Dreaming of You

by Francis Ray

  “No, thank you.” Ruth placed her purse on the granite counter. “You were always a gentleman and so thoughtful of others. You’ll make a wonderful husband.”

  Brandon’s glass hit the counter. “Please, Mama.”

  Her brow drawn, she rounded the counter. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” He managed a smile for her. “I’d better get back.”

  She studied him a long moment, then picked up her purse. “I can tell you’re troubled by something, but I won’t push. Just remember the answer to most of our problems is right before our eyes, if we’d just look. At least you have your place back, and it’s better than ever. Good-bye.”

  Yeah, he had his place back, but his life was a mess.

  Two days later the door to Brandon’s office opened abruptly, then banged against the wall. He looked up, saw Duncan and Cameron, their expressions angry. He didn’t need two guesses to know why they were there.

  Brandon rose to his feet. He was just keyed up enough to give them the fight they were probably spoiling for.

  “Duncan. Cameron.”

  Duncan shoved the door closed, the sound reverberating around the room. “What the hell did you do to Faith?”

  Brandon reached Faith’s oldest brother in two long strides. “What’s the matter with her? Is she all right? Dammit, answer me!”

  “You tell us,” Duncan said, punctuating each word with a finger in Brandon’s chest. “Esmeralda called us because she was worried about Faith. She said she was crying at the drop of a hat, not eating, moping. We arrived last night, and Esmeralda was right.”

  Eyes narrowed, Duncan inched closer. “Esmeralda said Faith was happier than she’s ever seen her when you two were dating. After you broke up, she’s miserable.”

  “Henrí says you should be shot,” Cameron added.

  “Henrí should mind his own business, and that goes for you two as well,” Brandon said.

  “Protecting Faith is our business.” Duncan jutted his chin. “How many times did you take her out?”

  Brandon knew where her brother was heading, the sexual question behind it, and hesitated too long.

  “You bastard!” Duncan’s fist plowed into Brandon’s chin, sending him sprawling to the floor. “Get up so I can hit you again. I trusted you. We trusted you. You shouldn’t have touched her. You know the McBrides are unlucky in love. You just used her for a good time and she was gullible enough to believe you.”

  Brandon saw red. He came off the floor like a bullet. His right hook knocked Duncan flat. Fists balled, Brandon stood over him. “Don’t you dare say anything about Faith. She’s the best there is. Any man would count his blessings if he caught her attention.”

  “Then you care about her?” Cameron asked mildly.

  Brandon turned on him. “Of course I care about her. She’s the air I breathe, the first thought I have in the morning, the last thought I have at night. She’s . . .” Brandon’s voice trailed off. He staggered back, turned, and plopped into his chair. “I can’t be,” he mumbled.

  Cameron reached out and pulled Duncan to his feet. “From the shocked look on Brandon’s face, I think the McBride luck has finally turned. Maybe there’s hope for us to find love.”

  Brandon shuddered. “I’m not in love.”

  “Then you won’t care that she’s going out with another man tonight?” Cameron asked.

  Brandon’s eyes flashed dangerously. His mouth flattened into a thin, compressed line.

  “Seems you’re right, Cameron.” Duncan reached for the doorknob. “Looks like Mrs. Grayson is three for three, but Brandon, if I were you, I wouldn’t wait too long to tell Faith.”

  Brandon barely registered the closing of the door. He wasn’t in love. He just cared about her. If she wanted to date someone else, that was her business. He started to reach for his pen and found his fist clamped around a cactus-shaped paperweight on his desk.

  “Damn!”

  Faith didn’t want to attend the party, but it was a business mixer for people in the hotel industry. Esmeralda was scheduled to attend as well, but she said she didn’t feel well and asked Faith to please take her place with her date. Faith wished she hadn’t agreed. Carl Bright thought he was God’s gift to women and was way too full of himself.

  “Did I tell you that my family is one of the oldest in the city and among the wealthiest? I have relatives in key positions from the state to the nation’s capital.”

