Page 6 of Finding the One (River Rain #7)

I sat back and stared in a panic in front of me, seeing nothing.

“Oh my God, I gave it away,” I whined.

“Be soothed, lass,” he said quietly. “I’m fuckin’ with ye. Of a sort. The people who care enough to notice are the ones closest to her and they wouldn’t say a word until she was ready to share. The others haven’t noticed because they’re too busy drinking your dad’s booze and eating his food.”

“I hope so,” I mumbled.

He moved his hand so he was lightly stroking my neck from shoulder to the very sensitive spot behind my ear.

It felt phenomenal .

Lord.

I should move my head. I should make a statement. I should stop this weirdness that was happening between us.

I didn’t even like the man!

However, I didn’t do any of that.

It felt too good.

Dair helping me get through the reception felt too good.

God, I was being stupid.

I’d spent years being stupid.

I should stop this.

I didn’t.

The opening notes of Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” sounded.

Dair got up and set his beer aside. He didn’t even ask before he slid the flute from my fingers and placed it beside his beer.

He then took my hand, gently tugged me out of my chair and guided me to the dance floor.

Okay.

This was okay.

It wasn’t him stroking my neck, which did not say “childhood friends hanging at a wedding.”

You danced with anyone.

This was better than the neck stroking.

Definitely.

On the dance floor, Dair pulled me into his arms.

Close.

My hand in his, he laid them against his chest and started us moving.

I’d danced with a number of men that night. My dad (twice). Jamie. Duncan. Tom. Hale. Judge. Sully. Matt. Gage. Rix.

We did not dance like this.

I tipped my head back and whispered, “Dair.”

“Gorgeous in that dress, lassie,” he whispered back.

I’d gone dark green. One shoulder. Some gathering and a very short sleeve on that shoulder. An open slit that didn’t go too high and had two tailored pleats to make it more interesting. A same-colored waistband that made my waist look tiny.

Simple. Sophisticated. Timeless.

I’d been a size four back in the day. Something else my mother beat into me with emotional manipulation and lowkey verbal abuse.

After Chad, I’d stopped making being ultra-thin my top priority in life and now I was a size ten.

This felt better on me (and I could have a piece of cake more than once a year).

But until that moment, I wasn’t sure I wore it well.

“Thanks,” I replied.

“Always had class,” he said. “Dripping in it. Not like your mum. Snooty and obvious. Always just you.”

Oh my God.

I’d never been “just me.”

Hell, I’d never been classy (until, I hoped, recently).

I’d always been more brash, and acted like my mother, wanting to be the center of attention because I never got any, not even from Dad who’d checked out of the Mum nightmare just like Alex had done.

I definitely didn’t get any from Mum, or not any that was good.

But Dair said that with total sincerity.

That was how he saw me.

And that made me feel…

A lot .

“Dair—”

I didn’t get another word out.

His head dipped close, veered to my right, and he said in my ear, causing a delicious shiver, “Just dance.”

Okay, I could do that.

I could just dance.

He held me close, cheek to cheek, as we danced to the song.

My eyes caught on Chloe, who was dancing cheek to cheek with Judge not too far away, and she was smirking gleefully at me.

Damn.

This was totally not childhood friends.

This said something else.

And bottom-line truth?

If I let myself be in this, how it felt right now, I was there for it.

At the same time absolutely terrified of it.

But in that moment, under the fairy lights streaming across the rafters over our heads, this song playing, it was difficult (nay! impossible ) to pull away from him. Put distance between us. Make a statement about where we were at, or where we probably should be.

Not because I suddenly wasn’t sure where that was, but because he smelled good. He felt good. He danced very well.

I felt safe in my skin when I was in his arms.

I felt right in my skin.

I felt right in Dair’s arms.

Oh no.

This was bad.

But it felt so good.

I closed my eyes and rested my cheek on his shoulder.

That felt even better.

He gathered me closer and stroked my spine with his hand.

That felt the best.

Oh yes.

This was so, so bad.

I needed to get a handle on it.

I needed to put a stop to it.

I opened my eyes.

And saw his mother off to the side of the dance floor with an expression on her face I’d never seen in my life and wished I still hadn’t.

I tensed, lifted my cheek from Dair’s shoulder, and twisted my neck to see what she was looking at.

The reception was under a huge pergola (currently decorated by bails and bails of beautiful grass and fairy lights). It was an outdoor event space that had several outbuildings for necessities, like a loo, a massive catering kitchen, and bride’s and groom’s lounges.

And I caught Mum and Balfour ducking behind the groom’s lounge.

