Something About You (23 page)

“WHAT’S WITH AGENTS O’Donnell and Rawlings? Why couldn’t we just bring Jack with us?” Cameron asked as she followed Amy outside. The two FBI agents walked a few paces behind them.

“Because I consider Jack a wedding guest, and you are the only guest who gets the sneak preview. Besides, Jack needed a few minutes to get ready for the wedding.”

Cameron stepped gingerly in her silver heels off the walkway and onto a white fabric runner. She followed Amy across the lawn to the enormous white domed tent that had been set up on a hill overlooking the bay.

Cameron took small, careful steps in her bridesmaid dress, although there probably wasn’t much need to do so. The dress was fitted but had a slit on one side at her calf that made it easier to walk. Over the last eight months, the one part of Amy’s pickiness that she didn’t mind in the least had been her selection of the maid of honor dress—the same color and material as the bridesmaid dresses Melanie and Jolene were wearing, but different in style. Handpicked just for her, Amy had said. And when she’d said next that the dress was fuchsia, Cameron had nearly handed over her maid of honor badge right there.

Then she’d seen the dress Amy had chosen for her. Halter-style and pretty from the front, but that was nothing compared to the back.

Or, rather, the fact that there wasn’t any back to the dress.

After that, Cameron had shut her mouth and vowed to never question Amy’s judgment in anything bridal-related again.

“Are you sure you should be out here in your dress?” Cameron the Dutiful Maid of Honor asked Amy nervously. “What if you trip and get a grass stain on it or something?” Back when they’d gone dress shopping, she’d nearly choked at the price of the one Amy had chosen, a blush and ivory strapless taffeta Carolina Herrera with intricate ruffle detailing worthy of a nineteenth-century ball gown.

Amy shrugged. “Then I guess I’ll just have to deal with it.”

Cameron blinked. “Okay. Who are you and what have you done with my friend?”

Amy laughed as they came to the end of the runner. She waited as Agent Rawlings stepped into the tent to check things out. When he nodded, she grabbed Cameron’s hand. “So when guests step inside the tent through this main entrance here”—she pulled Cameron inside—“they’ll see this.”

For a moment, Cameron was speechless.

It was breathtaking. There simply was no other way to describe it. They stood at the entrance of the tent, facing the altar. The fabric runner continued on, becoming a white center aisle across the grass that divided the silver and white Versailles chairs guests would sit on. Scattered across the runner were fuchsia and red rose petals and multihued leaves upon which Amy and the bridesmaids would walk. Along the aisle, all the way to the altar, were tall pillar candles that glowed softly. The altar itself was a site to behold, lit elegantly with additional white and silver candles and adorned with more red and fuschsia roses than Cameron had ever seen.

The most striking feature, however, was the thousands of tiny silver lights arranged in elegant tiers across the top of the tent. At night, she imagined, it would look just like a starlit sky.

Cameron stepped farther into the tent, taking it all in.

“And we’ll have a harpist here at the entranceway, to play music as the guests take their seats,” Amy was saying. “The ceremony is at six thirty, which will be right at sunset. Afterward, while we take our pictures and the guests have cocktails and appetizers back at that gazebo we passed, they’ll set up the tables for the reception. The string quartet will be over there for the ceremony, which is where the band will go for the reception. They’ll set up a dance floor over here . . . Oh, did I mention the heat lamps? See—hidden along the perimeter there? We had a hell of a time figuring out what to do with all the electric cords . . .”

Amy paused and looked anxiously at Cameron. “You haven’t said anything. Do you think it’s too much?”

Cameron shook her head. “No. You did it, Amy. It really is the most perfect wedding ever.”

Amy smiled. “We used to come here every Labor Day weekend when I was a kid. I think I was nine years old the first time. I knew, even then, that this was the place I wanted to get married.”

They both turned at the sound of a displeased voice coming up the path behind them.

“I told Amy she could have twenty minutes with you guys,” Jack was saying to Agents O’Donnell and Rawlings, who stood attentively at the entrance to the tent. “It’s been nearly twenty-five minutes and I—”

Cameron looked over her shoulder just as Jack stalked into the tent. He got his first glimpse of the back of her dress. Or lack thereof.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

“Wow.”

His eyes lingered on her for another moment before he turned to Amy, gesturing. “This place looks great, Amy. You did one hell of a job.”

Amy grinned. “Nice recovery, Jack.”

Cameron walked over and touched Jack’s face, unable to resist. “You shaved.” She took in the classically handsome chiseled features he’d been hiding underneath the scruff, as well as how incredible he looked in his dark gray suit. It should’ve been illegal for a man to walk around like that without some sort of permit.

Jack grinned as she checked out his smooth jaw. “Don’t worry—it’ll be back in about two hours.” He took his time looking her over. “You look stunning.”

From behind them, Amy cleared her throat. “Not to break this up, but we have this wedding to get to . . . Cameron—you have your itinerary for tonight?”

“Yep. In my purse.”

“Jack?”

He patted his blazer. “Got all six pages right here.”

