ONCE UPON A WEDDING

by Paula Detmer Riggs

"Whoa," Cait exclaimed softly. "Did I or did I not feel a definite buzz of sexual tension between you two just now?"

  Drawing a sharp breath, Hazel nestled Francey closer. "I'm beginning to think you did."

  "I knew there was something lurking under all that brooding moodiness he hides behind. All it took was a little concentrated exposure to your considerable charms to coax it to the surface."

  Hazel forced a smile. "Cait, I hate to tell you this, but those pregnant hormones of yours have softened your brain."

  Cait smoothed the baby's hair, her expression thoughtful. "In some cultures, a pregnant woman is considered psychic."

  "Not in ours."

  "Hmm, don't be so sure. When I was carrying Jesse, I told Ty that I was certain you had a crush on Jess. Looks like I was right."

  "Don't be silly, Cait. I like Jess just fine as a friend, but that's as far as it goes."

  "Yeah, right. That's why your face is as pink as Francey's bottom."

  Hazel's free hand went to her cheek, causing Cait to grin knowingly. "What'd I tell you? Psychic."

  "Weird is more like it."

  "Let's split the difference and call it fey."

  Hazel shook her head. "Call it whatever you want to, I'm going to take this little darling upstairs and work on my diaper changing skills."

  "Good idea. And I'd better get to work on Jess's lasagna. It's not his favorite, but we both pretend it is."

  "You do? Why?"

  "Because it's just about impossible for him to eat anything he has to cut with a knife."

  "Oh. I see. I never thought of that."

  "Most people don't. But Jess has to."

  In silence, they walked from the den.

  An hour later, Jess shook the sweat from his eyes and fought for one more pull-up, even as strain burned deep into his muscles and turned his tendons to ropes from his wrist to his shoulder.

  Teeth gritted against the pain, he inched his chin over the bar and, even though no one was holding a stopwatch on him, held himself motionless for a count of three before he allowed himself to let go.

  "Working out a tough case, Dante?"

  Jess glanced up in time to catch the towel tossed his way from the direction of the bench press, where Mitch Scanlon had just hoisted two-hundred and eighty pounds, a walk in the park for a man of his considerable strength.

  "Might say that, yeah." Jess used the towel to mop his wet face before draping it round his neck.

  "Another lost cause."

  "Probably, although I haven't made up my mind yet." Jess angled a hip against the rack used to hold the weights and watched Scanlon move from the bench to his wheelchair. A mega-famous NFL quarterback in a former life, Mitch had lost the use of his legs when he'd surprised a gang of kids attempting to steal his Porsche and been slammed in the back full force with a crowbar.

  These days he mainly concentrated on regaining as much mobility and strength as possible while at the same time avoiding media questions and cameras.

  Friends from the days when they'd taken turns being on the cover of sports magazines, he and Jess were co-owners of the gym which had been specially designed for use by the disabled.

  "Buy you a beer?" Mitch offered with a grin.

  "Thanks, but I'm expected someplace in an hour."

  "Yeah? Business or pleasure?"

  Jess hesitated. "Business."

  Mitch clucked his tongue. "Here I was hoping you finally got yourself a hot date."

  Straightening, Jess snatched the towel from his neck and tossed it at Scanlon's head. "Haven't you heard? Cripples don't have sex," he said over his shoulder as he headed for the showers.

  "Hey man, speak for yourself," he heard Scanlon throw at his back. Jess kept on going. The last thing he wanted to talk about was sex.

  Trading stories about women had never been a favorite of his in the past, when he'd had stories to tell. Now that he didn't, he liked it even less.

  The shower room was deserted. The dinner hour was the slow time at the gym, which was one of the reasons Jess had come then. He needed to think, and he did that best when he was alone.

  Reaching into the shower stall, he turned on the hot water full force, then methodically stripped out of his sweats and stepped into the steam.

  Like a warm lush woman, the hot moisture embraced him wholly, eagerly. Closing his eyes, he braced his palm against the slick, sweating tile and leaned into the heat, allowing the pounding water to work its magic on the knots in his shoulders and back.

