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

by Patricia McLinn

  “Don’t be silly, Michael. I can’t let an old friend starve to death in the cold.” She’d meant to sound brisk, but not so harsh. She tried to soften the effect with a gloved hand on his overcoated arm. “It really makes more sense for you to come to my place. It’s just a few blocks and I have plenty of food and—”

  She started to say she had plenty of room, thinking of the bed in the spare room. But she didn’t want him in the spare-room bed. She wanted him in hers, spending all the nights the way she’d spent one unforgettable night in his. She wouldn’t tell him the lie, and she couldn’t tell him the truth.

  “I’ll be okay, Tris.”

  Without warning, the need to have him safely with her became urgent. She couldn’t let him go off and probably spend days alone, maybe cold and hungry because her impulsiveness in acting on new feelings for him had made a mess of their friendship.

  “And I could use some help with the shoveling,” she added. “The lady next door’s rather elderly, and I shovel for her, too. If I don’t do it, she tries to get out there herself and she really shouldn’t. She has a weak heart. It’s bad for her. Especially with this kind of snow. Heavy.”

  She demonstrated by holding her gloved hand out, palm up and level, to catch the weighty flakes.

  “Well, if I earn my keep shoveling…”

  “You will,” she promised. She looked up at him again, and saw the light in his eyes. Her heart somersaulted in a maneuver worthy of an Olympic gymnast. She didn’t think it was the warmth of friendship, or the fire of love, but at least it was light of some sort.

  They left behind the activity of the subway stop and the panicked whirring of tire wheels on the main road as their snow-muffled footsteps took them into a sedate neighborhood of tall trees, tiny yards and trim row houses. Tris turned one corner, and then another, wondering if Michael would ever talk again. Without a twinge over contradicting her earlier wish that Leslie would disappear, she longed for her friend. Leslie might not be the most tactful person in the world, but at least she filled the silence.

  “I heard about Joan’s winning the election,” she said, and cringed to hear herself. Brilliant, Tris.

  Of course, she’d heard about the election. She would have had to have spent the past months in a cave not to, since Joan Bradon had pulled off the upset of the election. And she hadn’t been in a cave. She’d been searching for a certain name in print, or a glimpse afforded by a television camera, even though it meant exposing emotions she’d tried to forget.

  She bent into the wind-driven snow and forced herself to keep going. “Congratulations. It must be very exciting.”

  “Thanks. It has been exciting, and hectic.”

  “I’ll bet. But you must have been elated election night, to pull off an upset like that.” She remembered the image of him on the TV screen election night, and knew his elation had been mixed with many other things. “Of course, campaigning like that would be very unsettling. Tiring. Constantly having to adjust your life.”

  “Yes. Unsettling’s a good way to describe it. Before and after the election. A lot of changes.”

  She risked a look at him, as he walked at her side, and saw that he was watching her, obviously remembering the same conversation his words had called up to her mind. It was safe to remember that, she told herself. It was only what had followed that she could not let herself think of. Ever. But especially not with Michael walking so close that his arm brushed hers now and again.

  “I didn’t have any purple-flowered wallpaper to leave behind,” he said, and his voice seemed to deepen on the words, “but there were still a lot of changes, a lot of adapting to do.”

  She couldn’t prevent smiling at him then, any more than she could help the flood of warmth at his answering smile.

  Maybe the damage she’d done to their friendship wasn’t irreparable. She’d never lose the emptiness of knowing that there couldn’t be more between them, but to have some part of Michael was better than the past few months of having nothing. It had to be.

  “And how have you been doing at adapting?”

  “Pretty good, I think. I’ve had my moments, but Joan didn’t have to threaten me more than once or twice to get me to agree to be on her staff here on Capitol Hill instead of staying in Springfield.”

  “Here’s my house,” she said, using memory to follow the walk obscured by snow. Barely three strides took them to the front steps, and she gestured for him to join her on the small porch, out of the hard-falling snow. She fitted the key to the lock. “So, you think you’re going to like Washington?”

  She looked up at him as she swung the door open, waiting for his answer.

  “It’s too early to tell.”

  He held the heavy outer door for her, standing so close that she could smell the wet wool of his overcoat, could see the creases at the corners of his eyes, built by humor and deepened by responsibility. She looked into his multicolored eyes, and she knew he was talking about more than a job.

  Chapter Ten

  Michael watched Tris stretch to hook the hanger over the back of the closet door, placing his coat next to hers to dry out before hanging them in the closet. The fabric of her dress slid over her body, slightly cupping the curve of her bottom, and his muscles clenched in reaction. Lord, what was he thinking of, coming here? He should have insisted on going on to his own place, or sleeping on the Metro. Anything would have been smarter than this.

  He knew he would have sought her out here in Washington, to try to repair the friendship he’d shredded. It meant too much to him not to try; she meant too much to him. But he’d intended to wait a little longer, to arrange the encounter to the last detail, to plan what he wanted to say and how to say it. To have a better grip on his emotions. To have some chance to prepare for the impact of looking up and seeing Tris. And wanting her, instantaneously and incessantly.

