Amazing what money had brought her to. She shivered, and her bouquet of pale yellow and white sweetheart roses trembled.
Jon dipped his head, his eyes warm. “Over soon, Lil,” he whispered.
She tried to concentrate on Judge Dougherty’s words but couldn’t shake all those eyes on her back. Mari’s gaze, though, was the worst—skewering her right between her shoulder blades. Somehow Zinnia had managed to drag her to the wedding. As Lil had walked down the aisle, thunder had darkened Mari’s brow.
Judge Dougherty raised his voice. She heard Jon’s vows in one detached corner of her mind and automatically held out her hand for the diamond-encrusted band he slipped on her finger. The cameras purred and clicked. Overhead, the massive chandeliers glittered.
Beside her, Melanie stirred, and Lil glanced down. Coiffed and costumed by Sidney, Melanie’s hair glistened in ringlets. Her dress was an inverted buttercup from waist to ankle. Last night, she’d stayed with Lil at the cabin, and Lil had brushed that hair one hundred strokes, delighting in its silky fineness. Melanie had tried on her dress almost as many times, giddy over her role as maid of honor. They’d spent the evening talking girl talk, Melanie chattering as though she’d never been tongue-tied. Lil hadn’t expected to sleep a wink, but with Melanie’s warmth spooned in front of her, she’d fallen into a dreamless sleep.
At her glance, Melanie looked up. Her sweet smile was an arrow straight to the heart, and elation mixed with horror almost jolted Lil out of her shoes. In a few minutes, she’d have the right to have some claim to this girl. To these two, beautiful, trusting children. What business did she have messing with this child’s life? Or Michael’s? Lil smiled back, hoping her expression didn’t look as sick as she suddenly felt.
“I now pronounce you man and wife,” Judge Dougherty intoned.
Relieved the end of the ceremony neared and aching to get out of the stilts she wore, Lil tilted her head up for the obligatory kiss.
And forgot the cameras, forgot the audience, forgot her family, as Jon’s lips settled on hers. Unlike the chaste pecks and light kisses she’d almost grown used to, this time he put in some effort. There was pressure and pliancy and movement. This time his tongue ran a teasing race over her top lip. A river of sensation swamped her. Warmth curled inside her belly like a living thing, sending tentacles down her arms, her legs and curling her toes. She responded, her lips parting, breath quickening. Flesh rose on her back. Shocked, her eyes flashed open, and she swam in the honey depths of his.
Then he pulled away, looped her hand over his arm, and turned her to face the hall. Spontaneous applause broke out. Dazed, she blinked into the cameras, then shuddered. Wrapping her trail around her arm along with the remnants of her dignity, she held her head high and walked down the aisle.
***
It was after eleven and still the reception rambled on. Lil had smiled until her face had almost splintered. The chandeliers glittered with cold, diamond light, hurting her eyes. The drums of Fruit Stand, the band that opened on tour for Van Castle, kept time with the throb in her head. Her shoes were vises, the train of her gown a menace, and, after sampling crab puffs and sherried chicken and marinated mushrooms, plus the towering mansion of a wedding cake, her dress pinched like a corset.
Across the room, her groom was busy working the crowd. She took the opportunity to escape. Hoisting her train, she slipped past the security people at the ballroom’s open double doors, slid around a potted palm and settled on a bench behind a pillar in the lobby. Nobody followed. Peter had arranged a photo op after the wedding, and the paparazzi had abandoned their cameras to mingle with the crowd and belt back crystal flutes of Dom Perignon.
Sighing, she eased off her shoes. Really, despite the famous faces sprinkling the crowd and the outsized luxury of it all, it wasn’t that different from any other wedding she’d ever attended. Crowded dance room, overheated faces, overwrought children and too much food.
