by Wendy Warren
With great politeness, he invited, “I’d love to have some time to know you better before you leave, Maeve. And, I’m sure you have a number of questions I’d be happy to answer.” He squeezed Rosemary’s waist again, a pointedly reassuring caress, and added, “Sweetheart, why don’t you introduce your sisters around. I see Fletcher and Claire over by the fireplace.”
“Fletcher?” Vi perked up. “Absolutely let’s go see Fletcher. I’ve got my camera.”
“Fletcher…Kinglsey?” Evelyn, the senior director of advertising at a firm that served the west coast from San Francisco to Anchorage, busily put two and two together. “Your brother-in-law is the Tuff Enuff jeans model?” she asked Rosemary.
Vi raised her can of soda. “Ain’t life grand?”
“I’ll tag along with Mom and Dean,” Lucy announced, far more interested in interrogating a new victim than ogling a cowboy—or snagging him for an ad campaign, which Rosemary figured was Evelyn’s angle.
Rosemary looked at Dean, undecided. Should she allow her mother and sister, two self-avowed man-distrusting divorce attorneys, to be alone with her new husband when there was no telling what kind of shape they’d leave him in?
She looked Dean square in the eye. He winked.
Team Kingsley vs. Team Jeffers, his expression said. This one’s a slam dunk.
The silent communication made her feel more than ever like part of a couple, and her nervous heart settled.
All right, then, she winked back. Good luck.
All the while she stood beside Vi and Evelyn—and eventually Daphne and Ginger, who made their way over, too—as they pelted Fletcher with requests for photos and his agent’s phone number, Rosemary knew she had found her needle in the haystack, the man who made her want to believe again.
Yesterday she had seen her obstetrician, making the two-hour round-trip trek to Bend for what she hoped would be the last time. Now that she and Dean were married she could see a doctor here in town. Maybe Dean would even come with her. There would be gossip, no doubt, when folks did the math, but if they knew that she and Dean loved each other…
Love. A grin spread across her face. After promising herself that never again would she have expectations of any man, here she was, expecting. Expecting like crazy! Expecting Dean’s baby, expecting his friendship, expecting a lifetime together.
They had gone into this relationship entirely backward and had a lot of catching up to do. Thankfully they’d gotten a good head start: he was becoming a wonderful friend already.
Her thoughts a million miles away, she didn’t notice her sister-in-law trying to catch her attention until Claire tugged her away from the group. “Fletcher says I shouldn’t ask, but you look so happy I just have to. How are things? Are you and Dean enjoying marriage?” She put a hand to her mouth, adorably. “Oh, shoot, that sounds way too personal. Scratch that. Are you getting excited about the baby?”
Rosemary grinned. “I am. I really, really am.”
“Do you know what you’re having?”
Glancing around to be sure no one else could hear their conversation, Rosemary nodded. “I found out yesterday. I’ve been trying to think of a creative way to tell Dean.”
Claire’s eyes glowed with sweet remembering. “I loved that part—telling Arlo what we were going to have. I usually strung it out a good long while.”
Dean had told Rosemary that Arlo was Claire’s first husband. He’d died before their third child, Rosalind, had made her appearance. Rosemary could tell by Claire’s expression and by the tone of her lovely Southern voice that her marriage to Arlo had been a good one. Now that the young woman (Rosemary guessed Claire to be several years younger than her own thirty-two) was in a second happy marriage, Rosemary wondered whether she and Fletcher would add a fourth child to their brood. She decided to ask and earned a sigh.
“Well, I have brought that up, and Fletcher has agreed to discuss it in ten years or so.”
“Ten years,” Rosemary laughed. “Oh, no. I was hoping for lots and lots of cousins for our little one.”
Claire glanced lovingly at her husband, surrounded and looking none too thrilled about it, by Rosemary’s sister and friends. “Well,” Claire mused, “Fletcher is a new daddy still. He’s in that deer-caught-in-the-headlights stage where he’s afraid he’ll make a mistake that will destroy the world as we know it. Poor baby dreamed last night that he dropped Will on his head. And Will’s seven.”
