Scarlet Nights (25 page)

“Actually, it’s my mother. She—”

Mike stood up. “Sara, I—” He didn’t know what to say. “You have to trust me. Understand?”

“Sure. You’re Tess’s brother and—”

“No! Trust
me
! You have to know that I have your best interests in mind.”

“Now I am frightened. Please tell me what’s upset you so much.”

“I don’t have time now, but I’ll tell you everything as soon as I can.” As he hurried toward his car, he stopped and turned back. Sara was standing by the little table and looking after him in puzzlement—with fear in her eyes.

Turning, he went back to her, took her in his arms, and kissed her. It was a quick, hard kiss, and for a moment he held her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. He put both hands on the side of her head, his nose to hers. “Trust me,” he whispered. “You must trust me with your life.”

He pulled away from her and smiled. “Put on something pretty,” he said, then he ran to his car and quickly drove away.

Sara wasn’t surprised when her cell rang less than a minute later. It was Joce.

“What in the world was
that
all about? I saw you guys out the window. I thought you two weren’t … you know.”

“We aren’t, haven’t,” Sara said. “And I have no idea what’s going on.”

“Want to come in and talk about it?”

“Yeah, sure, but … No,” Sara said. “I think I’m going to take a long bath and use some of that super expensive shampoo and conditioner you gave me for my birthday.”

“Now I’m intrigued. What did Mike say to cause this reaction?”

“It wasn’t what he said but how he said it. I have to go.”

“Keep me informed,” Joce said and hung up.

Four hours later when Mike returned, Sara was clean and fresh, wearing a dress of white eyelet, and nervously looking through a magazine she’d already read.

“Sara?” Mike called, and she felt her heart give a little jump of pleasure.

When did that start happening? she wondered. “In here,” she answered.

Mike came in and nearly fell onto the chair across from the couch where she was sitting. Sara thought he looked as though he’d aged ten years. When she started to get up, he said, “I need to tell you some things.”

“I know. But first I’m getting you something to drink.” She’d learned that Mike’s workouts made him drink twice as much liquid as other people. “Replacing the sweat,” he’d said.

He looked at her in gratitude, and minutes later, she returned with a tray she’d already prepared for him. There was a big glass of red currant iced tea and a large piece of raspberry crumble she’d made the day before. Mike emptied the glass in one long drink but set the pie aside.

“How bad is it?” she asked as she sat down across from him on the couch.

“I guess that’s all in how you look at it. I have some … some truly awful things to tell you.”

Sara’s hand went to her throat. “Someone’s been hurt.”

“No,” Mike said. “At least not recently.”

With a sigh of relief, Sara fell back against the couch. “You have something to tell me about Greg, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“It’s okay. I’ve already decided to call the wedding off.”

“And when did you decide that?”

She wanted to say “this minute,” but didn’t. Instead, she shrugged. “When I realized I was hoping he’d never return, I knew I couldn’t go through with it. My life is much more pleasant when he’s not here.” Sara was hoping Mike would be glad of that, but his face didn’t lose its look of worry. “You can tell me,” she said. “Whatever it is, I can take it.”

He wished he had the time to tell her everything slowly, but it had all become urgent. He took a deep breath. “Brian Tolworthy didn’t marry someone else. He died right after he got to England.”

In the hours she’d been waiting for Mike’s return, she’d imagined a lot of things, but this was not one of them. “Brian is dead?” she whispered. “But his parents …”

“Are still alive. And they’ve wondered why you never responded to their attempts to contact you to tell you about Brian.” That was as kind as he could put it.

“But I didn’t receive anything, not a call, nothing! And I called Brian a hundred times, but he never picked up.” When Mike was silent, Sara let out her breath.

“There’s more, isn’t there?”

“We don’t think his death was an accident.”

“Not an accident? It wasn’t suicide, was it?” The look on Mike’s face answered that question. “Are you talking about
murder
?”

“Yes,” Mike said softly, his eyes boring into hers.

For a moment, Sara could do nothing but look at him, and when what he was trying to tell her hit her, she almost couldn’t breathe. “You think he was murdered because of me, don’t you?” she whispered.

Mike said nothing, just kept looking at her, and his eyes confirmed what she’d said.

