The Makeshift Groom: A Romantic Comedy (Wrong Way Weddings Book 5) Read online

  The Makeshift Groom

  Wrong Way Weddings Book 5

  Lori Wilde &

  Pam Andrews Hanson

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  About the Authors

  Also by Lori Wilde & Pam Andrews Hanson

  Excerpt from The Royal Groom—Leigh’s Story

  1

  “I’m here about the wedding dress.”

  Jude Bailey’s intercom distorted voices in strange ways, but this was the first time it had made someone sound uber sexy.

  Hmm. She hadn’t noticed that beguiling drawl in her visitor’s voice when she’d talked to him on the phone yesterday. Maybe she’d been too eager to sell the cursed dress to notice.

  Hesitating, she gnawed her bottom lip. Was it safe to just let him up? Maybe she should go to the courtyard, but that meant hauling the source of her shame—that darned wedding dress—down the stairs of her third-floor walk-up on a blustery November 4th afternoon and well…just no.

  But she was desperate to unload the dress for some fast cash. She needed the thing out of her house and out of her mind so she could finally move on from the source of her greatest humiliation. Her ad had run for three days, and this guy was the only one who’d shown any interest.

  “What’s your name?” she asked, consulting the note she’d jotted down the previous day.

  “Tom Brunswick.”

  He’d gotten that part right. Should she buzz him up or not?

  “Look,” he said. “I get that you’re probably nervous about letting me into your apartment. That’s smart. You can bring the dress down to me if that works better for you.”

  The fact that he offered eased her nervousness. Quickly, she texted her cousin Leigh and told her what the situation was, just to be safe. Although she wasn’t sure how much help Leigh could be, living in another country.

  “It’s a big dress and a three-story walk-up. I’ll buzz you in.” She pushed the button to let him into the vestibule, opened her door a crack with the chain on, and waited for him to climb the stairs to her apartment.

  While she waited, she mused. What kind of man bought a wedding dress for his fiancée? What kind of bride would go along with that? It sounded a bit controlling. Just like Jaxon.

  At the thought of her ex, she cringed.

  Forget Jaxon. You’re better off without him.

  Yes, she understood she’d dodged a bullet, but getting stood up at the church in front of a hundred guests could do a number on a woman’s self-confidence.

  She shook her spine. Head in the game.

  If Tom Brunswick was bargain hunting, he’d come to the right place. Like her Craig’s List ad said, she was open to all offers, whatever it took to get the wretched thing out of her closet.

  From her vantage point, she could see the top of his head with his dark-brown hair, brushed back off his forehead and just long enough to appear unruly in a sexy way.

  An instant later, he climbed the last step and any resemblance to a shaggy dog ended at his hairline. He was a genuine hunk, six feet of muscle and sex appeal packed into a worn brown leather bomber jacket and tight faded jeans.

  Whoa! A warm tingle lit up her stomach. It had been a while since she’d noticed men in that way, and it felt good to have blood flow in her lower regions again.

  “You’re Jude?” He glanced at his phone. “Jude Bailey?”

  “Yes.”

  He raised his head and his gaze. His eyes landed on hers and he offered up a charming grin. “Any kin to the Bailey Baby Products Baileys?”

  “Distant cousins,” she said.

  She might be descended from the same great grandparents as the wealthy Baileys, and her cousin Leigh had literally married into royalty, but Jude’s branch of the family hadn’t inherited the money-making—or apparently—the good-matchmaking gene. Her own parents had been married for forty years so she had that going for her.

  Although her folks had moved to Florida last year when Dad retired. Her older brother Mike was happily married to his high school sweetheart and they had a new baby girl. Everyone in her family had found someone to share their lives with. Why couldn’t she?

  And even though she had lots of friends, sometimes Jude felt lonely not having family close by.

  “Do you want to bring the dress into the hallway?” The stranger eyed her through the door crack.

  “Oh, no, sorry.” Why did gorgeous men always make her act like a total dodo? “Just let me take the chain off.”

  She unintentionally slammed the door in his face with a loud bang, then fumbled with the chain and opened it again, relieved that he was still standing there. “Come in. The dress is right here on the couch.”

  Waving him into the room, she left the door wide open…just to be safe.

  He stepped into the living room and slowly appraised her from where she hovered in the entryway. “You look about right.”

  “What?” She eyed the hallway in case she needed to run or scream and kept her cell phone in her hand.

  “For the dress.”

  “Huh?” She closed one eye and canted her head, hoping a different angle would help her make more sense of what he was saying. Was he being weird?

  He gave her the once-over, from the top of her head to her feet and back up again.

  Jude imagined his dark-brown laser eyes dissolving her clothes. Oops. That was not what she should be thinking.

  “The size.”

  Oh. Not a weirdo after all. “As I said in the ad, it’s a size six.”

  “Same size as Tara, but I wanted to make sure.” He looked from Jude to the dress that she’d artfully fanned out over the back of the couch.

  “Tara is your fiancée?”

