Unfortunately Yours (A Vine Mess, #2)

Funny, while pondering the possibility that August had gone AWOL, she didn’t immediately think of her trust fund. She was kind of . . . worried? That maybe he was having a hard time going through with the wedding without Sam?

She reached into the pocket of her robe and took out her phone, smoothing her thumb over the glass screen. Should she call him? See if he needed to chat? As little as a week ago, the very idea of holding a conversation of any length with the world’s worst winemaker would have been laughable. And hey, they weren’t best friends now or anything. Ha! That would be the day. But talking to him didn’t quite suck as much as it had before? It was kind of nice how she could be as mean and sarcastic as she wanted and he simply rose to the occasion. She didn’t have to pretend. She’d even been honest with him about her family woes and afterward, she’d been just a little bit lighter.

Maybe pretending to be married to him wouldn’t end in World War III.

It wouldn’t be a walk in the park, either. But they might not kill each other.

Right as Natalie was preparing to call her missing fiancé, his truck roared into the parking lot and skidded to a halt, kicking up a dust cloud. Everyone on the lawn stopped and turned to watch the giant groom climb out of his truck—carefully cradling a marmalade-colored cat to his chest, patting its head soothingly.

Menace was here. Wearing a cat tuxedo.

Natalie ducked back behind the tent to laugh, getting it out of her system as quickly as possible, before schooling her features. When she heard August exchange a hello with Hallie, she stepped out into the open.

August spotted her, jerked back, and held the cat up in front of his face. “Jesus Christ, Natalie. I’m not supposed to see you.”

She implored the sky for patience. “You’re not supposed to see me in the dress, August.”

Still he didn’t lower the cat. “That’s not the dress?”

“It’s a robe.”

“Ahhh.” Finally, the cat was back against his chest. “Whatever it is, you look hot in it.”

Natalie shook her head at him. Too bad so many locals were within earshot, setting up tables inside the tent, caterers arranging champagne flutes and place settings. “You look very nice in your tuxedo, as well.”

The lie detector test determines . . . that is not a lie.

August Cates was fine. Rugged. Totally at ease with his enormous body and thick muscles, which were accentuated to perfection in the starched black jacket and pants. She could tell he’d shaved, but growth was already apparent on his cut jaw and upper lip, somehow making the bow tie look softer. Like it could be whipped off at any moment. He’d tried to tame his hair, but the wind in his truck must have gotten hold of it, because some pieces were refusing to stay in line. Honestly, though, who cared about hair when his shoulders could seat a party of four?

He sauntered closer, his right hand stroking the cat’s back absently. “Yeah, I can see you like me in a tux, princess.”

She smirked at him, hoping the heat in her cheeks wasn’t turning them red. “Nice of you to show up.”

“Aw,” he drawled. “Were you getting worried?”

“That you slipped in a puddle of your own caveman drool and hit your head? Yes. I was.”

His smile showed off a row of strong, white teeth. “Were you able to get a dress made of Dalmatian fur on short notice?”

“Had one in my closet already, as a matter of fact. I just had to find a good man.” The corners of her mouth lifted. “And by good, I mean standing upright, with a pulse.”

“Gosh, Natalie. You sure know how to make an Adonis feel special.”

“It is our wedding day, after all.” Now that she’d made sure they were on even footing, in that safe bickering space where they tended to live, Natalie was comfortable enough to draw an object from her robe pocket and hold it out to him. “You mentioned wedding gifts and I just picked up a small thing. It’s really just a very small thing. Like you said, this was short notice and . . .” Stop rambling. “I found your Facebook profile, which you haven’t posted anything on in like, seven years, but there was a picture of Sam, and . . .”

She couldn’t seem to stop moving as he turned the laminated picture over in his hand, reading the words that were printed there. Then back. Right side up again. He said nothing, just looked down at the small card with his brow puckered.

“This is the U.S. Navy hymn,” he said quietly, finally looking up at her.

“Yes.” She tucked a strand of loose hair back into her low chignon. “I had to google it obviously. I don’t just know hymns off the top of my head.”

