Here Comes the Bride Page 8

  “We probably lost before we even began,” Fiona pointed out, though it served no real purpose, except maybe to mitigate their sense of failure.

  Nick didn’t answer, only raked his hands through his hair. The moonlight illuminated the lines around his mouth, the worried creases in his forehead. He was more distressed than his philosophical remark had indicated.

  Fiona wanted to soothe him, kiss away the creases of defeat in his face. “Maybe it’ll be all right,” she said. “Maybe everything will work out for them after all. I mean, what do we know? We could be worrying about nothing.”

  “Yeah—sure.” His reply wasn’t exactly overflowing with confidence.

  She leaned back against the side of the gazebo, letting the full impact of the night wash over her. The wedding would take place the day after tomorrow, here, in this very spot. Her father would take Winnie as his new wife.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed he would find happiness, prayed Winnie wouldn’t disappoint him the way Adam had disappointed her, that they loved each other enough to overlook each other’s shortcomings, their idiosyncrasies, and be happy together.

  She felt a stab of regret at the years her father and mother hadn’t been able to share with each other, the happy carefree years after raising a family, struggling to build a life, to make ends meet.

  Fiona felt the image of her mother slipping away and she didn’t want it to. She wanted it to burn brightly forever. She wanted to hold on to it, to remember her mother as the center of their little family.

  Nick glanced over at Fiona. Was it a trick of the moonlight or were there tears glazing her eyes? He’d been so wrapped up in his own concerns, he’d forgotten for a moment that Fiona was equally disappointed that the wedding was on again.

  He remembered how she’d slipped her hand into his when Auntie and Walter had made their announcement. It had felt small and warm against his, both offering and asking for strength as they’d shared the moment together in the midst of the crowd of well-wishers.

  She looked so small and delicate now, with her knees drawn up under her chin. The moonlight glistened over her hair, spinning each strand into creamy gold. He wanted to touch it, feel it spill between his fingers. He wanted to put his hand to her face, so pearl white in the soft light.

  She was hurting and he wondered if a kiss would make her pain go away.

  In the distance the party continued, the celebrating. He could hear the laughter. Someone had turned on a stereo and he could see a few couples dancing under the glow of the patio lights.

  He moved toward Fiona and tilted her chin up to his gaze. Yes, there were tears there, soft, full ones. He brushed a finger under one lower lash. A warm droplet trickled onto his skin.

  “May I have this dance, pretty lady?”

  Her sweet mouth curved up into a faint smile, a tender counterpoint to the tears in her eyes. She uncurled her legs and stood, brushing down her skirt.

  Her feet were bare. She’d taken off her sandals earlier and now left them on the bench where she’d been sitting, preferring to dance barefoot.

  “I’ll be careful not to step on your toes,” he promised, leading her to the center of the gazebo.

  Fiona slid into his arms, not the least worried about her toes, only her heart, which, minute by minute, she was losing to him. How had he known the only thing that could bring satisfaction to her soul at that moment, the light back into her life, was a dance? A quiet dance alone in the moonlight, the strains of the music thrumming on the night air. Something slow and seductive and dreamy.

  She moved closer into his arms, fitting her head against his neck, and swayed to the rhythm, all thoughts temporarily forgotten save one: how wonderfully they meshed together, soft against hard, curve against plane. Two pieces made whole, like they’d been created just for each other.

  She leaned into him, savoring the feel of him. He smelled like soap and shaving cream, and it was having a decided effect on her senses. She danced with both arms wound around his neck, her breasts pressed against the heat of him. Her fingers threaded through the silky hair at his nape as it curled over the collar of his shirt.

  His breath was hot against her cheek, sending delicious little shivers along her spine. She wanted the dance to go on forever so she could spend forever in his arms.

  Nick felt her snuggle in against him, her rounded breasts warm and full, a tempting delight that made him suck in a breath for control. What this woman’s body could do to him was decadent. Sweet torture.

