Once Upon a Marriage (10 page)

Not that anyone gave any indication that they thought that. Maybe it was just Marie who was feeling it...

“So...” Marie ventured an hour later when the two were finishing up the last of the counting—paper products that lined the entire back wall of the storeroom. The popcorn was nearly gone. “You and Liam okay?”

The question could have been in reference to the news they'd had the day before, to the new roommate they had. Or it could have been more.

“Yep.”

Gabi's upbeat tone made Marie happier, too.

“Is it weird, being so newly married and now having a...roommate?”

From up on a ladder, leaning over the top of a tall shelving unit, Gabi chuckled. “You want to know what Elliott's like to live with, don't you? I could always send him down to you.”

She wouldn't, of course. But Marie warmed inside, just thinking about the large man sleeping in her spare room. “Does he sing in the shower?” The question slipped out. Only because this was Gabi. And Marie was clearly spending too much time alone.

“How do I know?” Gabi laughed out loud. “His room is fifteen hundred square feet away from ours, and the bathroom is on the far side of that.”

All of which Marie knew. She'd helped Gabi decorate the guest suite the month before.

Her friend called down numbers. Marie jotted in columns. And then held the ladder steady as Gabi climbed down.

“I'm losing it,” she confessed, as soon as her friend was on solid ground. “Ever since Friday night...he's all I can think about. I mean, I thought of him a lot before that, too, but... I think you're right, Gabi. I'm falling for him. And it's nuts. I'm thirty-one, not sixteen. And I've only known him three months.”

“I married Liam less than a month after I knew I had feelings for him.”

“But you'd known him forever.” They both had.

They stood there, both with their hands on the ladder, facing each other. “I just think that there are some things you can't quantify,” Gabi said, her voice softer than Marie was used to hearing it. Gabi was the practical one of the three of them. The attorney who was always preparing for the worst. And counting every penny.

She dotted every i. Crossed every t. Marie tended to go more by the heart and forgot the i's and t's sometimes. While Liam just breezed by them, pushed them or found a way to get rid of them if they got in his way.

“And there are some things over which you have no control. No matter how hard you try.” Gabi's eyes glistened. And Marie, nodding, reached out to brush a piece of her friend's short dark hair away from her face.

“Just let it happen,” Gabi whispered, taking Marie's hand in hers. “Please, Marie. Just let go and let it happen. Elliott's a good guy.”

“You really think so? Because it's not like I've got a great track record in that department.”

“There's nothing wrong with your ability to choose a man,” Gabi said, her voice getting stronger as she folded up the ladder and put it away. “You choose men who you know aren't going to tempt you to be in it for life. Men who are preoccupied by other things. Or who you aren't particularly attracted to.”

“I do n...” Marie broke off as Gabi turned to give her the
look.
The one where she was challenging Marie to be completely honest.

“Freshman year,” Gabi said. “He was more into his church than he was into you. To the point that you had to go to church with him to spend any real time together.”

Maybe.

“And the doctor... He was in med school, Marie. And was going to be for some time. Years. He made it clear from the very beginning that his studies came first...”

“That still didn't give him the right to be unfaithful to me.”

“Of course not!” Gabi was back. Right in front of her. “The guy was a schmuck as well as a med student. I'm just saying, you've never seriously dated anyone who didn't have something else that came first in his life.”

“Then I'm doing it again,” Marie said, her emotions settling down into some semblance of normal for the first time in what felt like months. “Because Elliott's career definitely comes first with him.”

“Does it?” Gabi walked toward the door of the storeroom that led back into Marie's office. “Or is he just dedicated to his job? Maybe he wants a home and family just as much as you do but hasn't found the right woman yet.”

In all of their talking, he'd never said much about his life. About his wants and needs. Marie needed to know about them. “Has he said something to you?”

“No. But if I were you, I'd be asking him the next time I had a chance.”

