An Alaskan Wedding Read online

  They said goodbye years ago, but wedding bells just might remind these ex-lovers that their relationship was never really over...

  When they were high school sweethearts, Aurora Klein and Tyler Forrester imagined they would spend their entire lives together. Though Aurora’s dreams of going to college went beyond Wild River, Alaska, she would’ve chosen to compromise if it meant staying close to Tyler. Instead, he ended their relationship after graduation. With a broken heart, Aurora moved to California and never planned on looking back.

  And yet, six years later, Aurora finds herself back in Wild River to serve as maid of honor at her best friend’s wedding. There’s only one problem: Tyler is the best man. Aurora expects an awkward reunion, but she doesn’t count on rekindling the flame that still burns between them...or having to team up with him to search for the runaway bride!

  An Alaskan Wedding

  Jennifer Snow

  Also available from Jennifer Snow

  An Alaskan Christmas

  Under an Alaskan Sky

  A Sweet Alaskan Fall

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Excerpt from Under an Alaskan Sky by Jennifer Snow

  One

  This venue could not have been Leah’s idea.

  The Wild River Resort Hotel was posh and chic, and her best friend was more... Urban woodsy. Aurora Klein had once heard Leah say that if she could get married anywhere in the world, it would be on the top of Snowcrest Peak with two witnesses and a justice of the peace. Maybe a photographer to capture the special moment. Leah believed that weddings were about the bride and groom and should be intimate and personal.

  Somehow, Leah must have been outvoted.

  Aurora would guess it was the combined efforts of the mothers of the newly engaged couple that had convinced the bride that she wanted the elaborate wedding with two hundred guests, a sit-down catered menu, lavish flowers, an expensive dress she’d only wear once, a DJ that was stuck in the eighties and a four-layer cake that she wouldn’t get a chance to eat.

  Unless her best friend had suddenly developed a flair for over-the-top and overdone, Aurora suspected that Leah was absolutely miserable by now.

  Being so far away at university in Stanford, Aurora hadn’t had much to do with her best friend’s wedding planning. Leah had told her she was getting married five months ago, the same day she asked/assumed Aurora would be her maid of honor. She’d been dating Rick less than three months at that point, and Aurora thought they were moving crazy fast. But how could she be honest with her friend when she was so obviously head over heels in love?

  She might not have been feeling as queasy about the whole thing if Leah wasn’t marrying the brother of the man who broke Aurora’s own heart years before.

  And just her luck, the best man at this wedding.

  “Best man, right,” she scoffed. “More like mediocre man.” Aurora straightened her skirt and entered the dining room at the resort for the rehearsal dinner.

  “Are you referring to me?”

  Aurora whipped around at the sound of Tyler Forrester’s voice. Dressed in a charcoal suit with a light blue button-down shirt opened at the collar, his hair spiked in his usual fauxhawk and his five o’clock stubble adding to his casual sexiness, the sight of him had her pulse going crazy, as usual. Would she ever see her ex-boyfriend and not want to fall straight into the arms that had pushed her away? Why did he still have this effect on her? Although they had dated for most of their teenage life, it had been almost six years since he dumped her—right after her high school graduation.

  She’d tried to move on when she left weeks later for university to pursue her degree in Engineering, but despite time and distance and every last ounce of effort, Tyler still held her heart.

  “Um, no?”

  “Are you asking me whether or not you were just insulting me?” His grin was too much.

  “Well, if you see yourself in the comment...” Her voice trailed off.

  Change. Subject. Now.

  “Have you seen Leah?” She looked around—at everything but him. She couldn’t breathe all of a sudden, like someone had a vise around her airways, squeezing tight. The large dining room seemed to shrink, the walls closing around the two of them.

  “I think she’s with her mother and my mother. They were in the kitchen making sure everything was under control with the dinner arrangements,” Tyler said, staring straight at her.

  Her cheeks burned under his intense gaze.

  How the hell could he act so calm and unfazed? They’d only seen one another three or four times since they split up. Mostly when Aurora was home for the holidays or summer break, and usually it was at The Drunk Tank surrounded by hundreds of locals and tourists, so they never really had time to talk.

  Correction: She avoided any opportunity to talk. It was a self-preservation thing.

  But now, being the only two to show up so far for the rehearsal dinner put them in the super uncomfortable position of being alone.

  Super uncomfortable for Aurora at least.

  Tyler seemed completely at ease as he shoved his hands into his pants pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. “Should we take our seats?” he asked. “Get into the wine a little early?”

  Seats? Oh no. Of course they’d be seated at the same table. She’d been trying to get up the nerve to make it through the next day glued to Tyler for the walk down the aisle and the countless photos and the dinner and the dancing. Now she had to make it through that evening with him close by as well. At least until the engaged couple parted ways for their prewedding bachelor and bachelorette parties.

  But the wine part sounded good. She’d be needing more than one glass to survive the next two days. “Sure,” she said.

