Scorned by the Boss / The Texan's Secret Past: Scorned by the Boss

“I think Peter was just scared and needed a reason to back out of the wedding, the big weenie,” Debbie said.

“Yeah, but accusing her of being in love with Lyon?” Janine shook her head. “That’s really stretching.”

At the moment, Caitlyn could hardly even think about Jefferson Lyon without gritting her teeth. In love with him? Not a chance. Attracted? Sure. What red-blooded, breathing woman wouldn’t be? But attraction was where it started and ended.

“Don’t even get me started on Jefferson Lyon,” Caitlyn muttered, and snatched a tortilla chip from the basket in the middle of the table. As she crunched down hard on it, only half pretending she was snapping her boss’s neck in half, she told her friends, “When Jefferson found out the wedding was off, he just said, ‘Oh, good. You can go to Portugal with me after all.’ No I’m sorry, Caitlyn. Are you all right? Do you need to take some time off? Do you want me to kill the jerk for you?” She took a sip of her drink and reached for another chip. “I’m telling you, I came within a hair of quitting.”

“You should’ve,” Debbie said. “Men suck.”

“Where’ve I heard that before?” Janine wondered aloud.

“Funny.” Debbie smirked at her, then turned her gaze back on Caitlyn. “Anyway, Peter obviously had some commitment issues and was just using Lyon as a handy excuse.”

“Well, it was a stupid one,” Caitlyn said. She refused to think about the quick whip of something hot and delicious that usually zapped her whenever she was too close to Jefferson. That was just lust. Or not even that. Just…appreciation for a good-looking guy. That was it. She nodded. Appreciation. Attraction. Nothing else.

“Duh.” Janine shook her head. “But the upside is he gave you a month to call it off. Unlike my own unlamented ex-fiancé, John, who thought three days was more than enough time.”

True. Janine’s ex-fiancé had left her a note, three days before their simple backyard wedding that read only, Sorry, babe. This isn’t for me. Debbie was right, Caitlyn thought. Men really did suck.

“Did you tell your mom yet?” Debbie asked the question, already wincing in anticipation of the answer.

Yep, these friends knew her well. Knew her family. Knew what kind of hell her mother was going to put her through for ruining her only shot at being mother of the bride.

“Yeah, that was a good time.” Caitlyn closed her eyes and sighed, remembering the look of stunned shock, disappointment and frustration that clouded her mom’s face just yesterday when she’d dropped by her parents’ house to deliver the blow.

“Guessing she didn’t take it well?” Janine asked.

“You could say that. You would have thought I’d… No, I can’t even think of anything that could rival how this news hit Mom. She’s had her dress for the wedding since the week after Peter proposed,” she reminded them unnecessarily. “‘Four times,’ she told me yesterday, ‘four times I was mother of the groom. It was my turn to be Mother Of The Bride.’”

“Yikes,” Debbie muttered.

“That about covers it,” Caitlyn said. “She even says the words Mother Of The Bride in capital letters. She’s been so enjoying being in on everything. Heck, the only way I got to pick my own site was because Peter and I were paying for the wedding ourselves. Otherwise mom would have found a cathedral or something. She really was looking forward to a big show. I was her only shot at the brass ring.”

“She’s gonna make you pay.”

Janine grumbled, “She should be making Peter pay.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Caitlyn said with a shake of her head. “The point is it’s over. And now our little circle of dumpdom is complete.”

Debbie looked at her across the table. “I just can’t believe Peter turned out to be a stinker. He seemed so nice.”

Janine finished the last of her drink and scowled down at the empty glass. “They all seemed nice, at first. Mike was great to you until you found out about the other two wives he already had.”

It was Caitlyn’s turn to wince now. Six months ago Debbie had been within a couple of weeks of her own wedding, a planned elopement to Vegas, when she intercepted a phone call for her fiancé, Mike, at his place. Turned out that the woman on the line was Mike’s wife. And by the time it all got sorted out, yet another wife had been discovered. And now Mike was in jail, where every good bigamist should land.

