Cara Colter – Wedding Vows: With This Ring: Rescued in a Wedding Dress / Bridesmaid Says, 'I Do!' / The Doctor's Surprise Bride (страница 9)

He sighed. “The soul of it? And you’re not romantic? Organizations don’t have souls.”

“The best ones do. Second Chances does,” she said with determination. “And you need to see that.”

Don’t do it, he ordered himself.

But suddenly it seemed like a life where a man was offered a glimpse at soul and refused it was a bereft place, indeed. Not that he was convinced she could produce such a glimpse. Romantics had a tendency to see things that weren’t there. But realists didn’t. Why not give her a chance to defend her vision? Really, could there be a better way to see if she had what it took to run Second Chances?

Still, he would have to spend time with her. More time than he had expected. And he didn’t want to. And yet he did.

But if he did go along with her, once he had seen she was wrong, he could move forward, guilt-free. Make his recommendations about her future leadership, begin the job of cutting what needed to be cut. Possibly he wouldn’t even feel like a cad when he axed Prom Dreams.

Besides, if there was one lesson he had carried forward when he’d left his old life behind him, it was to never show fear. Or uncertainty. The mean streets fed on fear.

No, you set your shoulders and walked straight toward what you feared, unflinching, ready to battle it.

He feared the knowing that had flashed in her eyes, the place that had called to him like a cool, green pond to a man who had unknowingly been living on the searing hot sands of the desert. If he went there could he ever go back to where—to what—he had been before?

That was his fear and he walked toward it.

He shrugged, not an ounce of his struggle in his controlled voice. He said, “Okay. I’ll give you a day to convince me.”

“Two.”

He leaned back in his chair, studied her, thought it was probably very unwise to push this thing by spending two days in close proximity to her. And he realized, with sudden unease, the kind of neighborhoods her projects would be in. He’d rather hoped never to return to them.

On the other hand the past he had been so certain he had left behind was reemerging, and he regarded his unease with some distaste. Houston Whitford was not a man who shirked. Not from knowing eyes, not from the demons in his past.

He would face the pull of her and the desire to push away his past in the very same way—head-on. He was not running away from anything. There was nothing he could not handle for two short days.

“Okay,” he said again. “Two days.”

Maybe it was because it felt as if he’d made a concession and was giving her false hope—maybe it was to fight the light in her face—that he added, “But Prom Dreams is already gone. And in two days all my other decisions are final.”

Chapter Three

MOLLY was glad to be home. Today easily qualified as one of the worst of her life.

Right up there with the day her father had announced her parents’ plan to divorce, right up there with the day she had come home from work to find her message machine blinking, Chuck’s voice on the other end.

“Sorry, sweetheart, moving on. A great opportunity in Costa Rica.”

Not even the courtesy of a face-to-face breakup. Of course, if he’d taken the time to do that, he might have jeopardized his chances of getting away with the contents, meager as they had been, of her bank account.

A note had arrived, postmarked from Costa Rica, promising to pay her back, and also telling her not to totally blame him. Sweetheart, you’re a pushover. Don’t let the next guy get away with pushing you around. To prove she was not a pushover, she had taken the note directly to the police and it had been added to her complaint against Chuck.

A kindly desk sergeant had told her not to hold her breath about them ever finding him or him ever sending a check. And he’d been right. So far, no checks, but the advice had probably been worth it, even if so far, there had been no next guy.

Besides, the emptied bank account had really been a small price to pay to be rid of Chuck, she thought, and then felt startled. It was the first time she had seen his defection in that light.

Was it Houston, with his hard-headed pragmatism, that was making her see things differently? Surely not! For all that he was a powerful presence, there was no way she could be evaluating Chuck through his eyes!

And finding the former coming up so lacking.

Perhaps change in general forced one to evaluate one’s life in a different light?

For instance, she was suddenly glad she had never given in to Chuck’s pressure to move in with her, that she had clung to her traditional values, that it was marriage or nothing.

She had actually allowed Chuck access to her bank account to take the sting out of that decision, one she’d been unusually firm about even in the face of Chuck’s irritation.

Because of that decision today she could feel grateful that her apartment remained a tiny, cozy space, all hers, no residue of Chuck here.

Usually her living room welcomed her, white slipcovers over two worn love seats that faced each other, fresh flowers in a vase on the coffee table between the sofas. The throw cushions were new to pick up the colors from her most prized possession, acquired since Chuck’s defection from her life.

It was a large, expensively framed art poster of a flamboyantly colored hot air balloon rising at dawn over the golden mists of the Napa Valley.

There were two people standing at the side of the basket of the rising balloon, sharing the experience and each other at a deep level that the photographer had managed to capture. Tonight, Molly Michaels looked at it with the fresh eyes of one who had been judged, and felt defensive.

She told herself she hadn’t bought it because she was a romantic, as a subliminal nod to all she still wanted to believe in. No, Molly had purchased the piece because it spoke to the human spirit’s ability to rise above turmoil, to experience peace and beauty despite disappointments and betrayals.

And that’s why she’d tried on the wedding dress, too?

The unwanted thoughts made her much loved living space feel like a frail refuge from the unexpected storm that was battering her world.

Hurricane Houston, she told herself, out loud trying for a wry careless note, but instead she found she had conjured an image of his eyes that threatened to invade even the coziness of her safe place.

Which just went to show that Houston Whitford was a man she really would have to defend herself against, if the mere remembering of the light in his eyes could make him have more presence here in her tiny sanctuary than Chuck had ever had.

That begged another question. If someone like Chuck—unwilling to accept responsibility for anything, including his theft of her bank account—could devastate her life so totally, how much more havoc could a more powerful man wreak on the life of the unwary?

Molly remembered the touch of Houston’s hands on her neck, and shivered, remembering how hard the texture of his skin had been, a forewarning he was much tougher than the exquisite tailoring of the suit had prepared her for.

Have you ever been hungry?

What had she seen in him in that moment? Not with her eyes, really, her heart. Her heart had sensed something, known something about him that he did not want people to know.

Stop it, she ordered herself. She was only proving he was right. Hearts sensing something that the eyes could not see was romantic hogwash.

He had already axed Prom Dreams. That’s what she needed to see! She was dealing with a man who was heartless!

Though she rarely drank and never during the week, she poured herself a glass of the Biale Black Chicken Zinfandel from the region depicted on the poster. She raised her glass to the rising hot air balloon.

“To dreams,” she said, even though it was probably proving that Houston Whitford was right again. A romantic despite her efforts to cure herself of it. She amended her toast, lifted the wineglass to the photo again. “To hope.”

With uncharacteristic uncertainty tormenting her, Molly spent the evening reviewing her projects—alternately defending each and every one, and then trying to decide which ones to take him to in the two days he had reluctantly allotted her.

And she tried desperately to think of a way to save Prom Dreams. They always had lots of donations of fine gowns, but never enough. It had to be supplemented for each girl who wanted a dress to get one. The thought of phoning the project coordinator and canceling it turned her stomach. Hearts would be broken! For months, girls looked forward to the night the Greenwich Village shop, Now and Zen, was transformed into prom dress heaven.

Could she wait? Hope for a change of heart on his part? A miracle?

If she could convince him of the merit of her other projects, would there be a chance he might develop faith in her abilities? Could she then convince him Prom Dreams had to be saved?

She was not used to having to prove herself at work! The supportive atmosphere at Second Chances had always been such that she felt respected, appreciated and approved of! None of her projects had ever come under fire, none had ever been dismissed as trivial! Of course there had been a few mistakes along the way, but no one had ever made her feel incompetent because of them! She had always been given the gift of implicit trust.