Fran opened her slim green silk purse, drew out a tissue and blotted the wetness from Sunny's cheek. "I have no idea what's going on, but we can always sue him for something. Breach of contract, maybe. I read about this bride who—"
"I'm not going to sue him, Fran." Sunny took the tissue and blew her nose. "I'm simply going to l-leave him."
Fran's eyes brimmed with concern. "You've been alone for as long as I've known you, and I never understood why." A sad smile curved her mouth. "Until I saw you with him." She squeezed Sunny's hands. "He's your other half."
Sunny stared at her through a blur. "No," she whispered. "I don't mean anything to him. I'm just another woman in a world full of them. When this farce is over, Fran, take me back to Atlanta."
Fran reluctantly released Sunny's hands. "If you say so."
Sunny glanced at her tear-smudged face in the mirror. "I can't go down there looking like this."
Fran glanced at her watch. "You still have twenty minutes. I don't think the groom's even here yet. But if you're not ready in time, I'll ask that Roman-type god with the country twang to play a few songs. He's even better-looking in person than he is on album covers. Daphne will be green. Pure green." Fran sashayed out of the room.
Sunny took a deep breath, collected herself, then repaired her makeup. As she applied mascara, the soft strains of music reached her ears.
Her heart contracted. Had the wedding march begun?
But then she realized it was not the wedding march. Nor was it coming from the garden. Puzzled, she set down her mascara wand and stole closer to the door.
It sounded like piano music.
And it was coming from the attic.
She felt foolish for coming up here. She stood alone in the middle of the huge, unfurnished room with sunlight slanting like slices of heaven through its many windows. There was no piano.
It must have been the sound of the mountain wind singing through the gables. The same eerie song that had kept her awake many nights when she had lived here as a child. The one that had sent her scurrying through lonely shadows to the warmth of Ryan's bed.
The song of the house's ghost.
Sunny turned to go back down, passing by the crates, boxes and art supplies that Ryan had bought for her. She refused to be touched by the memory. She could not allow herself to mistake his generosity, his obvious desire to please her, for love. He would never give his heart.
Her heels echoed on the wooden floorboards as she headed toward the door. The soft taffeta of her gown rustled. The toe of her beaded ivory shoe hit into something small and soft, sent it whispering across the floor.
A wallet. A man's black eelskin wallet glinted in the pool of sunlight. Sunny bent down and retrieved it. Lavinia had mentioned something about Ryan losing his wallet.
Slowly she rose to her feet and opened the slim billfold. On one side, she found credit cards. On the other side, Ryan's New York driver's license.
She knew she shouldn't look further, but curiosity overpowered her. With only a token pang of guilt, she leafed through its contents. What she was looking for, she wasn't sure. A clue, she supposed, to the real Ryan. To what kind of things he carried around with him, day in and day out.
The first thing she found was cash—tens, twenties and fifties. Insurance cards. Business cards. But nothing personal. No photos, no scribbled phone numbers, no theater stubs, no souvenirs. All business. Strictly business.
It occurred to her then that she really didn't know him. After all they'd been to each other, she couldn't swear he cared too deeply about anybody, or anything.
Sadness wrung her heart.
Her throat constricted, and she wished in a fervent prayer that someone, someday, would tap that hidden reservoir of love she instinctively knew he carried within him.
As she folded the wallet closed, one tiny corner stuck up awkwardly. A business card, probably, dislodged from its place. She reopened the wallet and realized it wasn't a business card. She grasped the protruding corner and pulled.
It was a photograph. Old, somewhat yellowed, with dog-eared corners and tiny creases. A photograph, taken many years ago, of a girl in a white sundress. She was wearing a single strand of pearls, and orange blossoms in her hair.
"He's here. Your groom has arrived," Lavinia announced, watching Sunny descend the stairway from the attic. "Are you okay, dear?" With a quick, nervous glance up the stairway, she murmured, "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Sunny barely heard her. In her heart, hope warred with wisdom. The old photograph that he'd kept behind his license had been only that—a photograph. She couldn't read too much into that … could she?
