by Abby Gaines
Another half hour and she could get out of this dress. She’d brought an overnight bag in the Hummer, and had asked Stephanie to take Boo for a walk and feed him late. That way, Merry could spend the rest of the day with her father, maybe even the night, if he couldn’t sleep. She didn’t want to waste a minute of the time they had left.
“Merry, you and Lucas need to cut the cake,” Stephanie said.
Goodness knows how she had managed to get hold of a wedding cake at such short notice. It even had two tiers, total overkill.
Merry lined up obediently with Lucas, his hand over hers on the knife, while Stephanie took more photos. They made a ceremonial cut, then Stephanie sliced pieces for everyone.
Dwight had taken over the camera and was scrolling through the gallery. “You were right, John,” he said. “Merry looks just like Sally. Look at this one.”
He held the camera out to Merry’s dad. John took it, but immediately dropped it. He’d gone rigid, Merry realized. “Dad?” She stepped toward him.
Nurse Martin elbowed past her. “Mr. Wyatt?” She crouched in front of the wheelchair and grasped his wrist.
His eyes were glazed. He seemed…asleep?
“You,” Nurse Martin barked at Lucas. “Take Mr. Wyatt back to the ward while I phone ahead.”
Lucas snapped into action.
“What’s wrong?” Merry rushed after her to the phone on the wall.
“I suspect he’s slipped into a coma.” Nurse Martin pressed a three-digit number.
“A coma?” Merry put a hand to the wall to steady herself.
The nurse issued a curt report into the phone and hung up. “Follow me,” she ordered, and set off swiftly, Merry jogging in her wedding dress to keep up. “It’s not unusual,” she said over her shoulder, “in the end stages of kidney failure.”
They reached a staff elevator; Nurse Martin pushed the call button.
“You mean this is it?” Merry asked. “He’s dying?”
The woman’s face softened, and for a second she looked like an entirely different person. “I’m sorry, Ms. Wyatt—Mrs. Calder. But, yes, this is it.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
JOHN’S SUDDEN, SHOCKING collapse jolted Lucas out of his anger with Merry.
How could he hold on to his resentment after the doctors confirmed Nurse Martin’s guess that John was in a coma? They predicted that although he could linger for a couple more days, he likely wouldn’t regain consciousness. Which meant the last thing he’d seen was what he most wanted: Merry and Lucas married.
Viewed through the lens of John’s death, Lucas’s objections seemed trifling. There would be time enough later to deal with the complications of telling his parents the whole thing had been an elaborate ploy to comfort a dying man. Time enough to file for divorce.
For several hours, Merry refused to leave her father’s bedside. She sat, still in her wedding dress, holding John’s hand, talking to him, sometimes begging him to wake up. Not crying. Every so often her voice thinned and wobbled, but her eyes remained dry.
When Mia became restless, Dwight and Stephanie had to leave. Lucas stayed. Not because he was faking being a loving husband, but because Merry was his friend and John was like family.
At one stage, he convinced Merry to take a few minutes away to change out of her dress. Which was when they realized her overnight bag was still in Dwight’s Hummer. When his parents didn’t answer their phone, Lucas offered to fetch more clothes from Merry’s place, but she looked so alarmed at the thought of him leaving that he abandoned the idea.
Lucas had picked up his service dress blues from the dry cleaner this morning and changed here in John’s bathroom ahead of the wedding, so he had civilian clothes—jeans and T-shirt—on hand. He’d bet he was a lot more comfortable than Merry, but that couldn’t be helped.
Twice, he slipped out to buy coffee downstairs. The second time he came back with an egg salad sandwich. Merry ate a bite, but didn’t want any more, so Lucas finished it.
At six o’clock, Nurse Martin came in.
“My shift is over,” she announced in her abrupt style. Presumably she’d been hired for her nursing skills rather than her bedside manner.
“So, we’ll see you tomorrow?” Lucas said, mainly to be polite.
She ignored him. “You should go home, get some rest,” she told Merry.