  She glanced at him and he quickly turned away, pretending an absorbing interest in her living room’s decor. Soft earth tones, a cushy couch pulled up in front of the brick fireplace along with an overstuffed companion chair, built-in bookcases, lots of mellow wood, spaces flowing into each other and big, airy windows.

  It was pure Tris. “It’s a great place. I can see all the work you put in it.”

  His eye caught the twin framed photos on the bookcase—the four friends in college, then captured twelve years later in the same pose. She’d chosen to frame the first of the two pictures Bette had taken in August, though he knew Bette had sent out copies of each shot. He could understand why Tris had chosen that photo; the other one was too raw, his hunger for her too clear. He turned away without comment on the display, and had the impression she’d been watching him. If so, she avoided the topic, too.

  “Thanks. It’s not as challenging as your Victorian must have been, but it gave me plenty to handle.”

  “When were these places built?”

  “In the twenties. You want some coffee? Or would you rather have tea? Hot chocolate?”

  “Coffee would be great.” Strangely, her slightly nervous rendition of the perfect hostess eased some of his discomfort. He followed her through the dining area and into the kitchen, prepared to help, prepared to make this as unawkward as it could be. Maybe their friendship could yet be salvaged.

  They’d both left their wet footwear at the front door, so their steps barely sounded, even on the hardwood floors. He watched her stockinged toes curl into the cotton throw rug in front of the sink as she filled the coffee maker’s pot with water. An unconscious reaction to the soft texture of the rug, he knew. A mere reflex. But he couldn’t stop it from triggering a series of memories of how she had tested and tasted and seemed to enjoy the different textures of his body.

  She looked over her shoulder at him questioningly, and he knew he’d missed something she’d said. What? “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “It wasn’t anything. I just, um, said I couldn’t imagine how people got along before coffee makers.”

  Her
cheeks had grown pink and her movements jerky as she started the coffee, shouting her self-consciousness. She must have caught the direction of his preoccupation, and it made her uncomfortable. Lord, making her ill at ease was the last thing he wanted. Friendship, Dickinson. Friendship, not hormones.

  Doggedly he began plying her with questions about her house as she poured the coffee and arranged cookies on a plate. He noticed her glance at the sofa, and knew when she decided against having their coffee there. She probably considered it too intimate a setting. Instead, she set the coffee and cookies down on the tiny breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the dining and living rooms, gesturing for him to take one of the cushioned stools. He complied. Drinking his coffee, eating his cookies and expanding on his questions regarding her house’s renovation, its history and its neighborhood. A nice, safe topic, interesting but not personal, and he pursued it relentlessly. Even when her answers dwindled to nearly nothing.

  But finally, there were no more questions to ask.

  He let out a long breath and glanced out through the dining room’s bay window. The snow was coming down as hard as ever and the light was fading rapidly.

  “Maybe I should get a start on the shoveling before it gets dark.”

  Tris jumped, as if her mind had been on something else entirely. “Tonight? Oh, no. I thought we’d shovel tomorrow. The snow’s not supposed to stop until noon and there’s no sense doing it twice, and it’s nearly dark anyhow and—“ her eyes skimmed over him in a way that made him wish it meant half of what it looked like it meant “—you’re not dressed for the job.”

  He looked down at his suit a little ruefully. “I’m not going to be any better dressed for the job tomorrow.”

  She frowned at that. “I have some men’s things in the spare room closet. I’m pretty sure there are some sweats, and a pair of sneakers, though I don’t know if those will fit. Maybe some jeans.”

  “Oh?” Jealousy and doubt and possessiveness—how could a syllable give so much of himself away? She’d run from him for sure. At least emotionally.

  Instead she raised her chin and locked eyes with his.

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking, Michael,” she challenged him directly. “But they’re Paul’s things. He left them here on one trip through and decided he likes having them here so he can pack lighter. Now, I think I’ll change and go check on Mrs. Jenkins before dinner, and you can look through the things and see what will fit.”

  As she spoke, she cleared their few dishes and stowed them in the dishwasher. She had reached the door before he could get a word in.

  “Tris?”

  She stopped, but didn’t turn. “Yes?”

  “I apologize. It wasn’t any of my business.” He saw the line of her shoulders ease at his first words, then almost appear to slump.

  She mumbled something he couldn’t make sense of, because it had sounded to him as if she’d said, “Not since you don’t want it to be your business.” Then she said more clearly, “C’mon, I’ll show you the spare room.”

  Upstairs minutes later, he stood at the window in the spare room she obviously used as an office and watched her, head lowered into the slanting snow, make her way to her neighbor’s house. She’d briskly pointed out the location of his room, the bathroom and the closet holding Paul’s clothes, then left him on his own. He’d stood there for quite a while, listening to the sounds of her moving around in the room across the hall.

  God, he’d missed her. The breath he let out as she disappeared up her neighbor’s walk clouded the window with instant frost. Which was harder, not seeing her at all, or seeing her and not having the right to touch her? His mouth twisted at the question. He was about to find out.

  Turning from the window, he strode to the closet and jerked it open, ignoring the clench of his stomach muscles. The dim light picked out Tris’s out-of-season clothes neatly hung. And in a corner a couple of hangers’ worth of men’s casual clothing. What had he been expecting? A collection of mismatched men’s outfits, silent legacies of relationship after failed relationship?