“As indicated on page two, I’ll see you in the gazebo for bridal party pictures in five minutes.” Amy pointed at Cameron. “Don’t be late and make me regret choosing you for this position instead of Collin.”

“Was he seriously in the running?” Cameron asked, slightly offended by this.

“Only briefly. But I figured his wedding toast would be filled with all sorts of lame sports references.” Amy’s expression was stern. “I’m expecting much better things from you.” She left in a whirl of blush and ivory taffeta.

Jack nodded at Agents Rawlings and O’Donnell, who stepped outside for a moment, leaving them alone.

With a warm smile, he turned to Cameron and held out his hand. “So? Are you ready for this?”

She took his hand, lacing her fingers through his.

“Definitely.”

AMIDST THE CLAPPING and cheering, Jack escorted Cameron back to their table. He leaned in to congratulate her on a job well done when Collin raised his glass and beat him to it.

“Fantastic toast,” Collin said enthusiastically. “A few laughs, a few tears—seriously, you smoked the best man.”

Cameron shushed him as she took the seat between him and Jack, with a pointed glance in the direction of the other two couples at their table. Friends of the groom, she had whispered to Jack earlier—part of Amy’s plan to encourage mixing and conversation amongst the various groups. He’d actually already known who they were, and who they were friends with, along with their full credit history and lack of priors, having texted their names to Wilkins for background checks as soon as they’d introduced themselves.

As Jack stood behind Cameron, helping her with her chair, he tried to focus on anything other than the bare satiny skin at his fingertips. It was quite artful, the way the dress covered her just so, right at the curve of her lower back. An inch lower and he might be able to see cheek . . .

He was going out of his damn mind.

“Aren’t bridesmaids dresses supposed to be ugly?” he grumbled as he took the seat next to her.

“As if Amy would let any part of this wedding be ugly,” Cameron said. Underneath the table, she rested her hand on his thigh and squeezed gently.

Jack sucked in his breath through gritted teeth. On the other side of her, however, Collin seemed wholly unfazed by Cameron’s appearance. Jack kept one eye carefully trained on him, thinking things had better stay that way. Gay or not, best friend or not, no one with a dick was getting within a foot of Cameron while she wore that dress.

“My only criticism of the speech is that I didn’t get as much airtime as I deserved,” Collin complained.

Cameron brushed this off. “You got plenty of airtime. I talked about how the three of us lived together senior year, didn’t I? I even mentioned how you used to make pancakes for me and Amy when we got home from the bars.”

“We’d talk about the boys we’d met that night,” Collin explained to Jack.

Jack was curious about this. Plus he needed something to keep his mind off Cameron in that dress. “How did the three of you meet?”

Cameron started to answer when Collin held up a hand, cutting her off. “Ahem. Since no one asked me to give a toast at this wedding, I will handle this question. Besides, I tell this story better than you do.”

Collin sat forward in his chair, lowering his voice dramatically. “It was a dark and stormy night.”

Cameron rolled her eyes. “Oh boy.”

Collin held up his hands. “What? It was a dark and stormy night. I should know—I walked you home that evening, remember?” He turned back to Jack. “It was our sophomore year. I was living in my fraternity house and had been having a rough time of things in college, struggling with the issue of whether I was gay. I was at Michigan on a baseball scholarship and homosexuality was not something one discussed casually within the athletic circles. Anyway, one night early in the year, my fraternity had an after-hours party and it was pouring outside. I was hanging out by the front door, drinking my usual—which back then was Jim Beam and Coke—when Cameron blew in, huddled under a red umbrella with Amy and another girl. They were all laughing, and when they closed the umbrella, Cameron stepped into the room and shook out her hair. It was like something out of a movie—she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.”

Jack toyed with his silverware. This story could go south very quickly . . . When his hand came to rest on his steak knife, this may or may not have been merely a coincidence.

“So I struck up a conversation with her and we hit it off right away,” Collin continued. “We started meeting up after classes, on the weekends, and I knew that this was it: if it was ever going to work with a woman, she was the one. A couple weeks later, we were hanging out in my room on a Saturday night and I had it all planned out—that was the night I was going to make my move.

“We were sitting on my couch listening to the radio—it was an eighties flashback night—and ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ came on. And Cameron sighed and rested her head against the back of the couch and said, ‘I like this song.’”

Cameron cut in here. “Then you inched closer to me and turned your face to mine. And you said, ‘I like this song, too.’”

“And I knew that was the moment,” Collin said. “So I leaned over and kissed her.”

Cameron took her hand off Jack’s thigh and removed the steak knife that mysteriously had made its way into his grip. He threw her an innocent look. Like he would ever harm one precious hair on Collin’s head . . . with witnesses around.

Nearing the climax of his story—for his sake, hopefully only in the literary sense—Collin continued. “The kiss went on for a bit, and I’m telling myself, ‘Okay, maybe this is actually working.’ So I pull back to see if she’s into it, and she gazes up at me with sort of an amused expression and says . . .” He gestured to Cameron.

“‘I’ve licked stamps who were more excited than you by that kiss.’”

Jack burst out laughing.