"You're just having last-minute jitters. Every bride has them." Lavinia stuck a cool, fragrant bouquet into Sunny's hand and firmly wrapped her fingers around the stem. "You look lovely, dear. Breathe deeply. Keep your chin up. Ah, there's the prelude to the wedding march. That's your cue."
The beckoning melody sent quivers of apprehension through Sunny. If Lavinia hadn't been at her side, firmly sweeping her along the corridor toward the back door, she would have bolted in the opposite direction.
"Enter from between the rose trellises," instructed Lavinia. "Ryan will be waiting there on your right."
Holding the bouquet against her as a warrior might hold a shield, Sunny preceded Lavinia outside into the red-bricked courtyard, hidden from the view of the seated guests by immense trellises covered in white and yellow roses.
Ryan was not waiting where Lavinia had told her he would be. Instead, he stood inside the rose arbor, out of the spectators' view. He looked calm, sophisticated and utterly debonair in a tuxedo of dark gray that fit his broad-shouldered form to tailored perfection. His jet hair gleamed with elegance, and the strong, angled planes of his sun-bronzed face had never looked more handsome.
But it was his eyes, silvery and hypnotic, that embraced her the moment she stepped outside.
Her heart rose to her throat as she approached him. She saw his awed gaze absorbing her—her gown, her face, the flowers woven through her hair. And when his eyes at last met hers, the message they conveyed kindled a longing in her.
He thought her beautiful.
It was not the first time he had looked at her with such an intensely masculine perusal. But it always felt like the first time. Without breaking eye contact, he offered his arm.
She placed her hand there and felt the forceful tension in the muscles beneath his jacket sleeve.
"Sunny," he said, his warm breath stirring her hair. "The cameras, the people—they don't mean a damned thing."
Her lips parted, but she didn't reply. He was right. Nothing mattered, excepting holding to the truths she had learned over the course of her heartbreak. Not an easy task, while thrilling beneath the power of his stare.
Behind them, Lavinia gasped and whispered furiously, "The cameras and people do matter! Sunny, hold your bouquet lower. Remember to walk slowly, together. Hesitate, step. Hesitate, step. And keep your eyes straight ahead, on the minister." She gave them both a push to get them started.
They stepped together into the opening of the rose-covered archway. The music changed from the light prelude of the wedding march to the deep, blood-stirring chords of "Here Comes the Bride."
Rows of seated guests turned toward them with admiring stares, nods, murmurs, smiles. Lined with a white runner and strewn with rose petals, the aisle looked interminably long. At the end were two stairs leading up to the flower-bedecked gazebo, where a lanky, bespectacled minister clad in flowing white robes waited with a benign smile. From the corner of her eye, Sunny caught sight of cameras.
"I want you to know, Sunny," Ryan whispered into her ear as they took the first graceful hesitate-step down the aisle. "I've never believed in the mercenary killing of mink."
She glanced at him in surprise, unsure she had heard him correctly. But it was time to take the second hesitate-step, and Lavinia had told her to keep her eyes straight ahead. Determined to do things right, she hesitated, th
en stepped. In perfect unison with her groom.
Leaning closer to her this time, he whispered, "And I am fairly successful in my career." His statement was almost lost beneath the ever-swelling music. "You can call my accountant and verify my funds."
Urged on by the eyes of the crowd, they took another hesitate-step.
"Funds?" she whispered, looking at Ryan instead of the minister. "I don't care about your funds."
"Step," he said.
"Step?"
"Now."
Missing only a fraction of the "hesitate," Sunny stepped.
"And usually, I manage to keep a sense of humor. Okay, sometimes it wears a little thin," he admitted.
She frowned at him. Then hesitated, and stepped.
From the side of his mouth, he continued, "You might not believe this, but I do like kids."
Hesitate-step.
"And if you don't like my looks, there's always plastic surgery."
