THE EIGHT SECOND WEDDING

by Anne McAllister

  It was impossible not to love Antonia Decker. She was sweet, sincere and smart, and, since the death of her husband almost twenty years before, she'd loved her daughter more than anyone on earth. She wanted what was best for Madeleine, and Madeleine knew it.

  She just wished her mother wasn't so certain about what was best.

  Who on earth was this Channing Richardson paragon, anyway?

  Why him?

  Of course, since she was small she'd been hearing stories about her mother's dearest school chum, Julia Gardner, the absolutely brilliant geneticist who, against all rhyme and reason, had fallen in love with some handsome cattle baron out west. She'd heard about how Julia had taken her Ph.D., but then turned down a job at Princeton and left the hallowed ivy-covered halls of academe to marry him.

  Madeleine had frankly wondered just how intelligent Julia could be if she had really done such a thing. But Antonia didn't seem to find it odd, so Madeleine didn't remark on it.

  Nor did she remark on the long, detailed letters that came every six months or so about Julia's four wonderful sons. Mostly she didn't listen to them. Sometimes, when one was living with Antonia, earplugs seemed the greatest invention of the twentieth century.

  Now Madeleine wondered if perhaps by wearing them so often she had missed something early on. For it wasn't until Christmas of last year that she'd learned that her mother expected her to marry one of the wonderful Richardsons!

  "We had hoped to give you a choice," Antonia had said almost apologetically when it was first mentioned.

  "Thank you very much," Madeleine replied dryly, but her sarcasm was lost on her mother.

  "Still, it shouldn't matter over much," Antonia went right on. "In most cultures marriages are economic and social arrangements to begin with. For the good of the tribe, you know? And they work out just fine."

  Madeleine had wondered at the time if strangulation was too good for her mother. She wondered if Antonia would even know why she was being strangled. She wondered if, in her mother's mind, free will was anything more than a philosophical construct.

  Over the next nine and a half months, Madeleine had endeavored to teach her what it meant. She'd resisted all mention of Channing Richardson. She'd walked out of rooms when Julia's letters came. She didn't want to know. She didn't want to hear.

  Antonia's attacks didn't cease; they simply became more subtle. There was the invitation to accompany her to another Richardson brother's wedding on Valentine's Day.

  "No," Madeleine replied succinctly.

  "Oh, but, you could take a look at Chan and no one would be the wiser."

  "No," Madeleine said again. "Besides, what if I went and decided I liked the one who was getting married? Would you want me to stand up and say so when they asked for objections?"

  The fact that Antonia actually seemed to consider the possibility seriously sent Madeleine scurrying from the room.

  She didn't attend Trevor Richardson's wedding. Neither, she discovered later, did Channing.

  "Business," Antonia had said when she came home from Boston. "He had business that weekend. He couldn't come."

  "Maybe he was avoiding me."

  "Don't be ridiculous," Antonia huffed, but she looked decidedly uncomfortable, and Madeleine grinned.

  Still, she hoped that this sudden push to marry her off would blow over, that Antonia would find a new culture to study, a new construct to explore, and that she would forget all about introducing Channing Richardson to her daughter.

  She was out of luck.

  Though they lived on opposite sides of town and only met regularly for Sunday brunch, which should have forestalled a lot of this name-dropping, Antonia wasn't averse to picking up the phone and dropping the occasional hint. Madeleine did her best to turn a deaf ear. If it wouldn't have made the rest of her life considerably more difficult, she would have considered wearing the earplugs full-time.

  In June Antonia took a group of college students on a physical anthropology field trip to an archaeological site near Shell, Wyoming. She tried cajoling Madeleine into coming along. Madeleine declined. "Your friend Julia lives out that way, doesn't she?"

  "You're becoming paranoid, Madeleine," Antonia complained.

  "I wonder," Madeleine said. And though she did feel a bit paranoid, several weeks later Antonia let slip that indeed she had run into Channing.

  "He was just there overnight on his way to Idaho. Such a good-looking man," she said. "Medium height. Just a little under six feet. But good strong bones. He'd be perfect for you."

