A pause lingered while everyone took a drink. Penny met Luke’s eyes over the rim of her glass. As the crowd applauded the speech, Penny smiled at Luke before standing.
She waited for the noise to die down and then cleared her throat. “I may not be as eloquent as our doctor, but I’ll give it my best shot.”
She turned to Maggie. “When I was a little girl, there was one place I always knew I’d be welcome. Maggie has been my best friend, my confidante, my family for as long as I can remember. She’s always been there for me and I’ve always tried to be there for her.”
Maggie reached out, took Penny’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. They both had the battle scars on their hearts to prove their long-standing friendship.
“If anyone is capable of loving forever, it’s Maggie, and I know I’m not the only one in the room thinking that Brady is the luckiest man alive.” Still holding Maggie’s hand, Penny looked at Brady. “There aren’t many people I would trust with my best friend’s heart, but I trust you to keep it safe and to love her until you are old and gray and need to yell at each other to be heard. I love you both and wish you happiness.”
Clearing her throat, Penny blinked back the tears that had snuck up on her again. She turned to Amber. “Amber made me promise to wish you one more thing.” She held up her glass and gave a grin to the rest of the hall. “To a wonderful family, and may they be blessed with a little brother or sister for Amber.”
The crowd chuckled as they clinked glasses once more. Penny sank into her seat and took a drink. The DJ put on some background music and the low din of conversations grew again. Maggie and Brady were lost in their own little world. Amber had wandered off to the kids’ table to be with her friends.
Suddenly Penny felt isolated. Maggie had always been the person she talked to at these types of things. Not that she needed constant attention. Lord knew she spent more than her fair share of evenings at home with no one to talk to but the dog.
She used to see Maggie everyday. But now... Brady, Maggie and Amber would be leaving to go on their two-week vacation slash honeymoon at Disney World in a few days. It would be only a few weeks, but Maggie had been preoccupied with the wedding and Brady for months now, giving Penny a lot more alone time than usual. Penny was happy for her friend, but it didn’t make her miss Maggie any less.
“I think this empty chair is a better conversationalist than Sam.” Luke sat in Amber’s seat. His smile warmed her down to her toes.
Her heart pounded a little harder. The champagne must be going to her head because all she could do was smile at him.
“The chair has definitely improved since you arrived,” she said. She could spend hours just listening to the sound of his voice. Her whole body flushed with heat and tingled in anticipation of just the slightest touch.
It was crazy. For years, she’d avoided the emotional and clung to the physical. But with Luke, it had been different. Still, that was a long time ago. They were adults now. She was more than happy to bask in the warmth of his smile for the hours they had together.
“Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Ward for their first dance,” the DJ announced.
Luke stood next to the dance floor with his hands in his pockets as the strains of some slow song pounded out of the speaker behind him. This was how Penny and he had started. A school dance. It had been the social hour after a football game. The student DJ was set up in the cafeteria. No fancy lights had lit the floor then. In fact, most of the lights had been turned off, making the small space feel even tighter. He’d been standing on the side with the other football players, and Penny had appeared out of nowhere in a pair of cutoffs that would have gotten her sent home from school and a T-shirt that hugged her young body.
He knew Penny Montgomery. They’d shared classes since fifth grade. In high school, she’d transformed into the kind of girl who was hard for a teenage boy to ignore. From her red hair to her smoking body to her devil-may-care attitude, she was a high school boy’s fantasy.
“Dance with me.” She’d smiled with her red lips and pulled him onto the dance floor before he could say anything. The music had heavy bass and a bump-and-grind rhythm.
“I don’t dance,” he’d managed to protest once they were in the middle of the floor.
She gave him a pout and the wicked glint in her eyes had made his pants tighten. “Don’t worry. I’ll show you what to do.”
A touch on his shoulder brought him back to the present. Penny stood there with a smile on her lips. Her makeup was softer now, but she was just as beautiful. The slow song was about halfway through.
“Would the rest of the wedding party join in?” the DJ said over the speaker.
Luke shook off the past and held out his hand to Penny. She slipped her hand in his and followed his lead out to the dance floor. She moved into his arms like a missing puzzle piece.
Sam and Amber followed them onto the dance floor, drawing everyone’s attention. Amber put her feet on top of Sam’s and he held her hands. It was strange watching Sam with a child. As Luke’s pseudo-parent, Sam had been distant but controlling. Now he seemed perfectly at ease talking with his niece, even if he didn’t smile.
Luke’s attention returned to the woman he held in his arms for the first time in almost a decade.
“Looks like someone’s been practicing,” she said. That flirtatious tilt was back in Penny’s smile.
“I try to maintain appearances.”
“I’m sure you have your admirers.” A teasing glint in her eyes and a soft smile on her lips betrayed nothing of what she really felt, but that was Penny.
“I do love compliments.” He led them toward a darker area of the dance floor as other couples joined in.
“I bet you do.”
Years ago, that first night, when the music had slowed down she’d moved into his arms and her breasts had pressed against his chest, her body close to his. Hormones had flooded him, making it hard to think... Why was he getting wrapped up in the past?
His fingers tightened into the softness of Penny’s waist.
She closed the slight gap between them and whispered, “Stop thinking, Luke.”
“Why aren’t you with someone, Penny?”
“I’m with you right now.” Her eyes may never reveal her inner thoughts, but he noticed a slight hesitance in her words. Her body pressed slightly closer until there was no more than a whisper between them.
“You know what I mean.” Luke tried to hold on to the thoughts in his head as his body tried to make them all vanish. Her light perfume smelled like spring flowers, the scent’s innocence at odds with the seductive woman. It surrounded him, begging him to bend down and breathe in. To touch the warmth of her neck with his lips.
“Who should I be with? The town drunk, the divorcé with the ex from hell—”
“Sam.”
She stopped dancing and her lips drew tight. “Sam?”
Penny was in his arms and he wasn’t about to back off. Not when her soft curves filled in his rough patches. This was important. He didn’t want to step in between his brother and anyone, even if that anyone had been the only girl Luke had ever given his heart to.
“You two were pretty tight last time I saw you.” The last time he’d seen Penny, at his graduation party, she’d been kissing Sam.
She pushed against his chest, but he didn’t budge. Her eyes flashed up at him. Was that hurt? It had been there for a moment, but it was gone so fast he must have imagined it. It felt as if she was going to push again, but instead