Full Throttle & Wrong Bride, Right Groom Read online

  Once she thought she felt a tremor in the flaccid throat muscles under her hand. Irv must have felt something, too.

  “Come on, Orlie!” he shouted, pumping on the man’s chest. “Breathe, damn it! Breathe!”

  Abby was so absorbed in the life-and-death drama that she gave a little scream when hands closed around her shoulder and yanked her back.

  “We’ve got him, ma’am. We’ve got him.”

  A hulking figure took her place beside the downed man. A warm coat dropped over her shoulders. A shaking Irv came to stand beside her. Cherry joined them moments later. They huddled together, watching, praying.

  Relieved by a team of rescue personnel, Pete dragged himself to his feet. Unlike the others, though, he stayed at the center of the operation. The crew recognized his expertise, Abby saw. Responded to his authority.

  Another helicopter landed in the road beside their cottage. Several helmeted men appeared in the clearing soon afterward. A siren wailed in the distance. The screen of rescuers surrounding the downed men shifted, allowing Abby a glimpse of the man Pete had worked on.

  “He’s sitting up!” Cherry gasped.

  Abby’s heart gave a thump of joy so great it hurt. The exhilaration lasted all of two or three seconds. Just long enough to recognize that Orlie still lay flat on his back, unmoving.

  Radios cackled. More equipment appeared. Someone shouted that they had the power company’s chief engineer on the line. Pete took the radio, gave a terse description of the disaster. Moments later, the snapping, whipping line jerked upward, then suddenly went dead.

  The sizzling had barely ceased when a rawboned woman in a plaid hunting jacket and a yellow helmet came panting up the slope. The senior fireman on-scene turned to greet her.

  “You got here fast, Mayor. You and the rest of the disaster response team. But the situation’s under control, thanks to O’Brian here.”

  “What about the injured?”

  Abby clutched Irv’s arm with tight fists as she waited for the fireman’s response.

  “They’re all right. They got a little crisped around the edges, though, so we’re going to take ’em to County General.”

  “Thank God.”

  Silently Abby echoed the mayor’s heartfelt prayer.

  The fireman glanced at the stretchers being loaded onto the chopper. “I don’t mind tellin’ you, though, two of those boys wouldn’t have made it if Mr. O’Brian here hadn’t known what the hell he was about.”

  Tipping a finger to his hat, he went off to supervise the evacuation. The mayor tucked a whisp of iron-gray hair behind her ear and tilted Pete a sharp look.

  “Where’d you get your training, Mr. O’Brian?”

  “In the air force. It’s what I do.”

  “From what I can see, you do it damn well. If you ever decide you want to turn civilian, you come see me, you hear? Pineville’s not much more than a village, but we sure could use someone with your kind of background on the county staff.”

  “I wasn’t the only one who responded,” Pete replied, his smile encompassing the group still huddled together a few paces away. “You should be thanking Miss Davis and Dr.—”

  “Miss Davis?” The mayor jerked around, her lively black eyes snapping from Abby to Cherry. “Is one of you the Miss Davis that’s staying at the Pines?”

  Abby nodded. “I am.”

  “I’m Doretta Calvin.”

  At Abby’s blank look, the older woman smiled. “I’m the local JP, as well as the mayor of Pineville. I was supposed to preside over your marriage ceremony last night, but the cold burst the damn pipes in the town hall. I tried to get here after that little disaster, but by then the roads had iced over.”

  “Oh, no! The assistant manager didn’t call you?”

  “No, nobody called me.” She peered at Abby, then at Irv. “Hey, it’s not too late, you two. If you’ve got the license, I’d be happy to say the words while I’m here.”

  Belatedly Abby realized she still had both hands dug into Irv’s arm. He tugged free of her hold, his eyes widening.

  “No, no…” he stuttered. “You’ve got the wrong groom.”

  “I’ll say,” Cherry murmured with a low, throaty chuckle.

  “And the wrong bride,” Abby added.

  “You didn’t request the services of a JP?”

