“And the lights?” Meghann asked, checking off the tent from her list.
“Ten thousand white Christmas lights, forty-two Chinese lanterns, and twenty hanging lights. Check.”
Meghann marked her list accordingly. That was it. Everything on her list had been taken care of. In the past two days, she’d worked her ass off, checking and rechecking each detail. She’d arranged for every single thing that Roy had wanted. It was going to be, he declared at least three times a day, the best wedding ever to take place in Hayden.
Meghann didn’t think that was much of a standard, but she was learning to keep her cynical thoughts to herself. She’d even been working so hard that she slept at night. The only problem now was her dreams.
They all seemed to be about Joe. When she closed her eyes, she remembered everything about that night. The blue eyes that were so sad … the way he’d whispered something—a name, maybe—while they were making love.
Making love.
She’d never thought of it that way, not with anyone.
“Meghann? You’re getting that mushy look again. Are you thinking about the hors d’oeuvres?”
She smiled at Roy. “You should have seen Carla’s face when I told her she’d have to do up a tray of pigs in blankets.”
“I hate to admit it, but … they are tasty, you know. Dipped in ketchup. Even better dragged in baked beans. They’ll probably disappear long before the Brie and pâté.”
“I didn’t let her do pâté.” Meghann consulted her list again. It was a habit, checking and rechecking everything.
Roy touched her arm. “Sweetheart, you’re done. All you have to do is show up at the rehearsal tonight and then get a good night’s sleep.”
“Thanks, Roy. I don’t know what I would have done without you on all of this.”
“Believe me, it has been an unexpected pleasure to work on this wedding. My next event is a potluck keggar in the Clausens’ cow field to celebrate little Todd’s acceptance to community college.”
After the meeting, she headed back toward her car. She’d walked several blocks before she realized she was going in the wrong direction. She was just about to turn around when she saw the garage. There, tucked back in a thicket of trees and runaway salal, was Joe’s cabin.
She had a sudden urge to walk up to the door, say, Hey, Joe, and follow him to the bedroom. The sex had been great. Hell, it had been better than great. So good that she’d sneaked off in the middle of the night. She’d always been better at good-bye than good morning.
The light in his kitchen went on. She saw a shadow cross the window, a flash of silvery hair.
She almost went to him.
Almost.
The one thing she knew for certain—had learned from hard-won experience—was that anonymous sex was all she could handle.
She turned and walked back to her car.
Joe stood at the kitchen sink, listening to the water running. It gargled down the rusty pipes. He was supposed to be washing his lunch dishes—that’s why he’d come over here, after all—but he couldn’t make his hands work.
She was standing across the street, looking at his house.
Meghann. Friends call me Meg.
She stood perfectly still, her arms crossed, her pointy chin held up just the slightest bit. Beside her, a huge hanging pot of flowers sent a red trailer of blossoms along her upper arm. She didn’t seem to notice. Probably didn’t notice their scent, either. She didn’t strike him as a romantic woman.
“Meghann.” He said her name softly, surprised by the unexpected rush of longing that came with it. He’d thought about her too often in the hours since their meeting.
He told himself it meant nothing, was simply an excess of hormones in a body that had been cold for years. But now, looking at her, wanting her again, he knew he was lying to himself.
Across the street, she took a step toward him.
His heartbeat sped up, his hands clenched.
Then she turned and walked away, quickly.
“Thank God,” he said, wishing he meant it.
He shut the water off and dried his hands. Slowly, he went to the mantel and stood in front of a picture of Diana. In it, she stood at the base of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, waving at him. She was smiling brightly.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, touching the glass.
The phone rang, startling him.
He knew who it was, of course. “Hey, Gina,” he answered, reaching for his work gloves.
“Hey, big brother. I know it’s late notice, but I’m having a rehearsal dinner at my house tonight. I thought you might like to come.”
A rehearsal dinner. Prelude to a wedding. “Sorry, no.”
