May The Best Man Wed

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, I doubt the bedroom door is locked. Just go in and give him a good, hard shake. That ought to do the trick.”

“Oh no, ma’am,” the other woman protested. “I couldn’t do that. He’s a grown man.”

“So he claims.” Savannah sighed again. “Listen, I’m coming right over. If, on the unlikely chance he does get up, don’t let him leave the house before I get there. He has an appointment at eleven and he’s not going to miss it.”

She arrived at the Walkers’ three-story Georgian in record time. Still, it was almost nine-forty. She’d been up for over four and a half hours already. The most Cash had probably done in that time was roll over.

She marched in as soon as the front door opened. “Which room is he in?” she asked the maid as she started up the stairs.

“Second floor, fifth door on your left, ma’am.”

Savannah reached the second-floor landing and strode down the hall to Cash’s room. She rapped on the door loudly. Without waiting for an answer, she twisted the knob. By the time Cash showered and dressed, they’d be lucky if they made the appointment on time.

“Cash?” She announced herself to the lump burrowed beneath the bedcovers. She marched to the window and threw back the curtains. She turned, triumphant. Still no sign of life from the bed. She marched to the bed, put her hand on what she presumed was a shoulder and gave it a good shake. “Cash, get up now.”

With a groan, he rolled over. His eyes still closed, he warned, “You’re gonna pay for that, Angeline.” Grabbing Savannah’s hand, he pulled her down onto the hard heat of his body.

Her mouth opened, only to be covered by his, his hands capturing the back of her head, thrust into her hair, holding her fast. He crushed her lips beneath his own, the kiss hot, urgent as if he’d been waiting his whole life for her. Shock, outrage and a sudden sense she had never been kissed before filled Savannah. Her anguish seemed to fall, matter no more beneath a passion and, heaven help her, a pleasure spreading, flowing through every inch of her, striking her senseless.

She squirmed, but her movements, the friction of muscle and flesh, were desire’s dance. An unintelligible plea came from the back of her throat, but Savannah could no longer be sure for what she begged. Her efforts had eased her lips wider, unwittingly provoking that hard, wonderful mouth deeper. She tasted a wildness, the sting of uncontrol. She stopped squirming. Her hands fisted against the sides of the body blanketed beneath her, against the heat, the power, the scorching need.

With a fierce twist of her head, she wrenched her mouth free. She held the breath that would come out as a gasp.

“You’re in bigger trouble now.” His hands reached for her once more.

“Cash!” she snapped, an inch from his face.

He opened his eyes; she filled his vision. “Whoa!” His head jerked back, surprise taking all the hooded sensuality out of his features. She wanted to jump up and run from his provocative power searing her body. She didn’t move. She’d be damned if she’d give him the satisfaction. It was too late anyway. She’d known his kiss, even though it had been meant for another and meant nothing. Yes, that was the thought she would cling to when the memory came.

She tasted her lips. “I see you had that drink after all last night.”

Amusement moved into his features. The sensuality had already returned. “You should have come with me, Savannah-Banana.”

“It’s a regret I’ll learn to live with.” With as much dignity as possible, she rolled off his body and rose from the bed. She looked down at him with perfect composure. “Get up and get dressed.”

He shrugged. “Okay, but I’ve got to warn you I sleep in the nude.” He started to push back the covers.

“I already knew that.” Savannah moved to the door, adjusting the starched collar and cuffs of her shirtwaist, as his rich laughter came. “You have a fitting at Mr. Max’s Formal Wear today. We’re to be there in less than an hour. I’ve never been late for an appointment in my life and I don’t intend to start now.” She walked from the room without another look at him.

He sank back against the pillows as the door closed, Savannah’s sweet taste and soft warmth still holding him like a dream. He had drunk too much last night for the first time in many years. Yet it was also the first time he’d been home in many years. A throbbing ache began in his head. He closed his eyes, but not to relieve the pain. No, he welcomed the pain. He closed his eyes to wipe out the memory of the moment that had just happened. Desire only strengthened. He opened his eyes, everything too real. He had wanted Savannah. He had touched his lips to hers and tasted the sweetest of promises. He threw back the covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He shook his head. “Hell.” He laughed again, this time at himself as the need clutched him.

