It wasn’t until I saw you in your wedding dress and you started quoting The Lady of Shalott that I had the slightest doubt Happily that doubt was set at rest when you told me you did love him and always had.
All I ever wanted was your happiness, girl. I know Nick loves you, and I’m certain he’s the man to make you happy. God bless. Dad.
Dazed, Raine had to read it through twice before its meaning became clear. Oh, Dad! she cried silently, unable to find it in her heart to blame him. He’d always protected her, and he’d been trying to protect her from what he’d seen as the worst threat of all—a sterile, joyless marriage.
Looking up, she saw Nick watching her. He was standing with his back to the stove, his face in shadow, and she was unable to read his expression.
Slowly, she asked, ‘The action you and Dad finally agreed on... what exactly was it?’
‘Doesn’t he say?’
‘Not in so many words.’
‘Well, I agreed to pretend that I’d bankrupt him if you didn’t marry me.’
‘Then you didn’t put any money into Dad’s firm?’
‘Some. Certainly not enough to take it over, even if I’d wanted to.’
‘And you don’t own White Ladies?’
‘No.’
Still struggling to take it in, she demanded, ‘Why on earth did you agree to such a crazy scheme?’
‘Your father was at his wits’ end, and I didn’t want to see you married to—’ He broke off. Then, taking a deep breath, went on, ‘Now that it’s too late I know I should have heeded my own doubts and had nothing to do with it.’
‘If you hadn’t I would have married Kevin.’
Nick laughed harshly. ‘Surely from your point of view that would have been the lesser of two evils?’
‘I don’t think so. Perhaps I prefer living dangerously.’
With a hint of dark colour lying along his hard cheekbones, he admitted, ‘You seem to have the ability to get through my guard and make me say and do things that afterwards I’m ashamed of.’
Running a hand through his thick fair hair, he added wearily, ‘I’m sorry, Raine. I never intended to hurt you, and all the time I kept hoping that somehow—miraculously—things would come right between us...’
Abruptly he turned away, and, throwing a couple of logs on the stove, said with finality, ‘Now I think you should get to bed.’
With a sinking heart, she asked, ‘Aren’t you coming?’
‘I’ll stretch out on the couch.’
‘And then what?’
‘If you don’t mind driving, we can start out for Boston tomorrow morning and be back in England the day after.’
‘And then what?’ she asked again.
‘As soon as I’ve had a talk with your father, I’ll return to the States and let you get on with your life.’
Struggling to keep her voice level, she asked, ‘Isn’t Dad relying on you to run things for a while? Or was that just part of the plot?’
‘No, it wasn’t. He’s been talking about early retirement and having leisure enough to take up golf... But even if he changes his mind now he could do with someone to shoulder the burden—for the time being, at least. Of course he’ll have you. And maybe Finn wouldn’t object to a spell in England...’
‘I don’t think I want to go back to work full-time,’ she said slowly. ‘I’d rather like to be a wife and mother. I want children while I’m still young enough to enjoy them...’
She saw his big body tense and the hand by his side clench.
Deliberately, she added, ‘I want a man I can be happy with.’
A log settled, and in the sudden flare Raine caught the flash of something akin to anguish crossing his face.
Tightly, he said, ‘Then the best thing I can do is give you a divorce as soon as it can be arranged.’
Taking heart from that look, she objected. ‘Dad doesn’t seem to think so. Would you like to read what he says?’
She passed Nick the letter and watched while he read it. When he finally looked up, she said steadily, ‘I don’t want a divorce. I agree with Dad.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ he said roughly. ‘For a lifetime’s commitment you need more than just a strong physical attraction.’
‘There is more. I love you. I told Dad so.’
‘You could hardly upset him by telling him truth.’
‘That was the truth. I fell in love with you the first time I saw you, and I’ve never stopped loving you.’
He half shook his head. ‘When I thought I might have reason to hope, and I asked you if you loved me, you said, “Love you? I loathe you! If you were up to your neck in quicksand I wouldn’t lift a finger to help—in fact I’d stand and cheer while you went under.”’
‘I didn’t mean it. Of course I didn’t mean it. But I couldn’t admit to loving a man I believed just wanted to use me.’
She stood up and went to him, and, both hands gripping his towelling robe, looked into his face. ‘When you were in the creek, I knew that if you died I wanted to die with you.’
There was no doubting her absolute sincerity.
He made an inarticulate sound and held her close, cradling her head to his chest with such passionate tenderness that tears forced themselves from beneath her closed lids and trickled down her face.
When they drew apart a little, he wiped her wet cheeks with his fingers. ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of you marrying Somersby. . . Though if he’d been a different kind of man and I’d been reasonably sure you loved him I would have stayed out of your life. I did stay out of it until it was almost too late...
