Borrowed Bride (18 page)

Read Borrowed Bride Online

Authors: Patricia Coughlin

BOOK: Borrowed Bride
6.92Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“No. You just seemed like a woman who'd been dealt a lousy break that she didn't deserve.”
Gaby wrapped her arms around herself, cold suddenly in spite of the sun overhead. “I was scared, Connor, so scared.”
“I know, Gaby,” he said quietly, wrapping his arms around her, as well, pulling her close to him.
“I think in some ways I've been scared ever since.”
She felt him nod.
“Connor?”
“Hmm?” he responded, his warm palm pressed flat on her back, rubbing gently.
“I can't marry Adam Ressler.”
“Good. 'Cause I don't share.”
No, he wouldn't, Gaby thought, affection for him curving her lips just a little as she laid her head against his chest, against his open shirt and that narrow ribbon of warm flesh and closed her eyes.
“And Connor?” she said after a minute.
“Yeah?”
“I don't care about your scars,” she told him, the drowsy remark punctuated by a yawn. “Not any of them.”
Not any of them. Connor thought that over as his own eyes closed, wondering what her words meant, sleep sneaking up on him before he figured it out.
 
When they woke, Gaby fixed lunch for him using the leftovers from the night before—sliced chicken sandwiches and a marinated salad of tomatoes and corn. Connor tried to guess which spices had gone into the marinade, showing off his culinary wizardry, she teased. Gaby couldn't deny it, however; when it came to spices, the man knew his stuff.
Watching him chew, his expression as intent and discriminating as a wine connoisseur's, she was struck by a sudden vision of a big old house with a kitchen roomy enough to accommodate a center island and her and Connor cooking there together. Chopping and stirring and tasting, side by side until the Connor in her imagination cleared the countertop with one violent sweep of his arm, grasped her by the waist and lifted her up there, going to work on her instead.
Of course, whatever food they had been preparing just conveniently disappeared, the way such details do in daydreams, and then the vision in her head became involved and so erotically compelling she had to blink and ask the real Connor, sitting across from her, to repeat whatever he had said before she could tell him that yes, yes, it was tarragon that he was tasting.
Later they went for a walk along the shore and up into the woods where it was cool and dark and where Connor backed her up against a tree and pulled aside her shorts and panties, unzipped his jeans and made love to her with the same abrupt air of dominance as the Connor in her daydream. His manner excited her, his lovemaking left her weak and the whole incident made her wonder if he could somehow read her mind.
The afternoon encounter was simply a hurried prelude to what lay ahead. Inspired, Gaby scoured the cabin, gathering all the candles she could find and arranging them in every available nook and cranny in the spacious upstairs bathroom. After dinner she sneaked upstairs alone to light them, tossing scented bath oil into the roomy tub and filling it to near the top. When everything was ready, she took Connor by his uninjured hand, ordered him to close his eyes, and led him into the fragrant, flickering fantasy she had created.
He rose to the occasion admirably, magnificently, repeatedly. Spice-smarts and great stamina—what more could she ask for in a man? she mused later, much later, long after the water had cooled and her poor, overworked muscles had grown too limp to move.
Connor obliged by carrying her to bed, where he joined her and somehow managed to arouse her all over again.
Afterward he lay beside her, his legs entwined with hers, murmuring as he nuzzled her throat, something he seemed especially fond of doing.
“The perfect end to a perfect day,” he said.
“You mean it's over?”
“If it's not,” he retorted dryly, “I won't live till morning.”
“Well, in that case I suppose tomorrow's another day.”
“Mmm.” He smiled, thinking about the possibilities a whole new day with Gaby presented.
“There's just one thing I wish,” she revealed with a sleepy sigh. “One thing that really would make it perfect.”
Connor opened his eyes, frowning, fully prepared to move whatever mountain necessary to indulge her. “What's that?”
“I wish I had taken my purse with me.”
She said it with a sort of wistfulness, as if regretting her own thoughtlessness in leaving it behind rather than the fact that she'd been brought there without warning and against her will.
“Your purse,” he repeated stoically, thinking he knew more about dealing with mountains.
“Mmm.”
“I have a comb you can use,” he offered.
“Thanks, I found a comb and a few other essentials in the bathroom.”
“I suppose you want your makeup,” he said, prepared to tell her she didn't need it.
“Not really.” She touched her lips. “Although some lip balm would be nice. I think the sun burned my lips. They feel so raw and puffy.”
“Mine, too,” he said, a hint of laughter in his deep voice. “But I don't think the sun is to blame.”
“Oh?” she countered a half instant before his mouth settled on hers and lingered, making his point most eloquently. “Oh.”
