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DESMOND TIMED their departure to the minute. He arrived home half an hour before sunset, packed his bag, put two bottles of medicine in a cooler, made sure both Gillian and Mrs. Waters knew what was expected of them in his absence, and escorted Rebecca through the employee elevator to the underground parking garage just as night claimed the sky.
She carried her own suitcase and held tightly to his hand, although she did scan the parked cars, muttering numbers under her breath.
"Three hundred eighty-seven," he whispered, amused to see she was still trying to find answers to the questions she'd posed when she first arrived.
She blushed.
Desmond's car waited at the curb. He turned to see Rebecca's reaction.
She glanced at him, the car, then back at him. "It's a very pretty car."
Picking up their bags, he chuckled at his own foolishness, like a raw boy trying to impress her with the power and speed of his chosen vehicle. "You don't even know what kind of car it is, do you?"
"Of course I do! It's a...sports car."
Still smiling, he dropped the bags in the trunk. Rebecca tried again. "An expensive sports car."
He shut the trunk and came back to open the door for her. "It's a Lamborghini."
Settling into the leather interior, she smiled up at him with a devilish twinkle in her eye. "So I was right, then."
He leaned down to kiss her, captivated anew. A moment later, he lost himself in her honeysuckle sweetness, letting his mind drift with hers. She broke off the kiss with a mental wrench that staggered him.
"Enough of that. We don't want to be late to our own wedding."
"Don't worry." He patted the car's hood as he circled around to the driver's side. "That's the advantage to a car like this. You can make up lost time."
Her laughter rang out like a carillon of bells. "If we got involved now, the car doesn't exist that could make up that much time."
He slid into the driver's seat and strapped himself in place. Firing up the engine, he paused to carry her hand to his lips for a brief kiss. "What can I say? Where you're concerned, I'm insatiable."
She drew in a sharp breath, and images of the two of them entwined rushed over him. He felt himself hardening in response to her desire, and jerked his hand away. Throwing the car into gear, he squealed out of the garage. It was going to be a long drive.
They rolled through the night, the headlights picking out stands of aspen like pale ghosts in protective circles amid the darker blackness of the ponderosa pines. Rebecca thumbed through his assortment of CD's, looking for suitable background music.
"I can't believe this. Big Band tunes, jazz, folk trios, rock music, and new age instrumentals."
"So? I have eclectic tastes."
"I'll say." She snorted and pulled out another CD. "I've never even heard of half these people."
"Expand your horizons." He reached over and pulled out a CD at random. "Have you ever heard this one?"
She looked at the casing. "Vangelis? No. What's he do?"
"Listen and find out."
Shrugging, she opened the case and popped out the CD. A few moments later, the first invigorating notes of an instrumental piece cascaded through the car's sound system, and she was hooked.
Like a child with a new toy, exploring Desmond's music collection kept her occupied for the rest of the trip. He'd convinced her of the merits of Mozart and Vangelis, and she'd agreed to reserve judgment on swing and barbershop, by the time the lights of Las Vegas appeared in the distance.
Not only was the horizon bathed with the multicolored glow he remembered from his last trip, a beam of pure white shot straight into the sky with a luminescence so bright it was blinding.
"Do you want to go to the hotel first?" Rebecca asked. "Or should we get the license first?"
"The hotel. And then we need to buy rings. I'm sure there must be a store still open. The court house is open all night, so we don't have to rush." It seemed too amazing to be true, that in a few short hours, Rebecca would be his wife. She sat with her head bowed, silently shuffling the CD's.
Desmond reached out and clasped her hand. "Nervous?"
