"What's funny?" she asked.
Jarrod reached for another envelope. Catherine dropped her gaze so Audrey couldn't see her struggling to keep from laughing.
"Your sister," Jarrod answered. "She has got the dirtiest mind. She says things in my ear that make me blush or laugh."
"Jarrod!"
"Deny it," he said, challenging her.
"I have things to do," Audrey announced, not waiting for Catherine to confirm or deny Jarrod's accusation. "Please finish the envelopes, and remember, Jarrod, you have fittings tomorrow morning. So don't stay out all night."
"Yes, Mommie," Jarrod said in a little-boy voice.
Audrey left them. "How could you say that?" Catherine asked the moment her sister was out of earshot.
"Which part?"
"You know which part."
"Did you really want me to tell her why I was laughing?"
Catherine pulled another envelope. She checked off the last address she'd written and started the next one. "I didn't even know we knew this many people."
"I didn't even know this many people lived in the entire state."
Catherine laughed. She laughed a lot with Jarrod. It was a wonder that she did. She wouldn't have thought she could be this comfortable with him. Yet they seemed to fit together so well. She finished her envelope and reached for another. Jarrod reached at the same time. Their hands collided. Catherine glanced at him and grabbed for the envelope. Jarrod grabbed at the same time. She tried to take it. He stopped her.
"Stop," she said. He continued to hold on to the envelope she wanted in a game of tug-of-war.
Catherine took one of the addressed ones and threw it at him. He ducked but didn't release his hold. Then he took one of the other addressed ones and tossed it at her. She parried left so it missed her.
"This is childish," she told him.
"Yes," he agreed. "You let go."
"I saw it first," she said, trying not to laugh and losing the attempt.
They each continued trying to get the next envelope and throwing the already addressed ones. Smiling turned to laughter as both of them shifted and ducked the oncoming missiles. Jarrod reached for another envelope. He tossed it. Catherine pushed herself back. She overbalanced and started to fall. Letting go of the envelope, she grabbed for Jarrod. He let go too. The fragile hold she had on staying upright fell away. The two of them crashed to the floor into the pool of envelopes they'd thrown at each other.
Jarrod picked up envelopes and again tossed them playfully at her. Catherine whipped her head from side to side, warding off any impact.
"Stop it," she cried, fighting the missiles. "Audrey will kill us if we don't finish."
"No she won't," Jarrod said. "I'm bigger than she is."
"It isn't strength she'll need."
Jarrod stopped his banter. She looked up at him. The smile on his face disappeared. Catherine swallowed, feeling her heart race and her throat go dry. Jarrod reached down and brushed her hair from her forehead.
"What are you doing?"
"Playing with your hair."
Catherine froze. She felt the warmth of his touch traveling through her.
Jarrod was staring at her. Catherine couldn't move. For some reason his gaze kept her still. His hand caressed her hair near her shoulder. She felt his fingers tugging the lock he held but didn't move, letting him rub the strands back and forth between his fingers.
"I like your hair," he said in a whisper. "I like the feel of it."
"Most. . . most men like women's hair," she got out. What was he doing to her? Why was her body reacting this way? As if she was in some huge cosmic tingling machine. The feeling was pleasant, calming, enjoyable, but she could feel the underlying strength beneath it. She knew the pleasure could change to rapture, the calm to excitement and the enjoyable to inevitable. She needed to stop this. She needed to break the veil that had been knitted around them. She needed to reach for something solid, something that would restore her world to the normality she knew existed but couldn't seem to make herself want to find.
"I like the feel of your hair," he murmured. "It's soft like the night."
Catherine had never heard him speak like that. She'd tried to make his comment general, but he'd refined it to specific. His words enwrapped her. His hand advanced from her hair to her cheek. Somewhere in Catherine's mind, she knew this was outside the rules, but she couldn't for the life of her remember what the rules were.
“Jarrod.'' Her voice was unrecognizable as her own. It was dark, low and. . .offering was the only word she could think of to describe it. She was offering herself to Jarrod. Asking him to take the next step, a step she, in her rational mind, had already decided wasn't to be taken. But there was nothing rational going on in her mind.
