The Wedding Gift (9 page)

“See? It's better when you just relax and let it happen, isn't it?”

Medicine had never been easier to swallow. That might have had something to do with the mental picture Madeline was painting for him. He put the lids back on the bottles once again before following that voice, that sexy, crooning voice.

He found her in the master bathroom. At some point she'd gone back to the cottage and changed. She now wore blue jeans and if he wasn't mistaken, the T-shirt she'd bought at a gift shop in Charlevoix yesterday. She was bent over the tub, her hair wet in places, soggy towels beside her, water everywhere. In the middle of the bathtub sat one wet brown dog.

The dog turned beseeching eyes to Riley.

“Don't look at me,” Riley said. “I can smell you from here.”

Madeline glanced over her shoulder and saw Riley leaning in the doorway, one shoulder resting along the frame, arms and ankles crossed. “He rolled in a rotten fish. How do you like the house?”

“It looks good.”

She was pleased he liked it. It had taken two men less than two hours to cart away the furniture. They'd even helped her arrange the pieces she'd instructed them to leave behind. It seemed to her that Riley had mentioned that one of his stepmothers was an interior decorator. Maybe one of these days he would ask her to finish decorating.

“You left the mahogany table in the kitchen,” he said.

She nodded and lunged for the dog. She hadn't been able to bring herself to tell the movers to take the table that had sustained Riley through so many
sleepless nights. “You're not tumbleweed. You're a tree.”

“I guess that explains that.”

She smiled to herself, but didn't elaborate. “Your dog doesn't like baths or men in white coveralls,” she said as she finished lathering dog shampoo into the thick brown coat. “He parked himself in front of the door and growled—he growls as if he means it—every time the movers tried to come in. I finally had to ask them to take off their coveralls.”

“You asked the movers to undress before coming in?”

“They were wearing clothes underneath.” She took the handheld nozzle and began to rinse the soap suds down the drain. Of course the dog shook, spraying water everywhere.

Again.

Riley was there suddenly with two more towels. He had him towel dried in almost no time. With his fur sticking up all over, the dog walked stiff legged from the bathroom to sulk.

“And the orange-and-green sofa?” Riley asked, dropping the soggy towels into the bathtub. “I can't wait to hear your reason for leaving that in the living room.”

She rose slowly, drying her arms. “After last night that has sentimental value. I hope you don't mind.”

“Do I look like I mind?”

She smiled because he looked good. “Now I'm the one who needs a shower.”

He reached around and turned on the water in the large, walk-in shower. “I can help with that.”

He peeled her wet T-shirt over her head, turning it inside out in the process. She helped him out of his shirt, and they both did away with their pants. In almost no time they were both naked and she was gliding her hands up his chest, sliding her arms around his shoulders. At the same time, his arms went around her waist, bodily lifting her off her feet. She wrapped her legs around his waist, their mouths joined.

They moaned through openmouthed kisses, warm water pouring over them from above, getting in their eyes and bouncing off their shoulders, running down their backs, making their skin slick.

Her arms went around his neck, the action bringing her breasts close to his mouth. She was wanton, her long-dormant sexuality newly awakened to every sound, every touch, every sensation. She pressed closer to him, her ankles locked behind him, her breathing ragged, her eyes closed to the onslaught of rushing water, her heart open to the joy he brought her, her body open to the passion unfurling from him to her, and back again.

Madeline never knew she could make love without her feet ever touching the floor. It was hot, hard and fast. With steam curling from every direction, her heart was brimming and so full she wished this idyllic week never had to end.

 

Eventually they were going to have to rouse themselves out of bed and get something to eat. Madeline's hair had dried after that incredible shower an hour ago.

“Is this normal?” she asked.

“Is what normal?”

Her breast had come uncovered, and she caught him looking at it, already distracted. Smiling to herself because she secretly liked how easily she could distract him, she said, “This. Sex. Does the average person have sex, you know, so often?”

“This,” he said, laving her exposed breast with his tongue, “is far above average, so far above average I'd call it magnificent.” He moved to her other breast. “Supremely spectacular—superhuman, even.”

She giggled, and it came out sounding wanton and breathless. “Braggart.”

