Quint kept a poker face. “She’s entertainment.”
“Yeah, entertainment.” Kent’s eyes were dancing.
“You keep quiet or I’ll tell Brianne on you,” Morgan warned. She shifted her attention back to Quint. “I can be entertainment.” Her lips curved. “Want me to sing?”
Kent winced while Hank covered his ears. Morgan was easy on the eyes, but they were all agreed that her singing made cats run for cover. “Oh, God, anything but that.”
Quint was already on his feet, nodding toward the bar. “Suddenly I feel a thirst for something stronger than beer coming on.” He looked from one brother to another. “Why don’t you all join me?” But when Wyatt began to slide out, ready to follow the others to the scarred mahogany bar, Quint clamped a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Not you, Wyatt.” He didn’t bother hiding his amusement as he looked at Morgan, then Wyatt. “You two have things to iron out.”
Morgan was really getting tired of her brother thinking he could run her life just because there were times Quint was more levelheaded than she was. “No we don’t—”
Quint fixed Morgan with a pointed look. “You want to stay? Iron.” The subject wasn’t up for debate.
Morgan let out a long, slow breath as her brothers all went to the bar. She loved them, but there were times she really would have relished pummeling all of them to the ground. Too bad she wasn’t ten anymore. Adulthood had its drawbacks.
She thought of last Saturday and the way Wyatt had made her feel for a very precious moment. And the ache and frustration that came immediately after. Yeah, adulthood certainly had its drawbacks.
Wyatt couldn’t remember ever being uneasy in Morgan’s presence. Uncertain, maybe, about what she had up her sleeve, but never uneasy. How the hell had he turned that corner? She was still Hank’s little sister, still a royal pain in the neck…but there was more and he knew it. And the ground between here and there was all quicksand with nothing to mark the thin, narrow path that was safe for him to tread.
Maybe there wasn’t a safe path.
Wyatt held up the pitcher of beer. “Want a beer? It’s a little warm.” He liked it that way, but he knew most people didn’t.
Resigned, Morgan sat down. She shrugged indifferently at his question. Since she was here, she might as well have a beer. Anything to cut the dryness in her throat.
She picked up an empty mug one of her brothers had left behind and held it out to Wyatt. “I don’t mind. I’m not hard to please.”
Wyatt almost choked. “Yeah, right.” He poured the dark liquid carefully. When Morgan began to move the mug aside, he caught her hand and held it in place until he was finished. “Have you looked under the words prima donna in the dictionary lately? They have your picture. Damn good likeness, too.”
The foam rose quickly and spilled over the side, christening her fingers. Without thinking, Morgan slipped her fingers into her mouth. Watching her, something twisted in Wyatt’s gut. The ache in his forearm reminded him he was still holding the pitcher aloft. He set it down. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
Morgan wrapped her hands around the mug. What was she doing here? The question echoed in her head. She honestly wasn’t sure anymore. Maybe it was that same quirky feeling that had elicited sadness from her every time she thought of her brothers’ weddings.
She tried to seem blasé as she said, “I wanted to see what a bachelor party was like. Figured after this month, I’d never get a chance.” Morgan tipped back her mug. The dark beer slid down easily enough, but it did nothing to quench her thirst.
Wyatt laughed and raised his glass to her. There was only one Morgan Cutler, thank God. “You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that, Morgan. No other woman I know of would come waltzing into a bachelor party.”
She took it as a criticism and knew she shouldn’t. Funny how when he said the moon was yellow, she wanted to say it was green. She glanced toward the other woman in the bar who was whispering something into her cousin Carly’s ear. She could see color rise in Carly’s cheek. Even though he was in his twenties, Carly still had a sweet innocence to him.
“You mean you’re not acquainted with her?” Morgan asked.
Leaning against his seat, Wyatt raised his eyes innocently to Morgan’s face. “Who?”
“Don’t give me that innocent look, McCall. You stopped being innocent two minutes after you were born, right after you propositioned your first nurse.” She took another long swallow of her drink. “I’m referring to the little number in the even littler outfit.” She wasn’t aware of frowning, but Wyatt noted it. “The one giving you the eye.”
Wyatt didn’t bother turning around to look at the other woman. Like Will said, she was the entertainment and he hadn’t felt much like being entertained tonight. He’d come to the party because this was for Kent, and his sense of attachment to the Cutlers forbade him sending his regrets in his place.
Besides, he’d thought that a little socializing might make him forget the events of last weekend. That certainly had backfired in his face.
Wyatt finished off his beer and set the mug down. “Never saw her before in my life.”
Morgan had no idea why she pressed. She couldn’t care less what he did in his free time. But the question still came out. “Is that what you say about every woman after you’ve had your fill of her?”
His eyes locked with hers. “Morgan, what is it you want from me?”
She couldn’t answer that. Couldn’t answer because she didn’t know. Frustrated, angry, she rose, an arrow without a target.
“Simple.” She looked down into his face. “I want you to die. Just don’t do it at any of my brothers’ weddings.”
It seemed to Wyatt that he was constantly watching Morgan walk away from him. It didn’t do much to improve his mood.
“What are you smiling about, old man?”
