Authors: A Bride Worth Waiting For
Cara Colter (4 page)
She looked at Adam. And felt warmth in the circle of his arms, strangely like homecoming. She could feel his breath rising and falling, and the beat of his heart. This close she could see the beginnings of dark stubble on his strong chin and on his cheeks. An outraged expression was on his face.
“Are you all right?” he asked, and eased her away from him to look.
“Oh, fine,” she said, dusting an imaginary speck off her sweatpant leg, hating herself for how badly she wanted to go back into the circle of his arms.
She glanced at him. Apparently he hadn’t even noticed their close encounter, was not stirred as physically by it as she had been. Of course, it had probably not been a year since he had come in close contact with a member of the opposite sex!
He was glaring after the cyclist. “Gramps,” he sputtered indignantly. “Did that delinquent call me Gramps?”
She nodded, wide-eyed, trying to repress the giggle inside of her. It would not be repressed.
“What’s so funny?” he demanded.
“The look on your face. That boy—” she was giggling now, and because she was trying not to, it seemed to her the sound coming out of her was most undignified. Like snorting.
“What about that boy?”
“He looked just like you used to look, Adam. Devil-may-care” she was laughing now. Laughing as she had not laughed in years. And then she saw the smile on his face, and remembered how his smile had always had the power to change everything. To turn a bad day into a good one, to make a hurt heart feel better.
“Hell-bent for leather,” Adam said ruefully, watching her, smiling at her laughter, not seeming to find her snorting undignified at all. “I never yelled at people to get out of my way, did I?”
“Oh, you were much worse than that.”
“I was not.”
“Yes, you were.”
Suddenly he was standing very close to her again, and her elbow was in his hand and his eyes were darkly intense on hers.
“You liked it, didn’t you, Tory?” he growled.
And her laughter was gone, replaced by another feeling she remembered all too well around Adam. A kind of walking-on-the-edge feeling, caught somewhere between fear and exhilaration.
“Liked what?” she stammered.
“The rebel in me. The bad boy.”
“It scared the hell out of me,” she whispered.
She didn’t add:
And it still does.
And it still does.
Chapter Three
“A
dam, why are we doing this?” Tory asked him, closing the latches on the apparatuses now attached to her feet. “I never even liked ice-skating. Neither did you!”
dam, why are we doing this?” Tory asked him, closing the latches on the apparatuses now attached to her feet. “I never even liked ice-skating. Neither did you!”
“I know. The only boy in Calgary who never played hockey. Probably in all of Canada. An albatross I have carried around my neck for two decades.”
“Answer the question then. Why?” She wiggled her feet. Even though they moved on command, they seemed strangely detached from her body.
“I’m tired of carrying the albatross?”
She shot him a look. He had never given a damn what the rest of the world was doing, and he didn’t care now. It was written in the supreme confidence with which he carried himself, written in the light that lit those devilishly dark eyes. This expedition was not about whether he had played hockey as a boy.
He rose to his feet, and when his feet scooted out from under him, he grabbed the back of the bench where they had sat to put their skates on, and tried to look casual and in control.
For once he didn’t succeed, and it really was quite funny.
“Don’t stand up,” he advised her. “We’ll just sit on this bench and look like we’re having a rest.”
Damn him. She could feel that little smile twitching again.
“He’ll know,” she whispered wagging her eyebrows toward the kid who had rented them the skates—the same boy who had nearly mowed them over on his bicycle.
Adam had given him hell for clearing them off the path, and the boy had grinned at him with a certain impish charm and said, “Sure, Gramps, I’ll watch that next time.”
“I’m not your Gramps,” Adam said in a low, lethal tone that had set the hair on the back of Tory’s neck on end.
“Yes, sir,” the boy had said, not the least perturbed. “By the way, my generation calls them in-line skates, not Rollerblades.”
“I think I defended his brother on a murder rap,” Adam said to Tory, looking over at the little booth where the boy was now happily engrossed in a comic book. “I’m sorry I tried so hard.”
She couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “Well, unless you want to be Gramps forever, you had better let go of the bench.”
“Ladies first,” he insisted smoothly.
Tentatively she tried standing on her feet. “It’s like standing on a plate balanced on top of ball bearings,” she said when her feet seemed to be going every which way from underneath of her. Bent over from the waist, she grabbed the seat of the bench.
