Something About You (Just Me & You) (3 page)

“Good luck with that,” she murmured. Guests had spilled onto
the south lawn and were migrating toward the gazebo. Somewhere on the grounds a
peacock screamed.

“Just trust me,” Gage said over his shoulder. “Oh, ye of
little faith.”

As she traipsed down the grassy slope in her heels, Sabrina
realized that her head was already fuzzy from the beer and champagne. Maybe
she’d ordered her spirits incorrectly. What was the old saying, “Wine before
beer, never fear?”

Or was that beer before liquor?

She followed Gage to the far end of the estate’s rolling
green. He came to a stop under the shade of a secluded oak. After
double-checking the area, he spread the tablecloth on the ground along with the
rest of his loot. Sabrina watched him produce a Swiss army knife from his
pocket and deftly uncork one of the port bottles. He poured them each a
generous amount and handed her a glass before making himself at home on the
fine white linen.

“This is more like it,” he said. He pulled off the tux
jacket and rolled up the starched sleeves of his shirt to reveal strong
forearms heavily inked in black. Three-lobed, ivy-like leaves of a plant she
couldn’t identify twined around his elbows and wound around the top of his
arms, ending at his wrists. The design was intricate, almost organic,
suggesting that he’d shelled out a decent wad of cash to an artist with some
experience and prestige.

He definitely didn’t have a traditional day job. Sabrina
went through a shortlist of potential professions. Bar bouncer. Day laborer.
Semi-pro athlete, perhaps.

Gage was quietly staring at the horizon. His stillness
calmed her nerves, and she kicked off her sandals. She broke apart one of the
honfleur baguettes and passed him half. She didn’t know how long they sat there
drinking port, gnawing on the bread and gazing at the sky. She only knew that
the musicians had stopped playing and a bright November sun was sinking in the
west, turning the sky a sherbet swirl of pink, tangerine and gold. Except for
their anachronistic attire and Gage’s body ink, they could be characters in a
Merchant-Ivory film.

Finally she broke the silence. “So why did you hold out on
everyone?” 

“Because Sebastian asked me to,” he replied. “He and Molly
really did want people to show up and have a good time. You know Shuck; he
would have closed down the house. Money to fuel a furnace and none to enjoy.”

“Molly should have told me.”

“She wanted to, but she was afraid you’d spill the beans
early so you could get a full return on the dress.” He eyed it dubiously.
“Can’t say I blame you. There’s probably a fine body in there somewhere, but no
one can see it.”

She was willing to trade the insult to her attire in
exchange for his benefit of the doubt. Now the pale green silk was stained with
champagne, rendering it useless to a consignment shop without a good dry
cleaning.

“I don’t believe in big weddings,” Gage said. “They’re just
an excuse for everyone to dress up and get drunk on somebody else’s dime. Not
that I — personally — am complaining.” He lifted a bottle of 1991 Dow
in mock salute and grinned.

“I don’t believe in marriage.” Sabrina hiccupped delicately.
“
Generally speaking
.”

“Did the bride know about this when you agreed to be her
maid of honor, or could it possibly be that you think Molly and Sebastian are
the exception to the rule?”

“Give it ten years, then ask me again.” She relished the
taste of the vintage port. With swirling notes of blackberries and dark
chocolate, it had a richness that could have only been imbued by time. “I hope
for the best, but I’m not surprised by the worst.”

“Wow, in vino veritas.” He looked at the white band of skin
on her ring finger. “Did you ditch the rock for the bachelorette party, or are
you playing hooky?”

“Neither. I’m recently — I just got—” Why was such a
simple word so hard for her to say? Sabrina took a deep breath.

“Divorced?” Gage filled in softly.

She nodded her head with what she hoped was the right amount
of somberness. Then noticing the sympathetic look on his face, she quickly
clarified, “Actually, I got an annulment, if you want to get technical about
it.”

“What happened? Did you find out he had somebody on the
side?”

“Of course not.” Sabrina shot him an irritated look. It was
so like a man to leap to the conclusion that cheating was involved. “Just plain
old irreconcilable differences.”

“My condolences. How long after the wedding did you launch
the lifeboats?”

Sabrina gave him a suspicious glance. “Not that long,” she
hedged.