He hugged her to him, loving everything about her, loving her with an absoluteness he hadn't known possible. “So why do you want your purse?”
“Actually it's my wallet I wish I had with me.”
“Your wallet.” He thought of all the new possibilities that presented and ran through them out loud. “Money? Credit cards? License?”
“Pictures.”
“Pictures?” Connor felt cheated. He never would have thought of pictures. There were no pictures in his wallet.
“Pictures of Toby,” she explained. “I really miss him. I thought if I had a picture of him to look at, maybe I would miss him a little less.”
Connor folded his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. He had planned their stay there meticulously, location, supplies, everything down to the last detail. He'd anticipated every possible contingency and planned for them, as well. If a true emergency arose, he would be ready. As far as he was concerned, fetching a five-year-old because his mother missed him didn't constitute an emergency.
Just the same, he was going to do it, along with just about anything else it might take to make her smile. Gaby had shown him a mountain he could move and, part of the original plan or not, he was going to move it for her. It was, he thought with a resurgence of the cynical self-awareness he had managed to stay one step ahead of most of the day, the least he could do for her.
“In that case,” he said, “I guess we'll just have to make a trip back to the city.”
Gaby lifted up on one elbow to peer at him in confusion. “You're kidding, right?”
“Wrong.”
“You mean you're willing to drive me all the way home to get my purse?”
“Not your purse. The real thing. First thing in the morning we're going to drive to your mother's to get Toby and bring him back here with us.”
The look of utter amazement and dawning joy on her face was worth every bit of the aggravation he knew this little deviation from his plan was going to bring him before it was over.
“Oh, thank you, Connor,” she cried, reaching for his hand.
He winced as she squeezed it too hard.
“Oh, I'm sorry...your sore hand!”
“It's okay,” he told her, smiling through the sudden pain.
“I was so excited I forgot all about your stitches.”
“It's fine now.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Good. I would never hurt you. You've made me so happy... and I love you for it.”
He held on to her as she squirmed with excitement and rattled on about how wonderful he was to do it. He wasn't accustomed to such lavish thanks or praise, and it made him uncomfortable for reasons he couldn't name. He mostly kept his head down and just let her talk until she wound down.
Only one thing she said stuck with him, refusing to be shrugged off as lightly as the rest.
I love you for it
, she'd said.
Not
I love you,
period, he noted, but
I love you for it
. Not that it meant anything. It was just an expression, no more to be taken literally than
Let's do lunch
or
The check is in the mail
. He understood that. Still, it got him to thinking and hoping that maybe, just maybe...and those maybes were enough to keep him awake and dreaming long after Gaby had fallen asleep in his arms.
Chapter 9
T
he trip to Providence to pick up Toby turned out to be not quite as simple as Connor had made it sound the night before. It didn't matter. Gaby didn't care how complicated it became or how long it took as long as she could have Toby with her. She was grateful to Connor for going to so much trouble when he didn't have to, and she loved him for offering to do it.
It was, she came to realize as she lay awake in the first pink light of morning, watching him still asleep by her side, only one of the things she loved about him. Why she had fallen so hard so fast for this man she'd once thought she hated, she couldn't begin to understand, much less explain. She could, however, make a list long enough to launch a kite of all the things she had come to love about him in only a few short days.
She loved his strength, and how his hair was thick and ramrod straight, so different from her own soft, loose waves. She loved his deep voice and the snuffly sound he made when he dozed off with his head on her breast. She loved how stubborn he was about getting his own way and the wicked grin he often flashed as he went about getting it. She loved him for being afraid to show her the scars on his chest and she loved him because of his scars, both inside and out.
He'd feared those from the explosion would be too painful a reminder of the past, but Gaby wasn't afraid of the past, not any longer. She wasn't afraid of the future, either. It felt good to shed her ever-present layer of apprehension, and she had Connor to thank for that, too. She'd finally figured out that like him, she was a survivor.
The actual ride back to the city was considerably more fun than the trip up there had been. For one thing she no longer felt obliged to sit erect on the back of the bike, making only enough contact with Connor to keep from being thrown off. Now she savored the thrill of riding with her arms wrapped around his waist, her pelvis snuggled up close behind him, free to rest her cheek against his solidly muscled back whenever the wind became too much for her.
With the physical attraction between them still fever hot and compulsive, it was nearly noon by the time they actually got on the road. They talked it over before leaving the cabin and decided that, since they obviously couldn't make the return trip with Toby on the bike, they would first stop at her house and pick up her car. Now, riding down her street behind Connor, she giggled as she imagined the reaction of her neighbors if they saw her.
