It scared her how much she found herself longing to do that again.
So in the late afternoon, when Audrey clapped her hands and said it was time for the next activity—a surprise that was not on the agenda—Charlotte didn’t hesitate to be herded toward the parking lot. Anything to get her mind off of him. Anything to get away from her body’s demands to cozy up to his lean strength.
This time she ended up beside her ex-stepsister in the backseat of the minivan. She breathed a sigh of relief until Audrey poked her in the ribs with a sharp elbow. “Do you see how it is with us?” she whispered. “Do you understand how things are between me and Connor?”
Diplomacy, Charlotte reminded herself. She’s a client, and a bride, and not the teenage brat who used to steal the last of your clean sweatsocks. “I can tell he loves you very much.” Poor guy.
Audrey let out a little sigh. “I think so, too,” she said. “I want us to be happy. I want our marriage to be a strong one more than anything. Do you think I’ll be a good wife? That’s what Connor deserves. That’s what I want to be for him.”
Charlotte stared at her. The Audrey she knew had never let a chink in her confidence show. Where Charlotte had attempted covering up her insecurities with a mantle of detachment edged with sarcasm, Audrey’s beauty and assurance had always seemed polished and solid. All the way to the core.
Frankly, until now, Charlotte hadn’t suspected the other woman had a heart beneath that perfect polish. But ... wow. Audrey acting like a human being with worries and vulnerabilities was, God, it was kind of touching. “If you put your mind to it, Audrey, I’m sure you can accomplish anything.” She surprised herself by believing every word.
Her ex-stepsister sent her a skeptical look. “If I had that kind of power, our parents would still be together.”
Shock felt like a slap to the face. Charlotte drew back as far as she could, her mind working over and over that last sentence. “You ... you wanted that? You hoped their marriage would last?”
“Of course.” Audrey looked down, spinning the diamond that she wore on her dainty finger. “I wanted a mother. I wanted my father to be happy. A sister wasn’t so bad.”
“You hated me.”
“I didn’t hate you. We didn’t like the same things ... but that didn’t matter.”
“You took my clothes!”
A small smile turned up the corners of Audrey’s mouth. “Only the ones I liked and that fit me ... which weren’t many.”
“The sweatsocks,” Charlotte grumbled. “Yours were never clean.”
“I paid you back in fashion advice.” Audrey’s gaze flicked over Charlotte’s outfit—a bright racer-backed tank paired with a flounced full skirt that skimmed her knees. “And it looks like you took it. Very cute clothes you’ve been wearing.”
“Gee, thanks.” Charlotte felt a little more comfortable with this Audrey, who handed out backhanded compliments. “Without you I might still be in flannel shirts and overalls,” she said dryly.
“It wasn’t that,” Audrey said. “Your mother was always encouraging you to buy things that were more suited to a petite blonde, that’s all.”
“A petite blonde like you.”
“Like me,” Audrey admitted. “It’s why I always thought she might take to me.”
There was an echo of hurt that Charlotte found familiar in the other woman’s voice. “She cared for you,” she said. “It wasn’t because of us that they divorced.”
“I never heard from your mother again, though I sent her a Christmas card with my contact info every year.”
“Peter didn’t call me once either,” Charlotte replied.
They both were silent for a moment. Then Audrey clutched Charlotte’s arm and started whispering to her in a fierce voice. “What am I doing? Why would I think any marriage could last?”
Charlotte swallowed, trying to think of what to say. She could see that they were turning into a parking lot and if freedom wasn’t that close, she might have bailed out the window. “Audrey ...”
“I’m not kidding. Am I making a huge mistake?”
Their car stopped behind another, already parked. Both Luke and Connor were climbing out of that one. “Look at your groom,” Charlotte said, pointing through the glass. “Does he look like a mistake?”
Audrey’s expression softened. A glow came into her eyes. It freaked Charlotte a little, to see how she was transformed, just by gazing on the man she was engaged to marry.
