“What about the house?”
He grimaced. “Belongs to me.”
Her anger rose again. “You lied.”
He shook his head. “You assumed, and I didn’t disagree. Same with the unemployed thing. For God’s sake, I am without a job.”
The anger threatened to spill over. “Splitting hairs,” she hissed.
His head came up, and he directed his blue eyes straight at her face. “I know, and I’m sorry. But listen, is it really so bad? I’m better than I appeared to be.”
The angry wave crashed. “It doesn’t matter if you’re better or worse. I bared my soul to you. I told you everything, even that I loved you.” She stomped to the window, stared out, unseeing, then stomped back to stand in front of him. “You’ve hidden everything about yourself. You told me your name, yes, but your identity you kept from me.”
She took a deep breath. “You’re not the perfect man.”
Trick rose quickly to tower over her, his face a hard mask. She took a step back. “You’re goddamn right I’m not the perfect man.” His voice was harsh. “Grow up, little girl. This is real life, not some Barbie dreamworld.”
Tears stung Emma’s eyes. “Get out.” She couldn’t let him see her cry.
Granite-faced, Trick picked up his bag. He walked out of the room without a backward glance.
Emma sank onto the bed, one hand over her eyes, the other on the spot that would have been Trick’s. Alone again.
Tears trickled down her cheeks. Not only would no one be standing beside her in the chapel tomorrow, but there would be no one lying beside her for the rest of her life.
11
Not knowing if Trick had found a way home or lurked somewhere about the hotel, Emma played it safe by staying in the room the rest of the afternoon. A couple of people called about going out for dinner. She declined, ordering room service instead.
Goodness knows what the kitchen thought of her order—hamburger with guacamole and extra French fries, diet cola and hot fudge sundae—but to Emma it promised comfort. Forty-five minutes later, however, she didn’t feel comforted, just stuffed and thirsty.
But I should be used to broken promises.
That thought did nothing for her broken heart.
About ten o’clock, she padded down the hallway to the alcove that held the ice maker and vending machines. In one hand she carried the ice bucket, and the other held all the change from her wallet and the bottom of her purse. She needed peanut butter cups, chocolate cupcakes, maybe a couple of those packaged cheese and cracker combos….
Emma’s gaze snagged on Pauline, halting the list making. Pauline carried an ice bucket, too, but instead of ice, she’d filled it with chocolate bars, a package of those little powdered doughnuts and something else, possibly a beef stick.
Emma smiled sympathetically and raised her eyebrows. “Nerves?”
Pauline clutched the bucket to her chest. “Stage fright. A thousand things could go wrong tomorrow.”
Not wanting to intrude, Emma continued on her way.
“Wait.” Emma detected just the tiniest note of desperation in Pauline’s usually calm, modulated voice. “Would you come to my room for a few minutes?”
“Isn’t there someone else you’d rather be with? One of the bridesmaids? Your mother?”
“No!” Pauline sounded truly upset now. “Will Trick miss you if you’re gone for a little bit?”
“Uh, well, no.” Understatement of the year. “I can come with you.”
Pauline’s room looked like the roof had opened up and the sky had rained clothes. She shoved a stack of panties aside and sat cross-legged on the bed, inviting Emma to do the same. Then Pauline solemnly passed the bucket.
“Choose your poison,” she said.
Emma selected a package of peanut butter cups. “Is everything okay?” Apparently Pauline liked the crunchy kind, not the smooth, Emma’s own favorite.
“I couldn’t find my shoes. I went through everything, then finally remembered my mother had them with her.”
Emma licked chocolate off her thumb. “Problem solved, then.”
“That one.” Pauline bit into a powdered doughnut, then sighed. Sugar outlined her lips. “You’re another.”
“Me?”
Pauline finished off the little doughnut. “I’ll never be you.”
Startled, Emma dropped the second peanut butter cup. “Huh?”
“Spontaneous, vivacious. You know.” Pauline sighed again.
Emma swallowed her surprise. “But—but you’re so calm about everything. I’ve envied that.”
