Perfect Timing (16 page)

“Wait, aren’t you going to read it first? You can’t just sign it.”

Aidan shrugged. If you were going to trust a guy enough to take a needle to your neck, what harm was there in a signature?

“Standard release,” Orlando explained, pointing to the first two signature lines. “Says we followed the health department rules, instructed you on how to take care. What you do after that . . .
es tu problema
.”

“My business,” Aidan translated.

Isabel nodded. “And this one?” she asked, absorbing the fine print.

“That one is for Rico’s newsletter.”

“A newsletter?”

“
Sí
 . . . Body art is a come-again, word-of-mouth business. I am strict about keeping up with my clients. People return to Las Vegas . . .
y hacen locuras
.” Orlando turned away, beginning the prep work for the tattoo.

Isabel translated this time, spinning a finger at the side of her head as Aidan nodded. “Makes sense,” she said, letting go of his hand. “Aidan, you really need to take the time to read things before you sign them.”

He signed distinctively,
Mr. and Mrs. Aidan Roycroft.
But he hesitated at the address line. “Isabel,” he whispered, feeling like the fugitive he was. “What should I put here? I don’t think it’s a smart idea to . . .”

“No, I suppose a Catswallow address would be like leaving a trail of bread crumbs. Just leave it blank.”

“I don’t know; he’s pretty into his newsletter. What if he asks?”

She sighed, thinking. “Give it to me.” Aidan watched as she wrote, 7 Charles Street; Boston, Massachusetts, even including the zip code. Finishing, she glanced at Aidan’s curious expression, shoving the papers back to him. “I burned a couple of hundred letters. Can I help it if I accidently memorized the return address? At least it proved useful.”

“At least,” he said, shuffling the stack into a neat pile. Over the years they’d talked about everything, though they didn’t talk much about that. Aidan’s initial reaction to Isabel’s story, her father’s startling
coming out,
was that of any uneducated heterosexual boy—not polite or pleasant. It certainly wasn’t a comfortable topic in rural Alabama. But over time his perspective had matured. From the amount of letters the man wrote he certainly appeared anything but indifferent to his daughter. And Aidan envied that, the one and only communication from his father coming after his death. But every time he brought it up, trying to convince her to read the letters and give her father a chance, she wanted no part of it. Isabel could never see it as any more than a slap in her mother’s face. With all due respect to Carrie Lang, Aidan had a different point of view: If that’s who Eric Lang was, so be it. Of course, it was easy for him to say. It was Carrie and Isabel, not Aidan, who had to forgive and get past the lie he’d first lived. Aidan’s outlook trended more toward gratitude. If not for Eric Lang’s lie, his confusion, his misstep . . . whatever the man’s reasons, there wouldn’t be Isabel.

With the paperwork in order, Isabel sized up both sides of Aidan’s neck. “Every happening artist should have a tattoo with some mystery. But we need it out front, up close, where all your fans will see it. What do you think?” Isabel hesitated, looking hard into Aidan’s eyes. “It’s not too late. We can get you a sequined smoking jacket instead.”

“Are you kidding?” Aidan said, unbuttoning his shirt. “Like Orlando said, it’s
una idea muy cojonuda
.”

STANDING IN FRONT OF THEIR MOTEL ROOM MIRROR,
A
IDAN HAD TO AGREE WITH
Orlando’s observation. It was very ballsy. Leave it to Isabel to make the perfect choice. He often thought his golden-boy looks were a detriment to the image he wanted to convey. Once or twice, he’d thought about shaving his head, just to toughen that pretty-boy shell. Although Aidan knew he lacked the nerve, at least he had a grip on his vanity. This was better and lower maintenance. He ran a hand along the venomous creature that now coiled from his collarbone, up the left side of his neck, the split tongue licking the square bone of his jaw. The snake was edgy and dangerous and only slightly hurt like hell. He’d definitely have no trouble comparing notes with Isabel in ten or fifteen years. And that thought brought him back around to the other thing, the thing that had wandered into the hotel room with them. Aside from an edgy snake, sex seemed to be taking on the unlikely form of a giant pink elephant.

They only had the clothes on their backs when they arrived in Las Vegas. At some point, Aidan suggested they stop and buy a few things. Since then, since the tattoo, Isabel had hardly spoken. Standing on the opposite side of the room, she folded and refolded the clothes. She looked exhausted. She looked like she was sorry she ever left Catswallow. She looked like she was going to cry.

