Another Love, page 23
Tonight she held nothing back, let nothing mar the pure pleasure she felt in touching him, caressing his strong, stubbled jaw, stroking the strong column of his throat. She loved the way his flat coppery nipples responded when she ran her fingers over their tips, the ripple of his abdominal muscles when she splayed her hand across them and used one finger to explore his navel.
His kisses drugged her, first cajoling, then demanding her surrender. Unconditional surrender she eagerly gave to his mouth…his hands…his huge, hard cock that filled her with its searing heat.
He touched her everywhere, whispering raw, needy words of sex when he thrust in her, over and over until she was nothing but a quivering mass of sensation. His words became throaty growls; growls gave way to moans as he trembled above her. Her pleasure undulated, grew and spread, fed his own, when she lost control.
Unable to hold back longer, they exploded together, their triumphant shouts mingling, merging in one fiery climax . Blake had touched her body before, but tonight he’d touched her heart. She finally trusted that she had reached and touched the part of him he’d guarded with a vengeance for so long.
As they lay together in the darkness, half-asleep, their arms and legs entwined, savoring the quiet aftermath of what had been the most profound experience of her life, Erin found the courage to gamble with her heart. “I love you, Blake,” she said softly, and she waited for his reaction.
He stirred. She held her breath, wondering if he had heard her. Then, he turned and locked her in his arms, and burrowed his face into the crook of her shoulder. “Oh, Glenna. I love you, too,” he murmured so softly Erin could barely hear him.
She felt him breathing softly against her neck and knew he had fallen back to sleep. Loving him the way she did, she couldn’t disturb him; so she lay there in the dark and held him, tasting the salt of her own tears as the world she had let herself dream of shattered along with her broken heart.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Glenna’s Ghost
“I never thought I’d say it or even think it, but my darling Blake, you’re a goddamn first-class asshole!”
Glenna had known tonight would be crucial in Blake and Erin’s marriage, so she had forced aside that lingering jealousy and lurked in the shadows of their darkened room, listening and looking only enough to see that Blake was making love, not simply gaining release from pent-up sexual desire as Erin had hinted he did.
I was right. They belong together. The sparks they make could wake the dead!
Yes, she was dead but she wasn’t gone. And she wasn’t about to go until her stubborn ox of a husband put her to rest and admitted that he loved Erin as much as he ever loved her.
No! Blake would have to admit he loved Erin more. The jerk came alive in every nerve in his gorgeous body the minute he looked at Erin, while sometimes Glenna had found it necessary to resort to elaborate seduction and erotic toys to get him in the mood.
An hour ago he’d been hard as stone before they’d touched, before either of them had shed a lick of clothes. He’d worshiped every inch of Erin’s long, lithe body with his hands and mouth before taking care of his own very obvious need. He wouldn’t have bothered if all he’d wanted was to relieve his damn male lust.
He’d been the perfect lover, and Erin had risked giving him the words of love she wasn’t sure he was ready to hear. And what had he done?
Glenna laughed, with disdain, not glee. “The stupid, unfeeling asshole had to call her by my name!”
Glenna watched him now, sleeping on Erin’s shoulder without a care in the world while Erin sobbed quietly. Damn, she wished she had the power to conk him in the head. The guy might have graduated fourth in his class at law school, but he didn’t have a lick of brains.
“What do I have to do to knock some common sense into your thick skull? Damn it all!” She slammed an ineffectual fist onto the sleek glass tabletop. “I know you love her, Blake. What do I have to do to make you realize it?”
Weary of the one-sided conflict with the man she’d once loved more than life, Glenna tried to think of tricks she could pull to make Blake see the light.
She’d have to get some rest tonight, because if she weren’t mistaken, she’d have to deal with an irate Erin in the morning. Still muttering curses at Blake for his unfeeling faux pas, Glenna faded away, still hearing Erin sobbing as if her heart were broken.
Chapter Twenty-Five
It had been all Erin could do to hold her tongue while Blake whistled his way from bed to his dressing room, and then down the hall toward breakfast. When she was sure he was out of earshot, she leapt out of bed and jerked on a disreputable looking pair of sweats.
Last night, she had hurt. This morning the pain had turned to anger. No, not anger but plain, unvarnished fury. She might have agreed to be a stand-in mother for his baby, but she damn sure never consented to be a stand-in bedmate for his meddlesome dead wife! Fuming, Erin stomped into her dressing room and started opening drawers.
