The Right Bride?

by Sara Craven

  “Beautiful,” Karyn said, and asked the critical question. “Will you invite Rafe?”

  Sounding shocked, Fiona replied, “Of course I will. I couldn’t get married without Rafe being there.”

  “Does he know about John?”

  “Oh, yes. I tell Rafe everything. He was a bit taken aback at first, and who can blame him? So was I! But he’s really happy for me.” Again Fiona paused. “Almost relieved, in a way that I don’t quite understand. Maybe he’d been worrying about my single state…by the way, did I tell you how sweet John is with the animals at the shelter?”

  “You didn’t, no.” With heartfelt warmth Karyn said, “Fiona, your news took me by surprise, too. But I’m delighted for you…I wish you and John years of happiness together. And guess what—I get a new brother-in-law out of the deal.”

  “The best one in the whole world. Promise you’ll come to the wedding?”

  “All right,” Karyn gulped, “I promise…let me know the date, won’t you? I’ll talk to you soon. Love you.”

  “You, too. ‘Bye, Karyn.”

  Karyn scrambled to her feet, replaced the receiver and stared blankly at the wall.

  Rafe was never going to marry Fiona, because Fiona had—in all innocence—fallen in love with someone else. She, Karyn, would never have to cope with Rafe as her sister’s husband, or as the father of her sister’s children.

  For a moment sheer relief transfixed her. She felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders, leaving her light and suffused with unthinking happiness; as though she could dance around the kitchen.

  But in all too rapid succession, that thought was followed by another. What she’d come to view as a safety net was no longer in place. Rafe was a free man. He’d even been relieved to hear Fiona was in love with someone else.

  Why had he been relieved?

  Why did it matter? After driving past Steve’s house a couple of weeks ago, she’d decided Rafe’s marital status was immaterial to her; because of the long shadow Steve had cast, she wasn’t even ready to date anyone.

  She’d believed her own assertions, wholeheartedly. For exactly fourteen days.

  Now they were wavering like flags in the breeze.

  Thank heavens Rafe lived four thousand miles away. All she had to do was pray that he stay there.

  As the golden light of evening streamed through the window, it seemed obvious to Karyn that Rafe would stay safely in England, where he belonged. A man of enormous wealth, he’d just been supplanted by a cabinetmaker, the fourth son of an earl. No, Rafe wouldn’t hightail it to a small island across the Atlantic in hot pursuit of Fiona’s twin sister.

  A ridiculous prospect. Besides, she shouldn’t flatter herself she was that important to him.

  But that night, when the stars were glimmering coldly through the skylight over her bed, Karyn wasn’t so sanguine. She remembered with searing clarity every moment she’d spent with Rafe, from the spark that had leaped between them on that first encounter in the woods, to the heat of his body when he’d shielded her on the stairs at Stoneriggs.

  None of this had been trivial. She couldn’t pretend that it had been: to minimize his feelings or hers would be an insult to both of them. She burrowed into the pillow, wishing with all her heart that she’d never met him.

  If she hadn’t, she’d never have met Fiona; who’d enriched her life so immeasurably.

  When Karyn did finally fall asleep, she didn’t dream about Rafe, as she’d expected to. She dreamed about Steve. It was the same dream that had haunted her ever since his death; a dream saturated with a terror all the more powerful for being amorphous. It was only at the end of the dream, after she’d been running through endless dark alleyways, her breath sobbing in her ears, that she burst out into the open and saw, right in front of her, her husband, Steve. He had a gun in his hand, and was slowly lifting it to point at her heart.

  She always woke up just as his finger tightened on the trigger. Tonight was no exception. Her pulses racing, her body rigid, Karyn stared up at the night sky and knew she had her answer. It didn’t matter what Rafe did, whether he got engaged to ten different women or moved to Antarctica. He wasn’t for her.

