Runaway Vegas Bride / Vegas Two-Step: Runaway Vegas Bride / Vegas Two-Step

Jane nodded.

“And honest?”

“I told you, a remarkable man,” Jane repeated even more emphatically than before.

“And you had dinner and drinks? Like…a date?”

“I date,” Jane insisted.

“Not in this calendar year,” Lainie reminded her.

“I’m just very selective about the men I find worthy of my consideration and time.”

Lainie’s bottom lip curled over her teeth, and she looked like she might bite herself to keep from replying to that, but finally gave up the battle and said, “And when you do, you don’t show up in the office whistling the next morning. If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you and Wyatt Gray didn’t end things with dinner and drinks last night.”

“Of course we did. I would never take a man home with me that I’d just met, and going home with him would be just as risky and irresponsible.” And Jane never took irresponsible risks. “Besides, this wasn’t a date. It was dinner at the retirement park with Gram, Gladdy and Wyatt’s uncle, the cad. Assessing the situation we’re facing with them.”

“And the drinks afterward?” Lainie prompted.

“A place to talk without them present, where Wyatt and I found out that we’re in complete agreement that the relationship between his uncle and Gram has to be stopped. We plotted our strategy to make that happen.”

“Of course,” Lainie said. “I just got so excited when you said you met a man you think is reasonable.”

“Well, I’m sure there are a few of them in the world,” Jane admitted.

Granted, that might be considered a rather large concession on her part to the quality of men alive on the planet at this moment. But she did consider herself a reasonable woman, and a reasonable woman would have to concede that Wyatt Gray had not been what she’d first thought.

“I’ll even admit we had a very interesting and enlightening conversation,” Jane said, thinking she was being exceedingly reasonable and fair-minded now.

“Okay, tell the truth. He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” Lainie asked with a knowing gleam in her eyes.

“That had absolutely nothing to do with…anything,” Jane insisted, thinking, oddly, that she felt a little…tingly inside and just a tad overly warm all of a sudden.

How odd.

Lainie laughed.

“It didn’t,” Jane corrected. “You know I always say the worst thing in the world a woman can do, besides depend on a man financially, is to judge one by his looks. I would never, ever do that. In fact, the best-looking men are almost always the most spoiled and immature.”

It was true. She knew it. Long experience with the women in her family had proven it.

“We must be talking Greek God in a designer suit here,” Lainie claimed.

“He was beautifully dressed,” Jane admitted, again only trying to be fair.

And still, feeling that unusual, unsettling tingly warmth inside her.

“You know, I may be coming down with something,” she told Lainie. “Does it feel warm in here to you? Could you check to see if anyone messed with the thermostat?”

Chapter Four

Jane waited until Gram was at her regular tennis lesson two days later, because normally Gram and Gladdy were practically inseparable, and then went to do her duty, to save poor Gladdy from Wyatt’s ill-behaved uncle.

Jane pasted on a fake smile, walked into Gladdy’s room, and—

“Oh, my God!”

It looked like Gladdy and Leo were…necking on the love seat! Gladdy had her head on Leo’s shoulder, and his was bent over hers. When Jane burst in, Gladdy gave a start and her head popped up, banging into Leo’s forehead.

Jane stood there, astonished and really, really mad on both Gladdy’s and Gram’s behalf.

“Oh, Jane, dear, will you ever learn to knock?” Gladdy asked, practically giggling.

Giggling?

Jane worked herself up into a good, steaming rage and pointed her finger at Leo, who didn’t look guilty in the least over what he’d done. “You,” she said, advancing on him. “Get your hands off my aunt! Right now! Now!”

She’d beat him off with her briefcase if she had to. Jane lifted it up and back, preparing to take a swing.

Leo Gray stood up, all too slowly for Jane’s current mood, smoothed out his shirt, brushed back the bit of hair on the sides of his head and looked for all the world like he was the insulted party here.

“Girly,” he said. “You’ve got to learn to have a little fun.”

Jane’s mouth fell open.

Girly?

He’d called her Girly!

“I’ll have you know that I am a twenty-eight-year-old adult woman! I am no girl,” she yelled after him, as he left Gladdy’s room. “I should have you arrested for this!”