Her ex-stepsister’s gaze darted back to Charlotte. “But—”
“Who has the gloomy eyebrows now?”
It made Audrey laugh. She glanced at Connor again and all the tension went out of her. “Thanks,” she said. “I think you’re the only person here who could have talked me out of that little panic attack.”
Which freaked Charlotte just a little bit more. She had become the defender of marital possibility? That wasn’t who she was!
But her fears only grew as she comprehended the next item on the wedding party bonding agenda. They were parked beside a field. And in that field were large baskets and long lines attached to slowly filling orbs of parachute-like material. Audrey announced they were about to embark on a hot-air ballooning adventure.
Charlotte’s heart rose to clog her throat. Suddenly Luke was beside her, his hand at the small of her back. “Are you going to be okay with this? I remember you’re afraid of heights.”
She glanced at him. “How do you know that?”
“It’s one of the few secrets you ever divulged.”
Maybe it was stupid to feel more vulnerable that he knew about her weakness. But she couldn’t deny the sentiment, so she decided to disavow her fear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ll be fine. Just fine.”
He released a sigh that sounded suspiciously frustrating, but she had enough emotion roiling around in her belly and brain and so she declined to think more about it. Quicker than she liked, they were divided into groups and helped into the baskets. Her nerves jittering, she waited for them to leave the ground, unaware of who shared the space around her.
Then the body behind hers shifted and she knew the identity of at least one of her companions. She shouldn’t be relieved to have Luke at her back, but she figured if she threw up on him, he’d take it better than most.
As the basket lifted in the air, she thought getting sick was a very real possibility. She crossed her arms over her chest, surreptitiously hugging herself. Instinct had her closing her eyes, but that made her stomach’s pitching even worse, so she opened them and focused on her size 9 sandals. They were a toasty brown, with a myriad of straps and a wedge heel. She tried thinking back to where exactly she’d bought them ...
The air seemed to bump them from below, and she gasped, jolted out of her reverie. Her gaze jumped from her toes to the scenery surrounding them. They were really moving now, the ground receding and their cars turning to children’s toys. She felt her face go green.
“Honey.” Luke drew her back against his chest. “Are you all right?”
The air moving past the basket dried the cold sweat on her face. “With any luck I’ll die before I die.”
Luke’s hands tightened on her upper arms. “Don’t talk like that.”
His harsh tone had her turning around, for a moment sidetracked from her shakiness. “What?” The bones of his face suddenly seemed to push against his skin. His eyes glittered. “Are you all right?”
“Sure.” He blew out a breath. “I just ... Let’s talk about something else.”
She kept her gaze trained on his face. “Preferably not the great amount of space between my feet and the ground.”
“Hah. So you are afraid of heights.” He seemed completely relaxed now.
“And spiders.”
“All girls are afraid of spiders,” he scoffed.
She bristled, unwilling to be one of a common horde. “Maybe, but not just anyone is terrified of tripe.”
“No one really likes to eat tripe.�
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“I’m afraid of looking at it,” she said, clarifying. “Those creepy little chambers. Sometimes sponges can gross me out, too.”
He was staring at her.
“Too much information?”
“I’m just pondering how we could have dated for so long without me guessing your fear of a common cleaning implement.”
“I keep things to myself.”
“I’ll say.” His voice was dry.
“Well, I’m sharing now.” Ironically, it seemed to keep the scariness at bay. “I bet you didn’t know it’s possible that I was a tin can in a previous life. I’m also afraid of goats.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” He turned her to face him. She didn’t notice the earth slipping below them as she looked into green eyes that held a spark of contagious humor. “Don’t you remember our visit to the zoo?”
