The Wedding Gift (3 page)

That didn't make him her friend.

She tossed his wallet back to him and continued on her way. Walking faster now that she wasn't weighted down by her cumbersome suitcase, she heard him swear and close his door. Then he was following her again in his car.

The little motel was exactly where Ruby had said it would be. Kipp parked under the portico beneath a lighted vacancy sign that was missing the
C,
then hauled her bulky suitcase out of the backseat. After setting it heavily on the pavement next to her, he got back in the driver's seat without uttering a word.

For some reason she felt compelled to say, “Riley made it clear he doesn't need a nursemaid, as he put it.”

Kipp lit a cigarette before replying. “Riley doesn't talk about what he needs. You ask me, a good roll between the sheets with a pretty nurse might be just what the doctor ordered.”

Madeline was left staring at his taillights as he drove away, wondering how many more times she would have to consciously close her gaping mouth today.

 

Sully's Pub began its existence as a boardinghouse for lumberjacks in the mid-1800s. The ax and saw marks on the rough-hewn beams over the bar were as evident today as they were in the black-and-white photograph that immortalized Ernest Hemingway having a beer here in 1948. The waitress was a brown-eyed young woman named Sissy. She wore her dark hair short and her T-shirt tight, the words
Yale is for thinkers—Gale is for drinkers
stretched
across her chest. According to her, the fine folks of Gale have been hoping to lure someone famous to town ever since. Other celebrities had reportedly purchased property in the area, but if they drank, it wasn't at Sully's.

Madeline hadn't come to Sully's to meet anybody famous. She came because she was starving and the desk clerk at the motel said it was the only place within walking distance that served food this late during the off-season.

The bar was surprisingly crowded on this Friday evening in April. It had a simple menu, small tables, mismatched chairs, paneled walls and one pool table in the back where Madeline and Ruby were losing to a petite brunette named Amanda and her clean-cut accountant boyfriend, Todd.

“You're really going to make me do this, aren't you?” Ruby sputtered to Amanda after scratching on an easy shot.

Amanda didn't let the fact that she was nearly a head shorter than Ruby intimidate her. Crossing her arms stubbornly, she said, “You've been my best friend my entire life and I'm not attending our ten-year high school reunion without you.”

Without her ball cap to subdue it, Ruby's wavy red hair fell halfway down her back. Even in flat shoes, her legs looked a mile long. In fact, everything
about her was long—her eyelashes, her silences, her sigh before she said, “Pete's going to be there.”

“So?” Amanda asked.

“Pete,” Ruby said with obvious disdain. “You know. Peter. As in Cheater Peter?”

“You guys finished here?” somebody asked.

After relinquishing the pool table to a group celebrating a twenty-first birthday, Todd said, “Just take a date.”

As if it was that easy. “Ugh,” was all Ruby said.

Obviously accustomed to these conversations, Todd excused himself and ambled over to talk to someone on the other side of the room. Now that it was just women, Amanda explained Ruby's dilemma to Madeline.

“Sure she could ask Jason Horning, but he's practically eye-level with the girls here.” She gestured in the vicinity of Ruby's chest. “And Ruby's always had a thing about short men. I mean,
a thing.
A few years ago, a man escaped from the Benzie County Jail. Every hardware store within fifty miles sold out of dead bolts and buckshot the first day. And do you know what Little Red Riding Hood here said? ‘I wonder if he's tall.'”

Even Ruby smiled at the memory, until she said, “Buckshot. Now, there's an idea.”

Madeline was so intrigued she didn't notice Sissy's approach until she'd plunked a beer down next to Madeline's right hand. “It's from that sulking Adonis at the bar.”

The celebration at the pool table was getting rowdier and the pub more crowded, and yet Madeline found Riley Merrick as if she had a radar lock on him. He'd exchanged his khakis and brown bomber for jeans and a crisp cotton shirt, and sat on a stool facing the mirror behind the bar, his back to her.

“Mr. Porsche, I presume?” Ruby said.

