Sweet on You (The Bridesmaids Club Book 4) (2 page)

Over the last ten years, he’d made more money that most people did in their lifetime. He had good friends and a family who loved him. But that hadn’t made any difference to where he was today. He was thirty-three-years-old, single, and wondering where he’d gone wrong.

As his gaze scanned the dance floor, he knew exactly where he’d gone wrong. Molly O’Donaghue gazed into the eyes of the man she was dancing with. The slow, sexy smile on her face gave him another reason to feel sorry for himself.

The first time he’d seen Molly had been at his brother’s bachelor party. Eighteen months later, she still didn’t want to have anything to do with him. She was smart, sassy, and everything he could get used to.

Emily, his sister-in-law, nudged his arm. “Are you going to sit there all night, or ask me to dance?”

Jacob pushed what he was thinking to the back of his mind. “I don’t want you going into labor. That baby of yours is huge.”

Emily patted her round tummy and grinned. “We’re weeks away from our due date. Come on…I promise not to stand on your toes.”

Jacob pushed his chair back and helped Emily to her feet. “Considering you can’t see your own toes, I doubt you’ll be able to get close enough to mine.”

“You can’t distract me with the obvious. Lead the way.”

Jacob looked for his brother. Alex was at the next table, talking with Pastor Steven and his wife. Alex winked at his wife as she passed him and Emily blew him a kiss.

Jacob wanted what his brother and Emily had, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t happen anytime soon.

The music changed and another slow song drifted over the dance floor. He looked down at Emily and sighed. “I’ll waltz with you, but anything more upbeat and I’m taking you back to our table.”

Emily grabbed his hand and pulled him forward. “I’m not going to have this baby tonight, so you can stop worrying about me. Alex does enough of that for both of you.”

“My brother should be worried. You’re five-foot nothing and as round as a ball.”

Instead of getting huffy, Emily smiled. “But I can still dance.” She turned toward him and held her arms open. “That’s if you remember how?”

The gleam in her eyes made him smile. From when they’d been little, his mom had taught her two sons how to dance. It was her way of smoothing over the bumps that their bull-riding dad made on their lives.

For most of his childhood, weekends had been spent at rodeos. They’d mixed with cowboys, buckle bunnies, and over-excited fans. During the week, when they weren’t at school, Jacob and Alex spent most of their time mucking out the barn, mending fences, and riding bulls.

Growing up on a ranch in the middle of Montana had been one of the greatest gifts anyone had given him. Jacob and his brother had made the most of their rough and tumble life, and neither of them took what they had for granted.

Emily poked his shoulder. “You’re doing it again.”

Jacob blinked. “What?”

“Drifting off somewhere that isn’t here. What’s going on?”

He maneuvered them around another couple and kept going. “Nothing’s going on.”

“You could have fooled me. That faraway look in your eyes hasn’t got anything to do with a certain photographer, has it?”

Jacob looked at his sister-in-law and frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t. You haven’t taken your eyes off Molly since you arrived. Why don’t you ask her out on a date?”

He wasn’t about to tell Emily that he’d already tried. Being turned down three times in the last two months wasn’t exactly good for anyone’s ego. After tonight, he’d gotten the message. Molly didn’t want anything to do with him.

Molly O’Donaghue, the tall brunette with a pixie haircut, chose that moment to dance past him. When she looked at him, her green eyes widened, softened, then quickly turned to her dance partner.

“She likes you,” Emily whispered.

Emily didn’t know how wrong she was. “Molly’s got other priorities.” When Emily opened her mouth to disagree, he jumped in ahead of her. “What names do you like for your baby?”

“You can’t change the subject that easily. But because you asked nicely, I’m not going to be rude and ignore you. We’ve narrowed the list down to four names. Alex and I can’t agree on the name we like the best.”

“You might not need to.” He held Emily in his arms and moved around the dance floor.

“Unless we use all four names at once, I can’t see any way around it.”

“You could always save the other three names for more babies?”

Emily sighed. “I don’t know if I want to go through three more pregnancies. Morning sickness, swollen ankles, and a sore back aren’t fun. The only good thing is that I probably won’t get to full-term with this baby.”

Jacob stopped dancing. “You’re telling me this now?”

Emily grinned. “You’re safe. Doc Johnson’s perfectly happy with how things are going. A couple of weeks early isn’t going to matter. ”

Jacob wasn’t sure his brother would agree.

Emily pulled him forward, distracting him from images of newborn babies and pregnant women. “Have you found buyers for the parcel of land you’re selling?”

Jacob started dancing. He was causing a traffic jam on the dance floor and Molly and her partner were heading their way. “A buyer from Los Angeles is arriving tomorrow afternoon. I’m going to show him around and see what happens.”

“That doesn’t sound like you?”

Jacob didn’t know what Emily was talking about. “What doesn’t sound like me?”

“You never see what happens. Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve had each day planned down to the last detail. Do you really want to sell the land?”

Jacob shrugged. His block of land sat beside the Big Sky Resort, one of the best ski resorts in America. He’d never been in a hurry to sell the ranch he’d bought two years ago. It had always been his intention to subdivide the three thousand acre block into smaller parcels, but fate and a few uncertain buyers had stopped anything from happening.

“I need to liquidate some assets. I’ve found a building in New York that I want to buy.”

Emily laughed. “The only liquidating I do is in my juicer. Why New York?”

“The potential returns are better than what I could get here.” Jacob did a quarter turn and led Emily around the two flowers girls. They were twirling in the middle of the dance floor, spinning in circles that would leave them giddy.

Emily sighed. “There’s more to life than profit margins and tenancy agreements.”

