Carrera's Bride Read online

“We were all sort of in the same boat,” Marcus explained. “None of us wanted to rush you, but it was a lonely game.”

  He seated Delia while Barney seated Barb, and the waiter bought menus for them.

  After they ordered, Delia looked around the table. “I don’t understand why we’re here tonight, though. Is it some sort of special occasion?”

  “You might say that,” Marcus mused.

  Barb and Barney smiled mysteriously.

  “What, then?” Delia persisted.

  “You’ll just have to wait until after dessert,” Marcus teased. “But I promise, it will be worth waiting for.”

  Dinner was exquisite. Delia had never eaten food so wonderful. And the desserts were rolled from table to table on a trolley, so that the guests could choose their own. Marcus liked a deep chocolate cake. Delia picked a crème brûlée and savored every single bite.

  With the dinner came wines, a delicious white with the fish and a dry red with the beef, and champagne with dessert.

  The bubbles tickled Delia’s nose. She laughed. “I don’t think I’ve had champagne more than once in my life. Mother didn’t approve of spirits,” she added. Then she stopped, and looked at Barb. “I mean, Grandmother didn’t approve of spirits,” she corrected, and her eyes were full of love.

  Barb bit her lower lip. “Thank you, baby,” she said softly. “But I know it’s going to be hard for you to get used to calling me Mother. You just go right on calling me Barb. It doesn’t matter, honest.”

  But it did, and Delia knew it. She reached over and touched Barb’s hand gently. “You’ve been like a mama wolf all my life, protecting me and sheltering me and taking care of me. I’ve always thought of you as more mother than sister, and especially now. I’m glad you’re my mother. And I’m glad Barney’s my dad,” she added, smiling at him, too. “It was a surprise, but it’s not a bad one. It was just that so much was going on at the time. I think I went a little crazy.”

  “No wonder,” Marcus replied. “You lost everything, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, don’t they say?” she replied. “I’ve matured.”

  “You have,” Barb said.

  “But you’re still my baby,” Barney told her with a loving smile.

  “Thanks.”

  He shrugged. “What are dads for?”

  “That’s something I can’t wait to find out for myself,” Marcus murmured, giving Delia’s shocked face a speaking glance. “And that reminds me…”

  He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, square jeweler’s box, one that matched the box Delia’s necklace and earrings had been in. He opened it and sat it just in front of Delia’s dessert plate. Then he waited, watched, his breathing all but suspended.

  She stared at the rings openmouthed. There was an emerald solitaire in an exquisite heavy gold setting, surrounded by small diamonds, next to what was obviously a matching wedding band.

  “It looks like…” she began.

  “It is,” Marcus said quietly. “I’m asking you to marry me, Delia.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Delia stared at the rings with her heart in her throat. He was telling her that he wanted to marry her. She shouldn’t have been surprised, not after he brought her the baby’s memory quilt. But she was.

  She looked up at him with tears in her eyes.

  He grimaced. “I know. You’re remembering what I said to you, that you weren’t my type, that I didn’t believe I could ever have been interested in you. But the doctors explained it to me. Even when I had amnesia, I was still trying to protect you. Deluca was after me and you were in danger if you were near me.” He smiled gently. “You see, it wasn’t that I didn’t care. I cared so much that even amnesia didn’t affect it.”

  She curled her small hand into his big one and looked at him with her heart in her eyes. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Marcus.”

  “They weren’t kidding, you know, when they said I had a reputation,” he added, his expression solemn. “I have got a past, and I was a bad man.”

  “No bad man could make a quilt like the one you brought me today,” she said simply, and swallowed hard to keep the lump in her throat from choking her.

  His fingers tightened on hers.

  Barb and Barney exchanged puzzled looks, but Marcus and Delia weren’t sharing that memory. It was too personal.

  “Yes, Marcus,” Delia repeated. “I’ll marry you.”

  He grinned from ear to ear.

  “We’re going to need a lot more champagne,” Barney said on a chuckle, and signaled to a waiter while Barb mopped up her tears.

