Zach let out a long breath. "She"s OK?"
"She"s fine."
"Yeah. Good. Good. I don"t know. I just thought-"
"I"m calling about the invitation we sent you."
Zach"s eyes narrowed. "What invitation?"
"To the, ah, the Winter Solstice party Travis, Jake and I are throwing at El Sueno."
"Let me get this straight. You and your brothers are throwing a solstice party?"
"Sounds weird, right?" Caleb said, and forced what he hoped was a hearty laugh. "But we always do." Jake snorted; Caleb glared at him. "Did you know that leprechauns thought the solstice was a time of magic?"
"It"s Druids," Zach said cautiously. "And yeah, I think I heard that someplace."
"Druids, leprechauns...The thing is, we want you to come."
"So, this party you"re throwing...it"s to celebrate the winter solstice?"
"You got it, dude."
"It"s not something else?"
"What else could it be? Hey, midnight poker games. Beer. Hot dogs and hamburgers. Wouldn"t be the same without you. It"s the day after tomorrow. Can you make it?"
Zach rubbed his forehead.
"And Jaimie?"
"What about her?"
"Will she be there?"
"No," Caleb said quickly, "no, she won"t. She, uh, she had to go out of town On business." He hesitated. Told himself not to ask. And asked anyway. "Zach? There was never anything between the two of you, was there?"
"Nothing," Zach said quickly. "There was never anything between James and me."
A few more words and they ended the call.
"Well?" Jake and Travis said.
Caleb smiled. "He called her James."
"Ah."
"And his voice cracked when he did."
High fives all around.
And then, they began the long, one-and-a half-day wait.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
The day of the wedding dawned bright and sunny.
The wedding itself went off exactly as planned. The bride was beautiful; the groom was handsome. The house was alive with red and white roses; ribbon garlands hung along the bannisters of the wide staircase.
The general gave the bride away. And, at the end of the ceremony, all the guests made their way into the enormous great room and the adjoining dining room where tables had been set up for dinner.
Everybody was having fun.
Jaimie looked as if she were; she danced and drank champagne, but toward the end of the day, when she and Lissa escaped from the crowd to a corner of the living room, Jaimie grew quiet.
"What?" Lissa said.
Jaimie shrugged. "They"re right together."
Lissa nodded and went for broke.
"You think it"ll ever be like that for either of us?" she said, and the look that swept over her sister"s face told her she"d had it right all the time.
Now what?
Could she be certain Jaimie was in love with Zacharias Castelianos, and that he was in love with her? And where was he? If he cared, wouldn"t he have come here? She"d put things as bluntly as she could. She"d all but told him that Jaimie loved him.
Had she guessed wrong?
Did Jaimie not love him?
Did he not love her?
"James," Liss said...
Jaimie glugged down a gla.s.s of champagne.
"Come on," she said, her voice so bright it glittered like gla.s.s, "let"s dance."
Lissa downed her champagne, too, and followed her sister onto the dance floor.
"She"s dancing," Jacob said.
Caleb looked at him. "A brilliant observation."
"Maybe we were wrong. Maybe she isn"t carrying a torch for Castelianos."
"n.o.body"s used that expression in a hundred years," Travis said, "and where the h.e.l.l is he? You said this would work. That he"d be curious enough about a solstice party to fly down."
"What I said was that it might work. Anyway, Jake"s right. Jaimie"s dancing. She"s having fun. So maybe we were all wrong. Maybe she doesn"t give a c.r.a.p for Castelianos, and he doesn"t give a c.r.a.p for her."
"Yeah," his brothers said, but none of them looked as if they believed it.
A little later, Emily went upstairs to change. The drummer of the six-piece band began a drum roll.
"Here it comes," somebody shouted, as Emily stood at the loft railing and sent her bridal bouquet flying.
What seemed like every woman in the room rushed to catch it.
Every woman except Jaimie. And, with unerring accuracy the bouquet sailed straight at her.
"Catch it," someone yelled, and she did, reflexively. Lissa saw her stare at the flowers. Then she shuddered, turned, and shoved them into the hands of the woman standing beside her.
Somebody laughed.
Not Lissa.
She saw not scorn in Jaimie"s eyes but something darker.
"James," she said softly, when she reached her..
Jaimie shook her head, hurried past her. Lissa would have gone after her but laughing guests surrounded her and by the time she broke free, Jaimie was gone.
"Go after her," Caleb said, as he came up beside her.
"I called him," she said softly. "I asked him to come here tonight."
"Castelianos?"
"Yes. And he didn"t come."
"h.e.l.l, Liss. I did the same thing."
Brother and sister looked at each other.
"Dammit," Lissa whispered.
Caleb put his arm around her shoulders.
The good thing was that Jaimie would never know about those calls. She"d never know that Zacharias Castelianos had sent out a clear message.
He was not interested. Period. End of story.
Lissa sighed. So did Caleb.
Sometimes, the best thing you could do for someone you loved was leave them alone.
Jaimie"s lips hurt from smiling. Her feet hurt from wearing stilettos dyed the same color as her gown.
Her heart hurt because she couldn"t stop thinking about Zacharias.
Especially now.
Emily and Marco were so happy.
She was happy for them, but seeing Em look into her groom"s eyes as she repeated her vows, seeing the way Marco had taken his bride in his arms to kiss her when the ceremony ended...
And that bridal bouquet. That miserable bunch of flowers...
Catching it had been a reflex. What else could you do when a thing flew straight out you? Giving it away had been a reflex, too.
Now, she was acting on reflex again, making her way through the crowd. People were laughing and talking; they spoke to her and she smiled and said yes, it had been a wonderful wedding, and yes, the lightly falling snow was the finishing touch until, finally, she reached the back of the house.
She needed a break. Needed the cool night air.
She slipped through the kitchen. The staff was busy; she moved past them, grabbed an old barn coat from a hook near the back door, slipped it on and stepped outside.
The snow was, in fact, beautiful, feathery and lovely as it drifted over the dark hills.
It was cold out here. She shivered, drew the edges of the old coat together. She was wearing silk shoes; she"d probably ruin them in the snow and she"d probably ruin her gown, too, the long hem of it, anyway...
"Jaimie."
Her heart leaped into her throat. She stood absolutely still. No. She hadn"t heard anything. It was the wind...
"Jaimie."
OhG.o.d. OhG.o.d. OhG.o.d...
Zacharias stepped out of the shadows. Beautiful Zacharias, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, wine-colored tie. Except, it couldn"t be him. It couldn"t be- "Jaimie," he said, in a voice so raw and rough and filled with pain that when he opened his arms, she didn"t think, didn"t wonder, didn"t ask questions. She simply said his name and flew into his arms.
He gathered her hard against him. Said her name, over and over and over, just as she was saying his.
He lifted her to him, bent his head to hers, claimed her mouth as if she were a pool of cool water and he were a man dying of thirst. He cupped the back of her head. She dug her face into his chest; he buried his face in her hair.