Chapter One Love at First Sight

May 8th…six weeks earlier

Sometimes in life, there are moments of grief that are so deep and thick that a person can’t possibly see the other side. Moments where it seems impossible that the future could hold something even a fraction better than the past.

And in those moments there was only one thing that could help.

Tequila.

At least that was Harper’s philosophy on the matter and how she had every intention of spending the weekend that would’ve been her wedding. Because really, what else was a person supposed to do when they’d been jilted at the altar?

Okay, maybe not literally at the altar…but three months to the altar, and that was close enough by her calculations. Especially as she and her fiancé Brad Nelson had been planning the wedding for seven months.

Seven. Fucking. Months.

Locations had been confirmed, deposits had been paid, save the dates sent out, and her two-thousand-dollar dream wedding dress customer ordered to perfection.

Per-fec-tion.

Not that it mattered anymore. The dress had been sold to the highest bidder on eBay, a whopping five hundred dollars. But whatever, it was no longer in her apartment staring her down every time she walked by.

Brad had been kind enough to leave everything for Harper to take care of in the cancellation department. Such a gem. But at least he’d left Mirabelle, packed up his stuff and taken a job in Louisiana so she didn’t have to worry about running into him at the grocery store. Because if she did she just might run him over.

Or at the very least clip him with her car.

She’d worked past the grieving stage of things—for the most part—and now she was just angry about it. Really angry. But it was hard to move on when just about everyone in her town of Mirabelle, Florida, knew what had happened.

With a population of a little more than five thousand, there were very few degrees of separation between anyone. Someone knew someone who knew someone. And courtesy of the ever-awful—and Mirabelle’s resident gossip hag—Bethelda Grimshaw, Harper’s jilting had been sensationalized to a point that was hard for anyone to ignore.

Bethelda had once worked for the local newspaper, and when her human-interest pieces morphed into a nasty tell-all about the residents’ less than savory business, she’d been fired. Now she had a blog where she spread her poison, and though she changed the names—which in no way protected the innocent—everyone always knew exactly who she was talking about.

It hadn’t even been forty-eight hours when Harper and Brad’s breakup hit the blog page, and the story had haunted Harper for the last three months.

THE GRIM TRUTH DISSED AND DISMISSED

If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times, no one is going to buy the cow if they can get the milk for free. And my words of wisdom have yet again proven true with the case of Voluptuous V. and her hightailing ex-fiancé Human Ken Doll.

Voluptuous V. (or VV for short, which is probably the girl’s bra size) was given the old heave-ho. Ho being the operative word here. And I feel bad for the girl, really I do, but what did she expect? Ken was out of her league to begin with.

I mean when it comes right down to it, a civil engineer with three degrees under his belt isn’t going to settle down or settle with a woman whose talents are purely physical. Now I’m not saying that VV used her “massage” skills to seduce him, but I’m not not saying it, either.

I would imagine that VV’s skills must be extensive, because it took Ken a year and a half to see the light of day. And as soon as he did he packed up his things and headed out for different horizons.

And as to the incident that ignited his speedy getaway? I’m not exactly sure what happened to make the man remove his blinders. But what I can tell you is that it happened right after her bridal shower.

Maybe it was the china pattern that set him off, or the color of the bathroom towels, or the idea of waking up in floral sheets next to the same woman for the rest of his life. Who knows?

But what we do know is that come May 9th, VV will not be walking down the aisle to marry the man of her dreams…nor will she be walking down the aisle to marry the man who almost settled for her.

The real kicker? Bethelda’s article hadn’t been too far from the reality of the “incident.” It had in fact been right after Harper’s bridal shower. But it hadn’t been china, or bedding, or towels that had set him off.

Nope. It had been a potato masher.

They’d been loading up his car with all of the gifts from her shower when he grabbed it out of a bag. He held the utensil in the air, his brow furrowed quizzically.

“What is this?”

To be fair to the guy—something she was in no way inclined to be—the shape was odd. A handle connected to a weird metal wave that somewhat resembled a heartbeat on a monitor.

“You use it to mash potatoes.”

“Oh.” He nodded before he’d put it back in the bag, and that furrowed look on his brow only got more pronounced.

It was a five-minute drive from where the bridal shower had been to Harper’s apartment. They hadn’t even gone a mile when they were stopped at a red light.

She asked him what he wanted for dinner.

He told her he didn’t want to get married.

How did he get from Point A to Point B? Apparently the potato masher made him think about the holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas with family all gathered around a table, turkey and stuffing and stupid mashed potatoes all piled high. He’d pictured it all quite clearly…and Harper hadn’t been a part of it.

As they’d never officially moved in together—her mother would’ve had a fit—it didn’t take him very long to get his stuff out of her apartment. He left Mirabelle two weeks later. She might not have to deal with him living in the same town anymore, but she did have to deal with the pity from just about everyone she knew.

And that was why Harper was currently in Nashville, Tennessee, free from her mostly well-intentioned friends and family—complete with hovering/overbearing mother—and their looks of concern. She loved them all dearly, but she just couldn’t deal with it. And to be honest it was hard to be around them.

Her friends were all settled and popping out babies like it was their business. And she was happy for them. Really she was. She’d just wanted all of that with Brad. He’d been part of her dream…she just hadn’t been part of his.

And that was why tequila was on the agenda for the evening that would’ve been her rehearsal dinner. She was meeting up with her aunt at the Second Hand Guitar, Harper’s go-to bar in Nashville.

Celeste Angelo was not only Harper’s favorite aunt—and current sanctuary provider—but she was also a renowned obstetrician who specialized in high-risk pregnancies. Women from all over the United States came to her to save not only their babies’ lives, but sometimes their own.

Celeste was the only woman in Harper’s life who was happily unmarried. She and her longtime boyfriend Reed were more than satisfied with their separate houses and bank accounts.

Maybe there was something to be said about that.

But she wasn’t going to think about any of that tonight. Nope, tonight was about forgetting.

It was a little before ten o’clock when Harper walked into the building. She made her way through the crowd and to the square bar that sat at the back of the room. A couple got up from two seats on the side corner and made their way over to the dance floor where a live band played from the stage. A girl was belting out a fast-paced song while she strummed on her guitar, a guy sang backup and played base, while another guy beat out a steady rhythm on the drums behind them.