Kiss the Bride (23 page)

“That,” Nana crowed. “Right there. That’s why Amber left you.”

“What? Amber left me because I like to caulk?” Was his grandmother losing it?

“Don’t play dumb.”

“Maybe I am dumb.”

“Humph. You run away from your feelings, that’s what you do.”

“I married Amber, didn’t I? How could I run away from my feelings if I married her?” he growled. “And look what happened.”

“You married a woman you
knew
would break your heart. You damn well did it on purpose. Subconsciously, of course, but still purposefully.”

His mouth dropped open and he stared at his grandmother, bewildered by her accusations. She
was
losing it. “Think whatever you want to think,” he said, not knowing how else to respond. He’d never seen his grandmother like this and didn’t know what to make of it.

“You’re terrified,” she accused. “Scared to death that if you really let yourself love a woman who truly deserves your love, she’ll end up dying on you the way Dominique died on your father.”

Nick studied the window casing, trying to ignore his grandmother, who was now systematically snapping the heads off all the dead rose stems and slinging them viciously to the ground. Hmm. Looked like he’d missed a spot with the caulk.

“Stubborn,” Nana muttered, and he heard the crisp snap of another dried bloom being broken off.

Nick dabbed a white bead of caulk into the spot he’d overlooked, cocked his head, studied his handiwork. Nice.

“Arrogant.” Snap, snap.

Let’s see. There were three more windows in the front.
Would he have enough caulk? Or would he need to make another run to Lowe’s?

“I swear you’re just like your grandfather. He would rather putter around in the garage than express what he was feeling.”

“What are you taking about? He kidnapped you from your wedding. That sounds like he was expressing his feelings to me.”

Nana waved a hand. “Grand gestures came easily to him, it was the quiet moments—the moments that count to a woman—where he froze up. I loved your grandfather with every beat of my heart, Nick, but he was so stubborn. He never told me about his heart condition. Arrogantly, he wanted to shoulder the burden alone, spare me the worry.” She snorted and then tears sprang to her eyes. “I never knew he was dying. He robbed me of the special conversations we could have had. The extra moments we could have savored. The ones your father and mother got to share.”

Awkwardly, Nick wrapped his arms around his grandmother and she sank her head against his chest. He didn’t know how to deal with Nana’s tears. He patted her shoulder, his own emotions a tight clot in his throat.

Nana pulled back, dabbing at her eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have broken down on you like that.”

Rattled, Nick ran a hand through his hair. “Um… it’s okay.”

“I shouldn’t have gone off on you either. It’s just that I want you to understand how you’re sabotaging your chance for happiness.”

“Yeah?” The question came to his lips even though he hated to ask it. “How’s that?”

“All you’ve got to do is stop denying how you really feel.”

Nick sucked in a deep breath. The heat of her gaze warmed his cheek. “You wanna know how I really feel?”

“Yes.”

He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t say the words. Couldn’t tell her how betrayed he felt because she was selling the house out from under him. Couldn’t tell her why he’d felt so compelled to chase Delaney Cartwright away.

“Well?”

Anger sent his pulse throbbing through his veins. Fear tightened his lungs. Denial squeezed his stomach. “Never mind,” Nick mumbled, turned on his heels, and walked away.

Before he reached the corner of the house, he heard his grandmother muttering, “Men. Hardheaded as cement. Every last one of them.”

Lucia and Trudie caught Delaney as she was leaving the office that afternoon. The minute she saw the two elderly ladies, her heart sank. Via the telephone it had been difficult enough to quit the job, but to reject Lucia to her face would be next to impossible.

“Lucia, Trudie, it’s so good to see you,” Delaney greeted them in the parking lot of her office. The silver Acura sat three spots away from the front door, taunting her. If she’d just parked a few feet closer, she would have already been driving away when they pulled up. “Were you in the area and decided to drop by?”

“No, no.” Lucia beamed. “We made a special trip just to see you.”

“It’s over fifty miles,” Trudie said. “And my driving’s not what it used to be.”

“You can say that again,” Lucia chimed in. “We were
lucky to make it here alive. She almost hit a seagull. Twice.”

“Pesky creatures,” Trudie muttered.

“I was just leaving for the day,” Delaney said, hoping that might deter them.

“We brought cannoli,” Lucia said and held up a paper bag smelling deliciously of baked goods. “I made them myself.”

“They’re an especially tasty batch,” Trudie said. “I had two on the drive over.”

“That’s why you almost hit the seagulls. Eating and driving don’t mix.”

“It’s your fault. You’re too good of a cook.”

Delaney bit back a sigh. “Would you ladies like to come into my office?”

“We would love that.” Lucia smiled. “Thank you.”

Delaney took out her keys, opened the office back up, and ushered the women inside. “Have a seat,” she said, inviting them to sit down on the love seat while she took the plush-cushioned chair positioned beside it.

“Nice office,” Trudie said. “Informal, cozy. I like it.”

“Thank you.” Delaney smiled and braced herself for what she knew was coming next. “How can I help you, Lucia?”

Lucia reached across to take Delaney’s hand in hers. She looked her in the eyes. “Come back, stage my house. I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”

Delaney took a deep breath to bolster her courage. “Like I said when we spoke over the phone, Lucia, I should never have agreed to take on your project in the first place. Not with my wedding so close. I just have too much to do. I apologize for any inconvenience I might have caused you. I have the name of another house stager I can recommend.”

“This is about Nicky, isn’t it?” Lucia wasn’t pulling any punches. “You can tell me the truth. He likes you. I can tell, but I promise he won’t get out of line with you again. It hurt him so badly last year when Amber cheated on him on their honeymoon. He would never do anything to cause your fiancé to suffer like that.”

