by Kait Nolan
“London is temporary.” He could straighten things out within the week, then be back in time for the wedding.
“And after that, it will be something, somewhere else. Your life isn’t in Mississippi.”
Okay, point to her, but he hadn’t even had coffee yet. He’d hardly had time to make any life changes. Other than acquiring a new wife. “I realize we haven’t figured everything out yet, but I l—”
“What is there to figure out? Do we have feelings for each other? Yes. But they aren’t enough to overcome the practicalities.”
I love you.
The words froze on the tip of his tongue. Because she was saying love wasn’t enough. Not that she had let him get that part out. “You seem to be in an awfully big hurry to say goodbye.”
She shook her head, a few tears escaping to slide down her cheek. “I’ve already used up my lifetime quota of mistakes, Trey. I can’t afford another.”
“We aren’t a mistake,” he growled. “And I’m sure as fuck not Waylan.”
“Of course not. But I won’t settle for a part-time relationship. Not even for you. I’ve had that, and I’m worth more. And I certainly won’t ask you to change your whole life because of one drunken decision.”
He wanted her to ask. He wanted her to want him enough to ask for everything. But he didn’t say that because he felt too raw and exposed and he was too afraid she’d crush him.
This was way too much to cope with on top of a hangover from hell.
“Let me call my pilot and make arrangements to get us home.”
And maybe by the time they landed, he’d have figured out how to convince her that marrying him hadn’t been a mistake.
~*~
“Let it never be said that I don’t love you,” Adele announced as she let herself into the kitchen.
Sandy just breathed, “Bless you.” How was it possible she felt worse today than she had when she woke up in Vegas yesterday? The fact that she’d barely slept last night probably had something to do with it. At least there hadn’t been a tribe of Campbells on her doorstep when she’d returned, for which she was pitifully grateful. She never expected to do the walk of shame at forty-nine years old.
She’d been a virgin when she’d married Waylan at eighteen. And in the years since her divorce, she’d gotten used to going without the intimacies of having a man in her bed. She didn’t have casual sex. It simply wasn’t how she was wired. Besides, living in a town as tiny as Wishful, the pool of options was small. As a woman, she’d missed the thrill, the comfort of sex. More, she’d missed the companionship—or maybe just the idea of it, as her ex-husband had hardly been a prize in that department. But she’d built a life she loved—one she found fulfilling on its own terms. As mayor, she couldn’t afford to have her authority undermined by stepping a toe out of line or giving her constituency anything to speculate about. Public officials were held to a higher standard. Women even more so. Because of that, she’d avoided intimate entanglements rather than have everyone in town discussing who she was sleeping with. As all good Southern women should be, she was a model of propriety and grace. Except, apparently, with Trey.
Her husband.
Opening a cabinet, Adele grabbed a glass and brought the thermos she carried to the table, where Sandy had a death grip on her coffee cup.
“I’m sorry for getting you up so early, but I didn’t know what else to do. I can barely function, and I’ve got meetings this afternoon.”
“Never fear. This will cure any hangover.” She poured some gray sludge into the glass and nudged it toward Sandy. “Drink up. Just don’t ask what’s in it.”
“Desperate times.” Sandy downed it, managing not to choke too much on the vile concoction, before slapping the glass on the table like a shot and gasping.
“Breathe,” Adele advised. “It helps. Have you eaten?”
“God no.” Her stomach turned over at the thought.
“Then I’m making you some scrambled eggs, while you sit there and tell me exactly what happened after you left Friday night. Spare no details, because I know you didn’t come home until Sunday.”
“Please tell me that’s not common knowledge.”
“I haven’t heard anybody talking about it. Your car was here. So, spill. Where did Trey take you on your date?”
Sandy curled her hands back around the mug, wishing the warmth made her feel better. “Vegas.”
Skillet held aloft, Adele stared. “Are you serious?”
“We took a helicopter from here to the airport in Lawley, where his private jet flew us to Las Vegas. There was a lot of champagne.”
“I guess that explains the hangover. What did y’all do there? Gamble? See some shows?”
Sandy hesitated, sipping coffee to buy more time. She could tell Adele. Adele wouldn’t judge. She’d been there. “We got married.”
The egg fell from Adele’s hand onto the counter and cracked, oozing across the granite. “You did what?”
“I should say, we woke up married. Neither of us much remembers the wedding.”
“Then how do you know you got married?”
“Well, there were the rings.” She’d taken off the wedding band on the flight home—the most awkward three-and-a-half hours of her life, during which she and Trey had both been on the phone, taking care of their respective businesses and all the issues that had arisen in their unplanned absence. But she could still feel the imprint of it on her skin, like a brand.
“Also, the naked.” That long, warm, male body all tangled up with hers.
“Vegas is a crazy place. You could’ve gotten rings without actually getting married.”
“Trey tracked down the chapel and confirmed before we left yesterday morning. We got married.” Saying it aloud didn’t make it feel any more real.
“So, you got married in a wedding you don’t remember. What about the wedding night?”
