by Jane Graves
“I’m sorry. I really am. But…” She exhaled. “Think about it, Greg. Are we really right for each other?”
“Yes. Of course. We’re very compatible. The minister who married us said so, didn’t he?”
Marc could tell Kari wasn’t convinced, and Greg clearly wasn’t happy that she didn’t share his point of view.
“If you’re worried about being embarrassed when you come back,” Greg said, “it won’t be a problem. Your father and I covered for you.”
“Covered for me?”
“We told everybody you were sick.”
Kari drew back. “You lied?”
“Would you rather we’d have told the truth?”
“The truth? Do you even know what the truth is?”
“You got cold feet. A lot of brides do.”
“But why did I get cold feet? Did you stop to think about that?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Greg said. “We’re getting married, and that’s the end of it.”
Even at the distance Marc was away from them, he sensed the guy’s undercurrent of anger. Patient on the surface, pissed underneath. A tiny shiver skated between Marc’s shoulders, telling him trouble was brewing. He stood up tall, watching intently as the guy inched closer to Kari.
“So here’s what’s going to happen,” Greg went on. “You and I are getting in my car, and we’re driving back to Houston. Then we’re going to the justice of the peace. He’s a friend of your father’s and very discreet. We’re getting married. Then we’re going to send out announcements to everyone who showed up to the wedding that day, letting them know we’re man and wife. And then we’re going to pray your father overlooks the humiliation you’ve put him through.”
Kari swallowed so hard Marc could see her throat move at twenty paces. “I don’t care how my father feels about it.”
“Really?” Greg snapped. “You don’t care? Well, you’d better care. See how far you get when you don’t have your daddy to give you a job!”
“I don’t need that job,” Kari said, her voice quivering. “I’ll get another one.”
“Right. This economy stinks. If people with actual skills can’t get a job, what hope do you have?”
Kari looked away, stroking her dog nervously.
“He pays you about twice what you’re worth at a job that could be cut from that company tomorrow. Try to find another employer who’ll do that.”
Kari was silent. Then Greg got a calculating look on his face. “Tell me, Kari. Have you checked your bank account lately?”
She drew back. “You know about that?”
“Yes,” he said smugly. “I know about it. Still think you’re staying here?”
“I can’t talk to you anymore right now.”
Kari started to walk away. Greg grabbed her arm and pulled her back around. “You’re not going anywhere.”
She tried to pull her arm away. “Greg, please! Let me go!”
He tightened his grip and gave her arm a hard jerk. “Stop all this nonsense and get in the damned car!”
An alarm bell went off inside Marc’s head. Words were one thing. A physical threat was another. He didn’t tolerate that kind of behavior from a man toward a woman. Ever.
He strode into the parlor. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
Greg froze at the sound of Marc’s voice, and Kari’s eyes went huge with surprise. Greg gradually let go of her arm. “Who the hell are you?”
“Forget the introductions. Just keep your hands off her.”
“This is none of your business.”
“You grab her arm like that again, and I’m making it my business.” He turned to Kari. “Do you want to go with this guy?”
She looked at Greg, then at Jill, swallowing hard once again. “No. I don’t.”
Marc turned to Greg. “Beat it.”
Shock spilled over Greg’s face. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Get out of here.”
Greg turned to Kari. “Who the hell is this guy?”
“He’s a friend of mine,” Kari said.
“You have friends in this dinky town?”
“Yes,” Marc snapped. “She has friends in this dinky town. And if you touch her again, this friend is going to be all over you.”
“Yeah? What are you going to do?”
“You know the easiest way to find out?”
“How?”
“Grab her arm one more time.”
Greg turned to Kari. “Are you going to let him talk to me like that?”
Kari flicked her gaze to Marc. “Yeah,” she told Greg. “I think maybe I am.”
Greg’s expression turned ugly. “Gimme the ring.”
“What?”
“The ring! Give it to me!”
With an expression of disgust, Kari yanked the ring off her finger and slapped it into his palm.
“Sooner or later you’re going to be sorry about this,” Greg said. “But then it’s going to be too damned late!”
He spun around and stormed out of the parlor. Jill watched him leave, then turned to Kari. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Kari drew back with surprise. “What am I doing?”
“How can you turn your back on Greg? How? He’s smart, he’s handsome—”
“Didn’t you hear the things he said to me?”
“Of course he said those things! He’s angry! You would be, too, if he’d humiliated you in front of three hundred people!”
“I’m sorry about that,” Kari said. “I really am. But I just didn’t see another way out. If I had stayed, everybody would have talked me into getting married. But I can’t marry Greg. He doesn’t love me.”
“Doesn’t love you? He gave you that big, beautiful diamond ring, didn’t he?”
Kari was silent.
“And you gave it back to him. I can’t believe you gave it back to him! And he bought that gorgeous condo for you, too. What does that tell you?”
“He didn’t ask me how I felt about it. He just bought it.”
