to Vegas during our sophomore year in college. As you’ve probably gathered, kid genius has a wild side. He just needed some coaxing.”

  “So?” Sabrina shrugged.

  “He was seventeen.” Gage grinned broadly. “What about you?”

  “Oh, I’m a bad influence on women everywhere. I have a master’s degree and a career in a male-dominated profession.”

  “Yeah, that’ll do it,” he concurred soberly. “To Cybil, equal rights for women ended once they could legally own real estate. Looks like we’re both outnumbered and outgunned.”

  “So how do we decide who gets the short end of the stick?” Sabrina asked.

  “Simple. We flip for the honors.”

  “Flip a coin,” she repeated dully. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Seems fair, unless you have a better idea.” He foraged around in his pocket and produced a quarter. “Call it.”