Carrera's Bride

She went out of the bathroom curled up in the robe that had to be five sizes too big for her. It dragged behind her like the train of a wedding gown.

Her rescuer was seated on the desk, wearing a pair of gold-rimmed reading glasses. Beside him was a sewing kit, and a spool of black thread. He was already threading a needle.

She wondered if he’d been in the military. She knew men back home who were, and most of them were handy around the house, with cooking and mending as well. She moved forward and smiled, reaching for the needle at the same time he reached for the dress.

“You sew?” she asked.

He nodded. “My brother and I both had to learn. We lost our parents early in life.”

“I’m sorry.” She was. Her father had died before she was born. She’d just lost her mother to stomach cancer. She knew how it felt.

“Yeah.”

“I could do that,” she said. “I don’t mind.”

“Let me. It relaxes me.”

She gave in with good grace and sat down in a chair while he bent his dark head to the task. His fingers, despite being so big, were amazingly expert with the needle. And his stitches were short, even, and almost invisible. She was impressed.

She looked around the huge office curiously, and on an impulse, she got to her feet when she spotted a wall hanging.

She moved toward it curiously. It wasn’t a wall hanging after all, she noted when she reached it. The pattern was familiar. The fabric was some of the newest available, and she had some of it in her cloth stash back home. Her eyes were admiring the huge beautiful quilt against one wall, hung on a rod. It was a symphony of black and white blocks. How incredible to find such a thing in the security office of a casino!

“Bow tie,” she murmured softly.

His head jerked up. “What’s that?” he asked.

She glanced at him with a sheepish smile. “It’s a bow tie pattern, this quilt,” she replied. “A very unique one. I could swear I’ve seen it somewhere before,” she added thoughtfully. “I love the variations, and the stark contrast of the black and white blocks. The stitches are what make it so unique. There are stem stitches and chain stitches…”

“You quilt.” It was a statement and not a question.

“Well, yes. I teach quilting classes, back home in Jacobsville, Texas, at the county recreation center during the summer.”

He hadn’t moved. “What pattern do you like best?”

“The Dresden Plate,” she said, curious at his interest in what was primarily a feminine pursuit.

He put her dress down, opened a drawer in the big desk, pulled out a photo album and handed it to her, indicating that she should open it.

The photographs weren’t of people. They were of quilts, scores of quilts, in everything from a four-patch to the famous Dresden Plate, with variations that were pure genius.

She sank back down in the chair with the book in her lap. “These are glorious,” she exclaimed.

He chuckled. “Thanks.”

Her eyes almost came out of their sockets as she gaped at him. “You made these yourself? You quilt?”

“I don’t just quilt. I win competitions. National and even international competitions.” He indicated the bow tie pattern on the wall. “That one won first prize last year in a national competition in this country.” He named a famous quilting show on one of the home and garden channels. “I was her guest in February, and that quilt was the one I demonstrated.”

She laughed, letting out a heavy breath. “This is incredible. I couldn’t go to the competition, but I did see the winning quilts on the Internet. That’s where I remember it from! And no wonder you looked so familiar, too. I watch that quilting show all the time. I saw you on that show!”

He cocked a thick eyebrow. “Small world,” he commented.

“Isn’t it just? I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name. But I do remember your face. I watched you put together a block from the bow tie quilt on that television show. Well, I’m impressed. Not that many men participate, even today.”

He laughed. “We’re gaining on you women,” he said with a twinkle in his dark eyes. “There’s a Texas Ranger and a police officer who enter competitions with me these days. We travel together sometimes to the events.”

“You’re good,” she said, her eyes going back to the book of photos.

“I’d like to see some of your work,” he remarked.

She laughed. “I’m not quite in your league,” she said. “I teach, but I’ve never won prizes.”

“What do you do when you’re not teaching?”

“I run an alterations shop and work with a local dry cleaner,” she said. “I do original fashions for a little boutique as well. I don’t make a lot of money at it, but I love my work.”

“That’s more important than the amount of money you make,” he said.

