Man of Her Dreams (2 page)

Katie planted her hands on her slim hips and narrowed her gray eyes in suspicion. “Mary Margaret McSwain, don't you try to tell me there's nothing wrong. You have the hiccups. After all these years, you think I don't know what it means when you get the hiccups? It means you're upset.”

“It means I'm emotional,” Maggie corrected. “My best friend just got married—
hic
—something I take much of the credit for. I'm entitled to get a little emotional, aren't I?”

“Well, sure, I—”

“I think I'm entitled to get the
hic
hiccups over that,” she went on, turning toward Katie, her brown eyes shimmering with tears. Damnation. She wasn't going to be able to hold them back. It was too much, touching that gorgeous satin wedding dress and seeing Katie glowing with happiness. Getting married was supposed to be like that—wonderfully happy, a time of celebration and love. Rylan probably wouldn't care if she wore a feed sack to this wedding he supposed they could just as well have.

“Maggie?” Katie questioned, her concern plain in her soft low voice.

The dam burst. Maggie wrapped her arms around her friend, crying for all she was worth. Still, she was determined not to upset Katie. “I'm—just—so—happy—for—you!”

The door to the bedroom opened, and Nick Leone stepped in, looking pleasantly impatient and mouth-wateringly handsome in his tux. “Katie, are you ready or what?” Heavy black eyebrows drew together over eyes the color of dark chocolate. “Hey, what's with Maggie?”

Katie looked up at her husband of six hours and said, “She's happy for us.”

“Jeez, I'd hate to see her at a funeral.”

Maggie disentangled herself from Katie's embrace, sniffling and hiccuping as she tried to wipe the tears from her face and still leave some of her eye makeup intact. Her blurry gaze traveled up the length of Nick Leone. He was one gorgeous hunk of a guy, as sweet as they came, and she had steered Katie his way. She must have had rocks in her head.

Nick had proposed to Katie on one knee in the middle of a crowded restaurant. It had been such a romantic scene, nearly everyone present had cried. Except Rylan, she remembered. Rylan had been more concerned about getting a generous serving of veal scaloppine. How typical.

“
Hic.
You take good care of her, Yankee,” she said as Nick engulfed her in a big hug.

“I will,” he promised. “And thank you, Maggie. Thank you for forcing Katie to come over to the restaurant to meet me, and thank you for the advice when I thought I'd lost her. We owe you.”

If only she could get her own life to work out so well, she thought glumly.

“Oh, go on,” she said, stepping out of the circle of his arms. She forced her lips into a smile and waved Nick and Katie toward the door. “Go on. Y'all have a
hic
honeymoon to get to.”

“She's right.” Nick smiled down at his bride, his dark eyes warm with anticipation.

There was a lingering trace of concern in Katie's gaze as she looked at her friend. “I'll call you as soon as we get back.”

Maggie nodded and waved as they disappeared through the door, then sank down on the bed beside Katie's wedding gown. She ran the back of her hand over the tiny seed pearls on the bodice as misery throbbed inside her like a toothache.

She looked up at her reflection in the mirror above the dresser. Her face wasn't going to stop any hearts—neither from awe nor shock. It was sort of heart-shaped. Her chin was a tad too long. Her eyes were her best feature, her nose her worst. She thought it too plain, not feminine enough. She'd always believed she might have had nice cheekbones, except you couldn't see them because of her cheeks.

At any rate, she wasn't unattractive. She hadn't lacked for dates over the years. No doubt she could have found an easier man to fall in love with, but her heart was set on Rylan Quaid.

Now Rylan Quaid had asked her to marry him. But he didn't love her.

They'd had fun together over the last eight weeks, but their dates had been for the most part very casual, often in the company of friends. Much of that time had been spent in a joint effort to mend the rift between Katie and Nick.

The status of her relationship with Ry hadn't really changed since they'd started dating. They'd been friends of a sort for the last five years, ever since she'd moved to Briarwood and she and Katie had gone into business as interior design consultants. She and Ry hadn't been close friends, but the kind who teased and wisecracked.