“Hey, you hungry?” She shook her head. Not a good sign. Isabel could eat anywhere, anytime. “Tired?” She shrugged; then she nodded. He crossed the room, pulling a sweatshirt from her arms. It was stamped Property of Las Vegas County Jail. At the time, he thought it was funny. Now it was tough to find humor in a moment that was growing weightier by the second. “Sorry you came with me?” Her forehead crinkled, but her head shook harder. He sighed, relieved. She glanced up. Aidan’s arms slipped around Isabel, pulling her close. She shuffled begrudgingly into his hold. “Sorry you married me?” It still felt strange, to touch her like that, like she was his.

Isabel’s head, resting on his shoulder, shot up like a rocket. “Are you?”

He smiled wide. And in an attempt to be cunning and suave, Aidan Roycroft tripped right over his own ego. “Are you kidding? Not only do I get to marry my best friend, but I get to take the virgin bride. Good thing I’ve had practice.”

The idea was to sweep her into his arms and onto the bed, proving she was a great deal more. But clearly it wasn’t going to go that way. Pushing away, Isabel narrowed her eyes. It was the look he earned whenever he said or did something that met with her disapproval. She stomped around the bed, fishing through the clothes. Screwing up with Isabel, he knew he’d find a way. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it came out. Isabel, listen to—” His cell rang and he glanced at the caller ID. “It’s Fitz.” All day long and
now
he called. Isabel’s face was angry. She looked like she didn’t give a crap who was on the phone. Aidan had no choice; he had to talk to him. Snatching up the toiletries she’d bought, Isabel headed for the bathroom.

“I’ll give you some privacy. I’m going to take a shower.” The door slammed as she went inside.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Las Vegas

S
HE
STOOD
IN
THE
SHOWER
WAITING
FOR
THE
HOT
WATER
TO
CLEAR HER HEAD.
Am I really married to Aidan?
“Isabel Roycroft,” she whispered.
Damn, if I had a pen, I’d practice it on toilet paper.
Isabel held up five seriously pruned fingers. Sure enough, there was a thin gold band on one of them. “And to think what every girl in Catswallow would have done for his class ring.” It didn’t seem real. Any moment she’d wake to discover that this was one of those dreams
.
“That or Aidan,” she said, mercilessly wringing a washcloth, “will jolt from a sound sleep and thank God his nightmare is over.”

The blunt observation and lack of hot water snapped her into a state of semi-reality. Shutting off the spigot, Isabel reached for a skimpy motel towel, positive she’d felt smoother sandpaper. She didn’t hear anything on the other side of the door, guessing Aidan was off the phone—or he’d simply left. It was a blunt prospect, hitting harder than the insult he’d lobbed at her before she ran away to the bathroom. Isabel pressed her ear to the door. She heard nothing and braced for the worst: jilted on her wedding night in a chintzy Vegas motel room. Isabel was about to fling open the door when she heard the TV turn on.

She needed to stop that. Aidan would not have proposed, much less gone through with it, if marrying her wasn’t what he wanted. Okay, maybe he was scared, freakishly so, like never before in his life. And maybe Isabel was his go-to girl when he was feeling lost or down. What did it matter if, on occasion, Aidan expected her to hold things together for him? This was different.
So’s what happened to him in the last
twenty-four hours.
Maybe being married to her was just a tad safer than the alternative: Catswallow County lockup and a cellmate named Gus.

“Isabel,” he called. “Are you okay? About before, I didn’t mean anything by that. I was a jerk.” She shrugged and nodded. “Can we . . . can we just talk about it?”

Yeah, that’s what I want to do, talk about it.
Isabel stalled, saying she’d be right out. Why rush into the immediate future? The one where Aidan would elaborate on the details of every beautiful girl he’d slept with in Catswallow. And in return she could inform him that before last night no guy had ever kissed her like that . . . touched her like that . . . wanted her like . . . Isabel clutched the rough towel tighter. “Oh my God, what am I doing here?”

“Isabel, did you say something? I didn’t hear—”

“No . . . nothing, just hang on a sec.” Leaning against the bathroom door, she thought she might pass out. Just remembering what nearly happened at the farmhouse brought on a wave of heated sensations. Oddly, they still felt as good as they did new and curious. But what happened there, it was more natural than this. There was no discussion; it just grew organically out of the moment. And whatever made Aidan act that way, whatever spell he was under, well, he truly seemed to have wanted her as much as she did him. Now when Isabel went out there it would be like performing a duty—like when Stella made him sweep the mice turds from the kitchen cabinets.

