Carrera's Bride

by Diana Palmer

  He nodded toward Smith, who put out one huge hand and brought Fred abruptly to his feet.

  “Let go of me or I’ll sue!” Fred threatened.

  “Attempted sexual assault is a felony,” Marcus said coldly.

  “You can’t prove that!” Fred replied haughtily.

  “I’ve got cameras everywhere. You’re on tape. The whole thing,” Marcus added.

  Fred blinked. He scowled and peered at the older man. Through the fog of alcohol, recognition stiffened his face. “Carrera!” he choked.

  Marcus smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “So you remember me. Imagine that. Small world, isn’t it?”

  Fred swallowed hard. “Yeah. Small.” He straightened. “I actually came here to talk to you,” he began, swaying unsteadily.

  “Yeah? Well, come back when you’re sober,” Marcus said firmly, giving the man a look that he hoped Fred would manage to understand.

  Fred seemed to sober up at once. “Uh, yeah, sure. I’ll do that. Listen, this thing with the girl, it’s all a…a misunderstanding,” he added quickly. “I had a little too much to drink. And she just kept asking for it…”

  “You liar!” she exclaimed.

  “We’ve got tape,” Marcus said again.

  Fred gave up. He gave Marcus an uneasy look. “Don’t hold this against me, okay? I mean, we’re like family, right?”

  Marcus had to bite his tongue to keep from spilling everything. “One more stunt like this, and you’ll need a family—for the wake. Got me?”

  Fred lost a shade of color. “Yeah. Sure. Right.” He pulled away from Smith and tried to sober up. “I was just having a little fun. I was drunk or I’d never have touched her! Sorry. I’m really sorry!”

  “Get him out of here,” Marcus told Smith, and he turned away while the drunken man was still trying to proffer apologies and excuses. He gave Fred a long look.

  “I’ll…call you,” Fred choked.

  Marcus nodded without Delia seeing him.

  He took Delia by the arm. “Come on, we’ll get a needle and thread and fix your dress. You can’t go home looking like that.”

  She was still trying to figure out what was going on. Fred seemed to know this man, even to be afraid of him. And strange messages were passing between them without words. Who was this big, dark man?

  “I don’t know you,” she said hesitantly.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Repairs first, introductions later. You’re perfectly safe.”

  “That’s what my sister said I’d be with Fred,” she pointed out, tugging his jacket closer. “Safe.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t need to attack women in dark alleys,” he stated. “It’s sort of the other way around.”

  He was smiling. She liked his smile. She shrugged and her perfect lips tugged up. “Okay.” She managed a smile of her own. “Thanks.”

  “Oh, I was just there to back you up,” he said lazily, letting her go into the elevator in front of him. “You’d have done okay if you’d had a shotgun.”

  “I’m not so sure,” she said. “He was inhumanly strong.”

  “Men on drugs or alcohol usually are.”

  “Really?” she asked in a faint stammer.

  He gave her a worldly appraisal as the elevator carried them up to his office. “First experience with a drunk?” he asked bluntly.

  “Well, not exactly,” she confessed on a long sigh. “I’ve never had an experience like that, at least. I seem to draw drunks the way honey draws flies. I went to a party with Barb and Barney last month. A drunk man insisted on dancing with me, and then he passed out on the floor in front of God and everybody. At Barb’s birthday party, a man who had too much to drink followed me around all night trying to buy me a pack of cigarettes.” She looked up at him with a rueful smile. “I don’t smoke.”

  He chuckled deeply. “It’s your face. You have a sympathetic look. Men can’t resist sympathy.”

  Her green eyes twinkled. “Is that a fact? You don’t look like a man who ever needs any.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t, usually. Here we are.”

  He stood aside to let her exit the elevator.

  She stopped just inside the office and looked around, fascinated. The carpet was shag, champagne colored. The furniture was mahogany. The drapes matched the carpet and the furniture. There were banks of screens showing every room in the casino. There was a bar with padded stools curled around it. There were computers and phones and fax machines. It looked like a spy setup to Delia, who never missed a James Bond film.

