She looked puzzled, but she stayed silent until Wiley had parked the car across the street from his office building. In the clear morning sun, the garishly painted little barbecue restaurant looked loud and bright. He fished the keys out of his pocket and felt himself wanting to hold his breath as he led Rae-Anne up the sidewalk.
“Why do you have keys to this place?” she wanted to know.
“Because, honey, as of about five-thirty yesterday afternoon, I’m the proud owner of this little joint.”
They stepped inside and Wiley clicked on a couple of lights. The turquoise walls seemed more ostentatious than ever, and without anybody around, the open central courtyard looked empty and deserted.
Had he made a mistake? Wiley wondered suddenly. Was he making a mistake right now? He swallowed hard and took Rae-Anne’s hand.
“Come on,” he said. “The best part is out back.”
But even the big drum smoker that had seemed like the restaurant’s pride and glory yesterday wasn’t enough to raise a response from Rae-Anne. Wiley felt his confidence ebbing, felt himself sliding into the silence and uncertainty that had kept him so far away from this woman for so long.
And then, as clearly as if the words were echoing in the empty space around them, he heard Rae-Anne’s voice saying, What if I loved you enough to marry you?
She’d asked him that two days ago, and he’d given her a pretty lousy answer.
It was time to see if he could come up with something better.
“Let me get this straight,” Rae-Anne was saying, following Wiley toward the painted picnic tables in the center of the courtyard. “While you were supposed to be catching up on some sleep—which, I might add, you look as though you still need—you were out buying real estate?”
Wiley nodded. “Place was going to close down,” he said. “I didn’t want to see that happen. All of us at the office have been eating lunch here for years now.”
“So you’re becoming a restauranteur as well as a private eye.” She frowned, and barely seemed to notice as Wiley wrapped his hands around her slim waist and hoisted her onto the nearest table, so that their eyes were level with each other.
“No.”
A flicker of Rae-Anne’s old defiant spirit showed behind the wariness in her blue gaze. Wiley felt his breath quicken at the sight of it, and at the feeling of her forefinger hitting the center of his chest.
“Wiley Cotter,” she said, “explain yourself.”
“I decided yesterday that I needed a change.” He’d practiced saying these words, but it was still hard to get them out. “A big change. I’ve gotten tired of shooting at people, Rae-Anne. And tired of people shooting at me. And when you came so close to getting killed the other day—”
He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. The nightmare image of Rae-Anne’s white dress fluttering as she lost her grip on that stone wall would be with him until the day he finally pegged out, he was certain.
But she hadn’t died. And that flash of spirit in her eyes was more pronounced now, giving Wiley the confidence to go on.
“I’m quitting the investigations business,” he said bluntly. “Sam can take over the agency, although I haven’t broken the news to him yet.”
“And you’re devoting your life to barbecue instead?”
This was it, Wiley thought. This was the final hurdle. It had come up more suddenly than he’d expected.
And yet it felt as though he’d been waiting his whole life to say these words to Rae-Anne. He moved a step closer to her and rested his hands at her waist, gently, not demanding anything as he so urgently wanted to do.
“No,” he said, and saw her eyes widen. “If you’ll let me—and I know there’s no good reason you should, after everything that’s happened—I’m planning to devote the rest Df my life to you.”
Her whole face changed as he spoke, and suddenly he knew she’d been waiting to hear these words as long as he’d been waiting to say them. His hands tightened around the curve of her waist, and his voice was rough with desire and impatience as he went on.
“I know I’ve been thickheaded about this,” he said. “You tried to get through to me, and I wouldn’t listen. You wanted to talk about love, that morning at my house, and I wouldn’t do it.”
“Is that what we’re talking about now? Love?” Her voice was so soft, so sweet, that it was a physical effort not to tilt his head and kiss her.
If he did that, the conversation would come to a sudden halt. But he couldn’t resist leaning his forehead against hers, drawing her a little closer, as he said, “It’s what we should have been talking about all along, honey. But I was so fixated on keeping you safe and solving this damn case and getting you out of Rodney’s clutches—”
He shook his head and wondered how it was possible to be feeling elated and furious and uncertain all at the same time. Only Rae-Anne Blackburn had ever been able to do this to him.
“When I saw you falling—when I thought I might lose you—nothing else mattered,” he told her. “The only thing that’s mattered to me since that moment was that I loved you—that I do love you. And I’ve been such a hardheaded fool that it’s taken me this long to tell you so.”