‘And then I was plagued by the fear that I might be making a terrible mistake. Not in breaking up your engagement, but in forcing you to marry me. You told me so many times that you hated me... I tried to kid myself you didn’t really mean it, but—’
‘I didn’t. Oh, I tried to hate you—I wanted to hate you for making love to me when you were engaged to another woman. . .’
‘Poor Tina,’ he said softly. ‘She was—’
Raine put a finger against the warm, hard line of his mouth. ‘I don’t need to know about Tina. It’s all in the past. The only thing I need to know is that you love me now.’
He kissed the finger that lay against his lips, and then, taking her hand, pressed a kiss into the palm. ‘I do love you, my heart’s darling, and I loved you then.’
Sitting down, he gathered her onto his lap, encircling her with his good arm. ‘Thank you for saying you don’t need to know about Tina, but I want to tell you. Tina—or Kristina, to give her her full name—was Finn’s sister...’
So that was why Finn’s smile had seemed familiar, Raine thought.
‘She was three years younger than Finn, and the three of us were more or less brought up together. I always thought of her as a sister, but at about sixteen she suddenly became shy with me. Finn told me it was a bad case of hero-worship, and pulled my leg about it.
‘By the time I left college it had passed. Or at least I thought it had passed. It was only much later that I discovered she still felt the same about me. She’d just learnt to hide it better.
‘I told you the Andersons were killed in an accident?’
Against his shoulder, Raine nodded.
‘Well, shortly after that Tina became ill. Early tests suggested a rare and virulent form of cancer.
‘Finn tried to keep it from her. Losing her parents had already knocked the stuffing out of her, and if the next lot of tests proved positive the only treatment they could offer was both painful and distressing.
‘Knowing she’d been carrying a torch for me all those years, he asked me if I could give her some incentive to fight. There was no woman in my life that meant anything to me, so I asked her to marry me. And the day before she was due to go to New York to stay with an old schoolfriend we went out and bought an engagement ring.
‘Such is the contrariness of fate that you turned up a few days later, and I knew you were the woman I’d bee
n waiting for. I made up my mind that if the next lot of tests were negative, then I’d tell Tina about you and ask her to release me. I didn’t dare think what I’d do if they were positive.
‘When I invited you to go to Maine with me, I swear I didn’t intend to seduce you, but you have the ability to drive me wild and make me lose my self-control... I knew I had to tell you the truth, but I was terrified of what your reaction might be and I kept on putting it off.
‘Then, because Tina came home a day early, you found out before I got back from the office and ran. I arrived at the airport ten minutes after your plane had taken off.
‘Unknown to either Finn or myself, Tina had been having further tests done at a New York clinic. When she told me I felt bad about not being with her, but she’d deliberately planned it that way. She didn’t want fuss or pity.’
He was speaking calmly, dispassionately, his voice carefully devoid of emotion.
‘I couldn’t just walk out on her without knowing the results of the tests, so I waited. When the results came back, forty-eight hours later, they were positive.
‘Knowing what that meant, Tina offered me my ring back. I refused to take it. But you’ll never know how tempted I was. I wanted to follow you back to England and marry you immediately. But I owed the Andersons such a debt of gratitude, and in the circumstances I couldn’t let either Finn or Tina down.
‘Within a month she was in hospital. Though she fought every step of the way, she never came out again. But neither Finn nor I ever saw her miserable. She always had a smile.
‘We were married by her hospital bed, and she died a few days later. The last thing she said to me was, “I realise how much I’ve had, how lucky I’ve been. A loving family, a super brother, and you... Thank you for making these last months so happy. When I’m gone I want you to find yourself a woman who’ll make you just as happy for the rest of your life”. Then, almost as if she knew, she added, “Someone like your cousin.”
‘But when I’d let enough time pass to be able to come to you, you were engaged, and I knew I didn’t have the right to disrupt your life.’
His arm tightened. ‘Don’t cry, my love... Finn would be outraged. He believes that life should be a salute to love and courage. A joyful celebration. And that’s what I intend our life together to be like.’
Slyly, he added, ‘It’s a pity I’m virtually useless, otherwise I could have given you a demonstration of how things will be...’
‘Perhaps with a bit of co-operation...?’ she suggested.
‘Well, if I can manage to hobble to the bed...’
When they were lying together beneath the light warmth of the duvet, her palm against the slight roughness of his cheek, she leant over to kiss him.
‘Raine...?’
‘mum...?’
‘Be gentle with me.’
Her little choke of laughter turned into a squeak as, with a push of his good arm, he reversed their positions. ‘But first, for my own satisfaction, I’m about to show you that as husbands go I’m not quite as decrepit as you had me figured.’
And he did. To their mutual satisfaction.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-5176-2
WEDDING FEVER
First North American Publication 1999.
Copyright © 1996 by Lee Wilkinson.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented. including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited. 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
Wedding Fever Page 18
