The Bridal Path: Ashley (19 page)

He was endlessly fascinated by her moods, by the way light caressed her skin, by the way she could look like a sexy waif one minute and a sophisticated lady the next. Her low self-image was so thoroughly absurd that it never even crossed his mind, except in those moments when he witnessed her uncertainties crowding in to dismay her.

Their day in town was like time out of time. Nothing, he thought, could ever spoil the wonder of coming home again with Ashley Wilde on his arm. The way she gazed into his eyes with such trust and admiration and pure yearning meant more to him than all the business accolades he’d earned. In one intense moment, he realized that all he’d struggled to accomplish had been meant to prove something to this woman as much as to himself.

“Do you have any idea how good you are for me?” he asked when they had finally returned to his car and headed a half-hour late for Dani’s.

“If it’s even half as good as you are for me, then it must be incredible,” she said.

The truth of that was plain. The color was high in her cheeks, and her eyes were bright with pure joy. It was the happiest he’d seen her look since his arrival.

“I’m beginning to think you would have been a perfect match for Clyde if Bonnie hadn’t gotten to him first,” he teased.

“I abhor violence,” she said indignantly, then grinned. “But I do rather like being bad.”

“You realize, of course, that the only thing bad you’ve actually done today is to be seen with me.”

She sighed. “You’re right. I suppose the effect will wear off quickly enough when they discover you’re a perfectly respectable businessman and I’m on a downhill slide to nowhere.”

The remark made him see red. He jerked the car to the curb and slammed on the brakes. When he’d put the car in park, he framed her face with his hands and said fiercely, “Don’t you ever let me hear you say anything like that again, Ashley Wilde. You will always be somebody to me.”

She looked a little stunned by his vehemence. “I wish I could see myself through your eyes,” she said wistfully.

“You will,” he promised, thinking of all the convincing ways he could demonstrate just how beautiful and special she was. “When we get back to the cabin tonight, I will make sure that you see exactly what I see, okay?”

She shivered beneath his touch. Her gaze locked with his. “I can hardly wait.”

Now, in the face of that breathless anticipation, it was Dillon’s turn to tremble. “Do you think Dani would mind if we didn’t show up for dinner?”

She chuckled at that. “Mind? She’d be up at the cabin before we even got the bedroom door closed. No, sweetie, we might as well get on over there and face the inquisition.”

“Inquisition?” Dillon said warily.

“If you think that conversation on the sidewalk satisfied her, you’re deluding yourself. Add Sara and Jake into the mix and I’d say we’re in for a very long evening. We might even have to stay overnight–” she grinned at him “–in separate rooms.”

Dillon muttered a curse under his breath.

“My sentiments exactly,” she agreed. “Although, Mr. Ford, if you ever expect to get near my bed again, you are going to have to do some very fast talking to explain away all the secrets you’ve been keeping from me.”

He winced at her dire tone. “Maybe we should think about staying in town anyway,” he said, hurriedly improvising an excuse. “It’s a long drive, and we do have to get Mrs. Fawcett very early in the morning.”

“Chicken.”

“Just practical,” he assured her. “I know how much you love your beauty sleep.”

Given the context and her rampaging self-doubts, it was a dangerous thing to say. Ashley reacted by pummeling him in his midsection so hard that all the air whooshed out of him. He stared at her in amazement.

When he could finally catch his breath to speak, he said, “Nice jab.”

“I told you I boxed,” she said, looking vaguely sheepish.

“You also said you’d never actually hit a person.”

“Maybe I just hadn’t come across one so desperately in need of being punched before.”

Dillon couldn’t argue with that, but he reminded himself never to agitate her again and let his guard down at the same time. If word got out that he’d been bested by an untrained woman, his business would go straight down the tubes. Of course, there was one other way to turn her natural skill and fervor in his favor.

He studied her speculatively and wondered if he could convince her to make a drastic career change, give up modeling since it was making her unhappy anyway and become an associate in his firm.

“What?” she demanded. “You’re looking me over as if I’m a side of beef you’re considering buying.”

“Something like that,” he said and caught her fist right before it reached his stomach. “Not again, sweetheart.”

“Then stop staring.”

“I thought you thrived on people staring.”

