Eternal Vows (Hideaway (Kimani)) (7 page)

“No,” she said much too quickly. “It’s going to be a while before I think of becoming a mother. This little muffin will only hang with me until the music begins. Then she’s going to bed. Maybe we can get together later and talk.”

“I’d like that,” Celia replied. She looked around for Gavin. “I gotta go before I lose my husband and brother in this crowd.” There were approximately two hundred people at her wedding, and there had to be more than twice that number at Blackstone Farms.

* * *

Celia caught up with Nicholas in the dining tent. Round tables were covered with white linen. Folding chairs, swathed in white organza, were tied with either black or red satin ribbon, representing the farm’s silks. Mouthwatering smells from grilled and smoked meat wafted in the warm summer night, mingling with the scent of charcoal and seasoned wood chips. Serving pans, labeled with their contents of hot and cold dishes lined dozens of tables under two enormous food tents.

She saw roasted corn, pulled pork and roast beef, baby back ribs, brisket, baked beans, coleslaw, potato salad, smoked and deep-fried turkey, baked ham, barbecue chicken, southern fried chicken, hush puppies, fried green tomatoes, grilled asparagus, macaroni and cheese, collard greens and sweet potato pone. And that was only in one tent. A smaller tent had been set aside for beverages, offering wine and cold beer to the adults and ice-cold lemonade to those under the age of twenty-one. The couple manning the beverage station checked anyone who appeared not to be legal drinking age.

She tapped her brother’s shoulder. “Where’s Gavin?”

“He went to bring the drinks. I’ll get us some food, while you get a table.”

Celia nodded. “I’ll make certain to save a seat for Peyton.”

Chapter 5

N
ightfall had descended on Blackstone Farms like a translucent navy blue veil. Those under the age of sixteen were permitted to stay and party until their midnight curfew, while four-year-old Michaela had had a meltdown when her mother attempted to disentangle her from Peyton’s arms. Rather than cause a scene Peyton accompanied Tricia when she drove back to her house. She sat in the sunny-yellow bedroom with images of circus and zoo animals painted on two of the four walls, gently rocking the fretful child. Michaela’s sisters, Elena and Lynette, were sleeping soundly in their beds.

Tricia Blackstone combed her fingers through her curly flyaway hairdo. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with her when the new baby comes.”

Peyton stopped rocking, staring at her cousin’s wife. Registered nurse Tricia had grown up on the farm, falling in love with Jeremy when both were teenagers. They went their separate ways, but were reunited fourteen years later.

“You’re pregnant?”

Tall, full-figured and lushly beautiful Tricia closed her eyes. “Yes.”

“Have you told Jeremy?”

Tricia opened her eyes, nodding. “Yes,” she repeated. “What I’d suspected was confirmed when I took a pregnancy test a couple of hours ago. And before you ask I’ll tell you it wasn’t planned. I told Jeremy that I’m going to make certain
this
will be our last baby.”

“Congratulations.”

She affected a sad smile. “Thank you. I’m telling you right now if I have another multiple birth I’m giving you one.”

Throwing back her head, Peyton laughed. “What are your chances of having another multiple birth?”

“I don’t want to know.” Tricia stood up. “Let me take Michaela so you can get back to the party.”

“I’ll stay with her until she falls asleep.”

“No. You didn’t get all dressed up to babysit. Now go and have some fun.”

Peyton kissed Michaela’s forehead, then handed her off to Tricia. “Nightie, night, sleep tight, and we
don’t
let the bedbugs bite,” she and Michaela chorused.

Peyton returned to the merriment, wending her way along the buffet table, filling a plate with roast chicken, potato salad and a tri-color salad. Rising on tiptoe, she tried to locate the table with Celia and Nicholas but the number of people inside the tent made that impossible. Balancing the plate, she carried it and a cup of fresh-squeezed lemonade to a table with Blackstone Farms employees.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

All of the men jumped to their feet as if they’d choreographed the move. Head trainer, Kevin Manning, pulled out a chair for her. “Sure. Sit down, Doc.”

“Is that all you’re eating?” asked the farrier, pointing a stubby finger at her plate.

“Leave her alone, Rusty,” Kevin admonished. “Doc doesn’t have a bottomless pit for a belly like you.” Potbellied Charlie Scott blushed to the roots of his receding red hairline.

Lowering her head, Peyton bit back a grin. She’d quickly learned there was a farm dining-hall hierarchy. The Blackstones always sat together as did the trainers, grooms, stable hands, carpenters, landscapers, jockeys and security staff.

Her head popped up, and she gave each man a direct stare. All of them, with the exception of Kevin, were single. “You guys look very nice tonight.” Stunned silence followed her compliment. “Well, you do,” she continued. They’d shaved and exchanged their jeans, T-shirts, sweatshirts and boots for dress shirts, slacks, shoes, while a few wore jackets.

