“You’re a busy man. I didn’t think you’d want to be bothered with details like that.”
“That’s a crock, and you know it! Sure, I’m busy. We all are. But I’ll never be too busy to look out for my daughter’s best interests. Yet against my better judgment, I’ve sneaked around corners to keep my connection to her under wraps until you feel the time is right to make it public.”
“I’m trying to protect her, in case things don’t work out between you and me.”
“Bull! You’re using her to shut me out of decisions which should be ours to make, not just yours.” He flung out his hand to encompass the house and its sprawling old-world garden. “I backed off helping you find a place to live even though, if we get married, it’s where I’ll be living, too.”
“Don’t you like this house?”
“Yes. You struck gold, no question about it. Rentals on the lakefront with a full acre of land attached, not to mention water rights, seldom come available. To find one in this condition is rare. That’s not the point.”
All the lovely, warm fluttering pleasure she’d experienced just a few moments before disintegrated into trembling fear at the steely determination in his tone. “Are you regretting having proposed to me, Dan? Is that what this is all about?”
“No.”
“Then what are you saying?” she asked, unable to control the quaver in her voice.
“I want an answer to my proposal, and I want it now. You’ve just run out of options, Molly. It’s time to fish or cut bait, as they say in these parts.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then the whole deal’s off, and as far as I’m concerned, you can pack up and go back to Seattle. I’ll pursue my paternal rights through legal channels, Ariel will become one of those bicoastal children who spend half their lives flying between mom and dad’s separate homes, and you and I will maintain a civil long-distance association for her sake.”
“If you can let me go that easily, you can’t have wanted me very badly in the first place.”
“Oh, I’ve wanted you,” he said. “I still do. But I’ll survive without you. What I won’t do is continue this ridiculous charade of being nothing but a family friend. Like it or not, I’ve got a name and a reputation to uphold in this town. One way or another, word that I’m Ariel’s father will eventually leak out. I won’t compromise my self-respect or her sense of self-worth by not marrying her mother. You might still get a charge out of thumbing your nose at social convention, Molly, but I outgrew it years ago.”
“How noble of you!” she flared, too hurt and disappointed to care that she was resorting to the one thing she’d sworn she’d never do, and that was beg for his affection. “What a pity you couldn’t find room in your holier-than-thou aspirations for the bit about falling in love with one’s spouse!”
“Teenagers fall in love, Molly. Adults recognize it takes something less ephemeral to survive the rigors of marriage.”
“It takes something more than indifference on the husband’s part, too!”
“Did I say I was indifferent to you? No, I did not. Far from it. I can truthfully say I desire you more than any other woman I’ve ever met. I’ve never felt more alive, never more challenged to be the best that I can be, than when I’m with you.”
“Because of Ariel.” More beaten down than she’d ever felt in her life before, she stared blindly across the lake. “If she weren’t—”
“I told you already, I don’t deal in ‘if’s.’ Ariel’s an important factor in the equation, of course, but in this case, the sum is greater than the parts.” His shadow crept up behind her. His hand warmed her shoulder, his breath stirred her hair. “I want the exhilaration of a woman who constantly surprises me. The stimulation of matching wits with her. The sheer arousal of fighting with her because the making-up will be that much sweeter. And only since you came back into the picture have I realized how misguided I was to think I’d ever have found any of it with Summer. Can’t we start out with that, Molly, and just let the rest happen when and if it’s in the cards?”
Could they? Was it worth the risk of investing in marriage now, for the possible return of love later? Could she love enough for both of them, and not grow old and bitter if the scales remained forever tipped against her?
Could she walk away from him? Live without him?
“Yes,” she said. “We can do that. I’ll marry you on your terms, Dan. You can make it official.”
“We’ll do it together.” He pulled her back to lean against him, and she thought that as long as she had his strength to rely on, she could do anything he asked of her, and more. As long as she had him and Ariel, she had what she needed to deal with the future.