She doubted any of them considered her the motorcycle type... if there was such a thing. Why should they? Since she had never before thought of herself that way. Quite the opposite, in fact. She'd always considered herself too sensible, too conservative, too cautious to enjoy flying down the street with the wind whipping her hair around her face.
“It's too dangerous,” she had insisted to Joel that time years ago when Connor had tried to talk him into buying a bike so they could ride together.
“Life's dangerous,” he had told her before eventually heeding her objections and passing on the deal.
So Joel had never had the chance to join Connor on one of his legendary bike rides and he'd ended up being killed anyway. Fate. She shivered, regret welling up inside her. She tightened her hold on Connor's waist. As a mother she wasn't prepared to completely toss caution to the wind when it came to living, especially not when it involved Toby. But she vowed, for both their sakes, to think long and hard before she arbitrarily dismissed a chance for them to feel the wind on their faces.
Connor needed no directions to her house. He turned into the driveway of the brick-front Colonial with the black shutters and slowed to a stop before the double garage doors, leaving the engine running.
“Can you open the garage door from out here?” he asked over the engine noise.
“Yes. I can override the alarm at the keypad and open it from there.”
“Good. Can we get into the house from the garage?”
Gaby shook her head. “No. That door is bolted from the kitchen side. But I have a key hidden in the toolshed out back that will let us in the front door.”
“All right,” he said, glancing around, his expression guarded. “That will have to do.”
Puzzled by his demeanor, Gaby looked around, as well, not surprised to find that there was no one in sight. It was a quiet neighborhood of elegant, well-spaced houses, all with large yards, many with in-ground pools and lavishly landscaped for privacy. Most of her neighbors worked full-time. The few who were home during the day reserved their outdoor activity for early morning or after dinner, when it was cooler.
“Go on and open it,” he directed after peering down the street in both directions. “The sooner we get inside and out of sight, the better I'll feel.”
Gaby waited until she had the garage door open and he had pulled the motorcycle into the spot beside her white station wagon where Joel had once parked before asking him to explain his caution.
“Adam has no idea I'm back,” he told her as he pushed the button to lower the door once again. “I'm hoping that he bought your story about needing time to think and that he believes all he has to worry about is a bride who's having some second thoughts. It would be nice to keep the element of surprise on our side, and if he's watching the house and sees me or my bike hanging around, it's blown.”
The air in the garage was warm and musty smelling from having been closed up tightly while she was away. It added to the otherworldly feeling she got as she listened to Connor talk about Adam as if he was some kind of B-movie gangster.
“Do you really think Adam is watching the house? It's hard to picture him sitting out there in his fancy sports car, around the clock, without arousing suspicion ... or without us noticing him as we pulled in, for that matter.”
“Maybe he's not watching around the clock,” he responded with a negligent shrug. “Maybe he drives by from time to time just to check the place out, maybe he pays someone else to drive by ... or to sit out there somewhere and wait for you to show up.”
Gaby shivered, finding the possibility alone creepy.
Connor took her chin between his bent index finger and his thumb and smiled gently at her. “It's not anything you have to worry about, Gabrielle. I'd just rather that Adam not know I'm involved in this for as long as possible. Okay?”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath, finding that the accusations against Adam that had seemed so outrageous when she first heard them were seeming more and more believable, and that it was becoming more and more difficult to keep from dwelling on them.
“I'll get the key from the shed,” she said. “As long as we're here, there are a few things inside I'd like to pick up, a few things for Toby and for myself...like shoes.”
He feigned disappointment. “Do you have to? There's something about a barefoot woman that really gets to me.”
“I'm sure you'll adjust,” she retorted.
Connor followed her out to the backyard, waiting while she retrieved the front-door key from its hiding place under the wheelbarrow.
“Was all of this Joel's?” he asked, looking around at the peg boards that lined the walls and the assortment of rakes, shovels and gardening tools hanging there.
“Most of it. The Mickey Mouse sprinkler belongs to Toby.”
His mouth lifted in a quick smile before he resumed his perusal of the shed's contents. “I never knew he had so much ... stuff.”
“And this is just the outdoor ‘stuff,'” she told him. “Once he built that workroom in the basement, there was no stopping him. Every new tool or hardware gadget he came across had to be added to his collection.”
She smiled affectionately as she led the way around to the front of the house. “My favorite was something called the stud finder. I used to kid him and say that if we ever got divorced I wanted that included in my half of the property settlement ... for obvious reasons. Joel would always hug me and say that if I were ever unattached, I wouldn't have to find studs, they'd find me.”
“Looks like he was right,” Connor said lightly as he waited for her to unlock the door. “Though I'm not sure I care to be lumped with Adam Ressler under the heading of Studs.”
