by Arlene James
He stopped long enough to look down at her. “What? Then you did it on your own? You married him on your own?”
“Of course I did!”
“By why? Why?”
She could have told him that she’d had no choice, but she knew now that wasn’t true, no matter what she’d told herself at the time. “Because I love him,” she said simply.
Janzen seemed terribly shaken. “You can’t!” he exclaimed, clearly puzzled. “You love me! I know you do.”
Jillian shook her head. “No.”
“But you were so kind. Camille would cut me to the quick, and you were always there to make it better, always on my side.”
“I felt sorry for you,” she said gently.
“B-but—”
“Jan, think! I know much of it must be lost in an alcoholic haze, but how could you forget all those times you tried to...to get close to me? Did I ever let you kiss me, even once? Did I even let you touch me? No. I told you over and over again that I didn’t want that!”
“But that’s you, Jillian! Your innate decency, your—”
“For Pete’s sake, Janzen, will you wake up! I never let you or anybody else touch me, but I’ve been throwing myself at Zach from the moment I met him!”
“And from now on I promise to do a better job of catching you,” Zach said, stepping out of the shadows between two buildings. Gabler was with him and a man Jillian didn’t recognize.
“Zach!” Jillian cried, reaching out for him.
Janzen pulled her back. Zach ambled closer. “You’ve got your hands on my wife, Eibersen. I don’t much like the idea.” Suddenly Zach’s fist flashed and Jan was looking up from the ground, his hand cradling his chin. Jillian didn’t bother to inspect the damage. She leaped over him and into her husband’s arms.
“Zach, he has Camille! He must’ve got her when she left earlier! He—”
“No, he doesn’t,” Zach assured her, folding her close. “Camille is at home getting ready for bed. I just talked to the guy I’ve had on her these past few days.”
Relief and rage warred inside Jillian. Rage won. She turned on Janzen. “How dare you frighten me like that?”
“I never said I had her,” Janzen whined. “I just said you should come with me if you wanted to see her again.”
Jillian drew back her foot and kicked him.
“Ow!” He sat up, grabbing his knee. “Those shoes are dangerous!”
“Not nearly so dangerous as me,” Zach drawled, draping a calming arm over Jillian’s shoulders. “I believe I promised to break both your arms if you ever touched Jillian. again.”
“Zach, no,” Jillian whispered. “He isn’t worth the trouble it would cause.”
“I believe you’re right, sweetheart,” he told her. “So, Eibersen, I’ll make you another promise, instead. So much as contact her, and I’ll see you behind bars if I have to build my own jail. You got that?”
Janzen nodded and stuffed his hand into his jacket pocket. Jillian stiffened, and Gabler pounced, easily wrestling Janzen to the ground again. He came up with two envelopes.
“They’re just airline tickets!” Janzen muttered into the cement. Gabler handed them over to Zach, who flipped them open, saw that they were airline tickets and nodded to Gabe to let Jan go.
Janzen rolled over and sat up with a huff, demanding petulantly, “What am I supposed to do with them now? I thought the two of us would start a new life in Alaska together. I spent everything I had on those!”
Zach handed them back to Gabler, who got up, apparently satisfied that Jan was unarmed. “You’re going to use one of them,” Zach said. “I’ll buy the other one from you for Padgett here.”
Jan looked at the other man. “You! I remember you!”
Padgett nodded sheepishly and reached down to help Jan up. “Yeah, yeah, we’re old friends. Consider me your personal bodyguard.”
“Padgett will see you safely to Alaska,” Zach announced. “Don’t think you can slip back without my knowing it. I’ve got a man looking out for you there now.”
Jan brushed himself off glumly. “I could’ve had her if you hadn’t come in and turned her head,” he muttered.
“Not on your best day,” Jillian told him curtly.
“The point is,” Zach said, “she’s mine now.” He looked at Jillian and added, “And I’ll never let her go without a fight”
She caught her breath, tears starting in her eyes. “Zachary Keller, I love you!”
“I love you, too, baby, more every day.”
“Let’s go home.”
