Fair had nothing to do with it, as far as Joe was concerned. There was only reality and fantasy, and damned if Emma Donovan-Hart wasn’t a mixture of both. His body taut with need for her, he told her gruffly, “I play to win. Always have, always will.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” a low feminine voice said from the patio off the family room.
Joe cursed inwardly as he realized they weren’t alone. Then he and Emma looked over to see none other than CSN TV host Tiffany Lamour standing on the other side of the open screen door.
HER HEART STILL RACING from Joe’s passionate kiss, Emma watched as Tiffany Lamour slid open the screen door and walked in like she owned the place. Tiffany’s glance slid over to the boxes containing the hockey memorabilia, the Gordie Howe practice jersey atop of one of the boxes. “I’d heard rumors about your collection,” Tiffany murmured, stepping nearer. She paused to finger the fabric before turning back to Joe. “But I had no idea you’d have it here. At the house. Out in the open like this. Especially given what happened in Holly Springs last night.”
Emma had to agree with Tiffany about that. Anything that had belonged to the Detroit Red Wings Hall of Famer who had played major league hockey in five different decades was incredibly valuable. Anything with his name on it that bore the wear and tear of lots of use, even more so. As for the rest… “What happened last night?” Emma asked curiously. Unlike Joe, she hadn’t read the paper, or thought to listen to the news on her bedside radio-alarm clock.
He turned back to Emma. “The thieves stole some golf clubs from a pro shop,” Joe said in a low, bored tone.
“At the Holly Springs Country Club five miles from here! And there were twenty-five sets of them, all either pure titanium or a titanium-graphite mix, as well as a cache of custom-made drivers. And they also took some memorabilia that had been under lock and key, including a signed ball used to win the U.S. Open several years ago.”
Whoa, Emma thought. She knew how much her dad’s clubs cost. Clubs of that quality, in that number, easily totaled in the tens of thousands of dollars.
“How do you know all this?” Emma asked, not only annoyed Tiffany had interrupted her and Joe, but witnessed them kissing so passionately to boot.
Joe left Emma’s side long enough to retrieve the Raleigh newspaper. He found the City and State section, and brought it back to her.
At the top, a bold black banner proclaimed, Golf Club Bandits Strike It Rich at Local Pro Shop!
Tiffany continued espousing her knowledge while Emma scanned the article herself. “The article quotes your brother, Mac, the Holly Springs sheriff, as saying this was the eighth robbery in the Holly Springs area this spring. And he is theorizing the hits are being orchestrated by someone with an insider’s knowledge of the local golf scene, because thus far only places with really valuable clubs are being hit, and no one has been home when any of the stuff was taken from the private residences.”
“So?” Joe challenged Tiffany.
“So, that being the case, I think you would be worried about having your hockey memorabilia like this since everyone knows about this collection and you don’t appear to have a security system installed,” Tiffany said.
Geesh, she was nosy and overbearing, Emma thought, belatedly aware she had noticed no such security system herself. Emma considered Tiffany Lamour to have an irritating amount of concern for someone she did not even have a friendship with. Unless she was trying to use this issue to get closer to Joe…
“Thanks for the concern, but—” Joe moved as if to escort Tiffany to the door.
Tiffany put up a palm to keep him from taking her elbow. “I didn’t come over here to talk to you about your lack of foresight in that regard,” she said.
“Do tell,” Joe remarked dryly, his face devoid of expression.
“And,” Tiffany continued before either Joe or Emma could say anything else, “I had no idea she would still be here, either.”
Well, that was witchy, Emma thought. And unfortunately, all too true. Usually, she was at her office at the Wedding Inn by seven-thirty in the morning, and here it was nearly eight-fifteen and she was still standing around talking.
“Speaking of which…” Emma looked around in an attempt to locate her shoulder bag and keys. Gigi Snow was probably already waiting for her, with a list of new and unreasonable demands.
