“Thanks, Mom. But I’d rather join a chain gang in Siberia.” There. He almost won a smile…but not quite.
“Now don’t be difficult. We need you there. We need to stand together as a united family.”
He scratched his chin. “Honest to Pete, who the hell cares if we’re a united family?”
“Everyone. This entire community will notice if we’re not there. And the thing is, your sister will be the one to suffer if people start to think she’s mentally…unbalanced.”
“Some people are going to judge no matter what we say or do-but nobody I’d want to be around. And no one I’d want Caroline around either. So I can’t imagine why that matters.”
“Garrett, I know you don’t share the same values that your father and I do. But your sister loves the club. She has so many friends there. When she comes to her senses, she’s going to want to go back, to events just like this. So this is for her, not for you-”
“All right, all right, I’ll go.”
His mother was just starting to wind up, but now she squinted at him in surprise. “You’ll go?”
“Yup. Just tell me what time.”
“It’s black-tie,” his mother warned him.
Well, hell and double hell. But somewhere in those massive closets in the mansion, Garrett knew his mom had saved both a white and a black tux. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been roped into those neck-choking functions a zillion times before.
Once his mother left, he sat with Caroline for another hour. She never woke up enough to talk, apparently because of the fresh sedation they’d given her. But she squeezed his hand…which made his heart climb straight into his throat.
No matter how much torture the club dance was, he was more than happy to attend. Hearing that the country club was a nest of Caroline’s friends was the impetus. Someone there was going to know something. He’d asked everyone else he could think of, but obviously he didn’t know all her acquaintances because he hadn’t hung out in Eastwick for years.
As he headed back to his rented apartment, frustration and worry climbed his mood. So far he’d completely failed the course in helping his sister.
He wasn’t used to failure. For damn sure, he wasn’t used to feeling helpless. Maybe getting some work done would at least clear his mind. Only he’d barely parked the car and climbed out before he saw the new crisis waiting for him.
This particular crisis was wearing a silver-blue T-shirt that gloved her breasts like a faithful lover, a white skirt that looked thin as a handkerchief and a glisten of careless sapphires in the bangle on her wrist.
Oh, yeah. And she had eyes softer than violets.
For two days he’d almost-almost-forgotten that.
Five
Garrett knew he’d see Emma again-that was a guarantee in Eastwick-but he’d counted on some warning. Some time to prepare. Some space to remember that he was a mature, successful adult instead of a teenager wired on hormones and lust.
Well, he did have a couple of seconds, because he spotted her before she spotted him.
She was at the top of the outside back stairs. He’d started using that back entrance because it was private and he didn’t have to go through his landlady’s house. But whyever and whatever Emma was doing there initially eluded him. When he climbed halfway up the stairs, he saw that she’d apparently been piling boxes and sacks against his back door. And then she turned.
“Well, if you aren’t a sight for sore eyes after a mighty long day. But what is all this?” He motioned to the boxes.
She’d heard him. He knew she’d heard him. But for that instant when their eyes met, she went totally still, as if her heart had stopped beating. And damned if his didn’t stop, too.
Her face looked sun-kissed, her mouth bare, her eyes so vulnerable. The T-shirt made her breasts look soft and round and touchable. The pale summer skirt looked as if it’d strip off fast. Evocatively fast. Seductively fast. One look, and all he could think about was claiming her.
“I…” Quickly her expression changed. She smiled, found her poise again. “It’s been bugging me, about your being stuck camping out in this bald apartment. I always have spare things sitting around the gallery. And it’s June right now, so I’m getting ready for a particularly big show in July, which means I’m even more crowded. So I just figured you might be able to use a few things to make the place more comfortable.”
She lifted some items so he could see the nature of the stuff she’d brought over. A pair of Walter Farndon prints of sailboats-as if she could have known he was nuts for sailboats. A stone sculpture in lapis. A bright woven mola. A couple giant-size blue bath towels. A woven basket with some basic kitchenware-a few white plates, white bowls, silverware, mugs with bulls and elephants on them.