  Several times. “Yes.”

  “I’m only in the city for a short time; then I’m heading back to New York, where the real action is, to run my import/export business.” He leaned over and whispered, “It’s making millions.”

  Esmeralda owed her for this. “I’m pleased for you.”

  Carl stared at her as if wondering why she wasn’t suitably impressed. “Would you like a glass of wine?”

  She was about to say no when Brandon came into the room with a tray of drinks, gorgeous and devastatingly handsome in a white dinner jacket. Her first instinct was to run to him and beg his forgiveness. She stiffened her spine instead. Her only crime had been in loving him. “Please.”

  Carl lifted his hand and snapped his fingers. “Over here.”

  Faith cringed. People around them frowned. Carl had the manners and subtlety of a rhinoceros. Where had Esmeralda gotten this guy?

  “Here.”

  Brandon finally looked their way. His gaze dismissed Carl and seared Faith. She felt the punch all the way to her toes. He started toward them. Faith’s grip on the wrap loosened, letting the shimmering red silk slide sinuously over her bare shoulders. The knee-length fitted gown molded her body. She wanted Brandon to see and remember every detail and know what he was missing.

  From the slight pause, he was doing just that. Faith wished she could be happy about it. She couldn’t because she was remembering what she was missing as well.

  Stubborn man.

  Taking two glasses of wine from the silver tray Brandon held, Carl gave one to Faith. “To us and a night we’ll both remember.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw the dangerous expression on Brandon’s face and was happy Carl could not. He might have fainted dead away. She tilted the glass to her lips but didn’t drink.

  Carl emptied his glass and took hers. He placed both glasses back on the tray with a clink. “Shall we dance?”

  Faith let him lead her to the dance floor. He pulled her into his arms, then put his sweaty hand in the small of her bare back. It was all she could do not to squirm or look at Brandon.

  I could be in his arms if he wasn’t so stubborn.

  Brandon pictured the annoying man with Faith without his teeth, but as pleasing as that was, the man’s arm was around Faith, his hand on her soft, fragrant skin. The only thing that kept Brandon from flattening the man was the irrefutable knowledge that it wasn’t any of his concern any longer. Faith shouldn’t have tried to trick him.

  The man’s hand slid lower, toward her hips. Brandon moved before he was aware of it.

  “Where are you going with the drinks?”

  Brandon jerked his head around to see Cameron. “That guy is making a move on Faith.”

  Cameron lifted a flute of champagne from the tray, then looked at his sister on the dance floor. “I don’t see a problem.”

  “He has his hands all over her,” Brandon bit out, only partially relieved that the song had ended and they were leaving the dance floor.

  Cameron twirled the glass by the stem. “Why should you care where he had his hands?”

  Brandon opened his mouth, then snapped it shut.

  “It’s about time Faith had a social life outside the hotel. She deserves a great guy, since you didn’t want to stick around.”

  “Your chin is begging for my fist,” Brandon snarled.

  “Truth hurts.” Cameron strolled off.

  Brandon felt like following Cameron and dumping the tray of drinks over his head. He, of all people, should know how susceptible people on
the rebound were. Faith was vulnerable. Brandon looked around for Duncan. Their older brother, like Luke, had always guided Cameron and Faith.

  Less than a minute later, Brandon located Duncan. Brandon blinked, blinked again. Duncan had his arm around the shoulder of the jerk who earlier had his hands on Faith where they had no business being.

  Disgusted, Brandon headed toward the kitchen to reassign serving duties. Unlike Faith’s poor examples of brothers, he didn’t shirk his duties as the caterer or as a friend. Seems it would be up to him to set the man straight.

  But when he returned from the kitchen, Faith and the man were gone.

  19

  Unable to sleep, Faith wandered through her house. Memories of Brandon permeated every room, yet despite the pain his leaving caused, she’d never regret a moment spent with him. She’d been loved and cherished by the man she loved. She had been given a precious gift that she’d once thought she’d never have.

