Читать книгу The Long Way Home - Cathryn Parry - Страница 10
ОглавлениеCHAPTER TWO
BRUCE COLE STOOD in the rental car office at Boston’s Logan airport and shook his head in disbelief.
They’d assigned him a minivan? Really?
He glanced at the electronic board listing the last names of the arriving platinum-level customers. There he was, “Cole, B.,” assigned to the vehicle parked in spot 367. Here he was at spot 367, and there sat a minivan, which was against the explicit instructions on his frequent-traveler profile.
Bruce sighed. The golden rule of traveling was that anything could go wrong, at any moment, for any reason. Terminal shutdowns, bad weather, airplane mechanical problems, a hotel closed by Legionnaire’s Disease. He considered himself lucky he hadn’t been a passenger in an emergency landing on a jumbo jet in the Hudson River. Yet.
But the corollary to the golden rule was that there were some things a frequent traveler could influence, even control. And road warriors, with their points and their elevated status, had more power than those people who only traveled once in a blue moon.
Civilians, the travel companies could afford to inconvenience. Customers like him, not so much.
He left his suitcase and his briefcase on the pavement and peered inside the van’s window. Fate must be laughing at him, because there was a child seat strapped in the back.
Sorry, fate. That wasn’t ever going to happen. Even though he was only driving back to Wallis Point for this one night—and against his best instincts—this van was the worst vehicle he could show up in. His parents and Mark and Mike wanted him to stick around and be part of the family. Maureen, the headstrong real estate agent, would be trying to sell him a town house right down the street from hers.
Not a chance in hell.
His life was exactly the way he wanted it. He was free. Independent. Unencumbered.
No close relationships.
The only reason he’d made room in his schedule to fly back to Wallis Point to be in his sister’s wedding was that she had nagged him until he’d given in.
Not that going back made any difference to him. He didn’t care what anybody thought of him.
He stayed out of their lives. He stayed out of everybody’s life but his own.
Usually.
He grimaced, visually plotting the trip ahead, and his subsequent escape. After he got a decent car, he’d roll into town, witness the happy event for Maureen, raise his glass in a good-natured toast and then he’d roll right on out.
Be back in the air first thing tomorrow morning on the earliest flight out—that was his plan.
First, though, he needed a car that fit his image. Shuddering, he opened the van door, plucked the paperwork from the visor and then wheeled his luggage toward the customer service counter. A place that frequent travelers avoided like the plague.
The line stretched five deep, with even more people being unloaded from a courtesy bus at the curb. It was Friday evening on the Memorial Day weekend—the beginning of the summer season in New England—what did he expect?
By instinct, he scanned the parking lot and realized that, predictably, the rental service had run out of cars. The wait to snag one could last hours. Bruce was a road warrior by profession, he knew the ins and outs of navigating airports, hotels, car rental services and business conventions—it was his life. Normally he loved it.
Better than anyone, he knew that by flying on a Friday evening—any Friday evening, never mind the Friday before a long weekend—he’d broken a major rule of road warriors: never travel with the amateurs. They didn’t understand the arcane system of U.S. travel—how to make it as smooth and problem-free as possible—and because they didn’t get it, they made life difficult for the people depended on fast entrances and quick exits.
The thing was, road warriors stuck together. They knew all about traveling out first thing Monday morning and home last thing Thursday night. Fridays were for paperwork and telecommuting from home. Bruce did his laundry and errands on Saturday and relaxed on Sunday. Then on Monday he flew to whatever client site he was currently contracted to, fixed the computer systems and was a hero. Or a bum, if something went wrong. Either way, he was free. Nothing held him down. Nothing locked him in place.
Don’t make eye contact.
He walked past the snaking line—caught glimpses of families and old people and young, wide-eyed couples—and ambled up to the counter. This wasn’t his normal rental-car place—he knew the staff in the Fort Lauderdale office personally—so he opened his wallet to get his identification card, just in case. It was tucked behind his gold American Express card, which he removed gingerly. The fragile plastic had been swiped by so many machines that the card was cracked almost in half.