Some of the items were undoubtedly from her gallery. But not all.
He looked at her.
Emma rarely showed nerves, yet she suddenly tugged on an earring. “You don’t have to take a thing. If something’s not to your taste, don’t sweat it in any way…”
He kept looking at her.
“But I’m just two doors down, so it was kind of silly not to offer you the use of some things that might perk up the place, make you feel more comfortable away from home…”
He kept looking at her.
And finally the puff seemed to go out of her sails. She sank down on the top step, which left just enough room for him to hunker down next to her. The air was humid enough to wear. Even though the rain had finally stopped, leaves and branches hung heavy with moisture, dripping, catching the late-afternoon sunlight. A pair of rowdy peony bushes clustered under the fence, untended and out of control, yet the scent of the flowers wafted up, so delicate they’d catch your breath.
Or else, she was the one catching his breath.
“This was really nice of you,” he said quietly. “But you didn’t take time out of a workday just to make this apartment more livable.”
She hesitated, then lifted her hands in a humorous gesture of defeat. “Darn it, I can fib to most people without getting caught. How come you’re so hard to fool? But you’re right. I admit it. I needed to do this.”
“You needed to do exactly what? Bring this stuff?” He motioned. “Which really is appreciated by the way. I’ve been camping out with no problem. But damn, it is pretty bald in there.”
She nodded. “Honestly, I thought a few additions would help. But that was just my excuse for coming over. The truth is that I needed to see you.”
“Needed.” He repeated the word, unsure why she’d chosen it or what it meant.
She pulled up her knees, tugged her skirt down, tucked a strand of hair behind her ears. And suddenly she no longer looked like the coolly elegant, poised gallery owner, but the predebutante girl he’d once been so head over heels for.
“It’s been on my mind. The way I ran off the other day,” she admitted. “Darn it, I haven’t done anything that cowardly since I can remember.”
He wasn’t going to haul off and kiss her. Maybe he couldn’t stop thinking about it, but that didn’t mean he was going to do it. “That’s funny. I didn’t see anything that looked like cowardice. What I saw was a woman who seemed pretty shook up. But then, so was I. Lady, can you ever kiss.”
Her cheeks suddenly bloomed with color brighter than all those peonies. “Well, that was exactly the problem. Not how I kissed. But how you kissed, buster.”
“Yeah, I like your version of the story better. It’s just too tough on my male ego to admit that a woman knocked my socks off, especially with nothing more than a few kisses. Much easier to swallow that my expertise and sex appeal threw you. Although, I have to say, I’ve never scared a woman into galloping out of sight at the speed of sound before.”
A sound escaped her throat. A tickle of a chuckle. “Quit it. You’re making me feel better. And I know perfectly well I behaved like a goose.”
“You know what? I’m almost positive we can both survive an awkward moment.”
“I know we can. We’re not kids anymore. It’s just…it would have been awkward.” She lifted a hand in a universally female gesture. “So I wanted it out in the open. A chance to say I’m sorry that happened, it won’t happen again. So you wouldn’t have to worry about running into me again, either.”
“Okay. Got that off both our chests,” he said.
“Right.”
“Neither of us is worried about it anymore,” he said.
“Right.”
And cats danced, he thought. His pulse was pounding like a lonesome stallion near the prettiest filly. He wasn’t a nice man. He knew that. Being nice had never been on his most-wanted-attributes list, but all the same, he was usually a more decent guy than this. The problem was sitting so close to her. Seeing the late sunlight catch in the little swoop of hair that brushed her forehead. Seeing her arms wrapped around her knees like a girl’s. Seeing those sensual violet-blue eyes trying so hard-too hard-not to look at him.
“Tell me about this guy you’re engaged to,” he said.
“Reed? Reed Kelly-you know, Rosedale Farms.”
“Yeah, of course. He was ahead of me by a year in school. But I just didn’t know him well. Seemed like a good guy.”