“It’s for Claire Cavenaugh. She’s finally getting married.”
Joe closed his eyes, remembering Claire. “I’m sorry, Gigi,” he said at last. “I can’t do that.” The only thing worse than celebrating a marriage would be walking into a hospital.
“I understand, Joey. Really. I’ll call you next week.”
Claire sat in the doctor’s waiting room, reading the newest issue of People magazine. There it was, a picture of her mother in some city park, surrounded by fans dressed in full space-traveler regalia. The caption read: Eliana Sullivan mobbed by fans on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Starbase IV’s first show.
“Oh, please. I had better Halloween costumes in second grade.”
“What, Mommy?”
Claire smiled down at her daughter, who sat cross-legged on the taupe-colored carpet, playing with a Cat in the Hat doll. “Nothing, honey.”
“Oh. How much longer? I’m hungry.”
“Not much longer. Dr. Roloff is busy with people who are really sick. You saw Sammy Chan go in—he has a broken arm.”
Alison frowned. “You’re not sick, right?”
“Of course not. This is my yearly appointment. You always come with me.”
“Yeah.” Ali went back to playing.
A few minutes later, the receptionist—Monica Lundberg—came out into the waiting room. As always, she looked beautiful, this time in a pale celery-colored sundress. “Doctor will see you now.”
Claire looked down at Alison. “Stay right here, honey. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll watch her,” Monica said. “You go on into room four.”
“Thanks.” Claire went down the hallway and turned into the last room on the left.
“Hey, Claire, how’re the wedding plans going?”
She smiled at Bess, the nurse who had worked for Dr. Roloff for as long as anyone could remember.
“Great. We’re having something simple.”
“Of course you are.” Bess took Claire’s blood pressure and temperature. “Good blood pressure, kiddo. You must be living right.” She took a quick blood sample, then burrowed through the cupboard over the sink and withdrew a plastic specimen cup. “You know the drill. Leave a sample in the door in the rest room. Doctor will be in as soon as he can.”
“Thanks, Bess.”
Bess winked. “See you tomorrow. Bye.” And she was gone.
Claire hurried across the hall, left a urine sample in the bathroom, then returned to the room, where she dressed quickly in the hospital gown and climbed up onto the paper-covered examination table.
Moments later, Dr. Roloff walked in. He was a tall, gray-haired man with stern eyes and a ready smile. He’d been Claire’s doctor for most of her life. He’d tended her through ear infections, acne, and pregnancy. Now he was Alison’s doctor. Sam’s, too.
The doctor sat down on a rolling stool and moved toward her. “How’re the wedding plans going?”
“Great. Will you and Tina be able to make it?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He paused, looked down for a minute. Claire knew he was thinking about the daughter he’d lost. “Diana would have loved your wedding.”
Claire swallowed hard. It was true. One of the hardest parts of this wedding was doing it without Diana. The Bluesers
had always done everything together. “She always said I was saving myself for royalty.”
He finally looked up. The smile he offered was tired and more than a little worn. “Did you hear about Joe? He’s back in town.”
“I know. How is he?”
Henry sighed heavily. “I don’t know. He hasn’t been to see Tina and me.” It was obvious how hurt the doctor was by that.
“I’m sure he will.”
“Yeah. I’m sure.” Dr. Roloff pushed the glasses higher on his nose and straightened. “Well, enough of that.” Opening her chart, he studied it. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re not due to see me for another two months. Why so early, Claire? Usually we have to send three notices and make a phone call to get you in here.”
“Birth control pills,” she said, feeling her cheeks heat up. It was ridiculous; she was thirty-five years old. There was no reason to be embarrassed. But she was. “We want to wait awhile before we get pregnant.”
He studied her chart again, then nodded. “I wouldn’t want you on them for too many years, but for now you’ll be okay. We’ll start you on the mini pill.”
“Great.”
Dr. Roloff set her chart aside. “Let’s do your Pap smear.”
