The Wedding Dress (36 page)

“And that fixed everything right up,” Jared sniped. Damn, he wondered, why was he feeling so surly? Because he’d missed her birthday and now it was too late…Or because of the wariness and vulnerability Drew Lawson could still bring to Emma’s eyes?

“It’s not Drew’s way to grab guys like Feeny by the collar and throw them off the property. Drew was always too much of a gentleman for that.”

Jared swore under his breath.

“He’d hoped someday we could all be friends again. He and Jessie and me. But I…it felt…”

“Ridiculous? Stupid? An exercise in sadomasochism?”

Emma gave him a weary grin. “Something like that. It still hurt too much for me to imagine a time I could see Drew without pain. But now…” She shrugged. “It’s funny. The present surprised me, but it didn’t…lacerate me inside, you know?”

“It didn’t?” Jared was stunned to realize just how much he’d wanted to shield her from that hurt. “What’s different?” He couldn’t help asking.

“You.” She turned the full force of those melting chocolate eyes on him, eyes dark and beautiful and full of feeling.

He must have gotten pale. She actually grinned. “Don’t panic, Butler. I’m not going to make any mad undying pledges of love or anything to ruin your day. It’s just that, you made my body feel more than I ever did while I was with Drew. So now I can hope someday my heart will feel more, too.”

Dangerous ground, Jared thought, his pulse jumping. Better to change the subject. “So what did the asshole get you?”

She laughed out loud, obviously as relieved as he was to break the tension at least a little. “So much for that tender little moment,” she said.

Then slowly, intently Emma loosened the tape, unfolded the paper. When she emptied the contents into her lap, Jared stared, completely flummoxed.

Socks.

A gorgeous woman like Emma, and the idiot had sent her a bunch of chunky gray wool socks? He couldn’t wait to hear her slam the jerk’s present.

She extracted a small card and read it aloud.
“Sent you these so you won’t get cold feet.”
She blinked hard against what he knew were tears.

Jared felt jealousy gnaw inside him. “Your feet aren’t cold,” he complained. Hell, Drew Lawson had been married to Emma for years. He should know the woman was red-hot.

“He’s not talking about my feet feet,” Emma said. “He’s talking about my career feet. The first rumblings that Barry had bought the movie rights to
Lady Valiant
were rippling through the industry when our marriage was getting rocky. I wanted the part of Lady Aislinn so badly but the role also scared me to death. It was taking such a chance. I didn’t know if I could do it. Now I wonder if that’s the real reason I thought I could give up my career to have a baby. Because then I’d never have to know I couldn’t do it, you know?”

She sighed. “Drew’s right. I married him for the wrong reasons, too. I took the safe way out, but I didn’t understand what it would cost me. I wanted security, but not predictability. He was too tame. I needed excitement, adventure. Someone I could fight with who wouldn’t walk out the door whenever things started getting uncomfortable.”

Jared tried not to remember they’d been fighting since the moment they’d met, and coming back for more. Fighting, laughing, loving.

“I’ve barely known you a month and I can tell you even if you’d quit acting and had a dozen babies that relationship would never have lasted. He would have driven you crazy if he couldn’t stand up to a good row.”

“You’re right about that. Maybe Drew knew it, too.”

“I doubt it,” Jared snapped before he could stop himself.

The toe of one sock crackled as she started to set it aside. “Something’s inside this,” Emma said. She pulled out an old photograph, one corner crumbled.

“Don’t tell me,” Jared groused, looking down at three teenagers squeezed into a wooden booth at some kind of shop. Even as an awkward teen Emma had been one hell of a heartbreaker.

“It’s me and Drew and Jessie at Lagos, this little soda shop back home.”

Jared ground his teeth. “What a jerk, reminding you of this after the divorce. I wonder if his wife knows he’s sending things to another woman.”

Drew had written on the white border around the snapshot.
I’m sorry loving you wasn’t enough. I wanted an ordinary life but married an extraordinary woman. Be happy, Em.

“You can’t possibly buy into this—” Jared sputtered but Emma seemed a million miles away, her attention focused on a line squeezed in the white blur where the photographer’s thumb had apparently covered part of the lens.

In neat block-printed letters the message said:
I miss us.

“Jessie,” Emma murmured, running her fingers over the line. “I miss us, too,” she confessed softly.

