Tall, Dark & Hungry

by Lynsay Sands

  He smiled to himself, relaxing at the memory. It was just coincidence that the wedding reception was being held at the same place they had enjoyed such a lovely end to a wonderful date. But it was a lovely coincidence. This was the perfect spot for him to admit his love, and to have the talk he planned to have with her. Bastien was going to tell her he loved her, and ask her to marry him, and if she admitted she loved him back, which he was pretty sure she did—at least, he hoped to God she did—then he would tell her everything. If all went as he hoped, he would take Terri back to the penthouse and turn her tonight. Then they could begin their lives together.

  Of course, there was a possibility she would need some time to adjust to what he told her. It wasn’t like he was announcing he was Catholic or something. She would have to adjust her whole way of thinking, her beliefs. He reconsidered: Perhaps he should only tell her the part about his loving her and wanting to marry her here at the hotel. She was staying at the penthouse tonight, since Kate would be off on her honeymoon. He would wait until he had her there, make slow passionate love to her, then explain about—

  No, the penthouse was no good, Bastien realized suddenly. The entire family would be staying there, and Vincent hadn’t been joking when he said that Terri was loud. The woman was as uninhibited in the bedroom as she was everywhere else. Though he suspected she’d try to be quiet in the penthouse with his family there. Especially his mother. Bastien didn’t want Terri feeling stifled. He liked her passion. Perhaps they could just stay at Kate’s apartment.

  By this time, Bastien had reached the exit to the Hilton. He pushed through the revolving door, then paused on the sidewalk, his eyes searching for Terri in her pale lavender dress. He frowned when he didn’t see her. Where had she gone?

  “Would you like a taxi, sir?”

  “What?” Bastien glanced at the doorman distractedly. He started to shake his head, then paused to ask, “You haven’t seen a woman out here in a long lavender gown, have you?”

  The man hesitated. “Pretty? Long brown hair? Big green eyes?”

  “That’s her,” Bastien said with relief. Finally, someone who had seen her.

  “Yes, sir. I put her in a taxi about half an hour ago.”

  “A taxi?” Bastien echoed stupidly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bastien stood for a moment, bewildered. Why would she have gone in a taxi? Why would she leave the wedding reception at all? He couldn’t imagine anything that would make Terri walk out of her cousin’s wedding reception. Especially without telling anyone.

  Unless she’d spilled something on her dress and needed to change, he thought suddenly. That thought took hold, and Bastien found himself relaxing again. Of course, that was it. Terri had said herself that she was a bit of a clutz. She’d probably spilled something on her dress and rushed off to change.

  “Did you want a taxi, too, sir?” the man asked again, lifting his whistle in preparation for calling one.

  “Oh, no, thanks.” Bastien pulled his cell phone from his pocket and moved to the side to call for the car he’d reserved for the night. The driver had been waiting around the corner, and pulled up within moments. Bastien slid in, ordering the man to take him home. He was at the penthouse, inserting his key in the elevator, before it occurred to him that Terri didn’t have a key. And her things weren’t here yet. They’d planned to pick them up after the reception. He walked to the car that still sat waiting and got back in again.

  “Where to now, sir?” his driver asked. Bastien just sat there.

  It was a problem, Bastien thought; he didn’t know where to go. His first instinct had been the penthouse, because she’d planned to stay there. But her things were all at Kate’s. However, Terri didn’t have the key to Kate’s place—he had it in his tuxedo pocket. She didn’t have a key, didn’t have a purse, and didn’t have money. Of course, she might not have thought of that when she’d set out, not if she was upset about a spill on her dress or something. Terri might have ridden all the way out to Kate’s, only to have to turn around and return to the reception.

  That was probably it, Bastien thought. Terri was probably already back at the hotel and looking for him to fetch the key. He suddenly grinned to himself. He’d pay the taxi and have his driver take them to Kate’s so she could change. Then, if he had it his way, they wouldn’t bother returning to the reception. At least not for a while.

