The Wedding Dress (11 page)

She pressed her hand to her stomach, feeling strangely violated as she imagined the cynical Jared Butler reading through the private, precious thoughts meant only for loving eyes. Oh, God. What had she written? She’d been trying so hard not to cry that she could hardly remember. But Jared couldn’t know that, could he? Then why was he looking at her with—damn, a hint of…pity?

“How would you feel if I read your private letters to your family?” Emma confronted him, hands on hips.

“That will never happen.”

“I suppose your work is too important for you to be bothered to drop your parents a few lines?”

Jared compressed his lips for a moment. “I don’t have any family.”

Emma stared at him. His eyes were hooded, dark with secrets. “But your father…you said…”

“He’s dead. They all are.”

Emma’s heart clenched, her fury at Jared’s intrusion paling in comparison to her runaway imagination. Picturing just how bleak her own life would be if God obliterated everybody she loved.

Jared held up his gauze-wrapped hand in surrender. “I was wrong to read the letters. I admit it. But don’t you think being chewed up in a dogfight is penance enough?”

“Not unless I was the one who got to bite you.” She hated the fact that he had a point. He might have read her letters, but he’d also saved Captain.

“What if we make a deal, you and me?” Jared offered. “I’ll not invade your privacy again and you’ll stay on the right side of the chain barricade at the rear of the castle. No more prowling around where you don’t belong.”

He looked so damned reasonable, those green eyes fixed on hers as he waited for her answer. But this was one time reasonable wouldn’t work any more than indulging his temper had.

One of Hope’s favorite phrases rose in her mind:
You’re not the boss of me.
Okay, maybe it worked better coming from an eight-year-old, but Emma could at least hold on to the gist of the words.

She walked over to the crate, lifting it up to carry back to the tower room. “I’ll just get my dog out of your way now.”

“Hold on. I didn’t say you could keep it. A dog on a dig site is a rotten idea.”

“He won’t go near your precious dig site. He’ll be with me. After all, they had dogs in medieval times, didn’t they?”

“Deerhounds and mastiffs and—”

“I could use some company with manners. Captain won’t be able to read my letters or—”

Or look so damned sexy when he was really a nosy, unprincipled—

“All right. You can keep the dog. But at the first sign he’s digging—”

“Maybe you can sew buttons on his paws.”

“Fine. I won’t read your letters or give your dog to the SPCA and you won’t go poking around the back of the castle. I just don’t want the site contaminated. Surely we can agree on that. Do we have a bargain?”

Without a word, she turned and walked out the tent door, the dog’s box in her arms.

“Emma?”

She heard Jared’s irritated call. He was waiting for an answer. Too bad, she thought. He’d have to wait a long time.

Because there was one more thing she’d forgotten to mention about the McDaniel code. McDaniels kept their word. She had no intention of making Jared Butler a promise she wouldn’t keep.

She hadn’t forgotten the warrior she’d seen or the strange tug she’d felt in the center of her chest at the sight of him fighting upon the sea.

As if the valiant knight from centuries gone by felt just as lost as she did.

And she was the only one who could find him.

Chapter Six

J
ARED
B
UTLER WAS LICKING
her neck. Emma could feel it through that delicious twilight between sleep and wakefulness. His warm tongue stroked the sensitive cords and hollows, pausing from time to time to torture her with tiny nips at her earlobe.

His hair could use washing, the thick waves not nearly as soft as they appeared. But who cared as long as she could feel that soul-shattering mouth on her skin at last?

She should make him stop. She would. Just not yet. It had been so long since she’d felt this pulse-racing anticipation, this surrender to needs she’d buried, almost feared.

She moaned, restless against the lumpy mattress, feather quills pricking through the cloth and prodding her to wake.
No. Not yet,
she pleaded. She wanted to feel the weight of him bearing down on her. Wanted him to kiss her mouth.

She didn’t want to beg. Couldn’t help herself. “Put your hands on me. Jared, please…”

He stuck an ice cube in her ear instead. With a cry of protest, she started awake. One distorted black button eye stared down at her, a dog’s face looming so close to hers it looked as if it were twisted by a funhouse mirror. Captain nudged her again with his cold, wet nose.