Savannah made it as far as the second stair before she gripped the rail to steady herself. Still, sensation overwhelmed her. Every boundary she’d ever crafted seemed to have dissolved, leaving her vulnerable. It’d been the surprise, the shock, that’s all, she told herself. Nothing more, nothing more. Still the urgency rose.

She watched him come down the stairs twenty-five minutes later. “You forgot to shave,” she noted.

He smiled at her. “I didn’t forget.”

“I hope you at least brushed your teeth.” She turned to the door.

“Why? You gonna kiss me again?”

She spun around, angry with him, even more furious with the desire spiked by the mere suggestion. “You kissed me.”

“You kissed me back.”

“A gentleman wouldn’t—”

“Now you’re flattering me, Savannah-Banana.”

She forced her expression bland. She didn’t have to tell him how much she hated nicknames. She had the feeling he already knew.

“We keep going the way we are—” he still smiled “—and soon we’ll have a whole repertoire of anecdotes to share at family functions.”

Her hand sliced the air, dismissing him and his efforts to infuriate her. She yanked open the door. “Let’s go. I don’t want to be late.”

“Why?” He tripped down the porch stairs, easily catching up to her. “They’ll force us to wear pink cummerbunds?”

“Actually, they’re peach.” Savannah pulled open the car door.

Cash stopped dead, such a look of alarm on his face, Savannah would have smiled had it been anyone else.

“You’re kidding?”

She looked at him, confused. “They match the bow tie.”

She slid into the driver’s seat, enjoying a smile until Cash slid in beside her.

“You are kidding,” he decided.

She glanced at him, her expression betraying nothing. “Buckle up.” She put the car into gear and headed for the interstate.

“Stop.” He pointed to a mini-mart as they came to an intersection “I need caffeine.”

“There’s no time.”

“Come on.” He elbowed her in the side as if they were old school chums. “A man can’t live on love alone.”

She had an urge to rev the engine and shoot past the convenience store, but she always drove at the speed limit.

He leaned back against the seat, stretched his arms, reducing the space even further within the car. “If you’re in such an all-fired hurry to get downtown, why are you driving so slow?”

“I’m driving at the posted speed limit.” She snapped on her blinker, eased into another lane.

“Follow all the rules, don’t you, Slick?”

“That’s what they were made for, Walker.”

“Maybe, but it’s more fun to break them.”

“There’s more to life than fun.”

“Is that what you want on your tombstone?”

She decided to ignore him. In reality, she was too aware of him—his size, the movement of muscles as he shifted in his seat. The omnipresent heat, seductive as a southwest wind. Heat that she’d told herself she’d only imagined, until this morning when she’d felt it with her own body.

Fortunately they weren’t far from the heart of downtown now, having left behind the old-money estates and new-money monster mansions. Mr. Max’s was north of the city’s center among the upscale department stores and towering hotels and office high-rises. Cash groaned as they passed an advertisement for Fresh Mountain Roast Coffee.

He slumped against the seat. “All I can say is the bridesmaids better be gorgeous—each and every one of them.”

Savannah thought of her sister. Cash would be pleased. “I’m assuming then, you’re not bringing someone to the wedding?”

“Why? Do you need a date?”

Patience, Savannah, patience. “You just seemed rather fond of this Angeline person—”

“Angeline?”

The unexpected steel in his voice drew her gaze. His expression was even harder.

“That’s the name you called me when you accosted me in your bedroom. I assumed—”

“Honey, I’ve done a lot of things in a bedroom but accosting has never been one of them.”

As usual, his recovery was swift. Jaw set, she focused her attention on the traffic.

“You’re thinking you don’t like me again, aren’t you, Slick?”

Her jaw muscles locked.

“Angeline was the woman I left at the altar seven years ago.”

She swung her head to him. He was watching the passing buildings, the streets busy with people. “I’m sorry.”

He angled his head to look at her.

“Really, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I mean I knew what happened but, but—” She was actually stammering.

“The story isn’t exactly the type of fare that lends itself to amusing anecdotes at family reunions, is it?”

