Runaway Bridesmaid (4 page)

She wasn't sure, but she thought he drew her just a little closer, close enough that she knew with certain dread that two layers of limp, thin, wet fabric were no barrier to his being able to feel her taut nipples against his chest. The half-grin grew downright insouciant. Lightning flickered eerily across his taut features as he said in a voice too soft for anyone else to hear, “But then again, it would appear that
some
things have improved considerably.”

It would
appear
the man had a death wish.

 

Panicked eyes locked with his, a little cry of alarm escaped parted lips…and, exquisitely timed with the next roar of thunder, two surprisingly strong fists crashed down with unerring aim on either side of his collarbone.

The cups in the glass-fronted cupboard rattled like maracas as Dean let go of Sarah with a grunt, then watched as she streaked past him and out the kitchen door. Rubbing one wounded shoulder, he heard her footsteps pound down the hall, up the stairs and down the upstairs hallway to her room, ending with a door slam that rattled the cups in the cupboard all over again.

Whoo-
ee
—she sure as hell was
stronger
than she used to be.

Still coddling his shoulder, he leaned against the open swinging door, half in, half out of the kitchen, and shut his eyes for a moment. She'd left more than a set of bruises behind. Her scent, damp and natural, lingered in his nostrils. And the effects of her body pressed against his still lingered below his waist. Although,
lingering
wasn't perhaps the most accurate description….

“Well, just don't stand there like a lump, boy. Get your butt in here.”

With a slight start, Dean shifted his attention to Sarah's mother, who was toweling off her hair, having already changed into dry jeans and another loose shirt. Dean couldn't remember ever seeing the statuesque woman in anything fitted, even when he was a kid.

But when would she have changed clothes? His brow wrinkled as he obeyed, letting the door swing to a close behind him. Vivian apparently picked up on his confusion, answering with a loud laugh.

“Laundry day. Seemed to make more sense to pull dry things out of the basket right here than tramp all the way upstairs. Besides, gives me two less things to put away, right?” She tossed the damp towel out into the laundry room, then haphazardly braided her long hair in a single plait at the nape of her neck as tangential strands curled around her broad face. “So tell me…” Yanking open a small drawer next to the sink, she poked around in the jumbled contents until she found a rubber band, with which she tidily finished off the braid. “How's life in Atlanta?” She settled back on a stool, crossed
her arms. “Must make this place look dull as Luke Hanover's old bloodhound.”

“Sometimes, dull is good,” Dean admitted, not missing the merest hint of a hitched eyebrow. He decided to let Sarah's mother come to her own conclusions, which she undoubtedly would.

Vivian simply studied him for a long moment, a half smile lifting her full, round cheeks, those gray eyes searing right into his brain. Other than that, she had no reaction. Whatsoever.

Dean leaned back against the counter, his hands gripping the edge. Woman was making him nervous as a cat watching a frog. This prodigal son business was not what he'd expected. Sarah's mother could just as well run him out of her house with a shotgun at his backside for leaving her daughter like that. Considering Sarah's devastated expression when she'd fled his room that day, it was a miracle he was still in one piece. That Vivian Whitehouse was actually being
friendly
was an even bigger miracle.

If not downright weird.

After a few seconds, the smile blossomed. “Still know your way around a bag of briquettes, boy?”

“Excuse me?”

“That no-count brother of yours can't barbecue worth beans. But I seem to recall your daddy and you used to cook up a storm.”

The knot in his stomach began to ease a little. “Yes, ma'am, I guess so. But…well, I don't mean to be rude, but…speaking of storms?”

“Shoot…this'll be over before Katey's finished shucking the corn. Grab a Coke out of the fridge and take a load off. I'll be right back.”

Katey sat at the kitchen table in front of a pile of corn large enough to feed the whole county, shucking it so slowly there was no doubt Vivian was right. The child offered him a doleful expression and a put-upon sigh and tugged off another handful of husk.

Dean nodded toward the corn, his brow creased in sympathy. “Think your Mama would mind if I helped?”

“Yes, I would” came the stentorian voice from the pantry. “That's her job. You just let her be.”

Katey screwed up one side of her mouth. “Thanks, anyway.”

“Sorry, honey,” he said, briefly touching her shoulder. “I tried.”

He pulled a Coke out of the refrigerator and popped the top, surveying the enormous kitchen appreciatively, a room that had always represented love and warmth and security when he was growing up. Even as the angry storm slashed against the windows, this room was bright, inviting, safe. He sagged against the counter and took a swig of the soda, only half listening as Vivian chattered to him from the other side of the door.

