A Hasty Wedding

by Cara Colter

  * * *

  Jennifer, of course, was thrilled to be asked to go shopping.

  And Holly, rather than feeling a heaviness of heart, felt a wonderful excitement as they picked items that suited her and the casual atmosphere of the ranch office. It felt like she was uncovering herself, discovering herself.

  "This one," Jenn said, holding up a green silk shirt. "With these jeans."

  Holly looked at the price of the shirt and shook her head.

  "Holly, what are you spending your money on? You have no expenses. No rent. No children. You drive a thirteen-year-old car that should have been taken off the road six years ago."

  Holly thought of the butterscotch candies, and the goldfish and the picture frames. She bought teddy bears, too, because sometimes the little ones were so frightened when they came, and sometimes they had never had a single toy to call their own, so she kept a selection of beautiful brand-new bears to give them. It hadn't taken her long to discover the older children needed those teddy bears just as much as the younger ones.

  Still, it was her turn. She took the green shirt and pressed the soft fabric to her face.

  Jenn twirled her around, so that she faced the mirror. "Look," she said softly.

  Holly gasped. With that shade of green her eyes looked as luminous and as lovely as emeralds.

  By the end of the day, her arms were loaded with parcels. Jenn insisted she buy only what she loved. Nothing she felt mediocre about was allowed.

  She invited Jenn back to her place for a quick cup of tea before she had to get ready to go for dinner with Steve Darce.

  Jenn helped her pick an outfit to wear, and they giggled like schoolgirls as she put it on. The green shirt and white linen pants, a new pair of green earrings that intensified the illusion that her eyes were emeralds.

  Holly had turned to get the boiling water when Jenn asked her, "So, does Blake have a clue what you feel?"

  She kept her back deliberately turned, poured boiling water into the kettle, tossed in a tea bag. "Blake?"

  "You know," Jenn said, "your boss?"

  "How I feel about what?" Holly asked. She took a deep breath, set the tea things on a tray and turned with a bright smile to her friend.

  "About him."

  The smile crumpled, and the tea things slid to one end of the tray. She set them on the table with a bang and sank down into her chair.

  "And what do you think I feel about him?" she asked. She poured the tea. Her hand was trembling.

  "I think you're madly in love with him."

  Holly spilled some tea and set down the pot. "What makes you think that?" she said.

  "I saw the look on your face last night. I saw you dancing with him."

  "Oh, God." Holly moaned and gave up all pretense of pouring the tea. "I'm obvious. How pathetic."

  "I don't think it's pathetic," Jenn said. "I think it's wonderful."

  "Wonderful? Are you crazy? Did you see the women around him last night? How gorgeous and glamorous they all were?"

  "I did notice that. I also noticed he didn't seem to pay the least bit of attention to them. Every time I looked at him, he was glaring at you."

  "Oh, sure. With Torey Canfield and Rosemary Hansen hanging all over him. Not to mention that vision in black."

  "I know what I saw," Jenn said stubbornly. "He was looking at you. And you were the one he danced with. Besides, Torey and Rosemary and Kaye have been flirting with him for years. I haven't noticed them getting anywhere."

  Come to think of it, when they visited him in the office, Holly could not remember him ever seeming too impressed. Polite. Yes. Smitten? Flattered?

  No.

  She felt this little flag of hope unfurling in her chest. Could it be she might be the one for him, after all? "You're going to absolutely hate what I tell you next," Jenn said, finishing pouring the tea and handing her a cup.

  Holly was scared to ask.

  "You need to let him know how you're feeling."

  Holly set down the cup. "What?"

  "I knew it. You're just the picture of the perfect secretary when you're around him, aren't you? Little Miss Efficient. Competent. Professional."

  "I hope you're not suggesting I shouldn't be those things," Holly said huffily.

  "Not at all. But you can be those things and let him know how you're feeling."

  "I cannot. What would you have me say? 'I've finished typing this letter. P.S. I love you'?"

  "I didn't say tell him, I said let him know. Show him."

  "I wouldn't have a clue how to do that," Holly said.

  "That's what I thought. You're working so hard at keeping your feelings in. Just let them out. Put flowers on his desk. Bake him cookies. Quit trying to hide all the warmth you feel for him."

  "I can't," Holly said.

  "Why on earth not?"

  "I'm scared," she whispered. "I've never felt this way before. I'm terrified."

  "Of course you're terrified," Jenn said calmly. "And it's okay to be terrified. It's just not okay to be ruled by it."

  There was a knock on the door.

  Holly's eyes flew to the clock. "That's Steve already. What do you think? Should I tell him I can't go?"

  Jenn shook her head indulgently. "You don't know the first thing about playing this game, do you? No, you go for dinner with the delightful Mr. Darce tonight. I bet Blake is watching out his window right now."

  "He is not."

  "And tomorrow you don't say a single word about it. Now go and answer the door. And if you can find it in yourself, give Steve a little kiss on the cheek in way of greeting."

  Holly went to the door and opened it.

  But somehow she couldn't find that in herself.