“Yeah, right. Out of the blue I'm going to get all personal with him,” she said. But she knew that the idea wasn't as far-fetched as she was making it out to be. While Elliott kept a professional distance, he'd also breached that line the other night when he told her he liked her. Too much.

She'd been going crazy ever since.

“So, you going to talk to him?” Gabi, with a handful of popcorn, sat down alone in the chair Liam had occupied with her the day before.

“You really think I should?”

“I think you want to, and if you don't, you'll regret it.”

As usual, Gabi was right.

But Marie was still getting used to the idea of falling for someone. She wasn't ready to take that plunge yet.

 

CHAPTER TEN

A
LMOST
 
A
 
WEEK
 
PASSED
. The Denver police had no leads on the man who'd hired a two-bit criminal mechanic to debilitate Liam's car. George Costas, the corporate attorney charged with fraud in conjunction with the Ponzi scheme that had been uncovered at Connelly Investments, still had no plea deal.

And Elliott Tanner was in real danger.

Marie Bustamante was not only a big part of his waking hours; she was appearing in his dreams now, too.

“What's up, Elliott? You look like I made your coffee too strong.” The woman, dressed in black leggings, a cinched-in white top and her Arapahoe apron, slipped into the chair opposite him Thursday night. It was late. The shop was closed. Her last employee had left an hour before.

As had become their routine, she'd made him a cup of coffee—on the house—while he waited for her to tally up her day's income and make out the bank deposit that would be picked up the next morning by the free courier service provided by her bank. He'd then see her upstairs to her apartment before heading up to spend another long evening alone in his own room.

Liam and Gabrielle had invited him, every single night he'd been there, to join them. He'd politely excused himself.

He was working. And, until he'd met Marie Bustamante, he had always had very clear boundaries where his clients were concerned. The boundaries were blurred, but he was still determined to hold on to them.

“We should be getting upstairs,” he said, picking up the napkin he'd dropped to the table when he carried his coffee over.

Her hand touched his. “Wait.”

As carefully as he could, he extracted his hand. Picking up what was left of his coffee—cold now—and taking a sip.

“I...wanted to talk to you for a minute.”

And her apartment wasn't the place to do it. He got where she was going with this. And relaxed. “What's up?”

Shuffling in her seat, she looked as though she wasn't sure what to do with her hands. Fold them together. Or leave them open on the table.

He voted for folded. In her lap.

They ended up on the table.

“I just...how much longer do you think this is going to go on? I mean, it's been almost a week and...nothing.”

“If you remember, I told you last Saturday, in the office, that it's not all that unusual to have a period of inaction after an arrest. And this guy, while the frequency of his attacks might be escalating, doesn't seem to be in any hurry to let Liam off the hook. Either by hurting him or ending the harassment.”

“So we could be living like this for months? Or longer? I got the impression last week that this was a very temporary arrangement.”

“I expect it to be.” Was she that eager to be rid of him?

Disgusted at the inane thought that he'd had it at all, and that there'd been real emotion attached to it, Elliott continued. “There was a surveillance camera at a shop across the street from the garage where our slasher was hired. I thought we'd get something from that.” He hadn't told them before. Not while it had been part of the investigation.

“They didn't?”

“No.” He'd just heard from the detective that evening. “But I believe, as do my contacts in the Denver Police Department, that once Costas pleads guilty, this guy's either going to back off completely, go after Costas or show himself again.”

Marie nodded. Her brown eyes shadowed as she looked at him. Was she having trouble sleeping? Or was she just tired from a long day?

“Anyway,” he said, feeling an uncharacteristic need to lighten the moment, “it's not like having me around is a death sentence or anything.”

Was he actually asking for reassurance? From her?

Elliott sipped again. Things were getting out of hand. At least inside him they were.

“It's not like it used to be,” Marie said, no hint of a smile on her face.

“What does that mean?” He'd only known her three months. Maybe if he reminded himself of that fact often enough, it would lessen the effect she had on him.

