Blissed (Misfit Brides #1) (3 page)

Marilyn Elias. Chairwoman.

Knot Festival.

Queen General.

No. No, not just
no
.
Hell
, no.

CJ opened his mouth. No. One word, two letters. He could say it.

He
had
to say it.

The Queen General blinked rapidly several times. Her eyes went unnaturally shiny. “The entire committee, of course, wishes your wife could be beside you. Such a tragedy.” Suddenly she had a handkerchief in hand, dabbing at tears he suspected were made of cyanide. “But we believe you, a widower of a decorated military heroine and one of our most popular former Husbands of the Year, deserve the opportunity to compete to be crowned Bliss’s Husband of the Half Century.” Marilyn turned to a couple CJ hadn’t noticed lurking behind her. “Surely
you
know what a wonderful husband this man was.”

CJ’s world twisted another crank.

They weren’t random wedding guests.

They were Serena’s parents, Bob and Fiona. CJ’s in-laws.

He hadn’t seen them since her funeral. He’d planned to stop by their place tomorrow. Say hi. See how they were doing since the flood, since Bob’s battle with cancer last year.

But there they were—here,
now
—at his sister’s wedding with the Queen General of Bliss, waiting for him to accept or decline a reenactment of his wedding week.

This time without his bride.

Fiona smiled a watery, wobbly, this-would-mean-the-world-to-me kind of smile, her mouth wrinkling in the corners, the sag under her eyes suggesting she’d aged more than four years since the funeral.

Bob watched him with hopeful expectation, and CJ saw Serena’s ghost pleading with him through her father’s tired eyes.
You promised. You promised we’d come back here and have a big party with our families for our fifth anniversary.

The Queen General—apt name, that—turned back to CJ with a beseeching look that was ruined by the freaky don’t-fuck-with-me quality behind her tear shine. “Please, Mr. Blue. Please do us the honor of agreeing to participate in the Golden Husband Games in your wife’s honor.”

The niggling thought he’d been suppressing burst forth. He cast a glance around the vestibule, but the suddenly nauseatingly irritating Natalie was nowhere to be seen.

A sea of his sisters in their green bridesmaid dresses were, though. All his cousins. All his aunts. A handful of Dylan and Saffron’s musician buddies.

All watching him. Waiting. Judging him.

He couldn’t breathe.

“Let us help you honor Serena’s memory,” Marilyn Elias said.

This woman could take all his sisters together in the contest for crazy-scary. Hell if he’d be anybody’s poster boy—
Poster boy
.

Natalie had been bitching about
CJ
.

The Exalted Widower. The Queen General’s poster boy.

None of them had a clue what they were asking.

Who
they were asking.

“I’m certain he’ll be honored,” Basil said.

CJ stepped back, but the plaintive hope brightening Fiona’s weathered face made him choke on his denial.

“But of course he’ll have to give it due consideration and consult his calendar,” Basil continued.

The Queen General beamed. “Of course, my dear CJ. Of course. And the Knot Fest committee will be pleased to offer you any assistance necessary in making your decision. Do enjoy your sister’s wedding today. And call me if I may be of
any
help.” She slipped a card into his vest and retreated out of the church, his relatives giving the woman a wide berth.

He didn’t want to call her.

He didn’t want to stay in Bliss.

He didn’t want to play in the Golden Husband Games.

Living with eleven sisters, though, CJ had acquired more than his share of knowledge about women. And he knew what he wanted didn’t matter. This Queen General woman had a plan. A plan for him. He could fight it all he wanted, but the truth was simple. His future was no longer entirely within his own control.

N
ATALIE WAS IN her car, a cathedral-train-length away from escaping St. Valentine’s parking lot when the Queen General stepped out of the front of the church and into the path of Natalie’s car. Nat wanted to keep going. She still hadn’t caught her breath or calmed her heart after the horrific realization that she’d just bared her soul to CJ Blue.
All
of her soul.

That she didn’t belong in Bliss.

That she once wanted to be the Queen General.

That he wrecked her marriage.

The QG was going to kill her.

