When Paul had suggested Michael cared for her as more than a friend, had felt that way since they’d all come together twelve years ago, she’d tried to tell herself she wasn’t thrilled by the idea. But she couldn’t deny this reaction.
The question was, what had caused it?
Was she so shallow that she would glory in such a conquest? So vain that the idea of a man wanting her that way appealed to her? So cruel that a wonderful, caring man being hurt, even inadvertently, didn’t bother her?
“All ready. Let’s go.” He turned to her with a neutral expression, and she allowed him to usher her out the door and down the stairs, pretending nothing had happened.
Maybe nothing had. Maybe Paul was out of his mind, and maybe she was becoming the kind of woman who read more into a look from an old friend than was there. But, good Lord, how she wanted it—all of it—to be there.
* * * *
“Uh, Tris. How about swapping spots so you’re playing in front of me?”
“You’re not going to start that again, are you?”
Hands on hips, she glared at him, but he read the humor in the depths of her eyes.
He’d been trying to coax that look from her ever since his reaction to her touch had produced a cloud of awkwardness between them. He’d seen the puzzlement in her face, probably wondering why he’d made such a big deal out of a friendly, affectionate touch. And he’d felt her withdrawal as she must have realized that to him it had other implications. Well, at least now she seemed to have returned to their usual easy camaraderie, even if he hadn’t. But he would. Dammit, he would.
“It’s all for the good of the team,” he said, guiding her into position in the row closest to the net. “You’re a much better digger than I am.”
She eyed him with mock suspicion. “No ulterior motive?”
“Certainly not. It’s just from this position you can get those drop shots and set them up for me.” He gestured across the net to where Grady, on the opposing team, was poised to serve. “You better get ready.”
Tris gave him one more searching look. If he’d been fooling himself he might have been able to pretend it had more meaning than the little game of words they were playing. “All right, I’ll be the digger so you can feed your male ego by being the spiking star,” she grumbled. She turned toward the net as Grady made contact with the ball.
“Plus, this way you can’t hit me in the back,” Michael said just as the ball skimmed the net, the words low enough that only Tris could hear.
“You rat! “she hissed back, but her eyes didn’t leave the ball, which their teammate in the far corner returned rather weakly.
“A mere matter of self-preservation.”
Across the net, Grady leaped to meet the floating return and drove down the ball at a fearsome angle, destined to land right at Tris’s feet.
She crouched low, getting her locked hands under the ball, preparing for the perfect setup. Michael couldn’t deny a rush of pleasure at their teamwork as he moved in to turn her set into a winning spike. Nor could he help a more basic pleasure at the sight of her rounded bottom, stretching smooth the fabric of her shorts as she rose, sending the ball high and easy for his shot.
Already going up to spike the ball, he was amazed when he felt his balance thrown off by an unexpected impact with Tris. She’d been clearly out of his path. The only way they could have collided . . .
He twisted his body in midair to compensate and still make the hit, sending the ball across the net with less force but a devastating spin, but he couldn’t save himself from falling to the ground, hitting hard on his side, then rolling to his back.
The only way they could have collided was if Tris had deliberately knocked into him.
“So much for self-preservation.” He heard the devilment in her voice even before he looked up into her mocking expression, and concluded that he hadn’t lost his mind. Tris had deliberately thrown her hip into him.
Curling to a sitting position, he heard a squeal from the other side of the net, and saw that his shot had left the other team in disarray. Grady was on the ground, with his arm firmly around the waist of one of his teammates, the dark-haired woman named Melody, a longtime friend of Bette’s and the other bridesmaid. Neither Grady nor Melody seemed in much of a hurry to get disentangled as they exchanged accusations about the missed shot and their fall.
He looked up quickly to see what Tris’s reaction would be, but she was laughing and holding out her hand to help him up. Maybe she hadn’t seen— No, he saw her eyes flick to the pair still on the ground, the laughter never dimming, and come back to him. Almost as if she didn’t care.
