Remember When Read online

  REMEMBER WHEN

  a short story

  Annabeth DenBoer

  Remember When - Copyright 2014 by Annabeth DenBoer.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Cover Art ©2014 by Isis Sousa

  Discover other titles by Annabeth DenBoer writing as Grace Draven:

  ~Master of Crows~

  ~Entreat Me~

  As always, a sincere thank you to my awesome editors: Mel Sanders and Lora Gasway.

  Additional thanks to the models Jeffrey Huddleston and Nora Rodriguez, and of course to the fabulous artist Isis Sousa whose artwork inspires me to write more just for the privilege of showing it off on my book covers.

  Last but certainly not least, many thanks to K. Giardina, J. McClure, S. Padgett, P. Rea, C. Hopkins Buczkowski, S. Jackson, C. Curtis, A. Blackie, S. Selim, and A. Schmidt Martin for their great trivia contributions. A special shout-out to J. McClure for her big day.

  REMEMBER WHEN is dedicated to Kristin Milner who fights the good fight and to her husband David, who loves her.

  ***

  “If I have to ice one more cake pop, I’m going to stab one of these lollipop sticks into my eye.”

  Phee glanced up from packing miniature red velvet cupcakes into a carton and caught her assistant baker glaring murder at an innocent cake pop as she dipped it into warm ganache and hooked it onto a tray to dry next to its other two hundred mates. “Just don’t pull it out and dip it into the ganache. Bad for business if someone at the birthday party accidentally takes a bite out of your chocolate-covered eyeball.”

  “Eww! That’s disgusting, Phee.” Elena scowled at her before glancing over her shoulder at the clock above the stove. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the wedding by now?”

  Phee followed her gaze to the clock. Damn! She should have been dressing for Phillip’s wedding twenty minutes ago. She set the last cupcake in the carton and closed the lid. Her apron went in the laundry bin by the door.

  “You sure you can handle this alone?” She waved a hand at the seven cartons of cupcakes and several dozen trays of cake pops.

  Elena finished dipping her last cake pop and hooked it into the tray with a celebratory “Yes!” She rolled her eyes at Phee. “How long have I been doing this? Have a little faith. And I want all the juicy details when you get back.”

  Grateful she had a home business where the commute from the job to the personal space was a dash down a short hallway, Phee closed her bedroom door and stared for a moment at the dress hanging from her closet door.

  Whether it was a gathering on the beach, an appointment at the court house or an epic celebration in a grand cathedral, no one outdid the bride at a wedding. She was the star of the show, and Phee had no interest in trying to upstage her ex’s gorgeous wife-to-be. When all was said and done, she liked Elizabeth and wished her the best in her new life with Phillip. She’d need it.

  She ran her fingers along the dress’s asymmetrical hem. It was a sleeveless number with a high-low skirt of silk and chiffon that gave the skirt graceful movement when she walked. Elena hadn’t been too enthusiastic when she saw it, saying she should have chosen something in scarlet instead of wine. Phee ignored the criticism. Elena’s fashion sense was flashier, and if it were up to her, she’d zip Phee into an electric blue mermaid number with a matching pair of stilettos guaranteed to break both her ankles at the first step.

  The dress had come with a hefty price tag, and Phee wasn’t sure if the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach was due to lingering sticker shock or the anticipation of seeing the one person she hoped would find her pretty in her expensive finery.

  Fifteen minutes later she was out of the shower and shimmying into underwear and bra. Noise filtered into the bedroom—Elena opening and closing the back door as she loaded sweets into the company van for delivery to a birthday party.

  Her home-based bakery, Sweet As Sin, would finally show a profit this year. Seven-day work weeks, word of mouth and smart advertising on a shoestring budget had started bringing in the orders, and Phee was actually booked for parties and events for the next four months.

  Running her own start-up hadn’t left time for sleep much less a social life, and this wedding was taking a bite out of her packed schedule now. Were it any other wedding, Phee would respectfully decline and send a gift from the bridal registry.