“Not the way you are. Are you going to tell me what that look was about or not?”

“I think not, at least for the moment. A man should have at least one ace up his sleeve when dealing with the likes of you.” He started the car. “Now let’s go to dinner before your sister comes gunning for us.”

* * *

If Ashley had had her way, she would have prolonged the moment of their arrival at Dani’s for another hour or two, maybe a month or two. She knew exactly the kind of evening they were in for, and she was no more prepared for it than Dillon was. They simply didn’t have the sort of answers that would satisfy either of her sisters.

Maybe Jake and Dillon would bond in some protective, male way and keep the cross-examination to a minimum, she thought wistfully. She doubted it, though. No one had ever been able to silence any of the Wilde women when they had something on their minds. Since she personally had flown home to give Jake a fair amount of grief when he and Sara were dating–or more precisely, pretending they
weren’t
dating–she doubted he’d be inclined to bail her out.

Naturally, because she and Dillon were late, the whole troupe was waiting at the door for them. Sara caught hold of Ashley’s elbow at once and dragged her straight into the kitchen, her eyes flashing with excitement. Ashley caught one last glimpse of Dillon, who seemed a little stunned by their abrupt and unexpected separation.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” Sara demanded. “The one from high school?”

“I can’t imagine what you’re talking about,” Ashley insisted.

“Oh, fiddle-faddle,” Dani said, joining them. “You know perfectly well what Sara means. Everyone knew you had a thing for Dillon back then. At least you had sense enough not to act on it.”

“Implying that I no longer have any sense?” Ashley asked testily.

Dani ignored the display of temper. “All I know is that if you wanted to make a grand entrance when you came home to Riverton, you couldn’t have picked a better way to do it. The whole town is in an uproar speculating about how the two of you got together. The glamorous cover model and the renegade. It’s the stuff of headlines for the
Riverton Weekly.
”

“Is that supposed to bother me?”

Dani and Sara exchanged a look. It was Sara who spoke.

“It always did before. You were the one who always craved approval.” She gestured toward the living room. “Dillon Ford is definitely an attention-getter, but I doubt you’ll find anyone around who’ll sing his praises, unless it’s all those women who swooned for him way back then.”

“I don’t know about that. Daddy seems particularly fond of him,” she said casually.

“What?” The astonished gasps came in a chorus.

“It’s true,” Ashley assured them. “One, they have some sort of bond from way back that Dillon won’t say much about, just that he thinks of Daddy like a father. Two, Daddy invested in his company. Three, Daddy loaned him the cabin, which is how we wound up there together. I assumed it would be empty. Dillon turned up a few days later, assuming the same thing.”

“Well, I’ll be. I wonder what that’s all about,” Dani said. A speculative glint lit her eyes. “Are you absolutely certain Daddy didn’t know you were going to be at the cabin?”

“I know exactly what you’re driving at, but no, he wasn’t matchmaking. He thought I was in New York. He called the cabin the other day to talk to Dillon. When I answered the phone, he was definitely dumbstruck. Not even he could have faked that reaction.”

“Phone?” Sara said. “What phone? Daddy absolutely forbade the installation of a phone up there.”

“Dillon has a cell phone.”

“My, my, the bad boy has definitely gone mainstream,” Sara commented.

“It’s more than that,” Ashley said dryly. “He actually owns a big-time security company in Los Angeles. I even used one of his bodyguards last year when that crazy fan was threatening me.”

“And you didn’t know it was Dillon’s company?” Dani asked, her amazement plain.

Ashley shook her head. “I didn’t have a clue until today, as a matter of fact. I checked them out pretty thoroughly, but everyone seemed to be tight-lipped about the CEO, said he preferred to remain out of the limelight.”

“That’s a switch. Dillon was never shy,” Sara observed. “So, what’s the deal between you two? Are you just having a fling to make up for lost time or what?”

Ashley sighed. “I wish I knew.”

“Meaning?” Dani wanted to know.

“That I’m so confused these days, I barely know my own name, much less what I’m doing.”

“Has he been taking advantage of that?” Dani demanded indignantly.

She looked prepared to march into the living room and take Dillon on single-handedly if that was the case. Ashley gestured for her to settle down.

