Wedding Bell Blues Read online

  Selected praise for

  HEATHER GRAHAM

  “With the name Heather Graham on the cover, you are guaranteed a good read!”

  —Literary Times

  “An incredible storyteller!”

  —Los Angeles Daily News

  “Refreshing, unique…Graham does it better than anyone.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “She always comes through with an intricately plotted narrative that keeps the pages turning. A delight to read.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Graham wields a deftly sexy and convincing pen.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  HEATHER GRAHAM

  WEDDING BELL BLUES

  HEATHER GRAHAM

  is a New York Times bestselling author who has written more than ninety novels, several of which have been featured by Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild. She currently writes for Silhouette Books and MIRA Books, and there are more than twenty million copies of her books in print. Heather lives with her husband and five children in Miami, Florida. Readers can find out more about her and her latest books on her Web site, www.theheathergraham.com.

  Dedicated with love and very best wishes to all of my cousins and new cousins-in-law who were married in the past year.

  Samuel DeVouno, Jr., and Janis Clems

  Patrick Michael DeVouno and Andrea Hawcridde

  David Kenneth Mero and Susan Mary McCarthy

  Jill Marie Mero and Roman Sobocinski

  Dennis Langdon Staples and Dawn Elizabeth Violette

  Brent Louis Estrella and Sheryl Mallett

  Howard S. Ostrout, Jr., and Lori L. Lobeda

  And very especially,

  Doreen Marie Law and John Tor Westermark, for

  sharing all the laughter and the mini-traumas, and

  for all the time we spent together, and for the sheer

  pleasure of seeing Derek in that tux.

  And for Gail Marie Spence and James Crosbie,

  for having both Dennis and me (a pregnant

  bridesmaid) as part of it all and part of your life.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  As long as she lived, Kaitlin would never forget the day Brendan asked her to marry him. A wedding, a beautiful wedding with a white gown and all the trimmings, had been a dream of hers all her life.

  And through the past three years, the dream had always included Brendan.

  He proposed with style. With the same style that had attracted her from the beginning, with the handsome appeal and charisma that had swiftly and surely convinced her that it was not puppy love, with the tenderness that had proved to her that there was much, much more between them than young passion and, as her mother warned, growing hormones.

  No, she was in love with him.

  And he was in love with her. The forever kind of love, the “’til death do us part” kind of love. A lifetime of commitment, of vows, of promises, pure and bright and shining forever.

  In years to come she would remember the night and the picture they made together. He had reached his full height of a solid six foot two, and his shoulders were powerful and squared, and still he seemed lean, both mature and youthful. And with the straying lock of ebony hair that fell over his eyes, he was handsome enough to attract the attention of women of all ages. She had known that she was shining that night, too. Shining with excitement.

  She had always been delighted that he was hers. The quarterback of the high school football team, the captain of the debating team, somehow managing to convey a certain sexy wildness while maintaining an average very close to a perfect 4.0. And from the moment they had met, their eyes locking despite the length of the hallway between them, their relationship had seemed fated.

  She’d known who he was, of course. Everyone at school did. And he had smiled. Slowly. With cocky assurance. And his gold-flecked emerald gaze had swept the length of her. That had been slowly, too.

  And then he had turned away, with utter confidence. She would be there when he was ready for her, the gesture seemed to say.

  Kaitlin had never had any intention of being anyone’s easy conquest. And neither did she need to be. From her grandmother she had inherited her rich, beautiful strawberry blond hair. Hair that rippled and waved down the length of her back, soft and abundant. She had her grandmother’s startling blue eyes, too, light, crystalline and clear. And her Irish complexion, soft and creamy, with rose-tinted cheeks. She was her mother’s daughter, too, determined, bright, savvy…and nicely built.

  So at the first dance of the year, she was a flirt. A terrible flirt. She laughed outrageously. She moved as if she was dancing on air. She teased the boys mercilessly but grandly, and…

  And she kept her eyes on Brendan. But he didn’t come near her. Not until the last dance was announced, and then she was suddenly in his arms, and he was staring at her.

  “Are you happy, Kaitlin? That whole pack of lost puppies is over there tripping over their hanging tongues. You’ve set their self-confidence back a decade.”

  “Oh, have I?” she challenged him. But something in his eyes was very serious, even though he was still offering her his slightly mocking smile. “I was dancing, that’s all. Enjoying the night.”

  “Teasing every guy here to distraction.”

  “Really? Well, if you don’t mind, then, Brendan, let me go, and I won’t be teasing anyone any longer.”

  He shook his head. “No more, Kaitlin. You’re with me now because you want to be. Because you want me.”

  She had smiled disdainfully at his sheer effrontery. “I want you? Don’t be so certain.”

  “But I am. You’ll always go after what you want, Kaitlin. And right now, you want me.”

