Five weeks? Her apprehension turned to anxiety. Could she be in contact with Ry for five weeks without her hurt and humiliation showing through? She tried to get her anxiety under control as she forced a tighter grip on her emotions. Just because he would be in town for that long didn’t mean she would be having any contact with him past the reception following the wedding ceremony. His four-week work contract certainly wasn’t anything where their paths would cross and they would find themselves in contact with each other.
The song ended and Ry escorted Jean from the dance floor. “Well? What about having dinner tonight?”
She had never felt so torn in her life. Should she tell him who she was or simply enjoy his attentions and pretend that the past didn’t matter? “I just arrived. I think it would be rude for me to leave right away. After all, I am Susan’s maid of honor. I should be here. And since you’re the best man, I think that would apply to you, too.”
He offered a sincere smile. “You’re right, of course.” He selected a small table in a quiet corner away from the dance floor and held out the chair for her. “What can I get you to drink?”
“A glass of white wine would be nice. Thank you.”
He flashed his sexiest smile. “I’ll be right back.”
Ry headed for the bar. He was more convinced than ever that he knew the tantalizing Jean Summerfield from somewhere. Her smile, something about her eyes, the sound of her voice…wherever it was, he knew it was from long ago. Even though she pushed every lustful button he possessed, he associated her with something different and far more important, something warm and special…something he held very dear. If only he could place where and when.
He carried two glasses of wine back to the table, handing one of them to Jean before regaining his chair. He cocked his head and studied her for a moment.
Ry’s unflinching gaze assailed Jean’s senses as the discomfort over his continued stare grew inside her. She tried to force a casual and upbeat sound to her voice even though it was far from what she felt. “Is something wrong?” A nervous laugh escaped her throat. “Do I have dirt on my face?” She brought her hand to her cheek as if to brush away the offending smudge.
“Not at all.” He captured her hand in his, holding it for a moment before letting it go. He lightly touched her cheek. “Your face is lovely.”
A hint of irritation surrounded her words. She tried to hide her embarrassment. “Then why are you staring at me like that?”
“This may sound silly, but I have this weird feeling that we’ve met somewhere before. There’s something about you that seems very familiar.” He cocked his head. “Have we met before tonight?”
She weighed his question for a moment before answering. “I’ve never been to Los Angeles or Chicago.”
A slight grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “That’s not really an answer, is it?” He eyed her curiously, his mind desperately trying to place her. “I lived in Seattle until I went to college. Perhaps when we were teenagers?”
She raised an eyebrow as she regarded the question that still lingered in his eyes. “Perhaps.”
A slight frown wrinkled across his forehead as he stared intently at her. “Seriously…we have met somewhere, haven’t we?”
“You tell me.” The knot tightened in Jean’s stomach again as an anxiety-ridden tremor worked its way through her body. He obviously intended to push at the topic until he got an answer that satisfied him. What if she told him they had never met? If he later discovered who she was, would he be upset? A little internal huff of disgust stopped her thoughts. He certainly didn’t have any right to be upset fifteen years later. But still…it would be a blatant lie, which went against her grain.
Ry pushed forward with his desire to resolve his quandary. “Okay…I think we have met somewhere before. Since you say you’ve never been to Los Angeles or Chicago I’m going to assume we met when I lived in Seattle, rather than somewhere along the way with my travels.”
He plumbed the depths of her eyes noting the uneasiness that belied her outer calm, an uneasiness that told him he had been right. But if she knew, then why was she refusing to tell him? It was a puzzling situation, something he had not come up against before and didn’t know exactly how to handle. He lightly ran his fingertips across the back of her hand, then reached out and touched her cheek and hair. He once again relied on the charm that had gotten him through many an awkward moment. “Well, since you don’t seem to want to tell me, let’s tackle the dance floor again while I try to delve into my past and figure it out.”
Once again Jean found herself in his arms moving to the music. Ryland Collier had been her dream and fantasy for the two years she knew him prior to the time he had embarrassed and humiliated her with the prom incident. And her nemesis for the fifteen years since then. She knew it was silly and ridiculous to hang on to the hurt of an adolescent happening for such a long time. She had managed to successfully put everything else from her high school days behind her—the dominance of the cold stern grandmother who raised her, insecurities about being overweight and having shabby clothes, embarrassment over the braces on her teeth and her illfitting glasses, her awkwardness and shyness around other people—but not her memory of that terrible night.
He brushed his lips lightly across hers, shocking Jean out of her thoughts. Then his words tickled in her ear. “Since we know each other from somewhere I thought a little ‘hello again’ kiss was in order.” He pulled her closer. A teasing grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You wouldn’t happen to be that little six-year-old girl who lived next door to me when I was seven, would you? The one I played doctor with?”
She couldn’t stop the spontaneous laugh that followed his unexpected comments. “Definitely not. I didn’t play doctor when I was a little girl.”
His eyes sparkled with a teasing delight. “How about when you were a big girl?”
She tried to dismiss the excitement caused by the implication of his words. “I’ve never played doctor.”
“It’s not too late to learn.” A bad boy grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I’ll be happy to teach you the game.”
