Saved by the Bride (Wedding Fever (Carina))

by Lowe, Fiona

  She shrugged as if he’d just said, “I think the Chicago Bears will whoop the Packers.” “You don’t love me, Finn.”

  He blinked. “Of course I do.”

  He reached for her again but this time she sidestepped him. “Okay then, see it my way. The last time I saw you, you look absolutely appalled at the idea of me loving you and you told me you could never love me. I hear nothing from you in almost three months and now you appear with a declaration of love. Why would I believe you?”

  God, why would she believe him? Her withering gaze didn’t look like it belonged to a woman who still loved him and it sent terror scudding into every cell. “Because I’m sorry for how we parted and because I’ve bought the painting.”

  “You’re sorry?” Her chin jutted out in that stubborn way. “Did you buy Act Now because you think no one else will?”

  “No!” He ran his hand through his hair trying desperately to navigate his way through a conversation that was littered with Stealth Bombers.

  She drew herself up to her full height. “I won’t let you buy this painting, Finn. I’ve worked too hard for this and I’m not going to let you steal it from me to make yourself feel better. You once told me I couldn’t live through you and yet if you buy this painting you’re doing exactly what you accused me of.”

  Desperation clawed at him as he envisaged his future stretching before him without Annika in it. The pain of that realization almost rendered him mute. “Annika, I bought it because you painted it. Because when I look at it, it’s full of you. Your drive and compassion, your laughter and your caring for the people that you love. I see your indignation over things that aren’t fair and your hope that things can change. I see your stumbles and I see your smile. I see everything I’ve missed so much since you left.”

  “Since you asked me to leave.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself but her face stayed impassive as if his heartfelt declaration had just fallen on deaf ears. He’d rejected her love, hurt her too much, and taken too long to realize she was the love of his life. He was too late and there was nothing he could say or do to recover from that. Nothing he could say or do that would convince her. He felt the ring box in his pocket dragging him down into a pit of black despair.

  Annika could hardly breathe. Disbelief, pain, fear and utter desolation sucked at her, pummeling every intention she’d had to live her life her way. He had no right to suddenly appear after three months of silence and drop a bombshell like this. Not when she’d fought to stay upright and keep going after he’d broken her heart so badly. And she feared he could do it again. Did he even know what love was? She gripped her hand around the coat rail to steady herself.

  “Look, Finn, I really don’t know where this is coming from or why. But you buying a painting is easy. You wouldn’t even notice the dip in your bank balance. Saying ‘I love you’ is easy too. Paintings and words just aren’t enough.”

  He suddenly looked haggard and gray. “You think me telling you that I love you is easy?” His anguished voice sliced through her. “God, Annika, you of all people should know that me standing here telling you I love you is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

  I don’t do emotional connections. I don’t fall in love. Love destroys more than it ever builds.

  She bit her lip and didn’t want to hope.

  He sat down between the coats and dropped his head in his hands for a moment before looking up. “The last three months have been hell. When you left you took the rudder of my life with you and I’ve been drifting. Before you fell into my arms at Bridey’s party, I thought I was content but you stormed into my life and my heart and started questioning everything I believed. I’m not proud to admit that scared me witless. You asked me why it’s taken three months for me to find you. When you left I was angry. Angry at everyone and everything but despite all of that it seems I’d taken on board some of what you’d said without even realizing.”

  “Like what?”

  “I built the zip line with Sean and it wasn’t all bad. We’ve made a start at having a type of friendship.”

  The man who held himself apart from everyone had made a connection. Her heart lurched. “I’m glad.”

  He gave her a wry look. “Yeah. It’s been interesting. Last week after I’d spent ten days trying to find you only to have your family and friends block me at every turn, Sean took me to a sports bar. He also got me home after I got filthy drunk.”

  “I always said he was a good dad.” Her heart expanded and sang, not just for Finn and Sean but for herself. Finn, who was always in control, always had it together, had got publicly drunk because of her.

  He stood up and gazed down at her, his eyes filled with sorrow. “I know all of this has come too late, Annika, but I want you to know that if my rejection of your love made you feel one tenth of the pain I’m feeling right now then I’m beyond sorry.”

  He loves you. He honestly does love you.

  But could they make this work?

  She blinked back tears and held back every instinct to throw herself into his arms because it was too soon. “Part of me knows you were right. I needed to leave Whitetail. I needed to take this time for me and had you realized you loved me this summer, I might never have done it.” She picked up his hand and pressed her palm against it, matching her fingers to his. “But the day you left me on the dock—” she drew in a steadying breath, “—I never want to feel that way again.”

  His voice was thick with emotion. “Neither do I.”

  She pressed on, as a tear slid down her cheek. “You once told me that love destroys more than it ever builds.”

  “I was an idiot.”

  She gave a half sob, half laugh. “But what about when things get tough? When we disagree? I’ll want to talk about how you’re feeling and your natural tendency’s to push it all down. How are we going to deal with that?”

  He rested his forehead against hers. “I’m not saying I’m going to get it right every time, but given my family’s been banging me over the head for weeks with the evidence that I love you, I’ve had a bit of practice talking about my feelings.”

  She thought her heart would burst. “They have?”