“No kidding.” It was hard to believe they were talking about the six-foot-plus rodeo star. “Wasn’t Fletcher a bull rider?”
“Yes. But I haven’t met a bull yet that could bring a man to his knees quick as a baby can.” Claire inched closer and lowered her voice even though the music and chatter would have made it hard for anyone to overhear their conversation. “Also you’ve got to remember that Fletcher and Dean’s daddy left them fairly confused about what it takes to be a husband and father. It’s hard to understand that man’s motives, isn’t it?”
Clueless, Rosemary didn’t bother to mask her bemusement. “Sorry? I’m not sure what you mean by ‘motives.’ Motives for what?”
The change in Claire’s expression was swift and more confusing than her comment. The cheerful openness from a moment before fled, replaced by a shuttered, uncertain look. “Oh, it was nothing. I don’t know why I even brought it up.” She looked at Fletcher…a little desperately, Rosemary thought. “I’d better rescue my husband. I wonder if your sister or one of your friends just used the word model, ’cause he’s wincing like he’s in a lot of pain.”
Rosemary smiled, but watched curiously as Claire pulled her husband away. The girls began to animatedly discuss Fletcher’s assets, but Rosemary’s attention was halfhearted at best. When she found an appropriate moment to excuse herself, she took it.
Wandering the room in search of Dean proved to be futile. Every few steps, someone stopped her to chat, but no one knew where Dean had gone. Finally she came upon Irene Gould and Henry Berns, the owner of Honey Bea’s Bakery.
Henry, a couple of inches shorter than Irene and obviously no more than a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet, carried a full plate of food and was about to bite into a sauce-covered cabbage roll. Irene, who had known the little baker most of their lives, hovered over him. “Henry Berns, you’re closer to eighty than eighteen. What are you thinking, eating like that?”
“Eighty? Speak for yourself. I may be no spring chicken, but I can still crow like a rooster.” He winked at Rosemary, popped the cabbage roll in his mouth and scooped up kasha varnishkas.
Irene compressed her lips and turned to Rosemary. “Congratulations, darling. So exciting. Marriage is a wonderful thing.”
“How do you know?” Henry asked good-naturedly enough, scraping the plate with his fork.
Irene’s eyes widened, shocked and, if Rosemary was correct, deeply hurt. “Why you old—” she began then clamped her lips shut. Her chest rose and fell heavily.
Rosemary’s heart went out to her, but she had no idea how to help. Major history there. “Um, have either of you seen Dean recently?” she asked in the uncomfortable silence.
“He walked Gwen Gibson to her car,” Irene informed stiffly, shooting a dagger-sharp glance at Henry. “He’s a gentleman.”
Ouch. “Thanks. I think I’ll get a breath of fresh air myself.”
The little baker looked up. “What do you mean, ‘He’s a gentleman’? Are you saying I’m not a gentleman?”
Yikes. With a wave, Rosemary left the two to whatever they had to work out and threaded through the crowd, escaping finally to the brisk spring night.
Embedded in the clear sky, stars winked more brightly than the twinkle lights in the community hall. Stretching her arms, Rosemary breathed deeply, thinking about the scene that had just transpired. Relationships were so complex. Did anyone find her way through the maze unscathed?
A powerful need to see her husband, to feel the comfort of his solid arms and his eminently reassuring calmness, arose
in Rosemary. She squinted in the darkness. Cars had been parked along the curbless street, beside old hitching posts that remained from horse-and-buggy days. A black iron streetlamp flickered, shedding just enough light to see by, but there was no sign of Dean.
Realizing she should have grabbed a coat, Rosemary hugged her arms and made her way around the corner to the small parking lot behind the community center. It was nice of Dean to walk Gwen Gibson to her car. Rosemary had met the mayor twice—once shortly after she’d been hired to run the library, and once when Ms. Gibson had checked out a book on civic government. Nice lady. Widowed. Probably around sixty, she came across as very poised, with a comfortable elegance and a truckload of natural charm. She’d been in a long, somewhat tumultuous relationship with Dean’s father, and though she’d married someone else and had a college-age son from that relationship, she and Victor Kingsley had become, at the very least, good friends again at the end of his life. Dean seemed to like and respect the woman, which was enough to make Rosemary more than happy to get to know Gwen better.
