The Inconvenient Bride (16 page)

He stopped, swallowed, wondering again as he had so many times if that had been the problem. If he'd got here sooner would she have talked to him? Would she have told him what she couldn't tell anyone else?

“I didn't get here until the rehearsal was starting. And that was a crock anyway because her bridesmaid wasn't flying in until morning, and Nathan, who was supposed to be my best man, got a call from some magazine and took off, leaving Rhys in his place. I should have realized things weren't going to work.”

But he hadn't. He'd gone through the rehearsal in a daze. He'd been exhausted, coming down with a cold, and short-tempered when anyone talked to him.

Including Carin.

Not that Carin ever said much. She'd asked him how he was, he remembered that. And he'd growled something about just being glad when the whole thing was over with.

He'd meant glad to be married.

He'd given her a chaste kiss on the forehead so he wouldn't give her his cold. “I barely spoke to her,” he told Sierra now. “Except to tell her to get a good night's sleep.” And he remembered mustering a grin that had promised she wouldn't be getting one on their wedding night.

“And then I said, ‘See you in the morning.' But I didn't.” He could still remember all the preparations, the last-minute things that needed to be done before he was left to stand by Rhys in the garden near the trellis of bougainvillea and wait for his bride. He'd stood still for the first time that morning, glad to have a chance to catch his breath.

And then he'd looked toward the house and waited for Carin.

He'd waited and waited.

The guests had waited, too. At first quietly, then with increasing murmurs and head turning.

Rhys had grinned and said, “Don't suppose she's ditched you, do you?”

Dominic had snorted then. But within moments it became increasingly clear that she had. Her father had appeared on the deck looking distraught. His own father had looked irritated, then furious. He'd glared at Dominic, then looked at Rhys and jerked his head for his youngest son to join him.

“Maybe she's sick,” Rhys had suggested. “Nerves.” And he'd hurried off to talk to their dad.

When he came back a few minutes later he didn't have to tell Dominic what had happened.

“She was gone,” he told Sierra now, his voice flat. “Packed up in the middle of the night sometime and skipped out.” His fingers curled into fists against the sheet.

“Oh, Dominic.” Her voice comforted him. Her lips caressed him. “Oh, my dear.” And then she moved right on top of him, as if she could shield him from the pain, from the memory, from the humiliation he felt at having to clear his throat and tell the assembled guests that there would be no wedding that morning.

And oddly, it helped.

The warmth of her body on his soothed ragged feelings. The gentleness of her touch healed a dozen years of pain.

It wasn't losing Carin that had mattered.

It was feeling unlovable.

Sierra took those feelings away. She loved him. She'd said so. And with her every act she reconfirmed those words. He rested his chin against the top of her head. His legs tangled with hers, and his arms came around her and held her fast.

“Oh, my love,” she whispered.

And Dominic, throat tight and aching with love for her, could only manage two words, “Oh, yes.”

T
HE
phone woke them.

The morning sun spilled in the window and Sierra squinted at it as she untangled herself from Dominic who cursed and reached for the ringing cellular phone on the bedside table.

There was no phone line to the house. The only connection with the outside world was the cell phone Douglas had insisted Dominic take.

“You're head of the company now. You have responsibilities. But I won't call unless it's an emergency,” he'd promised.

Now Dominic grabbed it and muttered sleepily into it, “This had better be good.”

A minute later he was sitting up, raking his fingers through his spiky hair, saying, “You're sure? But that's impossible. No, you're right it's not impossible. Oh, hell. All right. Let me talk to Sierra and I'll get back to you.”

He hung up and turned to face her, his expression rueful. “I thought I had it all taken care of, really I did. But Sorensen in Denmark is suddenly on the market and we've been trying to buy them for two years. Dad thinks they'd rather go to us than to anyone else, but they want to talk to the boss.”

“You,” Sierra filled in.

Dominic nodded reluctantly.

“So talk to them.” She scrunched back up against the pillows. “You don't have to dance attendance on me every second.”

“I want to dance attendance on you. I want to crawl back in bed and—”

“But you can't,” Sierra said. “Not if you want Sorensen. Denmark is six hours ahead of us. The day is half over.”

“You don't mind?”

“Go ahead,” she told him. “It doesn't matter. I can go walk on the beach or go into town and find a souvenir…just in case I don't have another one already,” she added with a grin. “I love you.”

He flashed her a grin and gave her a quick kiss. Then he punched in a number on his cell phone.

Sierra took a leisurely shower, ate some yogurt and a banana, then drank a cup of tea. She could hear Dominic in the other room talking on the phone. She poured him a cup, took it in and set it beside him. She got a fleeting smile in return and an even more fleeting kiss on her fingers before he had to scrabble for a pen and jot down some figures.

“I'm going for a walk,” she mouthed. “Back in a while.”

He looked hassled and shrugged, then nodded. “Swim later?” he mouthed back. “Then bed?”