He sounded more playful than threatening. Susan had been right—he was definitely a charmer. A little shiver of anticipation told her that playing doctor with Ry Collier would be an experience worth exploring.
The song ended. They returned to the table and what remained of their glasses of wine.
“You two getting along okay?” Bill Todd came up behind Ry, clamped his hand on Ry’s shoulder and placed a quick kiss on Jean’s cheek. “It wouldn’t do for the best man and maid of honor to not be getting along.”
It was Ry who immediately responded to Bill’s question. “So far I’ve found out that Jean is a terrific dancer, wears very sexy perfume and never played doctor when she was a little girl.” He flashed his patently charming smile, scooted his chair a little closer to hers and put his arm around her shoulder. “I told her I’d teach her how to play doctor tonight, but so far she’s ignored my invitation. Other than that, we’re getting along just fine.”
Susan joined Bill, taking his hand in hers as she looked questioningly at Jean and Ry. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
Jean detected the nervousness in Susan’s voice and immediately moved to relieve her friend’s tension. “Everything here is just fine, so stop worrying.” She glanced around the room, then offered Susan a sincere smile. “Everyone is obviously having a great time.”
Susan and Bill remained at the table for a few minutes, then moved on to greet some new arrivals. Jean watched as they walked away. “Susan is going to turn into a basket case if she doesn’t calm down and stop worrying about every little thing.”
Ry turned sideways in his chair until he faced her. “Is that the voice of experience speaking?”
“Are you asking if I’ve been the nervous bride?”
Ry glanced down at the table top, then regained eye contact with her. “Well…yes, I guess I am.”
She paused for a moment as if she were contemplating his question. A frown marred her otherwise beautiful face. “Yes, I’ve been the nervous bride before. But for something that only lasted two years I could have saved myself the frustration.”
He heard the bitterness in her voice and saw the discomfort dart across her face. “That doesn’t sound like a very happy story.”
“It isn’t.” She abruptly moved the conversation away from herself. “What about you?”
“Marriage? Not this confirmed bachelor.” A bittersweet chuckle escaped his throat. “I don’t even like to get too close to rice.”
“So, you’ve never been married?”
“Once…very briefly…” A faraway look came into his eyes, followed by a deep-seated anger and bitterness that surrounded his words. “—a long time ago.”
It was definitely a time in his life that Ry didn’t want to talk about. He had been deceived, lied to and manipulated into a loveless marriage that never should have been. It was an experience he swore he’d never repeat. He tried to shove the bad memories away. He didn’t want to think about that miserable time in his past, the two brief months of his marriage that seemed like two centuries.
He had better things to occupy his mind. He had set a goal for himself to be worth twenty million dollars by the time he was thirty-five. Through lots of hard work and shrewd investments he had almost reached his goal and he still had three years to go before his thirty-fifth birthday. He moved to change their conversation from the uncomfortable subject of marriage. He reached out and lightly touched Jean’s cheek, then dropped his hand to cover hers as it rested on the table.
“Why don’t you just tell me where we’ve met and save me the frustration of trying to figure it out?”
She drew in a steadying breath, then exhaled as she made her decision about what to say. An uneasy tremor grabbed her attention, telling her just how uncomfortable she found his insistence on an answer. But the topic had come to a point where she either had to create an awkward situation by telling him to drop it or confess their prior relationship. A lump formed in her throat. She attempted to swallow it before speaking. The nervous jitter that had been bouncing around inside her increased to an annoying distraction. Her words were somewhat tentative. She wasn’t sure she really wanted to say them.
“Does the name Sally Jean Potter ring any bells with you?”
Ry couldn’t have been more stunned if she had reached out and slapped him. He felt his eyes widen in shock. His words came out in a shaken whisper. “Sally Jean? You’re Sally Jean Potter?”
He tried to talk, but only managed a sputtering attempt. “Sally Jean…I…” He shook his head as he tried without much success to say something intelligible. “I…you…”
The horrible guilt he had buried inside him fifteen years ago exploded into his consciousness. He had done a terrible thing to her, but at the time he believed there was no other choice open to him. The worst thing he had done was never explain to her what had happened, why he had canceled their prom date at the last minute. Canceled…perhaps stood up would be a more accurate choice of words. And now every sense and nerve ending in his body screamed at him to get out before things got worse. But how could it possibly be worse than it already was? Besides, he wasn’t seventeen years old anymore. He was a responsible adult who needed to face up to his past. He gathered his composure and tried his best to salvage the moment.
He forced a smile. “Sally Jean…I certainly didn’t recognize you. You’ve changed quite a bit from high school.” He reached out a slightly trembling hand toward her face, almost touching her cheek but stopping before he made physical contact. “No glasses, the braces are gone…”
“And I’m sure you can’t overlook the fact that I’ve lost about thirty pounds.”
He ignored the sarcasm in her voice. “That’s quite a profound change from fifteen years ago.”
Her defensive wall rose to combat her painful memories. Her harsh words carried an edge to them. “Yes, I agree…I was certainly an unattractive awkward mess of a girl back then.”