No. Of course she cared, of course it bothered her that Grady was showing another woman such attention. She had to care because if she didn’t still care for Grady— He grasped her hand hard and pulled himself up, the abruptness of his move propelling him a step too far, so he brushed against her, feeling the smooth, long line of her leg against his, the curve of her hip just below his. Immediately, he let go of her hand. He saw the slight questioning in her eyes as she unobtrusively flexed the fingers he’d just crushed in his own. He ignored it.
“C’mon. Let’s get this game going. Our serve.”
Concentration on the game kept other thoughts at bay until it came his turn to rotate out and sit on the sidelines, trying to watch the other players. Paul, Grady, Bette, Judi. Paul’s longtime secretary, Jan, and her husband, Ed, taking turns chasing nearly ambulatory Ed, Jr. Bette’s high-school friend Melody. Former neighbors, a smattering of relatives. All people who’d gathered to share this wedding with Paul and Bette.
He hardly saw them. Watching just one player, really, kept him fully occupied. That and trying his damnedest to ignore the voice from so deep inside him that it could barely be heard, asking exactly how to label his reaction to the idea that Tris didn’t still care for Grady.
The momentary elation was understandable, but had that been fear mixed in? Fear? No, it couldn’t be. Why fear? It wasn’t fear. What could he be afraid of? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
If Tris didn’t still care for Grady . . . Then maybe what Paul had said wasn’t so crazy after all. Then maybe what he’d seen in Tris’s eyes this afternoon really had been dawning desire. But . . . but if Tris didn’t still care for Grady, how could she be the Tris he’d always known? The Tris whose heart was steady, constant? So unlike his family.
He shook his head, trying to clear the questions. It was all moot, because Tris did care for Grady, had always cared for Grady. He repeated the words to himself with the emphasis of a curse.
He watched her laugh at Paul’s ungainly lunge for a ball, then lavishly praise him when he managed to connect with it.
“C’mon, team!” he shouted. “How about winning a point, so I can get back in there?”
“Why do you think we’re losing all these points, Dickinson?” Tris shot back. “We want to keep you on the sidelines where you can’t do any damage.”
Damage. If he’d done damage to their friendship these past few days, he’d repair it. If these past few days had done damage to his belief that he could treat Tris as strictly a friend, he’d repair that, too.
By God, he would.
* * * *
Michael had expected that he’d be escorting Judi, as maid of honor, at the various formal functions of the weekend. But with everyone getting ready to leave for the rehearsal, Nancy Monroe came up to him with a preoccupied smile and said she’d decided to go against form. She wanted Tris and him riding herd on Paul for the next twenty-four hours.
“Paul will be less likely to get one of his wild ideas with Tris around than with his little sister. You don’t mind, do you, Michael?” she asked with a smile. “After all, you see Judi all the time. This way you and Tris can catch up on old times more. That will be nice for both of you.”
Nice. If he were a cynic, he’d believe that being paired off with Tris for the wedding activities constituted one of fate’s nasty jokes. “Of cou
rse, Mrs. M. No problem.” No problem, just a bit of torture.
His gaze slid to Tris as Nancy Monroe explained to the group who would be driving with whom. That dress she was wearing . . . At first look he’d thought it conservative enough, with its nonplunging V neck between staid lapels. It didn’t cling, although the way it slid over her curves certainly indicated that what was underneath was worth clinging to. But the color was another matter. It had him thinking of lush, ripe peaches and the sweet coolness of their flesh, and that had him thinking of other lush, ripe, sweet flesh and that had him thinking…
“All right, everybody ready? Shall we go to the cars now?”
“Gentlemen, start your engines!” Judi intoned.
Michael was congratulating himself on disciplining his errant thoughts into hibernation as they started out to the cars. Then he got a closer look at Tris’s dress. Good Lord, the thing had only one button. One pearly, white button. He’d been opening buttons since he was three years old. How easy . . . No, there had to be more holding it together than that. He felt sweat slide down the center of his back and film his forehead as he held the car door for Tris, ignoring her slightly puzzled look.