Hang her from the center gazebo on the Bliss courthouse lawn with a giant D tattooed on her forehead and a
Divorcees Be Warned, Thou Art Not Welcome in Bliss
sign pinned to her dress. Because obviously Natalie would be in a dress. An ugly-ass, second-hand black bridesmaid dress, most likely.

There was some appeal to the thought of letting her car run over Marilyn.

But the car stopped of its own volition under the power of the QG’s frosty glare. Possibly because the car knew in a match between it and the QG, the QG would win. Or maybe the car stopped because Natalie didn’t much like the idea that her son could grow up visiting Mommy in prison.

Still, that would be better than his growing up without her at all. Was it possible to die of mortification? She hadn’t yet, but the day was still young.

She threw the car into park and rolled her window down.

“Miss Castellano.” Disdain dripped from the QG’s turned-down, painted lips.

Natalie swallowed hard. Her mother had led the Husband Games subcommittee for the Knot Festival, reporting to Queen General Marilyn for almost as many years as Natalie had been alive. By tradition, Natalie should’ve inherited her mother’s place on the committee. It was how things were done in Bliss.

But the QG had denied Natalie the privilege of formally continuing her mother’s legacy. Were it not for Dad, Natalie would’ve had no role in Knot Fest at all. Instead, he’d convinced the QG to let Natalie represent the Castellano family for one last Knot Fest in Mom’s honor.

The QG had ultimately relented and put Natalie on the janitorial subcommittee.

Being the QG, she had the capability to do worse.

Much worse.

Especially after catching Natalie in a confessional with CJ Blue.

She swallowed once more, harder. “Mrs. Elias, nice to see you again.”

“It is my pleasure,” the QG said, not sounding pleased in the least, “to present to you the news that Mr. CJ Blue has been invited to play in the Golden Husband Games.”

She stopped and peered at Natalie expectantly, as though Nat was supposed to burst into a round of applause and make a few catcalls for a kiss.

“Fantastic,” Natalie said. The chorus of
shit
s and
dammit
s in her head were quickly adding up to a few more dollars she owed Noah’s college fund. Today had been very profitable for the little guy.

“I’m not interested in your opinion, Miss Castellano,” the QG said. “I’m informing you so that you understand that he
will
accept his invitation, and that
you
will have nothing further to do with him for the duration of his stay in Bliss. If I ever catch you in a compromising position with him again, I will not only remove you completely from the Knot Fest committee, but I will also do everything in my power to remove you from The Aisle. Are we clear?”

As clear as the ice forming in Natalie’s veins. “Yes.”

While the QG had
formally
taken the Husband Games job from Natalie, the truth of what Natalie was doing was a bit stickier. And if she were completely—and no doubt publicly—removed from the Knot Fest committee entirely, the golden anniversary of Mom’s lifelong pet project would be nearly impossible to secretly keep afloat.

Nat never wished she’d stayed married to Derek, and she never wished she hadn’t had Noah, but being divorced was a pain in the ass.

And that was a dime she’d happily give Noah’s college fund.

“We all have to live with our choices, Miss Castellano. I suggest you give your future wiser consideration than you have your past. Starting now.”

If Natalie had a couple do-overs, she’d fix a lot of things. But she didn’t have do-overs. She had do-your-bests.

She also had an ugly suspicion that her time of doing her best in Bliss had just been shrunk like cotton in a dryer.

Once again, she was letting her mother down.

The QG stepped back from the car, gave a regal nod, and tucked her forearms behind her back. “Enjoy your afternoon, Miss Castellano.”

Natalie nodded meekly. She pulled away at a fraction of the speed her heart was racing. Mortification and regret were still giving her soul indigestion, and while she’d developed a pretty thick hide over the last five years, her eyes and throat burned as badly as they had at her mother’s funeral.

A nice afternoon?

Not in Bliss.

Chapter Two

N
ATALIE’S FAVORITE black pencil skirt and Mom’s pearls weren’t a total cure for the way her day was going, but she indulged herself with a quick trip home to change into them anyway. Because she needed
something
to get through the rest of today.