Sissy practically swooned. “He first came in about a year ago. Every month or so he returns. He orders a beer at the bar, talks to whoever happens to be sitting next to him, then leaves. I've seen him propositioned, but I haven't seen him take a woman up on it. The guy couldn't be sexier if he tried. I'm telling you, when a man like that buys a girl a drink, he's either apologizing or interested.”

“Which is he?” Amanda asked, scooting her chair closer.

“Maybe both,” Ruby said. “He accused Madeline of trespassing and practically threw her off some property earlier.”

Ruby, Amanda and Sissy were brimming with curiosity.

“He looks tall,” Amanda said. “If you don't go talk to him, Ruby here will.”

“Would you stop with the height references already?” Ruby sputtered.

Madeline laughed out loud, and it surprised her. She wanted to grasp these young women's hands and thank them for failing to soften their voices around her. They didn't handle her with kid gloves. Of course, they didn't know her history. That anonymity felt breathtakingly liberating. “Would you excuse me?” she asked, surging to her feet.

She'd changed into boots with heels, snug jeans and a black knit shirt. Several people watched her as she made her way to the bar, but she kept her gaze trained on the man watching in the mirror.

“What are you doing here?” she asked after she'd taken the stool next to Riley.

“I thought it was obvious. I bought you a drink.”

Oddly, that gruff tone was as refreshing as Ruby's, Amanda's and Sissy's curiosity had been. Eyeing the drop of condensation trailing down her bottle, she said, “I don't drink.”

“Then what are
you
doing here?”

In the mirror she saw Todd slip his arm around Amanda's shoulder. It was such a pure and simple gesture of intimacy it sent an ache to her chest. “I just lost a game of eight ball and it wasn't pretty.”

“Losing never is.”

Riley was a study in contrasts. He was a risk-taker who didn't like to lose, a wealthy business owner who worked alongside his crew. Practically every guy in the bar had at least a few days' whisker stubble on his face. Riley was clean shaven. His shirt had a designer logo; the beer bottle held loosely in his right hand didn't.

“You shouldn't be drinking,” she said.

“You even sound like my mother. I hope she paid you in advance.”

Riley seemed accustomed to interference from his mother. It might have annoyed him, but Madeline got the distinct impression it didn't intimidate him. “I told you,” she said. “She didn't pay me anything. Are you this distrusting of everyone in the medical field?”

She noticed an easing in his expression and a warming in his eyes, and it occurred to her that he was enjoying himself. Some men puffed up their chests or swaggered in order to be noticed. Riley's self-confidence was more subtle.

Someone jostled her from behind and a loud whooping sounded from the group at the pool table. Three middle-aged men yelled at the ref on a television mounted on the wall, drinks were plunked down, a blender started. Sitting in this bar in this
town of strangers, her elbows on the marred countertop, the heel of one boot hooked over the rung of her stool, she felt a weight lifting.

“I met a friend of yours today,” she said. “Kipp Dawson could use some training in social graces.”

“I'll let you tell him.”

She shook her head. “I'm pretty sure he threatened me.”

“Kipp threatens everyone.”

She found herself staring at Riley's mouth. It was broad, the lower lip just full enough to entice a second look. “He told me he has your back.”

“What else did he say?” he asked.

“I won't repeat it verbatim, but he was very poetic.”

He leaned closer, as if to tell her a secret. “The only time Kipp waxes poetic is when he's referring to sex.”

Was he flirting with her? Her heart fluttered wildly at the thought. “Just so there's no confusion,” she said, her beer a few inches from her mouth. “I'm not sleeping with you.”

“Madeline?”

They were nearly shoulder to shoulder now, their bottles raised, gazes locked. “Yes?”

“I didn't ask you to.” He took his time taking a long drink, set his beer back on the bar, then added, “But I was thinking about it.”

Her beer remained suspended in midair. Her mind
remained blank. With two fingers placed gently beneath her chin, Riley closed her mouth for her.

“Once more,” she whispered, her heart hammering in her chest, her gaze still on his.

“Pardon me?”