“Ohmigod,” Emma gasped, struggling upright. “You’re not…I mean, he’s not…” So much for her night of burning romance.

The terrier tilted its head to one side in query. Still feeling the effects of Jared’s Scotch, Captain listed to one side, then toppled into a pathetically thin heap.

Emma gathered the dog into her arms and peered about the room. The sun was setting, shadows painted against the wall. Where had the day gone? She’d brought Captain up to her room so he could rest, but the whole time she’d been changing out of her damp clothes, the mutt had struggled frantically to scratch out his stitches. Afraid he just might succeed, she had finally curled up with him on her bed, holding him so his claws couldn’t do any more damage.

She’d only intended to stay there until Captain drifted off. But her sleepless night and the craziness of the morning’s adventures had obviously taken more of a toll on her than she’d thought. They’d played through her mind, growing hazier and hazier until…

Her cheeks burned. It would be bad enough if Jared knew she’d slept the day away. If the archaeologist had any idea that she’d been having fantasies about him, her time here would be a complete disaster. The last thing she needed was to reinforce his opinion that she was a pampered little Hollywood…nymphomaniac.

What was she thinking? Having wild fantasies about a man she’d barely met. A man she didn’t even like. Well, at least not until this morning.

“It’s his mouth’s fault,” Emma told Captain. “That mouth is so hot it should come with a warning from the surgeon general.”

She’d seen Jared’s mouth sulky, angry, reckless. That had been dangerous enough. But smiling in good humor when he’d finally caught up with her on horseback, gruffly tender when he’d stitched Captain’s wounds, almost a little shy when she’d returned the favor, drawing his big, blunt-fingered hand onto her lap to clean out the bites he’d gotten saving her dog….

Shy? She brought herself up short. There wasn’t a shy bone in that man’s body. He was one-hundred-proof testosterone. And Emma hadn’t had so much as a taste of the hard stuff since Drew had walked out.

She rolled her eyes as the double entendre struck her. Her middle rumbled in protest, as if to say, “Don’t even
think
of a drinking metaphor with a stomach as empty as yours.” She supposed the logic was sound. She hadn’t eaten all day. Captain rolled onto his back, little legs up in the air, doing the best starving ghetto dog impression Emma had ever seen. Emma grinned, ridiculously pleased. It was nice to see a friendly face, the tower not so lonely anymore.

“Okay, I get the message,” she told Captain. “We’ll go in search of food. But no more licking my face, got it? And don’t you dare tell anyone what I was dreaming or I’ll—”

The terrier wove toward the edge of the bed. She caught him by the scruff of his neck just as he was about to fall off.

“What am I worried about? You’re in no shape to tell my secrets. At least not tonight.” She climbed off the bed, tucked Captain into her arms. He shivered.
Could he be developing a fever?
she wondered, concerned. Holding him in the crook of her left elbow, she wrapped her wide sleeve around him. Captain burrowed under the green wool and heaved a sigh, his shivering fading to an occasional tremor as she headed down the stairs and out the heavy wooden door.

She peered down the length of ruined curtain wall toward the cluster of white canvas tents. The day’s work must be over. It seemed everyone was taking a break. A crowd of buff male students showed off their athletic prowess, bumping a soccer ball expertly from one to another with their heads or knees or feet. A bevy of girls sprawled on a blanket nearby flirted outrageously, tossing their hair and laughing as if they hadn’t a care in the world.

Emma’s chest hurt as her mind spun back in time, remembering how good it felt to be that young, your whole life before you, the handsomest boy in class smiling at you in a way that made your heart threaten to beat its way out of your chest.

We’ve never officially met. I’m Drew Lawson.

I know.
Every girl in their sports conference knew who he was.
I’m, um, Emma McDaniel.

I know.
He’d smiled and Emma felt her stomach drop clean through the floor.
Your audition blew me away,
he’d said.
I just wanted you to know. If the drama department casts any other girl as Juliet, they’re out of their mind.

It’s…hard to say what will happen.
No it wasn’t. Brandi Bates, reigning bitch-queen of Whitewater High, was a shooin for the role. Her mom had even ordered a custom-made Juliet costume to “donate” to the theater department. Emma had figured her chances at being cast in the lead were about as slim as the chance that Drew Lawson would ever ask her on a date.

