The Wedding Diaries

by Linda Francis Lee

  Earlier in the week he had asked if she wanted to go on the Landry family outing to Ruidoso for the Thanksgiving holiday. She desperately wanted to go, but how pathetic was that, she thought, if she had to tag along instead of having plans of her own?

  Rather than focus on having to spend time by herself, she decided it was best to think of it as having some quality private time. The prospect terrified her. It was hard enough filling the regular weekends. What was she going to do with herself between Wednesday and Sunday?

  Now she had her answer. That is, if she could convince Max about the wisdom of her plan.

  As usual, with their homework finished, the girls didn’t hang around after dinner. They went to the den and watched television. Max, thankfully, went to his office. Vivi took her time washing the dishes and cleaning up.

  Finally it was time for the girls to get ready for bed, and forty-five minutes after that, she heard Lila call out good night. Vivi waited one more second, then went to find Max.

  She drew a deep breath, knocked, and entered.

  He looked up from a document he was reading. At the sight of her, he leaned back in his chair and smiled.

  “I take it I’m finally going to find out what all that pie and prime rib was about.”

  “Now, Max, why is it so hard to believe that I simply wanted to make a special meal for three people I care about?”

  “Because everything you served was normal. There wasn’t a single oddball appetizer or unique slice of pie.”

  Vivi bit her lower lip. “Well, I did have the urge to shape the bread into a volcano and put the gravy inside.”

  Max’s appreciative laughter rumbled through the room. “But you held back.”

  She looked at him shyly through lowered lashes. “You might not believe it, but I really have changed.”

  For a moment, he studied her. “I guess you have,” he conceded softly.

  An unfamiliar moment of ease passed between them. Something shifted, a palpable change settling in, though she wasn’t sure she understood it. Max tilted his head. “So tell me, really, what’s on your mind?”

  She realized that she could sit there all night, just sit and enjoy talking to him as if her world was in order, no bills to pay, no missing father. This must be what it was like for most people, regular people who sat after dinner and shared each other’s company. It was nice, peaceful. And for a second she didn’t want to ruin the moment.

  But that was ridiculous. They weren’t Ozzie and Harriet. They weren’t even a family.

  “I want you to accept the listing on the University house.”

  That wiped any hint of ease right off his too-handsome face. “No, Vivienne.” He snatched up the document he had been reading.

  “Max, please—”

  “I said no. I want nothing to do with it.”

  “Look, I understand how hard it would be to walk in there and see all those pictures. I’d be furious if I found out someone was keeping track of me like that.” She hesitated. “It’s completely understandable that you’re angry at him—”

  With tight control, he slapped the document down. “You don’t know the half of it. He was a bastard. My mother was already weak from long hours working at the plant, having so many kids, and trying to take care of us all. But that didn’t faze my father. He knocked her up again, then packed his bags and walked out on Thanksgiving Day.”

  “He left her pregnant?”

  “And sick.”

  Her mind spun. Belatedly she realized she was in over her head. What did she know about long years of responsibilities? She was having a hard enough time dealing with them now—as an adult. But she couldn’t stop herself. Something deeper than intellect, something in her gut, told her to keep pushing—for him as much as for herself. “I know that had to be hard on you—”

  “Forget me. I was eighteen when my father left, nineteen when my mother died. But the others were just kids. Hell, he never even laid eyes on Lila.”

  His anger and suppressed pain shimmered through the room. She slipped between him and the desk and sat on the edge, her palms flat on either side of her as she leaned forward. “Don’t you see, you have issues you need to work through. Sadness, hurt—”

  His fingers curled around the armrests of his leather chair.

  She hesitated, feeling a different sort of emotion for this man starting to creep in on her. It wasn’t the heat of desire, or the loud beat of wanting. It was something deeper than a simple need to fix his family.

  “You gave up a lot to step into your father’s shoes. And I know how it must slay you to think he was only a few miles away and never let you know.”

  “I said, this isn’t about me.”

  “Of course it is. It’s about how incredibly caring you are. You dropped everything for your brothers and sisters.” She smiled at him with all the unsettling emotion she felt for him. “Deep down I knew it the minute you gave me a job despite the fact that I didn’t know the first thing about taking care of children.”

  His chest rose and fell, and he looked as vulnerable as she had ever seen him.

  “Clearly you’re a stronger man than your father ever was.”

  “If I wanted therapy,” he managed to say, “I’d pay a professional.”

  “He shouldn’t have run out on you, Max. He shouldn’t have done a lot of things. But what you need now is closure. Accept the listing, and close up the house. Close up the past.”

  He exhaled, suddenly appearing relieved, and he stood. With amazing swiftness he regained his footing and tapped her on the nose. “Ah, yes, the real reason for all this. How could I forget? The listing.”

  “That isn’t why.” She tipped her head. “At least not the whole reason.”

  When she glanced up, their gazes locked, she sitting on his desk, he standing inches from her. The world around them seemed to tick like a grandfather clock in an empty hall. His control was barely held but still there. He studied her, and she knew he was deciding what to do.