He caught the eye of a clerk on duty. Desmond, the clerk’s nametag read. Bruce nodded at Desmond, and subtly flashed his platinum-colored customer ID.
Desmond nodded back, but continued listening to the customer who was venting at him, a guy about Bruce’s age with a goatee and backpack—and absolutely no power to make anything happen in his favor. A guy who didn’t stand a shot at getting a car.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Desmond said patiently, “I know you have a reservation, but we are absolutely empty at the moment. There is nothing I can do.”
Then Desmond hurried over to assist him. He took the paperwork Bruce offered. “Good afternoon, sir. How can I help you?”
“I need to switch this for a sedan,” Bruce said. “Something smaller and low mileage.”
The clerk glanced at the sleeve of Bruce’s paperwork. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cole, but there are no cars available. We have at least an hour wait. Your best bet is to keep what you have.” He tried to hand back the paperwork.
Bruce smiled slowly. Held Desmond’s gaze. Kept his palms flat on the counter. With an easy look that said he understood, he felt for Desmond, he really did, but he knew the rules—hell, he had his own rules, too—and this was the way it was gonna go down. He’d do it gracefully, without inciting a riot in the line—especially from the guy in the goatee, practically blowing a gasket beside him, but either way, they were going to do this.
“There are always cars,” Bruce said, softly, his body angled away from the waiting crowd.
The clerk swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving up and down.
And then he went to his computer. Bruce tucked his customer ID card back inside his wallet.
Desmond glanced from the monitor to Bruce. Bruce smiled at him. He knew that the computer system—similar to the ones he designed himself—was telling Desmond that Bruce had rented one of his firm’s cars every week, never fail, for the past eight years.
“Excuse me, Mr. Cole,” Desmond said, reaching for the phone. “I need to get an override from management. Would you mind waiting a moment?”
“No problem,” Bruce replied. He went to slide his wallet into his back pocket, when his elbow bumped against something soft.
Actually, against someone soft.
A kid, no more than six or seven years old, had come up beside him. Well inside his personal space. Now what? He raised one eyebrow at the kid, who didn’t take the hint.
Big trouble, he thought. Don’t go there.
“My dad says you’re cutting the line,” the boy said.
Bruce had a niece about the same age. She was a real firecracker, too. Maybe that was why he was considering ignoring his own rules about not interacting with civilians. It seemed nothing was going to be normal about this trip.
“Does he?” Bruce replied. In curiosity, he lifted his gaze past the kid to the guy with the goatee who’d been expressing his irritation to the clerk.
“Daniel,” the man said, his face red with either exasperation or embarrassment, “get over here right now.”
But the kid didn’t move. Bruce frowned, looking down at him. What was it about this kid? Thin and determined, he had a set to his mouth. The parents were just...tired and worn-out from their travels, and kind of clueless about what was happening around them, to tell the truth. The mother rocked and cooed at a toddler girl, cute kid, with wispy hair a blinding blond that was almost white. There were two older kids, eleven or twelve, but they were arguing over an iPod, or maybe an iPhone. The father was sidetracked now, distracted with reading them the riot act, and attempting to get them to line up and behave, although even Bruce saw what a futile gesture that was.
Bruce looked down at the kid again. This was none of his business. But he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“I’m not cutting the line on you,” Bruce explained. “This is a special line for people who travel a lot.”
The kid stared at him. “How can we get in the special line? We need a car. We need to get to Grandma’s house before the traffic starts.”
Bruce had news for him; it was already well into rush hour. Waiting another hour for a car might be the best thing for them to do.
“I think you’ll be stuck in traffic even if you leave now.”
The kid’s chin set. “It’s better if my brothers fight in the car than fight here. My dad won’t be as mad.”
“That’s uh...good thinking.”
