All of Me (The Bridesmaids Club Book 1) Read online

  Logan nodded, then stuffed the envelope in his pocket.

  “If you want company when you open it, just give me a call,” Pastor Steven said.

  In a rare display of affection, Dylan wrapped his arm around Logan’s shoulders. “You can count me in, too. Any time, day or night.”

  Logan took a deep breath. He felt the weight of what the envelope represented right down to his bones.

  “You going to be all right, buddy?” Todd asked.

  “I guess this is what you call learning to live with the pain,” he mumbled.

  Pastor Steven walked across to the table and made a cup of coffee. He passed it to Logan and frowned. “We’re here to help.”

  Logan nodded. He couldn’t taste the coffee as he drank it, couldn’t have repeated a word that was being said around him.

  He waited, staying until everyone was ready to leave. It wasn’t that he was scared to face his worst fears. He was terrified.

  As he walked down Pastor Steven’s driveway, Dylan stopped him. “Call me. I’m only in Los Angeles for a couple of days.”

  Logan looked at the trucks lining the street, the houses with pretty front yards and the kids riding their bikes. He couldn’t have gotten any further from Afghanistan if he’d tried. And he had. He’d tried so hard that he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be back there again. The scorching heat, the sand that worked its way into everything. The constant threat of an enemy you didn’t see until it was too late.

  He looked at Dylan and frowned. “Is everything okay with you?”

  “Same old demons coming out to play. I’ll tell you about it when I get back from Los Angeles.”

  Logan waited for Dylan to drive away before getting in his truck. He pulled the envelope out of his pocket. Pastor Steven could have handed him the answer to his nightmares, or a psychological bomb waiting to explode. He left the envelope on the passenger seat and drove toward home.

  He didn’t know what was in the envelope and he wasn’t in a hurry to find out.

  ***

  Annie passed Molly a cup of coffee. “How many stationery stores do we have in town?”

  Sally ran her finger down the listings in the phone directory. “Six. That doesn’t include places like Walmart.”

  Molly reached for a cookie. “How many are open today?”

  “Only three listed their store hours and two are open today. So I guess that’s as good a place as any to start.”

  Tess opened her notebook and read from the notes she’d made. “All we need to do is look for someone called Connie Thompson who’s engaged to a mechanic called Dave Brown. It can’t be that hard to find her.”

  “If she doesn’t work at either of the two stores that are open, we’ll need to work out when we’re going to visit the others.” Sally looked down at her heels. “Can I use a couple of your Band-Aids, Annie?”

  “Sure.” Annie walked across to her bag and rummaged around inside. “What do you think their neighbor meant by ‘gone home’?” She passed Sally a couple of Band-Aids and looked at her feet. “Ouch. You did that this morning?”

  “Mostly last night.” Sally winced as she covered her blisters. “Gone home could mean they’re living with their parents. They could have moved out of the area.”

  Tess shook her head. “I don’t think they would have moved to another town. They’ve both got jobs in Bozeman. It wouldn’t make sense to leave, especially two weeks before their wedding.”

  Sally sat back in her chair. “So we’ve looked in the phone directory and there’s no listing for either the bride or groom-to-be. What about their parents or other family? I could stay here with someone and call all of the Thompsons and Browns in the phone book? Whoever doesn’t want to help me could visit the stationery stores?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Annie said. “I’ll stay with Sally. My head’s still a bit fuzzy from last night.”

  “Moonshine will do that to a girl,” Molly said with a smile. “So that leaves Tess and I at the stationery stores. Do you want anything while we’re out?”

  “A new head?” Sally said half-jokingly.

  Tess opened a cupboard in the kitchen and left a small container beside Sally. “It’s not a new head, but Tylenol might do the trick. We’ll be back soon.”

  “Good luck.” Sally pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. “I’ve got a feeling you’ll be back before we’ve finished.”

  Tess picked up her car keys. “You could be right. Are you ready to go, Molly?”

  “Ready and waiting. I’ve never been so excited about visiting a stationery store before.”

