The Secret Wedding Wish

And lucky him, he even had a rock-solid reason to search her out immediately. And spend even more time with her.

Sunday afternoon, the Delectable Cakes bakery was closed.

Janey’s minivan was parked in the driveway of her home. A magnificent white Bentley was idling at the curb. Hannah Reid, chief mechanic of Classic Car Auto Repair, and part-time chauffeur was seated behind the wheel. She was dressed in the usual man’s tuxedo, cap tucked jauntily over her wavy auburn hair. Wondering what was up, Thad parked on the street behind the limo and walked up to say hello. Hannah put down her window. “Hey, Thad.”

“Hey, Hannah.”

“Do me a favor?” Hannah persuaded with a smile.

“Sure.”

“Go around back and see if you can’t get Dylan Hart to get his sorry self back in the limo. He’s going to miss his flight to Chicago if we don’t get a move on.”

“No problem.”

Thad headed around the side of Janey’s small cottage-style home in the older section of Holly Springs. He had nearly rounded the corner of the one-and-a-half-story home when he heard the voices.

“Listen to me, Janey. Joe has had a rough enough start with the Storm, given what happened between him and the owner’s daughter, without you luring Joe’s coach out of town and kissing him like there’s no tomorrow!”

“First of all, Joe and Emma are happily married now. Joe’s conflict with Saul Donovan is a thing of the past. And second, I did not lure Thaddeus Lantz anywhere!” Janey protested heatedly as an interested Thad stopped where he was.

“Then how do you explain Thad following you out to Lake Pine?” Dylan asked.

That was just it, Thad thought. They couldn’t. Because to tell the truth, it was quite unlike him. Usually, he didn’t give the women around him—even those he was wildly physically attracted to—a second thought. These days, his thoughts were all on the team he was coaching, and his desire to make it to the Stanley Cup finals. Not sometime in the very far future. But this very year. With the very team he was going to be coaching through training camp, come the second week of September.

Usually, this time of year, he was focused on the upcoming season, and figuring out how to make sure each and every player on the Storm roster reached his full potential. Instead, he was, more often than not, thinking about Janey Hart Campbell and her son.

“For Joe’s sake,” Dylan continued firmly, in much the same vein as his brother Mac. “You have to stay away from Thaddeus Lantz! I mean it, Janey. No more kissing Joe’s coach!”

Thad rounded the corner. He looked from Janey to Dylan, and back again, before asking lazily. “Bad time?”

“Actually,” Janey said sweetly, her temper obviously getting the best of her at long last, “It’s the perfect time.” Her chin set determinedly, she marched past Dylan, wrapped her arms around Thad’s shoulders, went up on tiptoe and planted one on him.

Her lips were every bit as soft and sweet and warm as he recalled. Pleasure zinged through him as he wrapped both his arms around her, as casually as if they did this every day. Following her lead, he kissed her right back, every bit as thoroughly as he had the evening before, until he felt her melting against him. And then, only then, did he let the heated caress come to a lazy halt and lift his head ever so slowly from hers.

Janey looked up into his face, a mixture of shock and passion reflected in her soft amber eyes. Clearly, she had wanted him to play along with her, to pretend this was some grand passion to simultaneously egg her brother on and punish him for getting involved in her business. She hadn’t wanted Thad to get so carried away… But that, Thad thought, was just what happened when they kissed, even when it was all for show.

“Okay,” Dylan grumbled from the left of them. He glared at Thad, then Janey. “You’ve more than made your point, sis. You can kiss whomever you want. And it appears Thad here can take care of himself.”

“You’re right about that,” Thad said. Even if he didn’t quite like the way he had just been used to make a point, one Hart sibling to another.

Janey wiped imaginary specks of dirt from what Thad guessed were her gardening clothes—a pair of old cutoff jeans with frayed edges, and a T-shirt that was a little too snug across the breasts for his comfort. Dylan, on the other hand, was clad in a sharp suit and tie befitting an up-and-coming TV sportscaster. “Your limo is waiting,” Thad told Dylan, recalling why he had come around the side of the house in the first place. “Hannah Reid said to get a move on or you’re going to miss your flight.”

“We shouldn’t have dragged you into the situation with Chris,” Dylan stated with frank apology.

“You didn’t. Chris did. And I don’t mind,” Thad said quietly, in the same man-to-man tone. He liked helping the boy. Liked feeling needed. “What I do mind—” Thad clapped his hand on Dylan’s shoulder, the same way he did when he was coaching one of his players in a tense situation “—is you interfering in my romantic life or lack thereof.” Thad looked him straight in the eye, making sure he had Dylan’s full attention before he continued. “Got it?”