“I know.”
Bruce blinked and looked at the boy again. Something about this kid was just...sucking him in. The thing was, Bruce could relate to parents who were absorbed in their own world and not paying attention to the wide world around them. To older siblings who were equally absorbed in their world of petty squabbles, of scuffling with each other instead of behaving. To the baby, so cute and helpless. And to this precocious middle kid, the only one who paid attention to the bigger picture. A leader in the making.
“What’s that big ring?” The kid asked, pointing to Bruce’s heavy gold Annapolis ring with the blue stone on his left ring finger. “Were you in the Super Bowl? Are you famous?”
“It’s my Annapolis ring. I earned it at the U.S. Naval Academy.” Bruce pushed away his unease. He didn’t usually wear the ring, but this week he’d had meetings scheduled with the upper brass of the navy—captains and admirals. His life tended to flow more smoothly when the people in charge accepted him as part of their club. So he’d dug it out of his top drawer, and now he was stuck with it for the night.
“What’s the U.S. Naval Academy?” the kid asked him.
“It’s where the country trains leaders for the U.S. Navy,” he said by rote.
“Is that like the Marines? I want to be a Marine.”
Bruce had felt that way once, too. “Yeah, I get that. When I was your age, I had a buddy whose father was—”
Whoa. He suddenly felt light-headed. Where was this coming from?
He was over all that old stuff. Way over it.
The kid stared at him, but Bruce shook his head in response. He couldn’t tell him that once, a long time ago, he’d had nearly the same conversation with his best friend’s irascible father. Because Bruce had been the precocious kid in his neighborhood. The inquisitive leader who’d felt the burning need to take care of everybody close to him because they weren’t doing such a good job of it themselves. Maureen was the baby sister his mom fussed over, dressed in pretty clothing and took to girly things like ballet class and shopping. His brothers, twins, older than him by eight years, were the ones always distracted by hunting and fishing and boating, and fighting with each other. Their father was cut from the same cloth as Mark and Mike, and though they were all three good guys at heart, they had never understood Bruce. He baffled them. He was different from everybody else they knew.
Slowly Bruce let out his breath. Desmond the clerk had returned. He was smiling now, suddenly willing to be Bruce’s buddy. People loved being able help somebody else out, when their hands were no longer tied from doing a good deed for someone who would appreciate it of them.
You could do a good deed, too.
No, another part of him said. Don’t get involved.
He closed his eyes. Alarm bells were going off all over the place, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted to be that carefree kid again, for once.
This wedding was going to be a mess for him, he could just tell.
But he opened his eyes and glanced down at the kid. He was looking at Bruce eagerly, as if Bruce was a hero or something.
How could he say no to that?
“You want me to get you a car, little man?” Bruce asked softly.
The kid—Daniel, was it?—put his hands on his hips and nodded.
“Is a minivan okay? With a car seat for your sister?”
Daniel grinned. “That sounds real good. She isn’t big enough to sit on her own yet.”
“Got it.” He looked at Desmond, who was clearly baffled. “You heard the customer. Give them the Chrysler van in space 367.” He held out his old contract. “And while you’re processing the paperwork, transfer as many of my points as you need to cover their full fee.”
Desmond squinted at the computer screen. “You’ve used all your points, Mr. Cole. Transferred the bulk of them last week, to a...Maureen Cole. A Mark Cole. And a Mike Cole.”
He’d forgotten about Maureen’s honeymoon, along with his parents’ and brothers’ trip to Disney World with his nieces and nephews at the same time.
“Yeah, well...” Bruce reached for his wallet again, skipped past the almost-broken-in-half corporate card, and reached for his personal card, stuck way in the back. “Put the base rental charge on my credit card. Use the renter’s credit card for their gas, insurance and security holds. I don’t want to be liable if they lose the car or crack it up or something.”
He was a good guy, not a stupid guy.
