Nights In White Satin. Jule Mcbride

Hollywood break, and they spent plenty of time together now when Dermott wasn’t in L.A. where he maintained another residence. But…

      She simply couldn’t believe Carrie’s possessive glance. What was going on? How long had they been together? “Look,” she began. “I’m sorry, Derm. I didn’t know…” That you were getting naked with Carrie.

      “No problem.” Clearing his throat as if that might help him get a better handle on the situation, Dermott squinted. “I thought you went upstate with the girls, skiing.”

      “Is that why you haven’t called?”

      The pause lasted a beat too long. “Uh…yeah.”

      He was lying, but why? She lunged into the story of the share mixup, then quickly said, “Are you mad at me?”

      He shook his head. “No. What can I do for you?”

      What can I do for you? He was talking as if they were strangers! Her throat constricted in panic. “Uh…it’s nothing,” she assured.

      “It must be something, Bridge, or you wouldn’t have come all the way to South Ferry in the rain.”

      He had a point, but she was starting to feel like a fool. Her friends were moving on in life, and somehow, in a way she’d couldn’t quite define, she seemed stuck. Marissa’s curse, no doubt! But was she really so self-absorbed that Dermott had quit telling her secrets? She hated feeling out of the loop. “Really,” she managed. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

      His eyebrows knitted. “Is something wrong, Bridge?”

      Yes. No. Nothing. Everything. She’d just felt a rush of sexual attraction toward Dermott—and well, that seemed very wrong. So did the explosion of jealousy. Especially since she had no claim on Dermott except that he was her best friend. The boy next door. The man she’d come to rely on for constant consultation about her life.

      “Bridget?”

      She was staring at him as if she’d never seen him before. She’d seen him with women other than Carrie, of course, and it had never bothered her, but Carrie Masterson was…

      Perfect. One of the city’s hot babes. New York magazine had even done an article about her. “Huh?”

      “Is something wrong?”

      “No.” Except she couldn’t fight this feeling that her whole world had turned upside down. Was he serious about Carrie? Was she was going to lose her best friend? Deep down, she heard a little voice say, Carrie’s the first woman he’s been with whom he’d leave me for. Except he couldn’t leave Bridget, not really. They’d never even been together, not like that. Her eyes drifted slowly downward, and she was stunned to feel twinges in all her secret places. He really was a fine specimen of a man, sexy, with heavily lidded dark eyes that made him look as if he’d just stepped from bed.

      Which he had, she reminded herself. With Carrie. But had they really slept together yet? Was this their first night together? Or had they been together a while?

      He was peering at her. “Your family’s okay?”

      “Fine.”

      He almost smiled, and nothing more than the familiar wry upturn of his lips warmed her, taking the chill from the February storm and Carrie’s cool reception. “Why are you not convincing me, Bridge?”

      As she smiled back, Mug relaxed in her arms. “Really,” she said. “Mom and Pop are great. Edie’s wedding planning business lost some clients because people found out it was Marley, not her, who was on the Rate the Dates show, and apparently they’re going to announce on national TV that the Bennings are victims of a wedding curse.”

      “Huh?”

      Quickly, she filled him in on the details, that her sisters had switched places on a TV reality show, and then been discovered. “But don’t worry,” she added quickly. “Edie’s surviving. And Marley’s still dating Cash Champagne. It looks like it might be serious, but…”

      “But?”

      The curse was in the way. “Marley doesn’t really believe things will work out between her and Cash because…well, nothing ever does for us Bennings.” Experiencing an uncharacteristic chin-quiver, Bridget clamped her jaw tightly, keeping her gaze trained on Dermott’s, hardly wanting to let her eyes drift, just in case they landed again on Carrie’s accoutrements: chocolates, strawberries and flowers. Not that fixing her eyes on Dermott’s was any better. She realized his eyes were so dark, inky, liquid…

      She blew out a shaky breath. The only saving grace was that Carrie had taken the champagne.

      “Hmm. So, is this about the wedding curse thing again?”

      “Yeah,” she admitted. “But it’s a long story, and you’re busy.”

      Something in the way he glanced over his shoulder drew her eyes to his shoulder. Why had she never noticed how broad Dermott’s shoulders were before this moment—when he was checking on Carrie Masterson’s movements in his apartment? His skin looked very smooth and touchable, and Bridget almost shivered when the citrus scent of it reached her. She couldn’t help but say, “Have you been using that lotion I gave you? You know, the stuff I got you in Chinatown?”

      As he turned toward her again, she found it both difficult to swallow and to suppress the jealous feelings she had no right to be experiencing. He nodded. “Uh…yeah.”

      It was probably why his skin looked so incredibly toned.

      He looked torn. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

      Obviously, she wasn’t welcome, at least by Carrie, but she had come all the way downtown, and Dermott wanted to know, so… “Remember when we talked a couple of weeks ago, and I told you Granny Ginny was visiting?”

      He nodded slowly, probably visualizing the woman he’d met so many times. She was five feet tall, nearing ninety, and she’d shown up on this trip dressed in a fur-collared pink coat with a matching pillbox hat.

      Willfully forgetting that a naked woman was waiting in his bedroom, Bridget ducked her chin to nuzzle Mug. “She’s going to be in town for a few days, so maybe you’ll get a chance to see her. She just loves you.”

      Dermott grunted noncommittally.

      In case Dermott had forgotten any details of the family history, Bridget quickly reminded him of how her own father, Jasper Hartley, had gotten drunk, fallen from a pedestal table in the Hartley House parlor and met his death, and how, during the war, Miss Marissa Jennings had remained at Hartley House with a housekeeper named Lavinia, waiting for her fiancé’s return, prefiguring the moment when, on the night they were to marry, she’d seen Forrest killed. Lavinia had been swept away by the water’s currents in the swamp where she’d been hiding, and Miss Marissa had been shot.

      When she was finished, Dermott said, “No offense, Bridget, but I really never understood how anybody could have known about the curse, since Miss Marissa was supposedly alone in the swamp when she uttered it.”

      “Granny Ginny always mentions that discrepancy,” Bridget admitted, loving that Dermott had always been such an apt listener. “And to tell you the truth, even she’s not really sure of the answer. All we know is the story’s been handed down through generations, and that Hartley women have definitely had trouble with their love lives. Granny Ginny did say that she’d heard a distant relative called in a psychic medium once, though, who confirmed that there was a curse.” Bridget paused. “And don’t forget, the house is haunted.”

      Dermott looked at her a long moment. Seemingly deciding not to pursue that line of thought, he said, “Okay. We’ll assume there’s really a curse. You also said Miss Marissa got shot, but then you’ve said she was hit by a cannonball.”

      “Granny Ginny always mentions that, too,” Bridget quickly said. “I guess there’s some debate as to whether she was killed by a bullet or cannonball. All