The all-white room hadn't changed much since he'd last seen it. The same handpainted porcelain plates marched across the soffit over the light oak cabinets his father had put in—as well as the butcherblock countertops—when the Whitehouses had first bought the old place almost twenty-five years ago. He'd only been five at the time, but he still remembered coming over and “helping,” and how Vivian had fussed and clucked over him and fed him enormous chunks of hot corn-bread dripping with butter or still-warm peanut butter cookies or that last piece of chocolate cake that “was just going to go stale if someone didn't eat it real soon,” all of which were courtesy of the enormous converted cast-iron stove, which still took up a good chunk of one wall like a giant sleeping bull.

His focus shifted toward the sink, where he could almost see a teenaged Sarah, like a hologram or something, standing with her hand on her slim waist and a teasing smile on her lips, her long hair rippling like a waterfall over her shoulders as she'd throw him a towel to dry so they could go riding their bikes up to the lake before it got dark.

He swallowed hard, then his eyes wandered back to the pine table where Katey sat at her task, her tongue stuck out in concentration. The table had also been his daddy's handiwork, and
he noted underneath the growing pile of husks it was still adorned with familiar handmade rag placemats and a pot of fresh flowers in the center. He thought of all the dinners and all the jokes and all the laughter he'd shared at that table. And how much he'd missed all that.

And how, if he hadn't panicked, believing other people knew more than he did, maybe he wouldn't've had to.

He realized his eyes were moist, about the same time he caught Vivian standing in the pantry door, a bag of briquettes in her arms. Conspiracy lighting up her dove-colored eyes, she walked heavily across the old wood floor and shoved the bag into his arms.

“You have one week,” she said in a low voice. So the child wouldn't hear, he presumed.

“I don't…” He frowned. “Huh?”

Vivian sighed, then leveled him with a piercing look that could have converted rocks into diamonds. “To win her back, you fool.”

This time he did jump, just as if the frog had sprung into his face. But her earnest expression stilled him immediately. Worried him, too.

“Look, mistakes get made,” she said in a low voice. “And you can either learn from them and try to fix them, or you can give up and be miserable for the rest of your life. So…there's your choice. Don't screw it up.”

Before Dean could protest that he seriously doubted whether winning back Sarah's affections—even if he'd wanted to—was either reasonable, possible, or the best choice for anyone concerned, the kitchen door swung open and the lady herself appeared. She'd showcased those long legs in a pair of white shorts, topped by a blousy white cotton shirt with the top two buttons left intriguingly undone. Whiskey eyes flashed from her mother to Dean and back again as she stood with one hand on the side of the door, the other on her hip.

Leading Dean to wonder exactly how long she'd been standing on the other side of the door.

J
udging from Dean's furtive expression, she'd been the topic of conversation. Judging from her mother's, by Vivian's, choice.

No way was she going
there.

So she went instead to the refrigerator—acutely aware of Dean's appreciative scrutiny of her legs as she passed—pulled out a Coke, then returned to the living room to check out the wedding gifts, leaving her mother and Dean to think whatever they liked.

Played it pretty cool the rest of the evening, too, if she said so herself. Whenever she caught Dean watching her at supper, she rearranged her features into what she hoped was an expression of aloof nonchalance.

Not that the rest of her would cooperate. She forced herself to eat—otherwise four people would have jumped on her case—but the corn and burgers and salad and watermelon and apple pie felt like wet sand in her stomach.

Dean's own peculiar expression didn't help matters, a look which she caught far more often than she liked simply because
the man would not take his eyes off of her. They didn't exchange as much as a dozen words during the meal, which nobody noticed what with Jennifer and Katey and her mother all holding forth about the wedding, but she felt as if he was trying to absorb her through his eyes. Just as she was fixing to tell him to perform some physiologically impossible feat, Jennifer came to the rescue.

“So, c'mon, Dean,” her sister wheedled as only she could. “You've just gotta tell me what this wedding present is.”

Dean finally tore his eyes away from Sarah and contemplated her sister with an oblique smile. “Oh, I've
gotta
tell you, huh?” he said, winking at Katey. “And why is that?”

“Oh, boy,” Lance interjected with raised hands and a laugh. “You do not want to know what this woman is capable of once she sets her mind to something. Might as well give it up now, while you still have all your toenails.”

“Lance!” Jennifer slapped him with her paper napkin. “You make me sound like Attila the Hun or something. I'm not that bad—”

“Yeah. You are.” Lance caught his fiancée in his arms, eliciting a tiny squeal. “That's why I love you so much.” He sealed his left-handed endearment with a smacking kiss on her lips.

Jennifer tenderly grazed his cheek with two fingers, then faced Dean again. “So? You gonna tell me or sacrifice your toenails?”

Chuckling, Dean wiped his mouth and hands on his napkin and stood up. “It's in the truck.”

“The
truck!
” Jennifer's eyes grew wide as the watermelon rounds stacked on the plate in front of her. “You left my wedding present out in the
rain?
”

“Trust me,” Dean said, backing toward the driveway, “when I pack furniture, nothing short of a nuclear disaster is going to harm it.”

