Kiss the Bride (67 page)

“It’s a little difficult for the President’s daughter to pop down to the local mall, so the mall comes to me.”

This was Tish’s biggest fantasy come true. A shopaholic’s erotic dream. It was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to a poor girl with a bad credit rating.

“It’s awfully nice of you,” Tish said, fingering a beautiful silk camisole. “But I can’t afford this stuff. My pocketbook is geared more toward Target.”

“Sweetie.” Elysee patted her shoulder. “This shopping spree is a gift. From Shane and me.”

Tish backed up, backed away from all the lovely, lovely clothes. She raised her palms in front of her, and shook her head. “No, no. I can’t accept this.”

Elysee blinked. “Why not?”

“It’s too much. It’s too extravagant.”
It’s from you and Shane. My ex-husband whom I still love.
The whole situation was just too damned weird.

“But you have to have clothes.”

“If someone could just give me a ride to the nearest Wal-Mart I’ll pick up a pair of jeans, a couple of blouses, a package of underwear, and I’ll be good to go.” She realized for the first time that she was truly stuck here. The car she’d borrowed from Delaney was parked under the carport near her burned-out apartment.

“Tish Gallagher, you’re the first daughter’s wedding videographer. You’ve got to look the part.”

She gazed at the clothes again and sighed with longing. “Seriously, Elysee, I can’t accept.”

“Seriously, Tish, why won’t you just let us help you?”

Because I don’t deserve it. Because you’re so nice and I’m lusting after Shane and you don’t even know it.

“If it makes you feel any better, you can deduct the cost of the clothes from the final installment on our wedding video.”

“Really?” Now that was an idea she could wrap her head around.

“Really.”

“Okay.”

“Now, let’s shop.”

Two hours later, Tish’s wardrobe had been replenished. While the retailers were tallying totals and packing up their inventory, Elysee and Tish were served a late lunch of finger sandwiches and pasta salad on the veranda.

“So tell me, what’s Shane like in bed?”

“Huh?” Tish choked on a mouthful of raspberry tea.

“Is he forceful?”

“Um, are you sure you really want to discuss this with me, again?” Tish asked.

Elysee lowered her voice. “I don’t have anyone else to discuss this sort of thing with.”

“What about your girlfriends?”

“Honestly, it’s difficult keeping friendships when you’re in the public eye.” Elysee took a deep breath.

“I’m sure it is.”

“So tell me what he’s like in bed.”

“Elysee, that’s personal.”

“Was the sex bad between you two? Was that why your marriage fell apart?”

She shouldn’t have said what she said next, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from bragging. “If great sex could keep a marriage together, let’s just say Shane and I would have been superglued for life.”

“Really.” Elysee struggled to keep the smile on her face.

Tish felt as if she’d just kicked a puppy. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, no, I’m glad you told me. I need to know these things.” Elysee took a breath. “So why did you divorce him?”

“I didn’t divorce him. Shane divorced me.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Now you do.”

A long silence ensued. Elysee toyed with a cucumber sandwich. “Why did he divorce you?”

“Because I didn’t need him the way he thought I should and then the one time I really needed him, he wasn’t there for me,” she said, hearing the bitterness in her own voice.

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Even when Elysee frowned, she managed to look sweet and innocent. It grated on Tish’s nerves.

“Don’t let it worry you, Elysee. Your marriage will be fine. You’re plenty needy enough for Shane.”

It was an awful thing to say. Especially to Elysee, who’d been nothing but kind to her. Immediately, Tish felt like the crud in the bottom of a dirty refrigerator. No, wait, she was lower than that. She was ring-around-the-toilet crud.

Elysee burst into tears, pushed back her chair, and ran sobbing from the room.

Great going, Gallagher. You’re turning out to be quite the puppy kicker
.

I
don’t want to interrupt your workout, but I have a favor to ask.”

Shane glanced up to see Tish standing in the doorway of the elaborate gym. Embarrassed by the puny little one-pound weight cradled awkwardly in his right hand, he hid it behind his back.

She looked absolutely breathtaking in a green silk blouse that molded to her lush breasts and designer blue jeans that hugged her sexy ass. His body stirred, responding in a totally inappropriate way.

“Where’s your physical therapist?” she asked, sauntering into the room.

“He got a phone call.”

“So you’re in here all alone?” She craned her neck, looked around the corner at the bank of treadmills. She moved with the grace of a dancer, lithe and totally at ease in her own skin. She ran her hand along the padded cushion on the nearby butterfly machine. She’d always been a very tactile person. Kinesthetic. Physical. Shane clamped his teeth shut, remembering how much she’d liked to touch and be touched.

“You needed to ask a favor?” he said gruffly, to hide what he was feeling.

“Will you give me a ride back to my place?”

“Your place burned down.”

“I know, but my car’s there. Or rather Delaney’s car is there. She let me borrow it after mine got repossessed.”

“Your car got repossessed?” The damned weight was getting so heavy, the weakened muscles in his wrist were yelping with pain. He clenched his jaw.

Her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. She made a face, waved a hand. “I know, I know. I’m irresponsible, unreliable, immature.”

“I didn’t say that.”

She was trying so hard to be tough and brave, enduring a burned-up apartment, a repossessed car. A sudden tenderness swept through him so raw and stark it had him shaking his head. He wanted to pull her into his arms, hold her close and tell her everything was going to be all right. But he had no right to comfort her. He’d given up his right when he’d filed for divorce.

