by Anne Stuart
“I went to see Edward. To talk with him. But he was...preoccupied. Busy. I could see him through the window. So I ran away.”
“With another woman?” he asked, trying to hide his surge of triumph.
Susan shook her head. “Worse. He was watching golf on TV.”
Being a man, Jake couldn’t quite see the criminality of such an act. “What’s wrong with watching golf?”
“On the night before your wedding? When your fiancée has decided to take a two-day siesta? It’s a little cold-blooded, don’t you think?”
“Edward never struck me as a particularly passionate sort,” he offered.
“Neither am I.” There was delicious doubt in her voice.
“I think you’re wrong about that,” he said. “You just haven’t found the right man.”
She managed to summon up the ghost of her old defenses. “And that would be you?” she said, faintly caustic.
“That would be me.” The words astonished him with their rightness. For all his frustration and denial it was suddenly very clear. He was the right man. And she was the right woman.
“Do you play golf?” she asked suspiciously.
“Occasionally. But I never wear funny pants. And I never watch golf on TV. And you can be damned sure I wouldn’t be spending my time alone when I could be with a woman like you.”
He wondered who was going to make the first move. If he took a step toward her would she run away again? He didn’t think he could stand it if she did.
“I can’t marry Edward,” she said in an odd voice.
He nodded, for lack of anything better to do. “Did you just figure that out?”
She shook her head. “I think I’ve known it for fifty years.”
It made no sense, but then, it didn’t need to. Again her image wavered and shifted in the lamplight. And he gave up being patient.
He crossed the garage floor, but she held her ground, not running. When he reached her she looked up at him, her green eyes wary. Waiting.
“Are you afraid of me?”
“I suppose I’m afraid you’ll abandon me,” she said carefully. “People do. They leave all the time, and the only way to protect yourself is never to care in the first place. I don’t think I could stand it if I were abandoned one more time. By someone who mattered.”
“It doesn’t work,” he said grimly. “You can’t stop feeling.”
“You’re right,” she said. “And besides, it’s too late. I already care.”
“You’re going to marry me,” he said. He had no idea where those words had come from, he only knew they were right.
“Yes,” she said, utterly without hesitation.
He slid his fingers through her short-cropped hair, tilting her face up to his. And then he kissed her, taking his time—a slow, languorous touch of mouth against mouth, tongue against tongue, building in increments of heat and desire until he found she was trembling and he was, too.
He didn’t ask. He simply pulled her up tight against his body and took her to the bed. And she let him.
She was passive, almost childlike as he stripped the clothes from her. She said nothing when he tossed her T-shirt and bra across the room, nothing when he shoved her jeans and underwear down her slender hips so she could step out of them. Nothing when he put his hands on her waist and drew her toward him. Nothing until he slid his hand between her legs, through her tangle of hair, and touched her.
She made a soft, gulping noise, and her hands came up to clutch his shoulders, tightly. He pushed her back on the bed, following her down, and she closed her eyes, averting her face as he touched her.
He let her get away with it. She was tight, barely damp, but he slid his fingers inside her, bringing her to orgasm with calm, almost mechanical efficiency. In one moment she was lying beside him, shutting him out, in the next she had arched off the bed with a strangled cry of shock.
He knew how to prolong it, almost past endurance, testing the waves of reaction that shuddered through her body, teasing and pushing at just the right moment to set off a new convulsion.
“Stop!” she whispered in a choked voice. “Please. Wait.” He froze, but she continued to climax, her body out of control, waves of release racking her body until they finally subsided, leaving her limp, almost fragile looking in the tumbled bed.
He was more than ready to explode himself, but she looked so worn-out that he didn’t touch her. He simply sat back, watching her, his body iron hard with tension and desire.
He could control it, he told himself, taking a deep, shuddering breath. He could give her time, even if it killed him, he could wait until she was ready for more, even if it took all night....
