Wedding of the Century

by Patricia McLinn

  “It can make a mess if you pull it out too fast. We wouldn’t want that.”

  Before she could stop herself, she looked up, and the heat and laughter in his eyes held her like a vise. She was unable to move, unable to dodge a memory of two young lovers who’d thought they were about to be walked in on by his roommate. A false alarm, as it turned out, but the consequences remained. As they had cleaned up, they had started to laugh. And as so often happened then, their laughter had led to—

  Annette jerked her thoughts from the memories, turned on her heel and got in the car. If he didn’t pull the nozzle free, she would drive off and yank the damned hose out of the pump.

  He not only got the nozzle out, he refit the gas tank cap before she pulled out. That didn’t improve her mood any.

  She went home, and the first thing out of Max’s mouth when she walked in was, “I’ll bring in the groceries.”

  Groceries. She’d totally forgotten.

  “No, you won’t, because you’re not supposed to do anything strenuous for at least a week. And—”

  He’d snorted. “Carrying groceries is not strenuous.”

  “—there aren’t any groceries to carry. Yet. I, uh, I thought you might need the stamps right away so I brought those home first.”

  “Why would I need stamps right away?”

  “Well, I don’t know, do I? It’s your business.”

  Before Max could question that, she had headed back to town.

  So here she was at the grocery store. But this time she wasn’t going to be ambushed by Steve Corbett.

  Her first over-the-shoulder check had shown Steve walking across the street toward the store, but he didn’t appear to have noticed her. She jiggled the grocery cart to get all the wheels aligned enough so the thing would roll. A grocery store was perfect for staying out of sight. And she used to work in this one, so unless it had been renovated lately, she should have the advantage.

  “Annette Trevetti, as I live and breathe! It is you! I thought I saw you yesterday crossing Hill Street, but then I saw the man was—well, then I decided I had to be wrong.”

  Annette turned toward the voice with a smile at the first words. Her smile dipped at the reference to being seen with Steve, but not much. Kim Jayne had shown her the ropes when she’d been hired here and had been one of the few seated on Annette’s side of the aisle at the First Church of Tobias.

  She moved near the checkout lines, even though that left her visible to anyone coming in—she could never hurt Kim Jayne’s feelings by ignoring her.

  “Kim, it’s great to see you. How are you? How are Ray and the kids?”

  “We’re all still kicking, but those kids aren’t such kids anymore. Dee goes to college next year, and Heather’s in high school.”

  “Oh, my gosh. I can’t wait to hear all about them. Do you have pictures?”

  Kim snorted. “Do I have pictures? Are you kidding? But…”

  She dipped one shoulder toward the register she’d been running all the time she talked, and to the line of customers. Kim wouldn’t make customers wait while she held a personal conversation. Plus, the way she’d steered clear of naming Steve Corbett as the man she’d spotted Annette with was a reminder of how fast a personal conversation could become public property in Tobias.

  “When’s your break?”

  “Fifteen minutes. Will you still be here?”

  Annette looked over her shoulder again. Steve was outside the door. He stepped back to let a gray-haired couple enter before him. “I’ll make sure I am.”

  “Great, see you then.”

  Annette zipped the cart along the aisle across the front of the store, using the people waiting in line as camouflage. She ducked down the paper goods aisle near the middle of the store, which would allow her maximum maneuverability.

  “Annette! Oh, that is little Annette, isn’t it?”

  She jumped at the voice behind her, though not only did it come from the wrong direction, but clearly the light, clear tone did not come from Steve.

  “Miss Trudi. It’s so nice to see you. How are you?” She reached out a hand, but the older woman in the red coat instead engulfed her in warmth and color.

  Miss Trudi had been her art teacher when Annette was in grade school. After retirement, she frequently invited former students for tea in her front parlor, when she poured out knowledge and culture as generously as the tea.