“I was talking about you.”

It was all it took, and she was with him again, lips to lips, chest to breast, hip to hip, hearts beating,
breaths ragged, hands seeking, bodies straining in that age-old rhythm that carried from the dawn of time.

“Ri-ley?”

He stopped, and held perfectly still.

“Yoo-hoo. Ri. Lee. Anybody home? Oh. When did you get a dog?”

Riley groaned. “Oh, no.”

Madeline went still, too.

Whoever was in the house was getting steadily closer. “Did Gwen finally get in touch with you? I know she's been beside herself wanting to do something with this place.”

“Who is that?” Madeline asked.

Riley would recognize that voice anywhere. “My mother has the worst timing in the world.”

“Your mother?” If it was possible to shriek in a whisper, Madeline did exactly that.

They both jumped up. Riley grabbed his jeans. She dragged the sheet off the bed.

“I know you're here somewhere, dear. Your car's parked right outside. Kipp insists you're fine, but he's hiding something. I'm your mother, and believe me, a mother just knows. We sense these things.”

Riley managed to get his pants partially zipped before his mother burst into his bedroom. She smiled at him and was on her way over to plant a
motherly kiss on his cheek when she noticed Madeline, frozen in place halfway to the bathroom wearing nothing but a sheet.

“Oh,” his mother said, obviously surprised but not so surprised she couldn't be congenial. “Hello, there.”

M
adeline was beyond embarrassed. She was mortified.

Riley stood near the bed. With his hair slightly shaggy, his face unshaven, his jeans slung low and barely zipped, he could have been a walking advertisement for anything. The dog plopped his hindquarters down by the door as if readying for the grand finale.

This was not a good way to meet a man's mother.

She knew her eyes were huge, and she was probably as pale as the sheet she was wearing. She clamped her mouth shut to keep from stammering and making matters worse.

On second thought, nothing could make this worse.

Riley's mother was beautiful. Her face was heart-shaped, her eyes green, and her hair was straight and shiny as silk.

“This isn't a good time, Mom.” The traces of annoyance in Riley's voice drew everyone's gaze, including the dog's.

“Yes, dear, I can see that.” His mother's voice sounded strained, too.

“I just wish you would have called first.”

“You mean, by phone. I wonder why I didn't think of that.”

Riley had the grace to cringe a little as that point hit home. His mother turned beseeching eyes to Madeline.

“I am genuinely sorry to intrude. It's just that I've been sick with worry about Riley. All mothers worry, but it's been especially difficult after coming so close to losing him. I still have night terrors about those months.” She extended one perfectly manicured hand. “I'm Chloe Merrick. This buffoon's mother.”

While Madeline was jostling to secure the sheet with her other hand, Riley said, “Come on, Mom, it's not as if you haven't already spoken to her. I guess this would be as good a time as any to thank you for hiring a nurse behind my back.”

Beyond the windows, the wind crooned. The waves washed noisily ashore. In the bedroom, three people and one dog stood frozen in stunned silence.

Madeline finally found her voice. “I never said your mother hired me, Riley.”

She could see him trying valiantly to make sense of her statement. He could build walls and take them down and move mountains or build pyramids if he had to. This was outside his area of expertise. “If Mom didn't send you, what were you doing at the jobsite? How did you know about the heart transplant?”

Of their own volition, Madeline's eyes went to his scar. His chest rose and fell with the deep breaths he was taking. She could feel his mother looking from one to the other. She knew, as Madeline knew, that something was clicking into place in his mind.

“I think I'll leave you two alone,” Chloe Merrick said. She reached her hand to her son's cheek. “Will you be all right?”

He nodded once, his jaw set.

She kissed his cheek as if she wished it would make everything better, the way it had when he was small. “You call me,” she said. The or else came through loud and clear. Sparing one last look at Madeline, she turned on her heel and walked out of her son's house.

Madeline felt as if she were standing in a vacuum
where there was no sound, no movement, and no air. Riley had looked at her in so many different ways since she'd met him. She'd seen curious speculation on his face, and dark intensity, and smoldering invitation. Right now his eyes held an impassive coldness that sent a shiver up her spine.

