A/N: Thanks, as always, to the folks who leave reviews :)

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 5

It seemed easier to take on Friday's tasks by herself. Of course, it occurred to Zoe to swing by the hotel and grab Wade. If the dreams she had in the night were anything to go by, subconsciously, at least, she had a very great want to do all kinds of grabbing when it came to Wade Kinsella, and yet, she resisted the urge.

Letting herself be foolish about a friend-of-a-friend from out of town was not a good idea. Zoe had better sense than to go having a one-night stand, or worse, falling for a veritable stranger. That was why, when there was a suspected issue with the wedding flowers, she handled in on her own.

Not that it was an easy fix. The message she received was not from Annabeth this time - after all, it was Zoe herself that had made the order at the florists. Instead, she got a call from her mom, who sounded very serious for someone asking about flowers for a wedding that had nothing to do with her.

"Zoe, you didn't place your friend's wedding order with Petalines, did you?"

"Sure, we use that place all the time," she told Candice without pause. "Mom, you were the one who recommended them to me!"

"Yes, I had a horrible feeling you were going to say that." Her mother sighed heavily in her ear. "Well, I don't know how true the rumours are, but if you'll take my advice, you will go down to the store and find out for certain. I've been hearing all kinds of things in the last few hours..."

She wouldn't say more than that. A good publicist knew better than to listen to gossip, after all, and Zoe respected that. Still, she did head on over to Petalines to see what was going on, quite ready to find all was well and that a double-check of her order would result in nothing but assurances that everything was fine. Rumours often turned out to be just that, nothing more, nothing less.

Zoe hardly knew what to think when she stepped out of the cab and saw police crime scene tape right across the front of the high-end store. Frowning hard, she went as close as she dare and asked the nearest officer what was going on. Unsurprisingly, he wasn't all that forthcoming. At least, not until Zoe got her mom on the phone and put her on with the highest-ranking police officer she could find around the store.

Ten minutes later, she had the whole story. The owner of Petalines, whose real name was a lot more pedestrian than her brand made her sound, had been importing orchids from South America, only that wasn't the only thing in the packages she received from there. Apparently, customs had uncovered a large amount of cocaine and the florist had been arrested on multiple drugs charges. Clearly, she would not be supplying any flowers for a wedding the next day.

"Here we go again," Zoe muttered to herself, swinging into action to track down another florist that could supply a bespoke bouquet, buttonholes, and decorative pieces on very short notice.

She had to try different places, but eventually, she found one willing to do what she asked for, and the price wasn't even too crazy. Happy with what she had achieved, Zoe exited that store with her cell to her ear, dialling Annabeth's number to let her know what had happened. Thankfully, she managed to get from the disaster part to the fixing part of the story before her friend had a chance to panic.

"Zoe, I swear, you are an angel disguised as a doctor!" she declared, with a smile that Zoe could just hear. "Thank you so, so much for everything you're doing."

"It's no problem," she told her happily. "Always happy to help. Not that I'm sorry to have that crisis averted. Pretty sure there's nothing left to go wrong now, which is great, because it means the actual day should go off without a hitch."

"Oh, no, I want there to be a hitch. After all, I'm the one who's getting hitched!" Annabeth joked, the both of them laughing at that.

A minute later, the call ended, with Annabeth headed to her final pre-wedding shift of work and Zoe on her way down into the subway that would take her home. Of course, she had little to no cell service down underground, but the second she got back to ground level, she found a text from one Wade Kinsella. With a frown, she opened it up to read.

'Don't freak out, doc. I got your number from Joel. Everything okay or we got more wedding type fires to put out today?'

Immediately, she hit reply, thumbs hovering over the keypad to type her answer, but no actual words appeared on the screen. It was an easy enough question to answer.

'No fires. One minor thing, but I dealt with it already.'

She got that far and prepared to hit send, before changing her mind. Deleting the whole message, she thought how best to start over. Yesterday with Wade had been a lot of fun. He was just a real easy person to be around. There it was again, that word, easy. Zoe wasn't so sure why she was obsessing so much about sex every time she thought of Wade Kinsella, or maybe she did, but that wasn't the point.

