Wedding Survivor (22 page)

TWO days later, Marnie decided that Eli McCain was either a big jerk or the most mysterious tall, dark, and handsome type she'd ever run across in her thirty-four years on this earth. She just wasn't sure which.

She had thought, after the awesome, unexpected little tryst between them, that they had passed to a new phase of their relationship, that they had gone from merely working together to something decidedly friendlier. She had convinced herself it was okay to date him, that a little gig like this didn't necessarily have to have the same rules as a real job, and it was perfectly all right to dip her pen in the company ink.

Since that fabulous night at his house, when she'd left him standing on his front porch leaning up against the split-beam post, one leg crossed over the other, his arms folded over his chest, watching her walk away with that quiet, sexy smile of his, she'd thought of nothing else but him.

And she hadn't heard a peep.

He had not called her.

What planet was this guy on, anyway? Hell yes she'd assumed he'd call her! After all, they'd done
it
, and
it
had been fantastic, and she really believed that if two people did it and liked it then it was the guy's place to call, even if it had been her idea to do what they did.

But Eli
didn't
call.

She told herself he was busy, and she made herself busy, too, making sure the chairs and linens would be shipped on time to Durango, Colorado, and that Holland had thirty thousand white roses and that there were two hundred Baccarat crystal bowls in L.A.

But when Eli still had not called, Marnie was a little pissed. She figured he at least owed her a phone call to see how the plans were going, but
nooo
, Hollywood Hotshot couldn't be bothered. He was too busy being an important stunt guy for the movies to actually pick up a phone.

She was so baffled and pissed that she even ran it past Olivia when they went to interview Rhys St. Paul, the chef Olivia wanted.

"Let me ask you something," she'd said in the back of Olivia's limo. "If you sleep with a guy, and it's great, and there is the usual, 'hey, talk to you soon'… whose responsibility is it to call?"

"Are you kidding?" Olivia asked, blinking her big blue eyes in shock. "
His
!"

Exactly.

So when Eli did deign to pick up the phone on the third day, Marnie tried not to act breathless and relieved and giddy, and tried to be very cool and laid-back about the whole thing, Hollywood style. "Oh hey, Eli," she said, as if she had to recall who he was. "What's up?"

"Hi, Marnie. I was going to ask the same of you."

"Oh nothing," she said, as she made big black circles on a piece of paper. "Just working the wedding."

"Anything I need to know about?"

"
No
," she said, perhaps a little too sharply. "Well… Olivia and I hired the chef. He's going to do the wedding and the cake. You remember, you were concerned about the cake budget," she said, stabbing her pencil on the paper with the words
cake
and
budget
.

"I remember. So this is a good thing, right?"

"It's
all
good," Marnie said, sneering into the phone.

"Great So you ready to help me out with that shopping?"

And that was how she wound up at Fred Segal, shopping for outrageously expensive clothes for a twelve-year-old.

She picked up a pair of jeans and held them up.

"How much?" Hi asked.

"Five fifty. Pretty pricey for a kid who will probably grow out of diem in a couple of months."

"Nah," he said. "Give them to me."

Marnie lifted a brow in surprise and handed him the jeans to add to the mountain of skimpy tees and skirts and jeans and sandals and anything else a twelve-year-old girl might conceivably want in her lifetime.

"So where is this friend of yours, anyway?" Marnie asked suspiciously. "Why isn't she here?" He'd told her the girl was the daughter of a friend and that he was helping out, but she was beginning to wonder about that. Friends didn't help out with clothes like these.

"Because she lives in Escondido, and it's too far to drive between soccer games."

"Escondido! How do you know a kid in Escondido? Did you come up from Texas that way?" she asked, picturing him riding through New Mexico and Arizona and California on horseback, his saddlebags stuffed full, his bandana around his nose, his clothes stained and dirty. The image gave her an unexpected little shiver of delight.

"Very funny," he said. "No, nothing like that. Her father was one of our stunt guys. He died a few years ago."

"Oh." She shut up. For a moment, anyway. "How did he die?"

Holding up the jeans to inspect them, Eli looked at her from the comer of his eye. "A stunt."

"Geez, I didn't know people died doing stunts."

"They don't, usually. Not unless someone is careless."

"Ah, I see," she said. "The guy was careless and killed himself, and you feel sorry for his daughter."

"That's close," Eli said. "Except I was the one who was careless and the guy died. And I do feel bad for his daughter. I guess this ought to do it," he said, looking at the pile of clothing he held.

She could not have possibly felt smaller if she'd been an ant. "Eli, I'm sorry."

"No need," he said, and walked to the front of the store to pay for the mountain of clothes he was holding.

After he'd paid for the clothes, Eli drove her home. When he pulled in her drive, he got out and came around to her side of the truck and opened the door. Marnie slid out, leaned against the arm of the open truck door, and looked up at Eli.

