Chapter 3: Scarlett

Those four words hit Scarlett in the stomach one after the other.

The wedding?

Was off?

She opened and closed her mouth, not sure what to say.

"That was actually what I came up to talk to someone about." Cole braced his hand on the island and faced her, all business now. This gaze was sober, serious. "I wasn't privy to the booking details and seeing as how there isn't going to be a wedding, I was hoping to recoup some of the money."

Scarlett blinked at him. She wanted to know what had happened, how it had gone wrong, if AK was okay, if he was okay. But she couldn't ask those questions.

"Your name was on the emails Allie copied me on." He glanced back at her.

Scarlett mentally did the math.

It was currently September nineteenth.

His wedding was scheduled for October twenty-eight.

Oh crap.

Her heart fell to the floor.

"I can't say off the top of my head what we can do. I'd have to talk to my cousins." She gripped the edge of the counter. He had to be going through a lot right now. She didn't want to crush his hope.

They had a no refund policy two months out and there was barely six weeks to go. Two weeks past the cut off.

Cole nodded, but his inner light had dimmed. His shoulders slumped.

Scarlett knew what it was like to be headed toward a wedding, then have it all yanked away. Granted, her boyfriend at the time had been a lying, thieving, manipulative asshole, but her love was blind. Losing him had hurt, physically, emotionally, mentally.

"Okay, well, thanks. Sorry about..."

"Want some tea?" She nudged the cup toward him.

"Thanks."

"I'm sorry I didn't know. AK never said anything." She gripped her cup with both hands.

"Yeah, well, she didn't say a lot to anyone." He lifted the jar to his lips and took a long drink.

Cole drained the glass then set it on the island and stared at it. "I should have called before, I just..."

"No. No, it's fine. I'm sure you two have been going through a lot."

He snorted and glanced at her. His hurt shone through.

Scarlett resisted the urge to hug him. Barely.

She loved love. Starting The Love Barn and helping to organize weddings, it made her happy. Thrilled, even, to be part of so many romances taking the next step. Her own love life was nowhere near as good. She never wanted to see a couple fail.

"What-you don't have to tell me-but, what happened?" She shouldn't ask. It wasn't her place and yet, was anyone listening to him? Why did he have that look in his eyes?

"I...don't honestly know." He shook his head. "I went to work, came home and there was a letter on the dining table telling me she couldn't get married, she wasn't in love with me and she's sorry."

Scarlett stared, grappling with the events as he laid them out. What was worse, she wasn't entirely surprised. Allie-Kate had always been flaky.

"Wow."

"Yeah. We were scheduled to turn in the keys to the apartment the next day and everything we owned had just been picked up to deliver down here. Talk about shitty timing."

"Wait-you were moving here?"

"Yup." He nodded. "I'm set to begin work in October, but hoping I can start early."

Scarlett soaked up the details.

Cole had been left, weeks before his wedding, stuck moving to the small town his runaway bride came from with a job already lined up?

That was cold, even for Allie-Kate.

"Oh, Cole. I am so sorry," Scarlett said. And this was only the beginning. How soon until everyone else knew, too? "Well, what are you going to do?"

"Settle in, I guess." He shrugged.

"Really?"

"I don't have any other option. I sank a lot of money into this wedding. Allie hasn't been working steadily, so it fell mostly on me. I can't afford to break the lease or move somewhere else. I've got a good job lined up." He shrugged. "I'll make do."

Scarlett wanted to hug him. She wanted to squeeze him tight because she knew what it was like to have loved and been left. That was the story of her life, her love was never enough.

Was there anything she could do?

She glanced at the clock.

Garth and Benji wouldn't be back for another hour. She didn't want Cole there when she broached the topic of giving him a refund. While she loved what they did, this gig had more or less fallen in their lap and the guys treated it like a business, not a matter of the heart.

"Do you have a list of vendors booked for the wedding?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah. I went back through the emails and bank account." He patted his pockets. "These aren't my clothes. One second."

He cracked another of those bright smiles and the tension in her chest eased. She wanted to help him. This was a shitty spot to land in with no support system or friends.

Cole ducked into the bathroom and retrieved his phone.

"Glad I splurged for the hefty duty case, huh?" He wiped off the phone screen and set it on the counter.

"Have you told your family? Does AK's family know?" Scarlett leaned in to look at his list.

"I haven't spoken to her family, but I'm guessing they do. No one showed up with a welcome home Allie sign or anything."

"And your family?"

"Weren't coming, anyway." He turned the phone toward her. "Do you know these people?" he asked.

Scarlett took the phone and studied the contacts.

She knew all of them.

"These are all pretty close." She glanced out the front windows. "Where's your car?"

"I just have a bike right now."

"A bike? Where is it?" She hadn't seen a motorcycle.

"Oh." He squinted out front. "It's lying on its side in the grass. It's a decent four speed, nothing fancy."

"Wait-you have a bicycle? Not a motorcycle?"

"Yeah." He shrugged.

"You moved to Texas, the land of no public transportation, without a car?" She stared at him.

Cole sighed then glanced away. There was something he hadn't wanted to tell her.

"Allie took the car."

"She-what?" Scarlett gaped at the man.

"And my dog."

She had no response to that, just shock.

All of this and he wasn't angry and raging at the person responsible. He was an angel. A damn fucking angel and she wanted to help him. There wasn't a world where the way he'd been treated was right, and she wanted to fix this. Help him, and she knew how.

"It's the start of a bad country song, isn't it?"

"Kind of. Okay, here's what we're going to do." Scarlett tucked a bit of hair up into her bun. "I am going to shower real quick. After that, you and I are going to make the rounds, see what we can do about getting you refunds. If you need a car, I know where we could go, too."

"You don't have to-"

Scarlett shook her head and his voice trailed off. "AK should have treated you better than this. I don't know what your story is, but no one deserves to be up and left like that. It's not right."

She'd only begun to make wedding plans when her ex left her. It wasn't the same thing, but she felt his pain as though it were her own. She'd been broken up with enough that she understood him. She'd had Garth and Benji to help her pick up the broken pieces of her heart, but Cole had no one. She'd felt that pain too many times to let someone go through it alone.