Prelude to a Wedding (5 page)

"That can be a sign of caring," said Bette.
"That someone wants only the best for the people he loves."

"Maybe." He conceded the point because he
didn't want to have to consider how little he believed it. "But
with him it was more force of habit. He was born and bred to be a
despot." He saw the quick frown that pleated Bette's brows.
Sympathy? Or disapproval? Not liking either possibility, he forged
on. "When he started diagramming my life, I didn't care for the
grand design, so I ran away, complete with bedroll, clean underwear
and seven dollars and thirty-four cents."

Two decades later he could still remember
dinner that night—a formal meal with several strangers joining them
at the big, polished table. He could still hear the stern, upright
old man proclaiming that he'd decided that Paul would become a
litigator. He could hear the deep, determined voice of his mother's
father detailing exactly where Paul would fit into the firm's
roster fifteen years in the future. And each step of his life over
the next two decades. The right prep school. The right university.
The right law school. The right marriage. The right family. The
right address. All selected by Walter Wilson Mulholland.

Paul had never liked his grandfather. That
night he'd started hating him.

He'd slipped out of the house while the
guests enjoyed after-dinner drinks. He'd headed for the old
neighborhood. He couldn't even remember which friend he'd intended
to go to, but he'd ended up in front of his old house, standing in
the cold, chilled rain that can bring a preview of fall to an
Illinois summer and realizing his home now belonged to another
family.

"Dad found me around midnight."

His father's arms had hugged him so tightly
it hurt a little, but it had been a good hurt. Even as he spoke now
he could feel again his father's jacket shoulder under his cheek,
smell the scent of his after-shave. His father's hands had been
shaking slightly as they tightened a blanket around Paul's damp
shoulders.

"I thought he would skin me alive. Instead,
he talked."

Then and now he'd have preferred being
skinned alive. He could still hear the words.

Paul, what in the world got into you to run
away?

I'm not going to do what that old man tells
me, even if he is my grandfather.

Your grandfather is providing you
opportunities most boys never have, never even dream of. An
education, a profession, a position in life.

I don't want them. I don't want anything he'd
give me.

You can't say that, yet. You're only a boy.
You can't know what you'll want when you grow—.

He made us move. Mom didn't want to move. I
heard her.

He thought it best. Your mother's always had
these things, so she doesn't know what it means to be without—

And he made you take that big job.

No. No, he didn't make me. I wanted that,
Paul.

"He said that when I grew up, I'd understand.
That being an adult meant making choices, and that meant leaving
some things behind."

Someday, when you're grown-up, when you're
married and have children of your own, you'll understand, Paul.

He didn't have to grow up to understand. He'd
understood then. His father had made a choice to follow Walter
Mulholland's rules, and what he'd left behind were twilight games
of catch with his son.

He couldn't blame his father; he'd been poor
a long time and now he had a chance for money and position, not
only for himself but for his family. But he could blame Walter
Mulholland.

He blinked away the memories and looked at
Bette. Her eyes were wide and solemn, with another emotion deep in
them that he couldn't read. The flicker of the candles' flames
added a mysterious light. He felt his heartbeat accelerate as if in
delayed reaction to some tremendous danger.

He picked up his glass and tilted the cool,
clear liquid into his mouth. It didn't completely ease the dryness.
"That's when I realized I didn't want to be a grown-up. I preferred
to stay a kid."

When she blinked, he felt as if he'd been cut
off from a source of warmth and light. Her left hand rested on the
table between them, the fingers long and pale against the
forest-green cloth. He wanted to cover it with his own, to give the
connection that he thought had grown between them a physical
expression.

She lowered her eyelashes a second time, and
he sensed withdrawal. Maybe his own.

He quirked a grin at her, manufacturing the
mischief. "Especially those next few weeks. Mom was terrific. I
even got her to let me play hooky from school the first week and go
to a Cubs' game."

