A Bride Until Midnight Read online

  Well well well. Here she was having sexy thoughts about a rugged, earthy man who definitely was not wearing a two-hundred-dollar tie. There was hope for her yet.

  “You’re in Room Seven.” She handed him a key, since the electronic key card wouldn’t work during a power outage, the number seven dangling from a metal ring. “Upstairs, to your right, then all the way to the end of the hall.”

  He accepted the key and her venture back to decorum without saying a word. After picking up his duffel bag, he headed for the stairs.

  “Wait,” she called.

  He turned around slowly, his gaze steady and bold. Bold with a capital B.

  Outside, thunder rumbled. Inside, lamplight flickered like temptation.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “You’ll need this flashlight.”

  He wrapped his fingers around one end of the light. The logical corner of her brain that was still functioning knew she was supposed to release her end now, but she couldn’t seem to do more than tip her head back and look at him.

  He was handsome but not in a classical way. His features were too rugged for that, his jaw darkened with beard stubble and damp from the rain. His face was lean and angular, forehead, cheekbones, chin; his lips were just full enough to cause a woman to look twice. There was a small scar below his nose, but it was his eyes that caused a ripple to go through her. Something about him brought out a yearning to hold and be held, to touch and be touched.

  He must have felt it, too, because his gaze delved hers before dropping to her mouth. From there, it was a natural progression to her shoulders, bared by her sleeveless dress, and finally to the V that skimmed the upper swells of her breasts.

  He drew a slow breath, and it was as if they were both suspended, on the brink of taking the next step. If either of them made the slightest movement, be it a gentle sway or the hint of a smile, there would be no turning back.

  She finally garnered the wherewithal to release the flashlight and step away. Giving herself a mental shake, she said, “I hope you enjoy your stay at the inn. Good night, Mr. Miller.”

  She’d surprised him. No doubt a man with his masculine appeal was accustomed to a different outcome. But he didn’t press her. Instead, he turned the flashlight on and followed the beam of light up the stairs.

  “It’s not Miller,” he said, halfway to the top.

  “Pardon me?” she asked.

  “My name isn’t Miller. It’s Merrick. Kyle Merrick.”

  The thud of his footsteps had quieted, and his door had closed before Summer moved. Looking dazedly around the room, her gaze finally fell upon the open registration book. She ran to it and spun it around. By the light of the oil lamp she read the bold scrawl.

  Kyle Merrick.

  Oh no.

  A few hours ago Madeline had said that neither of Riley’s brothers was planning to attend the wedding. So what was Kyle doing here?

  Regardless of his reasons, the wealthy, world-renowned journalist with a nose for scandal and a penchant for stirring up trouble was spending the night right upstairs, and it was too late for Summer to do anything about it.

  The Merricks were self-made millionaires. The jacket hanging on the coat rack was likely made in Italy. Kyle probably owned a closet full of European suits. No matter how far she’d thought she’d come these past six years, her taste in men hadn’t changed.

  She’d been wildly attracted to him and had come very close to succumbing to the desire he brought out in her. There was no other way to describe the awareness that had arced between them. She couldn’t explain it, and she couldn’t deny that she’d felt it. A delicious current lingered even now. She had little doubt an attraction like that would have led to more passion than she’d experienced in a long time.

  But he was Kyle Merrick.

  And she was…well, Summer wasn’t her given name.

  Chapter Two

  Kyle Merrick’s Jeep Wrangler was equipped with the most advanced navigational system on the market, but he rarely turned it on. Relying on technology dulled a man’s natural instincts. Besides, it was more fun to use the sense of direction he’d been born with. It came in handy when he needed to find a way out of dicey situations in some of the world’s largest cities, poorest villages and, on occasion, women’s hotel rooms.

  Locating the house where his brother was staying didn’t require navigational gadgetry, carefully honed skill or God-given talent. Once Kyle had narrowed it down to the general vicinity—east of the river and north of Village Street—Riley’s silver Porsche in the driveway had been impossible to miss.

