The Bride Wore Starlight (12 page)

Her left calf gave out when she took too long a step. With a grunt and a failed grab at the door jamb, she ended on the floor in a heap after a fall as graceless as the one she'd performed at the wedding dance.

“Joely?” Mia appeared within seconds. “Oh, God, what happened?”

“Seems fairly obvious to me.”

“Are you all right?”

“No.” Aggravation and embarrassment poured into her voice. “I'm an idiot. I need everyone to stop putting ideas into my head about what I should do and what I need and let me do things my own way.”

“C'mon.” Mia held out her hand and stooped to put her other arm around Joely's body. “Let's get you up.”

Joely slapped her hands away. “No! I can do this. Just let me get to the doorway.”

“Joellen.” Mia's voice sliced, sharp and firm, through Joely's angry fog.

“What do you want?” Joely snapped.

“Ask for the help you need, damn it. Why are you blaming me for this? I do not think you're brave for scrabbling around on the floor by yourself.”

She was so sick of weeping. Of feeling weak. Of trying to convince herself she didn't need help. Despite that, the tears fell once more. She held out her hand and let Mia pull her up. At least her sister didn't try scooping her into her arms.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to blame you. I was avoiding blaming myself.” Half sobs made her hiccup.

“What happened?”

“I tried walking on my own.” She swiped the tears angrily from her cheeks. “Seven whole steps. Wow. I had no business being so foolish.”

“Really? You got seven steps on your own? Have you walked alone before?”

“No. That's the foolish part.”

Mia threw her arms around her. “I think that's fantastic! Good for you.”

Mia had lost her mind. “Excuse me?”

“I'm serious.
That
was brave. Now you know if something is seven steps away you can get it. But why haven't they been making you walk in PT?”

“I wouldn't let them,” Joely said. “I knew this would happen.”

“Then this was even more of a breakthrough. One step at a time!”

“If you utter another cliché, I might just hit you.”

“Sorry.” Her cheerfulness said she wasn't.

Breakfast was already on the table when Joely finally wheeled her way, dressed and subdued, into the kitchen. Eggs, bacon, English muffins with melted butter pooling deliciously in the crevices. She had no idea where her sister had come up with any of the food. The refrigerator had been stocked with little more than yogurt and juice and some milk for cereal.

“Death by cholesterol, I see. Yum,” Joely said.

“Dietary rules are changing all the time. Plus you need some meat on that frame. Trust me, I'm a doctor.”

“Hah. You're not. You're a bully sister.”

“Thank you! I'm quite proud of that, too. It's been hard raising you five.”

Joely couldn't help but laugh. Mia knew as well as each sister did how little time they'd all spent together in the past ten years. The sad but true fact was that they'd grown apart once each had left for college, and only their father's death the past August had brought them back together. Amelia was the oldest and the bossiest, and possibly the smartest, but she'd been the first to leave home. She'd seen them through teenagerhood but not much more. It was good to have her back.

“There shouldn't be that much to do today.” Joely transferred deftly to the kitchen chair.

Mia nodded agreement. “We'll get the packing done and clean tomorrow.”

The simple fried eggs were wonderful, and the crispy bacon crunched and melted into smoky, salt-fat deliciousness against her tongue. After her short night and inelegant start to the morning, Joely couldn't figure out why a clichéd, death-by-bacon breakfast tasted so amazing and lifted her mood. Maybe it was no more complicated than she'd survived the night and might get through the day.

The knock on her door at eight forty-five took her completely aback. Mia, on the other hand, tried to subdue a pleased smile. “Now who could that be?” she asked.

Joely started to rise and reach for her wheelchair. “Are you plotting something?”

Mia held up her hand. “I'll get it. I know you can do it, but I'm faster.”

“Way to be sensitive.”

“Just my famous bedside manner.” Mia grinned, but when she opened the door she gasped.

All the smug expectation fled her face. Joely looked at the visitor and, with a jolt like the one that had slammed her when the log hit her car, she met the eyes of her husband. Shock fired down her spine and gripped her vocal cords, so she could neither move nor speak. It had been nine months since she'd seen him. She'd looked the afterlife in the eye at least twice, but Tim had barely troubled himself to check on her. Now he showed up? Mere days before the move that was supposed to mark her independence?

“Hello, Douchebag-in-law,” Mia said, her calm back in place, her face passively pleasant.

Tim had the momentary courtesy—it certainly wouldn't be conscience in his case—to show his discomfort. He was, however, consummately suave, oozing confidence and wealth even in jeans and a polo shirt. Of course, the polo was no bargain basement rag but a dark blue luxurious knit with a hunter green collar turned up in proper preppie style and Gucci splashed liberally, if mostly tastefully, across the front between his gym-toned shoulders.