Joe pulled Emma back into the curve of his arm, using her like a shield against their early-morning interloper. “What can we do for you, Ms. Lamour?” he asked, stiffly.
“Now, Joe.” Tiffany beamed an openly seductive smile at him. “There’s no need to stand on formality. Particularly after all we’ve been to each other.”
Been to each other? Had there been something more between them, something Joe had yet to mention? Emma wondered jealously. She turned to Joe uneasily.
Joe looked at Tiffany as if he had never seen her before and didn’t even know her name. An awkward silence fell that he made no effort to bridge. Tiffany flushed at Joe’s rudeness, but continued on as if he had welcomed her warmly into their home, anyway. “I would like you to be on my show, Joe. I want you to do an in-depth interview about your move to the Carolina Storm.”
“Too early for that.”
If, Emma thought caustically, he ever agreed to it at all. Somehow, she didn’t see him doing so. And neither apparently did Tiffany, judging by the petulant slide of her lower lip.
“I disagree, Joe,” Tiffany persisted in a low, sultry voice as she looked Joe right in the eye. “I think, given the enormous amount of interest in your personal life right now, that it is the perfect time for you to bare your soul on TV.”
Joe didn’t look away. “I don’t discuss my personal life,” he said.
Something shifted in Tiffany’s expression, became ruthless as she warned, in the same silken tone, “You can’t afford not to do this, Joe.”
Or what? Emma wondered, as animosity flowed between the two. “I’ll be the judge of what I can and won’t do,” Joe returned in a cool, neutral voice. He stepped forward and gripped Tiffany Lamour’s elbow the way he would have taken hold of something smelly and disgusting that needed to be taken out to the garbage.
“Now, if you’ll excuse us, Ms. Lamour, I’m driving my wife to work this morning, and we really have to go.”
Joe walked their uninvited guest through the rest of the house and practically pushed Tiffany out the front door. Tiffany pretended it was a courtesy. They all knew it was not.
“Smooth,” Emma said as Joe shut the door behind her.
He braced his hands on his waist and looked down at her. “You about ready to go?” he demanded briskly.
Emma made a face. “You’re really going to drive me to work?”
His lips formed a grim line. “Yes.”
“Why?” Emma persisted.
Joe shrugged. “I want her to see us leave together.”
“Because…?” Emma prodded.
Joe snorted impatiently. “Because she obviously suspects our marriage is a sham. This, plus the fact that we are actually living together, will prove it’s not.”
Emma tensed, even as she told herself she shouldn’t be surprised that this—like everything else about their renewing their wedding vows—was just a publicity ploy, meant to keep them out of trouble. With the press. And her father, and hence the team. Hadn’t Joe made it perfectly clear to her, time and time again, that hockey was his first—his only—true love? Why then did she keep expecting him to transfer some of that heartfelt devotion to her and their marriage?
“Is that the only reason?” It was not really the question she wanted to ask him, but it was the only one that came out.
Joe blinked. “What do you mean?”
Speak now or forever hold your peace.
“Tiffany Lamour seems…awfully interested in you,” Emma managed to say finally. Too interested, as it happened, for Emma’s comfort. What was it her father had said, when he had tried to explain to her why he didn’t ever want h
er involved with a hockey player? “You have no idea what kind of temptation players face, Emma, the things some women do, the way they throw themselves at the men…. And it’s a temptation that never ends, not as long as a player has his name on the roster….”
Joe slanted her a haphazard glance. “So what if she is?”
This wasn’t news to him. Nor was it, apparently, cause for concern. At least in his view. Emma swallowed. I have no reason to be jealous here, she warned herself silently. Just because Tiffany is beautiful—in that brittle, slim, blond way—and powerful enough to substantially help or hinder Joe’s career. And is pursuing him openly in the light of the scandal of our marriage.
None of that meant Joe was vulnerable to Tiffany’s machinations. He certainly hadn’t looked susceptible just now.
