A Bachelor Falls

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  “You’re heading in the wrong direction again.”

  He smiled and kept walking. “This is the first time I’ve been heading in the right direction for years.”

  The lights and noise of the town square faded and Ellie’s heels made a sharp clicking duet, accompanied by the steadier thudding of his cordovan loafers. He held her hand tightly and he meant to never let go.

  “This is the way to the garage.”

  “So it is,” he replied. “I want to check on Hot Rod.”

  “It’s Rodette, now, remember?”

  The garage came into view, a sprawling, bulky shadow, as familiar as the street beneath their feet and the stars above their heads. He was walking so rapidly he was very nearly pulling her with him as he passed the office and approached the back garage bay where he’d left the Chevy after the Bachelor Daze parade.

  “I’m sure the Chevy is fine, Ross.” Ellie sounded confused and wary. Still wary. But not for long, he thought. Please, God, not for long.

  “There’s just something I have to do here.” Taking the key from his pocket, he unlocked the door, stepped inside and pulled her in behind him.

  She found the light switch first and flipped it on. “See?” she said, looking at the Chevy. “She’s right here where you left her.”

  “Yes.” Emotion roughened his voice as he put his hands on Ellie’s shoulders and turned her to face him. “Right here. So close, I nearly missed seeing her at all.”

  Her eyes met his, there in the garage bay where they’d laughed and talked and worked and played, where they’d grown out of childhood and into love. “Ross?” She whispered his name as a question.

  But he was pretty sure she knew the answer even before he bent his head and claimed the kiss that turned the whole world right side up.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ellie hadn’t had many dreams come true, but she had no trouble recognizing that this—the dream she had barely allowed herself to dream—was the only one that mattered.

  “Ross,” she whispered when she could breathe again. “Ross, I don’t know what to... say. I didn’t know.... I never imagined this.... I—”

  “Love you,” he supplied before she could. “I love you. I mean, I really love you.” Wonder was in his eyes as he cupped her face in his hands. “I must have loved you since the moment you first propositioned me.”

  Somewhere, she thought, there was a rainbow. No, not somewhere. Here. In Ross’s arms. “I’ve never propositioned you.”

  “You did. In fifth grade. It was my first real proposition.”

  “Sixth grade,” she corrected. “And it wasn’t a real one.”

  “You asked me to be your bodyguard. I consider that a real proposition. And from now on, I’m taking the assignment very seriously.”

  “Mmm.” She pressed her lips to the slight indentation beneath his chin and then worked her way up to his mouth...because the taste of intimacy was so new, so very intoxicating. Some moments later, she whispered, “I don’t need a bodyguard.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You’ve got one.” He curled his fingers into her hair. “For the rest of your life or mine, Eliot, I’m guarding your body. And your heart. And your health. And your wealth. And anything else that crops up between now and then. But this will be a reciprocal arrangement.”

  Ellie’s heart beat so hard, she thought he surely must hear it. “Ross,” she whispered. “I never knew I could feel like this...until the other night, in my tent. Before that, I never really thought you and I...”

  Tenderly he looped her hair behind her ear. “Never is behind us, Ellie. Forever begins right here, right now.”

  A tear slipped from the corner of her eye, followed by another and another. Silent. Sweet. The way tears ought to be. “I love you,” she whispered and wondered how three simple words could ever convey the complexity of the feeling inside her. “I love you.”

  He caught one of the teardrops on his fingertip and pressed it to his lips. “I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen you cry,” he said. “Except for that time when you got so mad about the tree house.”

  “The time my best friend decided to convert our tree house into a boys only club?”

  “We ended up including you,” he reminded her.

  “Only because I was the one with the ladder.”

  “No, because we were all afraid of you.”

  She tilted her head back to look up at him, thinking that this was what it felt like to have everything. “When did you stop being afraid, Ross?”

  “About fifteen minutes ago by the lemonade booth, when you looked up at me and I knew I was in love for the first and the last time in my life.” He kissed her then, and passion flared like rockets and shooting stars and everything bright she could imagine. This was real. This was happening. This was the moment she had never had the courage to hope for. The moment that suddenly, miraculously, was hers.

