by Linda Turner
Anyone watching them would have thought he was absolutely crazy about her. A buffet had been set up under the trees to the right of the garden, and as the guests joined them there and came forward to congratulate them, there was no sign of the brooding Gavin Nighthawk who usually walked around with a scowl on his handsome face. Instead, he laughed and smiled and appeared to be on top of the world. Accepting people’s handshakes and, in some cases, hugs, he kept Summer close to his side. And when he didn’t have his arm around her waist, he was holding her hand, touching her, stroking her with his eyes.
The curiosity seekers who had come just to see if there was any truth to the rumors that they were suddenly, madly in love, had to be impressed. When they cut the wedding cake, they laughed into each other’s eyes, then kissed as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
Standing by Gavin’s side, Summer knew that in spite of the cloud hanging over their future, they appeared to be the happiest couple in the world. Keeping up that appearance, however, wasn’t easy. Her smile felt as if it was plastered on her face, and inside, her stomach was churning. She had to force herself to eat the incredible buffet her aunts had prepared, and the wedding cake tasted like dust in her mouth. She didn’t know how Gavin was feeling—he kept his true emotions carefully hidden from view—but deep inside, there was an aching loneliness in her heart that weighed heavy on her soul.
How she got through the rest of the reception, she never knew. At the most inopportune time, tears stung her eyes, and for the life of her, she didn’t know why. She’d never been one of those girls who daydreamed about Prince Charming and when he would come for her—she’d been much too interested in medicine and her career. So it wasn’t as though she were pining for love and romance or anything. It was just that—
“Hey, Summer, you’re supposed to be happy,” Mike Lincoln suddenly called out to her. “What’s the matter? Change your mind already?”
Jerked out of her blue funk to discover all eyes on her as she and Gavin posed for the photographer, she quickly pasted on a smile. “No, of course not. I was just wondering when I was going to get my husband all to myself.”
Everyone laughed, and it was then that she realized what was bothering her so. She’d thought it didn’t matter to her, but this was, in all likelihood, the only time she was ever going to walk down the aisle. Why couldn’t it have been for real?
“And I was just wondering the same thing about my wife,” Gavin said, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to it. “So if you all will excuse us, we’re going to slip away.”
Her aunts came forward to hug and kiss her, and her cousins cried as if they expected never to see her again. And then it was time to throw the bouquet. Feeling like a fraud, Summer sent up a silent prayer that the flowers would bring someone luck, then tossed them over her head…right into the waiting hands of her cousin Cleo.
Stunned, Cleo stared at the bouquet as if it were something that had suddenly grown two heads. “Oh, my God!”
For the first time in hours Summer laughed naturally. She could well understand her cousin’s horror. Cleo was smart and beautiful, but she’d never quite understood men. And for that reason, she’d made it a practice to steer clear of just about all of them. More comfortable with the children she took care of in the day care she owned and operated, she rarely dated.
“You don’t have to look at it that way,” Summer teased her. “It’s not going to bite you.”
Gorgeous and sexy in her mint-green silk bridesmaid’s dress, she looked up in panic. “But this means I’m the next one to get married! Here—you take it,” she told her younger sister. And to the amusement of everyone, she shoved the flowers into Jasmine’s arms, who immediately began to hum “Someday, My Prince Will Come.”
It was on that fitting note that Summer and Gavin left, rushing to Gavin’s car in a shower of birdseed and good wishes. Sweeping her into his car, Gavin took time to kiss her in front of their guests one last time as he helped her buckle up, then rushed around the hood of the car to slide in beside her. Seconds later, they drove away and only then discovered that some enterprising soul had tied tin cans to the back of Gavin’s car.
They both laughed, but the laughter quickly died as they found themselves alone together for what seemed like the first time in days. It was only then that it hit them. They were, in the eyes of God and man, married.
Silence fell like a rock. Face grim, Gavin stared straight ahead, focusing on his driving, and tried to ignore the tension that had crawled between them. Over the past two weeks, whenever they’d been together they’d always been able to talk to each other without any effort at all. But that was before they were married. What did a man say to a woman who was his wife, but wasn’t, at least not in the biblical sense, and never would be?
“Do you regret it?”
Out of everything he could have said, that was the last thing he should have said, but the words just popped out on their own volition. Disgusted with himself, he said quickly, “You don’t have to answer that—”
“It’s okay,” she assured him. “It isn’t that I regret it—I don’t. It just feels…weird. You know, it’s like when you’re all dressed up to go somewhere fancy and you know you look your best, but you forgot to brush your teeth? It doesn’t matter how many people tell you how great you look, you know something’s not quite right. That’s how this feels. It looks right, thankfully, to everyone else, but we know it’s not.”
“And you can’t help feeling guilty even though you know that there’s nothing wrong with what you’re doing,” he added, understanding perfectly.
“Yeah,” she said with a smile. “That’s it exactly.”
And she was feeling that way because of him. Because she’d gone out of her way to help him in a way that no other woman he knew would, and he hadn’t even thanked her. “I should have said it before now,” he said huskily, “but I really do appreciate what you’ve done for me. I know it wasn’t easy for you. Your family must have thought you were out of your mind.”
