The Secret Wedding Wish
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Cathy Gillen Thacker
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Chapter One
Janey Hart Campbell saw the Hart family posse coming as she turned the Closed sign in the window of Delectable Cakes. Knowing full well the last thing she needed was an emotional confrontation with all five of her very big and very opinionated brothers about her excessively sports-minded twelve-year-old son, Christopher, she ducked back out of sight of the old-fashioned plate glass windows and hightailed it to the back of her bakery. Grabbing purse and keys, she dashed out the back door, and ran right smack into the tall man standing on the other side of the threshold.
Immediately, Janey became aware of several things. The wall of testosterone she had just crashed into was a lot taller than she was. Probably six foot four or so to her five-foot-nine-inch frame. Not to mention all muscle, from the width and breadth of his powerful chest and shoulders, to his trim waist, lean hips and rock-hard thighs. He was casually dressed, in expensive sneakers, old jeans and a short-sleeved white cotton polo shirt that contrasted nicely with his suntanned skin. He smelled awfully nice, too, like a mixture of masculine soap and fresh-cut Carolina pines. His dark brown hair was the color of espresso, thick and curly, shorn neatly around the sides and back of his head. Longer on top, the three-quarter-inch strands brushed at the top of his forehead.
Individually, the features on his long, angular face were strong and unremarkable. But put together with those long-lashed electric blue eyes, don’t-even-think-about-messing-with-me-jaw, and the sexy mustache that topped his sensually chiseled lips, the midthirty-something man looked good enough to put even someone like Mel Gibson to shame. More curiously yet, the handsome stranger was staring down at her as if he had expected her to come bursting out of her shop and run headlong into him.
“They said you were going to do this,” he murmured with a beleaguered sigh.
Finally, Janey had the presence of mind to step back a pace, so there was a good half a foot of space between them. “Do what?” she demanded, aware her pulse was racing as she stood staring up at him.
He planted a big hand on her shoulder. “Run.”
“And we were right, weren’t we?” Dylan Hart said in the same know-it-all tone he used during his job as TV sportscaster, while he rounded the corner of the century-old building.
“Pay up,” Fletcher Hart insisted, as he entered the alley that ran behind Main Street and sauntered up to the stranger.
“Don’t forget. You owe me a beer.” Cal Hart—who was still wearing his physician’s badge from the medical center—grinned victoriously.
Janey glared at Cal. “Don’t you have a surgery to perform or an athlete somewhere who needs your sports medicine expertise?”
“Nope.” Cal smiled. “I’m all yours. For the moment, anyway.”
“Great,” Janey groused. Just what she needed after an entire day spent baking wedding cakes for this weekend’s weddings.
Mac Hart shook his head at Janey. For once, he was without his Holly Springs Sheriff uniform and badge. “When are you going to learn you can’t avoid your problems by running away?” Mac chided.
Janey folded her arms in front of her. Just because she had fled North Carolina once, in her teens, did not mean she was going to do it again. At thirty-three, she knew what she wanted out of life, and it was right here in Holly Springs, North Carolina—the town she had grown up in.
But not about to admit that to her nosy, interfering brothers, she sassed right back. “I don’t know. Seems to me I’ve been doing a pretty good job ducking all of your phone calls.”
“And look where it’s gotten you,” Joe Hart pointed out disapprovingly. Clad in running shorts and a T-shirt bearing the Carolina Storm insignia, her only married brother looked as if he had just come from one of his summer conditioning workouts.
The mystery man Janey had run into arched his brow. “Maybe we should take this inside?” he suggested mildly.
“Good idea,” her brothers concurred.
That swiftly, Janey found herself propelled out of the July heat and back into the air-conditioned comfort of her shop. To her consternation, the sexy stranger was still with them. Janey wrinkled her nose at him, wishing he weren’t so darned cute. “Do I know you?” she asked cautiously, perplexed. Now that she studied him some more, he looked awfully familiar. Like she had seen him on TV, or in the newspaper, or a magazine, maybe. Certainly, he carried himself with the confident authority of someone used to being recognized and then thoroughly scrutinized.
Joe rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Oh, for Pete’s sake! This is Thaddeus Lantz. Head coach of the Carolina Storm professional hockey team. The one I am now playing for!” he reminded her.
“Oh, yeah.” Janey bit her lip as her eyes slid to Thad Lantz’s and held. Now it was coming back to her. As well as the reason she had not wanted to recognize the savvy strategist.