  With one hand on her derriere he drew her tighter against him, fitting her into the cradle of his thighs. His other enjoyed the bare skin left exposed by her low-backed sundress, skin velvet-soft and smooth.

  The intimacy of their position was nearly his undoing. He felt his body harden against her. She didn’t draw away in response, but settled in more enticingly. He prayed she wouldn’t squirm too much. Slow swaying to the music he could handle. But not much more.

  “You’re sweet,” she said to him. “A sweet fake. You’re not as hard-boiled as you’d like people to believe.”

  “Hard-boiled?” At the moment a part of him could fit the term.

  “You asked me to dance with you when I was feeling at my lowest ebb, as if you could read me. Do you always know what a woman needs?”

  Her words were torturing him, her voice a breathy whisper next to his ear. He wasn’t sure he understood women at all, but he’d love to give this woman anything she wanted.

  He’d love to read her body, intuitively sensing her every need, make love to her just to see her eyes shine with want, hear her voice ragged with passion. That would be his pleasure.

  “I guess that’s me, Mr. Romantic.”

  “Mmmm, you are that.”

  She wriggled against him and his breath caught as he nearly cried out in agony. She felt so good, he thought he’d die.

  By the time the music stopped, he was nearly crazy with wanting her. His head struggled to remind the rest of him that making love to Fiona would be a dangerous move, that she wasn’t someone he could walk away from after a night of passion.

  She was a woman who could make a man care—and a man hurt when the affair was over.

  “Maybe we should get back before we’re missed,” he said, hating that it had to be this way.

  “Mmmm.”

  She slid from his arms and Nick was sure he caught a look of wistful disappointment in her eyes. He swallowed hard and led her back to the sounds of celebrating.

  Two cups of room-service coffee had Fiona’s nerves jangled. Or maybe it was thoughts of last night, dancing with Nick alone in the gazebo. The memory of it haunted her, Nick’s soft gaze, his touch—his tenderness. He’d seen the tears she hadn’t wanted him to see, had brushed one gently away.

  He’d known what she needed most at that moment. A dance. One simple dance in the moonlight. And it had turned her heart to mush.

  Beneath that tough facade the man was sensitive and caring, but few, she suspected, saw that side of Nick Killian.

  Pacing to the window, she looked out. Another hot, sunny day in this desert town. The mountains shimmered a lovely purple in the distance, like a mirage. Several stories below her, cars made their way down the Strip. People moved along the sidewalks, trekking from hotel casino to hotel casino, day and night, night and day. The time didn’t matter, only the lure of chance.

  Fate. The town was built on fate, the whimsicalness of it, the cruelty of it. It caught everyone who ventured here. She’d thought herself immune. But was she?

  Fate seemed to have a dangerous hold on her life right now. She was on the verge of falling head over heels in love with Nick and she didn’t know what chance had in store for her.

  A roll of the dice for high stakes in one of the gaming rooms downstairs seemed less of a risk.

  Fiona turned from the window and checked her watch. It was eleven already. She’d whiled away the morning and she still had to shower and dress. She was meeting her father for lunc
h at a small restaurant near the hotel. She had decided to make one more stab at talking sense to her wayward parent.

  What could it hurt?

  Nick had had to fly to Los Angeles today to consult on a divorce case, so he wasn’t around to have a heart-to-heart talk with Winnie.

  Forty minutes later Fiona hurried through the casino toward the front entrance of the hotel, but a quarter slot machine winked and blinked at her as she passed by the last bank of them.

  Why not? she thought. It was calling her name. She dug in her purse, finding three bright coins to feed the one-armed bandit.

  The term bandit was apt, she decided as the thing ate up the first two quarters. She dropped in the third and pulled the handle again, cursing herself for the fool that she was.

  Bells went off. Coins spilled out. Lots of them.

  Feeling like a thief in the night, she scooped them up.

  Maybe, just maybe, her luck was changing. Coins jingling in her purse and a song in her heart, she headed for the door.

  Her father was waiting for her at the restaurant by the time she got there. She scooted into the chair across from him.