“Arrested?” Gladdy said, taking her arm and pulling the briefcase out of her hand. “Jane, what are you doing?”

“I came to warn you about that awful man! Did he force himself on you? Tell me, because if he did, I’ll—”

“Leo Gray’s never had to force himself on a woman in his life,” Gladdy insisted. “I mean, have you looked at the man? I know you’re not seventy-five years old like me—”

“Gladdy, you’re eighty,” Jane reminded her.

“Shhhh. He doesn’t know that. A woman should never admit to her real age and never look her real age. There’s no reason to in these days. Speaking of which, Jane, darling, is it too much to ask for you to use that nice ageresistant face cream Kathleen and I bought you for Christmas? You have beautiful skin, dear, but you want to keep it that way. You’ll care about these things one day. At least, I pray that you will.”

“That I’ll worry about wrinkles one day? That’s what you pray for?”

“No, that you’ll learn how to enjoy a man and want to look your best for him.”

Jane sank down into the love seat Leo had just vacated, suddenly so tired and frustrated, she could have cried or screamed. That awful man!

“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked Gladdy.

“Of course, I’m all right. I’m better than I’ve been in years, in fact. Nothing like a fabulous man to make a woman feel young again. I think I’m going to get my hair done and have a facial. What do you say, Jane? A facial? My treat?”

Jane felt like she might turn into a stark raving lunatic at any moment. “A facial? Gladdy?”

“Good skin care is nothing to scoff at, Jane.”

“What about Gram? You love Gram. You always have, and she thinks she’s in love with that man, that awful man—”

“He’s far from awful, and Kathleen has never been in love in her life,” Gladdy insisted. “You know that. You know what the women in our family are like.”

“Yes, but she told me that she loves him. I’ve never heard her sound this way, and if she knew what the two of you were doing behind her back. Not even behind her back,” Jane remembered. “The other night, at dinner?”

“We were holding hands. It’s hardly a crime, hardly anything at all. What a prude you can be sometimes, Jane. I just hate that for you. I want you to be happy in every way, including having a man in your life.”

“Prude?” Jane was so hurt, she could hardly speak.

Frustrated, infuriating tears filled her eyes. Prude? “I am not!”

“You’re objecting to hand-holding, my darling. If that isn’t prudish, I don’t know what is. I was holding hands with boys in first grade.”

Jane gasped, hurt. Prude? She opened her mouth to object again, and then realized if she didn’t get out of there right that minute, she was going to cry. And Jane Carlton never cried, especially in front of anyone!

“I…I…I have to go. I can’t talk to you about this right now,” she said, then got up and fled.

She was outside, hurrying down the walkway toward her car, not really watching as carefully as she should have been, when she literally ran right into Leo Gray.

“You,” she said, “Necking with my aunt? Behind my grandmother’s back! My grandmother who thinks she’s in love with you? You rat!”

He didn’t crumple or anything from the impact of their collision. The man was solid for his age. But then he grabbed her by the arms. She hated grabby men.

“Get your hands off me this instant!” she yelled.

“Calm down, girly,” he said, having the nerve to seem amused. “I’m just trying to make sure you don’t fall down.”

“I don’t need any help to keep from falling down. Let go of me this instant!”

She jerked herself away with everything she had, but he was stronger than he looked, and he didn’t let go. A haze of red came over Jane’s vision. She was so mad now, she couldn’t even see, couldn’t remember ever being this mad in her life.

It was all his fault!

Every bit of it!

Her grandmother would be brokenhearted. He’d been necking with Gladdy, Gladdy who’d called Jane a prude! And this awful man had the nerve to tell her she needed to relax?

Before she truly thought of what she was about to do, Jane pulled back the hand with her briefcase and got ready to whack him with it. She got the backswing in and was bringing her hand forward when, only then, her mind cleared just a bit so she could actually see what she was doing.

She was about to hit an old man.

A nearly ninety-year-old man!

“Oh, my God!” she cried, changing her mind right at the end of her backswing, as she started swinging her arm forward.

Could she stop it now? Was it too late?

And then she gasped as she was lifted off her feet—literally—and hauled around in the other direction.

