Читать книгу Winter's Kiss - Beth Andrews - Страница 13

CHAPTER FOUR

OAKES LOOKED SHOCKED, as if she had indeed not only requested a kidney, but also insisted he lay back so she could dig it out of him right now. “Excuse me?” he asked.

“I could go with you to Kane’s wedding. It’s a great idea.” The more she thought about it, the more she began to believe it. Knowing body language was an important part of any conversation, she leaned forward, hoping to convey her need and earnestness, and ticked off all the ways her plan was brilliant. “It’s the same weekend as Ricky’s, which means I’d have a legitimate excuse not to attend his nuptials and, if I go with you as your plus one, no one in Houston can say I’m heartbroken or missing Ricky’s wedding because I’m still in love with him or spiteful. It’s the perfect solution.”

“Perfect.” The word said he agreed but his muttered tone suggested otherwise. “Except for the fact that Kane’s wedding is in Pennsylvania.”

“Even better.”

A change of scenery would do them good. It might be easier for Oakes to stop seeing her as only Zach’s little sister, as only a friend, if they were away from Houston. Unfortunately, they couldn’t escape the Bartasavich family entirely as most of the family would be at the wedding in Shady Grove, but she and Oakes would have plenty of time and opportunity to be alone.

She’d make sure of it.

“Weren’t you invited to the wedding yourself?” Oakes asked as they both sat back down.

“Nope. Why would I be?”

She barely knew Kane or C.J., Oakes’s older brothers. Oh, they’d spent some time together at the hospital when Zach was first brought back to the States after he’d been injured. But it wasn’t as if she had anything in common with C.J.—Clinton Bartasavich, Jr.—the current CEO of Bartasavich Enterprises, who was so far out of her tax bracket, social sphere and peer group, they might as well be on different planets. And the same was true with the long-haired, tattooed Kane, who preferred biker boots over power suits and owned and operated a bar in Shady Grove, Pennsylvania.

Oakes shifted. Cleared his throat. “I thought you and Charlotte had become friends.”

“We did. Sort of. Just not the type of friends you feel the need to invite the other to an out-of-state wedding that’s taking place on Christmas Eve.”

Daphne liked Charlotte Ellison, Kane’s fiancée. She was smart and funny and it had been great having an RN with them in the hospital to cut through all the medical terms. She’d been extremely patient about explaining things to Daphne and her mother. But it wasn’t like they’d become BFFs after spending a few days together—even though those were important days in Daphne’s life.

Realizing Oakes was grasping at straws, looking for any reason not to take her with him to Shady Grove, she frowned. He wasn’t doing much for her ego, that was for sure. “Do you...do you already have a plus one for the wedding?”

A distinct possibility given that he was seeing Sylvie. But Daphne couldn’t imagine Oakes bringing some woman he was casually dating halfway across the country to his brother’s wedding.

Talk about a commitment.

“No,” he said slowly, in that way people did when they were trying to find an excuse to get out of doing something they didn’t want to do. “I hadn’t planned on bringing a date.”

She laid her hand on his knee. “But there’s no reason you can’t bring one, right?”

She let her hand linger on his leg. It was nice, touching him, feeling the warmth of him through his jeans. But mostly she liked how he reacted to her touch. As if it made him uncomfortable and not in a he-found-her-repulsive way, but the opposite. He must have felt the spark between them, too, and was fighting his baser instincts for all he was worth.

A girl could dream, right?

He brightened suddenly and she would have bet her last dollar that he gave himself a silent eureka.

And that made her nervous.

“You can go with Zach,” he said. Just as he’d done last night, he covered her hand with his briefly and then slid it away from his person. But she noticed his fingers hadn’t been completely steady. “I’m sure he’d be thrilled to take you.”

“As you’re well aware, Zach is never thrilled to do anything. But you’re right. He would take me. If he was going.”

“Zach isn’t going?” he asked. “Why not?”

She shrugged. “Says he’s not up to traveling.”

As excuses went, it was a valid one, seeing as how he was still recovering from his injuries and in rehab, learning to live without the use of his right arm and leg, both of which had been amputated.

But it was still an excuse.

Zach went out of his way to have as little to do with his father’s side of his family as possible. And if that meant missing his brother’s wedding, then so be it. Though out of all his brothers, Kane was the one Zach seemed to like the most, but that wasn’t saying much. About the only two people in the world her brother cared about were her and their mother.

“I’m cutting him some slack and not bugging him about it because he has been through a physically and emotionally traumatic event,” Daphne continued. “But I think what’s really stopping him is that he doesn’t want to travel in the wheelchair.” He hadn’t been fitted for prosthetics yet and still used a wheelchair to get around. “I don’t think he wants people feeling sorry for him.”

Oakes exhaled heavily, shoved a hand through his hair. “Yeah. I can understand that.” He got to his feet, stepped away, then turned again. “Is this the real reason you came here last night? To ask me to take you to the wedding?”

No. She’d come to tell him she loved him, wanted to marry him and have his babies.

Thank God she hadn’t confessed those things.

Damn tequila. Not only was it some sort of legal truth serum, but it also gave people delusions of grandeur.

“You think it’s a bad idea?” she asked, wide-eyed and innocent. “Us going together?” He opened his mouth, probably to say yes, but she kept right on talking. “Because I think it’ll be fun. I’m a great date, honestly. I promise you’ll have a good time.”

“What about the holiday? Won’t your mother be upset about you not being home for Christmas?”

“She’ll understand my reasons. Plus, I can fly back early Christmas morning, be home in time for dinner.”

He was going to say no. She could see it in his eyes, in how he held himself, so stiffly and unyielding.

She stood, crossed to stand in front of him. “Please, Oakes,” she said softly, not realizing until this very second how badly she wanted him to say yes. How much she needed him to say yes. If the moment they’d shared six years ago on her graduation day was the beginning of her feelings for him, the beginning of their friendship, then this moment, right here, right now, was the turning point. His decision would either take their relationship to the next level...or leave them to crash and burn without ever having a chance. “Please.”

He scratched the side of his neck. Sighed, then nodded. “I’d love to have you with me at the wedding.”

He wouldn’t. That much was clear in his conflicted, tight expression. In his unenthusiastic response. Guilt nudged her. Hard. She shoved it aside. She had nothing to feel guilty about. She wasn’t tricking him. Wasn’t lying to him.