The Substitute Bride (The Great Wedding Giveaway Series Book 7) (4 page)

Knew some of them a bit
too
well, in fact. 

For the brides, it would be great fun, and, if they won the package, a sweet little windfall.  And for Troy Sheenan, who had restored the Graff Hotel to its former grandeur, and would be tying the Giveaway to his grand opening, it was awesome public relations.

But what would covering the Giveaway feel like for a woman who, unless the Marietta grapevine had it wrong—and it never did—had just called off her own wedding, only a few days from saying ‘I do’?

He pictured the elegant, efficient Angelina Akers, who had always guarded Marly like a dragon.  Why would her own mother assign her to the bridal beat?  Sounded fairly sadistic. 

Unless...

He suddenly wondered how Marly really felt about her cancelled nuptials.  Maybe he was misreading the whole thing.  For all he knew, she had done the freedom tango all over her wedding dress.  In cleats. 
Dirt
y
cleats. 

She might, even now, be thanking her lucky stars that she’d escaped the infamous golden noose.

He cut a sideways glance at her somber profile.  She didn’t look as if she’d done any dancing lately.  Or smiling. 

His chest tightened oddly, remembering how self-possessed she used to be, sitting across from him in the newspaper office, chewing on a fingernail as she stared down at his column on her laptop. 

She’d been so pretty, in that buttoned-down, self-satisfied, judgmental, Student Council kind of way.  She’d infuriated him, even while she’d intrigued him.  She’d been so sure of her talents, and so certain he had none. 

He remembered the slow, rising pink that would climb her cheeks as she realized he was watching her, and the way she’d finally look up and impale him with challenging brown eyes. 

“
What
?” she’d say crossly.  “If you’re trying to distract me from all these comma splices, it’s not going to work.”

And he’d laugh, delighted with the prissy way she said ‘comma splices’, because, to his hormone-damaged brain, the phrase had sounded ridiculous, and a little dirty.

Where had all her delightful self-confidence gone, he wondered?  Had it flown away with the lost job—or the cancelled wedding?  He suddenly wanted to know, and it frustrated him to realize she probably didn’t trust him enough to tell him what time it was, much less what had happened to her heart.

“So...”  He took a breath of the chilly air deep into his lungs, making an impulsive decision he might well regret tomorrow.  “Want to know why I stood you up?”

She whipped her head toward him so fast a wisp of her shining brown hair caught on the edge of her lips.  Her full, expressive lips.  She had such an intriguing mouth—it looked both vulnerable and strong-willed at the same time.

She frowned.  “Are you joking?”

He shook his head. 

For a minute she seemed at a loss for words.  Then she let her frown relax, curve, and eventually become an almost-smile.

“No,” she said.  “Not really.” 

He laughed.  Well, that was blunt.  But then, she’d never been meek, had she?  Repressed, quiet, eager to achieve, determined to stay out of trouble, yes.  But she’d always had firm opinions and a sharp tongue to express them when she was ready.

“No, wait...I put that all wrong.” He held up a hand.  “What I meant to ask was, would you be willing to listen while I explain why I stood you up that night?”

Phrased like that, no civilized person could refuse him—which, of course, he knew.  Marly knew it, too.  She shook her head and let her smile deepen even more.

“Okay,” she said.  “But honestly, it’s no big—”

“I know.”  He put his hand on her wrist.  “It’s no big deal.  It’s water under the bridge.  It’s old news.  But I’d like to tell you, all the same.”

And then, as his fingers settled, he and Marly both went oddly still.  She didn’t look at her wrist, where his palm curved over the small bones, and his index finger nestled against the warm pulse that beat on the underside.  But he knew she was very aware of it. 

Almost as aware as he was.

“All right,” she said calmly, lifting her chin a fraction of an inch.  “If it’s important to you.”

“It is.” 

He didn’t smile.  He didn’t want her to think he was being slick.  She’d always hated that part of him. 

“If I hadn’t been such a coward,” he began, “I would have told you back then.  But hiding the truth from other people was second nature. 
Keep up appearances
. 
Don’t let anyone know how screwed up we really are
.  That had been the Everett mantra as long as I can remember.”

Her eyes widened.  “Screwed up?  Your family?  With your big ranch, and your money?”