Not only was her heart still doing the turn-yourself-around part of The Hokey Pokey from the confessional incident, but she had issues to deal with at the shop. Fewer brides were booking appointments, the coffee maker was acting up, and today, one of the bridal consultants had called in sick. She couldn’t call Dad back from his grandpa-grandson playday with Noah so she could hide from her life and her responsibilities. Not when there was so much to do to keep the boutique running.

Not to mention the Husband Games.

After all her parents had done for her and Noah, she owed it to them to keep her life together. She owed them a hell of a lot more than she could ever repay.

So fifteen minutes after she left St. Valentine’s, she pulled on her
everything’s-fine-here
mask and marched into Bliss Bridal.

Since the flood three years ago, the entire boutique had been redone. Better lighting, faux marble floor, bigger dressing rooms, better layout, bigger selection of accessories, more efficient kitchenette and comfier chairs for the bridal parties that came along for the bride’s big shopping day. The second floor, where the bridesmaid dresses and the in-house seamstress shop were—which was where Natalie had happily hidden after her divorce and before her mom’s passing—was bigger, brighter and fresher too.

But the one thing that hadn’t changed was the way the shop smelled of wedding cake.

Because they shared a wall with Heaven’s Bakery, which was run by the QG.

Natalie’s steps faltered just inside the boutique, and her stomach flopped.

The boutique wasn’t hers. It had been her mother’s, now her father’s, and one day—probably one day soon—he’d discover it wasn’t doing as well as she pretended it was, and he’d sell it. And Natalie would have to find where she belonged in the world.

Because it wasn’t here. Not in Bliss’s wedding business. Not with the QG next door.

Amanda, Bliss Bridal’s floor manager, paused with an armful of dresses on her way toward the front dressing room. “Big mess up in alterations over that doggie maid of honor dress, but I think they have it under control now. Two brides canceled their appointments tomorrow. And you have visitors in the office.” She took two more steps, then looked closer. “Nat? Everything okay?”

No
. “Great. After you’re done, hop online and start commenting on next week’s brides’ Pinterest boards. Be people to them—you know, connect personally. That’s harder to cancel.” She swung herself back into motion, her heels making staccato clicks to the time of a John Legend love song filtering softly through the room. No time to dwell on her latest mistakes.

She’d make another one soon enough, and she’d need her energy to deal with that.

The office and kitchenette were through a door behind the checkout counter. Since Natalie had taken over more and more of her mom’s duties while Dad retreated further and further from boutique life, she’d relocated from her spot as head of alterations upstairs to her mom’s old office. In the six months since Mom died, this was the first time she’d had unexpected visitors.

Much to her relief, they were welcome guests. “Jeremy! Gabby!” Her eyes welled unexpectedly, and she stepped into the room to hug them each in turn. “How are you two?”

Jeremy was Natalie’s favorite bartender at Suckers, her favorite bar in town, though she’d been too busy for months to stop in for a drink. He could’ve been a stunt double for The Rock, and he’d saved Natalie’s hide when he’d agreed to be Bliss Bridal’s bachelor for the annual bachelor auction last Christmas.

Gabby was his polar opposite—a petite blonde with more brains in her pinky than most people had in their whole heads—but she’d won him at the auction.

And today, she was sporting a new diamond.

A thick knot of something entirely too close to envy lodged in Natalie’s throat. The welling in her eyes morphed into something with a sting. She latched onto Gabby’s left hand, twisting it to make the rock sparkle. “Oh,
beautiful
.” Didn’t matter how hard Nat blinked, she couldn’t entirely clear her vision.

They both smiled, more at each other than at her. They’d join the ranks of married Bliss, and they’d live their own happily ever after. And Natalie would be happy for them. “When’s the big day?”

“The Saturday after the Games,” Gabby said.

“Would’ve been her parents’ anniversary,” Jeremy added.

Gabby shushed him. “It’s a very practical date.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Natalie wasn’t entirely following the nuances and hidden messages in their conversation, but she knew
the look
. The I’ve-found-the-only-one-for-me look. The we-make-each-other-right look. The I-love-you-above-all-else look.

This
was what Bliss was supposed to do for couples.