Prelude to a Wedding (8 page)

"I, uh—" She stopped to clear her throat, and
started again. "I think we'd better get back now."

For a man so full of teasing words and easy
talk, he could be amazingly quiet. She couldn't even be sure if she
heard or imagined the half sigh before he spoke the single word.
"Okay."

They started across the sand toward the
lights of Michigan Avenue. He seemed content to let silence stretch
between them. She wished he wouldn't. It gave her too much time to
wonder what he was thinking, why he was so uncharacteristically—
What? Almost solemn?

Was that how he felt after kissing her?
Solemn? If she'd learned anything about Paul Monroe over the past
two evenings it was that solemnity lived outside his philosophy of
life. She felt like a thundercloud at a picnic, and fought the
ridiculous urge to shed a few raindrops right now.

"Well, one thing for certain."

His voice made her jump, but she welcomed it
and, as they emerged into the brighter lights and firmer ground of
the city's streets, she gladly supplied the line he'd demanded.
"What's that?"

"I definitely won't be doing my Christmas
shopping early this year."

"Why not?" She didn't really care, but as
long as the wryness had returned to his voice, she'd encourage
him.

"Who can think about Christmas when they just
went through a heat wave?"

* * * *

This time when they pulled into her driveway,
she was ready.

She wasn't sure how she'd respond if he
repeated last night's soft caress, not after tonight's
disconcerting taste of another kind. Even though their conversation
during the drive had been innocuous and friendly in the extreme,
with no hint of a reference to the embrace on the beach, she'd take
no chances.

So she laid a cool hand on his forearm to
forestall his turning off the ignition, yanked it back as if she'd
been burned, forced a cheerful good-night and practically sprinted
to the front door. She stood inside again, listening for long,
heart-thudding moments until he backed up and drove away.

Not until she slid between the crisp clean
sheets did she shake those moments on Oak Street Beach long enough
for other considerations.

Leaving work early—and any time before seven
was early for her—and getting home too late to do any work
Wednesday had put her behind. Today made it worse.

She'd have to keep a strict schedule to catch
up. Especially since she'd earmarked Sunday for attending real
estate open houses to get a fix on the market. And added to her
duties Monday would be getting Paul to decide on a temporary
secretary.

She frowned. When Jan first came into
Top-Line Temporaries, she'd described her boss's aversion to
schedules and long-term planning. "Short-term planning, too, most
of the time," Jan had added. Cheerfully and amid all the teasing of
the past two evenings, he'd confirmed it.

I wonder if he views women the same way he
views Christmas shopping
? she thought. Her frown deepened.
Probably. What else could she expect? Someone who couldn't commit
himself to buying a present because something better might come
along surely wouldn't commit himself to a woman.

She rolled to her side and punched the
already plumped pillow. Not that it made any difference. Paul was a
client. Period. A client with whom she would have a few business
conversations, but would likely never see again. If she was
smart.

* * * *

She was smart, but her heart was a moron.
That was the only explanation for the way it started pumping at
high speed and depleting her oxygen stores when she opened her
front door to Paul Monroe at 3:25 Sunday afternoon.

This morning she'd pored over real estate ads
in the
Tribune.
This afternoon she'd attended open houses.
She'd studied the market for months, honing her prerequisites in a
house, her must-haves and should-haves. This, her first foray into
inspecting houses, constituted the next step. After several Sundays
sampling the market, she would target specific areas. Then would
come the nitty-gritty of offers, contracts and mortgages.

Once she completed that, it would be time for
the next step. She slipped off her shoes, tucked her feet under her
on the couch. She wanted a husband, a family. Just turned thirty in
July, she had time. It wasn't as if her biological clock were about
to expire. But she didn't want to let that pass her by. She saw the
life her brother was creating with his wife and children and,
although she wouldn't want a carbon copy, there were elements she
longed for.

