"True."
He laughed and kissed her temple. "Shut up, honey." To me, he said, "But she's right. We've spent enough time alone today."
I gave him an innocent smile. "I know, since Wendy didn't answer my email. What on earth were you doing for so long that she couldn't get to the computer or her phone?"
"Shut up, Melissa," Wendy said without rancor, and we grinned at each other. Mine faded, though, when she added, "Besides, you and Owen probably did the same thing and I'm not teasing you."
"You can't, because we didn't. First we had to meet his family..." I grimaced at how much worse that had been than I'd imagined in my most horrific nightmares. "And then he took off to the casino to be alone."
"Just him and the gamblers," Mark said.
"Yeah. Apparently that's better than being with me."
Wendy shook her head at once. "Don't say that. You know how he is. Needs his cave."
"Yup." My caveman, who wouldn't let me join him in his cave. I sighed.
Wendy patted my back. "So Austin gave you a tour of the ship, right? How's about you show us around?" Her cheeks pinkened. "We haven't seen much."
"I saw plenty," Mark said, pulling her close. "But not much of the ship."
We laughed, and I gave them the tour then we explored past where Austin and I had been, finding the spa and the movie theatre and what must have been the quiet pool Nicholas had mentioned, a small one shaped like a starfish. One older lady swam slowly back and forth, her head out of the water to keep her curler-filled hair dry, and a few people sat in lounge chairs reading or doing crosswords. The pool was on the top deck of the ship, and the darkening sky above it reflected beautifully in its ripples.
We moved on, and after a while Wendy said, "You okay, Melissa? You look tired. Of course, it's been quite the day, hasn't it?"
"No doubt." I rubbed my forehead. "I'm fine. It's deeply weird, but it's okay."
"Owen seemed... mad." She tipped her head to one side. "Was he?"
I nodded. "Didn't like that I basically cheated on Austin. Even though Austin didn't care. And he also wasn't convinced I didn't lie about how many boyfriends I've had."
She shook her head. "He should know you better than that."
I had to laugh. "How? He hasn't even known me three months."
She frowned, then her face cleared and she nodded. "Wow, you're right. It just feels like you guys have been together forever. He'll smarten up eventually, I'm sure. Right, Mark?"
"I have to admit, I wouldn't much like knowing that my brothers had... significant knowledge of my girlfriend, let's say," Mark admitted. "But yeah, he'll come around. Once he's over the shock."
He sounded certain and it calmed me. "Thanks, guys. You're the best."
"That's true," they said in unison, and we all laughed.
They really had made me feel better, and they'd been sweet to spend their first evening on the ship hanging out with me, but their synchronized response, the evidence that they were so close and so linked in a way I rarely felt with Owen, made me say, "Go off and be the best on your own, okay? I'm going to hang out by the quiet pool and read for a while before bed."
"You sure?"
I nodded at Wendy. "Definitely. Thanks, though. Tonight was great."
"Breakfast tomorrow?" Before I could answer, she added, "No, wait, you probably want to hang out with Owen, right?"
I did, but I didn't know if I could, and having spent the better part of the afternoon alone I didn't much like the idea of tomorrow following the same pattern. "I can see him later in the day. Breakfast would be great."
"Enjoy," Mark said. "I'll be sleeping in until noon."
Wendy rolled her eyes. "I know, that's why I didn't invite you." To me, she said, "And then do you want to get a pedicure? It'd be nice to have pretty feet for the cruise."
"Sounds good. In the morning, if possible, so I can have the afternoon for Owen."
She looked pained. "You're going to leave me to spend my afternoon putting up with this guy?"
Mark gave her a leer and leaned into her. "Works for me."
"Of course it does." She pushed him away, then laughed and took his hand. "Okay, Melissa, I'll go try to book the spa right now."
We arranged to meet at eight for breakfast, then they went to get a drink and I went back to my stateroom to get my ereader, hoping against hope that Owen would be there. Seeing my friends' close relationship made me want to reconnect with him.
