One Night With The Cowboy. Brenda HarlenЧитать онлайн книгу.
done each time before.
“It was my grandmother’s,” his friend said. “She wore it every day for almost sixty years.”
And now he was ready to put that ring on the finger of a woman he’d known for less than six hours.
“You know this is crazy, right?” Caleb felt compelled to ask his friend.
“I know you think so,” Joe acknowledged. “But me and Delia have been chatting and gaming online for almost seven months, and I knew I loved her even before I saw her. Now that we’ve finally met, I have no doubt that she’s the woman I’m destined to be with for the rest of my life.”
“The rest of your life is a long time,” he warned.
“I hope so,” his friend said sincerely. “But if you’re not comfortable standing up for me, I can—”
“No,” Caleb interjected. “I want to do this. Because even if I do think this is more than a little impulsive, it’s obvious that Delia is just as smitten with you as you are with her.”
“Then why are you scowling?” Joe asked him.
He shook his head. “If I tell you, you’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“Tell me anyway,” his friend said.
Caleb slipped his arms into his jacket, then buttoned the front, tugged on the cuffs. “I caught a glimpse of a woman in the hotel lobby downstairs,” he finally admitted. “And I thought—for a minute—that it was Brie.”
“Brielle Channing?”
He nodded.
Joe considered the admission for a moment before responding. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. I’m crazy for falling in love with a woman I met online seven months ago, but it’s okay that you’re still in love with the woman who walked away from you more than seven years ago?”
“I’m not still in love with her,” Caleb denied.
“Then forget about her,” Joe advised. “Because what happens in Vegas—”
“Stays in Vegas,” he finished, the marketing slogan being truer than even his buddy realized.
The groom-to-be grinned. “That’s right, my friend. And after the ceremony, I will be escorting my bride to the honeymoon suite, which means that this room is all yours.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Caleb said. Although the idea of spending the night with a random stranger held absolutely no appeal, admitting as much to his friend would only result in more questions about Brie—and he definitely didn’t want to go there.
“Good.” Joe adjusted his tie in the mirror. “Do you have—”
“Yes,” he interrupted. “I have the ring.”
“Okay.”
Caleb glanced at his watch and decided they had some time before they needed to head down to the chapel. The thick carpet of the luxury room muffled his footsteps as he crossed to the bar to retrieve two bottles of beer from the fridge.
“Do you have any idea what they charge for those?” the anxious groom asked, his preoccupation with his grandmother’s ring momentarily forgotten.
“No,” he admitted, as he uncapped both bottles and handed one to Joe. “But undoubtedly less than the champagne, and I thought you’d prefer to toast your marriage this way.”
“Can’t argue with that,” his buddy decided.
“To you and Delia,” Caleb said, lifting his bottle in the air. “May you have a long and happy life together.”
“And to my best friend,” Joe said, raising his drink. “I hope that someday you find your perfect match and feel as lucky as I do right now. In the meantime—” he grinned again “—I hope you at least get lucky.”
They tapped their bottles together and drank, then Joe went to escort his bride while Caleb headed to the chapel.
On his way, he passed one of the hotel’s three pools and lingered for a minute to admire the crystal clear water sparkling in the afternoon sun—and the numerous shapely female bodies in and around it.
He felt an unwelcome tug in the vicinity of his chest when he saw her there: the same woman he’d caught a glimpse of earlier. The woman he’d believed—for the space of one endless, aching heartbeat—was Brielle.
Of course, it wasn’t her. There were more than fifty hotels on the strip, and the odds that she might be vacationing in Las Vegas and staying at this particular hotel on the same weekend that he was here were...incalculable.
Whoever the woman was, she wasn’t Brie, and he had to stop imagining otherwise.
* * *
Brie stepped out of the water and reached for one of the thick, fluffy towels provided by the hotel.
Then her gaze lifted to his face, noted the light brown hair that showed hints of gold in the sun, the tanned skin and square jaw, the hazel eyes framed by thick lashes—eyes that seemed to be staring right into hers even through the dark lenses of the sunglasses perched on her nose.
Her breath caught in her throat and her heart actually skipped a beat before it resumed its rhythm, albeit a little harder and faster than before.
“It is you,” he said, in a low voice that was achingly familiar.
She ignored the racing of her heart and reminded herself that she wasn’t a teenager anymore. She was a twenty-five-year-old woman who could handle an unexpected encounter with a former lover without falling to pieces.
Buoyed by this quick internal pep talk, she managed to respond casually, easily. “Hello, Caleb.”
Though she couldn’t take her eyes off him, she was aware that both of her friends were avidly watching the interaction. She felt the weight of their stares—and their unspoken questions.
“I wasn’t sure it was really you at first.” He settled on the edge of her lounger, so that he could look her in the eye—despite the fact that hers were still shaded.
She was grateful for the protection, because Caleb had always been able to see too much of what she was feeling. And his sudden and unexpected appearance here had brought to the surface too many feelings that she’d thought were long forgotten—or at least deeply buried.
“I saw you waiting for the elevator earlier,” he continued, “but by the time I crossed the lobby, the doors had closed, and I decided that it couldn’t have been you, anyway.”
She didn’t know what to say to that—or if she was even capable of forming a coherent sentence. So many thoughts and questions were swirling through her mind, so many emotions battling for dominance inside her heart.
Her friends came to her rescue now, with Lily shoving her hand toward him. “I’m Lily—one of Brielle’s roommates in New York.”
Deeply ingrained manners forced him to shift his attention and accept the proffered hand. And Grace’s, too, when she followed the initial introduction with her own.
By then, Brie had recovered sufficiently from the shock of the unexpected encounter that she was able to string enough words together to say, “Caleb and I grew up together in Haven.”
“So the two of you are...old friends?” Grace guessed.
Caleb looked at Brie again, waiting for her to answer.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Old friends.”
He gave the slightest shake of his head then, as if he was disappointed by her response.
“We’re a little more than that,” he said, and though he was answering Grace’s question, his eyes never left Brie’s face.
“How