Here Comes the Bride (2 page)

“This isn’t Boston, if that’s what you mean. But I’ll ask the driver to adjust the air,” Nick offered.

“Thanks.” Fiona doubted it would help all that much. Nick was sitting so close that his muscled thigh was pressed up against her. And from there it was only a small leap of her imagination to his provocative underwear.

She tried to tell herself she didn’t care if they were polka-dot boxers, but she knew that wasn’t quite true.

Before meeting him, she had never thought about a man’s … personables. She fanned herself with a travel brochure she’d picked up while she was waiting at the baggage claim, then stared out through the tinted windows, studying the buildings in the distance that seemed to rise right up off the desert floor, a hazy mirage in front of her.

“I hope you brought something cooler to wear tonight,” Nick said beside her. “If not, there are a couple of shops in your hotel.”

“Tonight?” Fiona stopped fanning herself and turned to him, one eyebrow raised. “What’s tonight?”

“Didn’t your father tell you?”

It seemed her father hadn’t been telling her much of anything lately. “Tell me what?”

“We’re invited to Winnie’s for dinner. She thought it would be nice if we all sort of … got acquainted.”

Fiona’s eyes widened. A get-acquainted dinner—of course that would be in the plans. They were, after all, about to become … family. Still, she’d hoped to see her father alone tonight.

She had more than a few questions to ask him.

“I—I’m not sure I can make it this evening,” she stammered.

Nick smiled. “We don’t have a choice in the matter. Winnie’s expecting us. Eight o’clock sharp.”

A command performance. Fiona sank back in her seat, certain there was no way out of the invitation. She wasn’t ready to meet Winnie yet.
Or
spend more time with the woman’s distracting nephew.

The limo eased through the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Strip. Nick pointed out the major casinos glittering under the hot desert sun. Fiona tried to ignore the brush of his thigh against hers, his nearness, his provocative male scent that was having such a disturbing effect on her.

“Ah, we’re here,” he said when they’d finally turned into the hotel’s sweeping drive.

“Let’s get you checked in,” Nick said when the driver held the limo door open for them.

“I think I can manage that by myself.” She forced a polite smile and extended her hand. “Thank you for the lift.”

He took her hand, his touch drawing her to him as intimately as an embrace. She could feel the sensual heat of him, the threat of what the man had to offer. It had to do with sin and seduction and hot, steamy nights.

A dangerous fantasy, she knew. But she
was a woman—and Nick Killian had a way of making her vibrantly aware of that fact.

Disengaging her hand from his, she slid out of the limo and headed for the revolving hotel door, leaving Nick behind and the driver to retrieve her luggage.

Nick watched her go. An enigmatic smile crept to his lips. He hadn’t been looking forward to this evening at Auntie’s—that was, until now.

Fiona Ames heated his blood in a way that no woman had in a long time—maybe ever. He recognized a certain danger in that, but Nick had never been afraid of getting too close to the flame.

After a shower and a much-needed and all-too-short nap, Fiona searched through her wardrobe for the coolest dress she’d brought with her. She settled on a sleeveless white linen and slipped it on. The dress had a deep V-neck that she’d never noticed dipped quite so low. She ran a finger over the front and caught herself wondering what Nick Killian would think of it.

What did she care what he thought? The man had a way of making her swelter—and at least this dress would be cool. She added a pair of round gold earrings, dashed on a touch of geranium-pink lipstick that the saleslady said
was perfect for redheads, and studied the effect in the mirror.

Would Nick think her mouth looked kissable?

Forget it, she told herself. You don’t want to know.

She smoothed down a pleat in the skirt, then grabbed her purse and headed for the front entrance to meet her father. She’d talked to him on the phone shortly after she’d checked in, but their discussion had been as unfruitful as the one this morning. She needed to get him alone and talk face-to-face. If only they didn’t have this evening at Winnie’s.

She made her way through the crowded lobby and reached the hotel’s front entrance just as Walter Ames wheeled his ancient Buick into the circular drive. Some things never change, she thought, and smiled at the sensible sedan that was her father’s pride and joy.

He’d come to the desert a few months earlier, deciding he could no longer take the New England winters. She’d known he was lonely. Ever since her mother had died three years before, he’d been at loose ends. But his abrupt move to Las Vegas had been a surprise.