“Furniture?” By now Jennifer had jumped up from the table and zipped past Dean on the way to the Dakota, followed one by one by the rest of the family. “Lance said you had enough
orders to keep your shop busy through Christmas…” She'd reached the truck and now danced with impatience. “But you found the time to make something for us?”

“Sure did.” Dean swung down the tailgate and hopped up into the bed where a lumpy, canvas-wrapped object nestled near the cab. After several minutes of peeling away layer after layer of protective covering, he picked up the object—which still wore its last layer, like a chaste slip—and jumped down off the truck with it. Now everyone followed Dean and the object up onto the porch, where he set it down and stepped away, nodding toward Jennifer.

“Be my guest.”

Jennifer hesitated, then slowly drew off the last layer of canvas. “Oh!”

The fine handrubbed finish of the mahogany rocker glowed in the last rays of the setting sun like the embers of a dying fire. A Windsor design, with delicate, smooth spindles splayed upward from the seat, the arms were gracefully curved, the rockers perfectly balanced. But everyone there knew just how difficult such a deceptively simple-looking object can be to make, because there was no room for the slightest imperfection.

Sarah blinked, then swallowed. She'd always known Dean was talented, remembering the beautiful pieces he'd build in his father's workshop. But the care and attention to detail in the chair said it all. She'd always said he'd make something of himself. Never doubted it for a single second.

And would he have gotten as far as he had if he'd stayed? If he hadn't gone to Atlanta, his talent would have withered like a seedling not given the proper light or food or water. As would have their love, eventually.

It all made sense. Now.

“That is the loveliest rocker I have ever seen,” Vivian, never one to flatter, allowed, and the smile that lit up Dean's face was nearly Sarah's undoing.

“Thank you,” he said softly, then addressed his brother and Jennifer, who stood with their arms around each other's waist.
“I just hope the two of you enjoy using it half as much as I enjoyed making it for you.”

“Oh, Dean…” Jennifer slipped away from Lance and took Dean's hand, stretching up to kiss him on the cheek. “It's absolutely gorgeous. Thank you.” She giggled and gestured toward the chair. “Can I?”

“Well, ma'am, chairs aren't meant to be looked at, now are they?”

With another giggle, Jennifer slid into the chair, sighing in contentment. “It really is perfect.” Sarah saw Dean lean over and whisper something that brought a flush to Jen's cheeks and a hand to Dean's wrist as she nodded and smiled. Then Dean skipped down the porch steps and back out into the yard, where he was accosted by a vociferous little girl who just had to show him around the property before it got any darker. Vivian then dragged Lance off to help her with some chore or other, leaving the two sisters on the porch.

“So.” Sarah leaned against the railing, arms crossed. “What did he say?”

Her sister went crimson.

“Good Lord, Jennifer—what
did
he say?”

“Promise you won't say a word to anyone? Not even Mama?”

“What on earth…?”

Jennifer cleared her throat, stroking the satiny arms of the chair with her fingertips. “He said that…he hoped I'd get to rock our babies in this chair.”

Sarah let out a whoosh of air. “Is that all? Perfectly understandable, considering the nature of the present—”

“Sarah. You don't understand.” Jennifer leaned over and pulled her sister closer. “I'm
late.
”

“For what?”

“Sa-rah…” Jennifer waited. Expectantly, as it were.

Sarah's mouth fell open. “You're
preg—?
”

“Shh!” Jennifer madly flapped her hands. “Nobody knows. Not even Lance. It's only three days. It may be a false alarm.”

Sarah squatted in front of her sister, grabbing her hands.
“You little minx!” With a throaty chuckle, she added, “You ever been late before?”

“Not even ten minutes.”

They both dissolved into giggles.

“What's going on?” Lance asked behind Sarah, making them jump.

“Oh, nothing. Just girl stuff.” Sarah got to her feet with her back to Lance, winked at Jennifer.
“You going to tell him?”
she mouthed to her sister, who gave a twitch of a head shake in response.

“Saturday,” she said, and Sarah understood.

What a wedding present, she thought as she made her way back to the picnic table. She rifled through the leftovers as if checking out the goods at a yard sale, finally plopping down on the bench with the last piece of apple pie. A pair of thin arms threaded around her neck. “C'n I show Dean the kennels?”

Her mouth full of pie, Sarah twisted around to Katey. And Dean.

“Ob cos,” she mumbled around mashed apples and piecrust, then swallowed and thought probably a smile was in order. For Katey, at any rate. “Of course,” she repeated. “Just don't bother Mariah if she's nursing, okay?”

“I know,” Katey said with a tolerant sigh, then took Dean by the hand.

Sarah's heart wrenched when she saw Dean's strong, callused fingers close so carefully around the little ones trustingly placed in his. Unthinking, she looked up, and found her eyes caught in his much the same way his hand held Katey's—with a tenderness that spoke of trust and loyalty. And unbroken ties.