DURING THE COURSE OF HIS coaching career, Thad Lantz had become used to all sorts of reactions to what he did. But never had anyone gone from the undeniable spark of mutual attraction to such utter loathing and suspicion so darn fast. And that was a shame. He hadn’t ever been so physically drawn to a woman from the very first second they met, hadn’t ever wanted to immediately take a woman into his arms, and into his bed.
Not that this was a surprise. Janey Hart Campbell was amazingly gorgeous and sexy, in the way that only a woman really coming into her own for the very first time could be. He guessed she was in her early thirties, a couple years younger than him. Her chestnut hair was thick, straight, and silky. He couldn’t tell how long it was, since she had it caught up in a clip on the back of her head. But he was willing to bet at least shoulder-length. Her feisty amber eyes were framed by long lashes and delicate brows the same chestnut shade as her hair. She had a full lower lip, just made for kissing. A stubborn chin. And peachy gold skin. There was a dusting of freckles across her nose and a lifetime of knowledge in her woman’s eyes. Lower still, were lush curves every bit as beautiful and tempting and feminine as her elegant, oval face. All in all, a very nice-looking package. Too bad, Thad thought with mounting regret, she only had heated resentment for him.
Janey turned to Joe. “You put him up to this, didn’t you?” she accused.
Thad normally tried his best to stay out of family matters. This time he thought it best he intervene. He stepped forward, putting himself between Janey and Joe. “Actually, I’m the one who contacted your brother, Joe,” he confessed kindly.
“And I’m the guilty party who summoned the rest of our brothers,” Joe said.
Mac Hart, the oldest, looked at his younger sister with compassion. “We understand why you feel the way you do, Janey, but this overprotectiveness of yours has got to stop,” he stated firmly.
Dylan agreed emphatically. “Christopher has the right to choose his own particular path in life.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! He’s twelve!” Janey protested in complete exasperation.
“And already thinking ahead to his future,” Cal said proudly. “That’s to be commended.”
Janey folded her arms at her waist, the movement tucking her white cotton chef’s jacket tighter across her full breasts and enviably slender waist. “Not if his thinking is leading him in the wrong direction!” she fumed.
“Who says it’s the wrong direction?” the normally amiable Fletcher Hart scowled. “Bottom line is this, Janey. We are not going to let you turn that boy into a sissy!”
Janey’s eyes widened in indignation. “Just because I want Christopher to concentrate on what’s really important does not mean I’m out of line. And in fact, if anyone is out of line it is the five of you. Siccing the Hart Posse on me, indeed!”
Thad exchanged glances with all five of her brothers. Clearly, Janey was not going to listen to her brothers. “Maybe I should take it from here, fellas,” he said amiably.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Janey blocked the door before her brothers could take their leave. “You guys have something to say to me?” she stormed, color flooding her high elegantly boned cheeks. “You tell me right now!”
Joe looked his sister straight in the eye. “Why did you tell Christopher he can’t attend hockey camp this summer?” he asked like the no-excuses professional athlete he was.
Janey’s amber eyes turned even stormier. “Because Chris is enrolled in summer school to make up the math class he flunked last spring. And summer school is held at the same time as camp.”
Sounded plausible, Thad thought, even as he tried to ignore the defensive note in her low voice.
“Did you even try to make other arrangements?” Cal asked.
“You’re breaking his heart,” Fletch concurred.
“You know, if it’s really a question of cash that is preventing you from enrolling Chris,” Mac volunteered quickly, “you could’ve come to any one of us and we would have been more than happy to help you out.”
Janey’s discomfiture turned to dismay. Suddenly it became very quiet as Janey asked very slowly and succinctly, “Where did you get that idea?”
All five Hart brothers looked at Thad.
Because he didn’t want to embarrass her any more than she had already been, he reluctantly pulled the letter he had received—and shown—out of his jeans pocket and handed it to her. Janey’s brow lifted quizzically. “What is this?”
“Read it,” Thad said, knowing when she did she would understand why the rest of them were so concerned about her son.
Janey folded her arms in front of her. “You read it.”
“O-kay,” Thad said, looking her up and down skeptically. “But I would think since you’re his mother you would want to read it yourself.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake. Never mind!” Janey snatched it away from him.
“Dear Coach Lantz,” she began reading out loud. “I think you are the best coach in the NHL and I want to come to camp so bad, especially now that my uncle Joe is gonna be playing for the Storm. But my mom says we don’t have the money this year. And that’s probably on account of my dad dying and us moving back here to be close to family. I know how hard my mom works, baking cakes, and I don’t think she can work any harder. So what I was thinking is this. Could I maybe come to camp this year and then work off the cost for you by picking up towels or cleaning the locker room or mowing your lawn or something? I’d do anything. I just want to play. Sincerely, Christopher Hart Campbell. P.S. You can reach me at 111 Shady Lane in Holly Springs or by phone.”