If Timmy didn’t love Blake so, she would take him and Jamie, leave this place and never come back. She’d have to content herself with moving back to the other wing where she’d lived before the farce of a wedding. Who cared if everybody in Dallas found out she and Blake had a marriage-in-name-only?
Where was Glenna’s interfering ghost? Erin wanted to give her a piece of her mind, too! None of this would have happened if the woman had stayed wherever it was that ghosts stayed, and left Erin alone.
Grabbing an empty pillowcase, Erin emptied a drawer of her lingerie chest into it and opened the next drawer. She repeated the process until the pillowcase was bulging at its seams.
“He didn’t mean it, Erin.”
Erin refused to look and see whether Glenna had decided to appear in person. If she saw her, she’d want to strangle her. She wasn’t sure it was possible to wreak physical havoc on a ghost, though. Then she realized the implication of the ghost’s words and looked up to meet that familiar, glowing gaze. “You didn’t mean to eavesdrop, either, did you?”
“Well…”
Erin had never heard Glenna hesitate before. “What’s the matter? Do you actually have the decency to be embarrassed, admitting you invaded my privacy and watched us having sex?”
“You’re not leaving. You can’t.”
Erin widened her stance and set both hands on her hips. “No, I’m not leaving. You saw to it that I couldn’t. Not when my son is so attached to Blake. But I damn well am moving out of this room, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
Whirling around, she opened another drawer and began emptying it into another pillowcase. When she filled it, she turned to set it by the first one she’d stuffed with undies, only to notice the bag was gone.
While Erin gawked, the second bag floated out of her hands as if by magic, and clothes settled once more in the drawers she’d just emptied. “What are you doing?”
Glenna grinned down at her from her perch on top of a tall, skinny chest of drawers. “Saving you from yourself. You don’t want to do this.”
“Why not? How would you like feeling like an overpaid nanny who earns her keep by filling in for Blake’s real wife in bed each night?” Erin opened another drawer and began to empty it. “How would you like having the man you love call you by someone else’s name?”
“The guy’s a real ass, isn’t he?”
While Erin gawked at Glenna, hardly believing the ghost would say a word against her husband, Glenna managed to get the latest sack of clothes she had filled replaced in the drawer from whence it came. “Leave me alone. Haven’t you done enough to me?” She watched Glenna float down from her perch to keep her from getting to more clothes she intended to pack.
“Don’t you move out of here. If you’re really that mad at Blake, make him go back to sleeping on that daybed in his study where he hid out for God knows how many months.”
That was the first halfway sensible suggestion Erin had heard come out of Glenna’s mouth. Still, she balked. “It’s not far enough away.”
“What will Timmy think?”
Erin choked back a bitter retort. She knew as well as Glenna that it would distress her boy to think she and his new, wonderful daddy weren’t getting along. Timmy already had more than enough for a seven-year-old to cope with. “You know how to deal low blows,” she muttered, but she reached around the ghost and closed the only drawer that still gaped open.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to see you all happy together,” Glenna said, her voice still strong though her image was beginning to fade.
“You stay here,” Erin ordered, not ready to let the ghost escape without her having her say. “I’ve listened to you for long enough. Now it’s your turn to hear what I have to say.”
Glenna smiled. “Hurry. I’ll stick around as long as I can.”
“Okay. First, don’t you go planting pictures or playing mind games with us anymore. Second, keep your nose out of what’s going on between me and Blake. You didn’t make me love him—I managed that all by myself. Finally, get it through your head that you can’t make him love me.”
Glenna’s lower lip trembled, and Erin saw regret in the ghost’s benign expression. Suddenly she felt guilty. “Look. I’m not blaming you. I’m glad you’ve let me get to know you, even if it had to be this way.” Erin gestured toward the golden aura that gave the ghost an otherworldly look. “But you can’t push me and Blake around like we’re a couple of puppets. Life doesn’t work that way.”
“I know,” Glenna said softly as Erin watched her fade away.
* * * * *
“It’s almost time for us to get ready for the rehearsal,” Blake said jovially as he strode into the suite early that afternoon.
“I know.”
“Need help with any last-minute details for tomorrow?” He paused to drop a quick kiss on Erin’s inviting lips. The chill he’d heard in her voice suddenly intensified when she pulled away. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. If you consider calling the woman you’re sleeping with by someone else’s name nothing, that is.” Erin’s tone fairly dripped venom.
“What?” His good mood disintegrated in the face of her anger.
