by Julia London
“Shut up, Linda,” another one said.
“Mrs. Banks?” Eli quickly and politely interrupted. “Could I have the address?”
“Oh, Eli, yes, yes, yes,” Mrs. Banks said, and with a glare for Mrs. Farrino, she motioned for Eli to follow her into the kitchen as Mrs. Farrino explained to the others that she’d just seen an Oprah show about the allure older women held for younger men.
Mrs. Banks opened an address book and ran her finger down one page. “Aha. Here it is,” she said, and took a Post-it note. “Now if you catch her, you tell that girl her mother would like to see her before she’s carted off to the morgue.”
“I’ll tell her.”
Mrs. Banks held up the paper. “Here you are,” she said sunnily. “But don’t be surprised if you don’t find her. I know she has a wedding today, so she’ll probably be out.”
“Do you know where the wedding is, by chance?”
“Oh Lord, no.” She laughed. “She doesn’t want me to show up to see her work.” Her smile suddenly faded into a sad frown. “I’d love to see her at work.” She pouted for a moment, but she brightened instantly and handed the Post-it to Eli. “Good luck, Eli. And please don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t, Mrs. Banks,” he said, pocketing Marnie’s address. “I really appreciate it.” He turned around and started out of the kitchen toward the front door.
“Oh sugar, you’re not going, are you?” Mrs. Farrino called out to him.
“Yes, he’s going, Linda. He did not come here to see you, he came to see Marnie, so I guess you’ll have to wait for the next young man to prove your theory.”
“Jealous!” Mrs. Farrino shouted at Mrs. Banks as she and Eli walked by.
“Do you see what I put up with?” Mrs. Banks asked cheerfully and opened the door for him. She patted his arm. “I really hope you two work it out,” she said. “You’re a good man, Eli. Marnie would be lucky to have you.”
He cocked a brow at Mrs. Banks; she cocked one back. “You think I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you? She’s a good girl,” she said, and smiled fully. “You’d be damn lucky to have her.”
Eli smiled at Mrs. Banks. “I know,” he said, and walked out the door, then turned halfway around. “Thanks,” he said.
She waved her fingers at him, and he could hear the ladies inside calling her to come back and quit flirting with Marnie’s boyfriend. Still wiggling her fingers, she shut the door.
Eli walked out to his truck, but before he could reach the driver door, Mr. Banks appeared, wiping his hands on an old red rag.
“Hey, there, Eli,” he said, extending his right hand. “I was wondering when you’d come back around.”
“Finally made it,” Eli said, shaking his hand. “I’m trying to track your daughter down.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” he said. “She’ll be at the Fernando Wedding Chapel in Hollywood today. I took something to her earlier.” He grinned and glanced at the house. “Just don’t tell her mother,” he said with a wink. “We wouldn’t want her showing up to see Marnie at work.”
“No, we wouldn’t,” Eli agreed. “Thanks for the tip, Mr. Banks.”
“No problem. Now there’s something you ought to know. Marnie can be a little like her mother sometimes, and by that I mean obstinate. I find if I just give her mother a little time to cool off, she usually comes around.” He winked at Eli, and turned around, walked back toward the garage.
“Damn,” Eli muttered to himself as he got in his truck. “Am I that obvious?”
He drove to her apartment in Van Nuys and had to agree with Mrs. Banks’s assessment of it. It was a dump in a rundown part of town, and not where he’d like to see Marnie living. He’d actually like to see Marnie living in a very tasteful bungalow in Laurel Canyon. With him.
Mrs. Banks was also right that she was not at home. Nor was she at the Fernando Wedding Chapel, although some dude was there wrapping flowers around a column.
“She ain’t here,” he said when Eli asked. “She said she’d be back in a couple hours.”
“What time is the ceremony?” Eli asked out of curiosity.
“Three.”
Eli glanced at his watch. A couple of hours and a wedding would commence. He sighed and walked out to his truck. It looked like he was going to a wedding.
