Ready to Wed by Cindi Madsen Page A

through his cupboards. I’d realized he was tall, but without my shoes I felt like a total shrimp next to him. While he got to work on the patties, I opened the fridge and took out an onion, lettuce, and tomato. It took me a couple tries to find his cutting board—there really was no rhyme or reason to where things went—and then I sliced the veggies as the scent of meat filled the air.
    “Open these?” Brendan held up a can of baked beans. “The can opener’s right behind you.” He tossed the beans to me.
    Within a few minutes I had them open and cooking in a pot on the stove. Brendan was putting condiments on the buns. “No mustard for you, right?”
    I wrinkled my nose. He loved the stuff and I hated it. He used to chase me around with a glob on his finger, telling me he was going to force me to eat it. Thanks to him, I’d once had to wash it out of my hair. “No mustard.”
    We settled onto the couch, plates on our laps, and Brendan turned on ESPN. As we kicked back and ate, the stress of the day melted away. My adorable lazy dog snoring at my feet added another layer of comfort. Obviously he already felt at home.
    I glanced at Brendan, now fully engrossed in sports highlights. His careless, go-with-the-flow attitude was so the opposite of what I was used to. I found myself soaking in his strong profile, his Adam’s apple, and the sliver of skin exposed by the open buttons on his shirt. There was no reason to pretend he wasn’t sexy, just like there was nothing wrong with realizing he was. The important thing was that we were friends who had history, and we’d managed to bridge all those years apart with a couple of easy nights.
    I leaned back on the cushions and kicked up my feet on the coffee table.
    Suddenly, my life didn’t feel like such a mess anymore.

Chapter Nine
    The newspaper office always smelled stuffy, like all the years of stories were trapped inside with the people frantically writing them.
    Item one on today ’ s to-do list was confronting Phoebe Pratt. The rage I ’ d felt toward her Friday night had mostly abated, but I wanted to make it clear my life wasn ’ t up for gossip in the paper, and I needed to talk to Tess about my column anyway — it was item two, actually. Each task I needed to accomplish today was typed into my phone, color-coded and waiting for a simple tap to cross it off. God bless technology.
    “ Just the girl I wanted to see, ” Phoebe Pratt said, stepping into my path. Her dark hair was up in a loose bun, and she wore her usual cat-eye glasses with crystals.
    “ I was looking for you, too, actually. ” Now that the woman was in front of me, her red lips stretched into a spiteful smile, the heat was instantly back in my veins. What happened to respect for colleagues? Or at least a little girl solidarity?
    She lifted her blinged-out iPhone between us, and I noticed the recording app on her screen. “ So, Dakota Halifax, do you think people will still want to hire you when your own wedding didn ’ t go as planned? ”
    I glared at her, my fingers curling into fists. Did she seriously just ask me that? After she ’ d already cost me business?
    “ How do you plan on preventing the same thing from happening to your clients? Isn ’ t that what they hire you for? ” Her thin eyebrows arched above the frames of her glasses.
    “Well,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’d say that not everything, no matter how well organized, goes according to plan. For example, I didn’t plan on punching you this morning, but here I am, ready to do just that.”
    Her jaw dropped and then she yelled, “Dakota just threatened me! I have it on tape.”
    Heads swiveled in our direction and a couple of people popped out of their cubicles. I rolled my eyes and shoved her phone away from me. “My personal life isn’t available for your column, Phoebe. You crossed a line.”
    “Look, it’s nothing personal. Valentina Maddox’s wedding is set to get national attention, and I’m