  Everything that could go wrong the next day did. An elderly dog Karyn had been medicating against kidney failure succumbed to the disease, leaving her with the unenviable task of breaking the bad news to the dog’s equally elderly owner. One of the other vets called in sick, doubling her workload in the clinic. This was followed, four hectic hours later, by an emergency call. A farmer’s flock of sheep was threatened with an outbreak of orf, a disease as nasty as it sounded; she and another vet labored long and hard for the rest of the day in the open fields to vaccinate the whole flock. It was backbreaking work, which left her covered in mud and physically exhausted. But at least her shift was finished. Over two and a half hours ago, she thought wryly as she drove home, an old tarp between her trousers and the car seat.

  A hot bath and a Greek pizza with extra feta and black olives. That’d fix her up.

  She turned the last corner and drove down her street; her mother’s house, which she’d inherited, was at the very end of the road, enclosed in a small grove of birches. The Camdens’ garden halfway down the street was in full bloom; one of Karyn’s plans, when things slowed down at work, was to tackle the garden. Peonies, maybe, and lots of Shasta daisies. Fiona liked peonies.

  A car was parked in her driveway. She slewed to a stop.

  It looked just like Steve’s car.

  A whimper of fear burst from her lips. Wasn’t that what the dream was about? And wasn’t that, irrationally, still her living nightmare? That, somehow, Steve hadn’t really died. Instead he’d been lying in wait for the last year, playing with her, cat and mouse. Wanting her to build a false sense of security before he knocked it to the ground and engulfed her once again.

  There was a man standing in the shadow of the lace vine that had entwined the front porch. As he sighted her, he walked down the steps toward her.

  A man with black hair. Not blond. It wasn’t Steve. It was Rafe.

  Very slowly Karyn climbed out of her car.

  Rafe took one look at her face and grabbed her by the arm. “Karyn! For God’s sake, what’s wrong?”

  His voice, the breeze flattening his shirt to his chest, the concern in his face: had she ever forgotten anything about him? “I—I thought you were someone—I mean, it startled me, seeing you there.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Who did you think I was?”

  She tugged her arm free and took refuge in anger. “Nobody! What are you doing here, Rafe Holden? I don’t recall inviting you for a visit.”

  He suddenly grinned at her, a boyish grin so full of charm and so laden with male energy that she took an instinctive step back. “You didn’t. I figured if I asked, you’d say no. So I came anyway. Just like you with the Talbots. That worked, didn’t it?”

  “You’re so right—I would have said no.”

  “I’m taking you out for dinner.” He looked her up and down, from the toes of her mud-caked, steel-toed boots to the streak of dirt on her cheek. “Not many restaurants would let you in the door right now.”

  “Some of us work for our living.”

  His grin widened. “You can’t insult me that easily, Karyn.”

  “I’ll work on it.”

  “You do that.” Before she could duck, he reached out and ruffled her hair. “It’s great to see you.”

  It was a huge effort not to smile back. “I wish I could say the same. You realize you’ve turned up one day after Fiona told me she’s going to marry John.”

  “No sense in wasting time.”

  “Are you looking for sympathy?”

  “I’d already decided I couldn’t possibly marry Fiona.”

  “I’m supposed to believe that?”

  “I’d prefer you did…it happened the first time I saw Fiona and John together. They looked so gloriously happy, so wrapped up in each other.” He
hesitated. “I figured if Fiona could break every one of her parents’ rules, I could damn well drop in to see you. So here I am.” He looked her up and down, laughter lurking in his dark blue eyes. “Did you spend your day mud-wrestling?”

  With an exasperated sigh, Karyn straightened her aching back. “I vaccinated thirty-three sheep, not one of whom wanted to be anywhere near me or the syringe. You should try it sometime. It’s a humbling experience.”

  He laughed outright. “Looks as though they won.”

  “There was one ewe who nearly did.” She wouldn’t smile. She wouldn’t. “I’m going inside, having a hot bath and ordering a pizza. You can drive right back to the airport and fly home.”

  “That’s not very hospitable of you.”

  Now she did smile. “You can’t insult me that easily, Rafe.”

  “I can’t fly home. I have pictures of Fiona and John. She’d never speak to me again if I didn’t show them to you.”

  “Pass them over. Then vamoose.”