She completely forgot to step that time. But so did he. They made it up the moment they realized it, maintaining some semblance of unison.
"Don't you dare change a thing!" she admonished him.
They had reached the two stairs leading to the gazebo. Ryan turned her to face him.
"I know I'm not missing that last requirement on your list, Sunny," he breathed. "If you say I am, you're lying. Our lovemaking is—" He shook his head, searching for words. With darkening eyes, he whispered, "Heaven."
Together they slipped into a gaze, each straining to read the other's thoughts, each struggling to find clarity.
The music, which had reached its crescendo, backed off and started over. Somewhere above them, a man cleared his throat. The crowd behind them murmured.
"None of those requirements matter," she said. "Thank you for teaching me that. I hope someday you learn what is important." She tried to turn away, to continue their march.
But Ryan refused to release her gracefully. He knew if he let her go this time, she'd be lost to him. And he couldn't let that happen. She was loveliness incarnate; his ideal woman. She was his finest and closest friend.
A fierce need overwhelmed him. She was his. She had always been his. He had to make her see it.
"Stay with me, Sunny," he implored quietly. "Let's make this wedding real. Let's make our marriage real."
For a brief instant, he saw his own longing mirrored in her eyes. But then they clouded, and her golden brows drew together. She said in a choked whisper, "Step."
"What?" he demanded. She pushed on his arm. Tight-lipped, Ryan moved forward, and together they climbed the first stair.
The minister looked relieved. The music again built in intensity. "Why won't you marry me, Sunny?" Ryan persisted.
"Oh, Ry," she replied on a little sob, refusing to look at him. "You don't know the meaning of 'marry.'"
Frustration, and the fear that he was losing her for the final time, coursed through him as they climbed the last stair. The music reached a crescendo, then played itself out.
They found themselves in front of the minister, who bellowed into the sudden silence, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the joining in holy wedlock of Sunny Shannon and Ryan Brynfield Alexander."
He droned on, but to Sunny, the words were just a meaningless hum. This was much worse than she had feared. The man she had loved forever was asking for her hand in marriage and she couldn't accept, because marriage itself was not enough.
"Sunny." Ryan drew the back of his fingers down the curve of her jaw. "I need you." The agonized intensity of his stare filled her with pain.
The minister spluttered into silence, pulled his wire-rimmed spectacles halfway down his nose and frowned his displeasure. "Ah, I was told traditional vows…"
"Stay out of this, Preacher" came Olive's cantankerous shout. "Can't you see they're trying to talk?"
The reverend lapsed into red-faced silence, glancing awkwardly from bride to groom. But they saw only each other.
"Why do you need me, Ry?" whispered Sunny. "For sex? For business? For a child?" And though her questions couldn't have been audible to anyone but Ryan, all movement in the crowd ceased, all murmuring quieted.
She awaited his answer.
"Yes," he replied. "All that, and more. To share my life. Without you, there's no happiness. I swear before man and God, Sunny, I want you, and only you."
She was tempted to believe. So tempted. "But for how long?" she asked, sadly knowing the answer. Ryan had never believed in forever.
"Until I die," he vowed. "Probably longer."
She stared in disbelief. Then slowly, hope rose within her. A hope so clear and strong and beautiful, she was almost afraid of it.
A similar wariness lurked in his eyes. "Would you promise me the same, Sunny? Never leave me again?"
Her throat tightened. "I'll never leave you."
"Even when the going gets rough?"
She wanted to cry to think that he'd needed to ask. "Especially then. Nothing could drive me away if … if…"
And that was when reality hit. When the very heart of the matter crystalized between them.
"If…?" He waited for her to go on.
A question formed on her lips. And lingered there. She didn't want to disrupt the perfection of the moment. She didn't want to ask. But, of course, she had to.
She reached out, touched his face. Gazed into his eyes, into his very soul. "Ryan, do you … love me?"
He drew her hand down from where it lay against his cheek and pressed it to his heart. "Yes, Sunny, I do."
