Runaway Vegas Bride

by Teresa Hill

  Kathleen and Gladdy’s work, no doubt.

  She was sitting at the desk, talking on her cell phone, a pad of paper in front of her, pen in hand, taking notes.

  She smiled welcomingly when she saw him and pointed to a pot of coffee and some food on a room service cart by the window. He took the coffee and gulped it down, because his brain still felt muddled and slow.

  He had no idea what to say to her, how to make up for what he’d done or to thank her for all the things she and her relatives had taken care of last night.

  All too soon, before the coffee had done its work, she was off the phone and stood up, list in hand. Coming to him, she put her hand on his arm and got up on her tiptoes to kiss him softly on the cheek.

  “Sleep well?” she asked.

  “Like the dead,” he said, then stopped, realizing what he’d said. Damn. Leo. “He’s not gone yet, is he?”

  “No. Gladdy just called. The doctors have all the paperwork they need on the health care power of attorney and the living will. They should have the results of the last brain scan in an hour or so. They’ll be waiting for you, whenever you’re ready.”

  He shook his head and swore softly.

  “I’m sorry,” Jane said. “I know people are never really ready, not with someone as full of life and healthy as…well, as he seemed, as we all thought he was.”

  “I can’t understand why he didn’t tell me,” Wyatt said.

  “Maybe he tried, and he just couldn’t. Or maybe he thought it would be easier this way. Maybe he thought there would be time. I mean, we always think there’ll be time for the things we want to do or the things we don’t always say to the people we love. Don’t we?”

  Wyatt shook his head, lost. “I just never thought of a world without him. It sounds so stupid to say now. I mean, he’s eighty-six, but—”

  “I know. I never really thought of a world without Gram or Gladdy, either.”

  “Jane?” He looked down at her, at how pretty she looked this morning, how sweet, and how capable with her list in hand, things checked off neatly one by one. “Last night…I don’t even know what to say.”

  “There’s nothing you need to say,” she insisted.

  “Yes. There is. There’s a ton of things I need to say. For God’s sake, I wasn’t even wearing a condom. It’s…inexcusable, I know.”

  “Wyatt, I’m sure it won’t be a problem. I’m on the pill. And I bet you’re normally very responsible about these things—”

  “Very,” he insisted.

  “So, I can’t imagine there’s any need to worry about any of that.”

  He let out a long, slow breath. Okay. One thing down.

  “I’m sorry,” he began again. “I would never want to hurt you. Never want to take a chance of hurting you—”

  “I know that,” she said, as if the thought never even entered her mind.

  Good. Okay, now for the rest of it. “I don’t normally…” he continued. “I mean, I didn’t mean for any of that to happen last night. I was just…I…”

  “Wyatt, I know.” She held on to his hand and gazed at him, a perfect model of acceptance and reassurance and…

  He didn’t even know what else he saw in her eyes, but it eased some of the feelings of complete chaos inside him, eased that choking feeling that was back. Dammit.

  “It wasn’t at all what I planned for the first time you and I were together,” he tried to explain.

  “I know that, too. You don’t have anything to apologize for. There’s nothing you need to do, except get through this day and try to let me help you do it. Okay?”

  He frowned. “I don’t…”

  “Normally let anyone help you? Or take care of you?” she guessed. “Believe me, that’s obvious. Neither do I. So I know just how uncomfortable this would make you, because I would just hate it, hate to ever be in the position where I needed anyone’s help. But give it your best shot, okay? It’s just one of those…awful times and I’m not letting you do this alone.”

  “Okay,” he said, thinking he couldn’t imagine what he’d done to deserve her, but so grateful to have her right now.

  “Sit down. Have some more coffee. Try to eat something, and I’ll tell you what Lucy and I have done so far.”