As much of a surprise as his wedding tomorrow.

She opened the door and slid in beside him.

“There’s my girl,” he said, giving Fiona a warm hug.

Despite her irritation with him she was genuinely glad to see him. She inhaled his familiar scent. “Oh, Dad, I’ve missed you.”

“And it took my wedding to get you out here.”

His wedding. They needed to talk about that, but Fiona decided it could wait. She wanted to assure herself he was all right. Really all right.

“How have you been, Dad?” she asked. She studied the face of the man who’d been there for her so many times in her life. “Getting too much sun, I see.” She reached over and rubbed his peeling nose.

“Maybe a little,” he said. “But the sun is good for me. In fact, I haven’t felt this great in years.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that.”

He wheeled the big old Buick out of the hotel drive and headed down the congested Strip. Gaudy lights winked and blinked in neon fury, making Fiona long for home, the charm of Boston. She missed her shop, filled to overflowing with antiques, and her apartment over it, small, comfortable, and homey.

She’d been experiencing a kind of culture shock ever since she’d arrived in Las Vegas—and she wasn’t sure she could survive it.

“You’re going to love Winnie, Fiona. I can
hardly wait for you to meet her,” her father said, glancing over at her. A beatific, if not a bit foolish, smile covered his face.

He was a man in love, a development that worried Fiona. She drew in a breath. “Dad, about this wedding—”

“Now, don’t you worry about the wedding plans, Fiona. They’re all taken care of. There’s not a thing for you to do but show up and wish your father happiness.”

“That wasn’t what I meant, Dad. Your happiness is first and foremost in my mind, believe me …” This wasn’t going to be an easy discussion, but she had to try to make him see reason. Now might be the only chance she had to convince him to wait, to think things through, to look before he leaped into this marriage thing.

“Then what, Fiona?” A furrow formed between his sandy-gray brows. “I thought you’d be happy for me.”

Fiona sighed and studied a flashing block-long marquee that brightened the night as if it were midday. He’d phoned out of the blue, springing this wedding on her, wanting her to be happy about it. But how could she be happy about a romance that had seemingly blossomed overnight?

She thought of her parents’ marriage. It had lasted thirty years, a hearts-and-flowers, old-fashioned kind of marriage few people in
life ever achieved—the kind Fiona wanted for herself one day. But a love like that took time to develop and to grow.

“I
am
happy for you, Dad,” she said, seriously trying to mean it.

“Well, you could’ve fooled me.” He turned and headed west, toward a bank of mountains in the distance, away from the gaudy bright lights of the Strip.

Fiona tried again. “Dad, what do you know about Winnie? Does she have family?” she asked. He had told her very little about his intended on the phone. All Fiona knew was her name and that she had a nephew who wore racy underwear.

He braked at a stoplight and glanced over at her. “Yes, she has a family. A very loving family …”

As opposed to his nonunderstanding daughter, Fiona read into that statement.

“Winnie lost her husband some years ago,” he said, pulling through the light and continuing west. “She’s alone. Like me.”

Fiona felt a stab of pain that her father thought of himself as being alone. He had her, after all. And he had memories of her mother. Wonderful memories of the life they’d shared together. Ashamed, she wondered for the first time if that was really enough to sustain him. Or did he need more? Did he need someone like Winnie?

“What about children? Does Winnie have children?”

“She has a daughter, about your age. She won’t be able to come to the wedding, though. She’s off working in India or Istanbul or … someplace. And then there’s her nephew Nick, of course.”

Nick. As if Fiona could have forgotten.

Wickedly handsome, incredibly sexy Nick.

“Dad, I know you already have your plans made, but don’t you think you should wait, think this thing through, be sure you …? Be sure you’re both ready?” she finished. She couldn’t bring herself to say “love each other.” After all, there hadn’t been enough time for that. “What’s the rush anyway?”

“Rush? Fiona, when you get to be my age, you don’t know how many years you have left. Rush becomes a priority.”

Fiona gave her father a long, considering look. His once-auburn hair had turned a sandy gray, but he had a full head of it. His hazel eyes were bright, his mind sharp. He was sixty-five, hardly ancient; he didn’t have to snatch at life as if he were about to draw his last breath.

