The Bride's Curse (23 page)

With a mixture of longing, shock, and sorrow, his gaze fastened on Mary Atwell—as if by sheer force of will he could hold her in place while the graveside service began. Kelly wondered what degree of strength it took for him to remain standing in the chief mourner’s place while everything in him had to be clamoring to know whether the woman he was seeing was truly the person he thought or simply an illusion conjured up by his own grief.

He looked away as the minister droned on about the upstanding member of the community, the brave soldier and family man they were about to bury.

The man who was Troy Matthews’ father, recently deceased.

• • •

“I don’t understand any of this. I don’t understand what’s happening. How can my Troy be standing there if he’s dead?” Mary was struggling to hold back a sob, her mouth covered with Brett’s mascara stained handkerchief. She turned to Kelly. “Am I seeing a ghost? Is your gift contagious?”

“He’s standing there because he’s alive and well and looking rather chipper despite the occasion,” Brett snapped.

“I think this is his father’s funeral. Although judging by how pale he went when he saw you, I think he thinks you’re the ghost.” Kelly glared over at the man who’d caused so much heartache.

“I think I need to sit down. My legs … ” Mary’s voice faltered. “I can’t believe we thought he was dead, now he’s alive?”

“Yeah, risen like Lazarus. Honestly, Aunt Mary, I think we should just get out of here. Obviously the guy isn’t fit to breathe the same air as you … ”

“Oh, Brett … please don’t be like that. After all these years, I want to see him, talk to him. I really want to know what happened.”

Brett harrumphed his disapproval, but put his arm around her, and led her to a wrought iron bench set some distance away from the funeral crowd. “You know, Aunt Mary, if all this is too much for you, perhaps we should just go home and maybe try and sort this out another day. I don’t want you getting ill again.”

“Maybe you’re right. It’s obviously not a good time for Troy,” Mary replied.

Kelly snorted. “Why on earth are you worrying about what’s a good time for that jerk who walked away from you, and left you standing there in a beautiful French designer dress you later cursed? Now that you know he’s alive and kicking, don’t you just want to slap him silly? I’d say that’s well overdue.”

Mary looked up at Kelly, her eyes wide. And then she started to laugh. And laugh, like she couldn’t stop. Immediately, heads turned among the crowd at the fringes of the funeral, mourners no doubt wondering at the identity of the elegantly dressed older lady who was now laughing like a hyena at a frat party.

“This isn’t very appropriate behavior,” Brett hissed, causing Kelly to start laughing, too. She and Mary put their arms around each other and laughed until the tears ran down their cheeks.

“Really, you two—pull yourselves together. It looks like we have company.”

They followed Brett’s gaze to see that the graveside service was over, the crowds were leaving, the gravediggers were starting to fill in that gaping hole—and a white-faced errant groom was striding in their direction.

“Oh, my, he’s still a handsome, sexy devil,” Mary murmured.

“Aunt Mary!” Brett’s scandalized tone sent Kelly back into peals of laughter.

“Stop thinking of her as your aunt and see her as a lonely woman who has just seen the man she once loved—still loves—and be happy for her,” she whispered in his ear. “I think it may be time we made ourselves scarce.” Kelly pulled on his arm.

“I’m not leaving Aunt Mary with that man. Who knows what … ”

“Brett, Mary’s a grownup. I think she can handle this herself. When she was jilted, everyone rushed around to shelter her. She didn’t get the chance to handle anything. No, I think she needs to handle this herself. My biggest worry is that she might seriously hurt the man right here in public. Not that he wouldn’t deserve that.”

• • •

They stationed themselves a short distance away on another of the fancy and incredibly uncomfortable wrought iron benches much favored in cemeteries. In the shade of an elderly juniper tree, they watched covertly as Mary and Troy sat under a large oak, their heads close together like the lovers they had once been. The tree was already shedding its leaves like tears as autumn moved in, and Kelly suddenly had a vivid image that the tree was weeping for the dead who rested all around.

Troy Matthews was indeed a handsome man for his age, Kelly thought. Dressed in a sober black suit and a spotless white shirt, thick white hair brushed right back from a high forehead, he looked far too classy a guy to have jilted his bride at their wedding without good cause. Although what good cause there could possibly be for his years of silence, Kelly couldn’t begin to guess.

