The Birthday Fantasy (3 page)

She never was much of a dress and polish type of girl, loving a comfortable pair of jeans and a soft t-shirt over lace and silk, but she could always use the clothes after she was married.
How could she ever wear any of this stuff when she was with Robbie? She glanced at the cheerful bags in Tate’s hands.

“There’s the last shop.” Tate’s voice pulled her out of the bedeviling thought.

“I think I have everything I need.” She could never wear any of this stuff again. The silk blouse she couldn’t believe she fell in love with three stores back. Nor that beautiful flowy skirt in the prettiest shade of green she’d ever seen, the shorts, and the tank tops. And especially she’d never wear the string bikini she bought thinking not of her fiancé’s reaction to it, but Tate’s.

“It’s a dress shop. You need
at least three nice dresses.”

She stopped
and stared into the window at a royal blue gown.

“You like that dress.”

Blinking, she realized she’d been standing frozen for several moments. “But where would I ever wear something like that?”

He took her hand. The rightness of it had her meeting his gaze. He swallowed and smiled. “C’mon.
I’m told the dinners here are of the dress up kind. If I have to suffer a suit and tie, you have to get all dolled up, too.”

“You in a suit? That, I can’t wait to see.” Was the world entering so
me kind of weird alternate universe like in those science fiction movies she liked to watch?

“Y
ou should feel privileged. You’re the only one I’d ever suffer a money suit for. Hell, I didn’t even wear one to my old man’s funeral.”

T
hey entered the shop with Tate still holding her hand.

A
willowy middle-aged woman seemed to float around an antique desk doubling as the checkout counter. “Welcome to Queen’s Boutique. How can I help you?”

Jamie met the bright smile with a tentative one of h
er own. “I’d love to try on the blue gown in the window.” She looked around at the other evening gowns and cocktail dresses in every color. “I’ll also need at least two other dresses. And shoes, too. I guess for dinner.” She raised a brow at Tate. “I’m told they’re black tie only affairs.”

“Yes. The management’s goal is to offer our guests a chance to live outside themselves. To go beyond what they might normally do to experience life in completely new and unique ways.”
The woman’s smile broadened as she headed toward the gown in the window. “With your coloring that one-of-a-kind dress will be beautiful on you.” She looked at Tate. “Your husband--”

“Oh, he’s not my husband.” Jamie interrupted
, and he let go of her hand. She instantly felt a chill run down her spine.

He shifted the bags into both hands.
“I’m just a friend.”

Had Jamie imagined the flatness of his statement?

“Oh.” The sales lady covered the blunder with a wave of her hand toward a delicate French couch. “Come, sir, you can place your other purchases down here. The young lady will have fun trying on some very lovely dresses.”

****

Tate closed his eyes and waited for the burn in his chest to stop. What the hell was he thinking bringing Jamie to a place catering to love, sex and fantasies when none of them could ever happen between them? Was he really that sadistic?

He got his answer when the louvered door to the dressing room opened and
Jamie stepped out in the blue ball gown. His heart stopped in his chest and fell to his stomach. Jesus, an angel couldn’t be this amazing.

The clerk had pulled
Jamie’s red hair up and pinned the waves up on top of her head with wisps falling around her face and the slender column of her neck. The smooth pale skin of her bare shoulders glowed under the soft lighting. The floor-length shirt shimmered with a life of its own and made her even more ethereal.

She
smoothed the gauzy material and looked up. The brilliant blue of the dress matched her eyes, making them as deep as the lake outside the shop’s windows. He couldn’t have spoken if his life depended on it. He had no breath left. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Jamie
cleared her throat. “What do you think?”

Tate
sucked in a breath and swallowed hard, his mouth dry, but nothing stopped the raging need for her. He finally managed to speak by thinking of her wearing the dress on her wedding trip. The pain ripping through him was as bad as the unrequited desire. “The dress is beautiful, princess.” A red blush crept into her cheeks, and she lowered her head. “I think you should wear that tonight.”

She met his eyes again and shook her head.
“I don’t know, Tate.”q

“I think it’s perfect.” Then he forced out words that cut him to the quick. “Besides, after you’re married, you and Jefferson will surely be going to some fancy-assed parties.”

“I’m sure.” Averting her gaze to the skirt, she cleared her throat again, and her smile looked as painted on as a clown’s face. “I’ll humor you. Since it’s your credit card getting the workout.”

Through the entire exchange between Tate and Jamie, the clerk busied herself with choosing other gowns
and matching shoes for her to try on. She returned with the dresses draped over one arm and three shoe boxes. “Should we try on other gowns? You remind me of Louisa D'aubigne. You’re every bit as beautiful.”

Jamie
snapped her head around to the woman.

The woman smiled, but it never reached her eyes. “I’m sorry
. Her acting career was such a short one and you’re both probably too young to have ever heard of her. She was a friend of mine. Her parents opened the resort back in the late fifties after moving to America from France.”

“You knew my mother
?” Jamie whispered.

Tate knew very little of Hank Raines’ late wife. Only that she had been an up-and-coming actress connected to this resort and that she’d died in a car accident only two months after Jamie was born. He’d seen photos of the woman in the ranch
house, though. Hank had them sitting everywhere. And yeah, Jamie resembled her mother a great deal; except Louisa had dark hair and Jamie inherited her father’s color.

The clerk’s eyes widened and she stepped away
. One of the shoeboxes tumbled to the floor, spilling out a pair of strappy gold-colored high heels, but either she or Jamie seemed to notice. “You’re her little girl? She and I went to school together and started this shop before she went to California to pursue her acting career. It was her idea to build the shopping center, in fact. I was so heartbroken when she passed away.”