  Willing himself to relax, he surrendered to the hot stinging needles. The water felt good against his skin, but good as it was, he craved more. He wanted a woman. Not just for sex, but to hold, to touch, to smell.

  He wanted the gentleness a woman offered, the soft warmth, the acceptance.

  Who was he kidding? He wanted O'Connor.

  He prided himself on having his life under control, on keeping his physical needs under tight rein, but there were times when he dreaded being alone one more minute of one more day.

  Lifting his head, Jess let the water pound his face, hoping the heat would scald away the remembered pleasure of her mouth whispering across his cheek. Or the even sharper pleasure of his mouth on hers.

  He prided himself on his logic. Others called him ruthless. So why couldn't he get a handle on what it was, precisely, that he wanted from her?

  It had to be more than her ability to make him see himself in gentler, more accepting ways. More than the knack she had of making him want to smile when she smiled and laugh when she laughed. Damn it, it had to be more complicated than that, he told himself as he dropped his head so that the water could pound the sudden spasm in his neck. Nothing could be that simple.

  Nothing else in his life was. Things he used to take for granted now took ingenuity and persistence and patience. Like eating and driving a car and handling his briefcase together with a door that had to be opened manually.

  Problems like that were a nuisance, but they were also easily defined. A man could handle what he could define.

  But feelings, needs – things he couldn't touch or see or analyze piece by piece, like the need he had to be close to O'Connor, to listen to her voice and watch the dance of emotions in her eyes – all of his life he'd avoided things like that.

  Clenching his jaw, he reached for the soap. His body was familiar territory to him now – one side the same as it had been for a lifetime, the other irreversibly changed.

  Like Jekyll and Hyde, he thought as his finger worked suds into the scarred, cratered flesh of his shoulder and side. Ugly, mutilated, pathetic.

  He'd heard all the words, felt the stares. He'd accepted his ugliness because he'd had no choice.

  A woman as bright and pretty and sexy as O' Connor had a world of choices. Why on God's green earth did he have the gall to think she might want him?

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  «^»

  "There's one more piece of pie left," Cait called from the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. "How about you two guys splitting it?"

  "Give the whole piece to Dante," Tyler said, aiming a grin Jess's way. "He's been looking a little scrawny lately."

  Surgery on the small accident victim had gone well, which was why Tyler had made it home in time for dinner.

  "You wish."

  Jess slanted his friend a rude look before shifting his gaze to Cait. "He's just ticked because he's gone through three horses to my one and he still can't outride me. Problem is, he and I are the same size, but he's carrying twenty pounds extra in the gut."

  "Like hell," Tyler grumbled, patting his belly. "I can still get into the same jeans I wore as an intern."

  "That's true, sweetheart," Cait put in with a saucy grin for her husband of almost five years. "You just can't sit down in them."

  Tyler looked abashed. "Hey, no fair spilling family secrets."

  "Jess is family," Cait threw back. "Besides, I notice that he had as much trouble fitting into the jean
s he borrowed from you as you did, which is why, I suspect, he went home to change into a pair of his own."

  "Whoa, I resent that," Jess proclaimed staunchly. "I went home because I needed to check my mail and return some calls."

  Ty snorted his disbelief, and Cait grinned. Hazel remained silent, her gaze fixed in her wineglass. She'd been in the kitchen helping Cait when he'd come looking for her earlier, his hair still damp and his jaw freshly shaved. It was an odd experience, being sought out by the man who usually shunned her, one she wasn't sure she understood. Or even particularly trusted.

  "I still can't believe there's a baby in the house," Kelsey said as she breezed in with a glass of milk in one hand and a dish of ice cream in the other.

  Finished with his dinner and fidgeting under all the adult conversation, Jesse had been excused to take his dessert into the family room, where the faint strains of a children's video could be heard whenever conversation lagged.

  "Talk about a surprise! I mean, coming home from cheerleading practice and finding Auntie Hazel with a baby in her arms. Wow!"

