Here Comes the Bride (3 page)

“They’re tiger stripes,” he drawled.

“Pardon me?”

“My underwear. They’re tiger stripes. I thought you might be … wondering.” Nick saw that blush of hers again. He gave a slow grin. He shouldn’t take such delight in getting a rise out of her, but he couldn’t help himself. That shade of pink looked provocative on her.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t care if they’re iridescent blue spangles,” she returned haughtily, then snatched the drink from his hand and took a hard swallow.

“Oh? My mistake.” He gave an easy shrug but continued to study her carefully. She was still wearing white, but not wool this time. His gaze trailed over the length of her and he realized he liked what he saw.

Fiona could feel the heat of Nick’s gaze. She glanced across the patio to where her father
was helping Winnie anchor the napkins under the plates before the things could become airborne in the light evening breeze, wishing she could put some distance between Nick and herself.

Nick turned to glance at the pair as well. “I advised Auntie to have Walter sign a prenuptial agreement I took the liberty of drawing up,” he said.

That got Fiona’s attention. She spun around, her flashing green eyes meeting the cool blue of his. “You did
what?
”

“I advised Auntie—”

“I heard you the first time,” she snapped in irritation. “What I want to know is, whatever for?”

“To protect her, of course.”

“Protect her? From what? From whom?”

“From your father. You can’t be too careful, especially about things like money. Auntie has a lot of it, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t look after her best interests.”

Fiona dragged in a deep breath and set her drink down with a brisk thunk. “Let me get this straight,” she said, glowering up at the man in front of her. “You think my father is … is—?”

“A womanizer,” Nick finished.

Walter Ames wouldn’t take a dime of someone else’s money—especially a woman’s. He was a proud man, a man with old-fashioned
values. If he wanted to marry Winnie, it certainly wasn’t because of her money.

She couldn’t believe she was hearing this. “Now wait just one minute,” she said, planting her hands on her hips. “My father is not, and never has been, a … a …” She couldn’t even say the word, and she was angry at Nick for thinking it. “Just what gives you the right to judge him?”

He dragged a hand over the back of his neck. “Look, I’m a lawyer. And Auntie’s legal counsel. I’m sorry if you’re offended by this but—”

“Offended? Is that what you think I am?”

Nick smiled. No, she was more like an avenging angel, he thought. Hot and volatile and gorgeous. Tonight she’d worn that thick, curly mane of red hair down. It teased at her creamy neck and skimmed the tops of her shoulders. Shoulders that were squared at the moment to do battle. Her eyes were wide and green and flashing fury in defense of her father.

He loved that stance, her beautiful chin raised a fractious notch, her pink-manicured hands on the rounded curve of her hips, one gold-sandaled toe tapping in front of him. It was enough to unnerve a lesser man.

Hell, it was enough to unnerve him.

She should wear white all the time, he thought. It made her skin look flawless, as
pearly as a ten-dollar poker chip. He’d been trying to keep his gaze off that delectable neckline that showed the tiniest hint of cleavage, but it was a losing battle.

“You’re right,
offended
is too mild a word,” he said. “However, look at this from my point of view. What do I really know about Walter Ames?” Besides the fact that he has one tempting daughter, he thought quietly. “Nothing. He could be a gigolo, a con man, a …” He was making this worse, had her fur really flying now. He eased off. “Look, your father could very well be a nice man, good, decent. But the truth is, this wedding popped up too damn fast.”

“Exactly,” she chimed in. “And what do I know about your aunt Winnie? Zippo.”

She was turning the tables. Neatly. Nick hid a grin. He liked that. “Hold that thought,” he said, not wanting to end the conversation, not wanting to miss the fire in those beautiful eyes. “I think the kabobs need turning.”

He shagged across the patio. They did, he realized, and he deftly flipped them over.

“Where were we?” he asked, when he turned around to find her behind him. “Need a refill on your drink?”

Fiona shook her head. She was certain she’d had enough scotch for one evening. In fact, she’d had enough of the evening.

If only she could grab her father by the shirt collar and drag him away. Away from this family who believed he was some kind of gold digger.