  Eight

  Blake looked glumly out his window. He should have been happy to see activity on the ranch again, but it was the wrong kind of activity. That little cabin across the street had become like Grand Central Station all of a sudden.

  An hour ago, after disappearing early this morning, Holly had pulled up in her little silver rust-covered car.

  Her friend had been right behind her in the fire-engine-red Camaro that clashed with her hair.

  Her friend was good-looking in that Torey Canfield way. Glamorous. Well-dressed. Polished.

  Empty.

  Loaded down with parcels, the two women had disappeared inside the cabin.

  Now another car had pulled up in front of her place. Conservative. A white New Yorker, obviously new. Blake told himself he must have something better to do than spy on his secretary.

  But he stayed at the window.

  The banker got out. The one who had monopolized her all of last night. He still wasn't wearing the little bow tie that would have clued Holly in that he was a nerd.

  No, today he looked like the captain of the football team in his Dockers, sports shirt and a black leather jacket.

  Black leather jackets, Blake strongly felt, were the exclusive domain of people who rode motorcycles. He hated it when that line was crossed.

  What was the banker doing here? He hoped he'd come to get her friend.

  But it was Holly who came to the door. For a moment she leaned toward the banker, and Blake had the hopeless feeling she was going to kiss him.

  But then she didn't. She ducked back in the house. Hopefully to call her friend. But her friend did not come out.

  She did, carrying a sweater.

  She was wearing something he had never seen her wear before. A green blouse that hugged her slender body like a glove, casual slacks. He bet that blouse would make her eyes green as emeralds.

  The banker held open the door of his car for her, and she smiled and slid in.

  Blake watched as they drove away, and then looked back at her porch. Her friend Jenn was out there now, looking straight at his window.

  She was grinning wickedly, as if she had caught him spying. With a jaunty wave, she climbed in her own car and was gone.

  Annoyed, he dropped the shade and turned away.
He spent the rest of the evening pretending to work, and listening for a car to pull up in front of her place.

  At around ten the sound he had been waiting for came. Don't look, he ordered himself.

  A thought hit him that turned his blood to ice.

  What if the banker went in? And didn't come back out?

  Fallon, he told himself firmly, it's none of your business. Besides, Holly wasn't that kind of girl. Or at least a week ago she hadn't been. He didn't like the feeling that he didn't know who Holly was anymore. It felt like some great loss. The worst kind of loss, that kind where you hadn't appreciated what you had until it was gone.

  He was walking toward his window. He couldn't believe this! He had strictly ordered his mind to sit down and shut up. But his mind, acting like a practiced secret agent who had turned off his bedroom light so he couldn't be seen spying, took him to the window and pulled back the shade a bit.

  Holly and the banker were on her porch. His car was still running, which Blake took to be a good sign. The banker knew he wasn't staying. He was also on the bottom step, and Holly was on the top one. Blake also took that as a good sign, as the physical distance between the pair did not bode well if the date was thinking of claiming a kiss. Unless he excelled at hurdles. Thankfully he didn't look like the athletic type. Or the type to boldly steal a kiss.

  Even so, Blake felt something shift inside him at the very thought of someone else kissing her. It was like his blood turned from ice to fire, as if he went into a fiercely instinctive mode, like a male grizzly determined to protect his territory.

  He dropped the shade and took a step back, contemplating this violent reaction to the thought of Holly kissing someone else.

  She wasn't his woman. She was his secretary.

  Blake realized, with shock, how badly he wanted to kiss her. To taste her lips with his own, to feel the curves of her pressed eagerly against him as she had been when they danced that last dance together last night.

  He went back to his lonely table and sat down, stunned, like a man who had been too close when a bomb had gone off.

  He wanted to kiss his secretary. And he wanted it badly. And not only that, he also wanted to punch the daylights out of that guy down there who looked like he might beat him to it.

  Even in his debilitated state he was aware when the car left, aware of something within him sighing with relief.

  He shook his head, trying to regain his senses. He was her boss. And that made everything he was contemplating wrong. Plain and simple. Wrong. He was a professional man, known for his work ethic and his integrity. Where did wooing one's secretary fit into that equation?

  Plain and simple? It didn't.

  Especially in light of his position here. These kids needed to be around people who always did the honorable thing. Always.

  The kids aren't even here, the side of him that once stole motorcycles told him with fiendish waggling of eyebrows. That part of him would be down his steps and across the road and on her doorstep before the banker cleared the main gate. That part of him would sweep her into his arms, coax out her wild side—

  This is Holly, he reminded his darker twin impatiently. Holly was not the kind of girl you had a quick tumble with and then walked away from. He wasn't prepared to lose the best secretary he'd ever had over a moment of wildness, a momentary loss of control.

  Blake Fallon was a big advocate of self-control. It was practically the motto by which he ran the ranch. He was also a big advocate of practice what you preach.

  He couldn't just pretend to have integrity, he had to have it all the time. Even when no one was looking. These kids in particular had never had good examples set for them. Many of them had parents on the other side of the law, parents with addiction problems, parents who could rationalize anything to get what they wanted.