With loving hands, Zoe brushed a hair from her husband’s lapel. Maybe she was prejudiced, she thought, but he was the handsomest man at the reception. All these years and he could still set her heart fluttering. Ever the gracious hostess, she’d been weaving in and out between her guests when she’d looked up and seen his pleased expression clear across the room. It had all but beamed and flashed. She’d felt compelled to ask after its source. There was more involved here than just being the proud father of the groom. She knew her man.
She read him like a book, Jake thought, grateful he’d never had call to keep things from her. He knew it’d be a losing battle. “Oh, I just decided to give nature a little shove.”
The comment made no sense to her. “Have you been drinking?”
Teasing, she pretended to sniff his breath, but she knew Jake better than that. Her husband had restricted himself ever since the heart attack that had frightened them all. If he imbibed at all, it was very minimally. It. annoyed him some to be so careful, but she knew he valued those he loved too much to ever put them through hell again.
She’d inadvertently stumbled on a connection, Jake thought. “No, but I did send two certain people down into the wine cellar for some more wine—separately of course.” He winked broadly at Zoe.
Zoe glanced around the room, but she had little need to. She could guess. “Morgan and Wyatt?”
Jake grinned. “None other.”
Zoe wondered if perhaps his well-meaning action might have the opposite effect and push the two farther apart. “Maybe you shouldn’t have interfered. They’ll find their own way.”
Jake’s grin broadened as he slipped an arm around her shoulders. He thought of the cellar. And the light bulb he’d purposely removed from one of the three overhead fixtures scattered through the area. It could be downright romantic down there. He and Zoe had found it that way years ago.
“That’s what I’m counting on, Zoe. That’s what I’m counting on.”
Zoe laughed, shaking her head. Her husband liked to think of himself as being tough as nails, but he was a romantic through and through. “You just like attending weddings.”
His laugh boomed. “Hell, yes. And getting them all out of the way one after the other is surely a good idea. Get those grandkids started coming.” He looked around, picking out his sons before looking down at his wife again. “We surely did turn out a handsome bunch of kids, didn’t we, Zoe?”
Zoe placed her hand on his chest and sighed. Life had been very, very good to her. Most of it, until the last ten years, had been spent pinching pennies and trying to get by, but by her count, she was far richer than most women.
“That we did, Jake.” Zoe looked over to where Kent and Brianne were standing by the banquet table. Resplendent in wedding finery, they made a striking couple. Her mother’s heart welled up, as did her eyes. “That we surely did,” she whispered.
Jake looked at her. “You’re not going to cry again, are you?”
Zoe sniffed. “No.”
He handed her his handkerchief, tightening his other arm around her shoulders. “I didn’t think so.”
6
The darkness beneath her feet assaulted her like a misshapen monster, born of the unknown, the moment Morgan walked into the cellar. Instinctively her hand tightened on the banister as she flipped on the light switch before taking a single step.
The bulb flickered weakly, warning of its imminent demise.
Morgan had never liked the wine cellar.
Silly though it seemed, the uneasy feeling hovering over her was a holdover from early childhood. She’d been about six or seven when she had gone down to the cellar alone on a dare from Quint, Hank and Kent. She could still remember the way her heart had pounded in her chest, the way it had echoed in her ears. But even at that age, she had refused to let any of her brothers know that the mere mention of the cellar caused her to break out in a cold sweat. Her young imagination went into overdrive whenever she contemplated the kinds of creatures that hid there in the murky dark.
Her imagination had been just what her brothers were banking on. They’d rigged a long, thin, white sheet-shrouded figure to come flying out at her, just as she crossed the floor to the wine racks. Her small foot tripped a wire, the sheet covered “ghost” came charging out at her and she had run out, shrieking at the top of her lungs.
Quint, Kent and Hank had fallen over, their sides shaking hard with laughter. But they hadn’t laughed as hard when she’d launched herself at all three of them, pummeling them with her small fists. It had been Will who had finally pulled her off them, after giving her a minute or two to vent. He told her later he figured she’d earned it.
She wished Will was here now, getting the bottle of wine her father wanted instead of her. That tiny pinprick of fear that had been born that long-ago day still hovered over her.
The cellar ran the length of the house, but because of structural reasons Will had explained, it was L-shaped. The first part was taken over for storage, leaving the wine racks to be housed at the rear of the cellar.
She had to cross the whole of it to get there.
The light from the single bulb at this end added to rather than subtracted from the nervous feeling skittering through her.
Stupid way for a woman in her twenties to feel, Morgan thought.
The feeling refused to fade away. Just like other feelings refused to leave no matter how much she prodded them to go.
A noise coming from the rear of the cellar startled her. Morgan froze instantly, straining to listen, straining to see. But the light at the rear of the cellar was just as dim as in the first section. More noise.
The clinking sound of wine bottles being moved echoed through the cellar. It was a ghostly noise.
The next moment she saw a figure emerge from the shadows. Her breath caught in her throat, threatening to strangle her. Instinct rather than conscious thought had Morgan darting behind an unstable tower made up of old boxes that housed even older memories. For a moment, she was six again, hearing nothing but the pounding of her own heart.