“That's my answer.”

“What was the question?” he asked.

“How many more times will my mouth go slack today?”

He didn't quite smile, but she thought he wanted to. Feeling a curious swooping pull in the pit of her stomach, she raised her beer to her lips and drank it down.

“A
re you okay over there?” Riley asked as he backed out of a parking spot behind Sully's.

Huddled low in his passenger seat, Madeline forced her eyes open and tried to focus on the lighted dials on the dash. “It must have been that last margarita.”

“More like the last three margaritas,” he said. “You and your friends were the life of the party. The bartender said their karaoke machine hasn't seen that much action all year.”

She held a hand to her forehead, remembering. Madeline had jumped in to harmonize as Ruby sang
the greatest Pat Benatar song of all time, “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.”

And somebody had, a shot of tequila for each of them, that is. Things were a little blurry after that. She couldn't quite recall how she came to be missing one earring. Was she wearing Riley's jacket? Where was hers?

Moaning softly, she said, “This is why I don't drink.”

“I saw how you don't drink.”

She considered telling him a gentleman wouldn't have mentioned that, but then he probably would have said a gentleman hadn't, and she just wasn't up to that kind of banter. When his tires splashed through a pothole, she placed a hand over her poor stomach.

“Hold on,” he said. “These streets are coming apart. I can turn the radio on if you think it'll help, but if I go any slower, we'll be moving backward through time, and I doubt you want to relive the past ten minutes.”

“What I want is someone to start an IV to put me in a medically induced coma.”

“So it's true.”

“What's true?” she asked miserably.

“Doctors and nurses make terrible patients.”

“To tell you the truth, I've never been a patient.”
She paused a moment before broaching a very delicate subject. “What kind of patient were you?”

“The impatient kind, to hear my brothers tell it.”

She liked the mellow tone of his voice and the way he didn't take himself too seriously. She wished he would keep talking. “Kipp said you have two brothers.”

“Kyle and Braden. Between us we had one father and three mothers, all of whom have a wide array of yappy little dogs that are obnoxiously high-strung, and too many grandmothers and aunts to officially count, most of whom are also obnoxiously high-strung. Kyle calls the women in the family The Sources because they leak information when it suits their hidden agendas. I don't know how much my mother told you about me.”

Obviously he hadn't called his mother. If he had, he would know she'd had nothing to do with Madeline's arrival in Gale.

“Riley, she didn't—”

“Why don't you tell me what you already know.”

I knew the sound of your heart beating before it was yours, and the way it felt beneath the palm of my hand.

If only she could say that out loud. But she couldn't do that without explaining how she'd discovered his identity.

Her memories of that horrible day never recurred
in their natural order. Instead they flashed back randomly from out of the blue, blindsiding her every time. There was the E.R. doctor's grave expression, the screech of a gurney, the specialist they called in to confer. Dread. Her frantic race to reach Aaron in time, the sting of her own tears. Dread. The discordant hiss and rattle of the machines doing what Aaron could no longer do, the results of the tests, the bitter taste of coffee. Dread.

It went on for hours and hours. Gradually the seconds slowed then stopped altogether. It was over. One moment she'd been saying goodbye, and the next she was engulfed in a void so vast it sucked the air from her lungs, the sound from the room, and color from every surface. Summer believed Madeline had been having a panic attack. Madeline only knew that the pressure building in her chest had forced her from Aaron's bedside and sent her clamoring for the stairs.

Up and around and up and around she'd gone until she'd burst onto the hospital roof where a helicopter was readying for takeoff. She crept close enough to feel the wind from the blades, the
whomp, whomp, whomp
matching the horrible pressure in her chest. The hospital staff scurrying about paid no attention to her. Since she was wearing scrubs, she probably blended right in. She dazedly stepped aside
as two men raced toward the helicopter. One carried a cooler; the other was talking on a cell phone.

“ETA one hour,” he said as he veered around her. “Prep Riley Merrick for surgery. His new heart is on the way.”

