Wedding Survivor (45 page)

But as he led a run down some of the best Class V rapids in the world, Eli came to the conclusion that he was a goddamn coward if he didn't face his fears, and those were righting words. No matter how it might go down, he had to know if he'd manufactured it all, or if Marnie really was The One.

Now that he was in Auckland, finishing up with the gig and preparing to leave by week's end, he'd called Marnie twice—both times on the cell phone T.A. had given her, and both times he'd only gotten voice mail.

But a thought had awakened him at four a.m.: her gig with T.A. was up. She'd probably given the phone to the guys. What an idiot he was. He glanced at his watch—it was nine in the morning in L.A. He picked up the phone and dialed her house.

"Hel-
lo
-oh," Mrs. Banks sang into the phone when she picked it up.

"Hello, Mrs. Banks, it's Eli McCain. How are you?"

"Eli!" she exclaimed. "Have you come back from your trip? Where did you go again, Spain?"

"Ah, Brazil," he said. "I was, ah… hoping to catch Marnie."

"Good luck with that! Personally, since she moved out, I can't get her on the phone to save my life. Either she sees it is her mother calling and won't pick up the phone, or she is very busy with her life," Mrs. Banks sniffed. "I prefer to think she's very busy."

"She moved?" Eli asked dumbly. The thought had never occurred to him. He had gone on with his dreams of her, assuming she was exactly where he'd left her. Home. With Mr. and Mrs. Banks. In that room with clothes and magazines all over the floor.

"Van Nuys," Mrs. Banks said with disdain in her voice. "And not a very nice part of Van Nuys. I wanted her to stay here until she'd done a couple of more weddings and could afford a better place, but what do I know? She had to go, and got out of here like the place was on fire."

"Oh," Eli said, his mind trying to absorb what Marnie's mother was telling him. She'd gone. Getting out like there was a fire.

"She's so strong willed, you know, and she always has been, even when she was a baby. If that little squirt wanted something, by God, she'd cry and rant until she got it. Until she could walk, of course, and then she just went and got what she wanted and couldn't care less if she got in trouble for it. So she decided she could get more business where there was a younger crowd and packed up all her things and moved to Van Nuys. Wouldn't even let us help her move. That's just pure stubborn for you."

"Do you have a number where I could reach her?"

"Oh, I have a number, but I doubt it will do you any good, Eli. She's
impossible
to reach. Three weddings, I think she said the last time we talked. That's a lot of weddings for one person to pay attention to, if you ask me. I told her I thought she should hire an assistant, maybe an apprentice like she used to be, but she told me she couldn't afford it, and of course, she probably can't, not with the weddings she's picked up, but if she tried to do more like the-one-that-didn't-happen-you-know-who-I-mean, she could afford an apprentice and a. nicer place. But then she—"

"Mrs. Banks?" Eli gently interrupted.

"Huh? What?" she said, a little irritated that he had disrupted her train of thought.

"Do you have a number where I might leave a message?"

"Oh! Of course. Do you have a pencil?"

"Yes," he said, and wrote down the number Mrs. Banks gave him. "Thanks," he said when she'd finished. "I'll give her a ring."

"Oh, Eli! When you come back to L.A. you must—Oh, hi, Linda!" she said suddenly to someone else. "Come on in. I'm talking to Eli…
Eli
! Oh for God's sake, Linda!
Eli
! Marnie's hot friend!"

Eli put his hand to his forehead and rubbed.

"Can you believe her?" Mrs. Banks muttered into the phone. "She's asked Marnie about you at least a dozen times, then tries to act like she doesn't know who you are."

"Thanks for the number, Mrs. Banks. I'll give it a try. Give my regards to Mr. Banks, will you?"

"Of course I will, sugar! You come by as soon as you can, all right?"

"All right," he said, and clicked off, rubbed his temples for a moment. Nice lady, but
man
.

He glanced at the number Mrs. Banks had given him and dialed. It took forever to connect, and when it did, his heart hammered with each ring of the phone, anticipating her bubbly voice.

He got the answering machine. "
Hi, this is Marnie Banks of Sophisticate Soiree, your complete wedding design and coordination services. I am with a client right now, so please leave your name and number and the proposed date of your event, and I will return your call promptly
."