“And I’ve envied you.”
Emma looked at Pauline with new understanding. Perhaps they’d each been psyched out by the other. She polished off a candy bar, while Pauline ate all six of the doughnuts.
Pauline’s revelation of her insecurity made Emma wonder about her sister Chloe, who so resembled Pauline in looks and demeanor. Maybe Emma had been so busy seeing the “perfect” sister, she’d never seen the one who might have gobbled down six doughnuts. Maybe she and Chloe had things to talk about as well…. Emma vowed to have a heart-to-heart with her sister as soon as this darn wedding was behind her.
Suddenly, Pauline reached out and touched Emma’s knee. “I brought you here to ask you a question.” Pauline took a breath. “You’re happy, aren’t you? It’s okay I’m marrying Michael?”
Emma nodded and patted Pauline’s hand. “It’s really okay. I realize now that what I felt for Michael is not the kind of love you marry for.”
“That’s the kind of love you have for Trick.”
Grimacing, Emma nodded. “That obvious?”
Pauline nodded back. “He’s a special guy. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that. Daddy found out all the scoop after meeting him Wednesday night.”
Emma pretended casual interest. “All the scoop?” She reached for more candy. The old standby, a Hershey bar.
“The Trickwear ads have that bio with his picture. About the shark attack ten years ago while he was surfing.”
Emma’s skin chilled. That explained the Trickwear logo—a surfboard with a bite taken out of it. She carefully rewrapped the candy bar. “Does Ron know something not in the ads?” she asked slowly.
Pauline nodded. “Daddy has contacts everywhere. Rumor has it that the woman he loved left him the same day the doctors said he’d never walk again. She took up with the next-ranked surfer. Her ticket to fame and fortune.”
“And Trick went on to build Trickwear.” Emma remembered him telling her about a woman he came close to marrying, a woman who loved him only as long as he was perfect. She rubbed her forehead. So much to think about.
Emma declined a third pass of the ice bucket and sat quietly, thinking about men, and women, and love. She sighed. “Let’s talk about something happy. You and Michael are perfect.”
Pauline peeled the plastic from the beef stick. “No, not perfect.”
Surprised again, Emma stared at Pauline. “You don’t think so?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think any person is perfect for another.” She smiled. “He’s not perfect, but we’re a match, the match my heart and soul recognize.”
Emma blinked back the tears that stung her eyes. “That’s beautiful,” she said.
A pink flush crawled across Pauline’s cheeks. “I guess the bride’s allowed to be mushy.” She looked down at the beef stick, made a face and tossed it to the ice bucket. “Suddenly, I feel a whole lot better. And if I eat any more of this, my dress won’t fit in the morning.”
“I’ll let you get your beauty sleep then.” Emma rose from the bed, sure her eyes would stay open all night. So much to think about.
Trick woke up, stretched and groaned. Yesterday had not been his day. The hotel hadn’t had a vacancy, so he’d ended up walking to a chain motel two miles down the road. He shouldn’t even have bothered finding a bed, considering the amount of sleep he’d managed.
He casually looked over at his watch on the b
edside table. He blinked. The luminous hands showed 10:30. No. The room was as dark as a tomb.
His gaze darted toward the window. Light, daylight, edged the curtains that otherwise were heavy enough to use as radiation shields.
He bounded out of bed, landing on his bad leg, causing him to groan again. Damn, damn, damn. The wedding started at eleven o’clock. And he’d be Emma’s escort if it killed him.
In twelve minutes he showered and dressed. He jogged to the hotel, but everyone had already left, and none of the hotel employees seemed to know the name of the church.
“It’s the Church of All Saints, or All Souls, or maybe All Sailors, on Paseo Pacifica or Paseo del Mar, or something close to that,” Trick told the desk clerk. Thinking back on Emma’s other directions, he amended hastily, “Or maybe not even close to that.”
The clerk just passed over the yellow pages. Trick flipped through them, his heart racing, his fingers sticking to each maddeningly unhelpful page. He wasn’t giving up on this wedding, or Emma, either.