Dylan’s jaw tightened. The look in his eyes was mutinous.

“It was unfortunate your brother Mac walked in on what he did last night, out at Lake Pine. It doesn’t make it any of his business. Or yours. Janey and I are adults. We will figure this out without any help from either of our families.” And that included his mother, Thad thought. Well-meaning or not, she was going to have to stay out of this.

Embarrassment staining his handsome face, Dylan nodded his understanding reluctantly. Then he looked Thad straight in the eye. “Joe’s boss or not—you do anything to hurt her and you’ll have the whole Hart posse coming after you.”

Thad dropped his hand from Dylan’s shoulder. Winning Janey’s heart would first require running the gauntlet of Hart men. Thad knew he was more than up to the task. “I’d expect nothing less,” he said. In fact, it was reassuring to him, knowing Janey’s family loved her that much.

With a careless nod in both their directions, Dylan took off.

Flushing more than Dylan had been, Janey propped the backs of her gloved hands on her waist. Shaking her head, as if unable to believe his penchant for arriving at the most inopportune times, she stepped away from Thad. “Sorry about that. Again,” she said heatedly.

Thad grinned, loving the way she looked, all disheveled and flushed and perspiring. Which was probably the way she would one day look in his bed, in the throes of passion.

“I’m not,” Thad said, moving closer.

Janey shook her head in silent self-admonition and refused to meet his gaze. “I probably shouldn’t have kissed you,” she murmured in a low, throaty tone.

“Probably not, if it was for all the wrong reasons. Then again, if it’s for all the right reasons, like this…” he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her sweetly, tenderly, until she trembled in his arms once again, “I don’t mind at all.”

A guilty flush stained her cheeks. She lowered her glance. Refusing to acknowledge their latest kiss, or her potent reaction to it, she splayed her hands across his chest and murmured, “What I was trying to say Thad, is that there seems to be no shortage of embarrassing family moments on my behalf for you to witness.”

Trying not to feel disappointed she had used their mutual attraction to make a point with her family, Thad shrugged. And because it was what she seemed to want, he let her go. “They just don’t want to see you hurt. I can understand that. As I said, I am equally as protective about my sister. Which, by the way, is why I’m here. Molly has eloped.”

Janey blinked, her full attention on him once again. “With Johnny Byrne?”

“Yesterday, apparently.”

“Why?”

“That’s just it. Nobody knows. They’re still in Gatlinburg. Due back tomorrow. Anyway, my mother and stepfather want to put together a reception for the two of them. Friday is the only evening this week The Wedding Inn is open. My mother is hoping you’re not too busy to make the cake.”

She shot him an unexpectedly flirtatious glance. “Ah. And you’re here to persuade me.” She seemed to like the idea.

An answering warmth sizzled through him. “I volunteered.”

As she tilted her head to the side, the silky chestnut strands that had escaped her hair clip gently brushed the slender nape of her neck. “Well, I do owe you a favor.” Her eyes twinkled merrily.

“Which is the polite way of saying you’re already booked.”

Janey stepped closer and stood, gloved hands on her hips, legs braced apart, her sneaker-clad feet planted firmly in the grass that edged her vegetable garden. “I can fit it in.” She paused to wet her lips. “I’m going to have to know what kind of cake they want, though.”

“I’ll have Molly and Johnny come over to your shop tomorrow, as soon as they arrive,” Thad promised, thinking he might stop by, too. After all, he was on his own schedule, this time of year. It wouldn’t be that way two months from now. Which meant whatever courting had to be done to make her his, would have to be done now. And he did want to make her his. “So what are you doing here?” He nodded at the garden.

“Weeding. Or trying to—I don’t seem to be getting very far.” She dropped to her knees beside the row of bush beans, and picked up her hand tool. “Want to help?”

Thad made a face as he hunkered down beside her. He knew it wasn’t going to win him any points with her, but he decided to be honest with her anyway. “It’s not really my thing.”

She shot him a glance from beneath a fringe of thick, chestnut-colored lashes. “That’s surprising, given the fact your dad owns a gardening and landscape business.”

Deciding if he was going to hang around, he might as well get comfortable, Thad shrugged and dropped to the grass beside her. He reclined next to her, long legs stretched out, the weight of his torso resting on his bent elbow. “I never was much for rooting around in the dirt.”