by Alison Kelly
For all A.J.’s claims of the past few weeks that she was fine now her morning sickness was gone, Reb knew she’d been battling to deal with acute bridal jitters and her inability to reconcile or even contact her stepmother. Unable to locate her vacationing brother to find out Patricia’s whereabouts, all of A.J.’s other enquiries had effectively been stonewalled by the woman’s friends, relatives and even the family solicitors. Oh, yeah, Patricia Vaughan had gone to great lengths to ensure her stepdaughter knew precisely how she felt about her marrying the town’s bad boy. Reb personally didn’t give a damn what the woman thought of him, but he’d been furious that her behaviour was creating unnecessary stress for his pregnant bride-to-be and as a consequence making his life crazy.
In the last week A.J.’s moods had swung between raging tempers and hours of withdrawn silence and Reb hadn’t managed to successfully anticipate one of them. At any time of the day or night she’d disappear in that car of hers for long solo drives to who knew where, leaving Reb worried sick until he again heard her swinging into the garage. His concern was such that he’d actually spoken to Dr O’Brien. The doctor had reassured him that most of A.J.’s behaviour was due solely to the hormonal stress, but also conceded that it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that despite the past fraught relationship with her stepmother she might have secretly hoped that her pregnancy and upcoming marriage would rectify the problems. Accepting that wasn’t going to happen would naturally be difficult for her.
Reb tried to find some solace in the doctor’s words, but it wasn’t easy. Hell, it was next door to impossible! A.J. reacted to even his most innocent remark or suggestion with either screams or tears and managed to get both herself and him so strung out that he’d not only worried about whether they could hold things together until the baby arrived, but whether Savvy and the garage staff would emerge psychologically unscathed.
Maybe this marriage was all just a charade, but he’d be eternally grateful that Josh had appeared from nowhere in time to walk his sister down the aisle, because Lord knew how she’d have managed it solo, such was the way her hand was trembling as Josh passed it into Reb’s. Maybe once this stupid ceremony was out of the way they could settle into some semblance of a normal life.
Amanda-Jayne was convinced she was going to faint. No, she prayed she would—if only to forestall the inevitable a few moments longer. It was never supposed to come to this. This wasn’t how her well thought out plan was to have panned out. She looked up into the handsome face of the man standing beside her and felt her heart give a hysterical lurch. It gave another as his mouth stretched into a gentle smile and he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.
Oh, God, help me out here! she beseeched in silent hysteria. Flood, earthquake, instant death—anything will do!
The minister cleared his throat to attract their attention. ‘Are you ready to commence?’
Amanda-Jayne’s denial stuck in her throat. Her mental scream of no was ignored by everyone, even as her knocking knees had to be registering on the Richter scale. Panic washed through her body in tumultuous waves as her brain urged her to run and instinct demanded she stay. Or was it the other way around? Her instincts telling her to bolt for the exit as fast as her jelly-like legs would carry her and her brain reasoning that to do so would only further damage her farcical life?
‘Amanda-Jayne?’ the minister murmured impatiently. ‘Are you ready to begin the ceremony?’
How ironic he should be hurrying her now. After Reb had booked him to perform the service, he’d telephoned Amanda-Jayne urging her not to overreact to her ‘unfortunate lapse into promiscuity’ by rushing into an ill-conceived marriage. At the time she’d doubted he’d noticed his pun, but she’d had no doubts that his pastoral concern came at the direction of her stepmother, camouflaged behind a further donation towards restoration of the church’s pipe organ.
Under the judgmental stare of the minister the leaden silence in the church seemed to rise to a crescendo that kept rhythm with her galloping heart and frenzied thoughts. She tightened her grip on Reb’s hand in the hope of absorbing the abundance of confidence he always radiated and tried to calm her thoughts. If anything the reassuring pressure his fingers delivered to hers only caused her more internal chaos. Why was it her only support was coming from a direction she didn’t want to go in?
In the end she decided it wasn’t only her future which was at stake, but that of her unborn child. And in the absence of Patricia riding up the aisle on a white charger waving a cheque her only option was to go with the flow. Taking a deep breath, she nodded to the minister…
‘Harley Rebel Browne, do you take—?’
The minister’s words snapped Amanda-Jayne from the daze she’d retreated into in the hope of surviving the ceremony. Harley Rebel? Her gaze flew to Reb’s face, but the tight line of his mouth and the faint tinge of pink beneath his tan confirmed her ears were working properly. Oh, dear Lord, she was marrying a man who’d been named after a motorcycle! If this was a hard and fast tradition in the Browne family he’d probably want to call their child Kawasaki or Ducati or who knew what.
Well, she wouldn’t have it! She wouldn’t! Call her conservative, but she’d call her baby Moonbeam or Litmus Paper before she let it be named after a brand of motorbike! For the remainder of the service Amanda-Jayne’s responses worked on auto-pilot, while her mind frantically catalogued a list of alternative names for their child.
‘Harley and Amanda-Jayne, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Harley, you may kiss your bride.’
