Author: Bella Andre

“I’ve never seen Marcus like this, Nicola,” Sophie said. “He’s always been so calm and steady, but today he was practically bouncing off the walls, he’s so excited about finally getting to marry you.”

Nicola’s skin hadn’t yet lost the flush from her latest secret assignation with Marcus, and now that they were talking about him, the pretty rose color flooded even more deeply into her cheeks. “I’m crazy excited, too. Sometimes—” She stopped and shook her head as if she didn’t quite know how to put everything she was feeling into words. “Sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky. I mean, if I hadn’t met him that night at the club, and then if Lori hadn’t been choreographing my video and invited him to watch rehearsals the next day, I would have missed out on the best thing in my life.”

“If not at the club that night, you and Marcus would have met another place, another way,” Valentina said softly, which surprised Mia, because she would have said Valentina was more practical than dreamy. “Smith and I always talk about how the two of us circled each other in the film and TV business for years without ever actually meeting, until my sister was offered the part in Gravity. But I think the reason we didn’t meet until last year is because the timing wasn’t right, and neither of us would have been ready for the other.”

“Or you all could have just followed my example and thrown yourself naked at the guy you’d been wanting your entire life so that you ended up knocked up with twins,” Sophie said with a grin.

The group’s laughter was accompanied by more wine and snacks being passed around. As each fell naturally into conversation with the person next to her, Nicola shifted to turn her pretty gaze to Mia.

“It’s really great to see you. I wish Marcus and I had had more time in Seattle after the last show to spend some time with you.”

“And what a show it was,” Mia said. “You were amazing. And you have to know how cute Marcus was out in the audience with me. He’s so proud of you.”

“Poor guy has heard these songs a thousand times already, at least.”

“And he’d gladly sign up for another thousand,” Mia said with utter certainty. “But can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” the other woman said. “Anything. Especially if you’ll pass the baby over to me first.”

“Nope, I’m not done getting my cuddles in yet. Besides, Valentina already called dibs on the next lap session.”

“But I’m the one getting married,” Nicola protested. “That should push me up to the top of the dibs list.”

“Nice try,” Mia said as she snuggled Jackie a little closer, “but you’re still going to have to get in line for baby love.”

Nothing could make a person feel better about the world than a soft, warm bundle on her lap breathing evenly in sleep. Unlike her friends, Mia had loved to babysit the little ones when she was a teenager. Sure, sometimes they were fussy, but they were also so darned cute. Kids were yet another thing she and Ford hadn’t talked about during their week together. Yes, she’d fallen in love with him, but clearly there hadn’t been any real foundation to it. Not like yesterday, when he’d talked about kids running through the house she’d showed him.

Darn it, why was she thinking of him again?

“So what’s up?” Nicola asked, bringing Mia back to the question she’d been wanting to ask.

“How do you and Marcus make things work so well? Not just that,” she added before Nicola could respond, “but you make it look so easy. And I know it can’t possibly be, with your busy touring and recording schedule and the demands of this vineyard.”

“No,” Nicola agreed with a small smile, “it definitely isn’t easy. And I don’t know how much you know about our relationship, but we were a mess at first. A total mess, actually. I was so adamant that he couldn’t handle the circus of my life that I literally kicked him out of it, even when it was the very last thing I really wanted because I was already head over heels in love with him. But you know Marcus.” Nicola’s face softened even further with a look of pure love. “When he made up his mind that he could most definitely deal with the circus, he was suddenly showing up at all of my shows all over the country. How was I supposed to resist focus and determination like that? Especially when it proved how much he was willing to change his own life for me. I’m not going to lie and say that figuring out how to make our two schedules work together is always a perfectly smooth ride, but I’ll take a few bumps in the road over being without him, anytime.” With that, she popped a grape into her mouth, then asked Mia a question of her own. “Does this question have anything to do with this bad news man of yours, who I’m going to assume is super hot, too?”

“Not just bad news. Old news,” Mia said with a careless wave of her free hand. But obviously feeling her tense at the blatant lie, Jackie made a face in her sleep and shifted in Mia’s arms. “Sorry, baby girl,” she whispered before turning her gaze back up to Nicola. “I did meet a cute guy on the flight out here, though.”

Nicola raised an eyebrow, clearly not about to fall for the diversion Mia was trying to throw at her. “If it takes me all weekend, I’ll get you to spill the details on your secret hot guy. Although, speaking of hot guys, I just got some great news about a guest who told me he can come to the wedding tomorrow, after all. I’ll give you a hint—he’s one of the most amazing rockers on the planet.”

Even as Mia tried to be rational and think about the odds against his name coming out of Nicola’s mouth, she couldn’t stop a heavy feeling from coming over her. Her mouth felt dry, and it took every ounce of self-control to keep from fidgeting so that she didn’t wake up the baby in her arms.

“Ford Vincent!” Nicola was so excited that she didn’t notice the way all the blood drained out of Mia’s face. “I’m such a huge fan that I always get a little giddy every time I listen to him sing, and he’s also really nice.”