The next thing she knew the helicopter was lifting. It hovered overhead, turned then disappeared in the midnight sky. All that remained in the ensuing stillness was the
whomp, whomp, whomp
of her heart and the whisper of Riley Merrick's name.

There were strict laws protecting patients' identity. Even if it was legal, did she have the moral
right
to tell him about Aaron? Transplant recipients were always given the opportunity to obtain information about their donor. If Riley had wanted to know, he would have gone through the proper channels via his surgeon and the hospital. For whatever reason, he hadn't. Madeline didn't see what choice she had but to allow him to continue to assume she was here because of his mother.

“Are you still awake?” Riley asked, bringing her from her reverie. Hearing her sigh, he said, “Why don't you tell me something about you.”

Seconds passed while she tried to think of something to say, a place to begin. “I'm normally an open book. My fiancé used to say I told everyone I meet my life story.”

“I noticed you aren't wearing a ring,” he said. “Who ended it?”

“I guess he did.”

“You guess?”

“He died.”

This was when most people voiced one of the stock phrases for which there was no response.

I'm so sorry to hear that.

He must have been terribly young.

Time heals.

But Riley asked, “How long were you engaged?”

Concentrating on the blue dash light and the way it illuminated his hands, she said, “I knew I was going to marry him in the fifth grade.”

“I thought that only happened in third world countries and biblical times.”

In a hundred years Madeline hadn't planned to laugh. Riley rarely said what she expected. The sensation of being caught unawares was new and mildly exciting and other things she would have been able to identify if she hadn't taken her little trip to Margarita-Ville tonight.

Riley was smiling, too. When he looked at her, something changed in the very air she breathed. A delicate connection was forming between them. It sent a flutter of nerves to her stomach and the flutter of something else slightly lower.

They rode the remaining three blocks to the Gale Motel in silence. She got out of the car by rote after he parked, rifled through her purse until she found her key card and arrived at her door at the same time he did. Suddenly she froze.

“Something wrong, Madeline?” His voice was a low vibration that drew her gaze. The light over the door cast half his face in shadow. His hair fell across his forehead and his hands rested lightly on his hips as if he was as comfortable here as he was sitting on a bar stool or walking on narrow beams thirty feet off the ground.

He was good at this.

He leaned closer, not close enough to make her think he might kiss her, but close enough for her to smell his air-cooled skin and beer-warmed breath. Beneath those scents was the living breathing smell of risk.

He didn't touch her—he wasn't quite a rogue. Instead he stayed within reach should
she
choose to touch him—he wasn't quite a saint, either. He was something dangerous in between.

Risk. Danger.

She panicked.

Shoving the key card into the slot, she blurted, “Thanks for the ride. I mean that. Good night, Riley.” A second later the door closed behind her.

It wasn't long before she heard a car start. She didn't have to look through the peephole to know he had gone.

Breathing shallowly, she studied her room. Her suitcase was open on the low dresser, her toiletries strewn across the faux marble vanity. She almost didn't recognize her own reflection in the mirror above it—her hair mussed, her face flushed, her lips parted slightly.

What was happening to her?

This trip was supposed to bring her a sense of peace, of completion, of closure. It felt more like a desperate attempt to make sense of something beyond mere mortals' comprehension.

If Aaron were here, he would say, “I told you so.”

She missed that about him. She missed everything about him, from the way the sun touched his hair with gold to how his smile lit up his blue eyes. She missed his optimism and the way he always thought the best of everyone. She missed hearing about his students' escapades. She even missed the way he'd cracked his knuckles in church and dumped sugar straight from the sugar bowl into his coffee.

Moving slowly lest she detonated an explosion in the pit of her stomach, she stepped away from the door. She was turning the dead bolt when she noticed she was still wearing Riley's jacket. Emotion swelled
inside her as she brought the sleeve to her nose. It was unsettling, for the man stepping boldly into her mind wasn't Aaron—this man had dark wavy hair, deep-set eyes and a stance that had attitude written all over it.