  “You’re awfully egotistical, Brendan O’Herlihy—” she began. Then his lips were suddenly on hers, and he kissed her. The kind of kiss she’d never dared imagine. Open-mouthed, hot, demanding, coercive, a kiss that stole her breath away. She could barely hear the music; she could barely stand. She forgot what she had been saying.

  Then the kiss ended, and when she looked into his eyes, she knew that her world had changed. He smiled again, gently. Assured, mature, certain.

  “You’re where you belong right now,” he told her softly. “And it’s where you’re staying.”

  “But I—I might be teasing you,” she stammered.

  He shook his head. “No. Because whatever you promise me, Kaitlin, you will give.”

  She had meant to jerk away from his arms, but she never did. She met his eyes, saw the challenge there, and they danced until long after the music had stopped.

  From that moment on, they were one.

  Oh, they fought. She was something of a flirt, and he was possessive and had a rather infamous temper. And she was jealous. Jealous as she had never thought she could be in her life. But there was no one quite so fascinating. No one quite so startlingly handsome. No one with enough casual, masculine charm to sweep away an entire class. Girls liked Brendan. She knew that half her classmates—half of her good “friends”—were just waiting for them to break up so they could have a chance at him.

  But despite the wild fights and her continual determination to prove that she was her own woman, they never did split up. Not for a weekend. Not even for a day.

  By her eighteenth birthday they had been together for three years. For the occasion, Brendan had rented a small suite at an
old hotel in the country. He had ordered up dinner and even thought to see that there were flowers and candles on the table, and that everything was as elegant as possible.

  She had worn a strapless sea-green satin dress, and they had shared a bottle of white wine across the candlelit table.

  And then he had stood up and taken her into his arms. She had known, on that night, that they were going to make love.

  Everyone who had dated as long and as steadily as they had had already done so. Her interest had certainly been piqued; she was both eager and scared. She’d heard stories from her friends about awkwardness and pain and frenzied groping—and the back seats of old cars.

  But she should have known that it would be nothing like that with Brendan.

  His kiss was something she already knew well. Deep and searing, hot and passionate, soul-stealing. And the exquisite, shivery feeling as his lips moved down the length of her throat was also something she knew.

  But always before, there had been a certain restraint.

  Not this night.

  She was swept into his arms and carried through the living area of the suite to the bedroom, where he placed her on the queen-size bed. He lay down beside her and kissed her again, then showered her shoulders with searing tongue strokes that left her quivering in their wake.

  At last he found the zipper of the sea-green dress and slid it down. And where the material of the dress parted, the lightest caress of his lips followed. She never quite realized how, but suddenly the dress was gone, and then he just stopped and stared at her, drawing his breath in very sharply before he touched her. Her lacy strapless bra was shell pink, as were her panties and her elegant little garter belt. He had seen her in less, actually, since he had seen her in the half dozen bikinis she had owned over the past few years. But it didn’t seem to matter when he moved again and whispered that the garter belt was the sexiest thing he had seen in his entire life. Then he tossed aside her shoes, and she was amazed when he clutched her foot and teased her flesh through her sheer stocking, massaging, kissing her arch and then her ankle, the length of her calf, the back of her knee and along her thigh, before stripping the stocking away. And when he repeated the process with her other leg, she found herself shivering as if she was frozen, even while her skin was flaming from his touch.

  She was hot. Hot as she had never been in all her life, barely able to keep still, to think, to comprehend. There would be nothing for her tonight except sensation…touch…the feel of his lips against her naked flesh.

  Once her stockings were gone, her bra was next. He nuzzled her breasts tenderly and gently, and then he told her that he had been wrong before. The garter belt was something, but nothing in the world was as erotic as her breasts. He kissed each one in turn, starting slowly, then moving inward with erotic, soft flicks of his tongue until he surrounded the hardening rosy center and swept it into his mouth, creating a startling fire that left her moaning and thrashing restlessly beside him.

  It burned deep in the center of her, hot and aching, there, at the juncture of her thighs.

  Always he touched her, always he seared her. Kissed and whispered. The garter belt came next, and then the shell-colored lace panties. And his touch moved closer and closer to the fire, until he stroked the flame itself, igniting her, causing her to cry out in soft, incomprehensible whispers. He rose to remove his own clothing, and in the shadows he was magnificent, tall and broad-shouldered, lean and hard, and when he lay beside her, he was all hot, rippling muscle, smooth and sleek and beautiful. And he was more. He was the man she loved. Had loved for all these years. And she knew that she would love him forever.

  His body moved over hers, and she gasped, startled at the feel of him.

  She had thought she knew him so well….

  But she hadn’t quite known this part of him. Huge, throbbing, arrogant against the bare flesh of her thigh, threatening, promising, warm against the gates of her femininity.

  But she did know his voice. Heated, intense, passionate. Encouraging…telling her that she should touch him, too.