  “Oh yeah.” He gave a soft smile. “I tell you, once you start letting people into your life they’re in your face about things, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. You once accused me of being like my father and I hated it but the old man’s worked out what’s important and you opened my eyes so I could see it too.” He slid his fingers through hers, linking their hands together. “You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, Annika Jacobson. Please marry me.”

  Tears poured down her face. “On one condition.”

  He tensed against her. “God, Annika, you’re killing me. What?”

  She stroked his hair. “Tell Richard you’re not buying Act Now.”

  He sighed and it shuddered through her. “Okay. I understand you need it out there to stand on its own feet no matter what. Believe me, it’s going to stand. Kathleen’s Geoffrey is already muttering something about the possibility of it being part of a new artists’ expo. I’ll rip up the check on one condition.”

  But he was smiling down at her so she knew she had nothing to fear. “Tell me.”

  “I want to buy your Lighthouse series, which, according to the internet, never sold.”

  She gazed up at him.
“You want to buy my immature, derivative and stylized offerings that are stashed somewhere in Axel’s garage?”

  He tucked strands of stray hair behind her ears. “I’m not an art critic. I’m just some dumb schmuck who thinks they’re full of love and the promise of the joys, frustrations and delights of an annual family vacation by a lake.”

  She threw her arms around his neck, loving him more than she ever had before. “Ask me again.”

  He grinned down at her, his dark eyes shining and his face full of love. “Will you make me the happiest man alive, not to mention making my entire family ridiculously happy, by becoming my wife?”

  “Oh, Finn, I most certainly will.”

  He gave a loud whoop of joy and then he kissed her. He kissed her with love, with his promise to build a future with her and to be by her side always. He kissed her through the sound of running feet, the door being swung open, and a dozen faces peering in at them.

  “Sir? Miss? Is everything all right?”

  Finn broke the kiss for a moment and grinned. “Everything’s perfect. I’m getting married!”

  And then he kissed her again.

  * * *

  US Bride

  Annika Jacobson, artist and previously of Whitetail, Wisconsin, married Chicago’s perennial bachelor, Finn Callahan of AKP Industries, in a low-key wedding, ending years of speculation that the paper magnate would marry and combine love with a business merger. In a surprise move, the couple married in a snowbound Whitetail with only family and close friends in attendance. The bride’s parents came the farthest distance, flying in from Peru. The hand-painted wedding invitations were made by the bride. The new Mrs. Callahan wore a white Christmas wedding gown with a fitted full-length fur-trimmed coat. Instead of a veil she wore a small but elegant diamond tiara. Whitetail’s stylist and wedding planner, Nicole Lindquist, curled the bride’s long hair and styled it so it cascaded gracefully across her shoulders.

  According to our sources, the bride slipped on some ice as she was alighting from the wedding sleigh but due to the quick actions of the groom she escaped a nasty fall. The groom’s father, Mr. Sean Callahan, was quoted as saying, “We couldn’t be more thrilled that Finn has finally found the happiness he deserves.” The couple are rumored to be honeymooning in the Caribbean although a helicopter was sighted landing on the small island on Lake Whitetail.

  * * * * *

  In the mood for another heartwarming, small-town

  romance from Fiona Lowe?

  Then check out Boomerang Bride—winner of the 2012 RITA® Award for Best Contemporary Single Title, available now!

  Boomerang Bride

  Matilda Geoffrey had risked it all for love.

  She’d left Australia to be with Barry—the man who had swept her off her virtual feet. Now, wearing a wedding dress, she’s alone on Main Street in small-town Wisconsin, and things aren’t working out exactly as planned…

  In town for his annual family visit, Marc Olsen had never seen a bride quite like Matilda—staring into a storefront window, holding a tottering wedding cake and looking desperately in need of a groom. He doesn’t have many warm feelings for his hometown, but meeting Matilda just as she discovers she’s been scammed by her online “fiancé” stirs something in him.

  Matilda is not the kind of woman Marc imagined himself with, and Marc is anything but the romantic hero that Matilda has always dreamed of. But as unlikely circumstances throw them together, can they let go of their misconceptions and risk their hearts for love?

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  About the Author

  Books have always been a big part of Fiona’s life and her first teenage rebellion was refusing to go on a hike with her parents because she was halfway through Gone with the Wind. As an adult, Fiona read her way around the world, always trying to read a book that related to where she was at the time…The Brontës in Yorkshire, Jane Austen in Bath, The Godfather in Italy, Michener in Hawaii…you get the picture. It was when she was living in Madison, Wisconsin, and at home with a baby, that she started writing romance fiction. Now multipublished with Harlequin Mills & Boon and Carina Press, she’s won a RITA Award and a R*BY Award, as well as being an RT Reviewers’ Choice finalist.

  She loves creating characters you could meet on the street and enjoys putting them in unique situations where they eventually fall in love. Fiona currently lives in Australia, which is a lot warmer than Wisconsin, and she attempts to juggle her writing career with her own real-life hero, a rambling garden with eighty rose bushes and two heroes in the making.

  Fiona loves to hear from her readers and you can contact her at fiona@fionalowe.com. She also hangs out at www.fionalowe.com, www.facebook.com/FionaLoweRomanceAuthor and twitter.com/FionaLowe.

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  ISBN: 978-14268-9532-6

  Copyright © 2013 by Fiona Lowe

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of 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 ™ 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.

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  edding Fever (Carina))