  Kyle parked the Jeep and got out. As he sauntered to the door, he noted his surroundings, something else that came naturally. This neighborhood was in an old section of Orchard Hill, but, unlike the residences on the national historic registry, the houses here were small and nondescript. This bungalow wasn’t Riley’s type of house at all. Which meant it was Madeline Sullivan’s.

  Since there was no sense putting off the inevitable, he raised his fist and knocked on the door. A large, brown dog bounded outside the instant the door was opened.

  While the dog took care of business on an unsuspecting hedge, the Merrick brothers faced one another, each carefully assessing the other.

  Riley was the first to speak. “I wondered which one of you The Sources would send.”

  Kyle grimaced because this did feel a little like a mission. He’d wanted Braden to come but had lost the toss.

  He and his brothers had a father in common and three separate mothers. It accounted for the similarities in their height and build and the differences in their eye colors and personalities. They hadn’t always gotten along, but they’d always been a united front when it came to their mothers, otherwise known as The Sources. In this instance, Kyle didn’t blame them for being concerned about Riley’s recent, hasty engagement.

  Apparently Riley understood that this confrontation was inevitable. He threw the door wide and said, “You might as well come in.”

  Kyle and the dog followed him through a comfortably furnished living room where blueprints were spread across a low table and a fax was coming in. They ended up in a yellow kitchen where a television droned and steam rose from a state-of-the-art coffeemaker.

  Catching Kyle looking around, Riley said, “She’s not here.”

  Instead of offering Kyle a seat at the table, Riley leaned against the counter and took a sip from one of the mugs he’d just filled. There was no delicate way to do this, and they both knew it. They also both knew that Kyle wouldn’t leave until he’d had his say.

  Carrying his coffee to a spot that was a safe distance from his brother, Kyle leaned a hip against the counter, too, and said, “You can’t blame us for being concerned. Two years ago, you were dying. Two months ago, you still weren’t yourself. Now you’re getting married in a week and a half to a woman you proposed to after you’d known her a matter of days.”

  “Don’t form an opinion until you’ve met Madeline.”

  “I’m sure she’s a saint. I heard she was wearing your sheet the first time she met your mother.” Kyle wouldn’t have minded being a fly on that wall, but Riley didn’t share the details of the encounter. Merrick men didn’t kiss and tell.

  “You have to admit it looks suspicious,” Kyle said. “She’s a nurse. You have money.”

  “Madeline doesn’t care about money.”

  Everybody cared about money. But Kyle said, “She showed up uninvited at one of your construction sites, and she failed to mention that the heart beating in your chest came from her deceased fiancé.”

  “Water under the bridge,” Riley insisted before taking another sip of coffee.

  Following suit, Kyle said, “You fell for her. Hard. I get that. So live with her for a while. Make sure the penny doesn’t lose its shine.”

  “I’m marrying her, Kyle, the sooner, the better.”

  The dog stood up and looked from one to the other.

  “What’s your hurry?” Kyle
asked. “It’s not as if you have to marry her.” He stopped. The drone of the television covered an uncomfortable lag in conversation. “Is that what this is about? She’s pregnant?”

  Riley shot him a warning look.

  And Kyle muttered the only word that came to mind.

  “We’re not telling anyone yet,” Riley said. “So keep it to yourself. I don’t know what I did to deserve Madeline, to deserve any of this, but whatever it was, I’m not wasting another minute of my life without her.”

  Kyle fought the urge to rake his fingers through his hair. “You slept with her, and now she claims she’s going to have your baby. Don’t hit me for what I’m thinking.”

  He could tell Riley wanted to hit him. It wouldn’t be a sucker punch, either. Riley didn’t fight dirty, but he fought to win, something else the Merrick men had in common.

  “Have you ever known a virgin, Kyle?” he asked.