I shot straight, moved my attention the other direction, saw Kenna’s face setting to pissed and determined, and her body started moving toward the groom’s lounge.

Oh no!

“What’s up?” Dair asked, and my gaze raced to him, seeing him turn his head to look where I’d been looking.

I caught his jaw and made him face me.

“Nothing,” I said fake cheerily.

The fake didn’t fool him. I knew this when his brows shot down.

Lord, I needed to distract him so I could rush over there and be sure there wasn’t a scene.

Kenna was a nice lady. Pretty (both Dair and Davina got their hair from her, Dair got his eyes from her). Quiet. Not reserved, simply quiet. Stout, in that Scottish get-on-with-it-way.

She’d always been kind to me, even when I wasn’t easy to be kind to.

I couldn’t imagine she’d instigate a scene, though it was clear she didn’t intend to ignore this obvious peccadillo.

Mum, however, would totally cause a scene.

In fact, I didn’t know what she was thinking, guiding Balfour back there. Or what Bally was thinking, for God’s sake.

Except Mum could turn the attention on her and ruin Alex’s day, one she didn’t approve of and was not allowed to meddle in (overly much, outside the guest list).

And that would be something Helena Coddington-Sharp would do.

It also seemed like something she was actually doing.

Damn it, I was going to fucking strangle her .

I refocused on Dair and spoke quickly. “Can you get me a piece of cake? I haven’t had any yet,” that last part was a lie.

“In the middle of a dance?” he asked suspiciously.

Still suspicious, he turned his head again.

I repeated my move of grabbing his jaw, but he fought it this time, and I saw it when he saw it.

Shit!

We were mostly just swaying, but he stopped us doing that when he looked down at me, and his expression wasn’t sexy or sultry or flirty.

He was ticked.

“Ye ken?” he asked, his voice a lash.

He knew too?

“You know?” I asked back.

He stepped out of my arms. “What were ye gonna do? Cover for her?”

“No,” I snapped, not believing he’d think I’d do that.

Especially after what he knew Chad did to me.

“I was trying to distract you with getting me cake so I could go behind the groom’s lounge, talk your parents into doing whatever they’re going to do elsewhere, and finding somewhere quiet to commit matricide so Alex won’t know I murdered our mother at her wedding.

I’ll talk to the police about not sharing my crime until she returns from her honeymoon.

And I’m happy I wore dark green so the blood stains won’t be too obvious on my mugshot. ”

He glowered at me.

I didn’t have time for him to be ticked.

Something had to be done before someone started yelling.

He didn’t get over being ticked, or glowering, but he stopped doing that last aimed at me and started prowling across the dance floor.

Tragedy!

I hustled after him as fast as my gold mules would take me.

I did not catch up. His legs were long, and he wasn’t wearing high heels. But I didn’t stop rushing while trying not to look like I was rushing and smiling a tight smile at anyone who caught my eyes.

Maybe they’d think I was ordering another case of champagne to be opened, um…with urgency.

Yes, I’d totally be a shit spy.

I turned the corner of the groom’s lounge and ran right into Dair’s broad back.

“We do not need an audience for this,” Balfour was saying.

I stepped to the side and got a full view of the very unhappy threesome.

Wait, it was an unhappy twosome: Balfour and Kenna.

Mum was veritably preening.

She was such a fucking piece of work.

“Take Mum back to the hotel,” Dair ordered his father.

“Alasdair, this doesn’t involve ye,” Balfour retorted.

And he looked a fool doing it, with my mother’s deep rose lipstick smeared all over his mouth.

It was smeared all over hers too.

Kenna was standing off to the side, looking like her world just ended.

She’d seen them necking.

She maybe knew before, perhaps she was unsure, perhaps living in denial, but she wasn’t in any question about it now.

And again, she’d always been kind to me.

Not to mention, I knew exactly how this felt.

But I didn’t have forty years of marriage under my belt with Chad.

These thoughts filled my veins with so much fire, I had to let some out.

It came from my mouth, and I directed it at who deserved it.

My mother.

“I never thought much of you, but are you really this woman?” I demanded hotly.

“Blake,” Bally said more calmly. “If ye’d take my son?—”

“No,” I snapped at him. “This is my sister’s wedding. I’ve known what kind of man you are for years, but this is a new low.”

Bally flinched.

Dair pulled me to his side and repeated to his father, “Take Mum back to the hotel.”

Balfour was repeating too. “This doesn’t involve either of ye.”

Dair’s bark of laughter this time had zero amusement.