And as for her father, he had been thinking she didn’t have what it took to be the wife of a professional athlete. She could handle Tiffany and more. All she had to do was be honest with Joe, and encourage him to be just as forthright with her. “So I couldn’t help but notice that Tiffany seems to get under your skin,” Emma noted. In a way few others do.
“It’s because she’s got that whole spoiled-heiress thing going for her,” Joe said as he located his socks and running shoes and sat down to put them on.
Emma went over and shut and locked the sliding doors. “You resent the fact that she comes from a wealthy family?”
Joe got up to help her close and lock the windows on the first floor. “I resent the fact that she uses her father’s power and prestige to land herself a talk show on the cable network that her daddy owns, and then leverages that to throw what amounts to an on-air temper tantrum-revenge session whenever she doesn’t get exactly what she wants. I can’t stand women like that. Who grew up having everything they ever wanted, never at any cost to themselves.”
Emma’d had her fill of spoiled heiresses, too. At boarding school. College. Even now. “You sound like you really know the type,” she said sympathetically, hoping he wasn’t lumping her in there, too.
“I ought to,” Joe said with a beleaguered frown as he scooped up his keys and, with a hand on her shoulder, directed her toward the front door. “I watched my mother deal with enough of them at the Wedding Inn over the years.”
Emma walked out with Joe. She saw Tiffany Lamour sitting in a rented Cadillac, the engine running. Tiffany had her gaze directed at the sheaf of papers she was rifling through. Joe had been right, Emma noted, when he figured Tiffany would dawdle until Emma left. Hoping, perhaps, to get another shot at Joe? Alone this time?
Behaving a lot more gentlemanly than usual, Joe pretended not to see Tiffany still parked at the curb as he opened the car door for Emma and waited while she got in.
Emma figured if he could do it, she could, too. So she picked up the threads of their conversation as he slid behind the wheel. “A lot of the brides who get married at the Wedding Inn are from very wealthy families,” Emma mused.
Joe nodded as he slid the key in the ignition, started the car and backed it out of the driveway. He rested his right arm along the top of the seat, so it brushed Emma’s shoulders possessively. “And the majority of them are spoiled shallow, and apt to run at the first sign of trouble or when they don’t get their way,” he continued with feeling as they drove away. “Not to mention lie and manipulate and do whatever seems expedient to get what they want.”
Aware he was getting a little carried away with his generalizations, and that those assumptions were now broad enough—and unfair enough—to include her, Emma rolled her eyes. “Speak freely, why don’t you, about the young and privileged?”
“Hey.” Joe sent her a quelling glance. “I’m not lumping you in with the likes of those.”
“Good thing,” Emma said with relief. Because if he ever did decide that just because her family was now wealthy that she was automatically morally bankrupt or a “lightweight” in the emotional-endurance department, the writing was plainly on the wall. It would be all over between the two of them. No marriage, no flirtation, no renewal of their love. Just Joe, once again going his own merry way…
Emma fell silent and was still quiet five minutes later as they arrived at the Wedding Inn. Telling herself it was good she was no longer going to be alone with him, she regarded him out of the corner of her eye. “You coming in with me?”
“Nope.” Joe parked in front of the entrance and kept the car running as he fixed her with the full intensity of his amber gaze. “Got to get to the arena to meet with the team trainer who is going to supervise my summer conditioning.”
Emma knew the trainers drew up personal programs for each athlete on the team. It was important for them to get as strong and fit as they could in the off-season, before their preseason practices began later in the summer. She didn’t know why, but she was pleased Joe was going to be very busy, too. Too busy for Tiffany to bug…at least that was Emma’s hope.
“What time are you going to be done tonight?” Joe asked her casually.
Emma tried not to read too much into the question as she unfastened her seat belt. From the parking area she could see that the Snows were already here, waiting for her, some forty-five minutes in advance of their actual appointment. That did not bode well for the rest of her day. “I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders casually, already wondering what Joe had on tap for tonight. “Whenever I get done.” Was he going to be home, waiting for her? With the house hot as a tropical paradise and himself in a state of undress? Would he put the moves on her? Did she want him to put the moves on her again?
