Stop the Wedding!

by Stephanie Bond

  “Clay, man, are you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” he snapped. “What did you find?”

  “Lots of harmless stuff.”

  He exhaled in relief.

  “Except for a couple of things,” Henry continued, causing Clay’s pulse to pick up again. “She inherited ten thousand dollars two years ago when her father passed away, but it isn’t apparent where the money went—probably school. I looked into the information you gave me about her buying a house, and was able to get a copy of the form where she listed the source of her thirty thousand dollar down payment.”

  Clay’s heart pounded. “Go on.”

  “She listed a guy by the name of Michael Horsh. I did some checking, and the man is seventy-four, divorced twice, bankrupted a couple of times, but seems to be making a go of the coffee shop he owns now.”

  His throat threatened to close. Mike. “Are they romantically involved?”

  Henry grunted. “Hard to say. The Coakley woman did handle his last divorce, and they live on the same block. And according to a clerk at the coffee shop, she’s a regular there. With more time, I might be able to determine a definite link between them. But according to the two marriage license applications on file, Horsh appears to prefer younger women.”

  “Or maybe they prefer him,” Clay muttered.

  “Yep.”

  His mind spun, assimilating the information. An older man who preferred younger women, was divorced twice and bankrupted twice, was a client of Annabelle’s and had given her thirty thousand dollars for a down payment on her house. A blind man could see she was bilking this Horsh fellow.

  Which probably meant she and her mother were planning to swindle his father as well. Was the postponement of the wedding a ploy to…what? To heighten his father’s determination? To manipulate Martin’s feelings to the point that he would forget the notion of a prenuptial agreement?

  Clay swallowed. To dupe his heart as well?

  His thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Annabelle, her hair blowing back from her face as a blast of summer air greeted her, her eyes darting to find him. Despite the distasteful news of her work in progress in Detroit, he couldn’t stop the quickening in his stomach at the sight of her. Everything in him cried out that his suspicions had been wrong, that Henry was wrong even now, that this unexplainable chemistry between them was a natural phenomenon and not a result of some scheme she’d concocted.

  “Clay?” Henry said.

  He snapped out of his musings, but remained riveted to Annabelle. “Anything else?” he asked abruptly.

  “I’ll keep digging if you want to know more.”

  “That’s enough,” Clay managed to say. “Send me a bill.”

  He disconnected the call and watched her glide closer to him. Loose limbed and graceful, she moved like a dancer…like a lover. Clay set his jaw.

  Keep digging? He already knew so much more than he wanted to.

  Chapter Fifteen

  AS MUCH AS SHE wanted to shake the tabloid photo in Clay’s face, she hesitated because some part of her wanted to maintain the whisper of magic they’d shared just moments ago at his farm. Illogical? Absolutely. The lawyer in her recognized the lunacy of her emotions, but she couldn’t stop her fantasies, not when Clay stood next to his truck, arms crossed, looking too good for her good. She squinted.

  Except for that frown on his face. The man was nothing if not moody.

  Wordlessly, he took the grocery bag from her and walked around to help her climb inside. His hands lingered around her waist a fraction of a second longer than necessary, but overriding the desire in his eyes and in his touch, was something she couldn’t put her finger on. Tension? Anger?

  She studied the set of his shoulders as he walked around the front of the truck. Did he regret their lapse so much? Did he share her guilt for indulging in their attraction at the same time they were trying to drive their parents apart? She wet her lips, remembering too well the feel of his mouth claiming hers. The feel of his hands and mouth touching private places.

  He deposited the bag on the seat between them, then shut the door with a bit too much force. Annabelle squirmed. He started the engine, then nodded to one of the newspapers peeking out of the bag. “I never took you for a follower of the tabloids.”

  Still puzzled by his attitude, she pursed her mouth. “There’s a photo inside of our parents, kissing.”

  He frowned. “Where?”

  “On the mouth!”

  “I mean where was the picture taken?”

  “Oh. When we were hiking the other day. I didn’t see a photographer, did you?”

