Kiss the Bride (25 page)

Nick, Delaney noticed, was in rare form. Playing with the kids, charming his sisters-in-law, guy-talking with his brothers, his cousins, his father, and Chuck. He surprised her. She thought he’d be gloomy today, on this last Vinetti family holiday in Lucia’s house where they’d all shared so many memories.

The food was delicious, the company even more so. They lingered long over the meal, until the kids started begging to go swimming. Everyone pitched in to get ready—the women putting away leftovers and cleaning the kitchen while the men packed up the cars with coolers and blankets, fireworks, lawn chairs, beach towels, and a boom box. Even Trudie and Lucia went along for the trek
to the secluded beach outside the Galveston city limits that only the locals knew about.

Delaney soon found herself—toes dug into the sand—sitting under a big beach umbrella. She watched the kids shriek gleefully as they ran through the surf, chased by Nick, Chuck, and Nick’s brothers Richie and Johnny. Vincent was manning the boom box, causing the teenagers, who were too cool to play in the ocean with the younger kids, to roll their eyes and groan when he put in a CD of the Beach Boys.

Then, for absolutely no reason at all, a lump rose to Delaney’s throat, forcing her to swallow back the salty taste. She was happy. Why the sudden urge to cry?

From childhood, she’d been trained to control her emotions, to repress her feelings, deny her impulses. She’d been taught that appearances were paramount, and she should conduct herself based on what others thought of her.

Growing up rich and privileged, Delaney realized, was like living on an island with other people who were exactly like you. The lifestyle imposed upon children of the wealthy and powerful entailed certain duties and conditions unknown to the rest of the population. In high society there was no blending into an anonymous background—which was one of the reasons Honey had been so strict with her. Delaney had been required to watch every step. No one trod easily on the emotions of others where money and manners mingled. This need for caution, this intricate caretaking, resulted in an inbreeding of the spirit. Too much held in. Too much regret. Too much silent brooding.

And she wanted out.

But she wasn’t going to get out if she married Evan. He was too much like her.

The thought twisted her stomach.

Is this really about Evan?
she had to ask herself.
Or your attraction to Nick?

Her gaze tracked back to the man frolicking in the surf with his nieces and nephews, and it was her heart’s turn to twist. His shirt was off and he was silhouetted against the backdrop of ocean and sunset, aglow in the ending day. Orange rays of light licked his body. Every muscle was ripped, rock hard, and clearly defined.

One look at him and she could feel the simmering chemistry. In her lungs. In her throat. Tight around her wrists like shackles. Light as a breath. Thick as blood.

He must have felt the heat of her gaze, because he turned his head and like a proud, regal wolf stared at her.

Delaney squeezed her eyes shut, and in that pop of difference between the setting sun on the horizon and the darkness behind her lids, she experienced the strangest sensation of falling down a long, black, empty tunnel. Her eyes flew open and she curled her fingers around the arms of the lawn chair to ground herself. Blinking, she glanced around. Vincent was lighting tiki torches, and his brother, Phil, was starting a campfire. Somebody’s mom was dishing out mosquito repellent. But no matter how hard she tried to find something else to look at, time and again she found her eyes drawn back to Nick.

Honestly, even if she weren’t engaged to Evan, she and Nick didn’t stand a chance as a couple. They were simply too different. He was rugged and streetwise; she was pampered and polished. He valued directness and honesty, and she’d spent her life putting a perfect spin on reality. Gingerly, she reached up to finger the bridge of her nose—living a lie, pretending to be a beauty when she was not. Face it, she was insecure and he was self-confident. He
was bold and she was timid. She could not view Nick as a way out of her circumstances. He couldn’t rescue her. He was just a guy with problems of his own. Like it or not, she was engaged to another man.

Don’t fill your head with dreams of him,
she warned herself.

Nick’s brother Johnny’s wife pulled up a lawn chair beside Delaney. Her name was Brittany, Delaney remembered, and she was holding her new baby daughter in her arms. She was a slender woman about Delaney’s age, with an elfin face and long dark hair she kept pinned back with a thick barrette. “Mind the company?”

“Not at all.” Delaney shook her head.

Brittany tossed a receiving blanket over her shoulder and modestly began nursing her daughter. Delaney’s attention drifted back to the shoreline, her eyes hooked on Nick.

“Gorgeous, huh?” Brittany said.

“What?”

“The Vinetti men.”

She couldn’t deny that. “Yes.”

For a minute the only sounds were the rush of the surf, the Beach Boys singing about their little Deuce coupe, and the baby suckling.

“You’re engaged to be married, right?” Brittany said after a long moment.

“Uh-huh.” Delaney glanced over to find Brittany studying her speculatively.

“So how come you’re not with your fiancé today? Wait, that was rude; you don’t have to answer that.”

Delaney smiled. “It’s okay. Evan is in Guatemala.” She told Brittany about Evan’s medical mission to Central America.

“He sounds like a great guy.”

“He is.”

“Nick knows you’re engaged, right?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“We’re all crazy about him, you know. He’s a great uncle and a terrific cop and an all-around good guy. After what Amber did to him…” Brittany paused a moment to reposition her baby. “Well, we’re pretty protective. The last thing we want is for Nick to get hurt again. He’s been through a lot, what with his knee and being forced off the job and everything else that’s happened.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? Do you really?”

Delaney met Brittany’s gaze. “What are you trying to say?”

“The way Nick looks at you when you’re not looking at him…” She trailed off again.

“What way is that?” Delaney felt her body tense, and she curled her fingernails into her palms.

She shrugged. “I dunno, sort of wistful and sad. It worries me and Johnny.”

“I can assure you, Brittany, I have no designs on Nick.”

