Wild & Hexy by Vicki Lewis Thompson Read Free Book Online Page B

she’d been relegated to second place.
    ‘‘Jeremy?’’ Annie returned to the phone and she was laughing. ‘‘You still there?’’
    Always. ‘‘I’m here.’’ There was more laughing in the background. Once upon a time he would have been convinced the laughter had something to do with him, but today he didn’t let himself think that.
    ‘‘Melody says it’s no problem as long as you don’t let me drown in Deep Lake. She’d have trouble finding a new matron of honor so close to the wedding.’’

Chapter 4
    After being reassured that life jackets would be involved in her virgin kayaking experience, Annie hung up the phone.
    ‘‘So what was that all about?’’ Still grinning, Melody picked up her cinnamon bun. She apparently found the idea of Jeremy pursuing Annie hilarious. ‘‘He must have an agenda if he tracked you down at the crack of dawn in order to ask you out. That’s major enthusiasm.’’
    ‘‘I’m not sure what it’s about.’’ Annie looked away as Melody bit into her cinnamon bun. Her sister had tried to talk her into buying one, but Annie had stayed strong. It hadn’t been easy. The Hob Knob had the best cinnamon rolls Annie had ever tasted.
    Instead of watching Melody eat, Annie glanced over at Gwen, not sure how this invitation of Jeremy’s might be affecting her. Gwen had joked with Melody about Jeremy’s eagerness, but that might have been a cover-up. No telling if he’d broken her heart, but if he had, she was hiding it beautifully.
    Gwen had always been a class act, and Annie had been happy to discover she still was. She was also the kind of woman a makeover team would love.
    Her brown hair could use a more flattering cut, but apparently she’d never cared to experiment with hair-cuts, or makeup, either, for that matter. Her clothes did nothing to show off her figure, and her glasses didn’t compliment her face at all. A few simple changes and one of her flowers tucked behind her ear, and Gwen would be dynamite.
    ‘‘I’m glad Jeremy’s dating again,’’ Gwen said. ‘‘He’s a great guy.’’
    Annie searched for envy in her friend’s brown eyes and found none. Still, she would play it safe. ‘‘I don’t consider this a date.’’
    Melody finished off the cinnamon roll. ‘‘If it walks like a date and talks like a date, then it must be a date.’’
    ‘‘Then it’s a date with no future.’’ Deciding to meet the Gwen-and-Jeremy dilemma head-on, Annie focused on her friend. ‘‘Mom said you and Jeremy used to go out.’’
    Gwen sighed. ‘‘God, we did. We surely did. I can’t believe we gave in to parental pressure at our age, but they kept throwing us together and making it obvious how thrilled they’d be if we became a couple.’’
    ‘‘I’m sure they made it sound cozy,’’ Annie said.
    ‘‘Oh, definitely. Before my folks moved to Arizona, they used to play pinochle with the Dunstans every Thursday night, and I’m convinced they spent a good part of the evening picking out names for the children Jeremy and I were supposed to have.’’
    Melody licked her fingers and picked up a book of flower arrangements. ‘‘Manipulation to the max.’’
    ‘‘It was, but I can see their rationale. We got along fine, and Jeremy’s even cuter now than he was as a teenager. I should have wanted to jump his bones, but . . . I didn’t.’’
    Annie wondered if Gwen’s built-in gaydar had warned her off, but she said nothing.
    ‘‘After a while,’’ Gwen continued, ‘‘I figured out he wasn’t sexually interested in me, either. One night we finished off a bottle of wine, got slightly smashed and admitted that we had no interest in becoming lovers. Both sets of parents were crushed, but that’s the breaks.’’
    ‘‘Good thing you could be honest with each other,’’ Annie said.
    ‘‘Amen to that.’’ Gwen gazed at her. ‘‘Now that we’re talking about this, I seem to remember Jeremy had a crush on you back in