“Your sainted fiancé, dead eighteen months. My heart transplant, eighteen months ago. It seems your Aaron and I have something in common besides you.”

A lone tear ran down her face as she thought about the first time she'd laid eyes on Riley, and the first time she'd spoken to him. Yes, he'd jumped to conclusions, but she'd let him. Her intentions had been pure, for all the good it did either of them.

She'd wanted to tell him.

She'd tried to tell him.

She should have told him,
privacy laws be damned,
because a lie of omission was sometimes the most hurtful lie of all.

“I'm sorry, Riley.” Before another tear could fall, she pried her feet from the floor and went in search of her clothes.

 

Riley didn't say a word, not when Madeline made her way to the bathroom, as regal as a queen in that damn sheet, not a few minutes later when he heard
the soft fall of her footsteps coming down the hall, through his living room, to the kitchen, where he stood, his back to her.

“May I explain?” she asked.

“There's no need.”

“Riley, please.”

He'd pulled on his shirt. It chafed wherever it touched his skin. He wanted to rip it off and throw it. “It's a little late, don't you think? Let's not turn this into some big drama. It was never going to be more than a little sex anyway.”

He heard the deep breath she took.

Turning, he looked her in the eye. “Your rent's paid through Friday. Maybe I'll see you around.”

He knew he'd hurt her, knew by the deep breath she took, and by the way she walked stiffly out the door, as if any sudden moves would make her crumble.

Some immeasurable amount of time later he heard her car start on the other side of the arborvitae hedge. He saw her pull out of the end of her driveway and head south.

That was that.

She hadn't waited until Friday to leave. He had no good reason to go over there, but he cut through the damn gap in the damn hedge anyway, and let himself in. The dog followed him from room to room, as silent as he.

It was just as he'd expected. Whatever dishes she'd used had been washed and put away. Her bed was made. The closet was empty.

She was gone.

Riley walked out to the lake next and stood where she'd shed so many tears for her Aaron. Staring at an iron ore freighter lumbering across the horizon, Riley shook his head. He'd been manipulated by some of the most cunning women on the planet. There was no reason to give this one the power to cut to the bone.

Okay. So he'd thought she was different. She'd been a virgin. For a few days, she'd been exactly what he'd needed.

That didn't mean he needed her now. She'd been a diversion, and it had been fun while it lasted. He didn't appreciate being duped, but the sex was good. There was no reason to let a little duplicity cancel out a great roll in the hay.

He dropped his head into his hands, heaved a great sigh, because the sex was only part of it. If he was honest with himself, it wasn't even the best part.

Enough, he told himself. It was over. She was gone. And that was that.

He turned his phone back on when he reached his own house. He saw a missed call from Kipp, listened to what was probably meant to be a soothing mes
sage from his mother then dropped the phone on the table on the way by.

He took a good long look at every room. The clutter and grandma furnishings were gone. There was an old trunk in the living room, a huge framed mirror leaning against one wall and that horrible green-and-orange couch where they'd made love. The dining room was empty. It was just as well. The only table he used was in the kitchen, anyway. He sat down at it and stared at the scorch marks in the marred surface.

How many nights had he sat here, sipping hot coffee and waiting for morning? Was it really morning he'd been waiting for?

“You're not a tumbleweed,” she'd said. “You're a tree.”

Riley thought about that now. A tumbleweed was an invasive plant that grew gangly and then died from drought and sun. Eventually the incessant wind snapped it off just above the ground. What was left tumbled and rolled, sowing its weed seeds, dead, across the plains. Trees, on the other hand, put down roots. They bent in the wind, shed their leaves every fall and sprouted new ones every spring. Somehow they survived ice storms and droughts, changed by the elements, but alive.

Riley felt. Something.

He held perfectly still. In his chest there was a
tingle. A prickle as if Novocain was wearing off. His heart reared up. It gave a strange little shudder then stuttered before settling down again, heavy.

He placed his hands flat on the table's cool surface. In his chest, his heart went thump, thump, thump.

He could feel it beating.

He was alive. Because of this heart, Aaron's heart, he was alive.

The dog looked up at him as if waiting for him to say something profound. Riley couldn't have gotten a word past the knot in his throat if he'd tried.