“I’d like it if you’d go with me to the annual spring dinner dance at the yacht club next Saturday,” he said. “We’ll break the news then.”
“I’ve never been to the yacht club.”
“You’d never been Le Caveau before, either, but you handled yourself like a pro anyway.”
This would be different, though. Everyone at the yacht club knew him. He was part of that monied, upper crust of society which owned yachts and belonged to clubs. He would be among friends, and she would be the interloper. He’d be with his family. She’d be alone.
It shouldn’t have mattered. But it did.
Hilda had made an amazing recovery, graduating from wheelchair to walker in record time, and even getting around under her own steam on occasion. But she’d never manage stairs again, and what to do with the old house had been a concern.
The problem was solved a couple of days before the yacht club affair when one of Cadie’s married children had offered to buy the place, and it hadn’t taken much to persuade Hilda to accept. So immediately after breakfast the next Sunday, Molly left her mother and Ariel at Wharf Street to pack up those small possessions Hilda wanted to keep; then, declining their offer to help, she drove to the new house by herself to put the finishing touch to things there.
In truth, she wanted to be alone for a while. Ever since she’d agreed to marry Dan, events had piled one on top of another at such overwhelming speed that she felt like a juggler with too many balls in the air. She needed to retreat and regroup, and the house on the lake was the place in which to do it.
Immediately she stepped through the front door, the timeless serenity of a home at peace with itself for decades enfolded her. Sunlight filtered benevolently through the windows, filling the rooms with dancing golden warmth. In the kitchen, the azalea Dan had given her the previous weekend bloomed in a riot of hot pink flecked with scarlet. Reflections from the lake shimmered over the ceiling and bounced off the burnished steel of the coffee machine she’d bought.
A hundred small tasks demanded her attention, but the lure of a cup of good coffee, sipped at leisure on the back porch, was too tempting to resist. It had been a week from hell in some respects. Too full, too exciting, too uncertain.
But seated in one of the Adirondack chairs, with her feet propped on the railing, the hazy blue expanse of the lake spread out before her, and a mug of The Coffee Bean’s best espresso blend laced with hot milk at her side, Molly finally felt the cumulative tension of the past few days drain away.
It had begun when Dan had asked what kind of wedding she wanted. “A quiet affair, with just your family and mine,” she’d said.
But even quiet weddings required some planning, though if it had been up to her alone, she’d have settled for a ten-minute civil ceremony involving no one but the two of them and a couple of witnesses dragged in off the street. But there was Ariel to think of and, as Dan had pointed out, while an elaborate affair would be in poor taste, it was important for their daughter’s sake, to endow the occasion with some dignity and pomp.
“On top of which,” he’d added, wreaking his usual havoc by stringing a row of kisses along her jaw, “this’ll be your only wedding, Molly, so you might as well make the most of it.”
They’d set the date for the last Saturday
of the month, just two weeks away, and decided on a five-o’clock ceremony performed by a marriage commissioner in a private room at the yacht club, followed by hors d’oeuvre and drinks, the whole to conclude within a couple of hours.
In the next day or so, she’d take her mother and Ariel shopping for something to wear. The catering staff at the club would look after everything else: a few flowers, champagne on ice for the obligatory toasts, a selection of appropriate recorded music—not to herald the bride’s entrance, but to disguise any awkward lapses in conversation which might occur as residents of the elite Lake Harmony Bluffs did their best to embrace a family from Wharf Street.
No elaborate cake cutting ceremony, no traditional throwing of the bouquet, no fuss. Sort of like the impending marriage. Plain and unadorned and somewhat unconventional.
In between breaking the news to her mother and daughter, looking after business, and squeezing in a meeting with Dan at the jeweler’s to choose wedding rings, she’d had to prepare for the upcoming yacht club dinner dance.