“Amelia.” His jaw tensed. “Nice to see you, too.”

“Oh, did I say nice?” she asked, and held the door wider. “Look, Joely. We have a surprise guest.”

“Joely?” Tim's face, fairly youthful for a man nearing forty, creased in concern. “My God, honey, you're skin and bones. And your face—I had no idea how prominent that scar was. I'm so sorry.”

Hot resentment burned through her chest. It didn't matter whether he was truly sorry for her injuries or sorry because she'd lost the look he'd once so cherished. She had the reckless and irrationally violent wish to bloody his nose and fancy collar with a right hook.

Sadly, she'd never honed a right hook.

“First of all, don't you ever call me honey again.” She finally found her voice and rejoiced at its strength. “Second, don't say you're sorry because I don't look the same—this didn't have to be a surprise to you. Third, what gives you the right to be standing at my door unannounced?”

He stepped past Mia, his eyes gentle but not contrite—a look Joely now recognized as patronizing and controlling. He was not tall and not beautiful, just average in height and passingly handsome. As he approached, Joely caught the salting of gray at his temples. That was new.

“Jo, I am still your husband.”

He was the only person who'd ever insisted on calling her Jo. Once she'd thought it personal and intimate. Now it only fed that weird, violent desire to slug him.

“You're not my husband. Not in any way except on paper. That's bad enough.”

His eyes smoked over, and the line of his mouth tightened. She'd never spoken to him like this, and a lightbulb moment sent her stomach recoiling in disgust with her old self. She'd known before her accident that she was divorcing this man—he'd cheated on her after all. But had she really once been so obsequious? Sweetly refraining from angering him so maybe he'd keep loving her? Until this moment she'd never seen what a pathetic stepping stone for his ego she'd become—and he'd expected.

“Fine,” Tim said. “I can play this angry, too. If still being my wife legally only is so abhorrent, why haven't you signed the divorce papers?”

“You came from LA to Jackson to ask me that?” She allowed a sarcastic snort. “I could have answered you over the phone.”

“I don't want just an answer. I want the signed papers in my hand.”

“I see. Well, I'm sorry, but that's not going to happen. Not here this minute anyway. I'm not finished looking at them.”

“Looking at them?” It was his turn to scoff. “Bullshit, Jo. You've had them for nearly a month. Get them, hand them over, and let's be done with this.”

“Nothing would make me happier.” She glared at him standing over her like an angry parent. “But you'll get them when I'm sure exactly how badly I'm getting treated in this deal, and when I've decided if I'm going to do anything about it.”

“You aren't getting treated badly. You took half the household goods. You aren't entitled to another thing.”

Most of the furniture Joely had removed from her Los Angeles house nine months ago had been damaged in the car accident, but she didn't go there. The accident hadn't been Tim's fault.

Then again, if he hadn't ruined the marriage she wouldn't have been driving with her living room sectional and antique china cabinet, plus the rest of her things stuffed into the front half of a horse trailer in the first place.

“I put equity into that home, too. I got some furniture, but I should get a portion of the value of that house.”

“You got that in spades with the amount I put into your personal training, your riding, and that goddamn horse.”

He was losing his cool as much as he ever lost it, but his eyes and his words took on a mean cast. Tears filled her own eyes in a rush as his words socked into her broken heart.

“Get out now, Tim,” she said quietly. “You'll get the divorce papers when I'm ready to sign them.”

She didn't know where she'd come by the ability to stand up to him without caving, but it kept her from losing her composure completely. To her surprise, he didn't get angrier. Instead, his mood flipped. He pulled out a chair and sat beside her at the table, reaching for her hands.

“Hey,” Mia called. “She said ‘leave,' not ‘sit,' Gucci boy.”

Man, she loved Mia. Joely held her hand away from him. Tim tried to take it anyway, and she pulled away, almost violently.

“No you don't,” she said.

“Please. Joely. I need the papers signed.” He'd gone from badgering to begging. “I didn't come to get or make you angry. I came to appeal to the beautiful, understanding side of you I always loved.”

“You've got to be kidding. Gag me with a collar covered in someone else's lipstick, Tim. You don't get to mention love.” She stared at him a long minute. “What's the rush after nine months of not caring whether I lived or died?”

“I cared.”

“Oh, don't even.”

Sadness morphed into full-fledged fury. She leaned forward, catching a glimpse of Mia's amazed, almost proud, expression. Her sister still stood by the open apartment door as if waiting for someone. Or maybe just for the chance to toss Tim Foster out on his designer logo.

“Sandra is pregnant.”

