by Ryanne Corey
Zack wished desperately he believed that. There was a darkness inside him, missing her. He felt as if he didn’t belong to his custom-made life any longer. He’d gone away for his vacation, and when he’d come back, all the rules were changed on him.
“I don’t know what’s right anymore,” he said softly.
When Zack returned home that evening, yet another surprise awaited. A really big one.
Kyle was sitting on his front porch in a little plastic lawn chair he’d apparently dragged around from the backyard. His arms were crossed, his eyes were hard, and he wore the ugliest red-and-green shirt Zack had ever seen in his life.
He could only think of one reason for Kyle’s visit. “What’s happened? Is Anna all right?”
“Nice little place you’ve got here. Lawn needs mowing, though.” Then, with a slightly different tone in his voice, Kyle added, “She’s fine. Anna’s a fighter. She’ll survive you just like she survived everything else in her life. And what’s more, she’ll come out on top.”
Zack sighed heavily, sinking down on the front steps. He realized the irritating veterinarian spoke the truth. “Thank you for sharing that with me, Kyle. For what it’s worth, you couldn’t possibly make me feel worse than I already do.”
“Let’s make this simple,” Kyle said. “I’ve got a wedding coming up, and I don’t have any time to waste. Do you love her?”
Zack stared at him. For whatever reason, he dispensed with sarcasm, evasion and pride. “Yes.”
“Then why are you here while she’s in Grayland Beach?”
“Because I love her. How did you find me?”
“Remember good old Frank, the judge? I knew you worked somewhere in Los Angeles, he did the rest.” Kyle let out his breath in a soft sound. He decided to lay it on the line…just as Zack had done when Kyle had taken a turn at being a raving lunatic. “I thought you were very unimpressive when I first met you, but I never thought you were stupid…until you left Anna high and dry. To me, that is the rationale of a stupid man.”
“Actually, I’m a genius,” Zack said dully.
“Sure you are.” Kyle stood up, pushing his hands in his pockets. Now he was a great deal taller than Zack, which he liked. “Do you remember what you told me? To quote, Anna isn’t responsible for this mess. You turned schizo on her. You’re an idiot, and—”
“I never called you an idiot. Not to your face.”
“Be quiet, I’m not through! How could you take a woman like Anna for granted? She is funny, bright, beautiful, everything a man could want.” Kyle paused, a smug smile tipping his lips. “Anything sound familiar, good buddy?”
“You’ve never seen my temper yet,” Zack said with deceptive mildness. “Believe me, you don’t want to get me going.”
“Oh, like I’m scared of you? Last night I assisted a Doberman pinscher giving birth to thirteen puppies. Nothing can scare me after that.” Kyle started pacing the length of the porch, moving swiftly and impatiently. This was the closest he got to ever losing his temper.
“What do you think, I’m made of stone? I didn’t just meet Anna, I fell in love with her. And living without her is killing me. There. Are you satisfied, Doolittle?”
Kyle’s brow furrowed. “Doolittle? Oh. Very funny. Look, I was only apart from Carrie for a couple of days and I went berserk. Why are you putting yourself through this? More importantly—why are you putting Anna through it? What went wrong between you two?”
“She’s not talking?”
“Not a word. At least, not about you.”
Zack took a long time to answer. His head hurt. His heart hurt. What did a true hero do in a situation like this? Especially when the heroine had been hurt too much and too often, long before she met him. All the lines he had drawn in the past were blurred, all the convictions fading fast.
What did a true hero do?
Zack realized with something akin to awe that his breathing was quick and frightened. Rope’s end, he thought. That’s where I am.
He looked over his shoulder at the visiting veterinarian. “I’ve got some beer in the fridge. You want to come in? I need a friend.”
Eleven
The countdown was at three days. Three days until Kyle and Carrie were married. Three days until they left on their honeymoon and gave Anna a little peace. Three days until Anna could drop the stiff-upper-lip act and allow herself to grieve.
Zack had never even given them a chance. That’s what hurt the most. When she thought about it, which was constantly, she got an actual physical pain in her chest, as if her heart had literally been broken. It was there, crushing her, all the time.