“You were thinking it.”

“I was thinking…” No he couldn’t say what he was thinking. A spasm shot through his right hand. He dropped the weight. It fell to the floor with a loud thunk. He shook his hand trying to free it of the charley horse. “How heavy that weight was getting,” he finished, wincing.

“Cramp?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Here,” she said, stepping across the room toward him, hips swaying in that sassy walk of hers. “Let me.”

He started to say no, that it would be all right, but before he could pry the words from his mouth, she was there, reaching for his hand.

Touching him.

Tilting her head and studying him.

She placed the pad of her thumb in the center of his savaged palm, her fingers wrapping around the back of his hand. Her skin was so warm against his, but he was self-conscious about the scars.

Her thumb kneaded his palm in widening circles. She was so close. Too close.

He could feel the blood pumping through his veins as he stared at her moist, luscious lips. He remembered exactly how they tasted like summer raspberries. A taste he craved.

Swallowing past the lump of aching desire blocking his throat, Shane pulled his hand from hers. “The cramp’s gone.”

He lied. It wasn’t gone. But for the sake of his sanity he had to distance himself from her. Before he ended up doing something that would ruin everything for both of them. He couldn’t have her. He was engaged to Elysee and the river of ancient history was too wide to cross.

“Come on,” he said gruffly. “I’ll give you that ride.”

“Yes,” she agreed with a quick nod.

Forty minutes later they stood in her driveway, surveying the burned-out ruins of her apartment.

A gasp rose to Tish’s lips the minute she grasped the extent of the damage. He watched the impact on her face, saw how her features sank and crumpled. He had an overwhelming urge to reach out and put an arm around her shoulders to steady her, but he did not.

The arson investigator and his team were there, sifting through the rubble.

“Who are you people?” the investigator asked.

“It’s my apartment. Or it was,” Tish said, eyeing his helpers as they relocated pieces of her charred life and sifted them into different piles.

“You can’t be here. The investigation isn’t complete.”

“We just came for my car.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of her landlady’s garage.

“All right, but please back away from the perimeter.”

“Is everything completely destroyed?”

“Pretty much.”

“Do you have any idea who might have started the fire?” Shane asked. He stepped closer to the investigator, his shoes crunching loudly in the red lava landscape gravel that fronted the garage.

The investigator shook his head. “We can’t release any information at this time. I’m going to have to ask you folks to get what you came for and be on your way.”

“Hey,” one of the team members called to another. “I found something intact. It was buried under a stack of burned-up books.”

All eyes swung the man’s way. He was holding up a bookend, a sculpted little girl with a pail of water in her hand carved from the burl of two banyan trees that had twined and grown together. Somehow it had come through the fire unscathed, probably because it had been buried under the books. Shane recognized it and felt an immediate sorrowful tug in his gut.

He’d bought the Jill half of the Jack and Jill bookends for Tish at a rummage sale while they were on their honeymoon in Galveston. She’d fallen in love with it the moment she’d seen it.

“Remember the day you bought that for me?” Tish whispered.

“I remember,” he said gruffly.

“We never did find Jill’s mate.”

“No Jack.”

“Can I have it?” she asked the arson investigator. “Please.”

“I’m afraid it’s evidence until the investigation is closed.”

Evidence of what?
Shane wondered.
A memory gone bad? A promise forgotten?

“All right,” she told the investigator, then to Shane she said, “I’m ready to leave now.”

Shane walked her to the car and opened the door for her. She slid across the leather. He handed her his cell phone. “Here, take my cell.”

“What for?”

“Your cell phone burned up in the fire. You’re a woman driving alone in a big city and it’s almost forty miles to the ranch. Take my phone.”

“But aren’t you following me back?”

“No, I’ve got a couple of things to do first.”

They looked at each other. Was that longing in his eyes? Sadness?

She took the cell phone. “Thank you.”

He moistened his lips and for one wonderful moment she thought he might kiss her good-bye. “That was weird about the Jill bookend. The only thing that survived the fire intact.”

“Weird,” she echoed, her eyes hooked on his mouth. The tension, the emotion, the sad yearning for days gone by vibrated the air between them.

“I never found the Jack bookend for you like I promised.”

“No.”

“I should have found it,” he said. “I should have kept my promise.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter, Tish. I let you down.”

“It’s too late for that, Shane.”

Was it her imagination or was his hand trembling ever so slightly? She saw the anguish in his eyes. What did he want from her? What did he expect?

“I could go on the Internet tonight, check out eBay, search for the bookend.”

“You don’t have time for that. You’ve got a hand to heal. You’re getting married in a month. You’ve got preparations to make. Besides, what use do I have for bookends? My books are all gone.”

“Tish,” he murmured her name again.

“I release you, Shane, from any obligations you might still be feeling toward me. You don’t owe me a thing.”

“But I made a promise.”

“Things happen. People aren’t always able to keep the promises they made in good conscience. Let yourself off the hook, Shane. I’m not holding it against you that you never bought that other bookend for me.”

“You’ve changed.” He looked at her as if really seeing her for the first time.

“I have to go. Elysee is expecting me. We’re going to work on the video.” She had to get out of here before she did something completely stupid, like telling him she was still in love with him. She started the engine.

“Drive safely.” He raised his hand.

She slammed the car into gear, backed out of the carport, and left him standing there, looking utterly confused.