She slammed the door behind her and stared at her reflection in the mirror. It was a damned good thing Mary was out. Susan Abbott looked as if she’d been most thoroughly kissed.
As she had. She didn’t remember being that shaken by another man’s mouth in years. Maybe in her entire life. Edward wasn’t much for kissing—Susan suspected that deep down he considered it a bit unsanitary.
Her face felt tender from the scratch of Jake’s unshaven face. Edward didn’t have that heavy a beard, and yet he still shaved twice a day. She touched the faint red mark by her mouth, her fingers delicate, curious. In truth, it hadn’t even been that much of a kiss. She’d panicked before he could deepen it, which was a good thing. She had already been close to succumbing to the erotic pressure of his mouth against hers. If he’d used his tongue she probably would have dragged him over to the bed she’d been far too aware of.
She pushed away from the mirror in disgust, shaking her head. What in God’s name had come over her? She’d never been prey to irrational, surging hormones, she’d never been emotional, irresponsible, filled with the kind of aching desire better suited to a Titanic addict.
She heard the phone ring, but she ignored it. It was probably something she’d forgotten, one of those thousands of questions that only the bride could answer. They could leave a message and Mary would call them back.
The answering machine clicked on, and Susan started nervously as Edward’s disembodied voice floated toward her from the answering machine. “Susan, dear, are you there? I’m afraid I’m going to have to stay in the city tonight, but I’ll need you to take care of a few things. Have you got a pencil? There’s my dry cleaning at Cecil’s French Laundry on Dugan Street, and the jeweler told me the gifts for the ushers are in. And if you could possibly...”
She had her hand out to pick up the receiver, wanting, needing to remember why she was marrying him. But she couldn’t move. She just stood there listening to the list of errands as they sailed right past her consciousness.
She was still standing there, five minutes later, when she heard someone drive up the driveway. Her immediate reaction was flight, out the kitchen door, but the backyard was a cul-de-sac, and there would be no escape. Besides, what did she have to escape from? As far as she knew Jake Wyczynski had no car—he wouldn’t be able to follow, her that quickly and finish what he started.
And Edward was still in the city—she was safe from him, as well. And she wasn’t going to even consider why she was suddenly considering Edward to be as big a threat to her peace of mind as Jake.
It was probably just a delivery company with more of the interminable wedding gifts. Susan liked crystal and silver as well as anyone, but she couldn’t really see centering her life around them. She’d simply pile the latest boxes in the garage and let Edward have tire joy of opening them.
She swung open the front door, then stopped. It was no brown-shorts-clad UPS hunk but a tall, older man. He looked beyond surprised to see her standing at the door, he looked frankly appalled.
“May I help you?” Susan managed to be deceptively polite. She wasn’t in the mood for religious fanatics or vacuum cleaner salesmen, though this man didn’t actually look like either. He looked vaguely familiar, and Susan knew she must have met him at some point in her life.
“Er...is Mary Abbott home?”
“Sorry, she’s out at the moment I’m her daughter. May I give her a message?”
A faint, reluctant smile formed at his mouth. “‘May you?’” he echoed. “She brought you up well.”
Susan shrugged. “She did, as a matter of fact Are you a friend of hers?”
“An old acquaintance. I should have called instead of just showing up, but I was in the neighborhood and I stopped by on a whim. I’ll call next time.”
He seemed to want to get away from her, back to the anonymous dark car he’d left parked in the driveway. And for some reason, despite her earlier desperate need for solitude, she didn’t want to let him escape.
She followed him out into the driveway. “You could come in and wait for her,” she suggested, wondering if she were out of her mind. A moment ago she’d been desperate for solitude. “I’m sure she won’t be long?—”
“No!” He sounded surprisingly vehement, and then he softened it with an oddly familiar smile. “I wouldn’t think of intruding. I’ll come back.”
Something wasn’t adding up, and Susan’s instincts were infallible. “Who are you?” she demanded abruptly as he reached his sedan.
“Who am I?” he echoed, startled, his hand on the door.
“Are you the police? FBI?”
“God, no. Why would you think such a thing?” He looked seriously bewildered.
“The bland rental car, the dark suit, the mysterious manner,” she said. “Of course, you aren’t wearing dark glasses and you’re not traveling in pairs, but still...”
“Maybe my partner is circling around the back.”
She suddenly realized how absurd the whole thing was. “Sorry,” she said. “I haven’t had enough sleep, and my imagination is going haywire.”
“You don’t have any reason to think the police or the FBI would be coming around, do you?” He suddenly looked worried, disproportionately so.
She shook her head. “No, my mother and I live very ordinary lives. It would make things more interesting if they did,” she said. “So who are you?”
“Just tell your mother Bill came by. Til be in touch.”
