The Wedding Assignment

by Cathryn Clare

  Wherever they were, they were following a fairly straight road at the moment, and it wasn’t hard to keep her balance as she got to her feet. She wished she had something more practical on her feet than these fairy-tale slippers, but even with the slight swaying of the car from side to side, she managed to reach the small jump seat directly behind the open partition without having to cling to the door handles for support. The rustling of the layers of crinoline under her wide skirt sounded harsh and dry as she moved.

  She saw the driver’s head flick upward and realized he’d seen her approaching in the rearview mirror. She didn’t like the sudden tightening of the corner of his mouth or the quick thunk of the automatic door locks closing.

  But at least she wasn’t just sitting at the back of the car feeling as though she was stuck in the end zone while the play was going on at the other end of the field. Rae-Anne had always hated sitting and waiting for things to happen, and at least now she’d done something, even if she wasn’t sure where it might lead.

  Finally she got what she’d been after—a good look at the driver’s face. And without warning her whole world split apart around her.

  He turned around only briefly, after negotiating a steep turn and easing the limo into another long stretch of road on the other side of it. The countryside was getting less and less familiar, and Rae-Anne was certain that they were nowhere near New Braunfels and that something was going on that she didn’t understand and couldn’t control.

  But all those mysteries faded away as the driver met her eyes and she found herself caught and held in the darkly suggestive glare of the man she had loved and mourned as dead a decade ago.

  Chapter 2

  He should have found a way to do this more gradually, Wiley thought. He should have eased into it with a comment or two, maybe a suggestion that she should get herself ready for a shock. He didn’t like the sudden pallor of her face, or the way her blue eyes had gone wide and unblinking. She looked as though she’d retreated inside herself and might not come back out.

  He growled a soft expletive and turned back to the road. He hadn’t exactly had a lot of time to practice being a limo driver, and it was trickier than he’d imagined to maneuver the long vehicle around these little hill-country turns and hollows.

  And he’d had shock of his own to deal with, damn it.

  He’d been trying to get to see Rae-Anne for the past several days, but the Dietrich place was a virtual fortress— that’s what came of having all that money, he supposed— and crawling with relatives and guests, as well. Even Wiley’s carefully timed attempt at posing as a florist’s deliveryman hadn’t gotten past the eagle-eyed old lady who seemed to have appointed herself keeper of the castle.

  It was lucky Wiley had had the benefit of the FBI’s contacts in San Antonio. Getting himself hired as a limo driver at the last minute had taken a lot of string-pulling, but the bureau had finally managed it. He’d barely had time to find a uniform that fit his oversize frame, to check out a couple of usable escape routes and to rehearse a few carefully chosen phrases for getting his message across to Rae-Anne.

  And his very first sight of her knocked him speechless.

  In her wedding dress, she was straight out of his most secret fantasies. The small pearls on the bodice glittered in the sunlight as she stepped out of the house, and Wiley caught his breath, hard, at the way the design outlined the body he remembered so well.

  The dress left her shoulders bare, revealing skin that was still unimaginably fair and smooth. The way the lacy veil swirled around her made Wiley weak in the knees. He could almost feel the gentle brush of it across her arms and back. He’d touched Rae-Anne Blackburn’s skin so many times himself, his own fingers as feather-light as the gossamer lace of that veil, all his senses lost in wonder that such a strong and stubborn woman could turn so soft and responsive in his arms.

  Her eyes seemed wider, bluer than they ever had. Maybe it was because of the way she wore her hair. She’d usually pulled it into a ponytail or a loose braid when he’d known her, and it was strange to see her thick, exuberant auburn mane disciplined into a tight French braid. The pearl-edged combs that held it in place didn’t soften the formal style much. Wiley had felt an urge in his fingertips to let her hair loose, to see its highlights glistening gold in the afternoon sunlight.

  Her hairstyle wasn’t the only thing that startled him. He recognized the quiet, mutinous look in her eyes, too, the look that meant Rae-Anne wasn’t happy with something.

