The Wedding Dress

by Kimberly Cates

  The dog gave a muffled yip through the gauze-band muzzle around its mouth, as if it understood the slanderous direction of Jared’s thoughts. Holding the button in place, Jared slipped the curved needle deftly through the button, the layer of ear and the skin at the crown of the mutt’s head.

  “You needn’t be giving me that filthy look,” Jared said. “I’d have left you to take your chances with Shep and Digger. She’s the one who decided you needed rescuing.”

  “But you’re the one who saved the day. Right, Captain?”

  “Captain? Oh, no,” Jared muttered as he tied off his handiwork and snipped the nylon thread. “This can’t be good for either one of us, dog. She’s naming you now.”

  “And you’re going to make him the laughingstock of the county with that big red button on his head.”

  “He’d scratch out those stitches before bedtime if they weren’t out of his reach. It’s the button or an Elizabethan collar around his neck. He’d like that even less, believe me.”

  “An Elizabethan what?”

  “A fancy name for a big plastic cone that makes the poor beast look like it’s tried to squeeze headfirst through the small end of a funnel.”

  “Oh.” Emma puzzled for a moment and Jared could see she was trying to picture the ridiculous image he’d described. “You’re right. He wouldn’t like that. It would be hard to watch for sneak attacks.”

  “Right. You never know when hordes of marauding collies might decide to raid the dig site. That’s what every archaeological excavation needs. A troublemaking, digging-obsessed dog mucking about.”

  “How do you know he digs?”

  “That’s what terriers do.”

  “Not this one. He’s going to be an angel.” Emma unfolded legs Marilyn Monroe would have envied and swung them over the edge of his mattress, sweeping gracefully to her feet. Carrying the dog to the bed she’d made for him by putting her surcoat in the wooden box she’d emptied of Jared’s sparse toiletries, she bent over to settle Captain in for the night.

  The sight of her shapely bottom held Jared’s gaze. After all, what could just looking hurt? Her hair spilled over her shoulder as she crooned to the exhausted little creature, gently removing the muzzle. Jared couldn’t stop himself from wondering how that cascade of black curls would feel tumbling over his chest, all silk and fire, this woman a mix of passion and vulnerability more intoxicating than he’d ever known.

  No wonder kids like Davey were mesmerized by Emma McDaniel. Jared was a grown man and he had a feeling his pants were going to get damned tight across the front whenever she was around.

  “Where did you learn how to do that?”

  The question startled him from fantasies so raw he felt his cheeks burn. “Do what?” he managed to choke out.

  “Stitch him up. Clean the wounds and all.”

  The dog. She was asking about the dog, Jared realized with relief. Simple question. Easy answer.

  Then again, maybe not.

  “My father taught me.”

  Emma scooped up his razor, his toothbrush and shampoo from where she’d dumped them half an hour before. Feminine hands touched his most intimate objects, arranging them with a woman’s eye for order. “Is your father a doctor?” she asked.

  “Hardly that.” Jared turned his back to her and busied himself putting the contents of the first aid kit back in their white plastic case. If only he could lock his emotions inside the container as well, covering up the sadness, the bitter sense of loss. It seemed he was a better actor than he thought or Emma was still too wrapped up in the dog to know how her question had affected him.

  “What are you doing?” Emma asked, noticing the restocked first aid kit. “We haven’t taken care of your bites yet.”

  “It’s nothing—”

  “I would say you saved a damsel in distress, if the dog wasn’t a boy.” She indicated his hand, the fingers now crusted with dried blood. “The least I can do is patch up the injuries you got while doing it.”

  “No.” Jared fought the impulse to jam his hands into his pockets, knowing it would hurt like fire. “I can handle this myself.”

  “I’m sure you can. But we’re going to play fourteenth century. The lady of the castle did the healing.” She brooked no argument, grabbing the bottle of peroxide and a bowl he’d meant to return to the canteen. Indicating he should sit on the bed, she climbed up beside him, cross-legged again, her knees touching his left thigh as she pulled his hand palm-up into her lap. She ran her fingertips over the puncture wounds and Jared welcomed the distraction of pain burning up his arm.

