Eve’s Wedding Knight

by Kathleen Creighton

  Eve’s Wedding Knight

  Kathleen Creighton

  THERE GOES THE BRIDE

  All her life, Eve Waskowitz had imagined what her wedding day would be like, but jumping into a Dumpster, with train in hand and veil askew, to escape her prospective groom was not it. If she lived, there would be time enough to ponder her questionable taste in husbands-now the question was, where could she go? Who would help her?

  Enter FBI agent Jake Redfield, whose surveillance vehicle just happened to be within Eve's reach-and unlocked. He'd been after Eve's former groom-to-be for years-but one look at the disheveled, hysterical and utterly irresistible bride had Jake shifting his target somewhat. Was it too much to hope that he could get his man-and his woman?

  Kathleen Creighton

  Eve’s Wedding Knight

  The fourth book in the Sisters Waskowitz series, 1999

  Dear Reader,

  What is there to say about a month with a new Nora Roberts title except “Hurry up and get to the store!” Enchanted is a mysterious, romantic and utterly irresistible follow-up to THE DONOVAN LEGACY trilogy, which appeared several years ago and is currently being reissued. It’s the kind of story only Nora can tell-and boy, will you be glad she did!

  The rest of our month is pretty special, too, so pick up a few more books to keep you warm. Try The Admiral’s Bride, by Suzanne Brockmann, the latest TALL, DARK amp; DANGEROUS title. These navy SEAL heroes are fast staking claim to readers’ hearts all over the world. Read about the last of THE SISTERS WASKOWTTZ in Kathleen Creighton’s Eve’s Wedding Knight You’ll love it-and you’ll join me in hoping we revisit these fascinating women-and their irresistible heroes-someday. Rio Grande Wedding is the latest from multiaward-winning Ruth Wind, a part of her MEN OF THE LAND miniseries, featuring the kind of Southwestern men no self-respecting heroine can resist. Take a look at Vickie Taylor’s Virgin Without a Memory, a book you’ll remember for a long time. And finally, welcome Harlequin Historical author Mary McBride to the contemporary romance lineup. Just One Look will demand more than just one look from you, and it will have you counting the days until she sets another story in the present day.

  And, of course, mark your calendar and come back next month, when Silhouette Intimate Moments will once again bring you six of the most excitingly romantic novels you’ll ever find.

  Enjoy!

  Leslie J. Wainger

  Executive Senior Editor

  For Ildy,

  who is in some ways Eve

  and some ways not,

  but all ways,

  loved.

  Prologue

  Jake Redfield stood in the early morning fog and watched the uniformed sheriff’s deputy stride toward him. Behind him on the banks of the river, other men, some wearing diving gear, were gathered around the shrouded body of a man.

  “Fingerprints will have to confirm it,” the deputy said as he drew near. “But it’s Robey, all right. Everything matches.”

  “Did he have anything on him?” Redfield asked. Like a computer disk, maybe?

  The deputy shook his head. “Wallet, several different IDs, a little cash, not much. Sorry…”

  Redfield turned without a word and walked back to his car.

  Chapter 1

  It was true that Mirabella Waskowitz Starr’s sister Eve had always been a maverick, and never much of one to stand on ceremony. So naturally it had come as a big surprise to everyone when she decided to get married, for the first time at the ripe age of forty-three, in a traditional church wedding with white satin and all the trimmings.

  It was equally natural that Eve herself could see nothing contradictory in this.

  “It’s tradition,” she told Mirabella in a superior tone. Mirabella had just finished buttoning the last of the long row of tiny satin-covered buttons that ran down the back of her sister’s bridal gown from nape to coccyx, and was now gazing with exasperation at her reflection in the mirror. “I’ve never had anything against tradition. Traditions are what hold us together, as a family or as a society.” Offsetting the oratorical tone, her lips turned up at the corners in a maddeningly demure smile as she set the pearl pillbox with veil attached at a more jaunty angle atop her short, straw-colored hair. “And I get to pick which traditions I choose to honor.”

