Sunshine and the Shadowmaster

by Christine Rimmer

  “Then what is going on with you?”

  “Nothing. I told you. Everything’s fine. Really. I’ll get that coffee for you.” She went to the counter, got a cup from the cabinet and poured his coffee, then returned to give him the cup. When she set it in front of him, a little sloshed on the table.

  Lucas snared her wrist before she could pull it away. He looked up at her. She melted inside.

  “You’re shaking,” he said.

  “No, I’m not.” His grip was so warm. She loved it when he touched her. She loved just the feel of his skin against her own.

  “Heather...”

  “If you let go of my wrist, I’ll make you some breakfast.”

  He released her and she moved away from him quickly. It was too much right then, being next to him. She fled to the cupboards, where she took down a mixing bowl, then banged things around for a few minutes in search of the frying pan.

  “Have you seen a doctor yet?” he asked from behind her.

  “A doctor?”

  “About the baby.”

  “Scrambled all right?”

  “Fine. Have you?”

  She set the frying pan on the stove and moved to the refrigerator to get the eggs. “That’s today, as a matter of fact. In Grass Valley, at one. Of course, I’ll have to find another doctor, if and when we move to Monterey. But it seemed like a good idea, to make sure everything is going along fine.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’ll drive you there.”

  Heather’s heart slammed against her rib cage. He would drive her there! She couldn’t wait. Yet how would she bear the drive in the car all that way alone with him, knowing she loved him? It made everything different, that she loved him.

  And she was going to have to tell him. Maybe she’d do it then. This afternoon. On the trip to Grass Valley to see the obstetrician.

  Just thinking about telling him made her forget about the carton of eggs in her hands. It slipped free. “Oops.” She had to execute a tricky little dip to catch it before it hit the floor. “Hah!” she exclaimed triumphantly, then felt like an idiot. She held up the carton and grinned sheepishly. “Caught them.”

  Lucas stared at her. “What is the matter with you?”

  She opened her mouth to say, I love you, with all my heart. But then closed it at the last minute, and turned to open the carton of eggs. “Nothing’s the matter. Three eggs about right?” She waited, the first egg poised at the side of the bowl, for his answer.

  Finally he gave it. “Yes. Good. Three.”

  Carefully she cracked the eggs into the bowl.

  “Are you getting nervous about the wedding?” he asked.

  “Yes. A little.” She sprinkled some spices on the eggs, then pulled a wire whisk from a drawer and whipped them to a froth.

  A few minutes later, she set the food in front of him.

  “This looks perfect. Thanks.”

  Heather had to restrain herself from dropping to her knees before him and swearing she’d cook anything he wanted, any way he wanted it, for as long as they both should live.

  * * *

  Heather went to Eden’s house to try on the dress, which her stepmother had picked up, cleaned and altered, at eight that very morning. If it didn’t fit, Heather would take it back for one more set of alterations when she went to Grass Valley that afternoon.

  But it did fit—as if it had been made for her. Eden burst into tears when Heather stood before her in the yards of satin and lace. “Oh, Heather. It’s beautiful. Beautiful.”

  Heather turned to look in the mirror that hung on Eden’s bedroom wall and found that she was crying, too. She swiped at the tears with the heel of her hand.

  Eden, her tears trickling unashamed down her cheeks, came up behind Heather and peered over her shoulder. “Have you seen the pictures of Oggie and your grandmother on their wedding day?”

  Heather sniffled and nodded. “Yes, I’ve seen them. Grandpa has them in an old album.”

  “You look so much like her,” Eden said.

  “Like Grandma Bathsheba?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  Heather sniffled some more. “You think so?”

  “Yes. There’s no doubt about it. The resemblance is...stunning.” Eden grabbed a tissue from the box on the nearby vanity table and wiped her eyes. Then she sighed and dropped out of Heather’s line of sight as she sat at the brass-backed vanity chair. Heather turned around so that she could see her. Their gazes caught and held.