“I don’t want to leave Dad.” Merry clutched her father’s hand tighter.
“He won’t die tonight,” the nurse said. “Better to save your stamina for tomorrow.” She straightened a corner of John’s blanket that to Lucas looked perfectly neat already.
He saw that the practical, economical movement soothed Merry.
“Nurse Martin’s right,” he said. “I’ll take you home now so you can sleep. I’ll bring you back first thing tomorrow.”
The thought of sleep prompted an enormous yawn from Merry, forcing her to let go of John’s hand, clasped in both of hers, in order to cover her mouth. Breaking the physical connection seemed to help her make the decision.
“Okay, we’ll do that. What you said.” She stood with a rustle of white silk.
Lucas drove Merry to her apartment above the bowling alley. She’d moved in within the past year, so he’d never been there. Inside, the decor was just what he’d expected—cozy despite the soaring loft ceiling, with the romantic touches Merry liked: deep-pile rugs, velvet cushions on the couch, ambient lighting.
The apartment was open concept, with what he assumed was a bedroom area sectioned off by a silk screen. He went to check it out. Yep. Above the bed hung a mosquito net, presumably for decorative effect rather than because an outbreak of mosquitoes had hit New London in fall. Who knew how she’d hung it up there.
He heard barking, and when he got back into the kitchen area, Merry was letting the dog in off the balcony.
“He needs to go outside,” she said. The first words she’d spoken since they left the hospital.
“I’ll take him.” Lucas grabbed the leash hanging on the balcony door handle. “You get changed while I deal with the dog. Do you want dinner?”
“Just a piece of toast.” She sounded distant, numb.
“I’ll make it.” He decided to get it going while he was out with Boo. He found bread in the refrigerator. On the counter next to the kettle sat an open pack of peppermint tea bags. It seemed the right sort of drink for the occasion; he put the kettle on to boil.
When he turned around, Merry had disappeared into the bedroom.
Grabbing her keys, he took the dog for a five-minute walk. When he got back, the toast had popped up and the kettle had boiled. No sign of Merry.
She still hadn’t emerged by the time he buttered the toast and made the tea, which looked disgusting, like hot pond water, and smelled almost as bad.
“Merry?” he called. “You okay?”
“Sort of.” Her voice was muffled.
“You coming out soon?”
“I’m kind of…stuck.”
Stuck?
“Okay, I’m coming in.” Lucas headed for the screen.
“No, it’s fine, don’t…”
He stepped into the bedroom area. And burst out laughing.
All he could see of Merry was a pair of bare feet with pink-painted toenails, two slim calves, and one hand protruding from the top of the wedding dress, which encased her from head to knees. A narrow strip of silk—some kind of sash?—lay discarded on the bed. She’d obviously been trying to remove the dress over her head, for reasons unknown.
“It’s not funny.” But he could hear a smile in Merry’s voice. “I can’t get out of this thing, I can’t move and I’m terrified I’m going to tear Stephanie’s beautiful dress.”
He circled her, to get a full picture of the situation. “Wouldn’t it have been smarter to undo the buttons so you could just step out of it?”
“Thank you, Hero Chopper Pilot, yes, it would. But there are a million buttons and I don’t have the octopus arms required for the job.”
He tsked. “All you had to do was ask.” He was aware she probably hadn’t wanted him that close to her, not after Baltimore, so he kept his tone light. “Okay, we’re going to get you out of this thing, but we’ll have to pull it back down first.”
“I can’t get it to budge, up or down,” she admitted.
“You keep still while I tug.”
“Be careful,” she warned.
Pulling the dress back down again without yanking it too roughly required Lucas to put his hands pretty much all over Merry. He worked the fabric around her shoulders, smoothed it down the sides of her breasts, then pulled it to her waist and hips. Then he had to go back to the beginning to repeat the entire process. He tried to imagine she was a tailor’s dummy, but her skin was too warm, even through the silk, and her slight curves too soft.