When he returned a couple of hours later, he was wearing a custom-made dark, pinstriped suit. He didn’t want to be accused of not fitting in. He’d meant to arrive a little early so he could catch Marnie before everything got too hectic, but there’d been traffic on the 405, and now he was only a half hour away from someone’s march down the aisle. It did occur to him that this possibly was not the best time to find Marnie, but he’d gotten dressed up and come all this way, and hell, all he wanted to do was ask her to please talk to him.
After the wedding, of course.
He walked into the back of the chapel, told the usher he was just going to peek inside before being seated, and slipped into the back.
He caught a breath in his throat. Eli had thought about her, dreamed about her, but he was not prepared for his body’s visceral reaction to seeing her. Marnie was at the altar, setting a big floral display. She was wearing a simple, elegant green dress that skimmed her body and from which her legs, long and shapely, seemed to reach down for miles. Her hair, that bouncy mane, was pinned to the back of her head, and sparkling green earrings dangled from her ears.
He was content to just watch her, to feel the warmth of familiar affection as she moved around the massive thing, arranging the flowers just so, the frown of concentration on her brow.
Then she glanced at her watch, and even from the back of the small chapel, Eli could see her eyes widen with surprise, and she was suddenly marching toward the entrance, her arms swinging, her stride determined. And as she marched, her eye was drawn to Eli. She flashed a hint of a smile and looked away, then let out a tiny shriek and threw her hand up to her heart as she came to an abrupt halt.
“Eli!”
“Hello, Marnie.”
Her mouth agape, she took him in, from the tips of his polished shoes to the top of his head. Her maple eyes softened, then quickly turned hard as she lowered her hand from her heart. “What are you doing here?” she demanded through clenched teeth.
“I had to see you.”
“Now is not a good time,” she said, and started for the lobby. But Eli was too quick for her and stepped into her path before she could beat her retreat.
Her brows dipped into a V and her hands went to her very curvy hips. “Eli, I have to do a wedding. You’ve seen me. Now please go…wherever it is you like to run off to.”
“Ouch,” he said with a soft smile and impetuously touched her cheek, stroking it with his knuckles.
Marnie’s frown faded, but her eyes filled with sorrow, and she bit her lower lip.
“I need to talk to you, Marnie.”
“Do you have to do this now? I am trying to work here, Eli. I am trying to move on with my life,” she said, and he noticed that her eyes were filling with tears. “And you know what else? I don’t want to hear what you have to say because whatever it is will just make me love you all over again, and then you’ll run off and I’ll be miserable, and I’d just rather we cut directly to phase three, which is you have your life and I have mine, and even if we had fabulous sex and a fabulous time together, we don’t have to keep making the same mistake, and you can go on being a commitment-phobe and a part-time pig and I can go on being a wedding planner and we’ll both be happy, so will you just go away now?” she whispered frantically, and as she paused to draw a much-needed breath, she dragged a finger under her lower lids to wipe away the tears welling in her eyes.
“We don’t have to do this now,” Eli said. “But I’m not going away. I need to talk to you.”
She lifted her chin and folded her arms across her chest. “You need to talk to someone else. Not me, Eli. I’m through with us. Not that there ever really was an us, hello, but j
ust in case you are under the impression there was, there wasn’t. So if you don’t mind, I have a bride to get ready and a wedding to handle, and I really, honestly, don’t need this right now.” And with that, she started to walk away.
“I love you, coppertop,” Eli said, surprised by how calmly and easily the words came now.
She stopped dead in her tracks. Her shoulders lifted as with a sigh, then sagged. She glanced at him over her shoulder and glared at him. “Don’t,” she bit out, and with a shake of her head, she walked out.
Eli shrugged, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and walked out into the lobby. He was uncharacteristically undeterred. He was willing to give her the space she needed to come around to the truth, which was, he now had no doubt, that she loved him.
He didn’t know exactly how he knew it, but he did, and as he walked past Marnie, he smiled and winked and chuckled quietly to himself when she dropped her head back in dramatic fashion, then shook her head furiously as she stormed off in the opposite direction.
