The Best Man to Trust - By Kerry Connor Page 0,6

this is a party, even if no one’s acting like it.”

A few muted chuckles greeted his comment, which was entirely too accurate. The mood in the room had been subdued ever since they’d sat down to dinner.

The rooms Meredith had led them to were all beautifully furnished and more than comfortable. The problem wasn’t with the rooms. None of them were getting cell phone reception. Whether it was due to the weather or the location—or both—wasn’t clear, but it only emphasized the fact that they were cut off out here. Isolated. Trapped.

Everyone was trying to put on a brave face, no one wanting to put a damper on Scott and Rachel’s weekend, but the tension in the room was unmistakable.

Greg turned toward Scott and Rachel, who sat together on one side of the table, and raised his glass. From the way he weaved slightly on his feet, he’d already had a few drinks.

“To Scott and Rachel,” he declared with a broad smile. “Finally together again, soon to officially be together forever. Happy wedding to you.”

“Hear! Hear!” Alex chimed in.

Everyone raised their glasses and, with a collective “cheers,” took a drink.

Over the rim of his glass, Tom watched Greg retake his seat, his hand unsteady as he reached for the chair. Greg had always been a big man, stocky rather than fat, though he seemed a little thicker around the middle. Other than the possible weight gain, Tom noted with a pang of discomfort that Greg evidently hadn’t changed much. He’d always been the life of every party, always drinking too much. In the heady days of freshman year when they’d all been on their own for the first time, his behavior had seemed fun and exciting, but by senior year it had gotten old. These many years later, it seemed even sadder.

Still, maybe he was being too hard on him, Tom acknowledged. Greg was a real estate broker and, based on the way he was dressed, a successful one. Presumably he didn’t drink like this all the time. And Greg was right, this was supposed to be a party. Not to mention more than a few of the others had wasted no time hitting the wine once they’d sat down for dinner. It probably wasn’t a surprise given the circumstances.

“Thank you everyone for coming all this way,” Scott said. “I know I speak for Rachel as well as myself when I say we’re so glad to have you here to share this occasion with us. You were there when we first met and were together. It’s only right that you be here to share this next step on our journey with us.”

“We wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” Haley said. A few others murmured their agreement.

Tom silently studied the faces gathered around the table, these people who were both so familiar and so unknown to him at the same time. It felt strange being around them for the first time in so many years, like stepping back into another life, one that didn’t even feel like it used to be his.

They all seemed to have done well for themselves. His and Haley’s flights had arrived before everyone else’s, so they’d had some time to talk at the airport before everyone else had arrived. She seemed to have a thriving career in public relations. Alex was a highly respected investigative reporter who’d already won several awards for his work. Jess was an actress who’d found some acclaim in Chicago’s renowned theater scene. Rachel was the owner of her own interior design firm. And of course, Scott’s career as an investment banker had allowed them to afford this wedding in the first place.

Only then did he remember that one face he would have expected to see here wasn’t. “What about Kim?” he asked. Kim Logan had been one of Rachel’s closest friends back in school. The two of them, plus Haley and Jessica, had been inseparable. “Couldn’t she make it?”

An awkward silence fell over the table, and he immediately knew he’d said something wrong.

Scott finally cleared his throat. “I forgot you probably hadn’t heard,” he said quietly. “Kim died a couple months ago.”

Shock jolted through him. Kim had to have been around twenty-nine or thirty like the rest of them, far too young for anyone to die. “What happened?”

“She drowned in her bathtub,” Haley said. “She’d taken too many pills and fell asleep in the tub. She probably didn’t even have a chance to save herself.”

“So it wasn’t a suicide?”

Haley shook her