Wyatt saw Jane and Leo having what looked like angry words, but he wasn’t really worried at first.

Then Leo put his hands on Jane, holding on to her.

Not the smartest thing to do, Wyatt was sure.

Then he saw Jane wind up to take a swing at Leo with her briefcase.

“Good God! Jane!” he yelled, barely getting to her in time.

He was in the wrong place to get between her and Leo. He was behind Jane. So he just put an armaround her waist, hauled her back against him and swung her around the other way.

Leo ducked and her briefcase went flying, landing harmlessly in the petunias in the flower bed to the right.

She screamed in pure outrage, like she was being mugged in a dark alley, kicking her feet in the air, her arms coming back to grab him. She hit him in the eye, then grabbed and thankfully got nothing but his hair. Afterward she took that handful of hair and yanked hard.

“Jane,” he hollered at first, because she wouldn’t have heard him over the racket she was making otherwise. “It’s Wyatt. Shhhh. I’m not going to hurt you. I would never hurt you.”

He got another arm around her, this one across her hips, her body completely plastered against his as he spoke softly into her right ear. “Shhh. It’s all right.”

She stopped kicking out with her feet, stopped squirming and went still. Maybe that was even worse, because then her hips were pressed against his abdomen—sweet, curvy Jane hips. She was breathing hard, and as he lowered her to her feet, her whole body rubbed along his.

Damn, Jane.

She really would be outraged if she knew the direction of his thoughts at the moment.

He put her down and she turned around, right there in front of him, looking shocked, still more than a little mad, and all rumpled and…sexy.

Very, very sexy.

Her hair had come tumbling down from that well-disciplined knot she’d had it in yesterday. It tumbled about her shoulders and her face. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes glistening with unshed tears.

A look of horror came over her face as she glanced from him to Leo to the crowd of retirees Wyatt now realized had come to watch this scene.

“Oh, my God!” she said, like she’d just woken up from a nightmare.

He took her carefully by the arms, to steady her and nothing more, not because he just needed to have his hands on her. “It’s okay,” he promised quietly, then turned and addressed the crowd. “Everybody’s fine here. Just a slight misunderstanding. Let’s all move along now. Nothing to see.”

Jane’s mouth fell open, and for a moment, it looked like she was going to hide her face against Wyatt’s chest to keep from having to see anyone. Not that he had any objections.

He had the feeling Jane Carlton very seldom, if ever, let herself really lose it like that, and while he wasn’t a man to condone violence, he had to admit, if any man could push a woman over the edge, it would be one of the Gray men. Leo probably deserved to be whacked with much more than the briefcase.

His mouth twitched. He was aching to grin, but tried to maintain his stern facade as Leo came cautiously closer. Wyatt eased Jane’s face against him in a loose embrace, while she hid for a moment.

Over the top of her head, he mouthed to Leo, “What the hell did you do now?”

Leo shook his head, pretending an innocence Wyatt was sure was completely fake.

“Get out of here,” he mouthed.

Before he turned Jane loose on the man.

Wyatt waited until Leo was far enough away. He felt fairly certain Jane wouldn’t chase after him, if she saw him, and then reluctantly stepped away from her.

She was shaking and felt so tiny in his arms. “You okay now?” he asked.

When she finally lifted her head, she looked a bit dazed and still horrified. “I can’t believe I did that.”

Again, Wyatt had to fight not to grin, because she looked like she was confessing to mass murder.

“Leo’s fine,” he said. “Not a scratch on him.”

“I almost hit another person!” she cried. “An old man!”

“Now that would offend him terribly. Calling him an old man and thinking he was too frail to take you on in a fight.”

“I don’t fight!” Jane cried. “I can’t. I would never. I’ve always been devoted to nonviolent ways of settling disagreements. I abhor violence in any form.”

“An admirable principle,” Wyatt assured her.

“But I could have really hurt him. I mean, I take kickboxing and self-defense classes.”

Wyatt couldn’t help it. He chuckled at that.

Jane, kickboxing? It was laughable, given her size. If her little suits weren’t so severely cut, he’d swear she had to shop in the girl’s department.