  “This marriage is about more than a baby on the way, isn’t it?” Eden asked softly. “You love him, don’t you?”

  Heather looked down. She fiddled with a seed pearl on the bodice of the dress.

  “Don’t pull on the beadwork,” Eden chided. “And answer me. Do you love Lucas Drury?”

  Heather left the pearl alone. She lifted her head and looked at her stepmother again. Then she sniffled one more time. “Yes.”

  “I knew it.” Eden yanked out another tissue and held it out to Heather. “I’m so glad.”

  Heather took the tissue and blew her nose. “I’d like to sit down, but I’m afraid I’ll wrinkle the dress. Can you undo the hooks for me?” She showed Eden her back, sweeping her hair to the side.

  Eden rose and began unhooking the dress. Neither woman spoke until Eden had helped Heather out of the gown and laid it carefully across the bed.

  After smoothing out all the wrinkles, Eden turned and looked at her stepdaughter again. “All right, so you love him and you’re marrying him. But you’re not happy. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Heather stepped out of the three-layered, tulle-bordered slip and reached for her jeans. “Nothing. And everything.”

  “Doesn’t he love you, too?”

  Heather pulled on the jeans and buttoned them up. “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Heather pulled her T-shirt over her head, flipped her hair out from under the neckline and then tucked in the shirt. “Who can be sure about anything when it comes to Lucas?”

  “Does he know that you love him?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “You must tell him.”

  “I know.” Heather sat in the vanity chair and picked up her socks, then dropped them again and hung her head. “But I can’t. You don’t know what he’s like. I don’t know what he’s like. He won’t let me in. He’s...an impossible kind of man.”

  Eden smiled. “So’s your father. But we worked it out. You tell Lucas how you feel, that’s all. And let him take it from there.”

  * * *

  Easier said than done, Heather thought of Eden’s advice later, when she and Lucas were on their way to Grass Valley. Somehow, she just couldn’t get those three little words out of her mouth.

  So they drove in silence.

  At the doctor’s office, Heather filled out a lot of forms. She was given another pregnancy test. Then she received a complete physical.

  An hour later, after the doctor had told her she was pregnant and doing just fine, she and Lucas headed back home.

  “Well?” Lucas asked when they were out in the car again.

  Heather shrugged. “I’m pregnant. And there are no problems so far, according to the doctor.”

  “Did you tell him you get nauseated a lot?”

  She cast him a glance. “It’s called morning sickness, Lucas.”

  “Don’t be sarcastic.”

  “Sorry. But really. He says there’s nothing wrong.”

  “Did you tell him about the incident this morning?”

  “What incident?”

  “How you couldn’t keep your train of thought, you dropped things and your hands shook.”

  Heather had to look away to avoid bursting into hysterical laughter. Lucas had seen the signs of her love for him—and he was certain she must be seriously ill.

  “Well, did you?”

  “Yes,” she fibbed.

  “And?”

  “He, um, said it was nothing to worry about—as long as it doesn’t keep up.”r />
  “Well. All right, then.” He started the car, backed it up and turned it around to leave the parking lot.

  Through the entire drive, Heather kept trying to think of a way to tell him of her love. But when they pulled up in front of her house, she was still thinking. And nothing had been said.

  They went inside. Lucas went back to work. Heather took a little nap, then did some packing later. From the backyard, she could hear Mark and Marnie, hammering away at the tree house and laughing together like the best buddies they were.

  Marnie stayed for dinner and then to play chess with Mark afterward. Heather enjoyed having the kids there—and it made it easier for her to let the whole evening go by without trying to tell Lucas her feelings.

  But once Mark was in bed, Heather knew what she had to do. She went to Lucas’s room. When he let her in, she was the one to close the door.

  “Lucas,” she said, leaning back on the door as much for support as to keep him from escaping before she made her declaration. “We have to talk.”

  His lips slowly turned up at the corners in a smile that was incredibly sensual—and totally unknowable. He came toward her, took her face in his hands and kissed her.

