The Sometime Bride

Chapter Six

“Excuse me,” Carrie said, abruptly pushing back her chair. “I’m going to powder my nose.”

Thank God, Carrie could hear herself thinking. Thank God, thank God, thank God! If that maître d’ hadn’t interrupted just in the nick of time, who knew what would have happened?

Carrie knew exactly.

She pushed her way into the ladies room and made a beeline for the faucet, where she ran the water cold.

Get a grip, Carrie, she warned herself sternly, dousing some paper towels and dabbing them at her neckline and brow. Water streamed from her neck to cleavage, reminding her of the effect Mike Davis had inspired at the pool. What was it with this man and water! Every time Carrie thought of him…

Carrie looked up into the mirror and found her face a heated flush

And this was supposed to make things all better? Getting tangled up with someone new when her heart hadn’t even had half a chance to heal was going to somehow alleviate the ache in her life?

Carrie shook her head at the woman in the mirror. Plain old girl from Virginia was right. To look at her now, no one would ever suspect her worldly sophistication. They’d liken her, in fact, to some high school hayseed, fallen right off the turnip truck.



Mike sat at the table, dumbfounded. This had to be the longest nose-powdering in history, he thought, staring down at his and Carrie’s lukewarm entrees.

She’d agreed to let him place the orders, but then had bolted like a minnow in the path of a manta ray.

Mike racked his brain for something—anything—he could have done wrong, but all he came up with was that “almost” kiss. Now, if he had kissed her and botched it miserably, he would have understood her wanting to take flight. But he hadn’t even gotten his chance. And, no matter what excuses she planned to offer to the contrary—and Mike was quite certain that was what she was doing at the moment, concocting excuses—there’d been that unmistakable look in her eye that said she’d wanted him to take it.

Mike had been with plenty of women, enough of them to know when one wanted kissing and wanted it badly. Was it really possible all his years of training could fail him now?

Mike stood from the table, thinking he should go check on her. As far as he knew, Carrie didn’t own a black Jaguar to escape in, but Mike supposed it was possible that Carrie could decide to run out on him just as Alexia had.

Mike was just rounding the corner where trellised vines climbed heavenward when he ran smack into Carrie.

“I was just coming to check on you,” he said when she halted in surprise.

“Sorry,” she said with a trembling smile. “I had to collect myself.”

“You doing all right?” Mike asked with concern.

Carrie looked at him, then pursed her lips to keep them steady.

“Carrie?”

Her eyes fell to the ground as she slowly shook her head. “It’s no use, Mike,” she said, her voice cracking up. “This whole charade is—”

“Who says it’s all a charade?” Mike asked, stepping forward and taking her by the elbows.

“Mike,” she said, looking up and trying her damndest to look tough. Be in control. But Mike could see Carrie St. John was no more in control of her own racing heart than he was of his. “This thing, this arrangement, simply isn’t going to work.”

“Says who?” he asked, stepping closer as a couple of departing diners scooted around them on the pathway. “Did you find that on some literature in the ladies’?”

Carrie heaved a sigh without smiling, but he could tell she was loosening up.

“Or perhaps,” he said, sliding his arms around her waist and tugging her into his rock-solid frame, “you found something disparaging written about me on the bathroom walls?”

Carrie looked up at the impossible man and shook her head, trying to deflect the comfort of his humor, trying to make herself believe that nothing Mike Davis could say could possibly make things seem any better.

Mike reached out and tilted her chin. “None of it’s true, Carrie,” he said, his mouth closing in. “Except for maybe the part about me being a good time…”

Carrie’s knees went weak at that thought, as his overpoweringly male scent washed over her in ocean waves.

Trying to fight her natural attraction to Mike Davis, she decided, was a losing battle.

And when he claimed her mouth with his, she knew it wasn’t only battles they were talking. They were playing for the highest stakes. Every ounce of her hurting interior was at war with what her body was doing. Reveling in, encouraging, his bittersweet, luxurious kisses. Carrie wasn’t even sure it was legal to kiss that well. Especially in the state of Virginia. Where exactly was that turnip truck, anyway? Carrie wondered, feeling herself spiral further and further away into the magic of Mike’s embrace.

“Carrie,” Mike said, pulling back, “maybe we ought to find someplace more private…”

A fanning burn in her throat prevented her from answering. She was hot and tipsy, his raging fire still tearing through her like the strongest scotch whiskey. And this was a drink she wanted straight up. No ice.

Mike bucked as the icy chill raced through his sports coat and centered in on his spine.

“Oh! Oh, my goodness!” the befuddled voice called behind him as a hard metallic clank echoed from somewhere near his feet. Cold water sloshed forward, followed by a parade of ice cubes. Mike whirled to find the red-faced young woman who’d just poured her champagne bucket down his back.

“Oh, gracious!” she continued to babble, kneeling to scoop the miraculously intact bottle of champagne of the brick walk. “I’m so sorry! Must have run straight into—”

From just over his shoulder, a woman erupted in raucous laughter.

Mike spun to find Carrie cupping a hand over her mouth as her whole upper body quaked with mirth.

If only he’d known what she’d been thinking! What was it about Mike Davis, Carrie wondered, that always seemed to attract him to water? Or vice versa, Carrie thought, exploding once again in giggles.

Mike ignored the woman at his feet, busily scooping ice cubes back into her silver bucket, and kept a watchful eye on Carrie as he stealthily removed his dripping sports coat and shook it out at arm’s length.

“Feeling all better, I see,” he said, cocking one eyebrow and looking— what? Carrie wondered—amused at her amusement?

“Sir, I—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mike said, nearly deaf to the stranger’s apologies as he stooped to gather ice cubes and toss the cleaner ones back into the bucket. “Accidents happen.” But what had happened between him and Carrie just now hadn’t been an accident at all. For the briefest moment, she’d been all his. And it had been wonderful. So wonderful he’d been itching to continue things on an even more intimate level back in his room. And now—this.

Finally, their embarrassed interloper straightened and made off with her champagne. Carrie, Mike noticed, still looked as if she was going to burst into hysterics at any moment.

“I—” She sputtered a laugh, then stopped and collected herself. “I am feeling much better, thank you. But you’re—all wet…”

“Nothing that I haven’t been before,” he assured her, holding up his jacket to examine it in the moonlight. “I’m sure my clothing and I will survive.”

To her embarrassment, Carrie’s stomach growled loudly.

“Still hungry?” Mike asked, feeling for the ice cube that had wedged itself between his belt and waistband at the small of his back and plucking it free.

Carrie giggled again as he offered it as further proof of his ordeal.

Carrie lifted the ice cube from his palm and hurled it into the darkness. “Starved. But how about you? Don’t you think you’d better, uh…change?”

“Change?” Mike grinned. “Thought you were starting to like me just the way I am.”

Carrie felt herself color from head to toe. “You, Mike Davis, are—”

He cocked one eyebrow and waited.

“—a very nice man,” she finished, feeling renewed heat in her cheeks.

Mike chuckled and brought a tender hand to her face. “Ah, Carrie. Yes. And you, my dear, are very—sweet.”

Mike leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the forehead, something akin to affection sparkling in his eyes. No man had ever looked at Carrie like that before. With hunger, anticipation, yes. But this was a different sort of appreciation altogether, and it warmed her through and through.

“Want to see if dinner’s still on the table?” he asked, taking her hand.

“Great idea,” Carrie said, wondering what on earth was happening to her. This wasn’t love. At least, not like she’d ever known it. Carrie St. John was falling “in like” with a man who looked like a god, and neither her heart nor her head knew precisely what to make of that.