Tris slid into the car gracefully. He couldn’t have looked away from the deepening V at her neck and the rising slit over her leg at that moment if it had meant guaranteeing Joan the election. Something hot pooled in his throat so he had to swallow an extra time, but the reasoning part of his mind insisted the dress had to have undercover fastenings of some sort or a lot more would have been revealed than a few inches of sleek thigh and a hint of a shadow that might or might not have been the curve of a breast.
Though that was more than enough for him in this state.
Driving to the church gave him an excuse for silence while Paul, Bette and Tris chatted, and that gave him a chance to deliver to himself a stern lecture. By the time he’d listened to instructions on the next day’s preliminaries and escorted Paul, Grady and the other groomsman, Bette’s married brother, Ron, to the front of the church to practice the actual ceremony, he figured he’d reasoned his hormones into submission.
It was understandable. When they’d been in college, he’d kept a constant alert against thinking of Tris in those terms. In the years apart his willpower had gotten out of shape, and the strain of this week was showing. Especially since this afternoon. Since hearing Tris’s voice, not quite steady, apologizing and saying she wanted to be friends again. Since watching the sunlight through the window gilding her.
When she’d turned, he’d seen that look in her eyes. It resembled what, in another woman, he would have recognized as desire. But he knew that couldn’t be. Because Tris wanted—would always want—Grady. Because constancy was a part of her he’d always valued.
So it couldn’t have been desire that had had her fingertips sending heat to his skin through the tattered shirt. It could only have been his reading something into it. He would keep his body firmly in check if he had to devote every spare minute to exhausting runs or numbing showers.
He focused his attention to where Bette’s friend Melody was practicing her role as the first bridesmaid in the procession. Then Tris started down the aisle, and he knew what aching was all about.
Chapter Six
Tris walked slowly down the aisle toward him. The evening sun sent its last rays through the stained glass, igniting shimmering colors that surrounded her but could not dim her light. Michael felt stunned, immobilized. Tris was walking down a church aisle, and for a moment, senseless but undeniable, he let himself believe she was coming to meet him.
Near enough now to read her expression, he watched her exchange a quick grin with Grady before shifting to a smile as she looked at Paul. Then her eyes met his and he wasn’t ready for the jolt that hit him. He couldn’t bear to look at her, but didn’t have the strength to look away. Only when he saw the uncertain quiver of her lips did he realize what his eyes might reveal.
He jerked his head away, staring unfocused toward the back of the church where he was vaguely aware of Judi starting down the aisle.
Sanity hinged on his ability to count his breaths, making each a little steadier than the previous one, and letting nothing else into his mind. By the time Bette had joined them and they all faced the minister to listen to the plans for the ceremony, he had his lungs under control. But that was about it.
He tried to concentrate on the details of his duties for the next day. But he’d had too much experience at doing that with one level of his mind while another level wrestled different issues. Like how to get through the next forty-eight hours.
Bette and Paul led the way back up the aisle. He turned to offer his arm to Judi as they followed.
“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Judi grinned at him.
No, not so bad. Just hell. But at least he’d been disciplined enough not to look at Tris again.
“Seems pretty straightforward,” he said. As long as he didn’t see, hear, touch or smell Tris Donlin.
“Yeah, Bette and Paul wanted to keep it simple. I like it. Someday . . .”
Absently, he patted Judi’s hand where it rested on his arm. As they reached the back of the church, Paul looked up from whispering something into Bette’s ear and cocked a grin at him.
“Hey, Dickinson, I know you’re not crazy about weddings, but you could look a little more cheerful, you know.”
Michael longed to tell him in no uncertain terms to shut up, but with the Monroes and Whartons gathered around he had to make do with a glare and a muttered, “It was hot.”