Swinging the door open, she turned back to him and looped her arms around his neck. “I really can't comment with any authority on Adam, but you, sweet Wolf, have a great many decidedly studlike qualities.”
“Oh, yeah?” he drawled as he backed her over the threshold and kicked the door shut behind him. “Name one.”
“Your name,” she said when he finished kissing her. She was just a little breathless. “Wolf is definitely a studly name.”
“Studly?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Names don't count. What's another of these studly qualities you say I possess?”
Laughing, she slipped from his grasp. “I don't think I should tell you. It will only serve to inflame your already overheated libido.”
“You inflame my libido,” he said softly, trailing her as she backed into the living room and scooted to put a table between them. “Come over here, Gabrielle.”
“I can't. We've already wasted enough time.” She circled the small cherry accent table, moving at the same pace he was so that they remained on opposite sides of it. “That's what you said when we got a late start this morning, remember?”
“No,” he said, tiring of her game of cat and mouse and reaching across the table to grab her. “I said come here.”
“Connor, be careful...my vase,” she cried as his elbow bumped the crystal vase centered on the table and it began to tip. Reaching under his arm, she managed to grab it with her free hand and steady it. She exhaled loudly. “Whew. That was close.”
“Forget the vase. I'll buy you a new one.” He was still holding on to her, the dark glint of intention in his eyes.
“I don't think so...at least not one like this,” she said airily. “This is Lenox. It was a wedding present, and the style has been discontinued, which makes it even more valuable.”
Connor felt as if he had just had his hand slapped for reaching into the cookie jar.
“I see.” He released her abruptly and dropped his arm to his side. “In that case I guess I should be careful. Go ahead and get your things, Gaby. I'll wait here...and I won't touch anything,” he added, turning away from her to gaze around what even he could tell was a very carefully and expensively decorated room. “I promise.”
Connor felt her come up behind him, her touch on his shoulder hesitant.
“Connor, I'm sorry if I sounded ... picky. I didn't mean it that way. I just didn't want the vase to get broken. I'm probably so used to warning Toby to be careful that it was automatic.”
He smiled sardonically, not at all cheered by her explanation. “Right. I understand. You have a great place here, Gaby, with lots of valuable, irreplaceable things. You have a right to expect guests in your home to be careful. Now, go get whatever it is you want to bring with you. Like you said, we've already wasted enough time today.”
Still looking troubled and apologetic, she disappeared up the stairs, leaving him alone with the discontinued-style vase and the handmade Oriental rugs and the collection of porcelain figurines that he seemed to recall had been in the Flanders family since... he didn't remember exactly. The invention of porcelain, probably.
Squinting, he hunkered down for a closer look at the assemblage of gently rounded, softly colored birds and flowers and strangely elongated people...all of them probably irreplaceable, too. Yep, he thought, straightening and glancing around, just about the only thing around here that wasn't irreplaceable was him. If he checked into it, he'd bet he'd find that even the mouse sprinkler in the shed was probably some sort of limited, commemorative edition.
Restless, he paced across the living room to the double glasspaneled doors that opened into the dining room. There, too, everything was in perfect order, a lace cloth arranged on the gleaming dark wood table, silver candlesticks all in a row.
Funny, he mused, trailing his finger along the edge of a silver tray that held a crystal decanter and some glasses, he must have been in this house hundreds of times before, on holidays and for parties and just to hang out and watch a game with Joel on the TV in the den, but he'd never noticed how... settled it was here. How filled it was with permanence and details, how structured and heavily weighted a life lived within these solid walls must be.
He'd never really thought about what Joel did when they weren't together, when he wasn't playing poker with the guys or watching a game. Now he did. He thought about him entertaining his boss in this dining room and using the tools out in the shed and living the life that came with a house like this... with a woman like Gabrielle. And he was in awe of the friend he had loved and lost.
He wandered out of the dining room and into the kitchen, stopping to look at the finger paintings hanging on the refrigerator, some signed Toby and some Mommy. He smiled, only slightly less intimidated by the mother-son projects as he was by the porcelain figurines in the other room. On the calendar hanging nearby were pencil notations for dentist appointments and swimming lessons and birthday parties. He read a few and turned away. If he were to wander into the bathroom, he wondered, would there be things there, too, to make him feel like an interloper?

Other books

Mistress by Marriage by Maggie Robinson
A Protector's Second Chance (Unit Matched #2) by Mary Smith, Rebecca Cartee
Thendara House by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Kiss Me If You Dare by Nicole Young
That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo
Hide Out by Katie Allen
The Ascent (Book 2) by Shawn E. Crapo