His Darling Bride (Echoes of the Heart #3)

by Anna DeStefano

  Bethany stared across the booth, her hands clenched in her lap, knowing she was making a mess of their date. But this was who she was. Who she’d never hide again, no matter how much she wanted a man to love even the scary, lonely parts of her.

  “You’re back with Marsha and Joe now,” Mike said, quietly studying her the way he had her paintings. “That’s got to mean something.”

  It meant everything.

  So did his acting as if he still thought of her as brave, and nothing could change that.

  “Why did you leave your family?” she asked, her stomach settling enough for her to take her first bite of hot dog.

  Mike picked at his onion rings.

  “I didn’t have any real family left,” he said, “after I lost my big brother and my fiancée. That was ten years ago this month.”

  They both ate in silence.

  “How old were you?” Bethany tried to picture Mike roaming the world aimlessly, taking phenomenal pictures, grieving alone—leaving even the woman he’d wanted to marry behind.

  “Nineteen. I think my parents were glad to see me go. Abby, too.”

  “I’m sure they weren’t.”

  “We’d all been through a lot. The last few years of Jeremy’s life . . . took a toll. My parents had disappeared already into their New York world and their foundation. Abby fit in there, like the daughter they never had. But I wanted no part of it anymore. She seemed relieved, actually, when I asked her to come with me. We both knew she wouldn’t. I gave her the out she’d been looking for.”

  “Good riddance?” Bethany would have reached for him, but he seemed so far away.

  “We were young. I’d changed. I was lost and no good for anyone. My parents were more upset about our breakup than Abby and I were. They wrote me off. I guess they figured I’d come home when I got tired of roughing it. That’s what my mother called it when I went exploring for Jeremy. They kept in touch by phone. It was years later before they pressured me to come home, after my photographs popped onto the radar of a few galleries they were connected with. I’d finally done something worthwhile with my life that they could brag about at their cocktail parties and foundation events.”

  “Is that why you’ve kept your identity in the art world anonymous, so they couldn’t?”

  Mike nodded. “I know that makes me sound like a vindictive bastard. But by then I’d settled down enough to be studying physical therapy in college. George had stuck with me. She took my idea for the bones of the first co-op and ran with it. I was putting the money I was making to good use, thinking I was making Jeremy proud somehow.”

  “I’m sure you were.”

  “I was happy being Mike Taylor, a guy working on a degree so he could help people when he got the chance. My parents could talk to their friends about that all they wanted.”

  “You’ve inspired people and communities all over the country to love creating art as much as you do.” Bethany absorbed all that he’d revealed, trying to understand. “But none of them know who you really are. Your story. Jeremy’s story. The real meaning behind your photography. That it all makes you feel closer to your brother.”

  “Closer than my parents ever wanted to be.”

  Mike looked at her, letting her see how lost a part of him still felt.

  “There it is again.” He reached out his hand, waited for her to cover it with hers. “Another part of us that just . . .”

  “Fits?”

  “We’re both drifters.”

  “Feeling safer wandering than staying in one place. At least I did, until one morning I woke up, broken up with my latest guy, dead broke and fired from my latest dead-end job. And I realized who I was becoming.”

  Her mother.

  That was what Bethany had seen when she’d stared, horrified, at her exhausted, defiant reflection in the bathroom mirror. She’d become a caricature of everything she remembered hating most about her mother.

  “I was lucky,” she said. “Everyone, my friends and family, welcomed me back.”

  “They’re lucky, too, that you were strong enough to come home and accept their help.”

  She’d never thought of it that way. “It took Dad’s heart attack to get me to face making things right for real. Maybe not being able to paint anymore is the price I’m paying for staying away so long.”

  Mike relaxed into his side of the booth and finished his last bite of hot dog. “Or maybe your art is like your family. It never really let you go at all. It understands that you just needed time.”

  He pushed his onion rings closer to her and filched some of her fries. She ate and sipped at her FO and distracted herself with his mouth while he took a long draw through his ice water’s straw.

  She could feel the things they’d shared sinking in. Closing the gaps that could have been excuses for not trusting each other. Now those spaces were connected. Stories about their lives that were so different were fitting together perfectly, the way their bodies did each time they touched.

  While he finished eating, she busied herself stacking their plates, until his hand caught hers. Startled, she found his expression hardening—with passion this time, not anger.

  “You’re perfect just the way you are, Bethany,” he said, “because of everything you’ve been through. Don’t ever forget that. Even if your ex hadn’t been such an ass that night at the bar, there’s a light in you I needed to be next to. I’d have found a way, somehow. It’s that powerful. Time and mistakes and hurting matter. What you’ve been through matters. But none of that diminishes who you really are. Not to your family or your art. Or to me.”

  Mike found himself locked into Bethany’s questioning gaze. And for the love of all that was holy he wanted to stay there, listening to her open up, telling her personal things he hadn’t discussed with anyone besides George.

  While Bethany thought her secrets would make her less to him, not more.

  “You survived,” he said, and nothing was sexier to him. “You’re this amazing, vibrant, creative bundle of positive energy that I felt drawn to, long before I glimpsed it in your paintings.”

