Love Finds You in North Pole, Alaska (15 page)

Elbows on the table, Sam rested her chin in an upturned palm. “But I’d guess you look really snazzy in a tuxedo.”
Especially with that male-model bod of yours
, she thought, grinning.

“Then it’ll be my pleasure to escort you to the reception on the arm of my rented monkey suit.”

She poked a fingertip into her coffee and, satisfied it had cooled enough to drink, took a gulp as the vision of the two of them, marching away from the altar in full wedding regalia, floated in her mind. The image surprised her so much that she sat up straight and slapped both hands on the table.

“What…?”

“I…this….” Sam cleared her throat and picked up the scissors. “I almost forgot the bouquet for Olive’s matron of honor. Good thing they’re both wearing off-white. I can’t tell you how hard it was finding ribbons that wouldn’t clash with these Texas wildflowers!”

He looked almost bored enough to leave and let her stew in her own thought juices. Almost…

“What color is your cummerbund and tie?”

“Black, thank the good Lord.”

“Excellent. I have black ribbon, so you won’t clash, either!”

Bryce leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “I remember being best man at my buddy’s wedding, wearing a white tux with tails…with a white top hat and pale blue—what do you call the stuff?”

“Accessories?”

“Yeah. That.” Bryce shook his head, a smile lifting one corner of his mouth. “His wife insisted that everything be…” He drew quotes in the air, his voice rising an octave when he added, “…‘matchymatchy.’ So by the time we all got into our places at the front of the church, with the guys in white and the girls in puffy pink dresses, it looked like a cotton candy machine had exploded on the altar.”

She pictured some of the horrible bridesmaid and maid of honor gowns she’d been forced to wear over the years. “Boy. The things we do in the name of friendship, huh?”

He inhaled a deep breath. “Boy,” he echoed, “the things.”

It pleased her that their conversation had erased the worry lines that were almost a fixture on his brow. She decided to share a story that might just widen his adorable grin. “I wore a gold bridesmaid gown once. I’m talkin’ wedding-ring gold, mind you. The material made so much noise as we walked down the aisle that the organist had to turn up the volume so we could hear the ‘Wedding March’!”

Relief surged through her at the first signs of amusement on his face. “It had puffy sleeves and—get this—a genuine Victorian era bustle, with a gold rose the size of my head smack in the middle of it. Just between you and me,” she said, leaning closer, “to this day I still giggle every time I picture the face of the poor soul who pulled
that
hideous thing out of my donations bag at the charity auction!”

There. A story that put some sparkle into his eyes.

Rather, into his
eye
. The correction made her wonder what it looked like under the patch. Had he lost the eye entirely, forcing surgeons to sew his lids shut, or was it a perfect match to his other orb…only sightless?

He laid one forearm atop the other on the table and leaned in close. “You can ask about it, you know. I’m not sensitive about the subject.”

Sam blinked. Licked her lips. Swallowed, then took another sip of coffee. “I didn’t mean to stare,” she said at last. “I was just wondering—”

He slid off the patch, placed it on the table, and returned to his former position, one beefy forearm stacked atop the other.

The iris of his left eye appeared slightly cloudier than the right, and a minuscule ridge in the sclera followed the path of his facial scar. She wanted to trace the slightly red reminder of the wound that started at the inner bridge of his nose and follow it to where it ended at the outer edge of his left eye. Wanted to run her fingertips ever so gently over the lid that seemed to function exactly like its mate and whisper, “Thank you, Bryce, for everything your soldier’s sacrifice cost you.” Instead she asked, “There’s no pain?”

“None,” he said, “and hasn’t been for months.”

“Well, that’s a blessed relief.”

Bryce chuckled quietly. “You can say that again. There were times, right after—” He gulped his coffee. “Let’s just say God took pity on this whiny marine.”

She found it difficult to believe he’d ever been whiny, for any reason, and she said so. And when her words darkened his cheeks with a blush, she said, “I don’t know anyone who
wouldn’t
have complained about a thing like that.”