Ford made other big stars like Nicola giddy. But Mia was anything but giddy right now.

More like sick to her stomach.

Of course Ford and Nicola would know each other. They were in the same business, for God’s sake. Now that she thought about it, hadn’t the two of them played some shows together before Nicola had met Marcus?

“Ford is coming here?” Mia’s voice sounded hollow to her own ears. “To the winery? For your wedding?”

One dumb question after another kept falling from her lips, but she couldn’t stop any of them. Not when she felt like she was barely keeping it together. If not for the baby on her lap, she might have jumped up off the couch to go running like little Emma through the vineyard.

Nicola was giving Mia a strange look when Sophie’s ears finally picked up on Ford’s name. “Wait a minute,” she said, echoing Mia’s questions for everyone to hear, “are you telling us that Ford Vincent is coming here for the wedding? How did I not know that?”

“He couldn’t come at first because of a scheduling conflict,” Nicola explained. “He called my cell yesterday afternoon out of the blue and asked if the invitation was still open.”

“Yesterday afternoon. Of course that’s when he would have called,” Mia said, almost to herself. There was no way that call could have been a coincidence. He hadn’t come after her in Miami five years ago, but now he wouldn’t take get the hell out of my life for an answer. Clearly, everything always had to be on his terms, and if he wasn’t the one to say goodbye, then those words didn’t count.

Again, Nicola frowned in Mia’s direction, but Sophie’s twin, Lori, had walked over to the group by then. Nicknamed Naughty to Sophie’s Nice, Lori was wearing a cowboy hat and the cutest red cowboy boots with her short, strapless red dress. The women in the group were beautiful, but of them all, Lori was the most immediately striking. Whether she was dancing on stage or getting dirty with the pigs on the farm she shared with her husband, Grayson, people simply couldn’t take their eyes off her.

“You’re not going to believe who’s coming to the wedding,” Sophie told her twin. “Ford Vincent!”

Mia was shocked when Lori gasped. Actually gasped. “Don’t mess with me, Soph.” She turned to Nicola with big eyes. “Is this for real? Is he really going to be here?”

Nicola was nodding and about to say something more about it when Mia simply couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m just not getting what the big deal is about him. So he has some pretty good songs, but all of you have totally great men already.”

“You’re joking, right?” Lori said. “I love my husband to pieces, but I’m not dead.”

“It’s true,” Megan murmured. “Ford is pretty darn gorgeous.”

Mia watched with shock as one after the other, each woman, including the level-headed Valentina, agreed that Ford was a special exclusion to their usual rule of not noticing other men. Of course, her tension passed through to the baby in her arms, because right then Jackie abruptly woke up, looked into eyes that weren’t her mother’s, and her face scrunched up into a pre-wail.

“Uh-oh,” Sophie said, quickly standing and lifting her little girl onto her hip, “looks like someone’s hungry. Which means her brother is probably about to give the boys trouble, too. I’ll be back soon.”

With no bundle of joy on her lap, Mia felt stripped naked in front of her family, with all of her stupid emotions out in the open. Which was the very last place she wanted them.

Lori turned to Brooke as she walked up to the group. “You’re a Ford Vincent fan, aren’t you?”

Brooke immediately made an angry face. “No. I hate him.”

Everyone’s eyes got huge, and Mia realized she needed to do some major damage control—and fast. “What Brooke means is that she hates how hot he is when she’s only supposed to be thinking about my brother now.”

Brooke gave her a confused look before it suddenly dawned on her that she’d very nearly given something away to the group.

“He’s coming to the wedding this weekend,” Mia told Brooke.

She tried really hard to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but when Brooke grabbed her arm and said, “Could you help me with my dress inside? There’s something weird going on with the zipper,” Mia knew she hadn’t succeeded.

No doubt everyone was wondering what was wrong with the two of them, but both Mia and Brooke continued to act like nothing was amiss until they were back inside the house and behind the locked door of Marcus’s home office.

“How can he even think of intruding on Nicola’s wedding like this? I don’t care if he was invited, he should know better than to ruin this weekend for you.” Brooke, who was one of the sweetest, gentlest souls Mia had ever known, looked like a general preparing to go to war. “I simply cannot wait to tear that man to pieces and then sic all of your brothers and cousins on him.”

“No, please don’t do that. If anyone finds out what happened between us, it will become a whole huge thing. And I’ll never forgive myself if I let him ruin Marcus and Nicola’s wedding.”

But Brooke was right. Showing up at the open house was one thing, but coming to a family wedding was another entirely.

“I’ve had enough of his little surprises. As soon as Ford gets here, he and I are going to have a rational, adult discussion about things in private. And by the time we’re done, I’ll make damn sure he understands that everything that was once between us will be firmly, and totally, in the past.”

Chapter Ten

Though Ford was desperate to make up for lost time with Mia, he didn’t want to ruin Nicola’s big day, which was why he planned to slip in just before the ceremony started. Not that he thought he was all that anymore, but he’d been in enough similar situations to know that people tended to go a little crazy around musicians, even at the most inappropriate times.