  “Yes, I did, but not for me. For my sister.”

  “Your sister?” The mayor glanced around the still-crowded site. “Is she here?”

  “No, she, ah…didn’t make it to the Pines this weekend.”

  “Didn’t make it to her own wedding?” The mayor’s gray brows arched, and then her sharp gaze shifted to Pete. “Are you the groom, O’Brian?”

  “No, he didn’t make it, either.”

  Mayor Calvin rocked back on her heels, her weathered face creasing into a grin. “Not much of a wedding, was it? No bride, no groom, no justice of the peace.”

  Abby’s accumulated tension eased into a smile. “No wedding supper. No electricity or heat in what was supposed to be the honeymoon cottage.”

  “And no game,” Irv put in glumly.

  Chapter 7

  An hour later, Abby stood on the porch of the cottage beside Pete. A single thought drummed through her.

  She should leave.

  She should go inside, gather her things and leave.

  Her common sense told her it was time to return to Atlanta and to her nice, quiet life. The past twenty-four hours had provided enough drama and nerve-twisting tension to last her a long, long time. Yet sober, sensible Abby lingered long after she should have left.

  She’d waited at the accident site while a police officer took statements and another crew worked to restore power. A short while later, she’d bidden goodbye to the mayor and her team, then forced a smile at Irv’s jubilant announcement that the state roads were open. When the heat and lights came back on throughout the resort, she’d cleaned up and changed out of the faithful maroon sweats.

  Now she stood beside Pete, waving goodbye to Cherry and a beaming Irv as they drove off in the resort’s limousine. A wrecker followed a short distance behind the limo, towing a sadly dented Antiquemobile. The Pines’ grateful manager saw both vehicles off, then walked back to the porch.

  “We’ll take care of your van, Miss Davis,” he assured her once more.

  Shoulders hunched against the cold, the aristocratic-looking innkeeper wore the marks of worry and relief on his face, but he still carried himself with the dignity of his position.

  “Please, keep the rental car until your van is repaired. We’ll deliver it to you in Atlanta as soon as it’s ready. Are you sure we can’t do anything else for you?”

  “No, thank you. You’ve been most generous.”

  More than generous, in fact. He’d already told her there’d be no charge for any of the costs associated with the canceled wedding. What was more, he’d invited her and Pete to stay at the resort as guests of the management for as long as they wished, separately or together.

  It was the together part that held Abby at the Pines.

  The word triggered a fierce need within her, one she only half understood. An urgent demand that went beyond the physical. Beyond sexual. It hummed in her veins and kept her fingers clenched around the keys to the rental car the manager had presented to her. The man beside her remained silent, but Abby felt him with every tingling sense as she tried to focus on the manager’s face.

  “It’s the least we can do,” he told her. “Orlie Taggert has been with the Pines for twenty-seven years. Thanks to you, he’ll be with us another twenty-seven, God willing.”

  “Not just me.”

  “No, no, of course not. Dr. Mitchell and Miss, er, Delight will always be welcome here. And Sergeant O’Brian…”

  He held out his hand to Pete.

  “I hope you consider the Pines your home whenever you’re in this part of the country.”

  The utterly sincere comment spiked the strange feelings inside Abby. They
leapt in her chest. Grabbed at her heart. Neither she nor the manager had any idea when Pete might be back in this part of the country. She fisted her hand around the keys. Their sharp edges cut into her palm.

  She was still clutching them when the manager drove off in one of the Pines’ distinctive golf carts. Unfolding her fist, she slipped the keys into the pocket of her cloak and went inside.

  Pete followed, then leaned his shoulders against the door. His stance was easy, but questions shimmered in his dark blue eyes. The same questions she kept asking herself.

  What was she doing?

  Why had she stayed?

  What did she want of him?

  Abby didn’t have any answers, either for herself or for him. She couldn’t describe what held her. She only knew she didn’t want to leave. Not now. Not yet.

  She wet her lips. “You were spectacular up there, on the ridge.”