“Do the words, ‘I love you too, Glenna,’ ring a bell?”
Blake hesitated. Of course those words rang bells. He did love Glenna. “I’ve never confused you with Glenna when we make love.” He cursed himself silently for the way his cock hardened just thinking about fucking Erin.
“Maybe you didn’t say it consciously. Whether you remember or not, though, you said it. And it hurt. I can’t sleep with you, wondering when you might next mistake me for her.”
Shit. He must have talked in his sleep. He certainly couldn’t remember uttering those damning words. He’d never have been so boorish as to whisper words of love to one woman while he was with another, even if he was thinking them.
When he searched recent memory, Blake realized that when he was having sex with Erin, Glenna never crossed his mind. And that revelation produced not the tearing guilt he would have expected but a gentle sense of sadness.
The last thing he wanted to do was move back into that lonely daybed to toss and turn and try in vain to sleep. Now, though, was not the time to argue. He sensed that Erin’s tight, controlled expression masked fury best kept contained until this wedding was over and their time was once again their own.
“If that’s what you want. For now. I’m sorry for whatever I said that hurt you.” He laid a hand gently on her shoulder, and although she trembled, she didn’t pull away.
She met his gaze with sad, dark eyes. “I know. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to spend some time with Timmy.”
Blake watched her cross the patio to Tim’s room. Women! He’d never understand them, not if he lived to be a hundred. Erin knew he loved Glenna. He’d been nothing but honest when he’d argued that they should marry. He’d reiterated the same feelings when he told Erin he wanted her in his bed. These past few weeks had been trying, but he’d found peace as well as sexual release in his wife’s arms. He liked her more each day, and wanted her with an intensity he’d never experienced before.
Apparently he’d vowed his love for Glenna in his sleep, and that got Erin incensed. Rightly so. He’d straighten out this problem as soon as things settled down. Right now he tried to focus on Sandy and Greg’s wedding and his duties as surrogate father of the bride.
* * * * *
Erin’s heart ached with envy at the obvious love that flowed between Sandy and Greg at their casual rehearsal dinner. Seeing them so happy made her yearn for an honest, loving relationship of her own. She tried to be happy for them when Blake stood to greet the members of the wedding and their escorts.
She’d never seen Sandy look so excited. And Greg beamed with pride as they made the rounds of all the tables, meeting his bride’s young attendants and introducing Sandy to friends and his flamboyant family members who’d flown in from all over the world.
To the understated accompaniment of soft instrumental music, young college friends of Sandy’s mingled with Greg’s far-flung family members and older, more sophisticated colleagues. Somehow in denim and khaki and without trappings that broadcast personal taste or finances, the group integrated to celebrate.
The differences were there, of course. Facets of light caught the huge diamond one of Greg’s Houston cousins had on. The sleek blonde’s ruby-red denim jumpsuit bore the unmistakable mark of a famous designer. Self-consciously, Erin touched the collar of her own denim dress and toyed with its trim of turquoises and silver conchos as she waved at Katy, Sandy’s childhood pal and maid of honor, who had on faded Levis and a western shirt.
Sandy laughed at something Katy said and gave Greg a quick, hard hug before they moved to the next table. Even without their matching shirts, no one would have failed to tag them as the bride and groom. They exchanged a few words with Shana, who’d apparently decided to join in the fun instead of causing havoc.
“Erin?”
“What?” Why did he have to look so good he made her mouth water, when his heart belonged to someone else?
“We should mingle.”
Mingling was the last thing on Erin’s mind. She’d rather have vicariously shared her sister’s happiness than played Blake’s contented wife. “In a minute,” she said, taking a deep breath and an analytic look around the room.
Sandy’s attendants and their escorts laughed and chatted among themselves. Erin shrugged off their exuberance as the province of the very young, and turned to their older guests. Greg’s cousin with the apparent penchant for precious jewels had her arm draped around her blond, patrician-looking husband, who smiled at her with what looked to Erin like puppy-dog devotion. Feeling like a voyeur, she looked away, turning her attention to another couple at that table.
They, too, looked like lovers. Damn it, surely she wasn’t the only person in this wedding party who lacked for love. Her gaze settled on Greg’s best man, the youngest of his Houston cousins. Darkly handsome like Greg, but taller, broader and more deeply tanned, he smiled at something Sandy said, then turned to the model-slender beauty next to him. Erin noticed his dark, brooding expression and realized he, too, seemed to be feeling left out of all the love and goodwill that abounded tonight.