“That’s what I always thought. One of my girlfriends married and had a child, and then discovered that she could make a lot of money with a law degree in a big city. She took the child and went to New York City, where she got rich. But she was miserable away from her husband, a rancher back home, and she had no time at all for the child. Then they filed for divorce.” She shook her head. “Sometimes we’re lucky, and we don’t get what we think will make us happy. Anyway, I learned from watching her that I didn’t want that sort of pressure, no matter how much money I could make.”

“You’re mature for your age. You can’t be more than twenty…?” he probed.

Her eyebrows arched and she grinned. “Can’t I?”

Chapter Two

“I’ll bite, then,” he murmured, going back to pick up her dress and finish his neat stitches. “How old are you?”

“Gentlemen are not supposed to ask ladies questions like that,” she pointed out.

He chuckled, deep in his throat, his eyes on his fingers. “I’ve never been called a gentleman in my life. So you might as well tell me. I’m persistent.”

She sighed. “I’m twenty-three.”

He glanced at her with an indulgent smile. “You’re still a baby.”

“Really?” she asked, slightly irritated.

“I’ll be thirty-eight my next birthday,” he said. “And I’m older than that in a lot of ways.”

She felt an odd pang of regret. He was handsome and very attractive. Her whole young body throbbed just being near him. It was a new and unexpected reaction. Delia had never felt those wild stirrings her friends talked about. She’d been a remarkably late bloomer.

“No comment?” he queried, lifting his eyes.

“You never told me your name,” she countered.

“Carrera,” he said, watching her face. “Marcus Carrera.” He noted her lack of recognition. “You haven’t heard of me, have you?”

She hadn’t, which he seemed to find amusing.

“Are you famous?” she ventured.

“Infamous,” he replied. He finished the neat stitches, nipped the thread with strong white teeth and handed the dress back to her.

She took it from him, feeling suddenly cold. The minute she put the dress back on, their unexpected tête-à-tête was over. She’d probably never see him again.

“There’s something about ships that pass in the night…” she murmured absently.

His jaw tautened as he looked at her, his reading glasses tossed lightly onto the top of the desk. He summed her up with his dark eyes, seeing innocence and attraction mingled with fear and nerves.

His eyes narrowed. He’d rarely been drawn to a woman so quickly, especially one like this, who was clearly from another world. Her connections were going to make her very valuable to him, but he didn’t want to feel any sparks. He couldn’t afford them right now.

“What’s your name?” he asked quietly.

“Delia Mason,” she replied.

“You’re Southern,” he guessed.

She smiled. “I’m from Texas, a little town called Jacobsville, between San Antonio and Victoria.”

“Lived there all your life?” he probed.

She gave him a wicked grin. “Not yet.”

He chuckled.

“Where are you from, originally?” she asked, clutching her dress to the front of his robe. “Not the Bahamas?”

He shook his head. “Chicago,” he replied.

She sighed. “I’ve never been there. Actually, this is the first time I’ve ever been out of Texas.”

He found that fascinating. “I’ve been everywhere.”

She smiled. “It’s a big world.”

“Very.” He studied her oval face with its big green eyes and soft, creamy complexion. Her mouth was full and sweet-looking. His eyes narrowed on it and he felt a sudden, unexpected surge of hunger.

She moved uncomfortably. “I guess I’d better get dressed.” She hesitated. “Do the cabs run this late?” she added.

“They run all night, but you won’t need one,” he said as he closed up his sewing kit and put it away. He thought of driving her back himself. But it was unwise to start things he couldn’t finish. This little violet would never fit into his thorny life. She couldn’t cope, even if she’d been older and more sophisticated. The thought irritated him and his voice was harsher than he meant it to be when he added, “I’ll have Smith run you back to your hotel.”

The thought of a journey in company with the mysterious and dangerous Mr. Smith made her uncomfortable, but she wasn’t going to argue. She was grateful to have a ride. It was a long walk over the bridge to Nassau.

“Thanks,” she mumbled with suppressed disappointment, and went into the bathroom to put her dress back on.

She hung the robe up neatly and then checked her face in the mirror. Her breath sucked in as she saw the terrible bruise coming out on her cheek. She put a lot of face powder over it, but it didn’t do a lot to disguise the fact that she’d been slapped.