“We used to talk. All the time. You're the first man I've ever known, other than Liam, who I could talk to without measuring my words. I could just be myself with you...” Her voice faded and he wanted to know what she was thinking. Wanted to know everything that was in that fascinating and completely unpredictable mind of hers.

“I'm hard to talk to now?” Elliott groped for ways to extricate himself. They weren't immediately obvious to him.

“I don't know, anytime I'm free, you're escorting me upstairs and are gone.”

“I'm working.” Completely true.

“Yeah, that's what I told myself. But the shop's closed now. The doors are locked. The blinds are shut. Liam and Gabi are safe upstairs.”

He acknowledged the statements with a drop of his chin. “So talk.” Her mother wanted him to keep her from getting hurt. If something was bothering her, he should know about it.

What if Threefold was having financial trouble?

There'd been no indication. And no indication, either, that Liam Connelly was foolish or frivolous with his money.

Or his father's company, either.

So what was bothering her?

“I just...you know how my mom sends me all those studies to read, and...” She broke off again. Shook her head. “This has nothing to do with any of my mom's studies. The truth is, I rarely read them anymore. Most of what I know is stuff she repeats to me ad nauseam when she calls.”

“How often do you talk to her?” He'd wondered. Several times. He'd asked Barbara and she'd just said that she and Marie spoke regularly, in a way that let Elliott know that she didn't consider the information pertinent to the job he was doing.

“Used to be a couple of times a week. Lately it's more like every couple of weeks. Ever since the last time my father wanted to get back with her and I wouldn't get involved—maybe three or four months ago—she calls less and less.”

Since Elliott had been on her payroll and had been giving her regular reports.

“Anyway, the thing is, you know so much about me...everything, really. You probably even know what kind of toilet paper I buy.” Not that he accompanied her inside the store all the time, as he had the one time they went together. She and Gabi had gone to the grocery together that week, with Elliott waiting right outside.

“It's only for a little while, Marie,” he said, leaning forward. “It's common for someone who's not used to being protected to get a bit of cabin fever. You're used to your freedom.”

She shook her head. “It's not that. Though probably with Liam it is. But...”

He waited. Withstood the long look she gave him. And wasn't at all as prepared as he'd planned to be when she suddenly blurted, “What do you want out of life?”

“What?”

“What do you want? What are your goals? Do you ever want to get married? Have kids? You know everything about me, and I know nothing about you.”

She could have whacked him over the head with a baseball bat and he'd have been happier. And better equipped to deal with her, too.

His immediate reaction was to shut her down with a single word.
No.

But those big brown eyes bored into him. Trusting him to tell her the truth. He, who was bound by ethics to lie to her. “You know I have no siblings and that my parents were killed in a small plane crash when I was two.”

He'd given her his life story late one night. Before he'd realized how dangerous sharing would be.

How the compassion she'd shown him, a grown man trained to protect, had touched him.

“And you have an aunt and cousin in California. Yes, I know. But that doesn't tell me a thing about you. About your life. Or your goals or...”

It shouldn't matter. He was a bodyguard. On the job.

“Why does it matter?”

She blinked. Sat back.

He was being paid not to hurt her...

And he knew that last thought was pure bunk. Justification for reaching out for her hand to hold her in her seat.

“I grew up on the outside looking in.” He heard himself telling her something he'd never shared aloud before. “My aunt was great. She loved me and always made me welcome. But she was grieving, too. My mom was her older sister. Their parents divorced when they were little. Their dad remarried and their mom later died of heart failure. She, my aunt, looked at me and missed my mom. It was like I was always the cross on my mother's grave, never just a part of the family. Or even a full member of the family. I was the outsider—there because of a great tragedy.”

When he started to feel like a sap, Elliott shut up.

“And later?” Marie asked, knocking him for a loop with the look in her eyes. No woman had ever looked at him quite like that. As though
she
could protect
him
.

And he couldn't pretend any longer that he didn't want her. All to himself.