Five years from now, Anna thought, I’ll look back on this experience and think, What a good lesson I learned from that. I’m a much stronger person now.
But that healthy perspective was five long years away.
Carrie called first thing that morning, uncharacteristically babbling about having second thoughts—not about her wedding, but about her wedding dress.
“It’s wrong,” she told Anna, sounding tearful. “Wrong, wrong, wrong. When Kyle sees it, he’s going to hate it. Hate, hate, hate.”
“Are you going to be in it when Kyle sees it?”
“Yes…”
“Then he won’t hate it,” Anna said impatiently. “Carrie, I’ve got the bath running, and I need to—”
“We’ve got to do something,” Carrie said in a breathless rush. “Today. I want to make sure there’s nothing else in town I’d like better.”
“There’s nothing else in town you haven’t already tried on.” Her cool and calm friend was being unusually emotional, Anna thought. Maybe the wedding was giving her a few jitters. “Just calm down, eat something with lots of sugar and call Kyle and tell him you love him. You’ll feel much better, and I won’t have to trail behind you to every store in a fifty-mile radius all day, only to realize you like your original dress best. Yes?”
“No,” Carrie said stubbornly. “Anna, you have to come. I have water-weight buildup and I’m all puffy and swollen. Especially my waist. I can’t decide if a dress is pretty if I can’t even get into it. You can try on the dresses, and I can stand back and get a good look. See? You have to come with me.”
“You’re losing it, Carrie,” Anna said.
“This is the time when my best friend should support me and indulge me. I’ll be over to get you in forty-five minutes.” Click.
Anna had very little interest in what she looked like lately. Consequently, she took a great deal of care getting ready. This was how she had always gotten through her problems, to face the worst of them square on and refuse to buckle in. If she acted like she was normal, she would eventually feel normal. Hopefully.
She applied a bit more makeup than usual, then slipped into a simple white sheath dress that set off her complexion beautifully. Then she twisted her long hair into a glossy knot on the top of her head, put on chunky silver earrings and the delicate silver bracelet that had played such an important part the night she had first met Zack. She wanted to look the opposite of the way she felt. She wanted to appear composed, elegant, happy and content. In reality, she was coming unglued, had no desire to wear anything but her old ratty terry-cloth bathrobe and could hardly remember what it had felt like to look forward to anything. Happiness had left town with the romantic policeman.
And then it was off to Babette’s Bridal Boutique once again.
“Why here?” Anna asked Carrie, following her friend through, around and between the racks of frothy white bridal dresses. “You’ve been here three times already. You’ve got to have all the merchandise memorized by now.”
“Stop whining,” Carrie said. “This is a lovely store, and they have a bigger selection of dresses than anywhere else.” She sorted through a rack of dresses, pulling out four in quick unison. “Here,” she said, shoving them at Anna. “They’re all your size. Try on each and every one. And don’t forget to come out and let me see them all. And save the strapless beaded sati
n for last. I have a feeling that one will look the best on you. On me, I mean.”
Rolling her eyes, Anna trudged off to the spacious dressing rooms to fulfill her maid-of-honor duty. That was her job, after all, to make sure she assisted the bride in any way possible.
The trouble was, she truly didn’t want to try on wedding gowns. She didn’t want to see herself in the mirror, didn’t want to imagine what Zack would think of her in the dress. But it seemed like lately fate didn’t really care what Anna Smith wanted.
Dresses one and two were dismissed as too plain. Dress three was, according to Carrie, like a white birthday cake with too much frosting. Icky. Anna went back to the dressing room like an obedient robot and tried on the last dress, the strapless beaded satin that seemed to be Carrie’s favorite.
It was amazing.