“What does ‘not that long’ mean these days, I wonder?” he
mused. “A year? Two years?”

“No, one.”

Gage shook his head. “Wow. Only a year.”

“No, one
day
.” She gave him a brazen stare. He
studied her carefully before erupting in hearty laughter.

“A one-day marriage? Now I’ve heard it all. Are you
serious?” He looked at her again just long enough to ascertain that she was. “I
suppose you are. And here I thought stuff like that only happened in romantic comedies
and celebrity tabloids.” He wiped away tears of mirth with his thumb and
forefinger. “What happened? Whirlwind courtship?”

“No, nothing like that. Jackson and I knew each other for
five years.”

“So you’re telling me you spent more than almost two
thousand days with the poor guy only to decide that you were mismatched in a
single day?”

“It was more like fifteen hundred,” Sabrina corrected him.
“We took a breather from each other for a year. It was a complicated situation.
Fortunately, there was a simple solution.”

“The lifeboat,” Gage confirmed.

Sabrina gave him what she hoped was a seasoned look.
“Marriage is a legal contract,” she explained. “The problem is that most people
don’t know what’s in their contract until they enter into it. I was damned
lucky that I got a peek at the prenup — metaphorically speaking, of
course.” She paused and frowned thoughtfully. “I could say the same for all of
my engagements, when you think about it.”

“So there’s been more than one,” Gage mused. “Tell me, Maid
March, how many gentlemen cleverly avoided placement in the ‘irreconcilable’
category?”

“One, two—” Sabrina corralled her focus by counting on her
fingers. “—I’ve been engaged five times, including the most recent. My third
fiancé and I never set an actual date, so I’m not sure if that one counts.”

“Neither am I,” Gage laughed. “But I’m pretty sure the
employees at the county clerk’s office would thank you profusely for not
creating a never-ending paper trail that culminates in divorce decrees. So in
all of these engagements, were you the runner?”

“Excuse me. The what?” Slightly buzzed, she immediately
thought of floor coverings.

“The runner,” he said, as though the word alone were
self-explanatory. “Did you call the whole thing off?”

“I don’t see how that’s remotely your business,” Sabrina
replied, feeling rankled.
The balls of the man.

“Well, you seem to speak from experience,” Gage went on
mildly. “I’m just questioning the extent of it.”

“If you had been married—” she began, then looked at him
suspiciously. “Have you?”

“Nope. I’m going to take my own sweet time finding Mrs.
Fitzgerald, and when I ask her to marry me, damn straight I’m gonna mean it.”
He plucked a long blade of St. Augustine from the ground and carefully folded
it down the midrib. “I only plan on getting married once.”

“Of course you do.” Sabrina graced him with a sweetly
condescending smile. “Well, if you
had
been married, you’d understand
that it changes everything. All the intolerable things about her that used to be
protected by the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ courtship policy? The differences you
can’t reconcile? They’ll come straight to the surface, right away.”

He just smiled as she reached for the port bottle.

“It’s true,” she added for emphasis and then hiccupped again.

“It’s bullshit,” Gage said bluntly. He took the heavy bottle
from her and poured more port into her glass. “Most people claiming
‘irreconcilable differences’ jumped into a bullpen in the first place; they
just don’t want to admit it. Look at Molly and Sebastian. It only took them a
few weeks to figure it out.”

“They’re outliers. They’re
simpatico
.” Sabrina didn’t
need to elaborate. Molly had multiple sclerosis, and Sebastian had lost a leg
as a teen. “For the rest of us, marriage is an uncalculated risk, sort of like
bungee jumping.”

She’d leave it at that. Gage didn’t need to know that as
soon as she said yes to Jackson’s proposal, she had felt a sense of doom. Then
she’d have to go on to explain the factors that had driven her to do it in the
first place. Like the social anomie she felt when she saw her name listed as
the only “Ms.” among rows of “Mrs.” in her alumni roster. And the prospect of
entering her retirement years alone having cultivated bizarre hobbies like
breeding Labradoodles and scouring vintage stores for memento mori. The fear of
growing old alone stole into her soul during nights when she couldn’t fall
asleep because she’d drunk too much coffee. No, those confessions would
eventually lead to the pertinent details of that whole “irreconcilable” bit.
You’re
a thirty-six-year-old woman with daddy issues
, Jackson had wearily but
succinctly summarized right before they departed the Polar Star and went their
separate ways.