  He knew that look so well—knew all her expressions and moods so well, he thought, although it had been ten years since they’d seen each other. Did Rodney Dietrich realize there was something troubling his bride on her wedding morning? Did Rodney have any idea how restless and complicated and maddening Rae-Anne could be when she put her mind to it?

  Wiley had been so intent on the logistics of getting to speak to Rae-Anne alone that he hadn’t foreseen his jealousy taking over like this. Maybe Rodney Dietrich did know those things. Maybe Rodney was the man Rae-Anne had been waiting for, after all. Maybe she was only looking troubled because she was worried about the caterer screwing up or some damn thing.

  It wasn’t until they were well clear of the ranch house that he’d had himself under control enough to turn and face her. And even then it didn’t work quite the way he’d planned.

  “I know this is kind of a surprise, honey,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “But it’s important, or I wouldn’t be doing this to you.”

  He waited, but she didn’t answer. In the rearview mirror he could see her impossibly blue eyes, looking for all the world as though some kind of magic spell had frozen them into that wide-open stare.

  He plunged ahead, because he couldn’t imagine what else to do. “If you’ll pardon my saying so, you haven’t exactly been looking like the picture of a blissful bride back there since I picked you up,” he said. “Are you sure you really want to marry this guy, Rae-Anne?”

  She finally spoke, but he could barely hear the words. It was only because he saw the slight movement of her lips in the mirror that he caught what she was saying.

  “You’re supposed to be dead.” It was whisper-soft, as if she was speaking to herself. “Wiley—”

  Her face had gotten even paler under that fancy makeup job. Wiley was struck by how vulnerable she looked as she folded her arms tightly around herself. “Hey, don’t get all faint on me, honey,” he said quickly. “I can explain about being dead. But I’d rather wait until I don’t have to drive at the same time.”

  Her silence after he’d spoken was not reassuring. Neither was the fact that when he glanced in the rearview mirror this time, her eyes were closed and she seemed to be swaying more than the car’s motion would account for.

  “Rae-Anne.” His voice was sharp, and her eyes snapped open at the sound of it. “Listen to me. I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t important. There are some things about Rodney Dietrich that you have to know, and I couldn’t find a way to tell you about them before now. If you can hang on just a few more minutes, I’ll pull over and we can talk. But it’s going to take a few minutes. Okay?”

  He saw her nod and reach out a hand for the armrest on the door nearest to her.

  “Not thinking of bailing out on me again, are you?”

  His words seemed to startle her out of the fog that had settled over her. She frowned and said, “How did you—”

  “I saw you thinking about it a while back. I know you, Rae-Anne. You’d jump off a moving train if you discovered it wasn’t going where you wanted it to.”

  Her forehead furrowed slightly, and a little bit of color came into her too-white face. “Damn it, Wiley—”

  He turned his attention to the road just in time. He’d chosen this route deliberately because it was seldom used and there would be less chance of the white limousine being noticed here. But the road was also an obstacle course of sudden bends and dips, and Wiley had nearly missed negotiating one of those. With an
effort he wrenched his concentration to his driving and away from the distracting, beautiful, bewildered woman sitting just a few inches away from him.

  “Save the questions, all right, Rae-Anne?” he muttered, as the limo careened a little too close to the ditch between the road and the rocky hillside. “I’ve got my hands full at the moment.”

  Maybe this wasn’t happening, Rae-Anne thought.

  She closed her eyes again, trying to remember when she’d last eaten a full meal. There’d been so much going on this week—the party at the main hotel with her fellow workers, Rodney’s employees in the San Antonio-based chain, then the surprise shower the Dietrich cousins had thrown for her when they’d arrived, and the get-together with the neighbors from the ranches near Rodney’s family home. Then there had been dress fittings and all the arrangements about packing up her own apartment so that she would be ready to move in with Rodney next week after their brief honeymoon.

  She thought it might have been breakfast yesterday—she dimly recalled Renee fussing over her, and Rodney making careful comments about how she needed to eat. No one besides Rodney and the doctor knew yet that Rae-Anne was pregnant, although it had almost seemed, from Renee’s motherly urgings, that the housekeeper might have guessed their secret.