"Thanks," he said. "I really appreciate the help. I would have been lost trying to do it on my own."

That was putting it mildly. "No problem—I love to shop," Marnie said.

"I got that impression," he said with a grin. "So… thanks, Marnie." He moved so that she could step away from the truck.

But Marnie didn't move. Marnie's mouth operated solo again. It was a fact that tact and timing had never been her strong suit. "Eli… are you ever going to call me?" she suddenly blurted.

The question obviously surprised him. "I called you today, remember?"

"I know… but I mean… you know, to like…" Okay, what did she mean? Not get married, hell no. Date? Maybe—the jury was still out on even that, wasn't it? What about a drink? It didn't even have to be alcohol—just coffee? At least some acknowledgment she existed?

"Like…
what
?" he prodded her.

"I'm starting to think you don't like me," she said, and instantly despised her immature self.

Eli smiled. His gaze drifted down to the tips of her newly pedicured toes. "You're dead wrong about that. I happen to like you a whole lot."

She brightened instantly. "You do?"

"Of course I do. Would I ask you to shop for Isabella if I didn't like you?"

No, he wouldn't have done that, she supposed. But that left her with the worst possibility. "Well then… maybe you didn't like my, ah…
company
the other night."

Eli blinked. Then he laughed and tenderly touched her cheek. "Girl, I'd be gay if I didn't like your
company
. Are you nuts? It was fantastic."

"Okay!" she said, feeling enormously relieved. "All right, then! I just thought… you know, that we might get together for a drink, something like that."

Eli nodded thoughtfully. Blew out his cheeks. Looked at the ground. Then up again. "You know what? We'll do just that… when I get back from Florida."

"Florida?"

"There's a hurricane moving toward Florida. We're going to jet down and do some kite surfing while the winds are up. I'll be gone for about a week."

"You are going to kite surf on hurricane winds?" she repeated, just to make sure she'd heard him correctly.

He nodded, as if that were a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

"Oh," she said, feeling very confused and very stupid about kite surfing. "Florida."

"Hey," he said, and put his palm against her cheek, making her look up; "The minute I get back I'll give you a call. We'll have that drink."

He looked very sincere, she thought, but something somewhere nudged her consciousness. Something said that a drink was not very comfortable for him. Something said that he was trying very hard to be nice.

All of a sudden she felt very foolish. "Sure!" She would have liked nothing better than to crawl beneath his truck and think a minute.

"If you need me in the meantime for the wedding, just give me a call, okay?"

"Right," she said, looking everywhere but at him.

"If you can't get me, you can always get Cooper. He's not going this time," Eli added.

Unfortunately, crawling beneath his truck was not an option. "Right, right," Marnie said and slipped away from his hand, around the open truck door, and walked toward the front of the truck. "So!" she said, walking backward now. "Have a safe trip!"

He perched his arm on the open truck door. "Marnie? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine!" she insisted loudly, and smiled to prove that she was. And she
was
. She'd had fabulous sex with a gorgeous guy she thought was unique and kind in a very unkind town. But that didn't mean they had to suddenly change everything and start dating. They were adults. They'd had some fun. Now on with the show—she got it. She'd read the latest dating books going around. He just wasn't that into her.

"Okay," he said, looking terribly unconvinced. "Behave while I'm gone, will you?"

"Oh, Eli!" she said, and laughed, then waved, turned around, and jogged up to the front door. But she didn't manage to get in before she heard her dad come out of the garage and say, "Is that you, Eli? Hey, how are you?"

She didn't look back, just walked in and shut the door, then stood there a minute, trying to catch her breath. She wasn't exactly sure when her heart had started racing, but thought it was right around the moment he touched her face. Her mind was flooded with the feel of his hand on her body, and the intensity of that feeling surprised her. She closed her eyes.

"Marnie? Are you going to stand at the door all day?" her mom called, and she realized, given the amount of secondhand smoke in the house, that the book club was meeting. She groaned softly, pushed away from the door, and walked to the door of the dining room, where the ladies were gathered.

"Hi, honey!" Mom chirped.

"Hi, Mom. Hi, everyone," she said, waving lamely.

"Oh, sweetie, you don't look very happy," Mrs. Farrino said.

"No?"

"No. It wouldn't have anything to do with that hunk out there, would it?" she asked, and the others sniggered. Marnie glanced at the dining-room window and realized they had seen the whole exchange.

"Who, him?" She rolled her eyes and flicked her hand at the door. "I don't think so!"

"Hey, Marnie, what do you know about Jude Law?" Mrs. Campbell asked.

"I don't know anything about him."

"Oh, that's too bad. I have a good friend whose friend's daughter went out with him and got the wham, bam, thank you ma'am from him."

"Honestly, Bev, are you still going on about that? Of
course
he did that to her! Did your friend's friend think there would be wedding bells or something? These movie people move from one person to the next and they don't look back."