A Wedding Story by Dee Tenorio Page B

floor. She looked up at him, temporarily at a loss.
    “Don’t sweat it, Rhu. If I let you dance al by yourself your mother would never forgive me.”
    The second he took her into his arms, causing a sensation she couldn’t quite describe in English as anything other than “ mmmm ”, the music started.
    Wel , at least the DJ was good. Anything by Bryan Addams was good, but the flamenco thrums of guitar that started “Have You Ever Really, Really Ever Loved A Woman?” did something unusual to her heartbeat.
    It wasn’t until Bobby Wichowski, of al people, dipped her about halfway through the song that Ruth Anne realized she might have been safer with the kids.
    Kids didn’t touch her. Kids didn’t wink at her.
    Most importantly, kids didn’t know how to make her body move and fit to theirs like a glove.
    Bobby brought her up from the dip slowly, somehow or another making her neck fal back so that his face was less than an inch from her breasts.
    Oh yes, this was definitely a bad, bad, bad idea.

Chapter Three
    “You sure you’re okay, Rhubarb?”
    Not the voice she wanted to hear, especial y not haunting the outside of the bathroom, but Ruth Anne had final y resigned herself to spending the entire wedding al but glued to the most exasperating man she’d ever met. She’d tried to escape the intimacy of dancing with him, but Bobby’s eyes took on that gleam she knew so wel . The one that said he was hatching something. So, she’d stayed, twirling and twisting to his every whim, watching that gleam grow brighter and his smile more predatory.
    She decided to discount what he did with his hips.
    For two hours, they kept going, she afraid to give him time alone to make whatever arrangements that might torture her and he looking happier and happier about it. If his hands cupped her hips and something in her jumped in response, it was for the sake of self-preservation. If, during that one song when he turned her so her back was to his front, her heart stopped beating because his hand slid across her from her shoulder, down between her corseted breasts and over her opposite hip...wel , she was just horrified.
    She decided to ignore that warm brandy feeling in her bel y.
    But final y, the standoff ended. He won. He didn’t beat her wil , though. No, the only thing he’d outlasted was her bladder and her feet. One was ful and the others were blistered. Damn Bonnie and her insistence on stilettos that could have doubled for an S&M device. The laces crisscrossed about twenty times over the top of her foot and up her ankle. Each and every one had lacerated her.
    Unfortunately, she only had herself to blame for the glasses of champagne they both drank that were making her dizzy and...wel , stil ful . She blamed the kids for the lack of a meal. So, here she was, alone in the back bathroom, trying for the hundred-thousandth time to reach the hooks in the back of her dress so she could relieve herself.
    “No,” she final y grumbled. “I can’t—I can’t get out of this thing.”
    “What thing?” Bobby asked through the door.
    “This dress.”
    He stayed quiet for al of a minute.
    “Bobby?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Can you help me?”
    More silence.
    “Bobby?”
    “I just want to get this clear so you don’t knock my teeth in if I open the door.”
    “Bobby,” she growled. Good lord, he was reasonably intel igent—nothing she would admit if he weren’t already a col ege graduate.
    “You’re asking me to come in there and help you out of your dress?”
    “Yes,” she hissed.
    “Okaaaaaaay.”
    “Damn it, Bobby.” She turned as he opened the door. “Hurry up, I don’t want anyone to know we’re in here together.”
    “Yeah, they might get the idea I’m getting you out of your dress or something.”
    “Keep in mind that I’m ready to pop here and I’m not afraid to take you with me.”
    He made a face, then put his hands on her shoulders. Warm hands, rough fingertips. Probably from al the guitar practice.