  In any event, she’d been subsisting on too little food for what suddenly felt like too long a time. And so she supposed it shouldn’t be surprising if she was having hallucinations.

  She settled back against the upholstered wall of the stretch limo, her fingers curled around the armrest to keep her steady. Wiley couldn’t be here because Wiley was dead. She had conjured him up from the depths of her imagination, from the longings that should have died with him but hadn’t. If she’d eaten more, if she’d been less distraught, this wouldn’t be happening.

  In a moment she would see the broad limestone church in New Braunfels appearing ahead of her, with Aunt Lindie waving from the steps, telling her to hurry. All she had to do was sit in this surprisingly gentle haze and wait for the world around her to start making sense again.

  It was almost calming to watch the familiar hill-country scenery rolling past the windows, with the live oak trees tossing lazily in the autumn breeze and the hot sun beating down on the dry grass and the prickly pears that dotted the landscape. It was by far the most soothing thing that had happened to her for weeks, and even if it was just a hallucination—

  “Rae-Anne?”

  She realized with a start that the limo had stopped. She focused her eyes with an effort, and saw that the vision of Wiley Cotter’s face hadn’t disappeared. He was leaning toward her through the open door next to her, holding out his hand.

  “Come on,” he was saying. “You look like a ghost. Some fresh air will do you good.”

  She started to argue with him, started to tell him that he was the ghost, not her. But somehow the effort of speaking was just too great. She took the hand he was offering her, startled by its warm, living strength as his fingers curled around hers.

  “I should have had breakfast.” She murmured the words as she got cautiously to her feet. “Or dinner.”

  “Is that why you’re so damn pale?” Wiley didn’t sound like a ghost, or feel like one, either. It was all too absurd, though, too impossible, for Rae-Anne to believe it was really happening.

  But then, as she stepped clear of the limousine, her wobbly knees buckled on her, and she felt herself suddenly being gathered into the strong circle of Wiley Cotter’s arms.

  And then she had to believe he was real.

  There was nothing on earth that had ever come close to the way she felt when she was close to Wiley. Even his tailcoat and white shirt couldn’t hide the formidable muscles of his upper body, and she almost laughed at the easy way he pulled her against him.

  It was so familiar—it was all familiar, the sudden lowering of his dark brows and the enticingly masculine scent of soap and skin and the way his long fingers closed around her waist, around her shoulder.

  “Wiley—”

  His name turned into a question, almost a plea, as she spoke it.

  “Shh.” He was holding her closer now, smoothing one big palm over her back. She could feel his fingers easing their way over the swirling rows of pearls. The heat of his hand seemed to melt whatever had been keeping her so cold, and the feeling of his cheek rubbing against her temple sent a bolt of awareness straight through her body.

  “It’s all right.” That bear’s growl of a voice was as rough as ever, but it had softened to a murmur, and she closed her eyes as the pleasure of hearing it again wrapped itself all the way around her. “You’re all right, Rae-Anne. Even brides who do eat breakfast tend to get a little wobbly, I’m told.”

  She was trying to rally her wits, but it was simply too sweet to be standing here with Wiley in the breezy afternoon sunshine with no sound around them but the rustling of leaves and grasses in the warm wind.

  Wiley was alive. The thought was finally beginning to sink in. Wiley Cotter was alive, and holding her in his arms. She took a deep breath, feeling her whole frame shudder with it. At some point she had wrapped her arms around his waist, and she found herself holding on as though she’d been drowning and Wiley was her only hope of rescue.

  And then reality hit her, all at once and with nothing to cushion it.

  She hadn’t been drowning. She’d been on her way to get married.

  And Wiley had waylaid her, for some reason he still hadn’t bothered to explain.

  Back in New Braunfels—wherever the heck New Braunfels was from here—Rodney and seventy-five of their friends and his family were waiting for Rae-Anne to show up so the ceremony could begin. And she was standing in the middle of nowhere in her wedding dress, clinging with undeniable pleasure to a man who was supposed to be dead.