Setting up the business had been first; it
was progressing well. Then a house. Once she'd accomplished that,
she'd be ready for the next step. She'd be ready to look for the
right kind of man.

Gray eyes flecked with green smiled into her
imagination. She glowered at them, and the startlingly clear memory
of the man they went with.

Paul Monroe was
not
her idea of the
right kind of man.

But he is some kind of man
, commented
a previously unheard-from voice inside her. The voice had backing
from a hundred-thousand nerve endings that retained vivid
memories.

Damn. She thunked her feet down on the floor.
Damn.

All right, maybe she did find him physically
attractive. Really, it couldn't be called more than that after one
kiss. One kiss, in the moonlight, on a deserted beach. A fluke. It
had to be. Because, heaven knows, nothing in his haphazard approach
to life or business agreed with her ideas.

She picked up one of the real estate listings
from the pile on the coffee table while the TV wrapped up the Bears
game she'd mostly missed. For now, what she had to do was consider
the information on the houses she'd seen. With her shoes kicked off
and a soft drink at hand, she would concentrate on comparing cost
per square foot and making notes of her impressions. She settled
back.

The doorbell sounded.

Barefoot, she carried the listing sheet and
her pen to the front door. She nearly dropped them both.

"Paul!"

She'd missed him. The realization hit
hard.

Afternoon sun bronzed his breeze-ruffled hair
and seemed to add a special glint to gray eyes flecked with green
fire. He wore a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, a
lightweight insulated vest in green and jeans that had been worn to
a state that looked as soft as she knew they'd feel. She felt her
cheeks burn at the realization that she'd been thinking about
touching his jeans—with him in them.

"Hi. How 'bout those Bears, huh?" Without
waiting for her to invite him in, he walked right past her. "I like
the running game this year, don't you?"

"What are you doing here?" She'd trailed him
into the living room. His intent gaze took in her house as if he
thought he'd be tested on it. The absurd urge to tell him she'd
bought this furniture to go into an eventual family room and she
had her eye on an elegant couch bubbled to her lips, but she turned
it sternly back.

"I came to get you. You look great."

At his warm tone, she glanced down to see if
she'd been transformed, like Cinderella going to the ball. No, she
still had on a surplice-wrap top in a soft raspberry color, tucked
into the gathered denim skirt. Her simple leather belt matched her
discarded loafers and she wore plain gold hoops in her ears as her
only jewelry. In deference to the warm weather she hadn't even worn
hose. Clean and comfortable was about the most that could be said
for the outfit.

"Get me?" She ought to be taking better
control of this conversation.

"Yeah. You'd better put a jacket on. It's
going to get cool tonight. I think Indian summer's about to come to
a screeching halt."

"What are you talking about?"

He glanced up from turning off her TV, and
she saw the devilment in his eyes. The only thought her brain could
form was the refrain she had come to associate with Paul Monroe:
Uh-oh
.

"The weather."

"What?"

"That's what I'm talking about—the weather."
He scooped up her navy cardigan sweater from the arm of the couch
and her purse from the floor and held them out to her. Numbly, she
accepted them. But she also shook her head, and that helped clear
some of the cobwebs.

"Paul, we didn't make any arrangements to see
each other today, and I have things I need to get done—"

"What you need is a jack-o'-lantern, and I
intend to see to it. C'mon, you'd better put your shoes on,
too."

"No."

He looked at her bare feet, over to her
loafers, then at her face. "I don't know, Bette, I think your
feet'll get awfully cold, but if you don't want to wear shoes . .
."

"Not no to the shoes. No to leaving with
you." There, that sounded firm enough. So why did she feel so
rotten? Had those glints of light in his eyes dimmed?

"I thought you'd like a pumpkin." His tone
was matter-of-fact, but she felt as if she'd just kicked his
puppy.

"I would like a pumpkin, but—"

"Good, I know a great pumpkin farm not too
far from here."