  Mirabella replied with a snort, which caused Eve’s eyes to widen as they met hers in the mirror. “Hey-why not? Some traditions are just plain silly. And some are downright insulting. That garter thing? There’s just no way in hell I’m doing that. Like I’m going to let Sonny peel it off me in front of everybody while the band plays bumps and grinds, and then hurl it into a pack of rabid male animals like some damn trophy? Tell me you don’t think that’s a bunch of sexist-”

  She turned from the mirror with a swish of her white satin skirts to ask, breathless as a teenager dressing for a dance, “How do I look?” But the sparkle in her eyes and the color in her cheeks said plainly enough that there wasn’t anything Mirabella could tell her she didn’t already know.

  “Gorgeous,” Mirabella dutifully supplied anyway. Not grudgingly. Not really.

  Of course she thought her sister was beautiful-breathtakingly so. How could she not? Both her sisters-Evie, the oldest, and their baby sister, Summer, who’d just gotten married herself this past summer in a private civil ceremony, were drop-dead gorgeous in the classic tall, tan and blond California tradition. And at five feet one on a good day, Mirabella had had forty-plus years to get used to being the little round 0 between their two willowy letter l’s. On a good day. Which this, in her sixth month of pregnancy, definitely wasn’t. In fact, in the loose-fitting floor-length royal blue gown Eve had chosen for her to wear as co-matron of honor, her greatest fear was that someone would mistake her for a mailbox.

  It wasn’t the dress or the pregnancy or her lack of stature that was making Mirabella grumpy and out of sorts on what should have been a joyous occasion. Those things had stopped having the ability to influence her happiness and well-being the day she’d fallen in love with Jimmy Joe Starr, the most wonderful man who’d ever been born, and who, miracle of miracles, loved and adored her exactly as she was. She wished she felt certain her sister was going to be as lucky in her choice of mates. Not that she had anything against her soon-to-be brother-in-law. Nothing she could put a finger on anyway. Just a feeling.

  Mirabella would admit to herself-and to no one else-that maybe she wasn’t being entirely fair. For one thing, the man couldn’t help but suffer by comparison to Riley Grogan, the wealthy and prominent-not to mention gorgeous-Charleston attorney Summer had stunned everyone by marrying barely two months ago, in August.

  Mirabella hadn’t quite forgiven Summer for going to Riley for help during that difficult and scary time, and for being afraid to reveal, even to the closest members of her family, what had been going on in her life. Finding out only afterward just what dire financial straits Summer’s no-good compulsive gambler ex-husband, Hal Robey, had left her in when he’d deserted her and their two children had been bad enough. But then to discover how she and the kids had been harassed and threatened-even had their mobile home burned-by mob thugs trying to track down Hal and some stolen financial records, and how Riley had taken them all in, including that menagerie of theirs…

  The best thing about it was, a person had only to look at Riley to see that he utterly adored Summer. And, amazingly, he seemed fond of her kids, as well-which really did make him a hero in Mirabella’s book.

  But this fiancé of Evie’s… Well, that was another story.

  “He’s too slick,” she’d said to Jimmy Joe, the husband she adored. “I don’t trust him.”

  Naturally, Jimmy Joe, who seldom had a bad word to say about anybody, ha
d hedged. “Aw, hell, honey, that’s probably just the Las Vegas glitter that’s rubbed off on him, is all. He’s probably no different from anybody else, once you get to know him. Maybe we all just need to give him a chance.”

  As if she wouldn’t! Just because she was opinionated didn’t mean she was unreasonable.

  And Jimmy Joe did have a point about Las Vegas, which was where Eve had met the man she was about to marry, while filming a documentary on the Strip’s new megacasinos, one of which Sonny Cisneros happened to own. Mirabella wouldn’t have thought it possible for anyone to sweep Eve Waskowitz off her feet, but apparently Sonny had managed it, and in short order. In fact, if Eve had gone along with the quickie Vegas ceremony Sonny had wanted, she’d have been married months ago. But before that could happen, Evie had come to Savannah with her production crew to film the arrival of Hurricane Angela and had fallen in love with that city’s beautiful squares and historic old churches. Then and there she’d decided, in typical Evie fashion, that nothing else would do; she had to get married in one of them, with all the traditional bells and whistles. According to Evie, Sonny hadn’t been at all happy about having to wait for an opening in the church’s wedding calendar.

