Читать книгу Hooked - Betina Krahn - Страница 11

Greer Lodge, Arizona

Escape was not an option.

Bearing down on Stephanie Steele from across the lodge’s festive great room was a man wearing a muskrat on his head—either that, or the worst hairpiece in the western hemisphere. The unfortunate fellow’s arm was caught hard in the grip of Terrie Gardner, her dearest friend and the mother of the bride…who had cleverly trapped Stephanie at a table against the wall via a place card bearing her name. Now she was caught like an antelope with a bum leg watching a lion approach.

Weddings. Modern society’s version of stalking on the Serengeti.

“Stephanie!”

Terrie had tried to make this introduction last night at the wedding reception, but Steph had pleaded fatigue from the long flight and even longer drive from the airport, and fled. The wedding brunch provided her with the perfect second chance.

“You simply must meet Bob Slidell…Rick’s boss. He’s the head of the Bitterman Group, the commercial property giants. Bob, Steph is the founder and CEO of Silk and Steele, the hottest upscale women’s clothing chain in the country.” Terrie beamed with determined mischief. “You two have a ton in common, being business magnates and all, so I’ll leave you to your tycoon talk while I circulate.”

“So, Stephanie.” Bob slid into the chair beside hers, clearly interested. She was wearing a saucy Carolina Herrera tunic that left one shoulder bare; of course he’d be interested. “You’re quite the little dancer.” When she looked blankly at him, he clarified, “I saw you at the reception last night. You know, with Cassie and the bridesmaids out on the dance floor.”

“Oh, well—” Steph laughed, with precious little humor “—there’s a perfectly good explanation for that. I taught Cassie and her friends to dance when they were in middle school, and since then, she always pulls me out onto the floor and makes me relive the experience.”

“Well, you’ve got all the right moves,” he said with too much emphasis and too much eyeballing. “You put the younger crowd to shame.”

Ah, the maneuvers of a CEO on the prowl. Charge in like it’s a hostile board takeover, toss out some left-handed flattery, and then flash some of the good life in the dazzled quarry’s eyes…. Yep, there was the Presidential Rolex, right on cue. Bob propped his left elbow on the table, baring his twenty-thousand-dollar timepiece in a fairly casual way.

“Terrie says you’re based in Atlanta now.”

“I moved the corporate headquarters from Phoenix to Atlanta four years ago,” she said, “and it was a good move. Silk and Steele has really taken off…seventeen markets now. Plus, I have two sisters in Atlanta, and nieces and nephews aplenty. It’s been great to get back to family. Do you have children, Bob?”

“Two. East and West Coasts. Thank God for boarding schools. Pretty much leaves me free to…have fun.” He waggled his eyebrows, saluted her with his mimosa and then drained the glass. “What about you? What do you do for fun, Stephie?”

“It’s Stephanie, Bob,” she said, smiling, and battling an urge to turn her sharp little hooves on his tragically insecure underbelly. But she was a decent and rational human being, not given to inflicting emotional pain on desperate, dead-muskrat-wearing executives fresh from the divorce wars. “And lately…I’ve been too occupied to water-ski, bodysurf, hike, train my dog or even use my gourmet kitchen.”

“Occupied?” He gave a wicked laugh and looked her up and down. “I just bet you have. With what?” He laughed again. “Or is that whom?”

She didn’t mean to do it. It wasn’t part of some grand discourage-the-masher plan. It just came out. Pure and simple. The truth.

“With radiation therapy, Bob.”

He huffed a half laugh, frowned, then finally got that she was serious.

“Radiation?” He recoiled, albeit unconsciously. “You mean for…”

“The big C.” When he continued to stare, she smiled again and felt a rebellious pleasure at the release of the tension that had coiled in her middle. She had simply told him the truth.

And the rest of the truth was that she didn’t feel like playing dating games just now…or maybe ever again. Until now, she’d refused to tell anyone except her sisters about the breast cancer diagnosis or the treatment that left her drained of energy and depressed at times. She hadn’t even told Terrie, one of her oldest friends. All their phone conversations over the last year had been about the engagement, the wedding plans and the way the Phoenix store was doing. There just never seemed to be a good time to say “Cassie’s got to have the Vera Wang for the wedding, and by the way, I’ve got breast cancer.”

She hadn’t told any of the people at her corporate offices, either. The first surgery had taken her away from work for a week, which she’d listed as “vacation.” The second surgery had taken another week, scheduled just after Fashion Week in New York, so everyone assumed she was taking a little downtime in the Hamptons.

Why she had chosen to break her careful silence with old Bob Slidell was something of a mystery. Except that he was here and she was tired of hiding the truth she lived with day after day. Too late to recall it now. The muskrat was out of the bag.

“Damn. That’s tough stuff…cancer.” Bob’s gaze flicked around the room as if Terrie or her husband or any of the seventy-five other guests could help him out with something to say. “Are you…I mean…okay?”