Collin shook his head with a grin. “I know, right? Jack, I’m telling you—I was crushed. But only for a moment, because then she reached up and held my face between her hands and said, ‘Collin—we’re friends, right?’ And I knew, even after only a few weeks, that this was a person who was going to be a very important part of my life. So I nodded yes, and she says, ‘Good. Then listen to me: you need to get over yourself and just admit you’re gay.’”

Collin looked at Cameron. “Hearing it said so matter-of-factly like that was liberating. So the next day, I decided to go to a very different type of after-hours party, on the other side of campus. And I kissed a guy for the first time.”

“Patrick,” Cameron said.

“You remember.”

“Of course I remember.”

Collin smiled. “And when I got home that night, she was the first person I called to tell about it.”

Cameron covered his hand with hers. “You’re right. You do tell that story better than me.”

“I like it,” said a voice from behind them. “I’ve never heard it before.”

Jack instinctively rested his hand on the harness under his suit as the three of them watched a blond, athletically built man in a well-cut suit approach their table.

Collin, who appeared shocked, was the first to speak. “Richard.”

Jack relaxed, recognizing the name. The ex-boyfriend who’d refused to come to the wedding.

“What are you doing here?” Collin asked him.

Richard’s face momentarily filled with emotion at the sight of Collin, then he collected himself and checked out the reception. “So this is Michigan. Not bad.”

There was an awkward pause as Collin remained silent. Richard shifted nervously.

Jack whispered in Cameron’s ear. “Why don’t we go dance?”

“I think that’s a great idea,” she said.

They said quick hellos to Richard before heading over to the dance floor to give them some space. Cameron glanced over her shoulder, and Jack’s eyes followed hers and saw that Richard had taken the seat next to Collin and appeared to be doing most of the talking. Collin was at least listening, however, and at one point he rested his hand on the back of Richard’s chair. Cameron smiled at the sight and turned back to Jack.

He led her toward the far corner of the dance floor, where he could be alone with her while keeping his eye on everyone else. Taking her hand in his, Jack pulled Cameron into his arms. He held her close with his other hand on her bare lower back as they began to dance. They fit perfectly together; in her high-heeled shoes, the top of her head came right to his chin.

“Thank you for this. For everything. I wouldn’t have had this night if it wasn’t for you,” she said.

“I’m just sorry we couldn’t be here under different circumstances.”

“If there were different circumstances, you wouldn’t be here at all.” She shifted closer to him. “I’m glad you were the one who walked into my hotel room that night, Jack.”

He smiled. “What a change—two weeks ago you hated pretty much everything about me walking into that room.”

“That conversation would go a lot differently if we had it now. For starters . . . I don’t think there’d be much actual conversation,” she said in a throaty voice.

Jack’s eyes bored into hers. “I’m at the edge, Cameron. Tread cautiously.”

She shook her head, no. “I think it’s time for us to leave this wedding.”

“If we go now, there’s no coming back. You’re mine all night.”

Her eyes flashed. “Promise?”

That was it.

Jack grabbed her hand and pulled her off the dance floor, toward the main entrance of the tent. He stopped before Agent Rawlings, who had been posted there all evening.

“We’re heading back to the room,” Jack said. “You and O’Donnell should keep watch over the Tower lobby—both the elevators and the emergency stairwell.” He led Cameron out of the tent. The white runner went one direction, but he took her across the lawn toward the Tower. And their room.

Cameron threw him a look. “Nice. Rawlings probably knows exactly what we’re going to do.”

“Cameron, with the way you look tonight, every man at this wedding knows exactly what I plan to do with you.”

“Wow, that may be the sexiest thing any man has ever—shit—I’m ruining my heels in this grass. I keep sinking in.”

Without breaking stride, Jack lifted her into his arms and carried her.

“I could’ve just taken the shoes off,” Cameron said with a smile.

“I’m not wasting time while you undo those damn straps.”

He got her inside the Tower lobby, set her down, and led her into an elevator. He pushed the button for their floor. The minute the elevator doors shut, she reached for him. Jack caught her hands and spun her around, her back against his chest.

“Not yet, baby,” he said huskily in her ear. “I need to get you into that room safely.” He held her hands tightly, doubting he could take it if she so much as touched him. She pressed back and rubbed her just-out-of-sight ass teasingly against him.

Son of a bitch. Jack growled low in his throat. He thought about hitting the emergency stop button, pushing up her dress, and taking her right there in the elevator. And as much as he throbbed at the wanton image of her standing in her heels, bracing herself against the wall and moaning his name as he took her from behind, that was not the way things were going to happen for their first time together.

He bent his head and kissed the base of her throat, not trusting himself to get any closer to her mouth. He could feel her quick pulse underneath his lips. “Remember how I said I was in charge? That includes tonight, Cameron.”

With a sly smile, she closed her eyes, tilting her neck to give him better access. “We’ll see about that.”

They would see, Jack agreed. The minute they got into that room.

The elevator sounded, indicating they had arrived at their floor. The doors sprang open and he smacked Cameron lightly on the ass to get her moving.