“I’m ready now.” She didn’t want her mood to put a damper on the festivities, though her heart wasn’t in the bright smile she kept firmly pasted on her face. Having Blake so close, feeling the warmth of his body against her when they stopped to greet their guests made her want him in spite of her anger. She felt a sense of kindred spirits when Blake introduced her to the brooding best man and his gorgeous wife.
Animosity stirred beneath their brittle veneer of conviviality, and her own self-pity fell aside in a burst of sympathy for the tense couple. Alice, the blonde, spoke just enough to keep from appearing rude, while Greg’s cousin Jake struck up a conversation with Blake about some oil rights problem. Erin assumed Blake was handling some litigation about the problem, but she thought it odd for Jake to have brought up business tonight.
“Greg’s cousin has a serious problem on his hands,” Blake said as they strolled back to their own table.
“The one you two were talking about?”
“No. The one he brought to the wedding.”
It surprised Erin that Blake had noticed the undertones of marital dissension. “His wife?” She needed to make certain they were on the same wavelength.
“Yeah. Jake and Alice were barely speaking to each other.”
“How well do you know them?”
Blake paused for a moment. “I’ve known Jake since I’ve known Greg. Close to twenty years. Of course, Jake was just a kid back then.”
“And you weren’t?”
“At the time I thought I was pretty grown up, compared to Jake. Greg and I were freshmen at UT, and Jake couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old. He spent a weekend with us, and we took him to a Longhorns football game. He and Greg have always been close—neither of them has brothers—so our paths crossed regularly while he was growing up. For the past few years, my firm has handled his family-owned oil company’s legal matters.”
“What makes you think something’s wrong?”
“Jake doesn’t talk business when he’s having fun. And he doesn’t ordinarily ignore Alice. I’m surprised you couldn’t feel the tension between them.”
“I felt it. We’d better circulate some more.” It stung Erin to realize Blake could easily interpret others’ feelings but seemed oblivious to hers.
Later, when the party was over and she crawled into a bed that suddenly felt too big and empty without Blake, Erin let down her defenses and cried.
* * * * *
Blake sat on the daybed across the hall, wondering when and how he’d uttered the damning words that got him tossed out of his wife’s bed. All he remembered was feeling sated and totally relaxed last night, lying on his side with Erin curled comfortably against him. And the lovemaking.
His kisses drugged her, first cajoling, then demanding her surrender. Unconditional surrender she eagerly gave to his mouth…his hands…his huge, hard cock that filled her with its searing heat.
He touched her everywhere, whispering raw, needy words of sex when he thrust in her, over and over until she was nothing but a quivering mass of sensation. His words became throaty growls; growls gave way to moans as he trembled above her. Her pleasure undulated, grew and spread, fed his own, when she lost control.
Unable to hold back longer, they exploded together, their triumphant shouts mingling, merging in one fiery climax . Blake had touched her body before, but tonight he’d touched her heart. She finally trusted that she had reached and touched the part of him he’d guarded with a vengeance for so long.
As they lay together in the darkness, half-asleep, their arms and legs entwined, savoring the quiet aftermath of what had been the most profound experience of her life, Erin found the courage to gamble with her heart. “I love you, Blake,” she said softly, and she waited for his reaction.
He stirred. She held her breath, wondering if he had heard her. Then, he turned and locked her in his arms, and burrowed his face into the crook of her shoulder. “Oh, Glenna. I love you, too,” he murmured so softly Erin could barely hear him.
She felt him breathing softly against her neck and knew he had fallen back to sleep. Loving him the way she did, she couldn’t disturb him; so she lay there in the dark and held him, tasting the salt of her own tears as the world she had let herself dream of shattered along with her broken heart.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Glenna’s Ghost
“I never thought I’d say it or even think it, but my darling Blake, you’re a goddamn first-class asshole!”
Glenna had known tonight would be crucial in Blake and Erin’s marriage, so she had forced aside that lingering jealousy and lurked in the shadows of their darkened room, listening and looking only enough to see that Blake was making love, not simply gaining release from pent-up sexual desire as Erin had hinted he did.
I was right. They belong together. The sparks they make could wake the dead!
Yes, she was dead but she wasn’t gone. And she wasn’t about to go until her stubborn ox of a husband put her to rest and admitted that he loved Erin as much as he ever loved her.
