He was in Phoenix. She was in Denver. What was she supposed to do? What could she do?
Except slide down to the floor, lean against the wall and talk to him.
Long into the night. About the past. And the future.
About wants and needs and about how, sometimes one person’s own needs opposed another’s.
And how a person can truly love someone and still, because of his own issues, hurt the ones he loves anyway.
Realizing, right along with him, that some things really were impossible and that some people just were not meant for marriage.
That some people were best spending their lives alone. Sometime in the wee hours of Saturday morning she hung up, scared to death that she, like her father, was going to be one of those people.
* * *
ELLIOTT DIDN’T HAVE a lot of opportunity to be alone with Marie that week. He arranged for her shopping trips to be in conjunction with Gabrielle’s. But other than that, his schedule was out of his hands. Liam had two evening functions to attend on behalf of Connelly Investments—a charity art event and a dinner at a private men’s club—and Elliott had to arrange for the front-door security guard to watch over Marie and escort her upstairs to her apartment.
She’d given the members of her staff who’d be covering for her that weekend fewer hours during the week, so she was short-staffed. And she was training Sam, the young man who worked full-time during the week, to cover Sunday’s inventory and ordering.
But in deference to the fact that she’d let Elliott know his previous reticence had hurt her feelings, he made a point of stopping by at least once a day to say hello. To look her in the eye and ask how she was doing.
On Thursday, midafternoon, he found her alone in her office during a lull.
“You ready to fly out tomorrow?” he asked, standing in her doorway, hands in his pockets in an attempt to be nonchalant.
“I haven’t even started packing.”
He’d taken her and Gabrielle to a well-known women’s dress shop earlier in the week. And while he’d waited out in his vehicle, they’d both purchased dresses for her mother’s wedding.
Completely contrary to his normal ways, he’d wanted to ask what they looked like. But hadn’t needed to as Marie chattered and Gabrielle responded all the way home. They were both going to wear short black shifts. Gabrielle’s was high necked but mostly backless. Marie’s was low cut in front, but high backed.
“How about you?” she asked when his mind had started to wander to what she might look like in that dress.
“Are you packed?” she tagged on.
“No.”
He was taking the tuxedo he wore to formal events. And then his everyday blacks. Wardrobe wasn’t much of an issue for him.
“Can you wear your gun in Las Vegas?”
“Yes. I’m licensed in most of the western states.”
She was looking at him as though the sight of him in her doorway pleased her. And his attraction to her started to take over the more rational part of his mind.
He turned to go. Couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.
Faced her again and said, “I’ve been wondering. You haven’t mentioned your father, but Liam and Gabrielle both did. Have you heard from him?” He’d half wondered if the man could be a problem that weekend. Not for Liam. But for Marie. Or Barbara.
Jilted men, ex-husbands, were all too common as perps.
“Yeah,” Marie said. “We’ve talked every day this week.”
A man out of control?
“Is he coming to the wedding?”
“No, though Mom invited him.” Marie stopped. Glanced at the forms on her desk and said, “She’s trying to be friends with him.”