Читать книгу Rescued by a Wedding: Texas Wedding / A Marriage Between Friends - Kathleen O'Brien - Страница 12

NEWLYWEDS, Trent decided as he watched Chase and Josie try to assemble the new crib, were disgusting. They should be locked up for the first full calendar year, so they didn’t drive everyone else crazy with their cuddles and kisses and lingering looks of hungry adoration.

Of course, technically Trent and Susannah were newlyweds, too. But that was different. Night and day different.

It was a bright Sunday afternoon, the last weekend in May, and the two couples had been working on the nursery at the Double C for the past two hours. Well, at least Trent and Susannah had been working. Chase and Josie got very little done, seemingly magnetized to one another. Chase couldn’t pass within six feet of his new wife without scooping her into his arms for a cuddle. Josie couldn’t hand him the screwdriver without ending up kissing his neck.

Susannah and Trent, on the other hand, seemed to exist in two separate universes, even when they were standing mere inches apart. In the past two hours, Susannah had met Trent’s eyes only once, the moment he arrived. Her shock had been almost palpable. She obviously hadn’t realized, when she agreed to help Josie today, that it would be a double date.

Trent had glanced at Chase. Good try, pal, he’d messaged silently. Chase had shrugged, his smile not admitting anything.

Though Susannah was clearly unhappy about the arrangement, she couldn’t be accused of being rude. She worked hard. She laughed at Chase’s jokes, and oohed over Josie’s fluffy lamb mobiles and lamb border stencils and lamb-patterned sheets.

It was only Trent who got the invisible man treatment. She talked around him, walked around him, worked around him without skipping a beat.

“Hey, guys. Would you mind working on the stencil border while we assemble the mobile?” Chase wrapped one arm around Josie’s waist. “I don’t want Josie in here with the paint fumes. Not good for the baby.”

Trent gazed over at Susannah, who frowned. He wondered how she was going to get out of this one.

“Do you really think that needs to be done today?” She smiled to soften the words. “The baby’s not due till mid-September, and it’s not even June yet.”

Trent felt her frustration. Back at Everly, peaches were ripening on the trees in record numbers. She’d spent every day of the past month trying to line up buyers. Tomorrow the harvest would begin, with its harrowing fourteen-hour days. Susannah wouldn’t have another free Sunday until late August.

Josie grinned, unabashed. “I know. But I just can’t wait to see it. I’m so grateful that you guys are willing to help. It means so much to both of us.”

Trent glanced at Chase, who beamed and planted a kiss on the top of her head, as if she’d said something marvelous.

Man, the guy was gone on his wife. He clearly didn’t know how to deny her anything. If she’d wanted the baby’s room decorated in angel feathers and bits of the pearly gates, Chase would have driven his truck up to Heaven’s door and demanded they sell him some.

“Okay, then, we’ll be in the study if you need us.” Chase apparently had decided to take Susannah’s silence as a yes. That was absurd, of course. Chase had been Susannah’s best friend since they were babies, and he knew as well as Trent what her frozen face really meant. “Have fun.”

They ambled off, still entwined, still teasing each other, still making silly kissing noises between sentences. When they finally disappeared, Trent turned to Susannah with a smile.

“Wow. You could get cavities, just being in the same room with all that sugar.”

She didn’t smile back. “I think it’s sweet.”

“My point exactly. Sweet like six banana splits and a double hot fudge sundae. Stomachache sweet.”

She studied the stencil. “They’re happy. That’s what marriage is all about. Most marriages, anyhow.” She turned and held the stencil up against the wall, studying it. “I think it’s great.”

Well, of course she did. Whatever Trent thought, she thought the opposite. If he said go, she’d stop. If he said silence she’d sing.

If he said, Come here, Sue, because I want to make love to you until you forget how to be such a bitch…

She’d run.

And, obviously, neither of them would ever forget that this should have been their own sugary bliss. The look in Susannah’s eyes said it all. If Trent hadn’t cheated on her, they would have been the kissing, cooing newlyweds.

She had wanted that, once. Trent knew it had been her most comforting dream. It had helped her endure the loss of her parents, and her grandfather’s brutality.

And he’d killed it.

She would never forgive him for that. Hell, he’d never forgive himself.

But life went on, damn it. Why couldn’t she let go of the past long enough to get through this year without adding more misery to the heaping load they already carried around?

“So let’s see how this works.” He plucked the stencil from her fingers. “Ummm…” He turned it in all directions, trying to figure out how exactly this collection of random slits in a wobbly plastic rectangle was going to end up looking like anything. “Sorry, but…what the hell?”

In spite of her obvious belief that cracking a smile in his presence would usher in the end of the world, he saw the corner of her mouth tuck back.

“It’s a simple stencil, really. Just one color, just one layer. See? You press the stencil against the wall, then sponge over it with paint. What comes through will look like a lamb.”

