The Bachelor's Sweetheart

“Oh, good,” her grandmother said, looking at the place cards at one of the round tables next to the long wedding party table near the door. “I’m sitting with Edna and Harry and Marie. I didn’t know if I would be, them being the grandparents.”

Tessa wasn’t surprised. Natalie knew how close the three women were, and not many of their generation were left in the church. “You go ahead and get something to eat, if you want. I’ll look for my seat.” A pang of loneliness struck Tessa as her grandmother joined her friends at the hot hors d’oeuvres station. Tessa walked around the hall, looking for her place card, and found it at a table with other members of the church singles group. Without the bride and groom, and Josh and Claire in the wedding party, the group barely filled the eight-person table.

After grabbing a cup of tea and some veggies to munch on, Tessa returned to the table to find Lexi Zarinski, one of Josh’s many former girlfriends, and a couple of acquaintances seated at the table. The table makeup reminded Tessa that almost all of her friends were married now. Hitting thirty was apparently the clock striking midnight on the single life. She chatted with the group through dinner, intermittently glancing across the room to check on her grandmother, who appeared to be thoroughly enjoying her friends, and on Josh. She needed to catch him and find out when they could talk, preferably tonight.

When they’d finished eating, the DJ put on “Yours Forever.” Connor rose, took Natalie’s hand and led her to the dance floor in the middle of the room. “Natalie is so beautiful,” Lexi gushed, going into a monologue of every detail of the bride’s gown and why it was perfect for her.

“And don’t Claire and Josh make a great couple?” Tessa interrupted Lexi’s soliloquy as Josh led Claire to the dance floor when the DJ invited the wedding party to join the bride and groom. If Josh ever got his act together concerning women, he and Claire were perfect for each other.

Lexi pinched her lips together, and Tessa regretted her casual observation. Apparently, Lexi still had feelings for Josh. One of the guys at the table asked Lexi to dance, ending the awkward moment. Tessa tapped her foot to the music under the table, totally out of time, she was sure, but no one would notice.

“And now, by request,” the DJ said several songs later, “The Chicken Dance.”

“I didn’t think anyone did the Chicken Dance at weddings anymore,” Lexi said.

“I haven’t heard it since I was a kid,” someone else remarked.

Tessa surveyed the room, trying to figure out who might have made the request. She saw Josh making a straight line for her table. Lexi did, too. She sat up and fluffed her hair.

“Hey,” Josh greeted everyone around the table.

When he got to Lexi, she smiled and started to push her chair back, obviously assuming he’d come over to ask her to dance. She and Tessa were the only two women at the table right then.

“Tessa, it’s our dance,” he said with a grin.

She shook her head with sympathy for Lexi. Josh might be able to tear out all the roots of a relationship when he called it quits, but didn’t he realize most other people couldn’t?

“Come on,” he urged. His dark-lashed, deep blue eyes challenged her.

He was up to something. He knew she didn’t dance.

Tessa stood and offered Josh her hand. “You’re on.”

Whatever Josh was up to, she was game. If making a fool of herself in front of everyone she knew in the area by dancing the silly Chicken Dance would humor Josh and make him more agreeable to what she needed to ask of him, she’d do it. For Grandma.

* * *

Josh eyed Tessa. This was too easy. She was giving in with no protest. What fun was that? He led her toward the center of the room. “We don’t have to...” He gestured at the people flapping their elbows on the dance floor.

The corner of her mouth quirked up.

“Okay, so I asked you to dance because you laughed at me up at the altar.” He rubbed the back of his neck as the childishness of his words registered. When had he regressed to being ten years old?

“So, you don’t really want to join them?” She mimicked his gesture to the people hopping around in front of them.

“You have to ask?” Josh toed for a foothold on some semblance of his dignity.

“No, not about that, but I have something else I want to ask you about. Let’s take a walk outside where we don’t have to talk over the music and everyone else.”

“As long as it’s not about Claire’s cousin.” Josh scuffed the toe of his shoe against the tile floor. His wedding-aversion mouth-to-brain disconnect had kicked in again.

“What do you mean?” She faced him, hands on hips. After a second, her eyes brightened. “Oh, Claire told you.”

His mind flipped back through his dinner conversation with Claire and came up blank.

Tessa laughed. “I told Pierre to speak French, said you were working on improving your French for a possible job transfer to Quebec.”

“Oh, that.” He waved her off.

“Yeah, what did you think?”

“I just wasn’t following. All this—”

“Wedding stuff,” she finished for him as they crossed the hall to the door.

“Enough said.” Tessa so got him. He couldn’t ask for a better friend. Josh gave her a side glance. Or one easier on the eyes. “What do you need to talk about?”

“I have a business proposition.”

He held the door open for Tessa, and they strolled outside to a picnic table. It had to be about the movie theater in Schroon Lake she’d inherited from her grandfather Hamilton a few years ago and reopened as the Majestic. Josh knew the business was touch and go in terms of providing a living for her and her grandmother. If he were her, he’d have sold the theater and gone back to the civil engineering career she’d had before she’d moved in with her grandmother to run the theater. But he wasn’t her. Josh swung his leg over the wooden bench.

“You still with me?” Tessa asked, breaking the silence of his thoughts.

“I’m listening.”

“I’ve come up with financing for my plan to renovate the Majestic to do dinner theater in addition to movies during the summer tourist season.”

Josh leaned forward on his forearms. “The credit union approved a mortgage on the theater building?” He was surprised. All of the banks in the area had already turned Tessa down.

She shifted on the bench. “No, the loan officer suggested a mortgage on Grandma’s house.”

That made sense to Josh since the well-kept Victorian would be much easier to sell than the old theater building.

“I couldn’t ask Grandma to do that.”

“But you said you got financing.”

Tessa studied her nails, which were a soft shade of pink. With sparkles. He’d never seen her nails polished before. She’d gone all out for this wedding. Why? He took in the complete package from the soft wisps of hair framing her face to the delicate red-and-silver hearts dangling from her ears to her sparkling fingers. Whatever, she should do it more often.

“From Jared.”

Josh straightened. “You went to my brother.” Good old Jared; always ready to step in and save the day. Old wounds of sibling rivalry ripped open.

“No, he came to me. I thought you knew. He said you told him about my plans and the trouble I was having with the financing.”

“Yeah, I did.” But not in a good way. He’d been feeling Jared out for a way to discourage Tessa from what he saw as a potential financial disaster.

“Anyway, he called the other night, and we got together yesterday. You know how he is about supporting local businesses. I think he’d hate to see the Majestic go under almost as much as I would. He suggested a couple of things that could make the plan more successful.”