Her face was wet with tears, but guilt had no effect on him. He sat there, frozen, when she suddenly opened her eyes.
“Whew!” she said in a weak voice. And then, to his amazement, a soft, lascivious smile curved her mouth. “I needed that.” And she reached for the waistband of his cutoffs, tugging him toward her as she slipped her hand inside to touch him.
He didn’t remember how he managed to strip his pants off, but he did so in record time. He was blind with need, wild with it, wild with wanting her, and the calm, sane part of him had vanished into some dark, dangerous place, where all that mattered was Susan, reaching for him, opening for him, taking him deep inside her as she wrapped her body around his and held him tight.
She kissed his mouth and stilled him. She touched his face and calmed him. She arched her back, taking him deep, deep inside, meeting his thrusts until he felt her shiver and clench around him, and he let go, tumbling down and down into the hot, wet darkness of soul-shattering completion.
He could feel the breeze blowing on his sweatsoaked back. He could sense the flickering oil lamps around them, and when he lifted his head to look at her, to say something, anything, declare his undying love, he saw that she was asleep. Again, as she had been for the past two days.
He climbed off her, carefully, but she was dead to the world. He lay beside her, pulling her up against his body, and she slept on, a faint, blissful smile on her face. He wrapped his arms around her, buried his face in her thick honey-colored hair and slept.
THERE WERE DREAMS. Vivid, sexual dreams. The bed rocked beneath them, and she didn’t know whether it was from the power of their lovemaking or the roll of the ocean beneath their bunk. She didn’t know whether she was Susan or Tallulah, she didn’t know whether she lay with Jack or Jake.
It didn’t matter. It was dark and gloriously sinful and utterly right, and she moved in the darkness, the breeze cooling her fevered skin as she slid over his body and took him deep within her, rocking and surging until she shattered around him, helpless in her powerful response, and he turned her beneath him and finished it. She hid her face against his chest, licking his skin, whispering dark and wicked secrets, and he kissed her eyelids and her throat, kissed the small of her back and behind her knees, and nothing mattered but that the night would never end.
But it did. And when Susan awoke in the rumpled bed in the ramshackle garage she was alone. Abandoned, as she’d always been afraid she would be.
She didn’t bother to look for a note—she knew there wouldn’t be one. Her body ached, she had scratch marks and bite marks and bruises that would make a hooker blush. She dressed herself, stealing one of his worn khaki shirts to add a little warmth to the morning chill. And she headed out along the path, refusing to look back.
Her car wouldn’t start. There was no way in hell she’d go back to the garage, she simply started running, a slow, easy pace that got faster and faster, as she ran from her fears in the early sunrise hours.
Her mother’s house was empty. It was six o’clock in the morning and her mother’s bed hadn’t been slept in, and Susan knew Mary had spent the night with the man she’d always loved. The wrong man, or the right man, who could know for sure?
It didn’t matter. Susan had made the same mistake. Like mother, like daughter, like aunt. Throwing away
a life for the sake of crazy passion. Throwing away comfort and security for uncertainty. She was as crazy as they were.
She took a long shower, wiping all trace of the night from her body. She called Edward, but his answering machine was on, and she had no idea where he’d be at that hour. She made some toast and ended up throwing it in the trash. And then she went back into her bedroom.
The wedding dress hung from a special hook over the door, the flowing satin gleaming in the early light. It didn’t look as if she’d slept in it, it didn’t look as if she’d traveled backward in time in it.
And for what reason? She hadn’t been able to save Tallulah, she hadn’t been able to change a thing. She’d only complicated her own life past bearing.
Maybe she could go back again. Maybe if she put on the dress she’d be magically transported fifty years into the past, where life was simpler, and there weren’t so many choices.
But that was bull. Life was just as complicated back then, and her mother had already told her the truth. You can’t change the past, you can only change the future.