The surprises he'd lobbed to that point had been annoying little grenades compared to his announcement. It fell like a ballistic missile into the heavy silence of the room. Bile rose in Joely's throat, pushed upward by a mewling choke of pain she couldn't halt.

“I'm sorry,” he said and grabbed her hands, which she tried to free with frantic yanks against the fast hold. “I truly am.”

“Pregnant?” She barely felt the word push past the sickness and pain in her throat.

“We want to get married. That's why I came to give you a little push.”

Pregnant. Married.

She remembered with awful clarity the harsh lighting in the LA County hospital room. The fear, the grief. The aching loneliness until Tim had arrived. Fifteen weeks—a little girl, too early to be called a stillborn, but too late and large to be a simple mass of tissue cells. She'd been recognizable as a baby but hadn't really been considered one.

Then, instead of gathering her up for comfort or even saying he was sorry and sad, Tim had simply kissed her on the head. “It's for the best,” he'd said. “We weren't ready.”

Dear God she had been.

But it had taken
Sandra
to make him ready.

Her head went light as a helium balloon, and she bent double, resting her forehead on her knees to keep from having to hold it up. Tim tried to wrap his arms around her, but she flailed at him.

“Don't. You. Touch. Me.”

Where were the stupid papers? She'd sign them now. Or as soon as she could breathe.

“Jo, come on. This is silly. We're moving forward. You and I just didn't work from the beginning. We know that. We can part friends.”

From the beginning?

So her entire marriage had been a gigantic mistake? Every minute of it? She struggled again to loosen herself from Tim's hold.

“Hey, buddy, the lady asked you not to touch her.”

A familiar voice cut through her pain and arrested the tears threatening to make her lose her last shred of dignity. She lifted her head and got an entirely different kind of shock than the ones she'd been experiencing the past fifteen minutes.

“Alec?”

What on earth was he doing here? She remembered Mia's earlier anticipation.

“Good morning, darlin',” he said. “Ready to drive me to breakfast?”

D
RIVE YOU TO
breakfast?

She stared so long without speaking that Alec stepped forward, laughing, and came in close enough to her side that Tim had no choice but to release her and move out of the way. Alec kissed her on the forehead and pointed at her plate.

“You forgot, didn't you?”

He played the part—which he'd clearly made up on the spot—perfectly.

She got it. He was making an extemporaneous rescue. And although his lightning-quick adlibbing was impressive, she wanted to punch him almost as much as she did Tim. How arrogant were these two? One figured all he had to do was rant and posture and she'd cave; the other assumed she needed his machismo to save her.

“Don't worry,” Alec continued, soothing but not, at least, patronizing. “It's understandable. We planned it last minute—just a working breakfast. Remember now?”

She shoved away the old grief and the new pain Tim had caused, and leveled stern eyes at Alec. “That's right.
Very
last minute. So we could work on your papers for commitment to the asylum, as I recall.”

“Exactly. Because I agreed to let you drive my truck. Automatic incarceration if anyone finds out.”

The man was dang quick. And her pulse nearly choked her when she processed his words. Drive his truck? He was joking, but still . . .

She literally opened her mouth to protest, but Tim stared at them with such confusion that she closed it. The idea of letting him think she
could
drive was too enticing. Her creep of a husband didn't need to know she had no intention of climbing behind anybody's wheel.

“What do you mean?” She pierced each man with a defiant glare. “I'm an excellent driver.”

“Okay, Rain Man.” Alec grinned.

“Huh?” Joely frowned.

“Dustin Hoffman? The movie
Rain Man?
He always said he was an excellent . . . Oh, never mind.”

“Ah. Well, I missed the reference because Tom Cruise was Rain Man,” she said.

“Nope. Tom Cruise called his brother Raymond ‘Rain Man.' You need to study up on your movie references.”

“For God's sake!” Tim stepped forward again, his face flushed in frustration. “Who is this mentally unstable person, Jo? Is he even safe to be around? I don't have time to fool around here listening to college dormitory trivia. Please just get those papers for me and sign them.”

His veiled insult of Alec irritated Joely. She'd found the ridiculous movie exchange funny, but maybe that was only because Tim looked so completely put out. Alec, on the other hand, seemed unfazed by Timothy Foster.

“Hi,” he said and extended his arm. “Alec Morrissey. I'm your wife's driving instructor.”

Joely covered her mouth with one hand. Not many people turned Tim speechless, but he stood silently a moment, thoroughly nonplussed. Joely caught sight of Mia, who'd closed the front door, followed Alec into the living room, and watched with an almost tangible air of delight.