"Ah… hey, Marnie," he said when he heard the beep, and felt his tongue grow thick in his head and grimaced at his ineptitude. "Ah… I'm in New Zealand, but I'm coming back to L.A. in a couple of days and I was hoping maybe we could get together." He paused there, uncertain what else to say. "If you're up for it, why don't you give me a call on my cell. Okay. I guess I'll talk to you later," he said, and hung up.

"I guess I'll talk to you later?" he repeated aloud, shaking his head. "Jesus, McCain, how lame can you be?" he muttered, and turned off the light and tried to get some sleep.

He was not very successful, however, with the myriad thoughts roaming his mind, and the next day was even worse. He expected his cell to ring, thought the call would come any minute. And it did ring, plenty of times—people in New Zealand. The guys back home. Even Isabella called, asking when he'd come to Escondido again so he could see her new puppy.

But never Marnie.

He slept badly another night and woke around four, unable to sleep. He called her again. He got her answering machine again. It would be about nine o'clock yesterday morning in L.A., and he felt a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach that he'd dicked around with his feelings way too long and had lost his opportunity. "Hey copper-top," he said quietly into the phone. "I'll be back in L.A. at the end of the week and I was hoping I'd get a chance to talk to you. Would you give me a call?" He paused, then added softly, "I'd love to hear from you."

Not able to think of anything else that didn't sound pathetic or stupid, he clicked off.

He did not hear from Marnie before he left New Zealand.

WHEN Marnie heard his voice on her answering machine, it stunned her. She hadn't forgotten the rich resonance of it, but she had forgotten the way it trickled down her spine and lit her up. She sank onto a bar stool next to her phone and hit the play button again. And again. And twice more before she realized how pathetic she was, clinging to a stupid voicemail, and deleted it.

Eli'd had his chance. She wasn't going to fall into his arms again, no sir, because every time she did, she fell hard and then he went running just as hard in the opposite direction. So she'd had the most incredible experience with a man she'd ever had in her life, and she'd have given anything for it to continue, but obviously, Eli did not feel the same about her. If he did, he would have called or written her. Something. Anything.

He probably needed a ride from the airport. Loser.

When she received the second message, she laughed derisively. Oh sure, he wanted to talk to her—he was probably hard up after being in some remote New Zealand place with nothing around but a lot of goats. He should have introduced himself to a goat while he had the opportunity.

Marnie made herself forget him and went on with the plans for Emily Buckholtz's wedding. It wasn't easy to forget him, either—she had to keep doing it, over and over again. She had to keep busy, to stay on the phone or otherwise engaged, lest she slip back into the old pattern of thinking about him, waiting for the next sound of his voice, hoping against all odds that he would love her as she loved him. But that was a stupid, futile hope and she wouldn't risk feeling it again because it hurt too badly.

So she kept busy.

So good was she in her defense that she was caught off guard when she burst through the door of her apartment a couple of nights later to catch the phone before it stopped ringing and heard his voice, live and in person, on the other end.

"
Marnie
," he said.

Her name on his lips flowed over her like silk, and she said nothing, just dropped her planning book and purse with a
thud
to the floor at her feet. "Hey," she croaked at last.

"I've been trying to get hold of you," he said with a bit of a chuckle. "You're a hard woman to reach."

No, she wouldn't be so easily drawn in. "Am I?" she asked coolly, having regained her composure. "I hadn't noticed." She gripped the edge of her Formica bar, gripped it so hard that there was no danger she'd pass out with surprise or a sudden raging desire to see him.

"Yeah, well… you are," he said. "I guess I have it coming, huh?"

She said nothing. Let him do the talking for once.

"I, ah… I ended up in New Zealand," he said.

"So I heard."

"Right," he said quietly. "I was gone a little longer than I had intended."

The man was an absolute master at understating the obvious. "Huh," she said, gripping the Formica bar even harder.

