One Bride for Five Mountain Men

“Lizzy. Stop thanking me. I’m glad that you let it all out and I’m glad that you’re over Mickey, that bastard. Let’s just leave this episode behind and pretend it never happened. Your secret is safe with me and no one else needs to know what you’ve been through. We are never going to talk about this, okay?”

The relief was visible on Lizzy’s face. She was almost smiling like she always used to. Rory was disgusted, though she tried her best not to show it. She wanted to kill Mickey. She had always known that he was a douchebag, and the way he had treated Lizzy made her furious.

“These celebrities are like that. All of them. I bet his buddy Arsen is also that way,” Rory remarked.

“I didn’t meet him much. He is a quiet sorta guy, but Arsen doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would make moves on a woman,” Lizzy said.

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.” Rory laughed sarcastically. “But let it be. All this is in the past. Just one more day in this godforsaken town, Lizzy, and we’ll be back home, running our little shop.” Rory looked away to the horizon. The thought of being back on the island cheered her up.

But before that, she had to ask her parents for money. It will just have to be tomorrow. At least they’ll be in a good mood.

As Rory and Lizzy got back to her parents’ house, they were greeted by Tara.

“Oh hello. Look who it is,” Tara chuckled. The three faces in the living room turned to look at the two girls.

“What are you doing here? Don’t you have some bachelorette party to throw?” Rory replied coldly.

“Oh, that already happened last week and it was such a blast. Today is my last day as a bachelorette and what better way to spend it than in the house where I grew up and with the people I love the most.”

Rory couldn’t help but roll her eyes as she saw her parents melt at Tara’s words. She quickly leaned in to hold their hands with all the love in the world depicted on her face.

“You are the best daughter a mother can ask for,” her mother said to Tara. Rory couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her mother this emotional.

“Paul is a really lucky guy to get a wife like you,” her dad added. Yeah, real lucky. She’d sell him and his dog in a heartbeat if it served her purposes.

“Dinner will be served in some time, so you girls make sure that you are downstairs for it,” her mother said to Rory. Clearly, in this lovely family moment, she didn’t h

ave a role.

Chapter 23

Dinner was as drab an affair as Rory had expected it to be, with Tara talking nonstop about her honeymoon and the post-wedding plans that she had made with her future husband. In Rory and Lizzy, Tara had found two people who had not heard her stories countless times before and she was not going to let the opportunity slide.

While Lizzy nodded politely and listened to Tara rave on, Rory was getting annoyed by Tara’s bragging. It was already difficult to sit on that table under the scrutinizing eye of her mother and the disappointed look on her father’s face. To have Tara throw her good life in her face was unbearable.

“Can we at least change the channel to something we all can watch?” Rory nodded at the TV, which was tuned to some financial channel that Tara had wanted to watch. Tara stopped in the middle of the story and Rory realized that she had spoken out much louder than she had intended.

“All right, Your Highness,” Tara smirked and started flipping through the channels. She knew that Rory hated being called that. Her mother let out a grunt, shook her head, and went back to her meal.

“Ah. Yeah, we can watch this. I just love this band.” Tara put the remote down and sat with an amused look on her face. Rory’s breath got stuck in her throat and her heart crumbled as she saw Arsen Ford on the screen.

The award show. The big gig. Damn you, Tara. Rory knew that Tara had purposely put it on. There was no way she was a fan of Arsen’s band. She was usually a fan of whatever music her boss liked.

“Say, Rory, isn’t that the band that you were chasing after the other day? When you passed out ?” Tara asked with pretend innocence.

Her mother stopped eating, looked at the TV, and then back at Rory.

“These degenerates? You wanted to chase after men like these?” she said. Rory remained silent. Her hunger had completely disappeared.

“Not everyone can have high standards, Ma. Not all men can be as awesome as my Paul,” Tara said out loud while chewing her food.

Lizzy looked at Rory in confusion. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she did not risk speaking out loud among strangers.

“At least they play real instruments, unlike all that computer music that is on the radio all the time,” her father remarked and then chuckled, but quickly lost his look of amusement when Rory’s mother gave him a stern look.

Tara had a huge grin on her face and was staring directly at Rory, who chose to ignore everything and simply stare at the TV.

Arsen looked as dashing as he always did, perhaps more. Rory realized that there was no sign of Mickey, and Arsen was singing himself. That’s strange, she thought, distracting herself from whatever it was her family was discussing. In another time, she would’ve loved to see him play and sing, but not anymore. She’d had enough of this band, this city, and most of all, of her family.