Kevin swallowed a mouthful of beer. “They’re all here looking for a girlfriend.”

Peyton’s fork halted in midair. “That shouldn’t be too difficult. After all, Blackstone Farms has the reputation for having the best-looking men and women in horse country.”

A thunderous Boo-Yaw, the farm’s victory’s cry filled the tent. Boo-Yaw had been the farm’s first and only Derby winner.

Kevin nudged Peyton when the cry was repeated. “See what you started?” he teased with a wide grin when Boo-Yaws went up from the opposite end of the tent.

She bit down on a piece of moist, flavorful chicken. “I call it as I see it.” Peyton had discovered many of the single men shunned forming romantic entanglements with the farm’s single women, preferring instead to date women from other farms or those they’d met in high school.

“Yo, Peyton! Come dance with me. The band is sick!” Lee grasped Peyton’s hand, pulling her in the direction of the dance floor. The band returned to the stage after their break, launching into a quintessential dance tune.

It’d become a live concert with an incredible sound system that probably could be heard for miles, flashing lights, fog machine and eight talented musicians and male and female lead singers. It was hard to tell them from the actual artists when they performed Rihanna’s blockbuster hit, “We Found Love.”

The energy was infectious as Peyton twirled and sang along with the female vocalist. Somehow she lost sight of Lee in the throng crowding onto the dance floor. A middle-aged man with a comb-over hairdo gyrated in front of her. Reaching for her hand, he pulled her to his chest. Whenever he opened his mouth the smell of beer washed over her face; it was obvious he’d had too much to drink. The song ended and she managed to extricate herself.

She tried holding her breath. “Thanks for the dance.” He reached for her again, and she turned, bumping into Nicholas. “Hey, baby,” she crooned. “Where were you?” Peyton had to shout for him to hear her.

Wrapping his arms around her waist, Nicholas kissed her hair. “I was looking for you.” He nodded to the obviously disappointed man. “Thanks, man, for keeping an eye on my wife.”

“Where are you going?” she shouted when Nicholas headed out of the tent.

“Somewhere we can talk without having to scream to hear each other.”

She pulled back. “Stop, Nicholas. I have to take off my shoes. I can’t walk on the grass in heels.” He hunkered down, removed one shoe and then the other. Holding the pumps, he held her hand as they walked a distance away.

“Now, isn’t this better?” They could still hear the music from where they stood, but at least it wasn’t ear-shattering. The light from a near-full moon lit up the countryside, competing with the bright flashing lights ringing the portable stage.

Peyton stared up at the star-littered sky. “It is nice. Thanks for rescuing me.”

Nicholas placed her shoes on the grass, then nuzzled her ear. “You owe me.”

She smiled. “The only thing I owe you is a dance.”

Nicholas chuckled. “That you do.” Bowing from the waist, he held out his hand. “May I please have this dance?” Placing her hand in his outstretched one, Peyton placed her other one on his shoulder. The band had segued into a slower selection. “Where had you disappeared to?” he asked. “We were holding a seat for you at our table until we were forced to give it up to a feisty old lady who gave me the business. She was quite vocal when she said ‘there are no reserved chairs here, so give it up, sonny.’ Gavin tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t hold it in. I walked away, leaving Celia to try and placate her.”

“Did she?”

“Thankfully she did, using her best bedside manner.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to eat with you guys, because I went home with Tricia.” Peyton told Nicholas about Michaela throwing a hissy fit. “I’d planned to wait for her to fall asleep, but her mother took over.”

“You looked very comfortable holding her.”

“That’s because I usually babysit my little cousins. We have playdates, tea parties, camp out and of course there’s movie night. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched all of the Disney classics.
Toy Story, Cars, Shrek
and
Finding Nemo
are their favorites. I’ve seen all of them so many times I even know the dialogue.”

“Kids love repetition.”

Peyton gave him a direct stare. “Do you have any children?”

Nicholas pressed his mouth to her ear. “No. Do you?”

“No.”

“Do you want children?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” There had been a time when Peyton wanted what every normal woman wanted: a husband, the house in the country, at least two children and the requisite cat or dog.

“Why don’t you know?”

“I have to try and figure myself out before I can even consider having a child.”

Nicholas wound several strands of moonlit hair around his forefinger. “What’s there to figure out? I have to assume you have your health, a career you’re passionate about and a loving and supportive extended family.”

Peyton closed her eyes. “It’s rather complicated and can’t be explained in ten words or less.”

“I have a leather couch in my office you could use whenever you want to talk.” Her husky laugh caressed Nicholas’s ear. “I’m serious. I’ve been told that I’m a very good listener.”