No! Blake would have to admit he loved Erin more. The jerk came alive in every nerve in his gorgeous body the minute he looked at Erin, while sometimes Glenna had found it necessary to resort to elaborate seduction and erotic toys to get him in the mood.
An hour ago he’d been hard as stone before they’d touched, before either of them had shed a lick of clothes. He’d worshiped every inch of Erin’s long, lithe body with his hands and mouth before taking care of his own very obvious need. He wouldn’t have bothered if all he’d wanted was to relieve his damn male lust.
He’d been the perfect lover, and Erin had risked giving him the words of love she wasn’t sure he was ready to hear. And what had he done?
Glenna laughed, with disdain, not glee. “The stupid, unfeeling asshole had to call her by my name!”
Glenna watched him now, sleeping on Erin’s shoulder without a care in the world while Erin sobbed quietly. Damn, she wished she had the power to conk him in the head. The guy might have graduated fourth in his class at law school, but he didn’t have a lick of brains.
“What do I have to do to knock some common sense into your thick skull? Damn it all!” She slammed an ineffectual fist onto the sleek glass tabletop. “I know you love her, Blake. What do I have to do to make you realize it?”
Weary of the one-sided conflict with the man she’d once loved more than life, Glenna tried to think of tricks she could pull to make Blake see the light.
She’d have to get some rest tonight, because if she weren’t mistaken, she’d have to deal with an irate Erin in the morning. Still muttering curses at Blake for his unfeeling faux pas, Glenna faded away, still hearing Erin sobbing as if her heart were broken.
Chapter Twenty-Five
It had been all Erin could do to hold her tongue while Blake whistled his way from bed to his dressing room, and then down the hall toward breakfast. When she was sure he was out of earshot, she leapt out of bed and jerked on a disreputable looking pair of sweats.
Last night, she had hurt. This morning the pain had turned to anger. No, not anger but plain, unvarnished fury. She might have agreed to be a stand-in mother for his baby, but she damn sure never consented to be a stand-in bedmate for his meddlesome dead wife! Fuming, Erin stomped into her dressing room and started opening drawers.
If Timmy didn’t love Blake so, she would take him and Jamie, leave this place and never come back. She’d have to content herself with moving back to the other wing where she’d lived before the farce of a wedding. Who cared if everybody in Dallas found out she and Blake had a marriage-in-name-only?
Where was Glenna’s interfering ghost? Erin wanted to give her a piece of her mind, too! None of this would have happened if the woman had stayed wherever it was that ghosts stayed, and left Erin alone.
Grabbing an empty pillowcase, Erin emptied a drawer of her lingerie chest into it and opened the next drawer. She repeated the process until the pillowcase was bulging at its seams.
“He didn’t mean it, Erin.”
Erin refused to look and see whether Glenna had decided to appear in person. If she saw her, she’d want to strangle her. She wasn’t sure it was possible to wreak physical havoc on a ghost, though. Then she realized the implication of the ghost’s words and looked up to meet that familiar, glowing gaze. “You didn’t mean to eavesdrop, either, did you?”
“Well…”
Erin had never heard Glenna hesitate before. “What’s the matter? Do you actually have the decency to be embarrassed, admitting you invaded my privacy and watched us having sex?”
“You’re not leaving. You can’t.”
Erin widened her stance and set both hands on her hips. “No, I’m not leaving. You saw to it that I couldn’t. Not when my son is so attached to Blake. But I damn well am moving out of this room, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
Whirling around, she opened another drawer and began emptying it into another pillowcase. When she filled it, she turned to set it by the first one she’d stuffed with undies, only to notice the bag was gone.
While Erin gawked, the second bag floated out of her hands as if by magic, and clothes settled once more in the drawers she’d just emptied. “What are you doing?”
Glenna grinned down at her from her perch on top of a tall, skinny chest of drawers. “Saving you from yourself. You don’t want to do this.”
“Why not? How would you like feeling like an overpaid nanny who earns her keep by filling in for Blake’s real wife in bed each night?” Erin opened another drawer and began to empty it. “How would you like having the man you love call you by someone else’s name?”
“The guy’s a real ass, isn’t he?”
While Erin gawked at Glenna, hardly believing the ghost would say a word against her husband, Glenna managed to get the latest sack of clothes she had filled replaced in the drawer from whence it came. “Leave me alone. Haven’t you done enough to me?” She watched Glenna float down from her perch to keep her from getting to more clothes she intended to pack.