“Certainly, sir,” Desmond said. And as he returned to the computer to process the minivan, Bruce accepted the paperwork for his sedan. Luxury Collection, the header read. And Bruce’s heart beat a bit faster, because every road warrior had heard of the mythical stock of high-end luxury and sports cars that were reserved for the high-end customers, but also available at regular rates for platinum-level members whenever there was an out-of-stock situation. Such as this one.
Yeah, Bruce had hit the road warrior jackpot. What would he get? A Lexus? A BMW?
He felt so good he saluted the kid, who promptly saluted back. Then Bruce hightailed it out of there before the parents chewed him out for overstepping his boundaries. But really, he was only serving himself. Going about his business, the way he always did.
As he walked to the parking lot, he thought of sharing the news about the car he’d scored, but who would he call? It was the weekend. The guys he worked with, work buddies, were all at home, spread to the four corners of the country.
For a moment he felt all alone.
And then he saw the car. Gleaming white. Black-top convertible. A Mercedes.
Wait a minute—he was taking a Mercedes convertible back to Wallis Point? Was this some kind of sick joke?
Fate was really sticking it to him tonight. For a moment he wavered, thinking he might be sick, but no, he overcame the physical reaction. Trained his mind to control his body. Remembered the boiling anger he’d once felt. The unfairness of other people’s attitudes toward Maureen. Recalled how stubborn she had to be not to leave Wallis Point as soon as she’d graduated high school, like he had.
And once he’d trained his mind to remember the sweet glow of righteous anger, his body followed suit and he was calm again.
It was as if a curtain of numbness had fallen over what a few moments ago had been...something else. Because the past didn’t matter anymore. It hadn’t for fifteen years. The car accident was a long time ago, with lots of water under the bridge since then. He was done thinking or caring about what anyone thought of him.
He tossed his suitcase into the trunk. Walked around the Mercedes, glanced at the miniscule backseat, too small for anything larger than a briefcase, certainly too small for kids, never mind adults. He had to admit, the car was perfect for his rules. He should concentrate on that.
He slid inside the driver’s seat, feeling better now. Felt the cool leather slide beneath his thighs. Smelled the new-car smell of a sweet, sweet machine with only five hundred miles on the odometer.
Just him and a fast vehicle he could easily escape in. Too bad he was returning it tomorrow.
He started the engine and turned on the radio. Loud, so he couldn’t think.
* * *
NATALIE STOOD BEHIND the three other bridesmaids, and knew that her presence at Maureen Cole’s wedding was awkward and out of place. For a moment she wished she could disappear into the floor.
But feeling uncomfortable and doubting herself had never solved anything, so she stiffened her spine and renewed her grip on her bouquet. White roses interspersed with white lilacs, the bouquet was as fragrant as it was beautiful. Her dress, too, was elegant and flattering—Maureen had let them choose their own gowns as long as they were black, short-sleeved and tea length. The group photos would be stunning, with the men in black tuxes with white rose boutonnieres, the women in black gowns with their white bouquets, and the bride in a simply cut, white silk sheath with a long train and antique lace veil.
Natalie felt her spirits drooping lower. She had always hoped for a wedding like this, in the beautiful chapel on the beach in her home town, saying vows at dusk. The problem was, in Natalie’s teenaged dream wedding, she had been imagining Bruce Cole in the groom’s place. Which was insane.
And now Bruce Cole hadn’t bothered to show.
Natalie swallowed her disappointment, staring down at her hands and purposely avoiding looking at the vacant space opposite her where he should have been standing.
She wasn’t sure what was going on, but something was very wrong. More than once before the ceremony she’d seen Maureen huddled with her mother and her sisters-in-law, whispering.
One of the rose petals was coming loose from Natalie’s bouquet, and she absently tucked it back in. No one else knew it, but Natalie had built up Bruce’s arrival as a pie-in-the-sky fantasy in which he would see her, instantly be sent back to that long-ago night they had confided in one another, and only this time, with her newfound courage and the shyness she had overcome, Natalie could initiate...something...with him.
