His Band of Gold

by Melissa McClone

  Will sat in his chair across the table from Kelsey. “I abstain.”

  “Not an option.”

  His brows drew together. “Engrave the date on the frames and leave off the names.”

  “I can live with that. Date on frame, no names.” Kelsey jotted a note on one of her many lists. She glanced up at Will. “You make a fine mediator.”

  “It’s a skill you need with two younger sisters.” He leaned back in his chair. “Any more decisions we need to make today?”

  She checked her list. “No, but we need to start work on the favors. We can set up on the end of the table.”

  “Wait a minute.” A lock of hair fell across his forehead, and he brushed it back. Kelsey wished she could have been the one—no, she didn’t. “Aren’t the frames the favors?”

  “No.” She opened a manila folder marked with a giant heart to symbolize a favor. Starr had a unique way of labeling her files. “They’re the place card holders, remember?”

  Will rubbed his eyes. “Why don’t we ask Faith and Trent to do us a favor and elope?”

  Kelsey did a double take. “I don’t believe you said that.”

  “Neither do I,” Will admitted as much to his surprise as hers. “Blame it on an overdose of bridal magazines and wedding planning. A man can only take so much.”

  She wadded up a piece of paper and tossed it at his head. Will caught it midair.

  “Good catch,” she said. “Now, about the favors. We’re going to decorate and fill heart-shaped boxes with a hand-blown glass heart, chocolate truffles and a Valentine’s card.”

  “‘We’?”

  He sounded as if she’d asked him to wear a pair of tights and a pink tutu. She suppressed a laugh. “It won’t be so bad.”

  “Doesn’t that depend on your definition of ‘bad?’ I didn’t even make any of the favors for my own wedding.”

  She was really looking forward to this. Kelsey grinned. “You’re going to have lots of fun with the hot glue gun.”

  “Hot glue and fun.” Will grimaced. “I’ve never connected the two before.”

  “Oh, you will.” Kelsey winked. “Trust me on this one. You will.”

  February 11

  How had this happened?

  Three days later, Will stood in his dining room. With the favor-making supplies set up at one end of the dining-room table and the wedding-planning paraphernalia at the other, it was a guy’s worst nightmare. And he was living it—twenty-four seven.

  An hour of using a hot glue gun and fumbling with ribbons and bows and heart-shaped boxes was all he could take. A man had only so much patience. And his hands were too damn big. So they compromised. Kelsey would work on the favors by herself, and he would run all the errands and make all the phone calls.

  He heard a meow. Midas sat on the back of a chair staring out a window into the backyard. Will walked toward him. “What do you see boy? A bird?”

  Another meow.

  He glanced out the window and saw what had captured Midas’s attention. Kelsey stood with her head tilted back, catching snowflakes on her tongue. She hadn’t worn a hat. Her long hair swung about her back. He loved her hair especially when she wore it down.

  “Meow is right.” Will patted Midas’s head and watched Kelsey. She looked so happy and carefree as she played out in the snow. Her smile showed how much she was enjoying herself. “Be right back.”

  Will pulled on his jacket and stepped outside. The scent of pine and tree sap hung in the chilly air, reminding him of Christmastime and chopping down the family tree as they did every year. “Did you get tired of making favors?”

  She glanced over at him. “When the snow started falling, I decided to take a break.”

  “All the errands and calls are done.”

  “Good for you.” She spread her arms out and twirled. With all her hair and a lavender scarf for wings, she looked like a snow fairy. “I’m not even close to being done.”

  “You don’t sound too worried.”

  “It’ll get done.”

  She sounded so unlike her normally organized, on-top-of-everything self. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m better than okay. I’m in heaven. Look at all of this. I’ve never seen so many trees. You can taste the green. And those mountains. Have you ever seen anything so stunning as those snowcapped peaks? And this snow.” Kelsey picked up a handful of snow and tossed it in the air above her. Her laughter bubbled over and surrounded his heart. “It’s so fresh and white. You can almost smell it. I never realized that before.”

  Her enthusiasm was contagious. Will grinned. “You need to get out of L.A. if a simple snowfall will have this effect.”

  “You may be right.” She smiled. “But it brings back so many memories. I used to love playing in the snow. Cade and I would stay outdoors until we couldn’t stand the cold any longer. We’d have snowball fights, make snowmen and snow angels—you name it. You must have loved growing up here.”

  “I did.”

  As the tip of her tongue darted out and caught another snowflake, Will felt a twinge in his groin. Damn. He had to get a grip. Nothing had changed between them; nothing was going to change between them. A few more days and she would be out of his life. The prospect didn’t seem as appealing as it once had.

  She spun around again. “All of this in your own backyard…Tell me what it was like to be a kid here. The skiing, the sledding. It had to be incredible.”

  “It was great. And not only in the wintertime. We played out here year-long.” He walked toward a patch of trees. The snow wet the cuffs of his pants. “Didn’t matter what the weather or the season. My mother dressed us accordingly. She was an expert at getting us out the door with minimal hassle. My sisters and I used to have huge snowball fights in the winter, water fights in the summer.” He motioned to a clearing beyond the trees. “That was Yankee Stadium, Wimbledon and Hollywood all rolled into one.”