Her face pale, Janey let the note fall to her side.
Thad looked at her brothers. “I think I can take it from here,” he told them confidently.
ALL FIVE of Janey’s brothers filtered out. Janey looked as if she had never felt more mortified than she did at that very moment, and Thad could understand why. Her son had just done an end run around her, by taking a problem outside the family. Thad saw it as a sign he was growing up. Something for which Chris was to be commended. Janey seemed to think it was a sign she had failed her son, for not being available to him in the way Christopher needed her to be. She turned to Coach Lantz. Her peachy gold skin was ashen, her eyes turbulent with emotion.
“I don’t know what to say except I’m very sorry my son put you in an awkward position.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Thad advised. “Just fix it.”
She held his steady, probing gaze. “Our situation is more complicated than it seems,” Janey muttered at last.
“I’m sure it is,” Thad agreed.
Janey regarded him suspiciously. “That’s it? You’re not going to try and convince me to let Christopher attend hockey camp?”
Thad shrugged, and decided to take the opposite approach of what she was obviously expecting. “You want to break his heart by denying him the opportunity to chase his dreams, that’s your business.”
Janey flushed at his blunt, matter-of-fact tone. “You don’t understand the circumstances,” she insisted.
Thad pulled out a chair at the white wrought-iron table in the corner. He sank into it and waited for her to do the same. “I know your late husband was Ty Campbell, and that he nearly made the US Olympic ski team.”
Janey shook her head bitterly. “Nearly being the operative word.”
“That’s something to be proud of,” Thad replied, stretching his long legs out in front of him.
Her eyes held such sadness as she sat down. “Being an alternate made my husband miserable.”
“And by association you and Chris,” Thad guessed.
‘That’s right.”
“Fortunately, we’re not meeting to talk about your late husband. We’re here to talk about your son.” He looked at her sincerely. “I’ve got to tell you. I’ve been coaching hockey fifteen years now—and running camps during that time—and I’ve never had a letter like the one he sent me.”
Janey shrugged her slender shoulders. “He’s a resourceful kid.”
“Obviously.” As they both tried to get comfortable in chairs that were more ice-cream-shop-style decorative than utilitarian, their knees bumped. Rubbed. Pulled apart.
Janey dragged her thumb across the lacy scrollwork pattern on the table. “But he doesn’t need to play hockey this summer to be happy.”
Thad studied the defensive posture of her spine. “I don’t think you can make that decision for him.”
“Don’t tell me what I can or cannot do, Coach Lantz!” She jumped up and began to pace the shop, her hips moving provocatively beneath the loose-fitting white cotton baker’s trousers. “Chris is my son. I get to say if he plays hockey or not.”
Thad tried not to think what her legs might look like. Were they as sexy and curvaceous as the rest of her? Struggling to keep his mind on the conversation at hand—instead of where this inherent attraction between them might lead—he turned his glance to her face. “And?” he demanded impatiently, irked with himself for getting sidetracked.
Janey gestured broadly with two delicately shaped hands. “And up until now I’ve allowed it.”
“Because?” Thad prodded, curious as to whether her hands would feel as soft and silky as they looked, despite the fact she worked with them all day.
Janey folded her arms in front of her and regarded Thad stubbornly. “It wasn’t skiing, or worse, the avalanche-skiing that led to his own father’s death. Somehow hockey seemed a safer path—psychologically—to follow. But now it’s becoming an obsession,” she said worriedly.
Thad stood and closed the distance between them. “Maybe he’s meant to go pro, like his uncle Joe.”
“And maybe he’s not. Maybe Joe’s success has fueled Chris with false expectations and unrealistic dreams.”
“So you’re going to do what?” Thad queried in a dry tone meant to make her come to her senses and see how foolish she was being. “Deny him the opportunity to try?”
Janey gave him a measuring look. “Joe left home at sixteen. Did you know that?”
Thad was close enough to smell the deliciously sweet fragrance of vanilla and confectioner’s sugar clinging to her hair and skin. “To play in the junior league up in Canada.”
“Right. Mom wanted him to go to college and play there, if he wanted, on a university team. But Joe couldn’t wait, so he did terrible in all his high-school classes and he begged and pleaded until Mom finally gave in.”