“Oh. Oh, dear. Did you think so, Michael?” Mrs. Wharton looked toward the front of the church with concern. “Maybe I should talk to Reverend Siles about turning up the air conditioning tomorrow. We don’t want people to be uncomfortable.”
Guiltily, Michael listened to Bette and Nancy Monroe calm the fears he’d raised. He could practically feel Paul’s unholy amusement at the scene. With some sense of urgency, he used the excuse of bringing the car around to escape. He used his chauffeur role as an excuse again when they arrived at the country club for the dinner, dropping off Paul, Bette and Tris, and saying he’d be in after parking the car.
Instead, he slipped past the room they’d reserved to a quiet patio bordered by garden and overlooking the lush green golf course. Michael pulled in a lungful of twilight air heavy with the scent of just-watered grass and a day’s worth of summer warmth. In a minute or two he’d join the others for dinner and then dancing, but for right now he needed a little solitude and a megadose of equilibrium.
You don’t mind, do you, Michael? After all, you see Judi all the time. This way you and Tris can catch up on old times more. That will be nice for both of you . This time Nancy Monroe’s innocent words had an inflection of unintended irony.
Right. Mind? No, he didn’t mind. Why should he?
Spend time with her, watch over her, see her walking down a church aisle toward him . . .
“Michael?”
The soft voice accompanied a light touch on his sleeve, but he froze instantly.
Tris jumped at his abrupt reaction. “Michael, are you all right?”
“Fine. I’m fine.”
“I . . . I, uh, thought I saw you come out this way and . . . and I thought I’d make sure you were all right.”
“All right? Why wouldn’t I be all right? I said I’m fine, didn’t I? So I’m fine.”
He turned to face her with pugnacious indignation, but looking into her eyes was a mistake. Dammit, she looked as if he’d just told her that he personally had blown up a historic building in each of the fifty states plus Puerto Rico and Guam.
“All right, Michael. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
Her voice trembled at the edges.
Aw, hell.
“Tris.” He stopped her retreat with a touch on her arm, then couldn’t resist sliding his hand down the soft material, trying not to think of what the skin underneath might feel like. “I’m the one who’s sorry. You
were being nice to a friend and I was a jerk.”
A hint of her smile flickered across her lips as she studied him, looking for signs, he knew, that he might really be ill. In a way he supposed he was, and she’d just been treated to a symptom—overwhelming irritability. Right now he was irritated at himself and fate, at the squeak of a door farther down the patio and the sound of a giggle.
“We seem to be apologizing to each other a lot these days.”
“Yeah. We do.”
He felt it then, almost as if she’d spoken the question aloud. She might not even be aware of it herself, but she was beginning to wonder about the odd eruptions over the past few days in a relationship that had been placid for so long. Her probing gaze skimmed over his face. He had to stop her; he couldn’t afford to have the full force of Tris’s perception trained on him. She could see too damn much.
Without much hope, he looked around for a reason to leave her. There had to be some excuse, some explanation she’d accept. Then, over her shoulder, he caught sight of Grady. At the far end of the patio, Grady was in a deep and obviously romantic conversation with a dark-haired woman. Melody. The other bridesmaid. She’d been at the volleyball game this afternoon, too. He should have recognized the signs then, he’d certainly seen them often enough during college—Grady was in the throes of one of his intense flirtations. He reassessed his priorities. Tris came first. The best thing old buddy Michael could do for Tris now was to keep her occupied.
“Just a couple of cranky old-timers, that’s us,” he said with a fair assumption of wry humor. “Guess the job pressures get to both of us.”
“I guess so,” she agreed, but he heard her doubt.
“I really am sorry, Tris. And I promise to be on good behavior tonight and tomorrow. No more moods. I swear.”
He held up his right hand in a botched Boy Scout salute.
She chuckled. “Promise accepted, as long as it includes dancing every dance tonight.”
Wedding Series Boxed Set (3 Books in 1) (The Wedding Series) Page 29