“Well, call my cell and leave a message, and let me know your plans,” he told her authoritatively.
Emma hadn’t answered to anyone about her moment-to-moment whereabouts in years. It was a disconcerting feeling, having him do so. Kind of thrilling, too. Though Emma didn’t begin to know why. “What if you’re working out?” she asked. All the athletes on her father’s team had two practices a day during the off-season to keep them in top physical condition.
“You don’t need to worry about that,” Joe told her cheerfully. “I’ll make sure you get a ride home,” he reassured her with a wink and a pat to her knee.
For a moment, she thought he was going to lean over and kiss her cheek, like any other husband dropping off his spouse, but he didn’t. So Emma smiled and got out of the car.
As soon as she shut the door and stepped back, he drove off.
So much for the “perks” of matrimony, Emma thought.
Chapter Eight
Still lamenting the lack of a goodbye kiss, and chastising herself for lamenting the lack of another heated liplock, Emma headed inside the Wedding Inn. And was promptly lambasted by Gigi Snow, who had taken up residence in the lobby.
“There you are!” Gigi stormed toward Emma. “What are you going to do about the latest catastrophe?”
“What catastrophe?” Emma asked warily.
Beside Gigi, Michelle burst into tears. Emma noted the poor young woman not only looked like she had just tumbled out of bed, she appeared not to have had any sleep.
“It’s all my fault!” Michelle burst into tears.
Her heart going out to her—weddings were enough stress without a hypercritical mother—Emma wrapped an arm around the young girl’s shoulders and soothed gently, “Let’s all go into my office, where we can discuss this more comfortably.” Not to mention out of earshot of any other potential guests who might come in.
Michelle was still sobbing as Emma guided her into a comfortable upholstered wing chair on the other side of her desk. Emma handed her a box of tissues and knelt in front of the distraught bride.
Michelle pressed a balled-up tissue to her mouth. Eyes brimming, she looked at Emma and confessed, “I l-l-lost the flowers at the airport.”
“What do you mean?” Emma asked Michelle. “I thought Lily Madsen, the florist, was driving in to pick them up.”
Michelle’s lower lip trembled as she sought to save herself from her mot
her’s wrath. “There was a fee for that. And Benjamin thought we should save money and do it ourselves.”
“You mean he thought you should do it!” Gigi Snow fumed, looking like she wanted to smash something against a wall.
“He was going to help me, Mother, but then they had that robbery over at the country club last night and they called all the club management in to help with the inventory of just what had been stolen and be interviewed by the sheriff’s department.”
Gigi huffed. “Benjamin doesn’t have anything to do with the pro shop! He’s a marketing manager, in charge of membership applications.”
Michelle shrugged. “The police think it might have been engineered by someone who came to a see about a membership and received a full tour—and all sorts of information about the club—but didn’t actually end up joining. Anyway, Benjamin had to be there, to give Sheriff Hart the information he needed. So I went to the Raleigh-Durham airport alone when the red-eye flight came in from Hawaii, at 5:00 a.m.” Michelle began to tear up again. “I didn’t realize how big the boxes were going to be. It took two carts to load them. And then I had to go to the bathroom, and…” She bit her lip again. “When I came out of the ladies’ room, they were gone.” She burst into sobs all over again.
“You mean you left them unattended.” Emma patted her on the shoulder.
Michelle nodded emotionally. She pivoted away from her mother’s lethal glare. “I parked it right beside the door. I didn’t think anyone would steal them. I mean, I was just in there for a second!”
Emma knew how foolish Michelle’s actions had been—now. But there had been a time just seven years ago when she had first met Joe and had been that sheltered and hopelessly naive, too. And for that, her heart went out to the young heiress.
“Well, we will just have to order them again,” Gigi said, throwing up her hands in disgust.
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