“Well, I sure wouldn’t mind if a guy surprised me with an incredible place like that.”
Kari winced. “I’m not really all that crazy about it.”
“Not crazy about it?” Jill threw her hands up. “Have you completely lost your mind?”
“All that stuff…” Kari exhaled. “It just doesn’t matter to me.”
“I know you think it doesn’t,” Jill said, her voice low and angry, “but that’s because you’ve always had money. You grew up in that huge house. You have a father who’s a gazillionaire. The whole time we were in college, I had to scrimp and work two jobs, while you had so much money to throw around you could barely carry it all!”
Kari looked stunned. “Is that what you’ve thought all this time?”
“I didn’t care so much back then, because that was just where you came from, you know? But now…God, Kari! I’d kill to have a man like Greg, and you just walked away from him!”
“I know it seems crazy,” Kari said. “I know that. But I was sitting there in that wedding dress, thinking about marrying him, and it just seemed so…so wrong.”
“But it’s not wrong. You were just nervous. A lot of brides get nervous!”
Kari closed her eyes, shaking her head slowly.
“You’re going to regret this,” Jill said. “If you don’t make up with him and go back to Houston—”
“I can’t!”
Jill’s expression hardened. “You can and you should.”
Tears filled Kari’s eyes. “I can’t believe you’re talking to me like this. Haven’t we always stuck up for each other?”
“Yes! But you’ve never done anything this stupid before!”
Kari looked positively stricken by Jill’s words. “Do you really think it’s stupid for me to refuse to marry a man I don’t love?”
“For God’s sake, Kari! Learn to love him!”
“Should I have to do that? Learn to love the man I’m going to marry
?”
“Fine! Stay here. Ruin your whole life. I hope you never come back to Houston!”
With that, Jill spun around and left the inn, her footsteps echoing against the hardwood floor of the entryway. Marc heard the door open, then slam behind her. Kari visibly shuddered at the noise, hugging that hairy beast even closer to her chest and looking distressed. A tear coursed down her cheek, and she swept it away with the back of her hand.
“Don’t cry,” Marc said. “That asshole’s not worth it.”
“It’s not Greg,” Kari said, sniffing. “It’s Jill. I thought we were friends.”
“Friends don’t betray you like that.”
“I know. I just thought she would understand.”
“Why did you get engaged to that guy in the first place?”
She shrugged weakly. “Everybody thought it was such a good idea. Particularly my father. Greg works at his company, and my father thinks he’s wonderful. Mostly because they’re just alike.”
“He seems hell-bent on marrying you, but he doesn’t seem to give a damn about how you feel about it.”
Kari was silent.
“I’m just stabbing in the dark here, but does your father happen to have money?”
She paused. “Yeah.”
“A lot of it?”
“More than you can possibly imagine.”
Marc was beginning to get the picture here, and it wasn’t pretty. The asshole wanted to marry her for her money. Maybe he even saw himself at the helm of the old man’s company someday, so he gave her a ring and conned her into an engagement. Her father seemed to think it was an excellent match, so the pressure was coming from two sides. And her friend Jill wasn’t a friend at all if she thought marrying that guy was a good idea. It appeared everybody in Kari’s life pushed her around like a chess piece, right up to the day the pawn finally revolted.
“Thank you for sticking up for me,” Kari said. “That was nice.”
“It wasn’t nice. Nice had nothing to do with it. It was just a logical reaction to bad behavior. You have to call a halt to that kind of crap the instant it begins, or you’ll have more trouble than you know what to do with.”
“Okay, then,” she said. “How about if I thank you for being logical?”
Marc didn’t know what to say to that. He only knew it was time for Kari to do whatever she had to do to get out of Rainbow Valley and on the road back to Houston. Surely she had other friends who could help her. She could return to her old life minus a certain asshole, and Marc would finally be free of the drama he hadn’t asked for in the first place.
“Rick called me this morning,” he said. “He said he pulled your car out of the ditch, but that you hadn’t come by yet. I thought you were going over there first thing.”
“I was,” Kari said. “But I slept late. And then when I came down here…” Her voice faded away.
“Look, I just came to tell you that you need to go see Rick. I asked him to haul your car in, so he needs to be paid for his time.”
“Yes,” she said on a sigh. “I know.”
“Just so you know, he thinks the car is a total loss.”
“What?”
“He said the frame is bent, which means it would cost more to fix the car than it’s worth.”
“Oh, no.” Kari sat down, her body going limp, then dropped her head to her hands. The rag mop scurried in a circle on the sofa, then jumped down to sniff a potted plant.
“Your insurance should reimburse you for the current value of the car,” Marc said. “Just call your insurance company, and it’ll all be taken care of.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t own the car. Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
Kari sighed. “It’s in my father’s name.”
Marc was confused. “Why?”
“Because he gave it to me as a gift a few years ago.”
“And he never put it in your name?”
“That’s right.”