  And then he took her to bed.

  Afterward, dazed and physically sated, she found herself in her own room once more. She had told him nothing; he hadn’t allowed her to.

  The next day was Friday, the last day before the wedding. At breakfast, before Mark came to the table, Heather did manage to speak to Lucas privately for a moment. She asked for some time alone with him before the wedding. Some time for a talk, when they would not be interrupted.

  He promised they would talk that night, after the rehearsal dinner.

  “Talk,” she insisted, “not...make love.”

  He gave her a hooded look. “You don’t enjoy making love?”

  She couldn’t decide whether she wanted to strangle him—or kiss him. “Of course I do,” she whispered shyly. “But there’s really something I, um, want to say to you.”

  Mark appeared from the hall right then, still in his pajamas. He yawned and stretched. “What’s for breakfast?”

  “French toast,” Heather said.

  “Yum.”

  She turned to Lucas again before she rose to fix Mark’s food. “Tonight, then. No matter what.”

  Lucas seemed to be looking out the window.

  “Lucas, did you hear me? I said tonight.”

  He gave her a distant smile. “Of course.”

  After that, the day flew by. Lucas worked all morning; Heather packed. Then after lunch there was the rehearsal at Regina’s. And then the big family dinner at Delilah and Sam’s.

  They arrived back home at a little after nine. Mark stayed up for another hour after that. And then, at last, Heather and Lucas were alone.

  They sat on the couch in the living room. And Heather leaned close to him.

  “Lucas, I—”

  She was cut off by the sound of men’s voices in the yard. Men’s voices singing.

  Roll me over, in the clover.Roll me over, lay me downAnd do it again...

  “Oh, no,” Heather moaned.

  Lucas looked bewildered. “What is that?”

  Before she could answer, her grandfather burst in the door, followed closely by her father and her uncles.

  “Drury, you’re comin’ with us,” Oggie announced. “Get ‘im, boys.” He snapped his fingers and his sons and son-in-law moved toward Lucas.

  “Oh, please. You can’t be serious,” Heather cried.

  “Don’t be whinin’, girl,” Oggie said. “It’s Lucas’s last night of freedom. He’s gonna spend it with the men.”

  “Getting drunk and getting into trouble.” Heather shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  But her uncles and her father had already slid past her. They surrounded Lucas, who stood by the couch.

  “I hope you’ll come with us peaceablelike,” Uncle Patrick said in a fair imitation of the sheriff in a bad melodrama.

  Lucas put up his hands. “I surrender, boys.” He looked perfectly content to be spirited away.

  Heather saw her last chance for a quiet talk slipping from her grasp. “Lucas, you promised.”

  He had the nerve to shrug. “Heather. Come on. What can I do here? These guys are serious.”

  “You’re damn straight,” Oggie said. He snapped his fingers again.

  The men grabbed Lucas and, between them, lifted him high in the air. They carried him out, ducking in unison to clear the door.

  Oggie followed behind them, barking instructions. Heather took up the rear.

  “When you get back, Lucas!” she shouted as they strode off down the front walk. “No matter how late it is!”

  Lucas only waved from his prone position on the shoulders of her male relatives.

  Muttering to herself, Heather climbed the stairs. She put on her pajamas, found a book to read and went to Lucas’s room. After propping the pillows against the headboard, she climbed into the bed and turned on the reading light. She didn’t care how late her blasted menfolk kept him out. They were going to talk when he got home. She was not going to marry Lucas until he knew the truth she held in her heart.

  * * *

  At a quarter to four, Lucas quietly let himself in the front door. He took off his shoes, almost falling over sideways in the process because he’d consumed a large amount of beer.

  They’d taken him to Jared’s place, where Eden and the baby were nowhere to be found. Oggie had produced several kegs of beer and the men had laughed and talked. It had all been pretty harmless really, except for all that beer. The toasts had been never ending.

  Lucas had enjoyed himself. In fact, he was discovering that he could get used to his in-laws-to-be without much effort. They were good people, expansive and true at heart.