On the other hand, spending the rest of her married life in the bathroom of the Crazy Eights Motel wasn’t a realistic option. Isabel looked in the mirror where the fog had begun to lift, searching for some courage. She’d found enough to marry him. That or she was selfish enough to pounce on a moment of intense vulnerability. In all seriousness, if the last twenty hours hadn’t happened, where would marrying her have fallen on Aidan’s to-do list? Isabel shuddered at the amount of zeros attached to that figure and moved on to the one in the reflection. She grabbed a hand towel and with broad, brave strokes revealed the girl in the mirror. She concentrated on her face. What would Aidan see? There had been prettier girls, she had no illusions. Beautiful girls sprouted like wildflowers in Catswallow, Alabama. She was from New Jersey and it showed. Before last night, Isabel never pictured Aidan having sex with them. It was foolish and naïve, Isabel realizing how clueless she’d been. The moments on the sofa, in the farmhouse, exceeded any book she’d ever read, any dream she’d conjured up.

She sucked in a breath and in one fast motion let the damp towel drop, examining what Aidan would. Tangled wet hair hung like a cape, falling past her shoulders. It was long enough to shroud parts of her, and Isabel thought of Eve—equally tempted. She pushed it back, exposing everything. Like an expired fairy tale, Isabel was restored to her former self—a smattering of freckles and muddy green eyes. They were not striking or even interesting, only accentuating a nose that was definitely a tad too long for her face. Aside from thick waves of auburn hair that she could attribute to no one, she looked like him, like her father. And for so long that had not been a good thing.

Through those eyes, which registered twenty-twenty vision, Isabel took a fluorescent-lit inventory of what Aidan had seen by candlelight. She sighed.
Maybe the Crazy Eights will lose power . . .
Unlike the girls in Catswallow, she didn’t boast a belly that could pass for an ironing board. The kind with a navel primed for a ring. Expanding her line of vision, she reflected on the ring she did possess. It set off a wary thump in her chest and Isabel’s eyes panned top to bottom, the mirror capturing just about everything—including hips that had a definite shape. It was all okay; more hourglass than willowy pine, but it wasn’t a
Cosmo
cover waiting to happen. She stared harder, knowing it wasn’t a one-to-ten scale of physical beauty, not really. It was more about her desirability quotient. Isabel didn’t come across like other girls; sexual allure was not her dominating factor. Even her own mother saw it, unable to believe someone like Aidan would want her. And if Rick Stanton did, what did that prove? She could arouse a middle-aged car salesman with seedy political aspirations.
Gee, wouldn’t girls like Shanna O’Rourke be jealous of me.
With a hand to her throat, Isabel’s fingertips traced downward, past her breasts, across her stomach, inching lower and pausing where Aidan did. It sent her hurling toward a moment Aidan certainly knew how to induce. Her other hand braced against the cold tile of the sink as his voice penetrated—from the other side of the door.

“Isabel, open the door—now.”

Everything stopped. Isabel gasped for a breath, staring red-faced into the mirror. She was pathetic, more comfortable with the fantasy than the reality of any pending wedding night. But she was also distracted, realizing a different problem. She had no clothes. She left them in the other room. To put the clothes back on that she wore into the bathroom seemed asinine. Of course, wearing the skimpy towel out was ridiculously obvious—like she was looking for
it
. Wait. Couldn’t she look for
it
? After all, she was Aidan’s wife.
Aidan’s wife
. Could anything sound more absurd? He knocked again.

“Isabel, here.” She pinched the door open and through the crack came Aidan’s arm, Isabel’s undergarments, sweatpants, and T-shirt dangling from his fist.

Okay, that answers a few things.

“We have to go.”

“Go? Where are we going?”

“To Caesars Palace. Fitz Landrey is meeting us there.”

“Fitz Landrey . . .” Did he already get Aidan a gig? “Why, what are you talking about?” She shuffled into the underwear and pants, flinging the door open and hooking the bra. A giant gulp slid through his throat.
Desire or despair?
Ignoring both, she yanked the T-shirt over her sopping-wet head.

“It’s good, Isabel, really good.” He smiled wider than she’d ever seen. And
that
she could decipher; Aidan was definitely beaming. He’d also changed into the jeans and shirt they bought. Isabel’s gaze traveled from his face to the snake. For some reason, she thought the tattoo would vanish with the tuxedo. But it appeared to be hard at work, adding a layer of recklessness to his
Brad Pitt is my ugly brother
looks.

“When I more or less explained things, Fitz told me not to worry and to meet him at Caesars. He’s booking a room for us. He said that he gave my demo CD to a bunch of execs at C-Note and they’re all on board, big-time. He was in Reno, so he’ll be there soon.” Aidan rushed around the room, stuffing their few belongings into bags. “Come on, I don’t want to keep him waiting.” He buzzed past her, heading right out the door. He stopped, glancing back. “Isabel, let’s go. What’s the problem?”

And to answer that would clearly stop Aidan’s world from spinning, so, dutifully, she followed.