“Natalie . . .”

“Sam can’t be here, but you can put that in your pocket and . . . I don’t know. Maybe it’ll feel a tiny bit like he is. Like I said, it’s just a small thing—”

He moved quickly, his firm mouth pressing to hers and cutting her off mid-sentence, staying there for a long moment while neither one of them seemed to breathe. “No, it’s not,” he said, releasing her lips, but staying close. So close she’d tilted her head all the way back to receive the kiss. “This isn’t small, princess.”

She couldn’t think of an adequate response to that and talking at all seemed like it might be difficult, so she just nodded, the pressure on her chest increasing the longer he held her eyes, searching them.

“Your present is back at the house,” he said, carefully tucking the picture into his breast pocket.

“Great.” She had to swallow because her throat was utterly dry. “I can’t wait to open my lube from the gas station. Which flavor did you get me?”

“Tropical. Obviously.”

“Pity we’ll never use it.”

“I know, right?” He let his gaze trail down her body to the knot of her robe. “You don’t need any help in that department. Not when you’ve got me to look at.”

“That’s beautiful. If only we’d decided to write our own wedding vows, you could have included it.”

“Who says I didn’t write my own?”

That gave her serious pause. Was he joking? “Did you?”

August held up the cat’s paw in a little wave and strolled past her toward the house. “I don’t know, did I?”

“August!”

“Meet you at the end of the aisle, Natalie.”

Her intended had just moved out of earshot when her phone buzzed in her pocket.

When she saw her father’s name on the screen, the warm fuzzies she’d—admittedly—gotten from her conversation with August vanished. It couldn’t be a coincidence that he’d called on her wedding day. She stepped into a small tent at the edge of the property that appeared to be set up as a coat check. And she answered.

“Father.”

There was a short burst of Italian on the other end, then Dalton’s voice came through clear. “Natalie.” His sigh was woven with resignation. “You’re going to call off this ridiculous spectacle immediately. What are people going to think when I’m not in attendance at my own daughter’s wedding?”

That rendered her momentarily speechless. “Who told you I was getting married? I know damn well it wasn’t my mother.”

“I have a lot of friends in the Valley. A better question is: Who didn’t tell me?”

“And just to recap, you’re more upset about how this reflects on you . . . than the fact that you aren’t close enough to your family to be invited to your daughter’s wedding?”

His long-suffering sigh was interrupted by someone else speaking to him in Italian, a woman this time. Dalton responded to her in kind. Before he spoke again, Natalie knew she wouldn’t get a satisfying answer to her question. But she never could have expected what he said instead. “Is this what you want, Natalie? To force my hand?” A pause ensued. “Fine. Call off the wedding and I’ll release your trust fund.”

“You . . .” Natalie was immediately winded. “I don’t understand. Now y-you’re offering to release the money? What made you change your mind?” The ground seemed to be quaking beneath her feet, so she sat down on an overturned crate. “Is this only about saving face in Napa? You don’t even live here anymore, but you’re still worried people will think your daughter might be marrying for money?”

“Marrying a nobody for money,” he snapped in an ice-cold tone. “A nobody who is a laughingstock who doesn’t know a grape from an olive. Tying himself to my legacy.”

“Actually, it’s my legacy,” Natalie pushed through her teeth, anger sweeping through her at such an alarming rate, she almost fell off the crate. “My life.”

And she would be best served marrying August. Because she would hate herself for the rest of her life if she gave in, took the easy road, after Dalton had abandoned them. Without apology or regret. It was more than resentment that kept her from outright agreeing to take her trust fund in exchange for jilting August, though. She couldn’t quite describe the nausea that roiled in her stomach at the thought of calling off this wedding. Was she actually . . . excited to walk down the aisle, because of the man who would be waiting at the end?

No way she was going to answer that definitively. Not even to herself.

One thing she did know, this piece of work she called a father wasn’t going to insult a man who’d literally stopped in his tracks on the way out of town and stayed to help her.