Why they couldn't just be friendly acquaintances for a couple of days until he went back to Bluebell and life returned to normal, Zoe wasn't sure at all. What she did know was that Wade was the closest she had ever come to thinking maybe a one-night stand wouldn't be so bad. She never did that kind of thing before, and though she would never judge other people's choices, she never did understand why other people found the concept so appealing.

Zoe really couldn't understand why she suddenly felt so compelled to leap into bed with a man she only met yesterday! Sure, it had been a while, but that wasn't all there was to it. She was sure it had a lot more to do with Wade himself than it ever did with simply being in need of a release. Not that Zoe could exactly puzzle out what it was about the guy that had her so enamoured. Yes, it was true, he was probably the best-looking man she had met in a while. There was no doubt that he was all man too, the way cowboys in movies always seemed to be. Seriously, if they put a picture of him on the front of a romance novel, it would sell like no other. Zoe wasn't blind, she knew physically attractive when she saw it, but Wade was more than that.

He was funny, and fun, and sweet too. Sure, he made lame jokes sometimes, not to mention suggestive remarks, but she didn't mind so much. He was a really good friend, both to Annabeth and Joel, she knew that from things they had said before, as well as what she heard from Wade himself yesterday. He had been as set on helping fix any bumps in the road on the way to the wedding as Zoe had, proven again by his text this morning.

It only occurred to her then that she had got all the way back to the door of her apartment without ever actually answering his text. She really should. Poor guy might think she was ignoring him, or worse, believe he had the wrong number and go bugging Joel for the right one. The groom did not need any unnecessary hassle on the eve of his big day!

Heaving a sigh, Zoe typed more or less the same thing she had written before and pressed send before she could change her mind a second time. Heading into her apartment then, she dumped her purse, keys, and cell onto the coffee table, and kicked off her shoes. She barely got her butt on a chair before the phone vibrated noisily on the table.

Of course, it was Wade again.

'I do something to offend, doc?'

He hadn't. He really hadn't done anything at all that she should be mad at him about. In spite of his obvious roving eye and way with the ladies, he had been a perfect gentleman with her. Bought her dinner, paid for a cab to bring her home, never even made a move.

Zoe knew all too well that that was the part that irked her. Though she would obviously have said no (probably... maybe... kind of) she would at least have liked to have been given the chance to actually give an answer. Wade never asked her to the spend the night. He never even tried to kiss her goodnight or anything. Not that she was going to tell him that was her problem. Zoe was pretty sure she would rather die than admit such a thing to anyone, never mind Wade Kinsella, who already had kind of a big head when it came to his popularity with the female population.

'No, of course not. Why would you think that?' she typed back fast, hitting send but keeping the phone in her hands this time.

She wasn't sure what she expected the response to be exactly, if she even expected one at all. What she really wasn't ready for was her cell suddenly ringing with an incoming call rather than another text. It was an unknown number trying to get through, but she had a feeling she knew what was happening before she ever accepted and put the phone to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Hello to you too, doc," said Wade, with a grin that she could actually hear somehow. "Never was much for text messages myself, much prefer talkin'. So, since we established you got your bridesmaid duties all done for the day, and apparently, you're not mad at me for anythin' at all, I thought maybe you could do me a favour. Maybe show me some o' this big city you love so much."

Zoe opened her mouth to answer, disturbed to find she was stuck for words, at least long enough that Wade called her name, clearly concerned he lost her somehow.

"I'm here," she promised. "Uh, I'm sorry, I just... You want me to take you sight-seeing?"

"If you're not doin' anythin' else," he confirmed. "C'mon, doc, who's better qualified than you to show a guy a good time in New York City? Told me yourself you were born and raised. 'Sides, I'm not looking to see everythin' in one day, just the highlights. Statue of Liberty, Empire State, whatever else you think is worth the time spent. 'Course, you can say no, if you'd rather not. I just thought with you bein' such a fan of your hometown, you'd wanna show it off some."

