The Bridal Path: Ashley

by Sherryl Woods

  She shot him a look of disgust. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, this from a man who by all rights should have gotten a drunk-driving record at fourteen.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have told you that. You’ll never let me forget it, will you?”

  “Does Mrs. Fawcett know? Is that why she won’t get anywhere near that motorcycle of yours?”

  “I believe she may have been privy to the reason for my absence from school that day.” He winked at her. “She thinks I’m cute anyway.”

  “What does cute have to do with anything?”

  “It seems to matter to some women.”

  “Well, I’m not one of them. I’ve spent ten years surrounded by cute, gorgeous, sexy men. I was not impressed.”

  “Then it must be my charm you’re falling for.”

  “Charm?” she repeated incredulously. “What charm? And who says I’m falling for you?”

  “Oh, sweetheart, that part is plain as day. The only real question now is what the dickens we’re going to do about it.”

  Color rose in Ashley’s cheeks, but wisely, she didn’t argue with him. He figured she feared he’d prove his point with another breath-stealing kiss right there on the jailhouse steps. That would knock the socks right off Ms. Sergeant, who was no doubt peering out the window at them at this very moment.

  As if to prove his point, he heard the sheriff bellow, “Taylor, get the hell away from that window and get back to work!”

  Despite her expressed irritation with him, Ashley started to chuckle. “We do seem to be attracting a lot of attention today, don’t we?”

  “Everybody’s no doubt trying to figure out what you’re doing with the town bad boy after you had the chance to nab yourself a prince.” He watched her closely. “What is the answer to that, by the way?”

  “The prince was a bore,” she said succinctly. “And despite some very irritating flaws, you, Mr. Ford, have never been boring.”

  “I work at that.”

  Before Ashley could utter the retort that was obviously on the tip of her tongue, Dani came charging down the sidewalk, shirttail flapping, hair mussed and a beguiling smudge of flour on the tip of her nose. She skidded to a halt before them and addressed her sister with fire in her eyes.

  “Ashley Wilde, how dare you come into town and not come by to see me?” She glanced at Dillon as if he was an afterthought, then studied him speculatively. “Hello, Dillon. How have you been?”

  “Darlin’, if I were any better, I’d be sinful.”

  Ashley rolled her eyes. “Ignore him. He’s feeling smug, for some reason.”

  Dani grinned. “I’ll bet I can guess why. The rumor mill is rife with tales of the two of you. Now, quit lollygagging here on the sidewalk and march right on over to my house. You’re staying for dinner. I’ve already called Sara and Jake. They’ll be here in an hour.”

  Dillon chuckled at Ashley’s instantly rebellious expression. “Have you always been this bossy?” he asked Dani.

  “Always,” Ashley confirmed with an air of resignation. “We might as well give in graciously. She won’t rest until we’re fed and she’s pumped us for every bit of information she can about why we’re in town together.”

  “I do not intend to pump you for information,” Dani said indignantly. “That wouldn’t be proper. Of course, a few polite questions may come up.” She winked at Dillon. “Just giving you fair warning.”

  “You don’t scare me,” he said. “I remember when I put glue in your chair in the fifth grade and the teacher had to cut your skirt off so you could get free.”

  Dani stared at him. “That was you?”

  “You never guessed?”

  Ashley groaned. “Oh, Dillon, you idiot. If she’d guessed, do you think you would have made it out of fifth grade alive? If I were you, I think I’d be very careful about what I ate at her house tonight. The Wildes were raised not to get mad. We just get even. We’re very inventive about it, too.”

  “You’re inventive about a lot of things,” he observed in a way that had Ashley blushing and Dani choking back laughter. He could tell from the amusement in Dani’s eyes that the only way she intended to get even with him was to push her sister squarely into his arms. Obviously she figured that would be torment enough for any man.

  Dillon realized with a sense of amazement that he wholeheartedly welcomed the prospect.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Once Dani had extracted a firm commitment that they would be at her house in time for dinner, Dillon linked hands once more with Ashley.