“At least I’m maintaining my dignity, Gran,” he taunted her.
She blew a curl out of her way and looked up at him. She let go of the seat, straightened and lunged toward him. She caught him around the waist and held tight.
He stared at her, something darkening in eyes that were already darker than pitch.
Her own heart was quickening within the walls of her chest. It would be a very good idea to let go of him.
But if she did that she’d probably land flat on her fanny in front of him. There was no denying how good it felt to hold him, his muscles strong and sinewy beneath the denim of his shirt, his body throwing off soft heat, like early summer sunshine.
“The little creep is watching us,” he said under his breath.
“Then let go of the bench.”
He did. His arms wrapped tightly around her.
She was not sure if it was an improvement. Her heart seemed happy. Her head was muttering something about pure insanity.
“Turn right,” he ordered tersely.
They inched their way around, and then took a few wobbly steps forward.
“The little creep is laughing.”
“Adam. I’m afraid we’re hilarious.”
A man jogged by, grinned and shook his head.
“Okay,” Adam said, “that’s it for Rollerblading. In-line skating. That looked like a great restaurant we came by. Let’s—”
“Forget it. This was your idea. We’ve got to take at least one turn around the park.”
“Is this park any smaller than it used to be?”
“No.”
“Why are you torturing me?”
“Because I tried to talk you out of this and you wouldn’t listen. You promised me fun. Laughter.”
“Well, they’re all laughing.” He scowled darkly at a herd of cyclists who went by.
“Adam, you can’t lean on me so hard. You’re pushing me over.”
“I’ll take off my skates,” he said, brightening, a lawyer who had just found his way out of an impossible dilemma “No!”
He ignored her. “And you’ll leave yours on. I’ll guide you.”
“No!”
“You can close your eyes. Pretend you’re blind. I’ll be your Seeing Eye dog. A laugh a minute. I guarantee it.”
“No. Absolutely not, no.”
“I hate it when you say that ‘Absolutely not, no.’”
“You haven’t heard me say it for a long time.”
“It doesn’t seem that long.”
“It doesn’t? When did I ever use that expression on you? I never said no to you.”
“Yes you did. The night that I asked you to marry me.”
She actually felt the blood drain from her face. Of course. The only time she had ever said no to Adam.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I really hate this. Much more than I expected to hate it.”
“Are you referring to Rollerblading or something else?” she asked suspiciously.
He sighed, but the melancholy of it was lost when his foot shot off to the right and left him leaning on her drunkenly, threatening to pull them both down. He scrambled to regain his balance.
Adam’s dignity had always been innate in him.
He was like a duck out of water with these foolish inventions on his feet, and she could not imagine what had led him to this moment.
He swore under his breath, a word that was pure Adam.
She started to laugh.
He glared at her.
She started to laugh harder.
“Stop it. You’re making my skates wobble.”
It was the first time she had ever seen Adam so out of his element and so out of control. It was delightful.
She pushed off tentatively.
“Not so bloody fast!”
She pushed with her other foot. “I think I’m getting it.”
“Tory, you are going way too fast!”
“Do you remember what you used to do when I said that to you when you took me on motorcycle rides?” she asked fiendishly, pushing hard with her right skate, propelling them both forward. Something was bubbling away inside her. If she was not careful, she might see it for what it was. Happiness.
“I used to say, ‘Of course. You’re right, Tory. I am going much too fast.’ And then I’d slow down.”
“Tut-tut, such terrible lies.” She pushed with her left foot.
“Not lies! A faulty memory.”
“You used to go faster,” she reminded him, shoving off again. She was slightly in front of him now, breaking away from him. He clung to her elbow, bent slightly forward at the waist, his knees bent, his feet looking like they were locked together.
“I was young then,” he said. “Immature. I wouldn’t behave that way now.”
“I would.” She pushed again. He was so uncooperative that he was knocking her off balance. She was starting to laugh.
“We’re coming to a hill,” he warned her grimly.
“That’s not a hill. A mere bump. You used to jump your bicycle off a dirt heap ten times that high.”
“But I was in control!”
“It seems to me you wound up in a cast.”
“I broke my bones when I was young, and they mended swiftly.”