“True,” Debbie mused, and rubbed the empty spot on her ring finger where her antique moonstone had shone brightly up until six months ago. Then she shrugged and looked at Janine. “You were in the worst shape of all of us. Only three days to cancel everything.”

Janine nodded. “John always did have a flair for the dramatic. The creep.”

“It’s been a pretty rotten year, hasn’t it?” Debbie flipped her long blond hair back over her shoulder and looked from Janine to Caitlyn. “Romance wise, I mean.”

“Fair to say.” Janine signaled the waitress by holding up her nearly empty glass. “What’re the odds that all three of us would get engaged and then unengaged in the same year?”

“There’s a cosmic kind of symmetry in it, I admit,” Caitlyn said on a sigh. Running the tips of her fingers through the water mark her glass had left on the glossy tabletop, she added, “At least we have each other.”

“Thank god.” Janine’s brown eyes narrowed as she chewed on the end of a swizzle stick.

Caitlyn took another drink of raspberry-flavored liquor and licked a stray drop off her bottom lip. “All three of us engaged, then dumped. What does that say about us?”

“That we’re too good for the available men around here?” Janine offered, grinning.

“Well, sure, that,” Debbie said with a smile. “But it also says here we are. Monday night and we’re at the same table in the same bar where we’ve been meeting for the last five years.”

“Hey, I like On The Pier,” Janine said, signaling again to the waitress by holding up her empty glass.

“We all do,” Caitlyn threw in, draining her martini to be ready for the second round already on its way. Idly she glanced across the crowded room. There were a few suits, men fresh from work, stopping by to have a quick drink on the way home. But, mostly, the crowd was made up of people like Caitlyn and her friends—relaxed, in jeans and T-shirts, looking to unwind in a comfortable spot.

On The Pier, a tiny neighborhood bar in Long Beach, had been their designated meeting place since they’d all turned twenty-one. Every Monday night, no matter what, the three women had a standing date for drinks and gossip.

And over the last year, as they’d taken turns commiserating with each other over broken engagements, these Monday-night get-togethers had become more important than ever. Caitlyn ran her fingertip around the rim of her glass and studied her two friends thoughtfully. She found herself smiling in spite of the heavy, cold lump settled in the pit of her stomach. The three of them had been friends since high school, when they’d met in detention hall.

Raised with four older brothers, Caitlyn had been hungry for a sister. And with Debbie and Janine she’d found two. They were closer to her than anyone else she knew. “It’s a great neighborhood bar and we know everybody here. It’s our comfort zone.”

“Exactly!” Debbie gulped the last of her drink and set her glass down. Leaning her elbows on the table in front of her, she glanced at each of her friends and said, “That’s my point. We’re all in a comfort zone. We each got dumped and we’re still here. Same spot. Same day. Same time.”

“So?” Janine paused when their waitress delivered their fresh drinks and took away the empty glasses.

When the waitress had gone, Debbie grabbed hers and took a quick gulp of the pale green liquor. “So, why are we content to stay in a comfort zone? Why don’t we break loose? Try something new?”

Caitlyn frowned at her. “Like what?”

“Like…” Debbie paused. “I don’t know offhand. But we should do something.”

“Maybe—” Janine said, then quickly closed her mouth and shook her head. “Nope. Never mind.”

“What?”

“No way do you get to say that and then stop,” Caitlyn protested.

“Fine.” Janine grinned at each of them, then took a sip of her drink. “I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of days now. None of us got married. None of us got the honeymoon we were planning on. And none of us has spent the money we had been saving up for the whole wedding/honeymoon extravaganza.”

“And…” Debbie prompted.

“And,” Janine said, “last night it suddenly occurred to me—why don’t we spend that money together?”

“How?” Caitlyn asked, intrigued enough to listen.

“On a blowout no-holds-barred vacation,” Janine said, clearly warming up to her own idea as she spoke. Her eyes flashed and her grin spread. “I say we each take the four weeks’ time we were going to use for our honeymoons and go on a trip together. We go to some fabulous resort, get waited on, drink, play and get laid as often as humanly possible.”