As his mind echoed the minister’s words Reb told himself that kissing her was just part and parcel of the ceremony, not the opportunity to release the brain-numbing desire he’d been forced to shackle each night lying beside her warm, tempting body. God and half of the population of Vaughan’s Landing were watching them at this moment and he wasn’t about to seize either it or her like some lust-crazed fool. At least he wasn’t until his hands closed over her bare shoulders and the flare of desire lighting those whisky-brown eyes as they lifted to his caused a sensation almost identical to the one he’d got as a kid when he’d mixed up the battery terminals on a mate’s car.
He would have liked to credit his reaction to pure lust, but he couldn’t entirely buy the story. In that nanosecond of time the full ramifications of the vows they’d just exchanged dawned. ‘For richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad…’
Reb figured the last four weeks had pretty much proved he could handle the sickness and health part; the good times and bad…well, surely things could only get better on that score? But the richer and poorer part filled him with a whole heap of dread… Three years from now Amanda-Jayne Vaughan was again going to be too rich to need him. He’d known that going in, of course. The problem was, until now the notion hadn’t bothered him. Now, however, the thought of losing her had his chest cavity feeling as if it was full of lead. He had the horrible feeling that fate had just kicked him in the backside.
Amanda-Jayne felt herself blush as Reb’s obvious reluctance to kiss her started to draw cat calls and encouragement from people sitting on his side of the church. Never before had her pride been so publicly trampled and it was only etiquette which stopped her saying, Hey, listen, I’m not exactly salivating at the thought of kissing you either, buster! Well, etiquette and the fact that if he continued to caress her shoulders like that she’d prove herself a liar in no time flat; the lazy heat he was inducing in her body was making her dizzy in ways that had nothing to do with her condition.
In a bid to take control of both her renegade hormones and a situation fast becoming so farcical it would probably end up in town folklore, she pasted a smile on her face and stepped forward to place her hands on his chest. Her action provoked not only cheering but several whistles and had the minister clearing his throat and reminding the rambunctious congregation where they were.
Ignoring the cluster of hyperactive butterflies in her belly, she rose on her toes until her
face was only inches from his, to bravely whisper, ‘Look, I think you better kiss me. Your friends are on the verge of rioting.’
In an instant her urgent, husky suggestion had totally banished Reb’s good intentions to keep a safe distance between them and limit himself to just a chaste brush of her lips. His fingers ploughed into her hair and in less than a heartbeat he parted her lush mouth beneath his.
So this is what water tastes like to a parched man in the desert! Until the thought registered in him, Reb hadn’t known the full extent of his need to again possess Amanda-Jayne’s mouth. He’d told himself that abstinence had merely sharpened his sexual desire and that his imagination had embroidered the passion she’d aroused in him that night in Sydney. But abstinence and imagination couldn’t be held responsible for the glorious relief he felt flowing through him from something as simple as a wedding kiss.
Simple? Ha! There was nothing simple about any of this. This beautiful, sexy, sophisticated woman was now his wife. A concept which seemed as bizarre as it did incredibly right. On every conceivable level their tastes were poles apart, but Reb knew he’d never be satisfied with the taste of any other woman now that his tongue was reacquainted with the unique flavour of Amanda-Jayne Vaughan.
Moving his hands to the smooth softness of her face so he could better savour the soul-destroying sweetness of her mouth, he was once more almost paralysed by the sheer beauty of his mental image of her rounded with his child. How many nights had he leapt from the bed and sought sanctuary in the garage, afraid he’d succumb to the almost overwhelming desire to slip his hand beneath her nightwear and flatten his palm against her still visually flat belly? And now… Dear Lord, now she was returning his kiss with an ardour to match his own and pressing it against him…
At the first touch of his lips against hers Amanda-Jayne gave herself up to the kiss, the sounds of the congregation drowned out by that of her own pulse and the echoes of a night almost four months previous. She knew then she’d been naive in telling herself she’d blocked out all the memory of this man’s kisses, for every nuance of his taste and touch was as familiar and unforgettable to her as if they’d been tattooed on her instincts, her mind and her soul; as if she’d kissed him a million times in a million past lives. Perhaps they had been lovers in a past life, for there was no other way she could rationalise, justify or even explain the sense of oneness she felt in Reb’s arms.
When he deepened the kiss he bombarded her with so many conflicting emotions, on both a sensual and spiritual level, she felt both safe and at risk—as if she was simultaneously floating and plummeting from a great height. In a bid to anchor herself, or at least slow her free-fall, she flung her arms around his neck and held on for all she was worth. Yet it was futile to think the solid masculine strength of his body could stabilise her either mentally or physically for the tighter she held him, the more scrambled her brain became and the weaker her knees got. Strangely, though, on another level she felt saner and stronger than she had at any other time in her life. With every stroke of his tongue against hers, every movement of his hands against her body, she was aware of not just her courage and her hope spiralling, but of a growing sense of joy.
The sound of a satisfied masculine moan deep in Reb’s throat drew a matching one from her and sent a shower of pleasure racing down her spine. Her pulse was pounding at lightning speed, the butterflies previously wreaking havoc in her stomach invaded her veins and arteries and it was obvious her hormones didn’t know how to behave in church— Oh, Lord! They were in a church!
