Wooing The Wedding Planner

“Real,” Byron echoed. He nodded. “Yeah. It was that.”

Roxie frowned. “You haven’t told me—what happened to her.”

Hadn’t he? Byron shifted on the cushion. He poured more wine and picked up the glass by the stem. He used the thumb and forefinger of each hand to hold the delicate crystal shoot, spinning it slowly, watching each facet flash in the lamplight. “When Dani was little, she had a heart condition. The doctors fixed it when she was thirteen. Or so they thought. As an adult, she was healthy. Active. She was a photographer, so she was never still—on the job or off. My friend Grim used to call her the Dervish. Nothing slowed her down. Then a few years after the wedding we decided it was time to start a family.”

Byron hesitated again. After a moment, Roxie reached out and touched his knee. He lifted one corner of his mouth, though he wasn’t sure it could be deemed a smile. When he spoke, he was subdued. “After her doctors signed off on it, we tried for a while before it took. She was three and a half months along when she collapsed. She went into a coma and it was four weeks before those same doctors informed me and the rest of her family that she’d never surface.”

Her hand stayed locked on his knee. He was grateful for the silence. He’d heard every condolence known to man. Before the move to Fairhope, it had seemed like he couldn’t go anywhere without hearing how sorry everyone was for his loss. Like his clumsiness in youth, the condolences had awakened his ire. It had taken a while for that ire to simmer and for him to confront Dani’s loss, and even longer for him to learn to wholly live life again.

He cleared his throat. “You know as well as I do that when you’re at the altar pledging your life to someone, it’s just that—your whole life. And even though you both say the words till death, you expect death to come later. Much later. It doesn’t enter your mind that death’s coming for you a mere six years, seven months and twenty-seven days later, or that it’s not you it’s coming for. It’s the person standing next to you, the one you’ve promised to love every day that life gives you. And learning to live without that person... It feels so backwards and wrong. It unravels every bit of who you are.”

“Your whole life,” she echoed. She released a ragged breath. “The baby? They couldn’t save it?”

He took a long glug of wine, shaking his head slightly as he did. As he lowered the glass back to the table, he ignored the bad feeling in his stomach that had grown into a full-on internal wail. “If she’d been further along, maybe. And when she fell...there was some internal damage.” He laid his arm over the back of the sofa. There was a knot in the wood trim. He circled it with the pad of his thumb. “It was a girl. We’d only just stopped arguing over what to call her.” At her questioning brow, he confided, “Maree Frances.”

For a full minute, she said nothing. Thoughtfully, she edged closer. Shifting toward him, she fit into the groove under his arm next to his chest. The wail inside him was on the verge of a banshee scream. The wave of lilacs stopped it from reaching fever pitch, beating it back down where it belonged.

She spoke low, almost inaudibly. “Nothing I tell you could ever be enough to say how sorry I am for what you’ve been through. I can’t imagine...” She sighed and pressed her cheek into his lapel. “So I’m just going to hug you.”

“Okay,” he said. It trembled out of him on a short laugh. It warmed him.

As he’d left the tavern after finishing his shift there, Byron had seen Bertie drop Roxie off. He hadn’t liked the look of him—a knee-jerk and instant assessment. The guy drove a luxury Mercedes but ground the transmission when he shifted into Park. And he wore a three-piece suit that screamed easy money.

Byron had taken a moment, studying Roxie from a distance. He’d felt the warmth gathering over his sternum, remembering the sound of her laugh from earlier in the day. Tinny bells. The best kind.

Then Byron had seen the flash of Bertie’s gold signet ring move too quickly. He’d seen the guy’s arms wind too hard around Roxie. He’d seen his body close in on hers and the hard lip-lock that came close on the heels of the not-so-nice embrace.

That’s not the way, Byron had mused. Not with a woman like Roxie. Slow and smooth was more what a lady of her caliber deserved. Hell, it was what she’d need after everything she’d been through. The warmth over his sternum had hardened into a big, black ball of volcanic rock. The back of his neck had turned to fire as it always did when he felt the old anger, the ire, rising up from the black. He moved in, loosening his tie when Roxie’s quick attempt at a punch failed and Bertie kept coming at her.

