The Bride Said, I Did?

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  At that, her face grew pale, her shoulders stiffer. “If you really think that, you don’t know me at all,” she said, appearing no less hurt and disillusioned, no more ready to meet him halfway. “Furthermore,” she continued, standing as still and unresponsive as a statue in his arms, “I am not the one who is making impossible demands here. You are.”

  Was he?

  Beau didn’t think so.

  Dani was the one who was being unreasonable. Dani was the one who was afraid to love. Afraid if she did, the whole world would come tumbling down around her once again. Beau regarded her with growing helplessness, his gut telling him that if it wasn’t this issue driving them apart, some other one soon would be. “I’ve done everything I can to show you that you are safe with me and always will be,” he said quietly. But to his chagrin, Dani didn’t seem to want to hear that, any more than she wanted to confront—and conquer—her fears. She had gone into this relationship with him with both feet out the door, and even after all the love they had shared, she was still ready to bolt at the slightest provocation.

  Tears flooding her eyes, she brushed past him. “This isn’t a movie, Beau, or some fantasy of life as it should be. As much as you might want to, you can’t control the ending or make it happily-ever-after. This is real life, and in real life things don’t always work out the way we want. How well I know that,” she finished bitterly.

  “Meaning what?” Beau shot back, finding her remote attitude and cold sad voice much more terrifying than her anger. “That because we disagree on something our marriage is over, just like that? Meaning I’m supposed to stand by and watch you sabotage our marriage and make fools of us both by insisting your career comes first and always will?”

  Unable to dispute the truth of that, Dani grabbed her purse and her keys and headed for the door. “I should have known my career is the only thing I can count on in this life! I should have known this happiness, like every other, wouldn’t last!” she said emotionally. “Darn it all, Beau, why did you do this to me? Make every aspect of our life together movie-set perfect right down to the interior of my house? Why did you make me believe we had a love that was wonderful enough to be in one of your movies if it wasn’t going to last?”

  “I’m not the one throwing it all away!”

  “Aren’t you?” Dani asked, her disappointment in him like a dagger to his heart. “You know if I do a favor for you, it won’t be long before other actors come to me, too, asking for the same kind of ‘special consideration’ because that’s the way it works in this business. You treat just one person different—a little better, a little worse—and before you know it people think maybe you can be swayed to give a better review just because you happen to like someone or see them socially, and everything you do or say becomes, if not suspect, at least a lot less respected. I’ve worked too hard to let that happen. I don’t want to have my integrity, my ability to be objective, questioned, because once that happens, my career as a respected critic is finished. And I’m not going to let that happen, not even for you.” Giving him no chance to respond, she stormed away.

  Beau caught up with her in the front hall. Their eyes met. The air between them fairly crackled with electricity. They were at a turning point here, whether Dani wanted to admit it or not. Up until now, she had only let herself really rely on two things—her sisters and her career. For their marriage to work she had to rely on him, too. She had to be ready to risk conflict and turmoil and stay around and work things out. She couldn’t just run every time they hit a rough patch. But that was, it seemed, exactly what she was determined to do. He had only to look into her eyes to know that was so.

  “Let’s just face it before we do any more damage,” Dani said, hurt radiating from her eyes. “This—us—isn’t right.” Her tone was low, bitter. “We never should have even started.”

  Aware it was all he could do not to take her in his arms and kiss her senseless, he said softly, “You already walked out on me once, Dani. In Mexico. You walk out that door this time and I am not coming after you.” He wouldn’t put either of them through that again.

  Dani glared at him, her expression stony with resolve, the hands-off warning still in her eyes. “I don’t want you to come after me,” she insisted quietly, stubbornly, her heart encased in stone once again. “All I want is for you to leave so I can put my life back together—without any of the movie-set fantasy you’re so fond of.” Shaking her head, she turned away. “I’m going to spend the night at my sister Jenna’s apartment. I’ll give you until morning to clear out your things.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Bet you didn’t know Dani still had any of these things, did you?” Kelsey Lockhart asked as she, Jenna and Meg placed a gauzy white dress, a dried bouquet and a white lace mantilla on the desk in his production office the following morning.

  Beau stared at the belongings, which still bore the fragrance of Dani’s perfume and the feminine essence of her skin and hair. He wasn’t surprised she’d kept these things. She was a very sentimental woman at heart, capable of an amazing amount of love. It was just too bad she wouldn’t let herself give it. “Maybe they’re a reminder of what not to do again,” he said gruffly, pushing the things away.

  “Like get involved with someone like you?” Meg asked quietly.

  Beau sat back in his chair, silent, waiting. These Lockhart women stuck together, that much he knew. Not one of them would be leaving until they had their say.

  “You two love each other,” Jenna began.

  I sure thought we did. That was why he’d thrown down the gauntlet, telling her if she walked out the door, it was over. He wasn’t coming after her again. Because he wanted to shake her up, make her realize what was important. Their marriage. Not their careers. Not their fears. But all the love—the family—they could have together. Now, given the way she had walked out on him again…Beau sighed wearily, unable to recall when he had felt so lonely and unhappy.

  He dropped his pen on his desk.