And then there was something else. The sound of bottles being set down. The sound of soft footsteps on the cement floor. Approaching.
The second Morgan felt the hand on her shoulder, she swung around and charged, throwing her full weight forward against whoever or whatever was there in the cellar with her.
Toppling down on top of her would-be assailant was a move that definitely hadn’t been in her plans.
The wind completely knocked out of her, Morgan struggled to draw a breath. The scent of the cologne told her the story even before she focused her eyes in the semidarkness.
The so-called assailant she’d tackled, the one she was now smack-dab on top of, was Wyatt.
The next minute, as indignation neatly replaced fear, Morgan felt Wyatt’s arms close around her. Wiggling did not help the situation. Morgan resorted to a heavy doze of temper.
“What are you doing, following me?” she demanded.
If it occurred to Wyatt that this was an awkward way to carry on a conversation and an even more awkward way to conduct an interrogation, he didn’t show it.
What he showed, to her increased annoyance, was amusement. She hated it when he got that look in his eyes, the one that made him out to be superior to her.
“Following you? How can I be following you when I was here first?”
Morgan was in no mood for logic. She was having too much trouble clinging to anger. It was breaking up like a wet tissue in a whirlpool. Something else was going on within her.
“Don’t try to twist things around,” she warned, struggling to draw away. “And let me up.”
He gave no indication that he was about to do anything of the sort. Not yet. Wyatt was having too good a time baiting her. And enjoying her.
“Hey, you jumped me, not the other way around, remember?” His eyes teased hers just as much as his body did. More. “Now I’m not letting you up until you explain yourself.”
This wasn’t heat she was feeling flooding her, and it certainly wasn’t desire. It wasn’t. Morgan felt herself losing the internal argument she was waging.
“Explain what? I came down here, heard a noise and then you put your paw on my shoulder.” She realized that she sounded breathless. Morgan struggled for composure. “I had to defend myself.”
He took exception to her calling his hands paws. “Hey, I play piano with these.” He released her long enough to hold up one hand in front of her before returning it to its present duty—holding her against him. “They’re not paws. And I just wanted to know why you followed me down here.”
Color bloomed in her cheeks. “I did not follow you down here. I had no idea you were here at all—” Her eyes narrowed as the lie he’d just said echoed in her brain. “And you do not play the piano.” Mastering the piano seemed far too sensitive an accomplishment for a man as irritating, as callous as Wyatt.
He had no idea why the smug look on her face tickled him. Why everything about her just kept drawing him in like some poor fish that had no say in his fate. He had every say in his fate.
And yet…
God, but she felt good like this. He shifted ever so slightly and saw something bloom in her eyes. “Five years of lessons and hideously long practice sessions say you’re wrong.”
She pinned him verbally. “If you play the piano, why didn’t Hank say something?”
There was a good reason for that, Wyatt thought. “It wasn’t something I broadcasted.” He saw she still didn’t believe him. It really didn’t matter. But he still said, “Some things a man likes to keep to himself.”
What he wasn’t keeping to himself, he realized, was his reaction to her, to having her splayed out like this across his body. Apparently a stiff upper lip wasn’t the only thing he was keeping about the feelings Morgan was stirring within him.
Damn it, why did it have to be her? Of all the women he knew, why was Morgan the one who made him feel like this?
Morgan’s eyes widened as she suddenly realized that she was still lying on top of Wyatt. And had stopped making an effort to get up. Well, that could be rem
edied fast enough.
But as she began to rise, Wyatt moved his hands from her waist to her face, immobilizing her. He framed her face with his palms. The touch was light, barely even registering, yet it held her as fast as a sliver of iron was held fast by a magnet.
“What other things are you keeping to yourself?” Morgan heard herself whispering.
Instead of answering, Wyatt dove his hands into her hair and brought her mouth down to his. “You talk too much, Morgan.”
The protest she was about to offer died before it reached her lips. Snuffed out by a wave of feelings so strong, it left nothing in its wake. Nothing but more feelings.
Feelings ravaged her body as the first kiss flowered into another and then another, each one longer, deeper, more passionate than the last until finally, all the differences between them fell away and their very souls seemed to merge.
It was like a revelation. Suddenly Morgan couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t get enough of the sensation that was climbing through her. Like a resonant echo, it rushed from place to place within her, rattling the very foundations of her life.
Rather than challenge it, she was desperate to hang on to it as long as possible.
She felt his hands race along her body, felt her own fingers tremble as she did the same. Banishing all thought, all common sense, Morgan fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, frantically pushed first a jacket, then his shirt off his shoulders. Unable and unwilling to recognize herself, she tugged on his waistband, completely conscious that as she divested him of his clothing, he was doing the same with hers.
And that she wanted him to.
The fire climbed.
It didn’t matter than they were on the floor of her parents’ cellar, didn’t matter that there were several hundred people one floor above them, any one of whom could come looking for them at any second. Didn’t matter that she’d made herself promises that she’d sworn she would die before breaking.
None of that mattered.
The only thing that mattered to her at this moment was that she be allowed to grasp the pinnacle of pleasure that flashed and gleamed just ahead of her. Just a breath out of reach.
A Match for Morgan Page 7