  “Active imaginations.”

  Smiling, he nodded. “It was better than watching TV all day, but we did end up with more than our fair share of bumps, bruises and broken appendages.”

  “You and your sisters?”

  “Me and Hope,” he admitted. “The only thing that ever happened to Faith was a dog bite from a guest’s pet. You can still see the scar if you know where to look.”

  “Your poor mother.” A snowflake landed on Kelsey’s nose, and she brushed it off. “She must have had her hands full with the bumps and bruises and broken bones and dog bites.”

  “Don’t forget the blood.” Will grinned, remembering his mother’s resigned sigh each time something happened to one of them. “There was lots of blood and trips to the emergency room when we were growing up.”

  “More credit to Starr.” Kelsey set out making a snowman. “Good thing I don’t plan on having kids because I wouldn’t be able to handle all of that. I get dizzy at the sight of ketchup.”

  He chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

  “I won’t need to figure it out.” She patted a ball of snow together. “Trust me, I’m better off with no plants, no pets and no kids.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am.”

  He stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. Silence stretched between them. “But you were so excited about your cousin’s pregnancy. Throwing two showers, buying baby things, knitting booties even though you don’t know how to knit. That doesn’t sound as if you don’t like kids.”

  “I never said I didn’t like kids. I do. I love other people’s kids. You can spoil them rotten and then give them back,” she admitted. “It’s too easy to screw them up when they’re your own.”

  A pain squeezed his heart at the thought of her never having a baby of her own. “That’s too bad because you’d be a wonderful mother.”

  Kelsey dropped the snowball and it splattered on the ground. Her startled gaze met his. “Me? A wonderful mother?”

  The incredulous tone of her voice brought a smile to his fa
ce. Kelsey might not think she was mother material, but she was. “I’ve seen you with Midas. You’ve got the touch.”

  “Midas is a cat.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Whether you believe it or not, you’ve got the mothering instinct like my sister Hope had when we were growing up. You’ll see what a great mother she turned out to be when she arrives for the wedding with her family.” As he walked toward Kelsey, she took a step back. No matter. Will wasn’t about to let her dismiss something so important. “With all you went through growing up, you wouldn’t make the same mistakes as your parents made. I know you wouldn’t.”

  “That’s so nice of you to say.” Gratitude glimmered in Kelsey’s eyes and filled him with a comforting warmth. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” One end of her scarf was dragging on the ground. He wrapped it around her. “So you might not want to be so quick to give up on love and marriage and happily-ever-after.”

  She glanced downward. “It isn’t going to work.”

  “What?”

  “You can’t change my entire belief system with one compliment.”

  “I wasn’t trying to.” He raised her chin with his fingertip. “What I meant to say was, any kid would be lucky to have you for a mother. It would be a big loss if that didn’t happen someday. Emphasis on the someday.”

  He said that as much for his own benefit as hers.

  Gazing into her eyes, he felt a sense of completeness as if a missing gap had suddenly been filled. But of all the women in the world, how could it be this one? One that was so different from—

  “I wish I could believe…”

  “You can.” He caressed her cheek, gently tracing a line down to her chin with his fingertip. “Believe, Kelsey. Believe.”

  She parted her lips, but he didn’t give her the chance to speak. He covered her mouth with his own.

  So sweet. Melt-in-your-mouth sweet, like cotton candy.

  He wasn’t sure why he kissed her, but it was the smartest move he’d made all week next to getting out of the favor making. Hell, if she kept kissing him this way he might give the old glue gun another try. And the ribbons.

  Her hands splayed across his back, pulling him closer. He went willingly, without a nanosecond of hesitation. He tasted snow and Kelsey and something else, something exotic, a forbidden fruit or magic potion or enchanted elixir. The tastes mingled, blended. Temptation, desire and romance. He couldn’t forget the romance. That was the most important part. He only needed to make Kelsey see it, feel it, believe it.

  As she leaned into him, into the kiss, he wound his left hand in her hair. The soft hair sifted through his fingers like strands of silk. Now this was heaven, and he didn’t want it to end.

  The snowflurries picked up and circled them. He felt as if they’d stepped into a winter wonderland snow globe. His only wish was that as soon as the music stopped someone would wind the key so they could start again. And again. And again.

  Will didn’t care that everything he’d thought, everything he’d believed, was flying out the door faster than candy on Halloween. He’d care later. He’d bet Starr Properties’ newest resort in the Bahamas that he’d care a lot, but not now. Not at this perfect moment.

  This wasn’t a mere kiss. Kelsey wasn’t a mere woman.

  He kissed her again and again. She kissed him back again and again. She sighed, a quiet-as-a-whisper-sigh that spoke volumes. His blood roared through his veins. He was king of the jungle, king of the world. Her lips pressed against his once again. Searching, seeking, finding…

  He wanted her. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted—

  Will tore away from her.

  Eyes wide and her breathing ragged, she stared at him. A faint blush reddened her cheeks. It wasn’t from the cold. Not this time. “I—”

  “No, I—”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m the one who’s sorry,” he apologized, but the last thing he felt was sorry. “I started it.”