“I’ve noticed something about you.” Gage studied her with
genuine interest. “You have a circuitous response for everything. You’re in
law, sales or politics.”

“I’m Representative Theodore Ward’s Chief of Staff.” Even
after ten years in the game, Sabrina still felt a little proud of the title.

“Figures.” Gage had made himself right at home on a small
hillock of rolling lawn, leaning against it with the back of his head resting
in his hands as though it were his own personal lounge chair. He slid Sabrina a
placid smile. “You know what I think? I think that if you were really itching
to marry this guy, you wouldn’t have sat on your ass for five years. That might
be the way you do it in Debutante and Dance Card Land, but where I’m from, us
menfolk pick the hottest girl we can find, get her knocked up in the backseat
of a car, get hitched, and live something-ever-after.”

“That is so …
lovely
. Really.” Sabrina tossed
him a disparaging look. “And where might this place be, so I can make sure to
cross it off my list of potential sabbaticals?”

“Walden, Iowa. It’s a little ’burb outside of Des Moines.
Sneeze and you miss it.”

The Midwest. That explained why she couldn’t place his
accent. She tried to conjure up various associations to that particular
geographical area. Cornfields, potatoes and cheese came to mind. Or was that
Idaho? Wisconsin? Aside from the Iowa Caucus, she associated the state with
nothing except news anchors.

Gage sat up and reached for his glass. She watched the
muscles in his strong throat move as he drained the rest of his port.

“There’s a simple way to know if you want to spend the rest
of your life with someone,” he told her. There it was again — that sly,
sidelong glance. 

“Is this my cue to say ‘Oh, please, Gage. Tell me how’?”

“Only if you’re curious.”

Sabrina rolled her eyes at the sky. “Okay. Tell me how.”

“I can’t.” He stared down at his knuckles, feigning
chasteness. “I’d have to demonstrate.”

“Knock yourself out. Demonstrate away.” Now the port was
talking.

“Glad you oblige,” he murmured, stabilizing his glass
between the St. Augustine’s thick roots. Then, leaning in slowly, he ran the
tip of his forefinger down the side of her face, tracing the curve of her
cheek. The mischievous look in his eyes was gone. He was studying her somberly
as though he were an artist contemplating which brushstroke to make. She didn’t
know if it was genuine or just a part of the act.

Wait.

Surely he wasn’t going to kiss her.

They were complete strangers.

Well, almost strangers
, she reasoned. He moved in
closer. His lips were a scant distance from hers, not touching, but close
enough for her to feel their heat. Her throat went dry at the first
feather-light contact. His lower lip barely grazed hers, then again and again
before he paused. From an alcohol-stupefied distance, she heard her breath
coming out in shuddering gasps.

Every second seemed to stretch into five. His lips slowly
descended on hers as though acclimating her palate to their taste and texture
before the kiss truly began. He kissed her slowly, leisurely and deeply,
twining her tongue around his with a skill and grace she never thought
possible. It was a sweet kiss, a fresh kiss. Like biting into a sun-warmed plum
plucked straight from the tree.

A warm, melting sensation coursed down Sabrina’s spine.

His chest moved flush against hers, and he massaged the back
of her neck with the ball of his hand as he lowered her down until the back of
her head landed against the cool earth. It was, she realized, the perfect first
kiss she’d always dreamed of from the time she was a teen, when her hopes had
been dashed by a dry-lipped, Skoal-dipping prom date.

No man had ever kissed her like this before —
none
.

Gage wrapped things up the same way he’d started. Instead of
abruptly severing their connection, the kiss gradually became less intense,
shallower, until he was once again brushing her lips with his own, touching the
tender vermilion of her cupid’s bow with the tip of his tongue before nudging
her nose lightly with his own.

She lifted her heavy eyelids. She was still on sensory
overload. He lay directly over her, the weight of his torso propped up by two
strong arms. A stray lock of hair tumbled over one of his eyes. In the
twilight, his face was sculpted and still.

“What exactly did I just learn?” Her voice was low and
husky. 

“That there are people you want to keep kissing and people
you don’t.” She felt his breath, hot against her mouth.