  With his shoes in his hand, Lucas tiptoed up the stairs and slowly pushed open his bedroom door.

  Heather was there in his bed as he’d suspected she might be. She’d fallen asleep sitting up. An open book lay across her lap, right where it had fallen when she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer.

  Lucas hovered near the door, not daring to approach her. She might wake. And want to talk. She was getting insistent enough about talking that he doubted he could use lovemaking to sidetrack her again.

  But this was it. The day of the wedding. By three this afternoon, she’d be solidly committed to him in the most binding way that man and the law could devise. More and more each day, he doubted whether that would be enough. But it was all he could do.

  If he could just hold out against any of the soul-baring she kept demanding, maybe...

  Standing there in the doorway, Lucas shook his head.

  Hell. It did no good to think too deeply about it. He was a man in a trap. And it was a trap of his own devising.

  Carefully he backed away from the room. He found a blanket in the hall closet and went downstairs. There, he stretched out on the couch to see if he could catch an hour or two of sleep.

  * * *

  Heather woke to daylight, alone in Lucas’s room. She sat there among the pillows, rubbing her stiff neck and coming to grips with the fact that she’d been given the slip once more.

  The leather-covered travel clock on the bed stand said it was past eight.

  They were due at Aunt Amy’s for breakfast at nine. And after that, she had to get over to Santino’s Barber, Beauty and Variety Store on Main Street, so that Alma could fix her hair.

  Time had run out on her. There would be no more opportunities for intimate talks. Today at two she would say “I do” to a man who wouldn’t let her near, a man to whom, for some unfathomable reason, she seemed to have given her heart.

  She could guess without much effort where he was right now: downstairs, on the couch. Maybe, if she hurried, she could get down there and catch him while he was still asleep. She could shake him awake and announce, “Lucas, I love you. Now hurry up, we’re due for breakfast at nin
e.”

  Heather groaned, grabbed one of the pillows from behind her head and threw it at the door across the room. Then she got out of bed, traipsed into her own room and stood under the shower for a good twenty minutes.

  When she was done, she blew her hair dry, anchored it off her face with two combs and left the makeup for later, so it would be fresh for the big event. She put on a butter yellow sundress and a pair of thin-soled yellow sandals. Then, at 8:50, she went down the stairs.

  Lucas and Mark were waiting in the living room, all dressed and ready to head for Aunt Amy’s. Heather studied Lucas’s face, noting that the only evidence of his night out with the boys was a slight puffiness around the eyes. His shirt and slacks weren’t the ones he’d been wearing last night, which meant he must have sneaked up to his own room to change after she returned to her room. It was amazing, she thought bleakly, just how far the man would go to avoid a private conversation with her.

  “It’s about time,” Mark said. “I wanted to come up and get you, but Dad said to wait, you’d be down.”

  Lucas lifted an eyebrow at her. “All ready?”

  She was angry and disappointed with him. And she loved him so much it caused an ache beneath her breastbone. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  At Aunt Amy’s there were ham and eggs, muffins and potatoes, coffee and milk—and three kinds of juice. And Uncle Brendan served Bloody Marys, the oldest cure in the world for too much of a good thing the night before.

  Grandpa Oggie, still going strong after staying up all night, gave a long, impassioned speech about how the bad blood between the Drurys and the Joneses was now a thing of the past.

  “For now at last,” he concluded in his usual extravagant style, “Drury blood and Jones blood will flow as one in the coming together of our Sunshine and Rory’s boy, Lucas.” Oggie raised his Bloody Mary high. “So let’s drink to that, all of us. To a better world, where old hatreds are but a memory and true love rules the day!”

  Everybody clapped and hooted in agreement, then drank long and deep. Heather forced down a sip of tomato juice and wished the interminable breakfast would come to an end. She adored her old grandpa, but sometimes he had a way of saying just what she couldn’t bear to hear.

  True love, she thought in weary bitterness, is the last thing ruling the day around here.