She stripped off her clothes and put on the wedding dress, staring at her reflection in the mirror, squinting, trying to see Tallulah looking back. But it wasn’t her long-dead aunt, and it wasn’t the familiar Susan, either. The woman in the mirror was different. Softer, sadder, more human. She looked vulnerable, Susan thought. Like a woman in love.
She blinked again, but the mirror didn’t waver. Outside she heard a car drive into the driveway, but she didn’t move. She’d lost the will to do anything but stand there, staring.
“You look gorgeous, darling.” Edward’s voice was like a glass of ice water thrown in her face. She whirled around, feeling her face turn pale with shock and then red with shame.
“I didn’t hear you come in! Edward, you shouldn’t be here...”
“Don’t be silly, Susan. I don’t believe in any superstitious garbage about not seeing the bride before the ceremony. We make our own luck. And I must say that’s a spectacular dress. Mother’s livid about her dress, of course, but I’ve managed to calm her down. Looking at you now, I’m glad her dress ripped.”
Susan stared at him numbly. “Edward...”
“Yes, love?”
“I can’t marry you.”
His Teflon smile faded slightly, and his perfect brow wrinkled slightly. “Bridal nerves, darling? I’m sure they’ll pass.”
She’d almost forgotten how impervious Edward was to subtleties. “I don’t love you, Edward.”
“I know that,” he said with an expansive smile. “I don’t love you, either. But we’ll make a marvelous pair. We’re perfectly suited to each other—haven’t I always told you that?”
He had, indeed. He’d even managed to convince her of it for long enough to get her into this mess.
“You don’t understand. I spent last night with someone else. In bed with someone else. Making love with someone else.”
His smile faded, but only slightly. “I can guess who it was. That friend of your mother’s, isn’t it? The romantic one from the jungle. The one with the impossible name. Surely you’re not thinking of marrying him, are you? He’s hardly your type.”
“Who is my type?”
“I am, darling, and you know it. Listen, I’m prepared to be magnanimous about this. After all, you’re only human, prey to the same hormonal urges as most people. I certainly won’t condemn you for being tempted. After all, you’re under a lot of stress.”
“Aren’t you prey to hormonal urges?” she asked, curious.
He shrugged. “I’m good at sublimating them. There are a great many things more interesting than sex when it comes right down to it. I thought we were agreed on that.”
“You don’t want to have sex with me?”
Edward sighed, a long-suffering sound. “We’ll have wonderful, energetic sex, dear one. I’ve been told I’m very adept. And we’ll have children if you want. I have no objections, as long as we can find proper help. And if our marriage ends up as more of a friendship than anything else, then we might count ourselves blessed.”
“And what if I’m tempted again? Fall prey to my hormonal urges?” She was staring at him in complete fascination. She’d always thought Jake Wyczynski was an exotic creature. He was absolutely normal compared to the man she was supposed to marry.
He smiled sweetly. “I know I can count on you to be discreet.”
She walked toward him, slowly, and placed her hands on his broad, perfect shoulders. “No, Edward,” she said gently. She brushed a sweet kiss against his perfectly shaven cheek. “I won’t marry you.”
For a moment doubt clouded his fine eyes. And then he shrugged, undeterred. “I’ll be waiting for you at the church, Susan. You’ll come to your senses. I know you will. What in heaven’s name do you think that man has to offer you? A life of roughing it, living out of your suitcase like some gypsy?”
“Goodbye, Edward.”
For a moment his perfect features darkened, and she remembered Neddie Marsden’s dangerous rage. But that was another time, another man, another life. Chances were it was only a dream.
“You’re making a huge mistake, Susan.”
“Goodbye, Edward.”
And then she was alone, in her mother’s house, in her aunt’s wedding gown. More alone than she’d ever been in her long, lonely life.
Chapter Seventeen
Susan packed her clothes in a small suitcase. Not her elaborate, designer trousseau, befitting an Abbott. But her jeans and shorts and khakis, her T-shirts and sweaters and hiking shoes. She had no idea where she was going, but it didn’t matter. She’d spent her life in Connecticut, in the small, circumscribed world of the Abbotts, afraid to listen to her heart and soul. It was time for her to strike out on her own.
