“She’s got a few scrapes and bruises, but she’s fine,” Amanda assured him.
“What about me?” His body didn’t feel normal, but he knew the surgical anesthesia always made him feel not quite connected to his body.
“You lost a lot of blood,” Daniel answered. “The bullet nicked an artery, but it didn’t hit any major organs. You’ll be fine.”
“And when you’re fully recovered,” his mother said sweetly, “I’m going to kill you. Why didn’t you tell us you were a secret agent?”
Uh-oh. His secret was out. Bryan supposed he should be surprised his perceptive mother hadn’t put it together earlier. “’Cause you’d have grounded me.”
Amanda’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Bryan. We didn’t go to all the trouble to get you heart surgery and save your life so you could throw it away chasing down terrorists and whatnot.”
“Lucy—I mean Lindsay—told you everything?”
“She hardly told us anything,” Amanda replied. “She said something about an intruder, that’s all. But I put it all together. Bryan, I’m so angry with you.” She sniffed back tears, and Daniel put his arm around her. “But I’m so proud, too.”
It occurred to Bryan that this was the first time he’d seen his parents together like this since their divorce more than a dozen years ago.
“Where’s Lucy?” he asked. “Hell. Lindsay—”
“We get the picture,” Daniel said. “Lindsay is Lucy. She’s in the waiting room. Two goons who looked like they could have been from the cast of Men in Black showed up wanting to take her away, but she got rid of them.”
Bryan summoned a smile. That sounded like his Lucy. “Could you bring her here? I need to see her. I have to tell her—” Hell. He didn’t know what he wanted to tell her. But if he could just see that she was okay, then he could handle the aftermath of this fiasco. And there was going to be a hell of an aftermath.
“I’ll go get her,” Amanda said. She patted Bryan’s leg, then slipped out the door, leaving the two men alone.
“She’s really special, this Lucy?” Daniel asked.
“More than you can know.” Bryan shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position. The painkiller was wearing off, and the ache in his shoulder and chest were getting worse. “I don’t know that we can—I mean, the only reason we were together—”
“If she’s special, don’t let her go,” Daniel said solemnly. “No matter what anyone says. I’ll let you rest now.”
Bryan wanted to protest that he didn’t need rest. He wanted to see Lucy. But he did nod off.
The next time he opened his eyes, she was there, sitting in a chair next to his bed. Someone had given her an old college sweatshirt to put on over her tank top. She was scraped and bruised, no makeup, her hair looking as if it hadn’t seen a comb in some time. And she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“Lucy?”
“I’m here.”
“Sorry I’m not at my best.”
“You’re alive, which makes you exactly perfect in my book. And now you’ll have a new scar to go with the others.” She blinked back tears, proving she wasn’t as cavalier as she was trying to be.
“You saved my life,” he said. “There’s no way to thank you.”
She shrugged. “What else was I supposed to do? Anyway, there wasn’t that much risk. Mr. Vargov is dead—that’s why he stopped shooting at us. He apparently had a massive heart attack in the middle of trying to kill us.”
“That was decent of him.” At her stricken look, he immediately said, “Sorry. In my business, sometimes black humor gets us through tough times.”
“I know he was a criminal and a traitor and a terrorist sympathizer, but I have a hard time equating that with the man I knew who was so kind to me. I shouldn’t be sorry he’s dead.”
“You’re allowed. Not everything is black-and-white, good and bad. Most criminals have some good in them. Who told you he was dead?”
“Orchid got in touch with me—she seems to be running things for the moment—but she didn’t tell me much else. She said I should go home. Since Vargov’s dead, she says I’m out of danger.”
That was something Bryan would want to verify himself. “So you want to go home, then?”
She shrugged again. “Maybe I’ll still have a job. The bank will need someone to help them restore those pension funds. I could get my umbrella back. I liked that umbrella.”
Bryan thought for a long time before he responded to that. He thought about his longstanding rule to avoid commitments. He thought about how close he’d come to dying and how much he wanted to live to a ripe old age.
And he remembered what his father had said to him so recently, about not letting Lucy slip away. That was just what was going to happen if he didn’t take a stand.
“What if I offered you another type of job?”
“What?”
“You have an uncanny talent for solving puzzles and finding patterns. Such skills are invaluable in intelligence work.”
She looked at him like he was crazy. “You think I should become a spy?” she whispered.
“I was thinking more of a freelance consultant. Working behind the scenes. I’ll bet our government would even send you to code-breaking school.”
Her eyes widened. “Really? I’d love that.”
“And when you aren’t working a case, you could help me with the restaurant. The place needs a female presence. People respond to you—you’re a terrific hostess, you have good instincts when it comes to food…” He trailed off when he saw that he was not getting the response he’d hoped for. He’d been so sure she would love the idea. “You don’t seem too enthusiastic.”
“Oh, I would love the work, I’m sure. It’s just—”
“You don’t love me.”
“Of course I love you. Oh, shoot, I wasn’t going to say that. How pathetic is it, an accountant from Kansas falling for a millionaire superspy?”