Suddenly Jared wanted to dash away the images clouding her thoughts, wanted to make new memories for her, memories of
his
world to drive back the shadows.

“Listen,” he said. “I’ve kept you a virtual prisoner here these past weeks. What would you say we see a bit of Scotland for a change?”

“But reporters—there could be…and I thought you didn’t want to encourage the town’s kids to come around and muck up the excavation.”

“I changed my mind. How about we all go to the pub tonight? You, me, the kids.”

“Great idea, Butler. We can pile everybody into the family station wagon and try to keep Davey and the soccer boys from fighting over who gets to sit by the windows.”

“I mean it. A kind of…well, impromptu birthday thing. It
could
be fun.”

“It
could
be disastrous. I’ll let you in on a little secret. Me and alcohol…we don’t mix. All those galas and premiers? I’m drinking tonic water with lime.”

“You’re kidding.”

“All that time I spent in clubs as a kid kind of wrecked the drinking scene for me. And then after my grandma died, my grandpa kind of went on a binge. I wasn’t around for it, but I’ve heard enough to get the picture. I don’t want you to think I’m a killjoy or anything. I just want to warn you that if you’re plotting to get me drunk and have your way with me…it ain’t a-goin’ to happen.”

Jared’s mood improved as he considered the possibilities. “I can have my way with you anyway. All I have to do is find that sweet spot on your throat, the one that makes you moan, and rake it with my teeth…”

He could see her shiver of response, just thinking about it. It made him hot as hell.

“You’re getting way too arrogant for your own good,” Emma said, giving him a measured glance. “Maybe I should get a headache just to take you down a peg or two.”

“Flora, the pub keeper, will take care of cutting me down to size. She puts every man in town in their place, except one. Come on, McDaniel. Let’s go to town. The kids will love it. And you can’t go back to America without taking in the local color. Scotland’s pubs are famous.”

“
In
famous, don’t you mean?” She grinned. “All right. We’ll go to town. Maybe I’ll be able to find some presents to send home to Hope and Mom and everybody. In fact…” She nibbled on her bottom lip for a moment. “I might even pick up a baby present to send Jessie and Drew.”

“Over my dead body!” Jared began. She grabbed him by the front of his sweater.

“I’ll take your body about any way I can get it, mister,” she teased. “Come on. We’ll have them ship a plaid bib and a pair of booties and then—”

“Then what?” Jared demanded darkly.

“We’ll go be party animals, Dr. Butler. I might even live dangerously and get a lemon in my tonic water instead of a lime. And who knows?” She flashed him a come-hither smile that almost dropped him to his knees. “You just might get lucky after all.”

T
WO HUNDRED YEARS
of peat smoke had seasoned the rough wood beams of the Royal Stuarts Public House. Dusty stuffed fish were smattered on the gray walls among World Cup posters and beer signs. The massive stretch of bar, polished by the hands of generations of patrons, gleamed softly in the dim light, the evening crowd gathering around wobbly tables.

Emma tried to claim a couple of tables in the back corner, but the proprietress, a stocky woman with a ruddy face and a wealth of ice-white hair, gave her a look that stopped her in her tracks.

“Sorry, miss, but that table is occupied,” she said.

Emma frowned at the chairs. “It looks empty to—Don’t tell me!” she exclaimed, with a sudden burst of excitement. “You have a ghost! Some soldier from the seventeen-hundreds who followed Bonnie Prince Charlie to the battle of Culloden Moor!”

“No self-respecting Jacobite would ever get near that table.” Jared took her elbow, guiding her firmly away. “Snib would have driven them away years ago.”

“Snib?” Emma wrinkled up her nose.

“That’s the ruddy bastard’s table. He brings Widow Steen trout once a week in the season and she holds it for him.”

Emma pulled a face. “
Please
tell me it isn’t trout season!” She cast her gaze heavenward. “Hey, God, if you want to give me a birthday present, keep that man and his demon dogs away from here!”

Jared surprised her, slipping an arm around her in spite of the students’ watchful gazes. “Don’t worry,” he murmured, his breath tickling her ear. “I’ll protect you.”

Emma figured he could start by deflecting the daggers Veronica was shooting out of her eyes. But before Jared could see the woman’s reaction, Veronica plastered an oh-so-helpful smile on her face.

