Third Time's the Bride!

by Merline Lovelace

  “We did.”

  Brian bit back a smile as Addy made a heroic effort to keep his gaze pinned on Dawn’s face.

  “Are you, er, going to stay awhile?”

  “Only until a new nanny is hired.”

  “I don’t want a new nanny,” Tommy sang out in a now-familiar chorus. “I want Dawn.”

  His father ignored him. “We won’t be late,” he told Addy.

  “No prob.”

  “You’ve got my cell phone number, right?”

  “Right.”

  When Dawn turned to leave, the teen lost his inner battle. His glance glommed on to her back before dropping to the rear outlined so enticingly by those slinky slacks.

  “Oh, man,” he murmured to Brian, his Adam’s apple bouncing. “The lady is OTC.”

  Brian probably shouldn’t have asked, but did, anyway. “Translation?”

  “Off the chain, Mr. E. Off. The. Chain.”

  Nodding an agreement, Brian stooped to knuckle his son’s head affectionately, then followed Dawn through the kitchen to the garage. She made no comment until they were in the SUV and backing out. “Amazing kid. Has he decided where he wants to go to college?”

  “Not yet. He’s had so many offers he’s taking his time about deciding.”

  She hesitated a few beats before making a suggestion. “My company puts out an all-natural acne treatment. A water-based gel containing an extract from the Australian tea tree. It doesn’t work as quickly as some over-the-counter ointments, but we’ve compiled considerable test data showing it causes significantly lower side effects. If you think it won’t crush Addy’s feelings, I could have my assistant overnight some free samples.”

  Grinning, Brian wheeled the SUV onto the street. “I can pretty well guarantee it would crush more than his feelings. The kid thinks you’re ‘Off. The. Chain.’ He probably won’t—” he searched for a polite term “—deflate for an hour.”

  Her laugh rippled across the SUV’s darkened interior. Brian’s hands tightened on the wheel while his mind zinged back to this morning, when he’d tried to recall the sound of Caroline’s laughter. Then slowly, deliberately, he loosened his grip.

  Damned if he’d let guilt ride his shoulders tonight. He was about to have dinner with a trio of new friends and a stunningly beautiful woman. He would just enjoy the food, the wine and the company.

  * * *

  The trio actually turned out to be a quartet. In addition to the Westbrooks and Kate’s close friend, Callie Langston, Joe Russo had arrived in DC that afternoon. The enigmatic, high-powered security expert wouldn’t—or couldn’t—share any details concerning his short-notice visit, but he was anxious to maximize his time in the capital.

  “My people have reviewed the operating procedures your security team sent us,” he told Brian. “They have several recommendations, but before I put my stamp on them I’d like to conduct a walk-through of your headquarters. And, when I can work it in, I’ll do the same at your fabrication and test facilities in Texas.”

  “Actually,” Brian said as Kate sailed in from the kitchen with a tray of appetizers that put his taste buds on instant alert, “I wanted to show Travis his new office and give him a feel for our corporate operation before he has to fly down to Florida. Since both of your schedules are so tight, we could do it tomorrow.”

  “Works for me,” Joe said.

  “Same here,” Travis confirmed.

  “Okay. Let’s meet in the EAS lobby at ten. I’ll notify security and have badges ready for you.”

  “Enough business, guys.” Kate hoisted the tray of appetizers on a flattened palm and waved it under their noses as bait. “Time to mix and mingle. You, too,” she called to the two women on the condo’s minuscule balcony.

  Dawn and Callie had been enjoying the narrow, pie-slice view of the Washington Monument in the distance. They’d also been conducting a rapid recap of events since they’d departed Rome. Callie admitted she’d been dragging her feet about sending out résumés. She was still a little burned out, she confessed, and not in any great rush to rejoin the working masses. Dawn in turn shared details about her growing rapport with Tommy.