Oh, she had forgotten. They’d gone to the world-famous one in San Diego, just a couple of hours away. Every exhibit had been so interesting, from the meerkats to the hippos, that she’d been lulled into a sense of security. The fact was, Luke had that kind of effect on her. So one minute they’d been gazing on the Galapagos tortoises, the next he’d led her into another enclosure without her actually taking in which it was. Then she’d instantly frozen up, easy prey to the four-legged, forelocked creatures who came nibbling at her clothes.
“They would have eaten me alive!” The memory made her clutch at his shirt. “But you saved me by immediately carting me out of there.”
“Glad you remember it that way, sweetheart,” he said with an unabashed grin. “I did get you out of there, but not before I took a minute to snap this.” His hand reached for his wallet.
When he opened it, they might as well have tipped upside down in the gondola. Her stomach took an elevator fall and that cold sweat broke out all over her skin again.
Luke had photos of her in his wallet. Like Peter, two, face-to-face. In one, she was at the petting zoo, standing statue-still, her eyes screwed tight and her body rigid as a creature of the damned nipped at the hem of her tee. She looked silly and childish and she couldn’t imagine why he carried it with him unless it was to remind himself of the mistake he’d almost made by wanting more from her.
“Every time I look at it I think of how you clung to me when I took you from the petting corral,” Luke said quietly. “It was probably the tightest you ever let me hold you.”
Charlotte’s heart was pounding so hard she could feel her blood knocking against the pulse points at her wrists and her temples. Fear tasted metallic on her tongue.
The other picture made her even more alarmed. In it, they were seated at an outdoor table at a pier-side restaurant. Luke had handed his cell phone to their waiter and asked him to press the camera icon. She’d been reading the menu, not paying attention to the request, and only looked up—looked at Luke—when he called her name. The server had caught that moment. Charlotte, her feelings for Luke written all over her face.
She’d been in love with him then.
A buzzing sounded in her ears. He’d kept photos of her just like Peter Langford. All this time, these two men had been carrying something of her around with them.
And she’d never forgotten them, either.
She’d never stopped loving Luke.
Oh, God. I’ve never stopped loving Luke.
He was saying something to her as he returned his wallet to his pocket. “What?” she asked, not wanting him to sense her secret. She had to keep her cover. She had to stay strong. “What did you say?”
“I’m asking if that’s all your fears then.” He ticked them off with his fingers. “Heights, spiders, tripe, and goats.”
“Don’t forget sponges.”
“I won’t forget sponges.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek and whispered in her ear. “Nor your terror of commitment.”
“Nor my terror of commitment,” she murmured in agreement. Because no matter what she felt for Luke, forgetting that would be the scariest thing of all.
When they touched down, the balloon people served champagne and a light dinner on picnic tables set up under canopies in the launching field. Relieved to be back on solid earth and compelled to drown the disturbing self-revelation about her feelings for Luke, Charlotte had her share of the bubbly and then some. Once they were back at the hotel, she stumbled over her own tipsy feet on the way across the parking lot. Straightening, she started forward again, only to be nearly run over by a taxi speeding toward the porte-cochère.
Its brakes squealed, she lurched back, then stumbled again, falling to her knees just inches from the vehicle’s yellow bumper. A hand yanked her to her feet—Luke’s, she supposed—because it was his voice that yelled at that taxi driver. The cabbie yelled back that it was the woman who wasn’t watching where she was going.
Her head was still reeling and her knees still smarting when Connor interrupted and calmed the situation. Whatever he murmured to his brother had Luke going quiet, but even in her slightly inebriated state she felt the menace bubbling in him. With deliberate movements, she extracted her arm from his hold and made her way poolside again, following the rest of the wedding party. Luke stalked behind her.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. His face was set in furious lines. “Geez,” she complained. “What’s the big deal?”
“You were almost killed,” he muttered.
Not even close, she thought, rolling her eyes. “It’s just a life,” she said lightly. “Just my little ol’ life.”
She thought she heard his back teeth grind, but ignored it to throw herself onto one of the cushioned lounge chairs by the pool. Luke came to a halt beside her, and hovered. “You’re bleeding,” he said, his voice sounding strangled.