  Perfect biologically, she meant. Perfect intellectually, perhaps. But perfect emotionally?

  Madeleine wondered if such a man existed. She'd never met one – had never met a man who touched her soul, reached her heart, made her think that life without him would not be complete.

  Of course she never said such things to Antonia. If Antonia believed in heart-and-soul commitment, she never said so to Madeleine, either. She talked about culture and kinship, mores and traditions. And when she talked about a husband for Madeleine, she just talked in terms of the anthropologically and genetically perfect man.

  Until now Madeleine had let her talk. It had been easier than saying what she felt. Besides, she had other things to think about: philosophers' works to study, supporting evidence for her thesis to compile a dissertation to write so she'd be qualified for a job at Chamberlain.

  But now that the genetically and anthropologically perfect man had a name, she had a problem. This constant blather about Channing Richardson reminded her of things she hadn't thought about in a long time.

  Not since Scott.

  She'd never told Antonia about Scott. She'd never told anyone about Scott – or more to the point, her feelings about Scott.

  Scott Barlowe: her candidate for the perfect mate. A little bit taller than medium height. Good strong bones.

  Antonia would have liked that. So would Julia.

  So had Madeleine as a matter of fact.

  Scott Barlowe was a beautiful man in any woman's estimation. Blond-haired. Blue-eyed. Intelligent. Wry clever, indeed, though Madeleine hadn't realized it at the time.

  The time had been her senior year at university. She was taking a seminar in anthropology under one of her mother's oldest friends, Kimball Griffin. Scott was Kim's graduate assistant and quickly became Madeleine's mentor.

  It seemed like destiny to a closet romantic like Madeleine.

  And, romantic that she was, she'd fallen headlong in love with Scott Barlowe. He was everything she'd ever dreamed her perfect man would be.

  Scott would, she was sure, become for her what her father had been for her mother. They were even in the same field! She remembered only vaguely the time that her father had been with them. But what she did remember seemed enchanted, a wonderful dream of a family living and loving and sharing their work and their play. She'd never been happier than in those early years. She knew Antonia hadn't, either.

  She'd hoped to recapture that joy with Scott. She even dared envision them doing second-generation studies in Bali, following up the work done by her parents.

  And Scott had encouraged her.

  Or maybe she just thought he had.

  Actually she realized now that he was far too self-centered to have ever thought about encouraging anyone else. Madeleine was significant to Scott as long as she helped him.

  Help him she had. She'd slaved for him, done hours and hours of research for him, work he never seemed to have time to get to himself. She cooked meals for him and ironed shirts for him and made small talk at faculty-grad assistant teas and potlucks for him. She wore frilly Victorian dresses for him because he thought they looked feminine. She even, fool that she was, slept with him.

  And then, because he asked her to, she wrote her mother a letter on his behalf. Antonia was chairing an international committee on anthropological research, and Scott was desperate to secure a post-doctoral fellowship in Paris. Madeleine thought it would be a wonderful place for a ho
neymoon.

  Scott got the fellowship.

  Madeleine got the boot.

  "Come with me?" She could still remember the astonishment on his face when she'd suggested it. She could still remember her chagrin growing as he'd smiled and shaken his head. "Don't be silly, Madeleine. Why would I need you?"

  Why indeed?

  Even now she could still feel sick in the pit of her stomach, if she let herself think about Scott too long.

  So much for the man of her dreams.

  She hadn't had one since. Didn't want one. Didn't trust herself to find one – let alone trust Antonia to do it.

  In September, for the first time since Christmas, Channing Richardson's name didn't come up.

  Madeleine held her breath.

  Had her mother given up? Found a new enthusiasm? Forgotten? Was it too good to be true?

  By mid-October she began to breathe more easily. Her dissertation was starting to take shape. A good part of the research was finished. She was beginning to organize the first draft.

  Late in the month she felt confident enough to call and invite Antonia out to dinner for her birthday. It was a risk, but one she felt she could take.

  "Friday?" Antonia sounded doubtful.

  "That's your birthday, isn't it? Why? Do you have other plans?"