“Don’t you move out of here. If you’re really that mad at Blake, make him go back to sleeping on that daybed in his study where he hid out for God knows how many months.”
That was the first halfway sensible suggestion Erin had heard come out of Glenna’s mouth. Still, she balked. “It’s not far enough away.”
“What will Timmy think?”
Erin choked back a bitter retort. She knew as well as Glenna that it would distress her boy to think she and his new, wonderful daddy weren’t getting along. Timmy already had more than enough for a seven-year-old to cope with. “You know how to deal low blows,” she muttered, but she reached around the ghost and closed the only drawer that still gaped open.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to see you all happy together,” Glenna said, her voice still strong though her image was beginning to fade.
“You stay here,” Erin ordered, not ready to let the ghost escape without her having her say. “I’ve listened to you for long enough. Now it’s your turn to hear what I have to say.”
Glenna smiled. “Hurry. I’ll stick around as long as I can.”
“Okay. First, don’t you go planting pictures or playing mind games with us anymore. Second, keep your nose out of what’s going on between me and Blake. You didn’t make me love him—I managed that all by myself. Finally, get it through your head that you can’t make him love me.”
Glenna’s lower lip trembled, and Erin saw regret in the ghost’s benign expression. Suddenly she felt guilty. “Look. I’m not blaming you. I’m glad you’ve let me get to know you, even if it had to be this way.” Erin gestured toward the golden aura that gave the ghost an otherworldly look. “But you can’t push me and Blake around like we’re a couple of puppets. Life doesn’t work that way.”
“I know,” Glenna said softly as Erin watched her fade away.
* * * * *
“It’s almost time for us to get ready for the rehearsal,” Blake said jovially as he strode into the suite early that afternoon.
“I know.”
“Need help with any last-minute details for tomorrow?” He paused to drop a quick kiss on Erin’s inviting lips. The chill he’d heard in her voice suddenly intensified when she pulled away. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. If you consider calling the woman you’re sleeping with by someone else’s name nothing, that is.” Erin’s tone fairly dripped venom.
“What?” His good mood disintegrated in the face of her anger.
“Do the words, ‘I love you too, Glenna,’ ring a bell?”
Blake hesitated. Of course those words rang bells. He did love Glenna. “I’ve never confused you with Glenna when we make love.” He cursed himself silently for the way his cock hardened just thinking about fucking Erin.
“Maybe you didn’t say it consciously. Whether you remember or not, though, you said it. And it hurt. I can’t sleep with you, wondering when you might next mistake me for her.”
Shit. He must have talked in his sleep. He certainly couldn’t remember uttering those damning words. He’d never have been so boorish as to whisper words of love to one woman while he was with another, even if he was thinking them.
When he searched recent memory, Blake realized that when he was having sex with Erin, Glenna never crossed his mind. And that revelation produced not the tearing guilt he would have expected but a gentle sense of sadness.
The last thing he wanted to do was move back into that lonely daybed to toss and turn and try in vain to sleep. Now, though, was not the time to argue. He sensed that Erin’s tight, controlled expression masked fury best kept contained until this wedding was over and their time was once again their own.
“If that’s what you want. For now. I’m sorry for whatever I said that hurt you.” He laid a hand gently on her shoulder, and although she trembled, she didn’t pull away.
She met his gaze with sad, dark eyes. “I know. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to spend some time with Timmy.”
Blake watched her cross the patio to Tim’s room. Women! He’d never understand them, not if he lived to be a hundred. Erin knew he loved Glenna. He’d been nothing but honest when he’d argued that they should marry. He’d reiterated the same feelings when he told Erin he wanted her in his bed. These past few weeks had been trying, but he’d found peace as well as sexual release in his wife’s arms. He liked her more each day, and wanted her with an intensity he’d never experienced before.
Apparently he’d vowed his love for Glenna in his sleep, and that got Erin incensed. Rightly so. He’d straighten out this problem as soon as things settled down. Right now he tried to focus on Sandy and Greg’s wedding and his duties as surrogate father of the bride.
* * * * *
Erin’s heart ached with envy at the obvious love that flowed between Sandy and Greg at their casual rehearsal dinner. Seeing them so happy made her yearn for an honest, loving relationship of her own. She tried to be happy for them when Blake stood to greet the members of the wedding and their escorts.
She’d never seen Sandy look so excited. And Greg beamed with pride as they made the rounds of all the tables, meeting his bride’s young attendants and introducing Sandy to friends and his flamboyant family members who’d flown in from all over the world.
