style="font-size:15px;"> Saunders gaped at her. “Kidnapping comes to mind.”
She gestured to the sleeping Carter. “He fell ill and we’re seeking medical attention.”
Julian snorted. “The real crime is bottling that bilge and calling it champagne.”
Saunders threw up his hands in a gesture of frustration and Carter shifted at the movement, his breath fluttering the ends of the scarf.
“I think we can take the scarf off his head now.” Nikki tugged on the knot. “Did you have any trouble?” She’d been afraid to ask.
“Nah.” Julian signaled a right turn. “We told the other drivers that the old lady snored when she was asleep.”
Old lady. Nikki grinned.
Saunders appeared to have calmed down. “Was it really bad back there, Nikki?”
“Yes.” She stared out the tinted window, seeing not the lush palms lining the boulevard, or the restored Victorian houses, but Dee Ann standing in the church, waiting to walk down the aisle.
“How…how far…?”
Nikki knew what Saunders was trying to ask. There was breathless silence in the car. “She was walking down the aisle before I finally got the coordinator to listen to me. After that, I ran.”
“Good call.” Julian’s eyes met hers in the rearview mirror.
Saunders looked over at her. “What did you say to her?”
What had she told that woman? “That Carter was sick. I might have mentioned appendicitis.”
“Appendicitis?” he asked sharply.
Nikki shrugged. “It was the only emergency disease I could think of.”
“Hmm.”
“That’ll let Dee Ann save face at least,” Julian commented as he turned onto Seawall Boulevard.
After that, no one said much.
Nikki stared out the car window as mile after mile of Galveston Island rolled past. The bright midday sun reflected off the murky Gulf of Mexico. Drilling rigs speckled the horizon and sea gulls circled the beach, looking for food scraps among the trash.
Against her will, she recalled the countless times she’d made this same drive with Carter to the same destination: their boat, the Honey Bee.
The happiest moments of their brief time together had been spent on the Honey Bee. They would leave Belden Industries behind, sometimes without warning, without planning. Carter would appear in the door of her office with a look she immediately recognized and she’d turn off her computer, grab her purse and meet him at the elevator.
The Honey Bee had no telephone. No fax machine. A radio and portable television, yes, but they didn’t watch much TV. Life was slow. Simple.
They were together and it was enough.
She gazed at the man sleeping next to Saunders.
Carter was driven to succeed and his successes were never enough. As soon as he’d conquer one goal, he’d set himself another.
And Nikki had been right there beside him. She’d been fascinated by him, by his single-minded devotion to the business he’d built. The problem, she knew now, was that there had been too much hero worship on her part. After a while, the very qualities which had drawn her to him, pushed her away.
He hadn’t changed. She had.
But now, she suspected he’d changed, too. There had been a time when he wouldn’t have hesitated to call off a wedding for a lot less evidence than Nikki and the others had gathered. Belden Industries was everything to him and he was everything to it. Without Carter Belden as its head, Belden Industries wouldn’t survive.
Carter Belden worked for no man—or woman. If Victor Karrenbrock gained controlling interest, Carter would walk away, but would leave his essence behind.
A shiver prickled her skin. Today, she would have acted exactly the same even without the other…complication Saunders had discovered.
“Which way?” Julian broke into her thoughts.
“Left at the entrance to Dolphin Bay.”
Sand dusted the edges of the two-lane road. Rusty mailboxes lined the entrance to the small beach house neighborhood. Street signs were carved into bleached gray wood. Everything looked the same as it always had.
Nikki felt hot, even inside the air-conditioned car. They were overdressed for the beach, and she couldn’t wait to climb aboard the Honey Bee and slip into her swimsuit.
The road deteriorated the closer to the beach they traveled. Several children dragging neon-bright beach towels stopped to gawk as the black limousine prowled their street.
“Turn on Conch,” she said.
Julian wrestled the big car around the corner, the wheels momentarily sinking into the soft sand. With a lurch, the car popped back onto the road. Nikki sighed.
And there it was—the Honey Bee, still berthed in the private cove she leased from a beach-house owner who wasn’t interested in boating.
Julian pulled the car as close to the dock as he could and stopped.
With the air conditioner no longer running, the interior of the car quickly became like a sauna.
“Now what?” Saunders asked when Nikki made no move to get out.
“I don’t know,” she answered, at a loss for the first time since the close of business yesterday, suddenly realizing that it was a Saturday in late June. The height of tourist season. And tourists abounded aplenty.
Why hadn’t she foreseen this? She’d driven straight into a casual beach-house community in a black limousine. And she was about to have two formally dressed men carry an unconscious groom aboard a boat.
And nobody would notice?
“Nikki?”
“I’m thinking.”
Julian turned and faced her. Both men waited.
Why did she have to make all the decisions? “Well.” She eyed the curious beach goers and made up her mind.
“My dear granny from the old country has come to pay a visit.” Nikki tied the scarf around Carter’s head again.
“Hey, it worked before,” she said when Saunders and Julian exchanged a look. “Release the trunk, Julian.”
Opening the car door to a blast of heat, Nikki climbed out, wincing as her black patent pumps sank into the dry sand. Removing the folded wheelchair from the trunk, she struggled to pull it apart.
Sand sifted into her shoes. Sweat dampened the silk blouse beneath her black suit. She’d worn black on purpose.