"Look, coppertop," he said in a way that made her knees weak, "I should have called you earlier, but… but life got away from me, and I, ah… well, I—"

"Is there something you wanted, Eli?" she asked politely, as the burn of indignation began to creep up her neck. Should have called earlier?
Should
have? Of course he should have, the moron, but even worse, he should have
wanted
to call her!

"I'd like to see you, Marnie," he said. "I just landed in L.A.—I haven't even left the airport, but I was hoping I could see you and explain—"

"You know, I'm really booked up for the next few days. I've got a wedding next week, and there's so much that has to be done before then. I think this couple is actually going to go through with it, and since I couldn't just order up everything they need like the last time, I've had to do a lot more legwork, so I really don't think I have time for chitchat," she said peevishly, unwilling to hear yet another explanation of why he had failed to hold up his end of this relationship. Such that it was. Not a relationship, exactly. But
something
.

"I see," he said, disappointment in his voice. "I didn't really have chitchat in mind. But hey, if you're busy, you're busy." It seemed like a blast of cold air had suddenly hit the line, and she could just see the cowboy rearing his horse back, holding tight to his saddle.

"That's right," Marnie said smugly. "No time for chitchat or whatever else it is you might want to do. If you have a question about that disaster of a wedding, please, ask away. But if not, I've really moved on and need to get to some other stuff just now."

That was met with stony silence on the other end of the line. "No," he said at last. "No, I don't have any questions."

Marnie's heart sank a little. "Great!" she said cheerfully. "Welcome back to the States, then. I'll… see you. Whatever," she said, and clicked off.

She dropped the phone and glared at it. She was supposed to feel victorious. Vindicated. Avenged for his poor treatment of her. But she didn't feel any of that. She felt mean. And a little heartless. And maybe… just a little foolish. He had sounded sweet and possibly even a little regretful at first.

"Bullshit," she said aloud, thoroughly disgusted with herself. "He probably wanted a roll in the hay, and then he'll freak out again, and guess who will be left holding the bag? No thanks!" she said firmly. And besides, she didn't have time to dwell on it. Tonight she was going to shop for table decorations, and she really didn't need
him
clouding her mind.

And it was
so
not him clouding her mind when she couldn't find her keys. Or when she left her purse in her apartment. And it damn sure wasn't him that made her toss and turn all goddamn night, hell no. It was just a bad case of insomnia. A newly developed, she'd-never-had-in-her-life case of insomnia.

IT took a week of solid work in L.A. before the sting of Eli's foolish hopes for love had worn off, and he was be-ginning to feel like his old self again. In fact, he was feeling so much like himself that he made a trip to Escondido to see Isabella, then sat in on a couple of meetings they had with DreamWorks for
Graham's Crossing
. Afterward, he spent some time with Cooper working up some stunt plans.

Yep, Eli McCain was back to normal—he'd retreated back into that comfortable place he knew, where nothing touched him and he touched no one. He just thanked God he hadn't made more of a fool of himself with Marnie, and that mercifully, he'd been stopped in his big plans to declare undying devotion to a woman again.

Oh yeah, he was feeling much better.

At least he was until one afternoon about a week after he'd been home. He was at the T.A. office, sitting on the cowhide recliner they all coveted, his boots up and crossed, tossing a baseball into the air and talking movies when Jack mentioned Marnie.

Eli missed the baseball and it crashed to the pine floors, bouncing up and knocking a coffee cup off the end table. Coffee went splashing all over the chair. "Shit!" Eli snapped and instantly jumped up, headed for the little kitchen for a rag.

"Damn," Jack said with a sideways grin. "That got quite a response."

"What did?" Eli asked irritably as he tried to sponge up the coffee stains.

"Marnie did. I guess she wasn't the only one who had a thing, huh?"

Eli stopped what he was doing and glanced over his shoulder at Jack. "What?"

"She's not the only one who had a
thing
," he articulated clearly.

Eli slowly straightened. "What do you mean, a
thing
?"

Jack laughed. "Look, Marnie stopped by while you were gone and she seemed plenty upset that you'd gone to New Zealand without calling her. Actually," he said, looking thoughtfully at Eli, "she seemed plenty upset that you'd gone to
Brazil
without calling her. I'm gonna walk out on a limb here and say that I think the girl was expecting a call."