Wrong again. And the sooner she shook off her unrealistic expectations, the better she would feel.
For a while she had also fantasized that she and Maureen would become fast friends since their meeting last month in the chapel. That wasn’t happening the way she’d hoped, either. Yes, Natalie had been politely invited to the wedding shower, to the rehearsal dinner and even to this morning’s hairdressing session, but it was clear the Coles were a tight-knit clan that didn’t trust Natalie at all.
Or maybe she wasn’t hearing them well enough to know what was going on.
Natalie sighed. One thing she did know for a fact—intelligence gained from her father this morning, unfortunately—was that Maureen had closed on the old Gale place, a National Historic Register home originally built in 1810. Sold to wealthy out-of-towners, Bostonians moving north to take advantage of New Hampshire’s lack of state income tax. Which was fine. Except for the fact Maureen had taken her business to her usual out-of-town lawyer, instead of to Asa Kimball.
Who, as a result, was not happy with Natalie.
True, the closing fees weren’t a lot of money. But the fees added up. And Maureen’s business, added up, would go a long way toward giving Natalie’s father the confidence that he could leave the business safely in her hands, rather than selling out to a stranger.
Loud organ music burst forth from the choir loft. The bride’s processional was beginning, and Maureen appeared at the end of the aisle, looking beautiful and composed as she held her father’s arm. The guests, about seventy-five in number, rose to their feet with a collective sigh.
Natalie pasted a smile on her face. As much as her instincts told her to run away—to cut out early—she needed to stick it out.
* * *
BRUCE WAS IN NO MOOD to walk down memory lane. Sitting for two hours in Route 95 traffic tended to do that to a guy.
He parked the Mercedes at a lot a few blocks from the beach then cut through the laneway behind a nightclub. The music spilled into the open air, a song from twenty years ago when he’d been a kid. It reminded him of summer campouts and days spent with his buddies in the neighborhood. It made him feel old and nostalgic and depressed. Those had been good days, and they were gone. Good friends who he hadn’t spoken to in years. Most of them he didn’t even know where they’d ended up.
Hell. If he was going to survive this visit, then he needed to stop thinking like that. His lifestyle had served him well for fifteen years since he’d left town. So he yanked open the door to the hotel where all the trouble had started, and marched inside as if it didn’t matter. He quickly checked his computer and his suitcase with the bellhop in the corner—a habit he’d adopted because valuables were generally safer when he tipped someone to watch them rather than leaving them alone in a car in a public parking area—and then shook out the tuxedo jacket he carried and shrugged it over his shoulders, where it weighed heavily.
The reality was, he was so late that for all practical purposes, he had missed his sister’s wedding. His first responsibility was to find Maureen and smooth things over with her.
He passed behind a brass luggage cart and glanced through the lobby windows to the crowded boulevard outside. Darkness was falling. Tourists were wandering past, dressed in flip-flops and shorts. In all these years, not a thing about Wallis Point had changed. This beach town was small, provincial and predictable—and it made him feel trapped. He loosened his tie. He couldn’t wait to get out of here.
As luck would have it, Maureen was standing alone, in the hallway before the ballroom. When he saw her, he felt himself smile. His sister broke into a grin and ran to meet him.
“Hey, Moe,” he whispered, once he had her in a bear hug.
“You’re late and I hate you,” she whispered back, “but at least you came.”
“I’m sorry, I got held up.”
She pushed back and looked at him. “Don’t think I don’t know how hard it is for you to be here.”
“I’m fine.” He didn’t want to talk about his self-imposed exile with her, especially today. “This is your wedding, don’t let me ruin it for you.”
He dug in his pocket. His sister liked pretty things, and he’d done his best to find her a copy of the earrings she’d been admiring in a jewelry store window last Thanksgiving, when the family had come down for their yearly party at his house in Florida. He pressed the box into her palm.
