It took Cass a few minutes to get over her niggling conscience and head into the back room where Hayne was supposed to have set up the flowers for tomorrow’s wedding. No doubt it would be a mess of untold proportions.
Except it wasn’t.
She stared in awe at the twelve basket-stand arrangements, perfectly arranged into works of art. Bouquets were set, beribboned beautifully, alongside boutonnières that could have been die-cut. Cass stayed there for a long time, staring at those flowers and wondering if there was any way at all tomorrow wouldn’t be a disaster, even if the wedding went off without a hitch.
Especially then.
Burke sat on the edge of his bed, watching the sun come up while sipping coffee. He hadn’t gotten much sleep, but he’d done quite a bit of thinking. Considering how much he did regularly, that was saying something. In the end, he came to a conclusion he didn’t want to be having.
He was a shallow man.
He’d never harbored the delusion he was a nice man or even a pleasant one, but he did like to imagine he was a decent one with a modicum of depth. But he wasn’t. He was as superficial as the next guy. Just as idiotic, too.
For twenty-some years, he’d managed to overlook the most amazing woman he’d ever have the privilege of knowing. Sure, he’d gotten to know everything there was to know about her, but he hadn’t
seen
her. Not the way she should have been seen. No, he had to wait until she was buck-naked in his bathroom. Until she was a butterfly escaping her cocoon. Of course, by then, he was the jerk trying to stuff her back in; afraid this massive change in her would change everything.
But dyeing her hair hadn’t changed the elements of Cassandra Bishop. Elements he finally realized why he hadn’t taken any deeper looks at over the years. If he had, he’d have known long ago that she owned him.
He mulled over Cass’s plan to become someone else most of the night, still wondering why she couldn’t be happy with what she was. That had stuck in his craw the most. He knew well and good she had every right to change things about herself, knew part of his irritation had to do with his utter distaste for change. Most of it, really. You could never change just one thing and if you were dumb enough to think you could, you learned the hard way that things would never be the same again. Of course Cass didn’t listen to his warnings. Cass never did.
Which was how it happened.
That one thought made everything click into place, almost audibly snapping together. No matter what she did to herself, he finally realized, she hadn’t changed at all. She still had the same smile, the same skin, the same laugh. The devilish glint in her eyes hadn’t gone anywhere. She still argued without logic and wrestled like a wildcat. All she had done was start showing parts of herself he hadn’t seen before. Her legs, her figure, her sensuality, her femininity.
Her heart.
And it was his.
It was about three a.m. when he remembered what she said about Luke never being the right one in her life. That it should have been him. It was always him. She didn’t love Luke. She never loved Luke.
She loved
him
. Somehow, some miraculous way, Cass loved him, perks, quirks and all. Sleep refused to come after his epiphany. Peace even more elusive. The truth chanted constantly until he accepted the next logical part of the equation. He loved her, too.
It took a while to sink in, as she said it would. He stared up at the ceiling, seeing only the many phases he’d seen her through in her life. Every smile, every wink, every laugh…they were all special to him. Precious. Even the tears she cried for another man, because she came to
him
to cry them. How many times had he ever laughed without her? How often did he enjoy anything unless he was imagining what she would think of it?
Had he ever
not
loved her?
It explained so much. Things he’d rather not have admitted. That he was a jealous ass. An unforgivable schmuck. He’d even managed to make her think it took her makeover to make her attractive to him and still she loved him.
He didn’t deserve her—about the only part of his thinking these last two weeks that was spot on—but he wanted her. He needed her. He loved her, and damn it, they belonged together. Finally at dawn, he walked into his bathroom and began to plan how to make it all up to her.
First, he’d let her get through the wedding from hell. Let her show the entire town what they had been missing and skipping. Watch her make Luke Hanson swallow his own tongue, turn every head in town so they could finally see what even he had ignored far too long.
Then he’d make his move.
Saturday morning. The sun shone, the birds sang and the church filled to overflowing. In more ways than one.
“Should you be here?” Burke asked the blonde next to him. She was squinting one eye and holding the back of the pew in front of them with a grip guaranteed to rip the wood apart.
“Oh sure,” she huffed, not in the least reassuring.
“Alice…most people go to the hospital when they’re in labor.”
She shuddered a little, releasing a breath before shocking the hell out of him by smiling. “It took me eighteen hours to have Reva and this one hasn’t even broken her water. Trust me, I’m fine.”
“Should you be in pain this early?” He eyed her nervously. So far nothing had burst out of her chest or anywhere else.
She shrugged. “This kid is a week overdue. There’s no such thing as early. Got any crackers? I’m hungry.”
Burke tried to look around her to her husband on her other side, but it wasn’t so easy. “Are you timing these things?”
Sel leaned as far forward as he could. “They’re eight minutes apart. She’s right, we have plenty of time before Junior makes his appearance.”
“
Her
appearance,” Alice corrected.
“No, you won the coin toss on the last kid. I get to pick this one.” Sel patted Alice’s black-silk covered belly affectionately. She smiled back, her hand still rubbing her protruding belly on the other side. “Besides, there’s no way we were going to miss seeing this disaster.”
“You two are sick.” Burke ran his hand through his hair, telling himself he wasn’t nervous. Just because the wedding was supposed to start in five minutes and Cass still wasn’t here.
“No, we got fifty bucks on it in the bar pool. We wanna see our money quadruple.” Sel laughed, making Burke turn back to him in surprise.
Alice started hee-heeing again, this time her stomach rippling visibly under the silk. “Whoa, she’s not liking these,” she muttered to no one in particular.
“That wasn’t eight minutes, Sel.” Burke tried to quell the panic rising inside. He was still wrapping his head around love. He was
not
prepared for birth.