“I could have hurt him,” she insisted. “I’ve had abused women go through my seminars. And every now and then, a man gets mad at the things I’ve taught a woman and shows up at the office. I thought it was important to learn to protect myself, that every woman should.”

“Of course,” Wyatt agreed. Mad men came looking for her? Pint-size Jane? He didn’t like the sound of that at all.

“But I never believed I could resort to anything like that myself. Wyatt, this is horrible. This is completely unacceptable. One minute, I was fine, and the next, I just saw red, literally, and I was taking a swing at him.”

“Jane, I’ve nearly decked him a time or two myself, and I assure you that I too abhor violence. I’ve had abused women in my office, as well, trying to work up the courage to divorce their abusers.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, still aghast at her own behavior, standing on the walkway at the retirement park, looking around like she’d just found herself on another planet.

“It’s all right. I promise. And I’m sorry I grabbed you like that. I was just trying to keep you from hitting him.”

“And I’m so glad you did.”

“What did he do to make you so mad?”

“I went to talk to Gladdy about him, and I caught them necking in her room! And he was so awful! He called me names and said I just needed to learn to have some fun. Fun! He’s going to hurt my grandmother and Gladdy’s feelings terribly, and he thinks it’s fun!”

Jane realized she’d said it like fun was a dirty word, which she didn’t believe, and she wasn’t really a prude, was she?

“But I wasn’t really going to hit him, Wyatt, I swear! I changed my mind. Midway through that swing, I realized what I was doing and changed my mind. I just wasn’t sure if I could stop in time. My briefcase was already headed for him, and I just…I don’t…This is sooo awful!”

“Jane, it’s fine. Everyone’s fine.”

“And then you grabbed me, and I didn’t know it was you, and I—”

“I know. I didn’t mean to manhandle you. I just had to act fast, and…well, I’m sorry.”

And then she looked horrified again, raised her hand to the side of his face and said, “I hit you!”

His right eye throbbed a bit. “It’s nothing,” he insisted.

“No. It’s turning red and a little puffy.” She touched it, with her fingertips, featherlight, trying to find the extent of the blow. “Oh, my God, Wyatt! I could have put your eye out!”

“I seriously doubt that.”

“No, I’ve been trained to do that.” She seemed absolutely convinced that she could. “A man attacks you, you go for the eyes. It’s one of the most vulnerable spots on the body. Eyes, nose with the heel of your hand, groin—”

“Okay, thankfully, I came out of this unscathed.”

“No, we have to get something on that eye. Ohhh,” she fretted. “I feel awful about this. You have to let me help you.”

“Well, if you insist,” he said, turning himself over to her tender care.

Gladdy, Leo and Kathleen watched from the cover of the rhododendrons fifteen feet away.

“Ladies, I’m afraid I overplayed the scene,” Leo said.

“Nonsense. Jane overreacted,” Gram stated. “Gladdy and I should have warned you about that. Poor Jane does tend to overreact.”

“She’s got some fire in her, all right. I like that in a woman,” Leo admitted. “Couldn’t believe she actually took a swing at me. Didn’t think she had it in her.”

“It was the ‘girly’ remark,” Gladdy said. “And I may have overplayed things a bit myself with her.”

“Of course not. It worked perfectly,” Kathleen insisted. “Look at them. Jane feels terrible about what she did and Wyatt’s comforting her. It’s so sweet. They’ve known each other for less than three days and there they are. I’d say our plan to get them together is a rousing success.”

“Well, in that case, ladies,” Leo said, “would you care to join me for a celebratory drink? I have champagne chilling in the minifridge in my room. We can decide on our next move and commemorate the success of this one.”

Wyatt took Jane back to his apartment, which was a mere four blocks away—a sleek, shiny, modern, expensive loft in a high-rise on the edge of town.

Jane taking charge was something to behold. She pushed him down to sit in the middle of the big, cushy sofa the minute they had walked in the door, and told him not to move. He complied.

She got ice from the kitchen, lectured him mildly about the need to take care of himself properly once she found out he didn’t even have an ice pack, explained that one should always be prepared for life’s emergencies, then said they’d make do with a ziplock bag wrapped in a hand towel.

She came to stand behind him, took his head in her hands and eased it back against the sofa cushions. Then she placed the makeshift ice pack on his right eye.

