“Yes, you did,” Martie said. “And you were one hundred percent right. I never loved him. The only reason I said I’d marry him was to keep my place in the family.”
“I know,” Sam said, remembering. “I wanted to shake some sense into you, but you were so afraid of losing Daddy’s love that you would have married a total stranger in order to hang on to it.”
“Remember the night of my engagement party?” Martie asked. “Jason’s mother was complaining about everything from the hors d’oeuvres to the air-conditioning. I escaped to the ladies’ room and there you were, smoking a cigarette and reading Money magazine.”
Sam hadn’t thought about that night in ages, but her sister’s words brought it all back. “I gave you quite an earful, didn’t I?”
“All of it deserved,” Martie said, “but there’s one thing, especially, that I’ll never forget. If you don’t love him, don’t marry him.”
A big fat lump lodged itself in the center of Sam’s throat. “And you love Trask?”
“So much,” Martie whispered. “Oh, Sammy! I pray you’ll find someone to love the way I love him.” She threw her arms around Sam and hugged her tight, then reared back and shot a wide-eyed look at Sam’s prodigious bosoms. “Wow,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve got to get me one of those bras.”
Thirty miles northwest of Houston Intercontinental Airport
THE LIGHTS of the city twinkled in the distance, and for the first time since he left Glasgow twenty-four hours ago, Duncan wondered if he’d made a mistake. He and Samantha Wilde were strangers to each other. Not even their lovemaking had changed that. He wasn’t sure they could ever be more to each other than they had been on that April afternoon by Loch Glenraven. He wasn’t even sure he wanted them to be. All he knew was that he had to see her again. Hear her voice. Smell the sweet scent of her skin.
If he didn’t, he’d spend the rest of his life wondering if he’d let his last chance for happiness slip away without a fight.
“LOOK AT THEM,” breathed Estelle Ross, Lucky’s devoted assistant, as Martie and Trask took to the dance floor a few hours later. “Did you ever see a more beautiful couple in your life?”
“Never,” said Sam, dabbing at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief designed for exactly that purpose. What was it about weddings that turned sane women into water fountains? “They look so happy, don’t they?”
“Sublimely happy,” Estelle agreed. “They’re a match made in heaven.”
Sam didn’t believe in heaven-made matches for herself, but she was happy to make an exception for her sister.
“Are you gals blubbering again?” Lucky’s booming voice sounded behind them. “Won’t catch me cryin’ on a happy day like this.”
Sam and Estelle looked at each other and burst into laughter. Lucky had done his own share of crying during the wedding ceremony and, even now, his blue eyes looked suspiciously damp as he watched his middle child dance with her new husband.
“Your dance with Martie is coming up, Lucky,” Estelle reminded him. “Do us proud.” She smoothed the lapels of his dinner jacket with a familiar, affectionate gesture that tugged at Sam’s heart.
Sam felt like giving her father a swift kick in the shins. What on earth was wrong with him, anyway? Couldn’t he see that Estelle was head-over-heels in love with him and had been for as long as Sam could remember? People were so blind when it came to matters of the heart, and time was so—
She caught herself. Since when was she so sentimental? Her sisters were the sentimental ones in the family, not Sam. Sam relied on her assistant, Jack, to see to it that birthday cards went out when they should and important anniversaries were acknowledged.
Frankie hadn’t been able to make it home for the wedding, but she’d sent a handmade quilt, embroidered with the newlyweds’ names and the wedding date, and a charming videotape of herself reciting a poem for the happy couple. Sam, on the other hand, had presented them with a check tucked inside an oversize Hallmark card. She consoled herself with the fact that she’d hand-selected the card.
“Ms. Wilde?” One of the hotel’s catering executives appeared at her side. “There’s a gentleman outside who’d like to see you. I don’t believe he’s one of the invited guests.”
“Did he give a name?” she asked as a funny lightheaded feeling swept over her. It couldn’t be. It simply wasn’t possible.
The woman shook her head. “Afraid not, but he did tell me to give you this.” She handed Sam a sprig of heather.
Sam’s life seemed to pass before her eyes, with special attention paid to that afternoon beside the banks of Loch Glenraven.
“Ms. Wilde? Are you all right?”
“No.” The word popped out before Sam had a chance to think. “I mean, yes. I’m fine.” She stared at the sprig of heather clutched in her hand. This couldn’t be happening. He was supposed to be on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in Scotland, for heaven’s sake. He had absolutely no business being right here in Houston, on her turf. “Why don’t you tell the gentleman that he can contact me Monday morning at the office.”
The woman smiled coyly. “He told me you’d say that.”
“He did, did he?” Sam felt her hackles rise. She liked to think she was dependable but not predictable. “Then you can tell him he was right.”
“I really think you’d better come out to the lobby and speak with him, Ms. Wilde.”
Sam placed a hand on the woman’s forearm and lowered her voice. “This is my sister’s wedding reception,” she said in icily formal tones. “These people are my family and friends. If the anonymous gentleman wishes to speak with me, he can call my office on Monday.”
“Ms. Wilde,” the woman said, beads of sweat forming at her temples, “I urge you to see the gentleman. He said—” She hesitated, an angry