They swooshed down the little roll in the land. She laughed at the wind in her face, his grip on her elbow. She looked back at him, and laughed harder at the look of grim foreboding on his face.
“I’m laughing,” she called to him breathlessly. “You were right! It’s fun!”
“Tory, slow down. This is not fun. You are not really laughing. You are having a panic attack that you are mistaking for laughter.”
“Try pushing off with your skates, Adam, like this—”
And then they were falling, down and down, all twisted together, landing somehow on the soft green grass beside the path.
And she couldn’t stop laughing even though an awful pain was shooting through her knee.
He was so heavy on top of her, his face so close to hers, his eyes dark and black, the whole universe in them—the stars, and the sun, and all the laughter she would ever need.
For a moment she thought he was going to kiss her. She froze underneath him. Wanting it more that she had ever wanted anything. And less. If he kissed her, she knew her world would never be the same again.
In actual fact, had her world ever been the same after that very first kiss from him? “I think I twisted my knee,” she stammered, buying time.
“Really?”
“I’m afraid so. Ooh, it hurts.”
He rolled off of her and somehow flipped himself around so that he was down at her feet, his Rollerblades wagging in her face.
“Which one?” he called.
She dared to look. He was on his knees and elbows, his rear pointed at the sky.
On anybody else, hopelessly undignified.
On him, sexy, his tight buns embraced by the fabric of those soft jeans.
“Right,” she squeaked. “My right knee.”
A svelte young woman ran by in silky shorts, had a good look, jogged backward for a few steps.
Gramps
was not what she was thinking, Tory deduced blackly.
was not what she was thinking, Tory deduced blackly.
Adam, just like in the old days, didn’t even notice. “I’m just going to roll up your pant leg so I can look.”
Tory lay back and looked at the bright blue sky and the huge fluffy clouds above her. She felt him rolling up the leg of her sweatpants, not too difficult since they were four sizes too big. She was wearing a belt to keep them up.
And then his strong hand was on her knee. When had a plain old garden-variety knee turned into such an erotic zone?
“Don’t touch!” she ordered through clenched teeth.
His touch became even more tempered with tenderness, causing a terrible twist in her heart and some other places, too, much worse than the one in her knee.
“It’s swelling a bit. Does it hurt?”
“Agony,” she said of the butterfly tremors in her tummy.
Two women, mid-thirties, very stylish, huge slavering dogs on leashes, sashayed by, laughing loudly and sending not very subtle looks of interest his way.
He glanced up.
One of them smiled.
He turned and frowned at Tory. “Did I know her?”
“I don’t know,” Tory said grouchily. “Did you?”
He lost interest in the topic. “This doesn’t look very serious, but I think our Rollerblading session is over.” He tried not to sound too delighted.
“In-line skating,” she reminded him.
“Let’s see you put some weight on it.” Forgetting he had his own skates on, he tried to get up. His left foot shot forward and his right one back. It looked very painful before he crashed.
He said a word, pure Adam, that made the raven-haired beauty going by on
her
in-line skates laugh prettily. She had on shorts that showed off the results of many, many buns-of-solid-iron workouts.
her
in-line skates laugh prettily. She had on shorts that showed off the results of many, many buns-of-solid-iron workouts.
He didn’t appear to notice her buns or her laugh. He sat back, undid the fastenings and yanked the skates off his feet. A look of such unguarded and abject relief crossed his face that Tory laughed again.
“That’s my girl,” he said, “laughing into the teeth of danger. Scoffing at pain.”
She felt pain, all right. And it had something to do with the fact she was not his girl. She felt like a traitor for thinking that. Even though Mark was gone. Even though Mark would not have minded. Mark might even have been delighted at Adam’s return to her life.
Mark had never known how hard it had been the one time she had said no to Adam.
The truth was she was an ordinary girl. A plain, ordinary girl. And there was nothing ordinary about Adam and never had been. How could he ever have been happy with her?
He had asked her on a whim, one of those impulses he was famous for. The whole thing had been an impulse from the moment he had knocked on her bedroom window at four in the morning to let her know his motorcycle, an ancient foreign model he had rescued from the auto wrecker, was running. Did she want to join him on a test run to Banff? He promised her breakfast when they got there.
The journey had been pure Adam. Exhilarating. Full of the promise of adventure and excitement. And then out of nowhere, he had asked her.
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