Hopes denied, I found my ereader and headed back out. As I left, I considered bringing a sweater but then decided against it since the air was warm.
Five minutes after I settled by the now-empty pool with the moonlight casting a silver glow on its still water I knew I'd made the wrong decision. The air was indeed warm but the breeze sweeping across the deck of the moving ship wasn't, and though I burrowed down into my lounge chair goosebumps still rose on my arms. The few other people scattered around the pool were wrapped in towels or blankets against the cool air, and I envied them, especially the quietly snoring woman a few chairs over who'd buried herself so thoroughly she looked like a caterpillar in a towel cocoon.
After a few minutes of vainly trying to think warm thoughts, I was about to give up and go fetch a sweater, or just go sit in my stateroom and wonder how I'd ended up there alone, when I felt someone watching me. I looked up, and my goosebumps returned with a vengeance as a shiver raced down my spine.
Nicholas.
Chapter Four
"Hey." He sounded as unsure as I felt.
"Hey," I said, trying to sound casual and failing just as he had.
He cleared his throat. "Can I join you?"
"Of course."
He sank onto the chair next to mine, and I noticed he still wore the khaki pants and white polo shirt he'd had on at dinner but with a black windbreaker jacket over top and a thin blue-and-white striped scarf wrapped around his neck. I'd never seen him wear something like that scarf before, and it didn't suit him. Too fashion-forward, too aggressively "I'm on a boat, I'd better wear something nautical". The Nicholas I'd known wouldn't have chosen it.
Then again, the Nicholas I'd known probably didn't exist any more.
I laid my ereader in my lap and folded my hands atop it to hide their trembling.
"Sorry, you were reading. I didn't mean to interrupt."
"It's okay."
He nodded, and we sat silent. I stared down at my hands, then flicked my gaze sideways toward him without moving my head.
He was studying his own hands.
I had to say something. We'd be spending every major holiday together from now on, and this awkward silence wouldn't make anyone feel very festive. After a few moments of casting about, I decided I'd ask him what his stateroom was like. Not exactly scintillating conversation, but better than nothing.
As I said, "What--", he said it too.
We both stopped and I said, "Go ahead."
"No, I cut you off. You go ahead."
I raised my head and looked at him, and our eyes really met for the first time. He smiled, shaking his head. "Oh, Melissa. This is all so weird."
His smile made my shoulders relax. "Yeah. Totally." He'd always called me Melissa, since he knew the annoyance of having your name shortened against your will, and I'd returned the favor with his name.
"Never in a million years would I have thought--" He cut himself off and his neck turned a bright enough red that I could see it even in the soft lighting around the pool. "Um, that I'd run into you here."
I nodded, knowing he'd been thinking something else and not wanting to know exactly. More than enough people had expressed shock that I was marrying Owen so soon; I didn't want to hear anything of the sort from Nicholas. "I know. I'm sorry I'm wrecking your vacation."
He laughed. "You aren't. Trust me. You've met my mom and my brothers, right?" His eyes widened. "Austin, I mean. Not Owen, he's fine."
I leaned back in my chair, feeling even more tension draining from me as amusement t
ook its place. "I have no siblings so I don't know but from what I hear people often find their siblings annoying. Even if they're grown-up bank managers like Owen."
He smiled again. "You hear right. They're all okay, obviously, but we just want different things from this trip. Mom gives me grief for reading for hours but that's all I really want to do. Well, that and a few excursions. But when I'm on board, I'm here." He gestured at the pool.
"I can see why, it's gorgeous."
He nodded, and a silence fell again. This one was peaceful not uptight, though, and we sat looking at the gently rippling pool water for a good minute before he said, "How are you? Work going all right, all that sort of thing?"
I nodded. "Got promoted to assistant manager a month ago."
The towel cocoon woman rolled over and almost fell out of her chair, catching herself just in time with a startled grunt. Nicholas and I smiled at each other, then he said, "Congrats. How's the ebook thing affecting you guys?"