Unlike her wedding, it would be lavish; even she knew that, remembering from previous years the extensive coverage the event received in the local newspaper. But she couldn’t justify spending the money on something elaborate to wear, not when she had a closet full of lovely clothes in Seattle. So she’d arranged for Elaine to courier a dress for the occasion, a designer creation in cream silk embroidered with gold, silver and burgundy thread which Molly had worn to the Hospice Ball the previous year. An inspired choice, as it turned out because, late Friday afternoon, Dan had met her here at the house and given her a ring, a delicate lovely thing of rubies flanked by diamonds in a platinum and gold setting.
It had been such an unexpectedly romantic gesture that she’d been moved to tears. “I didn’t want to make you cry,” he’d murmured, taking her in his arms. “I’d hoped to make you feel better about everything.”
“You have,” she’d sniffled, burrowing into his embrace.
She’d welcomed the feel of him, warm and solid and enduring; the scent of him, faintly antiseptic after a day in the clinic. And she treasured him in a way she hadn’t before, not because he’d presented her with an expensive token of his commitment to their future, but because he’d cared enough to make the occasion special.
He’d already put in a fifteen-hour day and could have been forgiven for keeping things simple. Yet he’d gone to the trouble to bring roses and champagne, and a CD of romantic songs. Streisand’s incomparable voice flowed out of the house, reminding them of “The Way We Were” as the two of them sat on a garden bench sipping wine and watching the sun go down.
She’d found it easy to be lulled by the moment, the setting, the ambience, and suddenly all the reasons for keeping him at arm’s length had seemed silly and contrived. Whatever other problems they might be facing, there was one thing they’d always done well.
“Make love to me, Dan,” she’d whispered.
Shockingly he’d refused. “I gave you the ring because I wanted you to have it, no strings attached. It’s not intended as a bribe.”
She’d run her hands over his long, lean torso. “If I thought it was, I wouldn’t be trying to seduce you.”
He’d put up a token resistance, but she’d seen the smoldering light in his eyes, felt the involuntary tremble in his body, and taken shameless advantage of it.
“It’s been weeks since I’ve even kissed you properly,” he muttered.
“I know,” she said, offering him her lips. “And I think it’s high time you rectified that.”
Long, agonizing seconds elapsed during which his gaze toured her face, feature by feature, in the fading light. Delicious seconds, brimming with promise and exploding into a starburst of desire held too long in check when he finally brought his mouth to hers.
“Come with me,” she whispered, when at last he lifted his head, and taking his hand, led him inside the house and up to the master bedroom overlooking the lake.
They’d arrived at a new beginning, in a place far removed from an anonymous motel on the highway. This room was where their real life together would start and she wanted their first time together there to be memorable, not blurred by haste or cheapened by stealth.
They made love in the big four-poster bed, on new sheets laundered in water scented with lemon-verbena, with the pale orange glow of sunset streaming through the windows and touching their limbs with gold. When at last he entered her, prefacing the moment with long minutes of exquisite discovery, she was hot and damp and quivering for him.
He moved, gliding within her in long, sure strokes. And she, caught in the rhythm of ecstasy and unprepared for the sudden rush of pulsing sensation racking her body, spoke aloud the words she’d never let herself utter before. “I love you, Dan,” she cried.
He raised himself on his arms and looked down at her, and for one breathless second she saw something in his expression which left her suspended on the sharp edge of hope. Just fleetingly, at that moment of complete connection between them, she thought he might tell her he loved her, too.
He had not. He’d scrunched his eyes closed and with a mighty groan had driven into her one last time. She’d held him as he flooded her body with his seed, stroked his hair as he collapsed against her, his chest heaving. And not let him see the tears creeping down her face.
She wanted too much. She always had.
“We’re going to be just fine together,” he said, cradling her head on his chest later. “Everything’s going to work out, you’ll see. There’ll be no bumps in the road that we can’t handle, no unexpected detours.”
Yet she hadn’t been able to shake the sense that nothing was ever quite that simple or easy.