“You were saying something about Aunt Winnie, I believe.” He took a swallow of his drink, eyeing her over the rim.

Fiona dragged in a breath. She didn’t want to say anything derogatory about the woman. She’d just been trying to make a point. “Not about your aunt, but about the wedding plans. You’re right. This has all happened too quickly. I think they need to wait, perhaps until they know each other better. They might find they’re not at all suited to one another.” Men could be very susceptible to whirlwind romances. Easily led down a primrose path before they knew what had hit them.

She glanced up at Nick. She could not in her wildest imagination see
him
being led down any primrose path. No matter how enticing the woman.

He was a man who knew his way around in this world. And it hadn’t taken any suitcase of lady-killer briefs to tell her that. Everything about him bespoke maleness. Powerful maleness. She just wished that fact didn’t send little shivers racing over her skin.

She glanced up as Nick let out a low chuckle. “Just what are we arguing about here?” he asked. “You don’t approve of this
wedding any more than I do.” He studied her long and hard as if enjoying the idea of their being on the same side. “If we’re smart we’d put our heads together and work out some way to foil tomorrow’s little ceremony.”

Fiona just wanted the pair to think about what they were doing. Marriage was a major step, not one to be taken lightly. “Foil it? Short of kidnapping the two of them, how do you expect to do that?”

She doubted very much that Nick could come up with an effective plan on such short notice. Besides, pooling brain power with this man was a little more togetherness than she thought wise. It made her nervous. She didn’t like having to spend more time in his company than was absolutely necessary.

“Unless we want to watch them march down that aisle tomorrow, we’re going to have to come up with something,” he continued.

Fiona sighed. She knew it wasn’t their place to interfere, but she
was
afraid her father was making a terrible mistake.

She massaged her tense neck. “Okay,” she said. “It may already be too late to do anything, but we’ll give it a try.”

Dinner was strained at best. Walter and Winnie held hands and smiled at each other besottedly all through the meal, while Nick and Fiona frowned. The couple didn’t seem to notice. Or that the conversation flagged.

The possibility that she and Nick sway this impetuous twosome looked bleak indeed.

When dinner was finished, Nick scraped back his chair. “It looks like you two want to be alone. Why don’t I drop Fiona at her hotel, maybe even show her some of the town’s nightlife along the way?”

“Oh, that’s nice of you, dear,” Winnie exclaimed. “I did want Walter to stay and help me decide about the placement of the flowers in the gazebo for the ceremony.”

Fiona’s mouth gaped open. Before she could object, Nick assisted her up from her seat and whispered in her ear, “Trust me.”

Trust him? The man wanted to take her away from her father when time was a scarce commodity. She wasn’t about to trust him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped a few minutes later as they cleared the table. Fiona dogged his heels, carrying a stack of dishes inside. “I don’t want to see this town’s nightlife and I don’t want to go back to my hotel.”

“We need a plan if we’re going to stall the wedding. And we can’t very well have a strategy session right here under their noses, now, can we?”

They’d reached the kitchen. Fiona slid the dirty plates onto a peacock-blue tile countertop and faced him squarely. “A strategy session?
What’s wrong with setting them down and having a little heart-to-heart talk?”

Nick rinsed a plate and dropped it into the dishwasher. “Wouldn’t work. We’d come off sounding like irate parents lecturing a pair of willful teenagers. We’re going to have to come up with something better.”

“Like what?”

“Like I don’t know yet. That’s why we need to talk.”

Fiona handed him another plate. “Why is it you’re against this wedding?” she asked, gazing up at him. “Besides the ridiculous notion that you think my father chases women for their money?”

Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. It had been a jaded thought, but after he’d seen Walter with Fiona, his mind had taken a right turn. The guy’d been a husband, a father, and though that didn’t eliminate all men from the louse category, it did cast Walter in a more favorable light.

At least he would give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being.

“Statistics,” he said dryly. “We live in the divorce capital of the country, the place where those made-in-heaven romances come to die.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And that’s what you think will happen to Walter and Winnie?”

“That’s the odds, like ’em or not.”

“And when it does, you believe my father will want a chunk of your aunt’s money?”

