ONCE UPON A WEDDING

by Paula Detmer Riggs

  Hazel gave him a curious look. "Promise you won't laugh?"

  "Scout's honor."

  Hazel adjusted the collar of her silk shirt, inadvertently drawing Jess's gaze to the slight shadow between the open lapels, and his blood pressure rose a notch.

  "It was my thirty-seventh birthday, and my 'significant other' at the time had just called it quits because he'd fallen in love with his twenty-two-year-old graduate assistant. Remember him? I brought him to the McClanes's Christmas party that year. Tall blond guy, with a beard. He was head of the psych department at State. I thought he was very stable. He thought I was a prude."

  Jess caught a flavor of defiance in her voice and wondered if she were more self-conscious about her age or being dumped.

  "There's a lot of that going around, I hear," he reassured her without really knowing why. "Half the guys I know my age are working on second families."

  "Tell me about it," she responded dryly.

  Her tone was accented in three creased lines above a nose a bit too long to be called pert. Jess had an urge to pull her close and kiss away those lines, but he had a strong feeling he wouldn't be able to stop at one brief kiss.

  "Anyway, I decided to get drunk and forget the bozo and his new little twit."

  Jess tried to imagine Dr. Hazel O'Connor drunk, but the image didn't quite work. Now tipsy, that was something else. He had a feeling she would be more playful then, in the way that innately sensuous women often are. His mind veered into dangerous speculation before he could stop himself.

  "Did it work?"

  "Which part? Getting drunk or forgetting?"

  "Forgetting. The drunk part is easy."

  "Sure," she said with a grin that kindled intriguing little lights in her eyes. "Somewhere between my last drink and my first frantic trip to the bathroom to toss my cookies, I fell out of love."

  About to take a drink, Jess sloshed Scotch on his thigh, then swore at his clumsiness. Slanting her a disbelieving look didn't help. She was still grinning like a kid who'd just pulled off a prank.

  "What is this, O'Connor?" he drawled. "Shrink humor?"

  Her lips pursed into a thoughtful pout, and her eyes went out of focus. "Nooo, more like an experiment."

  She toyed with her napkin, making little pleats around the stem of the glass. She had small fingers, he noticed. Slender. And her nails were cut short and covered with clear polish instead of the blood red most of the other women he knew favored these days.

  "What kind of experiment?"

  "I wanted to see if I could keep you interested enough to break the world's record."

  Her eyes gleamed like a small cat's in the dim light. Anticipating his next question, he figured. Ready to spring the punch line on him.

  She wasn't flirting; he wasn't about to kid himself that the lady found him sexually attractive. But she wasn't the proper professional he usually encountered, either.

  He shifted on the hard stool, more aware than he should be of the attraction he was feeling. "Okay, O'Connor. I'll bite. What world's record?"

  "Hmm, just a minute, please."

  She held her wrist to the dim light illuminating the bar and focused her gaze on the face of a small gold watch.

  In the dim light her hair seemed a darker shade of red. Chestnut, maybe, like a cutting horse he'd had as a kid, but softer. Definitely softer.

  He thumbed the condensation on his glass and wondered how hair that looked that soft would feel sliding through his fingers. Or brushing his neck.

  And he wondered if her skin would be as warm and smooth to the touch as it looked in the dim bar light.

  They'd bought a few necessities at the 7-Eleven after they'd checked in, things they'd needed for the unexpected overnight stay – toothbrushes and paste, a disposable razor for him, shampoo for her, odds and ends. One thing she hadn't bought, however, was a nightgown. Like him, she would be sleeping in the nude. Or damn near, anyway.

  "Drumroll, please," she said, holding up one finger. Jess caught the amused look on the bartender's face and felt like a prize idiot.

  "O'Connor—"

  "You did it," she said with an exaggerated look of astonishment that had him scowling before he even knew why.

  "Did what, damn it?"

  "Remained in my presence for more than fifteen solid minutes before making an excuse to leave."