She could still feel the soreness of muscles long unused and that particular loose-limbed sensation of having been well loved. And she couldn’t remember a damned thing. Well, okay, that wasn’t true. Bits and pieces had come back. Erotic snapshots that made her inner muscles clench. But not the whole. That seemed like the worst part of it all—that her punishment for such a reckless decision was the loss of almost all knowledge of whatever pleasure they’d brought to each other.
“I remember less than I like but enough to know I broke my drought in spectacular fashion.”
“Well, congratulations, Mrs. Peyton.”
“Don’t say that.” Sandy shook her head and wished she hadn’t. “It was a mistake.”
“Are you sure?”
“What do you mean, am I sure? In what world is a drunk Vegas wedding not a mistake? You, of all people, should remember that.”
“Ah, yes, but I married a virtual stranger. You married the guy you’ve spent thirty years secretly carrying a torch for.”
“I have not been carrying a torch for thirty years.”
“You haven’t let yourself admit it, but you absolutely have. I know you. No matter how drunk you may have been, you’d never have gone through with it unless some part of you actually wanted to do it.”
Was that true? Was she blaming the alcohol for a decision she had, on some level, consciously made? Had it made her foolish, or had it simply removed the mountains of inhibitions and doubts so she got out of her own way?
“What did your family say?”
“We certainly haven’t told them. The last thing I need is to be judged for yet another hasty marriage. One I put even less thought into than saying ‘Yes’ to my high school sweetheart.” Thirty years of pitying glances and looks over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t screwing up again was quite enough.
“You and Waylan were both young.”
“We were. Painfully so. But the young don’t have the market cornered on foolish mistakes, as my weekend has made evident.”
“What does Trey say about all of this? Does he think it was a mistake?”
>
This is one of my college fantasies fulfilled…Marrying you.
Sandy had no idea how she should feel about that, though what she did feel was that funny little somersault in her stomach she hadn’t felt in years. But she was far too jaded and wary to take that at face value. Oh, she knew he’d cared for her back then. Enough to help her try to escape her marriage. She knew she’d loved him, too. And maybe, in her deepest heart of hearts, she’d dreamed of the kind of relationship with him that she hadn’t found with Waylan. But in the intervening years, she’d convinced herself the dream wouldn’t have come to fruition. That if she’d left Waylan—with or without Cam being a factor—things with Trey would never have been what she imagined. So little of reality ever matched dreams.
“He thinks he wants this.”
Adele frowned. “You say that like he shouldn’t.”
“He’s all caught up in the nostalgia and romance. He’s not thinking about the realities of what marriage would mean for us.” And God, she’d been there before. Waylan hadn’t thought about the realities of marriage either, and look where that had landed them.
The fact was, her reality couldn’t live up to the expectations of a man like Trey. She was a small-town girl at heart. A woman with responsibilities to her town. She couldn’t go jet setting from place to place, and the necessities of his business would keep him on the move. She wanted—needed—more than that from a marriage. She deserved more. She deserved everything. And for all his assets, she didn’t believe Trey could give her that.
“Sandra, you’re my best friend, so know that I say this with the utmost love and sincerity.” Adele set the plate of scrambled eggs in front of her. “Get your head out of your ass.”
Insult had Sandy snapping her head back. “Excuse me?”
“I know what you’ve been through. I know your life has been such that you have always been the one in control of everything. The one who had to be responsible, do all the juggling, consider all the practicalities. You’ve been doing it for so long, you don’t even know how to be any other way. But it’s time for you to stop being so goddamned practical. Love isn’t practical. It isn’t perfect. And sometimes it shows up at the most inconvenient times. But if it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth it. I think Trey is worth the work of figuring out.”
Sandy stared at her. “Who are you, and what have you done with my cynical best friend?”
“I know I’m a cynical bitch, but you have a real shot here. If you don’t take it, I’m going to be very disappointed in you.”
This was probably not the time to mention that she’d tried to end things last night and sent Trey on to London. He’d refused to make any kind of a decision while they were both hung over and insisted that they’d discuss it when he got back.
She’d hurt him. She knew that. But he couldn’t let his responsibilities slide because of her. No matter what Adele thought, one of them had to be sensible about this. He’d realize that once he got back to his normal life. And when he returned to Wishful for Cam and Norah’s wedding, they’d talk about the necessary divorce like the rational, responsible people they were.
So why did the idea of that make her want to weep?
Chapter 7
Sandy drove home in the wind and rain and decided it matched her mood. She’d almost picked up the phone a half-dozen times today to call Trey. But he was probably in the air or already on the ground in London, and she had no idea what she wanted to say. It felt foolish to just say I miss you. Though it was true. How was it that she’d done without him for most of her adult life and after one week of being with him, his absence was a physical ache? She’d have blamed that on the hangover, but Adele’s miracle cure had done its job. She no longer had the haze of alcohol or pain to blame her actions on, and regret had settled like the cold, in her bones.