“I don’t understand.” Tears began to roll down her cheeks. She wasn’t sobbing, her face wasn’t wrinkled, but tears were gliding down her cheeks. “His poor parents. They loved Brian so much, and he was to inherit and—”

Mike left the chair to sit on the couch and pull her into his arms. As they had before, her tears wet the front of his shirt. He handed her tissues.

After a while, she pulled away and blew her nose. “I’m always crying on you. How did you find out about Brian?”

“I asked Tess to do some research on him and she called his home in England. Brian’s mother answered the phone.”

“Oh, Brian,” she said. “He was such a sweet man. I thought—”

“That you two were going to get married and live in England.”

“Yes, I did.” She wiped her eyes.

“Sara, I have more to tell you.”

She saw the seriousness on his face. “This is the part about Greg?”

“Yes. He’s Mitzi Vandlo’s son.”

For a moment Sara’s head seemed to reel. “The son of the criminal? The one so many people are searching for?” Her voice was rising. “Did he … Do you think Greg … that Greg murdered Brian to get to
me
?”

Mike took Sara’s hand and held it firmly in his own. “Sara, you must stay calm. You can’t panic.”

“My second boyfriend probably killed my first boyfriend and you want me to be
calm
?”

“Yes,” Mike said firmly.

Sara jerked her hand from his and stood up. “That bastard! Do you have any idea how much I put up with from him? He flirted with every woman who had a dollar in her hand. Platinum American Express cards nearly gave him an orgasm.”

Mike had to bite his lips to keep from smiling, and the dimple in his cheek was an inch deep.

“One time a woman had one of those black AmEx cards, and I thought I was going to have to call an ambulance.” She glared at Mike. “And you know
why
I put up with his crap?”

“I truly have no idea.”

“That’s because
you
have never been thrown onto the rubbish heap by anyone.”

“Well, actually—”

“Women going to jail don’t count. But
I
was dropped flat by a man I genuinely loved. I had saved myself all through high school. Boys were groping me, sweaty hands were all over me, but I held out for ‘true love.’”

Mike watched her as she paced the room, her anger making her face bright—and he was glad of it. Anger was easier to cope with than grief.

Suddenly, her anger left her and she sat down hard on Tess’s armchair. “Brian, Brian, Brian,” she whispered. “Why didn’t I believe in you more?”

For a moment she put her hands over her face, and even though Mike saw her shoulders heaving as she cried, he didn’t go to her. He had more to tell her, and he was dreading doing so.

She looked back at him. “It was that movie, the one with Meg Ryan making a fool of herself.”

He looked at her blankly.

“When Meg Ryan’s fiancé dropped her, she ran after him to France and made a laughingstock of herself. After I received that hideous letter from Brian telling me he was going to marry someone else, I decided I had more pride than that. I wasn’t going after him. And I wouldn’t let him and his family see how much I’d been hurt. It was bad enough being the pathetic loser here in Edilean, but to go to another country …”

She looked back at Mike. “If only I had gone. If only—”

“You can’t do that,” Mike said sternly. “You can’t even think of blaming yourself. You’re innocent in all this.”

Sara fell back in the chair, her hands gripping the arms. “You have something else to tell me, don’t you?”

“Yes, but …”

“It couldn’t be worse than what you’ve already said.”

“Depends on how you look at it.”

She waited, but he said nothing. “Mike?”

“Yeah, okay, I’m getting around to it. Just give me time.” He took a breath. “Look, Sara, what I’d like to do is send you into hiding, but I can’t do that. You’re at the center of whatever the Vandlos want. We think Stefan—”

“That’s Greg?”

“Yes. We think he divorced his wife so his marriage to you would be legal.”

“Wife?” Sara said. “Does he have children?” She held up her hand before Mike could speak. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to hear the extent of my blind stupidity.”

“You aren’t stupid. The Vandlos have been cheating people for centuries.”

“Great. I’m historically dumb.”

Mike’s eyes showed his amusement.

“I take it they planned to do away with me after the marriage.”

“We think so,” Mike said. It was too late to sugarcoat the truth. “And Stefan would inherit whatever you have that only he knows about.
We
certainly don’t.”