  “Back to the hotel,” he instructed, relaxing back into his seat. Terri was probably in a tizzy right this moment. He’d have to calm her down. Bastien could think of lots of ways to do that. Most of them didn’t include clothes.

  Terri settled in her seat on the plane, and immediately felt some of the tension leave her. She hadn’t been at all sure she’d make it. She’d half feared that Bastien would show up looking for her. Surely, the message she’d left earlier had been given to Kate? If not, then someone would have certainly noticed her missing by now. She hoped no one was too worried.

  Terri glanced at the phone set into the seat in front of her. Just in case Kate’s message had gone astray, she would call the hotel and leave a message for Vincent as well. But she wouldn’t risk it until the flight was in the air.

  “Cousin!”

  Bastien stopped his pacing—a pacing he’d been doing for the last hour and a half—and glanced at the man rushing toward him. Vincent. Bastien had returned to the hotel to find that Terri hadn’t come back. He’d decided then that her cabbie had probably had a fit when she admitted she couldn’t pay, and had refused to return her to the Hilton. He’d imagined her walking the streets of New York, and had made his driver drive him back and forth along the routes she could have taken, but found no sign of her. Then Bastien had resigned himself to pacing here, every moment making him more tense as he imagined all the ways she could be hurt or killed before she made it to the hotel. A beautiful woman, dressed in a long, possibly stained maid-of-honor gown, walking alone down the street? The imaginings he’d come up with were nightmares.

  He was actually grateful for the distraction Vincent offered. “Are Kate and Lucern leaving?”

  “Actually, they are. But that’s not why I’m here. I just got a call from Terri.”

  Bastien relaxed and tensed all in the same moment. A call from her meant she was all right and able to make the call, but she was probably in trouble somewhere—especially if Vincent’s grim expression was anything to go by.

  “Where is she?” he asked, cutting to the heart of the matter.

  “On a plane on her way back to England.”

  “What?” Vincent couldn’t have shocked him more if he’d said she was calling from jail.

  His cousin nodded. “I happened to be passing the desk on my way out here to see you when I heard my name mentioned. The clerk was taking a message for me, so I took the phone. It was Terri. She was calling from the plane.”

  “But, what is she—Why did she—?” Bastien struggled to understand.

  “It seems she overheard Kate and Lissianna talking in the ladies’ room,” Vincent said grimly. “They were discussing your not having told her about your ‘state.’”

  Bastien’s shoulders slumped. She knew what he was. Now she was running from him just as Josephine had done.

  “No. Terri misunderstood. She thought they meant you were terminally ill. When I said that wasn’t so, she said not to bother lying to her—she’d seen the medicine and blood. She said she knew you were ill. Terri thinks you’re dying, like her mother did, like her husband did, and she said she can’t watch you die, too. She loves you too much to be able to bear it.”

  “She loves me?”

  Vincent nodded, then grinned. “Well? What are you waiting for? Get in your car and get to the airport. Follow her,” he said. “You have to go explain the truth. Tell her everything. She loves you, Bastien. You need to tell her you aren’t dying, and that she will never have to watch you die a long lingering death.”

  “Yes!” Bastien grinned as he realized that, in this instance,
his state could be an advantage. Chuckling, he turned and gestured to his driver. Thinking he would need it when Terri arrived, he’d made the man stay here with the car. Now, the engine started and the car moved forward.

  “Have a good trip, and give her a hug and a hello for me,” Vincent said. He walked with Bastien to the curb, then added seriously, “I’m happy for you, cousin.”

  “Thanks, Vincent,” Bastien said. He slid into the backseat of his car.

  “No problem. Just don’t mess up, huh? She’s perfect for you. Much nicer than that holier-than-though Josephine.”

  Bastien paused in surprise. He’d been about to pull the door closed. “I thought you liked Josephine.”

  Vincent wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “None of us did. But you thought you loved her, so we would have put up with her. The good news is, none of us has to pretend to like Terri. She’s a sweetheart.” Then Vincent slammed the door closed and gave him a thumbs-up. The car pulled away.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Ter!”

