No Place Like Homecoming, Dallen, Maggie [beach read book .TXT] 📗

wedding guests in formal wear, who were sipping champagne and laughing together on the wraparound porch. The town of Lindale, Montana was best known for its proximity to some killer skiing in the winter, but there were plenty of people who had second homes here for country getaways throughout the year.

This crowd? They were so not townies, not like my great aunt and Mrs. Messner. That much was obvious from their clothes to the way they held themselves.

They were important, and they knew it.

The fact that they were sipping champagne in front of a house the size of an airplane hangar only made it that much more obvious that these were the people who had power in this town.

I should have been one of them, not one of the hired help.

The mansion was roughly ten times the size of Aunt Lucy’s little split-level ranch house on the other side of town. The sound of classical music drifted from the backyard. My aunt had told me to use the front door and find my way to the rec room. Sounded easy enough. But once inside, I realized just how big this house was.

I also realized I had no idea where one might find a rec room.

I mean, our apartment in Manhattan was nice and all, but we didn’t have spare rooms reserved for recreation. This place…? Wow. I mean, it was gaudy, but still...wow.

There was a surprising number of young people here. Girls who looked to be around my age, maybe a little older. Guys, too. My guess was that the happy couple was young. College sweethearts, no doubt.

For a second, I stood frozen in this sea of pretty people. Rich, pretty people. A grin tugged at my lips as I made a mental note to tell my best friend, Taylor, all about the mansion filled with young, wealthy hotties. She’d be so jealous.

I laughed at the thought and straightened my shoulders as I headed further into the crowd. If this town was filled with wealthy college guys in tuxedos on the regular, maybe this short trip to hell wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Luckily I was wearing a cute little sundress, so I didn’t stick out horribly in this sea of formalwear. Although, I wasn’t sure anyone would have even noticed if I’d been walking around in my pajamas. The guests were so busy laughing and talking amongst themselves that I slipped through the crowd like a ghost. No one even seemed to see me.

Well, no one until him.

Mr. Tall, Dark, and Sexy in the tux over by the bar was leaning against the wall and eyeing me with a heavy-lidded gaze, like he’d been out all night. Or like he was thinking about staying up all night tonight. With me.

A rush of heat washed over me and had me lifting my long curls off my neck. Was it hot in here, or was it just me?

Another glance cleared it up in a heartbeat. Nope. It wasn’t me. It was him.

It was all him.

A dark lock of hair fell in his eyes, and the next time my gaze met his, he wore a smirk, like he knew exactly what I was thinking.

Not likely. I didn’t even know what I was thinking, because my brain had turned to mush under his watchful gaze. After another heartbeat of weirdly intimate eye contact from across the room, he pushed away from the wall and headed in my direction. “You look lost,” he said when he reached my side.

The way he’d sidled up beside me would have made it seem, to a casual observer, like we’d arrived together. Like he was my date, or something. He was close enough that I could feel the heat coming from him, and that did nothing to help the raging inferno going on inside me that was no doubt making my cheeks look as pink as my dress.

“Lost?” I said, turning to eye the crowd. A bunch of strange people in a strange house in a strange town in a strange state. “That’s an understatement.”

I could feel his low laugh like a shiver racing down my spine. It set every nerve ending on high alert. “You a friend of the bride?”

I blinked over at him. Mr. Sexy Eyes thought I was a wedding guest. I mean, of course he did. Why wouldn’t he? I was wearing a dress, and I was at a wedding.

I supposed wedding crashers weren’t even a thing here in Lindale.

I’d learned ages ago that the best way to sell a lie was to stick as close to the truth as possible. Let people believe what they wanted to believe.

“I wouldn’t say we’re friends,” I said, making a face that made him laugh again, a soft sound under his breath.

He probably assumed we were frenemies or cousins who didn’t get on all that well or something. Enough to explain why I didn’t know everyone here, but not so specific that I’d have to create a whole big story to go with it. “What about you?” I asked.

His lips curved up on one side in this rueful little lopsided smirk that made my belly flip. “Me and the bride? Definitely not friends.”

There was laughter in his eyes, like he’d just told a joke. Whatever. I didn’t care about his past with the bride. What I cared about was that for the first time in hours—no, days—I wasn’t absolutely horrified by my current situation.

One day into this little side excursion from my real life and I’d already met a rich hottie who was clearly into me.

I mean, he was no Logan, but it wasn’t like I was looking for marriage, either. Just a little fun to make this stint in Loserdale less painful. My gaze moved up and down, taking him in from his adorably mussed dark hair to the black Converse sneakers that looked ridiculously out of place with the tux.

A rebel in a tux? That was so my type.

I had a flash of Logan—the would-be