His eyes grew wary. “Yeah.”
She watched him, and he watched her back, moving to the music on the dimly lit dance floor, surrounded by twinkling white lights and flowers, and vocal harmonies and words about love and courage and strength. Her fingers moved on the warm skin of his neck above the collar of his shirt. “You didn’t do it,” she said quietly.
He bent his head closer to hers. “Sure I did. Got in a shitload of trouble over it too.”
“Avery did it.” She met his blue gaze. “I know she did it. Why did you take the blame?”
He swallowed. His eyes shifted away from her, then back. “She’d been drinking that night.” His voice hardened. “She shouldn’t have been driving, the stupid idiot, but thankfully she didn’t kill anyone else. Or herself.”
Tyler apparently had wrapped the car around a tree and walked away from it. But Kaelin had always known the truth, though it was another of those secrets that was never spoken of.
“She came running home in a big panic. She would have been in way worse trouble than I was,” he said gruffly. “I was sober. So I walked back to where she’d crashed and told everyone I was driving. Everyone just chalked it up to me being stupid and reckless.”
Her heart expanded in her chest until she thought she couldn’t breathe, and she leaned in closer and tightened her arms around him in a squeeze. “You’re not such a bad boy,” she whispered in his ear.
He hugged her back, his arms crushingly tight around her, his face pressed to her hair. “Yes, I am. Don’t even think otherwise. Please.”
She didn’t understand that, didn’t know what he meant, only knew that she was very likely falling in love with him all over again.
Which scared the hell out of her.
Margot wanted to slap Jean Griffin.
She stared coolly back at the other woman. Jean loved to gossip, and even though she apologized for telling Margot what she just had, Margot knew she took great delight in doing it.
“Les works the front desk here at the hotel,” Jean continued gleefully, all but rubbing her hands. “He was working the night shift last night. That’s how he saw it.”
She had to shut this rumor down, but how? Her mind spun in circles. She just didn’t even know what to say to Jean. Boys will be boys? How about that. No? Her stomach churned. When Ken heard this he was going to flip. After what had happened ten years ago? God.
But she pasted on her usual smile, that one she was so good at after all these years. “Oh for heaven’s sake,” she said lightly. “Has he nothing better to do with his time than spread silly rumors like that?”
“I just thought you should know. Before someone else tells you. You know how some people like to gossip.” And Jean moved on to talk to some others. Probably to spread the rumor, the silly bitch.
Margot bit her lip and searched the wedding crowd for her husband. The room looked lovely, though she would have added more flower arrangements and she knew that Forget Me Not Florists had a gorgeous backdrop that looked like a starry sky, which she’d seen at the Bickfords’ daughter’s wedding. It was lovely, but Kaelin had gently reminded her that Avery wanted just a few simple decorations.
There was Ken. Should she tell him? Or should she take a chance that nobody else would be interested in such gossip and it would just die away? She downed the last of the champagne in her glass, now too warm to really taste good.
And where was Tyler, the subject of the gossip? Her eyes roamed the room again. Tyler sat alone behind the head table, leaning back in his chair looking all handsome and lazy and…alone. This would be a good chance to talk to him, to talk about what had happened, perhaps to prepare him for the rumor that might be circulating even now.
“Margot.” She turned. Ken stood there, tight lipped. Shit. She closed her eyes.
“You heard.”
“What the hell was he doing?” Ken barked. “Does he have no sense whatsoever? He leaves town with a huge scandal hanging over his head—”
“Nobody knew about that,” she interrupted automatically.
“We knew about it! You’d think he could keep his pants zipped for one weekend, for Chrissake. And with Nick again…” Hs voice trailed off and he glared at her. As if it was her fault.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” she began, but he was furious, and she had to admit, she felt a small frisson of annoyance, too, that this had to happen at Avery’s wedding, when she’d had all those hopes for how this was going to go. Instead, typical Tyler, he’d come home and gotten in trouble again. She had to admit, for a moment she shared that same thought—could he not just have been on his best behavior for one weekend?
She watched Tyler finish his beer, rise out of his chair and cross the dance floor. He stopped beside Nick and Kaelin and looked down at her with such warm affection, Margot’s heart stopped.
Dear god. Not Kaelin. Her fingers flew to her mouth.
Fear and dread gnawing at her insides, she continued watching as Tyler and Kaelin moved together, dancing to the slow song in an intimate hold, body pressed to body, her arms looped around his neck, gazing up at him, his hands low on her hips. Emotion swelled inside Margot, a complex mix of joy to see Tyler smiling like that with such tenderness and happiness, fear that he was going to break Kaelin’s sweet heart, and longing for something she couldn’t even name.
“I want him out of here,” Ken snapped. “Before he ruins Avery’s wedding.”
She turned to her husband with dismay. “No. Ken. Not tonight. I’m sure it was nothing, truly.”
This couldn’t be happening all over again. She’d buried her anger and resentment toward her husband for how harshly he’d reacted last time with Tyler. Or, she thought she’d buried her anger and resentment. It was starting to seep up to the surface, resurrected by her disappointment that this wedding wasn’t apparently going to be the family reunion she’d longed for. She didn’t want to blame Ken for it all. Lord knew, she’d done her part, enabling Ken in his authoritarian discipline, trying to make everything look good on the outside, trying to make their family appear all perfect and loving, when the reality was, things were a big mess. She’d always thought she was doing the right thing, keeping Ken happy, trying desperately to keep their family together, but now… She pressed a hand to her aching heart. She did not want to live this all over again.
“It doesn’t matter if it was nothing!” he said, the words stiff and tight. “What matters is that people are talking about it!”
“Oh, for—” She curled her fingers into her palms. “You don’t know that!”
“Of course I know it! You’ve heard it, I’ve heard it, we might as well get up to the microphone and announce it to the whole wedding.”
“It doesn’t matter.” But it did matter. To him. She sighed. Maybe she could talk to Tyler alone. This time she’d handle things, and she’d handle it differently. “I’ll talk to him.”
She set off across the dance floor, her high heels clicking on the parquet floor. She paused beside Tyler and Kaelin. “Tyler.”
Tyler and Kaelin moved apart to look at Tyler’s mom, standing beside them on the dance floor. Her cheeks were red, her eyes snapped and she glared at him. Was she angry because they were dancing together?
“What, Mom?”
Mrs. Wirth glanced at Kaelin and frowned. “What are you doing, dear?” she asked.
“Um…dancing.”
“Never mind.” Mrs. Wirth waved a hand. “Tyler, I need to talk to you. Alone.”
He lifted one eyebrow and released Kaelin, the song ending just then anyway.
“Go on,” Kaelin said with a smile, though a feeling of dread crawled over her skin. She watched them walk away, Mrs. Wirth’s posture stiff, her steps in her high heels urgent, Tyler’s gait loose and easy as he sauntered beside her. They moved to one side of the ballroom and were almost immediately joined by Tyler’s dad, who folded his arms across his chest.