  She threaded her fingers through his hair, wondering at its rich, silky texture, marveling that she was free now to touch it with the hands of a lover. Incredibly, he gathered her closer... until there wasn’t a sliver of air between the intimate melding of their bodies, until the very breath she took was somehow his, until their hearts beat in a lovely, lusty harmony. Ross was everything dear and familiar to her and yet, his touch was all uncharted, strange and new. How could she have known him forever and not known his kiss would be so intensely gentle, so hot, so tender, so meltingly possessive?

  But in a million years she could never have guessed the way his mouth would feel against hers. She could not have imagined any emotion to equal the thrill of being held fast in his arms. How could she have conceived of any feeling that would have been even remotely comparable to the excitement coursing through her at this very instant? And there was no way on earth or in heaven that she could ever have pictured herself as dizzily happy as she was right now.

  Ross, her favorite companion, her childhood protector, her dearest and best friend, was now her lover, her heart...her life.

  “Ross,” she whispered.

  “Ellie,” he whispered back.

  And all the other words she wanted to, needed to, thought she must say, bloomed still and silent and reverent there in the garage. Or maybe it was simply that the words traveled an unfamiliar, but well-worn path straight from her heart to his.

  “WHAT WOULD you think about taking Hot Rod for a spin?” he asked sometime later. “I think it’s time the two of us went cruising in our classic Chevy.”

  Ellie didn’t want to say what had to be said, but she lifted her chin and tried not to lose her courage in the face of his incredible tenderness. “I think it’s time we talked about...tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow,” he repeated as if he couldn’t remember the significance. But then he nodded and she knew he was as reluctant as she to face the unpleasant task that stood between them and the forever they’d just begun. “Tomorrow’s the wedding,” he said. “I guess I should let Tori know it isn’t going to happen.”

  “She deserves that, Ross. And I deserve to know that you’re not imagining yourself in love with me in order to escape from this commitment you’ve made to her.”

  His hand stroked her cheek, her neck, her hair, as if he could never get enough of touching her. “This isn’t about escape, Ellie. It’s about truth. Until a little while ago, I didn’t know that my truth was you. I thought it was in doing what everyone expected me to do. Becoming a surgeon, living in Chicago, marrying a cute little blonde and having three children. I knew it didn’t feel exactly right, but...” He shrugged. “I want to be here, Ellie. With you. And that’s the truth. None of the rest of it matters.”

  Ellie closed her eyes for a second, savoring the words and the shower of sweet possibilities that now stretched like a bed of roses before her. But she’d been practical all her life. And falling in love hadn’t changed that. “It matters until you’ve talked to Tori,” she said. “It matters a lot.”

  “Then I’ll find her now.” His
finger traced the slope of her nose, the trembling line of her mouth, the faint quiver in her chin and the look in his eyes swept away the last trace of doubt. “I’ll find her and explain that I can’t marry her...because I’ve fallen in love with my best man.”

  Ellie laughed or cried. It was hard to tell amidst the jumble of emotions inside her heart. “I love you, Ross,” she whispered softly. “Find her...and come back to me.”

  His lips clung to hers for a moment out of time and place and then he stepped back and tapped the end of her nose. “If that’s a proposition, Eliot, I accept.”

  THE CHURCH WAS BATHED in summer watermelon pink and spring showers green. Bachelor Falls residents were wearing their Sunday best and their Saturday smiles. Already, at only a quarter past five o’clock, the pews were filling fast. Thelma Perkins was already ten minutes into her repertoire of wedding songs and Melva Whiffington was in the choir room, exercising her voice. Reverend Minks had been in and out of his office so many times during the past hour, Ellie was losing count. “Any word from Ross?” he’d asked brightly each time...as if he was positive there was nothing to worry about, even though he obviously was worried.