The banquet table reserved for her family was visible through the doorway, empty except for her niece Kathleen, Patsy Lee’s Rose and a number of abandoned drinks. Frosting smearing her mouth, Rose watched the dancers, ducking her head when anyone approached, self-conscious in her party dress and new shoes. Kathleen, hair done in a gold knot like Alcea’s, was equally enthralled with the star-studded company. Distracted, they didn’t see the marauding band that crept up behind them. Sporting a lime-green frock and smudges of purple on her eyelids, Daisy, trailed by her brother Hank, Melanie and Michael, reconnoitered the table, then filched the cherries and olives from the cocktails. Kathleen shrieked, sounding a lot like her mother, and they scampered off in a fit of giggles.
Watching their antics, Lil smiled but her chin wobbled.
Dancers twirled past the doorway. Her mother, in a swirl of deep mauve that matched the high color in her cheeks, twinkled up at Pop, dashingly military in a blue suit, as he led her past the door. Alcea and her partner, an old friend from high school, stumbled by next. Alcea looked beautiful with her blond hair pulled back on the nape of a patrician neck, red chiffon twirling around her ankles. But she wore a pained expression. Maybe because the friend did more dancing on her feet than on his own—or maybe because Stan was off in a corner, his beefy body crowded up against his secretary. The owners of Cordelia’s Sleep Inn, Elmon and Helen Tidwell, floated by in Alcea’s wake. Helen’s sweet smile turned to a grimace when the piano-challenged Joey Beadlesworth bumped up against her, racing past with a mouthful of cherries, Daisy on his heels.
Tears gathered in her throat, and Lil looked away. She’d given cancellation notices to her piano students last week. She’d canceled her entire life last week. What had she done? Her marriage to Jon could take her to all corners of the world. She’d seen the schedule for the continuing tour to Canada and Europe. They’d be traveling from September until Christmas. The idea horrified her. Unlike Mari, she felt no need to traipse to foreign parts—she didn’t even like spending the night in Kansas City.
She took a deep breath, fighting hysteria. She had to remember she had good reasons—excellent ones, really—for entering into this agreement. It was only three years. Even Robbie would understand if she could tell him.
She looked back at the ballroom. To her surprise, Seamus’s lean figure appeared in the doorway. Lil had added him to the invitation list Lydia had put together, but she hadn’t expected to see him.
Heart lifting, she stood and beckoned to him. Seamus hesitated, then came to join her. Snowy cuffs glowed beneath a suit coat as jet black as his hair. She hadn’t seen him dressed like that since…Robbie’s funeral. Her heart fell as she noted his stony face and the green flash from his eyes. She wasn’t forgiven yet.
Trying to keep her smile steady, Lil seated herself and patted the bench. Seamus crossed his arms and leaned against the pillar. “What is it, Lil?”
Her smile gave up. “I need to talk to you. I need to explain.” Clasping her hands, she slowly outlined the bargain she’d struck with Jonathan Van Castle, all of its details and all of her reasons.
Unmoving through her recital, Seamus watched her without expression. When she finished, she exhaled slowly, feeling lighter than she had since she’d met Jon. But Seamus remained silent. She glanced up. He’d never looked at her with so much ice in his eyes.
“Congratulations. Sounds to me like you’ve sold yourself for a chunk of land.”
Lil sucked in her breath. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Mari flicker past the ballroom doors. “That’s not fair. I saw an opportunity to help my family and help myself, and I took it. If I hadn’t, we’d be dancing at Mari’s wedding right now, and you know Mari. She couldn’t have kept her head straight in this—this —”
“Bacchanalian romp?”
She gave a shaky laugh. “It is, rather, isn’t it?”
He didn’t smile.
“Please don’t be upset. You’ve been such a good friend since Robbie…” She blinked. A tear dropped on her hands, and the diamonds on her fi
nger winked at her.
“Shit.” Seamus pushed off the pillar and sat down next to her, covering her hands with one of his. That odd light she’d noticed in his eyes that day at the bookstore had returned. “Dammit, Lil. Do you know what you’ve done? What you’ve let yourself in for? The guy’s no good. Worse than no good.”
“If you’re talking about all those articles in the papers after he got divorced, he told Mari they aren’t true.”