“You’re just nervous about the dinner dance,” he’d said, when she’d tried to explain. “Stop worrying. You’ll do just fine.”
In hindsight, she supposed he was right. The evening had, for the most part, been a success. No one had snubbed her. She hadn’t spilled red wine over the person sitting next to her at dinner, or slopped béarnaise sauce on her dress.
News of the engagement had been received with subdued enthusiasm as befit such an occasion, given that Dan’s former fiancée was among the guests. Dan’s father had hugged Molly and quietly asked when he was going to meet his granddaughter. Mrs. Cordell, dressed to kill in gorgeous black lace and a choker of emeralds which would have made a jewel thief drool, had offered a cool cheek and said nothing at all, which was preferable to having her froth at the mouth at the idea of a Cordell marrying a Paget.
There’d been only one small fly in the ointment. Molly had returned from the ladies’ room just after ten o’clock and found Dan had gone missing. He wasn’t at their table, nor was he dancing.
Uncertain where to look and feeling conspicuously abandoned, she’d stepped outside to the deck overlooking the yacht basin. At first, it had appeared she was alone but the flutter of pale fabric in the shadows had drawn her attention to Summer, deep in conversation with him.
As Molly watched in stunned disbelief, he’d taken Summer by the shoulders and bent to kiss her, then drawing her hand into the crook of his elbow, turned and started back to the door. When he’d seen Molly, he’d said easily, “I was just coming to find you, my lovely.”
She hadn’t taken the incident well. Baring her teeth in a smile which she well knew more properly resembled a grimace, she’d waited until the elegantly poised, elegantly cool, elegantly everything Summer had swayed back into the ballroom, then turned on Dan and spat out, “If this is how you plan to behave as a married man, you can take your ruby ring and stuff it up your nose!”
He’d had the effrontery to burst out laughing. “Before you go off the deep end, let me explain.”
“What’s to explain?” she’d seethed. “Coming across you sticking your tongue down another woman’s throat is pretty self-explanatory, if you ask me.”
Another paroxysm of laughter had overtaken him. “Honey,” he choked, recovering himself with di
fficulty, “a peck on the cheek hardly amounts to adultery. I was merely congratulating her on her new romance. In case you haven’t noticed, she’s glowing.”
The devil of it was, he had only kissed the woman on the cheek. It wasn’t his behavior which was out of line, it was Molly’s own—and she knew it as well as he did.
“I’m sorry,” she’d mumbled, glad that the encroaching night hid her flaming cheeks.
“You should be,” he said, still chortling. “Come here, you idiot, and let me show you what having a tongue rammed down your throat really feels like.”
She’d gone willingly into his arms, and he’d kissed her with exquisite, heart-stopping tenderness. She would have died for him at that moment, if he’d asked her to.
“I’m really sorry, Dan,” she’d said again, when she’d recovered herself. “I guess I’m a little on edge.”
“I don’t know why,” he’d said, cupping her face. “You’re the belle of the ball.”
She wasn’t. But if he thought so, that had been just fine with her.
Recalling the whole silly event as she hauled herself out of the chair and went back to the kitchen for a coffee refill, Molly knew a near disaster had been averted only by Dan’s sense of humor. He was right. She needed to lighten up.
The doorbell rang just as she finished steaming more milk. Expecting it was Dan, who was on call again but who’d promised to stop by if he could spare the time, she turned off the espresso machine and went to let him in.
“It’s time I gave you your own key,” she began, opening the door with a flourish and a mile-wide smile.
But it was his mother on the other side, and Molly would have had to be brain dead not to know this was no friendly social call. Yvonne Cordell was a woman on a mission which had nothing to do with welcoming her future daughter-in-law to the neighborhood.
Formidably chic in pale green linen accented with a violet scarf, she fanned herself with her smart little leather purse and surveyed Molly from beneath the brim of her straw hat as if she’d come upon a deviant form of life hitherto undiscovered. Feeling nakedly indecent in her shorts and top, Molly stared back.
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