  Truth to tell, Ellie was worried herself. She hadn’t seen Ross since he’d left her at the garage and gone to look for Tori. He’d called a few times—well, several times actually—just to hear her voice, just to tell her he would rather be with her than driving to Branson to find his erstwhile bride. But the last call had been at two o’clock and he had yet to get to talk to Tori.

  Ellie battled a sudden, horrible fear that he had run away, that he wasn’t going to cancel the wedding, that he was halfway to Nashville. Or Alaska. But that type of thinking wouldn’t solve anything, so Ellie didn’t allow herself to think it at all. Ross was doing what he had to do in order to come to her, free of any other commitment. Their friendship, their love, deserved nothing less.

  So, not knowing what else to do, she’d come to the church, wearing her rented tux. And here she’d been waiting for the past hour, checking her watch from time to time as the art deco hands moved inexorably toward the wedding hour with no sign of the groom.

  Reverend Minks smiled as he entered the office again. “Ross is here,” he said in a tone that implied he hadn’t been worried for a minute. “He just drove into the parking lot. So if you fellas—” the reverend indicated Ellie and the personality twins with a nod “—want to get the getaway car all decorated and tied with cans, you might want to slip on out there and get started.”

  Tori’s cousins nodded and left, presumably to find tin cans. Reverend Minks waited with Ellie, who couldn’t sit, couldn’t stand, couldn’t be still. The moment Ross opened the door and walked in, though, she couldn’t do anything except stare at him. He looked tired, unhappy and panicked. At least, he did until he saw her and then his smile lit up the world. “Hi,” he said and walked over to take her hands in his. “How are you doing?”

  “Hi,” she replied softly. “Did you find her?”

  He shook his head. “I drove to Branson as soon as I left you last night, but couldn’t find her anywhere. I must have cruised the parking lots of a hundred motels looking for the car. And then I tried phoning around, trying to locate her. Finally I drove home, thinking I could catch her here, but those nitwits she calls her friends are bound and determined to stop me from seeing or even talking to her before the wedding. It’s bad luck, they tell me. Even my mother won’t take a note to her.” He squeezed Ellie’s fingers so hard, it hurt. But the physical discomfort felt good. Took her mind off the mounting apprehension in her heart. Canceling the wedding was one thing, waiting until the last hour to do it was another. “I’ll find her,” Ellie said. “She’ll talk to me. I’ll tell her it’s an emergency and that she has to see you before the wedding.”

  Ross gathered her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly, passionately, completely. “I should have thought of that myself. I love you, T. S. Eliot Applegate. With all my heart.”

  Reverend Minks coughed into his fist, reminding them of his presence in the room. “I see a slight, uh, problem has arisen.”

  Ross kept hold of Ellie’s hands. “I’m not going to marry Tori, Reverend Minks. I can’t. It would be a mistake because—” his gaze came back to Ellie “—because I realized—”

  “You realized you’re in love with your friend Ellie.” Reverend Minks nodded as if he’d known it all along. “That’s wonderful.” His round face was suddenly creased with a frown. “Wonderful, but bad timing. Very bad timing.”

  “I know,” Ross said. “I’ve made an honest effort to find Tori and tell her, but now...”

  “I’ll find her,” Ellie said, reaching for the door. “Where are the bride and bridesmaids getting dressed, Reverend?”

  “In the prayer room,” he replied. “But Tori isn’t with them. She’s around here somewhere, because I saw her once but now no one knows where she went.”

  Ross took a deep breath. “Okay, then. I’m going out there and tell everyone that the wedding is off. This has to stop before Tori actually starts down the aisle. I never meant to hurt her and I certainly don’t want her to suffer any more embarrassment than...”

  There was the briefest of knocks on the door before it opened and Tori came in. The flounces of her bridal gown took over the room, as fluffy and fussy as a gown made out of cotton candy. “Ross?” she whispered. “I have to talk to you.”

  Reverend Minks nodded and skirted the flounces to reach the door. “I’ll be outside if you need me,” he said. “Just tap on the door like this....” He demonstrated a soft one-two rap. “And I’ll come back in...if you need me, that is.”