“You don’t know the half of it. If I’d known you had gotten mixed up with him, I would have—”
“Where’s my bride?” Jon parted the fronds of the palm, and she snatched her hand away from Seamus. Jon smiled at her. “Gotcha. No fair playing hide-and-seek and leaving me to fend off the masses by myself.”
His grin evaporated when he noted her companion. He looked from Seamus’s set expression to her tear-stained face. “I owe Country Dreaming some exclusive shots, so…” He bent forward, gripped her hand and, with more force than necessary, yanked her to her feet. She scrambled to stick her feet in her shoes. “Later, uh, Seamus, wasn’t it?” He turned his back and pulled Lil after him.
“That wasn’t very nice.” She panted, struggling to match his long stride and not trip over her train. He didn’t have any reason to be angry. She jerked the train aside before someone trod on it. “Seamus is a good friend. I know he wasn’t very nice at the cabin, but he was just upset because— Well, you see, he’s helped me out many times, and for you to act like some prima donna superstar is—”
Jon twirled her in front of him, nearly throwing her off her shoes. A muscle in his jaw pulsed. “Dammit, Lil—” he started. When interested faces swiveled toward them, he plastered on a smile and lowered his voice. “The man’s mooning over you, you’re sitting there with a wet face—”
“Seamus doesn’t moon!”
Jon kept smiling but hissed through his teeth. “Speak up. The folks in Omaha can’t hear you.”
She lowered her voice to match his. “He didn’t moon over me. He’s a friend, and no matter what you think, you have no right to treat him like that.”
“Let me tell you a thing or two about rights. Use your head. If that’d been a news hound who’d snuck up on you two instead of me, your picture—with him—would be plastered all over tomorrow’s rags.”
“They’re already past deadline.” She’d learned a few things.
Turning red, he tugged her through the crowd, as though if he didn’t move, he’d blow. “—plastered all over the next day’s papers. They’re everywhere, Lil, with their telephoto lenses, and don’t forget those papers you put your John Henry on. One whiff of a scandal, one little stink that our marriage isn’t all we’re working to make the media believe it is, and my ex will be hollering foul from the courtroom rafters.”
“And you’d lose that award you want, wouldn’t you?”
“And I’ll lose Mel and Michael and our deal will be off. Then I’ll slap you with a lawsuit for breach of contract.”
She’d been about to tell him she didn’t care about the photographers, that marrying him didn’t mean she wouldn’t see her friends anymore and that he couldn’t tell her what to do, but at these last words, she stopped dead, yanking him to a halt. “You wouldn’t dare!”
He leaned down next to her, his eyes lit with golden fire. “Try me.”
Before she could reply, he swept her into his arms and twirled her off around the dance floor. He held her in an iron grasp, and while she could sense he still pulsed with anger, he smiled at the well wishes thrown their way. So alarmingly conscious of every inch of him, by the time the dance had ended, she had totally forgotten what she’d intended to say.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IN THE SMALL HOURS of the morning, after they’d bid good-bye to the last of the guests at the reception and Roy had driven them back to the cabana, they were alone. Tina-the-Nanny had maneuvered, with a flash of intelligence Jon hadn’t figured she possessed, for her and the children to bunk elsewhere on their daddy’s wedding night.
In the cabana, candlelight flickered on the walls from holders scattered around the great room and a bowl of gardenias graced the coffee table. The drapes on the windows were wide open, revealing a half moon that cast a shimmer across the obsidian mirror of the lake. Despite the damp heat of the summer night, even a fire flickered in the fireplace.
Someone had set the scene for seduction. Probably Zeke. Ha-ha, Zeke, very funny. Jon flipped on the lights, blew out the candles and bent down to turn off the gas jet.
Along with Peter, Jon had told Zeke, Three-Ring, Roy and Lydia his little secret, figuring that in the insular life they led, he couldn’t keep it from them, anyway. He’d also need them to keep up the pretense that his hasty marriage had resulted from a lightning bolt from heaven. Leaks to the press didn’t worry him. They’d always watched each other’s backs. Plus they knew the futures of his kids—and the band—hinged on secrecy.