  He glanced her way before accelerating and pulling onto the road. “The only person I remember seeing taking pictures was you.”

  Annabelle gasped. “Why on earth would I take a picture and turn it over to a rag like that?”

  He lifted one dark eyebrow. “To perpetuate the myth that you’re against this marriage.”

  “What?” She put a hand to her temple. “Did I miss something?”

  “Yes,” he said calmly, his gaze sliding to her before returning to the road. “I just received a phone call.”

  Confusion clogged her brain. “From whom?”

  “From someone who knows about your dealings with Michael Horsh,” he said, his voice terse.

  Alarms sounded in her ears and heat suffused her cheeks. “Who? And what does my friendship with Michael Horsh have to do with anything?”

  Anger radiated from him to fill the cab of the truck. “The fact that you wangled thirty thousand dollars from an old man in order to buy a house seems rather relevant to this situation.”

  Incredulity shot through her. “What?”

  He held up his hand. “Don’t pretend, counselor. You handled the man’s second divorce, and he’s financially strapped, yet managed to cough up the money you needed. And I assume he’s the same ‘Mike’ you’re supposed to be engaged to.”

  Struck speechless, Annabelle could only shake her head. How could he know these things about her, and about her friend Michael? Suddenly the appalling answer came to her. “You hired someone to investigate my personal life?”

  “I had to protect my father.”

  An invisible hand squeezed her heart, drilling disappointment deep into her body. It was as if a curtain had descended between them. What a fool she’d been. Clay didn’t care about her, he only cared about preserving the dysfunctional integrity of the Castleberry family. Why offer him an explanation when he was determined to think the worst of her? The knowledge cut to the quick, but at least she knew to a certainty where she stood.

  She felt light-headed, but she refused to yield to tears. Annabelle turned her head away from him to look out the window. Caring for someone led to certain anguish. Why hadn’t she listened to herself? And to Clay. After all, the man had made his opinion of long-term relationships abundantly clear. I don’t believe in happy endings.

  So why should it bother her that he didn’t trust her? That he thought the worst of her? It wasn’t as if they’d been headed for some kind of happily ever after. She’d been right to come to Atlanta to rescue her mother, and the sooner she and Belle were out of the vicinity of the Castleberry men, the better.

  “You don’t have anything to say?” he prodded, his voice tight.

  Humiliation and anger flamed in her chest, and Annabelle looked back to his arrogant profile. “Yes. My first impression of you was correct. You are despicable.” She blinked rapidly—she would not let herself cry.

  He chortled without humor. “You’re just cross because you got caught, Ms. Coakley.” His voice was low and patronizing.

  Those tears were getting harder and harder to bank. She bit down on her tongue.

  “Aren’t you?” he goaded.

  And to think she had actually begun to believe that they shared some kind of rare emotional and physical connection. “Believe what you want to believe,” she said thickly.

  His jaw tensed, relaxed, then tens
ed again. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know that my father recently came into a large sum of money.”

  She tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. “I knew. But if money inspired me, don’t you think I would have taken your bribe?” It was a monumental effort to keep her voice steady. At least they were almost home.

  “Not if you thought there was more to gain by going through with the marriage.” He slowed and turned into her mother’s neighborhood.

  “If that was the case,” she said, struggling to maintain her calm, “why would I have started the argument that led to them calling off the wedding?”

  “Maybe you’re trying to wear me and my father down. So we’ll forget the idea of a prenup.”

  She squinted. “You and your father?”

  He slowed to pull onto her mother’s street. “I have to give you credit for this tag-team effort,” he said, his voice laced with sarcasm. “The hot and cold routine, the flirting.”

  “Flirting?” She moved closer to the door, as far away from him as possible. She just wanted to get away from him. Now.

  He tapped his thumb on the steering wheel. “You almost had me thinking you were on the up and up, that you really weren’t trying to put the squeeze on my father.”

  Her hurt was forgotten as white-hot anger fueled her tongue. “How dare you?” Her voice shook, and she felt dangerously close to breaking down. “There’s nothing you or your father have that would remotely interest me or my mother.”