  “Would you like to be married in Jacobsville?” Marcus asked when they were briefly alone in his hotel room while he planned to phone for the limo driver to pick them up.

  “I would,” she agreed.

  “We can get a license and a blood test and a minister in three days,” he said. “Or would you like to wait until Christmas?”

  She searched his eyes hungrily. “I’d rather starve to death than wait.”

  His eyes flashed. “So would I.”

  In a matter of seconds, the phone call to the limo driver was forgotten, her dress was on the floor, followed by his jacket, and a trail of hastily-removed clothing made a trail all the way to the king-sized bed.

  They barely made it under the covers before his big body was crushing her down into the crisp, cold sheets.

  “I’m sorry, I really am starving,” he groaned as he nudged her long legs apart and lowered himself between them. He looked into her wide, misty eyes. “Is it all right?”

  “What do you mean, is it all right?” she gasped.

  “Are you taking anything?” he emphasized.

  She shook her head.

  He hesitated.

  She looked straight into his eyes and deliberately lifted her hips and brushed them against his in a long, slow, sensuous plea.

  He shivered.

  He bent and brushed his mouth softly over hers. The urgent ferocity was suddenly gone. He hesitated, shifted, took a deep, long breath and kissed her with aching tenderness. The sudden shift from raging passion to exquisite tender patience caught Delia by surprise. She met his eyes with patent curiosity.

  “I’ll explain. Here,” he whispered, tugging her legs up beside his so that they were lying curled together like an intimate puzzle. “If we’re going to make a baby, we have to do it with love, not lust,” he added, and his voice actually trembled.

  She caught her breath and tears misted her eyes. “A baby?” she whispered brokenly. “Do you mean it? It’s not too soon for that?”

  “No. It’s definitely not too soon,” he whispered, closing her wet eyes with kisses. “A baby will only make everything more perfect than it already is.”

  “Yes,” she sobbed at his ear, clinging closer as she felt him pressing intimately into her body.

  He shifted against her, smiling as his hands began to caress her slowly, with aching tenderness. He kissed her face, brief little teasing kisses that matched the infinitely slow, sweet movements of his big body. The only sound in the room was the soft whisper of flesh against flesh, the tiny sounds that pulsed out of her throat as the pleasure began to build.

  His big hands cradled the back of her head. “I’m sorry you cut your hair,” he said. “I loved it long.”

  “I was grieving,” she replied. “I’ll let it grow…” She cried out as his hands found her more intimately than they ever had before.

  “Do you like that?” he murmured. “Let’s try this.”

  “Marcus…!”

  His mouth explored her as if she were a flower, touching and tasting, and arousing sensations that lifted her completely off the bed.

  By the time he reached her breasts, she was shivering. One big hand was between them, coaxing her body to accept him.

  Her short nails bit into his big arms as he began to possess her with slow, deep, intimate strokes.

  “It wasn’t…like t
his,” she tried to tell him.

  “No, it wasn’t,” he whispered. His eyes were somber as they held hers while his body moved into stark, total possession. “We’ve never made love like this, before, not even when it was the very best pleasure we shared. But this is different, my darling. This is…creation itself.”

  She throbbed. Her body pulsed with every brush of his powerful body. She made a sound she’d never heard, deep in her throat, as the pleasure began to climb like a fever.

  “Hold on, tight,” he whispered. “We’re going to fall right…over…the edge…of the world…!”

  He pushed down, hard, and she lifted up to meet him. The motion was frantic, potent, fierce. All that tenderness that had led up to it made the culmination even more shattering. They clung to each other, shuddering, pulsating, as the pleasure burst into a thousand fiery explosions and lifted them into near unconsciousness.

  She heard his harsh voice throbbing in her ear as he convulsed over her shivering body. She wept, because it was unbearable. She didn’t think she could live through it.

  “I’m…dying,” she sobbed.

  “So am I,” he ground out unsteadily, his body moving helplessly against hers in the pinnacle of ecstasy.

  She couldn’t let go, not even when their hearts stopped racing out of control. She clung to his damp back, holding on as he rolled sideways, with her still pressed to him.