His secretary was too professional to show surprise, and his bodyguard had accepted the news with his usual silence. Three-Ring had only uttered a mild, “Cool,” then turned back to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Surprisingly, Zeke hadn’t harangued him but had only smiled.
He’d debated whether to tell Tina-the-Nanny, and decided against it. She wouldn’t figure it out even if he waved the papers he and Lil had signed under her nose. He also doubted Mel or Michael would see through the fake marriage. After all, what did they have to compare it to?
Behind him, Lil lowered herself to the sofa and slid off her shoes. Once they lay near her feet, though, she didn’t relax but sat bolt upright. She’d been silent ever since they’d left the reception, and he’d put it down to tiredness or anger over the argument they’d had about her friend. But now, from the way her eyes fastened on his every movement, he wondered if she was scared of him. Not that the idea of ravishing her didn’t tempt him. She did things to his insides he’d never felt before. Funny, warm, molten things.
But despite her stiff-upper-lip manner, during their brief engagement, he’d already learned she was too fragile by half to withstand real involvement with him.
More than once, he’d considered calling the whole thing off. He almost had after he’d found her collapsed in tears following a press conference where some jerk had asked her about her husband’s death. But when he’d broached the idea, she’d tilted that chin up, dried her eyes and insisted they go forward. He’d thought of his kids and reluctantly agreed.
Up until now, her life had been insulated by the customs and traditions of a small town. He was determined to see her through their arrangement unscathed.
He crossed the room and yanked the draperies tight across the windows; the moonlight playing on the water blinked out.
Her eyeballs looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets. “What are you doing?”
Her curly hair, bare feet and flouncy dress reminded him of a little kid worn out after a birthday party.
He smiled dryly. “You mean, before or after I force feed you drugs?”
If possible, her eyes grew rounder.
“Would you relax? You know all that muck you read in the papers wasn’t true. I’m not going to attack you, I’m not going to corrupt you. Telephoto lenses, remember? Pretend every window has eyes.”
“Oh.” Did he detect a small note of disappointment? She cleared her throat. “I mean, oh, I remember you told me I had to be careful about what I did from now on.”
He moved over to the sofa, and if possible, she sat up straighter. Hell with that. He took a seat on one of the chairs and stretched his legs out. “Like Peter said, we feed the beasts, then hope they’ll leave us alone, until we’re ready to give them more. From now on you live life in a fish bowl.” He grinned. “Lifesaver Lil.”
She flushed. “That’s a ridiculous name.” His publicist had milked her rescue of Michael for all it was worth. “I feel like Dudley Do-Right in skirts.”
“Better than Weeping Beauty.”
“Everything’s working out great. Peter said you’ve got just the right touch.” He clasped his hands behind his head, feeling satisfied, then noticed she’d fallen silent. She’d looked away, and her chin quavered. “Hey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought up that Weeping Beauty thing.”
The chin clenched. “I’m okay.”
Now they both fell silent. There was none of the easy camaraderie he’d felt with her on the houseboat, and he realized that although they’d rarely been apart since their engagement, this was the first time they’d been alone. As the quiet stretched between them, he shifted uneasily and launched a new topic. “You never did tell me how you brought your family around.”
“All those bouquets you sent didn’t hurt. Nor did this.” Lil stretched her hand out and looked at the rock he’d put on her finger, then she touched a thin chain around her neck. He frowned. He suspected her old wedding band hung on that chain. A ghost of a smile crossed her face. “But it wasn’t you, or even me. It was Mother.”
Jon raised his eyebrows.
Lil gave a slight shrug. “At first they all suspected what was up, even though I did my best to convince them it was”—coloring, she darted her eyes toward him, then away—“ true love. Patsy Lee told me not to do it for her, and Alcea warned me against marrying for money. Pop, the sweetie, was just confused. Mari—”
“I know.”
SING ME HOME (Love Finds A Home - Book One) Page 13