  Jane had accomplished all she could think to do. She’d taken care of Wyatt as best she could, done as much on the phone as possible to get all the legal papers and medical records here, gotten a list of Leo’s ex-wives and contact information for all of them. Gladdy remembered where Leo kept his address book, because she’d been in his room one day when he had sent flowers to one of his ex-wives for her birthday, something he always did for all his exes he had told her. So finding them turned out to be easy.

  Lucy said Wyatt hadn’t seen his mother in at least a decade and that they shouldn’t waste time trying to find her now. His father was somewhere on a remote Greek island, last they’d heard. No one knew if they’d be able to get a message to him before the funeral, which it turned out Leo had already arranged himself. So there was very little to do for that except find the funeral home—that number was in Leo’s address book also, which Lainie had gone to Remington Park to retrieve for Jane—and tell them they would soon be putting Leo’s plans in place.

  And by finishing all that, she hadn’t had much time to actually think about spending the night in Wyatt’s bed, until she found herself watching him walk into the ICU that day, Gladdy walking out a few moments later, looking a bit frail and sad, two words Jane would never have used before to describe Gladdy or Gram.

  Gladdy brightened at the sight of her. She came to sit by Jane in the waiting area, taking Jane’s hand in both of hers.

  “Darling, that dress is absolutely perfect on you. I knew it would be,” she said, then whispered. “And unless I’ve forgotten what it looks like, I do believe I see a little whisker burn on your neck.”

  “Gladdy, a man is dying in there!” Jane cried out.

  “Yes, darling, he is, but the rest of us aren’t, and if anything, losing Leo says to me that we really don’t have time to waste here. Anything can happen. At any time. And you’ve been squandering time for too long, Jane.”

  Jane was taken aback by that. Gladdy thought she’d been wasting time? Jane would never waste anything as precious as time. The great value she placed on organization alone would ensure that she did not waste time.

  “Now sit here and tell me what you and that gorgeous boy of Leo’s have been doing, because I could tell the first moment I saw you that you’ve been up to something with him.” Gladdy got a little twinkle in her eyes. “Did he like the nightgown Kathleen and I picked out?”

  Jane glared at Gladdy for a moment. She’d still been thinking of time and how she didn’t waste it, and here was Gladdy quizzing her about her love life. It just seemed wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. To talk like this with Leo soon to take his last breath and not fifty feet away.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that. It’s what Leo wanted,” Gladdy claimed.

  “What Leo wanted?”

  “You and Wyatt. He was so happy about it.”

  “How could Leo be happy about it? I thought Leo Gray was insane. I nearly assaulted the man at the retirement park—”

  “Oh, he didn’t mind that. He said Wyatt needed a woman with fire and spirit inside her.”

  Jane blinked to clear her vision, thinking she must not have understood. “Leo Gray wanted me to get together with Wyatt?”

  “Of course. So you have nothing to feel guilty about. Or…I mean, I’m hoping you did something, but you don’t have to feel guilty about it. Now tell me. Right now. We don’t know how much time Kathleen and I have to look out for you, Jane. None of us ever really knows. You have to let us help you now while we can.”

  And then Jane just wanted to cry.

  She’d been thinking the very same thing since she had heard about Leo and saw how devastated Wyatt was at the idea of losing him, how shocking it was to him. She felt the exact same way about Gr
am and Gladdy. She simply could not imagine being without them.

  “Tell me,” Gladdy prompted. “Tell me the good stuff. I need to hear good things today.”

  So Jane told her. “Yes, he liked the nightgown, although you could have bought him some pajamas. I mean, that was a pretty obvious omission.”

  “I’m too old to be subtle. Tell me.”

  “We…we spent the night together—”

  “Jane, please. No subtleties, remember. You made love to that gorgeous man?”

  “Yes. He was so sad, and I just…couldn’t stand the idea of him being so sad or so alone, so lost, and…I wanted to take care of him. I had to. Have you ever wanted to take care of a man, Gladdy? Felt like you couldn’t stand the idea of him being in pain or alone, and that you’d do anything you could to stop him from feeling like that?”

  A huge smile spread across Gladdy’s face. “Oh, Jane, darling!”

