The Wedding Gamble Page 16

  “Mrs. Abruzzo?”

  “Y…yes.”

  “I need you to come with me.”

  “Wait just a minute.” Rachel grabbed Laura’s arm, holding her back, and glared at the man. “Just who do you think you are, and where do you think you’re taking her?”

  The man pulled a black leather badge holder from his suit pocket. “Special Agent Jerry Armbruster, F.B.I.,” he said.

  Laura’s heart pounded. David. He hadn’t forgotten her.

  “Excuse me, but you’re not taking her anywhere.” Josh clamped his hand around Laura’s other arm. “If you want to question Ms. Nichols you can contact my office with the appropriate paperwork and we’ll arrange an appointment.” He produced a silver card case from the inner breast pocket of his jacket and thrust a business card at the agent. “Until then, she has nothing to say.”

  The man looked at Laura. “Do you want to come with me or not?”

  “She’s not saying anything,” Josh said.

  “I really—” Laura protested, but her sister and Josh were already dragging her away. “They can’t prove you had anything to do with David and his mobster friends,” Rachel hissed. “Don’t make things worse by talking to them.”

  Laura looked longingly at the man, hoping to catch his attention, but he had already turned away, and was speaking into his phone. “You don’t know that they wanted to question me about anything,” she said. “Maybe David sent him.”

  “If David wanted to see you, why didn’t he show up himself?” Rachel kept a firm grip on her as they waited for Josh to collect their bags.

  Laura slumped, defeated. Why hadn’t David come to meet her himself? Was he really so busy he couldn’t be bothered?

  Josh joined them once more, juggling a duffle and two smaller suitcases. “Is this everything?”

  “Yes. Laura, do you have a bag?”

  “Only the carry-on.”

  “Then let’s get out of here.”

  Laura looked for the FBI agent, but saw no sign of him. “You’ll feel better once you’re home and have had a good night’s sleep.” Rachel patted her back. “You’ll be yourself again and forget all this Vegas craziness.”

  Yes, her time in Vegas with David had been crazy. But that didn’t make it wrong, did it?

  …

  Over the next few days, Laura waited for David to contact her. When he’d said good-bye the other night, she hadn’t really believed he’d meant forever. Not after everything they’d shared. But the longer he remained silent, the more depressed she became. And then, driving out the depression, came anger. Just where did he get off, marrying her and exposing her to danger and making her fall in love with him then dropping her as if she meant nothing?

  Fired up by such thoughts, she went online and found the number for the Federal Bureau of Investigation Offices in Chicago. “I need to speak to David Abruzzo,” she told the woman who answered the phone.

  “Who?”

  “David Abruzzo.”

  “Do you know what department?”

  “Oh. Well. He…he’s an agent. He works with organized crime. I mean, he works on cases involving organized crime.”

  “I’ll connect you with someone who might be able to help.”

  She drummed her fingers on the counter while she waited to be transferred. It was probably a huge office, she told herself. She couldn’t expect that the switchboard operator or receptionist or whatever would know everyone in the building.

  “Agent Cassal.” A clipped voice came on the line.

  “I’m looking for David Abruzzo,” she said.

  “Abruzzo?”

  Her heart had climbed somewhere over her tonsils and she had a hard time getting the words out. “Yes. He’s an agent there.”

  “There’s nobody here named Abruzzo.”

  “Are you sure? He was undercover, working an organized crime case…”

  The man’s laughter startled her. “Sorry, lady. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think you’ve been had. Some joker was trying to impress you with that story. It happens. Sorry I can’t help you.”

  He hung up before she could protest further. She stared at the phone. He had to be wrong. David hadn’t lied to her. And she’d spoken to that other agent—his boss. Oh, why couldn’t she remember the man’s name? But so much had happened since then.

  The phone in her hand rang and she pressed the button to answer it. “Hello?”

  “I need you to be at the hall an hour early tomorrow night to put out the decorations,” Rachel said. “I thought the florist was going to do that, but she wants to charge extra for anything more that delivering the arrangements. I mean, honestly—how hard is it to put things on tables, too?”

  Laura stifled a groan. She’d been so preoccupied thinking about David she’d almost forgotten the wedding rehearsal dinner. Another time, she might have complained about Rachel assuming that Laura had nothing better to do than drop everything to decorate dinner tables, but now she welcomed the distraction. “Sure. I’ll take care of the tables. How’s everything else going?”

