to Lori. “Babe, I’m sorry. I shared the news with Scooter because I was excited—because I’ve shared everything with him since I was a kid. I thought he’d be happy for me—for us. I thought it would help him with all the changes. I should have talked to you first. But I never in a million years thought he’d do anything as cruel and selfish as this.”
Lori stared at Soren. “How could you?”
Soren paced the length of the room. “I don’t remember texting these women.”
Tom put out his hand. “Give me your phone.”
Soren stilled. “What?”
“Give me your phone, Scooter,” Tom bit out, and Soren handed it over.
Tom’s cheeks bloomed crimson as he scrolled through Soren’s messages. “You bastard! I wondered what the hell you were doing on your phone.”
“What? I’ve barely looked at the thing,” Soren said, swiping the phone from Tom.
“You texted Janine and asked for the strippers’ contact information. Then you texted the strippers. The evidence is right there. Thank God you went into business. You would have made a shit lawyer.”
“Not stripper—dancers or entertainers,” the head dancer chimed.
Tom turned to Dan. “Could you drive these dancers down to the village and help them find their way home. I’ll pick up the cost of whatever it takes to get them out of here.”
Tanner perked up. “I can take them down. It’s no problem.”
“Let me cover the cost, Tom. It’s the least I can do,” Soren offered.
Tom barked out a laugh. “No, you’ve done enough.”
Soren took a step toward his friend. “Tommy, I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d had way too much to drink that night.”
“Clearly not too much to text Janine and the strippers!” Tom threw back.
“Dancers,” the woman said again from the other side of the room where the ladies were zipping into their coats.
“Let’s head out the back,” Tanner said, waving the dancers out through the side door.
“Tommy, I didn’t—” Soren began, but Tom stopped him.
“It’s time to set the record straight. Lori didn’t railroad me into anything. I love her. I want to marry her, and I want to have a family with her. Yeah, we were thrown for a loop to find out she was pregnant. But I want her and our baby. They are the most important things in my life.”
“I must have misunderstood the situation,” Soren replied, stone-faced.
Tom shook his head and stared up at the ceiling. “No, that’s not an answer, Scooter. You didn’t misunderstand. I’d hoped you’d be flexible. No, not flexible—supportive of me and stand behind my choice to get married. But you didn’t. Your first impulse was to maintain the status quo at whatever cost. You told me that you thought I wasn’t ready for marriage. But it’s you, Scooter. You’re the one who can’t see that I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I’ve always been a friend to you. But you’ve crossed a line. I love Lori. I’m marrying Lori, and it’s not because we’re expecting a baby. And I’m so damned disappointed in you for thinking so little of me as a man. Not everyone who gets married ends up like your parents. After spending sixteen years with my family, I thought you understood that.”
Soren met his friend’s eye. “Is that all?”
Tom shook his head. “No, I have one more thing to say to you. You think you love this family, but you don’t. Your happiness stems from when it serves you to be a part of us.”
“Tom, honey,” Lori said, coming to her fiancé’s side. “That’s enough.”
Soren shook his head. “No, Tom’s right. I’ve been fooling myself all these years—thinking I was some adopted Abbott. I’m not. I’m a Traeger Rudolph through and through. Nothing will change that.”
“I think you should go. This friendship is over,” Tom said with his angry gaze trained on the door.
Bridget stood stock-still, hardly able to believe the scene that played out before her.
“This has to be a misunderstanding. Was this supposed to be a joke—a terribly inappropriate joke?” she asked, her words coming out in a tumble when a steadying hand pressed against her back.
She blinked away tears to find the judge standing next to her.
“Scooter, let’s go. I’ll drive you down to the village,” the man said, his calm voice vibrating through the frenzied energy of the night’s revelations.
At the judge’s words, Lori led Tom away from the group, and the two sat on a sofa in the far corner of the room. Their heads bent close together as they spoke in hushed whispers.