  Callie listened in her usual quiet way and didn’t raise the subject of Dawn’s relations with the Ellises again until after dinner. The meal was made memorable by Travis’s spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to replicate mushroom and scallop tagliatelle. Kate had tried it in Venice, he explained, presenting the heaping platter down with a grand flourish. Unfortunately, his scallops came out rubbery and the marinara sauce ran like water. The conversation was so lively, however, and the Chianti so rich and full-bodied that no one cared.

  Only later, when the three friends grabbed a few moments of girl time in Kate’s bedroom, did Callie probe a little deeper. She and Kate plopped down hip to hip on the bed while Dawn detoured to the bathroom.

  “You mentioned how tight you and Tommy have become,” Callie said when their friend emerged. “What’s going on with you and Brian?”

  Dawn hit the taps to wash her hands. “Nothing.”

  “Yeah, right,” Kate snorted over the water’s gush. “I watched the two of you at dinner. He’s hot for you, girl.”

  “Maybe. A little.” Dawn’s ready laughter bubbled up. “Okay, a bunch. I’m pretty hot for him, too.”

  “Uh-oh,” Kate muttered.

  Callie’s response was more measured. “What are we talking about here? A few nights of wild sex? Or something more complicated?”

  Dawn dried her hands and replaced the fringed towel on its hanger. Joining the other two on the bed, she answered honestly. “I don’t know. I’ve dived into the deep end before with disastrous results. But this feels...different.”

  “Different how?”

  Lips pursed, Dawn tried to sort through her confused feelings about Brian Ellis. “He’s so good with Tommy. And so considerate of others. Unlike a certain fiancé I could name,” she added darkly.

  “That bastard,” Kate huffed. “I hope he drowns in his own bile.”

  Dawn nodded but didn’t jump on the familiar bandwagon. “The thing is...” she said slowly. “I think I could fall for Brian. Fall hard.”

  Her friends exchanged quick glances. Dawn intercepted their grim looks and held up both palms.

  “Hey! No need to call out the National Guard. I said I think I could fall for him. I’m not there yet.”

  * * *

  She was close, though. Extremely close.

  She acknowledged as much during the drive back to Bethesda. Outside the SUV the night gleamed midnight blue and star-spangled. Inside, Brian had tuned the radio to an all-jazz station.

  “That’s Miles Davis,” he told her when the mellow notes of a trumpet undulated through the speakers. “Probably one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century.”

  Fascinated by this glimpse of yet another facet of his personality, Dawn rested her head against the seat back.

  “Who’s that?” she asked when a sax joined in.

  “John Coltrane. Also a legend.”

  Content to let the smoky, soulful notes surround her, Dawn was loose and completely relaxed when they arrived home. The garage door rattled up. The SUV nosed into its stall. Brian killed the engine but the music continued. It wouldn’t cut off until one of them opened their door, Dawn knew.

  She unfastened her seat belt. He did the same. Neither of them made another move until he muttered something under his breath and angled to face her.

  “Tommy should be asleep by now.”

  “So?”

  “So I can have Addy on his way in two minutes.”

  Dawn tipped her chin. After that stormy kiss in the kitchen last night, she wasn’t sure where he was going with this. Or where she wanted it to go.

  “What comes
after you hustle Addy out the door?”

  “I pour us a brandy,” he replied. “We kick off our shoes. Listen to more Davis and Coltrane. And let whatever happens, happen.”

  Chapter Five

  Dawn hadn’t tuned in to much jazz. Actually, she’d never tuned in to any that she could recall. She couldn’t distinguish a tenor sax from an alto and had no idea there was a soprano version of the instrument. Coltrane—or Trane, as Brian referred to him—had evidently mastered them all. He’d also gone in for incredibly long solos, with the notes coming so fast and smooth they sounded like one continuous riff.

  “Amazing,” she murmured during one seemingly endless glissando. “I’ve never heard anything like this.”

