“Very good, Doctor. This time, you just might have the diagnosis right.”
“James? And Castelianos?”
“Does that trouble you? Is he not a good enough guy for our sister?”
“He’s a great guy. Honest. Decent. Moral. But closed off. Nobody ever gets inside his space. I don’t think I ever saw him open up to anybody or anything.”
“What a surprise,” Lissa said dryly.
“Liss. You think our Jaimie is what’s the word, pining for Zach?”
“You mean,” Lissa said, even more dryly, “‘pining’ wasn’t the medical diagnosis you guys came up with?” She saw a blush steal over her brother’s face. “Caleb? What was the Wilde doctors’ diagnosis?”
Caleb’s Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed.
“Well, you know. PMS.”
Lissa laughed. And laughed. It felt good; she hadn’t laughed in a while.
“Don’t be pissed off at us,” Caleb said. “I mean, what do we know about women?”
“Not much,” Lissa said, “but that’s fine as long as you know how to keep us happy.”
She rose on her toes, pressed a kiss to her brother’s cheek, and strolled out of the stable.
* * * *
Two separate secret discussions went on at El Sueño late that night.
The Wilde brothers met in one of the outbuildings. Their excuse was a poker game.
Their topic of conversation was Jaimie and Zach Castelianos.
Once Caleb had convinced Travis and Jacob that Zach was worthy of their sister, talk turned to setting up a plan of action.
Finally, they had one.
It involved a phone call to Zach from Caleb, an invitation, and just a little subterfuge.
“Can you pull it off?” Jake asked.
Caleb nodded. “Absolutely.”
It was a good thing that Travis chose that moment to lay down a royal flush or one of them might have noticed that, under the table, practical, pragmatic Caleb had crossed his fingers.
* * * *
The other secret meeting took place in Lissa’s room.
The Wilde women figured they had to let Jaimie know that they were getting together or she might be suspicious, so Sage knocked on Jaimie’s door and said, “Lissa, Jennie, Addison and I are going to talk about what to serve when at the reception. You know, those little meatballs at the same time the servers put out the little egg rolls, or is that too great a contrast?”
“Thanks,” Jaimie said, through the closed door, “but I’m going to make it an early night.”
Sage hurried to Lissa’s room.
“Well?” Addison said.
“It went just as we figured. Jaimie passed on the brilliant opportunity to talk egg rolls and meatballs.”