The fall onto rough asphalt had scraped both knees. Now that she looked at the nasty scrapes, they started to hurt. One had caused enough blood to flow that a trail of it dripped halfway down her shin. Charlotte made a face and stood. “I’ll go clean them up. I brought some plastic bandages with me.”
Luke was stalking her again. She felt his moody presence like a black cloud following her toward their room. She didn’t bother trying to lock him out. Instead she left the door open and moved into the bathroom, where she rummaged for the first aid supplies in her toiletries bag.
Once they were on the counter, he joined her in the small room. Without saying a word, he pushed her onto the closed lid of the toilet seat and went about cleaning and bandaging the wounds. She held back her winces when she saw he still wore that fierce expression.
Déjà vu, she thought, as he tended her. It was just like that night he’d taken her home to look after her blisters. Letting him care for her then had led to all this trouble. “Listen, Luke, I’m sorry you feel this need to patch me up, but I’m actually—”
“Excuse me for caring about your ‘little ol’ life.’ ” He tossed the washcloth into the sink and then stomped out of the bathroom.
Charlotte washed her face and hands with cool water and then took another moment to run a brush through her hair. The last of the champagne bubbles had dissipated from her system in her close call and its aftermath. Luke was still nearby, his uncharacteristic anger tainting the air like black smoke. She found him standing by the sliding glass door that led to a small patio, looking out at the greenery surrounding a small glass-topped table and chairs.
She didn’t think he saw them. She didn’t think he was seeing anything.
When he didn’t turn around, she crossed over to him and placed a hesitant hand on his back. His muscles felt like steel. “I’m fine,” she said, giving him a tentative pat. “You’ve made me well.”
“Yeah?” His voice sounded like he’d swallowed grated glass. “Maybe now there’s someone else in the room who needs tending. Maybe it’s me who needs a distraction from my fears this time.”
Puzzled, Charlotte flattened her hand on his spine. “Luke?”
In one quick move he spun and crushed her against him, burying his fa
ce in her hair.
“Luke?”
He only answered by yanking back her head and latching his mouth onto hers. His tongue sought immediate entry. She gave it to him, opening her mouth for what felt like a dire, emergency-level kiss.
Her moan only seemed to drive his frenzy higher. He clutched at her as he kissed her, his hands gripping her shoulders, her hips, and then her ass, tilting her pelvis to grind against his.
He was heavy, fully aroused, and his skin was so hot that she thought the smoke she’d sensed earlier was really in the room now, the result of the fire of his passion. He lifted his head to let her get a breath, but she didn’t think he needed oxygen, because his mouth didn’t leave her skin. It bit at her jaw and sucked on her neck and ran along her collarbone.
He was ripping at his clothes as he kissed her. His shirt was undone and his jeans unfastened when he pushed her down to the mattress. She landed with an “oomph” and then another was expelled from her lungs when he dropped onto her body, pinning her to the bed even as he was pushing up the hem of her skirt.
His hands were hot and hard on her thighs and she felt his fingers curl around the edges of her panties. They ripped and he tore them away.
He was panting; she was panting. The rigid column of his penis was naked against the crease between her thigh and hip, its presence burning like a brand, the tip of him already wet. His mouth was on hers again, his tongue thrusting and dominant, rubbing against hers with carnal, ferocious intent.
Her pulse was throbbing and her clitoris was, too, and she tried shifting, tried moving so that she could get him to touch her there, where her craving for him was centered. But he resisted, holding her down with his weight as if he thought she meant to run away from him.
But she’d never done that! She’d been the one left behind. For fourteen months, she’d been in her same place, living with the image of Luke turning his back and leaving her.
The memory made a sob crawl up her throat. When he turned his head to string kisses across her cheek, it came out, a little jerk of sound. Luke froze.
Kiss the Bride Page 17