Her eyes widened as she opened it. “Bruce, these are sapphires.”
“Yeah, something blue,” he said.
She stood a long time, clutching the box and blinking at him. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her skin was pale.
His antennae went up. “Where’s Jimmy? Is everything okay with you two?”
A big, sloppy smile crossed Maureen’s face, which was great to see, because Maureen usually looked hard and focused. She’d built a solid career for herself and her daughter, and he was proud of her.
“Come on,” she said, tugging on his arm, “I’ll take you to see him.”
“Wait.” He pulled out an envelope from inside his jacket pocket. He’d stuffed some cash inside. He wouldn’t do anything so tacky at any other wedding, but this was Maureen, and he knew the importance she placed on security. “This is for you. It’s spending money for your honeymoon.”
“Excellent,” Maureen said, and tucked the money inside her bra.
He relaxed. That was the Maureen he knew.
“And now...” She poked him in the chest. “I want you to stop skulking around out here. Go into the ballroom and spend time with the family. Nina has gotten so big lately. She’s been asking about her uncle and she’s been looking forward to her trip to Disney World.” Maureen put her hand to her mouth.
“What’s wrong?”
But Maureen shook her head, blinking rapidly, as if she was upset about something. Before Bruce could question her further, Jimmy came over and put his arm around her shoulders. Jimmy was small and slight, shorter than Maureen. Where Maureen could be fierce and strong-willed, Jimmy was steady and calm. He ran his own independent home-computer consulting business, so in a sense, he and Bruce were in the same industry.
“We need to get inside for the cake cutting,” Jimmy said to Maureen.
“Right,” Bruce said. “You two go on. I’ll join you in a bit.”
“Where are you going?” Maureen asked.
“Ah...” Now that he was here, the best he felt he could do was to disappear into the woodwork and observe the festivities from afar. And there was only one other guy he knew who would be happy joining him there.
“I’m looking for Gramps,” he said to Maureen.
Her mouth tightened. “He’s not here.”
But that didn’t make any sense. Maureen and Bruce had lived with Gramps and Nana during Bruce’s last two years of high school, when their parents had been in Florida on a long-term job assignment. Nana had passed on a year ago, but there was no way Gramps would miss Maureen’s wedding. “Why isn’t he here? Is he sick?”
Maureen sucked in her breath and stared at him. “He’s fine,” she snapped. “He just couldn’t make it.” She had a set to her chin that Bruce didn’t like. He didn’t like at all. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Later he was leaving. Later he had a flight to catch.
“Fine,” he said.
He’d call Gramps and get the whole story when he had the time. Which right now, he did not.
Because he needed to get out of here. He needed to separate from these people and this life he wasn’t a part of anymore. He needed to be free.
But this was Maureen’s wedding day, so he gave her and Jimmy a lazy smile instead. “Sure. We’ll talk later.”
“Come into the reception with us,” Maureen pleaded. “I have someone I want you to meet.”
Nope, sorry. He wasn’t being introduced to anyone. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.” He nodded to Jimmy. “You two go on. I’ll meet you inside.”
They nodded—Maureen reluctantly, Jimmy with more force, and they left for the ballroom, Maureen’s train dragging along the carpet. Bruce watched them until they disappeared inside, then he headed in the opposite direction down a short, musty back hallway.
One of the advantages of working here in high school was that he knew the floor plan of the rambling old hotel. Rounding a corner, he ducked inside a doorway and climbed rickety stairs until he came to a balcony of sorts.
Years ago, during the hotel’s big-band heyday, this had been the pit where the orchestras were set up to play. The bands were gone, but the dusty space still gave a great view of the dance floor.
He stood near the railing with a bird’s-eye shot of the conga line that snaked around the room. The men wore dark suits and the women black dresses. He remembered the invitation Maureen had sent: black-and-white informal. Maybe that was the latest style. Maureen was always up on design. She had started out being interested in fashion, then interior design, and now she’d morphed into staging and selling beach houses. Hard-nosed and practical, that was always Maureen’s thing.