His barbs were rendered null and void by the pain etched in his expression.

“Why’d you do it?” Her words came without thought. Blame it on her current situation. Blame it on the loneliness she sensed beneath his laughter. She needed to know.

He shook his head. “She knew it was over. I had told her that morning.”

“Maybe she didn’t believe you?”

His words were certain. “She believed me.”

Savannah sensed he would say no more. She tried to fill in the blanks. “You were scared?” She felt her own fear, refused to let it take hold.

“Not at all. I wasn’t scared of anything back then. I was gaga about her.” He winked at her. She had to smile, her own fear falling away.

“Wild about her, absolutely wild. Followed her around hot as a three-dollar pistol.” His smile was rueful as he looked out the windshield at nothing and remembered. “It ended badly, but boy, in the beginning…it was something.”

Savannah could only nod dumbly while a faceless, nameless need rose inside her as if she were twelve again, dreaming of her first kiss. She wanted to ask more, know everything, but Cash turned to the window, his face lifting toward the bronze sunlight. “I hate this damn city,” he said.

She returned her attention to the road, started to search for parking. “They always have coffee for the customers at Mr. Max’s. Mr. Max insists it be brewed fresh on the hour, every hour. The beans are hand-ground.” It was all she could offer him at that moment.

She felt a warm gratification when she heard his chuckle.

They were ten minutes late for the fitting but no one minded except Savannah, and even she had ceased to care at that point. Cash immediately christened the owner Max the Madman and after two cups of black coffee with what Savannah thought was an excessive amount of sugar, he charmed the rest of the store’s personnel. Savannah watched him, wondering if anyone, even those who knew better, walked away from him untouched?

When he stepped from the dressing room, in classic black that instead of refining him only made his raw maleness more lethal, the assistants oohed and aahed, and even Savannah had to swallow hard twice. But when Mr. Max turned to her to second his opinion of Cash as “the most handsome best man to ever set foot in Mr. Max’s Formal Wear,” Savannah merely looked at Cash and in a bored tone, asked, “You will shave for the wedding, won’t you?”

Chapter Three

Savannah didn’t see Cash the next day nor the next, but when she opened her office door on the third morning, she found him once more behind her desk. She didn’t even miss a step as she walked into the room and was thoroughly pleased with herself.

She smiled cordially. “How’s George doing this morning?”

The amusement increased on Cash’s face as if he enjoyed her. “Not bad.”

She set her briefcase on the desktop, sat in the chair opposite. “Still worried about Velma’s knee, I imagine?”

Cash nodded. “But his daughter is coming in from the west coast day after next for the operation. He’s happy about that.”

Savannah arranged her hands in her lap. In the last two days since she’d seen Cash, she’d decided his sole aim was either to incense or entice. So realized, his efforts lost all power over her.

“His daughter lives quite a ways away.” She could play.

“California. Married not long ago. Nice fella. Lawyer. George’s other daughter works in Seattle, married three years. Her and her husband made a killing on an upstart dot-com company two years ago.”

“I’ll bet George and Velma are campaigning like mad for grandchildren then.”

Cash smiled, a smile not made for morning but for night and smoky music and the beat of something rare in the air.

Savannah gave him a polite half smile she knew suffered in comparison. “A second bright and early morning meeting in the same week? You keep up this ambitious schedule, and you’re going to ruin your reputation.”

“Or yours.”

Her gaze stayed steady. “Do tell, Walker, what brings you out once more at this unusual hour?”

“McCormick called me last night around 1:00 a.m.”

She was grateful to be sitting down. A thousand urgent questions rose. She refolded her hands, waited for Cash to continue.

“He’s at the lodge in Colorado.”

She seized this small satisfaction. “When is he coming home?” She was thankful there was no shake in her voice.

“He didn’t say.”

“He didn’t say?” Still she kept her voice even, her gaze level. “What did he say?”

“He’s conflicted.”

“Conflicted?” Her voice sounded foreign, her world suddenly held together by precarious threads. She sat very still and stared at Cash, afraid to shift her gaze and set off an avalanche. The colors of his eyes tempered. He knew, she realized, had learned a long time ago—all is nothing but shifting sands, winds of fate. It had been the birth of his wild heart.

