Page 2 of Finding the One (River Rain #7)

Mum’s gaze drifted to where Rix was now standing, talking to his brother, Josh, along with Judge and Judge’s dad, Jamie.

And she mumbled, “I suppose.”

Dair made a noise like a grunt, and my attention turned to him.

His gray-blue eyes were narrowed on my mother, and he was wearing an expression of distaste easily visible on his features.

“Salt of the earth,” he continued, his rich Scottish burr vibrating naturally, but doing it on those words firm to inflexible.

Mum’s gaze raced back to Dair, and pure Dair Wallace, he didn’t bother to adjust his expression.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “Good man. Perfect for my little girl.”

Her little girl.

Like she gave that first shit about Alex…or me.

God, she made me want to vomit.

Dair dismissed her completely and turned to me.

I was fighting a smirk at how he so obviously shut Mum out, until he spoke.

“Wicked as fuck how ye publicly humiliated that wankstain.”

There it was.

The entire Wallace family had of course been in attendance when I’d left Chad at the altar.

Well, not so much left him there, but instead pulled a huge drama where I exposed him as the cheat he was, something that started a massive brawl in the church. A brawl that Rix and Dad had to rescue me from…physically.

I felt my throat close at the reminder of that particular humiliation, which only Dair would bring up right to my face (well, only Dair and my own mother). Wrestling with the weight of it, I couldn’t hold eye contact with him.

“Chad was young, a little wayward,” Mum again defended my ex… wankstain .

“Ye could be thirteen and courtin’ your first lassie and ken not to fuck her about like that,” Dair retorted.

“Dear, you are in the presence of ladies,” Mum admonished him on a valiant forgiving smile. “Perhaps mind your language,” she suggested.

“Your own daughter just described that twat as a bloke who can’t keep his dick in his pants, and he should go fuck himself.

” He again turned to me and smiled a blinding bright smile of strong, white teeth in tanned face.

“Reckon he only had that choice for a while after ye gutted him. No woman would touch him after ye got through with him.”

“I try not to think of Chad in that manner, or at all ,” I replied.

“Good choice,” Dair approved.

Like I needed his approval.

I nearly rolled my eyes again, but I did not.

And anyone would know not to discuss this at a party…or ever.

After it happened, every once in a while, Alex and Dad checked in to make sure I was doing okay.

But now, I was so over Chad Head.

Even so, I didn’t want to dish about it at my sister’s rehearsal dinner.

“Perhaps I’ll just leave you two young ones to chat,” Mum offered, and before I could stop her (this might be the only time in my life I didn’t want her to leave me), she slipped away.

“Not sure that woman kens the definition of young ones,” Dair muttered.

He was correct.

I was thirty-four.

He was thirty-seven.

We were hardly young.

“How ye farin’?” he asked.

“Busy,” I replied.

For some reason, this made him bark with laughter.

For heaven’s sake, his laughter even sounded Scottish. Thick, rich, warm, manly and so very alive.

But I was confused, and I didn’t hide it.

“That’s funny?” I asked.

“Ye dinnae have a job, lassie,” he pointed out. “How’re ye busy?”

Nope.

Time and maturity hadn’t made Alasdair Finlay Wallace any less insufferable.

“Well,” I started snottily, “even though Alex and Rix wanted something small and intimate, Mum horned in, as usual, and Alex caved to keep the peace, so their seventy-five guests turned into two hundred. And even keeping it at that, rather than the three hundred Mum wanted, was a battle. One I waged so Alex didn’t have to. ”

I might have stated this rather pointedly, because I was not going to tell him directly he and his family were not on the first list, but I still just told him he and his family were not on Alex and Rix’s list.

Dair didn’t miss this and it only made him smile his wide, white smile again.

Totally insufferable.

“And since Alex doesn’t like huge gatherings, so she’s not a party planner extraordinaire?—”

His attractive, heavy, dark brows winged up. “Extraordinaire?”

I ignored him. “—and I am, I took this wedding off her plate. That means searching for venues. Contracting with them. Catering. Floral arrangements. Music arrangements. Invitations. Tracking RSVPs. Cake tasting.”

He cut in again. “Dinnae need the whole agenda, Blake.”

I ignored him again. “And since one of Dad’s PAs got married and moved to Pennsylvania, I took over managing his properties.”

Another interruption from Dair. “Reckon so, since ye use them more than he does.”

“Actually, I don’t,” I snapped.

“Oh, right, ye live in your Mum’s place in New York.”

