Dear Diary by Nancy Bush

about was the feel and heat of Nick’s fingers?
    And not only that, now she was beginning to feel the bewildering heat of desire. When his fingers lay against the thin fabric of her T-shirt, her skin burned. She realized with a twist of her heart, that if Nick suddenly pulled her into his arms and asked to make love to her, she might not be able to say no. Talk about trading her current problems for worse ones. Did she feel she had to prove her desirability? Was that it? What was wrong with her?
    The thought flashed across her mind at the same moment her breath caught. Suspended, she waited for him to make a move. In her mind she could already feel his body pressed close to hers, could smell his seductive scent, could taste his mouth. Shivering, she waited.
    “I’ve asked Jenny to marry me,” he said. “The wedding will be sometime next spring. I think she’s going to ask you to be a bridesmaid. For me.”
    He withdrew his hand and Rory stared unseeingly across the darkened room to the fish tank. Her soul cried out in anguish, but she didn’t make a sound.
    “Rory?”
    “Congratulations,” she forced out. “Best wishes and all that.”
    “You mean it?”
    “Of course I do,” she said and felt the lone tear trail over the hill of her cheekbone.

    There was only one place large enough and nice enough to have a wedding reception in Piper Point‌—‌the Piper Point Country Club. It wasn’t posh, but it was nice nonetheless. The main building’s stone façade made it look like an English country manor. Azaleas and rhododendrons bloomed in brilliant colors of lavender, fuchsia, cream and goldenrod. A sprawling hot pink rock daphne perfumed the air along the front walk. Bees droned gently as Jenny Shard stood beneath the portico, clutching her new husband Nicholas’s arm and rapturously greeting guests and friends.
    Rory hung back from the proceedings, standing on the small arched bridge at the edge of the ground. She’d prayed the wedding wouldn’t come off. She’d spent untold sleepless nights creating scenario after scenario where Nick begged Jenny’s forgiveness and told her he simply couldn’t marry her. He didn’t love her. It was a mistake.
    Rory had ceased asking herself why it mattered so much. All she knew was that she had deep unresolved feelings about men in general and Nick in particular. Did that mean she loved him? That she wanted to be in Jenny’s place? She didn’t think so. She hoped not. It was certainly too late now anyway.
    Her gaze followed the path of the gully beneath the bridge as she tried to ignore the misery that had crowded into her heart. A year after Ryan, she still felt leery and distrustful of men. Except Nick. For some reason, though time and circumstance should have dimmed Rory’s memory of Nick’s kiss, it still haunted her thoughts, and seemed more tangible now than it had been when it happened.
    Was that merely because it was safe to feel twinges of passion for a man she couldn’t have?
    “There you are,” a familiar voice drawled.
    Rory didn’t have to glance around to know it was Nick. She heard the sound of his shoes on the bridge, felt him rest his elbows next to hers on the rail.
    “Shouldn’t you be with the wedding party?” she asked.
    “You’re part of it, too.”
    Oh, yes. What a joke. Jenny’s bridesmaid, when Jenny would have preferred Rory was blasted from the planet. But Jenny put up with Rory for Nick, and Rory dutifully played her part as well. Neither woman could really stand the other.
    “Hey, Nick!” a voice called. Jenny’s brother, camera in hand, waved at them. “Come on over here.”
    Rory protested when Nick grabbed her hand, but he quelled her with a look. She followed, nearly ripping the slit in her blue crêpe gown as she stumbled behind his ground-devouring strides.
    All the bridesmaids, ushers and other members of the wedding party were in a semicircle around Jenny. Glowing, Nick’s parents stood to one side; Jenny’s