Wedding Series Boxed Set (3 Books in 1) (The Wedding Series) (78 page)

After Bette took Michael’s call from the train station, Leslie let herself be shepherded with the rest of the returned hunters into the family room by Mrs. Monroe, who was busy dispensing heavily sugared iced tea.

The door opened, and April walked in, flanked by Michael and Grady.

“April!”

“She’s all right,” Grady reassured.

“Where were you? What did you do? Why did you—Oh, God, the things that could have happened—” Leslie swallowed a sob.

April looked at her in surprise, then hung her head.

“Leslie, I’d like to talk to you.” Grady’s voice, pitched low, was stiff, perhaps with nerves.

“No. There’s nothing more to talk about.” She turned to the others. “I want to thank you—all of you—for looking for April, for...and for finding her.” Her eyes didn’t quite reach Grady’s. “I am so grateful for your help. I don’t know what I would have done—” Blinking hard, she took her relative’s arm. “But now I think April and I need to do some talking—”

“Ah, no. No talking. Not tonight,” interrupted Mrs. Monroe, separating Leslie and April. “Most certainly not tonight. I am taking this child to tuck her into bed right this moment. And you stay where you are,” she ordered Grady, who’d taken a step toward Leslie. “I said no talking tonight, and I meant it. Besides, you're needed down here to help that nice policeman fill out his report. They said he’d be over in a few minutes. Tris, why don’t you take Leslie in hand and get her into a hot tub and get some of that tension out of her? And, Jim, I think a bit of brandy for everyone else wouldn’t be amiss.”

“Except Bette,” Paul interposed.

“A swallow would be good for her and won’t hurt the baby. I used it myself as a young mother. How do you think I survived having you?”

With that parting shot, she herded Leslie, Tris and April out of the room, secure everything had been arranged to her satisfaction.

Tris not only got Leslie into a hot, scented bath, she returned shortly with a generous snifter of brandy, and insisted Leslie drink it.

With fear for April seeping out of her blood and brandy seeping in, Leslie found herself telling her story for the second time that night.

The strange thing was that by the end she felt better.

Would she have felt this way if she’d told Tris all those years ago when Tris had confided her past sorrows?

“And you told Grady all this tonight?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And nothing.”

“What did he say?” Tris demanded.

“It doesn’t matter what he said. Because that won’t change the facts.”

Tris looked at her levelly. “You mean the fact that you can’t have children.”

Somehow it sounded different when Tris said it than when it echoed in her own heart. Not better; it would never sound better. But less...less defining. She wasn’t sure that made sense, and she wasn’t prepared now to examine it.

“Yes. That, and the facts about Grady.”

Tris shook her head. “I’m not so sure about the facts about Grady anymore. I know I’m the one who warned you about him, but—”

“Not that. I’m talking about the fact that from the start Grady has pushed aside obstacles between us as if a relationship were a challenging game to be won. But this—” She patted the abdomen that would never again grow round with a child. “Is one obstacle that all his wealth and charm and power and good looks can’t overcome, one situation he can’t change. And when he realizes that, he’ll know the game’s lost and he’ll be grateful I ended it now.”

“What are you doing sitting here in the dark, Grady?”

Waiting for the light, he thought. But the light he hoped for wouldn’t come with the fast-approaching morning.

“Are you all right?” added Nancy Monroe.

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look it, dear.” She softened the words with a hand on his shoulder. “At my age having trouble sleeping’s to be expected, but you’re too young.”

He didn’t feel young.

Leslie’s refusal to talk to him wasn’t all bad from Grady’s viewpoint. He had a lot of sorting out to do. But sorting out was not conducive to sleep.

“I’ll make some coffee.”

“Thanks, Mrs. M., that would be great.”

They drank coffee in silence as, through the French doors, the lake and sky gradually revealed themselves.

When he stood, Nancy Monroe said nothing, but looked at him inquiringly.

“Thought I’d go sailing this morning,” he said.

“It looks like a nice morning for it.” But she was looking at him rather than the weather. “Alone?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“Maybe not, but I’m going to try.”