I didn’t need a reminder of that either.

Though, this was Alasdair Wallace to a T.

Total bully.

I should find something I needed to do, make an excuse and walk away from him.

The problem was, I was incredibly good at party planning. Everything had been sorted for the entire weekend weeks ago.

Sure, I had a binder with a dizzying number of checklists.

And I had to be up tomorrow at six o’clock to have breakfast and a shower in order to be fueled and ready to go over everything, start making calls to confirm, be certain everyone was where they were supposed to be, everything was in place and all that was taken care of before I got my hair and makeup done so I could walk down the aisle to attend my sister.

But that was just me being over-organized and wanting Alex and Rix to have their day where everything went off without a hitch. My ultimate goal was that all they had to do was show up, say their I do’s, then eat, drink, dance and be merry before they were off on their honeymoon.

The fact I didn’t have an excuse to pull me away from Dair right then wasn’t the reason I didn’t walk away.

No, it was because I was done with anyone being a bully to me.

Especially Dair Wallace.

“Your point?” I demanded.

He was studying me closely. “Just teasing ye, lass.”

“You don’t know me well enough to tease me like that,” I noted.

“Known ye since ye were wee.”

“What’s my favorite color?” I asked.

It was his turn to look confused. “How’s that relevant?”

“What’s my birthday?”

“Blake—”

I got closer to him and bit, “You’ve never known me well enough to tease me, Dair. Though, that’s never stopped you.”

His voice lowered, and in doing so, got even more rumbly. “Calm down, Blake.”

“I’m perfectly calm,” I retorted. “I’m also perfectly sick and tired of allowing people to treat me like shit.”

His chin jerked back.

“Enjoy the barbeque,” I bid, then stupid me, way too late, I walked away.

I sensed I looked like a fool.

Everyone was in pretty, but casual sundresses (except Chloe, Judge’s wife, and one of Alex’s bridesmaids, and this wasn’t only because Judge was a groomsman, but because Chloe and my sister were tight—but Chloe was also a Pierce, that being the daughter of a famous pro tennis player and even more famous Hollywood actress, so even if she lived in the Arizona mountains with her husband, she still dressed like she was going out to a three hundred dollar dinner in LA).

But I was me.

I didn’t own a single casual, pretty sundress.

This was why I was wearing a rose-colored, one shoulder, figure-skimming dress that went to my ankles, had some ruching at the side waist, a billowy bow draped on the shoulder, and a high side slit.

I was wearing this with a pair of Christian Louboutin Sandale du Désert, four-inch, satin ankle wrap sandals.

It was totally over-the-top for this bar.

From what I’d learned, it was totally over-the-top for the entire state of Arizona.

And right then, I felt self-conscious about it, because I felt Dair’s eyes heating my back as I walked away.

I should have dressed down.

I just didn’t know how.

“This is me. This is me. This is me. It’s okay to be me,” I whispered to myself as I walked to the bar to get another glass of wine.

It wouldn’t be good wine, even though I tried my best with their limited wine menu.

But I was going to drink it.

I’d just got my order in when I heard, “You all right?”

I twisted to see Chloe standing next to me.

“Everything’s fine,” I lied.

But seriously?

Why did I let Dair get under my skin like that?

I needed to think about why this happened and let go of it.

I didn’t like him. I never liked him.

Okay, that was a lie.

When I got old enough to know that boys were more than dirty, irritatingly rambunctious and overall annoying, I had a crush on Dair, because he was almost as good-looking a boy as he was a man.

Then he took every opportunity to remind me how boys were dirty, frustratingly rambunctious and unceasingly annoying, and I got over it (though, truth told, it hurt a little that he didn’t like me “like that,” as, I told myself, any girl would feel the pain of a boy she had a crush on not liking her back).

Bottom line, he wasn’t even my type.

However, I thought my type was Chad, and very tardily realized I was very wrong about that. He was Mum’s. I’d gone through the whole fiasco with him just to gain my mother’s approval. Humiliating myself and costing Dad thousands and thousands of dollars through the process.

I’d had exactly two dates since I’d dumped Chad on the altar, and they’d both been disasters.

Good Lord, I didn’t even know what my type was.

“Blake?” Chloe called.

I got out of my head and into the conversation.

“You sure you’re okay?” she asked, not hiding she was scrutinizing me.

“I’ve just got a checklist on my mind,” I lied again.

“If you need any help…” she offered, not for the first time.