“And Nick knows that?”

“Yes, he does.”

Brittany blew out a breath. “Okay. Just wanted to make sure. Because we all really like you, but Nick, you know, he’s family. Nothing is more important than family loyalty. Right?”

“Right,” Delaney echoed, suddenly feeling incredibly out of place. It was time she said good-bye and left the Vinettis to their celebration. She looked around and realized she was going to have to ask someone to drive her back to her car. Why hadn’t she driven herself?

At that moment, Brittany’s five-year-old son, Logan, came running up, soaking wet and grinning. “Mama, can we shoot off some Black Cats now?”

“Only if your daddy or Uncle Nick or Uncle Richie or Uncle Chuck helps you with them.”

Logan zoomed over to Vincent, who was sitting on the tailgate of Nick’s pickup truck with Lucia and Trudie, changing the Beach Boys to Ira Gershwin.

Nick came trotting up after Logan. Droplets of water caught in his dark, curling chest hairs glistened in the waning sunlight. Delaney looked up at him and he looked down at her, and immediately she understood why Brittany had come over to warn her off. The look in Nick’s eyes was undeniably hungry.

He flopped down on the ground dangerously close to Delaney’s sand-dusted toes.

Up the beach some other picnickers had already brought out their fireworks. Kids twirled sparklers spewing yellow, red, and green heat into the gathering twilight. Fireflies had gotten into the act, blinking on and off among the dunes, Mother Nature competing with manmade pyrotechnics.

“That looks like such fun,” Delaney said, drawing up her knees to her chest and resting her chin on them as she watched the sparklers dance and sizzle.

Nick lay propped up on his elbows. “You’ve never played with sparklers?”

“Always spent my Fourth at the symphony. They have a magnificent fireworks display after the concert.”

“You never, ever shot off any firecrackers of your own?”

She shook her head.

“Now, that’s just shocking.” Nick grinned. “You’ve been so deprived.”

“Tell me about it.” Delaney grinned back.

“Would you like to correct that oversight?” He arched one eyebrow speculatively.

“What? Shoot off fireworks?”

He got to his feet, held out his palm. “Come with me.”

She looked up at him.

He nodded encouragingly. “Yes?”

Swallowing hard, she committed herself by taking his hand.

He closed his fingers around hers and hauled her from the lawn chair. Brittany watched them with narrowed eyes and a disapproving expression on her lips that made Delaney quickly glance away.

Nick’s hand was firm but gentle. A warm sensation of sweet security washed over her.
You are important to me,
his grip seemed to say.
I will take care of you.

But she didn’t need to be taken care of. She’d been taken care of all her life. Everyone telling her what to do, how to think, what to believe, and she’d complied with their wishes. What she really needed was someone who would challenge her, urge her to grow. A tender tether, not a ball and chain. Bonded but not bound. Could Nick be all that?

You’re reading too much into this. He’s just leading you to the fireworks. Stop overthinking things and enjoy the moment.

Sensible. Now, if only she could heed her own advice.

With his fingers loosely laced through hers, Nick guided her to the back of the pickup where Vincent was doling out small doses of fireworks from a large cardboard box to the excited children.

“We’ll start with sparklers,” Nick told Delaney. “They’re the least intimidating.”

Just as he said that, Zack lit off a Black Cat a few feet away, and the loud bang caused Delaney to jump and Brittany’s baby to start crying.

“Go on down closer to the water with your dad,” Vincent instructed his grandson. “And be careful not to burn yourself with that punk.”

Nick retrieved a box of sparklers and a couple of punks from his father, took Delaney’s hand again, and walked her down to the edge of the Gulf.

He handed her a sparkler. Then he lit the punk with a match and once it was going, touched the punk to her sparkler.

There was a quick hiss, and then a magical sizzle of light as the sparkler sprang to life in her hands.

“Oh, oh!” Delaney gasped. “It’s going, it’s going. What do I do? What do I do?”

“Circle your wrist,” he said.

“What?” She was so disconcerted by the fact she was holding a sparking, spitting fire stick, she couldn’t get what he was trying to tell her.

“Like this.”

Nick reached around her, his bare chest grazing her back, his damp swimming trunks pressed against her hip as he slid one hand down her arm to her wrist and encircled it with his big, masculine fingers. He moved her hand in a circle. The sparks showered into a sweeping arc, decorating the night air.

This was fun!

She giggled as Nick changed the circles into zigzags, and then into figure eights, blurring the sparks into one smooth, rapid ride of light until it sputtered and died.

That’s when she realized she was holding a spent but red-hot metal stick, and Nick was still pressed up close
against her. She could feel the heat of his breath fanning the hairs on the nape of her neck. Delaney turned her head and peeked at him from behind lowered lashes.

A full moon had risen, bathing the shore in a soft white radiance. Nick’s eyes were alight with a rarefied glow, the smile at his lips beatific. He had a passion about him. A sense of adventure. A childlike wonder when it came to play. He had what she longed for. The ability to let go and enjoy life.

Idly, she wondered if this was what his face looked like when he was having sex. Totally absorbed, blissfully engaged. That irreverent thought caused her whole body to tingle.

This was serious trouble.

Nick’s lips brushed softly against her temple. She felt the erratic rise and fall of his chest, knew his breathing was as labored as her own.

Then the sky lit up with fireworks.

She and Nick turned in unison to see the Vinetti family gathered around as Vincent set off rockets. They were laughing and joking and hugging and talking.

Nick’s arm went around her waist and Delaney’s heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear the Roman candles screaming toward the stars in an explosion of color.

And in that moment, she knew she was going to miss the entire Vinetti clan in general—and one special Vinetti in particular—something awful.