Bryce only nodded.

He’d given her permission to ask about the eye, but how deeply could she probe before crossing the line between mild curiosity and blatant nosiness? “Can you…are you able to…does it—”

“Blind as a bat,” he said matter-of-factly. “There’s a slim chance that once all the nerves are healed, an operation could return the sight, but….” He shrugged and started fidgeting with the petals of a larkspur. “It hasn’t kept me from doing everything I did before…”

“So since the doctors didn’t give you any guarantees, you don’t see any point in going through all that based on an
if
.”

“What are you,” he asked, taking her hand, “some kind of mind reader?”

His gentle voice awakened something inside her that she’d never felt before. Not with her high school sweetheart. Certainly not with Joey. Sam didn’t know what to make of the emotions that threatened to put tears in her eyes while at the same time causing her heart to beat double-time.
Get a grip, girl
, she told herself.
Last thing the poor guy needs is to think you feel sorry for him
! “Mind reading is your aunt Olive’s job,” she said, hoping the tremor in her voice didn’t register in his ears.

The thumb of his free hand drew slow circles on the back of her hand, and now in addition to a pounding heart, she had a racing pulse to contend with.

“Yeah,” he said, “she does have a knack for it, doesn’t she?”

He was close enough to kiss. She only needed to lean forward an inch, maybe two, to touch her lips to his. But as much as she wanted to, Sam didn’t trust herself to make more of this wonderful moment than what it was: a guy, holding a girl’s hand…period.

Right?

Sam licked her lips, instantly thinking what a stupid thing that was to do, because what if he read it as a signal that she
wanted
him to kiss her? “I’m glad there’s no pain,” she said again, amazed that she’d found her voice. More amazed that her sentence had actually made some sense.

“Mmm-hmmm,” he said, inching closer.

“It’s too bad they didn’t give you a better chance. To get your sight back, I mean, after an operation,” she rambled. “Not that you need one…an operation that is…because like you said, you’re doing just fine with one eye. Better than some of us do with two!” She giggled nervously. “Look at how clumsy I am, and I’ve got twenty-twenty visio—”

When Bryce bracketed her face with both hands, Sam thought surely her heart would burst with affection for this big sweet guy who’d put his life on the line—who knew how many times—for her and every citizen of the country. She couldn’t explain why, suddenly, the urge to cry welled up inside her. All Sam knew was that Bryce deserved to be loved wholly and completely, and she didn’t know if she was over Joey enough to give him that. At least not yet.

And just as suddenly as tears threatened to spill from her eyes, a thought flitted through her head, warning her that she should fear
giggles
, not tears, because what made her think that someone like Bryce—a gorgeous, world-traveled, brilliant war hero—wanted love from a little ninny like her!

“What’s so funny?” He didn’t take his hands from her face, but he pulled back a few inches as he added, “C’mon. Out with it. I can take a joke.”

She tried to think of something clever to say, something witty that wouldn’t lead him to believe she’d gone all googly-eyed over him, something that would make them both laugh, so they could put this moment in proper perspective. “It’s…it’s nothing.”

Part of her wanted to protect him from pain of every kind. It didn’t matter that he towered over her, that he likely outweighed her by a hundred pounds. He had vulnerabilities, sensitivities, fears…and she wanted to tell him he could share them with her without worrying that she’d leave him like his ex-fiancée had. She wondered if Debbie had been tall and gorgeous, a red-head or a brunette. Didn’t matter a whit what she looked like, Sam thought. The woman didn’t have a lick of sense. If she had, would she have let a terrific guy like Bryce go?

“Well,” she said, getting to her feet, “guess I’d better finish this stuff or the bride will have my head tomorrow.”

Bryce stood, too, and nodding, said, “Okay, I can take a hint.” Hands pocketed, he walked toward the kitchen door then stopped and faced her. “You want me to shut the door, so you’ll have some privacy while you work?”