The desk clerk calmly went about his business, handing over a card key to a newly registered guest. The key, Trick thought. He still had the key to Emma’s room. Maybe she’d left the wedding invitation there.
He punched the elevator button. The doors didn’t open immediately, so he dashed toward the stairs, taking them two at a time, despite the protesting muscles in his right thigh. The key worked on the first try, and he swung open the door, breathing in Emma’s perfume.
Like hope, it lifted his heart, and he found the invitation on the small round table beside the window. Shaking his head, he repeated the location to brand it in his mind. “Chapel Pacifica del Mar on Paseo todos los Santos.” Paseo All Saints.
Emma hung around the chapel’s vestibule, studying the flowers, the floor and the stained glass. She didn’t want to take a seat yet. She’d risked heart and pride to get an escort to this wedding, and she wasn’t yet ready to accept defeat.
For all she knew, of course, Trick had bought himself a car, a boat or a plane and had flitted off to some millionaire destination. But a part of her held out hope that he would come. And another part of her could still not forgive him for being so unwilling to share himself with her.
A retired entrepreneur. A victim of a serious shark attack. A man betrayed by a woman. He’d told her none of this.
All the guests had gone inside, and Pauline’s cousin had even left her post beside the guest book to find a place in the church.
A side door of the vestibule opened and a head peered out. Michael. A pale, sweaty-looking Michael.
Emma hurried toward him. “Do you need something?”
“Fresh air, but you’ll do.” He clamped a clammy hand around her wrist and pulled her behind the door. They stood in a short, thickly carpeted hallway with several doors and a drinking fountain.
Michael took a deep drink. Then looked at Emma with wide eyes. “Am I making a huge mistake?”
She stared. “You’re asking me?”
“Who else am I going to ask?” He glanced over his shoulder at one of the closed doors. “The best man is Pauline’s brother and the minister is her great-uncle.”
She rolled her eyes. “I see your point.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she asked, “So when did these doubts creep in?” She thought she gave her voice the neutral tone a professional therapist would have.
“For God’s sake, I don’t have time for all that!” Michael threw a glance over his shoulder again. “And things will really get muddled if someone finds the two of us together five minutes before the wedding starts.”
“Yeah,” said Emma dryly, “at least I found you and Pauline together three months before our wedding.”
Red crawled over Michael’s pale cheeks. “I thought we were past that. I’m sorry, Emma. Pauline just seemed so…”
“Perfect for you, is what you said.” Emma tapped her toe impatiently. “So now what’s the problem?”
“Well, maybe she isn’t so perfect for me. She’s so quiet. She used to be such a nice, peaceful contrast to-”
“Go ahead and say it.” Emma sighed. “To me.”
“Well, yes. But now I realize I never know what she’s thinking, or feeling. It seems she keeps herself all bottled up.” He took another long drink from the fountain. “Maybe I need a woman like you, after all.”
Emma shook her head. “You had me, you dumb lunk, and you didn’t like that, either.” She gave his tuxedo-clad arm a light punch.
Michael wiped the sweat off his brow with his handkerchief, then checked his watch. “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, two minutes to show time. They’re going to come looking for me any second! Emma, what am I going to do?” His fingers circled her upper arms and he searched her face.
Emma took a deep breath and spoke to him calmly. “Michael. So you realize Pauline isn’t perfect. Maybe you’re going to have to work a little harder to open her up.” He appeared to absorb her words like sage wisdom. She gulped. “But do your insides tell you she’s your match?” Emma suddenly remembered Pauline’s words. “Perfect or not, do your heart and soul recognize her?”
Several seconds passed, and Michael’s face or grip didn’t change. Then a transformation overcame him. His color evened out, his eyes lit up, and his face broke into a relaxed, wide smile.
“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Yes.” He swept her into a tight embrace, rocking them back and forth.