Sara’s face lit up. “That’s why he made the people of Edilean hate him. He planned to use their dislike of him as an excuse to take me away from here so he could … so he could murder me.”

“Yes,” Mike said softly, “that’s just what we think he aimed to do.”

Sara was quiet for a moment, her hand at her throat. “So why did he want Merlin’s Farm?”

“Good question,” Mike said. “But it could be as simple as Vandlo getting angry at Lang about something, then wanting revenge.”

“Greg did kill the dogs, didn’t he?”

“Probably. Sara, there’s more. I’ve spent the last hours doing a
lot of planning. I talked with my captain and I also made some arrangements with your parents.”

“My parents?” Again, she waved her hand. “Don’t let me interrupt you. Tell me what your plan is.”

“I need to do whatever is necessary to take the Vandlos’ attention off of you and put it on me.”

“What does that mean? You go in shooting?”

“That was my first choice.” He was watching her intently. “But they have relatives, so if I shoot them, more Vandlos will come after you in their place. Sara,” he said slowly, then stopped.

“You’re frightening me again. What horrible thing do you want me to do?”

“Marry me,” he said simply.

“What?”

“If you marry me, then the Vandlos will have to kill
me
before they can get to you.”

“Oh,” Sara said. “Oh.”

Mike felt his ego deflate by half, but then he wondered what he’d expected, that she’d run to him and say she
wanted
to marry him? He got himself back under control.

“I want you to marry me in secret. Now. Tonight. Tomorrow morning I have to return to Fort Lauderdale, and until Vandlo gets back I don’t want anyone here to know we’re married. I’ll return for the fair, then I plan to let everyone know that you’re no longer free to marry someone else.”

When she said nothing, just sat there and stared at him, he continued. “Sara, don’t worry. You don’t have to stay married to me, and in the meantime, we can keep living separately just as we’ve done. We can arrange living any way you want, but I want it legal between us. If Vandlo gets whatever you have, he’ll have to take me out first.”

“I …” She didn’t know what to say.

“It’ll be all right, I promise. As for the marriage ceremony itself, it’s all been set up with your parents.”

“My parents? I think I’m old enough—”

“That’s not what I meant. Your mother is the mayor, and people owe her favors. Tonight she called them in and got a license for us on a Sunday night. Are you ready to go?”

Sara couldn’t think of anything to say. There was too much in her mind for her to comprehend. Brian, sweet, dear Brian killed because of
her
. And Greg—The truth was that she wasn’t surprised to hear that he was a criminal. Over the months they’d known each other, she’d looked away from the many underhanded things he did.

Silently, she followed Mike to the car. It was the early evening on an ordinary Sunday night and she couldn’t make herself realize that she was on the way to her wedding.

When Mike got in beside her, she looked at him. She’d known him for only eight days, but it didn’t feel that way. She thought of when they’d hidden in a tree together, of baking for him, of watching him walk along the top of a pavilion. He’d walked across rafters like he was a circus performer and Sara’s heart had pounded in fear. She thought of his date with Ariel. When she’d seen Ariel in church, she’d wanted to throw spitballs into her glossy red hair, as she’d done when they were children.

Mike pulled out of the driveway. “Sara, I’m sorry about this. I know you wanted your wedding to be in front of the whole town and—”

“No, I didn’t. That was Greg’s idea. I wanted it to be in Edilean Manor with Luke and Rams, and Joce and Tess there. And my parents. I didn’t even want my sisters to come. It was Greg who wanted a big wedding and he insisted that
all
the shop clients be invited.”

“And one of them probably would have been his mother,” Mike said.

“I guess so …”

Mike pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Call Luke, wake them up, and tell them we’re on our way to get married in their old house.”

Sara couldn’t help the little wave of joy that ran through her. “Really?”

He smiled at her. “I can’t give you everything you want—and deserve—but I can give you the wedding you’d like to have. Minus the correct groom, of course.”

Sara didn’t reply to his last remark. There were too many other things on her mind. “Did you tell Tess?”

“Yes.” He didn’t want to burden Sara with more than she’d had piled on her tonight, but Mike had spent twenty minutes calming Tess down. She was nearly hysterical with fear that both Mike and Sara were going to be killed.