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Nick worried over it. He brooded about it all night and through the following day’s meetings and paperwork. With Kevin and Kristin in Orlando to visit with old friends, there was no one he could ask for advice. If he told Cara about his suspicions, it would definitely hurt her. So, he was left to worry it over in his head.

As he stewed about it, he didn’t pay attention and ended up cutting himself as he sliced a tomato for the salad he was making to go with dinner. When he yelped at the stinging pain and the beads of blood that welled up on his skin, Sydney rushed to his side from where she’d been checking on the pasta.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Nick cursed steadily and fluidly. His daughter had heard far worse, he was sure, and he didn’t care, at the moment, to censor himself. He was in pain, damn it.

Sydney grabbed his hand and dragged it under the kitchen sink. “What happened, Dad?”

“Fucking knife. Sorry,” he apologized. The pain was less than it had been before, but his thumb still throbbed where the knife had cut into his skin. “Guess I wasn’t looking where the knife was going.”

“It’s okay. I don’t think you need stitches. You’re lucky it wasn’t too deep.”

He smiled a little and ruffled her hair. “Maybe you should be the one going to med school instead of Mason. It’s okay, Syd, it’s stopped bleeding,” he added as she continued to fuss over it.

“Yeah, okay.” She turned off the tap. “I’ll get a Band-Aid.”

Nick watched as she went to the medicine cabinet and pulled out the box of bandages. He wanted so badly to say something, but he didn’t know how to broach the subject. “Sydney, why aren’t you happy that I’m marrying Cara?” Sometimes, he thought, the best way was flat out asking.

Sydney fumbled the box in her surprise and spilled bandages all over the floor. She gathered them up, then turned to face her father. “Dad, why would you think that I’m not happy? Of course, I’m happy,” she lied.

“Sydney.” He knew she was lying, he could see it on his only child’s face. “Don’t lie to me. Ever.”

She shrugged and unwrapped one of the bandages, before passing it over to him. “I’m not lying. Yeah, I was surprised that you’re getting married after all this time, but I’m not lying to you. I do think Cara’s good for you.”

“Honestly?” He wasn’t sure whether he should believe her or not. “You’re not just saying that to make your old man feel better?”

“Dad.” She shook her head. “Cara makes you happy, right?”

Nick nodded. “Definitely.”

“Then that’s fine with me.” Sydney hugged him lightly. “I only want to see you happy, and, if Cara does that, then, hey, who am I to argue, right?”

While one part of him reveled in the fact that he’d been wrong, that she hadn’t been upset about the upcoming wedding, another part of him still sensed that she was hiding something from him. “Right,” he said slowly. “But you’d tell me if something was bugging you, right? You know you can tell me anything, kid. I’m your dad.”

“I know.” She felt bad for lying to him, but she was so sure that the plan she was formulating would work out for the best for everyone. “So, are we done with today’s serious father-daughter conversation?”

“Yeah.” Nick secured the bandage in place over his cut and hoped his worries would be gone now. “To be on the safe side, I think I’ll get out the pasta. You get to finish up the salad. I’m so not going near that knife again.”

Sydney giggled. “You’re such a little kid, Dad.”

***

Spencer Wilde, District Attorney for the city of Nashville, was buried in the mounds of paperwork that piled up in neat stacks on her desk. She was well used to burning the midnight oil in order to get everything done and filed away. Some called her a workaholic, but Spencer preferred the adjective “dedicated” because that’s what she was. She’d interned in law firms from her high school years through to when she’d first been hired by one. She’d climbed the rungs in the ladder of the firm to make partner, then had resigned to work in the district attorney’s office. For years, she’d slaved away at it until, finally, she’d been appointed as the DA five years earlier.

The piles of paperwork were nothing new to her.

Spencer worked diligently, typing up reports, authorizing plea bargains, reviewing the day’s cases. Her long red hair was knotted into a bun at the base of her neck where it wouldn’t be in the way. Her deep gray eyes with their crow’s feet wrinkles at the corners were focused behind wire-framed glasses. Occasionally, a frown would mar her still wrinkle-less forehead as she found problems in what she read.

She’d been up for nearly eighteen hours now, but it didn’t occur to her to stop and take a break, or go to bed.

The ringing of the phone jolted her out of the printed words in front of her.

Frowning at the disturbance, she reached for it. “Hello?”

“Mom! Hey, I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important.”

Sydney. Work flew out of her mind as Spencer set down her pen and leaned back in her chair, a smile on her lips. “Of course not. How’s my baby doing?”

“I’m good. Tampa’s really relaxing.”

“And the internship? Are you liking it?” Spencer was still amazed that her child wanted to follow in her footsteps. It was immensely satisfying and gratifying to know Sydney had chosen the law instead of the entertainment industry.

“Oh, yeah. It’s great! The partners always come around and talk to us interns. I get to go to my first court case tomorrow. This woman apparently killed her husband, but she claims it was accidental. Of course, we have to prove that she didn’t, but…” And, she was off, Spencer thought but still listened keenly to her daughter’s excited voice.

