A Bride Until Midnight / Something Unexpected: A Bride Until Midnight

Summer’s dress was the color of pecans today. When was the last time he’d met a woman who wore a dress every day? He wasn’t referring to buttoned-up suits with pencil-thin skirts and stiletto heels with toes so pointy they could draw blood. Summer wasn’t out for blood. Was that why she drew him?

No. There was something far more elemental at work here.

Her dress was sleeveless, and the neckline covered all but the inside edges of her collarbones. It wasn’t formfitting or tight and had no business looking sexy. He wanted to push his plate away and reach for her, but burning off this hunger with her wasn’t going to be that simple.

Luckily Kyle was a patient man.

When his plate was empty, she came around to his side of the table and took it. Pausing at the kitchen door, she glanced back at him and said, “Which type are you?”

He wiped his mouth on his napkin and stood. “If you have to ask, I’m doing something wrong.” With that he sauntered out the front door.

In the kitchen, Summer turned on the hot water and squirted in dish soap. As suds expanded over the dishes in the bottom, she placed one finger over that little indentation at the base of her neck. Feeling the pulse fluttering there, she thought, a wise guy, definitely.

Since there were no parking spaces in front of Rose’s Flower Shoppe, Summer parked in front of Knight’s Bakery and Confectionary Shoppe a block away. The steady pitter-patter of raindrops on her umbrella muffled the click of her heels as she started toward Rose’s, but it didn’t dampen her mood. Betty Ryan smiled from the window of her daughter and son-in-law’s bakery when she saw Summer walking by. Looking up from the newspaper he was reading in his barber chair, Bud Barkley wiggled his fingers at Summer. She couldn’t help returning his classic wave.

She hurried past two clothing stores that had survived the ongoing feud between their owners and the recession. The big chains had drained the life out of the old drugstore on the corner. Now the building was home to Izzy’s Ice Cream Parlor. Summer loved that she knew the stories and the struggles of the courageous, tenacious people who called Orchard Hill home. Being accepted by them was an honor and a gift.

As if on cue, her phone jangled in her purse. Sliding it open, she began talking the moment she put it to her ear. “I’m on my way, Chelsea. How’s Madeline this morning?”

“She’s going stir-crazy and Riley’s hovering.” Chelsea’s voice in her ear was clear and concise. “I don’t know who I feel sorrier for. Let me know what Josie says about Madeline’s bouquet, okay? I know you can’t be away from the inn more than absolutely necessary, so somebody from Knight’s Bakery is bringing four samples of wedding cake to the inn later.”

Flowers. Check.

Wedding cake. Check.

There was something Summer was forgetting, but Chelsea was on a mission, and, when that happened, there was no stopping her. “Reverend Brown has agreed to go to Madeline’s house after services on Sunday to talk to her and Riley about the ceremony and vows. That’ll take us to the final five-day countdown. Can you believe it?”

Summer thought it was amazing how fast the wedding was approaching, but she didn’t have an opportunity to make more than an agreeable murmur before Chelsea had to take another call. Outwardly Chelsea Reynolds was the most organized young woman on the planet. But underneath her buttoned-up shirts and practical manner smoldered a dreamer. Only those closest to her knew the reason she kept it hidden.

The world was feeling like a good place as Summer dropped her phone back into her shoulder bag and walked into Rose’s Flower Shoppe. As always, the scents of carnations and roses met her at the door.

“I’ll be right with you.” Josie Rose’s muffled voice sounded as if she was speaking into the cooler. Eight months pregnant with her third child, she entered the room with one hand at the small of her back and the other on her basketball-size belly. “There you are, Summer. Someone was here a little while ago asking about you. A man,” she said in a stage whisper.

For the span of one heartbeat, Summer’s only thought was, they’ve found me. She waited, unmoving.

“Can you say tall, dark and handsome?” Josie asked, oblivious to Summer’s inner turmoil.

Oh. Okay. Summer could breathe again, because that description ruled out Drake and her father.

