She wanted him so much. 'Not so bad yourself.' How many kinds of handsome was he now, she wondered? Eleven? Perhaps twelve?
His dark eyes flashed and a hand was on her shoulder, the pressure sending heat through the fabric of her dress and right through to her skin.
'Damn it, Elizabeth. I've tried to be patient.' He leaned down to whisper in her ear. 'But I'm done. I'm done waiting for you to need me.'
CHAPTER
31
Lizzie looked like she was about to choke. Her baby blues flew open and so did her mouth. That luscious red-lipsticked mouth that had been taunting him all night. Hell, what was he talking about? That mouth had been taunting him since the first time they'd ever met.
'You're … done?' she stammered.
'As soon as we're finished here, with the rest of the wedding stuff we have to do, I need to see you. Alone.'
Lizzie lifted her chin high and looked him directly in the eyes. Her smile had vanished and her lips were pulled together in a line. Her eyes had turned a different colour, the palest grey maybe, and it threw him.
'I need to talk to you too, Dan. I need to tell you-'
Whatever she'd been about to say went unfinished, as Joe had appeared by her side again, slapping Dan's shoulder like they were players on the same football team.
'Sorry to cut in here, Lizzie, but Ry wants to get the speeches underway. I think he's keen to get on with the honeymoon portion of the festivities, if you know what I mean. He sent me over here to drag you away from my sister. You set to go, Dan?'
Lizzie's eyes flicked from Dan to Joe and back to Dan.
'Yeah, I'm good,' Dan told Joe as he stepped back from Lizzie. 'First dance. With me. It's part of my duty as best man. And after that? I want the last dance. Just for me.'
Dan held the microphone, tapped it a couple of times, rock-star style, to make sure it was turned on, and took a sip of the champagne he was gripping in his other hand. He told himself it was purely for decoration, not there to calm his nerves or anything like that. He'd never been big on the whole public speaking thing, so he'd tried not to think about it too much before today. He'd kind of hoped Ry might change his mind and ditch the speeches, since the whole wedding seemed kind of low-key and non-traditional. But no, Ry had insisted. So now Dan found himself standing before fifty wedding guests in the middle of The Market behind the Middle Point pub on a Saturday night, winging it. Big time.
'Ladies and gentlemen … and Ry.' Dan took a deep breath. Open with a gag, he'd remembered someone say once. So far, so good. 'Welcome everyone. I believe one of my officially listed duties as best man is to thank you all for coming. This is an amazing day for my best friend and frankly, the luckiest damn day of his life. Don't you all agree?' Another laugh. Excellent. Dan took another sip, tried to relax.
'My second official duty is to propose a toast to the bridesmaids.' He found Lizzie, standing at the front of the gathering, damned gorgeous in that movie star dress. She looked back at him, so beautiful that he had to shake off the feeling that they were the only two people in the place. The only two people in Middle Point. Maybe the only two people in the universe.
'Except in this wedding, there is only one.'
And then the words that had been right there, on the tip of his tongue, vanished. He chuckled, tried to make light of his stumble. He blinked. His two seconds of hesitation became five and then longer. When he glanced from face to face, scanning the people in the crowd he knew – Lizzie, Ry, Julia, Barbra, Joe, Harri – he became painfully aware that the chatting had stopped and that a deafening silence had descended over the party. All he could hear was the distant crashing of the waves on the beach and his heartbeat in his chest as if through a stethoscope. Everyone was watching him, waiting.
And then he felt it. The acceleration in his chest cavity was on its way to becoming a pounding and he gulped in a lungful of air to fight it off. He exhaled slowly and sucked in another. This can't be happening now. Dan's fingers gripped tight on the mike and he cleared his throat. The laughter had left people's faces, replaced by furtive glances, furrowed brows and concern.
He felt it before he heard anything above the noise in his head. Someone was next to him; a gentle arm was about his waist, pulling him close. The scent of fresh flowers. The soft curves of a body he knew, had dreamed about.
Elizabeth.