She pressed her sweating palms against the smooth surface of her skirt as she stood. She moved to her briefcase upright on the desk and opened it. Cash watched her.

She removed several files from the case and piled them on the desk. Plucking a pen from the silver cylinder on her desk, she set it before Cash. He looked at it curiously. She ripped a piece of paper from the notepad next to the pens and slid it toward him.

“I’ll need directions to the lodge from the Denver airport.” She riffled through the papers in her briefcase, leaving those that could wait, removing those that would have to be brought with her. She would give her tapes, along with detailed instructions on what needed to be done for the wedding until she returned, to her mother and her assistant.

Cash tapped a rhythm on the desk with the pen. “You’re going out to Colorado?”

“I’ll fly out on the company plane, I hope by noon.” She slapped another folder onto the pile. “One, two, at the latest.” She glanced at the blank sheet of paper before Cash. “Just give me the lodge’s name. My secretary can get me the directions.”

The beat of the pen stopped. “You know what you’re doing?”

“Always.” She lied.

Cash crumpled the paper in his fist. “I’ll drive you up to the lodge from Denver.”

She looked at him across the wide desk. “Not necessary. I’m perfectly capable—”

“That I don’t doubt, Slick, but the only reason I came back here is for my brother’s wedding and—”

“There’ll be a wedding.”

He nodded, agreeing although she suspected he was humoring her. “At that time, I’ll come back, put on a monkey suit and do the Macarena until there’s no more booze or pretty ladies left.”

He stood, shot the crumpled paper into the wastebasket. “But until then there’s not much reason for me to be hanging around.”

“Did you know he was in Colorado?” She doubted he’d tell her the truth, but she wasn’t convinced he would lie either.

He stood so much taller than she and much too sexy a man for early morning. McCormick was her height, never giving her the need to toss her head as she did now, letting her hair sway, her throat lengthen.

“I’m not the enemy, Slick.”

He wasn’t an ally either. They both knew it.

He went to the door. “Listen, I’ve already made plans to go back to Colorado today anyway. If you want to fly out together and I’ll drive you up the mountain from the airport, leave a message at the house with the flight’s time and where I should meet you.”

“There’ll be a wedding,” she felt compelled to say one more time although he was already gone. She listened to the low murmur of his voice, the answering laughter of her receptionist, who for the first time in her career must have come in early. Savannah’s sense of a world upside-down increased.

“There’ll be a wedding,” she muttered, returning to her reports. “So prepare to macaroni, Walker.”

SAVANNAH COUNTED five rows back, neither too near the front of the cabin nor too far back. She took out several reports and her microcassette recorder from her briefcase before stowing it in the overhead compartment. As soon as she sat down, she buckled her seat belt, adjusting it around her hips, leaning forward to check for minimal slack. She straightened, rattled the seat back, then the ones to either side of her, making certain all were locked in position. Next she checked the latches by giving all the trays in front of her a firm tug. All appearing secure, she evened the pile of reports on her lap, clutched her recorder and bent her head to review the figures on the top printout.

Cash plopped down in the seat next to her. His weight involuntarily swayed her toward him. His body was too big beside her in such narrow seats. Savannah focused on the report. Cash reached up to the overhead controls, flicked the lights on, off, twisted the air vents all the way open. The reports on Savannah’s lap fluttered.

“Cash.” She slapped her palm on her papers as they prepared for liftoff.

Her head came up. An air stream blasted her full in the face. She jerked back. She reached up and wrenched the air nozzle closed.

“Fresh air. Very important when flying. Cabin air can be very drying. Plenty of liquids is good, too.” Cash reached toward the nozzle.

Her hand clamped his wrist. “I’ll take my chances, thank you.” The strong beat of his pulse pressed against her fingertips. She let go. She looked pointedly around the empty cabin. “You do realize we’re the only passengers.”

“Are you flirting with me, Slick?”

She meant to count to ten, got as far as five. “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in your own row where you could stretch out, take a nap or do whatever you do?”

He smiled but didn’t move.