“He is. Couldn’t be better. He’s got a big, wonderful, gregarious family. He’s terrific with kids, with horses. He’s kind. Patient…”
“How’d you get together?”
She chuckled, but it wasn’t a humorous sound. Suddenly she was pulling at her earlobe again. “My parents have been on my case to marry for years. Produce grandchildren. You know how that goes-”
“Yeah, I do.”
“And I was so sick of being the extra woman at dinner parties and gatherings. Felt like meat being paraded in front of butchers for them to choose the prime cut. Eastwick can be wonderful, but it’s not easy to be single in this town. And Reed was getting it from the other end-he was the extra man every time a hostess needed one. Hated it as much as I did. And then at a dinner party, we found ourselves together-the token singles. It was funny, really. We started going to different functions just to save ourselves being set up.”
“And you found you clicked.”
“I don’t know about clicked. But he was so easy to be with.”
“Easy to be with,” Garrett echoed and stood. Huge holes seemed missing in this picture. For one thing, he couldn’t fathom how a woman as warm and vibrant as Emma hadn’t been tempted by marriage long before this. And granted, he would have been prejudiced against her fiancé if she’d claimed Kelly was a hero ten times over. But easy to be with? What kind of a definition for a relationship was that?
Emma immediately stood, too, as if realizing how long they’d been talking. “I’ll help you take this all in if you’d like. But then I’d better be getting back to the gallery-”
He snagged her wrist. Just lightly. Just to see what touching her did-to her, to him. All he actually did was wrap his fingers around her wrist, his thumb on her pulse, for a few bare seconds. Yet that instantly her eyes shot to his like a light beam. The pulse caught in her throat where he could see it, beating, beating. Her lips suddenly parted.
“He sounds like a saint, Emma,” Garrett said.
“Not a saint. But a really good man-”
“Yeah. So you keep saying. And I believe you. But if you don’t love him, why are you marrying him?”
She didn’t answer him. Maybe she couldn’t answer him. That close, she looked at his mouth, at his eyes. She didn’t move away or try to evade his touch. A mourning dove called from somewhere in the yard.
The scent of peonies again drifted up on the hot, humid breeze, so teasing, so evocative.
It was all he could do not to kiss her-partly because that’s how she looked at him, as if it were all she could do not to kiss him.
Facts kept flashing in his mind: that she was engaged, that he wasn’t a poacher. But even when they were kids he’d never felt a tug this strong. At the vast age of thirty-five, it seemed crazy to discover there was a huge need inside him, a need from the heart, an unbearable hole of loneliness that he hadn’t even known he was suffering from, a hole that only she could feel or fill.
“Don’t, Garrett,” she whispered softly, a plea.
He heard the tremor in her voice. Immediately he released her wrist and stepped back. “I didn’t scare you, did I? I wouldn’t hurt you for the world, Emma-”
“I never thought you would.”
“But I won’t lie. I do want you.”
“Damn, you were always hopelessly honest. But didn’t anyone ever tell you that you don’t have to be quite this blunt?”
She obviously wanted him to smile, wanted to say something that would ease the tension between them. Just then, though, he couldn’t seem to conjure up a smile, even for her. Instead he touched her cheek with the back of his hand, just the mildest-nakedest-of caresses. “Maybe you don’t feel the same thing I’m feeling.”
She sucked in a breath. “I feel it.”
“Do you feel it with him, too, then? When you’re making love with him?” He really had tried to drill some of the blunt honesty from his character, and God knows he didn’t want to make Emma uncomfortable. But he had to ask. He just couldn’t imagine loving someone and feeling this for someone else. Sure, you could be attracted to more than one person. But this yank on his heart as if he’d die if he couldn’t have her, no. He couldn’t imagine another woman in his life if he could have what he was feeling right now for Emma.
She shifted her gaze away from his. “I don’t exactly know, Garrett. Reed and I haven’t…gotten that close.”
“Pardon?” He must have misheard her. She and Reed were engaged. How could they not have slept together?