  “Wow,” she said softly. “Are you a spy?”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “I’d never make the grade. I don’t like martinis.”

  “Me, either,” she murmured, smiling at him.

  He motioned her toward the huge bathroom. “There’s a robe behind the door. Take off the dress and put on the robe. I’ll get some thread and a needle.”

  She hesitated, her eyes wide and uncertain.

  He pointed to the corner of the room. “There are cameras all over the place. I’d never get away with anything. The boss has eyes in the back of his head.”

  “The boss?” she queried. “Oh. You mean the man who owns the casino, right?”

  He nodded, trying not to smile.

  “You’re a…” She almost said ‘bouncer,’ but this man was far too elegant to be a thug. “You’re a security person?” she amended.

  “Something like that,” he agreed. “Go on. You’ve had all the hard knocks you’re going to get for one night. I’m the last person who’d hurt you.”

  That made her feel guilty. Usually she was a trusting soul—too trusting. But it had been a hard night. “Thanks,” she said.

  She closed the door and slid out of the dress, leaving her in a black slip and hose with her strappy high heels. She put on the robe quickly and wondered at her complete trust in this total stranger. If he was a security guy, he must be the head guy, since he’d told the other guy, Smith, what to do. She felt oddly safe with him, for all his size and rough edges. To work in a casino, a man must have to be tough, though, she reminded herself.

  She went out of the bathroom curled up in the robe that had to be five sizes too big for her. It dragged behind her like the train of a wedding gown.

  Her rescuer was seated on the desk, wearing a pair of gold-rimmed reading glasses. Beside him was a sewing kit, and a spool of black thread. He was already threading a needle.

  She wondered if he’d been in the military. She knew men back home who were, and most of them were handy around the house, with cooking and mending as well. She moved forward and smiled, reaching for the needle at the same time he reached for the dress.

  “You sew?” she asked.

  He nodded. “My brother and I both had to learn. We lost our parents early in life.”

  “I’m sorry.” She was. Her father had died before she was born. She’d just lost her mother to stomach cancer. She knew how it felt.

  “Yeah.”

  “I could do that,” she said. “I don’t mind.”

  “Let me. It relaxes me.”

  She gave in with good grace and sat down in a chair while he bent his dark head to the task. His fingers, despite being so big, were amazingly expert with the needle. And his stitches were short, even, and almost invisible. She was impressed.

  She looked around the huge office curiously, and on an impulse, she got to her feet when she spotted a wall hanging.

  She moved toward it curiously. It wasn’t a wall hanging after all, she noted when she reached it. The pattern was familiar. The fabric was some of the newest available, and she had some of it in her cloth stash back home. Her eyes were admiring the huge beautiful quilt against one wall, hung on a rod. It was a symphony of black and white blocks. How incredible to find such a thing in the security office of a casino!

  “Bow tie,” she murmured softly.

  His head jerked up. “What’s that?” he asked.

  She glanced at him with a sheepish smile. “It�
��s a bow tie pattern, this quilt,” she replied. “A very unique one. I could swear I’ve seen it somewhere before,” she added thoughtfully. “I love the variations, and the stark contrast of the black and white blocks. The stitches are what make it so unique. There are stem stitches and chain stitches…”

  “You quilt.” It was a statement and not a question.

  “Well, yes. I teach quilting classes, back home in Jacobsville, Texas, at the county recreation center during the summer.”

  He hadn’t moved. “What pattern do you like best?”

  “The Dresden Plate,” she said, curious at his interest in what was primarily a feminine pursuit.

  He put her dress down, opened a drawer in the big desk, pulled out a photo album and handed it to her, indicating that she should open it.

  The photographs weren’t of people. They were of quilts, scores of quilts, in everything from a four-patch to the famous Dresden Plate, with variations that were pure genius.

  She sank back down in the chair with the book in her lap. “These are glorious,” she exclaimed.