  But then, Eve had always had a knack for getting things her way, and with such charm that few even noticed or would have minded if they had. It was just…Evie’s way.

  Mirabella sighed inwardly and reached up to free her sister’s shoulder-length veil where it had snagged on the gown’s pearl-and-lace-encrusted bodice. “I mean it,” she said gruffly. “You look mah-velous.” And couldn’t resist adding with a sniff, “You ought to-I imagine the cost of this dress would make a sizable dent in the GNP of some Third World countries.”

  Deep inside where it didn’t show, Eve winced. That was just so typically Mirabella. Why did it never seem to occur to people, even those closest to her, that when they said things like that to her it might actually hurt?

  Though why should it occur to them, when she went to great lengths to make sure they didn’t know?

  Now, for example, all she said as she pirouetted back to the mirror for one final check, was, “If it makes you feel any better, all this lace-and-pearl handiwork was probably done in some Third World country sweatshop, so I’m contributing to their economy in my own little way.” She glanced at the place on her left wrist that was customarily occupied by an ugly but practical sports-style watch. “What time is it? Do you know?”

  “Quarter after,” Mirabella said without having to check. “Still got forty-five minutes, so you might as well relax.”

  “Relax? I can’t even sit down in this dress.” She drew in a breath for which the dress’s tight waist left little room, then abruptly exhaled and asked with a frown, “Where’s Summer?”

  “Downstairs in the choir room with the kids. Helen was threatening mutiny over her shoes-something about wearing Marvin the Martian sneakers with her flower girl outfit, I believe.”

  “God love her,” Eve murmured in absentminded sympathy. “And Mom and Dad?”

  “Probably still at the hotel. Dad’s had some sort of bug, and Mom was going to make him take a nap so he’d be up for the reception. They’ll be here, but at the last minute, if I know them. Troy and Charly are bringing them. Charly’s resting, too.”

  “Ah.” Yes… Charly she’d met at Bella’s wedding. The maid of honor. She was the friend from Alabama, married now to Jimmy Joe’s older brother, Troy. Also pregnant, about a month ahead of Bella, which would make her… seven months, or thereabouts.

  It was getting hard to keep track of all the babies. The thought made her suddenly feel warm and shivery inside.

  Sonny had promised her they’d start a family-soon. After they’d had some time together, just the two of them, getting to know one another, he’d said. She knew he was right. All the books said so. But at her age it was hard to be patient. When had she gotten to be forty-three? Had she left it until too late? She couldn’t be too old…not yet. Not yet.

  As always, when her thoughts wandered into those particular paths, her insides had gone warm and mushy, with pulses pumping in all her feminine places. Hormones, she thought, churned up, ready and eager to make a baby, just lacking one vital ingredient-a little guy with a tail and one missing chromosome…

  Not surprisingly, perhaps, she felt a sudden desire to see the man whose chromosomes she’d chosen to merge with hers. Of course, whether that would quiet her raging hormones or only stir them to greater excitement, she didn’t know. Or care. When Evie wanted something, she generally wasted little time wondering about consequences. And right now what she wanted was Sonny-her man…

  A small, secretive smile played about her lips as she waltzed in her delicate satin pumps and rustling skirts to the dressing room’s one small sofa and retrieved from the untidy pile of clothing, plastic garment bags and makeup and hair supplies the soft-sided portable drink cooler she’d brought with her from her River Street hotel. She was unzipping it when Mirabella came to peek around her arm.

  “What’s that? What-” Her sister interrupted herself with a small gasp, part scandalized, part envious. “Oh my God-is that what I think it is?”

  Eve nodded. For a few moments there was silence as the sisters gazed at the champagne bottle she cradled reverently in her hands. Not just any champagne bottle. This one bore a legendary label and was worth approximately its weight in gold. Eve hefted it and made a smacking noise with her lips. “Bought it at a charity auction. I was saving it for my wedding night, but…” Her lips curved. “I don’t feel like waiting that long.”

