Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You (v1.2) (37 page)

“Thank you, Quinn!” she said, standing on tiptoe and kissing him. “But your Porsche will never hold all my luggage. I’ll just pack a few things and we can come back for the rest, all right?”

Quinn agreed, knowing Shelby needed to feel she would be back in East Wapaneken again. He’d agree to dyeing his hair purple, if it would get Shelby moving. Not that he didn’t think he could handle Parker Westbrook III and his two hired goons if the occasion arose. He just didn’t want Shelby in the way if that happened.

Twenty minutes later, with a worried Brandy bonded to Shelby’s side as if she’d been smeared with glue and stuck there, the three of them headed off down the street, on the way to Tony’s.

“I’m going to miss this place so much,” Shelby said, squeezing Brandy’s hand. “I’m going to miss everybody, especially you and Gary. It’s difficult to imagine life without you now.”

“You can come visit anytime, sweetcakes,” Brandy said, tossing a concerned look in Quinn’s direction. “And, hey, if you want to send Jim Helfrich and the limo to bring me to you, well, I wouldn’t say no. Oh, damn,” she said, stopping on the pavement just before the alleyway. “I forgot the envelopes Tony gave me to hold. Donations, you know. You two go on ahead, and I’ll be right behind you.”

They walked the second block slowly, with Quinn holding Shelby’s hand, with his gaze sweeping the roadway as he watched the coming and going of several cars. Looking ahead, he could see several more cars in Tony’s lot, which wasn’t unusual. As a matter of fact, nothing seemed the least bit unusual or out of the ordinary.

That made Quinn nervous, more on his guard. Not that he wasn’t always on his guard. But he was never nervous, never unsure of himself. It had taken falling in love to do that to him.

They’d just stepped onto the blacktop of Tony’s parking lot when it happened.

The freestanding sign that listed the day’s specials, a low sign on wheels placed at the edge of the parking lot, had blocked Quinn’s view just enough that he didn’t see the man crouching behind it.

Without a sound, the man stood up and made a run at Quinn.

Shelby screamed.

Quinn recognized the guy as the one who had tried to pull Shelby into a car, and cursed himself for being right the one time in his life he didn’t want to be right.

He shot out an arm, deflecting the man’s fairly well telegraphed punch, then stepped forward, planning to chop the side of his hand against the guy’s neck.

The son of a bitch countered the blow. Great, Quinn thought. Damn all the interest in martial arts these days. Just what he needed. A guy who thought he knew how to fight.

But then, he probably didn’t know how to fight dirty.

Quinn did. He turned his body to one side, balanced his weight on the balls of his feet, dropped his arms to his sides, and all but begged the guy to come at him again.

Shelby ran into Tony’s yelling for help, completely bypassing the police chief, who was nearly invisible in his normal stance at the poker machines. “Someone’s after Quinn! Hurry!”

Then she turned and ran outside.

Tony grabbed a cleaver, breaking into a pretty damn good imitation of a run. Joseph and Francis knocked over two tables on their way out the door. The regulars pushed and shoved their combined bulk out of their booth, bringing up the rear.

By the time Shelby was outside once more, Quinn was standing over his attacker, his chest heaving, his fists still clenched as the man writhed in the street, both hands clutching his most tender parts.

“Quinn, you’re all right!” Shelby yelled, running toward him across the width of blacktop.

“No!” he called to her, still trying to catch his breath. “Go inside. For God’s sake, get back inside!”

But it was too late. A dark sedan pulled into the parking lot, brakes screeching, and a man jumped out of the passenger door, grabbing Shelby’s arm.

“Parker?” Shelby couldn’t believe it, even with the man standing in front of her, looking more frightened than she did, if that were possible. His fear gave her courage. His rumpled, custom-made tennis whites, probably the only clothes he had on him when he ran from the police, made her laugh. “Parker, you
ass. “

Unfortunately, Westbrook’s fear did not give her physical strength, at least not enough to pull free of his grip. He twisted her arm behind her back and began shoving her toward the open car door as the driver yelled, “Come on, come on,
move it!”

That was when Mayor Brobst and her ‘67 Caddy, arriving a tad late because of her usual Saturday-morning appointment at Maude’s Curl, Cut, and Color, pulled into the parking lot.