  Ellie freed her fingers from Ross’s hand and took a step after Reverend Minks, but Tori stopped her. “Don’t go,” she said. “Maybe this will be easier if you’re here.”

  Someone had gotten to Tori first, Ellie thought. She knew about Ellie. She knew...and that made Ellie feel tawdry and cheap.

  “I’ve been trying to talk to you since midnight,” Ross said, his voice low and steady, but threaded with determination. “No one would let me near you.”

  “I know.” Tori twisted something in her hands. Something that crackled. “I asked them to do it, Ross. I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t face you. I thought if I got ready for the wedding—as if it was actually going to happen—then everything would turn out all right and we’d be so happily married that I’d never even think about...” The crackle came and went beneath her nervous hands.

  Ellie felt awful. For Tori. For Ross. For herself. Maybe this moment had to happen. Maybe it was kinder to hurt Tori in this way than in the more public arena of the church sanctuary. But it didn’t seem kinder to Ellie. It seemed awful. Simply awful.

  “Tori—” Ross began.

  “I won’t do it, Ross, if you tell me it’s foolish beyond anything. But this could be my chance to be famous, to be Tori! I know there’s a lot of things that could go wrong, but I have to try. You understand, don’t you?”

  “What are you talking about?” Ross’s concern became flat-out confusion. “What did you say about your chance to be famous?”

  Her blue eyes widened. “You don’t know? Chrissy didn’t tell you?”

  “What was Chrissy supposed to tell me?”

  “Oh, she wasn’t supposed to tell you. But I figured she would. She can never keep a secret. I didn’t want her to, of course. I thought it was only fair that I be the one to tell you, even though I didn’t want to. And really, Ross, if you say I should forget it, I will. I’ll marry you and forget all about my dream of becoming the next Reba McEntire. I will. But this promoter heard me sing last night at the karaoke bar in Branson and he came up afterward and talked to me about coming to Nashville and making a demo. And...” She paused to draw a deep, trembly breath. “Oh, Ross, I really want to go.”

  Ellie brushed her fingers against Ross’s, communicating with him in a touch that everything was going to be okay. “You don’t want to marry me?” Ross ask
ed, surprise and a note of self-directed humor building in his voice. “You came here to say you’re calling off the wedding?”

  Tori nodded and smoothed out the crumpled cellophane in her hand. A Twinkies wrapper, Ellie noted, and felt better all around. Maybe Ross and Tori hadn’t been such a mismatch after all. Not that they’d ever know for sure. Not that it mattered anymore. Not that anything mattered except that Tori was jilting Ross. Right here. Right now.

  “But if you still want to get married,” Tori continued. “I’ll call Earl...he’s the producer and...”

  “Are you sure he’s on the level, Tori?” Ross asked. “I mean, there are some guys who might say they represent a recording studio when in actual fact, they’re just—”

  “Sleazebags.” Tori nodded. “I checked him out, believe me. That’s where I’ve been almost all day. Talking with an entertainment attorney, going over the contract with a fine-tooth comb.” She smiled. “I’m not a complete nitwit, you know.”

  “I never for a moment thought you were.” Behind his back, Ross found Ellie’s hand and squeezed it.

  “I’ll stay, though, if you want, Ross.” Tori clearly wanted to have it all. The recording contract and the brokenhearted, jilted groom she left behind. It was the stuff country songs were made of. “I’ll give up my dream if you say the word.”

  Ross cleared his throat. “No, Tori. That wouldn’t be fair. Not to either one of us. If you don’t take this opportunity, you’ll always regret it. Oh, maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But someday. And for the rest of your life. And I...” He sighed dramatically. “I couldn’t live with that regret. So, go. Go and be the star you always dreamed of becoming. And one day I’ll be able to say...”

  He paused and Tori rushed in. “You’ll be able to say, you forgive me,” she concluded with a dramatic little sigh.

  “I’ll be able to say I knew you when...” He smiled as she rushed forward and planted a fleeting kiss on his lips.