Three days later, John reminded himself that this was what it felt like to be normal. He was standing in Charlie’s Bar and Grill, trying to look as though he belonged with the loud, over-excited crowd of business executives, cowboys, and college students.
He was thirty-four years old, but he might as well have been one hundred. He felt uncomfortable, so out of his depth that he was almost ready to leave.
Dylan Bayliss, his friend and business partner, was getting married tomorrow. The bachelor party was supposed to be his last chance at freedom. But John knew how badly Dylan wanted to marry Annie. She’d changed him, helped him find a new normal in a world that didn’t understand what it felt like to be different. Dylan had been kidnapped and tortured by the Taliban, left for dead in the middle of Afghanistan. After what he’d been through, coming home had been one of the most difficult things he’d ever done.
“How are you holding out?” Dylan stood beside John, looking almost as uncomfortable as he did.
“I’m nearly ready to leave.”
“Yeah, me, too. You want to go outside?”
John didn’t need to be asked twice. He followed Dylan through the crowd of people, scanning the faces around him for anything out of the ordinary. The only thing out of the ordinary were the two men heading outside into single digit weather conditions.
Once they were through the doors, Dylan headed over to a bench seat in front of a row of larch trees. Their golden needles glowed from the lights strung around the bar’s outdoor patio. “We’ll be safe here.”
John sat down beside his friend. “You know that we’ll probably freeze to death if we stay out here for more than fifteen minutes?”
“Works for me. I figure by that time, Annie would have found me and thought of some interesting ways to keep me warm.”
“She’s coming here? To your bachelor party?”
Dylan shrugged. “Couldn’t see any way around it. There aren’t that many options in Bozeman on a Friday night.”
John took a sip of his soda. Even from the garden, the noise from the bar was still loud. The music and laughter mixed together to create something he wasn’t comfortable around. He pulled his jacket on, zipping the front together before his fingers went numb.
“You sure you’re warm enough?” Dylan asked.
“You’re just annoyed that you didn’t grab your jacket on the way out here.”
Dylan grunted. “Or it could have been that I saw where you were heading and decided to stop you from leaving. A jacket didn’t seem important when I was inside.”
John wasn’t going to disagree with his friend. They’d known each other for too long. They’d been through too much to worry about what they should or shouldn’t be doing.
He glanced back at the bar. He might be cold, but at least he could speak to Dylan without having to yell over the noise from everyone else. “Why did you decide to have a bachelor party?”
“Damned if I know. It sounded good at the time. I’m not getting married again, so I thought I might as well follow the wedding plan in Annie’s book. Stupid idea. What’s your excuse for being here with me?”
“I figured if you could be here, so could I. But I’m too old for this,” John said with a grim smile. “I’m ancient compared to most of the people inside the bar.”
Dylan’s sharp bark of laughter made him smile. “You and me both.”
John raised his can of soda in Dylan’s direction. “Here’s to ancient men who should know better.”
“And to new beginnings that are scaring the crap out of me.”
He watched his friend. “You’re worried about getting married?”
Dylan shook his head. “I’m not worried about getting married. I’m worried Annie will come to her senses and decide I’m not the man for her. Once she signs the marriage license, I figure I’m safe. But until then, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether she’ll actually turn up at the church.”
“She loves you,” John said with a conviction that he meant. “She’ll be there, waiting for you.”
Dylan rested his head against the back of his chair. “I hope so. What did you do with Bella?”
“Mrs. Daniels is on babysitting duties.”
“Doesn’t happen often.” Dylan glanced across at him. “You looked comfortable in there. If I didn’t know you as well as I do, I wouldn’t have thought you were ready to leave.”
“I’m good at pretending.”
Dylan nodded. “Works for most of us. You should come to Pastor Steven’s support group with me. The guys are okay, if you ignore Jeremy’s smart ass comments. It might help.”
“I haven’t got Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
“Are you kidding? With what you were involved in and your wife’s death, I’d say there’s more going on inside of you than even you know. When was the last time you dated a woman?”
“About the same amount of time as you before you met Annie.”
Dylan looked him in the eye. “Have you been out on a date since Jacinta died?”
John focused on the can in his hands. “I’ve been too busy.”
“I can’t argue with that. You never stop.”
“Bella sent a letter to The Bridesmaids Club. She wanted them to find a wife for me.”
Dylan smiled. “I heard.”
“Annie told you?”
“Finding the little girl who wrote the mystery card was the highlight of their year. They’ve been searching for Bella for ages. If they’d asked me, I could have told them I knew a little girl called Bella. But then you wouldn’t have met Rachel.”
“I think she might have preferred that we didn’t meet.”
Dylan looked at him closely. “She wasn’t impressed with your sophisticated charm?”
“It was in short supply on the day I met her.”
“You’d better find it again. The rest of The Bridesmaids Club are just as excited as Rachel and Annie are. But you’ve got to watch them. No one’s safe when they’re in the same room together.”
“I heard that.” Annie walked toward them, smiling at her fiancé. She stood beside Dylan, keeping her hands warm in her jacket pockets. “Charlie said you’d come out here. Aren’t you cold?”
Dylan pulled Annie onto his lap. “You can warm me up.”
Annie shivered. “You’re as cold as a block of ice. Charlie’s going to light the outdoor fire and pull the sides down on the patio. It will be warmer than being out here.”
Dylan held his fiancée close and kissed the side of her face. “I’m happy right here.”
She patted his hand. “Two minutes of snuggle time and then we’re moving to the patio. I don’t want either of us getting sick before our wedding.”
John glanced at the patio and frowned. Rachel and three other women were helping to tie the sides of the screens into place. Even though he wasn’t looking forward to seeing her again, he decided it had to be better than watching Dylan and Annie making out beside him. “I’ll leave you to whatever it is you’re getting up to.”
“It won’t be much,” Dylan said with a sigh.
He walked toward the patio and tried to look as though he was having a good time. But a certain blond-haired, blue-eyed woman chose that moment to glance at him.
Her eyes narrowed and her smile dimmed.
He knew, without quite knowing how, that she’d seen through the mask he’d used to get through most of the night. He needed to leave. The sooner he went home, the better off everyone would be.