  “These are deep. Maybe we should take you to a doctor.”

  “I’ll not be wasting my time driving forty minutes so the man can do what I can do right here.”

  “All right then. All right.” She set the bowl between them. “I’m just going to flush the germs out with peroxide.”

  Soft, feminine fingers curved gently about his wrist, turning his hand so the worst of the bite wounds were on top. “You might want to have a shot of Scotch yourself before I do this,” she said, and he wondered if her fingertips could feel his pulse racing.

  “I’m saving that Scotch for an occasion to remember. Today is one I intend to forget.”

  “Very funny.”

  Emma tipped the brown bottle. Jared gritted his teeth as the antiseptic seared its way into the puncture wounds. The peroxide fizzed madly as it burned the wounds clean. He felt Emma watching him and looked up to see worried brown eyes.

  “Really, they’re just a few little cuts,” he assured her.

  “They’re not little. In fact they’re…they’re rather nasty.” Her voice wobbled.

  He hated seeing the shadows of self-blame she was trying so hard to hide. Wished he could find a way to drive them from her face. But before he could think of something amusing to say, she spoke with forced brightness.

  “You know, human bites are much more dangerous than dog bites.” She poured on another dose of peroxide. “They carry a far greater risk of infection.”

  “And I need to know this why?” Jared reached past the pain to shape his lips into a raider’s smile. “You aren’t planning to bite me, are you, Ms. McDaniel?”

  “Not unless you deserve it, Dr. Butler,” she fired back, but her cheeks flushed unexpectedly pink, her gaze darting away as if…what? As if she’d been having the same dangerous thought as he had? Right, mate. Dream on.

  “Just where did you get your scientific information?” he asked.

  “My little sister Hope’s pediatrician. You see, Hope is the youngest of all the McDaniel cousins, so when the family got together she’d bite—well, about anyone she could sink her teeth into—until the year she turned four.”

  Emma dabbed at the wounds with a clean square of gauze. Jared tried to distract himself from the warmth of her other hand cradling his.

  “What convinced your sister to stop?”

  “My grandfather mentioned at Christmas dinner that—”

  “Father Christmas doesn’t bring toys to biters?” Jared tried to joke, the image of the dime store frame rising in his memory, the smiling faces silhouetted against the brightly lit tree, the man who’d given this woman a diamond ring. Married her. Taken her to bed on their wedding night. Bad thought. Distracting, yes. But in exactly the wrong way.

  “Toys my sister might have been willing to sacrifice for the pure joy of hearing her older cousins howl. Grandpa told her that a girl who bites can never be taught how to fight like a real McDaniel. Hope went cold turkey after that ultimatum, let me tell you! My mom got up from the table and kissed the old man.”

  Jared chuckled. “It’s an unusual family that teaches girls to fight.”

  “Unusual doesn’t even begin to describe my family. Of course, you’re safe for the moment. Being wounded in action gets you off the official McDaniel hit list.”

  She bent over her work, so close he could smell the wind, the water from the burn and a hint of wet dog. Who would have
thought that combination could smell good? Her brow creased, her hair falling like a curtain around their linked hands as she began to wrap gauze over the wounds. Once all were covered with layers of soft material, she ripped off a piece of white tape with her teeth and fastened the end of the bandage down securely.

  “There,” she said, patting him playfully on the chest. “That’s bet—”

  Jared’s breath hissed between his teeth. She drew her fingers away, sticky with blood.

  “Oh, my God. You weren’t bitten here, too!” Full of regret, she touched the hard wall of his chest. “Oh, Jared.”

  “It’s nothing,” he said, starting to pull away. But her fingers were already slipping buttons free. The backs of her hands skimmed his skin. He gritted his teeth against the dizzying sweet sensation as she brushed the mat of hair beneath his shirt, spreading the cloth back to expose his skin.

  To hell with the measly bite the rat had managed to deal him. A man would have to be having some body part amputated not to react to this woman feathering her fingers over his chest. Even if it hadn’t been ages since he’d shagged anyone.