She did the best she could and went back out into the security office. He was standing out on the balcony with his hand in his pockets, looking out to sea. He was a sophisticated man. He had a powerful figure, and she wasn’t surprised that he was in security work. He was big enough to intimidate most troublemakers, even without those threatening dark eyes that could threaten more than words.

The wind caught strands of his wavy black hair and blew it around his ears. He looked alone. She felt sorry for him, although it was probably unnecessary and would be unwelcome if she confessed it. He wasn’t a man to need pity, she could see that right away.

She thought of not seeing him again, and an emptiness opened up inside her. She’d just lost her mother. It was probably a bad time to get involved with a man. But there was something about this one that drew her, that made her hungry for new experiences, new feelings. She sighed heavily. She must be out of her mind. A man she’d only just met shouldn’t have such an effect on her.

But, then, her recent past had been traumatic. The loss of her mother, invalid though she’d been, had been painful. It was worse because Delia’s mother had never loved her. At least, not as she loved Barb; dear Barb who was beautiful and talented, and who had made an excellent marriage. Delia was only a seamstress, unattractive to men and without the live-wire personality of her much-older sister. It had been hard to live in the shadow of Barb. Delia felt like a bad copy, rather than a whole person. Her mother had been full of suggestions to improve her dull daughter. None of them had been accepted. Delia was satisfied with herself, loneliness and all. If only her mother had loved her, praised her even just once in a while. But there had been only criticism. A lifetime of it. She often wondered what she’d done to make her mother dislike her so. It really felt as if she were being punished for something. Nobody knew, least of all Barb, how difficult it had been for Delia at home. She’d done what was expected of her, always.

But when she looked at this man, this stranger, she wanted to do crazy things. She wanted to break all the rules, run away, fall off the edge of the world. She didn’t understand why he should make her so reckless, when she’d always been such a conventional person. Apparently there was something to that old saying, that different people brought out different qualities in you, when you let them into your life. He must be a bad influence, because she’d never wanted to break rules before.

As if he sensed her presence—because he couldn’t have heard her quiet steps above the wind as she joined him on the balcony—he turned suddenly and looked right at her.

She didn’t say a word. She moved beside him and stared out over the ocean, enjoying the sound of the wind, and farther away, the subdued roar of the surf.

“You’re very quiet,” he remarked.

She laughed nervously. “That’s me. I’ve spent my life fading into the background of the world.”

He gave her an assessing gaze. “Maybe it’s time that changed.”

Her heart skipped a beat as she looked up at him in the dim light from the office. His dark eyes met hers and held them while the wind blew around them in a strange, warm embrace.

He made her think of ruins, of mysterious places in shadow and darkness, of storms and torrents of rain.

“You’re staring,” he pointed out huskily.

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” she said unsteadily. “I’m just a small-town country girl. I’ve never been anywhere, done anything really reckless or exciting. I’ve never even been in a casino before in my life. But…but…” She couldn’t find the right words to express what she was feeling.

His chin lifted and he moved a step closer, so that she could feel the strength and heat of his body close to her. “But you feel as if you’ve known me all your life,” he said huskily.

Her eyelids flickered. “Well…yes…”

He reached out with one big, powerful hand and lightly brushed her cheek with his fingertips. She trembled at that whisper of sensation and shock waves ran down her slender body into her sensible stacked high heels.

“Oh, boy,” he ground out.

“What’s wrong?” she asked in confusion.

“And I’m old enough to know better, too,” he said, obviously thinking out loud. He looked confounded, even irritated, so she wasn’t really prepared when he suddenly reached for her.

His big arms lifted her up against him as his head bent. His dark eyes riveted on her soft, parted lips. “What the hell. It’s midnight and you’re about to lose a slipper…”

While she was trying to puzzle out the odd remark, his head bent, and his hard, warm mouth moved into total possession of her lips.