Thanks to Eli’s unexpected appearance, looking totally-to-die-for, Marnie’s wedding was ruined. Completely and totally ruined. She hardly saw Emily’s walk down the aisle because she was scanning the small group of guests, looking for him. At the reception, she didn’t notice that the bridal cake was damaged on one side, forgot to put out the disposable cameras, and very nearly forgot to give the bartender the bridal champagne flutes before the first toast. She was a total wreck, her head full of Eli, her arms full of wedding gifts and favors, and her eyes all but blind to the reception around her.
How dare he come back like this! How dare he just pop up at her wedding after nearly two months and act like nothing had happened! Oh no, he was not getting off so easy this time. She was through with him. Through. There was nothing he could say to convince her otherwise.
By the time the wedding was over, and the happy couple had been sent on their way, and Marnie had gathered up all the stuff the caterer wouldn’t dispose of and packed it into her car, she was exhausted from the tension of waiting for him to jump out from behind a plant or a speaker, and furious with him for thinking she’d be waiting patiently for him to come round again. Bastard!
Marnie fumed all the way home about men and their humongous egos.
At her complex, she gathered up a bag with all the cameras, and the wedding cake top, and the two bottles of cheap champagne that had not been consumed, plus a couple of gifts and the guest album. Her arms full, she struggled up the steps to her second-floor apartment.
She noticed, as she was walking down the narrow landing, that there was paper stuck to her door. A lot of paper. Someone had covered her entire door with white paper—there were dozens of pieces stuck up there. She reached her door and stopped, her arms full, and squinted at the one directly before her.
September 2 My clients from New York passed around pictures of their wives and girlfriends while we sat around the campfire tonight, and I wished I had a picture of you so I could look at your smile whenever I want. I think how sad it is, judging by the pictures they passed around, that these guys will never know a smile like yours. It’s the brightest thing in the universe. It makes your whole face light up. I may not have a picture, but I will hold the memory of it in my heart always.
“What the hell?” Marnie whispered, and leaned forward to look at another one.
August 23 I think I must be the biggest fool in the world, because there you were before me, and I didn’t have the balls to reach out and grab you. I should never have left you in that tent, I should have grabbed you up and held you close while I had the chance. I think I will go flat out crazy wondering if I let my one true shot at happiness slip through my fingers…
August 15 There is a bird in the jungle that has a laugh that reminds me of you. The sound it makes is sweet and lyrical and I find it ironically amusing that the bird seems to laugh at us all day long as we trek through the jungle.
Marnie quickly put down all that she was holding and ripped the pages off her door, one by one, her mouth agape as she read them. I love you, one said. I have missed you so much. I adore you, how could I not have told you so?
And the one dated today, September 18:
I have made a huge mistake, Marnie, but I hope you will find a way to forgive me. You’re right, I am a recovering commitment-phobe, and maybe a little bit of a pig. But I love you and I don’t want to lose you because I don’t think I can survive without you. Do you think you can give me one more chance? Do you think you could see your way to allowing me to love you and show you that I do? I love you. I love you. I love you.
“Oh God, oh yes,” she muttered, and gripped the letters, held them tightly to her chest, staring blindly at her door. “Please be here, please be here, please be here,” she chanted and turned around.
He was here.
Still dressed in that killer suit, he was leaning against the railing, a huge bouquet of flowers in one hand, his other hand stuffed deep into his pocket. He looked, she thought, charmingly uncertain with his head slightly bowed and one thick strand of golden-brown hair dipping over his eye.
Still clutching the letters, Marnie tried to move, but her feet wouldn’t work. Eli pushed away from the railing, the flowers falling to his side.
Marnie pointed to the letters she held, stepped over her things, and started walking toward him. His expression was one of trepidation and hope as she came to stand before him. He cleared his throat. “Hey, coppertop.”
“I don’t know if I should kiss you or kick you,” she said softly.
“You should probably kick me, but I’d prefer the kiss.”
“You should have called me.”
“I should have.”