The first thing to register with Reb after A.J. abruptly pulled away was that her face was beetroot-red. So was the minister’s. Except whereas A.J. merely looked embarrassed the man of the cloth looked almost apoplectic. Reb told himself it was his rowdy friends behind him who’d spun the man out; after all, the good vicar had been the one who suggested the kiss, so there was no reason why he should be looking daggers at Reb. Unless, of course, the guy was a mind-reader…
The inane thought was almost enough to make Reb feel guilty. Almost. It didn’t stop him from grinning as the organist started up and an embarrassed A.J. slipped her arm through his for the journey out of the church.
‘Till death do us part, huh?’ Reb said softly. ‘Guess that means that if you ever look more beautiful than you do today I’ll be around to see it.’
The sentiment and the implication of his words brushed against her heart, causing it to stagger so much she was momentarily physically unbalanced. Instantly Reb’s hand was on her elbow. Her eyes flew to his, trying to gauge his sincerity. Did he really think she was beautiful? More importantly, did he mean to imply that he was prepared to make their marriage work…to last until death parted them? Or was he simply upping the ante to get her into his bed?
You’re already in his bed, you goose! her brain chided. What you really want to know is if he’s planning on pushing the issue of sex.
I’m not! her morals argued.
Ha! Like he’d have to push, her hormones injected wryly, causing her to remember how she’d responded to his kiss. At that moment she caught Josh’s eye and his cheeky wink had her inwardly cringing at the public spectacle she’d just made of herself. By this time tomorrow the creativity of local gossip would have her having dragged Reb onto the floor and ravishing him. She stifled a groan as one of her chatty inner voices pointed out that such a scenario had probably only been avoided by about thirty seconds.
Because she’d never posted ninety-five per cent of the invitations she’d made such a production of writing, only a handful of her friends were likely to have witnessed the blatant display of passion she’d just put on, but she didn’t doubt for one minute they’d eagerly relate this entire event. It was bad enough that the church had been packed with friends of Reb’s and curious locals who’d be gossiping about her for years to come, but by tomorrow she’d be the talk of Sydney’s social set as well. She sighed. It was time to face facts; her once pristine reputation was definitely hurtling towards the first stages of rigor mortis.
Unable to bring herself to turn and smile at the people crowding both sides of the church as Reb did, she kept her gaze fixed firmly on the double doors which seemed a hundred miles away. As she’d done coming into the church she concentrated on putting one foot steadily in front of the other, but unlike her entrance she wasn’t trembling nor on the verge of tears; now she just felt kind of disoriented, as if she was in a daze. Or perhaps in a state of shock was a more accurate description—Lord knew her reaction to Reb’s kiss had been shocking—but so too was the reality that she’d been caught in a trap of her own inept making.
As of now she was living proof of the adage that cheats never prosper. She’d been manipulative, calculating and deliberately devious and in all fairness she had to concede that Reb deserved better. In the past four weeks he’d not only tried to ease her lifestyle transition, but he’d honoured every promise he’d made when they’d entered into their engagement—whereas she’d never had any intention of marrying him and had made no real effort to get on with him, his cousin, his friends, or to fit into life at the garage.
She would have liked to be able to vow that she’d turn over a new leaf starting now, but the truth was she wasn’t any more certain that she could cope with the direction her life had taken than she had been four weeks ago. All she could do was promise herself she would try to be a good wife to Reb. For the next three years she’d honour both her vows and the arrangement they’d entered into four fateful weeks ago.
Watching the black Saab speed out of a car park crammed with beat-up trucks and motorbikes, Amanda-Jayne couldn’t decide if it had been the drunk, overly amorous biker or the idea of eating home-made tuna casserole in a Scout hall decorated with crêpe paper streamers which had prompted her old school chum Roberta Winchester-Barry to depart so early; although she was honest enough to acknowledge that even as recently as yesterday either one would have been enough to send her screaming into the streets too. It hurt t
hat the woman she’d always considered her closest friend hadn’t stuck out the reception, but it infuriated her that Robbie had felt it necessary to comment that she hoped Reb was as good in the sack as he looked as if he’d be, because she couldn’t find one other reason for Amanda-Jayne marrying the likes of him otherwise—pregnant or not!
‘If anyone takes a photo of you now they could title it The Homicidal Bride.’
‘Josh!’ She spun around and faced not only her brother but her recently acquired husband.
‘Gee, sis, you seem almost as surprised to see me now as you did at the church this morning.’
‘Not quite,’ she said dryly. ‘That was the surprise of the century.’
‘Surely you didn’t think I’d miss my only sibling’s wedding?’ he teased.
‘Considering your mother hasn’t even bothered to call,’ Reb said, ‘I’m glad someone in A.J.’s family made the effort.’ He slipped an arm around her waist and drew her against his side; the casual action sent a shower of tingles down her spine and low into her abdomen. The sensation was only marginally less disruptive to her pulse than the one he’d set off as he’d glided her around the floor in a very proper but sensually disorientating Bridal Waltz. Amanda-Jayne had found herself torn between relief and disappointment when, immediately the dance ended, he’d guided her back to the bridal table and then disappeared.