“I have work to do.” She returned to her report, clicked the recorder to make a note.

He propped his elbow on the armrest and leaned over to scan the report on her lap. His arm pressed against hers. The fine hairs of her flesh might as well have been exposed nerves.

“Let’s see what we’ve got here. A Second Quarter Departmental Survey on the Effective Utilization of Potential Product Preferences,” he pretended to read, “as Defined by Targeted Consumer Dynamics within the Mid-Atlantic North American Quadrants Including but Not Excluding Those Market Bases—”

“Okay, okay.” Savannah snapped off the recorder. Her other hand gestured surrender, and let her slide her arm away from his. “You talk the talk, Walker.”

“Please. You’ll make me blush.”

“McCormick said you had a brilliant business mind.”

“Merely an example of that ‘younger sibling’ infatuation championed by my mother the other night.”

“McCormick said you were a natural—much more so than he could ever expect to be.”

“I was the oldest son. My father had annual reports read to me while I was in utero.”

“What happened?”

He made his features into a stern mask. “I was a grave disappointment.” Pain flashed in his eyes, belying the doomed baritone of his pronouncement.

“Seven years is a long time.”

He rested his head against the seat. “Depends on your perspective, Slick.”

“And what’s your perspective, Walker?”

He inclined his head to her. She saw the amber and gold in his green eyes.

“That a lifetime isn’t long enough, Slick.”

She studied his face for an extra beat before turning to her papers.

“You ever fly, Slick?”

She wasn’t going to get any work done. “Of course.”

“How ’bout fly the plane yourself?”

“Be the pilot?” The alarm in her voice gave him his answer. She tried to focus again on the figures in front of her only to sigh and raise her gaze to him. “I suppose you have?”

“Flew my first solo about five years ago.”

The idea of voluntarily putting your entire existence thousands of feet in the air was incomprehensible to her. “Why?”

“Why?”

“Why’d you learn to fly?”

“Simple. Because we’re not supposed to.” He smiled the smile that forced her to stare at him.

“Not supposed to what?”

“Man’s not supposed to fly.”

“I agree with you there.” She returned her attention to the numbers on her lap.

“Yet we do. Some buttons, some fuel, a machine and, there you be. Breaking all kinds of natural laws. Man just can’t resist.”

She drew up, looked aghast as his strong arm reached a breath away from her breasts. He slid up the shade on the small side window that she’d purposely left closed.

He settled back in his seat. She breathed again. “Shouldn’t be at all.” He smiled at the patch of view exposed by the side window. “Moving above the earth higher and faster than you ever dreamed, steering right into the clouds, coming out above them. The light like heaven.”

She turned her head to the window, but she didn’t see what he saw.

“Everything else falls away. The boundaries, the shoulds, shouldn’ts, everything you thought you knew, thought you understood…no more.” He leaned his head on the seat, closed his eyes. “Then comes the big trick when you’re up there among the clouds and the light, and you have to make yourself think you’re in control when you now know you have no control at all. And never really did. No one does.”

He was quiet, and she thought him done. Still she stared at him.

“What’s it like?”

His eyes stayed closed. “You’re scared beyond imagination, beyond everything, exhilarated, sweating and feeling as if you’ve never tasted one pure breath until that moment. You ever feel that, Slick?”

Once. She was unable to look away from his face. When I opened my office door four mornings ago and found you. The fear washed over her as frightening as it’d been the first time. His eyes opened.

She had been afraid then. She was afraid now.

“No,” she lied.

“Nooo?” He repeated the word with a sad drawl. “Never? Not one moment when everything became confusion and chaos yet so clear and real you didn’t know if you wanted it to end or to go on forever?”

She shook her head.

“Not even when you fell in love?”

“Love?” She declared flatly. “Sounds like lust to me.”

He tipped his head back and laughed so boldly she found herself smiling.

“Ms. Sweetfield?”

The assistant pilot stood at the front of the cabin. Savannah stopped smiling as if she’d been caught doing something wrong.

“We’re number two in line for takeoff.”

“Thank you.”

The assistant disappeared back inside the cockpit.

“Bet you don’t know his first name either?”