  Tess smiled. Neither had she.

  ***

  An hour later, Tess and Molly flopped down on the sofa in Tess’ apartment.

  “We didn’t find her,” Tess said. “Did you find anyone in the phone book that knows them?”

  Sally leaned her elbows on the table. “Not yet, but I’ve still got another couple of numbers to try. I can’t believe none of the Thompsons or Browns we called know Connie and Dave. It’s like they’ve vanished.”

  Annie ended the call she was on. “What about the hospital? If Connie’s mom is still a patient, we might be able to find her daughter through her.”

  Molly shook her head. “Hospitals are the worst places to find information about people. Unless you’re immediate family, they won’t let any details out.”

  Tess looked at her friends. “Does anyone know someone who works at the hospital?”

  Molly and Annie shook their heads.

  “Amy, my sister-in-law, is a doctor at the hospital,” Sally said. “I’ll ask if she can help, but it probably breaks their rules about patient confidentiality.”

  Tess opened her notebook and looked at the first page. “We’ll put a question mark beside the hospital option. I’ll stop by the other stationery stores tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I’ve made a list of the auto repair businesses in Bozeman,” Sally said. “If you do the stationery stores, Molly, Annie and I could split the list of auto repair places between us?”

  “Okay. It’s a deal.” Tess walked to the kitchen and poured herself a coffee. “Is it too early to start talking about the dresses and how we’re going to do this?” She opened a cookie jar and left it on the table in front of the sofa.

  “It’s probably a good idea to get everything worked out now,” Sally said. “By the time we find the bride and groom we might not have much time before the wedding.”

  Tess bit into a cookie and sighed. “These are good. Help yourself.” She brushed oatmeal crumbs off her shirt and thought about what they’d need to make this work. “I’ve got lots of space in my spare bedroom. We could use the closet in there for the dresses.”

  “We could drop them off after dinner tomorrow,” Sally said. “I’ll call Emily and see if she wants to keep her bridesmaids’ dresses. If anyone finds our mystery couple, make sure you text everyone else. We can have another meeting tomorrow night when we bring the dresses in.”

  “Do you think we’ll find them?” Annie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tess said. “But we’ll try our best to find them before their wedding.”

  “Imagine someone stealing everything you own. It must have been heartbreaking.” Sally frowned at the list in front of Tess. “Why on earth would anyone want four bridesmaids’ dresses? It’s just such a nasty thing to do.”

  “There are some nasty people out there.” Annie sat quietly in her chair, looking as glum as Tess felt.

  “Come on everyone. Cheer up.” Molly pulled Tess’ list toward her. “We’re doing something special for Connie and Dave. There will always be idiots in the world, but we don’t have to let them drag us down. What we need is something to remind us that we’re on a mission for happiness.”

  “Like a name for what we’re doing?” Annie said.

  Sally frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Annie sat on the edge of her seat. “We could call ourselves something. Like a club or a project
name.”

  Tess took another bite of her cookie. “But this is a one-off thing. Once we’ve helped Connie and Dave the name won’t matter.”

  “It will matter to us,” Molly said. “It’s the feel good factor that will make this a wonderful thing to do.”

  “How about the Wedding Angels?” Annie suggested. “Bridesmaids are part of a wedding and we were in Angel Wings Café when we read the newspaper article.”

  Sally shook her head. “It’s good, but too much like a business. What about Bridesmaids to the Rescue?”

  “Sounds like an emergency response team.” Annie grinned at Sally. “We’d have every single guy in town lining up to be rescued.”

  “What about The Bridesmaids Club?” Molly looked at everyone’s faces. “It’s warm and friendly. No guy will ever think we’re a dating agency with that name.”

  Sally wrote it down on a piece of paper. “I like it.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Annie said. “But what if another bride needs our help? What are we going to do?”

  “There can’t be that many people needing bridesmaids’ dresses.” Tess watched everyone’s faces. “Most people have their dresses made well in advance of the wedding.”