* * * *

An hour later she stood, bemused, amid
pumpkins of every size, shape and construction, and thought that if
Linus of "Peanuts" fame was right that a Great Pumpkin with magical
powers did exist, then Paul Monroe had a direct line to the big
orange guy.

That was the only explanation she could come
up with for how she had come to be here. One minute she was sitting
in her living room checking real estate listings and the next
minute she was a passenger in her own car— "You said the
hatchback's better for hauling, and we're going to have a lot of
pumpkins to haul," had been Paul's explanation when he snagged her
keys—and the minute after that she stood here in pumpkin land,
laughing.

She'd laughed so much in the past half hour
that her sides ached. She would never again look at a pumpkin
without remembering the outrageous personalities Paul had assigned
to the gourds they'd collected. Then he and the man running the
pumpkin stand had indulged in a round of good-natured wrangling
over price that had set her off again.

"Boy, remind me never to have you around when
I'm haggling," Paul ordered after they'd settled their orange army
on the car's deck, separated and cushioned from one another by
sweet straw from the stand operator.

She smiled out the window, not bothering to
respond. She felt too content, as golden and glowing as the
afternoon, as mellow as the approaching dusk. Fading sunlight
gilded the hardier leaves still clinging to branches while their
fallen brethren wove an orange and gold coverlet. The trees rose
high and straight, arching their limbs in the bare outline of what
had been a summer canopy.

They'd left an area of cornfields and woods
interspersed with stables, and the houses now were closing ranks.
The street was trafficked, but peaceful. A straight, orderly artery
going . . . where?

"This isn't the way to Elmhurst. Where are we
going?"

"I thought we'd off-load some of these guys
before we went to your place."

"I wondered why you bought so many. But then
I thought it was probably a whim." She meant to tease him, but she
also believed him totally capable of such an impulse.

"It was."

"And now you've decided to set up your own
stand somewhere else? Where?"

"That's an idea." He seemed to consider, then
discard it. "Nah. I like my idea better."

"Which is?"

She saw the sign for the town they were
entering at the same time she heard his words. "We'll take some to
my folks. They can use some jack-o'-lanterns, too."

"Lake Forest." She read the sign aloud, heard
the dread in her voice and, knowing the tone would have carried
over, was grateful she hadn't said the other two words in her mind
at the moment:
your parents.

Chapter Four

She'd said the name of his hometown as if it
were a toxic waste dump site. He was used to the other reaction,
the one that said that anyone from Lake Forest was a rich kid, and
probably a bratty rich kid. Bette had made it sound as if he were
taking her into one of the less stable portions of the Gaza
Strip.

"This is the downtown area," he informed her
as they rolled between lines of neat red-brick buildings whose
sharply angled roofs ended in green awnings or, for more
adventurous establishments, green-and-white-striped awnings. He
made a couple turns and brought her through the heart of the area,
then completed their circuit.

"It's very nice."

He looked around at the shops, both familiar
and trendy. "Yeah, it is." If he sounded a bit defensive, too
bad.

From the corner of his eye, he caught her
looking at him. "Really, it is, Paul. It's rather amazing.
Everything's so neat. Even the gas stations and train station."

He said nothing as they passed the train
station and drove next to the tracks for a while. When he turned,
it was into a neighborhood of older, modest homes that seemed to
grow bumper crops of bicycles and skateboards. He slowed nearly to
a stop in the middle of a block.

"There, the light blue one, that's where we
lived until I was twelve."

"Oh."

Bette Wharton could infuse a lot of meaning
into one syllable. He just wished he could interpret it. Glancing
to his right as he pulled away from the curb, he caught her eyes on
him and thought perhaps he saw someone truly looking at him—at him,
beyond images, expectations. His shoulder muscles seemed to have
abruptly grown tight, so he shifted position, steering with his
right hand at the top of the wheel and his left elbow propped out
the window. If that left less of his face open to his passenger's
scrutiny, well, that was a coincidence. He turned into a narrowly
twisting street, and headed toward his parents' house.