“Maybe.” Jacob wasn’t going to disagree with his pint-sized sister-in-law. Not when she was about to give birth to his brother’s first child.

He looked to his right and saw Molly and her dance partner walk toward the bar. It must be karma. Just when he was ready to settle down, he couldn’t get someone who didn’t want him, out of his head. At least Molly had been honest with him. To a man with more money than friends, that in itself meant a lot. More than anyone would ever know.

“You could always stay in Bozeman permanently?” Emily said softly. “Your mom and dad would enjoy seeing more of you.”

Jacob shook his head. “I’ve been here too long as it is. The sooner I leave, the sooner I can get back to my normal life.”

“Are you sure it’s any better than what you’ve got here?”

Jacob didn’t want to think about that for too long. He knew the answer, and it wasn’t something that made him happy. “Maybe not, but it’s all I know.”

“Don’t settle for second best, Jacob. Make every moment count.”

He’d spent his whole life making each moment count. It hadn’t done him much good. After he’d sold Emerald Lake Ranch, he’d purchase the property in Manhattan, secure the tenancy agreements, then look at other properties. He might not have the life he wanted, but he had enough money to make it better.

***

Molly slapped her hand on top of her alarm clock and rolled out of bed. Seven-thirty on a Sunday morning wasn’t exactly early, but she’d only had four hours sleep.

Becky, her sister, walked past her bedroom door. “All I’ve got to do is put my sneakers on. You’ve got five minutes to get ready.”

Molly stumbled toward the bathroom, stared at her face in the mirror, and groaned. No amount of tooth washing, hair tweaking, or running gear would make her look anything less than a mess. “Where’s the toothpaste?” she yelled down the hallway.

“Bottom drawer. Four minutes and counting.”

Molly muttered something that would have made her gran turn in her grave. When she’d originally come to Bozeman, it had been for a vacation. She’d stayed with her older sister and found something that she never thought she’d feel again. Peace.

Becky enjoyed having her around and she liked living with her sister, so she’d stayed in Montana. Over the next eighteen months, they’d slipped into a life that suited both of them. But between Becky’s early morning starts at her florist store, and Molly’s unpredictable photographic assignments, they didn’t see an awful lot of each other.

Sunday mornings were the one time when they both made an effort to be home. They’d go for a run together, get changed and have breakfast at Angel Wings Café. They’d catch up with how their week had gone and plan the following one.

Molly rushed back to her bedroom and yanked open a drawer, grabbing the first clothes she saw. “Have you got the front door keys?”

Becky walked into her room and started stretching. “In my pocket. There’s a message from Mrs. Winthrop on the phone. Are you really going to wear that?”

Molly looked down at the t-shirt she’d pulled on. It was gray, with an emerald green Trinity College logo plastered across the front. Molly reached under her bed and found her sneakers. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing, if you don’t mind looking like a college student.”

Molly tied her laces and laughed. “No one looking at the bags under my eyes could ever think I’m a college student.” She did some exercises to stretch her muscles, then rotated her shoulder blades a few times. “Are you ready?”

Becky looked at the mess in Molly’s room and shook her head. “What am I going to do with you?”

Her sister sounded so much like their grandmother that it brought tears to Molly’s eyes. “’Tis a shame when a woman who’s thirty-years-old sounds like her gran.”

Becky smiled as Molly pushed her out of their apartment. “It’s equally a shame when one of her granddaughters can’t keep her room tidy.”

Molly ignored her sister’s opinion of her bedroom. She was as different to her sister as chalk was to cheese. It made for an interesting living arrangement and more than one argument that neither of them would ever win.

As they jogged toward the first corner, Molly yawned. Her body was telling her to turn around and go back to bed.

“What time did you get home from the wedding?” Becky asked. She was hardly out of breath, zoning into running mode faster than Molly ever managed.

“Midnight. I worked on the photos for a few hours after that.”

Becky snorted. They both knew how much time Molly spent developing her photos. It took skill and a whole lot of luck to take an amazing photo. It took artistry to bring out the best in each frame, to layer light and color until the two merged into a perfect whole.

For three and a half hours, Molly had teased some of the photos into life. She’d sorted through the images, added depth and drama, softness and radiance. The extra time it took her was her gift to the happy couple.

Molly kept pace with Becky. She breathed through the worst part of their run, waiting for the kick of adrenaline to make her early wake-up call worthwhile. “How’s the world of flowers?” she asked.

Becky quickly crossed the road, speeding toward a park a couple of blocks away. “Sweet.”

Molly laughed at their old joke. They’d said the same thing to each other for as long as Becky had been a florist.

Their gran had taught them the art of flower arranging almost before they could walk. They’d helped in her flower shop, made the prettiest bouquets in County Wicklow. But it had been Becky who’d really enjoyed the challenge of creating beautiful flower arrangements. She’d taken Business Studies at College, working two part-time jobs to pay the tuition fees. And now, ten years later, she was the proud owner of the newest flower store in Bozeman.

Molly caught up with her sister. “I’ve booked our flights to Los Angeles.” Some of Molly’s photos had been accepted for an exhibition at Dunbar and Sloane, one of the most prestigious galleries in California. In six weeks’ time, she’d be heading across the country to hang her photos in their gallery. For the last few weeks, she’d been trying not to think too hard about opening night. She was terrified that no one would like her landscape images.

Becky glanced at her. “Let me know how much I owe you.”

Molly didn’t bother telling her sister that she didn’t want her money. She might be living from commission to commission at the moment, but that hadn’t always been the case. Before she’d moved to Montana, Molly had a successful career as a fashion photographer. She’d worked with the top models and designers in the world, constantly traveling around Europe. It had been everything she’d ever wanted. Until her gran died.