  One thing about Bella, she always had been quick on the uptake. It took her about half a second to figure out it wasn’t just the champagne her renegade sister didn’t plan on waiting until the wedding night for. She choked and clapped a hand over her mouth and finally came out with “Evie, you can’t.”

  Eve, rooting purposefully around in the pile on the sofa, glanced over her shoulder long enough to inquire, “Why not?”

  “Why? Why? Because… you, you-”

  But Eve had found what she was looking for and turned with a smile of triumph. “Ah-here we are. Now I’m all set.” A small silver object hit the floor with a thunk and spun and wobbled to the toe of Mirabella’s shoe. “Oops! Would you get that for me? I don’t think I can bend over in this dress.”

  Her sister bent to retrieve the cork puller and handed it over. Her cheeks were flushed, but whether with exertion, embarrassment or anger Eve couldn’t begin to guess. With Bella it was sometimes hard to tell the difference. “Are you out of your mind?” Mirabella said in a hoarse, scandalized whisper. “Tradition aside-do you know how long it took me to button you into that dress? And now you want to go and take it off again?” Her voice ended in a squeak of pure outrage.

  “Who said anything about taking it off?” Eve said blithely, waving the glasses. Then something occurred to her and she thrust them at her sister. “Here, hold these for me, will you?”

  “What are you-you’re not going to open that here?”

  Already wielding the cork puller with practiced ease, Eve looked at her in surprise. “Better here, don’t you think, than wait until it’s gotten all shook up?” She murmured a soft “Ah…” as the cork gave with an expensive-sounding pop. She held the bottle up to her nose, closed her eyes and inhaled a fragrance that instantly filled her mind with visions of Parisian cafés and the hot, dusty vineyards of Provence.

  “There now-I’m all set.” She turned, brandishing the champagne bottle by its foil-wrapped neck in one hand, the two wineglasses by their stems in the other. “Now, all I need’s mah man. Where is he, dahling, do you know?”

  That attempt at whimsy was lost on Mirabella, who had an unpredictable sense of humor at the best of times. She flushed furiously and bit out, “The men are supposed to be dressing in the parlor-and by the way, who are those guys, anyway? They look more like bodyguards than groomsmen. Anyway, that’s across the garden. Follow the walkway that goes alongs
ide the rectory-door’s at the far end. And I swear, if you mess up that dress-”

  Eve interrupted her sister’s scolding with laughter; never had she felt so deliciously wicked. “Will you stop worrying about my dress? How do you suppose they got along in olden times, with all those corsets, laces and petticoats? Didn’t you ever see the movie, Tom Jones?” She waltzed toward the door.

  “Eve, you are impossible!”

  “So I’ve been told!”

  Her exit line was spoiled somewhat by the closed door and the fact that both her hands were full, but she shifted the champagne bottle to the crook of her arm and managed to get herself through the door without spilling or dropping anything. In the dim, empty hallway with the high stone walls of the church soaring around her, she paused to get her bearings.

  Best if she bypassed the sanctuary, narthex and front entrance,. she supposed. She could hear organ music coming from the sanctuary-the organist was practicing, it sounded like-and from somewhere nearby the sounds of muffled voices, the scuff of footsteps. She turned right, doing her best to tiptoe in her high-heeled shoes and voluminous skirts, laughter and mischief tickling her nose like an incipient sneeze. Even as a child, Eve had taken impish delight in being naughty.

  Outside in the garden she paused again. Like most Southern gardens, this one was deeply shaded by huge live oaks and magnolia trees. In the springtime it would be a breathtaking riot of azaleas, rhododendrons and flowering dogwood, but now, in early autumn, it was an Eden of cool, quiet greens. On the other side, through the dark lace of foliage, she could see late-afternoon sun shimmering on the stone walls and leaded windows of the rectory. The air was warm, and alive with the songs of birds. In that pause, in that one brief moment, she thought how happy, how lucky she was and how right she’d been to have chosen this time and this place for her wedding.