Now they were a couple, but romance hadn't brought that sensation of everything being new and wonderful and fascinating. Maggie was sure she would have found Rylan fascinating if he hadn't kept her an emotional arm's length away at all times. And Ry seemed to find her about as fascinating as cheddar cheese. He treated her as if she were a comfortable old shoe; she was convenient and familiar, and he'd decided he might as well keep her. He made her feel about as loved as the dozen or so stray dogs that trotted around his farmyard.

Well, a pat on the head and an occasional bone weren't quite what she'd had in mind.

         

“Bye, princess,” Ry said, giving his sister a hug and helping her into Nick's Trans Am. “Have a nice time in Williamsburg.”

“We will.” Katie smiled up at him. “Take care of Maggie.”

“Yeah. Sure,” he muttered as the wine-colored sports car rolled down the driveway. Behind him the rest of the wedding guests were talking and laughing as they filed back toward the festivities on the lawn. He stood there for several minutes scuffing his boots on the gravel.

He had planned on taking care of Maggie. There was just one small hitch—she'd all but told him to go take a flying leap. That wasn't the reaction he had imagined getting from her. Maggie could be as silly as the next woman, but most of the time she was practical. Didn't she see the sense in his plan?

Maybe not, he decided, sipping his beer thoughtfully. He had taken her by surprise with his proposal. Maybe what she needed was to discuss the logic of marrying him. He reached a hand up and rubbed the back of his sunburned neck. Yeah, that was what he'd do. He would calmly explain to her why they should get married, she would see reason, then he would outline the plan. Simple.

“Maggie, I think we need to talk,” he said, intercepting her at her car. His hand encircled her upper arm. Sandwiched between the car and the car door, she glared up at him with brown eyes rimmed in red and black. Ry grimaced. “Crimeny, you look like a hung-over raccoon.”

“Thank you for
hic
pointing that out to me, Rylan.” She nearly spat the words up at him. “Did they teach you that in charm school?”

Another layer peeled away from his thin supply of patience. “For Pete's sake, Mary Margaret, what's gotten into you? I asked you to marry me. Hell, you're acting like I just handed you a dead fish or something.”

She gave him a disgusted look. “You have a way with words that would make Shakespeare throw up.”

“Well, since he's been dead a few hundred years. I'm not gonna worry about it.” He turned and headed toward the long white stables with Maggie in tow. A coon hound, a half-grown collie, and a cocker spaniel trotted after them.

“I wouldn't be following you”—Maggie was jogging to keep up with his long strides and her pink satin pumps were scuffed on the rocks—“but I happen to
hic
use that arm every once in a while. So where are you dragging me and for what purpose?”

“We need to have a discussion, and I'd just as soon not have half of Briarwood listening in.”

“
Now
he wants privacy,” she muttered to herself.

Ry let go of her once they were in the paneled office of the stable. He leaned back against his big oak desk, motioned Maggie to a chair, and crossed his arms over his massive chest.

“I'd rather
hic
stand, thank you,” she said primly, crossing her own arms and looking down at the jagged hemline of her dress. It probably would be a more practical dress this way, she told herself, trying to console herself over the ruination of what had been the most beautiful creation she'd ever worn.

Ry shrugged, his nervousness coming across as indifference. “Suit yourself. I thought we should talk over this marriage business a little more. You didn't seem to agree with me.” He watched for her reaction from the corner of his eye as he scratched at the stain on his shirt pocket.

“Oh?” Maggie's brows lifted in mock innocence. “What gave you that idea? Was it the names I called you or the champagne I threw in your face?”

“A little of both, I'd say.” He frowned, picked up a pencil, and rolled it between his fingers. “I don't understand your reaction. I asked you to marry me. I thought women generally wanted to get married. I thought—”

“Why?” Maggie asked. She didn't want to stand and listen to Ry's philosophy of women. She wanted to cut to the heart of the matter and ask the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. The odds were probably astronomical against him giving the answer she wanted to hear, but she had to ask.

Ry looked baffled and a little annoyed at the interruption. “Why? Why what?”