  Jess muttered the first words that came to mind, which didn't faze the lady in the least. "We had dinner together, remember? And before that, we spent two hours driving down from Sacramento and another half a day sitting in the waiting room.

  "Ah, but that was business."

  "And this isn't?"

  "Nope." She leaned her elbow on the bar and buried her chin in her palm. Noting his scowl, she wondered what it would feel like to have that hard, serious mouth capturing hers.

  "So tell me, Dante, what was going on the last time you were sitting alone in a bar?"

  She looked directly into his eyes, as though daring him to answer, and Jess wasn't sure he'd ever met a woman he'd wanted to kiss more. Her lips were silky, even without paint, and full enough to test a man's skill. The temptation to feel the texture and taste of that soft mouth was almost more than he could withstand.

  When he spoke, his voice was cool, his gaze distant – for his sake, more than hers. "My not-quite-ex-wife had just had a baby with her new lover. His name was Stefano Giulliano. Ever hear of him?"

  "Of course. He's a famous race-car driver, like you."

  Not like me, Jess thought. The lucky bastard's still doing what he loves best instead of trying every day to convince himself that he doesn't miss the driving and the crowds and the winning.

  "He's also the son of a bitch who was supposed to be my best friend."

  "Ouch. That must have hurt."

  "I got over it."

  She made no attempt to hide the depth of feeling his words aroused in her. Jess had a feeling she would demand equal openness and emotional honesty from any man who wanted her.

  "Where is she now? Your ex, I mean."

  "Last I heard she was living in Paris and spending Stef's money as fast as he made it."

  "And the child?"

  "Probably in a boarding school someplace. Gayla wasn't what you'd call maternal."

  Jess stared into his drink. He hadn't thought about Gayla and Stef in years, not consciously, anyway. Even then it had been triggered by something unexpected, like a glimpse of their faces in the grocery store tabloids.

  Once, right after their fancy Monte Carlo wedding, the reporter had included pictures of Gayla as she'd been right after his accident, looking stricken and beautiful in the hospital chapel praying for his recovery.

  And like the dutiful, loving wife she'd seemed in the photo, she'd been at his bedside when he'd come out of the anesthetic fog to discover the doctors had taken his arm at the shoulder.

  The doctors had had to tie him down for a week before he'd calmed down. Even then they'd kept a watch on him for several more weeks. A suicide watch, they'd told him later.

  Gayla had stuck it out until he was out of the hospital. He'd been trying to find something else to do with his time besides feel sorry for himself when she'd told him that she was divorcing him. No hard feelings, she'd said, but she'd married a world-class race-car driver, not a has-been who couldn't even make love properly.

  A woman laughed somewhere behind them, low and throaty. Jess wondered if she and the man she was with would end the evening making love. Hazel started, as though she, too, had been lost in her own thoughts.

  "So that brings us back to the current problem," she murmured as she brought her glass to her lips. "I phoned the prison, but they wouldn't put me through to the infirmary. Regulations, they said."

  "Yes, I know." He'd gotten through to the office of the assistant warden, only to have some flunky gleefully inform him that the man was sick in bed with the flu. "I figured we'd get over there sometime around eight-thirty tomorrow."

  "I thought
visiting hours didn't start until ten."

  "They don't, but attorneys get special privileges." If they pushed hard enough and refused to take no for an answer.

  "Have you decided what you're going to do first? Besides convincing Silvia to fight for the baby?"

  Jess felt something hard thud in his belly. "Not for certain, no."

  "What if Silvia still insists that she wants you to adopt Francisca? Then what?"

  "I'll convince her to change her mind." He allowed himself one more sip before pushing aside the half-finished Scotch. He wasn't drunk, but he wasn't quite sober, either.

  "I'm not sure that will be so easy."

  Jess drew a long, deep breath that smelled of cigarettes and booze. Once it had been motor oil and grease filling his nostrils. He still missed the high they'd given him.

  "The last thing I want to do is hurt the woman any more than she's been hurt. But what she's asking…" He shook his head. "Try to see it my way, O'Connor. Even if I petitioned for adoption, Protective Services would just haul out the rules and regs and a list of precedents showing that an over-forty bachelor with an obvious physical handicap isn't daddy material, and by the time the judge ruled against me, Francisca would have been stuck in a foster home someplace for months, maybe years."

