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  “Or maybe you’re happy being the spinster teacher . . .”

  Spinster teacher . . . seriously? Is that how people saw her? She wasn’t even thirty yet. “I’m okay with being in between relationships,” Kate said. And she’d been “between” relationships for a long time. Men didn’t grow on trees in Sunshine, and she’d never been all that good at the serial-dating thing.

  “So you don’t have a date for the wedding?” Miranda asked.

  “I didn’t say that.” Kate tossed back her second wine and felt her head get a little fuzzy. She was a lightweight, but tonight fuzzy was perfect. She’d be a cheap date.

  If she had a date . . . “I have one.”

  “Who?” Miranda asked. “Anyone I know?”

  Good question. Kate searched the room, her gaze landing on Ryan.

  With his sixth sense for all things ridiculous, Ryan turned and looked at them. He took in her undoubtedly half-crocked slash panicked expression and, pulling his phone from his pocket, he worked his thumbs for a minute on the screen.

  Three seconds later, Kate’s phone vibrated. She held up a finger to Miranda—not the finger she wanted to hold up either—and grabbed her phone from her purse.

  Hell no am I going to be your date for the wedding.

  Dammit, Kate thought.

  And stop drinking.

  Double dammit.

  Miranda’s eyes fell on Ryan as well, who was back to flirting with one of the bridesmaids. “Ryan was a good catch for you,” she said. “What happened? Did he get a little tired of the whole . . .” She gestured vaguely at Kate. “Sweet act?”

  “Sweet act?”

  Miranda smiled. “You know what I mean. You’re always taking care of everyone and everything.” She patted Kate’s arm. “I’m sure one of these days you’ll figure out how to take care of you and get what you want. In the meantime, at least you have your family. I think you deserve a medal for taking care of your father through his rehab and for how you watch out for your special siblings.”

  Kate set down her wineglass because she had an urge to accidentally-on-purpose toss the contents in Miranda’s smug face.

  “And eventually I’m sure you’ll find a man who won’t dump you.”

  “Ryan didn’t dump me.” Kate glanced at Ryan again, who was now giving her the slashing finger across the throat gesture. As in ‘don’t you dare commit me as your date or I’ll kill you.’

  Someone on the other side of Kate gasped and whispered, “Is that our principal, making . . . death threats?”

  Kate sighed and turned her back on the rat fink bastard. “Ryan didn’t dump me,” she repeated, but Miranda had moved off.

  “And I know what I want,” Kate said to no one.

  Didn’t she? Okay, so yes, maybe eventually she wanted a sparkly diamond. Sue her. But she didn’t want it right this minute. Right this minute she wanted to see her dear friend get married. She wanted to see Ashley off to college. She wanted to get all of her second graders through the last three weeks of school. She wanted to bask in having the honor of the pretty white envelope in her purse.

  And okay, maybe she also wanted something to assuage this odd . . . ache deep inside. She looked around. Ryan was busy with Meg from the convenience store. Holly had her arms looped around Adam’s neck. Her other dear friends Jade and Lilah were dancing with their husbands. In fact, just about everyone was paired off, and for the first time while surrounded by people she’d known forever, Kate felt . . . lonely.

  It was natural, she assured herself. With Holly getting married things were changing. Kate was happy for her, so very happy, but apparently she’d let Miranda get into her head a little bit.

  Because she didn’t feel like a spinster teacher. She felt vibrant and loved and good at her job. And yeah, she took care of people, her people, but she liked doing it. She was good at it. Really good.

  And maybe it was true that she hadn’t been able to leave town since . . . well, she couldn’t remember exactly. Oh, wait! She’d gone to that teaching conference in Coeur d’Alene last year, and it had been good, right up until she’d gotten food poisoning on her second night.

  Damn. She was in a rut. But it was a very high-functioning rut, thank you very much. And at least she knew what she wanted for her future. But as for right now? Well, the truth was, her right now was a little bit consumed with others.

  Maybe she did need to shake things up.

  Ahead of her, way down the hallway, she caught sight of a tall, broad-shouldered guy in a baseball cap vanish into a room.

  Griffin.

  Before tonight she’d have said that he could shake her up. In fact, he could do whatever he wanted, and she was pretty sure she’d love it. Maybe she’d been wrong about his reaction before. Maybe he’d just been in a hurry. Yeah, surely that was it. Or that’s what she wanted to believe, because here was the perfect chance to do something completely for herself, something out of character, something entirely just for her, with no chance of anyone getting hurt.

  Griffin himself.

  The thought made her heart start to race, like it did when she had a few episodes of Arrow to watch in a row. Not quite sure she was equipped to make this decision all on her own, she looked around for someone to check in with, someone who might suggest that this was a bad idea. But one best friend was wearing a big tiara, and the other was moving it like Jagger on the dance floor. Huh. Look at that, no one to talk her out of the insanity. That left only one person to convince.

  Griffin himself.

  Suddenly and completely determined, she grabbed a bottle of wine and two wineglasses and stepped into the den behind him.

  At her entry, he turned, his expression dialed in to big, bad, edgy alpha. He wore a soft-washed henley shirt the exact same color of his gray eyes, and it clung to his broad shoulders and chest. Her heart, already knocking hard against her ribcage, gave a treacherous leap. And that wasn’t the only physical reaction either. With a smile, she hoisted the bottle. “Thought I’d do my part to clean up,” she said. “Join me?”

  He cocked a brow. “You want us to drink the wine just so you can throw away the bottle?”

  Okay, her seduction technique needed work. “Not throw away. It’s recyclable.” And then—big surprise—her brain ran away with her mouth. “But if I did throw it away, it’d take about a million years to decompose.” God, she was such a geek. She quickly poured them each a glass and drank to stop herself from talking anymore.

  He watched her over his glass. “You okay?”

  “Never better.”

  “How’s your ass?”

  She choked, then had to swipe her mouth with the back of her hand. Sexy. “Um, what?”

  “From when you fell,” he said.

  “Oh, that.” She had a bruise the size of Texas. “It’s nothing.”

  Clearly seeing right through her, he smiled. It was the dangerous smile of a man who could make promises by saying nothing at all, and butterflies fluttered low in her belly. “So how are you?” she asked, desperate for a subject change, one that didn’t involve a science fact or her ass. “You having fun?”

  “Depends on your definition of fun.”

  Well, she knew what her definition of fun was, but she wondered about his. In the past his fun had involved fast horses, fast all-terrain vehicles, fast cars, fast women, fast anything. She looked down at her glass. “How did this get empty?”

  He took the bottle from her fingers, steadied her glass hand with his, and poured her a refill.

  “I probably don’t need that,” she said.

  “It’s a right of passage to get drunk at your BFF’s bachelorette party,” he said. “In fact, you’re supposed to have some dramatic moment where you make it all about you. Like life’s moving on without you. Everyone’s getting married and you’re not. That sort of thing. I suggest getting drunk and sleeping with one of the groomsmen. It’s practically expected.”

  She just stared at him, trying to focus past the way he looked i