Since Mal hadn’t been in much of a laughing mood these past few months, Owen did it for her. “Right.”
“I’m not kidding.” Mal pinned him with her patented bratty-kid-sister stare. “Mom and I discussed it.”
“Oh, did you? And what other parts of my life did the two of you plan?” He was only half joking.
“Owen, you’re the best man. Consider it part of your duties.” Owen still wasn’t sure how he’d been roped into being the best man. Sure, he and Donovan were getting along better than they had been a year ago, but they were hardly close. He suspected Julia—who he considered a good friend—and his mother and sister were all conspiring to bring them closer together.
“No, my duty is to plan the bachelor party, ensure Donovan doesn’t freak out last-minute and get cold feet, and make sure I show up on time and in my tux.” And find the sexiest woman at the reception and see if she’d consider going home with him. Though really, that was just being humble. More likely, he’d be the one getting propositioned, which suited him just fine.
Despite her little bomb, Owen was glad to see Mal out on a Saturday night. Since her breakup with her boyfriend a few months ago, she hadn’t been herself. Owen wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, since she wasn’t talking and neither was Travis. Not even when Owen had gone down to Aruba, where Travis now lived, for a visit and asked him point-blank. All either of them would say was that things hadn’t worked out, but Owen noted neither of them had exactly moved on.
“Well, consider the engagement party an added bonus.”
“Bonus for who?” Owen grumbled.
Mal patted him on the shoulder. “For you. Think of it like planning for your own future.”
He snorted again. “I’m not even dating anyone. Kind of a prerequisite.”
“Good. Then you’ll have plenty of free time to plan the engagement party.”
“You know, I think I liked it better when you stayed home on Saturday nights.”
Mal’s hand dropped, as did her head. Owen saw her hands clench in her lap. “You aren’t the only one.”
“Hey.” He reached out and put his arm around her shoulders. He and Mal had always had an easy relationship. Even before she’d started dating one of his closest friends. “I wasn’t serious. You know I love having you here.”
But Mal only sighed.
Owen turned to look at his sister. She’d always been thin, but these days she seemed downright emaciated. Not that he could say anything about it to her. The one time he’d joked that she should eat a sandwich, she’d about taken his head off. Still, despite her extreme thinness, Mal was a good-looking woman. Owen noted the interested glances that were coming her way even if she didn’t. “You okay?”
She sighed again. “Not really, but I don’t want to talk about it.”
She never did. But since Owen wasn’t sure how it would help to force her into discussing the problem, he didn’t push. “If you change your mind...” He left the sentence hanging.
“I know. You, Donovan, Mom and Dad, even Julia the last time I saw her.” Mal sat up, shrugging off his arm. “But I’m fine, really. I’m just adjusting. That’s all.”
Owen didn’t point out that she’d had months to adjust and still hadn’t managed it. If Mal wanted to think she was fooling him, he’d let her. Maybe she’d eventually fool herself and get back to the Mal he knew. “So, how exactly did you and Mom come to the conclusion that I needed to organize the engagement party? Isn’t that something the parents of the groom should do? Or the sister?”
“No.” And some of the tension slid from Mal’s face at the change of subject. At least, the lines around her mouth didn’t look so prominent. “Plus, Mom already tried to pawn it off on me, which is how your name came up.”
“You threw me under the bus.”
“That’s such a cliché. I prefer to think of it as giving you a gift.”
Owen shook his head. “A gift? Please, more like an obligation.” One he didn’t know how to get out of. If Mal and his mother had already joined forces? Game, set and match.
“Oh, I don’t know. Julia mentioned how interested you seemed in the wedding planner.” Mal shot him a smirk.
Owen picked up the water bottle he was drinking from and rolled it back and forth between his palms. He wasn’t embarrassed to have been caught out. He hadn’t exactly been subtle about his appreciation for the cool Grace Monroe. But she’d been pretty clear that even if she found him appealing, nothing would come of it. “I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, but for the record, she wasn’t interested.”
“You didn’t think you’d have to plan the party on your own, did you?” Mal rolled her eyes. “You’d be working with her. Just think—the two of you could join forces. Maybe spend some late nights during the planning stages.”
Owen wasn’t fooled. “Don’t try to distract me. I won’t forget that you used me as a shield.” But he certainly wouldn’t mind the excuse to see Grace—ahem, Ms. Monroe—again. “You don’t care about my dating life. You just don’t want to have to plan it yourself.”
“I see no reason that I can’t care about both things.” And for a moment, with her little smirk and sassy tone, Owen saw the sister he knew. Then it was gone, replaced with something quiet and a little sad. “I know it’s a lot to ask, Owen. But I don’t think I can do it.”
He looked into her eyes to see if she was trying to trick him. Mal would be fully capable of letting a fib trip right off her tongue with no body language to indicate anything but the deepest sincerity, but her eyes always gave her away. A combination of fear, shame and a deep pain stared back at him. Owen felt it in his own stomach.
“It’s just...too close.”
Too close because up until earlier this year, Mal had been the engaged Ford sibling, the one who’d be wedding-planning and holding the ceremony on a beach in Aruba in the near future. But when their father had had his heart attack, everything had changed.
It had changed for all of them. Donovan took over running the company, while Owen began to pay more attention to work instead of treating it like a fun place to hang out in the evening for a few hours and collect a paycheck. But Mal had uprooted her life in Aruba and moved back to Vancouver. Sold her stake in the beach restaurant to Travis and come back to work for the family business.
“Fine. I’ll do it.” Owen huffed out a breath, putting on a show of being put out because he thought Mal needed it. Needed to feel as though things were normal, that her older brother still found her an annoying pest and loved her anyway. They’d all been careful with Mal over the past few months. Doing their best not to upset her, tiptoeing around the question of what had happened between her and Travis because even when it came up indirectly, she got visibly upset. But that clearly wasn’t working and Owen wasn’t about to dump Travis as a friend without cause. “But this means you owe me.”
“I got you alone time with the wedding planner. Consider yourself paid in full.”
“Not enough.” He crossed his arms over his chest and put on his I’m-older-and-know-better-than-you look. “Tell me what’s going on with Travis.”
Mal’s lips pursed and her glare could have melted plastic. Good thing Owen was immune to it, seeing as she’d been using it on him since they were kids. “Nothing is going on.”
Semantics. Owen recognized her answer for the dodge it was, but he wasn’t about to let her use a loophole to get