  “What?”

  “You love him,” she whispered.

  “No!” Jane insisted. “I didn’t say anything about love. I don’t want to love any man, and he certainly doesn’t want a woman to love him. Not on anything other than a temporary basis. I mean, this is Leo Gray’s nephew we’re talking about. I bet he’s had as many women chasing after him as Leo, and he always will. No sane woman could love a man like that! She’d just be begging to get hurt. I know that.”

  Gladdy shook her head. “Forget that. Tell me more about wanting to take care of him.”

  “I just…I had to. Given the situation and…” Jane frowned. A little uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach that had been there most of the night was steadily getting worse.

  “Jane, have you ever wanted to take care of a man before?”

  “Well…no,” she admitted.

  “And I’m betting you’ve never made love to a man because you were worried about him or in an effort to take care of him?”

  “Of course not.”

  Gladdy just smiled and patted Jane’s hand. “So, how was it, dear?”

  Jane’s cheeks positively burned. Sex, to her, more than anything else, had been an awkward thing, a this-is-what-the-big-fuss-is-about kind of thing. She always felt as if she tried so hard, as if it was work, almost, to try to have what other people claimed to have in bed, and should it really be work-like? In the end—what she’d had—certainly hadn’t been anything to write home about, nothing to make her blush so furiously, until now.

  Wyatt on the plane had been a revelation, a stunner, an absolute delight, and she’d been nervous about how things would actually go, alone in a bedroom with him. About whether the awkwardness that had always plagued her would return or whether she might disappoint him in any way. Although honestly, when they’d stepped off that plane, she’d been ready and eager to do anything he wanted and to let him do anything he wanted to her.

  But what it had been, later, after they found out about Leo, was just…

  She couldn’t really say what it had been, didn’t know exactly how, but it had changed things. Maybe everything. It was nothing about finesse or performance or awkwardness or anything sex had ever been for her before.

  She simply had to have him in her arms, inside her, holding nothing back, giving him everything she had to give, him as vulnerable as he could be and her feeling just as vulnerable, but unable to put up the barest hint of defenses against him, against what she was feeling.

  Jane had cried softly in his arms afterward, and felt as if there was no place else in the world she’d ever been that was as important as being with him last night.

  What in the world did that mean?

  She had no idea.

  “Wow,” Gladdy said. “That good?”

  The next twenty-four hours were a blur to Wyatt. He’d prepared himself to sign the release for the hospital to discontinue Leo’s life support, but Jane’s grandmother stepped in, insisting gently that she, as his wife, be allowed to do it, to spare him, he was sure. The doctors were fine with that, as long as they were all in agreement about what had to be done, and Wyatt surprised himself by letting her sign.

  She and Gladdy stood on either side of Wyatt by Leo’s bedside as he slipped away quietly and peacefully, and then the Carlton women set to work once more, arranging to have the body flown home with the four of them the next day, arranging for the funeral home in Maryland to be ready to meet their plane when it landed. Jane even called all the ex-wives and listened as one by one, they fell apart and proclaimed their undying devotion and love for Leo.

  Soon, Wyatt was back on a plane, this time heading home, Jane once again by his side, her grandmother and Gladdy in the row of seats in front of them. He looked down at the armrest between him and Jane, his arm stretched out along it, Jane’s small, soft hand resting in his. There’d hardly been a moment since they’d first heard about Leo that he hadn’t had Jane’s hand tucked into his.

  It was a connection that completely baffled him.

  Just a hand, just a touch that meant she was by his side, often not saying anything at all, just being there and taking care of things, so he didn’t have to.

  And both nights they’d been in Vegas, she’d slept in his bed, in his arms. He’d held her. He’d kissed her. He’d made love to her in an act that spoke more of desperation and need than any he’d ever committed before. He simply hadn’t been able to help himself or do any better by her, for her. And what had she done? Opened up her arms and welcomed him into her body, as accepting and kind as a woman could be.

