the short amount of time they’d been up at the chapel, at least another few inches of snow had fallen. She lumbered through it, kicking up the white powder with Soren on her heels as music streamed out the door.
“Do you know what this is all about?” she asked, then stopped dead in her tracks as they took in the scene.
She glanced up at Soren and watched as the color drained from his cheeks.
Her sister and the Abbotts stood slack-jawed along with Delores, Dan, and Tanner while four young women, dressed in nothing but skimpy lingerie, gyrated and flashed cleavage as they danced around the Christmas trees. A neon strobe light flashed, and music boomed as Nancy, looking as shell-shocked as the rest of the group, scooped up Cole, then took Carly by the hand and ushered the children down the hall to their suite.
It looked like the rustic version of a seedy holiday gentleman’s club.
Bridget waved wildly to Dan and Delores. “What is this?”
Delores shook her head. “I don’t understand it at all. These ladies said they were paid to come here for the bachelor party. I told them they had to have gotten it wrong. But the dancer in the red number over there said they’d already been paid double to be here tonight for Tom.”
For Tom?
Bridget grabbed Soren’s coat sleeve as Tom pulled the cord to the strobe light, then turned off the stereo, and the room went dead quiet for a beat.
“Hey, these are the gals I met in the village!” Russ said with a stupid grin, waving to two of the scantily clad women.
“Russ, go help Denise and Nancy with the kids,” Tom said, his voice a tight, forceful whisper.
“Sure, Tom,” the man replied, confusion written on his face, but he complied.
“We’ll go and help with the kids, too. Come on, Scott,” Grace said, taking her shocked husband by the hand and heading to the room.
“I don’t know why you’re so upset, mister,” the dancer in red said with a pout as she sauntered up to Tom. “This is your bachelor party.”
Tom took a step back from the woman. “I’m upset because my fiancée and I asked you and your friend not to come back. And now you’re here with two more people.”
The woman released an annoyed groan before grabbing a bag off the floor and pulling out a cell phone. “I know you told us not to come back, and we were going to leave this little town yesterday, but then, we got this text two nights ago from a Soren Traeger Rudolph.”
Bridget’s stomach twisted into a knot.
“He’s the guy paying us so much. We talked to his secretary. She’s the one who set everything up for him. Not a super nice lady—real testy on the phone. But the money went through, and that’s all that matters,” the woman finished with a flick of her hair.
“You got a text from Soren two nights ago?” Tom repeated, his face awash in shock.
Two nights ago, Soren and Tom had the bro-fest night on the town. An image of the worst best man passed out on the sleeper sofa with his phone clutched in his hand flashed through her mind.
He wouldn’t. This had to be a mistake.
“See, I’ve got the text right here. It says, SOS! Send reinforcements. Bring as many entertainers. By the way, I love that you call us entertainers. Stripper is so 2002,” the woman crooned, oblivious to the firestorm she and her entertainer friends’ presence had caused. “Anyway, SOS! Send reinforcements. I need extra ladies because the groom requires an over-the-top bachelor party. He was railroaded into this wedding by his pregnant girlfriend, and now he has to marry her. Spare no expense! Bring extra body glitter.” She held out her phone. “And then there are about fifty vomit face emojis.”
“I don’t remember sending that,” Soren said, shaking his head.
Now, the quartet of strippers was no longer the biggest surprise of the night.
She went to her sister. “You’re pregnant? Why didn’t you say something?”
Lori took her hand. “I was going to. We were going to tell everyone. We only found out the night we got here. I was a few days late and decided to pick up a test at the drug store in town. That’s when we found out.”
“The night you got here?” Soren interrupted, his voice a hoarse crack. “You didn’t tell me you just found out about this,” he said, turning to his best friend.