A Proposal at the Wedding (Bride Mountain 2)

Chapter Eleven

Something had gone very wrong. And Paul was painfully aware that it had all been his fault.

It had taken him more than a week to reach that brilliant conclusion. Over and over, he had mentally replayed the words he’d said to Bonnie in the garden. He’d made versions of that same speech several times before, and had been on the receiving end a few times, and while those previous encounters had occasionally been awkward, they had usually ended amicably. To be honest, the women with whom he’d previously agreed to be no more than friends had looked somewhat relieved rather than disappointed—an ego hit for him, but undeniably best in the long run. Merely more confirmation that he just wasn’t the settle-down-for-life type. Not from choice, exactly—more by nature, he supposed. It just never seemed to work out.

He’d tried to make Bonnie understand that. He’d used all the key phrases that had seemed to work before. I hope we can remain friends… I’ve enjoyed our time together… I hope your memories of me make you smile… I care about you.

Maybe we can have coffee together sometime, he thought with a groan, dropping his head onto his kitchen table.

“Dad?” Cassie paused in the doorway on the way out of the house. She and Mike, who was staying with his parents until the wedding, were having dinner with her other family that Wednesday evening, then staying late to watch movies with her half brother and sister. This would be the last night before her wedding when they’d be free to hang out with the twins. “Is something wrong?”

He straightened immediately. “No. Just tired. You have fun tonight, okay?”

“Are you sure you won’t come with me? You know they’d love to have you join us all for dinner one last time.”

One last time. The words made his chest clench, though he managed a smile. “Don’t be so dramatic, Cassie, there will be family dinners in the future. We’ll all get together in Dallas next time you and Mike are in the States.”

She took a step closer to the table, her eyes a bit damp. “I don’t like seeing you unhappy.”

“I’m not unhappy,” he said—lied—firmly. “I’m going to miss you. I’ll miss all of you. But I’ll be fine. I’ve already signed up for a new rugby team some of my friends are getting together. I haven’t played rugby in a decade and I’ll probably break a hip but it’ll be—”

“Daddy.” Her hand fell gently on his shoulder. “Why don’t you try talking to her? If you’d just—”

Now it was his turn to cut in. “We’ve already discussed this, Cassie. We’re not going to talk about Bonnie.”

All he had told his daughter was that he and Bonnie were no longer seeing each other socially. As far as Cassie knew, Bonnie was the one who’d made that choice, and Paul was content to leave it at that. The thing was, though Cassie had seen him part ways with lady friends in the past, she had never known him to genuinely hurt after those partings. Apparently his uncannily astute daughter could see that he was hurting like hell now.

Cassie exhaled gustily. “Fine. Just let her go without even trying. End up alone. Is that what you want?”

He leveled a chiding look at her. “You’re telling me I should get involved with someone just to keep myself from being lonely after you leave? That would be rather selfish of me, don’t you think?”

“Yes, it would,” she replied evenly. “If that was ­really the reason. But that isn’t why you were seeing Bonnie, was it, Dad? I think you genuinely cared for her, and it had nothing to do with me getting married or Mom and Larry and the kids moving away.”

“Go have dinner, Cassie. I love you, but this is ­really none of your business.”

She didn’t take offense, but leaned over to kiss his cheek. “I know. And I love you, too. So talk to her, okay, Dad?”

He remained silent, and she left with a little sigh of resignation. It wouldn’t be the last he’d hear of it, he figured, but he would remain adamant about not discussing it.

For one thing, he had a feeling that if he told his daughter exactly what he’d said to Bonnie, Cassie would lose her temper with him, too.

My friends give me credit for knowing what’s best for myself without their guidance. They have intelligent, adult discussions with me rather than making unilateral decisions that affect me. And they ask me what I want, rather than tell me what I should want!

He could still hear Bonnie’s words almost as clearly as if she stood in front of him saying them again. And yet it had taken him over a week to really hear what she had said, to process and understand the words.

He hadn’t asked her what she wanted. He’d simply broken it off with her without warning, and with his lofty—and, as she’d said, condescending—excuses that he didn’t want to k

eep her from finding someone who would offer her marriage and children and all those other things he thought she should want.

He had been an idiot. An arrogant jackass. She’d have had every right to climb on a stepladder and punch him in the face.

Yet the worst part about it, he thought as he buried his face in his hands, was that he still wasn’t entirely certain he’d been wrong.

“You know you don’t have to go out there,” Kinley told Bonnie with a look of sympathy as they stood in the inn’s kitchen early Friday evening. “Dan and Logan and I can handle everything tonight. We can say you aren’t feeling well.”

Bonnie drew herself up to her full five feet, three inches, her chin held high. “You’ll do no such thing. I have a job to do and I will perform it very well, thank you.”

Kinley glanced at Dan with a rueful smile, and Bonnie saw him shake his head in what appeared to be bemused admiration. “Way to tell her, Bonnie,” he murmured.