  Wyatt was baffled by the whole thing.

  All he knew was that he was glad she was there, with him, still holding his hand. That it felt as if she understood, that she hurt when he hurt, and that she cared, that she wouldn’t leave him.

  But all women left, in the end. No one ever really stayed. Wyatt learned that young. His mother walked out on him and his father when he was six, and his father had remarried not long afterward, to a woman who hadn’t really wanted Wyatt around all that much. So he’d gone to live with Leo, but even Leo had left now.

  Jane would leave, too.

  They were headed back to their real lives. They would put Leo in the ground, and life would go on. This whole thing, this trip, this time out of time, wasn’t real. Wyatt knew that. This thing between him and Jane, unsettling as it was, wasn’t real.

  She didn’t believe a man and woman could build a life together that lasted any more than Wyatt did. It had been one of the first things he’d enjoyed about her—that she understood, that they were in absolute agreement on that point.

  And here he was, her hand in his, thinking of how different things had been just forty-eight hours ago, the two of them on another plane, him thinking of nothing else but what he planned to do with her once he got her alone in a bed.

  Life was so strange sometimes, he thought.

  They’d never gotten that time together, not the way he’d wanted it. He’d wanted to dazzle her, shock her, push her to the very limits she’d allow, and then…of course, eventually, it would all turn out to be like any other relationship he’d ever had. He’d leave her or she’d leave him. That was what was supposed to happen.

  Not all this baffling loss and sad, needy sex and him feeling as if she simply belonged here, holding his hand. It was wrong. All wrong. And he had to get things back to the way they were supposed to be, to the life he’d always lived. Normal life, just with Leo gone.

  He looked down at Jane, in another of those pretty, flirty, silk-print dresses her relatives had provided for her, that stopped halfway up her thigh and showed off her neck and just a hint of her pretty breasts.

  “Nice dress,” he said.

  “You know who to thank for that.”

  She smiled, sweetly and sadly at the same time, but he couldn’t have any of that. No more sad. No more her taking care of him. It had to end. Then she put her hand on the side of his face, pulled his mouth down to hers and kissed him, more sweetness and sadness and need there.

  How could that be suc
h a potent combination?

  Need?

  He’d needed women before. Dozens of them. But never like this. He felt that choking sensation again. Dammit. When was that going to go away?

  Jane shifted in her seat, turning her back to him, then almost to face him. She pushed the armrest between them out of the way, and wrapped her arms around him, snuggling against his chest like a woman with a perfect right to be there. Jane, warm and soft and nearly in the same position she’d slept in the night before, practically on top of him.

  He’d stayed awake long into the night, despite being exhausted, and had held her, had stroked a hand through her hair, down her back, across that delicious curve of her hips. He had constantly reassured himself that she was there and loved the sensation of all that bare skin of hers beneath his hands.

  “Wyatt?” she whispered, her head tucked beneath his chin. “Let it go.”

  “Let what go?”

  “Everything that’s running through your head. Just let it go. Let it be. You don’t have to figure anything out right now. There’ll be plenty of time for that later.”

  How did she know, he wondered? It was as if she saw inside him. Saw everything? How had that happened? How could he stop it? How could he shove back down all these feelings?

  And then she kissed him again.

  There was no heat to it, no fire.

  Her kiss said, I’m sorry. I’m here. Let me make it better now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Wyatt wanted the funeral over with, so they’d scheduled it for one o’clock, the day after they got back from Vegas. They’d left his car at the airport, and Wyatt had driven Kathleen and Gladdy back to Remington Park, then found himself alone with Jane, who’d simply turned to him and asked, “My place or yours?”

  He’d hesitated just a beat, then said, “Mine.”

  That was it. She’d come home with him, been naked in his bed, warm and willing once again, and been up long before him the next morning. He found her wearing what had to be another dress supplied by Kathleen and Gladdy, hair up, pen and pad of paper in hand, looking efficient and hardworking as could be.