  This launched Rachel into a litany of all the anxieties that accompanied getting ready for a big wedding. Laura pretended to listen, letting her mind wander to her own wedding—that foggy, dreamlike ceremony with the handsome stranger with the sad blue eyes. She swallowed a lump of tears. Now that she was home, away from the excitement and danger, away from the hot sex and tender embraces, she’d half expected her feelings about David to change.

  If anything, she missed him more. As crazy as it sounded, she really and truly had fallen in love with the guy. But he must not have felt the same way about her. He’d apparently disappeared.

  “Instead of an hour early, you’d better make it an hour and a half,” Rachel said. “You should check with the restaurant and make sure they didn’t screw anything up.”

  “Sure. I’ll do that.” After all, she didn’t have anything better to do.

  …

  Rachel and Josh’s rehearsal dinner was being held upstairs in the banquet room at the country club where Josh’s parents had had a membership for several generations, or so his mother informed Laura when she showed up Friday night to oversee the table decorations. She found Mrs. DuPree taking apart the flower arrangements the florist had left in boxes by the door. “Josh’s aunt Nina is allergic to carnations,” she said, plucking out the offending flowers and dropping them into the trash. “I should have told Rachel to avoid the cheaper flowers altogether. This is a wedding, not a funeral.”

  Laura took a deep breath. “Well, we certainly wouldn’t want Josh’s aunt to suffer an allergy attack during dinner.” She picked up the first depleted arrangement and carried it to the table.

  For the next hour, she put things on tables, and Mrs. DuPree moved them. Josh’s mother also changed the seating arrangements, ordered a different appetizer, and complained about the temperature of the room. Laura ordered a glass of wine and sat down in a convenient chair, letting the woman take over. David had said his mother was dead. No mother-in-law challenges for her. Not that she’d ever had a chance to find out what that was like.

  She took another drink of wine. Maybe she’d get drunk tonight and drown her sorrows. She wouldn’t get all sloppy or anything, but tonight of all nights, while her gorgeous sister prepared to marry the man of her dreams in an elaborate ceremony, wasn’t Laura entitled to feel a little sorry for herself?

  Laura’s parents arrived, followed by Rachel and Josh. Mrs. Nichols embraced her future son-in-law, all smiles. “We’re so excited to welcome you into the family,” she said. “I’ve dreamed of this day for so long.”

  “It’s going to be wonderful, isn’t it?” Rachel said. She turned to Laura, her smile dimming only a little. “And there’s still hope for you. Josh was telling me this morning that as soon as we’re back from our honeymoon, he’ll get right to work on your annulment.”

  “Um, thanks, Josh.” She offered a weak smile. She supposed she had to move on wit
h her life at some point, but did it have to be so soon?

  They filed into dinner and even three glasses of white wine wasn’t enough to dull the pain of watching the happy couple accept toasts and make goo-goo eyes at each other. Laura didn’t like being jealous of Rachel, but the green-eyed monster insisted on rearing its ugly head. A little less than a week ago, she’d imagined sitting at this table with David by her side. A newlywed herself, she’d have been the object of toasts and good wishes of her own instead of the unspoken pity reflected in the sideways glances or openly sympathetic looks directed her way.

  The stories you’ve heard are true, she imagined telling the startled guests. I eloped with a stranger in Vegas. Then he dumped me. Can you believe it?

  They were waiting for dessert when a commotion by the door caught her attention. Two waiters appeared to be wrestling with someone in the hall. The man, who wore a dark suit and appeared to be carrying a bouquet of roses, broke free and sprinted into the banquet room. Laura was on her feet before she even realized she was moving. “David!”

  He looked even better than she remembered, dressed in a sharp suit, his hair freshly cut, his face freshly shaved. “Hello, Laura. It’s good to see you again.”

  “Sir, you’re going to have to leave.” One of the waiters, a bigger, burlier guy than the other two, put his hand on David’s arm.

  David shook him off and flashed his badge. “FBI. This is official business.”

  A gasp rose from the party, and the waiter backed off. David moved around the table toward her like a shark zeroing in on his prey. He looked determined, grim even, and she fought the urge to shrink away from the intensity of his gaze.

  “Laura, what is the meaning of this?” her father demanded.

  Everyone was staring, some disapproving, others with avid interest. Rachel was in the disapproving camp, her mouth drawn down in a frankly unattractive frown. “Everyone, this is my…my husband, David Abruzzo,” Laura said.