  “My sister is the bride,” he said. “You thought I was buying a used wedding dress for my fiancée?”

  “No, no.” Yes. But if his sister was the bride, why was he buying the dress?

  “Tara is my twin actually.” He rubbed his hands on the sides of his jeans, then lifted one sleeve of the gown, seemingly checking the length without touching the beaded bodice. “She’s a little taller than you, but this should still work.”

  “Why did your sister send you to buy her wedding dress?” Jude asked, unable to contain her curiosity.

  “This is a last-minute replacement. Tara had a dress being altered, but there was a fire at the bridal shop. Heavy smoke and water damage. The shop will refund her money, but not until the insurance pays out which will be weeks. In the meantime, she needs an affordable alternative.”

  “How terrible for her,” Jude murmured, unable to tell whether he approved of the dress or not. “It’s really nice of you to help her find a replacement. When’s the wedding?”

  “This Saturday.”

  “Wow, just three days away. She must be desperate, but why she’d send you? Doesn’t she want to see the dress for herself?”

  “I showed her the pics you posted in your online ad, and she gave me a thumbs-up to buy it if it’s in as good a shape as the ad said it is. Tara’s a pilot and she’s grounded in Salt Lake until the freak late season snowstorm there abates. She’ll get here in time for the wedding, but not in time to shop for a n
ew dress.”

  “She must be frantic, trying to get home for the wedding, and she doesn’t even have a gown.” Jude tried to imagine a female version of Tom with his dark bedroom eyes, rumpled dark hair, and dynamite good looks.

  “You said the dress has never been worn?”

  “No—I mean yes, that’s what I said. It’s brand new. I couldn’t take it back because there’s no return on wedding gowns.”

  “You were going to wear it?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No.” She swallowed back a sigh. “Things didn’t work out.”

  “I hate to hear that.”

  “It was for the best.” She forced a smile.

  “What happened?” His tone made it clear he was just being polite and didn’t really care that she’d gotten jilted on her wedding day, but his question still bothered her. She wasn’t past the hurt yet.

  “Yes, apparently at the last minute my ex decided he preferred a stock car racer to a quiet bookworm.”

  “Ouch,” Tom said. “That sucks.”

  Yes, indeed. “He also said I was boring.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry.” He probably meant he was sorry he’d asked.

  “It was six months ago. I’m over it.” For the most part, she was over Jaxon, but she wasn’t over the “boring” comment. “Of course, my parents had to pay for the reception hall they’d rented, and my aunt Ellen doesn’t know what to do with the four pounds of hand-molded pastel mints in her freezer. Does your sister need any candy wedding bells?”

  “Uh, no, thanks.” He looked like he wanted to get out of there ASAP. “About the dress—are you sure you want to sell it? I mean, a nice person like you, I’m sure you’ll get a chance to wear it eventually.”

  Nice. That cursed word again.

  “I need the closet space.” She didn’t tell him how fervently she wanted to get it out of her apartment, out of the suburb of Roseville, and preferably out of the state of Illinois. Start over somewhere new and exciting.

  “I can understand that.” He glanced around at the tiny one-bedroom apartment.

  “Why did you call me a ‘nice’ person?”

  “Well...” He averted his gaze, pretending to study the voluminous skirt of the wedding dress. “You do seem nice.”

  Something inside her snapped. He was a stranger. She had nothing whatsoever to lose by asking him The Big Question. So she asked.

  “I am nice, really nice, so why don’t hot guys like you want to marry nice women like me?”

  He raised his arms in a gesture of surrender. “Miss—Jude, I don’t know you well enough to—”

  She leaned in. “No, I really want to know. What’s wrong with being nice?”

  “Just because some jerk broke up with you—”

  “He dumped me at the church when I was about to put on the dress, and then he tried to tell me I’m too good for him.” Why was she telling him all this? Zip your lip, Bailey.

  “Look.” He raised his palms. “I had no idea what was in that guy’s head, but there’s nice, and then there’s being a doormat. Maybe that’s the real problem. Do you let people walk all over you?”

  “I’m not a doormat.” Was she?

  He shrugged and lifted the other lacy sleeve of the gown. “I think Tara will like this.”

  “Fine. You can have the dress for three hundred less than I paid for it. I can show you the receipt, but only if you tell me what’s wrong with being nice. I bet you’ve broken up with women and used the same lame excuse that she was too good for you. Or that she’s too sweet. Or you just wanted to be friends.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever said that...exactly.” He ran a finger around his collar and glanced at the front door. “But let me just text Tara to see if the dress will do.”

  “Go right ahead.” Jude flapped a hand. “I can wait.”

  Whew, boy.

  Jude Bailey might be cute as the dickens, but right now, holding his feet to the fire the way she was, she didn’t seem all that “nice” to Tom.

  He texted Tara a picture of the dress—and told her Jude’s sob story and why the brand-new bridal gown was so cheap—but his twin didn’t answer right away.

  Darn it. He wanted to grab that dress and get out of there.

