His Brother's Bride

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SHE’D RENTED While You Were Sleeping, from the in-room movie selection. A romantic comedy about a woman pretending to be the fiancée of a man who is comatose in the hospital after an accident, the movie seemed an innocuous choice. Though it was a few years old, neither of them had seen it before.

Unless it was on late-night television, Scott hadn’t seen a movie in three and a half years, and was thankful Laurel didn’t ask why not.

He was glad she’d chosen a comedy. As far as he was concerned they’d had enough drama that week.

Lying back on one bed, she’d waited for him to settle on the other before starting the movie. If he turned himself just a little and propped his head up on both pillows, he could almost not see her lying on the bed next to him. It wasn’t as if this was the first time they’d been in a motel room together. There’d been several times when he had taken trips with Laurel and Paul for one reason or another. She and Paul had shared one bed, while he’d lain awake all night in the other, burning up with need—and jealousy of the older brother he’d adored.

The movie was cute, the heroine funny and compelling as she made her way through life alone, creating her own happiness where there was no one else to create it for her.

In many ways, she reminded him of Laurel.

No matter what life handed to Lucy in the movie, she wasn’t hard or bitter. Even losing her beloved father did not strip her of her belief in good things to come.

Lying there, more emotionally than physically exhausted, Scott thought of how alone Laurel was in the world. Yet like the movie heroine she didn’t let that aloneness harden her heart or sour her on life.

He found himself falling in love with Laurel all over again.

They were about halfway through the movie before he realized she was crying. Quietly the tears rolled down her cheeks. He didn’t know when she’d availed herself of a tissue, but as he watched, she surreptitiously wiped her nose without making a sound.

She was trying so hard to cover her reaction to the movie that he wondered if maybe it would be kinder to pretend he didn’t notice. Damn that movie for billing itself as a comedy when it was causing Laurel such grief.

With a furtive glance in his direction, Laurel caught him watching her—not the movie. He knew he should look away. His conscience told him he had to look away. Danger lurked in the emotion-laden air between them.

But

those beautiful gray eyes were filled with heartache and loneliness, and he couldn’t look away.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“YOU WANT TO talk about it?”

Laurel shook her head.

She did want to. So badly. She just didn’t know how. Having spent so much of her life hurting inside by herself, she hardly knew what else to do.

“You sure?” Scott’s gaze was soft, inviting.

She nodded, but she couldn’t quit crying. It was like that sometimes; the hurt would well up until it was an overwhelming physical ache. When that happened she had to just let it have its way, let it hurt, until some of the pressure eased and she could go on.

“Can you at least tell me what in particular about the movie is so upsetting to you?”

What she wanted to do was lay her head on his shoulder and cry until there were no tears left. She wanted to be comforted like a child.

And like a woman.

“It’s Lucy, you know?” She wasn’t sure where the words came from. She wasn’t good at this sort of thing—explaining her feelings.

She understood them perfectly. She just didn’t know how to put them into words without losing the intensity in the telling.

And it was the intensity that was so hard to live with.

“What about her?”

“Her whole life.” The tears continued to drip slowly down as she spoke. Lying back against the headboard, pillows propped behind her back, Laurel shredded the tissue she held between her hands. “The aloneness. I feel it so acutely.”

She studied the floral pattern on the bedspread and the threads in the quilting. Anything but look at Scott. She couldn’t get that close. Couldn’t have him seeing inside her.