When her head emerged from the top of the dress, he knew they’d made real progress. Her brown hair had gotten mussed and her cheeks were flushed, but she was free.
Then he liberated her other arm, and she was able to help. Their hands brushed and collided, until at last the gown was in more or less the right place with the bodice over her breasts. The style had left her shoulders partly, tantalizingly exposed, but with her arms out of the sleeves, the dress hung lower, leaving her shoulders and the upper slope of her chest entirely bare.
Phew. Lucas felt as if he’d run a marathon. Merry must have her heating set way up high.
“Turn around and I’ll get the buttons,” he said. “Then I’ll leave you to it.”
She was right, there were dozens of buttons, starting midway down her shoulder blades.
Lucas couldn’t see too well—it was dark outside and only the bedside lamp lit the space—but he applied himself to the task, appreciating its simplicity after all that tugging and smoothing.
A dozen buttons into it, he realized Merry wasn’t wearing a bra. It would have to have been the strapless kind, and…it wasn’t. He found just an expanse of pale back, the skin satiny where his fingers brushed.
“Is something stuck?” Merry asked.
He met her eyes in the full-length mirror that hung on the wall next to the bathroom door, and realized he’d stopped working. “It’s fine.” He started again. “You’ll need to hold on to the front of the dress.”
She clutched the silk to her breasts, as if she’d suddenly realized, as he had, that once those buttons were undone, there’d be nothing holding it up.
Man, it was hot in here; Lucas was almost thirsty enough to drink that peppermint tea. He wiped his fingers on his jeans and persevered, slipping one button after another through its tiny silk loop.
Merry swayed.
“Have you eaten today?” Lucas asked. They hadn’t got to the wedding cake, with John going into a coma, and she’d had only one bite of that sandwich. “Did you have breakfast?”
“Just coffee before the wedding,” she admitted. “And three glasses of champagne afterward.”
Plus those coffees he’d bought her since then. Hell, all she had in her system was caffeine and alcohol. Better get that toast into her pronto, then make her some more.
“Not hungry,” she murmured as if she’d read his mind.
He ignored that, put aside his distraction and made swift work of the rest of the damn buttons. It helped that she stood so utterly still. The buttons ran all the way down past her waist, to the hollow at the base of her spine. Any lower and he’d be…
He jerked his eyes away.
And saw Merry in the mirror. Holding the dress to her chest while tears coursed silently down her cheeks. The very picture of despair.
“Merry,” he said, horrified. “Don’t cry, honeybun.”
She shook her head, but there was no denying what they both could see.
“What—what am I going to do, Lucas?” she asked, the words hiccupping, soft, damp, broken. “Who will I have to love, and to love me?”
The answer to both questions: I have no idea. Not helpful. So Lucas said, “Hush, we’ll work it out.” Also not helpful; her tears fell harder.
Hell. He turned her around and pulled her into a hug.
At last he’d got it right. She sank against him, crying harder now that she had somewhere for the tears to land. Their wet warmth soaked his T-shirt. Lucas moved one hand up to stroke her hair. Her shuddery sigh suggested she found it comforting, so he carried on.
He had no idea how long they stood there, him taking most of her weight—she must be ready to collapse from hunger and exhaustion by now—while she cried herself out.
At last she stilled, her face pressed into his shoulder. Lucas was about to pull back, to suggest he make her some fresh tea and toast, when he realized that at some stage she’d wound her arms around his neck. Which meant she was no longer holding her dress.
In fact, the gown seemed to have slipped somewhat. His hand, the one that wasn’t in her hair, was spread across her bare back. The breasts pressed against him were mostly naked. No sooner had he registered that than his body stirred. Talk about bad timing.
“Uh, Merry,” he said.
She lifted her face to him, pale and tearstained. “Thank you,” she said. “I really needed to be held.”
“What are husbands for?” he joked. Which might not have been the smartest thing to say.
Her gray eyes widened. Then she went up on tiptoe, her breasts brushing his chest in the process, and kissed his mouth. Just one kiss, but she didn’t move away again. Just stood there, her mouth against his.