Jarrod seemed to hear her silent plea. He leaned forward. Catherine's eyelids lowered. She saw his mouth coming toward her. It was a sensual, kissable mouth. She could feel desire building within her. She wanted it, wanted to feel his kiss again. She wanted to know if the same sensations she'd experienced in the swing at Audrey's could be repeated.
Catherine reached up and cupped Jarrod's face. She held it for a second, feeling the smoothness of his shaven skin. Then her head lifted the tiny distance that separated them.
His mouth was soft and warm against hers. Emotion replaced logic in her mind. Feelings took control of her. Sensation snaked around, over and under her. Jarrod's body lay partially across hers. He scooped his fingers under her neck and pulled her into his embrace as he deepened the kiss. Catherine's arms slid around his neck, drawing him close to her.
Jarrod covered her with his body. A moan as pure as a first light after an Alaskan winter escaped her throat. He raised his head for a moment. Catherine saw raw need in his eyes. His mouth took hers again. His tongue dipped into her mouth, then aggressively took control. She welcomed it, welcomed the feelings that climbed over each other as they raced through her system. Her entire being melted in the white-hot explosion that took hold of her. The air was sucked from the room. She could feel it liquefying before it evaporated, leaving them in a vacuum of sensation, a sizzle of emotion. Erotic soldiers charged inside her, carrying out commands Jarrod's mouth issued. She heard him groan and felt herself lifted as if her body merged with his.
Incapable of thinking clearly, Catherine wrapped herself in Jarrod. Feeling the tilt and whirl of a carnival ride, she was dizzy with wonder, drunk with the effect of his mouth devouring hers. She didn't know how long she could go on. She didn't want it to stop, never wanted him to release her, but she was sure she'd die in this magical world of sensual pleasure.
No one was meant to know this. No one was meant to understand the depths one man could carry a woman to. They'd crossed over the threshold somehow, moved beyond the realm of reality and entered a fantastical world of uncharted seas and panoramic idealism, where light was pure, blinding and indescribably magnificent.
Catherine didn't know when Jarrod ended the kiss. She only knew he was holding her against his chest, her head on his shoulder, her heart hammering like an electric drill, and she was panting for breath. Her body was flushed and hot and she felt as if he'd made love to her. Through her clothes, he'd taken her, shown her what life with him could be like, what she would miss in her sham of a marriage. What deception really meant. They weren't deceiving everyone else. The deceit was all internal. And she was going to have to live with it.
***
Concentration was out of the question today. Jarrod had a desk full of work to get done. Blue prints spilled from his drafting board onto the floor. Designs for buildings in various stages of completeness could not keep his attention. His return to Rhode Island brought him back to the firm that had sent him to England, but it took only days to become routine and full. Yet Jarrod couldn't think of work. His mind was elsewhere, lost on a dining-room floor in a small house only a few miles from where he sat. He'd relived that kiss a hundred times in the past three days. It an
d Catherine were taking over his entire life.
The problem was, he hadn't intended to kiss her. He hadn't expected their light banter to land them on the floor, but instinctively his hands had reached for her when she started to fall. Then everything took on a life of its own.
You'd think he'd have learned by now. He was twenty-nine, not nineteen. Men and women didn't play together unless they were both prepared for the consequences. Catherine had explained the rules. And kissing her wasn't allowed, not unless it was necessary, prompted by an audience, expected by a crowd, not when they were alone. Yet her hair had intrigued him, especially the way she kept flipping it over her shoulder.
He should have known better than to start playing with her. He had plenty of history that told him nothing ever went as planned with Catherine. When he'd intentionally hit the tennis ball onto the lawn and she ran to get it moments before the sprinklers came on, she slipped and hit her head. He spent half the day in the emergency room, then the other half keeping her awake all night to make sure she was all right. When she was sixteen, he hired an ice cream truck to come to her birthday party, but instead the male strippers he'd hired for another party showed up. He never thought her mother would get over that, especially when Catherine wanted to date one of the strippers.