He crossed his arms and glanced down. He knew roughly half the people—Maureen’s half, and they were relatives. As for Jimmy’s half, he didn’t know many in that crowd. They were younger than him. Still, he couldn’t be sure they didn’t know who he was.
Damn it. He had done his job. He’d shown up, he’d greeted Moe and made her happy, now why couldn’t he quietly escape through a side door, for her sake?
And then he saw the leggy blonde. Standing alone by the windows, she was the only person besides him who seemed out of place.
Sure, she was dressed like everybody else, in a black cocktail dress, but in every other way, she stood out from the crowd. She was...self-contained, for one. A real stunner, but in a fresh-faced, natural way, with little, if any makeup or jewelry. Her thick, honey-colored hair was long, loose, undone. It made her look sexy without even trying. But most of all, he liked that she wasn’t driven to snake around the room in the communal conga line, or to belly up to the bar, joking with the families, or even to sit at the cleared dinner tables, drinking coffee and chatting with the more subdued relatives, because she was disconnected from them, too. That much was obvious.
And then she calmly pulled out her phone to check her messages.
He liked that. He liked that...a lot.
“Who are you?” he muttered aloud.
Jimmy spoke up behind him. “That’s Natalie.”
Bruce swiveled to face his new brother-in-law. “Is she a relative of yours?”
“No.”
“A friend of Maureen’s?”
“Yes.”
His heart sank. Messing with a friend of his sister’s was a terrible idea. Unless...
“Is she an old friend that Moe hasn’t seen in a while, or a work friend she sees every week around town?” Because the former wasn’t too bad, but the latter would be fatal.
Jimmy blinked and stared at him. Bruce waited.
“No,” Jimmy said.
“No?”
“No.”
Bruce waited some more, but Jimmy added nothing. Like so many of the hard-core engineers and techies Bruce knew, getting Jimmy to open up was like pulling teeth.
“How does Maureen know her?” Bruce asked patiently, figuring an open-ended question was his best bet. Enough of the yes/no conversation.
“They went to school together.” Jimmy blinked at him. “I have to take you downstairs now. Maureen wants you in the ballroom with her.”
“Right.” Bruce swept his arm forward for Jimmy to precede him. “Don’t worry, I’m right behind you.”
As Jimmy traipsed down the creaking stairs, Bruce hung back for a last look at pretty Natalie. With her thumb on her phone’s screen, she was scrolling through her messages, unruffled by the music and the dancers in the wedding reception swirling around her.
Like an oasis of calm.
He needed calm. He needed an oasis, too, since it was clear Moe wasn’t going to allow him to escape until the very end of her reception.
Would it cause problems for Moe if he approached Natalie? If she and Maureen had gone to school together, then that meant Natalie had attended the state university where Maureen had majored in business. She couldn’t be a high school friend because he’d known all her friends before he’d left home. Knowing Maureen, Natalie was a dorm-mate invited to the wedding as courtesy. She would be out of Maureen’s life just as quickly as she’d been invited back in.
Like he would be, too.
No. It was too risky.
He was about to leave, when Natalie glanced up at him. He froze as she studied him from head to toe. Then she calmly met his gaze.
And smiled.
He felt hot inside. Maybe he was nuts, because suddenly, the course of action he was imagining seemed like the only possible one to take.
* * *
ONE MOMENT, NATALIE was checking her messages. Her father had sent her a text—all in caps, but still, it was progress in getting him to switch from his habit of phoning her all the time. She had felt the phone vibrating in her purse, and since she was just sitting there watching everybody dance, feeling disconnected and out of place, she’d read his message.
Tenant called. Check the mousetraps at 3 South Street before you come home.
