The Bride Said, 'I Did?'. Cathy Thacker Gillen
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have expected a Hollywood star to drive. She figured he’d drive something expensive and strictly for status. But the cherished old pickup, so sturdy and reliable and masculine, suited him just the same. Maybe because it was the kind of truck a real cowboy would drive.
“Too bad we didn’t think of a lot of things before we flew off to Mexico together.” Beau opened the door and, still holding her elbow, gallantly helped her inside.
A prickle of uneasiness moved through Dani as the next thought hit. She watched as he circled the truck and slid behind the steering wheel. “Were there cameras in Mexico, too?” she asked, aghast, noticing without wanting to the way his white cotton shirt delineated the sexy contours of his shoulders, chest and abs. Was it her imagination or could she actually remember the way it had felt to be held against that rock-solid chest, with nothing between them but heat and bare skin?
Beau turned the key in the ignition and shot her an astonished look. “I sincerely hope not!” he said, thrusting the truck into reverse. Sliding one arm along the back of the seat behind her, he pulled out of the space, then put the truck into first. His large capable hands on the wheel, he guided the truck toward the exit and onto the street.
“I don’t know why I didn’t see it earlier,” Dani said, incensed she had been such an idiot. She shook her head as Beau stopped at the light at the corner of Johnson Drive and Main Street and turned her eyes to the people coming in and out of the businesses in the center of town. A group had gathered in front of the courthouse and were talking animatedly. A mother and two children were carrying a cake out of Isabel Buchanon’s bakeshop. Men were lined up in Tom’s barber shop, awaiting haircuts and shaves. The afternoon edition of the Laramie Press was being loaded into trucks for delivery. Comforted by the homespun familiarity of the scene, Dani turned back to Beau and continued matter-of-factly, “This is all payback for our feud.”
Beau’s jaw set as he drove down Main Street and then onto the street where she lived. He turned into her driveway and parked behind Dani’s car. He cut the engine with a snap. Released his seat belt and faced her. “For the last time,” he said quietly, “I am not playing a prank on you.”
Dani wished she could believe him. Her feelings in turmoil, she glared at him emotionally. “I want to call a halt to this, Beau. Right now.” She wanted not to be pregnant and not to be married.
“I just bet you do,” Beau said sarcastically as he reached over and released the catch of her safety belt. “Unfortunately, my darling wife—” the words were pushed through gritted teeth, and his hot gaze glided over her from head to toe, before returning with heart-stopping accuracy to her face “—it’s not that simple.”
Wasn’t it? Dani wondered. And darn it all, anyway, why did he keep insisting on calling her his wife, never mind his darling wife? Couldn’t he see she hated that? How uncomfortable it made her? Of course he could! That, she supposed, as the word continued to echo in her head like a mantra, was precisely the point.
She knew what the evidence said, but the two of them couldn’t be married. They just couldn’t be! She wouldn’t—couldn’t—have been that foolish. No matter how secretly attracted to him she was or what movie-star moves he’d put on her! No, this was all a bad joke or a bad dream. And it would be over soon enough. All she had to do was take a page from the exasperating cowboy’s book and kick a little butt. His.
“Okay,” Dani retorted slowly and succinctly, letting him know with a glance this…whatever it was could not and would not go on. “If you won’t call a halt to this lunacy now, then when exactly will you?”
BEAU KNEW DANI would never believe it, the way she was feeling now, but he wished this lunacy was a practical joke every bit as fervently as she did. Heaven knew he’d initially had the same suspicions she was harboring.
Never before had he blacked out anything, let alone awakened in a bed with a beautiful woman having no idea how he’d gotten there, or when or why. But that it had happened was indisputable, Beau reminded himself sternly.
Making matters worse, kissing her at the hospital had brought back a snippet of lovemaking with her that was so incredibly spectacular it might have been a dream. And yet he knew instantly from the startling clarity of this snippet—the image of Dani naked and in bed beneath him—that it was no fantasy he was having, but a memory. Otherwise, how would he know she had a beauty mark on her left breast, right next to the nipple? How would he have such a clear image of the creaminess of her breasts, the lissome lines of her spread thighs and the sweet triangle of coppery curls the exact shade of her hair? How would he know, even as he took her in his arms tonight, that the sassy cynical-to-the-max Dani kissed with a mixture of innocence and enthusiasm that was daunting in the extreme? How would he know about the soft sexy sounds she made in the back of her throat when they made love, or how much she liked making love in the missionary position? But he did know all that. Just as he knew when he took her in his arms tonight that when they started kissing, that when they were together like that, it was all either of them could do to stop.
As for the rest, the marriage and baby part, he just couldn’t imagine it. Yes, she had been a burr in his side for years now, and for one reason or another constantly on his mind, but they’d never been lovers or even close to romantically involved. Maybe they should have been, though, Beau reasoned as Dani jumped out of the truck and walked toward the house, leaving him to follow at will. Maybe if they had kissed back then, before all the trouble started, the way they had today, maybe Dani and he never would have feuded at all.
Dani paused at the top of the steps and rummaged around in her purse for her keys. Finally finding them, she unlocked the door and led the way into her house, full of moving boxes and extremely disorganized furniture. She switched on the overhead light in the foyer and whirled to face him. “You didn’t answer my question, Beau,” she snapped impatiently. “How long do you plan to let this scam continue?”
Beau shrugged. “As long as it takes.” He didn’t want to be saddled with a marriage he couldn’t even remember entering into, but he was. And so was she. Like it or not, until he and Dani figured out exactly what had happened in Mexico, they were in this together.
“As long as it takes for what?”
For us to really get to know each other, he thought. For us to be, if not loving partners, at least friends. Because he had much preferred the idea of being Dani’s friend to being her enemy. Certainly it would be much easier to bring up a baby that way.
Unable to take his eyes off Dani and the delectable picture she made in her trim linen slacks and sleeveless blouse, her bare feet peeking out beneath the strappy sandals, he edged nearer and replied, “For me to put an end to this feud between us once and for all.”
“I’ve got news for you, Beau Chamberlain,” she informed him in a soft sweet voice that set his teeth on edge. “This is not the way to do it!”
“Then what is?” Beau countered as Dani swept past him into the shadowy living room. “Reason didn’t do it.”
Stepping around the sofa and two club chairs, Dani began reading what was written on the tops of the moving cartons, which were stacked, one on top of the other, all over the place. Finally finding one that said “lamp,” she made a soft aha sound and attempted to lift it down. Beau strode over to help her before she could pick it up. He set it on the floor beside her.
“There’s been nothing reasonable about anything you’ve said to me for the past two years,” Dani said. She slammed her hands on her hips, looking peeved rather than pleased by his help.
Guessing what she wanted, which was to get lamps set up around the house before darkness fell, Beau ripped open the top of the box, removed the lamp and began assembling base to shade. “There was nothing reasonable about your reviews, either!” Beau shot right back. It bugged him she hadn’t liked his work. Not because he thought her reviews were inaccurate, but because they had been accurate. He’d known he wasn’t doing his best work in the two-year period after his nasty divorce from Sharon. It annoyed the heck out of him that Dani had easily recognized what other reviewers had failed to see—that a part of him had lost heart.