When she’d first moved to Orchard Hill and shortened her name and bought her inn, she’d often caught herself looking over her shoulder. There had been times when she’d been certain someone was following her. She wasn’t afraid, physically, of her former fiancé or her father. It was the havoc they could wreak and the media circus they were capable of creating that she so dreaded. Her father had connections to people in high places. She’d seen him in action with her own two eyes and knew he had the ability and the capability to ruin people for pleasure or personal gain.

Nothing had ever materialized out of those certainties that she was being followed. Eventually her paranoia subsided. She relaxed and began to enjoy the life she was painstakingly building, but old habits died hard, and this morning dread had reared.

“He had the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen on a man,” Josie continued.

Summer knew only one man who fit that description. “I think you’re referring to Riley’s brother Kyle. He’s staying at the inn this week.” Offhandedly she asked, “What did he want to know about me?”

“Oh, your favorite color, what kind of flowers you like, that sort of thing. Now, I can’t say more without spoiling the surprise, but it’s like I told him, a man never goes wrong with red roses. Come on back. I’ll show you what I had in mind for Madeline’s bridal bouquet.”

Summer had been on edge these last few days because Kyle was a reporter. Other than choosing his profession, he’d done nothing to warrant her distrust. In fact, except for asking her a few questions about her background, which was a very normal thing to do when people were getting to know one another, he’d done nothing except come to his brother’s aid, sample a bowl of crème brulee at three in the morning and beguile her with his wit and charm over breakfast.

He’d hinted about making love, but she’d been thinking about that, too, so she could hardly chide him for it. She was beginning to like him. Summer took pride in the fact that she showed everyone common courtesy. She granted people who earned it her respect, but her affection wasn’t given lightly. And she liked Kyle Merrick, truly liked him.

After consulting with Madeline over the phone, Summer finalized the order for the flowers for the wedding. Josie Rose was right. The bridal wreath spiraea, lilacs and baby’s breath were going to be perfect compliments to the sprigs of apple blossoms from Madeline’s family orchard. She spoke with Chelsea first and then Abby, as she started back toward her car. Since the rain had dwindled to a mild sprinkle by then, she didn’t even bother with an umbrella.

She smiled a greeting to Brad Douglas, one of the accountants with the CPA firm located across the street, waved to Greg and Celia Michaels, owners of the antique store around the corner, and held out a steadying hand to Mac Bower who’d been the proprietor of Bower’s Bar & Grill for sixty-five years.

A pair of strappy, high-heeled sandals in the window of the shoe store on the corner caught her eye. Lo and behold, they were even on sale.

The world felt like a very good place, indeed.

Chapter Six

The door between the kitchen and dining room was open when Summer returned to the inn late that Friday morning. As she hung her shoulder bag on the hook next to the refrigerator, she could see all the way to the parlor where Kyle was reading a magazine. He looked pretty comfortable hunkered down in an old leather chair favored by many of her guests. His elbows rested on the padded arms; one ankle balanced on his opposite knee.

She left her new shoes in her room then went to the registration desk in the foyer to check for messages. Catching a movement in her peripheral vision, she glanced up and found Kyle looking at her over his magazine.

She closed the inn’s website and gave him her full attention. “Did you need something?”

“I wanted to give you these.” He reached beside the chair. When he stood, he had a bouquet of flowers in his right hand.

The gesture stalled her heartbeat and invoked a sigh, for the flowers weren’t red roses at all, as Josie Rose had hinted. They were daffodils, at least two dozen of them, all yellow—bright, sunny yellow, Summer’s favorite color. She didn’t remember walking into the parlor, but she must have because she found herself standing before Kyle, her mouth shaped in a genuine O.

He looked pleased with her response, and it occurred to her that looking pleased looked good on him.

“I have something else for you.” He turned and bent at the waist, a marvelous shifting of denim over man. Just as quickly, he was upright again, and in his other hand was an ornately decorated box of Godiva chocolates.

She almost moaned. “You’re very fattening to have around. Did you know that?”

“Women worry too much about their weight.”

With a tilt of her head, she said, “You’re saying you would date a woman who weighs three hundred pounds?”

“As long as she put it in the right places, sure.”

Summer laughed out loud, and it sounded far sexier than she’d intended. After thanking him for the bouquet and the chocolates, she said, “You’re a wise guy, definitely.”