  It took a few seconds for Riley’s meaning to soak in. “You mean Madeline? For real? You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Kyle put his coffee down. “I’ll be damned. A virgin. I didn’t know there were any alive past the age of eighteen. Make that seventeen. Fine. The kid’s yours. That’s good. I guess. I’m just saying—”

  “You’re saying it’s all happening fast and you, Braden and our mothers are worried about that. I trust you’ll put their minds at ease. In your own good time, of course.”

  They shared their first smile. Riley knew him well.

  “Anything else you’d like me to tell our mothers?” Kyle asked, suddenly not at all sorry he’d lost that toss to Braden.

  “Tell them I can feel my heart beating.”

  This time Kyle didn’t say anything. He simply stared in amazement at his younger brother.

  He would never forget the panic and paralyzing fear that had ripped through the entire family twenty months ago when they’d learned that Riley had contracted a rare virus that was attacking his heart. In a matter of days, he’d gone from strong and athletic to wan and weak. He was only thirty years old. And he was dying.

  Kyle, Braden and Riley’s friend Kipp had stayed with him around the clock. They’d begged him, badgered him and bullied him to hold on. Two years younger than Kyle, Riley had been at death’s door, literally, by the time he’d finally received a heart transplant. His recovery had been nothing short of a miracle, but, despite his robust health afterwards, there had been something different about him. It was as if his sense of adventure, his passion and even his laughter had been buried with his old heart. Strangely, he hadn’t been able to feel the new one beating.

  “How long has the feeling been back?” Kyle asked.

  “Since Madeline.” Riley placed a hand over his chest. “I used to climb mountains just for the view from the top. That view is nothing compared to what I see when I look into her eyes. I can see the future, and that’s never happened to me before.”

  Kyle held up one hand. He didn’t know how much more he could take on an empty stomach.

  Riley laughed. And for a moment it took Kyle back to summer vacations and boyhood pranks they’d pulled together. He hadn’t heard Riley laugh quite like this in a long time. It did Kyle’s heart good.

  “I’ll tell The Sources you’re happy and as healthy as the proverbial horse and I’ll tell them you can feel your beating heart. I’m glad, man. It’s good to see you. Real good. Now, I have a plane to catch to L.A.”

  He was already out the door when Riley said, “You look good, too, Kyle. More rested than I expected.”

  The brothers shared a long look, Kyle in the watery rays of late morning sunshine and Riley in the shadow of the doorway. If they were keeping score, this point would go to Riley, for, with his simple statement, he’d let Kyle know that Riley wasn’t the only one their mothers were worried about. Kyle hadn’t been himself lately, either. He was going through something. Running from something.

  The Sources worked both ways.

  “If I look rested,” Kyle said, “it’s because I slept like a baby last night.”

  “During that storm?”

  Kyle couldn’t explain it, but once he’d closed his eyes, he hadn’t heard a thing for nine solid hours. The inn had been empty and the power was back on by the time he’d wandered downstairs this morning. Now, standing in a patch of sunshine beneath his brother’s watchful gaze, he found himself thinking about the woman with the large, hazel eyes and sultry, cultured voice that made hello sound like an intimate secret.

  “Can your plane ride wait until after lunch?” Riley asked.

  “That depends. Are you cooking?”

  Again, the brothers shared a grin.

  Riley, who often burned toast, said, “I thought I’d call Madeline at work and see if she can join us at the restaurant downtown. I’d like you to meet her.”

  “Let me know what time,” Kyle said as he climbed into his Jeep.

  Meanwhile, he had a woman to see about a room.

  Robins splashed in the puddles in the inn’s driveway as Summer pulled into her usual parking place. She lifted her cloth bags from her trunk and started toward the backdoor, the groceries in her arms growing heavier with every step she took. The sound of Kyle Merrick’s deep voice coming through the kitchen window sent the headache she’d awakened with straight to the roots of her teeth.

  She’d spent the first half of the night tossing and turning, her body yearning to finish what meeting Kyle Merrick had started. Between short bursts of fitful sleep, she’d lain awake staring at the dark ceiling, anticipating the hate mail she would receive from the people she’d duped should her secret ever be revealed.