  More gasps, and the buzz of whispers, like dry paper rubbing together. David took her hand and pulled her away from the table. “We need to talk,” he said. “Without an audience.”

  Josh half-rose from his seat. “Laura, you don’ t have to go with him,” he said.

  “It’s all right. I want to hear what he has to say.”

  She let him lead her to a cloak room just off the entrance to the banquet hall. The small chamber was empty and smelled of dust. “Where have you been?” she asked, when he stopped and faced her.

  “I sent someone to fetch you the day you got home. He told me you didn’t want to see me.”

  “I tried to call you,” Laura said. “No one at the office had heard of David Abruzzo.”

  “I couldn’t tell you before, but my legal name isn’t Abruzzo. That’s the name I was born with, but I changed it to Andrews when I turned twenty-one.”

  She felt dizzy, the world tilting under her feet. “What else didn’t you tell me?”

  He moved closer. “I didn’t tell you enough that I love you.”

  She put one hand to her mouth, as if to stop herself from blurting out that she loved him, too. She couldn’t say that yet. Not until she was sure of their future. “Why did you stay away?”

  “I thought it would be best. That you’d be safer—happier—if I didn’t expose you to the crazy life I lead.”

  “Don’t you know those days I spent with you were some of the happiest I’ve known? You made me feel truly alive—maybe for the first time ever.”

  “Tommy told me what you did—that you risked everything to try to save me.” He blinked hard and cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was husky. “No one’s ever done anything like that before.”

  “I couldn’t do nothing while he killed you.”

  “Tommy said you showed him what true love was. You showed me, too.”

  He handed her the roses. She took them and looked down at the satin petals. “Why are you here now?” she asked softly.

  “I told you we’d have to go our separate ways when I no longer needed you.”

  “Yes.” Her throat tightened around the word so that she could barely squeeze it out.

  “Well, it turns out I still need you.” His sad, half-smile made her fingers tighten on the bouquet. “I think I always will.”

  He pulled her to him, and she didn’t resist. When his lips found hers, all the fear and longing and joy she felt distilled was in that one kiss. “I love you, David,” she whispered when they finally parted, breathless. “And I don’t care about the danger or anything else. I just want to be with you.”

  He wrapped his hand around hers. “I’ve been thinking about making some changes in my life,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “It’s time I left undercover work behind. You can only do this kind of thing so long before your luck runs out.”

  “What would you do instead?”

  “There’s an opening for an instructor at Quantico. I think I might like teaching.”

  “You’d be great at it. You have so much experience to share.”

  “You could probably give me a few pointers.”

  “I imagine FBI recruits are a little different from preschoolers.”

  “They probably have more in common than you might imagine.”

  She would have laughed, but fear still clutched at the back of her throat. He hadn’t said anything about the two of them.

  “What would you think of moving to Virginia?” he asked.

  “With you?”

  “Yes, with me.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “There’s just one thing.”

  There was always one thing. She resisted the urge to shake him. “What’s that?”

  “We’re going to have to do the wedding over.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He looked sheepish. “Like I said, my legal name isn’t Abruzzo, so…”

  She did laugh then. “So the ceremony in Vegas wasn’t legal after all?”

  “Not exactly, no.” He took her hand and looked into her eyes, his expression searching. “Laura, will you marry me. Again?”

  “Yes. For real this time.”

  “We could go back to Vegas, if you like.” His tone was teasing. “Liberace is probably still available.”

  “That’s all right. I’ve had enough of Vegas. Enough of gambling.” She’d already placed the biggest bet of her life on him—and this time she’d come up with a real winner.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to Entangled Publishing, especially my editors, Keyren, Lewis, and Alethea. As always, many thanks and much love to my husband, Jim, for his support and encouragement. And thank you to all my writer friends (you know who you are) who have kept me going through the ups and downs of this crazy business.

  About the Author

  Cindi Myers became one of the most popular people in eighth grade when she and her best friend wrote a torrid historical romance and passed the manuscript around among friends. Fame was short-lived, alas; the English teacher confiscated the manuscript and suggested they should spend more time brushing up on grammar and spelling. Cindi took the teacher’s advice to heart and has gone on to wrote more than 40 published novels. Her historical and contemporary romances and women’s fiction have garnered praise from reviewers and readers alike. Write Cindi at www.CindiMyers.com.