Her eyes filled with tears as she watched Troy and Mary talking, touching, gesticulating with their hands as they talked and finally—as the tears now slipped down her own cheeks—hugging each other as though they never intended to let go ever again.

Through the emotion of it all she heard a low growl from Brett. “That son of a bitch needn’t think he’s going to move in with Aunt Mary, live off her, and rip the heart out of her again!” He half rose from the bench, fists clenched, but Kelly grabbed his hand and he sank reluctantly back down beside her.

“Face it, Rambo; your aunt is a grown woman. And she’s no dummy—it won’t take her long to figure out if this guy’s a perennial loser, and she’ll kick him to the curb without a qualm.”

Brett looked unconvinced. “It’s going to take me some time to trust him. You haven’t seen the way she’s lived her life, all because he dumped her in that extraordinarily cruel way.”

Kelly bit her lip, but she didn’t let go of Brett’s hand. “No one’s asking you to call him Uncle Troy, but just be pleasant for Mary’s sake. If everything goes well, she’ll be one happy woman and I know you want that for her. If it goes badly, well, she will need to know she can turn to you without any ‘I told you sos’.”

He slid down on the bench, relaxing against its solid back as he pulled her into his arms and held her close with an intensity that spoke volumes about how he felt. “How did you come to be so wise?”

• • •

Sitting there in the growing chill of the late autumnal afternoon, Brett thanked his lucky stars that he had found Kelly. Who’d have thought that walking into that wedding store prepared to do battle with a conniving entrepreneur he’d find such a gem? As he held her close to him, he felt a wave of sadness that Mary had missed such simple joys of holding and loving and being loved in return.

And then it hit him. He really, really was in love with Red. A woman who was still wounded by the ex-fiancé who had cut her in the most despicable way. If he told her now that he loved her, would she shy away, turn tail and run? Or would she have the courage to return his love without fear? Worse, was she still, in some corner of her heart, in love with Wayne? Had Wayne damaged her for life? A woman who had faced life-or-death in the desert, who had been strong enough to rescue a wounded fellow soldier, surely she would be emotionally strong enough to trust?

He sighed and dropped a kiss on her flaming red hair. Now wasn’t the time to ask the questions that were burning in him.

• • •

Kelly sighed as Brett’s hand slid over hers and his warmth telegraphed itself all through her body as her flesh remembered the night they’d just spent together. She leaned toward him, laying her head on his chest, and smiled as he dropped a kiss on her forehead.

“One thing is really bothering me,” he surprised her by saying. “I mean—a cemetery has lots of capacity for restless spirits. How come you aren’t being besieged right now by ghosts wanting their problems solved?”

Because I have my eyes tightly shut
, she thought for a moment before replying. “I think it’s because there has to be some kind of connection between myself and the spirit, something they can use as a conduit to me,” she said slowly. “In this case, there were two lead-ins: the first was that cursed wedding gown that hung in Wedding Bliss’s window; the second was that I had experienced being left at the altar, too. At least, I think that that’s what it is. I don’t know anyone here, and it seems like I don’t have anything in common with anyone here, so there’s no way through for them. I don’t really know … ”

As she spoke, she steadfastly ignored the pale gray figure in a long old-fashioned dress who was staring at her with heartbreakingly intense longing from under a nearby maple tree. She thought Brett probably wouldn’t want to know, and she wasn’t ready to deal with another unearthly problem, either. Maybe one day she’d return to the cemetery when she felt stronger.

So she was grateful when they saw Mary and Troy rise from the bench and start toward them. Kelly smiled to see they were holding hands, although she would have preferred to see Mary bop the man on the nose a few times before reaching the hand-holding stage.

“Oh, look—they’re coming this way!”

• • •

Even Brett could see the happiness that radiated from his aunt. “She looks like a different person,” he whispered, his expression incredulous. “I’ve only ever known her to be this reclusive, rather sad and sometimes angry person. Now she’s glowing.”

Reluctantly, he stood to face his smiling aunt and the man long thought to be dead. And who would wish he was, if he caused Mary any more pain, Brett vowed.