When he was finished, Claire sat up.
“Your dad told me you had a headache last week,” he said, stripping off his gloves. “And that you twisted your left ankle.”
Life in a small town. Claire sighed. For as long as she could remember, her dad had run to the doctor whenever she had a hangnail or a loose tooth. Her arrival at adulthood hadn’t changed his behavior. “Last year he thought I had Ménière’s disease after a ride on the Ferris wheel made me dizzy.”
He smiled at that. “Sam is certainly vigilant in terms of health care, that’s true. You should have seen him when you were little. I got three calls a week asking if such-and-such was normal. Things like three sneezes in a row would set him off. Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean he’s a fool. Do the headaches seem to be triggered by your cycles?”
“I’m thirty-five,” she said with a laugh. “It seems like I’m always ovulating or flowing. So, yeah, maybe.”
“Did you ever start exercising?”
“Ever? Ninth grade was a good year for me. I went out for track and volleyball.”
He wrote something in her chart. Probably couch potato.
“Are you sleeping well?”
“Like a baby. Since I met Bobby …” She blushed again. “Well, you know. I sleep great.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Stress?”
“I’m a single mother who is about to get married for the first time. The sister I barely know is planning the wedding, and my mother is threatening to come. So, yes, I’m a little stressed out.”
“Okay. Tell your dad I said everything is fine. No worries. But get some exercise. It’s the best treatment for stress. Also, you’re a little anemic again. That can cause headaches, too. So start taking some iron, okay?”
“You got it.”
“Now get that beautiful little girl of yours home and start doing that woman-wedding thing. The whole town is looking forward to it.”
“That’s what happens when you wait fifteen years after everyone else in your class.”
“You were only moments away from being labeled the town spinster. I don’t know who Bess and Tina will worry about now.” His eyes sparkled behind the small round glasses.
“Thanks, Doc.”
He patted her shoulder. “I’m happy for you, Claire. We all are.”
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
The afternoon turned gray and cold. Rain fell in tiny staccato bursts that were all but invisible to the naked eye.
Claire spent the rest of the day pretending to work.
“Go home, Claire,” her father said to her whenever he happened to walk into the office and see her.
“I’ve got work to do,” was her standard answer, and every time she said it, he laughed.
“Yeah. You’re a big help today. Go take a bath. Do your nails.”
She was too nervous to take a bath or do her nails. Thirty-five was too old to marry for the first time. How could she possibly be doing the right thing?
But every time her worries threatened to overwhelm her, she’d turn a corner or open a door and see Bobby. He was painting the fence around the laundry room the first time she saw him, scrubbing canoes the second.
He’d looked up at her approach both times. Hey, darlin’, he’d said, smiling. I love you.
Just that, those few and precious words, and Claire breathed easier again, for an hour or so, until the doubts once again welled up.
Finally, at around three in the afternoon, she gave up and walked back to her house. Toys lay scattered on the grass in the front yard; a Barbie that was half dressed, a pink plastic bucket and tiny shovel, a red Fisher-Price barn, complete with farm animals. She picked everything up and headed for the house.
“There you are,” Meghann said when she walked in.
“Hey,” she said, sighing as she walked over to the toy box and dumped her load in.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She certainly didn’t want to discuss her wedding jitters with Miss Prenup.
Meghann got up. Claire could feel her sister’s gaze; it was lawyerly and intense. Not a sister-to-sister look at all. “I was just going to have some iced tea. Would you like one?”
“A margarita would be better.”
“You got it. Sit.”
Claire sank onto the sofa and put her feet up on the magazine-covered coffee table.
Meg was back in no time, holding two glasses. “Here you are.”
Claire took the glass and tried the margarita. “This is good. Thanks.”
Meg sat in the bentwood rocker by the fireplace. “You’re scared,” she said gently.
Claire jumped as if she’d been shouted at. “Anyone would be.” She took another drink, careful not to make eye contact. She felt like a squirrel in the presence of a cobra.