  There was a hesitation, then, "No, of course not. I'd be delighted."

  Madeleine frowned at what seemed to be a sort of vague reluctance. "Are you waiting for a better offer, Mom? Has Dr. Steele come back from Pago-Pago?"

  Her mother's first love interest in almost twenty years, Dr. Jeremiah Steele, had been researching in the South Pacific all year. And though far less had been said about him than about Channing Richardson, Madeleine knew her mother missed him. He was the only man she could remember her mother looking twice at since Lothar Decker's death.

  "Jeremiah won't be back until the end of the semester. I would love to have dinner with you," Antonia said briskly. "Shall we go to Lazlo's?" It was her mother's favorite, a tiny Hungarian restaurant on the Upper East Side.

  "Wherever you want. It's your birthday."

  "Would that you were always so amenable," Antonia said dryly.

  "Would that your interference in my life only extended to telling me where to eat!"

  Antonia laughed. "Seven o'clock?"

  Which meant, Madeleine thought now, that she had two hours to find that damnable missing reference card she'd been looking for all day, then bathe, wash and dry her hair, dress, and get across town.

  It was raining and she was soaked by the time she got home. Her long dark hair, which often demonstrated a mind of its own, seemed to have become positively scatterbrained today. The front frizzed and curled outrageously while the rest cascaded in springy, soggy tangles halfway down her back.

  She dragged her bike up three flights of stairs, stowed it in the entry hall, shed her coat, dumped her overflowing backpack on the sofa and kicked off her shoes. Then, shaking her head and scattering raindrops across the room, she went into the kitchen and put the kettle on for a desperately needed cup of tea.

  While the water was heating, she went into the bathroom and turned on the tap for a bath. Then, tugging her sweater over her head, she went back out and punched the button on her answering machine.

  "Mad," said a cheery female voice. "It's Alfie. Hot date tonight. I need to borrow your slinky black thing. You know, the one with no back."

  Madeleine grinned and shook her head as she unzipped her damp jeans and began wriggling out of them. Alfie, her upstairs neighbor, had been with her when she'd bought the "slinky black thing."

  "It's you, Mad," she'd enthused. But in the six months she'd had it, she was beginning to believe it was more "Alfie." Certainly Alfie wore it more often. But then, Alfie had more hot dates.

  Kicking her jeans off, Madeleine ambled toward the closet in the bedroom, half catching the sound of her mother's voice as the next message played. Was Antonia canceling? she wondered.

  She grabbed the slinky black dress off its hanger and returned to the kitchen in time to hear her mother say, "…see what I mean. See you tonight, then."

  So she wasn't canceling, Madeline decided. And whatever it was her mother had wanted, it could wait until she saw her.

  Alfie's voice came over the machine again. "Mad, for heaven's sake, it's three o'clock. Can I borrow the dress?" And again after another beep, "Mad, now it's four-fifteen. I know I told you it was a hot date, but am I going to dinner naked?" And finally, panicky, "Mad, damn it! Where the hell are you?"

  This last was followed almost at once by the one shrill ring of Madeleine's doorbell.

  Trust Alfie. She must have been listening for Madeleine to come in. Or perhaps she was hearing her own voice echoing up through the paper-thin plaster that separated her floor and Madeleine's ceiling. Clad only in her bra and a pair of skimpy black panties, Madeleine carried the dress with her to answer the door.

  She opened it and thrust out the dress simultaneously, saying, "Here. You might as well keep it. You wear it more than I do."

  It wasn't Alfie.

  It was a cowboy.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  « ^ »

  He took the dress, holding it out away from him as if she'd handed him a live grenade.

  "I don't think it'd fit me," he said.

  Horrified, face flaming, Madeleine snatched it back, hopped behind the door and peered from around it to glare at him.

  "Who the hell are you? What're you doing here? Where's Alfie?"

  He grinned then. It was a slow, lazy grin. The epitome of what Madeleine would have expected of a cowboy grin. It revealed itself one tooth at a time, until it shone with amused arrogance while she stood and sputtered.