  She was slouched on the sofa in the den, lolling against the back cushions and her feet stretched out next to Brian’s on the coffee table. After several glasses of wine at the Westbrooks’, they’d both opted for coffee instead of brandy. The attraction that simmered just below flash point was there, hovering between them, but for the moment Dawn was content to balance her coffee cup on her tummy and wiggle her toes in time to the music.

  “How in the world does he do that without seeming to stop for a single breath?” she mused when Trane’s long solo ended. “Brian?”

  She slewed her head sideways on the sofa cushion and saw him studying her feet with a bemused expression.

  “Is that the new thing?” he asked, nodding to her toes. “All different colors of polish?”

  “Not that new.”

  She wiggled her feet again. The pearly pastels were great for summer and sandals. She’d have to go darker on her next pedicure, though. Maybe the Fall Flame collection with its lustrous hues of red, russet and gold.

  “My company markets these polishes. They’re water based, hypoallergenic and cruelty-free.”

  “They don’t hurt your toes?”

  “Well, that, too,” she said with a laugh, “as we’ve eliminated the most toxic chemicals that can harm the environment as well as your nails. But the cruelty-free label means the products aren’t tested on animals.”

  “Okay, I’m trying to do a mental construct of monkeys with green and blue and silver toenails.”

  “You joke, but I bet you worry about these kinds of environmental issues as much in your business as we do in ours,” she said shrewdly. “How many chemicals does your company use to manufacture your navigational systems?”

  “A bunch,” he admitted. “You have to when you’re working with epoxy resins and alloys, not to mention paints and solvents and supporting fibers like Kevlar and fiberglass.”

  Setting aside her coffee, Dawn curled her legs under her. “Give me a ballpark figure.”

  “Last report I read indicated the aerospace industry as a whole uses more than five thousand chemicals and compounds, each of which can contain five or ten different ingredients. The exact composition of what goes into our products and processes is proprietary but we’re close to that number.”

  “Good grief! Five thousand? And I thought we were doing good to squeeze toluene and formaldehyde out of nail polish!” She shook her head while the other members of Trane’s quartet poured out a soulful accompaniment. “You must work under volumes of EPA regulations.”

  “Dozens of volumes.”

  “How in the world do you manage to comply with them all?”

  “Very carefully.” He hesitated a beat. “My wife’s degree was in chemical engineering. She headed our EPA compliance team until we decided to start a family. She quit working around resins and solvents well before she got pregnant with Tommy.”

  Dawn couldn’t help wondering if fumes from those solvents might have triggered the virulent tumor that killed Caroline Ellis. She suspected Brian must have agonized over the same question himself.

  “Travis mentioned that EAS’s main manufacturing facility is in Texas,” she said, steering away from that painful thought.

  “It is. Just outside Fort Worth.”

  “He also said you plan to give him a personal tour of the facility. Do you know when?”

  “Not until after he completes his formal separation from the air force and comes on board at EAS full-time. Why?”

  “Just trying to coordinate our schedules. I might have to make a quick trip up to Boston sometime next week to check in at the office and retrieve more clothes. Depending on how your interviews go, of course.”

  The reminder that her services might not be required long enough to require a wardrobe refurbishment was a definite mood killer. Or maybe it was Brian’s reference to his wife. In either case it was obvious to both of them that the “whatever happens” they’d danced around earlier wasn’t going to happen tonight.

  The tension was still there, though. Not as compulsive as it had been earlier, but not totally extinguished, either. Dawn felt its subtle pull as she pushed off the sofa.

  “How about a refill on the coffee?” Brian asked, rising, as well.

  “No, thanks. I think I’ll call it a night.”

  They walked to the kitchen together, each recognizing that the moment had passed, yet reluctant to let it slip away entirely.

  “I enjoyed tonight,” Dawn said, pausing by the door. “Thanks for introducing me to Mike Davis and Jim Coltrane.”

  “Miles Davis and John Coltrane. And I enjoyed it, too.”

  “What time are you meeting Travis and Joe tomorrow morning?”

  “Ten. Tommy and I will have to catch the early service at church. Do you want to join us?”

