Stars Over Alaska (Wild River #4) - Jennifer Snow Page 0,15
at the dress.
“It’s just a dress, Levi,” she said with a laugh, hoping to break some of the tension filling the air around them. His reaction was only increasing her nerves.
He shook his head and immediately her friend was back. “It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful,” he said, looking away and reaching for her purse on the table. “We should go or we’re going to miss your timeslot.”
She nodded, forcing her best confident look. She was ready for this. They’d been together for years. Life without Dawson didn’t make sense, so why not get married?
“Thank you,” she said, accepting the purse from him.
She followed him out of the room. And neither of them heard her forgotten cell phone ringing.
* * *
HE COULD DO THIS.
He had to do this.
His best friends were getting married—the two people in the world who meant the most to him were going to commit to a lifetime of love and happiness and Levi would not get in the way of that.
He’d kept his feelings for Leslie to himself this long. What was another lifetime?
His mouth watered and he rushed to the shared bathroom in the hallway of the B and B, where Leslie and Dawson would be spending their wedding night. Vomiting, he splashed water onto his face and stared at his reflection in the mirror.
He wasn’t letting her go. He never had her in the first place. She loved Dawson, had always loved Dawson, and always would. He wouldn’t even be in the running, even if his best friend wasn’t in the picture. She’d never seen him that way. They were friends. Full stop.
Unrequited love happened all the time.
Unfortunately, unlike other rejected, jilted, heartbroken people, Levi couldn’t just walk away from the source of pain and torment. He’d had a front row seat to it for years and now he would be standing next to his best friend, offering all the support he wanted desperately to feel as he vowed to love and cherish the woman Levi was in love with.
If only he could break whatever spell Leslie had on him, whatever power she held over his heart. Over the years, he’d tried to get over these insane feelings he had for her. But no other woman made his body, mind and heart react the way she did.
He’d even tried stepping away for a while, pulling back...but not having them both in his life was just that much more painful. They were more than friends, they were family, and he’d support them the way he always did.
He left the room and walked down the hall to Leslie’s room. He knocked once and entered.
And his entire world spun out of control.
She was breathtaking in the floor-length, simple but elegant off-white satin gown, and he forgot how to function as he took in the sight of her.
“It’s just a dress, Levi,” she said with a shy laugh.
It was so much more than a dress. It was a symbol of his inability to ever be honest with her. To ever tell her how he really felt. It was an even bigger symbol of the fact that he would never have the love of his life. He’d have to be content never fully loving anyone else to his full capacity. He’d never share a life with her. It was so much more than a dress.
But she’d be happy.
And that was what mattered to him most.
He cleared his throat. “It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.” He hoped it sounded natural, normal. It’s what you said to a bride on her wedding day.
He handed over her purse and checked his watch as they left the room. He had an hour before he gave the woman he loved away to his best friend.
* * *
LEAVE IT TO Dawson to be late.
Leslie checked the clock on the wall at the courthouse and reached into her purse. She’d text him to remind her often-absentminded fiancé that their wedding was supposed to have started five minutes ago. His inability to be on time for anything was one of those quirks of his that she’d been forced to come to love, otherwise she would have murdered him by now.
Three other couples were scheduled to get married that day and their window of opportunity was closing.
Unfortunately, her cell phone wasn’t in her purse.
Damn it, she’d left it in the honeymoon suite at the B and B.
She scanned the courthouse hallway for Levi and saw him guzzling a bottle of water near the vending machine. He looked pale and slightly ill. He