Quinn could see Amelia Brobst glaring at the scene as she peered through the steering wheel from the opposite end of the parking lot, as Bettyann Fink shouted in her ear. Amelia laid on the brake and the horn, and gunned the engine in warning.

Quinn looked at the man on the ground and decided he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. He looked at Shelby, who was wincing as Westbrook tried to make her walk toward the car. She wasn’t making his job easy, bless her, not that she couldn’t do with a little help.

Which she got.

In spades.

Francis, bigger than Joseph by a few pounds—which was like saying that maybe having two tons of bricks fall on your head would be less painful than having two tons plus five pounds of bricks fall on your head—grabbed Westbrook from behind, catching him in a bear hug and lifting him straight off the ground.

He then deposited him back on the ground, from rather a great height, and Joseph took over.

Joseph kicked him, right in the Third’s hopes for a Fourth.

Meanwhile, Mayor Brobst gunned her engine again, put the Caddy into gear, and aimed that tank of a car straight at the sedan that was suddenly moving toward her—and escape—in what looked like a serious game of chicken.

Quinn held on to Shelby and watched, knowing deep inside that Amelia Brobst was a real gamer. She wasn’t going to back down. Not a bit. Not Amelia and her hearing aid and her straw hat with the flowers on it… and her Caddy, which had all the stopping power of a Mack truck.

The sedan kept going.

The Caddy kept coming.

Shelby closed her eyes.

The sedan swerved at the last moment, heading straight into one of the late Mayor Brobst’s shade trees, finally putting at least one of those pavement-tilting bits of bad planning to good use.

The regulars, feeling a bit left out, as Tony and his two helpers were all holding cleavers over the goon still lying in the street, went over to the sedan, ripped the driver’s-side door clean off the car, and yanked the driver out onto the ground.

“Shouldn’t somebody rescue them, darling?” Shelby asked, having at last opened her eyes. “Parker and his friends, that is.”

“All taken care of, my dear,” Uncle Alfred said as he joined them on the blacktop. “I phoned the police as soon as you came into the restaurant.” He looked at Parker, who was in the process of being bounced back and forth between the decidedly playful Francis and Joseph, and winced. “There but for the grace of, etc.,” he said, flinching once more.

A siren wailed in the distance, definitely heading closer, as East Wapaneken’s part-time officer responded to Uncle Alfred’s call.

Uncle Alfred looked at Quinn and winked. “All’s well that ends satisfyingly, or whatever. Delaney, my boy, do you think I ought to alert the chief, or should we just let him continue with his game? Oh, why not…”

The Taite mansion gardens were every bit as beautiful as nature could make them, and then had been further enhanced with Jeremy Rifkin’s considerable decorating talents.

As it was mid-September, he had ordered pots of chrysanthemums, hundreds of them, to line every walkway, to fill in beds where
the
summer flowers had begun to fade. Blooms of white, yellow, and pink nicely balanced the flowing sky blue draperies that seemed to hang in midair along the center path that led to a flower-bedecked arbor where the minister stood, waiting.

Rows of wooden folding chairs neatly disguised beneath white covers tied up with sky blue bows lined either side of the grass bordering the brick walkway, and nearly all of them were already filled.

The regulars and their wives and children took up four rows on the bride’s side, so that Francis and Joseph had been asked to sit on the groom’s side to even things out a bit. That didn’t seem possible, if the person being told had never laid eyes on Francis or Joseph, but it worked beautifully. The remainder of the seats were occupied by Mayor Brobst and Mrs. Fink, all the waitresses and kitchen staff from Tony’s, Tony himself, and many of his regular customers. Tabby sat up front on the bride’s side, her arm tucked through Uncle Alfred’s, her six children—all under the age of twelve—sitting all stiff and starched on either side of them. Uncle Alfred was looking quite spiffy, and hunting for a handy exit.  Only Mrs. Miller was missing, swearing that Shelby’s alien friends would kidnap her, brainwash her, and—Tabby said, “She should be so lucky, the old bat”—”have their wicked way with her.”

There were two large tents on the grounds, two soaring white constructions complete with temporary canvas walls that held clear plastic inserts that resembled windows in a church. In one were more decorated chairs, several dozen round tables with swan napkins on them, and a large table holding a five-tiered wedding cake.