She didn’t bother to take off the wedding dress as she moved around her room. It was oddly comfortable—the rich satin flowing over her body, and she hummed beneath her breath, trying not to think of anything but the limitless future.
She was making coffee when the car pulled in the driveway, and she looked up, and froze. It was Jake, alone, in a fast little sports car she’d never seen before.
She had no intention of answering the front door, but it was unlocked, and he slammed it open, looking furious. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he greeted her.
Considering that the last time she’d looked into his eyes they’d been wrapped around each other, and he’d been deep inside her, the greeting left something to be desired.
“Making coffee,” she said.
“Why are you wearing that dress? Why did you leave the garage without a word? Didn’t you see my note?”
She shrugged. So he’d left a note, one she hadn’t bothered to look for, so certain she’d been abandoned. It didn’t matter. It was now or later, and the sooner she got past the pain, the sooner she could get on with her life.
“I’m getting married this afternoon, remember?” It was a lie, but he didn’t know that.
He didn’t move, but he turned pale beneath his golden tan. “After last night?”
“Today usually comes after the night before, doesn’t it?” She concentrated on watching the dark coffee drip through the filter.
“I thought you were going to marry me.”
“I didn’t think you were serious. You’re hardly the marrying kind. Did you mean it?”
There was no reading the expression on his face. He looked at her as if he didn’t know her. “What do you think?”
Susan lifted her head and smiled coolly. “I think you’re not looking for a wife, or any kind of commitment. So that settles it.”
“What about Edward? How will he feel when he finds out...?”
“I already told him. Edward forgives me.”
“Big of him,” Jake snarled.
“So you’re off the hook. You can go back to Timbuktu or wherever you came from and never have to think of me again. I imagine you got any transitory lust out of your sys
tem last night. I know I did.” It was a lie, of course. Just looking at him made her stomach clench in longing, her knees weak. But she couldn’t have him. She knew it. She couldn’t change the past, and she couldn’t change the future either. At least, not into what she wanted.
He just stared at her. “Pier 18, 37th and 12th,” he said. “Eight-thirty.”
She jerked her head up in shock, but he was already gone, slamming the door behind him.
She wasted precious moments, frozen, and by the time she moved, racing out the door after him, he was already gone.
She took a cup of coffee, carried it out onto the back terrace and set it down, promptly forgetting about it. How had he known? Fifty years ago Lou Abbott had run to the man she loved, at that very place. Though he had the time wrong—Lou had found Jack at three-thirty.
She closed her eyes, weary beyond belief. Time and truth had faded, and all she wanted to do was run away. Run away with the man she loved.
“What are you doing out here?” Her mother stood in the terrace door, her voice soft and strained. Susan turned to look at her, and a fierce pain went through her heart.
For the first time in her life her mother looked old. Broken, beaten, lost. Susan rose swiftly, pulling her mother’s slight figure into her arms. “He’s left you again, hasn’t he?” she said, furious anger in her voice. “He’s abandoned you once more.”
“I sent him away.”
Susan put her at arm’s length, staring down at her. “Why?”
Mary pulled away, running a delicate hand through her soft hair. “I was afraid,” she said simply. “I didn’t think I could stand losing him again.”
Pain and triumph swept through Susan. “If he left once there’s a good chance he’ll leave again. You made the wise decision, even if it hurts....”
“I made a cowardly decision, just as I did thirty years ago,” Mary said bitterly. “I sent him away in the first place. I kept him out of our life, because he drank too much. He’s been sober ever since, for more than twenty-five years, and yet I’m afraid to trust him. Afraid to go against my parents’ wishes, even though they’ve been dead for more than twenty years. I wanted him to come back, but there was no way I could ask him. Not after refusing to talk with him for years.”