“Understood,” Izzy said solemnly, “but obviously I have to make the bridesmaids’ dresses extra ugly if you and Lilah agree to stand with me.”
“Ugly’s fine. Just no seafoam.”
Lilah came in for hugs as well. The three of them talked wedding dresses while Ford topped off their drinks. Just as the last of the edgy restlessness that had plagued her all day receded, someone reached around and covered her eyes. A warm, hard body leaned close. Close enough for her to inhale a sophisticated male scent that still made her pulse leap after four long years.
“Hey, Bridge. Guess who?”
Archer Ellison III. Only one guess needed. His voice, low and playful, had the power to raise the tiny hairs along the back of her neck. She stiffened, tightened every muscle in her body, and actively restrained herself from throwing an elbow into the unprotected abs behind her. Satisfying as it might be, resorting to violence would give away far too much. A person looking to prove herself a responsible adult didn’t resort to violence. Unfortunately.
Inhaling slowly, she took a stabilizing breath. Better. Then she forced her lips into a smile. Shaking his hands off, she turned and stared at her surprise visitor with a haughty calm she wished she actually felt. She actually felt like that elbow to the abs she’d restrained herself from throwing had landed in her own gut, leaving her breathless and shaky. More reactions she refused to let show.
Winging a brow, reinforcing her I-don’t-give-a-shit smile, she said, “Little Archie Ellison, as I live and breathe. I didn’t realize you were tonight’s arrival. Must have been a rough flight. You look a little worse for wear.”
There was nothing little or worse for wear about Archer. Not from the tips of his short, perfectly windblown golden blond hair to the toes of high-end black hiking boots, nor any part of the rangy, muscle-hewn body in between. The gray cashmere sweater didn’t disguise the breadth of his shoulders and chest. The black jeans cupped and conformed to truly spectacular territory beneath. He looked like an expensive adventure. One she’d already had and knew she couldn’t afford.
The confident glint in his emerald eyes said he knew damn well he passed muster, but he let her bitchy observation slide without comment. “You’re beautiful. More beautiful than ever.”
“Drink it in while you can, ’cause I’m on my way out.” She looked over at Trace. “I’m off to”—she gestured vaguely—“do the thing.”
“Right.” He nodded. God bless him. “The thing. Take care.”
“Always.” She winked, then, because new Bridget still qualified as a work in progress, she pivoted, braced the toe of her work boot on the brass rail that ran along the bottom of the bar, leaned across, and grabbed hold of poor, unsuspecting Ford. “Later,” she promised in her best approximation of a seductive voice and fused her lips to his. Ford hadn’t survived ten years of hush-hush military work by being slow on the uptake. He cupped a hand under her jaw and held her there while he returned her kiss with what would certainly pass for enthusiasm. She owed him. Big.
Their kiss went on. And on. Rose muttered something in Tlinget that basically translated to, “What the fuck?”
After several suspended seconds of what-the-fuck, Ford eased his grip. They slowly parted. Smiling wide for her primary audience of one, she dropped back down to the floor, turned, and with every ounce of resolve in her sauntered out of the bar despite strong survival instincts urging her to run as fast and as far as possible.
She made it all the way down the street and into her Yukon before she let herself release a sound. Braced for a scream of fury, her system wasn’t prepared for the anguish that erupted instead. Loud and painful in the confines of the vehicle, it tore out of her like something wrenched from her soul.
The only man who’d ever had her heart, then shattered it like a cheap wineglass and walked out of her life, had just walked back in.
Quickly, impatiently, she brushed the tears from her cheeks and firmed her chin. Then she faced her reflection in the rearview mirror. Enough. His ambush had momentarily gotten the better of her, but the moment was over. She would not shed another tear over Archer.
She knew why he was here, more or less.
She knew what he wanted, at least in part.
She didn’t know—didn’t have the first clue—what the fuck she was going to do about it.
This April Fool’s Day, the joke was definitely on her.
Chapter Two
Okay, that could have gone better, Archer silently admitted as a bar full of locals downed champagne and gawked at him. A lot better.
He should have stuck with his carefully crafted plan—the win-Bridget-back plan nearly four years in the making—but no. As soon as he’d set foot on the sidewalk in front of the Captivity Inn and caught sight of her through the window of The Tipsy Goose, the part of him aching to touch her, talk to her, just fucking be with her had taken charge. A part dumbass enough to hope after walking away from her with an abruptness borne of an abject lack of choice and a streak of self-preservation he wasn’t proud of, they’d lock eyes, hers would well up with love no amount of time could dull, and she’d fall into his open arms.
Not a chance. And he knew it, but the pure emotional rush of seeing her again had gotten in the way of his judgment. He’d intended to surprise her with his presence and keep her off-balance. The whole point of coming to Captivity was to initiate a conversation she’d steadfastly avoided for four years thanks to distance and sheer stubbornness, but ambushing her like he’d done wasn’t the way to start the dialogue.
Instead, she’d looked down her perfect nose at him like an empress inspecting something that had crawled out of a dank, dark dungeon. Never mind that her slender frame fell several inches short of his. Never mind that her imperial wardrobe consisted of a long-sleeve T-shirt slung over old jeans and battered work boots. Never mind that she wore her ink black hair in a choppy, chin-length cut with overgrown bangs that had probably last been hacked by her own hands. None of it diminished the arresting beauty she wielded with effortless disregard.
That alone cut him off at the knees. She’d always had the power to steal his breath. Then she’d kissed the guy behind the bar like she owned him and walked out with barely a nod of acknowledgment, which only salted the wound inflicted by seeing her in the flesh again, knowing she wasn’t his.
Yet.
What did you expect?
Not the lip-lock with the bartender, that’s for sure. A win-Bridget-back plan required groundwork, and while he’d tried to respect her privacy, he had confirmed some basics, like she wasn’t seriously involved with anyone. So, the kiss meant…what?
His mood lifted as he considered the options. Option A? She’d kissed the guy to make him jealous. Option B? She’d kissed the guy to make him think she wasn’t available, so he’d give up on whatever reunion he had in mind.