Page 130 of Not Your Average Vixen
“Clearly not too much to text Janine and the strippers!” Tom threw back.
“Dancers,” the woman said again from the other side of the room where the ladies were zipping into their coats.
“Let’s head out the back,” Tanner said, waving the dancers out through the side door.
“Tommy, I didn’t—” Soren began, but Tom stopped him.
“It’s time to set the record straight. Lori didn’t railroad me into anything. I love her. I want to marry her, and I want to have a family with her. Yeah, we were thrown for a loop to find out she was pregnant. But I want her and our baby. They are the most important things in my life.”
“I must have misunderstood the situation,” Soren replied, stone-faced.
Tom shook his head and stared up at the ceiling. “No, that’s not an answer, Scooter. You didn’t misunderstand. I’d hoped you’d be flexible. No, not flexible—supportive of me and stand behind my choice to get married. But you didn’t. Your first impulse was to maintain the status quo at whatever cost. You told me that you thought I wasn’t ready for marriage. But it’s you, Scooter. You’re the one who can’t see that I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I’ve always been a friend to you. But you’ve crossed a line. I love Lori. I’m marrying Lori, and it’s not because we’re expecting a baby. And I’m so damned disappointed in you for thinking so little of me as a man. Not everyone who gets married ends up like your parents. After spending sixteen years with my family, I thought you understood that.”
Soren met his friend’s eye. “Is that all?”
Tom shook his head. “No, I have one more thing to say to you. You think you love this family, but you don’t. Your happiness stems from when it serves you to be a part of us.”
“Tom, honey,” Lori said, coming to her fiancé’s side. “That’s enough.”
Soren shook his head. “No, Tom’s right. I’ve been fooling myself all these years—thinking I was some adopted Abbott. I’m not. I’m a Traeger Rudolph through and through. Nothing will change that.”
“I think you should go. This friendship is over,” Tom said with his angry gaze trained on the door.
Bridget stood stock-still, hardly able to believe the scene that played out before her.
“This has to be a misunderstanding. Was this supposed to be a joke—a terribly inappropriate joke?” she asked, her words coming out in a tumble when a steadying hand pressed against her back.
She blinked away tears to find the judge standing next to her.
“Scooter, let’s go. I’ll drive you down to the village,” the man said, his calm voice vibrating through the frenzied energy of the night’s revelations.
At the judge’s words, Lori led Tom away from the group, and the two sat on a sofa in the far corner of the room. Their heads bent close together as they spoke in hushed whispers.
Bridget scanned the room—the room that should be hosting a lovely rehearsal dinner. They were supposed to dance and share stories late into the night, just as her parents had done the night before they wed.
Soren couldn’t have done this on purpose—could he?
“Are you okay, Birdie?” the judge asked.
She nodded, unable to speak.
“Come on, Scooter. I’ll wait in the truck,” the older man said as Dan handed him the keys to the vehicle as the judge walked out the front door.
For what could have been five seconds or five days, she felt Soren’s gaze bore into her. But she couldn’t look up—couldn’t meet his eye. His heavy footfalls reverberated through the hardwood floor—each step a dagger slicing into her heart—before the door slammed shut behind him.
She released a pained breath.
He was gone.
“Birdie, are you okay?” Lori called from the couch.
“I…I’m…” she tried.
But she couldn’t let him go.
Not yet.
“I’ll be right back,” she called over her shoulder as she flung open the door and ran into the swirling snowstorm.