  She stared into his eyes. “I didn’t stop you.”

  I should have stopped myself. But he couldn’t say the words out loud. Because, heaven help him, he hadn’t wanted to stop. Not then, not even now. He’d wanted more, all she had to give him.

  And it scared Will, downright terrified him. He couldn’t remember feeling so out of control with Sara. Maybe he’d forgotten. He’d been carrying memories of her with him for so long. But that didn’t make the way he was feeling right.

  “Don’t beat yourself up over this,” Kelsey said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Will couldn’t look her in the eyes. It was as if she could read his mind. How could someone he’d known for such a short time know him so well? It was all so very…strange. Yet felt so very right. Almost too right.

  She combed her gloved fingers through her tousled and tangled hair. “Chalk it up to the heat of the moment.”

  “It’s freezing out here.” Of course, he was sweating. And he wasn’t wearing a hat or gloves.

  “So it was the chill of the moment. Same difference.” She grinned. “I think I see the beginnings of a smile.” The edges of his mouth curled upward. “Oh, yes. There it is.”

  “Do you want to talk about…this?”

  She stared at him with disbelief. “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”

  “Yes, but you’re also the one who should be the diehard romantic, not me.”

  “Touché.” She went to work on her snowman. “There’s not much to discuss. We kissed. It’s over. And we shouldn’t do it again.”

  “Shouldn’t do what again?”

  “Kiss.”

  He might have been thinking the exact same thing, but he hadn’t expected her to say it. “You didn’t like it?”

  “I liked it,” she admitted, much to his relief. “But it isn’t going anywhere—we aren’t, I mean. We’re so different. Too different. And the wedding’s right around the corner. That has to be the priority. We can’t be distracted.”

  “Do I distract you, Kelsey?”

  “Sometimes. But your kisses really distract me.” She flipped her hair behind her shoulder. “Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

  Will wasn’t certain. He wasn’t certain about anything right now, which told him exactly what needed to be said. Kelsey was right. “No more kisses.”

  She nodded. “No more kisses.”

  Chapter Nine

  February 12

  The next day Kelsey sat at the kitchen table and stared out the window at the glistening snow covering the ground.

  She rubbed her tired eyes. She should be asleep not sitting here thinking about kisses and babies and Will. But that’s exactly what she was doing and had done most of last night.

  No more kisses.

  Yesterday, Will’s kiss had her standing on the edge of heaven, on the edge of hell. She couldn’t be certain which. All she knew was that it had felt good and right and the way it was meant to be between a man and a woman. Self-preservation had her trying to keep herself from careening over the edge. Telling Will they shouldn’t kiss again seemed like the easiest way. It would be easier to stop drinking water or even breathing. She touched her trembling lips with a fingertip. She could still feel his kiss, his warmth, him.

  You’d be a wonderful mother.

  Will had blown her away with his compliment. She never wanted to put any child through what she had gone through growing up, but her aversion went deeper than that. She never planned to marry, and she truly believed with all her heart a child deserved two parents who loved each other and lived together and were married. Will would probably laugh at her traditional view of family, but she didn’t care. That’s how she felt, and that’s why she would remain single with no kids. It had always been what she wanted. It was the life she enjoyed. So why was it suddenly not enough? Why did the thought of having a baby seem so appealing all of a sudden?

  Will.

  Will and his family of pure romantics.

  That’s the only e
xplanation. All of their happily-ever-after, one-love-in-a-lifetime mumbo-jumbo was messing with her brain. A part of her wanted to believe, but she couldn’t close her eyes to the reality of marriage—infidelity, unhappiness, divorce. She’d seen too much to ignore the truth.

  Kelsey needed a diversion. Anything would do. She grabbed the Life section of the morning paper and flipped open the front page. Her eyes focused on a headline in the gossip column: Hollywood’s Golden Couple To Split.

  Talk about vindication. This was what she needed to reaffirm all she believed, what her heart told her was true. So what if Will’s kisses could melt an icicle? That didn’t mean squat when it came to marriage. She leaned forward to read the article. “I knew it.”

  “Knew what?” Will asked.

  She glanced up to see him carrying Midas into the kitchen and set him down in front of his food bowl. “Another pair of clients are divorcing. The husband has been romantically linked to one of his co-stars, but his publicist denies any other parties are involved.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “At least they didn’t have any children,” Kelsey said. “But they did have a beautiful wedding.”

  Will shrugged. “You can have the finest wedding ever, but if you don’t have a good marriage, the wedding won’t count for much except a total waste of time and money.”

  Her gaze met his. “That wedding was not a waste. It was a lovely celebration. A day for the bride and groom to remember for the rest of their lives.”

  “A wedding and a marriage are two completely different things. One is an event on a given day. The other is alive. It grows and changes and lasts.”

  “Only in some cases does it last.”

  “Do you seriously think any couple wants to remember their wedding once they are no longer married?”

  “I…” Kelsey wasn’t sure of the answer. She believed the wedding and the marriage were separate entities so the memories would be separate, too. It wouldn’t matter if the marriage ended badly. The wedding would still be thought of fondly. “Can I have this article?”