“Be careful, Grady. Trying to help someone can be a dangerous business”

He thought of that as he stepped into the room Leslie and April shared. He absorbed the quiet as his eyes adjusted to the shadows. Leslie slept on her side, facing him. A frown stitched her brows as if pain squeezed them together even in sleep. Her hand was on her pillow, near her cheek. Two steps, and he’d be to the bed. He could hold her hand, stroke her hair and ease that frown.

Instead, he walked around the end of Leslie’s bed and touched April’s shoulder.

“C’mon, April, wake up. We’re going sailing.”

A wave pushed the boat sideways, and April’s hold on the seat tightened.

“You sure you know how to run this thing?”

He didn’t smile. “I’m sure. I’ve been sailing since I was about half your age.”

He concentrated on the soothingly familiar actions, letting her adjust to the boat and to him. When they were out to where the open horizon carried equal weight with the shoreline behind them, he set the boat into an easy course.

“When I was about ten, I brought a boat out here and seriously considered never going back. I figured they’d never find me.”

She gave him a quick look, clearly bracing for a lecture on her stunt the night before. “You would have hit Michigan.”

“I’d turned north once I got out here. Since you know geography, you know there’s a lot of lake between here and land heading that way.”

“Somebody would have found you.” She sneered.

“Depends how soon they started looking. Big lake, small boat.”

“They would have missed you right away.” The jerk of her head indicated the land they’d left. The sneer was slightly less pronounced. “They would have sent somebody after you.”

“I didn’t know the Monroes yet.” He let that sink in. “I was out here nineteen and a half hours, from two-thirty in the afternoon until almost ten the next morning. And nobody came after me, because nobody missed me.”

“Your mom and dad—”

“Were in Europe. And the nanny they’d hired enjoyed her bourbon. She didn’t last long. But long enough.”

April stared at him, and he saw the aching loneliness that went to her core, and he wanted to cry for her, and the child he’d been, who understood her too damn well.

She bent her head in an absorbed study of her hands clasped in her lap.

“Gets awfully dark out here on the lake at night,” he said. “The water seems to swallow any light that makes it this far. It’s dark above you, and even darker below, and you have no idea which way you’re going—not only north or south, east or west, but up or down. There were times I thought for sure I was drowning even though I was still in the boat.”

“Why’d you come back, when nobody’d missed you?” Her whisper told him what he’d feared—she’d considered it—and what he’d hoped—she was looking for a reason not to.

He remembered Mrs. M.’s words: Be careful, Grady. Trying to help someone can be a dangerous business. The danger was not only to him but to the fragile girl across from him. With an inarticulate prayer, he spoke slowly.

“I would have missed me."

Three tears splashed on the back of her folded hands. She hurriedly scrubbed them dry on her shorts.

“That night out here by myself, I realized that even if nobody else cared about my life, I did. I was pretty young, so the words weren’t real clear, but I figured it was my life, and I was going to do something about it. I saw other kids who tried to do their best because it made their parents happy. I was going to do my best, even though I had to do it for myself. Had to do it alone.”

He made a sound, not quite amusement. He hadn’t thought about that night for a long time. “You know, though, about the time I decided all this, the wind kicked up and I had to fight like hell to stay afloat.” Her surprised eyes came to his face. “It was almost as if the lake was telling me deciding’s not enough. You’ve got to work at it. Sometimes it’s harder than others.”

A half-gulped sob escaped, but she didn’t look away.

“And when I met the Monroes, I didn’t have to do it all alone anymore. They’re not my parents, but they are my family.”

Eyes brimming and mouth trembling, she stared. Would she reach out or pull back into that self-protective shell? He wished with all his heart that Leslie were here, no matter how much being with her would hurt. It would be worth the cost because surely she could help this child better than he could.

“It’s just . . ." At April’s uncertain words, his spirits leaped. “It’s just that I’m so lonely.”

The wail of that last word was one of the loveliest sounds he’d ever heard.

“I know you are, April. I know you are.”