  “Not a hope,” he said. “We’re going out for dinner, I have it all planned.” He glanced over his shoulder. “This was your mother’s house, wasn’t it?”

  “My neighbor, Bob Camden, used to be a fullback. If I tell him you’re bothering me, he’ll turn you inside out.”

  “I scarcely think so. Have you heard of a black belt in karate? Oh Karyn, you look so cute when you’re angry.”

  “Don’t patronize me!”

  “You also look worn-out.” He took her by the arm and steered her toward the house. “Where are your keys?”

  His fingers burned through her shirtsleeve, and briefly her mind went blank. How could she think when all she really wanted to do was fling her arms around him and kiss him until she couldn’t breathe?

  She fumbled in her backpack for the house key and inserted it in the front door with a clumsiness that horrified her. In a wash of the same terror that had overwhelmed her the night before, she looked up at him and said with raw truth, “Rafe, you scare the life out of me. I can’t afford to be hurt again, I just can’t!”

  So she was still grieving her husband, Rafe thought; vehemently he wished it were otherwise. “The last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

  “Then go home and leave me alone.”

  “No. Not yet,” he said, a note in his voice she’d never heard before, and that terrified her with its implacability.

  “What are you doing here anyway?” she cried.

  “Waiting for you to get ready so we can eat. It’s four hours later for me—I’m hungry.”

  She let out her breath in a hiss of fury. “There are lots of restaurants in Charlottetown that’d be delighted to feed you. Then you can get the first flight to Halifax and catch the red-eye to England—you’ve got plenty of time.”

  “I traveled in my own jet,” Rafe said calmly, “it’s at the Charlottetown airport. While you’re unlacing those godawful boots, I’ll start a bath for you.”

  “Pardon me, of course you’d have your own jet,” she snarled. “And they’re very practical boots—you try being stepped on by a 1,700-pound bull.”

  She dumped her pack on the porch floor. It was just as well Rafe didn’t know that underneath her green mantailored shirt and her taupe canvas pants—work clothes that served her well when she had to wrestle sheep—she was wearing an ivory silk bra lavishly decorated with lace. Sexy underwear was her one indulgence—that, and her scent. She’d always loved frivolous underclothes. But Steve hadn’t approved of them; in one of his vicious flares of rage, he’d accused her of being on the make when she went to work at the clinic with lace hidden under her work clothes.

  As if she’d had the time or the inclination to look for another man. But to keep the peace she’d put away all her pretty underwear, wearing cotton jockey shorts and grey cotton bras instead.

  “You’re a long way away,” Rafe said.

  Her lashes flickered. “Oh. Yes. Sorry.”

  “What were you thinking about?”

  “I’m tired, that’s all,” she said shortly, and bent to undo her laces.

  Light as gossamer, Rafe’s lips slid across her nape. Before she could react, he walked away from her, crossing the hall and starting up the stairs. Of its own accord her hand reached up to cup the back of her neck and her eyes closed. Nothing had changed. She still wanted him.

  Although wanted didn’t seem in any way to express the tumult of longing and desire that had flooded her at that briefest of caresses. She could add panic to the mix, she thought helplessly. The man scared her out of her wits.

  Steve had scared her out of her wits. Oh God, what was going on?

  After unlacing her second boot, she lined it up on the mat with the first one. She could hear footsteps overhead, then the sound of water filling the tub, ordinary domestic sounds that reignited her fury. Okay, so Rafe had taken her by surprise, and she’d thought he was Steve. But she’d had time to recover and be damned if he was going to have it all his own way.

  She marched up the stairs. The bathroom was engulfed in steam and the glorious fragrance of freesias. She read the label on the bottle standing on the vanity, and said blankly, “Where did that come from?”

  “I brought it with me.”

  “That stuff costs the earth.”

  “Hardly.”

  “You can’t go giving me expensive presents!”

  “Wear something casual,” he said. “You’ll like where we’re going.”

  In a low voice Karyn said, “Rafe, don’t ride over me like that. As though I don’t exist.” Wasn’t that what Steve had done, time and time again?