I tipped my head from side to side. "Like all bookstores, we're still trying to figure it out, but we're getting there. We started selling a number of electronic titles a few months ago and it's gone well. A few staff members are really against it, but I don't think we can deny that things are changing. If you live in the past, pretty soon your business is history."
He didn't respond. Instead he looked at me, his brown eyes full of everything we'd shared. "You were always so good at that. Pulling everything together in one sentence."
I looked down at my hands again, knowing he was thinking of the last sentence I'd said to him.
If you can let me walk away without a word, none of the words you've ever said to me meant anything.
I sighed. "I'm sorry, I should never have said that to you."
He sighed too. "I shouldn't have brought it up. But the thing is--"
As he spoke, the woman emerged from her towel cocoon and shot him a ferocious glare. In case he didn't get her point, she shushed him like he'd been screaming instead of talking quietly.
Nicholas, startled, said, "Sorry."
I echoed his apology, and the woman made a face like she'd bitten into the world's sourest lemon and lay down again.
"Want to go for a walk?" Nicholas mouthed to me.
I nodded and he led me to the other end of the ship where we could look out over the railing at the water flowing by below.
"I know that's the quiet pool but are we supposed to be silent?"
He shook his head. "She's just a grump. She was mad at me earlier today because my ereader beeped. Once."
I smiled. "Some people just have to be complaining about something."
"Yup. I'm hoping she'll be off the cruise after the first week. Lots of people leave when we hit Fort Lauderdale again halfway through. I'd hate to find a new place to hang out."
"You can stay there, you'd just have to keep quiet."
He rolled his eyes. "It's nice to be able to talk at least a little bit."
I nodded, and we stood looking at each other for a long moment. Back when we'd been together, we hadn't always needed words. I'd loved being so connected to him.
"You and I have to be able to talk." He gave a small laugh. "You're going to be my sister-in-law, after all."
"Yeah." I made myself smile. "And you'll be my brother-in-law."
His smile looked as forced as mine felt. "Hard to believe, isn't it?"
I shivered. "Definitely."
He glanced down at my arms. "You're freezing, aren't you? It's always windy up here." He began shrugging out of his jacket.
"I'm okay." While I was cold, the shiver had come from deep inside me and I didn't much want to think about why.
"I can't let my almost-sister turn into an ice cube. Take it."
He'd always been such a sweet chivalrous guy, and I couldn't resist. I slipped my arms into the jacket as he held it out for me, then zipped myself into it. When the neckline closed against my throat, I caught the scent of his cologne, the same leather-and-sandalwood one he'd always used, and felt the heat of his body trapped in the fabric, and for the first time in my life I truly felt my knees go weak as the past rushed in.
"I hope it all goes well," he said awkwardly.
"What?" I managed.
He looked at my left hand, still holding the zipper pull, where the substantial diamond solitaire ring his brother had given me sparkled in the moonlight. "The wedding. And after." He cleared his throat. "I want you to be happy."
I dropped my hand to my side, but I had to clear my own throat, make my emotions release their grip on it, before I could say, "Even after... everything? With us?"
He moved a small step closer to me. "I handled it all wrong. I thought I was doing what you wanted but it pushed you away."
I couldn't let him take all the blame. "I never told you what I wanted. I should have."
His eyes met mine and I realized again how badly I'd hurt him when I left. It was all there in his eyes: confusion and pain and doubt in himself. "Nicholas, I'm so sorry," I said, the words spilling from me. "I didn't tell you what I wanted, didn't even know." A sound that was nearly a sob burst from my throat, startling me. "Hell, I barely know now."
Confusion pushed the rest from his eyes. "You're okay though, right? With Owen?"
I pressed both hands to my face, trying to literally hold myself together. "Sorry. It's been a crazy day. Which of course you know. Sorry. Yeah, I'm fine. It's all fine." I took a long deep breath, let it out slowly, then dropped my hands to my sides. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay." He nodded slowly, not looking sure whether he should. "I understand."
No doubt he did. I'd seen his reaction when we met in the lounge, after all. He'd found seeing me as hard as I'd found seeing him. But he hadn't had the added complication of Owen's anger. Only I'd had to deal with that. "Yeah."