“You’ve been really great with hooking me up with vendors in Prescott already,” I told her. “And everything is set. I’m just fretting. It’ll all be fine.”

“You know you can ask me. Or Mom. Or Nora. Mika. Gal or Katie,” she stressed (yes, again).

I nodded. “I know. We’ll go over everything at the meeting in the morning, just in case I’m not around to see to something.”

She glanced over at Dair then came back to me.

“He’s very good looking,” she noted.

“He’s not my type,” I decreed. Then foolishly continued, “As the saying goes, football is a gentleman's game played by hooligans, and rugby is a hooligan's game played by gentlemen . But unlike other gentlemen who play that game, Dair doesn’t leave the hooligan on the pitch.”

Chloe appeared bewildered, and she explained it. “Your mom said you two were an item.”

What?

Oh my God!

Why would she say that?

“I worried you guys were fighting,” Chloe went on. “You’ve barely said anything to him.”

“That’s because he, nor his family, were invited tonight,” I informed her. “Davina is okay, though she never had much use for me. But Dair has always been an asshole and that hasn’t changed, case in point, our most recent conversation.”

“He sure can’t take his eyes off you for someone who’s just been an asshole to you.”

I felt frisson tingle down my spine.

Okay.

What was that ?

Resolutely, I shook it off.

“We’re not an item,” I asserted. “I’ve never understood how Mum’s mind worked and now is no exception.

Though the Wallaces are obscenely wealthy, and since every available bachelor over the one hundred-million-dollar mark on the east coast won’t have anything to do with me after what I did to Chad, and the something I do know about Mum is that she wants me to land an heir to some financial throne, she’s likely casting a wider net. ”

Chloe tipped her head to the side. “Maybe, ma bonne amie , she’s seeing something you don’t.”

I glanced to where I left Dair, only to see he wasn’t there.

He’d changed huddles and was now grinning flirtatiously at Katie.

I turned back to Chloe. “And maybe she’s seeing he’s a huge flirt and hope is springing eternal.”

“Maybe,” she murmured, her gaze sliding toward Dair.

The bartender handed me my wine and I thanked her before taking a sip that many would describe as a gulp.

Alex came up to us and put her arm around my waist.

“This is great, Blake,” she gushed. “Just perfect.”

I studied my younger sister.

Then I spoke.

“You are cordially invited to leave at any time,” I replied to my introverted, hates-crowds, hates-parties, hates-lots-of-people-around sister.

“Food has been consumed. Toasts have been made. You have officially done your duty to your rehearsal dinner, and no one will think a thing about it if you and Rix take off.”

“God,” she whispered, her hazel eyes dancing happily, “I love you.”

I stilled at the sentiment and how much she sounded like she meant it.

To say we weren’t close growing up was an understatement.

Since the Chad thing, I’d been trying, she’d been trying.

But I didn’t think she’d ever said anything like that to me.

It felt amazing.

She kissed my cheek, shot a smile at Chloe and made a beeline to Rix.

Chloe moved closer “I cannot tell you how relieved she was when you took over planning the wedding.”

“I’m glad,” I said distractedly before taking another, much more demure sip of wine.

“I told her I’d do it, but with the pregnancy and the baby coming and running the shops and all…” Chloe let that trail.

“I’ve loved doing it,” I said.

And I had.

If I could put up with bitches like the me I used to be who were having weddings, I’d start my own business doing this kind of thing, I loved it so much.

Since there was no way in hell I’d be able to put up with bitches like the me I used to be, that was out.

Nothing else had come in.

I’d been trying to find myself for four years.

In that time, I realized I liked cooking, thus now, I did it a lot. I realized it felt good to give my father peace of mind about something after spending years giving him no peace of mind at all. And I realized I was radioactive to men after my situation with Chad went viral on social media.

Not a good tally sheet.

But I’d been fucking up for three decades by the time I got my head out of my ass. Four years was nothing.

Right?

“Well, so far, you’re killing it,” Chloe said.

That meant a lot to me, and as such, I smiled at her.

When I did, I felt that frisson again and turned my head to see Dair scowling at me.

My smile died and I raised my brows at him.

He shook his head, for some reason visibly sighed, like I was annoying him, then he returned his attention to Katie, dazzling her with that rakish grin of his.

Whatever.

Alex and Rix were in the midst of their goodbyes.

This meant I had things to do to wind this party down and shift focus to the next items on the wedding to-do list.

So I put Dair out of my mind and I did them.