  “You really love each other,” Kelsey added.

  “And what makes you think that?” Beau asked coolly.

  “The way you look at each other when you’re together,” Jenna said.

  The night they’d had dinner with all the Lockharts had been fun, Beau admitted.

  “Not to mention the way she talked about you incessantly, even before the two of you ran off to Mexico,” Kelsey said.

  Beau hadn’t been able to stop thinking or talking about her, either.

  “And let’s not forget the way she looks right now,” Meg added, worry etched on her face.

  “Why? What’s wrong with her?” Beau demanded, leaning forward in his chair.

  All three Lockhart sisters scowled at him. “You broke her heart,” Jenna said.

  Beau didn’t know whether to laugh or argue. He arrowed a thumb at his chest and said, “She broke her own heart when she turned her back on me and our marriage.”

  “You never should have let her walk out on you.” Meg shook her head reprovingly.

  “And what was I supposed to do? Keep her prisoner?” Beau shot right back, refusing to feel guilty about anything that led to their breakup. How was he supposed to know that Dani wouldn’t come to her senses last night and return? How was he supposed to know that their marriage really meant so little to her when it meant everything to him? “I can’t be with a woman who doesn’t put us first,” he said. He picked up a pen and turned it end over end.

  “We totally agree with you on that, Beau,” Jenna said gently.

  Kelsey nodded. “We think Dani should stop reviewing your movies, too.”

  “But we also think if she chooses to continue reviewing your work that you should accept that,” Meg added.

  “Especially now that there’s a baby on the way,” Jenna said.

  Beau paused at the mention of the child he and Dani had created in an act of love. Warm feelings flooding his heart, he regarded them uncertainly. “She told you about that, too?”

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nbsp; They nodded in unison. “She was going to have to sooner or later,” Kelsey said.

  “She’ll need our help more than ever if you’re not going to be in the picture,” Jenna warned.

  Beau scowled. The thought of Dani having their baby without him was unbearable. He stood up restlessly, braced his hands on his waist. He was letting Dani go because he loved her, hoping she’d come back on her own, not because she felt obligated to, because of their baby or their hasty marriage, but because she loved him. Enough to want to spend the rest of her life with him and make theirs a real marriage in every respect. He wanted her to come back because she loved him enough to risk her heart.

  “I’m not abandoning the baby,” Beau said flatly. “Any more than I’m abandoning Dani.” The pregnancy was going to be an emotional time for her. Whether they were married or not, he was going to be there to see her through it.

  Skeptical looks were exchanged all around. “You may not think that’s what’s happening now…” Kelsey began.

  “…but ten to one Dani sees it that way,” Meg finished.

  “No matter how much you both love the baby, it won’t be the same, either, if the two of you aren’t married,” Jenna warned.

  Meg’s eyes telegraphed a boatload of concern. “Don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t put your pride ahead of what’s in your heart,” she advised, clearly speaking from bitter experience.

  Beau thought about the problems Meg’s son, Jeremy, was going through now because of Meg’s decision to go it alone, without a husband or father to help her. “Is that what you think I’m doing?” he asked eventually. “Deserting Dani? Deserting our baby? Deserting the two people who—” at least until his argument with Dani last night, he thought “—were going to be my family?”

  Meg lifted a brow. “Aren’t you?”

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN you can’t review Bravo Canyon?” Dani’s publisher, Hank Mortimer, asked later the same morning. “You got the film, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I got it.” The phone cradled against her ear, Dani paced and paced. She didn’t know what it was about her house now, but it seemed so big and empty since Beau had packed his bags and left. Worse, she had never felt lonelier. And she had cried all night at Jenna’s apartment.

  “Did you watch it?” Hank demanded.

  “Yes, I watched it.” Doing her best to take care of her baby, even under such enormous stress, Dani sipped a glass of milk.

  “And…?” Hank waited for the verdict with bated breath.

  Dani sighed and sat down at her desk. “It’s the best film Beau Chamberlain has ever made.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Hank sounded thoroughly exasperated.

  Dani rubbed the tense muscles at the back of her neck. “I’m just not sure I can be objective.”

  “When have you not been objective?” Hank demanded.

  When I fell in love with Beau. Common sense had gone right out the window. She had acted on feelings, and feelings alone. And as a result had made a complete fool of herself, thinking that their marriage could ever work.

  “Keep this up,” Hank said, clearly trying to tease her into cooperating with him, “and people are going to think he charmed you into not reviewing his movie.”

  Dani stiffened. “I would never let that happen.” Nor did she want to make fools of both her and Beau, as Beau had suggested she’d be doing by printing such a glowing review of his work. Granted, she didn’t think she had written anything that wasn’t true. Bravo Canyon was the best western she had ever seen. But it had also starred Beau and been made by his production company. And she loved Beau more than she had ever loved anyone in her entire life. So maybe Beau was right. Maybe, given what was in her heart, she wasn’t able to be objective where he was concerned.

  Hank exhaled loudly on the other end of the connection. “Up till now, you’ve never refused to review a movie, either.”