  Jared felt his shaft harden. Heard Emma’s breath, a little too fast. He dreaded that she’d noticed he was hard as a rock, but her focus was locked on his chest. It had been a long time since a woman had looked at him like that. An even longer one since a feminine touch had wreaked such havoc on his self-control.

  What would she do if he closed the space between them and eased her down onto his bed? What would she do if he covered all that feminine softness with everything that was hard and male in him? If he took her mouth in a kiss that would make them both forget to breathe? Forget everything but the primitive need to…

  Snib’s right. You are daft, man! She’d probably knee you in the groin, and you’d deserve it! Things are complicated enough, having her here. Sex would only…

  Feel bloody damn wonderful while Jared was in the middle of it. Trouble was, he and Emma would have to work together for the next six weeks feeling uncomfortable around each other. That is, if the lady let him…and why the devil would she? A woman like her. With a man like him? He might as well try to mate that miserable excuse of a terrier with Cruft’s best-in-show.

  So say something, dammit, Jared told himself. Talk about something completely asexual. Like blood.

  “Shouldn’t you have fainted sometime in the past hour?” He hoped she’d ignore the huskiness in his voice. “You know. That whole blood phobia.”

  “IT WAS ALL PART of the act.” She seemed as relieved as he was to find something to talk about. “Considering my family, I’d spend half my life out cold if I were that squeamish. They don’t call us the fighting McDaniels back in Whitewater for nothing.”

  He smiled, a real smile this time. Emma’s gaze dipped, drawn to the flash of white. Her breasts tingled, a melting sensation in places too dangerous to allow. He looked…feverish. He couldn’t be getting an infection this soon, but his eyes…they burned green, hot…intense.

  Emma’s mouth went dry. Every bit of small talk she’d ever used in conversation flew right out of her head. Lord. She was staring at him like a ninny. She patted the wound on his chest dry, busied herself by taping a gauze pad on the injury.

  “You miss them a lot, don’t you?”

  Emma heard Jared’s breath hitch as the edge of her little finger skimmed his nipple.

  “Miss who?”

  “Your family.”

  Family…That’s what she was talking about. “You’d think I’d get used to it—being gone so much. But like Mom says, they’ll always be there to come home to.”

  “If you like I could send the letters you wrote out with the rest of the post.”

  Emma froze, a strip of tape snarling around her fingers. “My letters?” Her stomach knotted.

  Guilt suffused Jared’s rugged features. “I came up to the tower, figuring you were still asleep. You were gone.”

  “That must have taken one whole glance at the bed to figure out.”

  “I thought you might have hitchhiked or—”

  “Hitchhiked?” Emma’s temples throbbed. “You think I’m out of my mind?”

  “Or that you’d gone someplace you weren’t supposed to,” he finished, as if he hadn’t heard her. His eyes narrowed. “I was right about that much, wasn’t I? I went to look out the window, and…well, you left the thing out in front of God and everybody.”

  “I wanted to make sure the ink was dry,” Emma said with measured fury. “And you forgot to pack any medieval envelopes in the chest. It sure wasn’t an invitation for you to read them.”

  She pressed her hand to her stomach, feeling strangely violated as she imagined the cynical Jared Butler reading through the private, precious thoughts meant only for loving eyes. Oh, God. What had she written? She’d been trying so hard not to cry that she could hardly remember. But Jared couldn’t know that, could he? Then why was he looking at her with—damn, a hint of…pity?

  “How would you feel if I read your private letters to your family?” Emma confronted him, hands on hips.

  “That will never happen.”

  “I suppose your work is too important for you to be bothered to drop your parents a few lines?”

  Jared compressed his lips for a moment. “I don’t have any family.”

  Emma stared at him. His eyes were hooded, dark with secrets. “But your father…you said…”

  “He’s dead. They all are.”

  Emma’s heart clenched, her fury at Jared’s intrusion paling in comparison to her runaway imagination. Picturing just how bleak her own life would be if God obliterated everybody she loved.