  “I’d heard you’d come home. I’m delighted to see you again.” Miss Trudi held her at arm’s length. “You look tired, Annette. Oh, I don’t mean to insult you, because you’re lovely—even more lovely than as a girl, but it appears you have been working too hard. It’s high time you came home. You’ll be able to rest.”

  “I didn’t come home to rest—I mean, I’m not coming home, it’s—”

  “I do hope you’ll come to tea, my dear. We can catch up on everything.”

  “That’s so nice of you, but—”

  “Wonderful! Come at four tomorrow afternoon, and we can have a nice chat.” Miss Trudi released her hand and backed up. “Must run now, but I look forward to seeing you at four.”

  “What? No—I mean, I’d love to. But—”

  She followed Miss Trudi, but the older woman had disappeared into a knot of teenage girls using their lunch hour to buy candy bars and acne cream.

  A raised arm trailing blue chiffon from the cuff of a red coat became visible beyond one girl’s head. “I’ll see you at four tomorrow, dear.”

  “Miss Trudi, tomorrow isn’t…”

  The first of the double exit doors closed behind the short figure in red. How did the woman move that fast?

  “Talking to yourself, Annette? Pick that habit up in the big city?”

  She closed her eyes but knew that wouldn’t make Steve Corbett disappear. “What are you doing here?”

  He raised his eyebrows as he hefted a bag of coffee in his right hand. “My turn to replenish the supply for the office. And you?”

  “Getting food for Max, of course.”

  He looked at the contents of her cart—a solitary package of flower-strewn paper towels.

  “I’ve seen Max eat down at the Toby, and I don’t think this is going to cut it, Annette.” Before she could do more than open her mouth, he continued. “Sorry I can’t stick around and talk, but some of us have to work for a living, you know.”

  And he was gone nearly as quickly as Miss Trudi. Though that made more sense with his long, powerful legs, legs with the ropey muscles of a swimmer—

  Dammit! She wasn’t going to let the memories of hormones take over. He was gone, that was the important thing.

  So, why had he left so easily? What was—

  She put a hand to her throbbing forehead.

  Steve was gone, but she feared her headache was just starting.

  Chapter Four

  Max met her as she pulled in, determined to carry groceries. “How’d it go?”

  “Fine. This wasn’t a trek to the North Pole, you know. I am accustomed to buying groceries on my own.”

  “You were gone long enough to see reindeer.”

  “I ran into, uh, some people.” She handed him the package of paper towels.

  He growled. He balanced the paper towels against the cast on his wrist and reached around her to grab the plastic handles of one bag knobby with soup cans and another with laundry detergent, both with his uninjured hand.

  “Show-off,” she muttered.

  He ignored that, though his mouth twitched. “Who?”

  She paired a medium-weight bag with a light one in each hand and followed him to the house.

  Steve.

  Everywhere she went. Even when he wasn’t there, she felt as if he were or might be any second, and that was just as bad. And now the memories…

  For so many years she’d thought that the last memory of him, the one where she’d had to face that he didn’t love her the way she’d loved him in the most public way imaginable, had obliterated all others. Now it
turned out those other memories had been lying underneath the surface, waiting to pop up and torment her like…like locusts. Flying at her from out of nowhere and constantly whirring in her ears.

  “You don’t remember who you saw?”

  She gave her head a shake to tumble her thoughts into order.

  “Miss Trudi—I’m invited to tea tomorrow. Muriel Henderson was there, so after she asked about you, I heard all about Mandy and her family in Minneapolis, and she wanted to hear all about me.” Annette didn’t mention how much her high school friend’s mother already knew about Annette’s accomplishments. She wasn’t surprised Max told them, but she was surprised the woman remembered them and congratulated her with such pleasure—and she was touched at both. “I had coffee with Kim Jayne, the clerk who trained me. Remember her?”

  She frowned as she remembered that both Muriel and Kim had mentioned seeing her with Miss Trudi and seemed concerned about the older woman, though neither pursued it.