“So call your father and get him to talk to the insurance company. One way or another, you’ll get a check.”
Kari looked away. “I’m afraid there’s a teensy little problem with that.”
Marc felt a glimmer of apprehension. The last time he heard the word problem, he got stuck unbuttoning a wedding dress. Unfortunately, she was looking up at him with those amazing green eyes, so he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “What problem?”
And then she told him, and Marc knew for sure that the chaos had only begun.
“Are you serious?” he said. “Your own father cleaned out your bank account?”
“It looks that way. He’s a signer on the account. He can do that.”
“Why is he a signer on your account?”
“It’s an old account from when I was in high school.”
“And you never took him off it?”
“It was never a problem before. And if he emptied my bank account, you can bet there’s no way he’ll turn in a claim for the damage on the car and then hand the check over to me. He’s trying to force me to come back to Houston. He thinks if I’m broke, that’s what I’ll do.”
“My God,” Marc said. “Is there a part of your life your father doesn’t control?”
Kari was silent.
“You said your only credit card is charged to the hilt. Is that right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you have any cash?”
“Not much.”
“Can you pay your hotel bill?”
“Barely.”
“You can’t even feed yourself, can you?”
She sighed. “Not for long.”
“And now I’ve chased away the only person who could get you back to Houston?” he said, his voice escalating. “Why didn’t you stop me?”
“You told me I shouldn’t go with him!”
She was right. That was exactly what he’d said. And it was because nothing made him angrier than to see a man treat a woman that way. Nothing. So what else could he have done?
Kari stood there looking lost. The goofy little rag mop whimpered, then licked her chin. “Do you really think I should have gone with him?” she said quietly.
Marc twisted his mouth with irritation. “No,” he muttered. “No! Of course not. That guy’s an asshole. You shouldn’t get within ten miles of him. But that means you have a big problem.”
“I know.”
“So what’s your plan now?”
“Well, I was thinking about that before Greg and Jill showed up.”
“And?”
“Nothing came to me.”
Then she was silent. At least her mouth was silent. Those gorgeous green eyes wouldn’t shut up. And he couldn’t turn her away any more than he could ignore a kitten in a snowstorm. Or, more accurately, a dirty bride in a rainstorm.
“Did Gus give you something to eat last night?” he asked her.
“Yeah.”
“You said you slept in. Did you miss breakfast?”
She sighed. “Yeah.”
“Come with me.”
“Where are we going?” she said.
“To Rosie’s for lunch. I’ll buy. But by the time we finish eating, you’re going to have a plan. And then you’re going to put it into action.”
Chapter 5
When Marc stepped into that parlor and told Greg to take a hike, he’d seemed like a superhero to Kari. Showing up out of nowhere, standing there with those powerful arms folded over that big, broad chest, skewering Greg with that intense warning expression—yep. Superhero. Her superhero. And his self-assurance had oozed over and filled her with the kind of confidence she couldn’t have imagined feeling only seconds before.
But now reality was setting in. Her superhero sat across from her in a booth at Rosie’s Café, looking at her as if there were only certain things he used his superpowers for. Solving her problems in a way she liked didn’t appear to be one of them.
�
��No way,” she said as she swallowed yet one more french fry from heaven. “I’m not taking a bus back to Houston.”
“What else are you going to do? You have no money, no job, no car, and no place to stay. Tell your father to give you your money back. Then get a real job instead of a throwaway one at his company so he doesn’t control you anymore. Tell him you’re making your own decisions from now on. And if the asshole comes within ten yards of you again, get a restraining order. There. You have a plan.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It is. If that’s what you want, just say it. People will get on board.”
“Sure. They’ll get on board with you.” She shrugged weakly. “Greg may have been right about me getting another job.”
“But you have a degree, right?”
“In English literature.”
Marc sighed. “Yeah, there’s not a big market for people who quote Shakespeare. What was your job at your father’s company?”
“I was a marketing specialist.”
“What exactly did you do?”
“I assembled consumer opinion data by compiling, formatting, and summarizing graphs and presentations.”
“So you made copies and stapled them together?”
Kari glared at him.
“You still have expenses back in Houston. What about your rent?”
“I’m living with my father right now.”
Marc screwed up his face. “Seriously?”
“My apartment lease was up. I moved into my father’s house for a few weeks until the wedding so I wouldn’t have to sign a new lease. The house is so big he barely even knew I was there. Then after I got married, I was going to move into Greg’s condo with him.”
“So you have no apartment rent to pay right now.”
“That’s right.”
“Good. That means you can get something cheaper than you had before. That’ll go with your new job that I’m guessing won’t pay as much.”
Kari squeezed her eyes closed. “This is a lot to think about.”
“Yeah, but the faster you deal with it, the faster you can get on with your life.”
“They’re still going to try to get me to marry Greg.”
“Where’s your backbone? Are you telling me you might actually marry the asshole after all?”