Instinctively she started to struggle, but his mouth opened and she gasped at the unexpected flood of sensation that left her trembling. But not with fear. She melted into the powerful muscles of his chest and stomach, and drowned in the clean, spicy scent of his skin. She felt the sigh of his breath against her cheek while the kiss went deeper and slower and hungrier…

In a daze of longing, she felt his arms crushing her against him while his face slid into her warm throat and he stood there in the wind, just holding her. His arms were warm against the chill of the wind coming off the ocean. She should have protested. She shouldn’t be behaving this way with a total stranger, she shouldn’t even be here with a man she didn’t know.

But all the arguments meant nothing. She felt as if she’d just come home after a long and sad journey. She closed her eyes and let him rock her in his big arms. It was an intimacy she’d never felt in her life. Her mother had never been affectionate with her, even if Barb had. But that was in the past. Now, just the act of being held was a new experience.

Marcus was dumbfounded by what he’d done; by what she’d let him do. He knew by her response to him that she knew next to nothing about men. She didn’t even know how to kiss. But she trusted him. She didn’t protest, didn’t fight, didn’t resist. She was like a warm, cuddly kitten in his arms, and he felt sensations that he’d never experienced before.

“This was stupid,” he said after a minute, the strain audible in his deep, raspy voice.

“You don’t look like a stupid man to me,” she said dreamily, smiling against his shoulder.

He drew in a long breath and slowly put her away. His eyes were as turbulent as hers.

“Listen,” he began, his big hands resting involuntarily on her shoulders, “we come from different worlds. I don’t start things I can’t finish.”

“Well, don’t blame me,” she said with dancing eyes. “I almost never seduce men on dark balconies.”

He scowled. She had a quick mind and a quirky sense of humor. It didn’t make things easier. She appealed to him powerfully. But he was at a point in his life when he couldn’t afford attachments of any sort, especially her sort. She was more vulnerable than she might think. What he had to do might put her in the path of danger, if he kept her around. And he was in a bad place to start looking for romance.

“Ordinarily I wouldn’t mind being seduced,” he said. “But I’m not available.”

She felt embarrassed. She stepped back, flushing. “Sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t think…!”

“Don’t look like that,” he said harshly. He turned away from the embarrassment. “Come on. I’ll have Smith drive you back.”

“I could get a cab,” she said, wrapping the tatters of her pride around her like an invisible cloak.

“Don’t be absurd,” he said, his voice curt.

Delia couldn’t hide her discomfort at the thought of enduring the drive back to Nassau in the company of Mr. Smith.

“Surely you aren’t afraid of him?” Marcus drawled softly. “You aren’t afraid of me, and I’m worse than Smith in a lot of ways.”

Her eyebrows arched. “Are you, really?” she asked in all honesty.

He chuckled in spite of himself. “You don’t know anything about me,” he murmured as he studied her with indulgent amusement. “That’s kind of nice,” he added thoughtfully. “It’s been a long time since anybody was as comfortable with me as you seem to be.”

“Now you’re making me nervous,” she told him.

He smiled. It was a rare, genuine smile. “Not very, apparently.”

She moved a little closer, tingling all over as she approached him. He made her hungry. She gazed up at him. “I think I’ve got it figured out, anyway.”

“Have you now?”

“You’re Mr. Smith’s boss,” she said.

He pursed his lips and started to speak.

“You’re a bouncer,” she concluded before he could get the words out.

He was actually dumbfounded. He just stared at her with growing amazement.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she said firmly. “Somebody has to keep the peace in a place like this. Actually, my father was a deputy sheriff. I wasn’t even born until after he died, so I don’t remember him. But we still have his gun and gunbelt, and the deputy sheriff’s badge he wore.”

“How did he die?” he asked abstractly.

“He made a routine traffic stop,” she said quietly. “The man was an escaped murderer.”

“Tough.”

She nodded. “Mom was left with me and Barb, although Barb was sixteen at the time, almost seventeen.” She sighed. “Barb is beautiful and brainy. She married Barney, who’s worth millions, and she’s been deliriously happy ever since.”

“So it’s just you and your mother at home,” he guessed.