His grin was approving and mischievous, his posture relaxed. “I can’t take sole credit for the system of analysis. It was a Merrick brother joint effort a few years back. You don’t want to know what prompted it. Which reminds me. Riley said I’m to meet with you here at five to eat cake.”

Well, she thought.

So.

Okay.

Something was seriously wrong with her ability to think in complete sentences, but she finally managed to say, “Someone from the bakery is bringing an assortment of sample wedding cakes here about then.”

There was a nagging in the back of her mind again. What was she forgetting?

“I’ll see you at five,” Kyle said as he settled back into the chair and picked up his magazine.

Summer took the gifts to the kitchen where she put the flowers in water and the chocolates in the cupboard behind her baking supplies. All the while, something continued to bother the back of her mind.

What on earth could she be forgetting?

Freshening guest rooms took approximately two hours each day. Summer began on the first floor and worked her way upstairs. Being careful not to disturb personal belongings such as clothes, cameras and laptops, she straightened desks and dresser tops, smoothed wrinkles from beds and fluffed pillows. She made sure faucets weren’t dripping and rugs were straightened. She also put out clean towels.

Often she listened to music and let her mind go blessedly blank while she performed these daily tasks. This afternoon, she found herself thinking about Kyle’s five classifications of men. Her father and former fiancé fell into the first category. By Kyle’s exposition this type was the worst, but that came as no surprise to Summer.

Since coming to Orchard Hill, she’d met a few men she considered users, several losers, a smattering of smart alecks and even a dumbbell or two. Kyle was right. The wise guys were the most entertaining. Madeline’s three older brothers, Marsh, Reed and Noah Sullivan, belonged in that category, and so did Madeline’s fiancé, Riley.

When Summer finished freshening the guest rooms on the first two floors, she carried her basket of cleaning supplies and another armload of fresh towels up the staircase leading to the attic apartment. She knocked to be sure Kyle wasn’t inside. As she’d suspected, the apartment was empty.

Unlike the other rooms where the sheets and blankets hung on the floor, Kyle had thrown his spread loosely over the pillows. She opened the windows, freshened the bathroom and hung clean towels. Returning to the main part of the room, she rinsed out the coffee pot, pushed in a chair, then went to the bed to finish the job Kyle had started. As she fished an open novel from under one of the pillows, a sheet of paper fluttered out, landing face-up on the bed.

She picked it up automatically and couldn’t help noticing her name scribbled at the top. Beneath it he’d compiled a list.

1. Baltimore

2. Merlot

3. Mackinaw Island

4. Ancient Mythology

5. Six years

6. The Orchard Inn, free-and-clear

7. Refined and educated

8. Evasive—hiding something

Suspicion reared, and the pit of her stomach pitched. Her average guests didn’t make a list of perceptions and things she’d told them. In fact, this discovery was a first.

Her hand shook at the implications, the words on the paper blurring before her eyes. Making a list of things she’d told him didn’t make him a thief, but Kyle Merrick was an investigative reporter. That wasn’t the same as a private investigator, but it didn’t mean she should trust him, either, chocolates and flowers notwithstanding.

She slid the paper into the book where she’d found it and placed the book on the nightstand as she normally would, as if she’d discovered nothing out of the ordinary. She smoothed wrinkles from the sheet, tucked in the blanket and made up the bed with her signature hospital corners. All the while, the word ordinary resonated inside her, for what she wanted, all she wanted, was an ordinary life.

From the door, her gaze strayed to the top edge of the paper peeking from the book on the nightstand. She didn’t know what Kyle was up to, but finding that list was a reminder to her to remain cognizant of everything she stood to lose.

At a few minutes before five o’clock, Summer showed Betty Ryan from Knight’s Bakery and Confectionary Shoppe to the back door. Behind her, four neatly labeled miniature wedding cakes were lined up on the inn’s kitchen table beside a large bouquet of bright yellow daffodils.

Several of her guests had already headed home for the weekend. In the ensuing lull, Summer called Madeline. “The cakes are here, right on schedule,” she said while getting plates from the cupboard.

“I don’t like asking this of you,” Madeline said.

“You know I don’t mind,” Summer murmured. “In fact, I’m happy to do it.”