  Dawn almost said yes. She’d attended regularly with her brothers and parents when she was young. She’d also participated in family counseling sessions mediated by their pastor when things got bad at home. The bitter divorce had not only broken up her family, it put her parents outside the pale in the conservative church they’d attended and left Dawn disillusioned about so much of what she’d always taken for granted. Her own rocky relationships hadn’t exactly brought her back into the fold. She’d get there. One of these days. Maybe.

  “Thanks for the offer,” she told Brian, “but I’ll pass. I still have some work to catch up on. Just buzz me when you get home and I’ll assume Tommy-duty so you can head into the office.”

  “Okay.”

  “Well...”

  Oh, for heaven’s sake! What was she? Some high schooler returning from a date? Walking to the door. Waiting to be kissed. Aching to be kissed, dammit.

  “’Night, Brian. See you tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Sunday whirled by in seemingly nonstop activity.

  Dawn was up early and took her laptop out to the gazebo to put the finishing touches on the mock-ups for both Zucchini Carrot Crunchies and Sweet Potato Stix. She’d just zinged them off to her veggie chip team for review and/or suggestions when Brian returned from church with a superenergized Tommy.

  Since Brian was heading into the office for his meeting with Travis and Joe, Dawn decided to drain some of Tommy’s excess energy with a bike ride along the shady, tree-lined trail that wound through the neighborhood. She borrowed Brian’s mountain bike and helmet while Tommy suited up in a helmet, and knee and elbow pads.

  “’Cause I tip over sometimes, even with these training wheels,” he explained with cheerful unconcern.

  He stayed upright, thank heavens, although he did cut several corners too short and dig a number of offtrack wheel ruts. By the time they’d made a full, five-mile circuit, Dawn’s thighs were protesting vigorously. So was her stomach.

  “I skipped breakfast,” she informed her charge. “Let’s grab an early lunch.”

  An enthusiastic Tommy agreed and introduced her to Paleo’s, his all-time favorite spot for Sunday brunch. The colorful Spanish eatery prided itself on its kid-friendly menu, which included an array of tapas designed to tempt even the
fussiest young palates. For the adults, they offered a never-ending paella served in a round pan that had to measure at least three feet in diameter. Dawn settled for a smaller serving of paella while Tommy chowed down on a heaping plate of shrimp, beef, grilled asparagus and crunchy potato tapas.

  Back at the house they went over first-day-of-school preparations again. Tommy insisted on emptying his backpack and inventorying the contents for the fourth or fifth time. Once every vital necessity was safely restored, he transferred his uniform from the closet and attached its hanger on the back of his desk chair for quick access in the morning. Shoes, socks and underwear he aligned on the bench seat under his window with a precision that suggested he’d inherited his parents’ engineering genes.

  Then it was game time. Dawn and Tommy were in the final throes of a fierce round of Garden Warfare, with her superpower zinnias about to triumph over his zombies, when Brian arrived home. Supper was a spinach salad, sautéed zucchini, grilled chicken and an endless stream of chatter from Tommy about everything from the bushy-tailed squirrels they’d spotted during their bike ride to the new Pixar movie coming out next weekend that he absolutely had to see.

  After dinner Dawn pleaded an urgent need to soak her still-aching bike muscles. Although both father and son protested her early departure, she thought they should spend the last evening together before Tommy took that life-changing step into school full-time.

  * * *

  She was up early the next morning to share breakfast with them and send him Tommy on his grand adventure with a hug and a mushy kiss. Her farewell to Brian was more restrained.

  “You’d better get going,” she said with a flap of one hand. “I’ll clean up here.”

  Like Tommy, Brian was in uniform, except his was the charcoal-gray pinstripes, pale amber shirt and silk tie of a power broker. His short brown hair was slicked back and he’d tucked a folded newspaper under one arm.

  “I may be late,” he told her. “My schedule’s crammed today.”

  Including, she knew, his first interviews for a replacement nanny.