“Do you mean it?” she asked. “Do you mean what you wrote?”
He nodded solemnly. “Every goddamn word.”
The corner of her mouth tipped up. “Do you promise you won’t run away?”
He smiled then, that sexy, lopsided smile that turned her to jelly. “Marnie, I don’t intend to let you out of my sight ever again.”
She had a sudden image of Eli the cowboy, standing on a big prairie spread with her in his arms, and she wanted to be exactly there, in his arms. Without a thought to logistics, she launched herself at him.
She hit him with such force that she knocked the breath from him, but Eli caught her and buried his face in her hair as he held her tightly to him. “Oh God,” he said, breathing her in, stroking her hair. “Oh God. I love you, coppertop. I can be a little dense, so it took me long enough to admit it and even longer not to fear it, but I am here now, stripped bare. I’ll never let you go.”
“Eli, damn you, I love you, too, and I never stopped loving you. I don’t care if you’re dense, I love you, too,” she cried, and pressed her face into his neck.
He made a sound of relief and suddenly pushed her back a little, handed her the flowers, then swept her up in his arms and carried her to the threshold of her apartment.
He had to let her down to find her key, and they had to step around all her stuff, then drag it in so none of her shady neighbors would run off with the goods, but in Marnie’s mind, it was as romantic as the cowboy who picked up the woman he loved and carried her into the hacienda, where he would make love to her all night long.
And would do so again the next day, and the next day, and the day after that.
CHAPTER THIRTY
When TA got the call to do the Nepal mountain climb with two Saudi princes, they gathered at their offices so they could decide who would lead in their usual fashion—rock, paper, scissors.
Jack, Cooper, and Michael waited a half hour for Eli, and when he didn’t show, Cooper got on the phone, catching Eli on the second ring. “Dude!” he exclaimed when Eli answered. “Where the hell are you? We’re setting up the Nepal thing.”
“Oh, that,” Eli said with an uncharacteristic amount of cheer in his voice. “You guys go ahead without me. I can do Nepal another time.”
“What?�
� Cooper asked, unable to process the fact that Eli didn’t want to do Nepal.
Jack looked at Michael, and Michael suddenly grabbed the phone from Cooper’s hand and put it on speakerphone. “Where are you, Eli?” he demanded.
Eli chuckled, and the guys heard another chuckle in the background. A decidedly female chuckle. “I’m headed out of town,” he said.
“Where?” Jack asked.
“No place you need to know. I’ll be back in a few days.”
“But…but what about Nepal?” Cooper asked again, as he was the only one of the guys to have missed Eli’s falling head over heels in love with Marnie Banks.
“What about it? Have a great time,” Eli said. “Look, I gotta go. And by the way…don’t bother calling. When I hang up, I’m tossing the phone out the window.”
Michael laughed and looked at Jack. “Toss it. We’ll see you when you get back.” He clicked off the phone and stuck out his hand, palm up. “You owe me a grand, Jacko. I was right—the man is in love.”
“In love?” Cooper let out a loud guffaw. “What in the hell have you been smoking, Raney? That’s Eli you’re talking about.”
“Exactly,” Michael said with a grin. “And just as I predicted, he was the first of the mighty to fall.”
Jack groaned and reached for his wallet. “I’ll have to write you a check,” he groused.
“You’re both nuts,” Cooper said, and plopped down in the cowhide chair.
“You couldn’t see a hand if it was right in front of your face, Coop,” Jack said.
“What are you talking about?” Cooper asked. “I think I know McCain just a little bit better than you two clowns, and there is no way that man is in love with anyone, and besides, who the hell would it be? The only women he’s had any contact with are Olivia Dagwood and Marnie Banks…”
His voice trailed off and his eyes widened slightly as the truth sank in. “Nah,” he said after a moment.
“Yeah,” said Jack.
“No way,” Cooper insisted, shaking his head, and the three of them began to argue about Eli McCain’s capacity for falling in love. And then their capacity. And the three Thrillseekers left behind made another little wager about who might be the next of the mighty to fall.