Meeting Mr. Wright Read Online Free Page A

she can just bulldoze through my plans with her iron will. “You know I don’t want that.”
    She rolls her eyes, but I shoot her a death glare that lets her know that I’m not kidding.
    “He’s the best man and you’re the maid of honor. I paired the two of you up at the bridal party’s table and everything.”
    I sigh. “As long as that’s all the pairing up you do, that’s fine.”
    “It might be out of my hands. He’s super charming,” she says slyly, looking at me out of the corner of her eye. She’s always doubted my commitment to my new life goal of never having my heart smashed again by someone I stupidly fall in love with. I wonder what it’ll take to get her to believe that I’m serious.
    “I think I’m aware of how charming he is,” I tell her. I mean, the man charmed my pants right off. “How come I haven’t met him before? I don’t even remember ever hearing about him.”
    “You knew Ben had a brother,” she says in a not-so-subtle chastising tone.
    “I knew he had a brother, but I didn’t know he was hot.” I didn’t know he was Nate .
    Gabby rolls her eyes. “When was I supposed to tell you that? When you were dating Ethan or when you were swearing off men?”
    “Swearing off love ,” I correct her. She has a point though, I don’t try to argue that.
    “Oh, excuse me,” she says, smiling. “He lives in Boulder and manages a chain of sporting goods stores, in case you wanted to know.”
    “I didn’t,” I say, even though that’s a tiny white lie. I shouldn’t want to know, that’s the real issue here.
    “The way he looked at you, Callie,” she says dreamily, and I can tell that I’m not going to like where that train of thought is heading.
    “Can we please stop talking about this now?”
    “If we stop talking about this, I’m dragging you to the garage to help me make centerpieces.”
    Arts and crafts time sounds like paradise compared to twenty questions. I stand and brush off my pants.
    “All right, let’s go.”
     
    T HREE HOURS and thirty centerpieces later, I’m sitting on the front porch sipping an iced tea that Amy made especially for me. My right hand is throbbing, because apparently I’m not cut out to make centerpieces and my fingers swell after an afternoon of light manual labor. If I never see another bow again it’ll be too soon. I was intrigued when Gabby first told me about her plans for a small wedding on Ben’s family’s farm in Virginia, but I find myself wishing that she had gone even smaller. Like a courthouse in Dallas kind of small. Then I wouldn’t be dealing with centerpieces and swollen fingers. And I wouldn’t be worrying about what’s going to happen with Nate.
    I can understand what drew her to this place, though. The land is gorgeous, and the house, it’s absolutely breathtaking. Somehow both large and quaint at the same time, the Wright home is hugged by a wide wraparound porch. Brightly colored azaleas line the perimeter, popping against the white siding. There’s a smaller guest house down a short path connected to the back of the main one, which is where I’m staying along with the rest of the wedding party, whenever they arrive. The guest house is nicer than the one I grew up in. I’m admiring the cozy looking patio attached to it when the screen door behind me opens with a high-pitched squeak. The wood planks along the length of the porch creak as someone walks toward me. Every nerve in my body comes alive before I even turn around. My body knows who it is before my mind can even process it.
    “Mind if I sit?” Nate asks.
    I look up at him, squinting against the glare of the sun. “No, I don’t mind,” I reply, shaking my head.
    He sits down next to me, stretching his long legs out in front of him, and he’s quiet for a few moments, fiddling with a string that dangles from the frayed hem of his khaki shorts. As I watch his fingers, I wish there was some way to get rid of this light nervous feeling I have in my