  The dress still hung on the door, a representation of nervous hope and the revival of memories both sweet and painful. Five years earlier, the man she was to marry had broken their engagement, and the man she’d fallen in love with had stepped on a plane to Dubai without saying goodbye.

  She’d see both men today standing at the altar.

  Phee hoped one would find happiness in his marriage. She hoped the other would see her in her pretty dress, remember he once actually liked her and ask her to dance at the reception. It was a small hope, but she had to start somewhere.

  ***

  She made it to the church and slipped into a seat just before the organist began playing Wagner’s Wedding March. Both sides of the church were full, but the spot at the end of a back pew gave her a clear view all the way down the nave to the altar.

  Phillip, tall and handsome in his black tuxedo, stood perfectly still for once with a foolish grin on his face as his bride and her father walked down the aisle toward him. Behind Phillip, his best man and groomsmen waited, dressed in identical tuxes with corsages of white roses and baby’s breath pinned to their lapels.

  Elena was going to be disappointed with Phee’s summary of the wedding. She wouldn’t have much to offer other than that the bride wore white and the bridesmaids wore purple. Or maybe yellow. She didn’t pay much attention. Her gaze remained locked on one man through the entire ceremony.

  In some ways Alex Kingmaker had changed a great deal since she’d last seen him. In others, he was the same. For the past five years, Phee had marked up her annual kitchen calendars by drawing a star on the square for June twenty-first. Two weeks earlier Alex had turned thirty-six.

  He stood next to his younger, much taller brother and gazed at the bride and congregation with an impassive expression. He cut a fine figure in his tux—broad shoulders and chest, a narrow waist emphasized by the expert tailoring. He still favored glasses over contact lenses, though now he wore different frames than the ones Phee remembered.

  He shifted his stance, and Phee frowned at the sight of the cane hanging in the crook of his elbow. He’d once told her his hip joints were deteriorating and that hip replacement was inevitable. She wondered if the cane was an aid during a recent rehabilitation or if the stubborn, prideful Alex had put off the surgery all this time. Some things truly didn’t change.

  Phee liked his new look. He wore his thick hair below his shoulders, with the front locks scraped back and captured in a hair tie to keep it from hanging in his face. He sported a close-cut beard as well, and both hair and beard shone the rich bronze-red she always admired and for which women less blessed paid fortunes to colorists to obtain. Dubai’s desert sun had burnished his skin to a light honey. Phee was too far away from the altar to make out
details, but she imagined his modest tan only highlighted the deep blue of his eyes.

  Alexander Kingmaker was beautiful, and he was here in the flesh instead of just her wistful dreams. The butterflies swarming inside Phee transformed to fighter jets, fueled by nerves, excitement, anticipation and dread. She clenched the wedding program in her hands, crushing it with damp palms. Fear tempted her to slink out while the bridal couple faced the minister and had their backs to the crowd. No one would miss her, and she could truthfully tell Lacey Kingmaker she had attended her son’s wedding and tell Elena the bridesmaids actually wore green.

  Instead, Phee locked her knees and planted her feet. She’d wait through the wedding, attend the reception and sincerely congratulate Phillip and Elizabeth Kingmaker on tying the knot. Then she’d corner Alex. As best man, he couldn’t sneak away, and while the sight of the cane cast doubts on her chances to claim a dance with him, Phee swore he’d at least have a two-sentence, polysyllabic conversation with her. Even if it killed them both.

  “Your smile makes me forget the pain, Seraphina.” He touched her arm, fingertips like points of lightning sizzling up to her shoulder and down to her wrist.

  She couldn’t help it. Her body was attached to strings, pulled and tugged toward the puppeteer who beguiled her and made her disregard the fact she stood under her foyer’s soft light with the wrong brother. “Yours makes me forget everything, Alex.”

  He leaned toward her, the essence of guilty, forbidden pleasure.