He was a nice-looking man with a straight, proud spine and square, wide shoulders and a lady-killer smile. She hadn’t realized it until now, but she could see how he could have any number of women chasing him.

“I hope you’ll be nice tonight, Fiona. This is important to me.”

Fiona rubbed her throbbing temples. “I know, Dad.”

The old Buick swept into a neighborhood of lush green lawns, an oasis in the middle of the desert, kept verdant by spouting water sprinklers.

Winnie’s house was sprawling and white and coolly inviting, yet Fiona dreaded entering it. She was just thinking she’d sooner walk barefoot across the desert than go through with this evening, when a woman swooped down on them in a purple cloud of swirling skirts. A dozen silver Indian bracelets clanked on her right arm.

“So this is your daughter,” Winnie said. “She’s lovely, Walter. It’s nice to meet you, Fiona. How was your flight out?”

She chatted with Fiona on their way to the front door, barely giving her time to answer one question before launching into another. Fiona had to smile at this small tornado of a woman who’d obviously swept her father off his feet. He probably never knew what hit him.

“Why didn’t you tell me how enchanting your daughter is, Walter?” Winnie scolded, then reached up and gave him a peck on the cheek.

Her father blushed a bright shade. He
wasn’t a man who was big on outward displays of affection, but Winnie apparently was. Fiona knew it was a fact that opposites attract, but how did they fare over the long haul?

Winnie didn’t allow her time to ponder this further, but led her guests across the large entry hall, her azalea-pink, high-heeled sandals tapping a staccato beat on the cool terrazzo tiles.

The home was as flamboyant as its owner. Brilliant bursts of color filled every room, not the muted desert hues Fiona would have expected, but exotic blues and sunny yellows and vivid purples that somehow all went together.

“We’re having dinner beside the pool tonight,” Winnie said, leading the way. “I hope you like rutabaga-and-lamb kabobs, Fiona. I fixed them especially for your father because he just loves them.”

Fiona’s eyes widened in surprise. Her father never ate lamb and he would have looked askance at a rutabaga if her mother had ever set one in front of him.

“That’s Dad’s favorite, all right,” she said, sending a questioning glance in his direction.

“Be nice, Fiona,” her father reminded in a whisper close to her ear. When she flared an eyebrow impudently, he added a stern frown to his admonition.

“Nicholas is here already,” Winnie went on. “It’s so lovely to have our two families
together. I only wish Camille could be here with us, but she’s away, working in the wilds of India.”

Fiona wouldn’t mind being in the wilds of India herself at the moment. She followed Winnie toward the pool area, where she glimpsed Nick tending the lamb kabobs on the grill. He had a tall drink in one hand, a long fork in the other, and he looked as decadently handsome as he had earlier that day.

“You already know Nicholas, I believe,” Winnie said with a wave at her provocative nephew.

“We’ve met, Auntie,” Nick said. He put down the fork and came toward Fiona, that slow, lazy smile of his teasing at his lips. His tan appeared even darker under the twinkling patio lights. He’d changed into a black polo shirt and cream-colored slacks that hugged his well-muscled thighs and did strange things to Fiona’s equilibrium. She tried to tell herself it was just the desert heat. In a few days she’d adjust.

Nick politely exchanged greetings with Fiona’s father, then glanced back at her, his gaze taking full measure. She felt its thoroughness all the way to her toes.

“Nicholas, why don’t you fix Fiona a drink?” Winnie suggested. “And, Walter, you can help me set out the plates and silverware on the table.”

She led him away, leaving Fiona alone with Nick.

“What can I get for you?” he asked with a wave of his hand toward a small bar set up at one end of the pool.

“Scotch,” she said, never having tasted the stuff before, but sensing that tonight she would need it.

“Scotch it is,” he said, but not before raising one dark eyebrow at her choice of liquor. He turned and started for the bar.

The man was good-looking, she couldn’t deny that. And all male, right down to his sexy silk—

He turned around with her drink in his hand and caught where her gaze lingered. That slow smile of his slid onto his lips. He walked over to her and leaned close, his voice a low whisper next to her ear.