  Granted, if he accepted the listing, it would help her, but that truly wasn’t the entire reason she wanted him to say yes. She hadn’t understood until now how completely he had not dealt with his father’s abandonment. That had to affect the way he kept himself separate from feeling. It had to be the reason he refused to relinquish an ounce of control.

  “You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”

  “No,” she said.

  Max hung his head. “If I agree, I still can’t let you sell it without a license.”

  She had actually looked into getting a license, but it took money for an application fee and a minimum of three months of full-time classes. She couldn’t afford either.

  “I understand, and completely respect your decision.”

  He raised a suspicious eyebrow.

  “Really. Besides, I’ve come up with a great alternate plan. If you accept the listing, your banker friend has agreed to pay me to get the house ready to sell.”

  Max slanted her a look. “What are you talking about?”

  “The place needs work, a little pampering.” She smiled and held her hands out on either side. “Who better than me to pamper?”

  After a startled second, he laughed out loud. Encouraged, she lurched ahead.

  “This is a chance for me to really do something, Max. A way for me to make some money so that I can start seriously paying off these debts.”

  “You have a job here.”

  “A job that, no offense, we both know isn’t doing a whole lot to dig me out of the hole I’m in. You said so yourself. At best, I’m treading water. And once you and the girls leave for Thanksgiving, I have Wednesday through Sunday with nothing to do.”

  “You said you were spending the holiday with friends.”

  Oh, that. “Sure. Of course. No question I have zillions of friends.” She had too much pride to admit she didn’t have any. Determination spurred her on. “But I’ll still have plenty of time to deal with the house. Please, Max, say yes.�
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  He stared at her long and hard, that reluctant smile pulling at his lips. “Who are you, Vivienne Stansfield?”

  “Is that a yes or a no?” she persisted.

  “All right. Yes,” he agreed. “I should have known I’d give in to you on this too. I’ll take the listing. And you can make your money fixing up the house. But promise that you’ll clean out every trace of my father and get rid of it.”

  Vivi threw her arms around him without thinking. “Thank you! You won’t regret it!”

  Instantly she felt the way heat flared through him. For one fleeting second he ran his hand down her spine, pressing their bodies close. He groaned, burying his face in her hair. But just as quickly, he set her away.

  She could see it in his eyes. Tonight he wasn’t giving an inch. Not to her. Not to any sort of feeling. His control had always been formidable. But this was something more, something deeper.

  “Is there anything else?” he asked.

  Vivi stood back and wrinkled her nose. “Well, there is the whole Lesson Two possibility.”

  His gaze suddenly burned. Slowly her heart went still as he reached out and cupped her cheek. The touch was like fire, instant and hot. As if it were the most natural thing to do, she closed her eyes and tilted her face so he could kiss her.

  “Thank you,” he said, tiny puffs of air brushing against her skin.

  Thank you? And no kiss?

  Her eyes popped open, and he smiled down at her.

  “Thank you for what?” she demanded.

  He chuckled. “For being a pain in the ass.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Okay, if you don’t like it said that way, how about thank you for making me open my eyes.”

  “Oh.” She waved the words away. “No problem.” Then she leaned into him again.

  But still he didn’t kiss her. “Good night, Vivienne.”

  She made a frustrated strangling noise. “What about Lesson Two?”

  “That was the lesson.”

  “Thanking me?”

  “Let’s just say that this time the lesson was for me.”

  The deal was done, the arrangements made. Vivi was thrilled about her new project. By Wednesday morning at nine, with Max agreeing to pick the girls up from a half day of school before they headed for the mountains, Vivi was at the University house, ready to get started.

  Dressed in a pair of sweatpants and an old shirt she had taken from a pile of Max’s castoffs, she opened the windows despite the cold, then went from room to room, stepping over piles of junk and awful smelling who-knew-what, determining what needed to be done.

  Once she had a plan, she gathered newspapers, magazines, broken dishes, empty perfume bottles. Anything that couldn’t be sold went into the trash. By noon it seemed she had barely scratched the surface. But by three she started to see a change. By four she managed to drag mattresses out into the alleyway that ran alongside the house. Broken wooden chairs, bent bed frames, and splintered picture frames soon followed.

  By the time she got back to Max’s house, it was late, and a red light flashed on the message machine. Dusty and stiff, she pressed Play.

  “Vivienne?”

  Max’s voice, deep and confident, ran down her spine like the warm soapy bath she longed for.

  He paused as if he wasn’t sure why he was calling. “Just checking in. Wanted to make sure you were doing all right.” Another pause. “I called your cell, but you didn’t answer.”

  She hadn’t heard?

  She dug her cell phone out of her purse and sure enough found that she had two messages. The first was from Max. The second was from her father.

  “Hello, princess. Umm, I heard about the article in the paper. You believe in your old man, don’t you? Sure you do. So don’t pay any attention to it. I’ll explain when I get back. Well, okay. I better go. Hang in there, baby.”

  Then he was gone.

  She stared at the phone, trying hard to keep her mind a safe blank. She was tired, felt vulnerable, making it harder to hold emotion back. She didn’t want to think about her father—about whether he had lied or not. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving. Yet another holiday.