Emma leaned her cheek against his shoulder, tears dimming her eyes. He rested his cheek against her hair. Lord, she wanted to be as happy as Michael. And she had the most certain feeling that what she’d just said to him was the key to her own joy.
The sound of a door opening caused them both to freeze. “Oh, hell,” Michael said. “This doesn’t look good.” Emma lifted her head, expecting to come faceto-face with a man of God in robes and regalia.
Instead, she saw Trick. A gorgeous but stony-faced and glittery-eyed Trick.
“Well, well, well,” he said. “I was looking for another way into the sanctuary because the bridesmaids are all lined up in the vestibule.” He advanced. “Look what I found instead.”
His gaze locked on Michael. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Michael released Emma, checked his watch and, with a grin, shrugged. “Getting married.” He slanted a glance at Emma. “I’ll leave you to explain?”
Smiling at him, she nodded.
He gave Trick a casual salute, then disappeared behind another door.
Suddenly, even with one less person, the hallway seemed much, much smaller. Emma tried to smile. “You’re here.”
“And not a minute too soon, it appears. What’s going on?”
For the second time in ten minutes, a man’s hand clamped around her wrist. Only Trick’s touch caused her heart to tremble. “Michael just needed some calming down.”
Trick’s brows raised. “In your arms?”
“He was grateful. I think I cleared up a few things for him.”
“What things?” Trick’s voice hadn’t lost its dangerous edge.
“We talked about perfect. About matches.” She reached out and took his free hand.
“Was he trying to relight your fire?” he demanded.
Emma shook her head. “No way.” She smiled. “I’m glad you came. I was wrong yesterday to—”
He put a finger across her lips. “Shh. First I have a few things to share with you.” His blue eyes hypnotized her.
“Oh, yeah?” she whispered, tilting her head as he stepped closer.
“Yeah.” He inhaled and his words came out rushed. “I love you.”
Her heart executed a tumbling act worthy of the Olympics. “Really?”
He nodded. “Or my name isn’t Thelonious Richard Webster.”
“I don’t know.” She pretended disbelief. “I don’t think you want your name to be Thelonious Richard Webster.”
He grinned. “See if this convinces you.” His mouth touched hers, igniting fireworks along ever
y inch of her skin. He lifted his head and the breath he took was as ragged as hers.
“Until last night I didn’t realize how unfair I’ve been to you,” he said. “At first, not telling you didn’t seem important, and then it became very important to know you cared for me just for myself.”
Unlike that bimbo that dumped him in the hospital, Emma realized. She stroked his cheek with her palm. “And I didn’t see how my expectation of the right man was more realistic for Barbie than for myself.”
“Do you think we have something realistic for Thelonious Richard Webster and Emma Dorp Thorpe?”
“Lord, I hope so.” She grimaced. “We won’t find anyone else willing to put up with our names.”
He laughed, then kissed her again. Her heart did cartwheels and back flips. This time, she broke out of his arms, her chest heaving and her lips wet. “If we want to see the ceremony, I suggest we go in now.”
With a resigned smile, Trick smoothed his hair with his hands. “I suppose we should. After all, you asked Poseidon for an escort to the wedding.”
Trick followed Emma to the unoccupied last pew. They’d missed the bride coming down the aisle, but even from his seat up front, the father of the bride, Ron, caught Trick’s eye and grinned a we’ll-talk-later grin.
Trick sighed and tightened his grip on Emma’s fingers.
Michael and Pauline were exchanging vows. Emma tugged on his hand, and he looked at her. “By the way,” she whispered, “I must correct you. I didn’t ask Poseidon for an escort to the wedding, but for the perfect man.”
“I thought we’d already agreed I’m not that,” he whispered back.
She shook her head. “That’s where those matches I was talking about with Michael come in.”
“Matches as in light-a-bonfire-on-the-beach matches?” He was learning to pin her down when the conversation took this kind of turn.
“No, not combustible matches. Matches as in pairs.” She stroked his fingers. “Poseidon, in all his wisdom, instead of sending the perfect man, sent me the perfect match.”
The Wedding Date Page 13