Before she’d completely rounded the brick building, Rosemary heard a female voice.
“It’s incredible the way everything’s worked out, isn’t it? First for Fletcher and now for you.”
The masculine response seemed to rumble through her own chest. “I couldn’t have asked for it to turn out better.” Rosemary smiled. Found you. She felt her body relax even as anticipation fizzed along her nerves. I’m like a teenager, she thought with sappy surrender, happy just to be getting closer to my guy. She picked up her pace, but before she reached the parking lot, Gwen spoke again. This time, the words made Rosemary stumble on the gravel.
“I was so afraid your father’s will was going to cause a disaster. I don’t have to tell you how much I loved Victor, but requiring you to marry to gain an inheritance was incredibly risky. I knew you’d be more tolerant of the situation than Fletcher, but honestly, I thought the will might deter you both from ever marrying.”
Rosemary’s brain began to spin inside her skull. She reached reflexively for the brick wall, but her hand only scraped its rough surface. For several moments she couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t think. Then the words just spoken collided with the puzzling comment Claire had made, and her mind filled so horribly with dark thoughts she almost screamed.
She had the presence of mind to do one thing—back away. Stumbling a little, feeling her way along the wall as her legs turned to jelly, she reached the front of the community center. Go back inside? Not possible. Whirling left, adrenaline kicking in, propelling her like a hunted deer, she headed for the cover of the building on the other side of the driveway. Good choice, Rosemary. Keep moving, keep moving. Grateful for the Western-style building’s deep porch, she headed for its farthest reaches, leaned against the rough wooden facade and hyperventilated.
God in heaven, she couldn’t have made a mistake of such magnificent proportions. She couldn’t be so wrong, so blind about a man, about their relationship…. Could she? Not this time, not…
With a baby on the way.
Her thoughts progressed to near hysteria.
Dean had married her because of a will. Gwen knew. Claire knew! And how many others?
Rosemary buried her head in her hands. “No, no, no.” Things like this didn’t happen to people in the real world; they happened on soap operas and Jerry Springer episodes and in nightmares.
Sobs built inside her, but she refused to let them gain power. She needed every wit she possessed. Lifting her head, she felt her heart buck as Dean walked around the community center, his shadowed form as tall and straight as ever.
Liar. Fake. Criminal.
If what she’d heard held even a kernel of truth then there were no words bad enough for what he’d done, for the way he’d misled and encouraged her to trust in him. For the way he’d made her love again.
I have to talk to Lucy. I have to dissolve this marriage!
A car rolled out of the parking lot and down the block. Gwen Gibson, the mayor of their fair town. “I don’t have to tell you how much I loved your father.” The Kingsleys wove a large and tangled web.
The town that had seemed like such a haven mere minutes ago now felt about as wholesome as Wisteria Lane.
“I’ve got to get out of here.” Rosemary struggled for breath as Dean disappeared inside the community center. Run. Run as fast and as far as you can.
Two years ago Rosemary was supposed to have worked on the evening of her tenth wedding anniversary, which had been her birthday, too, because Neil, bless him, had insisted, “I want to get married on the day God made the perfect woman for me.”
When her boss had let her go home early, she’d made reservations at their favorite restaurant and rushed home to surprise him. He’d looked surprised, all right. Naked, having sex on their couch with his paralegal, and surprised.
Rosemary had been too stunned to say a word. She’d simply run out the door while Neil yelled after her, “I didn’t use our bed, Rosemary!”
That was true: he hadn’t used their bed—that time. During their divorce, however, there had been a steady stream of informants, more than willing to assure her that divorce was the right decision, that her husband had been cheating on her for years.