  Sally picked up Tess’ notebook. “At last count we had seventeen dresses and that’s before we ask anyone for donations. If Connie wants four of the dresses, that leaves us thirteen. We could easily help another two or three brides.”

  “It would be fun,” Molly said. “None of us are anywhere near close to getting married. We could enjoy the excitement of a wedding without the drama.”

  “We don’t even have boyfriends.” Sally sighed.

  “Speak for yourself,” Annie said with a smug smile on her face. “Not that I’d call Carl a boyfriend, but he’s cute and he could be my boyfriend.”

  “When did this happen?” Sally asked.

  “I met him three weeks ago at ten pin bowling. He got five strikes in a row.” Annie’s face glowed with excitement. “We’re competing in a doubles tournament next weekend.”

  “Good for you,” Tess said. “Hopefully by then we’ve found Connie and Dave.” She smiled at her friends. “Here’s to The Bridesmaids Club. To happiness, kind hearts and finding a mystery bride and groom.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Molly raised her cup and laughed. “And who knows, a little piece of magic from our happy couple might rub off on us.”

  ***

  Logan dug deep, pushing himself hard on his early morning run. He hadn’t slept and didn’t feel like facing the day. His breath came in short, sharp gasps as he ran along Main Street. Usually a long run cleared his head, put his life into perspective. But it wasn’t working this morning. He felt drained and so damn tired.

  He could see the glow of lights from inside Angel Wings Café. He glanced at his watch. Five-fifteen. Tess was on time.

  He imagined her in the kitchen, mixing cookie dough and making pie crusts. If the café was open, he might have called in and ordered a stack of pancakes. He would even have offered to make them.

  He still couldn’t believe he’d made blueberry pancakes from scratch. He’d never been much of a cook, but he liked good food. Which was part of the reason he was a regular at Angel Wings Café. The other part wasn’t worth thinking about.

  He slowed down as he ran past the café, then stopped completely.

  Tess had strung a brown paper bag over the door handle. His name had been written across the front in big bold letters. He lifted the bag off the handle and looked inside. Two fresh blueberry muffins were sitting inside. The smell made his stomach rumble, made him remember that he hadn’t eaten anything since lunch at Pastor Steven’s home yesterday.

  He wiped his face on the bottom of his t-shirt and wondered what he should do. He was sweaty and tired, not a good combination this early in the morning. But he hadn’t been much better on Saturday morning and Tess had still hauled him inside the café.

  Before he changed his mind, he knocked loudly on the front door. Tess walked out of the kitchen and smiled. He waited for her to unlock the door. He’d say thank you, leave her to her baking and try to get past what was eating him up.

  “You got the muffins?”

  “Thanks. What are they for?”

  Tess’ cheeks turned red. She looked too good for this early in the morning. Her blonde hair was caught in a ponytail and soft strands had worked their way loose over her shoulders. She leaned against the door and looked up at him with a gleam in her eyes. “I appreciated your help yesterday. Especially after you saw everyone in my car.”

  “Did you work out what you’re going to do next?”

  “We’ve got a plan. Yesterday we visited a couple of stationery stores. Sally and Annie called all of the Thompsons and Browns in the phone directory. I’m going to visit the last few stationery stores this afternoon.”

  Logan held back from asking her if she wanted company.

  Tess turned toward a beeping noise coming from the kitchen. “My pies have finished cooking. You can come and talk to me out back for a couple of minutes, if you like?”

  Logan looked down at his shirt.

  “Yeah, I know. You’re hot and sweaty. I don’t care if you don’t?”

  “I might have to invest in a can of men’s deodorant for your café.”

  Tess smiled as they walked into the kitchen.

  If Logan thought his stomach had rumbled when he’d smelled the muffins, he was practically drooling on the spot now. Tess pulled the pies out of the oven and they smelled amazing.

  “Beef, mushroom, and onion. Do you want one?”

  “I didn’t bring my wallet.”

  “I don’t want your money.” Tess took a plate out of the pantry and slid one of the pies onto it. “Sit at the counter and tell me why you look as though you haven’t slept in a few days.”