  He reached out to touch the worn denim of a pair of jeans. No, he hadn’t expected that so much as remembered it. In that moment she’d said she had some men’s clothes upstairs—even while the twist in his gut had presumed they were Grady’s—he’d seen just such a closet in his mind’s eye, only it wasn’t in Tris’s house, it was in his mother’s.

  He shook his head at himself and his memories as he pulled the jeans free of the hanger. Tris wasn’t his mother, or his father, for that matter. Tris didn’t fall in and out of love with the passing of the seasons like some people did. She’d known what she wanted from the time she was a freshman in college—Grady. There’d been only two sidetracks in that devotion. Terrence, and he’d understood that relationship for the substitute it was from the first time he’d laid eyes on the tall, blond, handsome charmer so like Grady. And himself, a trusted friend who took advantage of her vulnerability and lonesomeness to act out his own fantasies.

  Jerking on jeans that were a shade tighter than his usual style, he cursed himself with the thoroughness of practice. His mouth twisted as his repertoire wound down. He’d gotten into a verbal rut since August. What he had to do now was stop chiding himself and find some way to once again give Tris the friendship she’d always counted on from him.

  He pulled a sweatshirt over his head, and emerging from it came face-to-face with something on the bulletin board above her desk. The second picture Bette had taken of all of them on the library steps five months ago. Right in the middle of the bulletin board, right at eye level for anyone sitting at the desk. A memo tacked up next to it half obscured Grady and Paul, but he and Tris were shown clearly. He saw the questioning in Tris’s smile as she gazed down to where his hand grasped hers as it lay on his chest. And even with his face averted from the camera, longing etched lines into his expression for any perceptive observer to see.

  Why had she put it here? Didn’t she see what was in his face?

  His eye caught a name on the papers spread over the desk and he jumped at the chance to divert his mind from those questions. The facility in Cincinnati she’d mentioned, the one that had inspired her proposal. He picked up the brochure, reading of how a once derelict building had become a place where the homeless could get a haircut, a shower, a shave, a change of clean clothes—and a dose of renewed dignity.

  He sat down, looking at the papers more closely, recognizing Tris’s handwriting in the scrawled notes on how other old buildings could be converted to this use. She had target sites and possible funding sources and rough operational budgets. Impressive, very impressive. It had taken a lot of work—a lot of hard, practical work, not just the wishful thinking of an idealist leading with her heart.

  He wondered at the short, sharp twist inside him at that thought. There was no reason for this to bother him. He’d said he’d help her if the proposal warranted it, and she’d obviously been making sure it did. A vision of Tris from twelve years ago formed in his mind: Tris pleading that the money from the Phantom party should go to the denizens of skid row, Tris passionate and impractical.

  The vision faded as he focused again on the papers in front of him. Had she really grown up so much, changed so much? Deliberately, he forced the muscles drawing his brows together to ease.

  Someone would only put this kind of work into a project that was very important to them.

  “Michael!”

  He started at her voice shouting up the stairs, realizing abruptly that his mouth was watering from the smell of broiling chicken. When had she come back? He hadn’t even heard her come in. How long had he sat there?

  “Michael, are you ready for dinner?”

  “Yeah. It smells great. I’ll he right down.”

  They ate dinner informally in front of the fireplace, with her on the couch and him in the armchair. He insisted on doing the cleaning up, and bringing her a cup of coffee as they watched television reports on the snowstorm
and the havoc it was causing in the nation’s capital. She reported that her neighbor seemed fine, and he told her about the last, wild days of the campaign. They laughed at memories and silly jokes on the sitcom that followed the news.

  And then their eyes met, the laughter fading as he felt the shift. For a while, they’d recaptured the ease of all the years they’d know each other. Then, in a moment, it had been replaced by another memory. Would they ever stop being betwixt and between—not just friends anymore, not really lovers? God, to be her lover— No, that wasn’t what he could give her, that wasn’t what she needed from him.

  A scene flashed on the television screen, an update on plans for the upcoming inauguration celebration, and he grasped at the topic.

  “I, uh, got tickets . . . I mean our office has got extra tickets to some of the parties and things.”

  “That’s great. Even some of the movers and shakers have been maneuvering to get their hands on tickets this time around. You’re lucky.”

  “I guess so. Sharon always seems to come up with things like that—Sharon’s Joan’s confidential assistant,” he explained. “She just gave me a batch this morning. For the gala at Kennedy Center a couple days before the inauguration, then the swearing-in and parade and one of the balls.”

  “They’re definitely the hot tickets in town.”

  “Yeah.”

  He glanced at her, then quickly away. She almost sounded as if she were having as much trouble coming up with something to say as he was. Actually, he knew what he wanted to say. He just wasn’t certain how to say it, or whether he ought to even try.

  “I thought Paul and Bette and Grady would enjoy all the hoopla, so I called them right away. They’re coming next weekend. And I was wondering . . . I mean, I was going to call you. I got your office number from Paul this afternoon, and I thought tomorrow morning. . . but then when I saw you on the Metro . . .”