  "My name's Chan Richardson. And I'm here because I promised my mother I'd see if you were worth marrying." He looked her over once, more thoroughly. "I'm sorry, but I don't know anybody named Alfie."

  Madeleine managed an inarticulate noise and slammed the door shut in his face, then leaned against it, her heart pounding. God, she thought desperately. Oh, God.

  She heard footsteps on the stairs, then Alfie's voice. "Hi. Are you looking for Madeleine?"

  "Actually I think I found her." He was laughing, damn him!

  "I thought I heard her come home." Alfie banged on the door. "Mad! Open up!"

  Never, Madeleine thought frantically. Never again. I am never coming out of this apartment. Not ever.

  "Mad!"

  Madeleine didn't move.

  "She's … er, indisposed," she heard Chan offer after a moment.

  "Huh?"

  "Undressed."

  "Undressed?"

  Madeleine pressed her palms to burning cheeks. Oh, merciful heavens, worse and worse. She knew what a mind like Alfie's could make of a statement like that.

  "Just a minute! Hold your horses, Alfie, I'm coming!" She grabbed her jeans off the floor and struggled into them. Their clamminess almost defeated her, but at last she succeeded in hauling them up her legs and zipping them. Then she dragged her sweater over her head, picked up the dress and yanked open the door.

  Chan Richardson and Alfie stood side by side staring at her. Chan was still grinning. Alfie looked amazed.

  Madeleine thrust the dress at Alfie. "Take it. Keep it. I don't care. Just go away."

  Alfie shot first Madeleine, then Chan, uncertain glances. A worried smile flickered across her wide-eyed face. "S-sure, Mad. Thanks." She backed hastily toward the steps.

  As she went her gaze turned to one of speculation, and just before she disappeared around the landing, she made lip-smacking gestures in Chan's direction, grinned hugely at Madeleine and mouthed, "He's yummy."

  Madeleine wanted to die. Or kill. Whichever.

  Her gaze traveled back to Chan. He hadn't moved an inch. He was still studying her avidly and she felt almost as naked now as she'd been at their first encounter.

  So she did the only thing she could think of und
er the circumstances; she did an equally thorough appraisal of him.

  Her mother was, unfortunately, right – at least insofar as the physical perfection was concerned. Channing Richardson was of medium build, probably an inch or so shy of six feet. But every bit of him was lean and well-muscled. Madeleine could tell that much from the way he filled out the faded, but well-pressed jeans and the long-sleeved pale pink shirt he wore.

  Pale pink? No anthropologist would be caught dead in a shirt of that color. Only a cowboy or some other very confident male would dare!

  His eyes were blue. Deep blue, like the sea, and still alight with amusement as he regarded her steadily. His hair was thick and dark and recently cut. It looked like the sort of hair that cowgirls would line up to run their fingers through.

  One thing was perfectly clear: he didn't look like the sort who needed his mother to set him up with a woman, still less to find him a wife.

  His grin had faded somewhat now, but the bemused expression remained. She could just imagine the impression he was forming of her. It made her stiffen and glare.

  "It wasn't funny," she said abruptly.

  "Yes, it was." A corner of his mouth quirked. "You must not have been expecting me."

  "No kidding," Madeleine muttered.

  "Your mother said she'd call."

  "My mother?" Oh, good grief, was that the message she'd missed?

  Chan grimaced. "Sorry. I thought she'd ring and you'd be expecting me. I talked to her last week."

  "Last week?" Antonia had known Chan Richardson was coming for a week? She remembered her mother's vague hesitation on the phone. Suddenly things were becoming clearer.

  He nodded. "My mother, well, she knows how to pressure a guy, so I—" he shrugged "—thought what the hell? I might as well do it since I had to come anyhow."

  "On business?" Madeleine said, her tone halfway between sarcasm and skepticism as she looked from the black felt cowboy hat he held in his hands to the fancy tooled boots he wore. But her doubts were apparently lost on him.

  He just nodded quite seriously, and she frowned.

  "What business are you in?" she asked finally.

  "I ride bulls."