Was the choke hold really necessary? she’d asked after.

Byron had seen her fear and embarrassment, and the trampled strength behind it.

Yes, damn it, it had been necessary. A part of him still wished Bertie had taken the second option so Byron could’ve implemented a lesson with his fists.

He noted the place of her hand. Right over his sternum, where the warmth for her had built and shied and then built again. It was the same hand she’d plowed into Fledgewick’s face. The same fist she’d given Byron nearly a year ago. The edge of his mouth curved as he touched it.

“Mm.” She winced. The fingers stiffened under his.

Byron gentled his hold. Gingerly, he turned her knuckles toward the light and saw the bruising. “You should’ve let me hit him.”

“What would that have solved?”

“Nothing. But it would’ve felt damn good.”

“Didn’t feel so great to me.”

“Because you aimed for the face,” Byron explained. “Suppose he’d raised his chin or you’d struck his jaw. Your hand would be flat broken.”

“He was drunk,” Roxie reminded him. “I wanted to sober him up.”

“Next time, aim for the liver.”

“I’m no good at this,” she admitted as he caressed her knuckles. “I miss marriage.”

His hand stilled on hers. “You do?”

“Yes. I miss the security of it. The comfort of knowing that I’m safe from all this, from the uncertainty.”

“But that’s all.” Byron frowned. “Right?”

She paused. “I don’t know.”

Byron tried to read her. “Rox. The man failed you. He knowingly failed you.”

“I know he did.” She tipped her chin up and confronted him with a cool expression. “Trust me. I was there. But we were together so long... I don’t know anything else. You and Dani were together a long time. You said learning to live without her unraveled you.”

“It’s apples and oranges,” he noted.

“I know that, too,” she said, tensing.

“Wait a minute,” he said, straightening. She sat up in response. He took a good look at her. “You’re not still in love with the guy, are you?”

Her mouth parted and her eyes glazed in thought. “I don’t know.” She lifted her hands. They were empty. “I know I hate being alone. I know that when it was good, I loved the relationship, and not just the security of it—I loved the unit we built. I know how much of ourselves we put into it. And I know that Richard’s sorry.”

“He told you that?” he asked. “He got down on his knees and begged?”

“No, he didn’t get on his knees,” Roxie dismissed. “But he did try to say he was sorry. The mess was so fresh, the hurt, I couldn’t listen even if he was sincere.” Before Byron could say anything, she quickly added, “What he did was disgraceful, and I haven’t forgotten how it made me feel. But you said it yourself—you pledge your life to someone. Your whole life.”

“He quit his vows,” he said heatedly. “He quit you the second he jumped on her.” When her eyes rounded in shock, he cursed. “I’m sorry. Damn it, I’m sorry.” He pushed off the couch and left the room, taking his glass into her kitchen. He’d had enough to drink. Under the light of the stove, he rinsed the glass then used the tap filter to fill it. He tipped it up and downed the water quickly.

He was a damn fool.

Byron set the glass on the counter and braced his hands on the edge. Leaning into it, he ducked his head and breathed until he felt the heat in his neck subside. Why was the anger rising again? Was it Richard or was it pride?

Either way, he couldn’t go back to her with ire. Even if it was his pride, she’d been through enough without him piling his bruised ego on the proverbial heap.

The small window above the sink drew his attention. He looked out on the listless bay. The lights of Mobile flickered far beyond the inky black waters broken only by the small bits of light from the tavern and the inn. The watery peaks were brushed with hushed gold filigree.

He did his best to absorb the calm and lulling placidity those waters brought with their small, whispering waves. This was why he’d gravitated to Fairhope in the wake of Dani’s death—the serenity.

Calmer, he eyed the dishcloth beside the sink. He grabbed it, balled it up and ran it under cold water for several seconds. He wrung it out and walked slowly back into the living room, where Roxie sat on the settee.

He extended the rolled-up cloth to her. “Here.”

She narrowed her eyes on it as her hand lifted. Questioning, her gaze rose to his.

“Your hand,” he said. He took her wrist and wrapped the cold cloth around her injured knuckles himself.