Read The Wedding Dress Online
Authors: Kimberly Cates
Tags: #new
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty IN THE SHADOW OF the six-foot-tall bank of purple and white flowers was a decent enough place to stay out of the way and watch Emma in action, Jared thought with a resigned smile as he leaned against the wall of the Dorchester ballroom. Sleek, sophisticated, so exquisite she didn’t even seem real, Emma moved through the adoring throng of London’s A-list like a wayward goddess strayed from the heavens. Turquoise satin draped her curves, the creamy tops of her breasts just peeking above the V-shaped neckline, her hair tumbling in smooth, soft waves down her back. Sapphires dangled from her earlobes. Her grandfather’s diamond star winked in the hollow of her throat, so subtle only Jared could see it, and a square-cut sapphire worth more than Jared made in five years glowed just above the shadow of her cleavage. But in spite of the finery that felt foreign to Jared, the animation in her beautiful features shone every bit as bright as it had during those precious, intimate ho
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One RAIN SLASHED FROM the sky, obscuring the rising sun and slowing the car’s climb up the treacherous mountain roads. Aching from driving all night, Jared gripped the steering wheel in white-knuckled ferocity, the elements threatening to pull the vehicle out of control in an eerie echo of the way he felt inside. As if he were coming apart. Crashing and burning in a conflagration even more soul-destroying than the one that had killed his wife and unborn child ten long years ago. Because he hadn’t loved Jenny. Not the way he loved Emma. And he hadn’t ever gotten to know or grown to cherish his coming child the way he cherished David Harrison. A man was supposed to protect the people he loved, Jared thought. Stand between them and all the pain the world could hurl their way. He was supposed to be strong enough, wise enough, brave enough to hold fast, like the mountain cliffs even time could not wear down. But he was failing. Failing Emma. Failing Davey. Just as he’d failed
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two MACHINES WHIRRED, tubes snaking across the hospital bed where Davey lay unconscious, his arm in a white plaster cast, his bandaged face swollen and misshapen from where he’d hit the steering wheel, a neat row of stitches marching across the cut on his left cheek. The students had practically come to blows over who would donate the blood Davey needed so desperately. But surprisingly it was Emma and Jared who’d been the perfect match. They’d lain on the gurneys beside each other, willing their life force and love for the boy into every drop of blood the nurses drew. But even that hadn’t been strong enough. For three days Davey hadn’t wakened. Just lain there, so white, so helpless, so young. Until Davey regained consciousness, there was no way to tell how bad the damage would be. Whether that hungry mind of his would be as broken as his arm. Whether he’d ever recover enough to go back to school, to earn his degrees, to work at Jared’s side in the science that he loved.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three JARED PULLED HIS RENTAL car into the gravel driveway and looked up at the Civil War era house looming against the horizon. Destination by default. He wasn’t even sure the family would be here at the moment. But he knew eventually at least one of the McDaniels would have to show up at the bed-and-breakfast Emma’s mother and aunt ran. He remembered the way Emma’s face had shone when she talked about how much her family loved this place with its vast kitchen and treasure-trove attic, its welcoming veranda and the stained-glass window with a peacock displaying jewel-toned feathers. Emma’s smile had warmed with affection as she’d spoken of the ghost she’d believed in as a little girl. But Emma’s eyes, those beautiful dark banished fairy eyes, had shone even brighter as she’d shared the memories she and her mother had made from the time Emma was ten, the six years they’d lived in the private section of the house. He scanned the grounds. The driveway was empty, late-Septe
Chapter Twenty-Three