  Her father, for one. Her former fiancé, for another.

  Sometimes she imagined her mother and sister sitting on a cloud, smiling down at her and singing a song about sweet revenge. To this day, she knew she’d done the right thing. That didn’t mean she wanted to relive what was to have been her wedding day.

  She heard Kyle’s voice again. This time it was followed by a flirtatious, though aging, twitter Summer would recognize anywhere. Harriet Ferris lived next door and was always happy to watch the front desk when Summer needed to run errands during the day. Harriet told raucous stories and loved nothing better than having a captive audience, especially if it was someone of the opposite sex.

  Summer almost felt sorry for Kyle.

  Almost.

  What was he doing in the inn, anyway?

  He’d gone. She’d freshened the rooms after breakfast and made the beds. Room Seven had been empty. She’d checked.

  Kyle Merrick’s duffel bag was gone. And she’d been relieved. Okay, she’d felt a little unsettled, too, but that was beside the point.

  For some reason he was back—she had no idea why—and was sitting at the table, no doubt sharing raucous tales with Summer’s next-door neighbor. He looked up at her as she walked in and almost smiled.

  “I thought you’d left,” she said.

  “Without paying for my stay last night? Your low opinion of me is humbling.”

  He didn’t look humble. He looked like a man with sex on his mind, the kind of man who didn’t ask for commitment and certainly didn’t give it. Lord-a-mighty, the invitation in those green eyes was tempting.

  “What makes you think I’ve formed an opinion about you?” she asked.

  He smiled, and the connection between their gazes thrummed like a guitar string being strummed with one finger. Pulling her gaze from his wasn’t easy, but she turned her attention to the woman watching the exchange.

  “Would you like a cup of tea, Harriet?”

  Seventy-eight-year-old Harriet Ferris had been dying her hair red for fifty years. Before every birthday there was a discussion about letting it go gray, but she never would, just as she would never stop wearing false eyelashes and flirting with men of all ages.

  “No, thank you, dear, I really should be getting back home. I’m expecting an email from my sister in Atlanta. She refuses to text. So old-
school, you know?”

  Although she stood up, she made no move toward the door until Summer leaned down and whispered in her ear.

  A smile spread across Harriet’s ruby red lips. “What would I do without you? What would any of us do? This handsome man has brought you a gift.” Harriet looked from Summer to Kyle and back again. “I won’t spoil the surprise, but I dare say if you could bottle the electricity in this room right now, you could sell it to the power company for a tidy profit. If only I were twenty years younger.”

  “You’re a cougar, Harriet,” Kyle said, rising, too.

  With a playful wink and a grin that never aged, Harriet tottered out the back door.

  Now that he and Summer were alone, Kyle handed her the gift bag. “For the next time your power goes out,” he said.

  She opened the brown paper sack. Peering at the fuses inside, she shook her head and smiled.

  He looked like he was about to smile, too, but his gaze caught on her mouth, and Summer knew Harriet was right about the electricity in this room.

  “You wanted to settle up for last night’s stay?” she asked.

  “You aren’t from Michigan are you?” he asked.

  The question came from out of the blue and caught her by surprise. Years of practice kept her perfectly still, her expression carefully schooled to appear artful and serene.

  “I can’t place the inflection,” he continued. “But it isn’t Midwestern.”

  She pulled herself together. Carrying the milk, eggs and cheese to the refrigerator, she said, “I was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Baltimore. My grandparents had a summer house on Mackinaw Island. Until my grandfather died when I was fourteen, my sister and I spent every summer in northern Michigan. What about you? Where are you from?”

  She was just making conversation, for she knew the pertinent facts about his past. She’d researched all three of the Merrick brothers after Madeline had announced her engagement to Kyle’s brother Riley a few days ago.

  “I was born and raised in Bay City,” he said, his voice a lazy baritone that suggested he had all the time in the world. “I studied out east and have traveled just about everywhere else. What did you whisper to Harriet?”