Smiling, she didn’t deny it. “Naturally, they were worried. I’ve never done anything so spontaneous before. But my aunts have always been very supportive of me and would never try to stand in the way of my happiness—or what they thought was my happiness,” she amended. Suddenly noticing that they were headed across town instead of to his house, she frowned. “Where are we going?”
“To Jack and Rachel Henderson’s house,” he said somberly. “Since you’re going to be my wife for the next year, I think it’s time you met my daughter.”
After their marriage last winter, Jack and Rachel had bought the old Tucker place on the north side of town and completely renovated the wonderful Victorian house into a home for themselves and the children they hoped to one day have. It was there that Gavin had visited his daughter as often as he could after he revealed he was Alyssa’s father.
To their credit, the Hendersons had always been decent to him, which was, according to some people, more than he deserved since Christina had been Rachel’s younger sister. And he appreciated that. If Rachel had chosen to be vindictive, she could have made it nearly impossible for him to see Alyssa, but she wasn’t that kind of woman. She hadn’t judged him; she hadn’t condemned him. Instead she’d told him about her own childhood and how her father had been too wrapped up in his business, then later in politics, to have much time for his children. She wanted more than that for her niece.
Because of that, she’d always welcomed him when he’d come to visit Alyssa, but Gavin had to wonder if that might change now that he’d married Summer. For almost the last ten months, Rachel had, for all practical purposes, played the role of Alyssa’s mother. And while Gavin appreciated that, he’d held out little hope that he would ever have custody of his daughter again. Until now.
Summer had changed everything. Besides giving him hope that he just might escape conviction, her position as his wife made it possible for him to hope that one day in the not too distant future, h
e would regain custody of his daughter. If that happened, it wouldn’t be easy on Rachel. She and Alyssa had grown very close, and anyone seeing them together would think they were mother and daughter. The one saving grace, however, was that Rachel was now pregnant with her own child. Hopefully, knowing that she had her own baby to love would make it somewhat easier for her to let go of his.
They reached the Hendersons’s place, and it was once again time to play the part of the head-over-heels newlyweds. Opening Summer’s door for her, Gavin took her hand as she joined him on the sidewalk and gave her a rueful smile. “Last performance of the day. Ready?”
Her heart pounding, Summer nodded. He didn’t have to tell her the significance of this meeting—she saw it in the tense set of his jaw, felt it in the way his hand gripped hers. He loved his daughter; there wasn’t any doubt in Summer’s mind about that. And aside from the clearing of his name, there wasn’t anything he wanted more than to get her back. That was just one more thing that she admired about him. He could have taken the easy way out and left her to the care of her aunt—Summer knew plenty of men who would have run for the hills at the thought of being responsible for an infant. But right from the beginning, Gavin had been involved in Alyssa’s life. He’d not only delivered her, but he’d spirited her away to Lettie Brownbear for safekeeping on the reservation, where he’d visited her for months before anyone discovered the baby’s whereabouts or his relationship to her.
Alyssa’s welfare had always been of utmost importance to him, even when he should have been focusing on his own safety before he was arrested, and Summer intended to do whatever she could to help him get his daughter back—including stand by his side during a custody battle.
She prayed it didn’t come to that as they approached the Hendersons’s front door, but she couldn’t be sure. Although Jack and Rachel had allowed Gavin to see Alyssa as much as he liked up until now, that didn’t mean they would always be so accommodating, especially if it meant losing a baby they’d come to love. The situation could turn nasty very quickly if they didn’t want to let her go.
Gavin had called Rachel to notify her that he and Summer would be stopping by after the wedding to see the baby. She’d obviously been watching for them. The second Gavin knocked on the front door, Rachel pulled it open.
Summer didn’t know her personally—Rachel had been two years behind her in school—but in a town the size of Whitehorn, it was impossible not to know everyone on at least a speaking acquaintance. She’d known Rachel was pregnant, but she hadn’t seen her in a while, and she had to admit that pregnancy agreed with her. With deep blue eyes, shoulder-length dark brown hair and delicate skin, she’d always had a quiet prettiness, but now she was glowing.
Her smile slow and a tad shy, Rachel pulled the door wider at the sight of them. “You both look wonderful! Please…come in.”
Just as she showed them into the entrance hall that ran the length of the old Victorian, her husband Jack stepped into the hall with Alyssa in his arms. The second the little girl caught sight of Gavin, she let out a squeal of delight and held out her chubby little arms to him.
“Da-da!”
A big, handsome man with a hard edge that was a byproduct of years of working the streets of Los Angeles as a cop, Jack Henderson handled Gavin’s one-year-old daughter as tenderly as if she were made of spun glass. “Hold on now, short stuff, before you fall. Gavin, I could be wrong, but I think she’s happy to see you.”
Alyssa was, in fact, thrilled. Her blue eyes dancing and dimples flashing, she launched herself at Gavin the second he held out his arms to her, then laughed happily when he swung her up and down in front of him. His grin a replica of his daughter’s, Gavin looked as happy as Alyssa.