He ran his tongue over his tooth, physical evidence of another prank gone wrong. This time he'd been the one in the emergency room when their sailboat had cracked up on the rocks near Benton Point and he'd been thrown head first onto a rock.
And now he was in a quandary. What was he to do about Catherine? He could back out of this, claiming they didn't know each other well enough. But weren't engagements a time for people to get to know each other? Couldn't they say they'd discovered their marriage just wasn't going to work out and they found out before any real harm was done?
Jarrod stared blankly at the blueprint in front of him. He'd been looking at it for nearly an hour and felt as if he'd never seen it before. Everything about the blue and white lines was like a foreign language to his brain. He'd worked with men who had one-track minds. He always prided himself on being able to juggle several things at one time, but he was no longer earning his keep. Catherine consumed his thoughts like a jealous goddess, demanding his full and undivided attention.
He thought more about breaking their engagement. For both their sanity, it was the right thing to do. But would Catherine understand? She was convinced Audrey and her mother were out to find her a man, any man; they just wanted her married. Jarrod understood. He'd seen Audrey in action more than once, and when she combined forces with her mother there was no stopping them. But Catherine had managed to elude any unwanted proposals up to this point. She could continue doing it. Or. . .he stopped. He could find her someone else to marry. That would get him off the hook.
Jarrod forgot the plans on his desk and started thinking of the men they both knew, someone who was compatible with Catherine—just enough to make her family believe she could fall in love with him. Half an hour later he'd rejected every male in the area over twenty and under fifty. They were too young, too old, too silly, too starchy, too tight, too loose, too everything. . .Jarrod wouldn't admit he didn't want her marrying anyone else. He couldn't see her lying on that floor in her dining room, throwing invitations and laughing or playing bride-and-groom with anyone other than him. If this engagement was a test of his will, he'd already lost the battle.
***
The bridal shop was busy with happy brides, bridesmaids and mothers. Catherine turned in circles at the direction of the seamstress, who put pins everywhere. The clerks moved through the aisles, carrying dresses in and out of fitting rooms. Every now and then there was a burst of laughter or a cry of surprise as a bride, completely dressed in wedding regalia, stepped out and awed her friends and family. Catherine turned to look every time she heard the sound. She found it hard not to get caught up in the moment, to remember that she was here to go through the motions, that her wedding was a friendly arrangement and not a real marriage.
"Stand up straight." Catherine forgot the seamstress's instructions. "We're nearly finished." Quickly she obeyed the small woman's command and looked over the brightly lighted room. Audrey was the only person with her. Elizabeth would be her maid of honor. Audrey and two other close friends would act as bridesmaids. Their dresses were scheduled to arrive next week and they would come for their own alterations.
"Okay," the woman said with a satisfied smile. She stood back. She wore a short blue smock over her dress. A tape measure hung around her neck, a wrist pincushion on her arm.
Tears sprang to Catherine's eyes as she turned on the thirty-inch pedestal and saw herself reflected in the three-way mirror. Pain pierced her heart at the reflection of a bride, a beautiful, lace-covered bride, ready to take her vows and join the man she loved. She couldn't help it. The tears spilled down her cheeks, hot and salty.
"That's a common reaction," the seamstress said to Audrey. "Most brides don't know what emotions will come out when they put on their gown. Then everything is beautiful—blurred, but extremely beautiful."
"Catherine, you're so lucky," Audrey said. "Most brides don't find gowns that need practically no alteration."
Catherine stood on the pedestal, above her sister and the seamstress, oblivious of anyone else in the room. She stared at the woman in the mirror. Inside the white lace and beads was her, Catherine Carson, impetuous, capricious, spontaneous, unpredictable, Catherine Carson. But who stared at her from the mirror? Who was this woman dressed in white? She'd never thought of herself as a bride, never really expected to marry, especially after her breakup with Jeff Sherman. There was too much to lose in marriage, but with this dress on, she could see all the promise, all the expectations of the bride and groom. She could hear the music playing, see the church aisle, imagine herself as she floated on her father's arm. She could see the bridesmaids and the groomsmen waiting.