  “I’m buying lunch,” she told him, then turned her purse upside down on the table and spilled her winnings out.

  He raked his fingers through the wealth. “Well, Fiona, I think I’ll just take you up on that, rich girl that you are.”

  They laughed like two children, something she hadn’t done with him for a long while.

  When the waiter arrived, they both ordered. Steak for her father and a giant salad for herself. “And bring us a carafe of your house wine, too,” she added.

  The waiter nodded, then glanced, not for the first time, at the pile of money on the table, no doubt hoping for a generous tip.

  “I’m glad we have a chance to talk, Dad. We haven’t had a minute to spend alone.”

  “I know. It’s all this wedding folderol. Did you have a nice time last night, Fiona?”

  Fiona studied his face for some hidden meaning, but it was an innocent question. He hadn’t seen her slip away with Nick to the gazebo. Or the way Nick had held her when they’d danced, making her skin burn hot from his very touch.

  “Yes, a nice time, Dad.” A little too nice, she added silently. She hadn’t been able to sleep last night for remembering it. She hadn’t been able to get Nick out of her mind today. “I like Camille. We had a chance to talk, to get acquainted.”

  “Oh, that’s good.” He beamed. “I’d hoped we could all become a family.”

  A family. She didn’t know about that. What she felt for Nick was far from … cousinly.

  Just then the waiter brought their order. When he disappeared again, Fiona took a slow sip of wine.

  “So, Dad, I guess we’ll have to find a home for your furniture, unless, of course, Winnie wants to mix it in with her things.” She knew how he loved that old recliner of his—brown tweed, one broken leg, propped up with a copy of a Louis L’Amour novel.

  His eyes widened at her across the table. “Furniture? We hadn’t talked about my furniture.”

  “Well, I’m certain Winnie will work out something. The same way she’ll find room for your collection of National Geographic, your baseball caps, the wine bottles, and your cuckoo clocks.”

  Unless her father had changed radically in the past few months, those clocks went off every hour, a raucous cacophony.

  Walter Ames put down his steak knife with a clatter. “Fiona, what is it you’re getting at?”

  She set her wineglass on the table and leaned forward across her salad. “I’m asking if you’re ready to give up your lifestyle for this woman?”

  Her eyes bored into him, not allowing him to evade the issue. She wanted an answer.

  “Lifestyle. That’s one of those buzzwords you young people throw around these days. Like relationship, involvement, feelings, verbal sharing. Claptrap, Fiona. Winnie and I love each other—bottom line.”

  “But, Dad, how do you know it’s really love?”

  “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck … Fiona, I don’t have to examine it under a microscope. When it hits you, you know it’s right.”

  His words bounced around in her head for a moment. When it hits you. She thought of Nick and that powerful force of something she felt whenever he smiled at her, touched her hand … kissed her.

  But she barely knew Nick.

  Her father didn’t know Winnie.

  Love did not happen overnight.

  She’d been in love once, but time had proven that a mistake. And time could come along and crush her father, too.

  She didn’t want that for him. “Dad—”

  “Fiona, I don’t want to have any further discussion about where my furniture will or will not go. Winnie and I can work that out between us, I’m sure.” His cheeks sported twin dots of high color. Hot indignation.

  The man was stubborn. And adamant about his beloved Winnie. She wanted desperately to believe he was right, that everything would work out for them.

  And maybe it would. She hoped so.

  “Okay, Dad.” She busied herself with her salad, chasing a cherry tomato around on her plate. As she gave her father a smile she inwardly resigned herself to tossing rice tomorrow night and toasting the happy twosome with champagne.

  Fiona stood naked in front of the mirror in her small suite and checked for tan lines. She’d spent the afternoon soaking up the sun by one of the hotel’s three Olympic-size swimming pools.

  She’d felt as lazy as a beach bunny, but she hadn’t cared. She was beginning to look like a native, a rested native. Her New England pallor had faded, replaced by a rich, golden tan. Not one dark circle hovered beneath her eyes. She turned, inspecting her backside.