The second tent had been set up for an elaborate buffet. Jeremy had, of course, overseen the menu. Well, most of it. There was lobster, filet mignon—listed on the menu with one
L
—rack of lamb, and fresh salmon. There were six different vegetable side dishes and four varied salads. There was champagne, the best, and several varieties of wines.

And a large keg rested in an ice-filled tub in one corner, right next to the cases of Snapple. Jeremy had learned to live with this, even when Quinn declared a definitive “No” when the man asked if he could decorate around the tub with some bunting and flowers.

As the sun moved across the sky, at just about three o’clock, Quinn found himself standing to one side of the altar, dressed in his rented tuxedo. The white one with the sky blue bow tie and cummerbund.

He had his hands loosely clasped in front of him as the organist changed from quiet background music to a more familiar tune.

Two of the caterer’s staff walked up the aisle, picked up the ends of the folded aisle cloth, and carefully retraced their steps, leaving behind a forty-foot-long path of bright white linen.

And then she was there, standing just at the edge of the aisle cloth.

Beautiful. She was the most beautiful woman in the world, and she was smiling at him. Coming toward him, her full sky blue taffeta skirts swaying with the movement of her hoop petticoat, her bare shoulders rising above the rows and rows of sky blue lace, protected from the sun by a huge sky blue picture hat complete with white satin streamers.

Quinn stepped onto the runner, advanced toward Shelby and held out his arm to her as she reached the fifth row of chairs, just as they’d done in rehearsal. “I don’t know how anyone could look gorgeous in that dress, wife, but you’ve done it.”

“Shh,” she warned him, her brown eyes twinkling. “It’s what Brandy has always dreamed of, ever since she was a child. I couldn’t say no. Besides, I think we both look rather sweet.”

Quinn put a hand on hers, squeezed it, then walked her down the remainder of the aisle, the same aisle he and Shelby had walked down two weeks previously, with many of the same guests in attendance. Only Grady was missing, having taken what he called a “cushy” assignment that would keep him away from the office for at least a month, “which is just what you deserve after leaving me stranded here, Quinn, old son.”

Quinn and Shelby parted at the altar, each stepping to one side as the organ swelled with the traditional fanfare that marked the beginning of the
Wedding March.
Gary, standing next to Quinn, swayed a little and, as his best man, Quinn quickly propped him up again.

“You have the rings?” Gary asked frantically, looking as if he’d been stuffed into his white tux, then all but strangled with the white bow tie. “You said you had the rings. Do you have the rings?”

“I’ve got the rings, Gar,” Quinn told him calmly. “Now buck up. Even Mama is smiling.”

“She should be,” Gary said, taking out a large white linen handkerchief and mopping at his brow. “I can’t believe you two are sending her to Europe.”

Quinn, whose suggestion to Shelby that they send Mama Mack to the moon had been shot down by his new bride, only smiled, then nudged Gary with his elbow as Brandy, on Somerton’s arm, stepped onto the runner.

“Oh, God,” Gary said in awe, gulping as Brandy made her way down the aisle, a vision in Chantilly lace. “Would you look at her, Quinn? Would you just
look
at her…”

Quinn looked across the aisle at his wife. Watched as her chin began to tremble even as she smiled, as her brown eyes lit with tears and laughter and love.

“I’m looking, Gar. I’m looking…”

Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek at Kasey Michaels’s newest contemporary romance
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
coming from Zebra Books in February 2001.

Archie Peevers had the lined, time-ravaged face of a man who might be wearing a nightcap as he stared in horror at the Ghost of Christmas Past just then floating menacingly at the foot of his bed.

Banishing the thought as unprofessional, if accurate, Grady Sullivan stood just inside the double doors of the cavernous bedroom on the second floor of the Peevers Mansion and stared at the man who’d made a fortune in toilet paper and who’d probably just figured out he couldn’t take it with him.
The fortune, that is,
he corrected mentally,
not the toilet paper.

Grady stood in the foyer of the room—yes, the place was big enough to have a foyer, and velvet draperies in the archway as well. Entering Peevers Mansion had been like turning his wristwatch back several dozen years.