“Not unlike most pro hockey players, I imagine. It’s in their blood. And in their hearts.”
“Which is fine, if they make it to the big time,” she said, desperation in her eyes. “But if they don’t. If they spend years chasing a certain vision and their dream never comes true, they become disillusioned and bitter.”
“Not always,” Thad disagreed. “Sometimes they become coaches.”
Her lips parted as she looked up at him. “You—?”
“Tried to go pro. Didn’t have the speed. So I took another path.”
She leaned back against the display counter, her elbows propped high on either side of her. “You’re the exception, not the rule.”
Thad shrugged and tried not to notice how nice she looked in profile. “Chris seems pretty exceptional, too.”
Janey turned her head to face him. “I’m not going to let him play hockey this summer.”
“Your son has already lost a father,” he reminded her calmly.
Janey stiffened, and swung all the way around to face him. “So?” She squared off with him deliberately.
“So you don’t think it’d do him good to be around a lot of positive male role models?”
She shrugged and assumed a look of extreme boredom. “Who also happen to play hockey for a living.”
She was making a dig at his profession, too, but he refused to take the bait. “They’re good guys. They share a common interest with Chris. And at his age, he needs to go out and mix it up a little bit, burn off some of that excess physical energy in a healthy, positive way.”
Janey glared at Thad. “He does plenty of guy stuff as it is,” she protested hotly.
“Such as?” Thad taunted softly, knowing if the subject weren’t so serious he would really be tempted to seize upon the fireworks building between them and kiss her.
“Camping.” As soon as the word was out of her mouth, Janey looked like she regretted it.
Which perversely made Thad want to take her in his arms all the more.
“You take him camping?” Thad ascertained, knowing bluster when he saw it, even if she didn’t realize it.
“I’m going to this very weekend, as it happens,” Janey boasted, looking determined to prove Thad and all five of her brothers wrong.
In for a penny, in for a pound, Thad thought.
“You’ll see,” she promised smugly, determination sparking in her pretty eyes. “This trip alone will provide Chris with all the summer adventure and physical challenge a boy his age needs.”
“AH, PLEASE. She’s not going to take him camping,” Joe Hart snorted, as the waitress set down a pitcher of beer and a bucket of peanuts in the center of their table. Thad filled Janey’s brothers in on the rest of his conversation with their headstrong sister. “The Great Outdoors isn’t Janey’s thing, never has been,” Joe concluded.
Thad sipped his beer. “Well, she says they’re going.”
Looking as at home in the bar as he did commentating sports events on TV, Dylan Hart tipped lazily back in his chair. “Did she say where?”
Thad nodded. “Lake Pine.” It was a state recreation area, an hour or so away.
Mac Hart frowned and rubbed a hand across his chest. “The trail around the lake is easy enough, but it can be pretty miserable physically this time of year. Hot, muggy, uncomfortable.”
Fletcher Hart agreed. “Not to mention all the mosquitoes and chiggers.” He shook his head. “Hope she remembers the insect repellent or they’ll both be eaten alive.”
Cal took a sip of beer. “Isn’t it supposed to rain tomorrow?” he asked as he broke open another roasted shell and dug out the peanuts inside. “Sunday, too?”
Joe scowled, obviously still as peeved as Thad at the way Janey refused to support her son’s athletic ambition. “Maybe that’s what she needs, a little bad experience at Lake Pine to make her feel that a few turns around a hockey rink aren’t such a bad deal after all.” It certainly hadn’t been for Joe, who was in the midst of a successful pro hockey career.
Thad knew Janey’s brothers had a point. There was no more potent teacher than experience, particularly bad experience. On the other hand, he had been caught out in foul weather, with only camping gear to protect him. It wasn’t an experience he would wish on anyone else. Particularly if there were thunderstorms, a hopelessly headstrong woman, and twelve-year-old boy involved. “You can’t seriously think she would head off with a backpack and tent if bad weather is brewing,” Thad said finally.
The Hart brothers exchanged glances and shrugged. Finally, Cal spoke for all of them. “She might if she were hell-bent on proving a point. Not that it really matters. Ten to one, if it does rain, they’ll end up in the park lodge before nightfall.”
It wasn’t his business, Thad told himself as he left. If Janey’s brothers were willing to let her tough it out and make her own mistakes, he surely ought to be able to do the same. Especially if the ultimate result was Janey letting Chris pursue his dreams. But even as Thad pushed the problem from his mind, an image kept coming back of a tall slender woman with thick chestnut hair and amber eyes.