“Lucia…”

“If being alone with Nicky is the only thing that’s worrying you, we can take care of that.”

Delaney paused. She still wanted to renovate that house. Still hoped to get on
American Home Design.
But she couldn’t do that if she had to work alone in the house with Nick. She simply couldn’t trust herself to keep her hands off him.

“This is very important to me,” Lucia said lowering her voice. “Because you see…” She let go of Delaney’s hand and splayed her palm across her heart.

“What she’s trying to say,” Trudie interjected, “is that her ticker isn’t in the best of shape. She wants to get the house sold and settled before… well, you know, she kicks the bucket.”

Delaney scooted to the edge of her chair. “You’re sick? Lucia, why didn’t you tell me?”

“She’s proud,” Trudie said.

“Please, Delaney,” Lucia whispered. “Finish the house. Trudie and I will be there every day to act as chaperones. We promise you that.”

“But is that good for your heart? Shouldn’t you rest?”

“Doc says it’s good for her to get out. Stay busy. She just needs to avoid any emotional distress. Right, Luce?”

Lucia nodded. “Please?”

When she presented it like that, how could Delaney say
no? “Under the circumstances, of course I’ll finish the job for you, Lucia.”

“Oh,” Trudie said. “One other thing. You can’t tell Nick about her heart condition. He doesn’t know.”

Delaney captured Lucia’s gaze. “Doesn’t he deserve to know?”

Lucia looked uncomfortable. “It’s just that he’s had so much to deal with over the past year. I thought it best to keep it from him for now.”

Delaney didn’t agree, but she had to respect Lucia’s wishes. “I won’t say a word to him about it,” she promised.

“That,” Lucia said to Trudie as they left Delaney’s office, “was completely underhanded. I feel like such a liar. I just had a physical two weeks ago, and the doctor told me I had the heart of a thirty-year-old.”

“It worked though, didn’t it? Pretend heart problems get ’em every time. How do you think I con my kids into coming home for the holidays?” Trudie winked. “Now it’s all up to the whammy.”

Nick sat at the Sandpiper, an outdoor seaside bar near the entrance to the amusement park, his injured leg propped on an adjacent stool, nursing a longneck bottle of beer and idly watching a game of beach volleyball featuring bikini-clad coeds. He wished he could stop thinking about Delaney and what Nana had said to him.

He had chased Delaney off—fully, intentionally. Not because she was staging his grandmother’s house, like he told himself, but because he was terrified of his growing feelings for her.

And he had done the same thing with Amber, albeit subconsciously. Nana had him pegged.

It was a painful thing to face. His denial. The way he’d been sabotaging himself. He was still doing it. Allowing himself to be attracted to a woman who was engaged to marry another man, knowing he stood no chance with her.

“You’re one sick puppy, Vinetti.”

“Excuse me?” the bartender said. “Need another beer?”

Nick waved him away. He didn’t want the one he was drinking; he’d just needed to get out of the house and away from the renovations and Nana’s on-target assessment to clear his head. “I’m good.”

The guy nodded, swiped the bar with a towel, and slipped a bowl of cocktail peanuts in front of him. Nick reached for a handful, then stopped with the peanuts halfway to his mouth with he spied an elderly woman with a patch over one eye amble up to the bar.

He sat up straight.

Was this the woman he’d promised Delaney he would investigate and had completely forgotten about? Just his luck, the one-eyed carny woman drew herself up on the bar stool beside him, slanted her head Nick’s way, winked, and said, “Buy an old gal a drink, handsome?”

Nick was painting the shutters on Lucia’s house the next morning when Delaney drove up. She didn’t see any signs of Lucia’s car, and for one breathless moment when she looked across the lawn at him, she almost panicked and drove away.

He must have sensed her hesitation, because he looked up from his work and gestured her over.

Lucia had promised Delaney she would be here and she trusted her to keep her word. She could handle being alone with Nick until Lucia arrived. It wasn’t like she was
going to rip his clothes off his body and have her way with him on the front porch. But even as she thought it, she pictured it. What in the heck was wrong with her?

Putting the smile she’d perfected in charm school on her face, she strode up the sidewalk.

“Delaney,” he said when she reached the porch.

“Nick.”

“I’ve got some news for you.”

Worry gripped her. What kind of news? Had he found out about Lucia’s heart condition? Had something bad happened to Lucia? “Yes?” she asked and laced her fingers together.

“You remember that matter you asked me to check out for you?”

“What matter?” She was so busy worrying, his words didn’t fully register.

“The patch-eyed woman from the amusement park.”

“Huh?”

“You asked me to find out who she was.”

“Oh, right, yes, yes.”

“I should have followed up sooner, but we were so busy with the house that it slipped my mind.”

“That’s okay.” Truthfully, it had slipped Delaney’s mind too. “What did you find out?”

“All I learned is that she hasn’t been working at the amusement park long, and in fact, she’s leaving town soon.”

“Where’s she going?”

“Pensacola.”

“Is that all?” Delaney curled her fingers into her palms.

“I asked a PI friend of mine to do a little more digging. See if he could find out where she came from. I’ll let you know if he finds a connection to your mother.”

“Any clues as to why my mother would be meeting her?”

“No idea.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing. Now that I think back on it, I was probably mistaken. I don’t see how my mother could have a secret life where she slipped off to islands to visit carnivals.” She laughed.

“I’m sure you’re right about that.”

“It’s preposterous, really. Maybe we should tell your friend not to bother.” Delaney tried not to notice how delicious Nick looked with the morning sun glinting off his muscles. She swallowed. “Thank you anyway. I appreciate it. I’ll give you a check so you can pay your friend for the trouble he’s already gone through.”

“Don’t worry about it. He owes me a favor. I’ll just give him a call and tell him you decided not to persue the matter.”