Winter Roses Read online

  “I love weddings,” Hayes said. “It’s the only time I get decent cake.”

  “No fair,” Ivy protested. “Barbara makes wonderful cakes at her café.”

  “I eat on the run, mostly,” Hayes said.

  “Are Jerry’s friends going to come after me, when they know about Rachel’s confession?” she worried.

  “Not likely,” Cash said with a grin. “Jerry survived his fall, against all the odds, and he’s turning state’s evidence. He pointed out his management-level supplier, who was picked up in New York City this morning and charged with drug trafficking. It seems this supplier had enough methamphetamine and crack cocaine in a rented, vacant apartment to qualify him for super dealer status. Federal charges,” he continued, “and they carry long prison sentences. Cobb and the DEA had already picked up the ex-state senator’s daughter in San Antonio, and we hear that the two ex-councilmen implicated in the scheme are trying to make it to Mexico.”

  “If they do, Rodrigo will push them back across the border and yell for the police,” Hayes chuckled.

  “I’m just glad it’s over,” Ivy said quietly. “It’s been a long week.”

  “It certainly has,” Hayes agreed.

  Ivy wondered how he’d taken the news that Minette had never given his little brother the drugs that cost him his life. He might not believe it just yet. His vendetta against the woman had gone on for some time. Maybe he liked hating her.

  They left a few minutes later, and she went back to her list.

  The wedding, predictably, was the social event of the season. The church was deco rated in white and red poinsettias, because it was only a few weeks before Christmas. Ivy wore a white gown with a train and a trailing veil that Stuart had bought for her at Neiman Marcus. She looked in the mirror and couldn’t believe that this was her. She’d never dreamed that Stuart would want to marry her one day, when she was cocooned in her day dreams. She smiled at her reflection, flushing a little with happiness.

  She walked down the aisle alone. She’d had offers from towns people to give her away, but it seemed right to make the walk all by herself. You couldn’t really give people away in these enlightened times, she’d told Stuart. If anything, she was giving herself.

  Stuart stood at the beautiful arbor of poinsettias where the minister was waiting. He looked down the aisle as Ivy walked toward him and the look on his face was fascinating to her. This worldly, experienced man looked very much like a young boy on his first date. His eyes were eloquent.

  She stopped beside him with her bouquet of white roses and lily of the valley and faced him shyly, with her veil draped delicately over her face, while the minister read the vows.

  Finally the ring was on her finger, and on his. He lifted the beautiful lacy veil to look upon her for the first time as a bride.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered, as he bent to kiss her with exquisite tenderness. “Mrs. York,” he added, smiling.

  She beamed. She could have walked on air. She was the happiest woman in Texas, and she looked it.

  Everyone in town was there. The big families, the little families, friends and acquaintances filled the church and flowed out into the yard.

  “At least,” she whispered to him at the reception, “nobody started a mixer, like they did at Blake Kemp’s wedding to his Violet.”

  “It’s early, yet,” he cautioned, nodding toward a fuming Minette Raynor glaring up at a taciturn Hayes Carson.

  “He doesn’t believe she wasn’t responsible, does he?” she mused.

  “He doesn’t want to believe it,” he corrected. “Here, precious, take a bite of the cake so the photographer can make us immortal.”

  She flushed at the endearment and nibbled the white cake as the flash enveloped them. The camera captured similar exquisite moments until the happy couple finally climbed into a waiting white limousine and sped away toward the airport.

  Jamaica, Ivy thought as she lay exhausted in Stuart’s strong arms, was a dreamy place for a honeymoon. Not that they’d seen much of it yet. The minute the bellboy had deposited their luggage, received his tip and left the room, they’d ended up in the bed.

  Ivy knew the mechanics of it, from her romantic novels and blunt articles in women’s magazines. But reading about it and doing it were two very different things.

  The sensations Stuart drew from her untried body were so powerful that they frightened her. She lost control of herself almost at once. His mouth and his hands coaxed a response out of her that would make her blush after ward. He teased her, encouraged her, praised her as he drew her with him from one peak to an even higher one.

  There was one tiny flash of pain, and then nothing except sheer heat and passion that built on itself until she was shivering, exploding with pleasure, begging for relief from the tension that pulled her poor body so taut that it felt likely to explode.

  And it did, in a maelstrom of excited delight that was beyond rational description. She cried out endlessly as her body arched up to receive his in helpless trembling thrusts.

  He found his own relief just as she did, and then collapsed over her. She cradled him in her arms, drunk on ecstasy, blind with satiation.

  After a few breath less minutes, he managed to lift his head and look down into her misty, happy eyes.

  “Now I know you’re disappointed,” he said dryly, “that we rushed it like this. But later, I promise, I’ll torture you with passion and make you scream like a wildcat when I satisfy you.”

  “Dis…appointed?” she asked, blank-eyed.

  He pursed his lips. “You’re not disappointed?”

  “Good Lord, Stuart!” she exclaimed, barely able to breathe even now. “I thought I was going to die!”

  He chuckled. “I must be better than I thought I was,” he told her. He bent and kissed her eyelids. “I wanted to go slow, but I just lost it. I’ve waited so long for you, little one. Years and years. For the past year or so,” he added huskily, “I’ve been as celibate as a man stranded on a desert island. I wasn’t able to want anyone but you. So I couldn’t draw it out the way I meant to, tonight.”

  She was delighted with the confession. Her long legs curled around his and her eyes half-closed in satisfaction. If she were a cat, she mused, she’d be purring. “I don’t have a single complaint.”

  “It didn’t hurt?” he persisted.

  “Only a little. Mostly, I was too busy to notice.”

  He nibbled her lower lip. “I’m good,” he drawled.

  She grinned and punched him in the ribs. “Very good. I think. My memory seems to be slipping.” She glanced up at him, drawing her fingers through the thick hair on his chest. “Could you do all that again, do you think, so I can make up my mind?”

  “Darlin’,” he whispered into her parting lips, “I would be delighted…!”

  The next day, holding hands and walking along the beach while the waves crashed on the sand beside them, she wondered if anyone had ever been as happy as she was right now.

  She leaned her head against his bare shoulder and kissed it. “Did I mention that I loved you?” she asked softly.

  “I believe you did,” he replied, and pulled her close. He looked down into her wide, radiant eyes. “But I didn’t.” He traced a path down her soft cheek, and his eyes were solemn. “I could have told you anytime in the past two years that I loved you. I still do. I always will.”

  It was powerful, hearing the words. She could hardly breathe. “Really?”

  “Really.” He bent and kissed her eyelids closed. “We’ve had a nice break fast and some comfortable exercise. What would you like to do next, Mrs. York?”

  She grinned wickedly, tugged his head down and whispered in his ear.

  His eyebrows arched. “Do you know, that’s exactly what I’d like to do next, too!”

  She pulled away, laughed and went running back down the beach. Stuart gave a shout of laughter and ran after her.

  Years later, she could still draw a smile from him when she reminde
d him of that bright, sweet morning on a Jamaican beach, when their lives together were just beginning. It was, she thought, the best morning of her life.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6962-4

  WINTER ROSES

  First North American Publication 2007.

  Copyright © 2007 by Diana Palmer.

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