  He shivered one last time. “I never had it like that in my life with anyone, not even with you,” he whispered, awed.

  “Me, neither.”

  He laughed wickedly, deep in his throat. “Yeah, but I wasn’t a virgin,” he whispered outrageously.

  She laughed, too, amazed that intimacy could be so sweet and so much fun at the same time.

  He curled her against him and rolled onto his back with a rough sigh. “Now we have to get married quick, so that we don’t have to let out the wedding gown I packed for you.”

  “Wedding…gown?” she stammered.

  “It’s gorgeous,” he said wearily, tugging her into a more comfortable position. “Acres of lace, a keyhole neckline, an embroidered hem of white roses to match the embroidered veil, and a white rose garter.”

  “You bought me a wedding gown?” she exclaimed. “When?”

  “A few days after my memory came back,” he murmured drowsily. “I was going crazy, I missed you so much. I knew you had to have a little time, but I had to do something to keep myself sane. So I flew to Paris and went through all the couture houses looking for just the right gown. It’s in a hanging bag in my closet. Want to see?”

  “Do I!” she replied, touched.

  He dragged himself out of bed, opened the closet, and drew out a couture bag. He hooked it over the closet door and unzipped it. Lace flowed out onto the floor. Delia jumped out of bed and went to look at it, fascinated by the almost ethereal beauty of it.

  “Marcus, this must have cost a fortune,” she exclaimed.

  “It did,” he mused. “But I’d have mortgaged the hotel to get it. I think you’ll be the most beautiful bride this town ever saw.”

  She looked up at him with eyes that adored him. “You’ll certainly be the most handsome groom,” she told him.

  She moved against him and reached up to lock her arms around his neck and coax his mouth down to hers. Neither of them was wearing clothing, and it had been a long time that they’d been apart. He felt her bare breasts and long legs against his and his body hardened at once.

  She lifted her eyes to his and pursed her lips. “Well?” she asked. “Are you up to it?”

  He bent and swung her up into his arms with a bearish grin. “Honey, suppose you tell me if I am?”

  He tossed her into the middle of the bed and followed her down.

  It was morning before they woke. He rolled over and looked at the clock and sighed. “I guess the limo driver gave up on us and went to bed, too,” he told her with a wry grin. “I booked him into the hotel, just in case.”

  “You wicked man,” she teased.

  “Hey, it’s been a long dry spell,” he defended himself. “I haven’t touched another woman in all this time, you know.”

  She beamed. “I hoped you hadn’t, but it’s nice to know for sure.”

  “Trust me, do you?” he asked.

  She nodded. She nuzzled her face against his. “I love you, Marcus,” she whispered. “I love you so much, it hurts.”

  He buried his face in her throat. “I love you just as much,” he groaned. “I never knew it could hurt so much to be separated from someone!”

  “Hurt…?”

  “You lost our baby, and you were gone before I even knew it. I couldn’t even comfort you. Worse, I had to live with the knowledge that I’d caused it.”

  “But, you didn’t,” she said at once. “Marcus, you didn’t! I couldn’t have let that man kill you! What sort of life would I have had, without you?”

  “Maybe a better one than you will have,” he said worriedly. “I’ve still got enemies. We might have some bad times yet.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll stand with you with our backs to the wall and fight right alongside you, if I have to!” She lifted her head and stared at him with a ferocious, loving expression. “Texas women have always been fierce when their families were threatened. You’re my family, now, too,” she whispered. “And I’ll love you all my life.”

  He bent and put his mouth softly over her parted lips. “I would die for you, baby,” he whispered in a choked tone. “I’ll give you anything you want!”

  She snuggled close, feeling safe and loved and cherished. “I only want a baby, Marcus,” she said softly.

  His arms tightened. “So do I!”

  She closed her eyes. “I have a feeling that we won’t have a long time to wait,” she murmured with a smile.

  When they got back to town, Marcus checked into the Jacobsville hotel to allay any gossip about him and his Delia, and he invited his friends Cash and Tippy Grier to have dinner with them, along with Barb and Barney.