She brandished a disposable camera. “This is my present to you, Emma,” Veronica said. “Pictures of one of your last weeks in Scotland. I’ll be sure to write everyone’s name on the back of the photos. You can’t be expected to remember little details like that when you go back to Hollywood.”

“I’ll remember,” Emma said, looking around the bright faces of the students she’d come to love and the man she wished could be the love of her life.

But not this life, she admitted with a sudden ache. Jared belonged to another life. One an A-list actress would never be able to have.

In spite of the enmity she’d sensed from Veronica, Emma couldn’t help but be grateful for her camera. It would be good to have pictures of Davey and Beth. Pictures of Jared. She imagined his fierce green eyes staring at her from his warrior’s face in a frame set beside the one of her family. Reminders of what really mattered, the people she loved.

One of the boys ordered a round of drinks and the party ensued. With a laugh, Emma refused to drink anything but tonic water, for self-preservation she insisted since God knew what would fall out of her mouth after a few drinks.

The kids teased and begged until Davey finally convinced them to surrender, insisting no power on earth would get her to change her mind. Emma watched Beth try her best to flirt with a blushing Davey while the other boys turned their energies to showing off for the girl students, downing shots that should have knocked out an elephant. Seamus Jones was on his fifth by the time the pub door swung open to reveal the last person on earth Emma wanted to see.

Snib MacMurray stomped in like a little black cloud, the pockets of his tweed jacket bulging with what looked to be old tin cans, a smelly stringer of glassy-eyed fish dangling from his hand.

It took a moment for the farmer to realize his pub had been invaded by Jared and his much-loathed students. Once he recognized their faces he might as well have been some medieval pope seeing Jerusalem being desecrated by infidels. Jared folded his arms over his chest and met the old man’s gaze as if daring him to ruin Emma’s birthday party. Suddenly a mere toothpick impalement from Hope’s Twinkie cake seemed uneventful compared to the threat of an all-out brawl.

The Captain would have been in hog heaven, Emma thought with a chuckle. The old man would’ve delighted in emptying a can of gasoline on this particular fire. Considering how Jared’s eyes blazed, her grandpa wouldn’t even have needed a match to start things burning.

The best Emma could hope for was Snib being so disgusted with their presence he’d turn on the heel of his mucky boots and stomp out. But before the farmer could make his escape, the barkeep bustled out in a swirl of faded tartan skirt and stale lavender perfume that only made the stench of the fish more nauseating.

“Have you brought a treat for your Flora, you dear man!” The woman snatched the stringer of fish as if it were a dozen roses.

His Flora?
Emma tried to register the words as the kids all around her giggled and nudged each other.

“Friday, isn’t it?” Snib said gruffly, patting an old tin can bulging from his jacket pocket.

His cheeks actually looked redder than usual. Windburn, Emma figured.

“Always bring the fish by on Friday,” Snib continued. “When you said you wanted it, as I recall.”

“But you never fail, do you?” Flora crooned. “Why, I can count on you regular as lilies at Easter, Snib MacMurray.”

“I can’t believe it,” Jared muttered in Emma’s ears. “The woman acts like he sailed on a log raft clear to the Amazon to catch them for her.”

Emma grimaced. “She’s obviously pickled her brains with too much good Scotch. Or maybe she’s blind. I’d better check to make sure Snib’s Flora didn’t miss any giant furry spiders in the bottom of my glass. One thing is certain.” Emma pinched her nose and pulled a face. “The woman’s olfactory cells must have been burned out years ago or she wouldn’t be putting Snib and lilies anywhere near each other in the same sentence!”

Jared roared with laughter, giving her a quick squeeze. “Well, we’ll not be letting anything spoil our evening.” He turned to the students. “Will we, mates?”

Cries of agreement rang from the pub’s oak rafters. Snib seemed to take it as a personal challenge, digging in at his table like a World War One doughboy in one of the trenches. But only Emma seemed aware of him as he munched on the fish and chips Flora set before him, his gaze following the older woman over the rim of his glass. Was it possible Snib had a soft spot for Flora after all? And if that was the case, maybe he wasn’t as reprehensible as he seemed.

Right,
Emma thought cynically,
and Snib’s collies had just been greeting Captain with an overenthusiastic hello that first day! The man threatened to shoot your dog!