“But—”
Heather’s smile fell. “Please, can we save the twenty questions thing for later? I’m working on zero sleep and enough stress to take down a buffalo. If I lose it now, I’ll never find it again.”
“Sure,” Caitlin managed, trying not to take offense, because she did always ask way too many questions, but how was she supposed to help herself? These were her people and she wanted them back. Shelving that for the moment, she smiled at Sammie.
Sammie stared at her with the biggest brown eyes she’d ever seen, but didn’t return the smile.
Caitlin tried another smile, because seriously, everyone liked her, even cats, which, along with roses, she was allergic to. Being liked was kind of her thing.
But Sammie’s deadpan expression never changed.
“Don’t take it personally,” Heather said. “She’s just super shy. Probably because it’s been just her and me.”
Caitlin had a million questions, starting with why, if the baby daddy was around, had it been just Heather and Sammie? And also, why hadn’t it been Cat and Heather and Sammie? But just then another car pulled up the driveway. She and Heather turned in unison, but Caitlin was pretty sure she was the only one whose heart was suddenly threatening to explode from her chest, because Maze was getting out of the passenger seat, followed by a guy from behind the wheel. He reached for Maze’s hand and smiled down at her. “Ready, sweetness?”
Maze’s gaze had locked on Caitlin, face grim. “As I’ll ever be.”
“Hey,” Caitlin called out. “Weddings are fun, dammit!”
Maze’s mouth twitched, but her eyes remained wary . . . and nervous, Caitlin realized, which softened her in a big way. Of all of them, Maze was the toughest nut to crack, even more so than Walker, and that was saying something because she was pretty sure Walker had been born and immediately dipped in Kevlar.
“Okay,” she said. “So weddings aren’t always fun, but mine will be.”
Next to her, Heather gave a low laugh. “She decrees it so.”
Maze smiled at that and walked up to them, stopping in front of Caitlin.
“Hi,” Caitlin said softly.
“Hi,” Maze said back, just as softly.
“Good to see you.”
“Same.”
“You brought a guy,” Caitlin said.
“If you’ll remember, you demanded I do so. You said, and I quote, ‘Don’t you dare show up without your boyfriend.’”
“Yeah, but that was a few months ago. You don’t have relationships that last weeks, let alone months.”
“Thanks for the reminder.” Maze turned and hugged Heather before coming back to Caitlin.
“Are we okay?” Caitlin asked quietly.
“As okay as we ever are.”
“That’s not saying much.”
Maze touched her finger to the tip of her nose and then sighed dramatically when Caitlin could no longer stop herself and pulled her in for a tight hug.
“Don’t waste your energy trying to escape,” Heather said. “Just give in. It’s easier, trust me.”
Maze gave a small laugh, relaxed against Caitlin, and finally hugged her back.
And since that was what Caitlin had been waiting on, she let go. “See, was that so bad?” She looked up at Maze’s boyfriend, whom she knew nothing about. Getting info out of Maze was harder than infiltrating the CIA.
“Hi,” he said with an affable smile as he held out a hand. “I’m Jace.”
He was tall, lanky, good-looking, and at ease, which gave him brownie points. Clearly, he didn’t yet realize he’d just joined the circus.
“I’m Caitlin,” she said, “and this is Heather and Sammie.”
Jace turned to little Sammie and gave her a big grin.
She gave him a big, sticky-looking grin back and held out her arms, the universal demand for up.
Caitlin blinked in surprise.
So did Heather.
Without missing a beat, Jace obliged Sammie and scooped her up, making her giggle and adding about a bazillion points to his pro column. He bounced Sammie a few times and poked her in the belly, making her giggle some more, and the sweet baby laughter made Caitlin’s ovaries turn over and weep.
So did the sight of Dillon’s BMW turning the corner. He’d hurried and returned, just like he’d told her he would, and gratitude and affection filled her. She smiled and waved, and he waved back . . . and then pulled into the garage, shutting the door behind him and going directly inside without coming out to be introduced.
And just like that, Caitlin’s anxiety was back. “So.” She gave her best pageant smile. “Who needs a drink?”
Chapter 2
Maze’s to-do list:
—Remember to zip your mouth instead of run it. Sometimes it’s okay to just shh . . .
Maze had lots of pleasure buttons. Skinny-dipping. Off-roading just a little too fast. Online shopping. Romance novels. But nowhere on that list were reunions or weddings, so this had potential disaster written all over it—from a personal standpoint anyway.
And then there was the fact that she was back in Wildstone. If anyone ever asked what she’d thought of her time in the small California beach and ranching community, she’d have said it was a good place to grow up.
In truth, it was the best place to grow up and the only place she’d ever considered home.
So coming back was . . . hard. But this was about Cat, not her. Not that that stopped her from jumping on Cat’s offer of a drink.
And despite everything, damn, it was good to see Heather and Cat’s bossy-ass self. So good. But she’d stayed away on purpose, and even after ten minutes she knew leaving again on Sunday would kill her.
Jace handed Sammie back to Heather and took Maze’s hand like a loving boyfriend as they moved toward the cabin. He leaned in. “You do realize you could scare the devil himself with that fake smile, right?”
Shit. She shook herself and tried again, curving her lips, trying to will a smile into her eyes. “Better?”
“Sure. For filming a horror flick.”
She rolled her eyes and made him laugh. And in turn, his laugh made her smile, a real one this time. They both lived in Santa Barbara, Jace in a small boutique hotel he also owned and ran, Maze in a teeny-tiny studio apartment just outside of town—because she liked to be close to everything she needed, but not too close.
She really did like Jace—as a friend and also as her boss, since she worked as a bartender in his hotel. There was a lot of genuine affection between them, but happily absolutely zero chemistry, which had allowed a real friendship to take hold, rare for Maze. She didn’t like to let people in. Jace was one of the few.
His own bad luck, because when Caitlin had asked Maze if she’d be bringing a date to the wedding, she’d stupidly made up a boyfriend. Since in reality, she hadn’t had a date in too long to remember, and since Jace had recently been dumped by his last girlfriend for being “too nice,” Maze had recruited him for the role.
“Better,” he said about her so-called smile. “Now you just look like you’re in the mood to kill only puppies, not the whole planet. So . . .” He looked around, taking in the lake, the cabin, the rolling hills all around them. “Where is he?”