  She wondered how Max and the girls were doing. She had heard the snow was great. She hated to admit how much she missed them.

  Was that how it would always be for her? Holidays without family? Nothing to celebrate because she was alone?

  And then she got mad. Her. Vivienne Stansfield, who had worked a lifetime to never get mad. She felt a low, burning fury at her father.

  For the next two days, she worked obsessively. She refused to think. She ripped up old carpet, revealing hardwood floors. She scrubbed and cleaned, polished and waxed, until finally she could tag and itemize the furniture and china for the sale.

  At the end of Friday, her mood hadn’t improved. But that couldn’t override the awe she experienced at the transformation she had made with this small, unloved house. She had made a difference. A project that had really worked! And she knew that on Monday, after she dropped the girls off at school, she’d be able to begin the estate sale to rival all estate sales.

  But when she started to leave for the day, she couldn’t help but look over the yard. Stretching her sore back, she knew one more thing had to be done. And she couldn’t afford to hire someone to do it.

  Early the next morning, tired and aching in every inch of her body, Vivi returned to University, dressed in more of Max’s castoffs, her hair pulled up out of the way. Cut and scraped, she was beyond caring about anything but success. She felt numb as she kneeled in the weeds and tangle of wild grasses to clear the mess by hand. This wasn’t part of the job, but she understood the yard lining the walkway would set the tone for people coming into the sale. So she pulled and yanked until the gardener from next door came over and showed her how to run a small sprinkler section by section, making it easier.

  Within minutes she turned into a muddy mess, but it saved fingers that were already bleeding. No one seeing her now would think she was pampered.

  The sun had gone down by the time she picked out the last weed. She would have been proud if she’d had a single ounce of energy left to experience anything besides sheer exhaustion and pain.

  As she drove along Mesa, every muscle screamed. It was all she could do to turn into the driveway, pull out of the car the very last box she had taken from the little house, then make her way inside.

  She tucked the tattered cardboard box under the kitchen desk. Despite what he said, she felt certain that at some point Max would want to know that his father had cared. She just needed to wait for the right time to show him.

  Shedding her shoes in the laundry room, she washed her hands, grimaced at the sting, then mindlessly pulled out something to eat. When she finally sat at the table, she told herself she would rest for just a second.

  Laying her head down, the world grew soft. Pain receded and she gave in. Words echoed softly in her head, kind words, like a caress.

  And then there was Max. Striding into her mind like the knight she had tried to convince herself he wasn’t.

  She sensed his smile, felt his voice whispering down her spine.

  “Vivienne.”

  Her full name, in that intimate tone he used when she knew he wanted her.

  She sighed in her dream, her body reaching toward him.

  “Vivienne, wake up.”

  The words drifted through her, and she felt his strong hands pulling back her hair. How kind he was in her dreams. How gentle and unintimidating.

  “Vivienne.”

  She felt the word against her cheek. Then she felt something more. In a nearly drunken haze, Vivienne opened her eyes just as Max reached out and swept her up in his strong arms. Solid and very real, not the man in her dreams.

  “Max,” she whispered through her sleep-filled mind. “Is it really you?”

  He smiled, those full lips pulling into a crooked grin. “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Where are the girls?”


  “They’re coming back with Pat tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” she breathed, feeling his arms around her, holding her secure. “Why are you back early?” She tried to focus, tried to smile. “For another lesson?”

  He looked at her long and hard, the wealth of emotion that he kept so close to his soul burning in his eyes. Then he cradled her to his chest as he headed for the stairs, and she would have sworn he whispered, “Because I couldn’t stay away.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Moonlight spilled through the skylights, painting the white walls in silver. Vivi held on to Max, half awake, half asleep, her head cradled against his chest, her defenses spent.

  She curled close, refusing to let concern about where he was taking her surface as he took the stairs. When he walked into her bedroom and kicked the door shut behind them, she only sighed and curled closer.

  He set her down on her feet, and it was all she could do to stand, aches and pains stabbing through her. She groaned.

  “Shhh,” he whispered against her temple, then he reached down and started undoing the buttons of the oversized shirt.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, her mind not wanting to let go of that delicious state between sleep and awake—and those words. “I couldn’t stay away.”

  “I’m getting you out of these clothes. What were you doing today? Rolling around in the mud?” He looked down at her, his gaze intense. “Again?”

  She thought of the day in the rain, and a smile cracked on her lips. But even that hurt, and she remembered she had worked outside for hours in the desert winter sun.

  “I think I’m sunburned,” she explained.

  He started to pull the shirt free. She told herself to undress on her own. But his careful ministrations felt deliriously wonderful, and in seconds her eyes fluttered closed and she stood on the carpet, wearing only a tank top and panties.

  When the room grew silent, she finally, reluctantly, opened her eyes.

  Max stood looking at her, a mix of appreciation and humor on his face. “What are you wearing?”

  Looking down, she studied herself, then glanced back at him, offering a sheepish smile. “My Wonder Woman Underoos.”