The Bride Said Never!. Sandra Marton

would occur and it would all work out. Perhaps, years from now, he’d look back and admit he’d been wrong.

      Lord, he hoped so.

      He loved Nick as if he were his own flesh and blood. The boy was the son he’d never had and probably never would have, given the realities of marriage. That was why he’d agreed to stand here and pretend to be interested in the mumbo jumbo of the ceremony, to smile at Nick and even to dance with the plump child who was one of the bridesmaids and treat her with all the kindness he could manage because, Nick had said, she was Dawn’s best friend and not just overweight but shy, too, and desperately afraid of being a wallflower at the reception afterward.

      Oh, yes, he would do all the things a surrogate father was supposed to do. And when the day ended, he’d drive to the inn on the lake where he and Gabriella had stayed the night before and take her to bed.

      It would be the best possible way to get over his disappointment at not having taught Nick well enough to protect him from the pain that surely lay ahead, and it would purge his mind of all this useless, sentimental claptrap.

      Damian looked at his current mistress, seated in a pew in the third row. Gabriella wasn’t taken in by any of it. Like him, she had tried marriage and found it not to her liking. Marriage was just another word for slavery, she’d said, early in their relationship...though lately, he’d sensed a change. She’d become less loving, more proprietorial. “Where have you been, Damian?” she’d say, when a day passed without a phone call. She’d taken his move to a new apartment personally, too; he’d only just in time stopped her from ordering furniture for him as a “surprise.”

      She hadn’t liked that. Her reaction had been sharp and angry; there’d been a brittleness to her he’d never seen before—though today, she was all sweetness and light.

      Even last night, during the rehearsal, there’d been a suspicious glint in her dark brown eyes. She’d looked up and smiled at him. It had been a tremulous smile. And, as he’d watched, she’d touched a lace handkerchief to her eyes.

      Damian felt a twinge of regret. Perhaps it was time to move on. They’d had, what, almost six months together but when a woman got that look about her...

      “Damian?”

      Damian blinked. Nicholas was hissing at him out of the side of his mouth. Had the boy come to his senses and changed his mind?

      “The ring, Damian!”

      The ring. Of course. The best man was searching his pockets frantically, but he wouldn’t find it. Nick had asked Damian to have it engraved and he had, but he’d forgotten to hand it over.

      He dug in his pocket, pulled out the simple gold band and dropped it into Nick’s outstretched hand. Across the narrow aisle, the maid of honor choked back a sob; the bride’s mother, tears spilling down her cheeks, reached for her ex-husband’s hand, clutched it tightly, then dropped it like a hot potato.

      Ah, the joys of matrimony.

      Damian forced himself to concentrate on the minister’s words.

      “And now,” he said, in an appropriately solemn voice, “If there is anyone among us who can offer a reason why Nicolas Skouras Babbitt and Dawn Elizabeth Cooper should not be wed, let that person speak or forever—”

      Bang!

      The double doors at the rear of the church flew open and slammed against the whitewashed walls. There was a rustle of cloth as the guests shifted in the pews and turned to see what was happening. Even the bride and groom swung around in surprise.

      A woman stood in the open doorway, silhouetted against the sunlight of the spring afternoon. The wind, which had torn the doors from her hands, ruffled her hair wildly around her head and sent her skirt swirling around her thighs.

      A murmur of shocked delight spread through the church. The minister cleared his throat.

      The woman stepped forward, out of the brilliance of the light and into the shadowed interior. The excited murmur of voices, which had begun to die away, rose again.

      And no wonder, Damian thought. The latecomer was incredibly beautiful.

      She looked familiar, but surely if he’d met her before, he’d know her name. A man didn’t forget a woman who looked like this.

      Her hair was the color of autumn, a deep auburn shot with gold, and curled around her oval, high-cheekboned face. Her eyes were widely spaced and enormous. They were...what? Gray, or perhaps blue. He couldn’t tell at this distance. She wore no jewelry but then, jewelry would only have distracted from her beauty. Even her dress, the color of the sky just before a storm, was simple. It was a shade he’d always thought of as violet but the fashion police surely had a better name for it. The cut was simple, too: a rounded neckline, long, full sleeves and a short, full skirt, but there was nothing simple about the body beneath the dress.

      His gaze slid over the woman, taking in the high, rounded breasts, the slim waist, the gentle curve of her hips. She was a strange combination of sexuality and innocence, though the innocence was certainly manufactured. It had to be. She was not a child. And she was too stunning, too aware of herself, for it not to be.

      Another gust of wind swept in through the open doors. She clutched at her skirt but not before he had a look at legs as long and shapely as any man’s dream, topped by a flash of something black and lacy.

      The crowd’s whispers grew louder. Someone gave a silvery laugh. The woman heard it, he was certain, but instead of showing embarrassment at the attention she was getting, she straightened her shoulders and her lovely face assumed a look of disdain.

      I could wipe that look from your face, Damian thought suddenly, and desire, as hot and swift as molten lava, flooded his veins.

      Oh, yes, he could. He had only to stride down the aisle, lift her into his arms and carry her out into the meadow that unrolled like a bright green carpet into the low hills behind the church. He’d climb to the top of those hills, lay her down in the soft grass, drink the sweetness of her mouth while he undid the zipper on that pale violet dress and then taste every inch of her as he kissed his way down her body. He imagined burying himself between her thighs and entering her, moving within her heat until she cried out in passion.

      Damian’s mouth went dry. What was the matter with him? He was not a randy teenager. He wasn’t given to fantasizing about women he didn’t know, not since he’d been, what, fifteen, sixteen years old, tucked away in his bed at night, breathing heavily over a copy of a men’s magazine.

      This was nonsense, he thought brusquely, and just then, the woman’s head lifted. She looked directly up the aisle, her gaze unwavering as it sought his. She stared at him while his heartbeat raced, and then she smiled again.

      I know what you’re thinking, her smile said, and I find it terribly amusing.

      Damian heard a roaring in his ears. His hands knotted at his sides; he took a step forward.

      “Damian?” Nick whispered, and just at that minute, the wind caught the doors again and slammed them against the whitewashed walls of the old church.

      The sound seemed to break the spell that had held the congregants captive. Someone cleared a throat, someone else coughed, and finally a man in the last pew rose from his seat, made his way to the doors and drew them shut. He smiled pleasantly at the woman, as if to say there, that’s taken care of, but she ignored both the man and the smile as she looked around for the nearest vacant seat. Slipping into it, she crossed those long legs, folded her hands in her lap and assumed an expression of polite boredom.

      What, she seemed to ask, was the delay?

      The minister cleared his throat. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the congregants turned and faced the altar.

      “If there is no one present who can offer a reason why Nicolas and Dawn should not be wed,” he said briskly, as if fearing another interruption, “then, in accordance with the laws of God and the State of Connecticut, I pronounce them husband and wife.”

      Nick