“So far. Two surgeries and some radiation later, I seem to be clear.”

“What kind of cancer was it?” And damn if his gaze didn’t go straight to her breasts. Probably unintentionally. But he was, after all, on the make. Most likely had breasts on the brain.

“Yep. That’s the one. Breast cancer.” She watched color rise in his face. And because of what she’d been through, of what she’d learned from dealing with the people who loved her, she knew she couldn’t live with herself if she just dropped that bomb and watched him scurry away in embarrassment. Or have him blame Terrie for putting him in such a spot.

“Terrie doesn’t know,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning in. “As you can imagine, it’s something I’ve kept pretty close to the vest. In the fashion business, you don’t want to be seen as anything but vigorous and healthy.” She touched his arm with a tentative smile. “Being in business yourself, you would understand that in a way few people could.”

Her words took a moment to register, but he returned her smile with a newfound equilibrium. Keeping up a face for the business—that he understood. After a moment, Steph sensed his discomfort melting into a more human bit of concern.

“And it’s been such a lovely wedding,” she continued. “I’d hate for my news to spoil it for Cassie, or Terrie and Rick.”

“I won’t say anything,” he said, giving her hand on his sleeve a pat. “Hey, how about a refill on that mimosa?”

And just like that, Muskrat Bob became an insider in the biggest secret of her life. He actually came back to sit beside her, and as the table filled up around them, he became a fount of good-natured blather and appealingly awful puns. It turned into a fairly enjoyable wedding brunch.

Until the toasts.

The first was the maid of honor’s retelling of the bride and groom’s meeting, so sweet it should have had diabetic warnings before and after. Then came the parental “welcome to the family” speeches, complete with reminiscences of childhoods and declarations of destined love. Cassie and Jason were perfect for each other, completed each other, enlarged and encouraged each other. Boxes of tissues covertly made the rounds.

With each testimony, Steph felt a little more estranged and out of place. She adored Cassie and Terrie and their family, but all the talk of fated love and happily-ever-after was too much just now. Memories of her own checkered romantic past—of “almosts” that never became “for always”—began to scramble for attention in her head.

When yet another bridesmaid took the microphone, she gave Bob’s hand a pat and excused herself to go to the restroom. Reaching the porch of the Red Setter, she kept moving. Once on the bark-lined path that snaked among the various lodges and cabins, she glanced down at her flat shoes and deemed them sturdy enough for some walking, then struck off on the road around the lake.

Wind rustled leaves, sunlight dappled the ground beneath the newly greened trees, and the tart, earthy scents of the warming spring worked a calming magic. When she emerged into a sunny spot on the path, the contrast of warm sun and cool breeze on her exposed skin made it feel like the loveliest day ever. She appreciated such things more now. The simple acts of walking and breathing the crisp, clean air were pure pleasure.

Then her brain started to work.

Romance. True love. The happiness in Cassie’s face. Why hadn’t Steph ever felt so happy, so fulfilled, so sure of someone’s love?

The answer, as she’d come to see it over the last year, was that she’d been too busy making money, making a name for herself and making good on the promise that her parents, professors and early business associates had seen in her. She’d always put love and relationships second, because there would be time for that later.

Well, now it was “later.” And she had one and a half breasts, an uncertain future, and a baggage train longer than most of the men she had considered too “entangled” to get involved with.

How long Steph walked, trying to lose herself in nature, she couldn’t have said, but when she heard the voices, her cheeks were warm and her shoes were rubbing in places that said “too long.” She rounded a bend in the path and spotted a number of women thirty or forty yards away, at the water’s edge, wearing tan vests and a variety of hats and caps. They all looked oddly plump, until she realized they were wearing those fishing things—waders.

Edging closer, into the shade of a tree beside the path, she watched them laughing and waving their fishing rods around, seemingly having a great time. A bunch of women who—

A booming male voice made her reassess that thought. She quickly located a tall man who was giving and getting hugs galore, and bantering with the women. There were a couple of other men present, but none as large and memorable as that one…especially when he threw back his head in a deep, finger-tingling laugh that rolled across the grassy space between them to make her heart skip.

She knew that laugh, that voice, that man. It was Finn Hartley, the guy she’d dated in Phoenix before moving her headquarters to Atlanta.

She braced herself against the tree and took a deep breath, stunned by the impact of seeing him again. How could he be here now, at Greer Lodge? And why was he hugging all those women?

Hugging. Suddenly she recalled in a heart-stopping flashback the size and strength of his arms, the warmth of his big body, the comfort of being clasped in his embrace. He was hugging those women. All of them. As she watched, her eyes began to burn. She wrapped her arms around her waist. Her very skin felt hungry for touch. She wanted one of those hugs. She needed—oh, God, how she needed—somebody to wrap warm arms around her and just hold her.