  “Sounds like you’re picking up your friendships again. That’s nice.”

  She stared after Max as he disappeared toward the pantry in the hall that connected to his workshop. Friendship was not something she associated with Tobias.

  The house was quiet, the floor lamp was angled perfectly on Steve’s favorite chair, and he wasn’t sleepy. Should have been the perfect combination to read the reports he’d brought home. He hadn’t gotten to them because he’d spent too much of the past two days dogging Annette’s steps and wondering about hunting, frosted ice and memories.

  He hadn’t spent the past seven years focused on what Annette Trevetti might be doing at any given moment. Even times when he’d known or had reason to expect she might be in town. A fleeting thought now and then, sure. An extra glance at a car with Illinois plates or a medium-height woman with dark hair, yeah, he’d admit to that.

  This was different. This was as if talking to her had flipped on some strange mechanism inside him. Annette radar. His mouth twisted. She’d laugh at that.

  No, maybe not. Not now.

  Just after he’d dropped Nell off at school this morning, his cell phone rang. It was Jason Remtree, falling all over himself to apologize in case he’d said anything awkward during their encounter the day before. The guy had a tin ear for relationships—he kept buttering up Steve thinking that would safeguard him against a morbid fear that Lana would get him kicked off the country club board. Remtree was her lapdog, so why would she bother? Not that Steve would have any influence to stop her if she decided to do that.

  Remtree probably thought he was returning a favor when he suggested Steve steer clear of the post office because from his office window he’d seen Annette pull in there. Steve had been a block away at the time. One quick turn, and there he was. In Tobias’s compact business district, following her from the post office to the gas station had been even easier.

  He’d suffered the consequences of recalling that incident in his dorm room with an hour spent staring out his office window, punished by memories.

  Maybe it was that ear warmer she wore that held her hair back. She’d had a habit of pushing her hair back with both hands. A simple gesture that got to him every time. He’d had no idea why until one night, after they had made love, lying there with his body covering hers, still joined, his possession of her complete, the certainty of their connection powering his hammering heart, he’d stroked her hair back. He’d realized he did that often when they made love. Just as her gesture did, his hands revealed her face, its beauty and its vulnerability. Only this revelation was for him alone. An intimacy even beyond their physical bond.

  So maybe it was her hair being pulled back that had pushed him toward those memories and taken the guard off his mouth.

  What had yanked him out of that was spotting her car go by. The grocery store had been a guess that paid off when he spotted those Illinois plates again. He was starting to feel a real affection for the Land of Lincoln.

  He’d wanted to rattle her. Wanted to crack the glass and melt the frost. He wanted to see the Annette he remembered.

  The fall of his senior year at Tobias High they’d stumbled into a long, rambling conversation. There’d been a zing of attraction, but he’d been dating Lily and he’d packed the zing away. Then came a Saturday near the end of swimming season.

  He was hoisting himself out of the pool at the district meet. He’d qualified for state, as expected, and trimmed his record from the previous year, as expected. The night before, Lily had proclaimed that he would set a record for her.

  Nothing like a command performance. In fact his entire relationship with Lily had begun to feel like a command performance. She had opted for the University of Wisconsin at Madison after he chose it over objections from his mother, who’d wanted Ivy League. Now Lily was talking about their future together—college, law school, prosecutor and politics. The same future his mother had mapped out. Not even swimming had provided much escape.

  So he’d come out of the pool, knowing he’d done what was expected, hearing what hit his ears as perfunctory applause, and there was Annette Trevetti in the stands in front of him.

  She was part of a crowd of students. She wasn’t yelling any louder than anyone else. The humidity was wildly wisping her thick hair around her face in a way that would have sent Lily screaming for lotions and sprays.

  But Annette grinned so hard it made his cheeks ache. And her eyes were so bright with joy that he could almost believe his small achievement was the most important thing in the world to her for those few seconds.

