Here Comes the Bride Read online

  He’d seen that—and worse—in his practice. What two people could do to each other in the name of love had ceased to surprise him a long time ago. He’d been an idealistic young lawyer once, had taken on no more than the usual number of divorce cases, but when the word got around that he always won his clients a sizable settlement, his caseload skyrocketed. He was the new young gun in town and soon he was trying celeb cases, not just for the impetuous of Hollywood, but for rich and powerful clients as well. The better he became at what he did, the less he liked it.

  Sooner or later they all came, looking for the easy out, the painless divorce. Lately he’d been called to consult on some of the more difficult cases around the country.

  That’s where he’d been the past week—and what he’d seen hadn’t exactly endeared the institution of marriage to him.

  Fiona wondered how Nick had gotten so cynical in his thirty-some years. “Tell me,” she said. “Did Winnie get my father to sign that prenuptial agreement?”

  If she had, that should tell her father something about the woman he was about to marry.

  Nick dropped in the last dish, then snapped the dishwasher closed and cranked the dial to WASH before he answered. “No, Auntie refused even to consider it. She said she and Walter didn’t need any silly piece of paper like that, they were in love.”

  Winnie went up a notch or two in Fiona’s estimation. “Good for her.”

  “Good for …? I thought you were as much against this wedding as I am.”

  Fiona put her hands on her hips. “I just believe that if two people are going to marry, they should first and foremost trust each other.”

  He studied her warily for a long moment. “It isn’t going to happen—the wedding, that is. Come on, we’ll say our good-byes to the happy couple and get out of here.”

  “Look, Nick, I don’t know what kind of a plan we can come up with by tomorrow. Maybe I should just try to talk to my father and you talk to Winnie and—”

  “And you think that will work?”

  “It may.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  Fiona gave a long, shuddering sigh. “Then we—”

  “Burn down the gazebo?” Nick supplied.

  She frowned.

  “Come on.” He took her by the elbow.

  “We’ll think of something.”

  As they passed the bright yellow wall phone in the kitchen, it jangled. “I’ll get that and be right out,” Nick said.

  Fiona trekked off through the cool interior of the family room. As she made her way around the breezy rattan furniture, she wondered how her father would ever be comfortable in this house. She tried to picture just where Winnie would park his battered old recliner with the worn seat cushion, the one Fiona knew he’d never part with.

  She dragged a hand through the thick sweep of her hair. Of course, she hadn’t believed he’d ever eat rutabaga and lamb either—and tonight he’d polished off Winnie’s kabobs like he was a man starving.

  With a frown she started toward the patio.

  “There you are, Fiona,” Winnie greeted her. “I need your advice about the flowers. Walter’s no help at all. Where’s Nicholas?”

  “He’s on the phone.”

  “Oh.” Winnie glanced toward the house for a moment, then turned her attention back to the gazebo. And Fiona. “I thought we might place a basket of orange blossoms on either side of the minister and trail pink flori-bundas over the side latticework. What do you think? I need a woman’s opinion.”

  Fiona would prefer not to give her opinion, but short of being rude, there was little else she could do but follow her soon-to-be stepmother across the green carpet of lawn. She tossed her father a visual plea for help before she did so, but he only returned it with that silly smile he’d been wearing lately.

  “Auntie,” Nick called from the patio. “It’s Camille on the phone.”

  “Camille?” Winnie squealed, and was off like a shot to take the overseas call.

  Nick had brought a cordless phone outdoors and handed it to his aunt.

  While Winnie chatted and motioned frantically for Walter to join her, Nick sauntered across the lawn to Fiona. “We’re not going to be singing the ‘Wedding Bell Blues’ tomorrow after all,” he said, draping an arm around her shoulders.

  Even that simple touch set off a chain reaction of emotions in Fiona. Tempestuous, wild emotions. “What are you saying?”

  “Camille has decided to come home for the wedding and she wants us to hold up everything until she gets here.” He lifted Fiona’s chin with the tip of one finger. “That buys us the time we need.”

