It is possibly the cheesiest of all wedding reception songs, but I love it. Sometimes a girl just wants to celebrate good times, and I’m not too cool to admit that.
Suddenly, I’m ready to dance all night.
If Fate hadn’t had other plans, I have no doubt I would have thrown myself into the fray and gotten my groove thing on for hours.
But Fate does step in, in the form of six feet, two inches of old flame.
At first I can’t believe it’s really him—he hasn’t been back to Bliss River in years—but there’s no mistaking that strong jawline or the shaggy brown hair that falls over his forehead just so. No mistaking those wide shoulders or that narrow waist or how utterly delicious this jerk looks in a suit.
It’s Mason Stewart, all right.
Mason Stewart, brooding at the edge of the dance floor holding a lightly sweating beer loosely between two fingers like he never left town in the first place, when in reality Mason has avoided Bliss River like the plague for four long years. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of Mason around these parts, not since the night he asked me to marry him and then ran off to New York City the very next morning.
He was offered a residency in Atlanta, only an hour away, and he’d promised to take it. To take it, and to take me with him when he left Bliss River. We’d planned on getting an apartment together in the city. I was going to get a job cooking at an amazing restaurant downtown, Mason was going to save the world, one patient at a time, and after three years of dating, we were finally going to live together.
Finally live together, and do all those other simmery, sexy things we’d never done because I was waiting for marriage, and Mason was deathly afraid of saying “I do.”
By the time Mason turned sixteen, his mother had been married eight times. Shortly after his sixteenth birthday, she left town with husband number nine and Mason went to live with his Uncle Parker, a man who made it clear he wasn’t thrilled to be saddled with his sister’s kid. Mason blamed his mom—and the ridiculous, outdated, backward institution of marriage—for the roughest years of his childhood.
To be fair, I knew how he felt about marriage long before he popped the question. I should have been suspicious the moment he dropped down on one knee.
Instead, I’d wept with happiness, slipped the ring on my finger, and stayed up half the night calling everyone I knew, breathlessly sharing the happy news.
But instead of coming by my parents’ house for Saturday brunch the next morning to celebrate our engagement, Mason had bailed on Bliss River and our happily ever after, leaving me to explain that all my giddy “I’m getting married” phone calls had been a mistake.
A mistake…
Like leaving the kitchen.
Like heading for the dance floor.
Like getting close enough to see Mason’s blue eyes flash when he spots me across the lawn, frozen like a deer in the headlights.
Chapter 2
Mason
There she is.
Standing right in front of me, close enough to see the flush in her cheeks and the shock in her expression.
Lark.
My Lark, my gut insists, though she hasn’t been mine for years, and I’m pretty sure she hates me.
I would hate me if I were her.
Hell.
This is even harder than I thought it would be.
My stomach knots around my last drink of beer, and my heart lurches to a stop only to kick into overdrive, slamming against my ribs.
I knew there was an excellent chance I’d see Lark tonight. I’d counted on it, in fact. There was no other reason to agree to be Lana Tate’s plus one to a wedding reception where I knew I’d be persona non grata—Lisa is Lark’s best friend and I’m sure she didn’t appreciate me running off after popping the question any more than the rest of Lark’s girlfriends did.
A few of them texted me after, ripping me a new one on Lark’s behalf, but I didn’t reply. I took my medicine, knowing I deserved it and that there was nothing I could do to make it better.
At least, back then there had been nothing.
But things are different now—I’m different—and seeing Lark is the entire point of being here. But now that it’s happening, now that her gaze is locked on mine, and I can see firsthand how hurt and angry she still is…
Now I’m not sure a surprise meeting was such a good idea.
Maybe I should have called first.
Or written a letter?
And what would that have read like, jackass?
“Remember me, the guy who ripped your heart out four years ago? Well, I’m back from the big city. How’s life?”
The thought of Lark reading a note like that makes me cringe.
She deserves better. She deserves me on my knees, apologizing for the shit I put her through, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.