  Terri glanced up and spotted Dave at once. It would be impossible not to spot her brother-in-law. Being tall, prematurely gray, and good-looking made him stand out in most crowds. Forcing a weary smile, she turned in his direction as she came through the arrivals gate. “Dave. Thank you for coming to get me.”

  “No problem.” He gave her a hug in greeting and took the handle of her suitcase in one smooth move. “How was your flight?”

  “Long,” she said on a sigh.

  “Isn’t it always?” he asked. “A shame they got rid of the Concorde.”

  “Yes.”

  “You look…” Her brother-in-law hesitated to say it, but he didn’t have to; Terri knew how she looked.

  “Awful?” she suggested helpfully.

  “Well, I wouldn’t have put it quite so bluntly, but yes, you look awful,” he admitted, concern now crowding his eyes.

  “Wore herself out with all that partying she did in New York, no doubt. It’s a good thing she’s home and can rest now.”

  “Sandi!” Terri turned to embrace the shorter redhead, who had appeared from the crowd. “When I didn’t see you, I thought perhaps you were working on a deadline or something.”

  “She is. But that wouldn’t stop her coming to pick up her favorite sister-in-law,” Dave said staunchly, slipping his free hand around his wife’s shoulder to hug her close.

  “No, it wouldn’t,” Sandi agreed, hugging him back. She smiled, then explained, “I was in the ladies’ room…as I usually am when the important stuff happens.”

  Her words made Dave chuckle, and they brought the first sincere smile to Terri’s lips since she’d left Kate and Lucern’s wedding reception.

  “Well, come on,” Dave said suddenly. “Let’s get you out of here and home.”

  He ushered the two women to the parking elevators. The couple chatted about the traffic on the ride in, and about what had happened while Terri was away, leaving her to merely listen and absorb the fact that she was home again. The funny thing was, it didn’t feel like home anymore. Nothing seemed quite the same as when she’d left. Their accents—accents she had lived among for ten years, and probably picked up a bit of herself over time—sounded foreign to her ears. The cars they passed as they walked through the parking garage to Dave’s black Jaguar seemed oddly shaped, small and strange after two weeks among larger, sleeker North American models. Even riding on the left-hand side of the road no longer seemed normal. In truth, Terri had adjusted so quickly to being back in the States, England now felt as foreign as it had the first time she came.

  “So, tell us about the wedding. Did it go off without a hitch?”

  A small burst of laughter slipped from Terri’s lips.

  Sandi, who had asked the question and turned in the front seat to include her in the conversation, raised her eyebrows slightly at Terri’s response. “Oh, now you have to explain that reaction,” she said. “It sounds like quite the story.”

  “The wedding,” Terri said with a hollow smile; then she launched into a recounting of the calamities that had befallen Kate’s wedding and what she and Bastien had done to resolve them. She managed to fill the entire ride back to Huddersfield with the tale, winding down just as they turned onto the street where Dave and Sandi lived.

  “We thought you’d like to stop in for tea before we take you home,” Dave explained. “We knew you wouldn’t have anything at home to eat, and thought this would give you the chance to unwind a bit. We’ll take you to Sainsbury’s to pick up groceries before we drive you home, too. Is that all right?”

  “Yes, that’s fine. Thank you.” Terri met his gaze in the rearview mirror and nodded. It was more than fine with her. She really didn’t look forward to being on her own in her little cottage again. Terri knew, the moment she was alone, all those thoughts and memories she was trying so hard to forget would come crowding in.

  “I’ll make the tea while you girls catch up,” Dave offered as he parked the car.

  “You’re a good man, Dave,” Terri said with affection.

  “He’s better than good,” Sandi announced. They got out. “He’s a star.”

  “So are you, flower,” her husband responded, taking her hand and dropping a quick kiss on her forehead before turning toward the house.

  Terri smiled as she followed the couple inside, but her heart was aching a little at their easy affection. It reminded her of Bastien.

  “Well!” Sandi led the way into the living room and dropped onto the couch with a sigh, then raised her eyebrows at Terri. “Now that we’re alone, would you care to talk about this Bastien and what he did to break your heart?”