  “Wiley.” Her voice was stronger this time, and she managed to lift her head without feeling as though it might whirl right off her shoulders. “You’ve got to let me go. We’ve got to get back—”

  She could feel the reluctance in the way he eased his grip. Was it her imagination, or did he linger before sliding his face away from hers? Was it possible that the gentle sensation she felt at her temple—hardly more than the touch of the breeze—was his lips touching her skin, lightly, fleetingly, before he stepped away?

  Rae-Anne felt her heart pounding at her collarbone again, the way it had just before she’d forced herself into the limo at the ranch house. Her thoughts were clearing finally, although her limbs were far from steady and she wasn’t quite ready to let go of Wiley’s supporting hand as he led her to a bench she hadn’t noticed before.

  They were in some kind of picnic area, she realized. There was another car here, too—a blue sedan—but it appeared to be empty.

  “Have a seat,” Wiley was saying. “Let me see what I can salvage from breakfast.”

  She wasn’t sure what he meant, and her efforts to figure it out were sabotaged by a sudden vision of how the two of them must have looked as they crossed the sunny paved area by the side of the road. Rae-Anne’s pearl-encrusted dress was eye-catching enough on its own, and with Wiley taking her arm, standing tall and handsome as ever in his tailored morning coat and crisp white shirt, she knew they must look like some kind of fairy-tale prince and princess, or at the very least a brand-new bride and groom pausing on their way to their honeymoon.

  The contrast between that and the reality of the situation made Rae-Anne want to laugh, or cry, or both. She closed her eyes as she settled herself on the wooden bench and waited to see what Wiley had meant about breakfast.

  “Feeling any better?” He was back almost immediately with a thermos bottle and something in a fast-food wrapper. “This might help. I think it’s even still cold—I squeezed it fresh before I left this morning.”

  The thermos was half-full of orange juice, and after an initial lurch from her stomach, Rae-Anne discovered that she was actually hungry after all. She took a sip of the juice and frowned as Wiley held out his ot
her offering.

  “Half a breakfast biscuit probably isn’t as fancy as what Rodney had lined up as a wedding dinner,” he was saying, “but maybe it’ll put some color in your face, if you can eat some.”

  Rae-Anne did, and was surprised at how good it felt. You’re not just feeding yourself—you’re feeding the baby now, too, she could hear Rodney telling her. She took another bite and a second sip of orange juice, and felt the world coming into focus more reliably this time.

  Things had seemed unfocused for weeks, ever since her discovery that in spite of the precautions she and Rodney had taken during their occasional lovemaking, she had managed to become pregnant. Everything had happened so fast after that—first Rodney’s insistence that they should get married, then the whirlwind wedding plans and the whole new future she had suddenly found herself facing.

  And now this.

  By the time she had finished the orange juice and polished off Wiley’s leftover breakfast, she was feeling strong enough to deal with the unexpected sight of her lost lover and with the oversize force of his personality. Her mind seized on his last comment, about Rodney and dinner.

  “Rodney was offering me a lot more than just dinner,” she pointed out. “He probably still is, come to that. And I intend to take him up on it. How far is it to the church?”

  Wiley shook his dark head. “We’re not going to the church until you’ve listened to what I have to tell you.”

  “The hell we’re not.” It was amazing how much better she was feeling, she thought. Was it just the sudden boost in her blood sugar, or something else? “You have no right to derail my life like this, Wiley—no right at all.”

  “I’m not derailing it. I’m helping you get it back on track.”

  “By making me miss my own wedding?”

  “By opening your eyes about the man you were going to marry.”

  He stood up again, tall and imposing in his tailored suit. Rae-Anne watched as he tossed the fast-food wrapper into the nearest trash can and screwed the top on the thermos. Her frown turned to puzzlement as he began closing and locking all the doors of the limousine, ending with the driver’s side. His final gesture before slamming the last door was to toss his uniform cap onto the front seat, raking his free hand through his thick dark hair as he did it.