  Fiona won fifty-three dollars playing the dollar slots at Caesar’s, then promptly lost it all again. “Easy come, easy go, I guess,” she said, turning to Nick.

  A sexy smile rolled across his lips. “The secret of this town is to know when to quit.”

  “It looks like the time is now,” she said in dismay as she dipped her hand into the metal tray of the machine that a few moments before had held the easily gotten loot, and came up empty.

  “I was hoping you’d buy me a drink, but now it looks like I’ll have to do the buying,” he said.

  “It looks that way.” She laughed, realizing she was having a good time—despite her unfortunate initiation into the world of Vegas gambling.

  “I know just the place.” Nick led her through the packed casino and out into the warm Nevada night.

  The stars overhead competed with the bright lights of the Strip, but lost. The breeze was sensuous and light as it blew a strand of her hair across her cheek. She brushed it aside as she waited beside Nick for his car to be brought around.

  She was glad now that he’d insisted on showing her some of his town. Glad she’d accepted. There was a fire to it, a vibrancy, a spell that was easily cast over the unwary.

  Nick possessed the same vibrancy, the same fire. And she suspected he was more than capable of casting a spell over her. That was, if she wasn’t on her guard against it. A shiver of vulnerability shuddered through her.

  When his car arrived he eased her inside. She settled back into her seat as he got behind the wheel. Carefully he edged the silver Porsche past an elegant old Rolls with polished gilt trim, past several waiting limos lacing the drive, then out onto the Strip.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, glancing over at him.

  He was silhouetted against the night, the bright glitter of neon dancing through his hair, turning his blue eyes the colors of the rainbow. He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other on the gear shift. She recognized the strength and power in his grip, his long, lean fingers, the cords in his forearms, the bulge of his biceps.

  Curiosity teased at her, making her wonder what those arms would feel like wound around her, those fingers tripping over her skin. Her blood heated at the thought. Nick Killian was strong and compelling—and the sexiest man she’d ever encountered.

  “Away from the bright lights and the crowds, someplace where we can talk,” he said.

  Why did the sound of his words send tremors through her? The thought of being alone with him made her heart pound like a jackhammer gone mad.

  It was true they’d left the lights behind. The desert loomed dark and mysterious around them, the mountains in the distance wary sentinels.

  With the car’s top down, the wind teased and toyed with her hair, flipping the ends around her face. She felt strangely reckless, she supposed because she’d been freed, at least temporarily, from worrying about her troublesome parent.

  But feeling reckless and free around the dangerous man seated beside her might not be safe. Still, she couldn’t help how she felt.

  “This is a spot the locals consider their private domain. They refuse to give it up to the tourists,” Nick said, slowing for a turn into the curving drive of a place called the Desert Club. “We’re actually very possessive about it.”

  “Perhaps they won’t let me in, considering I’m not a local.”

  “T
hey’ll let you in; you’re with me.”

  She was that.

  He opened the car door for her, then his hand found her elbow in a proprietary grasp as he led her toward the red-canopied entrance.

  “We’ll take a table outside, under the stars,” he said to the owner as the man came to greet them—or to check that they weren’t tourists come to ruin the sanctity of his establishment. “And bring us two of your specialties,” Nick added.

  The specialty turned out to be something smooth and potent and dangerous, Fiona thought as the first sip raised her body temperature another notch.

  “It’s called Night Velvet,” Nick said around a braver swallow than she chanced. “Too strong?”

  It slid down like the velvet in its name and made her bones melt. Or maybe it was a combination of the stars peeping down on them on the small enclosed veranda and the man smiling across the table at her. His teeth were like rich, white pearls in the moonlight, even and perfect in his tanned face. They could nip a woman’s skin and make her beg for more, she thought, letting her wanton imagination stray too far.