When Sydney had run through the case, Spencer had to smile. “Wow, sweetie, it sounds like you’ve been getting exciting stuff right from the start. I didn’t get to sit in on my first murder case until I was in law school. Good for you.” She paused. “So, how’s everything else down there, besides the internship?”

“I’m definitely thinking I want to do criminal law,” Sydney replied before she paused for a moment. Then, “Oh, things are good here. Uncle Kevin and his family were here last week, and it was great to see them. Plus, I’ve been spending lots of time with Dad, which is good.”

Despite everything else Spencer could say about Nick, she had to admit that he’d surprised her by being an incredible father. “That’s nice.”

“Yeah, but there’s some exciting news. Which is why I called you.”

“Oh?” Spencer’s brow wrinkled. “What is it?”

“Do you remember Cara, Mom? She was at my graduation with Dad.”

Spencer tried to remember what Nick’s latest woman looked like and recalled a pretty brunette with more intelligence than she’d come to expect from his string of ladies. “Sort of. Yeah. Why? What’s going on?”

“She and Dad are getting married in, like, three weeks! So they’re all busy with wedding preparations.”

She felt the blow Sydney’s words caused her and struggled to control her emotions. “Married? Really? That’s…really nice.”

“Yeah, I think so. It’s about time Dad found someone who makes him happy and someone he can grow old with. Even though he’s already old,” Sydney snickered.

“Hey, just you wait. You’ll be in your forties before you know it,” Spencer replied mildly, a small smile on her face. The news of Nick getting married was still reverberating through her. After all this time, he’d actually found someone. Part of her was happy for him, while the other part was shocked speechless.

“That’s what Dad says, too. You guys are way too sensitive about your age. Anyway, it’s going to be a really small ceremony in a church. There’s only going to be, like, fifty or sixty people there.”

A church? Spencer remembered that they’d planned on renting a yacht for their ceremony. That was in the dim, dark past, she reminded herself. “It sounds like it’s going to be a very lovely wedding.”

“Yeah, I think so, too. Dad said I could invite a guest if I wanted.”

“Oh? Is there a boy from school that you’re thinking about asking?”

“Nah. Boys at school are just egotistical jerks.” Sydney sighed. “I don’t want to be bored senseless at the wedding. Besides, if I wanted to hang out with boys, Mason and Baylee will be there.” She paused. “I wanted to ask you to be my guest, Mom.”

“What?!” Spencer blinked, confused. She wasn’t at all sure she’d heard right. “Would you mind repeating that because I swear I heard you say that you want me to come to your father’s wedding with you.”

Sydney was quiet for a moment. “Uh, yeah, that’s what I said, Mom. I know you and Dad don’t exactly get along too well, but I’d really love it if you came. For me. I won’t be able to see you before I go back to school in the fall, and this would be the perfect way to see you. Plus, when’s the last time you took a vacation? You could take off for a week, come down, and we’ll spend time doing sightseeing and stuff. You wouldn’t even have to see Dad until the day of the wedding.”

Spencer didn’t know what to say. “Sydney, I just don’t think this is a good idea. I doubt your father wants to see me on his wedding day.”

“Mom, whatever you and Dad feel about each other, I think you can be adults enough to be polite to each other on his big day,” Sydney said impatiently. “Please, pretty please come? I promise, Dad won’t even be around, so you won’t see him until the day of his wedding. Just come for me?”

Attend Nick’s wedding? Watch him marry another woman when her heart was still his? It had to be akin to torture sessions. She shouldn’t put herself through that, Spencer told herself. She hadn’t seen him in three years, and the tangled mass of feelings she had for him had slowly begun to subside. After twenty years. It was pathetic, she thought. Just downright pathetic that she was still in love with a man who had always made it perfectly clear that he didn’t care a single bit for her. She most certainly should not go to his wedding.

“When’s the wedding?” she heard herself asking.

“July ninth. It’s a Saturday, but you should come the week before. I’ll try to get out of work, and we can hang out. The weather here is so much better than the muggy humidity in Nashville. You’ll love it,” Sydney gushed.

Spencer berated herself for it, even as she spoke the words. “I guess I’ll see you in a couple weeks then, sweetie.”

After a few more minutes, she hung up, promising Sydney that she’d let her know the exact details of her arrival once she’d gotten her plane tickets. She couldn’t believe that she was actually going to Nick Carter’s wedding, but it was too late to back out now. Sydney would be so upset. So, she was headed for Tampa in two and a half weeks’ time.

It would be nice to have a break from work for a week, she admitted, but a vacation would have been to lay on a beach in the Caribbean and sip fruity drinks. Not go to the wedding of the man she still pathetically loved.

Sighing a little at her own idiocy, Spencer pulled open the bottom drawer of her desk and rooted around a bit before she found what she was looking for.

For a long time, she sat and stared at the picture of Nick and herself at Christmas dinner where they’d announced to everyone that they were getting married and were expecting a baby. They’d been so young, so sure of themselves and the future, and certain that they could overcome whatever problems they might have.

“What fools we were.”