The Bride And The Mercenary. Harper Allen

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      If anyone could whip a choice morsel away from a shark, her half brother could, Ainslie thought now. Susan Frank had looked immediately bored, Sully had hustled her into the church and Aunt Kate had taken over from there.

      But even the combined forces of the O’Connell women and Terry Sullivan couldn’t hold off the delayed wedding for much longer, Ainslie told herself. Not for the first time since she’d accepted Pearson’s proposal, she felt a pang of longing for her mother—a longing that had never really faded over the ten years since Mary O’Connell’s untimely passing.

      When Thomas Sullivan, Sully’s feckless and charming father, had walked out on his second wife and his young daughter, taking his son by a previous marriage with him, at five years old she’d felt as if her world had been torn apart, Ainslie remembered. Reverting to her maiden name, Mary O’Connell had moved in with her sister Jackie’s family and the O’Connell clan had practically smothered Ainslie with love. But the lack of a father had always hurt. Even when her beloved half brother Sully had come back into her life years later, his reappearance hadn’t been able to completely make up for Thomas’s absence.

      Her aunts and Sully would always be there for her, Ainslie thought, meeting Kate’s inquiring gaze. But her mother would have known without asking that she still intended to go through with this wedding. She wanted Tara to have the one thing she’d missed out on—the presence of a stable father figure in her life.

      “We’re not scrubbing this event, Aunt Kate.” She forced a smile and smoothed down a ruffle. “You were the one who taught me to leave the butterflies outside when I stepped into the ring. I—I guess I just forgot that for a minute.”

      “Is that all it was, butterflies?” Her aunt looked unconvinced, and Ainslie nodded decisively.

      “Plain old-fashioned bridal nerves,” she said firmly, and saw the doubt in her aunt’s eyes disappear. “Ladies, start your engines—or at least get your butts out of here so the bride and her chief bridesmaid can make an entrance in a minute or so.”

      The older woman’s craggy features broke into a rare smile. “Some of the stuffier McNeils are going to bust a gut when they realize it’s Kiss of Death Katie who’s giving the bride away, darlin’. I can hardly wait to see their faces. Ciss, Jackie—let’s get out there and raise some eyebrows.”

      With the squeak of sneakers and the tapping of heels receding down the hall, Ainslie took a deep breath and turned to face Tara with the same grin she’d given her aunts still fixed on her face. “Well, pumpkin, it’s just you and me now,” she said bracingly. “Ready?”

      “No.” The teen’s one-word answer was flatly antagonistic.

      Shocked, Ainslie stared at her. In the limo, Tara’s recalcitrance had obviously stemmed from a childlike need for reassurance, but there was nothing childlike about the white, set face turned to her now. Tara’s gaze, as it met hers, was disconcertingly adult.

      “You lied to them. I was the only one close enough to see what happened, and I know it wasn’t just butterflies, Aunt Lee. You saw someone, didn’t you? You saw Seamus Malone.”

      Ainslie felt her own face pale. “How do you know that name?” She realized her hands were clenched at her sides, and with an effort she relaxed them. “Don’t tell me—your uncle Sully, right?”

      Tara shrugged, her shoulders tense under the sea-green chiffon.

      “It couldn’t have been Malone I just saw, because he did die. I went to his funeral. I was there when they buried him. He walked out of my arms one night and he never came back. And he hasn’t now,” she whispered fiercely, her words not directed at the young girl in front of her. “It’s time to let him go.”

      “At Uncle Sully’s marriage to Bailey you told me that true love was the rarest thing there was. You said that if a person ever found it, she should never, ever let it go. What if you did see Malone, Auntie Lee? Even if it’s impossible, what if you did?”

      Under the lace and ruffles, Ainslie felt as if an iron band was constricting her chest. “I didn’t. And I don’t want to talk about it any more, Tara,” she said tightly. “Now, I’m walking out that door to get married to Pearson. Are you coming?”

      For a long moment Tara’s gaze defiantly held hers. Then the soft young lips quivered, and with an impulsiveness that she’d begun to display less and less often since becoming a teenager, she rushed to Ainslie and wrapped her arms around her.

      “Of course I’m coming, Aunt Lee. It’s not often a girl gets a chance to wear sea-foam green, for goodness’ sake.” Her laugh was uneven, but as she gave Ainslie one last crushing hug and stepped back, her smile was tender. “Besides, even with the door open, that perfume is getting to me. Aunt Cissie must have doused herself in it—she’s the only one who would wear something so romantically old-fashioned as roses.”

      “Aunt Cissie doesn’t wear perfume,” Ainslie said absently. “She’s allergic to it.” Straightening her veil and turning to leave, she stopped, her heart suddenly crashing in her chest.

      It was no ghost of a scent. Tara was right—it was overpowering, as overpowering as it had been half an hour ago, when Ainslie’d finally convinced herself that both the aroma and the man had been illusions. But now it seemed that the scent of roses was real. And Tara was conscious of it, too.

      What if Malone hadn’t been an illusion, either?

      “Red roses for true love,” she said through numb lips. “What if he’s still alive? What if he’s still alive?”

      “The perfume means something to you, doesn’t it?” Tara’s gaze was fixed on her, her eyes enormous in the paleness of her face. “You think he has come back, don’t you?”

      “But how could he?”

      In an unconscious reversal of their roles, Ainslie turned to her adopted daughter. Tara wasn’t a child any longer, she realized with a small start. She was a young woman, and her steady gaze was filled with a wisdom beyond her years.

      “One way or another, you have to be sure, Aunt Lee. If you don’t go after him you’ll never forgive yourself.” Tara gave her a little shake. “I’ll never forgive you.”

      “But Pearson…Father Flynn…all those guests!” Was she actually considering this? Ainslie thought. “I can’t just walk out on my own wedding! Besides, I’ll run into the same crush outside as before. That Susan Frank will have a film crew right on my heels.”

      “Go out the back.” Tara jerked her head toward the door leading to the parking lot, her voice quickening in excitement. “He went down that alley about a block away, didn’t he? This street should get you there just as well as the one in front of the church, and it’s quieter. No one will even see you.”

      Even as she spoke Ainslie was shaking her head. “Someone will notice, and in this getup I can’t exactly outrun the mob. Leaving Pearson waiting at the altar is terrible enough. He doesn’t deserve his wedding to be made into a public joke in all the papers.”

      “You’re right. That would destroy him,” Tara said slowly, her face clouding. Then she brightened. Darting to the small table near where she’d been sitting earlier, she bent over and grabbed something up. She whirled back to Ainslie, her palm outstretched. “Here.”

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