Anna’s big blue eyes seemed to take up half her face as she stared at her reflection in the dressing-room mirror. Her lower lip trembled ever so slightly, reacting to the sudden pitch and drop of her heart in her chest. It might have been designed particularly for her coloring, the rich ivory satin setting off her luminous skin and gleaming tawny hair. Her creamy shoulders were bare above the simply cut strapless bodice. The beaded material was nipped in at the waist, then draped over her hips with an elegant, narrow skirt. A fairy godmother couldn’t have improved upon the whole. The dress wasn’t Carrie’s style at all, but oh, it worked magic for Anna Smith.
She closed her eyes, blinking away the tears that threatened. When she opened them again, Zack Daniels was standing in the dressing room behind her.
“A candy necklace would be a perfect touch,” he said.
Anna couldn’t speak. She couldn’t breathe. She just stood there in her beautiful dress, her eyes locked with his in the mirror. It’s not real, she thought. But what if it is?
“What are you doing here?” she asked hoarsely.
Zack was also having trouble breathing. When he’d opened the dressing-room door and seen her in that dress, he’d received a mortal wound to his heavy-duty, double-insulated cop heart. Desire rushed through him like the hard current of a wild ocean wave. Never had there been a more beautiful woman in the world. Never had there been a more beautiful wedding gown in the world. Put the two together and not a man in the world could have resisted. Had Zack seen her for the first time at this moment, he would have loved her at first sight.
Then again, he had loved her at first sight.
“I couldn’t wait for you to come out of the dressing room,” he said, the words hurting his tense, arid throat. “I wanted to see if I was right.”
Anna turned to face him, her palms touching the heat in her cheeks. She could hardly take him in—the ebony hair, silver eyes, casual jeans and shirt that didn’t begin to disguise his own brand of smooth, dark elegance. “Right about what?”
“About the dress. Babette met me here at ten o’clock last night and I picked it out myself. The minute I saw it, I knew you would break hearts in that wedding gown.”
Anna blinked, shaking her head dazedly. “Are you crazy, or am I?”
Zack took a step closer, bringing him near enough to Anna to smell her perfume. He took a deep breath and drank it in, his heart running wild with ecstasy and fear…a humbling and powerful cocktail of all-too-human emotions. The pure love he felt for her was so intense, his soul seemed to ache with it. He had never known he was capable of this depth of feeling. “Kyle came and saw me a couple of weeks ago. We talked, we argued, we talked some more…and finally I realized something.”
“What?” she whispered. She had lost her battle with the tears, but she hardly noticed.
“I need rescuing, Anna.” His heart was in his eyes. For the first time in his life, he hid absolutely nothing. It was an immense relief to finally admit it. “I figured I was born to do the rescuing, but I was wrong. I thought you needed protecting, but I was wrong about that, too. You’re the strongest woman I have ever known in my life. I knew that, but I guess I needed some perspective to really understand.”
Anna’s thick lashes worked to clear her vision. Her heart was slamming into her ribs, wreaking havoc on her breathing. “Understand what? You seemed pretty clear on what you wanted—and didn’t want—when you left. What could possibly be left to say?”
He swallowed hard, then cleared his throat. This was the moment he had anticipated and wanted and dreaded and prayed for on the flight to Oregon. It was the reason he had taken six aspirin in a futile attempt to calm his nerves. He’d had three Bloody Marys for the same reason, with the same result. Nothing had tamed his anxiety.
Anna’s eyes went round as he dropped to one knee. Rounder still when he pulled a small velvet box from his pocket and flipped it open.
“Please rescue me,” he whispered. Everything was shaking, his fingers, the ring box, his voice. “I’m lost, Anna. It’s like I ended when we ended. I love you so much. Marry me, Anna. Just trust me one more time, and I swear I’ll never let you down again.”
Anna stared at him. “You left me,” she whispered.
Zack’s lips twisted painfully. “I thought I was saving you from my life. Then I realized I had no life without you. I don’t know how we’ll solve it all or how hard it will be or where we’ll live. But if we’re together…we’ll be all right.”
Babette’s Bridal Boutique had an enormous grandfather clock ticking away in the front of the store. Suddenly it began to chime, one…two…three…all the way to twelve. The silence that followed was surreal. Twelve o’clock, the all-important hour in fairy tales. Anna felt as though someone had cast a spell over her, rendering her unable to speak or move. “Yes,” she said in a tight whisper.