  She ran her fingers through her brightly colored bangs, embarrassed. “I can’t even paint my meadow anymore.”

  “That’s just you getting in your own way, telling yourself what you’re doing isn’t good enough. One day, when you least expect it, you’ll be—”

  “Free?” She exhaled. “I used to feel free when I painted. And then not for a long time. And now . . . I only feel it when I’m close to you.”

  Silence punctuated her admission, the commotion of the people around them fading completely. Mike’s hand shook a little. Or was it hers? Their fingers were too intertwined to tell.

  “I’m scared of this, too,” he admitted. “It’s real. And neither one of us was looking for that.”

  “Because the more real feelings get, the harder it is to let go when you have to.”

  Mike nodded.

  “I want . . .” she whispered. “I want to show you my meadow.”

  “You do?”

  She seemed surprised, too, as if the thought just occurred to her.

  “I went there one of my first nights in Chandlerville.” She smiled. “It’s this perfect, peaceful place. The first place I can remember wanting just for myself.”

  “I’d give anything to have been there for that.” Getting to glimpse the beginning of her happiness and the healing and belonging she was just now embracing.

  “Come see it then. It’s just outside town, not far from my parents’. You should feel it. Take pictures of it. That way it can be yours, too. Always. Even after . . .”

  Even after he left.

  “It’ll be the same as when you captured the world you saw for Jeremy.” Excited, she rushed to her feet, not giving herself or him a chance to change her mind. She checked her watch. “If we hurry, we’ll get there by sunset.”

  She tossed out their trash. Then she grabbed his hand and led him down the stairs to their spot in the park
ing deck. But that was where he stopped her. Kissed her. Pressed her against the side of his Jeep, his mouth and hands and the weight of his body leaving nothing to the imagination about what he was fantasizing would happen once they reached her meadow.

  “I’ll take my pictures until the light is gone,” he said when they came up for air. “But I’ll want more. When I look back at tonight, I know I’ll want to remember it being so much more. And we agreed to play this slow.”

  She’d been hurt as a young child. God knew how much, and Mike would never ask unless she wanted to share the details. Her experience with her grandmother had been lonely at best. Criminally negligent, more likely. Which had finished shaping how difficult it must be for Bethany to accept that anyone could truly care about her.

  Of course she’d struggled, chased the wrong attention from the wrong people, and run from those who would have, from the start, given her the love she craved. He’d never judge her for that. He’d never feel anything but the burning desire to cherish her for what she’d become, despite all the hurt. But he’d never lie to her, either, about who and what he was.

  He’d be good for Bethany, like he’d promised Joe. Or he’d find the strength to either change what he had to, or walk away.

  “I’d never do anything to rush you,” he promised.

  “I want more, too,” she admitted, shaking in his arms, excited and off balance the same as him. “It’s been a long time since I’ve let myself fall like this for someone. You probably don’t believe that after what I just told you, but—”

  He pressed a finger to her lips. “I believe you. We’ll take it slow.”

  “We don’t do slow,” she whispered into his ear. And then, God help him, she nipped his earlobe.

  “This time we will. You’ll tell me what feels good to you. And that’s all we’ll do.”

  “We feel good.” She eased back, her smile firmly in place. “Even if you can’t stay. Even if it’s going to be hard to let you go when it’s time, I want tonight to be whatever it’s supposed to be. You’re right. We’re real. We’re the same in all the ways that are important. I don’t care anymore how little time it’s been. We belong together for as long as we have. I can’t imagine being with you and it feeling anything but good.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Late-summer sunsets are remarkable,” Mike said.

  He was setting up the camera and tripod he’d produced from his Jeep, positioning them near the pond that held court at the far corner of the meadow. There’d be no settling for quick iPhone images this time, Bethany mused, mesmerized by his precise, practiced movements.

  “This far south, especially.” He stared at the sky in between fiddling with his equipment. “The oranges and yellows and pinks bleed differently. Their lavenders, navies, and blacks are more intense.”

  He adjusted the height and angle of the tripod’s legs and attached the camera. His motions were confident. Unhurried, despite the waning light. He talked to her as he worked, answering her questions here and there, completely absorbed otherwise in what he was doing. She was watching a man in love with his art.

  His passion for sharing with her what he usually did alone drew Bethany closer to the pond’s edge. The sun was showing off in a magnificent display, charming the water’s reflection into an equally grand spectacle. Mike had scouted the meadow and decided on the exact angle he wanted to photograph sunset and dusk, based on how he thought the light would drop behind the tree line.

  “When I try to take photos this time of night”—she watched as he peered through the camera’s lens and made adjustments on the digital display’s touch screen—“all I get are shadows and washed-out gray.”

  “The colors come when you adjust for the light, where it’s weakest or strongest, and for how vibrant or dark you want the exposure to be. It also depends on where you focus the lens. You have to work with the camera to get it to see what you want it to, even the newer ones. You compensate for its limitations and adjust for your environment—otherwise the lens won’t see what your eye does. You can work with shutter speed and adjust aperture. This camera is digital. Film is a different medium with another set of tools to manipulate.”