  He chuckled. “Thanks.”

  Her eyes almost came out of their sockets as she gaped at him. “You made these yourself? You quilt?”

  “I don’t just quilt. I win competitions. National and even international competitions.” He indicated the bow tie pattern on the wall. “That one won first prize last year in a national competition in this country.” He named a famous quilting show on one of the home and garden channels. “I was her guest in February, and that quilt was the one I demonstrated.”

  She laughed, letting out a heavy breath. “This is incredible. I couldn’t go to the competition, but I did see the winning quilts on the Internet. That’s where I remember it from! And no wonder you looked so familiar, too. I watch that quilting show all the time. I saw you on that show!”

  He cocked a thick eyebrow. “Small world,” he commented.

  “Isn’t it just? I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name. But I do remember your face. I watched you put together a block from the bow tie quilt on that television show. Well, I’m impressed. Not that many men participate, even today.”

  He laughed. “We’re gaining on you women,” he said with a twinkle in his dark eyes. “There’s a Texas Ranger and a police officer who enter competitions with me these days. We travel together sometimes to the events.”

  “You’re good,” she said, her eyes going back to the book of photos.

  “I’d like to see some of your work,” he remarked.

  She laughed. “I’m not quite in your league,” she said. “I teach, but I’ve never won prizes.”

  “What do you do when you’re not teaching?”

  “I run an alterations shop and work with a local dry cleaner,” she said. “I do original fashions for a little boutique as well. I don’t make a lot of money at it, but I love my work.”

  “That’s more important than the amount of money you make,” he said.

  “That’s what I always thought. One of my girlfriends married and had a child, and then discovered that she could make a lot of money with a law degree in a big city. She took the child and went to New York City, where she got rich. But she was miserable away from her husband, a rancher back home, and she had no time at all for the child. Then they filed for divorce.” She shook her head. “Sometimes we’re lucky, and we don’t get what we think will make us happy. Anyway, I learned from watching her that I didn’t want that sort of pressure, no matter how much money I could make.”

  “You’re mature for your age. You can’t be more than twenty…?” he probed.

  Her eyebrows arched and she grinned. “Can’t I?”

  Chapter Two

  “I’ll bite, then,” he murmured, going back to pick up her dress and finish his neat stitches. “How old are you?”

  “Gentlemen are not supposed to ask ladies questions like that,” she pointed out.

  He chuckled, deep in his throat, his eyes on his fingers. “I’ve never been called a gentleman in my life. So you might as well tell me. I’m persistent.”

  She sighed. “I’m twenty-three.”

  He glanced at her with an indulgent smile. “You’re still a baby.”

  “Really?” she asked, slightly irritated.

  “I’ll be thirty-eight my next birthday,” he said. “And I’m older than that in a lot of ways.”

  She felt an odd pang of regret. He was handsome and very attractive. Her whole young body throbbed just being near him. It was a new and unexpected reaction. Delia had never felt those wild stirrings her friends talked about. She’d been a remarkably late bloomer.

  “No comment?” he queried, lifting his eyes.

  “You never told me your name,” she countered.

  “Carrera,” he said, watching her face. “Marcus Carrera.” He noted her lack of recognition. “You haven’t heard of me, have you?”

  She hadn’t, which he seemed to find amusing.

  “Are you famous?” she ventured.

  “Infamous,” he replied. He finished the neat stitches, nipped the thread with strong white teeth and handed the dress back to her.

  She took it from him, feeling suddenly cold. The minute she put the dress back on, their unexpected tête-à-tête was over. She’d probably never see him again.

  “There’s something about ships that pass in the night…” she murmured absently.

  His jaw tautened as he looked at her, his reading glasses tossed lightly onto the top of the desk. He summed her up with his dark eyes, seeing innocence and attraction mingled with fear and nerves.

  His eyes narrowed. He’d rarely been drawn to a woman so quickly, especially one like this, who was clearly from another world. Her connections were going to make her very valuable to him, but he didn’t want to feel any sparks. He couldn’t afford them right now.

