Outside, she thought. For anyone to see.
Then he did something that rocked her: he sucked her upper lip into his mouth and ran his tongue along the inside of it.
She jumped, just as if she’d been zapped between the legs.
He laughed softly, then kept stroking her with his tongue.
It felt as if she were being lifted off the glider, into the air as the ache in her turned into sharp, compressed agony.
He used his tongue to stroke her again, and with a thrust of daggered need, she went wet, nearing an explosion.
Panting, she clung to him, and he took that as his cue to scoop her into his arms, right off the glider. He held her tightly to compensate for the fact that she’d gone downright buttery.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think things are going to go pretty smoothly after all.”
He carried her toward the front door, looking into her eyes the whole way.
“But what if I still turn out to be a lot of work?” she asked.
“I love to work you.”
All she heard was the word love, and it ricocheted all around her.
“I love it, too,” she said. “But not as much as I love you, danger boy.”
Smiling and whispering, “I love you, too,” he brought her inside, kicking the door shut on the rest of the world.
Epilogue
WEEKS LATER, Tristan was going through some boxes he’d stored in a closet in his cabin years ago. Some of them had belonged to his dad, but he’d never been able to open them until now.
He hadn’t wanted to catch the scent of his dad’s clothes and see old pictures, but Juliana, who was helping him move to a big apartment in town where they would both live, was making this a far less excruciating experience than he’d imagined.
At the moment, she was asking questions about his dad’s high-school photos, in one of which he was posing next to a flame-painted hot rod.
“Is this where you get your vintage-car genes?” she asked. “From Papa Cole?”
Tristan nodded, wiping at a dirt smudge on her face. It made her look just so cute—like an idealized Dickens street urchin—that he thought better about cleaning it all the way off.
“I caught the fever from him, all right.” He dug some books out of his box. “He used to court my mom in that souped-up vehicle. He said she’d squeal when he sped around the country lanes.”
“I can imagine your mom having the time of her life.”
Juliana and his mother had bonded quickly. In fact, she was doing pretty well with the rest of his family, too, even Gramps, who’d read Terrence’s and Emelie’s writings and realized the extent of what they’d lost…and what Gramps didn’t want the grandson he loved so dearly to lose.
Tristan looked up toward the wall in the other room, where he could see Dream Rising, perched there because Gramps had thought it might be a decent gesture.
An opening for two families who were working on ironing out their differences and uniting.
Aunt Katrina had been here the day they’d hung the watercolor, and she and Gramps had even gone so far as to share a meal with Tristan’s mom and the new couple.
But it hadn’t been very hard to persuade Katrina after she’d read Terrence’s side of the story and realized, too, that Juliana wasn’t going to surrender Tristan.
The rest of the family had followed their lead, even though there was still the odd dust-up from the younger ones every now and then. It’d be a while until everyone could fully swallow their pride, yet there was definite hope that they’d all settle matters some day.
As Juliana continued exploring the pictures, Tristan went through the books, using a work towel to wipe them down.
What did they have here? A collected work of American literature from the 1800s.
A volume of Southern California history.
And…
Tristan inspected a slim book with tattered binding wrapped in plastic. He opened it to find handwritten words on brittle, yellowed pages.
“Well, damn me,” Tristan said.
At his surprised tone, Juliana scooted over to him, gasping when she saw the state of the book, too.
Tristan read the first page, then stopped. “Another journal of Terrence’s. I’ve never seen this one before.”
“Why don’t you read it while I finish with some of these boxes,” she said, leaving him alone.
But not before she ran her fingers over his cheek. Maybe he had a cute dirt smudge, too, but from the affectionate look on her face, he thought the gesture came more from her heart than from wanting to clean him off.
“But—”
“Go ahead.” She smiled. “Take some time with him.”
She kissed his cheek, then carried one of the boxes outside, where she would load it into his pickup.
As he began to read—quickly and eagerly—he was barely aware of Juliana continuing to work around him.
Over an hour later, he was done, and he extended an arm to her, summoning her over.
Her eyes were wide with curiosity and maybe even a feeling that Terrence’s journal would drop a bombshell, so Tristan put her mind at ease right away.
“I don’t know why my dad kept this particular journal to himself—there are no big secrets, nothing mind-blowing. Maybe it was just lost among all his books.”
Juliana motioned to the boxes they’d pulled out of storage. “Not an impossibility. What was in the journal?”
“Mostly reflections on Emelie. Terrence wrote this when he got sick—tuberculosis. It ended up leading to his death, and he must’ve known it was the end of the road when he started this book.”
“Sad.”
He nodded, his words scraping out of him. “There’s one part though…”
She was so attuned to him by now that she knew what to do, smoothing back his hair tenderly, making his throat go even tighter with heat.
“What part?” she asked.
“He and Emelie hadn’t seen each other for years after she married Klaus Thomsen, and he built her that house on the property where Aunt Katrina and some of the others live now.”
The old place had burned down fifty years ago, but pictures of it were amazing. Klaus had gotten rich with a gold strike, and by the time he met Emelie, he’d worked his money into a fortune.