She grimaced. “My mother died last month of stomach cancer,” she said. “It’s why I’m here. Barb thought I needed a break, so she and Barney squared it with my boss at the dry cleaner—I do alterations for them—and then they dragged me on a plane. I hope I still have a job when I go home. Nobody seems to understand how hard it is to get work in a small town. I have monthly bills to pay and hardly any savings, so my job is very important.” She smiled ruefully. “Barb doesn’t understand jobs. She married Barney just out of high school, when I was two years old, so she’s never worked.”

“Lucky Barb.” He watched the expressions play on her delicate features. “I guess Barb helped when your mother was so sick?”

She nodded. “She paid all Mama’s medical and drug bills, and even for a nurse to stay with her in the daytime while I worked. We’d never have made it without her.”

“Did she do any of the nursing?”

“She came and stayed with us for the last few months of mother’s life,” she said quietly. “She and Barney decided that it was going to be too much for me, so they even got nurses to do the night shift. But mostly it was Barb who nursed her, until she died. Mother didn’t want me with her. Barb and Mom were very close—it wasn’t like that with Mother and me. She didn’t like me very much,” she added bluntly.

He revised his opinion of the older sister. She’d done her part.

“Are you close, you and your sister?”

She laughed. “We’re closer than mother and daughter, really. Barb is terrific. It’s just that she thinks I can’t walk unless she’s telling me how to do it. She’s sixteen years older than me.”

“That’s a hell of an age difference,” he pointed out.

“Tell me about it. Barb’s so much older that I must seem more like a child than an adult to her.”

He scowled. “How old was your mother when you were born?”

“Forty-eight,” she laughed. “She said I was a miracle baby.”

“Mmmm,” he said absently.

“How old was your mother when you were born?” she asked curiously.

He chuckled. “Sixteen. In the old days, and in the old country,” he drawled, bending closer, “women married young. She and my father were betrothed by their families. They only saw each other in company of a dueña, and they were married in the church. The first time they kissed each other was on their wedding day, or so my father always said.”

She looked puzzled at the Spanish word he’d used for chaperone. “I thought you were Italian,” she blurted out.

He shook his head. “My parents were from the south of Spain. I’m a first-generation American.”

“Do you speak Spanish?”

He nodded. “But I read it better than I speak it. My parents wanted me and my brother to speak English well, so that we’d fit in better than they did.”

She smiled, understanding. She moved slowly back into the office and he followed, closing the sliding door onto the balcony.

“I’ll ride with you to your hotel,” he said after a minute. He picked up the phone and told someone to take over for him while he drove into Nassau and back.

She took one last look at the beautiful black and white quilt in its frame on the wall. “That really is majestic,” she remarked.

“Thanks. I’d love to see some of your work.”

She grimaced. “I don’t even have photos of it, like you do,” she said. “Sorry.”

“I may get down to Texas one of these days,” he said offhandedly.

She smiled. “That would be nice.”

He glanced back at her. “It might not be, when you know more about me,” he said, and he was suddenly very solemn.

“That isn’t likely.”

“You’re an optimist. I’m not.”

“Yes, I noticed,” she teased.

He chuckled as he opened the door to let her out into the hall.

Mr. Smith was waiting beside a huge black super stretch limousine in front of the hotel and nightclub.

Delia actually gasped. “You can’t mean to drive me back in that!” she exclaimed. “Your boss will fire you!”

“Unlikely,” Marcus said, with a speaking glance at Smith, who was trying not to laugh out loud. “Get in.”

She whistled softly as she slid onto the leather seat and moved to the center, to give him room to get in.

Smith closed the back door and went to the driver’s seat.

Delia was stagestruck. She looked around wide-eyed, fascinated by the luxurious interior. “You could go bowling in here!”

“It’s nice when you’re ferrying around a crowd of tourists,” he stated. “Want something to drink?”

He indicated the bar, where a bottle of champagne and several bottles of beer and soft drinks were chilling in ice.

She shook her head. “No, thanks. Is that television?!” she added, indicating a flat screen just in front of her near the ceiling.

“Satellite television, satellite radio, CD player, phone…”

“It’s incredible,” she said softly. “Just incredible!”

“Your sister’s married to a millionaire,” he pointed out. “Don’t you get to ride in limos?”