  “We’re going to have to work fast if we’re going to turn this town on its ear before dinnertime,” he told her.

  “I thought we’d already done that.”

  “Not quite. We’ve just made peace with a few people. There are a few more places I’d like to visit for old times’ sake, places I always wished I’d been with you.”

  Riverton wasn’t exactly known for its hot spots, but over the next hour Dillon and Ashley blazed a trail from one end of town to the other, thoroughly enjoying the shocked reactions. In fact, Dillon hadn’t had such a good time in years.

  Few people in town knew anything at all about the man he’d become with Trent Wilde’s encouragement and help. Fewer still cared. Old images died hard. For the first time in years, though, it hardly mattered at all. He realized that, just as he’d been telling Ashley, the only thing that really mattered was what he thought of himself. He knew the kind of man he was.

  When he and Ashley walked into the general store, old Mrs. Gates beamed at Ashley and stared hard at him as if trying to decide whether she needed to pull out a shotgun to protect the cash register.

  When Ashley caught the woman’s behavior toward Dillon, she reacted with such indignation that it brought a smile to Dillon’s lips. Sweet heaven, but she was good for him. Despite the nagging doubts she expressed from time to time, he believed with everything in him that she trusted him instinctively. That gut-deep reaction was more important by far than all the reasoned assumptions someone else might make. Next to his faith in himself, hers was the most important.

  And oh, how he wanted her. The fierce longing he had felt as a teenager had matured into a powerful need over the past week. The future that had once seemed so impossible glimmered now as a dream that was very much within reach. If he’d believed in love, he would have believed with all his heart this was it.

  He was endlessly fascinated by her moods, by the way light caressed her skin, by the way she could look like a sexy waif one minute and a sophisticated lady the next. Her low self-image was so thoroughly absurd that it never even crossed his mind, except in those moments when he witnessed her uncertainties crowding in to dismay her.

  Their day in town was like time out of time. Nothing, he thought, could ever spoil the wonder of coming home again with Ashley Wilde on his arm. The way she gazed into his eyes with such trust and admiration and pure yearning meant more to him than all the business accolades he’d earned. In one intense moment, he realized that all he’d struggled to accomplish had been meant to prove something to this woman as much as to himself.

  “Do you have any idea how good you are for me?” he asked when they had finally returned to his car and headed a half-hour late for Dani’s.

  “If it’s even half as good as you are for me, then it must be incredible,” she said.

  The truth of that was plain. The color was high in her cheeks, and her eyes were bright with pure joy. It was the happiest he’d seen her look since his arrival.

  “I’m beginning to think you would have been a perfect match for Clyde if Bonnie hadn’t gotten to him first,” he teased.

  “I abhor violence,” she said indignantly, then grinned. “But I do rather like being bad.”

  “You realize, of course, that the only thing bad you’ve actually done today is to be seen with me.”

  She sighed. “You’re right. I suppose the effect will wear off quickly enough when they discover you’re a perfectly respectable bus
inessman and I’m on a downhill slide to nowhere.”

  The remark made him see red. He jerked the car to the curb and slammed on the brakes. When he’d put the car in park, he framed her face with his hands and said fiercely, “Don’t you ever let me hear you say anything like that again, Ashley Wilde. You will always be somebody to me.”

  She looked a little stunned by his vehemence. “I wish I could see myself through your eyes,” she said wistfully.

  “You will,” he promised, thinking of all the convincing ways he could demonstrate just how beautiful and special she was. “When we get back to the cabin tonight, I will make sure that you see exactly what I see, okay?”

  She shivered beneath his touch. Her gaze locked with his. “I can hardly wait.”

  Now, in the face of that breathless anticipation, it was Dillon’s turn to tremble. “Do you think Dani would mind if we didn’t show up for dinner?”

  She chuckled at that. “Mind? She’d be up at the cabin before we even got the bedroom door closed. No, sweetie, we might as well get on over there and face the inquisition.”

  “Inquisition?” Dillon said warily.