  Logan ran his hand over the three-day growth prickling his jaw. He would have disagreed with her, except she put the pie in front of him.

  “Eat,” Tess said softly. “Besides, I’ve got more to do than convince you that my meat pies are amazing.” She turned back to the counter and added milk to the bowl in front of her.

  He bit into his pie and sighed. It was good, so good that he could imagine coming back at lunchtime for another one. Tess kept mixing ingredients into the bowl, then flipped the dough onto a floured board.

  It was quiet inside the kitchen. So quiet that he couldn’t imagine how Tess worked here on her own each morning. She grated some cheese and cut sun-dried tomatoes into little pieces. She worked in silence. He ate in silence. It was comfortable, relaxing, and from his perspective, so much better than running.

  “Do you like working in a quiet kitchen?” he asked.

  “It’s not usually this quiet.” She smiled as she sprinkled sliced bacon over the rolled out dough. “I’ve got my trusty boom box on the shelf over there.” She nodded at the wall behind him. A red radio, tape and CD player, filled a shelf. “I left it at grandpa’s house when I moved away from Bozeman. He never got rid of it, so I play it now. I’m still waiting for you to tell me why you haven’t had much sleep.”

  He would have preferred to ask her why she’d left Bozeman, but she was looking at him as if she expected him to answer her question first. “I had things on my mind.”

  “Do you want to talk about it? Sometimes it helps?”

  Logan had never been comfortable talking about what had happened in Afghanistan. It brought back too many memories, a guilt so deep and sure that it tore him up each time he thought about what he’d done.

  “I’d sooner talk about you.”

  “I’m sure you would,” Tess mumbled.

  Logan finished his pie and walked across to the stack of paper napkins in the pantry. He ignored the stubborn tilt to Tess’ chin. He’d seen that look too many times to pay it much attention now.

  He wiped his mouth and scrunched the napkin in his hand. “Have I done something to make you dislike me, or do you have a problem
with all reporters?”

  Tess used a knife to cut the rolled dough into thick slices. “Can you pass me a baking sheet for the pinwheel scones?”

  Logan looked behind him and reached for a metal tray. “For the last twelve months I’ve eaten here at least three times a week. Each time you go out of your way to ignore me. When you haven’t got a choice, the best I can hope for is cold indifference. What’s happening now?”

  Tess put the scones in the oven and set the timer. “You’ve grown on me.”

  Logan clutched his sweaty chest. “Be still my beating heart. Does this mean I can look forward to a civilized word here and there.”

  Tess’ lips twitched. “It’s only a temporary glitch. Don’t get too comfortable.”

  “So what did he do? Leave you at the altar for a news story? Print a story about how blueberry muffins weren’t so cool anymore?”

  Tess walked to the fridge and took out a jar of what looked like stewed fruit. “If I told you why I don’t like reporters you’d probably sue the pants off me for defamation.” Tess opened a drawer and pulled out a spray-on deodorant. “It’s blue this time. Arms up.”

  Logan made sure he scowled at her as she sprayed deodorant on top of his t-shirt. “How about a trade? You tell me why you don’t like reporters and I’ll answer one question for you?”

  Tess’ brow crinkled as she thought about what he’d said. “My answer to your question is complicated.”

  “Most important things are.”

  Tess lifted a ball of dough out of the fridge. “If I answer your question, you’ll do the same for me?”

  Logan walked across to the sink and helped himself to a glass of water. He had a feeling both of their answers would be complicated. “I’ll truthfully answer any question you throw at me.”

  Tess sprinkled flour onto the stainless steel counter and started rolling the dough. “I don’t like reporters because I’ve seen firsthand what they can do to a person’s life.”

  She glanced at Logan. He kept his expression neutral.

  “Three years ago my best friend died from a drug overdose. I found out her boyfriend was the person supplying her with drugs. I told him I was going to the police. Within days, he’d smeared my name across the newspapers with so many lies that I needed to leave New York. The reporters were like vultures.”