  Blake felt it was crucial his behavior be exemplary in every area. He knew that feeling had intensified since his own father had taken a gun and tried to murder Joe Colton at his own birthday party.

  Rafe had implied last night at the dance Blake was overdoing it. That he had become rigid and wasn't even fun anymore.

  And he supposed that was true. Somewhere along the line, in his transformation from wild street kid, to responsible, respected adult, he had lost something—the boy who laughed with such reckless abandon, who took delight in scorning the "shoulds," who took chances, and who was fearless in accepting whatever opportunity life presented him with.

  Holly wouldn't have liked that boy.

  Annoyed with himself that everything came back to her, he stripped off his shirt and jeans, slid into bed and begged for sleep.

  Instead, he thought of Holly, her arms around Tomas, the tender look in her eyes as she had caught Blake's gaze over the top of Tomas's head.

  And he knew Holly would have liked the wild boy he used to be very, very much. Good girls were always intrigued with wild boys.

  Dawn was breaking before he finally fell asleep. And so he did something he had never done before. He slept in. He was late for work.

  Holly was already at her desk when he came through the front door.

  He had hoped the glasses and hair would be back in place, and that she would be back in one of those formidable outfits that made her look so straight-lined—about as sexy as a ruler.

  But when he came through the door the first thing he noticed was that her hair was still down, flowing in a shining river down to her shoulders. He wished he would have touched it at the dance, when he had the opportunity.

  The glasses were still missing.

  And gone was the suit that looked like it had been mail-ordered from the Miss Manners Office Collection.

  She was wearing a soft white V-necked sweater that hugged her slender form. He thought that fabric was called angora. It was a material that begged to be touched.

  His mouth went dry, and he ordered himself to be a man of complete and uncompromising integrity.

  "Good morning, Blake."

  Had she always had a voice like that? Like music? Like bells tinkling?

  "Holly." He heard the curtness in his tone and saw her flinch slightly from it. He closed the office door and walked by her, but he made the mistake of sliding one more look at her out the corner of his eye.

  Without the glasses her eyes were more expressive than ever.

  And she didn't just look hurt by his cool greeting, she looked exhausted.

  Integrity, be damned.

  "Are you all right?" he asked her, looking more closely. "You don't look good." The look of hurt in her eyes deepened, and he wished he could pull the words back into his mouth, because she had really never looked better. He clarified. "You look tired."

  Too late he considered her weariness might be from mooning over the young banker. He certainly didn't want to invite her confidence about that.

  "Oh," she said, getting up and going to the filing cabinet, "I'm not sleeping well."

  He stared at her skirt. Navy blue. Tight. Short. Her legs were long and slender and perfectly shaped.

  The new Holly was a serious danger to his ethics. But it was the old Holly he saw in her eyes and heard in her voice, and it was the old Holly he could not walk away from as if he was not concerned, as if she was just a function and not a human being.

  A human being he had come to like and respect very much.

  "How come?" he asked softly.

  She turned and gave him a wan smile. "I've been having bad dreams."

  "About?"

  "I keep dreaming about the water being poisoned." She closed her eyes, pressed a hand to her forehead.

  He could not stop himself. He went to her, put his hand on her shoulder, turned her to him. "Tell me about them."

  The sweater felt like nothing he had ever felt before. The softness, especially with her skin below it, so sensual he had a sudden wild fantasy of picking her up, tossing her on that sofa, kissing her until she was breathless, until that weariness was chased from her eyes, replaced with something
quite different.

  He dropped his hand from her shoulder as if he'd been burned. So much for Mr. Self-Control Fallon.

  "I'm just being silly. It doesn't matter. I mean they're only dreams."

  "Tell me about them," he said again.

  She hesitated, then looked over his shoulder. "At first it was a monster. Huge and shapeless, red eyes and foul saliva dropping from his mouth. It was an old-fashioned well, like a wishing well, and he'd pour stuff in it. Luminous green and boiling."

  "And then?"

  She shuddered. "The monster kept changing forms in my dreams. And so did the substance he was pouring in the well. Sometimes it's like tar and other times it's full of horrible things."

  "What does the monster change into?"

  "Last night," she whispered, "he turned into a man. I had the most dreadful feeling he was someone I know."

  Blake registered that and knew the truth in it. Every man had a monster within him. A part of him that would cross the line between what was right and wrong because he could talk himself into it.

  For instance, right now it would be so easy to brush aside the "hands-off" vow he had made about his secretary and gather her to him, run his hand down the silk of her hair, feel her breath against his chest.

  But what was his real motive? To comfort her? Or to satisfy the part of himself that wanted to know all of her, solve her mysteries, taste her lips?

  He settled for giving her shoulder a fraternal little pat. "You can always call me if you're frightened in the night."

  The words were out before he had given them proper thought. He was barreling toward the danger zone. Going to her in the night? He bet she wore one of those long white nightgowns, like the ones they wore in Little House on the Prairie. He thought of being her comfort and strength in the night.

  He was aware she was looking at him, something glowing in her eyes he had not seen before.

  Probably because of the glasses, he told himself firmly.

  "Thanks, Blake. I won't need to call you. It's good enough knowing you're so close."