Lauryn Chandler - Just Say I Do

“Mmm. What were you and Lia arguing about when I came in?”

The Collier Bay News And Views seemed to ignite in Annabelle’s hand. “Nothing,” she mumbled. “We weren’t.”

Mutinously, she clamped her lips together. Adam walked in and out of their lives and thought he could pick up again wherever they left off. But for Annabelle, his comings and goings made her feel like an earthquake survivor who was too dumb or too reckless to move away from the epicenter.

He would find out soon enough about Steven, either from Lia or from the paper, but he wouldn’t hear it from her. She kept her troubles to herself. She could handle her life just fine; she was merely experiencing a temporary setback.

“All right,” Adam said, his gaze at once lazy and challenging, “if there’s nothing wrong between you and Lia, then tell me, what’s the matter with your desk?”

“What?” The strange question had her gaze bouncing from Adam to the big mahogany secretary. “What’s wrong with it?”

“There’s something on it.” Relaxing in the well-upholstered chair, he waved a hand, indicating the paperwork lined in precise piles along the outer edge of the desk. “I’ve never seen anything on your desk except lemon oil.” One golden-brown brow, a match for his hair, arched in an ironic compliment. “Annabelle Simmons you’re practically cluttered.”

Ooh, she hated it when he did that—noticed every-thing around him like a hawk! It made her feel like a plucked chicken, naked and goose-pimply. Annabelle’s gaze skittered to the stacks of paper, neatly aligned and organized, and she felt a rush of anxiety, like a whirlpool inside her.

For years, Adam had teased her about her penchant for neatness, but she liked order; it provided comfort in an otherwise chaotic world.

Unfortunately, this time no amount of organization could buffer reality. Unpaid bills, invoices with out-standing balances—the truth stared her in the face: her business was in the red.

For five years she’d struggled to support herself and her sister following their parents’ death in an auto accident. Now the stability she had worked so hard to reestablish was slipping away like rain through her fingers.

But she would get it back. She had to.

With her own wedding on the horizon Annabelle had accepted too few assignments this entire last year; she’d been too preoccupied helping Steven plan parties and benefits in his bid for city councilman.

Annabelle rubbed her throbbing temples. If she didn’t know better, she would say her headache was pounding to the beat of “The Wedding March.”

“What’s wrong, Belle?”

Lowering her hand to her lap, she smiled blandly at Adam. “Nothing. Everything’s fine.”

And it would be. All she needed were a couple of more aspirin to chase the two she’d taken this morning and an hour alone to come up with a game plan. She and Lia would have to tighten their purses, but other than that, they would be fine. Everything would be fine.

Flushing under Adam’s sharp gaze, Annabelle decided it was time to take an Excedrin break. She was about to make her excuses when the office door opened again, and Lia burst in, looking dazed and flushed.

“What’s the matter?” Annabelle’s heart began its maternal worrywart thump. “Honey, are you all right?”

Lia nodded. She held up two sheets of paper, stapled in the corner, the opened envelope in her free hand. “I got it,” she said, her tone weak and amazed.

“What?” Annabelle said. “Got what?”

“From Juilliard.” She swallowed hard, blinked and looked at her sister. “My acceptance.” She waved the paper. “It’s a letter of acceptance. I got in!”

With a smile that bloomed like the first rose of spring, Lia threw back her head and yippee’d with pure joy. “The best, the most respected, the most wonderful school of fine arts in this country and they want me! I can’t believe it!”

His injury forgotten, Adam rose from his chair, grabbing Lia around the waist and raising his hand for a smacking high five.

Juilliard.

Suddenly Annabelle’s legs felt like columns of Jell-O. She took two wobbly steps away from the desk.

Dear heaven, how could she have forgotten? Several months ago Lia had applied to the private, prestigious, expensive college, on the other side of the continent, a budding young pianist’s dream come true…

Good Lord, Juilliard!

Lia’s excitement and Adam’s congratulations were loud and rousing, but not nearly as loud as the twenty-one-gun salute that went off inside Annabelle’s head. Her breath started coming in short staccato bursts.

Four years at Juilliard would mean an open door to Lia’s future. Four years at the college meant four years of intense study, four years of books, of tuition and housing and cab fare and—

Aaaaagh!

“Belle?”

Annabelle heard her name and saw Adam step to-ward her, but everything seemed fuzzy, as if she were looking through a veil. Suddenly she felt very very dizzy; dozens of tiny white lights seemed to pop and sparkle around her head. She extended a hand, groping for the desk to steady herself.

A staticky seashell sound filled her ears. Through it, she heard Lianne’s voice and then Adam’s again. “Annabelle!”

The last thing she remembered was trying to smile and offer Lia her congratulations.

What came out was an odd little twist of her lips, so that she looked like a baby with gas, and a badly mumbled sentence that sounded like “I can handle it.” Then Annabelle slipped quietly, peacefully to the floor.

She was floating…

What a wonderful sensation, Annabelle thought as she hovered pleasantly between a dead faint and wakefulness. She hadn’t felt this warm or peaceful in ages.