Slowly Rosemary walked to the edge of the porch, hot now despite the chill night air. She had loved Neil once, would never have suspected him capable of such treachery, yet even during their marriage she had known there was something missing, an elusive, soul-deep sense of…rightness…of completion, a click for which she had reached and reached before finally telling herself it would come with age.
Then she met Dean. What had scared—and thrilled—her most that first night was that she had felt the click the first time his eyes had crinkled at her.
Tears gathered, then began to squirt like projectiles.
Blast. She pressed a hand over her mouth and prayed for calm, for composure, for a shot of Novocain straight to the heart. What lesson, damn it, was she supposed to be learning?
Don’t run.
As if the voice were outside her, loud and clear, she heard the message: Stop running. Stand and face up to your life. Face your dreams, even the ones that are broken, and for pity’s sake, face the sonofabitch who’s breaking them.
Stock-still, but panting as if she’d broken the tape in a marathon, Rosemary waited for her mind to catch up with that voice.
She’d fallen in love. Again. More wildly than before. And unfortunately, being duped didn’t change that fact.
Now she was going to have a daughter to raise. That was the news she’d planned to give Dean tonight. They were having a baby girl. And no matter what her mama told her, that baby girl that would someday be a young woman who yearned to love and be loved. What could Rosemary teach her? What kind of role model would she be?
Just don’t run.
Maybe she couldn’t keep her daughter’s heart safe or pain-free. Of course she couldn’t. If Maeve and all her preaching against the myth of the romantic fairy tale hadn’t worked, what would?
Not a damn thing, probably.
Like Rosemary, her daughter would choose her own path to tread. God willing, she’d be lucky. As for Rosemary…
“I’m done.”
There was only one thing left to do, as far as she could tell. Wiping her eyes, she sniffed hard. Time to be a big girl, broken or not.
Rosemary headed resolutely toward the building where her wedding reception was still going strong despite the fact the marriage had tanked. Her family and friends were in there. They’d driven three hours to celebrate with her; she wasn’t going to abandon them. No. She was going to go back in there and finish this reception. In style.
Allowing a moment’s grief for the loss of the beautiful future she had planned, Rosemary sucked it up and kept walking. She couldn’t stay in Honeyford after this. The details of where she would move and when could be settled in the light of day. Right now, she had a surprise for the man w
ho had turned her dream to dust. It was time to toast the groom…or turn the groom to toast.
Chapter Fourteen
Something was wrong. Damn wrong.
For the past hour, Dean had watched his bride work the room—her smile wide and ready, her gaze sharp, her laughter bold. But to him, she looked like a piece of crystal—solid and beautiful, yet teetering on the edge of a table over a hardwood floor, about to shatter at any minute. Worse, she wouldn’t let him get anywhere near her.
Five minutes ago he’d spotted her dancing with his nephew Will. As he began to make his way through the crowd, which hadn’t thinned a hair since the start of the evening, Rosemary glanced up, ignored his smile and twirled Will over to her friend Vi. Then she whispered something in the redhead’s ear and took off without another glance in Dean’s direction.
Enough was definitely enough, so he’d pressed after her, but Len had stopped him, having a manic (man in panic) attack, because Daphne had just revealed that she planned to be celibate until she met her future husband, no matter how long it took. “She thinks a man’s going to go for that? Partner, that’s like saddling a racehorse then putting it in the barn.”
It had taken a few minutes to calm Len down. Now Dean was looking for Rosemary again.
A loud, amplified whistle rent the air. “Ladies and gentleman, may I have your attention, please? Up here.”
Dean turned toward the far end of the hall, where the band played on a raised stage. Eugene Brock, former sheriff and current lead guitarist of Crystallized Honey, was speaking into the mike. Rosemary stood next to him, looking nervous, but brave.
“Folks, we’re here to celebrate another couple God put together right here in Honeyford. Now it happens that the very last time we were here in this room ’cause of a wedding, Dean’s brother, Fletcher, had just tied the knot. Seems like the Kingsleys are having more than their fair share of luck this year.”