It was going to take an entire lifetime to get over the fear he’d felt in that awful moment. It he’d lost the chance to hold Rae-Anne this way, to pull her close to him, to whisper her name against her red-gold hair and feel her whole body trembling in response—
But the welcome way she nestled into his embrace made Wiley think they were going to have an entire lifetime to get over it, to get over everything that had ever gone wrong between them.
“I love you, Rae-Anne Blackburn,” he murmured. “I want to marry you and have children with you and run the funky little barbecue joint until we’re both old and gray— it’ll make you happy. If it won’t—”
She leaned back and smiled at him. “Funky little joint are my biggest weakness,” she said. “You know that. never did belong in that shiny tower Rodney built. And a for the part about having children—”
He’d been rushing her. He’d known it was going to hap pen. He lifted both palms and held them toward her. “I know it’s too soon to be talking about this,” he said. “We don’t have to—”
“Yes, we do.” He was seeing tears in her eyes, Wiley thought. And he was seeing joy, too. The look on her face was about the most beautiful thing he could imagine. “We have two unhappy childhoods to make up for, Wiley—you’s and mine. We’d better get to work on it, as far as I can see,”
She’d said “we” so easily, so naturally, that Wiley wanted to shout with the joy of it. He recaptured her in his arms and held her tight.
“What the hell made you go back to that ranch, any way?” he demanded, no longer trying to keep his question in any kind of order. “If Jack’s people hadn’t been monitoring that place—”
“I left something there—something I couldn’t stand to leave behind.”
Wiley reached into his pocket and brought out the small locket that Jack had retrieved with the rest of Rae-Anne’s belongings. “It wasn’t this, by any chance, was it?” he asked.
Her smile blossomed for him as he dangled the thin gold chain in the sunlit air. “How did you know?” she asked.
“I remembered it from—from your wedding night.”
He’d nearly said “from our wedding night.” And maybe that was closer to the truth after all, he thought, as he fastened the little locket around Rae-Anne’s neck and let himself slide into memories of how it had glinted against her skin in the soft light of the cabin he’d carried her away to.
They’d pledged themselves to each other that night, and every time they’d ever made love.
And the silent promise of their passion had finally found its voice in the happiest moment of Wiley’s whole life.
“It’s not a wedding ring,” he said softly, “but I’ll take care of that the minute you promise to marry me.”
“I promise.” She looke
d into his eyes with such unmistakable love that Wiley wasn’t sure he could stand it. “And, Wiley?”
He was lowering his head to kiss her, but her soft question stopped him. “Mmm?” he said.
“A promise isn’t the same as a manufacturer’s guarantee, you know. I’m not going to trade you in the first time the going gets rough.”
“I know that now.” It was what he’d finally understood in the depths of the night, and what had finally given him the courage to tell Rae-Anne what had been in his heart all along. “A promise just means we love each other enough to try.” He shook his head. “Seems so simple now.” he said, “I mean, hell, honey, I know barbecue recipes more complicated than that.”
“But they don’t taste as good, do they?”
The laughter behind the tears in her eyes was making Wiley crazy. And so was his need to kiss her.
“No,” he said. “They don’t. You hungry now, Rae Anne?”
“No.”
“Good. Me, too.” He lifted her effortlessly off the table amazed at the way that everything he wanted in the world could fit into the circle of his arms this way.
“Remember I said I’d take you wherever you wanted after I said what I had to say?” he asked her.
Rae-Anne nodded.
“Well, the offer still stands. You got any ideas where you want to go, honey?”
“Yes.” Her voice broke over the word. “I want to go home. With you.”
“Then that’s where we’re going.”
He said the simple words like a triumphant bridegroom claiming the woman he loved. He tightened his arms arourd Rae-Anne, exhilarated by the idea of sharing her tears, her happiness, anything and everything that life cared to throw at them from now on.
As long as they were together, he thought, they would find a way to make this happiness last.
And as long as they were together, they were already home.
* * * * *
eISBN 978-14592-7927-8
THE WEDDING ASSIGNMENT
Copyright © 1996 by Cathy Stanton
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
Printed In U.S.A.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Table of Contents
Excerpt
Dear Reader
Books by Cathryn Clare
About the Author
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Copyright
The Wedding Assignment Page 22