  That’s because I’ve never been in love. And she did love Beau with all her heart and soul, no matter what he thought. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been up most of the night waiting for him to charge over to Jenna’s like some big-screen-western hero, claim her as his woman and sweep her up into his arms. And take her home.

  Hearing the sound of a car door slam out front, Dani moved to the window just in time to see Ellsworth and Edie Getz coming up the stairs to her front porch. “Hank, I have to go.”

  “Fine. Just make sure that review is in by six o’clock. Or else.” Giving her no chance to reply, her publisher cut the connection.

  Still stinging from her boss’s rebuke, with no clue as to what she was or wasn’t going to do about that, Dani stepped out onto her porch. No doubt Beau’s agent and publicist had an opinion about what she should do, one she was quite sure they were just dying to share with her. “Don’t tell me,” Dani said drolly, taking in the superbly dressed power couple from Los Angeles. “Beau sent you.”

  Edie and her husband exchanged a look. “Actually,” Edie said, “Beau would probably fire us both if he knew we were here.”

  Dani noted that didn’t seem to be stopping them. “Then…?” she prodded.

  Edie sighed as Dani escorted them into the living room. “We’re here to talk some sense into you, since talking sense into Beau failed.”

  Ellsworth settled on the sofa beside his wife. “We know what happened in Mexico.”

  Dani’s shoulders stiffened with dismay. “Then you know Beau and I made a giant mistake.” One that had been unequivocably confirmed when Beau, perhaps the most determined man she had ever known, had passed on the opportunity to take charge of the situation in his usual big-screen-hero way and “allowed” her to walk out on their life together last night.

  Edie frowned. “The only mistake I see either of you making is right now.”

  Ellsworth continued, “Stubbornness can be a great asset to a person in the entertainment field. It keeps you drumming away when others around you give up. But it’s a very bad trait for a marriage.”

  Edie nodded in agreement. “Married couples need to be able to give and take, and sacrifice their own agenda for the benefit of the union.”

  Dani knew that was true. And if she thought there was a real chance she and Beau could fix things, she’d be back by his side in an instant. But they couldn’t. Beau had been very clear about that. He had asked her not to review his work for the sake of their marriage. Hurt by the attack on her integrity, she had refused his request. He had told her not to walk out on him again. And she had.

  Aware Edie and Ellsworth were waiting for some explanation, Dani said finally, “Beau and I didn’t have a real marriage.”

  “You would never know that by the way he’s behaving,” Edie murmured, smoothing her skirt.

  “I haven’t seen him this upset since he came back from Mexico several weeks ago,” Ellsworth agreed.

  Dani’s chin jutted out. “I didn’t force us to break up. He’s the one who made the demands and issued the ultimatums.”

  Again the Getzes were in agreement with each other and disagreement with Dani. “He thinks just the opposite happened, that you’re the one who walked out on him,” Edie said.

  Dani knew that Beau had never cared what anyone said about his work as long as he felt he’d made an entertaining movie that left people feeling that right always prevailed over wrong. But he had cared about what she’d said about his work, just as she had always been more intensely interested in his work than anyone else’s. Like it or not, because of their feelings for each other, this was a personal issue and probably always would be.

  Edie stood and crossed to Dani’s side. Patting her gently on the shoulder, she said, “The point is, it doesn’t matter who did what to whom when. What matters is that the two of you are miserable without each other. You have a chance to be happy, Dani. And so does Beau. But for either of you to get the chance to have it all, one of you is going to have to make the first move.”

  Edie and Ellsworth were sounding more like Beau’s family tha
n agent and publicist. But then, wasn’t that what the duo was famous for—supporting and nurturing their clients? “Shouldn’t you be having this conversation with him?” Dani asked, refusing to budge.

  “We already have.” Edie sighed and shook her head. “He’s as stubborn as a mule.”

  Ellsworth’s brow furrowed. “He says he’s not going to force you to come back to him again. ‘Been there, done that,’ is how he put it.”

  Dani took a deep breath. Was it too late? What would Beau do if this time she went back and said she wanted to try again, instead of just sitting here and waiting for him to chase after her? Meanwhile there were other problems to be dealt with. Deciding to seek Edie and Ellsworth’s advice on the rest of the dilemma, Dani confided, “I’m under considerable pressure professionally to publish my review of Bravo Canyon. Beau, on the other hand, thinks it is way too glowing and has asked me to pull it.”

  “What do you want to do?” Edie asked gently.

  Dani shrugged, her heart in turmoil. “I want the same thing I wanted yesterday—to publish it.” She knew it was personal—and personal feelings of any kind had no place in her work. She knew it didn’t make sense for her to be feeling this way. But the fact remained she wanted everyone to know how proud she was of Beau and what he had done in Bravo Canyon. Dani looked at Edie and Ellsworth. “What do you think I should do?”

  “I think you have to go with your gut feelings on that,” Ellsworth said.

  Dani hedged. “But when word gets out we’re married…” Which would be soon, since they knew the tabloids and other celebrity magazines were on to them.

  Edie held up a hand. “I wouldn’t worry about that, Dani. You’ve established quite a reputation for yourself. People will understand that you love Beau, but that you are also a talented critic capable of moving beyond your personal feelings to the work at hand.”