“I know you say you don’t mind, but I’m lying here doing nothing and you’re—” Madeline burst into tears.

“And I’m about to eat cake. Madeline, what is it? What did Talya say at your appointment today? Better yet, you can tell me when I get there. I’m on my way.”

“No! It was a good appointment. I don’t need you to come over. I just sent Riley out. I love all of you so much, but all this hovering is making me crazy. Riley and I just had our first fight over it.”

Summer paused, her hand suspended over the drawer where she kept the cake knife. While Madeline gave Summer an update on her condition and progress, Summer put forks and napkins on the table next to the dessert plates. Madeline had received good news from her nurse practitioner/midwife this afternoon. Talya confirmed that Madeline’s beta levels were still elevated, a wonderful indication that she was still pregnant.

“Yesterday there was minimal spotting,” Madeline said over the phone. “Today there’s been none. Talya said that as long as this continues, today is my last day of prescribed bed rest. As of midnight tonight I’m relieving you of fill-in bride duties. Poor Riley doesn’t know what to do with me, crying one minute, pointing my finger toward the door the next. What if he doesn’t come back?”

Madeline sniffled again, and Summer’s heart swelled. “Are you kidding me? He’s a smart guy. He’ll be back, probably sooner than you think. In fact, he’s probably pacing outside in the driveway right now. You’re marrying the man, Madeline. It’s called for better and for worse.”

“I’m afraid Riley’s getting the worse first.”

“Riley is getting the best, and he knows it,” Summer declared.

“I hope you’re right,” Madeline said, sounding more like herself. “Just this morning we were talking about names ….”

Laughing at Madeline’s anecdotes, Summer looked around the room. Everything was ready in the kitchen. She was prepared in other ways, too. Madeline had said that as of midnight tonight, Summer would no longer be a fill-in bride. She wasn’t going to wait until midnight to demonstrate a new-and-improved, friendly-but- businesslike manner with Kyle. No more shared middle-of-the-night crème brulee, no more laughing over morning coffee, no more heartrending emotion over something as sweet and simple as a bouquet of daffodils.

Her guard had slipped but she’d resurrected it. She felt a twinge of disappointment over that, for Kyle was a hot-blooded man, and he’d brought out her passionate side, too. But it was something she—

“Summer are you there?” Madeline asked.

“Hmm,” Summer said.

“Summer?”

“Hmm?”

“You seem distracted.”

Kyle had just entered the room. He stood in the doorway, feet apart, one hand on his hip. She could see him taking everything in, the cakes, the flowers, her.

“I’m still here, Madeline,” Summer said quietly.

“Good. Kyle left a little while ago and should be arriving at the inn any minute.”

“Here he is now,” Summer said.

He’d showered and changed into brown chinos and a white, knit shirt. He was cleaned up, buttoned-up, tucked in. He’d even shaved. Without the whisker stubble, the lines of his jaw and chin were more pronounced, the skin above his white collar tan.

He smiled at her and let his gaze trail over her once from head to toe. The pit of her stomach did a dainty little pirouette, and she faced the fact that the return to decorum was liable to be a steep, slippery slope.

“Ready?” he asked.

She nodded.

Ten minutes later, all four cakes had been cut and Summer and Kyle had tasted each one. Twice.

“Okay,” she said, doing everything in her power to ignore the expression of rapture on his lean face as he took a third bite of the first sample. “Madeline wants a simple wedding. Among other things, that means only one cake. We need to eliminate three. First, let’s narrow it down. I think the one with the coconut can go.”

“You’re kidding.” He reached around her and scooped up another forkful of that one. When his elbow accidentally brushed her breast, her heart jolted.

She drew away as if unaffected, but her body betrayed her. Rather than glance at him to see if he noticed, she said, “Coconut is one of those foods people either love or hate, which is why it’s a logical choice to eliminate first.”

“If you say so.” He pushed the white cake sprinkled with coconut to the center of the table away from the other three. Scooping up a forkful of a light-as-a-feather white cake on the plate closest to him, he said, “I like this one.”

“It’s too sweet,” she insisted.

“Who are you?”

Her gaze swung to him. And time suspended.