“They never ran into each other much,” Tristan added, imagining how Emelie might have spent her days looking out one of the windows across town, in the direction of the Cole ranch, where Terrence lived. Tristan had done the same with Juliana once. “But one day, when she attended a daughter’s wedding at the church on Main Street, Terrence came face-to-face with her. Both had grandchildren with them.”
Juliana rested her hand on the back of his neck. “Both of them must’ve aged a lot by then. I wonder if they ever wondered what it might’ve been like to grow old together.”
“Terrence did. But most importantly, he’d forgiven her for taking the painting by that time. His sourness about Dream Rising had turned to longing, and he thought she felt the same way when their gazes caught as they passed each other.”
“They didn’t even stop.” Not a question.
“No, they didn’t.” He took Juliana’s hand and held it. “She didn’t reveal anything about still loving him—even if she did until the day she died. So he didn’t say a word as they walked off in opposite directions. The painting was lost, and so was any chance that either of them might have had with each other.”
Silence arched between them, but Juliana wrestled it back down. “Isn’t it a good thing then,” she asked, her voice quivering slightly, “that we didn’t pass each other by like they did?”
“Yeah,” he said, enveloping her in his arms, breathing her in and knowing he’d never let her go. “It’s a good thing.”
While they held each other, he closed the worn book, letting go of the past.
Claiming the future.
“I love you, Thomsen,” he said.
“And I love you, Cole,” she answered,
taking the journal from him and putting it aside.
Heather MacAllister
UNDRESSED
Prologue
AT 9:20 P.M. on a Tuesday night, after trying on forty-three wedding dresses over three bridal-salon appointments during which her entourage of eight consumed several bottles of domestic sparkling wine, Cara Brantley at last found her perfect wedding gown.
Beth Ann Grakowski, aka Elizabeth Gray of Elizabeth Gray Bridal Salon in Rocky Falls, Texas, lived for such moments. The look of a dream matching reality…followed by the sentimental tears…the happy smiles…the hugs…the healthy profit when a designer gown sold…she loved it all. Someday, it would be her dream matching reality, her sentimental tears, her happy smile, her fantasy wedding financed by years of hard work…but until then, by golly she was going to make sure as many Texas brides got their happily-ever-after storybook wedding dress as she could.
On the way to her office to get the paperwork started, Beth snagged a leftover bottle of champagne for a private, self-congratulatory toast.
“Nooooo!” A wail echoed through the salon.
Beth Ann froze. Her clients were having a happy moment, the happy moment. There should be no wailing during happy moments.
“How could that have happened?” Mrs. Brantley’s voice rose.
Beth nearly dropped the credit card that would let Cara Brantley walk down the aisle in a strapless, crystal-encrusted mermaid gown designed by Georgia Hanover.
“It’s ruined!” sounded clearly through the wall Beth’s office shared with the large dressing room at the back of the salon.
A shudder rippled through her. Please don’t let it be the Hanover gown. She visualized rips. She visualized a string of beading cascading to the floor. She visualized Cara’s mother realizing that the number on the price tag was a 7 and not a 1 and quickly swiped the credit card.
Drawing a deep breath, she returned to the fitting room where she’d left Cara, her mother, her sister, her grandmother, assorted bridesmaids and the videographer Mrs. Brantley had hired to record a video scrapbook. Cara’s mother held the camera as she, Cara and the videographer stared at a tiny screen.
In the background, Beth heard the ebb and flow of a vacuum cleaner.
“Do you hear that?” Mrs. Brantley shouted as whoever was running the vacuum cleaner in the tux shop next door banged it against the shared wall during each pass over the floor.
Oh, yes indeed, Beth heard that. William. She was going to strangle him. She’d told him that the Brantleys had insisted on an after-hours appointment so the salon would be empty and nothing would interfere with the recording.
He knew, he knew that sound carried between the two back dressing rooms of their shops. She’d considered putting soundproof padding in, or something, but that would mean a disruption in business and, well, she didn’t want to admit it, but she liked to eavesdrop on an occasional male conversation in the tux shop’s dressing room. She’d been known to pick up a few tips on what styles men found attractive. Once or twice…okay, maybe more, she’d steered a bride away from a certain style based on a snippet of overheard conversation.
William listened, too. Every so often, hadn’t he given her a heads-up if a bride had a concern about a dress?
Beth waved everyone outside the dressing room and into the main area of the salon where three carpeted pedestals were positioned in front of a bank of mirrors. Before following them, she pounded once on the dressing-room wall with her fist. The vacuum whined to a stop. “I’ll talk to you later,” she said in the empty room.
The group had gathered by the sofas and cushy club chairs available for waiting fathers or others who shouldn’t be privy to the sight of the bride struggling into complex underwear.
“Listen!” Mrs. Brantley ordered dramatically.
The videographer held out the camera and Beth dutifully gave her attention to the tiny screen. Sure enough, she heard the vacuum cleaner start up on the recording. “I do hear a slight hum.”