“Yeah.  My family.  With our big ranch—and our big mortgages and our huge debts.  And our alcoholic patriarch, who liked to wreck cars and punch people.” 

“Oh.”  Her lips tightened, holding back pity, maybe, or shock.  “I didn’t know.”

“Well, good.  That means my mother’s plan worked.  She would’ve been happy to hear it.”  He laughed, but it had a darker sound than he’d intended.

“Was your father—”  She stopped, then restarted.  “Was he—?”

“He was a bastard.” 

Drake didn’t intend to go into detail...and he probably didn’t have to.  Everyone knew what life in an alcoholic home was like.  It was available, in HD, on one channel or another, every night of the week.  How his life could have simultaneously been a living cliché and a living hell he wasn’t sure, but there it was.

“Anyhow, I didn’t pick you up that night because I had to drive to Billings and bail my father out of jail.  And then, for the rest of the week, I had to sleep on the sofa between my mother’s room and his, so he wouldn’t go in there and beat the crap out of her.”

For several seconds, she didn’t speak, and she didn’t move.  The sun had begun to set, so he couldn’t really see her face well enough to read her features. 

Finally, she let her free hand fall over his.  Her fingers were cold at first, but they quickly picked up heat.  Within seconds, the spot where his hand lay, cushioned between her wrist and her palm, seemed to hum like a tiny, flameless fire.

She was watching him.  “Your father’s gone now?” Drake nodded.  “He died three months ago.  He outlived my mother by a year, which really pissed me off.  I wanted her to have at least a few years of peace.  She deserved it.”

“Yes.” She lifted the hand she’d placed atop his and returned it to the railing....though she didn’t move the other one, the one he held. “If only that was how life worked.”

He was glad she hadn’t mouthed platitudes or showered easy pity on him.  He’d inherited that from his mother, perhaps—that dread of being pitied.  He wondered how many things he’d lost through the years, because he wouldn’t open up, wouldn’t tell the truth and risk the shame.

Even now, he hadn’t meant to be quite this frank, and he wasn’t sure why he had.  He’d intended to offer ‘a family emergency’ or some other generality that meant nothing, except to assure her he hadn’t gone out with another girl, or laughed with his friends about the dork still waiting for a date who would never show.

Maybe his candor was the result of the odd intimacy here on this cold porch they occupied alone.  Or the fact that she was wearing his jacket, and his fingers were wrapped around the fragile bones of her wrist.

Maybe it was knowing that she, too, was hurting right now, after whatever had happened to her engagement, and her job...

Whatever the reason, he was glad he’d done it.  The desire to explain himself had weighed on him, he realized.  And its weight had been all out of proportion to their relationship.

Relationship
?  He stopped himself short. 
What relationship
? 

This was, literally, the first time he’d ever laid a hand on her.

Even back then, when they sat knee to knee, alone in the tiny, crowded journalism ‘office’, he hadn’t ever kissed her.

But the minute his mind formed those words, his body leaped to attention.

Kiss her
.

And then, irrationally, kissing her, right here, right now, was the only thing he could think about. 

Her lips would be cold, at first, from the chilling air.  They probably would be firm and tight, pressed together in that way she had of holding back.

But they would soften.  It wouldn’t take much.  They would grow warm and pliant, swelling under his.  They would part for him, and she would let him in.

She would taste like vanilla and oranges.  She’d always smelled that way, filling that newspaper closet with sweetness.  He’d always known when she’d been in the office, even if she was already gone, because he could smell oranges in the air.

Had she worn the same perfume for nine years, or was the scent simply part of her own beautifully complicated chemistry?  He wanted to know.  Suddenly.  Desperately.  He
needed
to know.

“Marly,” he said, the word coming from his throat more than his mouth, and with raw edges.  He began to shift his thumb, stroking the soft skin on the inside of her wrist, aware of how fast her pulse was racing.

He tugged her an inch closer.  Then another.  Her free hand dragged along the railing, as if she could slow the progress.  Her head was lowered, her soft hair falling forward, obscuring her cheek, tickling against the edge of her lips. 

“Marly, look at me.”

Slowly, she lifted her head.  “Drake, wait.”  Her dark brown eyes were liquid in the dying light.  “
Listen
.”