  That left an awkward silence between them as Jude stood near the open door, her phone in her hand as if she intended on calling 911 at the slightest provocation.

  Message received. She was the cautious type and she didn’t trust him. Not that he could blame her. He was a stranger, and she was home alone.

  “Could I see the receipt?” he asked just to make sure he was getting the dress at the discount she offered.

  “First,” she said. “Answer my question.”

  Tom grimaced. It wasn’t an easy question to answer. She’d hit a sore spot. He’d used precisely those same words just days ago to break up with a cute, but marriage-minded redhead he’d been seeing for a couple of weeks.

  He wasn’t the love-’em-and-leave-’em type. He just enjoyed his freedom too much to settle down right now. His handcrafted furniture store was finally a success, and he wanted to bask in that glow for a while.

  And then there was the ridiculous no-sex bar bet he’d made with his best buddies just last night—Jake, Dirk, and Seth. For the first time since they’d met in their frat house at the University of Illinois, all four of them were flying solo at the same time.

  After a basketball game that Tom and Seth won, they ended up at a trendy nightclub lamenting their trouble with women. The drunken conversation had devolved into a celibacy challenge along the lines of their favorite frat house classic movie—40 Days and 40 Nights.

  At some point, Dirk, a day trader, slapped three hundred dollars on the middle of the pool table and ponied up a bet that sent the rest of them running to the ATM.

  “Forty day and forty nights, lads,” Dirk said in a horrible imitation of an Irish accent. “Twelve hundred dollars up for grabs. No sex for forty days and that includes refraining from… er…shall we say…self-care. Whoever lasts the longest wins the pot.”

  They’d done a similar challenge in their college days, and Tom had lost on the thirty-ninth day when a waitress he’d been crushing on slipped him her phone number. As it turned out, Dirk had put her up to the seduction, leaving Tom feeling cheap and used.

  Dirk hadn’t let him forget it either. For ten years he’d been bragging about besting Tom, who was easily the most competitive of their group and had gotten his head turned by a sexy wiggle and soft giggle.

  This time, Tom was determined to win that bet and put an end to Dirk’s gloating once and for all.

  “Well?” Jude asked, fixing him with her intelligent blue eyes.

  Tom blinked, momentarily lost in thought. “Huh?”

  “What’s wrong with being nice?”

  “Um, it’s not the niceness per se.”

  “No?” She didn’t look as if she was buying it.

  “Sometimes, the chemistry just isn’t there. Or maybe the timing is wrong.” He shrugged, wishing she’d let the whole thing go.

  “Bad chemistry.” She wrinkled her pert little nose and stared at him. “Next you’ll tell me men do like nice women—but only as pals.”

  He shifted from one foot to the other, torn between wanting to cheer her up and yearning to escape because those rosy lips puckered into a kissable O where doing him in and thirty-nine days stood between him and twelve hundred dollars and the title of sole survivor.

  “About the dress—”

  “I’m sick of being a nice woman and getting dumped for it. I’m changing my image,” she declared.

  “You’ve been dumped more than once?”

  She made a face that he took as a yes.

  Umm, okay. It seemed he’d walked in on her struggling with some emotional demons. Not really his circus or his monkeys. Her shoulders slumped, and he was afraid she’d start crying. He should have known there was some kind of emotional inju
ry behind a never-worn wedding dress.

  Jude wrung her hands. “I want to change. I just don’t have a clue where to start.”

  Why was she asking him for advice? What did he know about committed relationships? His self-preservation instincts told him to leave it alone, but her big baby-blues reeled him in. She needed help.

  Boy, did she need help!

  What the heck? Advice was free. Right?

  “You don’t need to change your personality. Just your attitude.”

  “Excuse me?” That seemed to tick her off. Her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed, and she looked quite fierce. There was spunk in this woman, and she didn’t even seem to know it.

  He had one foot in quicksand. It was definitely time to fall back and regroup. Jude Bailey was gorgeous. Long, dark, silky hair. Luscious curves that couldn’t be concealed by her jeans and a bulky red sweatshirt. An adorable round face with a sexy mouth and big blue doe eyes.

  “You’re cute. You come across as open, caring...” He nearly said nice. “What you need to consider is that men like a bit of mystery. Be more aloof. Casual. Act like you don’t care.”

  And don’t ask strangers for lovelorn advice, he wanted to add.

  “My mother told me all that when I first started dating, but you make it sound like you’re leaking tribal secrets. I’m as aloof as the next woman.”

  If she was aloof, he was the Abominable Snowman. In fact, everything he’d seen so far showed she was just the opposite: forthright, sweet, vulnerable—a very nice woman. One a guy could take home to meet his parents. Exactly the sort of woman he wasn’t looking for. Especially now. He had twelve hundred dollars to win and a decade of ribbing to end.

  “It’s the best I can offer,” he said. “When the chemistry is right with a guy, you’ll know it. Trust your gut.”

  She sighed. “I almost flunked freshman chemistry in college, so there’s that. Do you want the dress or not?”