“What the hell? Joellen can't drive,” Tim said at last. “She's in a wheelchair, for Pete's sake.”

“Oh? I don't know where you got your medical degree, but a wheelchair does not necessarily correlate with an inability to drive.” Alec looked toward Mia. “I think Dr. Crockett there will back me up.”

“I will,” she said. “Many people with physical challenges are able to drive.”

Tim looked as if he'd been besieged by a troop of
mentally
challenged monkeys. He shook his head. “The papers, Joellen.”

“Look.” All at once, her mind was clear. Seconds ago she'd been so hurt she'd determined to hand him whatever he wanted. Now he was simply making her angry. She'd been putting off going to a lawyer, but she had to make at least one visit even though she was certain she wasn't legally entitled to anything more than he'd offered. Which was nothing. “I wish you'd called ahead. I have one more thing to do before I give you the papers. I promise I'll have them in your hands before . . . ” She swallowed the pain for a second time. “Before your son or daughter is born.”

“That's not funny,” Tim said.

“Fine,” she replied, her unmitigated anger at the man she'd once believed she loved making her as calm as she'd ever been around him. “I'll have them to you by the end of the week. Unless there's something I find to fight.”

“There's
nothing
to fight.” His partially clenched jaw made his words tight and cold.

“That's not for you to decide.”

“Hear, hear.” Mia spoke quietly from her perch on the arm of the living room chair, where she smiled over her words.

“I thought you were more mature than this,” Tim said. “What do I have to do? Sit here and wait for you to decide you'll be an adult about it?”

“Don't you mean adult-erer?” Mia asked.

Joely nearly laughed out loud. She didn't remember Mia being so quick to sarcasm, but she loved it. Her sister had been an uptight, all-business surgeon until she'd met Gabe. This new Mia was definitely someone you wanted on your team—she was besting Tim at his own controlling game.

“Please don't stay,” Joely said. “Go home to Sandra and wait for the mail.”

“I didn't come here to turn around empty-handed.”

“Well, you might just have to, my friend,” Alec said. “Joely has an appointment with me, and I don't think either of us wants to wait while you keep arguing with her. If she said she'll have what you want on Friday, she'll have it. I know that about her.” He held out his hand to her and smiled. An easy, fool-anyone smile that made her knees weak. She could have kicked herself for putting her hand in his, and yet it felt so good—on more than one level. “Ready?” Alec asked. “Let's grab your things and go. We can show Mr. Foster out on our way.”

She hesitated. Why was Alec really here? Joely couldn't make her brain function at a level higher than stupefaction. What did she do now? She wasn't going with Alec to make good on some seat-of-the-pants ruse, but if she called him on his playacting, she'd look like an idiot in front of Tim. He'd already made a fool of her and her marriage.

“Sure,” she said, before she could stop herself. “My purse and sweatshirt are in the bedroom.”

“I'll get them.” Mia stood and beamed at her and Alec as she passed.

Joely narrowed her eyes. There was going to be a little “Come to the Lord” meeting later. Her life wasn't one people could just manipulate.

And yet she let Alec pull her smoothly to a stand.

“Chair, crutches, or arm?” He crooked his elbow and spoke as if he knew every nuance of her normal routine.

She eyed her bedroom, the bathroom, and the front door.

Seven steps. She could probably get to the bathroom.

You're going to regret this.

“Let me run and brush my teeth,” she said. “Then I'll use the crutches.”

Run? Five minutes ago she would have bitten someone's head off for using that word in reference to her. Was showing off to Tim really worth this? Even Alec looked surprised when she extracted her hand from his and steadied herself.

“Sure,” he said.

It took more effort to try to keep the concentration from showing on her face than it did to cross the tiny room to the bathroom door. One step, three steps, five steps. Her muscles quivered. Her breath came in quiet, heavy puffs, but she held it when she passed Tim so he wouldn't hear.

She grabbed the doorknob as if it were a life preserver, shuffled her last steps into the bathroom and closed the door. With a barely stifled groan she sank onto the toilet seat and rested her arms on her thighs, embarrassed for the first time by how little she'd allowed her physical therapy to really help her the past few months. She was in worse cardio shape than Grandma Sadie.

For two long minutes she sat and calmed her racing heart, got back her breath, and tried to decide if she could possibly make it back to her wheelchair. Forget the crutches. She also tossed out a prayer that Tim would be gone when she reopened the door, and she wouldn't have to continue with this ridiculous theater at all.

Finally she stood and picked up her toothbrush. Then she forced herself to look in the mirror. Her scar jumped out as it always did, and Tim's words jumped through her heart right with it. “And your face . . . I had no idea . . . ”

Of course not. He hadn't cared enough to come. Tears beaded in her eyes as she jabbed her toothbrush into her mouth. She detested Tim Foster; why should she be crying?

