Anne Winston - The Bride Means Business

“Kids’ Place.”

Her shock had to show, and the uneasiness telling her there was trouble ahead flared even higher. “How do you know about my store? I thought you said you just came to town.”

He smiled, and the deadly anger in his eyes did make her step back this time. “I made it my business to know everything there is to know about you, honey-bunch.”

“Not everything, since you apparently didn’t know about the stock.”

“Jill!” A man’s voice called to her and she turned, concentrating on forcing a warm smile into place.

“How are you, honey?” Roger Wingerd came toward her and briefly embraced her before drawing back. “I’m going to miss Charles. The Lion’s Club’s fund-raising committee was his baby. Nobody else can come close to following in his footsteps.”

She nodded, her throat tight as an image of Charles, wearing an apron and flipping pancakes at the annual breakfast, popped up. “I know.”

Beside her, Dax stirred restively, then thrust his hand forward. “Dax Piersall.”

Roger’s eyes widened as he returned the handshake. “Roger Wingerd.”

“Roger is the Chief Financial Officer at Piersall,” Jillian told Dax. “He and Charles have worked together for almost seven years. Roger probably knew him better than anyone but Alma.” Better than you, was the unspoken message.

Roger appeared oblivious to the tension in the air. “Sorry about your loss. Charles was one of a kind.”

“He certainly was,” Dax muttered under his breath.

Jillian ignored him, keeping her gaze fixed on Roger. “Are we still on for Thursday night?”

Roger nodded. “I was hoping so, but I’ll understand if you don’t feel like going out.”

“By then, I’ll be all right,” she assured him, delighting in the chance to throw her life-style in Dax’s face. “Pick me up—”

“She’s not free Thursday night. Or any other night.” The deep voice was clearly audible now, cutting off her words.

Rage rose, practically choking her as she spun to face Dax. “You have no right to interfere in my life. No right at all.”

But he was looking over her head at Roger and his eyes were telegraphing a primitive message of aggression that belied his sophisticated exterior. If he’d even heard what she’d said, he gave no sign of it. “You can spread the news. Jillian’s permanently out of circulation while I’m in town.”

Roger cast her one swift, questioning glance and she shook her head emphatically. “He’s hallucinating. Again. I’ll call you—” she threw Dax a murderous look “—once I straighten out Cro-Magnon Man here on a couple of issues.”

As Roger beat a hasty retreat, she turned on Dax again. “Don’t you ever do that again. As far as I’m concerned, our engagement never existed. I don’t appreciate you intimidating my friends and antagonizing my family.”

Dax shrugged, his eyes unreadable. “It was kind of fun.”

“Get out of my life,” she said furiously. “You’ve done it before. You shouldn’t have any trouble remembering how to slink out of town.”

His jaw tightened as if he was clenching his teeth together, but he glanced at his watch, again as if he hadn’t even heard her, and she had to resist the impulse to ball her fist and deck him. Then he lifted his gaze to hers again. “I’m going to be back in your life for quite a while, honey-bunch. So you’d better get used to it.”

And before she could respond, he stepped past her and strode away.

Four hours later, the last of Charles’s and Alma’s mourning friends had left the reception hall at the church. Jillian had urged platters of food on their friends, insisting that she would never be able to use it all. She’d comforted more tearful people than she could count, gone through the equivalent of ten boxes of tissues, and shed her high-heeled shoes under a table somewhere.

She’d had five offers to get stinking drunk, two concerned friends who offered to stay the night, and one proposition from a slimy guy who’d said he was a friend of Charles’s. The first group was the only one that remotely tempted her.

Leaving the cleanup effort to the bereavement committee from the church, she drove the few miles home and parked in the driveway of her condo. God, she was tired. Every single cell in her body felt bruised; she winced at the effort it took to push open the door and get out. In contrast to her aching body, her mind was numb. It was as though she were wrapped in a thick layer of blankets, the heavy fabric insulating her from reality.

Whatever that was. Reality had taken a vacation the day she got that first frantic phone call from the hysterical housekeeper who had been contacted by the police. There’d been no one else to identify Charles and Alma, and so she’d done it.

They’d died instantly when a drunken driver had slammed into them head-on. There weren’t many things in her life that could compare to the horrible reality of examining the mangled remains of two people she loved. No, compared to that, even being dumped by a fiancé seemed more bearable somehow.

Fumbling for her keys in the dark, she stubbed her toe on the step up to her porch and swore. All she wanted to do was to fall into bed and let the world go by for about ten days—

“Wha—?” She gasped as a shadowed figured rose from the single rocking chair. Her heart roared into double-time, and when she recognized the large shape, it only sped up. “Damn it, Dax, you scared me silly.”

“Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry; only amused.

“Go away.” She skirted him, careful not to get too close as she inserted her key in the lock. “I’m tired. You weren’t invited.”

“I’m inviting myself. We have a lot to discuss.” He stepped nearer, and she could see his eyes gleaming in the dim light. “Have dinner with me. Tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“Only in your dreams, big boy.” She shook her head and tried to hide the quivering in her voice. If he just wouldn’t stand so darn close! “I have plans for tomorrow night. And I’m sure my calendar is full up until, oh, about the year twenty-fifty. Sorry, no time for you.”

She turned the key and turned her back on him.

“Your lease for Kids’ Place is up next month.”

The calm, confident words halted her in mid-motion and she paused. “You did your homework.”

“Sugar’s is up in November. So is The Cotton Gin’s.”

So much for trying to be clever. “And that means what, exactly, to me?” she demanded. Sugar’s and The Cotton Gin were two of the other stores in the shopping center where Kids’ Place was located.

“It means,” said Dax, “that you’re talking to the new owner of the Downington Plaza. The owner who can refuse to renew certain leases if he so chooses.”

It was too much, coming on the heels of the horrendous day she’d endured, and her battered brain refused to comprehend his meaning. Weakly, she sank into the rocker he’d vacated as the implications of his words sank into her head. He owned her building. And he would refuse to renew her lease. “Why?” she asked quietly, swallowing the note of pain. “Why are you doing this to me? You’ve done enough already—”

“I’ve done enough?” The words were a volcanic explosion and she shrank back at the rage spewing forth. “What about what you did? How do you think I felt, discovering my fiancée and my only brother were screwing around behind my back? How do you think I felt, coming face to face with the two of you sharing declarations of love in the same bed I’d been in a few hours before?” He leaned down and put both hands on the rocker’s arms, trapping her against the chair back. “Too damn bad for you I came home early that evening, and pretty damn lucky for me. At least I discovered what a little bitch you are before you got a wedding ring on your finger.”