She rubbed her temple where a headache had started pulsing. They were definitely…friends. And they’d almost made love a couple of times, but she’d backed away, claiming she wanted to wait until they were married. What if the real reason she’d held back was because there’d been no spark, no sizzle? What kind of marriage would they have together without passion? Without true love.
“Last night I dreamed I was making love to a stranger,” Hannah admitted in a strangled voice. “Why would I dream about another man when I’m marrying Seth?”
Mimi threw her hands in the air dramatically as she spun around to face Hannah. “Because Seth isn’t the kind of man who conjures up erotic fantasies.”
Alison narrowed her eyes at Mimi in a warning, then laid a comforting hand on Hannah’s shoulder. “Hannah, everyone has crazy dreams. They don’t always have to mean something.”
“Do you think I’m making a mistake?” Hannah asked.
“I think anyone getting married is a mistake,” Mimi replied dryly.
“Just because Mimi is anti-marriage doesn’t mean you can’t be happily wed,” Alison said softly. She handed Hannah her bridal bouquet, a huge assortment of white lilies with rose-colored satin ribbons streaming from the center. Hannah sniffed at the arrangement, the fragrance so sweet it made her eyes water.
“But what about the dream and the legend of the ring?” Hannah’s chest tightened. “I was supposed to dream about the man I was going to marry.”
“Maybe it was your way of having one last fling before you’re tied down to Mr. Boring,” Mimi offered with a devilish smile
Alison sent Mimi another warning glare and straightened the lace on Hannah’s neckline. “Silly folktale.”
Still unconvinced, Hannah remembered the dream kiss and knew in her heart she couldn’t hurt Seth by marrying him if she really didn’t love him. Her mother’s parting words rose to haunt her. I only married you, Wiley, because I was pregnant. A real marriage needs more…
Her parents had married because of her. Hannah definitely wasn’t pregnant, but had she agreed to marry Seth for the wrong reasons? For security, not real love. “Go tell Seth to come here.”
“But it’s bad luck for him to see you before the ceremony,” Alison argued.
“I don’t care. I have to talk to him.”
Mimi nodded and rushed out while Alison fanned Hannah’s face to calm her. Seconds later, Seth bobbed his sandy-blond head in, his expression perplexed.
His face fairly faded in front of her eyes, the shapely square jaw and chiseled face of the man from her dreams invading his space like a surreal sci-fi movie—Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Like a flash of heat lightning, the vision disappeared and Hannah gaped at Seth, wondering why he fell vaguely short of her erotic fantasy. A woman’s toes should curl and her blood should boil when the man of her dreams kissed her, right? A woman should burn at a man’s touch. Maybe that passion was what her mother had been missing with her dad. She couldn’t marry Seth and repeat her mother’s mistake. She had to know now.
“What is it, Hannah? Did you forget something?” Seth asked.
Hannah framed Seth’s face with her hands and kissed him fervently on the mouth. Her toes would curl, her blood would sizzle, the passion would come, the hunger would surge. Magic would happen just like she’d dreamed when she was a little girl.
She kissed him harder.
Burn, baby, burn.
But her toes didn’t curl. Didn’t even twitch.
Her blood didn’t boil. Didn’t even bubble.
Darn.
At best, she was lukewarm.
The startled gasp that erupted from Seth’s throat when she finally ended the kiss didn’t sound like hunger or passion or even surprise. And her bright-red lip-prints streaked his mouth.
“I—I have to know something, Seth,” she whispered, near panic. “Do you have a birthmark on your b-behind?”
Seth stumbled backwards, his eyes dilating. “What?”
“A little quarter-moon?” She pointed to his left hip. “Up here, on your left cheek?”
Seth’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, steam practically oozing from his ears. “No. What’s come over you, Hannah? You’re acting odd.”
An overwhelming sense of panic hit her. “Seth, tell me why you want to marry me.”
His eyebrows narrowed. “What?”
“Please, just tell me. Why do you want to marry me?”
He ran a hand through his hair, spiking the ends. “We talked about this before. We make a good match, Hannah. We work well together. Have the same goals. We’re both doctors.”
“What about passion?” Hannah asked, desperate for something to cling to.
His face flushed. “I…I thought we decided sex could wait. That passion wasn’t really important.”
No, but love was.
“Seth, do you love me?”
He chewed the inside of his cheek. “I…I care about you…”
“But you don’t really love me,” Hannah finished for him.
“We’ll have a good life, Hannah. We work well together, we’re compatible—”
“I’m sorry, Seth.” Tenderly, she laid her palm on his cheek. “Maybe we were wrong. Maybe passion is important.”
He shook his head. “Can’t we discuss this later? The guests are here, the preacher. We have cake, we have a schedule….”
Typical, all business, no emotional response.
The vision of the other man appeared again, briefly but intensely, and she blinked Seth back into focus, a sickening knot balling in her stomach. Yes, Seth was the wrong man for her— No toe-curling or blood-boiling kisses. What if she married him, had children, then discovered they’d made a mistake? She never wanted to put a child through a divorce—not after the pain she’d experienced. And if she didn’t love Seth passionately, it wouldn’t be fair for her to marry him. He deserved better.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you, Seth. You’re a wonderful guy, but you deserve a woman who loves you with all her heart and soul. And I deserve a man who feels the same way. I…”
Hannah spotted her sisters hovering at the door. “I’ll go tell Dad,” Alison whispered.
“I’ll tell my parents,” Seth said tightly.
Hannah reached for Seth’s hand. “No, I’ll do it.”
Raising her head up high, she snatched the tail of her dress and marched to the church entryway. Cameras, guests, her father, Seth’s parents—all stared back at her. The organist’s eyebrows shot up as if to signal it was time for the wedding march. A reporter started running toward her, his camera angled to catch her face. On his heels, a half a dozen others seem to come out of the woodwork, camera lights flashing.
Hannah panicked and blurted out the announcement, “I’m sorry, everyone. We’ve called off the wedding.”
A gasp rumbled through the room, Wiley shot forward, Mrs. Broadhurst jumped up and shrieked, and Hannah swung around and stumbled toward the back door, searching for an escape. Alison and Mimi stood at the side door, waving her forward.