  Phee closed her eyes and shook her head a little to clear the recollection from her mind. It did no good. She’d replayed that memory so often over the years it was embedded in her brain. She ignored it instead and concentrated on Phillip and Elizabeth as they exchanged vows, relieved that it wasn’t her up there with Phillip—regretful it wasn’t her up there with Alex.

  ~!~!~

  Whatever good will Alex harbored toward his brand-new sister-in-law vanished once he learned there was a receiving line. Who the hell did receiving lines these days? Not that he attended many weddings, but the tradition seemed antiquated and considering the size of this bridal party and number of guests attending, torturous for him.

  The lobby of the hotel’s tenth story restaurant and bar was spacious with a 360° view of the city from the curving wall of windows. Elizabeth’s parents were wealthy, connected and had spared no expense in funding their only child’s big day. Old money was entrenched in old tradition, and he’d groaned under his breath when he discovered that after posing with the bridal party in what had to be a thousand photos, he’d have to stand in line and politely greet every guest who walked through the doors.

  Despite a recent round of corticosteroid injections, he hurt like a sonofabitch. The long hours of standing were doing a number on his back, groin and especially his hips. He’d promised his stepmother when he arrived back in the States, he’d set up a pre-surgery appointment. Lacey held him to it with threats of dragging him bodily to his rheumatologist’s office if he didn’t follow through with his promise.

  Alex shook hands in the line, nodded politely, hugged a few family friends who welcomed him back to the States and thanked everyone for coming. It was a mind-numbing exercise, and if the throbbing in his hips wasn’t so persistent, he would have fallen asleep on his feet.

  “Phee, you made it!”

  Alex froze at his mother’s excited greeting. He couldn’t have been more shocked if someone had sucker punched him in the kidneys. Pain and fatigue instantly forgotten, he jerked forward in time to see Lacey hug a flustered Phee Angeles.

  Alex rolled his eyes, suppressing a smirk. Leave it to Phillip to do something so colossally awkward as to invite his ex to his wedding. He glanced at Elizabeth whose serene expression held no resentment of her new husband’s ex-fiancée’s presence. Leave it to gracious Phee to smooth any feathers before they ever got ruffled. She glanced at him briefly, the color high in her pale cheeks, her round eyes dark as sable and just as soft.

  He hadn’t laid eyes on her in five years, and in that time she’d grown more beautiful—if that were even possible. She’d twisted her black hair into a French knot at the back of her head and fastened it with pearl-tipped pins. The dress she wore complimented her. A red the shade of an aged port, it contrasted against the ivory skin of her bare shoulders. The thin velvet choker encircling her neck sent the blood rushing from every part of his body to pool in his groin, leaving him both lightheaded and rock-hard. She was a stunning combination of the celestial and the sultry. Alex always thought if the artist El Greco had lived in this century, he would have killed for the chance to paint Phee.

  The pain in his hips moved to his heart when she hugged Phillip and congratulated him before moving to stand in front of him. She offered her hand and a guarded smile. He clasped her slender fingers in his, savoring her touch. She was a cool drink of water, and he thirsted for the smallest sip. “It’s been a long time, Seraphina. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  He flinched when she paled and the smile faded. He might as well stamp the word “idiot” on his head. He didn’t stutter, but that had been anything but smooth. “It’s a good surprise,” he amended.

  The smile returned, and her voice sent pleasant shivers down his stunted spine. “It’s good to see you again, Alex. I’ve thought about you,” she said softly.

  If her words didn’t shock him speechless, the light kiss she brushed across his cheek did. He instinctively turned his head to capture her mouth with his, but she was gone, already moving away to greet Elizabeth’s maid of honor standing next to him. Alex was left only with the impression of her lips on his skin and the faint scent of sandalwood in his nose.

  When the receiving line disbursed, Alex cornered his mother. “What was Phillip thinking to ask Phee here?”

