Maddie’s eyes were blue and wide, her mouth a classic full-lipped bow, her nose cutely retroussé. And her hair was a tumble of blond natural curls that Paige would have killed for if she hadn’t been so fond of her sister.
After years of trying to make hers curl, or fluff up, or even stay pinned in a style of any sort, Paige had despaired of persuading it to do anything but hang straight and fine, au naturel. Now she kept it neatly and boringly cropped to just below her ears, brushed it briskly to a satiny sheen every night, and after unsuccessfully experimenting with bleaches and rinses, allowed it to retain its own unexciting nut-brown color.
Long ago she had decided against competing with Maddie or any other pretty girl. Paige was plain and there was no point in pretending otherwise. She could just be thankful that she wasn’t downright ugly, and that her figure as well as her face was passable, even if neither was likely to launch any ships. In fact her measurements were the same as her sister’s, but Maddie had always seemed more rounded and ultra-feminine, perhaps because she was three inches shorter than Paige’s five-eight.
Maddie had never had to worry that she was turning into a giraffe at age twelve. Their mother had never advised Maddie that makeup couldn’t work miracles, and that discreetly enhancing her best features would be more effective than drawing attention to her face by using too much.
As the newlyweds cut the cake, Paige’s mother put an elegantly slim, diamond-ringed hand on her waist and hissed in her ear, “What’s Jager Jeffries doing here? Did you know he was coming?”
“No I didn’t,” Paige answered, scarcely moving her lips. “And I have no idea.”
Margaret Camden’s precisely reddened lips tightened. The blue eyes she had bequeathed to her younger daughter glittered with annoyance as she shook a head of artfully lightened curls. “I can’t believe that Glen’s family knows him!”
When the cake-cutting was completed and the bride and groom began circulating among the guests, Paige handed out wedding cake but stayed well away from the table where Jager sat, allowing the flower girl to deal with it. After returning the empty tray to the kitchen she retrieved her small makeup kit from her mother’s handbag and crossed the carpeted lobby to the ladies’ room.
She touched up the minimal color on her lips, checked that the subtle beige shadow on her eyelids was intact and the mascara that tipped her lashes hadn’t run, and put on her large, rimless spectacles. Now that the photographs and the formal part of the wedding were over there was no reason she shouldn’t wear them. It would have been nice to have contact lenses for occasions like this but, after painfully trying them several times in the past, Paige had accepted she was one of those people who just couldn’t tolerate them.
Coming back into the lobby, she wished she had left the glasses in her bag. Because Jager stood only a few feet from the door, and without the slight, comforting vagueness that her impaired natural vision had imparted, he was very clearly, very solidly, in her way.
She knew, with a sense of inevitability, that he was waiting for her. That he’d followed her. A shimmer of pleased anticipation passed over her, and she firmly repressed it.
For a second or two neither of them moved. Paige searched Jager’s face for some clue to his emotions, his intentions, but apart from the brilliance of his eyes he was giving nothing away.
Deciding to take the initiative, she ordered her lips to a smile—she’d had plenty of practice at that today—and said brightly, “Hello, Jager. This is a surprise! I didn’t know you knew Glen.”
“I don’t,” he answered, and at her flicker of surprise added, “not very well. It’s a long story.”
Which she didn’t want to hear. “I’m sure it’s an interesting one,” she said, “but it will have to wait for another time.”
Trying to look busy and purposeful, she attempted to pass him, but he reached out, closing his fingers around her arm. Her heart tripped over itself and her skin tingled.
“When?” His voice was low and gritty.
Something hot and disturbing happened in her midriff and began to spread throughout her body. Dismayed and disoriented by the force of it, she took a moment to make sure her voice was steady. “When what?”
“When can I see you?”
Warily she pulled away, and he let go. “Why do you want to see me?”
Thick black lashes momentarily hid his eyes. Then he looked away from her as if trying to distance himself. She saw the faint widening of his nostrils when he took a breath before looking back at her, his gaze curiously speculative. “To catch up,” he said abruptly. “For old times’ sake.”
Two women and a man came out of the reception room, chatting and laughing as they headed for the rest rooms. Jager cast them an impatient glance and shifted so they could pass, his gaze homing in again on Paige.
“That’s hardly necessary,” she said.
“Necessary?” He pushed his hands into his pockets, looking down at her under half-closed lids from his six feet two inches. Dropping his voice to the deep purr that had always made her toes curl, he said, “It isn’t necessary…but I’m curious. Aren’t you?”
Intensely. But also cautious. Getting involved with Jager again was the last thing she needed right now. Ever. “No,” she said baldly.
More people were trickling out of the lounge, some going outside, one group pausing to talk a few feet away. Jager ignored them. “Come on,” he chided. “I thought your family was all keen on being tremendously civilized.”
“Leave my family out of this!”
“Gladly.” His beautiful lips curled.
She couldn’t raise her voice here, but it trembled with anger. “I can’t imagine why you’d want to talk—all we ever did at the end was argue.”
Some spark of emotion lit his eyes, and a complicated expression crossed his face. “Not all,” he reminded her. “There was always a way to end the argument.” His lazy, explicit look invited her to remember…
Paige’s lips compressed. Sweet, sweet memories—they had tormented her for years. “You said you wanted to talk!”
His head cocked, his expression becoming bland in the extreme. “Have I suggested anything else?”
He hadn’t—not verbally. Paige felt wrong-footed, stuck for an answer.
Lights flickered on around them. In the big room the three-piece band her parents had hired struck up the wedding waltz.
“I have to go back,” Paige said. “They’re dancing.”
Jager stood aside but she knew he was right behind her as she returned to the lounge.
The center of the floor had been cleared and Maddie and Glen were circling alone. A number of people had congregated near the doorway. Without pushing and causing a stir, Paige couldn’t get through.
The music paused, and the Master of Ceremonies urged everyone onto the floor. Both sets of parents took up the invitation then, followed by several more couples.
The