To the understated accompaniment of soft instrumental music, young college friends of Sandy’s mingled with Greg’s far-flung family members and older, more sophisticated colleagues. Somehow in denim and khaki and without trappings that broadcast personal taste or finances, the group integrated to celebrate.
The differences were there, of course. Facets of light caught the huge diamond one of Greg’s Houston cousins had on. The sleek blonde’s ruby-red denim jumpsuit bore the unmistakable mark of a famous designer. Self-consciously, Erin touched the collar of her own denim dress and toyed with its trim of turquoises and silver conchos as she waved at Katy, Sandy’s childhood pal and maid of honor, who had on faded Levis and a western shirt.
Sandy laughed at something Katy said and gave Greg a quick, hard hug before they moved to the next table. Even without their matching shirts, no one would have failed to tag them as the bride and groom. They exchanged a few words with Shana, who’d apparently decided to join in the fun instead of causing havoc.
“Erin?”
“What?” Why did he have to look so good he made her mouth water, when his heart belonged to someone else?
“We should mingle.”
Mingling was the last thing on Erin’s mind. She’d rather have vicariously shared her sister’s happiness than played Blake’s contented wife. “In a minute,” she said, taking a deep breath and an analytic look around the room.
Sandy’s attendants and their escorts laughed and chatted among themselves. Erin shrugged off their exuberance as the province of the very young, and turned to their older guests. Greg’s cousin with the apparent penchant for precious jewels had her arm draped around her blond, patrician-looking husband, who smiled at her with what looked to Erin like puppy-dog devotion. Feeling like a voyeur, she looked away, turning her attention to another couple at that table.
They, too, looked like lovers. Damn it, surely she wasn’t the only person in this wedding party who lacked for love. Her gaze settled on Greg’s best man, the youngest of his Houston cousins. Darkly handsome like Greg, but taller, broader and more deeply tanned, he smiled at something Sandy said, then turned to the model-slender beauty next to him. Erin noticed his dark, brooding expression and realized he, too, seemed to be feeling left out of all the love and goodwill that abounded tonight.
“I’m ready now.” She didn’t want her mood to put a damper on the festivities, though her heart wasn’t in the bright smile she kept firmly pasted on her face. Having Blake so close, feeling the warmth of his body against her when they stopped to greet their guests made her want him in spite of her anger. She felt a sense of kindred spirits when Blake introduced her to the brooding best man and his gorgeous wife.
Animosity stirred beneath their brittle veneer of conviviality, and her own self-pity fell aside in a burst of sympathy for the tense couple. Alice, the blonde, spoke just enough to keep from appearing rude, while Greg’s cousin Jake struck up a conversation with Blake about some oil rights problem. Erin assumed Blake was handling some litigation about the problem, but she thought it odd for Jake to have brought up business tonight.
“Greg’s cousin has a serious problem on his hands,” Blake said as they strolled back to their own table.
“The one you two were talking about?”
“No. The one he brought to the wedding.”
It surprised Erin that Blake had noticed the undertones of marital dissension. “His wife?” She needed to make certain they were on the same wavelength.
“Yeah. Jake and Alice were barely speaking to each other.”
“How well do you know them?”
Blake paused for a moment. “I’ve known Jake since I’ve known Greg. Close to twenty years. Of course, Jake was just a kid back then.”
“And you weren’t?”
“At the time I thought I was pretty grown up, compared to Jake. Greg and I were freshmen at UT, and Jake couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old. He spent a weekend with us, and we took him to a Longhorns football game. He and Greg have always been close—neither of them has brothers—so our paths crossed regularly while he was growing up. For the past few years, my firm has handled his family-owned oil company’s legal matters.”
“What makes you think something’s wrong?”
“Jake doesn’t talk business when he’s having fun. And he doesn’t ordinarily ignore Alice. I’m surprised you couldn’t feel the tension between them.”
“I felt it. We’d better circulate some more.” It stung Erin to realize Blake could easily interpret others’ feelings but seemed oblivious to hers.
Later, when the party was over and she crawled into a bed that suddenly felt too big and empty without Blake, Erin let down her defenses and cried.
* * * * *
Blake sat on the daybed across the hall, wondering when and how he’d uttered the damning words that got him tossed out of his wife’s bed. All he remembered was feeling sated and totally relaxed last night, lying on his side with Erin curled comfortably against him. And the lovemaking.