  Terri stiffened, then glanced sharply at her sister-in-law.

  “What makes you think he broke my heart?” she asked finally. “Or that I love him, for that matter?”

  “Oh, please.” Sandi gave a laugh. “Every other word out of your mouth has been ‘Bastien.’ And you didn’t fly home early, looking like death warmed over, because things were going well. So, spill it. What did he do?”

  “Actually, he didn’t do anything. I’m the one who left him,” Terri admitted slowly. The story poured out of her. She recounted every moment of the last two weeks, without leaving anything out. She didn’t even slow down or acknowledge Dave when he came back into the room to join them. It was like a purging of her soul.

  The couple sat silent throughout, not saying a word until Terri finished and sat back to await their thoughts. Those thoughts weren’t long in coming. Knowing the couple as she did, Terri had expected Sandi to be sympathetic and Dave to perhaps think she was an idiot, so she was taken by surprise when her sister-in-law shook her head and said, “You stupid girl.”

  Terri stiffened in shock, but Sandi wasn’t finished. “You found true love—your perfect match—and allowed fear to make you throw it aside? You idiot!”

  While Terri was gasping, Sandi slapped her hands on her thighs and sat back to cross her arms over her chest. “That’s it, then. I suppose you’ll be moving to France next.”

  “What?” Terri asked, confused.

  “Well, I presume you love us.”

  “Of course, I do,” Terri said. “I don’t know what I would have done after Ian’s death without you two to—”

  “So,” Sandi interrupted with a shrug, “you’d best move to France and get away from us. The more time you spend around us, the more you’ll love us—and you know we’ll die someday too.”

  “It’s not the same,” Terri protested.

  “Certainly, it is. Love is love, and loss is loss. We all love, and we all die, and everyone suffers the pain of grieving. The trick is to enjoy what you have while you have it. Not run like a bunny from the good things because they might be taken away sooner than you’d like.”

  “But—”

  “Do you regret the time you had with Ian? Would you give that up, have it wiped from your memory to avoid the pain of having lost him?” she asked. “Or your mother? Do you
wish she’d died giving birth to you so that you wouldn’t have had to suffer losing her at nineteen? Then, as I said, there’s Dave and me. If we grow sick, will you stop visiting and shun us? Or if I walk out that door and get hit by a bus, will you regret knowing me because of the pain losing me causes? Will it hurt less today than tomorrow, or next week, or next year?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “That’s because you love us, Terri. And you love this Bastien. The only difference is you gave him up before you had to. You’re suffering for nothing. You’re causing it yourself. You’re being a fool.”

  “That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it, flower?” Dave asked mildly.

  “Is it?” Sandi turned raised eyebrows on him. “How would you feel if I ran off on you, not because of something you did wrong, or because I didn’t love you, but because I did love you and you were sick? Because I might hurt later?”

  Dave’s eyes widened, and Sandi nodded. “Uh huh. Well, that’s about how this Bastien feels right now. Terri’s punishing him because she loves him and he’s dared to be ill, to be human. He’s probably hurting right now and not even knowing what he did to make her leave.”

  “But Dave loves you,” Terri pointed out.

  “And this Bastien loves you,” Sandi said firmly. “Everything you’ve told me about him tells me that. And here you are, hurting both him and yourself, for no good reason other than you’re a coward. It takes courage to live, Terri. To really live. To follow your dreams, to love someone, to face each day. Agoraphobics are trapped in their homes because they are terrified of what might happen—but as long as they stay inside, they’ll never know what could happen. You’re an emotional agoraphobic. You’ve been one since Ian died, avoiding emotional entanglements to avoid getting hurt. Well, it’s high time you rejoined the living, my girl, and stopped acting like you’re the one in the cold hard grave. I bet Ian would give anything to be alive and in love, yet here you have it and you’re throwing it away.” Sandi shook her head and stomped out of the room, muttering, “I’m going back to work. Sometimes people make me crazy.”