Brett and Kelly were both eager to hear Troy’s story, but they were to be disappointed. Mary insisted that they go home and meet up at the Atwell mansion the next morning for breakfast, when all would be revealed. No amount of protest would move the couple. “Other than telling you that Troy and I now completely understand each other, you’ll have to wait to hear his story,” Mary said firmly, adding, “Let’s make it brunch rather than breakfast. Nothing too early, so we can all sleep late,” Mary said, but her eyes never left Troy and she was twinkling as she spoke.

It was obvious that Troy was going back to the Atwell home with them. Brett started to protest, an angry flush across his cheekbones. “Aunt Mary, just think what you’re doing. You’ve only just met this man and you can’t … ”

“Goodness, Brett—you sound exactly like I did when I admonished your sister Sasha not to bring strange men home.” She sighed. “What a prude I must have sounded. Anyhow, Troy isn’t a strange man, and we have a lot of talking and catching up to do.” Mary gazed up at the tall, gray-haired man who couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her.

“I can hardly believe this is real,” Troy murmured, reaching for her hand.

Brett opened his mouth to protest again, but Kelly squeezed his shoulder and stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. “They’re grownups, sweetie. As Mary said, they have a lot of catching up to do.”

Distracted by her sweet breath wafting warm against his ear, Brett forgot what he was going to say.

“Now, you young folks get along. We have to go back to Troy’s house to pick up some things and then we’ll see you in the morning,” Mary told them. “Don’t wait up for us,” she added over her shoulder as she walked away hand in hand with the man she had thought lost forever.

“I don’t understand any of this.” Brett opened the car door for Kelly but he was looking down the street. “How can she just … ”

“Shhh, honey,” Kelly put her arms around his neck. “She still loves him, and judging by the look on Troy’s face, he’s still pretty well besotted, too. Let it go, Brett. Soon, as Mary said, all will be revealed.”

“But not until tomorrow. Anything could happen … ”

The wicked grin Kelly gave him was so full of promise his knees went weak. “Anything can and should have happened by tomorrow. Forty years is a long time to wait to get lucky.” Her grin widened at Brett’s scandalized expression. “Frankly, I’m having problems waiting for a couple of hours in hopes of getting lucky myself.”

She had his full attention then as he drew her into a kiss that sent tingles all the way down to her toes, pausing to light little fires in many other places along the way.

They awoke early the next morning, all tangled up together in Brett’s bed and basking in the warm sunshine flooding in through his bedroom window.

“I’m looking forward to hearing the story of why Troy didn’t make it to the wedding,” Brett said as he lazily stroked Kelly’s back. “That should be an epic.”

She yawned and purred as his hands worked magic on her spine. Turning around and pressing against him, she layered little kisses on his face until he groaned and captured her lips with his mouth. His hands roamed from her spine to her breasts and down along her belly.

“I’m really glad Mary insisted on meeting for brunch,” she murmured lazily. “It gives us time … ”

“Time for what?” Brett’s breath was warm against her neck.

“Time for … ” Actions speaking louder than words, she set about showing him.

Later, much later, they decided to take a stroll along the wharf and see if any of the food stands were open for a quick breakfast. They found one that sold mouth-wateringly fresh lobster rolls served by a plump, cheerful man who whistled an old love song melody as he handed them the bags of food and paper cups of steaming hot coffee. They carried the food to a nearby bench with a view of the bobbing boats and choppy sea toward the horizon.

“You’re very quiet,” said Kelly as she cast a worried glance at Brett. She hated losing the sense of intimacy they had built up, and his abstracted silence worried her.

“Hard to speak when I’m wolfing down these delicious lobster rolls,” he said, flashing a smile.

They ate in silence for a while, but she still felt that he was holding back on her. It was hard to still that quiet voice in her head that told her something was wrong, but she sat staring at her bright pink flip flops and waited
. Stop being so insecure,
she admonished herself.
I’m not going to ask. I’m sure he will tell me in his own time if there is something wrong. Like, if he’s regretting the hot sex we just had … or is he simply worried about his aunt Mary?

She was relieved when Brett cleared his throat. “What would you do if Wayne came back and pleaded with you to marry him?” He made the question sound like idle curiosity, yet she heard something in his voice that made her pulse jump.