CHAPTER ONE

Accept the aging process with grace

and decorum.

—Brynn Dalton’s Rules for an

Exemplary Life, #32

Distributing toilet paper was not on Brynn Dalton’s life list.

Neither was crying in a public bathroom at her own birthday party.

But if there was one thing Brynn was starting to suspect, it was that life’s plans went to hell after thirty.

“Excuse me, um…ma’am? Would you mind passing some toilet paper? This roll is empty.”

The slightly embarrassed question from the neighboring bathroom stall caught Brynn on the verge of a sob, and she blinked rapidly to keep the tears at bay.

“Oh. Sure.” She kept her voice composed. Her voice was always composed.

Brynn carefully tore off six squares of toilet paper and folded them neatly. She was about to pass them under the stall when she paused. The tidiness of the bundle annoyed her. So instead of handing it over, she set the folded squares on her knee and slapped at the toilet paper roll again until she had an enormous wad of tissue. Brynn very slowly, very intentionally crumpled the toilet paper into a ball.

Much better.

Plus, now the poor lady on the other side wouldn’t be in the awkward position of having to ask for some more toilet paper. And Brynn Dalton was very good about not putting people in awkward situations.

Brynn leaned down slightly and thrust the wad of tissue under the stall wall.

“Thanks,” came the relieved voice. “You’d think a classy place like this would have enough TP stocked, huh?”

“You’d think,” Brynn agreed politely. Not that she gave a hoot about the toilet paper stocking policies at SkyCity’s private event venue.

“You here for the party?” the voice asked.

“Mm-hmm,” Brynn said, becoming aware that she was on the verge of entering full-on conversation from a toilet seat.

What kind of crassness was this? Talking through bathroom stalls had always made Brynn uncomfortable. Weren’t bathroom stalls supposed to be sacred places?

“Do you know the birthday girl?” the voice persisted.

“Oh yes.”

“I’ve never met her,” the other voice said. “I’m just tagging along as the date of one of her friends.”

“Oh, nice,” Brynn said, struggling to keep her voice polite.

Brynn heard Chatty Cathy’s toilet flush. Finally. “Well, see ya,” the voice said. “Good luck.”

Good luck? What exactly did the stranger think Brynn was doing in here that required “luck”?

Then again, she had been in here for the better part of twenty minutes. And come to think of it…what was Brynn doing in here?

She knew only that she couldn’t be out there. She’d rather be watching her dignity melt away while passing out toilet paper to strangers than face what awaited her:

Her thirty-first birthday, and a room full of people just itching to spot that first gray hair.

Brynn breathed a sigh of relief as she heard the sink faucet turn off, as the swish of the swinging door indicated that the talkative woman had returned to the party. Finally Brynn could commence what she’d come in to do in the first place.

Wallow. In private.

“Brynn! Brynn Dalton, are you in here?”

The door to the women’s restroom banged against the wall and the click of a fast-paced high-heeled walk echoed through the marble bathroom.

Crap. Caught.

In an uncharacteristic burst of cowardice, Brynn contemplated lifting her feet above the ground so that her sister wouldn’t be able to spot her shoes beneath the stall walls. She knew full well that Sophie Wyatt wouldn’t think twice about crawling around on hands and knees until she spotted her prey.

Then again, knowing Sophie, she also wouldn’t hesitate to look over the bathroom walls.

Resistance was futile.

The tap-tap of Sophie’s heels paused outside the stall where Brynn sat hiding.

“I know you’re in there, Brynn. I can see your boring brown shoes.”

Brynn glanced down at her designer pumps. “They’re not brown. They’re nude.”

“Seriously? Nude doesn’t even count as a color.”

Brynn’s brow furrowed. What did Sophie mean, nude wasn’t a color? The saleswoman at Nordstrom had told her that nude heels would make her legs look “impossibly long.”

She tried to look at them through her more flamboyant sister’s eyes. Okay, maybe the shoes were a little boring.

Just like you.

She pushed the disparaging thought out of her head. Self-pity wasn’t Brynn’s normal style, but it had been steadily fighting for room in her brain ever since she’d learned that the birthday she’d been hoping to sweep under the carpet was turning into a damn circus.

Brynn heard the neighboring stall door swing open and the clatter of Sophie’s heels on the closed toilet seat. Warily, Brynn glanced up and saw her sister’s accusing blue eyes staring down at her.

“I knew it!” Sophie said. “You’re not even going. You’re hiding in there.”

“Well, if I were going, I certainly wouldn’t appreciate the audience,” Brynn mumbled.

Sophie waved away this objection. Younger sisters didn’t put much stock in the value of privacy. Sophie folded her arms on top of the stall wall and rested her chin on her hands. “You okay?” she asked, her voice softening.

Brynn shifted uncomfortably, increasingly aware that the toilet seat cover was not meant for long stays. Exactly how long had she been in here? She’d only meant to hide out for a minute or two to catch her breath, but if Sophie had hunted her down, her absence must have been noted.

“I thought I specifically said no surprise parties,” Brynn said, trying to keep her voice calm as she addressed her sister.

Sophie’s brow furrowed. “When?”

Brynn’s fingers went to her temples. “When? How about every birthday for the past decade?”

“I thought all that fussing was about your thirtieth birthday. I didn’t know it applied to thirty-one as well.”

The tick in her temple increased and Brynn fought to keep from screaming at her sister. But the thing was, she knew that the warped logic made sense in Sophie’s bubbly, carefree head.

Just as she knew that Sophie would never have thrown this party if she’d suspected Brynn wouldn’t like it. Despite her occasional bouts with obliviousness, Sophie was one of the kindest, sweetest people Brynn knew.

But it didn’t change the fact that everyone in her acquaintance had seen the big fat “31” cake on the table, and now knew her precise age. And instead of looking at what she’d accomplished, they’d be looking at what she hadn’t accomplished.

No husband. No fiancé. No baby on the way…

All of which would have been fine if those things hadn’t been part of The Plan.

“I’m really sorry, Brynny,” her sister was saying. “It’s just that we haven’t really done anything for your birthday since you turned twenty-one. I thought you’d be sick of quietly toasting with Mom and Dad like we do every year.”

“Nope. The key word there is ‘quietly,’ Soph. If getting older must be observed, I like it to happen in a classy, understated way.”

“But this is classy! It’s the Space Needle. It’s not like I dragged you to Cowgirls Inc.”

Brynn stifled a shudder at the very thought of straddling a mechanical bull or doing body shots, or whatever they did at Cowgirls Inc.

“It is a lovely party,” Brynn said, belatedly realizing that she might be hurting Sophie’s feelings. The party must have taken months to plan, and here Brynn was acting like it was an execution.

Get it together.

Taking a deep breath, Brynn stood and opened the stall door and walked calmly to the bathroom mirror. She heard Sophie nosily clamber to the ground and follow her.

“You look pretty,” Sophie said, looking at Brynn’s reflection.

“Even with my brown shoes?”

“I guess they’re not so bad,” Sophie said kindly. “They’re very you.”

“Gee, thanks.” But Brynn didn’t take offense. They were her. And normally she took pride in being consistently subdued.