She became aware of strong arms lifting her, arms that tightened when she stirred, and felt herself being carried, then lowered onto something comfortable but firm and real. A large cool hand came to rest on her forehead.

Now that was a feeling she remembered from a long time ago—a broad caressing hand. Mmm, it made her sorry she’d cut her hair. She had the most stirring recollection of tender curious fingers weaving through the long strands. She sighed as the memory grew clearer—a face, a smile, a hand reaching out—

Her eyes opened with a snap. She stared straight up.

Adam leaned over her as she lay on the sofa, his body so close she could feel the heat.

Like a jack-in-the-box, she bolted upright. Her forehead made solid thwacking contact with the bridge of his nose.

“Son of a bitch!”

“Ow!” Annabelle bounced back against the cushions.

Hovering anxiously behind Adam, Lia gasped.

Raising a hand to his injured nose, Adam turned to the younger girl. “I think she’s coming to.”

“Oh, Annabelle! Are you all right?” Lia rushed to her sister’s side. “What happened?”

The fear in Lia’s voice made Annabelle struggle to sit up. She wobbled, then fell back on her elbows with a grunt. Adam reached for her immediately. Without thought, without any conscious decision at all, she scrunched back into the cushions. The sharp retreat came as automatically as blinking.

Swearing just loudly enough for her to hear it, Adam shoved his hands beneath her armpits, foisting his help on her whether she wanted it or not. When he pulled her to a sitting position, the room started to spin, and she swayed. Adam’s grip tightened.

“Hang in there,” he said, holding her steady.

“I’m fine,” she mumbled, “fine…”

“Lianne, hand me that pillow.” Tucking a small cushion carefully behind Annabelle’s back, he settled her against the arm of the sofa, then turned to the younger woman. Sensitive to the fear that was turning the girl ashen, Adam spoke gently. “Lianne, can you go into the kitchen and make your sister a cup of tea?”

Lia stood uncertainly, biting her lip and staring at the big sister who rarely had a cold, much less a fainting spell. Adam reached out and gave the girl’s forearm a gentle squeeze.

“She’ll be all right,” he reassured her. Knowing Lia would be calmer if she was occupied, he urged, “How about that tea? And something to eat.”

Lia nodded so hard her ponytail bobbed. She ran out of the room, and Adam turned back to the thin too-pale woman lying on the divan. An expletive rose to his lips. Dark smudges shadowed the area beneath Annabelle’s blue eyes. From the moment he’d walked in this morning, he had seen how tired and over-worked she appeared.

Delicate and fair, she had always given the appearance of needing someone to look after her, an impression dispelled immediately once you got to know her and realized it was Annabelle who took care of everyone else.

Even as a teenager, she had managed her parents’ house, balancing the family checkbook, clipping coupons for groceries. Her parents had been wonderful people, but they’d been artists and their left brains hadn’t been quite as fully developed as their right. Adam had loved their relaxed easygoing natures, so different from that of his own mother and father. Jack and Lilah Simmons valued individuality and the joy of living in the moment. They had taught their children to value themselves and they had taught him, too. But he could see now, with the benefit of hindsight, that their carefree attitudes had frightened their older daughter.

Adam looked at Annabelle and felt a sharp stab of guilt. He’d stayed away too long.

Her eyes were closed, and he wondered whether she was fully alert. He sat on the sofa next to her very carefully, hip to hip, and she jerked. Yeah, she was alert, all right.

Scanning her body, his sharp gaze paused where her skirt bagged across her concave tummy. “Have you had anything to eat today?”

Her eyes flickered open. “A couple of aspirin,” she whispered weakly.

He had to resist the urge to shake some sense into her. “Aspirin is not part of the food pyramid, Annabelle.”

Irritation filled him. When she’d slid to the floor like she was melting, his heart had skipped more beats than it would ever make up.

A fussy priggish Annabelle he could tolerate.

A self-righteous Annabelle he could tease.

A sick Annabelle scared the daylights out of him.

Taking her wrist between his fingers, he counted her pulse. Fast, he determined, but steady.

Absently, he rubbed her hands to warm them. She still had the smallest hands of any woman he’d ever known.

Belle had changed in the past few years. For as long as he lived, he would never understand how she’d tied herself to a bonehead like Steven J. Stephens. The man was a pompous anal-retentive bore and, apparently, a bastard to boot.

Adam had wanted to find the man and rearrange his nose until it was as skewed as Stephens’s politics when he saw the Collier Bay News last night and that picture of Stephens with a woman who looked like a Barbie doll. Granted, Annabelle Simmons’s love life was none of his business, but worrying about her was an old habit, and old habits were the hardest to break.

Pressing her hand between his palms, Adam waited for her skin to grow warm.

Flustered by the feel of his palms enveloping her much smaller hand, Annabelle let her eyes remain closed, although she was wide awake now.

When she’d come to in her parlor and realized it was Adam’s hand on her brow, she’d felt something close to panic. Even semiconscious, she had recognized the traitorous heat that flowed through her limbs.

His touch was a time machine, whisking her back to the days when taking his hand had been easy and frequent.