  “It’s fine,” she said, then absently fingered a small bud vase on the table that held an orange desert flower. She didn’t know if the flower had a fragrance to it or if it was the sweet night air around her mingled with the exciting scent of the man she was with.

  She swallowed hard and tipped her glass to her lips for another taste of temptation.

  He studied her carefully across the table. “Strange,” he said, his voice wickedly low and raspy. “I never expected to find us allies of sorts.”

  “I feel we’re more like … coconspirators.”

  One corner of his very desirable mouth quirked up at that. “Whatever we are, I’m enjoying the alliance.” He reached for her hand, the tips of his fingers making dangerous little circles against her palm. “Very much.”

  Fiona knew she should pull away. While she still could.

  He was mesmerizing, his touch incendiary. She’d never met a man who could affect her so quickly, so overwhelmingly. She felt out of control. And control, she suspected, was something a woman could relinquish completely with Nick.

  “Shouldn’t we be discussing battle plans?” she asked, retrieving her hand from his.

  “Mmmm. Yes, battle plans.” He leaned back in his chair, relaxed, maddeningly devil-may-care. “Why don’t I pick you up tomorrow … say around eleven and we’ll, uh, plan maneuvers.”

  She wasn’t at all sure she could trust this man’s maneuvers. She could end up being the one under siege. She’d trusted another man once—Adam. Nearly marrying him. She didn’t want to be a fool again.

  “I suppose the sooner we come up with something, the sooner I can get back to Boston …”

  He leaned forward across the table. “What waits for you back in Boston?” he asked. And who? he wanted to add, but refrained.

  “My shop. When my father called me about the wedding I only had time to stick a CLOSED sign in the front window.”

  “What kind of shop do you have?” He hoped what they said about curiosity was only true of cats.

  “I sell antiques. Anything old and abandoned—from furniture, which I restore myself, to vintage jewelry.”

  When Nick thought of antiques he pictured rocking chairs and old bottles. But he suspected he’d find neither in her shop. Her eyes glowed just talking about it. He wondered if she knew that.

  “And is this something from your shop?” he asked, feeling an overwhelming desire to touch the tiny emerald, set in a delicate old mounting, that hung around her neck. As his fingers touched the gem, nestling in the hollow of her throat, he saw her eyes flame with a brilliance that outdid the shimmering green of the stone.

  Had it been a reaction to his touch?

  Why did he fervently hope so?

  Her fingers closed over his around the stone. Her voice was barely a whisper. “It was a piece from an estate sale. I couldn’t bring myself to sell it.”

  “It suits you.”

  The fiery color belonged to her, and so did the unusualness of the mounting. Fiona Ames was as temptingly beautiful as the gem she wore.

  He leaned closer, his hand still at her throat, intending only to brush his lips across the sweetness of hers. Once, only once. But she proved more of a threat than he thought. He wanted to savor and taste. He wanted to explore the nectar he found.

  Gently, insistently, his tongue teased at her mouth, begging her lips to part and admit him, and when they did, softly, wantonly, he felt a sweet ache low in his body.

  The touch of his kiss felt dangerous, Fiona thought as she leaned in for more of it, of him. He pulled back then, but only to trace her lower lip, outlining its fullness with the tip of his tongue until she thought she’d go mad.

  His breath whispered across her lips like a caress, hot and inviting, arousing every tiny nerve ending in them. Then his mouth took hers again, more fiercely this time. She forgot time and place as emotions swirled around her. She could only taste and feel. Him. The rough demand of his mouth.

  It was everything she’d imagined, yet like nothing she’d ever experienced before.

  His hands found her face, cupping it, while he drew her deeper into the delicious contact. She should pull away, she knew, but she couldn’t find the strength to stop this madness.

  Then he drew back, the heat of his palms still on her face as he held her close. He let out a ragged sigh, then withdrew his hands, too. She was shuddering from the effects of the kiss. And so was he.

  “I, uh, think I’d better get you back to your hotel,” was all he could manage to say.