“Keep that there while I search your bathroom. You must have some ointment and bandages somewhere.”

He sprawled on the couch, leaning back as instructed and holding the ice to his eye. He never imagined a woman giving orders to him would be so sexy. Normally, he was a take-charge kind of guy. Not that he ordered women around, either. Just that…well, he couldn’t help but wonder now exactly how Jane would be in bed.

Would all those spitfire tendencies come out? That take-charge attitude, demanding what she wanted from him?

Wyatt had a hard time imagining Jane knowing what she truly wanted in bed, much less demanding it. She was cute, but didn’t seem to have much use for men, and any woman who’d been truly satisfied in bed would have at least one use for a man, he reasoned. He suspected she was very good at pushing men away, at keeping them at arm’s length, and not that good at really letting herself go in any situation.

Not that he thought he’d see her in his bed anytime soon.

There had to be a dozen women he knew who’d be so much less trouble than Jane, although, he thought, once there, Jane would be interesting and definitely a challenge.

And Wyatt would admit to being a man who liked a challenge.

She came back a moment later and he felt the couch cushions give with her weight, as she knelt on the seat beside him, bracing her side on the back of the couch as she leaned over him.

Removing the ice pack, she frowned down at him, her face maybe an inch from his as she inspected his eye.

“It’s all red and puffy now,” she complained, sighing heavily, her warm breath brushing across his cheek, his ear.

He shivered just a bit, wondering what she’d do if he pushed her backward to lay on the couch, stretched out on top of her and started giving a few orders of his own. Would she give him a smile and wind her arms around him? More likely, she’d try to hit him again or really put his eye out this time.

The woman thought she was a champion kickboxer, after all.

Wyatt grinned, laughing a bit, unable to help himself.

“What? There’s nothing funny about this. I feel terrible, Wyatt.”

“Well, I don’t,” he said. “It’s really nothing, Jane. I can hardly feel it anymore. I assure you, I’m fine.” As long as she didn’t figure out where his thoughts were going at the moment.

She put the ice pack aside and came up with some kind of ointment, which she then very carefully spread with her fingertips along his eyelid, his brow and the side of his face. And as she got closer and concentrated harder on getting it in exactly the right place and not his eye, her body leaned into the side of his, one breast pressed against his shoulder.

He felt like someone had installed a giant neon Trouble sign in his apartment when he wasn’t looking, and that it had just flickered on and was blinking in a fire-engine red color.

Trouble, trouble, trouble!

He had real problems to deal with. Leo and his penchant for getting kicked out of retirement complexes had Wyatt worried that there would be no place in all of Maryland that would take his uncle, once Ms. Steele put the word out about him. And the easiest way to fix that problem was for Wyatt and Jane to work together.

If he made her mad, came on to her, offended her, hurt her, he doubted they’d be working together to solve the Leo problem any longer. So Ms. Jane Carlton was definitely off-limits. It would be more trouble in the long run than any short-term fling with her would be worth.

So what if she smelled really good? And had the sweetest, gentlest touch in a little spitfire of a body? Which he suspected no man had ever properly awakened before. Surely he was capable of exercising some kind of discipline where a woman was concerned.

He shifted his weight, thinking to ease away from her, and instead, set her off balance and her whole body fell against his. No question now. Those were her breasts pressed against him, her neck and her sweet, sassy Jane mouth right at the corner of his own.

She gasped in surprise, her eyes suddenly all big and round and so close to his, not blinking. Neither of them breathed for an instant.

He could have her flat on her back in a moment. Or take her by her thighs and pull her across his lap facing him, palm those pretty hips he’d had pressed against him earlier and pull her tight against him. He knew it, and if he knew anything about women, she was thinking the same thing.

Discipline, Wyatt. It’s not just a word.

“Jane,” he whispered, hardly able to believe he was actually doing this, taking her arms in his hands and steadying her, then easing her away from him, to sit on her knees on the cushion beside him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to throw you off balance like that.”

She just looked at him, sexy and baffled and maybe embarrassed, which was the last thing he wanted.

“And I’m just not sure what you want here,” he confessed. “But I know what I want, and I really don’t want to offend you.”