She grinned and nodded.

He said into the phone, “Run that past me again,” and started writing furiously.

Sierra left him to it. She pulled on one of his T-shirts over her bathing suit, then stepped into a pair of shorts and slapped a broad-brimmed straw hat on her head to protect her hair and her face from the fierce tropical sun. Then she waggled her fingers at him and headed down the stairs to the beach.

Pelican Cay really was the closest thing to paradise she could imagine.

It was the perfect place to have come for a honeymoon. And the honeymoon was everything she'd hoped it would be.

They'd grown closer here. They'd shared stories of their childhoods. He'd told her about the adventures he'd had here and on Long Island with Rhys and Nathan and she'd told him about growing up in Kansas with Mariah. They'd
laughed and played and held hands and kissed. They'd walked miles on the pink sand beach and they'd dug tunnels and built sand castles.

“We'll have to bring Pam and Frankie down here sometime,” he'd said yesterday. “A budding architect should build a few sand castles in his youth.”

And Sierra had smiled at the thought. “Yes, that would be wonderful.” And she'd been pleased, not just because Frankie would love it, but because it meant that Dominic had accepted her friends as his.

Frankie would love it, she thought as she looked around at the nearly deserted beach, at the softly breaking waves, and the lumpy remains of yesterday's castles. She and Dominic hadn't brought a camera, but now she thought she would walk along the beach until she came to the road to town, then go to the little island drug store where yesterday she had seen a rack of disposable cameras.

She could send Frankie a postcard and take a few photos, and maybe she could find a souvenir for the apartment, something that would bring back this paradise every time they looked at it.

She could get there and back by lunchtime. If Dominic was done with his calls by then, they could spend the afternoon at the beach—or in bed. As long as they spent it together, it didn't matter to her.

She started out along the beach, but the weather was so warm and muggy that she decided a quick dip wouldn't be amiss. She stripped off Dominic's shirt and her shorts, set the floppy hat on top of them, then plunged into the surf. She didn't stay in long, just long enough to cool off, then came back out, hair dripping, plastered sleekly to the back of her head.

Three children stood watching her with wide eyes. They were about ten or so, a little older than Frankie, she thought. A girl and two boys. The boys stared at her in wide-eyed speechlessness.

The girl said what they were apparently all thinking. “Are you a mermaid?” she asked. She was staring at Sierra's purple hair.

“Only half,” Sierra said with a grin. “Just the top. Look—” She did a little hop. “No fin.”

They all laughed then and, realizing that she was as human as everyone else and just a visitor, they looked embarrassed.

“People have called me worse things,” Sierra assured them. “Look, I'm just visiting. My husband—” she faltered a moment over the word, then said it again with pleasure and determination “—my husband and I are spending our honeymoon here. I want to take home a souvenir. Got any suggestions?”

“A T-shirt,” one of the boys said promptly.

The girl and the other boy groaned.

“Everybody takes home T-shirts, Marcus,” the other boy said.

“You got a better idea?” the boy called Marcus challenged.

“You could get a stuffed fish,” the second boy said. “Go fishin' an' my grandpa will mount you a fish.”

Sierra smiled. “Maybe another time. I think I want something besides a stuffed fish for this occasion.”

“You could buy one of my mother's paintings,” the girl suggested.

Now that sounded like a possibility. “Your mother paints scenes of the islands?” she asked the girl.

Long dark braids bobbed as the girl nodded. “Beautiful paintings. Want to see? She has a shop in the village.”

“Why not?” Sierra said. She couldn't carry a painting back along the beach. But maybe she would find something perfect that they could pick up just before they left or could have mailed—if they were any good.

The girl, whose name was Lacey, was eleven. She had been born on the island. She painted, too, just like her
mother. And someday she was going to be famous and go to New York and have a showing in a gallery there. She told Sierra this as they walked up the road toward the village. The boys had dropped out of the expedition, choosing to head for the fishing dock. Lacey talked nonstop. The boys weren't missed.

“Have you been to New York?” Sierra asked her.

Dark braids swung back and forth as she shook her head no. “But my mother has.”

“Has your mother had shows there?” Sierra asked. She wondered if she might know the woman. She got invited to a lot of gallery openings by people whose hair she did. Sometimes they were multi-person shows. Wouldn't it be amazing to meet someone here whom she'd seen in New York? There had been a woman last winter…

What was her name?

Sierra tried to remember what she looked like. She'd been dark like Lacey. And Lacey did look oddly familiar.

“It's right here,” Lacey said, leading Sierra up the steps to a small bright blue cottage with white shutters. It had a narrow front porch on which several island scenes were displayed on easels. They were primitives—bright bold colors and broad strokes—the sand a little pinker, the sky a little bluer, the houses a little brighter. But yes, it was Pelican Cay.

Lacey's mother had captured its heart.