"I do," she answered fast, feeling very strange when she realised how that sounded, so close to a wedding that had been dominating her thoughts almost as much as Wade himself in the last twenty-four hours or more. "Um, I mean, sure, I could take you to some places, if that's what you want to do. I could come get you from the hotel, in about an hour?" she suggested.

"Sounds like a plan, Zoe Hart," he said happily. "I'll be out on the sidewalk waitin' on you then."

As their call ended, Zoe found herself staring at the silent cell in the hand, her face aching from the size of the grin she belatedly realised she was wearing. Immediately, she tried to shake it off. It was just a sightseeing trip with a guy who had never seen a real big city before. He just wanted her to play tour guide, because it meant he wouldn't have to pay for a real one, obviously.

The moment she had that thought, Zoe regretted it. Though she didn't know Wade super-well, she was pretty sure he wasn't like that. Not that it really mattered either way. Come Sunday, he would be headed home to Alabama and she would most likely never see him again. In the meantime, she just had to be suitably friendly and polite, without letting her libido run away with her. No matter what happened, she was not going to throw herself at Wade Kinsella, even if he did decide today was the day to make a move. She didn't even want him to do that. Well, maybe a little bit, but he didn't need to know that, and Zoe vowed, quite sincerely, not to think about it anymore... or at least to try her very best, anyway.

"You weren't kidding, doc. This is quite the view."

Zoe could hardly keep herself from grinning like an idiot as she watched Wade take in the sight of New York laid out beneath him, as seen from the top of the Empire State. It was dark now, everything below them a sea of lights in many colours and patterns, as if they were standing on top of the world, looking out into space or something. It was a dazzling sight, even for a woman who was 'New York born and raised' as Wade liked to put it. She could hardly imagine how it affected a small-town guy from the South, though the look on Wade's face suggested it was quite a profound experience.

Leaning more heavily against the rail, Zoe tore her eyes away from the look on her companion's face and stared down into the city herself. This was her home, her whole life, and she did love it. Of course, it would have been impossible not to fall a little bit in love with Bluebell by proxy, as Wade told her story after story about his own hometown.

If her life had been a movie, Zoe was sure today would have been a seriously impressive montage, as she showed Wade all the sights worth seeing around the city. At the same time, he regaled her with those stories of home, that made her smile and laugh and even want to cry from the sweetness once or twice. They ate pizza and gelato and bagels, took in the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Central Park, and the One World Trade Centre, to name just a few, and it had honestly been the most fun Zoe had had in a very, very long time.

"Thank you for all o' this."

For a second, Zoe thought Wade was reading the thoughts right out of her head, until suddenly, she realised he really was thanking her for showing him her city. She smiled and shook her head. "It was my pleasure, really," she assured him, swallowing hard when she realised he was a lot closer than before. "Um, so, we should probably be headed back now. It's getting kind of late and we both need a good night's sleep before the wedding tomorrow."

"Yeah, I guess that's true," Wade agreed, nodding his head slightly.

He seemed to drift closer all the time, or maybe it was Zoe that was moving, she couldn't be sure anymore.

"Not that it can be all that late just yet," he said softly, "so maybe..."

"Maybe?" she prompted, when he said no more, his lips so close to her own she could practically taste them.

Of course, that was when her cell phone started up with a shrill ringing from her purse.

"Damn it!" she muttered, scrambling to grab at it, feeling guilty and sick within a second when she saw it was Rabbi Paymer that was calling. "Hello, Rabbi. Oh, I'm sorry, Mrs Paymer, how are you?"

Zoe felt all the blood drain from her face and was sure Wade could see it happening too, in spite of the dim light, as the call went on. Still, there was nothing she could do, nothing either of them or anyone else could do to fix it. That was what she had to explain to Wade, the second she got off the phone.

"What's goin' on? Were you seriously talkin' to a rabbi?"

"I was talking to Rabbi Paymer's wife, because Rabbi Paymer, who by the way was supposed to be part of the wedding ceremony tomorrow, alongside the reverend, is in the hospital, about to have emergency surgery!"

Wade's eyes went comically wide, but Zoe could find no more humour in the situation than he could. "Oh, you have got to be kiddin' me!"

To Be Continued...