  He braked, poked his tongue in his cheek, and gestured toward her mother’s house. “Not even a white Jaguar convertible with red leather interior?”

  She followed his line of vision, then opened the door and leapt to the ground. “Mother?”

  Belle and Martin sat in the sparkling convertible in her driveway, holding up flutes of champagne. A huge gold bow adorned the hood. Her mother looked up and squealed when she saw them. Waving, she yelled, “Look what Martin bought me for me, dear! Isn’t it divine?”

  Only disappointment topped her disbelief. The used green sedan she was having delivered for Belle would pale miserably in comparison. Worse, she could feel Clay’s gloating presence even though he stood on the other side of the truck. Martin’s lavish gift would only clinch Clay’s suspicions. But the crowning regret was the realization that the joy on Belle’s face at the reconciliation was undeniable. The woman was truly, madly, and irrevocably in love.

  For a nanosecond, Annabelle was envious.

  “Mother,” she said, walking on rubbery legs. “What’s going on?”

  “The wedding is back on!” Belle beamed. “Tomorrow morning at the chapel, just the four of us!”

  *****

  Clay surveyed the scene and closed his eyes to count to ten. It was just as he feared, and his father was playing right into the hands of the Coakley women. His anger was stoked by the knowledge of how close he himself came to believing…to hoping…dammit. “Dad,” he said, striding toward the couple. “We need to talk.”

  “Not now, son,” Martin said, dismissing him with a wave.

  “Yes, now,” he said forcefully.

  “Clay, you’re being rude,” Martin admonished.

  “And you’re being duped,” he said, gesturing to the women. “Henry has been looking into their backgrounds, and you need to know what he found.”

  Belle looked at his father. “Martin, what’s this all about?”

  Martin’s face had turned a deep crimson. “Clay—”

  “Just hear me out,” Clay said, holding up his hand. Suddenly he couldn’t bear to look at the deceitful young woman who had so effortlessly slipped under his guard. “Annabelle recently received thirty thousand dollars from her seventy-year-old fiancé in Detroit, a man named Michael Horsh.”

  “What?” Belle gasped. “Annabelle, what is he talking about?”

  She remained silent for so long, Clay finally turned to look at her. And was not gratified by what he saw. Her arms were wrapped around her middle, and her expression was weary.

  “Mr. Castleberry,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion, “you seem to have misinterpreted the information your investigator dug up on me. Michael Horsh is the father of my paralegal and dear friend, Michaela. Mike, I call her.”

  Mike. A tiny ping of alarm sounded in his brain, similar to when he had mistaken Annabelle for his father’s bride-to-be. “Why would her father give you thirty thousand dollars?” he asked smugly.

  She pressed her lips together for a few seconds, then sighed. “Because I loaned him ten thousand dollars two years ago as seed money for a business he wanted to start.”

  “Annabelle, your inheritance?” Belle asked.

  She nodded.

  “But that was so risky!”

  Annabelle adopted a flat smile. “A good investment, I thought, which it turned out to be. I tripled my money.”

  “Why didn’t you ever mention it?” her mother asked.

  “Because I knew you’d worry.”

  “But what’s all this about a fiancé?” Belle asked.

  Clay pursed his mouth in victory. Now he had her.

  Annabelle rolled her shoulders and cleared her throat before answering. “There is no fiancé.”

  Belle and Martin’s gaze swung back to him.

  “What about her ring?” he asked, pointing to the square diamond on her finger.

  “It’s the ring Annabelle’s father gave to me,” Belle said. “I gave it to her when she arrived.”

  He looked at Annabelle. “But you said—”

  “No, I didn’t. You jumped to a conclusion and I simply allowed you to believe it.”

  Clay’s neck grew warm. “But you were in the jeweler’s trying to find out how much the ring Dad gave Belle was worth.”

  Their parents swung their gaze back to Annabelle.

  “Yes, because I thought it was fake,” she said with a sigh. “And I thought if Mom knew it was fake, that she would know she couldn’t trust your father.”

  “Fake?” Belle asked, looking at the ring.