  “You were pretty spectacular yourself. When did you learn CPR?”

  “I took a course at the Y years ago, when I got legal custody of Beth. I go for refresher training every couple of years.”

  “Smart lady.”

  They were dancing around the strange tension that gripped them. Abby knew it, but Pete was the one who acknowledged it.

  Pushing his shoulders off the door, he closed the short distance between them and brought his hand up to cup her chin. A thumb traced along her cheek.

  “It’s okay, Abby. I understand what you’re feeling.”

  “You do?”

  “I feel it, too. A sort of high. A fierce satisfaction that won’t go away.”

  That was true…to an extent. In those tense moments on the ridge, she’d shared some of the drama that routinely characterized Pete’s life. Now she was experiencing some of the aftereffects of that adrenaline surge. She did feel the fierce satisfaction he’d described. A high she didn’t want to let go of.

  As she absorbed the feather-light stroke of Pete’s thumb against her cheek, however, Abby acknowledged that the tremors running through her were more than just aftershocks. Far more. They went deeper, took on a more personal slant.

  Unlike Pete, however, she didn’t claim to understand her hazy, whirling emotions. Understanding could come later, she decided. Thinking would come later. Right now, she wanted more than the touch of his hand on her cheek.

  His mouth curved in an understanding smile. “After a successful mission, we always feel the need to celebrate. To reaffirm life, I guess.”

  Her heart thudding, she took her courage in hand.

  “How do you think we should celebrate?”

  His smile moved from his lips to his eyes. “I can think of all kinds of ways to celebrate with you, Abigail, but none we wouldn’t regret even more than the kiss we passed on last night.”

  He wasn’t making this easy on her, she thought with an inner groan.

  “I’ve been thinking about that kiss,” she told him.

  “Me too. A lot.”

  “I’m not so sure now it would have been a mistake.”

  His thumb stilled. Abby’s blood began to pulse with a heat that had nothing to do with the restored electrical power or the mohair lining of her cloak.

  “I don’t want either of us to leave here with regrets, Abby.”

  She saw the hunger in his eyes, and felt a thrill of response deep in her belly.

  “My only regret,” she replied on a puff of need, “is that we’re talking about it so much.”

  Turning her head, she brought her mouth against his palm. Her lashes fluttered down as she savored the contact with his flesh. It warmed under the wash of her breath, and bathed her face in heat. She pressed a soft kiss into the center of his palm, then another against the mound of his thumb. Her mouth moved to his fingers, her lips dragging against the pull of his skin. Her hand came up and folded over his, trapping it while she explored the rough hills and shallow valleys.

  Pete didn’t move. Hardly breathed. He’d never felt anything so erotic in his life as the whisper of heat from Abby’s lips…until her tongue dipped into the hollow of his palm.

  At the touch of her tongue on his skin, every nerve in his arm jumped. He knew he should pull his hand away. He told himself he should call a halt to this loveplay before it stopped being play.

  He understood what was driving her. The same exultation sang in his veins, all mixed up with the physical attraction that had been building inside him from the moment he first laid eyes on her. It was a dangerous, combustible combination, and it fast carried him to the flash point.

  “Abby. Sweetheart.”

  The words were a plea, and a warning.

  “It’s okay,” she murmured against his palm. “I don’t bite. Not very hard, anyway.”

  As if to prove her point, she nipped the mound of flesh at the base of his thumb. Then she soothed the sting with a slow, wet stroke of her tongue.

  He wanted her. Pete had never wanted anything in his life as much as he wanted to bury himself in this woman’s soft, slick flesh.

  She wanted him, as well. He’d seen it in her eyes just before the explosion. He felt it now in the slow, seductive movement of her mouth and the velvety rasp of her tongue against his hand.

  He looked down at her, imprinting the sweep of her dark lashes against her cheek in his memory bank. His hungry gaze detailed the curve of her neck. The unruly, gold-streaked hair she’d tamed into some kind of a loose braid. The prim white lace collar on her dress peeking out of the loose cloak.