He stepped back from me and said in an overly jolly tone, "Well, it's all going to be fine soon. You'll have a lovely wedding." He gave me a wry smile. "Unless our mothers take it over."
I made myself laugh. "So true. I shudder to think what they'll do to it. Peacock feathers on every pew or something." My mom had seen this odd decoration in a magazine and I'd shot her down, but Linda might go for it.
"As long as it's not whole peacocks."
This laugh came easier. "Can you imagine how loud they'd be?"
"You'd get kicked out of the quiet pool area for sure if you brought a peacock."
I imitated the towel woman's glare, and he laughed.
"Nicky! There you are."
We turned in unison to see Nicole standing with one red-nailed hand on her hip and a quizzical expression. "I've been looking for you everywhere. Come on, I've met a bunch of people and they all want to meet you too."
Before he could speak, she said, "You're wearing that all wrong," and came forward to catch hold of the ends of his scarf. "Don't you remember how the clerk had his arranged when I bought this one for you?" With blatant comfort with touching him, she rewrapped the scarf around his neck, making sure the fringed ends trailed just right.
So I didn't have to watch, I busied myself taking off his jacket then held it out to him when she'd stepped back and said, "That's better."
He shook his head. "You'll need it. You're always cold."
He was right, and it touched me that he remembered. I didn't think Nicole wanted me wearing his jacket, though, so I said, "I'll probably go to the casino to find Owen. I'll be fine inside."
"You will be," Nicole said. "It's lovely in there. Way nicer than being out here with nothing to do."
Her eyes narrowed a fraction as she said this and I said, not wanting to cause Nicholas any trouble, "We've just been talking about my wedding."
"Ah. Well, I need my boyfriend back now."
I made a 'here he is' gesture with my free hand. "All yours."
She watched Nicholas take his jacket from me and put it on, then again fussed with his scarf.
"Good night," he said to me, looking around her.
"Nice talking to you."
"You too. Have fun, you guys."
"We will," she said, leading him away.
I watched them go, feeling warm deep in my chest though my arms were again freezing.
Nicole had bought his scarf. I'd been right about his fashion sense. I still knew him at least that much.
Chapter Five
I went straight to the casino, glad Nicole had arrived when she did and driven me to it. I'd spent my first day aboard with everyone but my fiancé, and I wanted to spend the night with him. I knew he hadn't been pleased about what he'd learned that day, but by now he had to have mellowed out so we could enjoy our cruise together.
I'd expected our time at sea to be wildly romantic, as our lives hadn't been in the last little while. His proposal had been, once I'd gotten over my shock, with both of us saying "I love you" for the first time after he slid the ring onto my finger, but since then our days had been filled with arranging the wedding and getting time off work and packing. We hadn't talked much about the cruise itself but the brochure had been full of lovely moments in the moonlight and I'd thought Owen and I would have those moments too.
Well, now it was time for me to get him and get going on those moments.
Unfortunately, the casino was packed and I couldn't see Owen anywhere, so I pressed my back to a wall so I'd have a little room to breathe and tried to predict where I'd find him. Since he'd never been a gambler before, he wouldn't be at any of the high-stakes slot machines or game tables. He had mentioned poker at dinner, though, so if there were any poker tables that didn't cost an arm and a leg and a shirt to join, I'd probably find him there.
I didn't, though. I found a group of tables with a five-dollar minimum bet, but no Owen. Not at the ten dollar tables either. Though I couldn't quite believe he'd be there, I did check the twenty-dollar area, to no avail, and even cast an eye at the guys wearing sunglasses at the fifty-dollar tables although to my relief he wasn't one of them.
The noise and the flashing lights, even worse than earlier, made me want to escape, but I forced myself to go check out the slot machines. Halfway there, I gave myself a mental slap in the forehead. Of course. He'd gone back to our stateroom to find me. I hadn't been there since I'd picked up my ereader, so no doubt he was waiting for me right now.
Toronto Collection Volume 2 (Toronto Series #6-9) Page 70