“How much do you charge to dispense advice?” she teased.

It was his turn to laugh. “Not much.”

“How much is not much, Dr. Cole-Thomas?”

“Let me think about it. Maybe I’ll offer you the family discount.”

“Wouldn’t I have to be family to take advantage of the discount?” she countered.

“Nah! The Thomases and Blackstones are this tight.” He demonstrated by crossing his middle finger over the forefinger.

The piece ended but Nicholas continued to hold Peyton, not wanting to believe how good she felt in his arms. He still hadn’t figured out what it was about her that made him want to keep her at a distance. The first time Sheldon introduced him to Peyton as Dr. Blackstone he’d found himself staring at her in disbelief.

She looked much too young to be Dr. Blackstone, irrespective of the discipline or specialty. With her fresh-scrubbed face, he’d believed she was still in high school. But it was the timbre of her voice that belied her youthful appearance. It was low, modulated and womanly. And her speech pattern was definitively not Southern. Nicholas thought he was a good judge of differentiating speech patterns because in the U.S. Naval Academy he’d interacted with cadets from all fifty states and a few from Puerto Rico and American Samoa. It wasn’t until they’d sat down to dinner that he discovered she’d grown up in upstate New York in a town not far from the Canadian border.

There was only a five-year age difference between them, however, Nicholas felt much older. In his mind she was still a girl when the age on her driver’s license verified she was a twenty-something woman. Only when he watched her come down the garden path as Celia’s maid of honor did he see her differently. The sophisticated hairstyle, makeup and the revealing gown showing off the curves of her body stirred an emotion he’d repressed for years: desire.

His conversation with Celia at her reception came to mind.
Not every woman you’ll meet will be like Arden.
Nicholas knew Celia was right. The women he’d found himself involved with were nothing like his former fiancée who’d returned his ring with a bonded courier and a terse note saying she couldn’t handle his situation. And although he’d undergone months of physical rehabilitation and countless sessions with a psychiatrist he still had trust issues when it came to women.

It’d taken a while before he’d taken the psychiatrist’s advice to begin dating again. In a six-month period he saw three women, but he refused to sleep with any of them. Two of the three wanted a commitment, and he was honest when he told them they’d chosen the wrong man. And never had he misled or deluded any of them into thinking there would be more than friendship.

Nicholas’s hands came up and as he cradled Peyton’s face, the moon, hidden behind a cloud, cast an eerie shadow over her features. It was said the moon affects people differently and in that instant he felt caught up in a spell from which there was no escape. The haunted look in her eyes was something he would remember for a long time. The confidence he’d always seen in Peyton had been replaced by a look of fear and vulnerability that caused him to wonder who’d hurt her in the past, and/or maybe continued to hurt her.

I have to try and figure myself out before I can even consider having a child.
What, he thought, was there for Peyton to figure out? Unlike her he’d figured himself out, because he’d been taught to always have a Plan B, and even go so far as to have a Plan C. If one thing didn’t work, then try again, and if necessary another.

He held her jaw firmly when she tried pulling away, lowered his head and brushed his mouth over hers in a slow, gentle caress. The more she struggled the more Nicholas deepened the kiss until she stopped, her lips parting under his. He emitted a groan of triumph when she anchored her arms under his shoulders. His hands moved from her face to her waist, effortlessly picking her up as if she were a small child.

Peyton felt as if someone was holding her underwater where she couldn’t breathe or scream. Everything about Nicholas—the unleashed strength in his arms, the strong beating of his heart against her breasts, the taste and feel of his mouth on hers had pulled her into an endless abyss of craving where she’d become the slave of a controlled substance. She’d tried to fight the vaguely sensuous pull every time they’d shared the same space, knowing nothing would ever come of it. Wherein she’d found Nicholas so disturbing he’d regarded her with so much disinterest that it challenged her confidence as a woman. She’d never been self-absorbed or narcissistic, but she also knew she would never be relegated to wallflower status.

Her arms curved around his neck in an attempt to keep her balance. Peyton couldn’t stop shaking despite the warmth of the summer night, her nerve endings screaming from the pulsing sensations between her thighs. A delicious shudder of wanting heated her blood until she was on fire. A prickle of awareness shook her from the sensual reverie, and she went still at the same time Nicholas did.

Her heart pounded an erratic rhythm. “Nicholas?” she whispered against his mouth.

Lowering her until her bare feet touched the grass, Nicholas smoothed back her hair. “I know, baby. I heard it, too. Someone just fired a gun.” A slight frown appeared between his eyes. “Who would be shooting out here? And for what?” There was another shot, this one closer than the first one.

“There’s been a coyote sighting—”