She sighed heavily and noisily, glanced up at the sky as if begging for strength and then aimed straight for the stairs. As if they’d been discussing the weather, she said cheerfully, “If I find more goodies in the gallery I can spare, I’ll bring them over. And if anything I brought is in your way or you don’t like it, just give a shout and I’ll come get it.”
He leaned over the railing, watching her slim fanny swish as she climbed down the stairs. “Does that mean you’re not too annoyed with me for asking a few awkward questions?”
“Of course I’m annoyed. You’re being a royal pain. Unsettling and upsetting.” She glanced back at him one more time. “No different than you always were. But thank God I’m not seventeen anymore.”
“Damn straight. You’re a hell of a lot more beautiful. And more confounding.”
“And you always did like putting your hand in the fire. But we’re going to get along famously while you’re in town,” she informed him cheerfully. “Partly because we’re two doors down from each other. and because I care about your sister and want to help with Caroline if I can. And partly because you were my first love, which I really don’t want to forget-even though you’re being bad. Bad to the bone. Bad all the way down to the-”
“I get the picture.”
“So the point is that I’m not going to let a little awkwardness make it impossible to be together now and then.”
“Be together…how exactly do you mean that?”
She flipped him the finger. Emma. Emma Dearborn. Emma D-the silk-and-pearls debutante of Eastwick, the never-do-anything-wrong-in-public, never-offend-anyone Emma. Flipped him the finger.
He was downright charmed. And captivated.
“Damn, you’re fun,” he said.
“I am not.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, you are. And I may just have to make another pass at you, Em.”
“You try it and I’ll have to slap you silly,” she warned him…and then seemed to realize she was calling out that information to the entire neighborhood. He heard her sigh. Again. And then finally she disappeared from his sight.
He hung over the porch rail after that for a while, though. He could feel the silly grin on his face, when, hell, he didn’t do grins. Come to think of it, he hadn’t smiled in
a long time.
He waited for the guilt to hit him again. And of course, it did. It wasn’t comfortable or right, this huge, building thing he felt for a woman who was taken, even though she sounded less taken than he’d originally believed.
Garrett told himself to back off. But when he pivoted around and headed into his apartment, he couldn’t swear that he was going to obey that inner conscience.
He couldn’t swear to anything. Not where Emma was concerned.
Except that he wished he hadn’t been crazy enough to lose her the first time.
Emma twisted and turned until she could see the middle of her back in the bathroom mirror at Color. There it was. The reason for the itch that had been driving her crazy on and off for days now.
A brand new hive.
Just one, but now she had a fresh excuse for being a nervous wreck. Sure, that last conversation with Garrett had preyed on her mind like a cat on a mouse. She’d been making love with Garrett in her dreams. She’d been driving in traffic and suddenly feeling herself flush when thoughts of him swam to the surface. She’d been dressing in the morning, picking out slips of satin and lace and suddenly thinking of taking them off. For Garrett. With Garrett.
But now at least she could claim a physical reason for feeling as if she’d lost control of her life. Impatiently she scratched the sucker-hive on her back, washed her hands and hiked down the hall. The country club June dance was coming up tomorrow. She’d been thinking of it as D-night. Reed had had his hands full all week. Tomorrow she simply had to find a way to corner him alone, to say the things she’d failed to the last time.
And right now what she needed was work. Mind-numbing plain old hard work.
In one of the first-floor display rooms, Emma was finishing up an exhibit. Through July, she was calling it the Red Room. She’d combined textures and textiles with only the color in common. A headdress from Cameroon was juxtaposed with a marble sculpture of a young woman covered in rose petals. A Schweitzer linen wall hanging contrasted with an Afghani rug. A perfectly ghastly lamp from the 1950s-with a woman’s leg in fishnet stockings for a base-echoed the shock and sensuality of a globe painted with the glossy red paint used by Jaguar.
The Soon-To-Be-Disinherited Wife Page 6