The couple ignored him. Sel put an arm around his wife, whispering something in her ear while they both stared at his watch. For being in the middle of a church while most of the town milled around them, it was remarkably intimate.
Well, until Alice let loose a wail of pain he never would have imagined coming from the former firefighter. Then
everyone
turned to look at them and intimacy was the last thing to worry about.
“I’d say that’s a clue to get out of here,” Sel said with a chuckle, despite his face being etched with concern. “Can you stand?”
“No. I’m here for the duration,” she said through her teeth. “I think the baby just put this delivery on fast forward.”
“They can do that?” Burke asked, shocked into standing up.
“She can do whatever the hell she wants. Oh,
God!”
Alice rocked forward, her face turning red with exertion.
“Angel, we gotta get you out of here—”
“Hey!”
Burke spun around to find a somewhat less bruised Luke Hanson standing behind him in a tuxedo with blotchy cheeks most likely not brought on by joy for the happy event trying to take place. “You can’t have that baby here! I’m about to get married!”
Alice and Sel looked up with wide eyes. Alice’s narrowed.
Burke’s closed. This could get ugly.
“It’s not like I can stop it, Luke,” she said through gritting teeth.
“You can get up and go to the hospital like any sane person would.” Luke’s attempt at a stage whisper was at least appropriate. The entire town
was
watching him make an ass out of himself.
“Oh, yeah, I’d like to see you pick up forty pounds of baby and water while
your
body tries to turn itself into a pretzel!”
“Look,” Burke interrupted. It was only the matter of another exchange before Sel got into it and it probably wasn’t a good idea to get arrested for murder the same day your baby is born. “Luke, you get someone to call nine-one-one. Sel, you and I are going to carry Alice into the pastor’s office where she can lay down. Does that sound amenable to everyone?” He didn’t wait for the grumbles to become affirmative. “Good. Alice, let’s see if we can get you on your feet, okay?”
She nodded, something for which Burke decided to be eternally grateful. Taking her hand while Sel reinforced her from behind, they got her up. A few steps to the side and they’d be able to whisk her out with hardly any more of a scene. Finally moving past the end of the pew, Alice smiled at Burke with a bit of pride. Maybe those contractions had settled a little.
“Uh-oh,” she said, before nearly breaking his hand—probably Sel’s, too—and shuddering with another contraction. This time, however, the shout of agony wasn’t hers. Neither was the swearing.
“My shoes! Oh my God, she peed on my shoes!” Luke yelled, stepping back from the puddle that had burst from her.
“Her water broke, you idiot,” came a crotchety old female voice from the crowd. Laughter rippled through the church.
“Oops,” Alice said breathlessly, a sheen of moisture shining on her face. Funny, but until that moment Burke never realized how pretty she was.
“Let’s get you somewhere you can relax, angel.” Sel lifted her while Burke cleared people away and led them to the office behind the pulpit. There was a couch in there where she could wait for the paramedics. Burke only hoped it was soundproof.
He closed the door and was all set to go back to his seat when he finally saw what he was waiting for, bringing his heart to a thudding stop.
She stood right inside the church double doors looking like something out of an Audrey Hepburn film. From somewhere she had gotten a wide-brim white hat that tilted over one eye, her auburn hair pulled tight and tucked into it. The black edge of the brim blended with the oversize opaque sunglasses. All he could see of her face was her perfect skin and the rich red of her lips. It was all he needed to breathe easy.
Not that the rest wasn’t a treat.
The dress should have been outlawed, but managed to be classy. Or maybe it was her. White, with thin straps, it fit over every curve like it was painted on. Heart shaped over her breasts, it revealed enough sun-kissed skin to make every man in the building race for a confessional. Her waist looked tiny, circled by a thick, patent-leather belt—black, styled like the hat edge. The skirt came all the way to her knees with yet another black border, but the slits on each side both went up a good four inches. Enough room for his hand to slip inside and reach for heaven.
He’d have to remember for later.
The black heels were high enough to put her eye to eye with him, strappy things that should by all rights be falling off. He liked the black kid gloves and parasol. No one remembered old time glamour anymore. She must have talked to May Belle again because there was no way the dress wasn’t vintage. But he admitted his first impression of it was wrong. It wasn’t an Audrey Hepburn. It was definitely a Marilyn.
He must have been staring there for some time because he was startled by the sound of the organist tuning up. Most of the other people had finally taken seats, leaving Cass standing in the aisle looking back at him. She smiled, a wide smile filled to the brim with sensuality.
If he wasn’t in love with her already, he’d have fallen right that second and not given a damn. And she knew it, the brat.
Strolling toward the front of the pews, she found an empty seat and asked if she could take it. Judging by the vast amounts of whispering, no one in the church knew who she was. Burke smiled and moved past the groomsmen lining up to go back to his seat. He passed Luke with a pat on his shoulder. “Good luck, Hanson.”
“Yeah, like I need it. CB didn’t even show up.” Luke snickered to his friends, scuffing his feet on the carpet to dry them. “I hope you have your pink slip, Halifax.”
Burke patted his breast pocket. “Right here, with Cass’s name all over it.” He headed back to his seat still grinning. The poor bastard would never see it coming.
Chapter Twelve
Cass locked her posture, her back straight as a board despite the temptation to slump into the pew like everyone else. People kept staring at her, most likely trying to see past her sunglasses. How funny, she grew up with most of these folks and none of them seemed to have a clue who she was. A few might have their suspicions since they’d probably seen her on her way to her practice dates at Burke’s, but either they weren’t talking or they hadn’t put it all together yet. It was kind of nice to be the mystery woman.