Only a couple decades of sailing stopped him from going to her and risking overbalancing the boat. But when she stood, he tugged her onto the center seat alongside him, tucking her face against his shoulder and letting the boat rock them both.

“I don’t want to go back to Charlottesville because as soon as I get there, Melly’s going to drag me off on another of her trips.” She snuffled and sat up straighter. “I get in her way. She doesn’t want me around. She just thinks she has to and I hate it. I hate it!”

“What would you like to do?”

She looked startled that he hadn’t tried to reassure her that her mother did want her around. Startled, and then thoughtful, as if she’d never gotten past the point of what she didn’t want to do to consider what she did want to do.

“I’d like it to be different.” The wistfulness in her voice had Grady swallowing hard. “I’d like my dad to still be alive, and for him and Mom to stay in one place together so we could be a real family.”

He sighed. “I know, April. I used to wish the same thing. I wanted a little house with a white picket fence, instead of the hotels and grand houses. But it doesn’t work that way. I couldn’t change my parents, you can’t change your mother. But you might be able to change other things. To do that, first you have to think about what you’d like to do. What do you want?”

“I want to stay in one place.” The answer was heartfelt and immediate. “I want to go to one school all year long and never have to walk in as the new kid ever again in my whole life.”

“Where would you like to stay?”

“Well . . .” Contemplating what she might like to do instead of resisting what other people had planned for her transformed April. “Charlottesville’s not bad,” she said judiciously. “There’s a couple of kids I like to hang out with and the teachers weren’t too prison guardish.”

“Okay. What else?”

She looked at him a little shyly. “I kinda like Leslie. I mean, visiting her in Washington and everything.”

Progress came slowly, he supposed. If she wanted to mask her feelings for Leslie under the guise that she liked the city, who was he to criticize?

“Have you told her that?”

“No.” He said nothing. After a moment, she added, “You think I should?”

“You think Leslie’s more likely or less likely to invite you back if she knows you enjoy visiting her? And if you were Leslie, would you like to hear somebody enjoyed visiting you or would you rather they kept it a secret?”

“All right, all right, I’ll tell her.”

Her mock surrender was the closest thing to humor he’d heard from April. It set the mood for their return trip. She even showed interest in sailing, and he was happy to teach her.

She grew quiet as they neared the dock.

“Guess you and Leslie won’t be seeing each other any more after this trip, so I probably won’t see you, either.”

He forgave her the stab of pain her first words caused because he thought he understood how she might be feeling about the second part. April Gareaux had connected with so few people in her young life that she felt the impending loss of one keenly.

As Mrs. M. had said, this helping other people had its dangers.

“What happens with Leslie and me doesn’t mean I can’t keep in touch with you. I could write, if you’ll promise to write back.”

“Write?” Hope and wariness blended in the word.

“Sure. It’s good for you.” Her doleful look at that dreaded phrase drew a further offer. “And if you do that, I could call now and then, if that’s all right with you.”

“Okay.” He raised an eyebrow, and she added more enthusiastically. “That would be great.”

He would keep his promise to April no matter how much the reminder of Leslie hurt.

Grady insisted on driving them to the airport. He’d decided to stay on in Chicago a few days “to clear up business,” and Leslie had suggested they take a taxi. But Grady wouldn’t budge; he was driving them to the airport.

Paul, Bette and Anna had come up to the Monroes’ for breakfast. The goodbyes and thank-yous masked the tension. But in the car it rose through the silence.

A block from the Monroes’, Grady turned north instead of continuing west toward the airport. He gave no explanation, and no one asked, though Leslie caught the look Tris and Michael exchanged.

In less than five minutes, he stopped in front of a house just visible through an iron fence.

“You wanted to see it” was all he said.

But she’d already known.

Like the Monroes’ it backed on Lake Michigan, but that was where the similarities ended. This was a solid, gray mass, designed to impose, not to welcome. The grounds were perfectly kept, but lacked imagination. The windows and doors gave the impression of seldom being opened. With no sign of neglect, it had an air of desertion.