Watching them together for the first time, Summer felt something shift in the region of her heart. If ever she’d seen a father and daughter who loved each other, it was Gavin and his little girl. At just a little over a year old, Alyssa was only just learning to talk, but she and Gavin had only to look into each other’s eyes to communicate. Summer envied her that. She’d never known her father, so she’d never had the chance to look into her father’s eyes, to laugh with him, to throw herself into his arms and know that he would be there to catch her. What must that feel like?
Standing at her side, wearing a half smile tinged with just a trace of sadness, Rachel, too, watched the man and little girl. Then her husband came to her side and slipped an arm around her waist to give her a reassuring hug.
It was an intimate gesture, one that Summer felt awkward noting, but before she could look away, Rachel turned to her with a bright smile. “Summer, I don’t believe you’ve met my husband Jack.”
Introductions were made, handshakes exchanged, congratulations offered and accepted. Nodding at Gavin and Alyssa as they played together, he said quietly, “They’re quite a pair, aren’t they? She’ll walk around the house an hour after he leaves looking for him.”
Just the thought of that made Summer want to cry. They were father and daughter—they belonged together. But she could hardly say that to either Jack or Rachel when they had opened their home and their hearts to the little girl. Feeling awkward, she said simply, “He’s very devoted to her.”
Gavin joined them then, with Alyssa still in his arms, and she was more than content to be there. With one arm slung around his neck, it was obvious she had no intention of going anywhere. Grinning at Summer, Gavin said, “I guess I don’t have to tell you this is my daughter. I’d offer to let you hold her, but I don’t think she’d let you right now.”
“Maybe later,” Summer replied, reaching out to soothe the toddler’s straight black hair. “She’s beautiful.”
“Give her a little time,” Rachel suggested with a smile, “and she’ll be crawling all over you.”
True to her prediction, Alyssa was playing peekaboo with Summer and giggling merrily minutes later. His heart expanding at the sound of his daughter’s laughter, Gavin didn’t want to upset Rachel, but he wanted no misunderstandings about his intentions. “I brought Summer by because it’s important that she and Alyssa establish a relationship as soon as possible. Once I’m acquitted, I will want Alyssa back.”
Later, he should have realized that he didn’t have to worry about Rachel giving him a fight about custody of his own daughter. She had more class than that. Her smile understanding, she said quietly, “I’m not your enemy, Gavin. And I’m certainly not Alyssa’s. We both love her and want what’s best for her. If it’s possible for her to be with you, I want that for her as much as I do for you. A child needs her father.”
Four
For appearance’s sake, they should have gone on a honeymoon, preferably in some wildly exotic place frequented by newlyweds, where they could have lain on a private beach, soaked up the sun, and supposedly made love all hours of the day and night. That would have been the perfect ending to the farce they were playing, but Gavin was out of jail on bond until the trial began and not allowed to leave the county. So after visiting with Alyssa, they had no choice but to head to Gavin’s house, where they would spend the next few days secluded together like two lovers who couldn’t get enough of each other.
Gavin had no intention of touching her or taking advantage of the situation after everything that Summer had done for him. But when he pulled into the driveway of his house and saw several neighbors peek out their windows, he realized that there was one last chore required of the groom before he and Summer could disappear inside and be themselves for a while.
Cutting the engine, he turned to Summer with a smile that was little more than a rueful grimace. “The neighbors are looking out their windows, so we’re not going to be able to just walk in the door like nothing out of the ordinary happened today. I have to carry you over the threshold.”
Summer hadn’t even thought of that. “You’re kidding.”
Chuckling, he grinned. “Nope. If you don’t believe me, look over at Mrs. Peabody’s place on your right. See that curtain rustli
ng upstairs? She’s the biggest gossip in the neighborhood. If I don’t carry you inside like I’m supposed to, it’s going to be all over town by sunset that we walked through the front door like a couple of strangers and something is obviously wrong between us.”
Surreptitiously glancing up at the second-story window of the house next door, Summer saw the curtain move and silently swallowed a groan. The wedding had been much harder on her than she’d expected. She was emotionally wrung out, and the visit with Alyssa and the Hendersons hadn’t helped matters. Seeing Gavin with his daughter, seeing the love they shared, had touched a void in her heart, and she’d been fighting tears ever since. Tired of the game they’d played all day, all she wanted to do was to go inside and shut out the world. But they couldn’t do that until they put on one more performance.
Resigned, she arched a dark brow at him. “Sure you can manage not to drop me? I must weigh a ton in this dress.”
The idea of her weighing a ton in anything was ludicrous—five-six and slender as a wand, she could have easily gained a good fifteen pounds and still blown away in a stiff wind. “I think I can manage,” Gavin said dryly, and came around to open her car door for her.
Aware of the interested eyes on them, Summer flashed the same smile she’d given him all day, the one that was bright and happy and excited—and never reached her eyes. Then he was sweeping her up into his arms for the benefit of the neighbors, and her heart turned over in her breast. Why did his arms have to feel so sure and strong around her? Why did he, out of all the men she knew, have to be the one who made her feel treasured? How had this happened? And what, dear God, was she going to do about it?