And she captured Sierra's, too. She knew at once that one of those paintings would be the perfect souvenir.

“Come on in,” Lacey said, pushing open the door. “Mommy! I brought you a customer!”

The inside of the small shop was as welcoming as the outside—natural wood walls held similar scenes from various points on Pelican Cay. Overhead a ceiling fan whirled around, making a shell wind chime by the door tinkle softly.

A woman pushed aside the bamboo curtain that separated the showroom from the back room and came out, smiling
and shaking her head. “Lacey, when are you going to learn to be a little more tactful.”

Lacey's mother was fairer than her daughter. She looked to be in her early thirties, with high cheekbones and a slender nose and long, loose honey-colored hair that Sierra would have loved to braid.

“Hi,” she said, and offered Sierra a paint-spattered hand. “Paint's dry, I promise. It just doesn't come off. Nice to meet you. I'm Carin Campbell.”

 

The thing about paradise was that it didn't last.

You couldn't expect it to. Seven days. That was pretty much it. If Adam and Eve had only got a week, what right did Sierra have to expect more?

She didn't.

And she didn't buy a painting, either, though they were lovely evocative pieces which captured the spirit and the beauty of Pelican Cay. Someday maybe she'd wish she had one—to remember.

Now all she wanted to do was forget.

She couldn't, of course. She had things to do.

Over the buzzing in her brain, she thought she'd managed to converse politely with the woman who had once left Dominic at the altar. She thought she'd said all the proper noncommittal things about not being able to quite make up her mind and wanting a while to think about it, and certainly being glad to have met her.

And Carin had said cheerfully, “Don't feel obliged. Just because Lacey is a hard sell, that doesn't mean you have to come back and buy one.”

Sierra couldn't answer that. She managed a wan desperate smile, then let herself back out into the street.

The midday sun beat down on her, and she told herself it was the sun that was making her head buzz and her brain feel fried.

But it wasn't.

It was realizing why Lacey looked familiar.

It had nothing to do with the artist at the gallery opening she'd attended. It had everything to do with her having Dominic's dark hair and deep blue eyes.

Her features were her mother's. She had Carin's nose and Carin's generous mouth. But the hair color was exactly Dominic's. And thinking back, Sierra realized that when the little girl tipped her head a certain way, she had the Wolfe profile.

Dominic had a daughter.

And he didn't even know.

She leaned against the porch railing of the grocery store and the man at the counter inside looked out curiously. “You be all right, Miss?”

Sierra nodded. “Yes,” she said faintly. “I'll be fine.”

Someday. Years from now.

She remembered yesterday on the beach, when they'd talked about having children. She remembered Dominic saying,
“I want kids. I would always want them. No matter what. I couldn't believe Rhys turning his back on Mariah when she was carrying his child.”

And she knew he would want Lacey.

She knew he would want Carin.

She'd heard the pain in his voice last night when he'd told her about Carin running away, about losing her—his first love.

Maybe, she thought sadly, his only love.

Because as much as she'd wished he'd said those words to her, he never had. He'd given her his body. But she could only guess that he'd given her his heart.

There was always the chance she'd guessed wrong.

And even if she hadn't—even if he had come to feel something for her—it was nothing compared to what he would feel for Carin once he knew she was the mother of his child.

“He might hate her,” she told herself. He might be so
angry that she kept Lacey from him for all these years that he'd want nothing to do with her. And for a split second she felt a stab of hope.

But then reality settled in—and reality told her that no matter how Dominic felt about Carin, they would have so many issues to settle that Sierra would only be in the way.

She drew a deep breath and started back toward the house. And on the way she tried to find the courage to do what she had to do.

He was still on the phone when she got there, but the minute he saw her coming up the steps he said something to whoever he was talking to and put the phone down, then got up and came to meet her, an eager smile—a lover's smile—on his face.

And Sierra took a deep breath and, eyes brimming, she said the words she'd rehearsed for the last mile.

“I think we should get a divorce.”

 

He'd been dying for her to get back. He'd been sick to death of all this Sorensen stuff, he'd done his best to sort through it, all the while keeping an eye on the path from the beach where he'd catch his first glimpse of Sierra.

And the minute he saw her coming, he said, “I'll call you when I'm back in New York,” and hung up on the head of Sorensen to go and take his wife in his arms, to kiss her and love her.

And she said she wanted a divorce.

Dominic stared at her, disbelieving, her words cutting like a knife in his heart. He, who had thought he was immune to such pain, who had taken care never to fall in love, knew he was wrong.

He loved Sierra more than he'd ever loved anyone. The pain he'd felt when Carin had jilted him was nothing compared to this. That had been embarrassment, injured pride, the humiliation of masculine ego.

This cut him clear to his soul.

“Why?” His voice was hoarse, desperate, frantic. He clutched her so hard that his fingers might be leaving bruises on her arms. He tried to loosen his grip, tried not to hurt her.