“I’m listening.”

She nodded, and took a deep breath.  “I just—I think you should know.  I’m pregnant.” 

––––––––

F
ifteen minutes later, she was sitting in the passenger seat of Drake’s cute red Ford F-150 as he pulled into a parking space at River Bend Park.  His to-go bag of baby back ribs, honey rolls and broccoli sticks rested on her lap.

She was surprised that theirs was the only vehicle in sight.  River Bend had always been a hangout for teens, even on weeknights. 

But the sun had disappeared just moments ago, sinking in a streaky orange and ruby soup ahead of them as they drove west toward the park.

For the moment, they were alone with the empty picnic tables, the deserted boardwalk, the cold stone barbecue. 

He lowered both their windows, then turned the key to kill the engine.  In the sudden silence, she could hear a bird trilling invisibly from some high tree branch, and a small breeze whispering the pine needles. 

They hadn’t talked on the way here, and he didn’t rush to ask her questions now, as if he wanted to avoid any hint of an interrogation.

He just hooked his elbow over his window and let his cheek fall against his hand.  His body was relaxed.  Clearly he was going to wait for her to start the conversation.

But how?  Looking for words, she shut her eyes, inhaling the poignantly familiar, loamy scent of the Marietta River, which lay just beyond the park, invisible in the deepening darkness.  It was a comfortable smell.  Definitely present, if she wanted to register it, but demanding nothing.  Like a cozy old friend.

Her eyes flew open.  Was she talking about the river—or Drake?

They weren’t ‘old friends,’ not really.  Nine years ago they’d been almost adversaries, in some complicated way.  And now...

Now it felt even less like friendship.  But she’d be darned if she could name what it did feel like.

Back at the restaurant, she’d been a tangle of knotted, electrified nerves.  She had dropped her bombshell news impulsively.
I’m pregnant
, she had announced, trying to shock him, to stop him...the same way you might say, ‘I have a gun’. 

Honesty had seemed like the quickest, most effective method of forestalling the...well, whatever he’d had planned...

The kiss
. 

He’d been about to kiss her.  And she’d been about to let him. 

But he hadn’t bolted.  She’d been able to tell from his narrowed eyes and tightened jaw that he was shocked, but on the outside he’d remained utterly relaxed.  In a throaty voice, he’d simply said, “I see.” 

And then he’d taken her hand in his.  “We should go,” he’d said.  “We need to find somewhere more private to talk.”

To her astonishment, she’d ignored the warning bells at the back of her mind and agreed.  At that moment, she’d realized she
wanted
to talk about it.  She’d kept her secret barricaded behind deadbolt and chains all these days, but now the cell was open, and the truth was eager to tumble out.

If only she knew how to begin.  She glanced over at him, fidgeting with the stapled flap of the to-go bag.  Maybe a little interrogation wouldn’t be all bad.  It might, at least, get the conversation started.

He caught her glance.  He smiled, then plucked the bag from her lap.  “We should eat while it’s still warm.” 

She nodded.  “Sure.”

“Out there, or in here?”

She looked at the park benches, with the security lights beaming on them, and the wind blowing bits of leafy debris across their boards.  It was chilly out there, and so bright.  In here, she felt warm and private, and talking might be easier.

“Can we manage in here?  Is there room?”

He grinned, as if she were very silly to doubt his skills.  With practiced ease, he set their feast out on the dashboard and the console between them.  He handed her a wad of napkins and some plastic utensils, then stretched over to unearth a couple of cans of soda from some stash in the tiny back seat.

She clearly wasn’t the first person he’d shared an intimate moonlight car-picnic with.  She glanced toward the back of the truck.  She knew how those other picnics had ended up.

He took a bite of his ribs, and groaned with pleasure.  “God, I was hungry,” he said.  “And Cal’s ribs are straight from heaven.”

She hadn’t thought she could possibly eat anything as spicy and gooey as ribs, but the minute he removed their foil wrapping, and the sweet, smoky scent of the barbecue filled the air, she realized she, too, was ravenous.

She hadn’t eaten much in two days.  And what she’d managed to swallow had often come right back up.  Now, as she took her first bite and discovered how wonderful the ribs were, her main concern was that she might look like a wild dog attacking its kill.