Who would ever have guessed he’d be the first to kiss her, her first lover, her husband, her best friend? Funny, it was her friend she missed the most.

Emma’s steps slowed for a moment as the Scottish countryside swirled back into focus, the loss of Drew fresh again. Feeling awkward, she tucked the pain away.

Chin up, she told herself. This isn’t the first time you’ve been an outsider.

But that didn’t make it much easier. Everyone else seemed to know where they fit at Castle Craigmorrigan. While Emma…

She’d have to carve out her own place. She’d done it before. Fastening a smile onto her face, she strolled toward the soccer game. Only then did she notice Davey Harrison on the fringe of the game. He looked as out of place as she felt and was stealing wistful glances at a sweet-faced redhead who sat near the blond, homecoming-queen type the other players were obviously trying to impress.

Smack!

A tanned surfer dude sent the ball flying Davey’s way. Before he could react, it ricocheted off his shoulder and went careening across the bumpy ground toward Emma. Instinctively, she trapped it with her foot, then wished she’d left the blasted ball alone. Davey’s face washed red with embarrassment.

For an instant the group of guys gawked at Emma, awkward as a bunch of seventh-graders peering across the gym floor at their first dance. The girls were almost as awestruck by Emma as the boys. But both sets of students recovered in a hurry.

“Hey, Harrison, go sit down with the girls,” Surfer Dude teased. “Let the lady play.”

“No thanks.” Emma scooped the ball up and lobbed it back into the game. The girls cast Emma green looks as the boys started to play to a different audience.

Only Homecoming Hell Queen seemed not to mind, a superior smirk on her lips. But then, if the angle of her gaze was any hint, she had her sights set far higher. Jared sat in a canvas folding chair outside his tent, jotting notes on some kind of pad.

Emma fought a pang of something that couldn’t be jealousy. So a gorgeous grad student wanted to crawl into bed with her site director? So what? That couldn’t be anything new. With his smoldering sexuality, the man probably sampled a new lover every dig season while students lined up hoping to be the flavor of the month.

They were sure to be disappointed. Emma had barely known the man for twenty-four hours and she already knew he had too much integrity to sleep with a student, graduate or otherwise.

Irritated with herself almost as much as with the blonde, Emma crossed to the one person she figured felt more out of place than she did at the moment. Davey.

“Is your boss starving me on purpose to get me ready for the whole siege scenario or do you think I could con him out of a little bread and water?”

“Didn’t you like what was on your tray?” Davey asked, concerned.

“What tray?”

Davey’s brow furrowed. “You mean you haven’t had anything to eat?”

“No.”

“But I heard Jared tell Veronica to take some food up to you at lunchtime.” Davey glared at the blonde, who had grudgingly delivered her a tray the night before. “What’s the deal, Veronica?”

Veronica stroked her hand from her throat to her annoyingly perky breasts, stealing a glance at Jared through thick lashes, her voice just a little loud to make sure the archaeologist could hear her. “Oh, I’m sorry. I just got so wrapped up in my work I forgot you were even here.”

Sure you did, sweetheart,
Emma thought.
Like you’d forget a boil on your ass.

“God, Veronica, I can’t believe you!” Davey exclaimed, outraged. “You sure remembered to eat lunch yourself.”

“Jared asked me to sit with him so we could discuss the finds I made,” Veronica said, staking claim as certainly as if she’d stuck a piece of tape across Jared’s chest that read
keep off.
“We were so engrossed that—”

Emma’s sleeve growled.

“My God, is that a dog?” Veronica asked in the tone most people would use to inquire about a poisonous snake.

Captain stuck his nose out of the folds of cloth and blinked at Veronica with drunken-sailor eyes. He showed his miniature vampire teeth, his whole body rumbling.
Great judge of character,
Emma thought.

“Does Jared know you have that thing here?” Veronica demanded, saccharine sweetness not quite hiding a healthy dose of bitchy triumph. “There’s no way he’s going to tolerate having a dog around the site.”

“Actually, Jared is the one who rescued Captain from the middle of a dogfight, then stitched him up,” Emma replied.