curves and made her legs look a mile long. She didn’t like making her friends wait, but she never knew when she might meet her future husband, so she always liked to look her best.
Rachel and the rest of the bridal party were sitting at a table on the far side of the patio and Kate quickly made her way over to them. Spotting Kate, her slender, dark-haired friend squealed excitedly and immediately jumped up to greet her with a hug. The other girls did the same, each one taking turns putting their arms around her and giving her a big squeeze. Kate couldn’t help but laugh. It was wonderful to have all of her friends together in one place like this. Though they all lived within a couple hours of Seattle, they didn’t get together nearly as much as she would like. They had met during their freshman year in high school and been close friends ever since. Along with Rachel, the other girls-Kristen, Heather, Briana and Melanie-were like the sisters she never had.
“Come on and sit down,” Rachel said, patting the chair beside hers. “Did you just get in?”
“About thirty minutes ago. I wanted to unpack and change before I met up with everyone.” Kate looked around for Rachel’s fiance as she sat down. “Where are Bob and the rest of the guys?”
The other girl waved her hand. “At the bar. They went to get us drinks, but I think they got sidetracked by the baseball game on the television.”
Kate laughed. “Typical.”
“Speaking of guys,” Heather said, looking around. “Where’s Jason?”
Kate made a face at the mention of her ex-boyfriend. “I broke it off with him a couple of weeks ago.”
Heather’s pretty brown eyes went wide. “You did? Why didn’t you tell us? What happened? He seemed so perfect for you.”
Around the table, Kate noticed the rest of the girls looked just as surprised to hear she’d called it quits with her most recent boyfriend. All except Rachel. Kate had told her the day after it had happened, but hadn’t got around to mentioning it to the others. It was kind of embarrassing, really. She’d been going on and on for months that Jason was The One. Then again, she thought every guy she went out with was The One. Until she figured out he wasn’t.
She shrugged. “I thought he was perfect, too, at first. But after a while, it was obvious there was something missing. I don’t think he was really marriage material. Which is why I’m really not all that upset about breaking up with him.”
Across from her, Kristen sat back with a frown. “He wasn’t marriage material? What the heck does that mean? He was good-looking, funny, had a great job, and according to you, dynamite in the sack. You’d only been going out with him for four months. I don’t see the problem.”
Kate should have known Kristen wouldn’t see the problem. She and her husband John had gone out off and on for years before they suddenly decided to get married. That concept didn’t make sense to Kate. Either a guy was The One or he wasn’t. And if he wasn’t, then why waste her time with him? To Kate, it always seemed like Kristen had just settled for John. Her husband was nice and all, but how magical could their relationship be if they’d been able to date other people in between? Of course, Kate would never say anything like that to her friend.
“The problem was that I could never see our relationship transitioning to marriage, no matter how long we went out,” Kate said, then added, “Actually, I’m not sure if the word marriage was even in his vocabulary. I didn’t want to waste my time with him anymore.”
“Kate, you’re crazy,” Briana said. Petite and slightly plump, she had curly red hair and a smattering of freckles across her nose. “Going out with a guy is never a waste of time if you’re having fun with him.” Her brow furrowed. “You did have fun with Jason, didn’t you?”
Kate almost laughed. “Sure I did. I wouldn’t go out with a guy if I didn’t. He just really wasn’t what I was looking for in a husband.”
“Ah, the infamous checklist,” Melanie said, her blue eyes teasing.
Around the table, the other girls nodded as if in agreement and Kate felt her face color. “What checklist? I don’t have a checklist.”
“Don’t even try to deny it,” Melanie said. “We’ve all known about it forever. It may not be in writing, but it’s the one you came up with senior year in high school. You know, the one you used to figure out which guy you wanted to take you to the prom? As I remember, you started at the beginning of the school year and mentally crossed off a guy’s name whenever he got a bad grade on a math test or showed up late to class too many times in a row. By the time prom rolled around, you came up with one guy in the whole senior class who fit your criteria and because you were afraid he might take someone else, you asked him to the dance.”
Kate blushed even more at that. She’d always been very organized and methodical when it came to doing something, so coming up with the checklist of criteria to help her figure out which guy she wanted to take her to the prom seemed like the most efficient way to go about it. She hadn’t realized her friends knew about it, though. “That was prom. I don’t use a checklist now.”
“Sure you do,” Melanie insisted. “You used it all through college. You never dated a single guy you didn’t think was worthy of marriage. You never had one drunken hookup or ever banged a guy just because he was on the football team. You evaluated every guy against your checklist back then and you still do now. You might have changed some of the things on it since then, but you still use one.”
“Okay, so maybe I do,” Kate admitted. “But everyone has one.”
Melanie let out a snort. “Not like yours.”
Kate shrugged. “I just have high standards, that’s all.”
Melanie laughed. “The problem isn’t your high standards. It’s your single-minded focus on finding the perfect husband.” She leaned forward to rest her arms on the table. “Let me ask you something. When was the last time you went out with a guy simply because he was hot and you thought he’d be good in bed?”
Kate opened her mouth to answer, but then closed it again when she couldn’t come up with an example.
“See? Either it was so long ago you can’t even remember or you’ve never done it at all,” Melanie said. “Which proves my point.”
Kate eyed her warily, feeling like this was some kind of intervention. “What point is that?”
“That you have to forget about your stupid checklist,” the other girl said. “It’s okay to stop looking for Mr. Right and just have fun with Mr. Right-Now every once in a while.”
Kate was silent as she mulled over her friend’s words. Considering Melanie was married to a great guy, that approach had obviously worked for the other girl, but it wasn’t Kate’s style. She didn’t go out with men unless she thought they had long-term potential. What was the point of hooking up with a hot guy for a night of amazing sex if it didn’t eventually lead to marriage?
“Melanie’s right,” Briana said. “You can’t expect every guy you go out with the be The One. I sure as heck didn’t think I was going to marry Tom when we first started dating. I just knew I liked spending time with him because we had fun together. I wasn’t even thinking about marriage, but when he proposed, I realized I’d actually fallen in love with him.” She grinned. “It helped that he’s great at oral sex, of course. It’s possible that was actually the deciding factor.”
Kate laughed at that last part along with everyone else, then shook her head. “Okay, I admit being great at oral sex is high up on my checklist, but I don’t see the casual approach working for me.”
“That’s the point,” Kristen said. “You’re not supposed to go into that kind of relationship expecting anything. That’s why they’re so much fun. For once, give yourself permission to have a no-strings-attached fling with a hot guy just for the fun of it.”
Beside Kate, Rachel grinned. “That’s a great idea! In fact, you can start this weekend.”
Kate looked at her in surprise. “This weekend?”
Rachel nodded. “No time like the present. And you know what they say, ‘what happens on San Juan Island, stays on San Juan Island.’”
Kate gave her a wry look. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that.”
“Well, they should. Besides, I have the perfect guy for you to have a fling with. Bob’s best man, Dawson McKenna.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Kate asked. “I’ve never even met him.”
“Which is why he’s the perfect guy to have a no-strings-attached fling with. After this weekend, you won’t ever have to see him again, which means you can be as wild and uninhibited in bed as you want.”
Kate shook her head. “You can’t honestly expect me to sleep with some guy I don’t even know.”
“Did I mention he’s handsome, smart, and has an absolutely gorgeous body?” her friend asked.
“You left that part out,” Kate said dryly. “But if he’s handsome, smart and has an absolutely gorgeous body,