Meg moved to the sofa and sat down beside Claire. “It’s normal, believe me. If you weren’t scared right now, I’d take your pulse.”
“You think I should be scared.”
“I remember when Elizabeth and Jack got married. They were as in love as any two people I’ve ever seen. And she still needed two martinis to walk down the aisle. Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid, Claire. Maybe that’s why weddings take place in churches—because each one is an act of faith.”
“I love him.”
“I know you do.”
“But I should sign a prenuptial agreement to protect my assets in case we get divorced.”
“I’m a lawyer. Protecting people is what I do.”
“You protect strangers. Members of your family are a different thing.”
Meghann looked down at her drink, then said softly, “I guess.”
Claire wished she could take back that little cruelty. What was it about their past that made them wound each other so consistently? “I know you’re trying to help, but how can you? You don’t believe in love. Or marriage.”
It was a moment before Meg answered, and when she did speak, her voice was soft. “I’ve never seen a baby crow.”
“What?”
“On my way to work, I see crows clustered along the phone lines in the waterfront park. So I know that every spring there are nests somewhere, filled with tiny newborn crows.”
“Meg, are you having a seizure?”
“My point is: I know things exist that I never see. Love has to be one of them. I’m trying to believe in it for you.”
Claire knew how much it cost her sister to say something like that. No one who’d grown up in Mama’s shadow found it easy to believe in love. That Meghann would try, for Claire’s sake, really meant something. “Thank you. And thanks for planning the wedding. Even if you are keeping every detail a secret.”
“It’s been more fun
that I thought. Kinda like being on the prom committee—not that I ever would have been on such a thing.”
“I was Prom Queen.” Claire grinned. “No kidding, and Rhododendron Princess, too, at Mountaineering Days.”
Meghann laughed. Obviously she was relieved by a return to casual conversation. “What does the rhodie princess do?”
“Sit in the back of a 1953 Ford pickup in a dress the color of Pepto-Bismol and wave at the crowd. The 4-H Goat Club walked behind us in the parade. It was raining so hard that I ended up looking like Tim Curry at the end of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Dad took about three dozen photos and put them all in an album.”
Meghann looked down at her drink again. It was a moment before she spoke. “That’s a nice memory.”
Claire immediately regretted her comment. All it did was highlight Meghann’s fatherlessness. “I’m sorry.”
“You were lucky to have Sam. And Ali is lucky to have you. You’re a great mother.”
“Do you regret it?” Claire said, surprising both of them with the intimate question. “Not having kids, I mean.”
“Being a divorce lawyer made me sterile.”
“Meghann,” she said evenly.
Meg finally looked at her. “I don’t think I’d be any good at it. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“You were a good mother to me. For a while.”
“It’s the ‘for a while’ that matters.”
Claire leaned toward her sister. “I’d like you to baby-sit Alison next week. While Bobby and I are on our honeymoon.”
“I thought you weren’t taking a honeymoon.”
“Dad insisted. His wedding gift was a week’s trip to Kauai.”
“And you want me to baby-sit?”
Claire smiled. “It would mean a lot to me. Ali needs to know you better.”
Meghann released a fluttery breath. She looked nervous. “You’d trust me?”
“Of course.”
Meg sat back. A tremulous smile curved her lips. “Okay.”
Claire grinned. “No taking her to the shooting range or teaching her to bungee-jump.”
“So, skydiving lessons are out. Can I take her for a pony ride?”
They were still laughing when Dad pushed through the door and came into the living room. He was already dressed for the rehearsal in black pants—freshly ironed—and a pale blue denim shirt with a River’s Edge logo on the pocket. His brown hair had been recently cut and was combed back from his forehead. If Claire didn’t know better, she’d think he’d moussed it.
Kristin Hannah's Family Matters 4-Book Bundle: Angel Falls, Between Sisters, The Things We Do for Love, Magic Hour Page 48