  "You might win."

  "Don't kid yourself, Doctor. The system in this country has been stacked against minorities for more than three hundred years. And whether I like it or not, my disability makes me a minority."

  Hazel wasn't one to admit defeat, but he was right. She'd fought the system too many times … and lost – to pretend otherwise.

  "She'll be upset. You'd better prepare yourself."

  Jess felt his face grow hot. "You think I don't know that?"

  "I think you're a good man with a kind heart he works hard at hiding."

  "Bull."

  She challenged him with a look that invited him to share his innermost thoughts, but then, Jess told himself, that was her job, wasn't it? Drawing deeply buried secrets out into the light and then getting rid of the hurt.

  Kids' secrets, he reminded himself. Kids' hurts. Not the kind that cut deep and went on cutting, no matter what kind of medicine a guy tried.

  Jess reached for the drink he'd shoved aside and finished it in one gulp. "If I am, it's a private battle," he said as he signaled the bartender for another round.

  "In other words, 'O'Connor, butt out.' "

  "Exactly."

  Her laughter was soft and directed more at herself than him. Or perhaps she'd just felt like laughing. Nothing was predictable with this woman. Nor out-of-bounds the way it was with most women he knew.

  "There's so much that's good and strong and special in you," she murmured as though to herself. "And almost all of it hidden so deep I'm not even sure you know it's there."

  He felt a stir, like the quick pause before a perfectly tuned engine unleashed its horses. And then she put a gentle hand on his mutilated shoulder, leaned forward and kissed him.

  With the stain of shock still hot on his face, she took a twenty from her wallet and laid it on the bar before sliding gracefully from the stool.

  "Don't be so hard on yourself, Dante. You don't deserve it."

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  «^»

  It was still early, but the restaurant was packed. Now that the weather had turned nice again, the tourists were eager to close the final gap between themselves and the bright lights of San Francisco.

  Jess slitted his eyes against the sunshine streaming through the windows and wondered if his head was hard enough to handle the mother of all hangovers without busting wide open.

  All those high-priced scientists who swore alcohol was an anesthetic were out of their collective minds. He figured there was at least a pint of Scotch still circulating in his veins, more, maybe, if the churning in his gut was even a halfway accurate gauge.

  Just blinking hurt, he discovered as he popped the two aspirin he'd garnered from the waitress into his mouth and washed them down with bitter black coffee.

  Tying one on had been a decision he'd made with his gut, not his head. And like most decisions made that way, it had been a mistake.

  At least this mistake wouldn't cost him more than a splitting headache and a queasy belly, he told himself grimly. Others, like marrying the wrong woman and giving in to some idiotic idea of racetrack ethics, had been more costly.

  Someplace close a baby cried suddenly, and he winced. A mom and dad and three kids were taking over the next booth. The hostess hovered, ready with a high chair.

  Closing his eyes, he rubbed his aching temples and tried not to think of the next few hours. Or the sad, sick mother of another baby who'd had to turn to her attorney for help because no one else cared.

  A spoon banged on the high-chair tray, and he all but groaned aloud at the painful spasm in his temple. At the same time he saw Hazel come in.

  She had a quick smile for the harried hostess and a few words that made the overworked woman laugh.

  Something moved inside him, like the first pangs of hunger after a long fast. Habit had him ignoring it as he watched her over his coffee cup.

  Shorter than most women he knew, she had an exciting body, built more for endurance than a flash of speed. His ex-wife and her kind would sneer and call her plump, but Gayla and her friends had taken their standards from the shiny magazines, not a man's fantasy life. His never failed to kick start when Hazel was around.

  She hesitated by the hostess station, scanning the non-smoking section. Jess guessed that she was looking for him, a guess that proved correct when she spied him by the window and made a beeline in his direction.

  People noticed, both men and women. If Hazel noticed them noticing, however, she didn't seem bothered one way or another.