She took a few extra minutes for the tears to stop. She splashed them away before smoothing a touch of makeup along her damaged jawline. With a fortifying breath she opened the door.

The tableau had changed only slightly. Mia had Joely's purse and sweatshirt on the table. Tim stood closer to the front door. Alec, God bless him, stood outside the bathroom with her crutches. He caught her eyes, and his smile held no more teasing, only empathy. Another epiphany thundered into her head. He really did understand her awkwardness and pain.

She settled the crutches beneath her arms. “Thanks,” she said so only he could hear.

“No problem. Ready?”

The whole farce was ludicrous—an unnecessary exercise she wouldn't have to go through if she would simply give Tim his stupid divorce papers and send both men packing. Instead she answered him.

“Ready.”

“She'll be back shortly,” Alec said to Mia. “We'll run those couple of errands.”

Mia nodded, playing right along. “No hurry. I'll pack up the last of the kitchen stuff and start on the bedroom.”

“Sorry,” Joely began.

“Nonsense. You kids have fun.” She turned to Tim. “Brother-in-law, I'm guessing that's the last time I'll call you by that name, you have a fun flight back to the land of people who don't deserve my sister.”

He ignored her as he had for most of the visit. “I'm staying in Wolf Paw Pass until I have the papers.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

Alec opened the apartment door and inclined his head to Tim. “After you.”

Joely hung back while Tim left and watched him stride arrogantly down the hall. When he was out of earshot she turned to Alec.

“Just let him go. We don't have to follow him. This is ridiculous.”

“It is,” he said, “but he'll be waiting because he's a blowhard. He knows he's a dickhead. He's just not about to admit it.”

“Don't be crude,” Joely said. “I prefer Douchebag. It's slightly more refined.”

He laughed. “Why it should matter I don't know. He's both.”

“Let's go. But I'm not driving any truck. I seriously can't drive.”

“You can. It's your left leg that's injured. This is an automatic so you can do what needs to be done with your right.”

“I'm not driving.”

“Okay.”

Alec was right, Tim waited for them outside. When Joely lurched her way to Alec's truck on the crutches she had never let herself get used to, Tim watched her with focused, fox-like eyes. He seemed to take her all in when she stopped a few feet from where he stood.

“Interesting,” he said.

“What do you want?” she asked. “Besides the papers. Which you'll get.”

“You led me to believe you were completely incapacitated, and that's why you were so desperate to stay under my benefits as long as you could. I'm not seeing the immobile invalid I expected to find. Have you been freeloading off of me, Jo?”

To her surprise, Alec tensed beside her even before she could clench her own fists. He took a step toward Tim and lowered his head like a bull warning of a charge.

“I've been pretty civil with you,” he said. “But you're stepping over the line, buster.”

Tim laughed in his face. “Me over the line? I've been nothing but generous with a woman who seems to be taking advantage.”

“Look here, assh—”

“Stop!” Joely grasped Alec's arm and tugged. “Don't stoop to that, Alec. Tim, it's time for you to leave. I'm not even going to enlighten you with the truth. You never made a single attempt to find it out for yourself. So think what you want. We're done except for the partying.”

With that she whipped open her purse and pulled out the thick, folded sheaf of papers. Tim's eyes widened like he was seeing the Holy Grail.

“You want them? Will it get rid of you so I can tell myself this is the last I'll see of you?” She dug for a pen, and while she did, Alec took the papers from her hand. “Hey!” she said.

“You're not handing them over under these circumstances. You haven't let him bully you yet. Don't let him start.”

“This is none of your business.” She reached for the papers, and he let her grasp them but held one end as well.

“It's not. And I'm not saying what you should do with them other than hang on until you decide what to do. He shouldn't get to say.”

“Now who's being the ass?” Tim said, derision dripping from his words.

“It's still you,” Alec replied. “But even so, if fifteen minutes from now Joely still wants to sign these and give them to you, I'll drive her to your hotel myself.”

“I thought
she
could drive.”

“Yeah, but it'll get rid of you faster if I do it.”

Tim finally gave up. With a snort and an angry mutter he shook his head and turned for his car. “I need those in my hand within twenty-four hours,” he said without looking back.

“Or what, Tim? You'll take me for all I've got? You've pretty much done that.”

He left the parking lot in his rented Lexus and Joely sagged with relief.

“
Hasta la vista
, baby,” Alec said with a curl of his lip.

“Thank you, Lord,” Joely added. “Now I don't need to pretend to drive anything.”

“No, I think you should anyway,” he said.