Her response cut into him, leaving a definite wound and telling him just how much he had hurt her even though it had not been his intention. He cupped her chin in his hand and looked into the depths of her eyes. He leaned forward and quickly brushed his lips against hers. His words came out soft, but heartfelt and sincere. “That’s not what I said. I never thought of you as an unattractive, awkward mess. I always thought of you as someone with special inner qualities that others didn’t have and couldn’t see.”
It was not at all what Jean had expected him to say. She tried to assimilate his words into her anxiety, but they refused to mesh. Was he attempting to charm her out of an embarrassing moment or was he being honest? As much as she wanted to believe what he’d said, she didn’t know if she could trust him.
Ry withdrew his hand and picked up his wineglass, taking a sip before speaking. “When did you decide to drop the Sally and go by Jean?”
“Immediately after my divorce. At the same time that I started wearing contact lenses and lost the thirty pounds.”
“Well…Sally Jean—”
“Just Jean if you don’t mind.” She heard the hard edge that continued to cling to her words even though she hadn’t meant for it to be there. He hadn’t said a word about what happened. Could he have forgotten all about the prom? Perhaps fate had worked in her favor this time by bringing her back in contact with Ry Collier so that the crushing experience could finally be closed and put to rest.
“Of course…Jean.” He tried to force down the anxiety welling inside him. What possible purpose could be served by resurrecting a fifteen-year-old disaster? He was already carrying enough guilt to last two lifetimes without adding to it. He closed his eyes for a moment and an image of sixteen-year-old Sally Jean standing in the grocery store looking at him with pain-filled eyes just two hours after his last minute phone call to tell her he was sick and couldn’t take her to the prom immediately popped into his mind. His throat tightened and a dull thud began to form at his temples. He shook the distressing image away and tried to shove the thought from his mind.
He fell back on the old reliable…his sexy smile and charm, although he wasn’t feeling very charming on the inside. “You’ll have to tell me what you’ve been doing since high school, catch me up on what’s been happening in your life.”
He twisted the stem of his wineglass between his thumb and fingers. “But first…I see your glass is empty, too. I’ll get us another glass of wine, then we can have a long talk.”
“I don’t need another—”
He picked up her glass, winked at her and flashed his most confident smile. “I’ll be right back.”
Jean watched as he made his way through the assembled guests to reach the bar. She turned away, closed her eyes and tried to calm her shattered nerves. Anxiety churned in the pit of her stomach. Ry Collier was everything any woman could want, at least he was everything she had ever wanted. He had never been far from her thoughts all through college, during her short-lived marriage, the disastrous relationship that followed her divorce and the years since.
A moment later Ry returned with two filled glasses. He handed her a glass, then sat down. He raised his glass toward her in the form of a toast. “Here’s to old friends and getting reacquainted.”
Jean took a sip from her glass, then set it on the table. She ran her index finger around the rim. Her words came out almost as if she had not intended to say them out loud. “Old friends…getting reacquainted…that covers a lot of territory, a lot of time and a lot of water under the bridge.”
An uncomfortable sensation pulsed through Ry’s body raising his anxiety level a couple of notches. His high school days were a place and time in his life that he didn’t really want to discuss, return to or delve into anew. Every time someone contacted him about attending his high school reunion—five years, ten years and then just that summer the fifteen-year reunion—he had ma
de it very clear that he was not interested. He had worked hard over the years overcoming the circumstances of his childhood and youth in order to achieve the success he enjoyed today. He didn’t want to relive those bad times.
Sally Jean had been his only haven back then. He could be himself with her and didn’t have to constantly be on guard to make sure he didn’t let that facade slip. He had valued their friendship above all others. And he was the one who had destroyed it. Now fate had given him the opportunity to fix the sins of the past, only he hadn’t been prepared for that past to hit him so abruptly. For someone who was always confident in his words and actions, he wasn’t sure exactly how to go about handling this.
He covered her hand with his. “Let’s see if we can’t lessen the territory, shorten the time and get rid of some of that water flowing under that bridge.”
Once again his nearness made her heart pound and her pulse race. His touch sent tremors of excitement through her body. As much as she wanted to maintain an emotional distance from him, every breath she took seemed to pull her farther and farther into his realm. She steeled herself against his magnetic pull. Before anything else, though, she needed to know what had happened fifteen years ago. She had to put closure to the pain she had been carrying for all those years. She shifted her weight in her chair, fully aware of how awkward it appeared.
Jean’s discomfort was not lost on Ry. He glanced at his watch. The time startled him back to the reality of his business world. He was torn between his responsibilities and his personal needs. He didn’t want to walk out on her at such an inappropriate moment, but he had pressing business matters that required his attention.
“I didn’t realize it was so late. I have a business associate who’s expecting a phone call from me. I need to be on my way.”
“Oh?” The skepticism in her voice matched the uncertainty pushing at her consciousness, an uncertainty mixed with her surprise at his sudden need to leave and disappointment over his apparent decision to turn and run rather than address the past. “Does this mean that your invitation for dinner tonight was nothing more than a come-on line? Just idle conversation? Now that you remember me, you have something else that needs your immediate attention?”
Their Child? Page 39