Bryan couldn’t breathe for a moment. This was better than he’d dared hope for. He thought maybe, if given more time, Lucy might be persuaded to fall in love with him. He’d never dreamed…
“If you’re in love, why do you look so miserable? Haven’t you figured it out yet? I want you to stay in New York because I’m head-over-heels crazy for you.”
She brightened, but only for a moment. Then her eyes filled with tears. “I couldn’t stand it, Bryan. I couldn’t stand having you disappear with no explanation, not having any idea when you’d be back—or even if you’d be back. When I realized you’d been shot, I thought I was going to die myself. I’m not cut out to be a spy’s girlfriend.”
Bryan’s heart swelled. He held out his hand. “Lucy, come here, please.”
She did, though reluctantly, and he took her hand and squeezed it.
“If I was a little bit stronger, I’d pull you right into this bed with me, put my arms around you and never let you go.”
“But—”
“No, no, hear me out. As of right now, I’m retiring. No more fieldwork. No more danger, no more unexplained trips abroad. No more lying to my family.”
“But you…you love your work. You told me that yourself.”
“It’s exciting, yes. But staying alive is even more exciting. Particularly now that I have you to stay alive for. There are lots of other jobs I can do for the agency, or some other branch of the government. Intelligence gathering, sifting through data, coordinating efforts, debriefing agents, interviewing suspects—I’m trained to do all of that stuff. But I also want to spend more time at the restaurant. So we have lots of choices. If you stay in New York.”
“Can I keep the clothes?” she asked, and he suspected she was trying to distract herself from actually having to answer him.
“I’ll buy you all the clothes you want. Whoever that designer is who makes all those slinky dresses and whatnot, we’ll go talk to him. Maybe he makes wedding dresses.” He held tightly to her hand so she couldn’t escape.
She used her other hand to muffle a shriek. “Bryan. Don’t say things like that unless you mean it, it’s cruel.”
“You think I don’t mean it? I want you to be my wife, Lucy. And frankly, if I don’t marry you, my family is going to disown me. So, what do you say?”
“I think you’re crazy.” She tugged at her hand, but he refused to let her go. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be!”
“I’ll do the candlelight and violins as soon as they let me out of here. Put me out of my misery, Lucy.”
In answer she leaned over the bed and kissed him, until one of the machines monitoring his vital signs started beeping out an alarm.
A nurse rushed into the cubicle. “What are you doing?” She angled a severe look at Lucy. “You, out.”
Bryan kept hold of her hand. “Was that a yes?”
She nodded, her eyes filled with tears.
Two weeks later, on a hot day near the end of July, Lucy and Bryan were married at The Tides. Scarlet found her the perfect wedding dress, left over from a recent bridal spread Charisma had done. It was simple, with clean lines and unadorned silk. She paired it with an elegant pearl tiara.
Bryan sent Lucy’s parents two round-trip, first-class tickets to New York, and though they’d never been out of Kansas in their lives, they came. They’d never even realized their daughter had gone missing. They’d called once, got her answering machine, figured she was traveling on some lark and put it out of their minds. Since they didn’t know of her escapade, she didn’t fill them in.
She didn’t want them to spend the rest of their lives in church praying for her.
“You’re not pregnant, are you?” her mother had whispered almost the moment she got off the plane.
Lucy laughed, amazed that she could. “No, Mom. I’m just in love.”
“Well, I think you picked a good one this time. Have you ever traveled first class? Oh, my.”
All of the Elliotts came for the wedding, even a few more Lucy hadn’t met. She still hadn’t learned all their names.
Bryan closed down Une Nuit for the day and invited all the employees out to The Tides, except for the new busboys, who were now in jail.
Stash came, of course, driving his Peugeot, which now sported a few bullet holes. Bryan’s employer had offered to repair the damage, but Stash enjoyed showing off the holes and bragging, to anyone who would listen, about his small part in the takedown of international terrorists. Lucy tried to steer her parents clear of him.
Bryan looked dashing as ever. The bandages on his shoulder hardly showed through his tuxedo, and he dispensed with his sling for the ceremony and the photos, but put it back on shortly after. He wasn’t supposed to use his right arm while the tissues healed, but he claimed he wasn’t in any pain.
The ceremony itself was short and sweet. Then there was the feasting, the way only restaurant people and Elliotts could feast. Chef Chin took over Maeve’s kitchen like a general conquering a town. Maeve was more than happy to just get out of the way and enjoy the day.
The crowning glory of the reception feast was a four-layer cake, Bryan’s little surprise for Lucy. She hadn’t realized exactly what kind of cake it was until he fed her a piece of it for the photos.
Orange cake, garnished with chocolate and mint glaze. Not exactly traditional. But at the first taste, Lucy could feel her face heating—and other parts of her as well.
“Lucy, something wrong?” Bryan asked solicitously.
“I’m just having a Pavlovian response,” she said, never imagining that orange cake could make her feel…amorous.
“I’m putting this cake on the menu, you know. Bryan and Lucy’s Orange Wedding Cake.”