Zack’s pulse was no longer measured in beats. It had quickened into a waterfall, strong and wild. Yes was the only word he had wanted to hear. But he needed to hear it more than once.
“On Saturday,” he said hoarsely. “Three days from now. Will you?”
“What? Zack, I can’t. You know Carrie and Kyle are…”
“Looking forward to a double wedding. Believe it or not, Kyle’s agreed to be my best man. God must have a wonderful sense of humor.” Zack’s smile felt shaky, his eyes hot and stinging. “Anna, say yes and I’ll never knowingly give you cause to cry again. I know this is just the beginning for us, but I promise to do whatever it takes to make you happy and keep you safe. Please…. Wear this dress and walk down the aisle to me and teach me how to believe in forever.”
“Three days?” Anna breathed, her eyes softly unfocused. “Oh, my.”
“And…one more thing.” A pause, then with a tinge of guilt to his voice, “I probably should tell you about my financial circumstances. I’m not exactly what you would call a wealthy man.”
“You think that matters? Zack, I don’t care if we have to struggle, as long as—”
“No, you don’t understand.” He cleared his throat. “I’m not a rich man, Anna. I’m an obscenely, jaw-droppingly, filthy-rich man. I sort of have a way with stocks, and…I ended up with all kinds of money. Like…lots. We couldn’t spend it all in one lifetime.”
Too many surprises, Anna thought, sinking down on the padded love seat in the corner. Too much to take in all at once. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Just tell me you’ll marry me in three days.” His eyes reflected all the love and promise in the world. “Sweetheart, my knees are killing me, but I’m not getting up until you say yes.”
A soft, slow smile came to her face, sunshine after rain, hope eclipsing despair. “Yes,” she said unsteadily.
The single, heartfelt word signaled the end of Anna’s tenuous control. With a gasp she slid off the love seat, going down to the love of her life like hot wax. Never had Babette’s Bridal Boutique seen such unbridled enthusiasm in its clientele. Caught between laughter and tears, they kissed in mad, lost ways, shaken, hungry and elated. They were too joy-filled to be eloquent, too desperate to worry about propriety. They had come so very close to losing it all.
&n
bsp; And that was how Babette herself found them a moment later, wrapped in each other’s arms and kissing shamelessly right there on the lavender carpet in the dressing room. Shock lifted the woman’s ample bosom at this public display of affection, then she sighed, and an envious smile tipped her lips. Without Zack or Anna being the wiser, she carefully tiptoed out of the dressing room.
It looked to be the beginning of a very happy ending.
Epilogue
“We don’t need to have a really large family,” Anna said. “Maybe five. Would that be all right with you?”
Zack’s head turned slowly, gauging her seriousness. “Five?”
They were sitting on the porch swing, waiting out a rainstorm on the wraparound porch of the Victorian. Since discovering she was pregnant four months earlier, Zack’s wife was nesting for all she was worth. Ferociously.
“And it’s good to have them close, don’t you think?” Anna said innocently, setting the porch swing to rocking with her bare foot. “So they’ll all be best friends.”
Zack smiled faintly, touching her rounded stomach with his hand. “Can we concentrate on this one? I’m still in the nervous daddy stage. What if we have a girl and she gets herself a boyfriend that we know is going to be trouble—”
Anna grinned, tucking her head into his shoulder. “Then you can take him out to your boys’ ranch and get him sorted out. Isn’t that why you founded it in the first place? Think how convenient.”
Since marrying Anna, Zack had discovered there were more ways to make a difference in the world than just being a cop. His fortune had gone to good use, building a sprawling ranch in the foothills east of Grayland Beach for troubled teens. Surprisingly, he’d found his new undertaking every bit as challenging as being a cop and far more rewarding. The story didn’t end on a hopeless note when he put someone in jail. He was able to follow the kids through their hard times, get them counseling and provide some sort of family atmosphere that they had usually lacked in their own homes. In three years the ranch had earned an excellent reputation.