He’d seen that—and worse—in his practice. What two people could do to each other in the name of love had ceased to surprise him a long time ago. He’d been an idealistic young lawyer once, had taken on no more than the usual number of divorce cases, but when the word got around that he always won his clients a sizable settlement, his caseload skyrocketed. He was the new young gun in town and soon he was trying celeb cases, not just for the impetuous of Hollywood, but for rich and powerful clients as well. The better he became at what he did, the less he liked it.

Sooner or later they all came, looking for the easy out, the painless divorce. Lately he’d been called to consult on some of the more difficult cases around the country.

That’s where he’d been the past week—and what he’d seen hadn’t exactly endeared the institution of marriage to him.

Fiona wondered how Nick had gotten so cynical in his thirty-some years. “Tell me,” she said. “Did Winnie get my father to sign that prenuptial agreement?”

If she had, that should tell her father something about the woman he was about to marry.

Nick dropped in the last dish, then snapped the dishwasher closed and cranked
the dial to
WASH
before he answered. “No, Auntie refused even to consider it. She said she and Walter didn’t need any silly piece of paper like that, they were in love.”

Winnie went up a notch or two in Fiona’s estimation. “Good for her.”

“Good for …? I thought you were as much against this wedding as I am.”

Fiona put her hands on her hips. “I just believe that if two people are going to marry, they should first and foremost trust each other.”

He studied her warily for a long moment. “It isn’t going to happen—the wedding, that is. Come on, we’ll say our good-byes to the happy couple and get out of here.”

“Look, Nick, I don’t know what kind of a plan we can come up with by tomorrow. Maybe I should just try to talk to my father and you talk to Winnie and—”

“And you think that will work?”

“It may.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Fiona gave a long, shuddering sigh. “Then we—”

“Burn down the gazebo?” Nick supplied.

She frowned.

“Come on.” He took her by the elbow.

“We’ll think of something.”

As they passed the bright yellow wall
phone in the kitchen, it jangled. “I’ll get that and be right out,” Nick said.

Fiona trekked off through the cool interior of the family room. As she made her way around the breezy rattan furniture, she wondered how her father would ever be comfortable in this house. She tried to picture just where Winnie would park his battered old recliner with the worn seat cushion, the one Fiona knew he’d never part with.

She dragged a hand through the thick sweep of her hair. Of course, she hadn’t believed he’d ever eat rutabaga and lamb either—and tonight he’d polished off Winnie’s kabobs like he was a man starving.

With a frown she started toward the patio.

“There you are, Fiona,” Winnie greeted her. “I need your advice about the flowers. Walter’s no help at all. Where’s Nicholas?”

“He’s on the phone.”

“Oh.” Winnie glanced toward the house for a moment, then turned her attention back to the gazebo. And Fiona. “I thought we might place a basket of orange blossoms on either side of the minister and trail pink flori-bundas over the side latticework. What do you think? I need a woman’s opinion.”

Fiona would prefer not to give her opinion, but short of being rude, there was little else she could do but follow her soon-to-be stepmother across the green carpet of lawn.
She tossed her father a visual plea for help before she did so, but he only returned it with that silly smile he’d been wearing lately.

“Auntie,” Nick called from the patio. “It’s Camille on the phone.”

“Camille?” Winnie squealed, and was off like a shot to take the overseas call.

Nick had brought a cordless phone outdoors and handed it to his aunt.

While Winnie chatted and motioned frantically for Walter to join her, Nick sauntered across the lawn to Fiona. “We’re not going to be singing the ‘Wedding Bell Blues’ tomorrow after all,” he said, draping an arm around her shoulders.

Even that simple touch set off a chain reaction of emotions in Fiona. Tempestuous, wild emotions. “What are you saying?”

“Camille has decided to come home for the wedding and she wants us to hold up everything until she gets here.” He lifted Fiona’s chin with the tip of one finger. “That buys us the time we need.”

Fiona won fifty-three dollars playing the dollar slots at Caesar’s, then promptly lost it all again. “Easy come, easy go, I guess,” she said, turning to Nick.