“Slight hum?” Mrs. Brantley was in full meltdown mode. After years in the business, Beth was extremely familiar with the signs. “That ‘slight’ hum has ruined the video scrapbook. The chapter on selecting the bride’s dress is second only to the wedding itself. The look of awe and joy on her face when Cara knew she was wearing The Dress brought tears to my eyes. But can we hear what she said? No. No, because of all the noise.”
As the bride’s mother vented, Beth tried to figure out what to say. It wasn’t as though she could dictate to another store’s cleaning crew. But she’d tried. Oh, how she’d tried. The truth was that William Seeger, owner of Tuxedo Park Formal Wear next door, was also her business partner.
“The vacuuming has stopped, Mrs. Brantley. Why don’t you re-create the special moment now.”
“Re-create? Re-create? There is no way to re-create the joyful awe—”
“Dear madam, do please sit down.” William and his fake British accent had unlocked the front door, made their way through the racks of gowns and were now in the salon.
Fabulous. This was all she needed. What are you doing here? she mouthed at him.
“You pounded?” he murmured, then swept past Beth, and zeroed in on Mrs. Brantley.
“I find that life’s disappointments are never as dire when one deals with them from a comfortable chair while sipping champagne.” William and his British-butler accent led Mrs. Brantley to one of the sofas.
Beth hated when he used that voice. He only did it to annoy her after she’d asked him to class up his act.
She really hated that it seemed to work. Put a man in a tux and add a British accent, and Texas mamas just melted. Go figure. She herself was immune. William irritated her. On purpose. And enjoyed doing it.
Without looking away from Mrs. Brantley, William held out a hand for a glass of champagne, which Beth supplied, and then stepped back and let him do his thing.
Why was it women responded to him? Yes, he looked good in a tux—but what man didn’t?
It had fooled her, hadn’t it? Regretfully, William lacked any sense of taste, sophistication or elegance himself, which Beth hadn’t known before partnering with him because she’d been seduced by a black wool suit with satin lapels and a matching stripe down the side of the trouser legs.
True, they were well-fitted trousers fitted to something worth fitting, but that was beside the point. Or maybe it was the point. Whatever. Even though William was a natural salesman, she should have known better than to go into partnership with a man who’d named his original formal-wear store the Monkey Suit.
They’d both relocated their stores to Rocky Falls from Wanda’s World of Weddings for a fresh start—a more elegant, tasteful, sophisticated start. It was why Beth Ann Grakowski now went by Elizabeth Gray and why she asked Bill to go by William. Little touches made such a difference, but William thought she took those things too seriously. Beth thought he didn’t take them seriously enough.
“You don’t need to hear what she’s saying,” William assured Mrs. Brantley. “You know your videographer is going to make a collage of clips with music—I’ve always been partial to ‘Thank Heaven for Little Girls’ from Gigi, myself.”
Mrs. Brantley nodded and sipped.
Beth turned away so no one would see her roll her eyes.
“And look—I know what she’s saying. ‘Oh, Mum. I love it!’ And you said, ‘My baby. You look so beautiful.’”
“Yes. Yes, I did say that.” Mrs. Brantley heaved a great sigh.
Beth stepped forward with the credit card and receipt and offered a pen.
“It’s been a long, emotional day for you.” William actually patted Mrs. Brantley’s hand. Fortunately not the one holding the pen.
Nodding, Cara’s mother signed and now it was Beth’s turn to sigh in relief. But silently.
They all agreed to come back and order the bridesmaids’ dresses another day, and within five minutes, Beth was alone.
Except for William.
Tie loos
ened, he sprawled on the sofa with a self-satisfied look on his face. It was an appealing face, Beth supposed, although how that substantial nose and those crinkled eyes and the general rumpled effect of the rest of it managed to look attractive, baffled her.
He did not fit her vision of a romantic partner. Frankly, he wasn’t fitting her vision of a business partner. She served champagne and he offered his customers beer, thus perfectly illustrating their different outlooks on business and life.
“What are you still doing here?” she asked.
“Rescuin’ yer cute li’l butt.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You ran the vacuum cleaner on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“William!”
“Just trying to hurry them along.”
“But you jeopardized an important sale!”
“That girl and her mother have been in three times already, and you’re exhausted. I could hear it in your voice.”
“You were listening?”
“You bet I was.” He gave her a stern look. “It’s late and you’re here all alone.”
William had spent his evening in the fitting room that shared a wall with hers to make sure she was safe. If the appointment hadn’t dragged on so long, she’d never have known. “You were looking out for me.”
A corner of his mouth tilted upward. “I always do.”
Now how could she stay angry at him?
William patted the sofa. “Come have a seat, Beth Ann.”
“Elizabeth,” she corrected automatically. “And I’d better not.”
He regarded her a moment before standing. “You’ll always be Beth Ann to me.”
Thinking he was on his way back to Tuxedo Park, Beth started to enter Cara’s dress information into the new handheld computerized ordering units. But William took her by the shoulders and propelled her to the sofa.
“William, I’ve got work to do,” she protested.
“Time for a break.” He pushed at her shoulders until she gave in and sat down.
Oh, that felt good.
“Put your feet up.”
Beth shook her head as he sat next to her. “It’s late.”
One-Click Buy: June 2009 Harlequin Blaze Page 32