It had been a long, long time since she'd seen that look in his eyes.

She didn't want to see it now.

“Come on, Dean.” Katey tugged at his hand, leaning all of her sixty-five pounds away from him. “It's getting dark. Let's
go.
”

“Okay, honey, I'm coming,” he drawled, turning to her
with a wide smile. “Let's go see those beautiful dogs your Mama's raising.”

Dean shared the smile with Sarah as he swung Katey up on his back for a piggyback ride, then loped off toward the kennels, the little girl dissolving into uncontrollable giggles when he broke into a gallop. Sarah simply sat and watched, her chin sunk in her hands, as the glue holding together her broken heart disintegrated a little more.

Lance straddled the seat beside her and followed her gaze. “They sure hit it off,” he said.

With a little start, Sarah straightened up, nodded. “Yeah.” She swung her legs to the outside of the table and rested her elbows on the top, staring back at the house. Away from the kennels. As if cued, hundreds of fireflies began looping in and out of the bushes and long grass, reminding Sarah how she used to pretend they were actually tiny flashlights carried by a band of invisible little people who lived under the porch. When had she stopped believing in magic?

Stupid question.

“Where's Jen?” she asked Lance.

“I don't know, exactly. She disappeared inside to look for your mother. Had the oddest look on her face, too.” He turned worried brown eyes to her. “You think everything's okay?”

Sarah fought to keep a straight face. “She probably thought of something she had to tell Mama that couldn't wait one second longer. You know Jennifer.”

“All too well,” he said with a half laugh, then immediately frowned. “But what's up with you and my brother? Is
somebody
going to fill me in as to what exactly's going on here?”

Sarah peered from underneath her lashes at Lance, whose only resemblance to Dean was the same slanted smile. Dean favored his father; Lance had clearly inherited his mother's delicate features and dark hair. “That depends,” she hedged, “on how much you already know.”

“Shoot, Sarah…I don't know enough to fill a postage stamp. Other than remembering you two hanging out a lot
when you were kids. I mean, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention, but I thought you were close. What happened?”

Sarah sighed, plucking an acorn the wind had deposited in her lap and pitching it back at the tree whence it came. She liked Dean's brother a lot. At twenty-three, he'd gotten his accounting degree and even started his own fledgling practice, mainly trying to help the outlying farmers understand the concept of cash flow and credit so they didn't keep getting screwed in the middle of planting or lambing or harvest season. No way to get rich, but he wouldn't starve. Besides, he was acquiring enough clients with actual money here and there that in a few years he'd probably do pretty well.

And he was crazy about her sister. Jennifer could have done far worse than Lance Parrish, that was for sure. The young man doted on her but never let her take herself too seriously. And Jennifer kept him from getting buried in his facts and figures, kept his sense of humor fine-tuned so he never took himself too seriously, either. They were a good match. And they'd make great parents.

A hand waved in front of her face. “Hello?”

“What? Oh…sorry.” She shifted slightly on the bench to restore circulation to her posterior, looking just past Lance toward the back pasture, quickly being swallowed up in darkness. “Yeah, your brother and I go way back. And we went together for a while. But we broke up. He went to Atlanta. I stayed here.” She rolled her shoulders. “End of story.”

“Uh-huh. And that's why he kept staring at you all through supper with that stupid expression on his face.”

Sarah felt her own face tingle. “It's the hair,” she parried, ruffling it. “He just can't get over the fact it's not there anymore.”

“And if you believe that…” Lance shrugged and let the sentence hang like smoke in the air.

With a brisk shake of her head, Sarah said, “Look, I'll be completely honest, okay? Just so no one starts imagining things that aren't there.” She hooked one heel up onto the bench,
laced her hands around her knee. “Your brother hasn't set foot in Sweetbranch since he left, has he?”

“Well, no…”

“Doesn't that tell you something? Honey, Dean obviously wants the big-city life, the big-city glitz and glamour and excitement. He made that more than clear to me the day he told me it was over between us. There was nothing here to hold him then, and nothing has changed on that score.” She stood up, stretched out her legs. “He's made his life. I've made mine.” One shoulder hitched. “We live on different planets, Lance. What I guess I hadn't realized was that we always had—”

“Sarah! Josh Plunkett's on the phone!”

She swiveled toward the house. “What's he want?” she called back to her mother.

“Says one of the lambs got out during the thunderstorm. Dang mule somehow stepped on it, broke its leg. The boy's next door to hysterical.”

“Tell him I'll be right out, to keep the lamb still and himself calm.”

Sarah started for the house to get her shoulder bag and car keys when Lance called after her. Eyebrows raised, she looked back over her shoulder.

“What you said about you and Dean being from two different planets? They're making remarkable strides in space travel these days, you know.”