"What a fiend. Scare them to death, then
weasel special treatment out of them." Bette made a tsking sound
with her tongue. "It sounds as if you have a wonderful family."

He met her deep blue eyes again, and saw
recognition there. He considered his family ties—Mom, Dad, Judi,
Tris, other cousins, aunts and uncles. Not perfect, and sometimes
the ties chafed, but . . . "I do."

"Although your younger sister . . ." Bette
gave an exaggerated shudder. "That poor soul."

He knew what she was doing, skirting away
from the serious turn their conversation had taken, and he gladly
cooperated. What had gotten into him to spill all this? Not his
style, not his style at all.

He snorted in disbelief. 'Judi, a poor soul?
Not on your life." Then suspicion narrowed his eyes. "Why would you
say that?"

"To have you as an older brother," she said
promptly. "I have an older brother myself, and I know what
instruments of teasing torture they can be, but you—" She shivered
again. "It must have been a nightmare for the poor girl."

"Hey!"

She laughed, and he let the sound, low and
rippling, wash over him. The pleasure of that sound could become
addictive. That, and the look in her eyes, as if she were surprised
he'd drawn the amusement out of her, and perhaps secretly rather
pleased, too.

"So, tell me about your family," he invited,
sliding his right hand over her left. He did it on impulse, a
casual gesture that somehow didn't feel casual. Her skin was soft
and warm against his. "I bet you're the oldest of twelve,
responsible for all the little 'uns since you were barely able to
toddle yourself. No, wait. That's right, you said you have an older
brother. So you must be the oldest girl. And you grew up in the
country, and spent summers at the local swimming hole."

She shook her head with another laugh. "Not
even close. I grew up in the decidedly un-country atmosphere of the
near western suburbs—mostly Oak Park. I'm the younger of two, and
mildly coddled. My parents worked hard enough to take early
retirement a couple years ago and move permanently to Arizona where
they'd had a house for years. And they still worry about their
little girl being 'all alone.' "

Paul looked at her, and felt a twinge of
protectiveness deep within him. He could sympathize with her
parents. For all her self-reliance, he didn't like the idea of
Bette Wharton being without a strong shoulder to rely on—a friend,
a partner.

Then it occurred to him that she might
already have that, and the possibility brought a twist to his
stomach that came too fast and too strong to pretend it was
anything but jealousy.
God
. That wasn't a reasonable
reaction. What did he care whether she had someone or not? He
certainly wasn't auditioning for the role of strong shoulder in
anyone's life.

He sat back, sliding his fingers away from
hers under the pretext of placing his napkin on the table.

Bette, too, straightened and moved away.
Although the warmth of his touch still lingered on her skin, it
didn't take a body language. expert to read good-night.

She made a show of checking her watch. "This
has been lovely, Paul. Thank you. I hope you have an opportunity to
check those files, and give me a call in the morning." She gathered
her purse, flashed him a smile and prepared to slide out of the
booth.

"Where do you think you're going?"

If he hadn't said it with such blank
astonishment, she would have been irked by the Neanderthal
implication.

"Home. It's late."

"Fine. I'm driving you."

"That isn't necessary. I can catch a cab to
the train station and the line goes right near my house.' That was
true; the commuter railroad line ran no more than five blocks from
her home in a western suburb, though the nearest station was a
couple miles from the house she rented. She'd have to try to rouse
a cab, not always an easy task at night in the suburbs.

"I bet roads go right near your house, too.
I'm driving you."

Protests did no good. Not even when she
logically pointed out that since he'd said he lived north of the
city, along the lake in Evanston, and she lived west, it would be a
long drive home for him. By the time he'd wrangled with Ardith over
whether or not he would pay for their meal, then they'd said their
good-nights, found a cab and reached the lot where he'd parked his
car, she'd about given up.