“No, it’ll be nice, hearing you putter around over there on your side of the kitchen.” Sam didn’t think she could sound sillier, even if she tried. She wiggled her fingers, embarrassed and enthralled and excited at the memory of his warm hands pressed to her cheeks—and at the thought that he just might be interested in her.

“See you in the morning, then.” He was halfway across the kitchen when he added, “And please, wear the pink dress, not the pants, okay?”

Sam nodded, knowing that if he’d asked her to, she would show up wearing a burlap sack dress and a bucket hat.

The guy at the Fairbanks tux shop showed him how to make a proper bow tie, but Bryce opted to rent the clip-on style. Now, fastening it in place, he regretted the decision. “How could you have forgotten how uncomfortable this lousy clip feels against your Adam’s apple?” he asked his reflection.

Freshly showered and shaved, he ran a palm across his buzzed head. If he and Duke hadn’t stopped for lunch after the fittings the day before yesterday, they might have missed the traffic jam, leaving him time for a haircut. He couldn’t remember the last time scalp wasn’t visible between hair follicles. Grinning, he thought about pretending the ’do was his wedding gift to Olive, who’d good-naturedly ribbed him about his baldness ever since he’d first enlisted.

If she hadn’t sprung the news of her engagement and wedding on him, he’d have built her an armoire or a replica of those antique secretaries she’d drooled over in her decorating magazines. The jewelry box he’d considered giving to Sam as a birthday gift became Olive’s wedding gift, repurposed as a keepsake box. He had something else in mind for Sam, and in place of her name on top, he’d arranged the intricate inlays to spell out the initials of Olive’s married name instead. Inside, on its red velvet lining, he’d tucked old black and white snapshots—pictures she’d believed his mom and dad had lost or accidentally thrown away—that he’d found while scrounging through a battered box in Rudolph’s storeroom. In her capable, caring hands, they’d find homes in filigreed frames arranged on end tables and dresser tops. Maybe even on the baby grand that would soon be delivered, a surprise wedding present from Duke.

The nearly twenty-mile drive to Fairbanks gave him an opportunity to get to know Duke better, and Bryce had to admit, he liked the guy. Liked him a lot, in fact, and believed the man would mean every word of his marriage vows.

Now the alarm on his watch beeped, alerting him that it was o-seven-hundred hours. Would he ever get used to identifying each passing hour as he had when in uniform?
Maybe
, he thought. But part of him didn’t want to adjust
that
well to civilian life. A big part. One good thing about a life with Debbie would have been that she’d never say “seven o’clock,” either.

Though the wedding was scheduled to start at o-nine-hundred, Olive had asked him to get to the church by seven to help Sam line the altar with flowers and hang big satin bows at the end of each pew. He couldn’t think of a marine who’d show up two hours early for anything, not even his own wedding, but Bryce had given his word. He’d never broken a promise to Olive in his life, and didn’t intend to start today of all days.

Tugging at his starched cuffs, Bryce headed for the kitchen. He’d set up the coffeemaker the night before to ensure he wouldn’t splatter anything on the white pleats of the black-buttoned shirt. Grabbing a mug from the cabinet above the pot, he saw that Sam had washed up the cups he’d filled for them last night. Then he saw the small, square envelope propped up against the salt and pepper shakers on the table. She’d written “Bryce” across the front of it, perfectly centered and underlined twice, with a dainty curlicue hanging from the bottom line. Grinning, he picked it up and held it under his nose. Perfume? he thought, his smile widening as he unsheathed the note.

Couldn’t sleep last night
, ran the delicate, feminine script,
so I baked you a coffee cake. It’ll go great with hot black coffee, don’t you think?
And like the day she’d left him homemade chocolate chip cookies, she’d drawn a smiley face. But this time, instead of covering one of its eyes, the eye patch was off to the left. Then, a
P.S. It’s in the microwave. One slice = one minute on the timer. Mmmm. Enjoy!