  “What’s your name?” he asked quietly.

  “Delia Mason,” she replied.

  “You’re Southern,” he guessed.

  She smiled. “I’m from Texas, a little town called Jacobsville, between San Antonio and Victoria.”

  “Lived there all your life?” he probed.

  She gave him a wicked grin. “Not yet.”

  He chuckled.

  “Where are you from, originally?” she asked, clutching her dress to the front of his robe. “Not the Bahamas?”

  He shook his head. “Chicago,” he replied.

  She sighed. “I’ve never been there. Actually, this is the first time I’ve ever been out of Texas.”

  He found that fascinating. “I’ve been everywhere.”

  She smiled. “It’s a big world.”

  “Very.” He studied her oval face with its big green eyes and soft, creamy complexion. Her mouth was full and sweet-looking. His eyes narrowed on it and he felt a sudden, unexpected surge of hunger.

  She moved uncomfortably. “I guess I’d better get dressed.” She hesitated. “Do the cabs run this late?” she added.

  “They run all night, but you won’t need one,” he said as he closed up his sewing kit and put it away. He thought of driving her back himself. But it was unwise to start things he couldn’t finish. This little violet would never fit into his thorny life. She couldn’t cope, even if she’d been older and more sophisticated. The thought irritated him and his voice was harsher than he meant it to be when he added, “I’ll have Smith run you back to your hotel.”

  The thought of a journey in company with the mysterious and dangerous Mr. Smith made her uncomfortable, but she wasn’t going to argue. She was grateful to have a ride. It was a long walk over the bridge to Nassau.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled with suppressed disappointment, and went into the bathroom to put her dress back on.

  She hung the robe up neatly and then checked her face in the mirror. Her breath sucked in as she saw the terrible bruise coming out on her cheek. She put a lot of face powder over it, but it didn’t do a lot to disguise the fact that she’d been slapped.

 
; She did the best she could and went back out into the security office. He was standing out on the balcony with his hand in his pockets, looking out to sea. He was a sophisticated man. He had a powerful figure, and she wasn’t surprised that he was in security work. He was big enough to intimidate most troublemakers, even without those threatening dark eyes that could threaten more than words.

  The wind caught strands of his wavy black hair and blew it around his ears. He looked alone. She felt sorry for him, although it was probably unnecessary and would be unwelcome if she confessed it. He wasn’t a man to need pity, she could see that right away.

  She thought of not seeing him again, and an emptiness opened up inside her. She’d just lost her mother. It was probably a bad time to get involved with a man. But there was something about this one that drew her, that made her hungry for new experiences, new feelings. She sighed heavily. She must be out of her mind. A man she’d only just met shouldn’t have such an effect on her.

  But, then, her recent past had been traumatic. The loss of her mother, invalid though she’d been, had been painful. It was worse because Delia’s mother had never loved her. At least, not as she loved Barb; dear Barb who was beautiful and talented, and who had made an excellent marriage. Delia was only a seamstress, unattractive to men and without the live-wire personality of her much-older sister. It had been hard to live in the shadow of Barb. Delia felt like a bad copy, rather than a whole person. Her mother had been full of suggestions to improve her dull daughter. None of them had been accepted. Delia was satisfied with herself, loneliness and all. If only her mother had loved her, praised her even just once in a while. But there had been only criticism. A lifetime of it. She often wondered what she’d done to make her mother dislike her so. It really felt as if she were being punished for something. Nobody knew, least of all Barb, how difficult it had been for Delia at home. She’d done what was expected of her, always.

  But when she looked at this man, this stranger, she wanted to do crazy things. She wanted to break all the rules, run away, fall off the edge of the world. She didn’t understand why he should make her so reckless, when she’d always been such a conventional person. Apparently there was something to that old saying, that different people brought out different qualities in you, when you let them into your life. He must be a bad influence, because she’d never wanted to break rules before.