Her happiness began somewhere around her heart, then spread like rays of a rising sun to every part of her.
"I do love you," he proclaimed, trying out the "L" word. Mastering it. "Do you … love … me?"
Her eyes and smile answered for her, but he waited to hear the words. She voiced them proudly. "I do."
The minister pounced at the first part of the vows he recognized. "By the power vested in me," he decreed, "I now pronounce you husband and wife."
Joyously, Ryan caught her in his arms and they joined in a pledging kiss. The music welled up as the musician flashed a famous smile from behind his keyboard and lapsed from classic into a southern, countrified rock'n'roll version of the wedding march grand finale.
"The rings," the minister cried, abashed. "We forgot the part about the rings."
Ryan reluctantly released his bride and pulled a box from his coat pocket. Taking her left hand in his, he slipped a gold band onto her finger. "With this ring, I thee wed." The promise in his voice and eyes left no doubts in her heart.
It was a plain band, slimmer than the borrowed one she'd worn throughout the week. Very similar to the ring that had sealed their first marriage, ten long years ago.
Sunny murmured apologetically, "I didn't bring one for you. I didn't know…"
He pressed another ring into her palm. A man-sized band. Achingly familiar. She turned it to look at the engraving. From Sunny, it read. And the year engraved beside the words dated the band by ten years.
"Something old," he whispered.
With trembling hands and a singing heart, she slipped the band onto his finger, whispering, "Something new."
Ten years ago, the wedding ring had been a little too big. Now, it fit him perfectly.
* * *
Epilogue
« ^
The sale of Windsong Place
was finalized the next week, but only after a major alteration in the purchase agreement.
"I don't want franchises, Lavinia," Wilbur had declared. "Too much trouble. Let's sell them all—lock, stock and barrel, and retire." Lavinia had opened her mouth, but her husband had stood his ground. "Don't argue. My mind's made up."
Ryan and Sunny Alexander honeymooned for a solid month in various tropical locales, while Mrs. Lee ran the inn with her usual efficiency. They were welcomed home to Windsong Place
by their closest neighbors, Grady and Jonnie, who toasted them with glasses of sparkling
cider.
Grady also presented Sunny with the oddest of all her wedding gifts—a full-length mink coat!
With considerable effort, she managed to wait until Jonnie was safely out of earshot before she described to Grady the horrible deaths those poor little animals suffered, enlightened him on the senseless butchering of their species, thanked him for the generous but misguided thought and placed the wretched thing back into his hands with a shudder.
When the newlyweds finally found themselves alone, they took time to read their mail, most of which consisted of wedding cards. Two were from perfect strangers who wrote to ask for a copy of their televised vows. One envelope that Ryan opened, however, contained not a card, but a letter.
He hesitated before opening it. After a decade, he still recognized the handwriting. His first impulse was to throw the letter away unread. To leave the past where it belonged—safely buried. But curiosity overcame his reluctance.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Ryan Alexander,
I saw your wedding on television, and I'm happy to admit you've proved me wrong. I thought your love would ruin your lives, as my first love almost ruined mine. It took years for me, Ryan, to place the blame where it belonged—not on my wife, your mother, but on myself. I was not a good husband to her, or a good father to you.
I'm thankful we've both been given a second chance. I've recently remarried, and have come to know the gentler side of love. I never would have forgiven myself if I had deprived you of the same.
I was bidding on Windsong Place
to right another wrong. If I had won it, I would have deeded it over to you. The house is yours, by right. And by your enviable ability, Ryan, to attain any goal you set your sights on. You've done me proud, son.
Sunny, I ask your forgiveness. Not many people would have walked away from the money I once offered you. You have a rare strength, the kind that could bring even the strongest man to his knees. Ten years ago, that strength scared me. What I didn't understand was the nature of your love. I'd be honored to call you daughter.
My sincerest congratulations on your marriage. Can you someday find room in your hearts for a father?
SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW Page 18
