Susan Wiggs - The Borrowed Bride

She gave up on the latte and rose from the bench to drop her cup into a waste barrel. “What do you want from me?”

“Just a little of your time.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How much?”

He sent her the same lazily sexual smile that had cast a spell on her five years earlier. She had been twenty-one, a terrible driver, and while backing out of a parking space in front of an ominous-looking nightclub, she had knocked over a large black motorcycle.

Terrified but determined to do the honorable thing, she went into the club to find the owner of the bike.

He was performing that evening, playing to a small, grungy but clearly appreciative crowd. The lead singer of a local band, he strummed a wild, primeval tune on a battered Stratocaster guitar. To Isabel, he looked like eternal hell and damnation in the flesh. He was gorgeous. She was spellbound.

He forgave her for the damages, took her out for a latte that had stretched into an all-night conversation, and stole her heart.

She backed warily away from the memory, for it was still as dark and seductive as that moonlit night had been.

“How much time, Dan?” she asked again, telling herself she was older, wiser, immune to his devilish smile.

“That depends,” he said, “on how long it takes for you to realize you’re marrying Anthony for all the wrong reasons.”

“Oh, please.” She turned away and gripped the rail of the ferry. “I’m a big girl now. And I’m not stupid. I don’t want you back in my life.”

The boat was nearing the downtown pier. Good. The minute they got to the terminal, she would call Anthony at his office. The situation was bound to be awkward. Best to explain this to him before Connie got started.

A flash of electric awareness came over her. She felt Dan behind her, although he wasn’t touching her. Despite her anger, a vital tension tugged at her.

“Turn around, Isabel,” he whispered in her ear. “Look me in the eye when you say you don’t want me.”

Her entire body felt slow and hot, as if she were swimming through warm honey. She forced herself to turn to him, pressing the small of her back against the iron rail.

He clamped one hand on the bar on each side of her so that she was trapped. She looked at him, really looked at him, and her throat went dry.

He had hardly changed at all. Still the same magnificent face that made women stop and stare. Same velvet-brown eyes with gold glinting in their depths. Same lean, unyielding body, filled with a hard strength that made his tender touch all the more astonishing. Same perfectly shaped lips…

His mouth was very close. She could feel his heat, could feel the clamor and clash of panic and desire inside her.

“You were saying?” he whispered. His lips hovered over hers, and she felt a fleeting reminder of the wildness that had once gripped her whenever he was near. “Isabel?” His intimate gaze wandered over her throat now, no doubt seeing her racing pulse.

“I was saying,” she forced out, “that I don’t…”

“Don’t what?” His thumbs brushed at her wrists, lightly, gently.

“…want you…” she tried to continue.

“Go on,” he whispered. His tongue came out and subtly moistened his lower lip.

“…in my life again.”

His hands stayed on the railing. Yet he moved closer, his hard thighs brushing hers, searing her through the wispy fabric of her skirt. She felt every nerve ending jolt to life. By the time he grinned insolently and pushed back from the railing, she was dazed and furious, and the ferry was unloading.

“Just checking,” he said.

“You bastard,” she whispered.

A pair of women with straw shopping bags passed by, sending Isabel looks of rueful envy.

Dan stepped back, smiling his I’m-a-rebel smile.

“I need to make a phone call,” Isabel said. “And then I’m taking the next ferry back to Bainbridge.”

“We haven’t settled a damned thing.”

“We settled everything five years ago. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.”

“Five years ago was only the beginning.”

“No.” The word sounded strangled as she headed for the stairs. “It was the end.”

He caught her wrist, and she froze. There was not a trace of a smile on his face when he brought her around to look at him.

“Don’t you think you owe me one more chance?” His voice was a low rasp that reminded her of the smoky, yearning love ballads he used to sing to her. “After all, you almost had my baby, Isabel.”

Dan Black Horse couldn’t believe Isabel had agreed to come with him. But then, he couldn’t believe he had said such a blatantly manipulative thing to her.

She had even called the clean-cut Anthony and told him not to worry; she’d be in touch.

And so here they were—a couple of hours southeast of the city, at his guest lodge in a wilderness so deep and untouched that there weren’t even roads leading to the property.

He looked across the timber-ceilinged lounge at her and could not for the life of him think of a damned word to say.

She stood at a window, one slim hand braced on the casement, gazing out at the dense old-growth forest that rose like a sanctuary around the lodge. In the green-filtered glow of the afternoon sun, she looked fragile and lovely, the shape of her legs visible through the thin, full skirt, her back straight and proud, her hair flashing with burnished light.

A wave of tenderness washed over him. Always, she managed to look isolated and alone, even when she was in a crowd of people. It was one of the first things he had noticed about her.

“You changed your hair,” he said at last, then grimaced at his own inanity. Boot heels ringing on the floor, he crossed to the bar and took out a can of beer for himself and a soda for her.

She turned around to face him. Her full breasts strained against her cotton jersey top. “You changed your life.”

Her face was more striking than he remembered. Large doe eyes. High, delicate cheekbones. A full mouth that drove him crazy just thinking about it. An air of winsome uncertainty that made him want to take her in his arms and never let her go.

Ah, but he had let go. Five years earlier, he had not been brave enough, smart enough, to hold her.

He handed her the soda and gave her a lopsided grin. “Yeah, I guess you could say I made some changes.”

“A few, it would appear.” She strolled around the rambling room. “Where’s the phone? I had no idea you were taking me this far away. I should check in with—”

“No phone,” he told her quietly.

“What?” Liquid sloshed out of the can, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“There’s a radio for emergencies, but the phone lines don’t come up this far, and it’s too remote for cellular.”

She sagged against the back of an armchair. “Whatever happened to the city boy? Didn’t you find fame and fortune with the Urban Natives?”

“Depends on your standards for fame and fortune. The band did okay. The last album went gold, and it got me into this place.”

“I noticed the name of this place on the door—The Tomunwethla Lodge.” She brushed her hand over a woven wicker bean jar on a side table. “What does that mean?”

Ah, she had trained herself well. He had always hoped she would acknowledge the past, maybe even come to cherish it as he did. But given Isabel’s background, that wasn’t likely.

“Cloud Dancer Lodge,” he said. “‘Cloud Dancer’ is a song I once wrote. A really bad, crying-in-your-beer song. Probably the most popular thing I ever did.”

Isabel rose and stood on a braided oval rug in front of the massive hearth. “So what’s the point?”

“Of the song?”

“Of everything.”