  THREE

  “How does Camille feel about her mother marrying?” Fiona asked Nick the following day.

  For the past hour she’d been trying desperately to keep her focus on the problem they were supposed to be discussing. But ever since Nick had picked her up at the hotel, her mind kept getting derailed onto how stupendous last night’s kiss on the starlit veranda had been.

  “We can’t count on any help from that corner, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Nick replied. “Camille’s always believed in letting people, including her mother, do their own thing. She does her own thing, tramping around the world, whenever and wherever the mood strikes her.”

  “A real free spirit, huh?”

  “You got it.”

  Fiona huffed and puffed to keep up with Nick. She hadn’t known the day’s agenda would include a hike up the side of one of the mountains that ringed the city, but Nick claimed this was where he came whenever he had things to think about.

  And today they had a knotty problem to think over, that was certain.

  Fiona had dressed for the hot desert weather in a pair of yellow cropped pants and a scoop-neck top, not for the cool mountain air. But Nick had tossed a gray-striped sweatshirt at her, which she’d donned thankfully.

  The thing fit her like a pup tent, hanging well below her rounded bottom, the sleeves dangling several inches past her wrists, but it was warm.

  It also carried the scent of the man it belonged to. Clean and earthy and—sensual. Wearing something of his against her skin was equally sensual. Like putting on a lover’s shirt after a night of slow, sultry sex. Not that she’d had a lot of actual experience in slipping into such apparel.

  “Where is this place you’re taking me?” she asked, nearly tripping over a rock in her path. She needed to keep her attention on where she was going instead of on the feel of Nick’s clothing against her body.

  “It’s not much farther. Want to stop and rest?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Fiona sank down onto a flat rock at the side of the trail. She was out of condition, she decided as her breath came in gasps.

  Nick barely seemed winded. Either he was in great physical shape or he was part mountain goat. She couldn’t fault his form, though, as he came to stand in front of her, looking as rugged as the terrain around him.

  His dark brown hair gliste
ned in the sunlight that slanted through the trees, and his eyes rivaled the blue of the sky overhead. His body was as hard as a tree trunk. A faded black Bally’s sweatshirt stretched across his chest like a second skin, and a pair of well-worn khaki cutoffs hugged his legs.

  “Drink?” he asked, handing her a bottle of Evian he’d tucked into a backpack for them.

  “Yes, thanks.” She took a swig, a small one, then handed him back the bottle.

  She’d wanted more, but more would necessitate a trip behind a tree at some point in their hike, and she didn’t want to go home with a case of poison ivy on her backside.

  Okay, she was a city girl, through and through. She admitted that and wished they could have scheduled this planning session in a comfortable coffee shop—if Las Vegas had such a thing. So far all she’d seen were casinos and one very private bar.

  Besides, of course, this uninhabited mountain.

  When she didn’t make any effort to get up and continue on, Nick borrowed a spot beside her on the rock. Their shoulders touched. Fiona sucked in a gulp of air. She had to get over the way this man affected her.

  If it was body chemistry, it was explosive.

  Not to mention, dangerous.

  She stood up, feeling an overpowering need to put some distance between them. A sigh escaped her lips as she glanced up the tortuous trail that wound through a thicket of pine trees just ahead of them. “Ready to go?” she asked, trying to work enthusiasm into her voice.

  “Ready,” Nick replied, seeing she’d already begun hiking. He caught up to her in a few easy strides.

  “Have you ever considered building a road up to this private spot of yours?” she asked, turning those big green eyes on him.

  He’d spent the better part of last night trying to get her off his mind. The sweet taste of her mouth had bedeviled him into the worst sleepless night he’d endured in recent memory.

  He’d tried to blame the restlessness on his concern for Winnie, but he damn well knew the root of the problem—one dynamite redhead who managed to look seductive even in his giant-sized sweatshirt.

  The baggy garment didn’t begin to hide her sensuality. It sizzled out of her with every wiggle as she picked her way up the rock-strewn path.