  What had finally pulled her out of despair and given her hope was the conversation he’d had with her brothers earlier that day at his restaurant. They thought he cared, but he was just in shock. That she could understand.

  Her revelation of always loving him had probably thrown him, perhaps more so since he was running from being next on his mother’s list to marry off. That list had given Faith herself some bad times because she was sure her name wasn’t on it.

  But Mrs. Grayson loved her children more than anything. If Faith could show his mother that she was the best woman for Brandon, maybe she would give them her blessings.

  The problem was, Brandon wasn’t even speaking to Faith now, let alone ready to propose. Her only hope was that eventually he’d calm down and come to understand that she’d acted out of desperation and love, not deceit.

  Her fingertips trailed over the memory book that held the first corsage he’d given her and the last flowers. He cared. The fact that he’d tried to protect her from Carl tonight proved as much. A small smile tilted her mouth upward.

  Duncan had done that nicely. Carl’s eyes bugged as Duncan, pretending to give him a manly hug, squeezed instead and whispered what he’d do to Carl if his hands wandered again. Her date had decided he had an early appointment in the morning and needed to leave immediately.

  Duncan and Cameron had followed them all the way back to the hotel. As soon as Carl stopped and the valet opened her door, he’d pulled off with a squeal of brakes.

  She’d commented that she’d lost another man and almost started crying again. Duncan and Cameron had put her in their rental and taken her to a sports bar to play pool. She might have lost the game, but a man had tried to pick her up and had given her his phone number. She sighed. She only wanted one man.

  The sudden pounding on her door startled her.

  Her head came up. Frightened, she reached for the phone. Then she heard Brandon’s voice.

  “Faith. Open this door.”

  A broad smile on her face, she ran to the door. In her haste her nervous fingers took longer than usual to operate the locks. Finally they clicked into place. She swung the door open, her arms reaching for Brandon, but he stalked past her.

  “Where is he?” He didn’t wait for her answer. He kept going, searching each room, opening the doors to her closets, her bathroom, dampening her enthusiasm.

  How dare he imply I had another man here. She refused to dignify Brandon’s question by following him. Leaving the front door open to show her displeasure, she waited for him to reappear.

  “I called you several times.”

  Since his hands were on his narrow hips and his eyes narrowed, his comment meant he thought the worst of her. “There were no messages on my phone from you.”

  “I didn’t leave any.”

  “How intelligent.” A muscle leaped in his jaw. Good. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go to bed.”

  As if he had just realized she was dressed in a hot pink long satin robe and gown that caressed her body, his gaze slowly swept over her, pausing at the swell of her breasts, the junction of her thighs. Her body hungered, heated.

  “Good night, Brandon.”

  His gaze snapped up. “I don’t want you making a mistake on the rebound.”

  Any lingering goodwill or passion vanished. “So you think I’d jump into bed with the first guy to come along? I seem to remember you had a fit when I thought you were seeing another woman the night after we made love.”

  His hands clenched. She hoped he was visualizing them naked and driving each other wild with desire. “It’s been over a week.”

  “So naturally I’d hook up with the first man to come along. Don’t insult me further.” She folded her arms. “Good night.”

  He hesitated, then headed for the door. When he was even with her, he stared down at her. She saw remorse when she wanted to see love. “I don’t want you hurt.”

  Her throat constricted. He cared; he just didn’t love her. She swallowed before she could speak. “It’s a little late for that.”

  He flinched. “It can’t be the way you want.”

  “Because you won’t let it. Forget about being next on your mother’s list to marry off, and just think of what we mean to each other,” she said fiercely, her arms coming to her sides.

  “How can I? You tricked me,” he accused.

  “Ugh. I made a mistake because I was desperate for you to look at me as a woman, to love me. I’m beginning to wonder why I thought I loved a man with such a narrow, one-track mind.” With both hands, she shoved him out the door, and slammed it in his face, but not before she saw his shocked expression.