  Lacey smiled. “They’re still friends, Alex, and Elizabeth didn’t have a problem with it.”

  “This is awkward.”

  She took two glasses of champagne from a server circulating through the crowd and handed one to him. “Only for you and only if you don’t relax.”

  Lingering guilt, years old, wrestled with a burgeoning excitement blunted by an innate pessimism. “Why didn’t she bring a date?” Phee hadn’t worn any rings. While Alex could believe she wasn’t married yet, he had a difficult time accepting she was unattached. She was intelligent, unique and beautiful.

  Lacey sipped her champagne before answering. “Phee’s bakery business keeps her busy twenty-four, seven. She’s dedicated to it. We’ve kept in touch. She isn’t in a relationship.”

  Alex leveled a mock accusing look on her. “Mom, you’ve wanted Phee in the family ever since you two were first introduced. Maybe you should ask her out,” he teased.

  His stepmother sniffed and raised her chin. “I still want her in the family. She’d make a fabulous daughter-in-law.”

  He remembered when Phillip first brought his new girlfriend home. No one was more surprised than Alex to meet his younger brother’s latest conquest. Phee Angeles was nothing like the previous women Phillip had dated. Quiet and thoughtful, she lacked the manic energy Phillip possessed and found attractive in women. She did; however, have a natural friendliness that charmed the Kingmaker family, including Alex who usually avoided Phillip’s dates and the curiosity that bordered on rudeness as they compared him to Phillip and obviously found him lacking.

  Phee had never once looked at him that way. Petite and curvy, she was at least a foot shorter than the lanky Phillip. In heels, she could look Alex in the eye when they conversed.

  Their first conversation had unnerved him, and left him wondering if Phee was slightly deranged or simply nervous around him. He hadn’t meant to fluster her. He just found it hard not to stare at her. She was a living Renaissance painting sitting on his mother’s sofa, dating his hyperactive brother. Alex was caught between amazed humor and sheer, unadulterated envy.

  Phillip had left the two of them alone in the living room to get cold teas from the kitc
hen. More than a few people had told Alex he had a way of looking at a person that made them want to hold up some kind of shield so he didn’t drill holes into them. Sometimes he was unaware he did it; in business meetings, it was a useful tool of intimidation. Unfortunately, it made talking with Phee awkward, and he struggled for something to say that wasn’t completely inane. She took the challenge out of his hands.

  “Did you know in Nanjing, China you can order live crabs out of a vending machine?”

  Alex blinked. “Pardon?”

  Phee flashed him a tentative smile. “You can get a side of crab vinegar and a hot ginger tea to go with it too.”

  She’d knocked him off his moorings, and he scrambled for purchase. “That sounds like a culinary failure waiting to happen,” he said mildly.

  Phee nodded and shuddered. “Imagine if the power went out.”

  His nose twitched at the horrible idea. They fell silent once more, and Alex sent a desperate glance toward the kitchen. Had his brother traveled all the way to China to get their tea? It was taking him long enough to bring it back.

  Phee hit him with another odd trivia fact. “The ruined town of Singapore is buried under several feet of sand dunes on Lake Michigan’s shores.”

  “Is that so?” Alex glanced down at her hands which were knotted together so tightly, her knuckles were white. She was nervous. He sighed inwardly. He’d try a little harder to be less reserved.

  “I don’t know a lot of trivia,” he said. “Let me think.” He paused for a moment. “The horse Paul Revere rode as he traveled the Lexington route and warned colonists of British troop movement was a mare named Brown Bess.”

  Those dark eyes, shadowed by long eyelashes, widened. “Really?” she said in a way that couldn’t have been more entranced than if he’d told her he possessed the GPS coordinates to the golden city of El Dorado. He’d since replayed the exchange between them hundreds of times—daily after he’d fled to Dubai. Alex could pinpoint her expression and that moment as the one in which he first fell the tiniest bit in love with Phee Angeles.