“Why did you ask me to
hic
marry you?” The drum roll began in her head.

“Because,” he started. A strange feeling wiggled around in his stomach. He couldn't quite identify it. It must have been the shrimp cocktail.

Why had he asked Maggie McSwain to marry him? Well, the answer to that was simple, he told himself. Practical. His mind latched onto the word like a hound on a bone. That was why—practicality. Right. It really didn't have that much to do with the way his palms sweated when his gaze lingered on her full breasts—that was a bonus. And it didn't have anything to do with the way she looked at him after he kissed her—as if he had been transformed from a frog into Prince Charming. That look was something he didn't want to know anything about, probably because it caused his heart to flutter, and the last thing he needed was a fluttering heart. Practicality was his motto.

He shook a finger at her. “This is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. We make a good team. We're compatible, complementary. I think we're both at an age when it's time to settle down—might as well be with each other.”

“Might as well be with each other,” she repeated, though it really was more a matter of lip-syncing than speaking. The anticipatory drum roll in her head ended with a noisy clashing of cymbals. The din made her ears ring. “Amazing.”

“It makes sense,” Ry said, not quite able to decipher Maggie's expression. She hadn't thrown anything at him, so he had to be on the right track. “It's the practical thing.”

“The practical thing.”

Ry's formidable scowl snapped into place, his lips thinning to a hard line above his rock-solid jaw. “Gosh almighty, Mary Margaret, you're starting to sound just like a damn parrot.”

“Maybe you ought to buy yourself a
hic
parrot then, sugar,” Maggie said sharply, “if you're looking for companionship in your old age.” She began to pace the width of the room, which smelled of leather, horses, and dust.

“I don't want companionship. I want a wife.”

Maggie threw her hands in the air. “Now there's a gem!”

“I want a wife and a family,” Ry went on, ignoring her sarcasm. “I can't have a family by myself.”

“Oh, but you could try,” she said with a malicious smile.

Lord, was he truly so blind he couldn't see it? All these years she'd been in love with him, and he really didn't have a clue? Maggie shook her head. No, she hadn't made it plain that she was in love with him. She'd kept it to herself for a long time because he hadn't seemed interested in her. But she had hoped once he asked her out things would progress.

Things had progressed all right. Things had progressed to the point that she wanted to tear his head off and use it for a bowling ball.

“Rylan,” she said, trying to muster some patience. She stopped her pacing and took a deep breath. “People start IRA's because it's practical.”

“I know,” he said absently, his gaze involuntarily riveted on the rise and fall of her cleavage. “I've got one.”

“Figures.” She turned her head and stared in the direction of the photographs on the wall, photographs of the horses Ry raised. They were pictures of his show jumpers winning at some of the most prestigious horse shows in the world. To Maggie the pictures were nothing more than squares with blobs of color on them; her concentration was elsewhere.

Ry's frustration came out in a humorless laugh. “I don't understand the problem here, Maggie. I've listed every perfectly good reason for us to get married. What more do you want from me?”

Maggie closed her eyes on her tears. All she'd ever wanted since she'd been a goofy freshman at William and Mary was for Rylan Quaid to fall in love with her. But he couldn't have cut those words out of her with a knife. If she couldn't have Ry's love, she would at least hang on to her pride.

She lifted her chin and gave him a belligerent stare. “I won't have you propose to me simply because I'm convenient. I'm an admiral's daughter, dammit, not some brood mare you picked up cheap at an auction. So you can take your offer on an extended honeymoon, Rylan Quaid, because I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man in the cosmos!”

Ry kicked the side of his desk and let loose a string of expletives as his office door slammed shut. He flung himself into his creaky old desk chair, planted his elbows on the ink blotter, and raked his fingers back through his dark hair. They'd hit the root of the problem, hadn't they?

She was an admiral's daughter, and when you came right down to it, he wasn't anything more than a farmer. His crop might have been animals with price tags that ran into six figures, but that didn't keep him from sweating and getting dirt under his fingernails. The truth was, Maggie didn't think he was good enough for her.