  “If you think that conversation on the sidewalk satisfied her, you’re deluding yourself. Add Sara and Jake into the mix and I’d say we’re in for a very long evening. We might even have to stay overnight–” she grinned at him “–in separate rooms.”

  Dillon muttered a curse under his breath.

  “My sentiments exactly,” she agreed. “Although, Mr. Ford, if you ever expect to get near my bed again, you are going to have to do some very fast talking to explain away all the secrets you’ve been keeping from me.”

  He winced at her dire tone. “Maybe we should think about staying in town anyway,” he said, hurriedly improvising an excuse. “It’s a long drive, and we do have to get Mrs. Fawcett very early in the morning.”

  “Chicken.”

  “Just practical,” he assured her. “I know how much you love your beauty sleep.”

  Given the context and her rampaging self-doubts, it was a dangerous thing to say. Ashley reacted by pummeling him in his midsection so hard that all the air whooshed out of him. He stared at her in amazement.

  When he could finally catch his breath to speak, he said, “Nice jab.”

  “I told you I boxed,” she said, looking vaguely sheepish.

  “You also said you’d never actually hit a person.”

  “Maybe I just hadn’t come across one so desperately in need of being punched before.”

  Dillon couldn’t argue with that, but he reminded himself never to agitate her again and let his guard down at the same time. If word got out that he’d been bested by an untrained woman, his business would go straight down the tubes. Of course, there was one other way to turn her natural skill and fervor in his favor.

  He studied her speculatively and wondered if he could convince her to make a drastic career change, give up modeling since it was making her unhappy anyway and become an associate in his firm.

  “What?” she demanded. “You’re looking me over as if I’m a side of beef you’re considering buying.”

  “Something like that,” he said and caught her fist right before it reached his stomach. “Not again, sweetheart.”

  “Then stop staring.”

  “I thought you thrived on people staring.”

  “Not the way you are. Are you going to tell me what that look was about or not?”

  “I think not, at least for the moment. A man should have at least one ace up his sleeve when dealing with the likes of you.” He started the car. “Now let’s go to dinner before your sister comes gunning for us.”

  * * *

  If Ashley had had her way, she would have prolonged the moment of their arrival at Dani’s for another hour or two, maybe a month or two. She knew exactly the kind of evening they were in for, and she was no more prepared for it than Dillon was. They simply didn’t have the sort of answers that would satisfy either of her sisters.

  Maybe Jake and Dillon would bond in some protective, male way and keep the cross-examination to a minimum, she thought wistfully. She doubted it, though. No one had ever been able to silence any of the Wilde women when they had something on their minds. Since she personally had flown home to give Jake a fair amount of grief when he and Sara were dating–or more precisely, pretending they weren’t dating–she doubted he’d be inclined to bail her out.

  Naturally, because she and Dillon were late, the whole troupe was waiting at the door for them. Sara caught hold of Ashley’s elbow at once and dragged her straight into the kitchen, her eyes flashing with excitement. Ashley caught one last glimpse of Dillon, who seemed a little stunned by their abrupt and unexpected separation.

  “That’s him, isn’t it?” Sara demanded. “The one from high school?”

  “I can’t imagine what you’re talking about,” Ashley insisted.

  “Oh, fiddle-faddle,” Dani said, joining them. “You know perfectly well what Sara means. Everyone knew you had a thing for Dillon back then. At least you had sense enough not to act on it.”

  “Implying that I no longer have any sense?” Ashley asked testily.

  Dani ignored the display of temper. “All I know is that if you wanted to make a grand entrance when you came home to Riverton, you couldn’t have picked a better way to do it. The whole town is in an uproar speculating about how the two of you got together. The glamorous cover model and the renegade. It’s the stuff of headlines for the Riverton Weekly.”

  “Is that supposed to bother me?”

  Dani and Sara exchanged a look. It was Sara who spoke.

  “It always did before. You were the one who always craved approval.” She gestured toward the living room. “Dillon Ford is definitely an attention-getter, but I doubt you’ll find anyone around who’ll sing his praises, unless it’s all those women who swooned for him way back then.”