  She did so, nearly crying aloud at the vital heat of him. And then she was burying her face against his shoulder, amazed that when she had touched him, the fire within her had grown. She ached. She wanted him. She needed him.

  But he waited. Waited for the words of need to come tearing from her throat. And when they did, he entered at last. Slowly, carefully, tenderly. When the first startled cry of pain came to her lips, he whispered and held still, then slowly moved again. Kissing her. Touching her. Until the delicious feelings returned again. Until the ache became a drumbeat, a pounding, a pulse. Something nearly desperate. So sweet and searing that it was agony, and so exquisite that it was ecstasy. She felt herself climbing, flying, reaching the clouds, where at last the sweetness exploded within her like the bursting of the sun in the sky. Hot, melting rays swept through her body, filling her with molten honey and sensations of love and warmth beyond anything she had ever imagined.

  The heat, she thought, was him. Filling her. And it was wonderful, because she knew that she had not reached that searing splendor alone, that she had been everything he had wanted, that he had filled her, been a part of her, and would be, from now until forever.

  Even afterward, it was beautiful. He pulled her close into his arms and held her tenderly, smoothing back her damp hair and whispering softly that he loved her.

  The night was still young, and it became a time for explorations. They bathed together, and made love in the shower. She began by pressing sensual kisses against his chest, nipping at his shoulders and back, and stroking his hard, muscled buttocks as the shower cascaded over them. Even when they were ready to leave, they couldn’t quite bear it. She wrapped her arms fiercely around his neck, and he backed her against the wall, lifting her until she locked her legs around him, and they made love right there, standing up. And it was as passionately fulfilling as before.

  She would never be the same, she knew. Never.

  He had told her many times through the years that he loved her. But now, somehow, that love seemed so complete. They had shared the secret of their intimacy. No one could know the depths of their love.

  It was two weeks later that he asked her to marry him. And he did it with the same careful thought and love and tenderness.

  They were out with her family, at the annual spring dinner in Petersham, and he had led her out to the porch, where they could be alone. He’d seated her on the wicker swing, and the rich beauty of the new season surrounded them. There were birds above them in the trees, and flowers everywhere. The breeze was soft and caressing, and sunlight poured down upon them.

  To her amazement, he was suddenly on his knees. Brendan, so handsome in his suit, so masculine, and grinning just a little, was kneeling as he took her hands in his. She trembled, remembering what it was like to make love with him, and he spoke the words that were so simple, so traditional.

  “Kaitlin, I love you. And I want you to be my wife. I want us to spend our lives together. Will you marry me?”

  She stared at him, her eyes growing wider and wider, and then she screamed and threw her arms around him. She didn’t care whether anyone came on them while they were kissing so passionately, out there on the porch. Not her little cousins, not her mother, not even her father.

  But no one came out. And eventually they were sitting together on the swing, and he flicked open a jewel case.

  It held a diamond ring.

  It wasn’t huge, but it was the most beautiful ring Kaitlin had ever seen. The stone was set in a simple gold scroll, and Brendan explained that the wedding ring would surround it, completing the design, two entwined roses.

  He slipped the ring on her finger, and she leaned back, unable to stop admiring it, and rested her head on his shoulder.

  Then they started to dream.

  College was ahead of them, but Brendan wasn’t worried about that. He had earned a scholarship to the school of marine biology in Miami, and, bey
ond that, he had a trust fund that his bootlegging grandfather had left him. And her parents would be willing to help, too; college had always been important to them. Of course, they would both work, too, preferably on campus. They would manage. They would manage very well.

  She wasn’t concerned about the future, although she knew her father would be. But her father liked Brendan, had always liked him. He liked the fact that Brendan had only touched liquor sparingly, and he liked the fact that Brendan had always seemed to listen and weigh and watch before coming to a decision. Her parents wouldn’t mind. They would understand.

  It was the immediate future that fascinated Kaitlin.

  “Oh, Brendan! Can we have a big wedding? Everyone in both our families? Everything?”

  He laughed. “I think you’re more excited about the prospect of the wedding than you are about being married. But we’ll have whatever you want. You’ve always known how to smile and tease and come after whatever you want, Kaitlin.”

  “All I want is you.”

  “And the biggest wedding in the world.”

  She shook her head and touched his cheek; her eyelashes were damp. “No! I can’t think of anything that I’d rather do than wake up beside you every day of my life. But I’ll never forget my Aunt Gwen’s wedding. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. She had three flower girls and five bridesmaids, and there were flowers and candles everywhere, and they wrote their own vows, and she was so beautiful in that white wedding gown. Oh, Brendan, I want it all, the train halfway down the church, the music and the flowers—especially the flowers!”

  He hugged her tight. “It’s fine with me. Except that I think I’d better work this summer, then. I’m not sure your parents can pay for all that, even if you are an only daughter.” He smiled, and she laughed and promised that she intended to work hard, too. After all, it was her dream.