  Jared held up his gauze-wrapped hand in surrender. “I was wrong to read the letters. I admit it. But don’t you think being chewed up in a dogfight is penance enough?”

  “Not unless I was the one who got to bite you.” She hated the fact that he had a point. He might have read her letters, but he’d also saved Captain.

  “What if we make a deal, you and me?” Jared offered. “I’ll not invade your privacy again and you’ll stay on the right side of the chain barricade at the rear of the castle. No more prowling around where you don’t belong.”

  He looked so damned reasonable, those green eyes fixed on hers as he waited for her answer. But this was one time reasonable wouldn’t work any more than indulging his temper had.

  One of Hope’s favorite phrases rose in her mind: You’re not the boss of me. Okay, maybe it worked better coming from an eight-year-old, but Emma could at least hold on to the gist of the words.

  She walked over to the crate, lifting it up to carry back to the tower room. “I’ll just get my dog out of your way now.”

  “Hold on. I didn’t say you could keep it. A dog on a dig site is a rotten idea.”

  “He won’t go near your precious dig site. He’ll be with me. After all, they had dogs in medieval times, didn’t they?”

  “Deerhounds and mastiffs and—”

  “I could use some company with manners. Captain won’t be able to read my letters or—”

  Or look so damned sexy when he was really a nosy, unprincipled—

  “All right. You can keep the dog. But at the first sign he’s digging—”

  “Maybe you can sew buttons on his paws.”

  “Fine. I won’t read your letters or give your dog to the SPCA and you won’t go poking around the back of the castle. I just don’t want the site contaminated. Surely we can agree on that. Do we have a bargain?”

  Without a word, she turned and walked out the tent door, the dog’s box in her arms.

  “Emma?”

  She heard Jared’s irritated call. He was waiting for an answer. Too bad, she thought. He’d have to wait a long time.

  Because there was one more thing she’d forgotten to mention about the McDaniel code. McDaniels kept their word. She had no intention of making Jared Butler a promise she wouldn’t keep.

  She hadn’t forgotten the warrior she’d seen or the
strange tug she’d felt in the center of her chest at the sight of him fighting upon the sea.

  As if the valiant knight from centuries gone by felt just as lost as she did.

  And she was the only one who could find him.

  Chapter Six

  JARED BUTLER WAS LICKING her neck. Emma could feel it through that delicious twilight between sleep and wakefulness. His warm tongue stroked the sensitive cords and hollows, pausing from time to time to torture her with tiny nips at her earlobe.

  His hair could use washing, the thick waves not nearly as soft as they appeared. But who cared as long as she could feel that soul-shattering mouth on her skin at last?

  She should make him stop. She would. Just not yet. It had been so long since she’d felt this pulse-racing anticipation, this surrender to needs she’d buried, almost feared.

  She moaned, restless against the lumpy mattress, feather quills pricking through the cloth and prodding her to wake. No. Not yet, she pleaded. She wanted to feel the weight of him bearing down on her. Wanted him to kiss her mouth.

  She didn’t want to beg. Couldn’t help herself. “Put your hands on me. Jared, please…”

  He stuck an ice cube in her ear instead. With a cry of protest, she started awake. One distorted black button eye stared down at her, a dog’s face looming so close to hers it looked as if it were twisted by a funhouse mirror. Captain nudged her again with his cold, wet nose.

  “Ohmigod,” Emma gasped, struggling upright. “You’re not…I mean, he’s not…” So much for her night of burning romance.

  The terrier tilted its head to one side in query. Still feeling the effects of Jared’s Scotch, Captain listed to one side, then toppled into a pathetically thin heap.

  Emma gathered the dog into her arms and peered about the room. The sun was setting, shadows painted against the wall. Where had the day gone? She’d brought Captain up to her room so he could rest, but the whole time she’d been changing out of her damp clothes, the mutt had struggled frantically to scratch out his stitches. Afraid he just might succeed, she had finally curled up with him on her bed, holding him so his claws couldn’t do any more damage.