  He motioned for her to walk ahead, and she tensed feeling his hand on her lower back. So natural. So familiar. Too familiar. The smallest touch from him brought back unwelcome memories of soft caresses, lingering kisses, days and nights spent together camping and hiking in the Alaskan wilderness, connecting on a deeper level than just friendship. She knew their love had been the real thing.

  Yet, he’d tossed those years away like they’d meant absolutely nothing to him.

  Tossed her away.

  She walked faster, breaking the too-intimate contact. How was she going to survive the next forty-eight hours?

  At the table, he held out a chair for her and she reluctantly sat.

  He removed his sports coat and draped it over the back of his own chair, then rolled the sleeves of his dress shirt before reaching for the bottle of wine on the table. His shirt lifted over his sculpted forearms, and the sight of his aurora borealis watercolor tattoo made her chest tighten even more.

  The tattoo had been for her.

  She’d been named after the breathtaking northern lights, and Tyler had gotten the tat the minute he’d turned eighteen. It had meant everything to her. She’d believed the tattoo signified that she’d meant everything to him. How wrong she’d been.

  Did he regret the tattoo now?

  Unfortunately, no matter how much his rejection had hurt, she couldn’t regret their time together.

  All Aurora regretted was that it had ended.

  * * *

  Tyler had known Aurora was coming to the wedding. He’d known he would be paired with her in the wedding party. He’d also known that there would be pictures and dancing and dinners together. What he hadn’t known was that the sight of her would stop his hear
t. Six years should be plenty of time for a heartache to heal, so why the hell was his taking its sweet time?

  He took a bigger sip of wine than he intended and nearly choked on the dry flavor on his tongue. Since she’d left for California, he’d only seen Aurora a few times when she returned on school breaks, and each time had been torture. He’d been able to avoid her as much as possible on those previous visits, but there would be no avoiding her now.

  Obviously, she was just as uncomfortable as he was. At least she only had to deal with the close proximity issue for the next two days. Tyler was uncomfortable with everything about this wedding. As much as he hoped his brother was making the right decision, he couldn’t completely get on board with the whole marriage thing and he was surprised that Rick could.

  Their parents had divorced when he was four and Rick was six. Both of their parents had remarried twice since then. It was hard to believe in an institution when both of his parents hadn’t been able to make any of their relationships work.

  He wasn’t sure he believed in forever.

  Since Aurora, he’d been living the single bachelor lifestyle here in the ski resort town of Wild River. Tourists made for the perfect casual flings. They were here for a short time, and Tyler was the guy who helped make their vacation more exciting. He didn’t sleep with them, but he had fun, distracted himself from how lonely he actually was for a little while. Then they left.

  Like Aurora had.

  “What time is this supposed to start?” Aurora asked, lifting her dark hair away from her neck. It cascaded like silk down her back, stealing his focus, and Tyler fought the urge to tangle his fingers in it. The smell of her familiar lavender-scented shampoo hit him like a wave of nostalgia. So many hours spent, holding her, breathing her in...

  “Tyler?” She waved a hand in front of his face.

  “Oh...um, I was told five o’clock,” he said checking his watch. It was already five fifteen and no one else had shown up yet.

  “Me too,” she mumbled.

  “Think we were set up?”

  She sighed. “Looks that way.”

  And she didn’t seem all that impressed by it. Obviously spending time alone with him wasn’t something she was eager to do. His brother was getting an earful when he saw him. He didn’t know what Rick was trying to achieve, but whatever it was, it was failing miserably. This was just awkward and tense.

  Still, he’d try to make the best of it. He cleared his throat. “So, how’s school?”

  She stared into her wineglass. “Good...busy.”

  So busy that the minute she’d left Wild River, she’d forgotten all about him. No calls or texts...hell, he was still waiting for her to accept his Facebook friend request. Seemed when she left him behind, it was for good. “Your mom said you made the dean’s list—impressive,” he said.

  She swung toward him. Her dark chocolate–colored eyes with the fire-orange starburst around the center burned into his. “You talked to my mom?”

  He fought to hide his embarrassment. Truth was, he kept in contact with her entire family—her mom, her dad, her brother—he’d basically grown up at their house. In the years that they’d dated, Tyler had adopted Aurora’s family as his own. As the one he wished he had. Her parents were still married, and their relationship had been something Tyler only saw on television sitcoms. Her mother stayed at home and baked cookies as an after-school treat, drove the kids to all their sports and extracurricular activities and had dinner on the table by six when Aurora’s father got home from work. Old-fashioned maybe, but Tyler had craved that kind of security and routine.

  His home life couldn’t have been more different. Switching back and forth between his parents’ separate homes with their current spouses each week, he’d never felt settled. The only place that had truly felt like home was Aurora’s house, and he hadn’t been willing to let go of that even after he’d been forced to let go of her.

  “I see her around town all the time,” he said, noncommittal. And he was regularly invited to dinner. He’d assumed Aurora knew that, but obviously not. She must think he’d completely forgotten about her the moment she boarded that plane to California. Nothing could be further from the truth. He thought about her all the time, especially when the northern lights lit up the sky or he caught a glimpse of his forearm tattoo.