I’m sorry, would certainly be appropriate. But somehow that seemed too small to cover the situation. Why had she pushed so damned hard to send him away? Why not wait, as he’d wanted, and discuss the whole situation when they were both rested and feeling human again? But she hadn’t wanted to wait. With the looming specter of Waylan to remind her of all the mistakes she’d made, she hadn’t wanted another minute of uncertainty about whether she’d made another. Because she was absolutely terrified of what she felt for Trey. If she gave herself over fully to this relationship, if they tried and it failed, and she lost him again, she didn’t think she could survive it. After everything she’d been through—divorce, cancer—it was the broken heart that would do her in.
Sandy was starting to realize it was already too late for that. She was in love with Trey. As Adele had pointed out, she always had been. She’d just managed to bury it all these years.
Staring into the fire, feeling utterly frozen, she whispered, “Please don’t give up on me.” He never had, in all these years. But she’d never rejected him quite so utterly.
The pounding on her door made her jolt, sloshing tea over the rim of her mug. Hastily, she set it aside and grabbed a kitchen towel on the way to the door. She didn’t want company, but after a weekend without communication, no doubt one of her meddling family was coming to check on her. She was hoping for one of her sisters-in-law. They’d be easier to manage than either of her brothers.
She yanked open the door. “Trey!”
He stood on her front stoop, as if conjured by her longing. His trench coat was soaked and rain streamed down his face, plastering his dark hair to his head. Without hesitation, she reached out and tugged him inside.
“Sorry, I’m dripping on your floor.” The innocuous words didn’t fit with his serious expression.
She didn’t give a damn about the floor. It took everything she had to resist the urge to wrap around him and fix her mouth to his, wet clothes be damned. But after how she’d behaved yesterday, she wasn’t sure of her reception. Handing over the kitchen towel in her hand, she said, “I’ll get you another towel.”
He was here, not in London. She’d told him to go, to take care of his business, and he hadn’t gone. What did that mean? She didn’t dare read too much into it, but her hands shook as she pulled a towel from the bathroom cabinet.
He was still standing there when she came back, though he’d stripped off the coat and hung it on the rack in the corner. “I may have a small lake in my shoes.”
“Just leave them by the door. You must be freezing. Come in.”
He toed off the shoes and socks, setting them on the little rubber mat intended for that purpose. Taking the towel she offered, he followed her into the living room, mopping off his face and briskly rubbing his head until his hair stood up in boyish spikes. Sandy wanted to reach out and run her fingers through it. She wanted to bury her face in his throat and hang on. But she could sense the tension in him. Lines of strain fanned out around his eyes. She knew she’d been the one to put them there.
Sandy picked up her tea from the side table. “I’m sorry about yesterday.” Oh my God, really? Can you be any more inadequate?
The corner of Trey’s mouth quirked up, but there was no real humor behind it. “I think it’s safe to say nobody should be held accountable for anything said under the influence of a hangover.”
“Still, I’m sorry I hurt you.” She was sorry for so much more than that, but she hardly knew where to begin, and she didn’t know what the hell he was doing here.
“I appreciate that.” The tone was stiff and formal. Gerald, not Trey.
Sandy gripped her mug like a shield. “I thought you’d be in London by now.”
He tossed the towel over a ladder back chair in the corner and met her gaze. “I’m not going to London.”
She frowned. “But what about your project?”
“It’s being handled by someone else. I delegated. Tess has been jonesing for more responsibility, and she’s over the moon to take on a greater role in the company. I spent the entire day delegating because I’ve spent years surrounding myself with exceptional employees, and it’s long past time
they had the chance to prove it. My CFO and I have been working to restructure some positions and shift responsibilities so that I can stay here.”
They were concessions she hadn’t expected from him. More than concessions, they were major changes to his life. And he’d made them for her. He was putting her first. But was he really offering what she thought he was offering? Her heart began to thunder in her chest. “For how long?” She hated that her voice sounded small and afraid.
Trey scooped a hand through his hair in a rare show of restless irritation. “Look, I went about this all wrong.”
“About what?”
“This. Us. I didn’t do any of this the way I intended. So, let me start over.” He carefully took the mug and set it aside, curling his hands around hers.
She felt a tremble and wasn’t sure if it was hers or his.
“I love you. I’ve always loved you. And I know nothing about the situation we find ourselves in is ideal, and I know it’s crazy—but I want this. I want you. I didn’t fight for you thirty years ago, and it’s been the biggest regret of my life. I’m fighting for you now, Sandy. I’ll do whatever it takes to make this work. So, I want to know—” He took a step back and sank down to one knee. “—will you stay my wife?”
He’d told her once, back in college, that he’d remake the world for her. Young and scared, she’d thrown that gift away. Now here he was, all these years later, remaking his world, baring everything. The gravity of that left her speechless.
“Trey.”
He stared up at her, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I know you’re worried about the practicalities, and I—”
Gratitude and relief had her sinking to her knees. “I don’t want to be practical. God, I’ve wasted most of my life being practical.”
He was giving her the opportunity for something that could be so much more and he deserved her all.
“Does this mean you’ll take a chance? On me? On us?”