“Really.” He squinted. It would, he thought, probably help to be drunk. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

But she didn’t seem to be listening anymore. When he glanced toward her, he was rewarded with a close-up of her tight, round ass. She’d bent over and begun squeezing blobs of white acrylic paint onto the plates that waited on the bright blue drop cloth.

He took a minute to enjoy the sight. Expecting to work hard—and definitely not expecting to see Trent—she’d dressed casually today. Instead of her regular tailored khaki slacks and oxford cloth shirt, she was wearing cutoff blue jeans, frayed up to the danger zone, and a tiny white halter top.

Eleven years ago, he would have grabbed her in both hands and pulled her in for an X-rated squeeze that would have put Chase and Josie to shame. They would have ended up laughing, stumbling and probably covered in white paint.

Today, they lived under new laws. He gave himself that one stolen minute to look, and then turned away before she sensed the heat of his gaze.

“The border goes along the edge of the ceiling, I suppose?” There were still two ladders in the room, from when Trent and Chase had painted the baby-blue walls two weeks ago, and they’d obviously been left for a reason.

She stood on tiptoe to investigate. “Yeah. Chase already drew the guidelines, so we don’t have to worry about spacing. You can start over by the closet. I’ll start by the door.”

Her gaze dropped to his calf, which still had a bandage over Marchant’s six stitches. “Unless…” She waved toward the injury. “If you’d rather not…”

He laughed. “You think I’ve developed a fear of ladders?”

“Probably not.” She actually smiled at that.

For about twenty minutes they worked in silence, atop their own perches on opposite sides of the room. He taped the stencil in place, sponged the paint onto the wall, then moved the stencil and began again.

The lambs looked blobby.… Was he using too much paint? His hands felt too big, mostly thumbs. Though he’d done only five lambs, he was already bored.

He glanced back to see how her wall was coming.

Far better than his, naturally. She had so much more control, so much more patience. He was restless, physical, more comfortable outdoors. He’d always marveled at her ability to sit quietly, to wait, to think things through, to stay on task.

He had none of that. Which was, of course, why he’d botched up his life for so long, making one impulsive mistake after another. What patience he had acquired had come at great cost…and it still didn’t come naturally.

He climbed down, moved his ladder and filled his plate with white paint. He climbed up again, ignoring the twinge in his stitches, and taped the stencil in place. Just before he touched the sponge to the wall, he noticed that he’d taped the lamb upside down.

In spite of his annoyance, he had to laugh. Josie was going to regret letting him get involved with this. “Hey. Remember when Nikki decided she wanted unicorns all over her walls?”

He wasn’t surprised when Susannah didn’t immediately answer. Normally, they avoided “Remember when” as a conversation starter. But he’d spoken without thinking, of course. And besides, damn it, he was tired of pretending that ten years of intimacy and fun hadn’t existed, just because they’d ended in one night of disaster.

She must have decided the same thing, because after only a brief hesitation, she chuckled, too.

“I hope that doesn’t mean what I think it means.” She put down her sponge and twisted her head to see his border. “Have you screwed up already?”

“Yeah. I almost put one on upside down.” He leaned back to let her get a full view of the mess. “Is the paint supposed to drip like that? My lambs look sort of…deformed.”

She frowned, studying his line of white, puffy animals. “It’s not too bad,” she said finally. “You’re using too much paint, that’s all. I can probably go back with the blue and touch it up.”

“Oh.” He stared at his row of lambs, as if they’d betrayed him. “Darn.”

“Darn? You wanted me to say they were awful?”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “I was hoping you’d order me to surrender my sponge immediately.”

“Nope.” She dabbed her own sponge into the white paint. “Sorry. And don’t go making it worse deliberately, just to get out of it. It didn’t work with the unicorns, did it?”

It certainly hadn’t. At five, Nikki had been in love with unicorns, and she’d begged Susannah, Trent, Paul and Chase—who, at nineteen, still called themselves the Fugitive Four—to paint the creatures on her bedroom walls.

Ever sensible, Susannah found a picture to copy, but unfortunately none of the boys had an iota of artistic talent. Trent’s contributions were the worst, looking like everything from rhinos to car keys…but never like unicorns.

Nikki, who at the time was crazy about Trent, adored the weird creations. She egged him on, encouraging him to make them ever wilder, despite Susannah’s frustrated efforts to keep everyone copying the pattern.

Chase and Paul joined in the fun, abandoning the original design without regret. It took a while, but by the end of the day even Sue relented and began adding inventive flourishes to her unicorns, too.

The result was colorful madness, but it had been so joyous, a visible representation of the love and creative camaraderie that had existed among the four friends. It had been one of their happiest days.

They’d all been crushed when, two days later, Arlington Everly had sent one of the ranch hands up to paint over it with a bland eggshell white. It had taken four coats to cover it all, which had given them an irrational sense of pride.

“Okay, but if my lambs all look like unicorns, let it be on your head.” He tapped the sponge against the edge of the plate, making sure it didn’t soak up too much paint. “That was a fun day, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t look at Susannah, but he could feel her tension all the way across the room. He could almost hear her thoughts. She was trying to calculate risk, vulnerability, exposure. Was it too dangerous to agree that yes, she, too, remembered that day with pleasure? Was she somehow in danger if she admitted that, on that one day, they had been happy?