She prised the microphone out of his grip and smiled up at him like nothing whatsoever had happened.
'Ladies and gentlemen,' she began, and turned her attention to the guests. 'Since this is not the most traditional of weddings, I figure I can butt in right here and mix things up a little bit. You don't mind, do you, Jools?'
'Take it away, Lizzie!' Julia shouted happily and next to her, Ry smacked a noisy kiss on his wife's cheek.
'As most of you know, the road to wedded bliss has been a long and winding one for Ry and Julia. They did, after all, take a decade and a half to realise they were made for each other. And when they finally decided to get their act together and get hitched, did they do it in Melbourne, where Julia lived after she left Middle Point?'
Lizzie cupped her hand to her ear, waiting for a response.
'Hate the place!' Ry shouted.
'Or up in Adelaide in a fancy cathedral with an elaborate ceremony and a big meringue of a wedding dress? Nope. Jools chose to wear her mother's wedding dress and they've done it right here in a pub in the sleepy-but-we-wouldn't-have-it-any-other-way coastal town of Middle Point.' Lizzie waited as the crowd hooted and cheered. 'I'm sure you all agree with me that it just feels … right … for them to do this here. Don't you think?'
Lizzie had the crowd in the palm of her hand. Dan was in awe of her. The crowd lit up as she told the story. He lifted an arm around Lizzie's shoulders and tucked her into him. She snuggled into the space it made and he could finally breathe again.
'So, with all that in mind, I would like to propose a toast to … ' She turned her face up to him. 'To the best man, Dan McSwaine.' Her blue eyes slayed him and he found himself speechless for the second time in two minutes. But this time, it wasn't from fear.
Ry's shout of 'Woo hoo' was heard above every other cheering voice in the crowd.
'I don't know if everyone here knows, but Dan helped make The Market what it is today. We worked on this project together for a month and it looks absolutely gorgeous.' Dan squeezed her shoulder and gazed down at her.
'And there's an even bigger secret I need to share with you all. If it wasn't for Dan and me, it's highly likely these two would still be single people, driving each of us crazy. Dan and I were partners-in-crime. Matchmakers actually. If we hadn't pushed them together, right here in this pub, on a cold, winter's night last year, who knows what would have happened? But it did happen and we couldn't be more thrilled for our best friends, could we, Dan?'
He felt her arm tighten around him and the words she spoke were only for him. 'We make a great team, don't you think?'
How did she do that? How did Lizzie know to keep talking until he could breathe again? Until he'd stopped shaking. She'd made sure all the attention was on her so no one would notice the sweat on his brow or the tremble in his hands. She'd seen him about to crash and had stepped right in to save him.
She'd saved him.
He knew she'd been beating herself up about the night of the accident, blaming herself for not saving him that night. But she'd just done it.
Dan leaned in close to speak directly into the microphone. Her perfume, flowers, invaded his senses, calmed him as he reached right into Lizzie's personal space to show her that he was never leaving it. To claim her for good.
He cleared his throat. 'To Ry and Julia,' he called out. People echoed the toast with hearty cheers and whistles. And then it came back to him. Clear. Calm. Words he'd been waiting to say for months. The most important words he would ever say.
'And to the one, the only, my partner in crime, Elizabeth Blake.' Dan raised his glass. 'To Elizabeth.'
'To Elizabeth!' An echoing cry went up.
The one and only, he realised.
The one.
And in that moment he finally knew the truth. He had fallen in love with Elizabeth.
An hour later, the sun had dropped below the horizon and a cooling breeze swayed the strings of party lights decorating the canvas umbrellas. The handsome waiter brigade had finished, the platters of food were long empty, and the party section of the celebrations was on in earnest. Disco songs thumped through the crowd and some extremely ill-advised dancing was happening on the makeshift dance floor in the middle of The Market.
A bride and groom were in each other's arms, slow dancing to their own tune, seeing no one but each other.
A honey-skinned, glossy-haired woman was shaking everything she had, to the wide-eyed fascination of the tall ex-journalist dancing with her.