“We should probably…” Lucas began. But talking involved moving his lips against hers, and then her lips were moving, too, and suddenly there was no talking, there was just kissing.
Deep, intense, hungry kissing.
He couldn’t say exactly when the dress slipped to the floor, but he did remember its existence long enough not to trample it when he scooped Merry up and carried her to the bed. All without breaking the connection between their mouths.
He set her down carefully, and then had to cut the connection while he pulled his T-shirt over his head, dragged off his jeans. Merry lay staring up at him, eyes wide, lips parted. Naked except for her lace panties.
A warning clanged in Lucas’s mind: This is Merry. Pull up, pull up. The same warning he’d heeded six months ago when, like tonight, he’d reacted on autopilot to her kiss before he’d remembered that getting it on with his oldest friend, his dad’s best friend’s daughter, was stupid.
Gingerly, he sat down on the edge of the bed so he wasn’t looming over her. “Merry…”
The horror in her face stopped him.
“You’re going to do it again, aren’t you?” She scooted up the pillow, bringing her breasts right into his line of sight. “You’re going to tell me you don’t want me.”
Yes, though “don’t want” wasn’t quite accurate. “It’s not that.”
“Is it my breasts?” she demanded. “Are they too small?”
“No!” he said, horrified.
“You always date well-endowed women.” Her complexion had gone from pale to scarlet.
Guilty as charged. “It’s nothing to do with that,” he said. “Your body is amazing. Fantastic.” He was overdoing it. Her body was nice, but not sensational… In fact, he couldn’t think why he’d had so much trouble banishing it from his mind over the past six months.
But she said, “Really?” in a quavery voice. “So you’re not thinking of backing out now?”
Hell. The instincts he relied on to keep him safe in a war zone told him making love to her would mess things up. But not making love when Merry was feeling lost and desperate for comfort would hurt her unforgivably.
“You bet I’m not backing out,” he said hoarsely.
She closed her eyes, as if in relief, and when she opened them again, they held a purposeful look that he found a little unnerving.
“But I don’t have protection,” Lucas said on a wave of inspiration. Relief surged through him.
“My purse,” she said. �
�On the floor. The zip pocket.”
Damn. Her purse was next to the bed. In the pocket, he found two little foil packets. He tore one open, slowly. Hoping it would give her time to change her mind.
Her mind didn’t change, but the mood did. Merry pulled him down to her, and when he started kissing her again, he sensed she was determined to do this. As was he.
He couldn’t help thinking mutual determination wasn’t a basis for great sex.
There was a kind of resoluteness to their kisses, a mechanical rhythm to the movement of his hands and hers, underscored by the soundtrack beneath them, the rumble of bowling balls and the thwack of pins.
Just when Lucas was thinking he should put a stop to this after all, Merry said, “Now. I want you now.”
He hesitated. “You’re not ready....”
“Now,” she insisted, and he was so worried that he was about to lose all interest, which would be an even bigger disaster, he complied.
Afterward, he lay in the dark, wide-awake, while Merry slept beside him. That was the worst sex—no way could it be called lovemaking—he’d ever had.
Never again.
* * *
THE PHONE RANG AT THREE in the morning. Merry jerked awake, the blur of dreams dissipating in an instant. The hospital. Dad. She flung the covers aside.
“Whassup?” Lucas said next to her.
Merry yelped. He was in her bed!
As she stumbled to the kitchen, the memory of what they’d done flooded back in far too much detail.
Awful.
She shoved the images aside as she picked up the phone. “Hello?” Please don’t let Dad be dead. But what else could it be?
“Ms. Wyatt? This is Dr. Randall.”
Lucas appeared around the screen. He’s naked. So was she, Merry realized. Her teeth started to chatter. “Is Dad…?”
“We’re prepping him for surgery right now,” the doctor said. “A donor kidney just became available. Ms. Wyatt, your father’s getting a transplant.”
CHAPTER EIGHT