“Yes,” she said finally. “Yes, it was a beautiful day.”

He waited, wondering whether she’d find a way to erase the tenderness with an extra comment. A great day, and isn’t it too bad that you had to go and spoil it all? A great day, but only because we didn’t know how soon Paul would be dead.

She didn’t. The gentle sound of her “yes” hung in the air, untouched. When he looked up, she had already gone back to swabbing the stencil with her sponge.

It wasn’t much. But somehow it felt like a victory.

Suddenly Josie came into the room, holding Trent’s cell phone in one outstretched hand. She crossed the room quickly and stopped at the foot of his ladder.

“It must have fallen off when you and Chase were assembling the bookcase,” she said. “It was ringing, so I answered it for you. It’s Missy Snowdon? She said it was urgent.”

Chase appeared in the doorway, holding the fuzzy pieces of the mobile he’d obviously been putting together. The look on his face was priceless. Josie’s hand wavered, as if she realized she’d goofed, though she wasn’t sure how.

Trent had to enjoy the irony. Though Chase must have told Josie at least some details of Trent and Susannah’s problems, apparently he had withheld the piece about Trent sleeping with Missy Snowdon. To protect Trent’s reputation, no doubt.

What a joke. Once again, fate proved that hiding the truth didn’t work. Secrets simply wouldn’t stay buried.

He took the telephone, because, in the end, what else could he do?

He glanced once at Susannah.

He shouldn’t have.

“Hello, Missy,” he said in an even tone. “Is everything all right?”

“Not really,” her arch, sexy voice responded. “My old friend Maxy isn’t answering my calls or returning my messages. Here I am, between love affairs and between cocktails, just looking to get together with an old friend, and he won’t give me the time of day. I can’t figure out why that would be. Can you?”

“It’s pretty simple.” Trent watched Susannah’s face, which had hardened into a sardonic indifference that he was pretty sure he recognized. Had she learned that look from him? “I don’t know if you heard. I just got married.”

“Oh, I heard. Everyone’s talking about it. But it’s not that kind of marriage, is it? Word on the street is that she still hates your guts. Sounds like you need a little TLC just as much as I do. And by TLC I mean, touching, licking—”

“Missy.” God almighty. She was drunk, and it was only, what…about three in the afternoon? Poor, beautiful Missy Snowdon. He could have predicted she’d find the real world to be so much harder than high school.

Pity softened his voice. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be able to help you with that. But it was nice of you to call.”

Susannah made a low, disgusted noise. She dropped her sponge in the paint, wiped her hands on her shorts and began backing down the ladder.

“Come on, Maxy,” Missy wheedled. “I hear she won’t sleep with you, even though she promised she would. And I know you. You can’t go a year—”

“I’m sorry, but I’m just not available right now. It was good to talk to you. Take care of yourself.”

He flipped the phone shut, though she kept talking. He wondered if, when she realized he was gone, she’d call right back. Just in case, he turned the phone to silent mode.

He looked at Susannah, who was watching him, as rigid as an ice mannequin. She smiled slightly, as if she found his predicament amusing, but the frost in her eyes said something different.

Without warning, anger bubbled up, like a geyser that had been dormant so long he’d almost forgotten it was there.

Was it his fault Missy Snowdon needed a man and had decided to become Trent’s own personal stalker? He hadn’t touched the redhead in almost eleven years, for God’s sake. Was there no such thing as forgiveness? No Get Out of Jail card in the game of Susannah Everly’s life?

He was a bloody fool. Why was he trying to make this goddamn marriage work? She wasn’t ever going to forgive him. She wasn’t ever going to forget. Maybe, over the years, she’d lost whatever sweetness and humanity she’d once possessed.

And if she had nothing to offer him but ice and hatred, why the hell shouldn’t he take what Missy Snowdon had to offer? He was tired of guilt, tired of loneliness, tired of wearing sackcloth and ashes while he beat his fists against Susannah’s locked door.

Missy might be a drunk, but at least she wasn’t a walking textbook of resentment, repression and every emotional issue known to man.

And she got pleasure from making a man feel good, not out of making him feel like shit.

He glanced at the phone, thinking how good it would feel to thumb it open and hit Redial, right here, while Susannah watched with that supercilious look on her face. That “I know you’re a bastard” look, which, paradoxically, just made him want to prove her right.

“Trent.” Chase’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Pal. Think it through.”

Trent glanced up. Chase looked worried, but steady. No pressure, which he knew from long experience wouldn’t work with Trent at a moment like this. Just a reminder that sanity was still an option.

It was a look that had stopped Trent from doing a lot of dumb things through the years.

Trent took a breath. Then he slowly slid the cell phone into his back pocket.

He glanced toward Susannah, wondering if she knew how close he’d come.

But she had already left the room.