She’d groaned inwardly. He wanted her to cover for him at the rental apartments above the building that housed the law firm. She’d tried to tell her father she was a lawyer, not his building supervisor, and that furthermore she had her own maintenance-needy cottage to worry about, but he was under the impression that she was at his beck and call, part of the package deal of her insisting on coming home to Wallis Point to work in the family firm.
Just rebait the darn mousetrap for him.
She’d suppressed the shudder. She hated mice.
You have to do it. Besides, you’re at a wedding. Think romantic thoughts.
But Bruce Cole hadn’t shown, and her pie-in-the-sky fantasies had lost their wings and fallen to earth.
Sighing, she’d tossed her phone into her purse and prepared to leave to find a hardware store open at this hour, in case the mice had escaped and she needed new traps. She’d almost made her escape, too, until she’d glanced up at the old balcony where the orchestras used to play.
And saw...him.
She’d blinked and gaped. She must be hallucinating.
But no, it was Bruce Cole. And he looked even better than she’d remembered. The sight of him still made her stop in her tracks.
Her heart had seemed to grow in her chest, squeezing her tight. He seemed taller than before. He was broader in the shoulders and he stood straighter. Then again, he’d been a navy lieutenant, although now he was dressed in a black tux with his tie undone. His dark brown, almost black hair was swept off his forehead in a tousled nonstyle that made her want to run her hands through it and gave him the old, passionate air she remembered. His jaw was edged with a five-o’clock shadow that looked sexy and dangerous.
She lifted her gaze to him. Those dark, intense eyes, so alive with fire, were boring straight into hers.
Her heartbeat sped up. The pull of his eyes seemed to tug on her, an invisible line straight to her...well, to parts of her anatomy that hadn’t felt a man’s touch in quite a while.
His eyes seemed to drink her in. Raked her from top to bottom. And she was standing still, letting him study her. This was what she’d been waiting for, after all.
No man interested her the way Bruce did.
As a kid, he had always known how to connect with people. He had that magical quality, a “people” gene that Natalie had been born without. And now all of his intensity was focused on her. She felt every muscle weaken, as if she were being swept away by his gaze.
A slow smile slid up his face.
Make him feel comfortable, Maureen had said. Well, here was a start, and she would do her best to keep it going.
But then she was distracted by her phone vibrating again, and when she glanced back, Bruce was no longer on the balcony. He was coming down to see her—she knew it in her bones, and, shy-person-at-heart she would always be, she couldn’t help worrying.
What if she didn’t hear him properly? What if she said something wrong, something he misinterpreted, and she was responsible for sending him away from Wallis Point again?
Glancing around her, she looked for an out. Somebody they both knew who could rescue her if she made a misstep.
But every other wedding guest was on the dance floor, singing aloud to Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family,” reminding Natalie she was probably the only person present who was not family.
Okay. She would have to handle the conversation on her own. Pay close attention, focus, and in doing so, hopefully help him see that not everybody in Wallis Point thought badly of him.
Once, he had trusted her enough to open up. Just by listening, she had helped him. A small thing she knew had brought him comfort because he’d told her so himself.
And that had been an extraordinary night to a girl of fifteen with little confidence in herself or sense of her worth. She needed to remember that she’d grown since then. She had achieved some extraordinary educational and career accomplishments, and she had found the courage to come home and carve out a place for herself. Don’t think of me as I was then. Let me show you who I am now.
As Bruce walked toward her, smiling, she remembered Maureen’s deal with her. But even if there hadn’t been one dollar of business on the line, Natalie would be breathing just as hard, her hands sweating just as much, and her heart yearning for Bruce to trust her again, just as deeply.
He reached for two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter. He held one flute up, and the full glass obscured her view of his mouth. It was so loud and so confusing in the room that she had to lean in to catch what he was saying.
He lowered the glass and looked at her, his smile expectant, a gleam in his eye. “So what do you think?”
This close to him, his voice sounded so low and deep that it sent shivers up her spine. But at the same time, she panicked. Because all she could think was, What did he just say?