  Basically all the time.

  “How’s the search for a firefighter opportunity?” she asked.

  At least she remembered that passion of his. “Slow. There aren’t too many opportunities here in Alaska. I’m still volunteering with S & R and working with Dad’s construction company.” He didn’t admit to her that he also searched for firefighting opportunities in Stanford and L.A. and a dozen other Californian cities closer to her. He always stopped himself before he could apply. Alaska was his home. He might be a snowboarding playboy here in the snowcapped mountain region, but he’d be useless on a surfboard, trying to survive the sweltering heat and humidity and city traffic. “I imagine life on campus is exciting,” he said.

  Translation: Was there a hot, blond, tanned surfer boy distracting her from her studies?

  He knew from Rick that she hadn’t RSVP’d a plus-one for the wedding... So neither had he. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t seeing someone.

  Unfortunately, she revealed nothing. “It’s definitely not boring,” she said, checking her cell phone.

  He nodded and a long silence followed.

  Right. Six years was a long time not to communicate. They barely knew one another well enough now to hold a conversation. How had they gone from being best friends, so crazy in love, to barely more than strangers?

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t true—not on his end at least. His heart still felt their connection as strong as ever. He had to say something. But what could he say? That he thought about her all the time? That he was sorry for the way things ended? For hurting her?

  He took a deep breath, but she spoke first. “I’m going to text Leah and see what time this dinner actually starts.”

  Wow. She really did not want to be alone with him. Any courage he was summoning to be honest with her, to tell her how he still cared about her—more than anything—vanished. “Yeah, good idea,” he said, as casually as possible.

  While she texted the bride, Tyler scanned the rehearsal dinner setup. The following day the same room would be used for the wedding ceremony, then pictures, then the reception. The entire event was stressing him out, but pictures were probably what was terrifying him the most. How was he supposed to smile and stand next to Aurora without looking either heartbroken or still in love with a woman he couldn’t have?

  Two

  “Oh my God, get me out of this thing, quick!” The minute they were alone in her bridal suite after the rehearsal dinner, Leah turned and lifted her long dark hair so Aurora could quickly unzip the tight-bodice-corset-thing she wore with a ballerina-style tutu skirt. Leah immediately released a deep exhale as though she’d been holding her breath all evening.

  Aurora knew the feeling. She’d been holding her own breath but for completely different reasons. The familiar scent of Tyler’s cologne had plagued her the entire evening. And his handsome smile had her stomach fluttering so badly, it had been impossible to eat the fifty-dollar-a-plate dinner. “I should have left you trapped in there after that setup,” she said.

  Leah’s fake look of innocence almost made her laugh, but her friend wasn’t off the hook that easily. “It was a simple mix-up with the time,” she said with a shrug, reaching for her plaid button-down and ripped jeans.

  Aurora raised an eyebrow. “That somehow only Tyler and I received?”

  Leah sighed. “Look, Rick and I thought that maybe if you two had some time alone together before the actual wedding stuff started, you’d have time to...”

  “To what?” Kiss and make up? There had been countless opportunities for that over t
he years. When she’d been home before, Tyler basically ignored her. And he’d completely dismissed the idea of a long-distance relationship years before when she’d tearfully suggested one. She still cringed when she thought about the day they’d ended things and the way she’d practically begged him to reconsider.

  No, Aurora, I’m not interested in having a girlfriend thousands of miles away.

  His words had stung. They still did when she remembered them. And the crazy part was that she’d almost reconsidered going away for university until he’d also made it clear that he didn’t see things working out between them even if she stayed.

  She’d been devastated and torn, but her parents had forced her to see reason. If things were meant to be, they’d be... In time, at the right time, they’d said.

  Apparently, they weren’t meant to be.

  “You two can deny it all you want, but you’re both still crazy about one another,” Leah said, picking up the hotel phone and dialing room service.

  Since kindergarten, Aurora could never successfully lie to her best friend, so she didn’t even try to deny her feelings. “Don’t eat too much. You still have to squeeze into a dress tomorrow.” At least they’d both feel sick the next day, for different reasons.

  Leah picked up a pillow and threw it at her as she ordered chicken fingers, fries and a burger.

  While her friend ordered, Aurora took the opportunity to stare out the large bridal suite window at the breathtaking view of the mountains all around them. She loved her hometown of Wild River, nestled between the Chugach Mountains and Denali National Park. The ski resort town was the best combination of excitement during tourist seasons and quiet tranquility in the off-seasons. With its picturesque Main Street and outback experiences for all levels of adventure seekers, it really was the best place to live or visit. She hadn’t loved the idea of going away for university. She would have been happy to attend the university in Anchorage, a short one-hour train ride away, but her parents had insisted that she should not waste a full scholarship or her amazing brain by turning down the opportunity to study at one of the best engineering schools in the world. She’d worked hard to ensure she could go anywhere she wanted.