Own the Eights Gets Married - Krista Sandor Page 0,53

it looks like we’re spending the night soaked and freezing.”

She glared at his symmetrically perfect face and reached inside her sweatshirt and pulled out the tracking device, hanging from the lanyard, then gripped the panic button.

“I’m done with this wilderness bridal boot camp bullshit! I’m done with it all!”

Jordan raised his hands defensively. “Don’t push it, Georgie. It’s one night. We can do this. We can tough it out.”

“Tough it out? What do you think I’ve been doing while you’ve been snoring like a sleeping bear every night?”

“Eating cookie dough,” he replied accusatorially.

“That was one night!” she exclaimed.

“You could have left a little bit for me?” he countered.

She wiped the rain from her cheeks. “Is this what’s happening? Are we going to pretend this is about cookie dough or shit shovels or llamas?”

“It was an alpaca,” he corrected.

“It doesn’t matter! Look at us, Jordan! The only time we’re not trying to rip each other’s heads off is when we’re screwing! Maybe I am a sex maniac?”

He stared up at the pouring rain. “What are you saying?”

She steadied herself. “I’m saying that this is over.”

She pressed the button and watched as the indicator light changed from a solid green to a blinking red.

“What happens now?” he asked as rivulets of water trailed down his face as a clapping sound came from behind a wall of rock.

“Now, you leave without your wilderness bridal boot camp completion certificate,” Buck said with a final clap.

She and Jordan whipped around to see the wilderness expert and his wife coming around the rocks.

“How did you get here so fast?” she asked.

“Where do you think you are?” Syd asked, sharing a look with Buck.

“Way the hell away from camp, near the red flag,” Jordan answered, but he didn’t sound so sure.

Buck chuckled. “You’re no more than a two-minute walk from camp. It’s up this trail, past the rocks. Don’t you recognize where you are?” Buck pointed to the alpaca. “Didn’t Frankie give it away that you’d circled back?”

Georgie glanced at her fiancé, whose posture had gone rigid.

“Are you sure you want to give up?” Syd asked.

Georgie took another look at the sullen man she thought she knew.

“We’re done.”

10

Georgie

“I can’t believe you won’t walk the five feet it takes to get to Jordan’s gym from the bookshop. This is getting insane, Georgie. Your wedding is in two days! Two days! You guys need to talk,” Becca whisper-shouted across the shop.

Georgie slid a copy of Pride and Prejudice onto the bookshelf and sighed.

The wedding may be in two days, but the last two weeks had flown by in a hazy blur.

Three hundred and thirty-six hours—not that she was counting—had passed since she and Jordan turned in their shit shovel and their engagement had turned into a full-blown shit show.

And just to be clear, it wasn’t that the weather was hazy. Nope, the wedding frau was right. The last two weeks had been unseasonably warm and sunny with high temperatures near eighty degrees every day since she and Jordan had flunked out of wilderness bridal boot camp.

They’d driven back to their Denver bungalow in silence, and then Jordan had packed a bag, collected the contents of their dryer’s lint trap, and left.

She couldn’t blame him. She was the one who said they were done.

But what was she talking about? The boot camp from hell or their engagement?

And why didn’t she know the answer?

In this alternate universe, time passed in a nebulous tumble of routine.

Yes, she went through all the motions. She’d open the shop. She’d close the shop. However, out of spite or out of morbid curiosity, she’d spent a ludicrous amount of time over the last fourteen days researching lemon verbena.

For the past two weeks, she’d written a myriad of blog posts on the perennial shrub. Lemon verbena required full sun to flourish. Perfect for attracting butterflies and hummingbirds, the drought-resistant plant could also be used as an essential oil or its leaves employed in making herbal teas.

She’d interviewed gardeners and spent hours online gazing at the herb’s delicate white flowers hidden in a sea of deep green leaves.

Some sources claimed it was associated with supernatural forces and could protect against dark spells.

Unfortunately, her lemon verbena dryer sheet wasn’t able to protect her and Jordan from whatever dark place they’d entered.

They communicated through the blog by going tit-for-tat with their posts.

She’d blog about the lemon verbena. Then, he’d hit back with a post touting the importance of pushing past one’s mental blocks. She’d write about treatments to stop snoring,