  This was the Abby he’d first met at the airport. This delicate, elegant creature. Then she’d struck him as the kind of woman who would expect more from a man than a fun weekend. Now, Pete realized with a tight ache, he wanted to give her more.

  He couldn’t give her the permanence she craved, though, and that stark, undeniable fact held him rigidly in check. He didn’t know where he’d be next month, let alone next year. He’d lost one woman to the demands of his career. He didn’t want to lose another.

  She wasn’t asking for evermores, a voice within him snarled. She wasn’t asking for anything. Instead, she was giving him a slow, hot pleasure that drove everything else out of his mind.

  Suddenly, without warning, the touch of her lips on his hand wasn’t enough. For either of them.

  Pete couldn’t tell whether he jerked his hand away first or Abby lifted her head. However the shift occurred, it freed her mouth for his.

  She arched into his kiss, fitting herself against him eagerly. Her arms slid free of her cloak and wrapped around his neck. Her hunger slammed into him with the force of a canopy snapping open after a long, spiraling free-fall. He dug his hands through her hair, framing her face, taking everything her mouth offered.

  He had no idea how long he held her mouth captive, or when his hands left her hair. He only knew that the tight ache in his groin had expanded to a fierce, driving demand when he stripped off her voluminous cape and went to work on the buttons on the front of her dress. Moments later, it puddled at her feet.

  “That’s the second time you’ve peeled off my clothes in the middle of the sitting room,” Abby said, a little breathlessly. “At least this time the heat’s on.”

  Pete grinned. “That it is, sweetheart.”

  Her choke of laughter shattered his restraint. He yanked at the zipper on his jacket. Seconds later, it joined the pile on the floor. His hands speared around her waist. Curling his fingers into her black silk teddy, he pulled her against him.

  “You have no idea how crazy this thing you’re wearing made me the first time I saw it.”

  “Really?”

  His hands slid up her back, then around to her front. “Really.”

  Lips parted, she quivered under his touch. Tight nipples budded against the black covering, and Pete sucked in a swift, stabbing breath.

  “I know it isn’t a George III four-poster that came over on the Mayflower,” he growled, sweeping her into his arms, “but I’ve been fantasizing about you in the bed upstairs since the moment
I saw it.”

  “George IV,” Abby panted, hooking her arms around his neck. “It’s George IV. And I had a few fantasies myself.”

  Pete attacked the stairs, not sure he could make it all the way to the loft with her breath hot in his ear and her teeth nipping at his lobe.

  He did. Barely.

  They tumbled to the bed together. Panting, laughing, tugging, they stripped each other of all but her panties and one of his socks. Bodies pressed together at every possible pressure point, they rolled across the bed. Greedily, he took what her mouth offered. Eagerly, she explored him with her hands and teeth and tongue. Rock-hard and hungry, Pete hooked his hands around her waist and lifted her up. His mouth closed over the tantalizing flesh of her breast.

  Abby propped her hands on his shoulders, gasping when he took the aching nipple in his teeth. She’d expected her need to erupt with cataclysmic force as he nipped and teased and suckled, but she’d underestimated by several seismic degrees the total impact on her system. Fiery, volcanic heat rushed from her breast to her belly, and liquid pleasure flowed like lava from there to every nerve center in her body.

  She writhed on top of him and under him, groping, stroking, returning the pleasure he gave her. Their bodies slicked, inside and out. Her hips rocked into his. A rough-haired leg scraped against her inner thigh. Somehow, in the melee of searching hands and tangled limbs, she lost her panties and he lost his other sock.

  His fingers probed her wet center to prepare her. Then, without warning, he levered himself up and rolled off the bed.

  “Pete… What?”

  “We need protection.”

  It took a moment for Abby to grasp his meaning. “I…I don’t have any.”

  “I don’t, either…”

  “Oh, noooo!”

  His eyes danced at her anguished wail. “But I know where I can get some. Hang tight.”

  As if she could do anything else!