an announcement from you two.”
Yeah, Hadley didn’t need three guesses to figure out what kind of announcement.
The buzzer on the oven went off before Hadley could deny it, but not before an image of Will in the bathroom last night flashed in her mind. Damn. It took all of half a heartbeat for her body to go from primed for a fight to primed for Will. Ugh. This was not how this was supposed to go. Last night didn’t change anything. The man was…well, he was the evil twin who was convinced she had gold digging on the brain. The man did not get a place in her spank bank, he did not get to be in consideration for another roll in the metaphorical hay, and he most definitely was not husband material, no matter what Aunt Louise wanted to be true.
“Wait a minute.” She gasped, realization making her jaw drop. “Did you promise to help her nudge Will and me along the matrimonial road? Is that how you got the secret ingredient?”
Her mom set the steaming hot casserole dish down on a trivet shaped like a steer and shrugged. “All’s fair in love and Frito pie.”
There were no lies in that argument—at least not when it came to the food. Hadley was sprinkling fresh corn chips on top of the melted cheese when Gabe strode in through the back door.
“You guys coming out with the food or are you going to keep quiet-fighting in here?” he asked from at least two arms’ reaches away. The man was no doubt not taking any chances.
“We’re not fighting,” Stephanie said, rolling her eyes at her husband.
“Yeah,” Hadley agreed. “It’s a discussion.”
“Uh-huh.” Gabe took a few steps closer, taking a deep inhale of the Frito pie. “Well, whatever you want to call it, we’re all starving. Can I at least take out the ants on a log? We need a distraction, because it looks like Derek isn’t going to make it tonight, either.”
Hadley’s heart ached for her sister. Adalyn was not a fan of being the center of attention, to the point that she’d skipped her own high school graduation so she didn’t have to do the whole walk-across-the-stage-in-front-of-everyone thing. That’s part of what made it so strange that she’d decided to put together such an elaborate wedding. It must have been Derek who’d insisted on the full shebang. Who would do that to Adalyn and then not be here to take some of the weight off her?
“What I would say if I could,” her mom said, tone as hard as the frozen prairie in January.
There were few insults from her mom that were stronger than her mom being willing to hold back on saying exactly what was on her mind at any given time. It was one of the few things they had in common. And if she was keeping her mouth shut about Derek, then things were pretty grim.
“How’s Adalyn doing?” Hadley asked Gabe.
He shrugged and let out a sigh that spoke of all the words he was keeping bottled up, too. “She’s holding up, but Aunt Louise is like a coyote with a rabbit when it comes to getting every little detail out of Buttermilk.”
God love Aunt Louise, but she had that whole blunt-Midwestern-bulldozer thing down pat.
Gabe put on the oven mitts, picked up the casserole dish, and started toward the door. “We better get out there.”
By the time Hadley made it outside with the tray of peanut-butter-and-honey-filled celery sticks, everyone was already seated at the picnic tables. And because the fates were against her, every seat was taken except for one—the empty spot right by Will and across from Matt.
She set down the tray on the table and squeezed in next to Will, the brush of her hip against his when she sat down sending a teasing little buzz of attraction across her skin. Her brain was a hard no, but the rest of her? Oh God, the rest of her was softening like butter in July. And for the first time ever, the Frito pie tasted like shredded paper because every sense in her body was tuned in to the man sitting next to her.
And just when she thought it couldn’t get worse, PawPaw stood up and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.
Hadley’s stomach sank, and it took everything she had not to holler out “no.”
“I had brought these for Derek and Adalyn,” PawPaw said.
Maybe her sister had given her fiancé a heads-up. What PawPaw had planned was