She stood on her toes and whispered in his ear. “It would have been more appropriate as Bryan and Lucy’s Honeymoon Cake.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll take some with us.”
Amanda, Bryan’s mother, had arrived seconds before the ceremony, breathless and tense. Now he hugged her. “I was afraid you might not come, Mom.”
“I wasn’t about to miss my son’s wedding—even if I do have to be under the same roof with him.” She nodded toward Patrick, Bryan’s grandfather.
This family had more drama and intrigue than a soap opera. But all families had their little issues, and Lucy vowed to accept them all as they came along. She reveled in the laughter, the smells and tastes of the day. She even enjoyed the family bickering, which they simply were not able to refrain from. She loved that she was now part of this crazy clan.
“You happy?” Bryan asked Lucy quietly as they posed for yet more pictures.
“Deliriously.”
“You should be afraid. Very afraid.”
“Because…?”
“You fit in perfectly. You’ve become an Elliott.”
Lucy could think of nothing more wonderful.
Marriage Terms
Barbara Dunlop
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
One
If Amanda Elliott had her way, New York would have a law against ex-husbands. She took a deep breath, curled her toes over the pool deck at Boca Royce Health Club and dived headfirst into the fast lane.
A law against ex-husbands who invaded a woman’s life. She stretched her arms out, surging her body forward until she sliced back up through the surface.
A law against ex-husbands who stayed fit and sexy for over fifteen years. Her right arm pulled into a freestyle arc as she kicked into her rhythm, letting the cool water block out the world.
And a law against ex-husbands who held a woman tight, whispered words of comfort and made her insane world tip right again.
She scrunched her eyes shut against the illicit memory, stroking hard until her fingertips brushed the smooth pool wall at the opposite end. Then she twisted her body to kick into the next lap.
While the politicians were at it, they should write a law against sons who were wounded in shoot-outs, sons who were secretly government agents and sons who went to spy school without their mother’s permission.
It wouldn’t take much. A simple amendment to the admissions disclaimer, and no woman would ever again have to wake up and discover she’d given birth to James Bond.
Amanda pulled past the blue halfway floats.
Her son Bryan was James Bond.
She laughed a little desperately at that one, nearly sucking in a lungful of water.
Try as she might, she couldn’t imagine Bryan with a forged passport, driving exotic cars through foreign countries and pressing little remote control devices to blow things up. Her Bryan loved puppies and finger painting, he lived for those sweet little cream-filled coconut puffs you could only get at Wong’s on the corner.
She was grateful he was getting out of the spy game. He’d vowed as much to his new bride. Amanda had heard it with her own ears. So had Daniel.
Her stroke faltered. This time her ex-husband’s image refused to disappear.
Daniel had comforted her through the long night of Bryan’s surgery. He’d been her pillar of strength, holding her up when she swore the sheer weight of terror would topple her. At times, he’d squeezed her so tight that over a decade and a half of anger and mistrust melted between them.
Détente?
She made another turn, pushing off the pool wall with her feet and knifing back to the surface. She swam harder, and her jaw tightened as she concentrated on her strokes.
Détente wasn’t even a possibility.
It would never be a possibility.
Because Daniel was a true-blue Elliott. And Amanda…wasn’t. East-West relations were a cakewalk compared to that.
The truce was over. Bryan was well on the road to
recovery. Daniel was back on his own side of Manhattan. And Amanda had opening arguments in front of Judge Mercer tomorrow morning.
Her knuckles hit the wall at the end of another lap. Five, she counted off in her mind.
“Hello, Amanda.” Daniel’s familiar voice came out of nowhere.
She scrambled to bring her body to vertical, scrubbing the chlorinated water out of her eyes and blinking at her ex-husband’s fuzzy image. What was he doing here? “Is it Bryan?”
Daniel flinched, quickly shaking his head. “No. No. Sorry. Bryan’s fine.” He crouched on the concrete deck, putting them closer to eye level.
Amanda whooshed out a breath of relief, clinging to the trough at the edge of the pool. “Thank goodness.”
“Cullen told me I’d find you here,” he said.
Her anxiety rushed back at the mention of her second son. “Is it Misty?”
Another shake of Daniel’s head. “Misty’s good. The baby’s kicking up a storm.”
Amanda studied his expression. His face was calm and impassive. Whatever had dragged him out of the office in the middle of the day wasn’t life threatening.
He straightened back to full height, and her gaze strayed to his muscular chest, then to his navy trunks. His feet were bare, and he sported a six-pack of a stomach that would be the envy of a man half his age.
Her mouth went dry, and she suddenly realized she hadn’t seen Daniel in anything but a designer suit for sixteen years. The man who had hugged her goodbye had a body to die for.
She bicycled her legs, trying to restore her equilibrium in the deep water. “Then what are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for you.”
She blinked again, trying to make sense out of his words. Unless she’d missed something, they’d said their goodbyes at Bryan’s wedding and had gone back to their respective lives.
Dynasties:The Elliots, Books 7-12 Page 15