  “It sounds . . .” Absolutely fascinating. “Complicated.”

  Mike looked at her, his gaze soft as velvet. “I’m being a total geek. Sorry. Your meadow is beautiful.” He looked around them at the tall grass and the sprinkling of ancient oak trees here and there, then at the woods full of pines beyond the pond. “I can see what drew you to paint it. I’ll want to capture it at dawn one day, on a cloudy morning with the sun burning through. That kind of diffused light would be incredible here.”

  While he made final adjustments to the camera, he snagged Bethany with a one-armed grab that plastered her to his side. She pushed up on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck. Capturing his attention completely, she kissed him to distraction. He lifted her until her feet were practically dangling and whistled once his lips slipped away. He licked the corner of his mouth, making her feel like the dessert he’d denied himself at the Varsity.

  “You make it hard for a man to concentrate.” He sounded as desperate as she felt.

  “Good.” For tonight, for as long as they had, it was going to be so good. She finally knew that. Trusted that. Trusted him?

  He eased her down his body. She rested her head on the delicious warmth of his chest. The sky and clouds over the water were magnificent, creating fantasy patterns of color and shadow. Each moment was an ever-changing celebration.

  Mike watched her taking it all in. His large palm rubbed down her back. “I can always shoot this another night.”

  “Not gonna happen, cowboy.” She backed away. She wasn’t missing her chance to watch him work. “Make me a picture I won’t be able to stop myself from painting.”

  She walked back to the Jeep and leaned on the bumper while he worked with his camera, quickly now as the light and colors in the sky—their reflections on the pond—shifted. His legs were braced for balance as he shot, muscles bunching beneath his whisper-soft cotton shirt. His slightly too long hair brushed his collar, making her mouth water to kiss the skin beneath. Nibble it. Make him shiver the way she knew he would.

  He snapped frame after frame, the horizon vivid, vibrant, the late-summer sun slanting away. His adjustments to the camera were relentless, grabbing every glimpse of the world deepening around them. The day’s afterlife emerged with the sound of night creatures: crickets and frogs and softly singing birds, their rhythms a soothing hymn. All the things she liked best about this place were now better because Mike was there.

  The trees and the grass lost their dimension. The pond faded to shadow. Only fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, had passed. But it might have been hours, and he’d have stayed just as absorbed in his work, and Bethany in him.

  He was motionless now. She stepped closer, wrapping her arms around him from behind and pressing her cheek to his back. A vast blanket of stars emerged, infinite, fragile, spreading above them. He sighed into their quiet spell.

  “Thank you,” he said. “For sharing this with me.”

  “I’ll never be here again without thinking of tonight.”

  He drew her around him and kissed her. He removed the sparkly headband that Camille had helped her pick out at the dollar store, and he ran his hand through her hair and kissed her again. And again, as if he’d be satisfied to do nothing more until dawn.

  “Don’t go away.” He left long enough to walk to the Jeep and store his equipment.

  Long enough for him to grab a blanket and return and spread it at the water’s edge. Long enough for her to change her mind. Except she couldn’t. Not now. Not with this man. She was taking a huge risk. But how could she have thought just friends was possible with Mike? It turned out that this was a night she wanted to always look back on, too.

  It was the night she’d remember giving her cowboy her heart.

  Mike reached out his hand, relaxing only when Betha
ny joined him by the pond after watching him so calmly from her meadow’s moonlit shadows.

  He welcomed her body closer, her breath teasing his neck, every inch of them aligning. She smiled, her hands smoothing across his chest. They drew each other down to the blanket. He wanted them skin-to-skin, hearts pounding, need driving them until they couldn’t think about anything else. But he kept telling himself to give her time, to make sure she was okay.

  And then she kissed him, her body flowing into his lap, reckless and needing and out of control. He groaned and helped her drag his shirt free from his jeans. He’d already gotten his insulin pump out of the way at the Jeep, not wanting to worry her with the process, leaving her free rein now. When her hands moved to his belt, he stalled them.

  “I’m trying to be careful with you,” he said.

  She hesitated for the first time. “Tonight I don’t want careful.”

  He gave a short laugh, his body straining against his control, desperate to pounce. Consume. Dive into the pleasure he knew they’d find. “That makes two of us.”

  He kissed her long, hard, soft, easing her back to the blanket, testing his control.

  She began unbuttoning the front of her dress, revealing fragile, feminine lace beneath. “You’ve already shown me more of your heart, wanted to know more of mine, than any man I’ve ever been with.”

  “It’s not enough.” He kissed the soft skin of her collarbone. Nuzzled the valley between her breasts. “I know I’m not nearly enough for you.”

  “It’s everything.” She smiled as he finished unbuttoning, all the way down to her matching panties. “Trust me. I’ve done the legwork.”

  His mouth worshiped her belly while he dragged off his shirt, her dress and sandals, and the jeans that got stuck on his boots. She giggled at his curse and helped him discard the offending footwear and clothes. Then he kissed his way back up her body. The last thing he removed was the beautiful lingerie he’d had no idea lay hidden beneath all her crazy outfits.