He might have remained silent the rest of the day had the phone not rung. He grabbed it up, and the first thing to tumble out of his mouth was “Damn.” Not because it rang.

Because it wasn't her.

He put it to his ear and sat up straighter. “Say that again?”

The man on the other end of the line said, “This is Hank Chester. I happened to drive through Gale this mornin'. Hadn't been up that way in a while. And I saw a sign on the light pole. That brown dog still hanging around there?”

Riley eyed the dog. “He might be.”

“Is he on the ugly side, with a tail somebody did a poor job of lopping off?”

“His tail has been lopped.”

“Went missing almost two months ago. It sounds like you have my dog.”

After the call ended, Riley looked the dog in the eye and said, “You're going home.”

The dog laid his snout on his paws. And sighed.

 

It was almost dark by the time Hank Chester finally pulled into Riley's driveway on Shoreline Drive. Riley was reserving judgment. Just because the man was an hour late and drove a rusted green pickup truck with a gun rack in the back window and a filthy dog crate in the bed was no reason to distrust him. He was a large man with size twelve boots and a toothpick between his brown teeth. Poor oral hygiene was no reason to distrust him, either.

Riley disliked him on sight.

He clomped all the way to the front door—he wanted to tell him to tie his damn boots—nodded at Riley, evidently his version of a greeting, then eyed the dog. “That's him, all right. Damnedest dog I ever laid eyes on.”

“You're sure he's yours?” Riley asked.

“You think there are two dogs this ugly in the world?”

Riley's hands tightened into fists at his sides. He counted to ten. And reminded himself there was no law against calling a dog ugly.

“If you're sure he's yours, take him. I rounded up the things I bought for him. Here's his leash and collar, and the pillow he slept on in the kitchen. You might as well take the food, too.”

The man cackled. “He slept on a pillow? What were you trying to do, turn him into a sissy dog?”

Okay. Riley wasn't in the mood to be nice anyway. He dropped the pillow and leash on the porch and closed the door at his back.

Chester took the hint. He backed up and wiped the dumb-ass grin off his face. “Get over here, mutt,” he said.

The dog hung his head and skulked to Chester's side. Riley liked it better when he couldn't feel his heart.

“What's his name?” Riley asked in spite of himself.

“He doesn't answer to anything. I call him Dipstick, Stupid, Gutless Wonder.”

Dislike might have been a little mild for what Riley felt for Hank Chester. But if it was his dog, it was his dog.

“Where do you live?” Riley asked. They were by the truck now, and Riley could see a logo on the door.

“Twenty-five miles south of here. This stupid dog has run away more times than I can count. Thought he was gone for good this time.”

Riley couldn't look at the dog. “Twenty-five miles is a long way for a dog to run. What is it you do?”

“I'm a house painter. What's it to you?”

Riley recalled something Madeline had said about men in white coveralls. “Do you wear a white coverall?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Wait!”

The dog stopped, just stopped, and no amount of shoving on his master's part could move him.

“Not the brightest bulb, that's for damn sure.” Chester brought his foot back.

“How much?” Riley said.

Hank Chester wouldn't know Riley's handmade Italian shoes from galoshes, but that Porsche in the driveway said “Chump” to him. He eyed it, and then he gave Riley a big ugly grin. “What's he worth to ya?”

If Riley had learned one thing today, it was that if there was a fool here, it wasn't Hank Chester.

“I drove all the way up here. Put miles on my truck. Gas ain't cheap, you know. Then there was all the emotional whadyacallit. Mental anguish, that's it. Hard to put a price on that.”

The dog growled. Chester brought his foot back again.

Riley had the man by the throat before Chester could say, “Shut up, mutt.”

“Look,” Riley said, releasing him. “I haven't had a good day. So what do you say you name your price so you can get the hell out of here?”

Hank Chester didn't take too kindly to being threatened, but evidently he was smarter than he looked. He made the deal and drove away in his rusty four-by-four pickup truck, a wad of money in his beefy fist.

When it was just the two of them again, Riley finally knew what his dog had known all along. Madeline was right. It was time this loyal friend had a name.