  “It isn’t,” Annabelle said, walking closer to where her mother sat in the passenger seat. “In fact, the jeweler said it was of uncommonly good quality.” She looked at Martin, then said, “I apologize, sir. I misjudged you.” Then she looked at Clay, whose gut was clenched with dread. “Although it appears I did not misjudge your son.”

  His gaze locked with her golden eyes, and in two seconds, he saw the glow of what might have been diminish, then disappear completely. He wanted to say something, but his jaw seemed cemented shut, his tongue glued to the top of his mouth. She looked away, then turned a bittersweet smile toward their parents and patted her mother’s hand. “I just want you to be happy, and I can see that you are.”

  “Yes, dear, I am.”

  Annabelle smiled. “Then you have my blessing.”

  Belle’s eyes were suddenly moist. “Thank you, Annabelle.”

  “I’ll cancel your ticket to Detroit.”

  “Can’t you stay for just a few more days?”

  “I need to get back to my office after the ceremony. Mike—I mean Michaela—will be expecting me.”

  Clay’s stomach churned, but a movement on the street caught his attention. A late-model green luxury sedan had pulled behind the driveway, a newer car with a metal dealership sign on the door pulled in behind it.

  A man alighted from the green sedan. “Is this the Coakley place?”

  “Yes,” Belle said, her expression puzzled.

  “Got a delivery here for Belle Coakley.”

  Belle looked at Annabelle. “That’s the car we test drove at the lot.”

  She nodded, her expression wry. “I bought it for you, Mom. I didn’t know—” She gestured toward the Jaguar. “That is, it’s nothing compared to Martin’s gift.”

  Clay closed his eyes. That explained why the women were test-driving luxury cars. Henry had failed to tell him they were used models, probably modestly priced. Or maybe Henry had told him, and he simply hadn’t h
eard.

  “Nonsense, I love it,” Belle said, handing her glass to his father and emerging from the convertible.

  “Don’t worry, Mom. The dealership will refund the money. Besides, I should have asked you.”

  Belle bit on her lower lip, then stroked Annabelle’s face. “It was a wonderful gesture, dear, but I’m a grown woman and I can take care of myself.”

  Annabelle’s smile was apologetic. “I’ll tell the man we changed our minds,” she said, then walked to the curb.

  Clay’s chest tightened when he saw her smile up at the salesman, and the way the man responded to her. He leaned toward her, nodding his understanding. And his handshake lingered for far too long. Clay took one step in their direction before pulling himself back with a stern reprimand. What was he doing?

  “All taken care of,” Annabelle said to her mother as she walked back up the driveway. She gave Belle a quick kiss. “And now I’d better take care of the tickets.”

  She turned to go inside, and at last Clay found his voice. “Annabelle, wait.”

  She stopped, one foot on the bottom step, but she didn’t turn back.

  Clay walked to her, his heart pounding. “Why—” He cleared his gravelly throat and touched her arm. Her skin felt soft, but cold. “Why did you let me believe you were engaged?”

  Her eyes were mocking, and she seemed to look past his shoulder. “I thought you would leave me alone if you believed I was engaged,” she murmured for his ears only. She pulled away from his grasp, then climbed the steps and disappeared into her mother’s house.

  Her words twisted his gut, and he gripped the handrail to keep from going after her. She found him that loathsome? What did it matter anyway? Clay set his jaw, and whirled around to face two sets of accusing eyes.

  Martin shook his head. “You crossed the line this time, Clay.”

  Frustration, anger, and guilt pummeled him, elevating his voice. “I was doing it for you, Dad.” He stubbornly clung to his original argument, his pride smarting that his own father couldn’t see the sacrifice he’d made to save him from yet another landmine.

  “Maybe,” his father said, alighting from the car and closing the door slowly. “Lord knows I’ve made mistakes in the company I’ve kept, but it’s obvious to me as it should be to you how fortunate I am that Belle will have me.” He gave her a fond smile, then looked back, his expression hardening. “But frankly, son, sometimes I think you meddle in my life as a diversion to your own unhappiness.”