  Kelsey flopped into her seat, put down her glass and picked up her spoon, all during the space of one breath. "And then come to find out the baby is going to be Uncle Jess's adopted daughter. Double wow!" She stopped to dig in.

  Jess marveled at the effervescence in Kelsey's tone. She was just two months shy of her thirteenth birthday and trying hard to be "adult." Sometimes, though, she forgot herself.

  "So when are you taking Francey home with you, Uncle Jess?" Kelsey asked with her mouth full of dessert.

  Jess met Hazel's eyes and saw the same question written there before she looked away. "I'm not sure," he hedged. "I'm in the middle of a trial that resumes Tuesday, and I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with child care yet."

  "You can always leave Francisca here," Cait said as she returned to the table with a dish of apple pie in one hand and a full pot of coffee in the other. "I would be thrilled to have another little one around."

  "Yeah, Uncle Jess!" Kelsey exclaimed. "I'd love to babysit."

  "That's great," her mother interjected as she refilled cups all around. "But what happens when you go to cheerleading practice or your tennis lesson or out with friends?"

  "No problem. I'll take Francey with me."

  Putting the pot on the straw mat, Cait resumed her seat. "Sorry, sweetie, it's not that easy."

  "Why not?"

  "Well, for one thing you have to take her diapers and wipes and bottles and a change of clothes whenever you take her, remember?"

  Kelsey grimaced. "Yuck. That sounds too much like work."

  Cait burst out laughing, and Hazel bit her lip. Kelsey looked utterly offended. "I was just making a point," she said huffily.

  Extreme swings in mood must be a stage, Jess decided. A teenage thing. And then he wondered how he would handle Francey without a mother's help when she was that age.

  "And you're absolutely right," Cait told her solemnly. "Which is why I suggested to Uncle Jess that the only sensible thing to do right now is to leave Francey with me, since I'm only working two days a week until your sister is born."

  Mollified, Kelsey scraped her spoon against her bowl, scooping up the last bite before turning her attention to Hazel again.

  "I bet it's going to be hard for you to let go of that little darling, but maybe Uncle Jess will let you baby-sit now and then."

  "Actually I'm trying to get her to do more than that," Jess put in before Hazel could answer.

  Eyes bright with curiosity, Kelsey looked first at Hazel and then at Jess. "Oh yeah? Like what?"

  "Like move in with me and help me take care of Francey until the court decides if I'm really going to be her father or not."

  Jess was taking a chance, and he knew it. Still, he figured he had a fifty-fifty shot at making a good case, which was better odds than he usually took into trial with him.

  "All right!" Kelsey cried. "Like this movie I saw once, only the baby was a little boy and he was the son of this woman's sister and her husband who was the brother of this guy."

  Kelsey glanced around the table expectantly. When no one spoke, she went on. "Anyway, these two, the parents I mean, are killed in a plane crash, leaving the baby an orphan, like Francey. See what I mean?"

  Jess realized that he was expected to comment. "I believe I do," he said dryly.

  "And then … where was I?"

  "Plane crash," her father put in.

  "Oh yeah. So these two, the baby's aunt and uncle see, start fighting over who should adopt the baby—"

  "Wouldn't happen, not if the parents left a will," Jess interjected.

  Kelsey looked annoyed. "Yeah, but see, that was part of the problem. They hadn't expected to die so young, and so they hadn't got around to making a will or serious junk like that. Anyway there was this big custody fight, see, and these two were acting like enemies, only they were really falling in love and didn't know it. And then the baby gets kidnapped and—"

  Jess groaned. "Enough, Kels. This story of yours is giving me heartburn."

  Undaunted, Kelsey grinned. "Well, it was a killer movie."

  "I'm sure it was," Hazel said before Kelsey could get started again. "But Uncle Jess isn't really serious about my moving in with him."

  She seemed perfectly relaxed, and her smile was casual, but he was perceptive enough to sense the world of emotions under the calm. A week ago, he wouldn't have noticed. A week ago, he wouldn't have cared.