He held open the car door for her, then went
around to the driver's side. Clicking home the seat belt and
starting the car with smooth efficiency, he remained silent. She
knew little about cars, but this one struck her as sleekly
unpretentious. It seemed old enough to be well broken in and new
enough to boast all the amenities.

"Paul—"

He slanted her a quick, quelling look. "I'm
driving you home."

A flicker of irritation made her grimace at
him. "I intended to ask if you wanted to know where I live."

The car rolled up to a red light at a
deserted intersection, and he turned to her. She could see the
amusement back in his eyes. "Sorry. Maybe I jumped to a conclusion.
It was just that the previous twenty-three sentences you'd started
all ended with junk about taking a train. Obviously, a totally
unwarranted assumption on my part this time."

"Totally unwarranted," she agreed. As the
light turned green and he eased the car forward, she saw his smile
in profile and tried to ignore an answering twitch of her lips.

"So now that I've apologized, are you going
to tell me where you live, or do you want me to start picking spots
at random?"

"That could be an interesting
experiment."

He nodded. "Although I do know it's west, so
that trims out a third of the Chicago suburbs. And with the hint
that it's near a commuter railroad, that eliminates about a third
of that third. So, I figure it shouldn't take more than a month or
so to find the right one."

She gave in to the laughter bubbling up in
her. "All right! I live in Elmhurst. Take the Eisenhower
Expressway. A month's too long on the road for me!"

"It would be a long time between showers, but
it would give me a chance to get to know you."

Meeting his look for a moment, she thought
his eyes held a glint not entirely deviltry or reflected
streetlights. She looked away, and they drove in silence until they
reached the expressway and headed west.

"Tell me more about your family." be said.
"How about your older brother? Where is he?"

"Married, two children, living in
Minneapolis."

"So you're an aunt!"

"Two times an aunt. Ron and Claire have a
two-year-old son, Ron, Jr., and they just had a little girl, Abby,
last month."

He sighed. "I wish my sister was old enough
to have kids. Or maybe I should say old enough to have kids without
making Mom and Dad crazy. I've always wanted to be an uncle."

"An uncle? Why?"

"It seems like the perfect setup. Uncles—and
aunts— have all the fun without the responsibilities. You don't
have to live up to anyone's expectations of the perfect parent. No
diaper changing, no worrying about childhood diseases, no sweating
out death-defying escapades, no grounding them because they stayed
out too late, no wondering if the roads'll ever be safe again with
a sixteen-year-old maniac on the streets, no birds-and-bees talks,
no college tuition."

"Sounds to me as if you're speaking from
first-hand experience."

He quirked an eyebrow at her—questioning, but
already primed to share her amusement.

"As if you're remembering your own youth,"
she explained.

The expectant look became a full-blown laugh.
"I hadn't realized it, but you're right. The idea of having a kid
like me would scare anybody off! Lord, when I think of the things
Grady and I got into, it's amazing we made it to twenty—and without
being the death of our parents."

"Just you and Grady? Was Michael the
responsible one?"

"Probably. I didn't meet Michael until
college. But, yeah, I'd guess he was the responsible type even as a
kid. Steady. Not like Grady and me."

As she gave him directions off the
expressway, a twinge drew Bette's eyebrows into a frown, but she
didn't have time to consider it, because he had another
question.

"How about your friends?"

She hesitated, uneasy. "I, uh, I haven't been
very good about keeping up with my friends. There's one girl from
high school, Melody, who always checks in when she comes through
the area. And my assistant, Darla, has been a wonderful friend to
me."

She broke off to give him further
instructions on where to turn. She could have let the topic drop
there, but she felt the need to explain further. She refused to use
the word
justify
even in her own mind.

"You know how it is when you get into college
and get immersed in your classes and studying." She thought back to
some of his stories tonight; maybe he didn't know. "Setting up a
business is like that. It doesn't leave time for anything else. It
takes twenty-five hours a day just to get it off the ground. To
make it really fly, you have to be totally dedicated to that, and
that alone."