Zach got out of the car, handed the keys to the valet and hurried around to sweep his bride into his arms. She laughed as her feet left the ground. “How did you know I was with Jan?” she asked. He sensed that it was a way to hold the excitement at bay just a little longer.
“Are you kidding? I haven’t taken my eyes off you all evening. If I had, I might have noticed him earlier. As it was, I realized the instant you bumped into him that I’d let him get too close. I’m sorry for that, sweetheart. It won’t happen again.”
She laid her head on his shoulder as he carried her through the lobby. “When is he leaving for Alaska?”
“The tickets were for 2:00 a.m. By then, we’ll really be husband and wife.”
She lifted her head, frowning. “What do you mean by that?”
He grinned and kissed her. “You know exactly what I mean. Hello, Eugene.”
“Mr. Keller, Mrs. Keller.” The security guard hurried to punch up the elevator for them, rocking on his toes and grinning unabashedly while they waited. “How was your evening?”
“A great success,” Zach answered as the elevator doors slid open and he carried her aboard. “My wife’s a famous artist, you know.”
“Oh, I’m not,” she protested. “It was my very first—” He kissed her to halt the flow of self-deprecating words, and he kept kissing her until the elevator stopped and they had to get off.
He let her down while he unlocked the door, pleased to see that her knees were so weak she had to lean against the wall for support.
“You’re acting very strange,” she said suspiciously.
“Am I?” he answered. “Well, you’d better get used to it. This, I’m afraid, is what a happy Zach acts like.” She was still laughing when he swept her up once more and carried her across the threshold. “Welcome home, sweetheart.” In reply, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him lingeringly on the mouth. He made straight for the bedroom, determined that he’d slept his last night on that damned couch.
There, by the light spilling through the door from the tiny setback hall, he began systematically undressing her, shoes first. He didn’t have much to do. She was wearing just three pieces of clothing, the sheer tunic, the dress and a pair of familiar-looking pink panties. He laid her back on the bed and began peeling off his own clothes, telling her how beautiful she was and how much he loved her. She lay open to his inspection, her mouth curled in a soft smile, the twin fires of love and desire burning in her big blue eyes. When he was naked, he spread her legs with his hands and came down between them. Perhaps he should slow down, he worried, prepare her better. But then she wrapped her arms around and drew up her legs, positioning herself perfectly.
His chest was so tight he could barely breathe, his heart pounding like the trap set in Worly’s band. He was afraid he would cry. Swallowing down a doughy lump in his throat, he whispered, “Jillian, will you marry me, really marry me, now, here, forever?”
Her smile was utterly serene. “Oh, yes.”
He could see it in her eyes. Eibersen and the threat he had represented was gone. The only reason they had for staying together now was love, mutual and strong. He pushed into her as slowly as he could bear. She winced when he broke through, then put back her head and laughed throatily. He laid his face against her neck and sighed with the deepest satisfaction he’d ever known, and then he began, ever so gently, ever so thoroughly, to make mad, passionate love to his
wife. Somewhere in the midst of it came the thought that they just might take that trip to Montana this summer after all.
And maybe next summer three of them would be making the trip. But that was a decision he had no right to make on his own.
He made himself slow down and pull back, smoothing a wisp of hair from her cheek. “You said before that we shouldn’t take a chance on making a baby.”
Jillian’s smile was slow and rich with a uniquely earthy wisdom. “That was before,” she said, “before I found enough courage to tell you how much I love you.”
“Before you made me the world’s happiest man, you mean.”
To his delight, she laughed that deep, throaty laugh of hers and wrapped herself around him even more tightly. “If we had a baby, we’d have to move again.”
“Oh, no, not that!” he teased.
“I suppose my sister would always take us in.”
“Oh, no, not that!” he said in genuine horror this time.
She laughed again, and it was so wonderful to hear, so right. Then he set himself once more to pleasing the woman who had finally made his life complete, and the next sound that rolled up out her throat was the sweetest kind of sensual music for a man and woman in love.
Be sure to look for a new book by Arlene James, coming
in December from Silhouette Special Edition.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-5958-4
GLASS SLIPPER BRIDE
Copyright © 1999 by Deborah A. Rather
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