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  “Salad, done,” she said to herself. “Meat, beans, done. Emilio’s corn relish, ready to plate. Rolls out of oven and in baskets. What have I missed? Oh, damn. Dessert.”

  “I got dessert.” Cal picked up the last bag and pulled out two boxes that said KRISPY KREME.

  “Doughnuts” Min said, appalled.

  “Get me a cake plate,” Cal said, and Bonnie rummaged in the cupboard and found one. Then while they watched, he made a ring of seven chocolate-iced cake doughnuts with one in the middle topped by a ring of five chocolate cake doughnuts, topped by a ring of three vanilla-iced glazed, topped by one beautiful chocolate-iced Kreme on top, all stuck together with the white glaze icing that Bonnie had dribbled between the layers.

  Min’s mouth began to water.

  “I read about this,” Bonnie said, standing back. “It was in People magazine. People do this all the time.”

  Cal picked up a box he’d set to one side, ripped it open, and dumped out a very small bride and groom under a plastic arch. It looked like hell until he shoved it into the top doughnut, and then it looked funky.

  “This is the cake I want at my wedding,” Min said. “Of course, my mother is going to go into cardiac arrest.”

  Cal grinned at her, and she laughed as she took off her apron. “You’re a genius, Calvin. I need one moment in the closet to put on my dress, and then it’s showtime.”

  She changed as fast as she could, and when she came back she heard Tony say to Cal, “Okay, we got it. You can go—” He stopped when he saw her, and then Roger turned to follow his eyes and stopped, too, and Bonnie peered out from behind Roger.

  “Oh, Min,” she said. “You look wonderful.”

  “Very hot,” Tony said, staring at her, and Cal clipped him on the back of the head. “I’m just saying,” Tony said.

  Cal handed the cake to Roger. “You guys can handle everything now?”

  “Piece of cake,” Tony said, and Min stopped, startled. “What?” he said.

  “Nothing.” Min shook her head and then checked her face in the mirror by the door to make sure she wasn’t wearing flour as foundation. The heat from the kitchen had flushed her skin and kinked her hair and she looked . . .

  “You look beautiful,” Cal said, and Min turned and saw Roger and Tony with him, and realized that a month before, she hadn’t known any of these guys, and now they’d all come together to bail her sister out of trouble.

  “This is so great of you,” she said to them. “This is so above and beyond the call of friendship.”

  “Anything for you, babe,” Tony said. He bent down and kissed her cheek, and Min blushed, and Cal said, “Enough with the flirting with other men, Minerva,” and took her hand, and Roger patted her shoulder as Cal pulled her out the back door.

  “Those are the best people,” she said to him, as they hit the gravel path around to the front of the house.

  “Yes,” Cal said. “And now we get to have dinner with your family.”

  “Oh, hell,” Min said.

  Looking back on the rehearsal dinner later, Min was hard put to choose the low point of the evening.

  There was the moment when Nanette spotted them coming through the door and was so caught off guard by Min’s purple dress that she stopped after “You’re late . . .” and just glared while Min braced herself.

  But then Cal patted her on the back and Greg’s best man said, “Whoa,” and nodded at her.

  “Thank you,” Min said.

  “I told you so,” Cal said in her ear. “Stay away from him.”

  Or there was the moment when Min saw Greg, who had decided to have his hair cut in a Caesar cut the day before his wedding, and looked, if possible, dumber than ever.

  “Don’t ever do that,” Min whispered to Cal and Cal said, “No, I don’t think so.”

  Or the moment when Roger and Tony were serving the salads, and Di grinned and said, “Gee, such cute waiters,” and Roger almost dropped Greg’s salad in his lap.

  “Watch it,” Greg said sharply, and Di lost her smile.

  “Very cute,” Min said, and frowned at Greg, who blinked back at her.

  Or the moment when Greg’s mother said, “This chicken is delicious. Who did you say catered this?” and all eyes turned to Greg. Min let him flounder for a couple of seconds and then said, “Emilio’s, wasn’t it?”, throwing him a rope that he grabbed on to so gratefully she almost felt sorry for him.

  That was followed by the moment when Nanette said, “There’s butter in this.”

  “Yep,” Min said and kept eating while Cal patted her back.

  But the low point probably came toward the end of the meal when Min’s cell phone rang. She looked over at Diana, startled, since Diana was the only one who would be calling her, and then remembered the trio in the kitchen. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and slipped outside to answer it. “Hello?”

  “Min,” David said. “I’ve been trying to get you all day.”

  “Why?” Min said. “Never mind, I don’t care. This is my sister’s rehearsal dinner, David. Go away.”

  “It’s about Cal,” David said, and Min grew still. “I still care for you, Min, and you need to know something about Cal Morrisey.”

  “Do I,” Min said flatly.

  “That night he picked you up?” David said. “He did it because he made a bet that he could get you into bed in a month.”

  “He did,” Min said, thinking, What a waste you are.

  “The bet’s up next Wednesday, Min,” David said, sincerity oozing through the phone. “And Cal Morrisey does not lose. He’ll do anything to win that bet. I thought you should know. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Min said.

  “You don’t sound upset,” David said.

  “Boys will be boys,” Min said.

  “I thought you’d be shocked,” David said, sounding shocked himself.

  “David, I knew,” Min said. “I overheard you. Which is why I also know that Cal didn’t make the bet, you did. It was your idea, which makes you the chief slimeball in this.”

  “No,” David said hastily, “no, I was upset because we’d broken up—”

  “David, you dumped me,” Min said. “What the hell were you upset about?”

  “—I’ve regretted that bet a thousand times since, but Cal won’t call it off.”

  “Asked him to, have you?” Min said, not believing him.

  “Over and over,” David said.

  “David?” Min said.

  “Yes?” David said.

  “Rot in hell,” Min said, and clicked off the phone.

  She stood on the porch of the bed and breakfast and looked out over the river beyond. It was very pretty. “Damn,” she said. She believed in Cal, she really did, but that bet . . .

  I’ll ask him after the wedding, she told herself. When she was out of that awful corset, when they were alone, when they could talk it out without Diana tugging on her arm for help, she’d ask him then.

  Tomorrow night, she told herself and went back inside in time to catch what was definitely the high point of the evening, Nanette’s face when she saw the Krispy Kreme cake.

  “Hey,” David said when Cynthie picked up the phone on Sunday afternoon. “I haven’t heard from you. What’s—”

  “It’s over,” Cynthie said, and she sounded as if she’d been crying. “They’re in infatuation. It could be years before he comes to his senses. We lost, David.”

  “No, we didn’t,” David said. “I don’t lose.”

  “Cal loves her. He’s being honest with her. There’s nothing—”

  “No, he isn’t,” David said, fed up with hearing about Cal. “He’s chasing her to win that damn bet.”

  “What?” Cynthie said.

  “Uh,” David said, trying to find a way to explain that without looking like slime.

  “Tell me,” Cynthie said, her voice brooking no nonsense.

  “That first night,” David said. “I was mad. And hurt. And�€