  And then he realized his cheeks hurt because he was grinning, too. The crowd, perhaps picking up on his reaction, cheered harder, three of his teammates gave him celebratory high fives while two punched his shoulders and Coach Boylan clapped him on the back.

  He had never before celebrated a victory that enthusiastically. It was an odd sensation. A little raw from letting the world see his reaction. And more than a little tingling. At the time he’d written that off as the stinging contact of his teammates’ and coach’s approval. Two years later, when he encountered Annette on campus at Madison, he’d recognized the real source of the tingling.

  A lifetime, that’s what he’d thought he’d won when she’d said she would marry him.

  He’d known his mother would be a problem. He would have been happy to elope, but he hadn’t suggested it. Max would have objected, thinking people would interpret that as Steve being less than proud to be marrying Annette. He might have fought Max, but he suspected Annette would have felt the same way.

  So it had to be a public wedding in Tobias. Now, with the absolution of time, he could admit he’d hoped Lana might wash her hands of them. Instead, after he’d convinced her that nothing she said could stop him from marrying Annette, his mother took over the wedding like it was one of her precision-run fund-raisers.

  He’d known Annette wasn’t happy, but she’d closed up in a way he’d never expected her to. He had hoped she was simply stiffening her upper lip and looking toward their life after the wedding, the way he was. Even after Lily came to him, he’d thought he could hold it together and work it out.

  And then it was all gone. In the opening of a side door of the First Church of Tobias, and the closing of a rear door.

  Regret.

  Was that the sharp taste in his mouth?

  Maybe. But it didn’t explain the sensation that jangled just under the surface of his skin like sheet lightning across a night sky. It was like the cells protesting that they’d been denied some basic nutrient for far too long.

  Annette. His body craved her. To touch her…

  His fingers curled around the arm of the chair, needing to direct the impulse somewhere other than his muscles’ real desire.

  To be touched by her.

  The skin along his forearm prickled with awareness of a woman who was nearly two miles away. And had no more intention of touching him than—

  “Daddy!”

  He jolted, his heart hamm
ering with entirely different cause than the second before, even as his mind recognized the tenor of Nell’s call as run-of-the-mill waking up in the middle of the night. Not a nightmare, not illness. She was safe and healthy. If he left her on her own she’d fall back to sleep in moments.

  Tell that to the protective adrenaline pumping through him.

  He used the arrow of light from the hall to thread through the accoutrements of a girl whose ambitions ranged from grand actress to FBI agent to president of several countries, but who was still a little girl.

  “It’s okay, Nell. I’m here.”

  “Daddy!” Sitting up, she stretched both arms toward him.

  He sat on the bed with his back against the headboard, drawing her to him so he held child, pillow, comforter and stuffed animals all in his lap. “Go to sleep now. I’m here.”

  She curled tighter against him, one elbow digging into his ribs. He didn’t move. After a few minutes, he felt the shuddering sigh of relaxation go through her, and then her breathing smoothed and deepened.

  This was what had come into his life that day at the First Church of Tobias. He hadn’t known it then—he’d known only the searing pain. Obligation and responsibility had made him put one foot in front of the other. But from the first time he’d seen Nell, they had shriveled to a pair of solitary drops in an ocean. Everything that happened had come together to bring him to this moment. Even if he could have changed pieces of the past, how could he risk that those changes might have set in motion a sequence that would have stopped him from having Nell? He couldn’t.

  So he couldn’t regret—not what had happened and not what hadn’t.

  He adjusted enough to let a different square inch of his rib cage be punished by Nell’s elbow.

  But did that mean he had to let the past predict the future?

  An elderly man Annette didn’t recognize was entering Lakeside Dry Cleaners as she prepared to leave. He held the door for her, and she smiled at him.

  The smile melted as she recognized the lithe walk of the man approaching diagonally across the parking lot. Geometry had never been her strongest subject, but she didn’t need to know how to work this equation to estimate that Steve’s path would intersect with hers in a matter of seconds.