  She marched to the bedroom to kneel in front of the blue porcelain wastebasket to search inside for the business card she’d thrown out earlier. Finding the card of the man she’d met at the sports bar, she sat back on her heels. Randal Hemming, Hemming Restorations, President. She’d call him tomorr—Her hand fisted, her head fell.

  She’d been down that disastrous road before. The only man she was interested in was the pigheaded one she’d just tossed out her front door. She wasn’t going to pretend interest in another man. It wouldn’t be fair.

  In the meantime, she was going to stop feeling sorry for herself, stop imitating a leaky faucet. She’d just have to hope and pray that Brandon got over his anger before his mother threw a potential bride in his path and he became the one on the rebound.

  Brandon slammed doors all the way to his bedroom. Not one made him feel one iota better. He was too steamed. Instead of Faith being grateful that despite the way she’d betrayed his trust, he had tried to protect her, she had insulted him, then shoved him out the door.

  No women had ever treated him so abominably. Just the opposite, they went out of their way to be friendly and accommodating. Not Faith. She hissed and spit like a cornered cat.

  He jerked his shirt off and tossed it in the direction of the suit valet. Women. If he lived a million years he’d never understand how their illogical brains worked. Sitting on the bed, he yanked off his boots, then shucked his pants and Jockeys. Naked, he grabbed his pants and began emptying the pockets onto the brass tray connected to the valet, muttering to himself about ungrateful, unpredictable women.

  “She should be thankful. I did so much for her. I . . .” He paused, stumbled, his brain trying to think of things he’d done for her.

  There had to be plenty of things. He was just so angry he couldn’t think straight. But the more he thought, the more he came up with things she’d done for him, each one more generous than the one before. The most precious thing was giving him her innocence.

  His head hung. Even the bed of flower petals had been for his enjoyment as much as hers. The clothes valet had been her idea, after she’d seen how helterskelter he tossed his clothes when he undressed. It shamed him that he couldn’t think of one tangible thing he’d done to let her know how much she meant to him, that he valued her, her friendship, her smile . . . her love.

  His head came up. He looked around as if afraid someone wa
s there to hear the words his heart had spoken. “No. No.” He shook his head in denial. That wasn’t right. He cared about her. He didn’t love her, because if he did that would mean the end of his freedom.

  Midmorning, Faith was sitting in her office going over the budget the business manager had submitted to her when her phone rang. She glanced up to see that the call came from the front desk. She hit the speakerphone. “Yes?”

  “Ms. McBride, you have a special delivery at the front desk.”

  “Please sign for it and send it back to my office,” Faith said, running down the column of figures.

  “The delivery requires your signature.”

  Faith’s head came up; a small frown knit her brow. There had been laughter and something else in Grace’s voice. Faith looked at the figures, then sighed. She’d been at this all morning. Perhaps she needed a break. “I’ll be right out.”

  “Thank you.”

  Disconnecting the call, Faith left her office. It wasn’t unusual that her personal signature was required on certain high-ticketed deliveries. However, she couldn’t recall authorizing any such items recently. Rounding the corner leading to the front desk, she came to an abrupt halt, her mouth gaping.

  Standing shoulder to shoulder were at least a dozen men and women. Each held a bouquet of flowers. The woman who had delivered Blade’s earlier arrangement stepped from the end and held out an electronic pad. “Ms. McBride.”

  Somehow Faith got her feet to move. Her gaze went from one arrangement to the next, each one more beautiful than the one before. The flowers ranged from roses to orchids.

  The deliverywoman grinned like a Cheshire cat as Faith signed her name. “Which one has the card?”

  “No card this time,” the deliverywoman said cheerfully. “He said you’d know eventually who sent them. I’m to give the message.” She straightened her shoulders. “ ‘As I carry you in my heart, please pick which one you’ll carry on our special day.’ ”