Did he know that Summer was only a nickname? Is that what he meant?

“You can’t be the same woman who stood in this very kitchen eating crème brulee at three o’clock this morning.”

He hadn’t meant who was she literally.

She’d jumped to conclusions. He was joking. What a relief.

“You’re sure this one’s too sweet?” he said. He took another bite and held a forkful out for her to try again.

She sampled it off the end of his fork, contemplated, and nodded again.

With an exaggerated sigh, he pushed the middle cake out of the lineup. “Now we need to concentrate.”

She couldn’t help smiling because he made eating cake very serious work. They both tried the wedge with strawberry cream filling again, and then the chocolate-vanilla marble with the fudge filling again. And again.

“This,” he said, “could take all night.”

Laughing, she noticed a dab of frosting on his lower lip. Her thumb, of its own volition and without so much as a thought to decorum, glided across his mouth to wipe it away.

He caught her wrist in his hand and took the tip of her thumb into his mouth. Her heart hammered, but Summer held perfectly still. Playfulness became something else, something weightier, something living, breathing and instinctive. Her breath caught and her eyes closed, as traitorous as the rest of her.

The next thing she knew, she was in Kyle’s arms. And his mouth was on hers. And everything merged, every thought converged, every heartbeat stammered, and the entire length of her body was melded to the entire length of his.

Kyle heard Summer’s breath whoosh out of her, he felt her hands glide up around his neck, and he tasted the frosting they’d both sampled. None of it was enough.

He kissed her. At least that was how it began, with a kiss that exploded into something uncontrollable and invincible. It was possessive and hungry, a mating of heat and heart, discovery and instinct. Need filled him, too intense to question, and so tumultuous it became a tumbling free fall without a parachute, an adrenaline rush with only one end in sight.

He backed her to the nearest wall, his mouth open against hers, his hands all over her back. And still it wasn’t enough. He molded her to him, her body soft where his wasn’t, yielding and pliant where his was seeking and insistent.

Her mouth opened, and his tongue found hers. She moaned deep in her throat, the sound setting off an answering pounding in his ears, like the echoing beat of pagan drums. Slightly making room between them, he took her breast in his hand. It was full and soft and puckered and fit his hand so perfectly it was his turn to moan.

Two doors led off the back of the kitchen. He was fairly certain the first opened into a storage room. That meant the second must lead to her private quarters. He wanted to swing her into his arms and carry her there, for he needed a bed to pleasure her the way he wanted to pleasure her. And he needed it now.

He let his lips trail down her neck and loved that she tipped her head back, giving him better access. Her hands got caught in the fabric of his shirt, her touch insistent, at once strong and gentle as only a woman could be. He wanted to feel those hands on his bare skin. He wanted a lot more than that, and he would start by getting her out of her clothes.

“Summer. Are you home? Summer? Where are you?”

Kyle heard a voice in the distance. “Yoo-hoo. Summer. Jake’s here.” It came from far away, outside this haze of passion.

He felt the change in Summer before the words registered in his brain. She stiffened, then went perfectly still.

“I know she’s here somewhere.” Whoever was talking was getting closer. “I’ll just be a moment. Make yourself comfortable.”

Summer drew her neck away from Kyle’s lips and awkwardly pressed her hand to his chest where his heart was beating hard. Through the roaring din inside her skull, she recognized Abby’s voice.

She slipped out from between Kyle and the wall. She didn’t have time to straighten her clothes or run a hand through her hair. She barely had time to take a shallow breath before Abby swished through the swinging kitchen door.

She stopped in her tracks the moment she saw Summer and Kyle. “Oh.” Her blue eyes were round with surprise as she said, “There you are.”

The feeling was returning to Summer’s limbs, but the roaring in her ears hadn’t lessened. “What is it, Abby?”

Upon meeting Abby Fitzpatrick for the first time, and seeing her wispy light blond hair and petite build, her bow lips and ready smile, people often assumed she was flighty. First impressions weren’t always accurate, for she had an IQ that put most people to shame. It didn’t require great brilliance to recognize the reason for Summer’s disheveled appearance and glazed eyes, however, or the reason Kyle kept his back to the door.