  Rafe stood still, gazing at her. She looked exhausted, he thought with compunction. When she’d first seen him this evening, she’d been terrified; he’d swear to that in a court of law. So was he in danger of hurting her just by being here? Leaning over to turn off the taps before he had a flood on his hands, he said, “I have more money than I know what to do with, and that’s a very small gift. All I want is to give you pleasure, Karyn—and don’t ever think you don’t exist for me.”

  She didn’t know what frightened her more, his gentleness or his willpower. “Where were you planning to eat?”

  “Will you trust me enough to put yourself in my hands?”

  “That’s one heck of a big question,” she said with a flash of defiance.

  “I only meant as far as dinner’s concerned,” Rafe said with very little regard for the truth; and to his relief saw her slow nod of agreement. If only he knew more about Karyn’s husband; then maybe he wouldn’t have the sensation that with every move he made, he was stepping into a minefield.

  Surely her husband wasn’t anything to do with the whitefaced terror with which she’d greeted him?

  Now that he was here, he was going to make it his business to find out about Steven Patterson. While he could have set his investigator on Steve a long time ago, something in Rafe had shrunk from such a course. Yes, he’d needed to investigate Karyn, for Fiona’s sake as well as his own. But he wanted Karyn herself to tell him about Steve. “I’ll wait for you downstairs,” Rafe said, and suited action to word.

  He didn’t want to be waiting downstairs, Rafe thought as he wandered through the pleasant, unpretentious living room to the small dining alcove that overlooked the birch trees and a field of new corn. He wanted to be in Karyn’s bed. But all those years ago when he’d been learning to ride cross-country, hadn’t he been warned never to rush his fences? It was advice he should take to heart right now.

  He glanced around at the eclectic collection of books and magazines, at the brightly colored cushions and the few carefully chosen ornaments. On the stereo-stand there was a photo of a smiling couple in their forties: Karyn’s adoptive parents, he’d be willing to bet. But although he prowled through the whole downstairs, he didn’t find a single photo of the man who’d been Karyn’s husband.

  One more piece of evidence that Karyn was so deeply sunk in grief she couldn’t bear to be reminded of Steve.<
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  Feeling restless and unsettled, Rafe went outdoors to wait for her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  KARYN came downstairs ten minutes later. Her hair was an aureole of soft curls around her face; her brief blue denim skirt was topped by a figure-hugging sweater in soft pink mohair. Her legs were bare, her feet in flat, thin-strapped sandals. For a moment that was outside of time Rafe stared at her. For six years he’d had his defences firmly in place. He’d dated, had brief affairs and had never allowed anyone to tap the deep well of passion that Celine had desecrated. Everything easy, and according to his own rules.

  The woman standing in front of him could breach those defences all too quickly. Or had she already done so?

  Karyn said uncomfortably, “Am I too dressed up?” Rafe pulled himself together. “You look beautiful,” he

  said. “Isn’t that the wool you bought in Hart’s Run?” “I unraveled the sweater the first time, it would have fit me if I’d been pregnant with triplets. The second time it came out a bit small, but I couldn’t be bothered to try again.”

  “I like it just as it is,” he said, and managed to keep his gaze above the level of her breasts.

  She blushed, lowered her eyes and muttered, “I just wish I knew why—”

  “Dinner first,” he said. “We’ll talk later. I want to go in the general direction of Stanhope.”

  As she got in his rented car, she thought out various routes, instantly discarding the one that went past the house she and Steve had lived in. “I’ll navigate,” she said. “Have you made a reservation in Stanhope?”

  “You’ll see.” He got in the driver’s seat and took an envelope out of the dash. “Fiona sent this. With her love.”

  The envelope was tied with pink ribbon, smelled faintly of lilies of the valley and contained several photos. In each one, Fiona looked radiant, her arm linked with a pleasantfaced, bearded man not much taller than she, who also looked extremely happy. Karyn spoke without thinking. “I’ve never seen Fiona look like that…he must be quite a guy.” Then she added awkwardly, “I didn’t mean that you—”