  As she approached, he tensed, waiting for her to throw him the same quick smile she'd given everyone else. When she didn't, he didn't know whether to be disappointed or pleased.

  "Have you ordered yet?" she asked as she slipped into the seat across from him and dropped her purse onto the empty chair between them.

  "Just coffee so far." He indicated the pot between the two place settings.

  "A man after my own heart." She poured herself a cup and took a greedy sip, her eyes half-closed as though in ecstasy. "It's not officially morning until I've had my coffee," she murmured when she caught him looking at her.

  "You look bright enough."

  "You don't."

  "Thanks, I needed that."

  She raised both eyebrows, as though doing so helped her study of his face. His strength exerted the most pull on her, she decided. And the quiet resilience that showed in the occasional bursts of self-mocking humor directed toward his handicap. He was solid and dependable, a man who would be there for you if you fell – and then give you holy hell for being so clumsy.

  She smiled, projecting both sympathy and scolding at the same time. "I thought you liked plain speaking?"

  "A little tact now and then wouldn't hurt."

  "I hate to tell you this, Jess, but I was being tactful."

  After treating herself to another few sips, she cupped her coffee mug between her hands and rested it against her chin. Above the steam curling upward, her eyes took on a sleepy cast that made a man wonder if she woke up slow like a cat or quick like a nervous little doe.

  Either way, he had a feeling she would be a pleasure to kiss first thing in the morning. Annoyed with himself and his thoughts, he concentrated on ignoring her. He wasn't used to talking to anyone but himself in the morning, and it was a hard habit to break.

  "So, Counselor, what time did you get to bed last night?" she asked when the silence stretched.

  Jess shrugged his good shoulder, then winced as pain burst in his head. "Burt and I closed the place."

  "Burt?"

  "The bartender."

  "Ah, best friends are you, now?"

  "Something like that, yeah."

  The hin
t of perfume was gone, he noticed, replaced by the subtle tang of soap. Either suited her, he decided, although he preferred the natural scent as much as he'd preferred the absence of makeup.

  "Good thing California has closing laws."

  "Speak for yourself, Doctor."

  "Uh-oh, we're in a lousy mood, are we?" She leaned back, taking her cup with her. He wondered if she were a tennis player. Or maybe a dancer. Something that combined grace and stamina.

  "I'm in the mood for food."

  "Looks like you tangled with that razor you bought yesterday – and lost."

  It took Jess a second to realize that she was talking about the twin nicks along the edge of his jaw. He tested his recently shaven skin with his fingers and felt the fresh blood.

  "I never did like disposable razors," he said as he wiped his bloody fingers on the paper napkin. At home he used an electric. Shaving with a blade one-handed cost him more time and frustration than it was worth. "Guess I'm lucky I didn't cut my throat."

  "Nothing like camping out."

  She saluted him with her cup before reaching for one of the menus lying on the table between them. As he scanned the other, Jess thought about the sleep he'd needed and hadn't gotten and wondered if she'd heard him pacing the floor through the wall between them.

  If she had, she'd probably put down his restlessness to a guilty conscience. And she would be partly right, he decided, as he signaled the waitress.

  As for the rest, some things a man kept to himself, things he couldn't do anything about – like pain in a limb that wasn't there and a need for a small, feisty, redheaded woman that was so strong it scared him.

  Hazel had just put down her menu when the waitress reached them. The face was different from the woman's last night, but the weariness in the eyes was the same.

  "Morning folks," she said, flipping her pad to a clean sheet. "Looks like the storm's past, don't it?"

  Hazel darted him a glance before answering. "I'm not sure. Ask me again in ten minutes."

  The waitress looked puzzled, then shrugged it off. She had little time for riddles during the breakfast rush. "What can I get you?"

  Jess watched Hazel discuss the relative merits of waffles versus pancakes and noticed that she had a way of drawing her listener in, of making her an ally – or a coconspirator. Either way, it was a knack he'd worked hard to perfect in the courtroom. He had a feeling she came by it naturally.