He picked up the forgotten shoes and
set the box on a fancy little table next to the clerk.

“I never knew my mother.”
Her tone pulled on his heart.

The
saleslady set the boxes she carried on the small table and rested her hand on Jamie’s bare shoulder. “I’m so sorry. My name’s Juliet Gracen. I was your mom’s maid of honor when she married that cowboy from Texas.” Juliet smiled and shook her head. “Hard to believe she’d fall for a man like him. Rough, tough and everything she wasn’t. But fall she did. She was engaged to a rich Hollywood director, in fact, but broke off the engagement when she met Henry.>

Henry? Oh, Hank’s real name was Henry. Wo
w… Tate was glad he’d sat on the couch again. He had the strangest sense of déjà vu he’d ever had.

“It’s said that the director was so angry, he had Louisa blacklist
ed and she never worked again. But Louisa never cared. She moved to Texas and as far as I know lived happily.” Ms Gracen shifted the dresses she held and picked a little black number off a rack.

Jamie met his gaze, and from the shock stretching her delicate features, he knew she felt
that weird sense of something working, too. “Where did my mother and father meet, Ms Gracen?”

“Here, of course, her father invited him to the resort when he was looking for a new producer for our prime beef.” Juliet laughed and
hugged the dresses to her chest. “I think Mr. D'aubigne considered that the best decision he’d ever made until his dying day.”

“Why?” Tate had to know.

“Because he hated the Hollywood director. Louisa and Henry met at the meeting and there was no changing the course of their fates. They were soul mates.”

Jamie ended up trying on four other dresses
—a deep green velvet number she instantly rejected, the black mini Juliet insisted she try on, a turquoise sheath dress with gold accents, and a strapless white silk mermaid gown trimmed in satin roses. She didn’t let Tate see her in the last dress and didn’t understand why she had to have it. The damned thing looked like a wedding gown—her ideal dress and everything the one hanging on her closet door in Texas was not. She had this nagging voice in her head telling her she’d need the dress and that it was perfect. When she’d wear it, she had no freaking idea.

They
left the shop and went to a small open air café, where they ordered Starbucks coffee and ice cream cones from the connected soda parlor. After they found a small empty table overlooking the marina, Jamie said, “I had no idea how Daddy and my mother met. No one ever talked about it.”

Tate
bit off the swirly top of his vanilla ice cream cone. “Me either.”

Jamie
sipped her coffee. “He doesn’t talk about her much. Only that he loved her and I remind him of her.”

“Your grandparents
aren’t living, are they?”

She
shook her head. “No. My grandfather died about six years ago and Grandma passed away about ten years ago. My mother was the youngest of seven children. Her three brothers and two of her sisters, along with a whole slew of my cousins, now run this place.”

S
he licked the melting chocolate ice cream. Was her father hoping some kind of repeat of history? He may not like Robbie, but she’d chosen to marry him. Daddy should respect her decision to spend her life with him.

Tate c
runched through his waffle cone. “I’m sorry I let him talk me into this, Jamie.”

On the deck of a small yacht docked near the edge of the marina, a couple kissed passionately as if they didn’t have a care in the world. As they pulled apart, the woman laughed and her joy stabbed Jamie’s heart. God,
the woman practically glowed. Had she ever felt so happy with Robbie?

She was sure she had. Before all the hectic wedding plans absorbed her time and dealing with her future mother-in-law
concerning every decision gave her headaches. Robbie had been busy closing big deals, and many nights, he hadn’t been home. When he left last week for the trip to Las Vegas to work some deal with a group of investors, she’d packed a bag and had come home to the ranch.

She pulled her gaze from the man and woman on the boat. Robbie should be here with her now. Not the man who had been her best friend for the past fifteen years.

“It’s okay.” She finished off her ice cream, not tasting it, and sipped her cooling latte. “I’ve been feeling a little stressed lately. Maybe a vacation is exactly what I need. Robbie’s on a business trip this week and his mom is the kind of woman who likes to take over. She dislikes the whole idea of having the wedding at the ranch. She wanted to have some big shindig at some Dallas country club.”

“Your dad hasn’t said much about the wedding plans.”

She shrugged and looked at her Starbucks cup. “I haven’t told him much of the details. Norma—Robbie’s mom—and I have been batting heads. I figured I didn’t need Daddy in on that, too. Dealing with both of them would be as fun as staring down a cattle stampede.”

He chuckled. “Sounds delightful.” Looking around, he leaned back in his chair. “You know, this place is probably the fanciest place I’
ve ever been to. Hard to believe you’re connected to it.”

“Yeah, I know. My grandparents were rich and escaped France with their fortune before World War II. After making more money running a hotel in New York, they moved here and bought this lake.”

“Holy crap!”

She laug
hed at the way his eyes bugged.

He looked around.
“The whole damned lake?”

Smiling around her cup,
she finished her latte. “Yep, and a lot of the mountain property, too.”

He looked around again. “Does Robbie know about this place?”

She shrugged. “Probably. Though, I don’t really talk about my mom’s family. Or their fantasy resort.” She stood and gathered their trash. “I bet he’d love it. Not because of what goes on here, but because he’d like to copy it somewhere. What time’s dinner?”

Standing, he glanced at his watch. “I think the website said they sta
rt serving at five and it’s that time now. We still have to check in and change. What time did you want to eat?”

The
tangerine sun was high over the western mountain like a diamond-encrusted crown, turning the blue of the water a burnished yellow. She stared at the beauty for a moment, then shook her head and met his gaze. “Think we can be ready by seven?”