 

The door to Madeline's room was propped open, a cleaning cart blocking the entrance. Riley stood outside, looking in. The bed was freshly made, ready for the next guest. Madeline was nowhere in sight.

He was too late. She was gone.

Built of cinder block fifty odd years ago, the Gale Motel had a total of eight rooms on one floor. The roof was patched, the windows aluminum factory issue. The place completely lacked architectural appeal. But wild horses couldn't have kept him away this morning.

“I'm too late,” he said as he untied the dog's leash from the railing. “The desk clerk said Madeline checked out thirty minutes ago.”

The dog stared up at him as if to say, “What are you going to do about it?”

There wasn't much Riley
could
do about it. He didn't know her phone number, where she lived or where she worked. He supposed he could always ask his mother then dismissed the idea as quickly as it formed. He'd had a few beers with a pretty woman. Hours later he'd had one amazing dream about her.
End of story. Certain aspects of the dream still lingered in his mind and in his bloodstream, making their brief association feel unfinished, but she was gone, and that was that.

He didn't remember the last time he'd been this preoccupied with a woman he'd just met. She wasn't even his type. Normally he liked his women chesty; surgically enhanced was fine with him. And they wanted what he wanted. Half the time they were the aggressors. Madeline liked him—a man could always tell—and yet she'd ducked into her room last night without so much as a backward glance.

The dog strained against the leash, dragging Riley from his musings. “What is it?” he asked. “What's your hurry?” Normally the old stray poked his nose in a hundred different places. Today he wanted to run.

Riley gave him the lead. They hit Elm Street hard, then Third, and finally the last stretch along Shoreline Drive. They were starting up the driveway when Riley caught a glimpse of Madeline's pale blond hair before she disappeared behind the arborvitae hedge in his backyard.

Well, well, well. She hadn't left town after all.

The dog gave a short bark then tugged against the leash again. “You want to show off for the lady?”

For a mutt, he had good instincts.

“Just remember,” Riley said as he matched his pace to the dog's steady run. “I saw her first.”

 

There was one rainstorm every April that spun the seasonal dial to spring. It lightened the sky, mellowed the breeze, gentled the air and left every living organism quivering with irrepressible enthusiasm.

Yesterday's downpour hadn't been that storm.

The pummeling rain
had
given everything in its path a good cleaning and the temperature
was
warmer today. Rooftops, streets, sidewalks, even the boardwalk leading to the lakeshore glistened in the morning sun. Under the surface, the earth was restless. Melancholy. Like Madeline.

She'd forgotten to close the blinds in her room last night and had awakened in the sun-drenched bed, shards of sunlight boring holes through her eye sockets. A quick shower and two aspirin had tamed her headache, thank goodness for small favors. She'd wasted no time packing. She'd checked out of her room, picked up her car and said goodbye to Ruby.

It was time to go home.

She'd accomplished what she'd come to Gale to do, and more. Yesterday she'd seen Riley, she'd spoken with him, she'd even spent a little time with him. No matter what he thought his mother thought he needed, he was obviously physically fit, healthy and strong.

She had only one thing left to do.

With the jacket she'd somehow ended up wearing home last night now folded over her left arm, she pressed Riley's doorbell again.

When she'd picked up her car at Red's Garage, she'd asked Ruby's father if he knew where Riley Merrick lived. Five minutes later she'd driven away with his address, driving directions and a description of Riley's house. Red O'Toole hadn't been exaggerating. Riley's house was a sprawling single story that blended into the surrounding hills. It had a low-pitched roof, deep eaves and wide porches. It wasn't so large that he wouldn't have had ample time to answer the door by now if he was inside.

What now?

She supposed she could have left his jacket on the railing, but she preferred to return it in person. Wondering if he might be down by the lake, she followed an old flagstone path around the house.

The property was amazing, the lawn a gradual slope that leveled off just before it reached the water. Shading her eyes with one hand, she watched a catamaran drift slowly by, its bright orange sail rippling halfheartedly on the melancholy breeze. Several fishing boats trolled back and forth on the horizon, and sea gulls bickered in the foamy shallows.