  “I don’t know about that. Daddy seems particularly fond of him,” she said casually.

  “What?” The astonished gasps came in a chorus.

  “It’s true,” Ashley assured them. “One, they have some sort of bond from way back that Dillon won’t say much about, just that he thinks of Daddy like a father. Two, Daddy invested in his company. Three, Daddy loaned him the cabin, which is how we wound up there together. I assumed it would be empty. Dillon turned up a few days later, assuming the same thing.”

  “Well, I’ll be. I wonder what that’s all about,” Dani said. A speculative glint lit her eyes. “Are you absolutely certain Daddy didn’t know you were going to be at the cabin?”

  “I know exactly what you’re driving at, but no, he wasn’t matchmaking. He thought I was in New York. He called the cabin the other day to talk to Dillon. When I answered the phone, he was definitely dumbstruck. Not even he could have faked that reaction.”

  “Phone?” Sara said. “What phone? Daddy absolutely forbade the installation of a phone up there.”

  “Dillon has a cell phone.”

  “My, my, the bad boy has definitely gone mainstream,” Sara commented.

  “It’s more than that,” Ashley said dryly. “He actually owns a big-time security company in Los Angeles. I even used one of his bodyguards last year when that crazy fan was threatening me.”

  “And you didn’t know it was Dillon’s company?” Dani asked, her amazement plain.

  Ashley shook her head. “I didn’t have a clue until today, as a matter of fact. I checked them out pretty thoroughly, but everyone seemed to be tight-lipped about the CEO, said he preferred to remain out of the limelight.”

  “That’s a switch. Dillon was never shy,” Sara observed. “So, what’s the deal between you two? Are you just having a fling to make up for lost time or what?”

  Ashley sighed. “I wish I knew.”

  “Meaning?” Dani wanted to know.

  “That I’m so confused these days, I barely know my own name, much less what I’m doing.”

  “Has he been taking advan
tage of that?” Dani demanded indignantly.

  She looked prepared to march into the living room and take Dillon on single-handedly if that was the case. Ashley gestured for her to settle down.

  “He’s been an angel, actually. He’s boosted my self-confidence. He actually thinks I’m gorgeous.”

  Sara’s eyebrows rose. “Whoever said you weren’t?”

  Ashley exchanged a look with Dani. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

  “I figured that it was up to you to tell anyone you wanted to know.”

  “Will somebody just tell me?” Sara pleaded.

  “I fired my agent. At the moment, I’m no longer modeling.”

  Sara looked as stunned as if Ashley had announced that she was considering jumping off the Empire State Building attached to a bungee cord.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Ashley shook her head.

  “But why? You love modeling. You’re at the height of your career. I can’t walk past a magazine rack without seeing your face.”

  “Not lately, you haven’t. My agent told me I’d gained too much weight. The last thing he offered me was a shoot for a plus-sizes catalogue.”

  Dani muttered a very uncharacteristic, unladylike oath. Sara echoed it.

  “If you got any skinnier a strong wind would carry you away,” Sara protested indignantly. “Is he nuts or what?”

  “Merely pragmatic, according to him.”

  “And that’s been going on for the past few months?” Sara asked, her expression thoughtful. “So, that’s what had you down when you were here for my bronc-riding contest with Jake and again for the wedding.”

  Ashley nodded.

  Sara hesitated, then asked softly, “Can I ask you something?”

  “Could I stop you?”

  “If all we’re talking about is a couple of pounds here, why didn’t you just lose it? Heck, you could have afforded to go to some fancy spa and sweat it off.”

  “Sara!” Dani protested.

  “No, she’s right,” Ashley said. “I’ve asked myself the same question a thousand times. Goodness knows, I’m familiar with every diet known to man and I belong to the best health club in New York. I should have been able to take it off in a couple of weeks, tops. The only answer I’ve come up with is that modeling just doesn’t matter as much to me anymore as it once did. I seem to be subconsciously rebelling against it.”