  "Sure I am. Cait has her own kids to take care of. You and I are both self-employed and our schedules are at least somewhat flexible."

  "Yours maybe. Not mine."

  Pushing back his chair, he stood up, walked around the table and positioned himself between her chair and the door. He wanted to touch her but reminded himself that this was about Francey's needs, not his.

  "C'mon, let's you and me take a walk to settle the lasagna."

  She looked at him as though he'd suggested something ridiculous. "Jess, I have to get home. I have mail to read and calls to return, too, you know."

  "Fine, I'll drive you."

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Ty and Cait exchange looks and wondered what they would do if he suddenly grabbed Hazel by the hair and hauled her out of there.

  "No … oh, all right, but just remember, I'm not some wide-eyed juror to be swayed by glib words and one of those patented Jess Dante glares."

  Kelsey giggled, but her eyes were round with surprise, and her hand was clutching her throat.

  "Look at it this way, O'Connor. I make my living talking, and you make yours listening. That's all we're going to do. For now, anyway."

  Hazel's house was an architect's nightmare of turrets and gingerbread and windows that didn't match, all painted a soothing gray with sparkling white trim.

  Jess hadn't gotten much past the front door before he realized the place was as contradictory as its owner. Unlike the exterior, the entry was a sensory barrage of primary colors.

  The paintings and artifacts decorating the walls were both traditional and irreverent and showed absolutely no sense of organization at all. It was as though she'd hung some new treasure wherever she'd found room to fit.

  "Interesting," he said when he caught her looking at him.

  "I'm glad you like it."

  "I didn't say that."

  She laughed, a light breezy sound that he absorbed almost hungrily. "Make yourself at home."

  She dropped her purse and briefcase on the nearest solid object, an odd-looking chair with a dragon carved into the back.

  "The parlor has the most ambiance. I'll just check my machine, and then I'll put on a pot of coffee."

  Jess glanced to the right and saw French doors leading to what he took to be the dining room. At least it had a table and chairs in it, along with a huge painting of peacock feathers and an antique Victrola, the kind with a crank. By the process of elimination, the "parlor" had to be to the left.

  Definitely unusual, he thou
ght, turning slowly in a circle. The furniture was dignified, even stuffy. Victorian, he decided. But the silk-screened print covering the cushions was clearly twentieth century, and there were pillows everywhere. Soft cushy ones, plump ones with tassels, others with ruffles.

  There was even a red silk job on the pink and gold love seat that looked as though it had come from the nineteenth-century bordello that now housed his office.

  "Fantastic, isn't it?" she exclaimed when she caught him running his fingertips over the slick material. "I got it for a song at this little antique store in Diamond Springs."

  "I bet you did at that."

  She came toward him, a grin on her face and a mug of steaming coffee in each hand. He noticed that she'd kicked off her shoes and done something to her hair. Made it fluffier, he decided. More touchable.

  "Black, no sugar, right?" she said as she set both mugs on the old chicken-crate coffee table and curled into one corner of the settee.

  "Right."

  He chose a platform rocking chair that looked sturdy enough and sat down. The old chair creaked as it took Jess's weight, and the sound startled both of them.

  "You should have seen that chair before I fixed it," she said, intensely aware of the long legs stretching within touching distance. "A real disaster."

  "You like fixing things, I take it."

  She reached her cup and cradled it on her thigh. "Is that an insult or a compliment?"

  "Let's see if the thing holds me up before we decide, shall we?" he said, his tone almost droll.

  "You have a point."

  Was there a sense of fun trapped beneath the reserve? she wondered, intrigued and beguiled at the thought of releasing it.

  "It's the oddest thing, but I feel as though I've been away from home for weeks instead of hours."

  She took a sip, then cradled the mug between both her hands and leaned her head against the back of the settee. Her throat was smooth and creamy and just the right angle for a man's mouth to explore slowly.

  Jess reached for his own mug and downed half the contents in two long swallows. It was hot enough to burn all the way to his stomach. The distraction was welcome.

  "How about you?" She let her eyes drift open. "Do you have the same feeling?"