  But what started out as a simple social evening mushroomed.

  Cash had arranged for his friends Judd Dunn and Marc Brannon, as well as Jacobsville police officers Palmer and Barrett, and Sheriff Hayes Carson, to meet him in the lobby of Marcus’s hotel just after supper. And he didn’t mention it to Delia.

  He left her talking with Barb, Barney and Tippy while he tugged Marcus out to the lobby on the pretext of discussing something personal with him.

  “Oh, no,” Marcus said when he saw the lawmen, most of whom were wearing their uniforms. “No, you’re not to arrest me on some old, forgotten charge like jaywalking and lock me up before my own wedding…?”

  “Nothing of the sort,” Cash replied immediately, grinning. “No, we have another objective in mind.”

  Marcus shook hands all around, but he was puzzled at why these guys were gathered around him.

  “We asked the Hart brothers how to go about this,” Cash said merrily. “They arranged each others’ marriages even when their brothers didn’t want them to. And they gave us a rundown of the entire process. So here’s how it goes. I’ll take you over to get the license first thing in the morning. Judd’s arranged for Dr. Lou Coltrain to do the blood tests tomorrow at eleven. Marc’s arranged for the county ordinary to perform the ceremony two weeks from Friday in her office.” He grimaced. “I forgot to ask, did you want a minister, as well…?”

  Marcus was reeling. In shock, he nodded and mentioned that he and Delia had barely had time to discuss that, but they were agreed on the denomination and said they’d take care of that, also.

  “We’ll rent you a tux,” Cash added, pursing his lips when Marcus gave him the size.

  “I’ll phone Neiman-Marcus and have them ship one down for me, with the accessories,” Marcus waved that detail away.

  “That leaves the invitations,” Cash continued.

  “All in hand,” tall, blond Officer Palmer said with a grin. “My wife works for a big engraving co
mpany. They print invitations and business cards and such.”

  “I’ve lined up caterers for the reception,” Officer Barrett added, smiling. “And I’ve arranged for the local bank’s community room to hold it in.”

  “I’ve taken care of the flowers,” Marc Brannon chuckled. “Josette’s friends with our best local florist.”

  “Who put the announcement in the local weekly and daily papers and alerted the news media?” Cash asked.

  There were shocked gasps.

  Cash held up a hand. “Tippy and I will take care of that.”

  “News media?” Marcus asked darkly.

  “Not to worry,” Cash said, grinning. “I know exactly the people to call. We won’t have any tabloid reporters here. I’ve already asked Matt Caldwell to run down that local ordinance that he used to keep reporters away from his wife Leslie when they were after her a few years back. It works great!”

  “I think that’s about everything,” Hayes Carson mentioned, “except for the escort to the airport, and I’ll do that personally. Can’t have our newlyweds hassled by traffic on their way out of the country, right?” he chuckled.

  Marcus shook his head. “And I was just wondering how to go about getting the details wrapped up.” He smiled sheepishly. “Thanks, guys. Thanks a million.”

  “Don’t worry about the dog and the chicken, either,” Hayes added with a wicked grin. “I’ve already got places ready for them out at my ranch until you decide when you want them shipped to the Bahamas.”

  Delia just beamed. “Thanks, Hayes. You, too, guys!” she added to the others.

  They all managed to look humble. They hadn’t mentioned the tin cans, the confetti, the soap and ribbons they planned to affix to the rented limousine while the reception was going on. Or that they’d already phoned Mr. Smith in the Bahamas and given him explicit instructions about Marcus’s house for when the newlyweds went home after their week on St. Martin in the Caribbean.

  Every detail of the service had been worked out, perfected and carried out without a hitch by Marcus’s willing accomplices, to Delia’s surprise and secret amusement. It didn’t even bother her that preparations for it had been taken out of her hands. She helped address the invitations and they were hand-carried by cowboys that worked for the surrounding ranches—most specifically the Harts, the Ballengers, the Tremaynes and Cy Parks.