  The high cut of her swimsuit made her look like a leggy model and the bronzed color on her back dipped low enough to accommodate the immodest sundress she’d splurged on this afternoon in one of the pricey shops in her hotel.

  She spun back around to face the front again, giving herself a frank appraisal. Her neck and shoulders had turned a glorious hue. She reached up and touched the smattering of freckles just above her breasts, tracing the irregular shape of one. Her breasts looked even paler against the contrast of color, high and rounded and pert, her nipples a dark, dusky pink.

  She didn’t exercise as regularly as she knew she should, but her body didn’t seem to be lacking because of it. For a moment she wondered what Nick’s assessment would be. Would he think she needed a workout on the Nautilus equipment? Or would he find her body tempting? Just right?

  She’d been aware of his appreciative male gaze on her last night, and other times, a slow, thorough survey of her attributes. And when they’d danced alone in the gazebo, she’d felt the evidence of his arousal, had known that he’d wanted her.

  And dammit, she’d wanted him.

  More than she thought she could ever want any man. The intensity of it had made her tremble in his arms.

  Then the music had stopped and the darkness crept into his eyes. He’d set his jaw firmly … and led her back to the party.

  A slow sigh shuddered up from someplace deep inside her. Nick bore a pain in his soul that she didn’t fully understand. And that she wasn’t sure could be healed.

  He’d be returning from L.A. tonight and would no doubt be at Winnie’s for dinner, an invitation Fiona had neatly sidestepped. For two reasons. First, she’d hoped he’d have some private time with Winnie.

  The second had to do with need, her need. She didn’t know how she could sit across the table from Nick and make small talk when just his glance consumed her.

  She gave in to another deep sigh, then crossed the room and slipped naked between the sheets for a late-afternoon nap. Maybe later she’d order up room service and make her evening as decadently lazy as this afternoon had been.

  Fiona awoke to the intrusive sound of the phone ringing. She thought she’d been asleep only a short while, but the room was dark. Hours must have passed. T
he faint red glow of the alarm clock’s dial showed it was late, indeed. Nine thirty-five.

  A faint wisp of a dream still lingered in the darker recesses of her mind. A dream about Nick—slightly erotic and so real she was bathed in a sheen of sweat.

  At the continued insistent jangle she reached for the phone, trying to clear the cobwebs of sleep and the fading dream from her head.

  “Hello.” Her voice sounded froggy and deep, like it belonged to someone else.

  “Fiona?”

  Nick wasn’t sure it was Fiona. She sounded different. Her voice low and sexy with sleep. It made him want her so badly he ached from the need. He’d missed her all day, had thought of her at moments when his mind should have been on other things.

  He remembered her scent last night in the gazebo, the fragrance of her hair when they’d danced, clean and fresh, like a bouquet of newly picked flowers that still carried the scent of the sun.

  “Oh, Nick, hi.” Fiona sat up in bed, trying to orient herself. The sheet fell to her waist and she remembered her nakedness. The hotel’s air-conditioning had chilled the room and she raised the sheet to her shoulders.

  “Had you gone to bed already? I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  She dragged a hand through the tumble of her hair. “You didn’t … I mean, that’s okay. I’d just taken an afternoon nap.”

  “Fiona, it’s not afternoon.” Nick wondered what she slept in, a funny little nightshirt or … nothing. He groaned. Either way the image was too tantalizing to deal with right now. He needed to know if Fiona was all right. “Are you okay? I mean, you’re not ill or anything?”

  “No, I’m not ill.”

  He heard her shift, heard the faint rustle of sheets, and for one crazy moment found himself jealous of those sheets that touched her body.

  He sighed and tried to get a grip. “We missed you at Auntie’s.” He missed her at Auntie’s. Very much. Had expected to see her there. And when he didn’t, when Walter said she wasn’t coming, disappointment, all-pervasive and swift, settled over him.

  Not a good omen, not for a man who believed he didn’t need a woman, one special woman, in his life. He could only hope it was a need that would pass.