* * *

“L
ATER
I 
GREW
 
UP
.”

Elliott answered Marie's question so long after she'd asked it, she had to think a minute about what he was saying and why.

“Of course you grew up,” she said, recognizing that he was trying to wrap up their talk. But she wasn't done yet. Couldn't be until she had a clear understanding that there was nothing between them but her own imaginings, conjured up out of her own loneliness, the danger surrounding her friends and forced proximity to the bodyguard. She was driving herself nuts. “And when you grew up, did you ever think about having a family of your own?”

His gaze was piercing as he studied her. She had no idea why. And then he said, “Do you have any idea how it feels to be a foot taller than every other kid in school? To have to duck to enter your high school classroom?”

Marie was shorter than Gabi. Who was only five foot six. “Obviously not.” But she remembered the stares he'd received, they'd received, when they'd been in the warehouse store together, and added, “You were on the outside looking in then, too, weren't you?”

She knew that kids weren't generally nice to anyone who was different.

He responded with that half nod of his.

“Surely you dated,” Marie said next. “I mean, you're tall, probably the tallest man I've ever met, but you're gorgeous, Elliott. You're never going to convince me you didn't have girls falling all over you.”

He grinned. And she heard what she'd said. She'd told him she thought he was gorgeous. Her face flamed. But...it wasn't as if it would be news to him. Presumably he looked in the mirror every morning. He was clean shaven, and that didn't usually happen all by itself.

“I like women,” he finally said.

And it dawned on her what he was saying.

“You've dated a lot.”

“Not until I was out of high school and had grown more comfortable with my size. But yes, I've had my fair share of women in my life.”

“You dating anyone now?” She'd asked once before, the first month she'd known him, and the answer had been no. But that could have changed.

“No.”

“Neither am I.” He knew that.
Idiot.
She'd just been dumped by Burton—a guy who'd been too boring for words. “So, do you want a family?”

“Are you offering to be a part of it?”

Marie blinked. Held her breath. And then started to feel dizzy. Was he flirting with her?

“Sorry,” Elliott said before she'd found her senses. “I just... That was inappropriate. We should be getting upstairs.”

“What if I was offering?”

“Why all the sudden questions?”

“Because you said you like me too much.” She'd made no conscious decision to put that right out there. She'd just been following Gabi's suggestion that she ask him what he wanted out of life. Because at the moment, she trusted her best friend's judgment more than she trusted her own.

“Yeah.” He glanced down.

“Yeah.”

He fiddled with his napkin.

“Because I think I might like you too much, too,” she said. He looked up then. And his gaze told her what his words didn't.

She might be in deep.

But he was, too.

* * *

H
E
 
COULDN
'
T
 
DO
 
THIS
. Couldn't let her confess feelings for him when he couldn't be honest with her about why he was there. He couldn't let her think that her feelings were unreturned, either.

“I think we should go on up,” Elliott said when the silence between him and Marie begged him to do something about it.

Like call Barbara Bustamante and quit this job.

“Liam has a sunrise breakfast, and we still need to go over last-minute protocol.” Which he could do in the morning, but it was the best he could come up with...

Elliott saw the shadow a split second before he heard the sound of crashing glass. But it was enough time to dive for Marie and have her on the floor beneath him before things shattered around them. With his gun in his hand, he stayed over her, holding himself up enough not to crush her and waited.

Thirty long seconds.

Silent seconds.

Every instinct in his body screamed. Go after the guy before he got away. Never let Marie out of his sight again.

And he remembered the security guard out front. He'd be handling the situation outside. Unless he was hurt...

“Elliott?”

“You okay?”

“Yes.”

He didn't want to move. And had to move quickly. Lifting himself away from her, Elliott shielded Marie while he took stock of her shop. The front window glass had a gaping hole. Glass shards stuck out all over. It was the kind of break that happened when someone threw something from a distance. Far enough that he could get away with it with a security guard manning the block. Not the kind you crawled through.