It was surreal, cloaked with streaming rays of light, refracted through stained-glass windows. And at the end of the aisle . . . she gasped.
Jarrod!
He stepped out of the rays with his arms outstretched, waiting, inviting, beckoning. Catherine shook her head, dislodging the image. She had to get out of this dress.
"Unzip me," she said, moving off the pedestal and heading for the dressing room.
"Wait, Catherine," Audrey called. "You'll stick yourself with the pins. The dress doesn't need much, but there are still pins in it."
"Unzip me," she said through clenched teeth.
"'Is anything wrong?" A salesclerk rushed over, looking distressed. Catherine couldn't explain what had come over her. She didn't know it would happen. She needed to talk to Jarrod. He was right. This was not the right thing to do. Her plan was good, but she should have insisted they elope. A wedding with white gown and orange blossoms was the stuff of couples truly in love. She and Jarrod only needed a justice of the peace. The gown was too much. She couldn't marry him in a gown, walk down that aisle, stand up in front of all their friends and swear to love, honor and cherish.
She just couldn't do it.
"Catherine?" Audrey called her name again. Catherine didn't answer. She tore at the sleeves to get out of the dress, uncaring of the delicacy of the fabric. Audrey looked at the clerk. "She's just nervous," Audrey explained.
"I'll get her something to drink," the clerk said, leaving them.
"Catherine, are you all right?" Audrey asked as soon as the woman left.
"I'm fine. I just didn't know I'd feel like this."
Audrey smiled. "That's all right, Catherine. All brides feel like this the first time they see themselves in a wedding gown. Suddenly they understand what everything is all about."
No, they don't, she wanted to shout. If Catherine told her sister what was really going on, Audrey would be appalled that Catherine even thought of a fake engagement, let alone a wedding.
And after the wedding—what then? She was going to l
ive with Jarrod. They were friends, but not lovers. Not yet! Her mouth opened in surprise. Where had that come from? Stop it, Catherine. She shook herself mentally. She knew where it came from. It came from the kiss she and Jarrod had shared. While he kissed her, she didn't want him to stop. She wanted him to go on and she wanted more. She wanted him to make love to her. Jarrod, of all people. She hadn't seen him in years, and when he had been in Newport, he was always playing some joke on her or embarrassing her. Yet her mind was full of him. He was the only man she thought of when she thought of marriage. But this wasn't a marriage, she screamed silently. This was an arrangement for six months. Only six months.
Catherine reached down to pick up the dress and hand it to her sister. She stopped in mid-reach. Suppose Jarrod played another joke on her. Suppose he didn't show up for the ceremony?
A fresh batch of tears rushed to her eyes. She couldn't stop them. What was wrong with her? Catherine grabbed her jeans and shirt and quickly pulled them on. The clerk brought her a bottle of water and a glass. Catherine pulled the top off and drank from the bottle, tipping it up and draining the contents.
"Audrey, I have to go."
"But. . ."
"I know we agreed to do some shopping." Catherine couldn't remember what they were supposed to shop for—place settings, silverware, bed sheets, she didn't care. "I need to see Jarrod. We have to talk."
She slipped her purse strap over her shoulder.
Audrey stopped her exit. "There isn't anything wrong, is there?" Catherine's expression must have said something, for Audrey continued. "Most brides get nervous, Catherine. You and Jarrod didn't have a fight, did you? Dwayne and I fought over everything: the silver, the tuxedos, the number of bridesmaids and groomsmen. You name it, we fought over it."
"We didn't have a fight." Catherine pushed past her sister.
If only it had been a fight, she thought, pulling the door of her car open a moment later and getting inside. Fights were easy. She wouldn't have these feelings if they'd had a fight. What they had was a kiss, a devastating kiss, a wedding kiss, a forever kiss. Catherine didn't want that. She was getting married to get divorced. So why did she have a daytime dream? Why did she see herself in that dress with Jarrod waiting for her? Why did his expression say happily ever after?
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