“He’s been an angel, actually. He’s boosted my self-confidence. He actually thinks I’m gorgeous.”

Sara’s eyebrows rose. “Whoever said you weren’t?”

Ashley exchanged a look with Dani. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

“I figured that it was up to you to tell anyone you wanted to know.”

“Will somebody just tell me?” Sara pleaded.

“I fired my agent. At the moment, I’m no longer modeling.”

Sara looked as stunned as if Ashley had announced that she was considering jumping off the Empire State Building attached to a bungee cord.

“You’re kidding, right?”

Ashley shook her head.

“But why? You love modeling. You’re at the height of your career. I can’t walk past a magazine rack without seeing your face.”

“Not lately, you haven’t. My agent told me I’d gained too much weight. The last thing he offered me was a shoot for a plus-sizes catalogue.”

Dani muttered a very uncharacteristic, unladylike oath. Sara echoed it.

“If you got any skinnier a strong wind would carry you away,” Sara protested indignantly. “Is he nuts or what?”

“Merely pragmatic, according to him.”

“And that’s been going on for the past few months?” Sara asked, her expression thoughtful. “So, that’s what had you down when you were here for my bronc-riding contest with Jake and again for the wedding.”

Ashley nodded.

Sara hesitated, then asked softly, “Can I ask you something?”

“Could I stop you?”

“If all we’re talking about is a couple of pounds here, why didn’t you just lose it? Heck, you could have afforded to go to some fancy spa and sweat it off.”

“Sara!” Dani protested.

“No, she’s right,” Ashley said. “I’ve asked myself the same question a thousand times. Goodness knows, I’m familiar with every diet known to man and I belong to the best health club in New York. I should have been able to take it off in a couple of weeks, tops. The only answer I’ve come up with is that modeling just doesn’t matter as much to me anymore as it once did. I seem to be subconsciously rebelling against it.”

“Maybe you just got tired of being thought of as a face or a body,” Sara suggested. “Maybe you needed to see somebody like Dillon to remember who Ashley Wilde really is.”

Ashley thought of the comfort she had felt just being with Dillon and knew at once that her sister was exactly right. It was more than just his appreciative glances, more than his loving touches. It was the fact that he had known her before she became famous, that he had cared for her even then. Dillon had been a godsend in more ways than one. He’d reminded her that there was more to life than rigid self-discipline and deprivation.

“You could be right,” she admitted.

“Right about what?” Dillon inquired from the doorway. He came in and rested a hand on her shoulder. “What are you women plotting in here?”

“Just deciding the future of the world,” Sara said blithely.

“Don’t believe her,” Jake chimed in. “These Wilde women are devious enough left to their own devices. Team the three of them up and a mere man doesn’t stand a chance.”

“I heard how she landed you,” Dillon told the other man. “Didn’t sound to me as if you put up too much of a struggle.”

“I rode a damned bronco for her,” Jake corrected indignantly, “after swearing I’d never get near another one.”

“You did that for the ranch, not me,” Sara reminded him.

Jake tilted her chin up and planted a noisy kiss on her lips. “It was always a package deal.” He glanced pointedly at Dillon. “They have very convenient memories, too.”

“So I’ve noticed,” Dillon said, his gaze fixed squarely on Ashley.

She blushed at that penetrating, intimate look. “I think we should go now,” she said.

“Now?” All three voices chimed in.

Then Dani added, “You haven’t even had dinner yet.”

“We haven’t?” Ashley asked vaguely, still meeting Dillon’s gaze.

“No, and I will be insulted if you don’t stay,” Dani insisted. Her mouth was set in a determined expression as she added, “Why, I haven’t even had a minute to chat with Dillon.”

Ashley murmured to the man in question. “You should have helped me out a minute ago. Now you’re just going to have to face the music.”

He grinned. “Oh, I think I can take anything your sister cares to dish out.”

Dani grinned at him and gave a nod of satisfaction. “Good. That’s settled, then. If everybody will take a dish into the dining room, I think we can eat.”

They’d barely settled down at the table when the doorbell rang. That was followed by an enthusiastic pounding.

“Maybe I’d better get it,” Jake said, glancing worriedly in the direction of the front door.