Wedding of the Century

by Patricia McLinn

  She shouldn’t have to tell him. He should just do it, the way Max would.

  But that was so long ago. A different century. Different people.

  “People grow. Change. Besides, it’s not your place to make that decision if they ask for the facts. And Miss Trudi is a grown woman who—”

  “Who was looked after by an overprotective and old-fashioned father and then by old-fashioned trustees—until those trustees started dying off, and the new ones opened the purse strings at the same time they made unwise investments. For all her education and intelligence, Miss Trudi doesn’t have the slightest regard for or understanding of money. Her whole life she’s had whatever she’s wanted whenever she’s wanted, and she doesn’t want to hear any different now.”

  Suddenly warm in the small office, Annette pushed her ear-warming band back before yanking it off. The tension in him seemed to shift to a different gear. When he spoke again, his voice had lost that cold edge.

  “Do you know she doesn’t know how to balance her checkbook? She has this notion that the bank puts money in her account when she needs it, because that’s what the trustees did.”

  She opened then closed her mouth, the anger draining out of her, the concern remaining. “No, I didn’t know that.”

  He levered off the desk, paced around it and stared out the window. “Her money’s nearly gone. What little is left is disappearing fast into that sinkhole of a house, and she won’t listen. Won’t deal with the realities. Keeps saying she has a pension—like what she gets from teaching would make a dent in making that place livable. Won’t let anybody help her. Won’t hear of moving out.”

  He scrubbed one hand over his face then turned to her.

  “And in the meantime, the town’s divided into camps—one extreme insisting Miss Trudi should be sent to a retirement home for her own good even if it’s against her will, while the other extreme—” his grimace indicated her “—wants her left entirely on her own no matter what the consequences.”

  “I never said that’s what I want. I see what a wreck that place is.” From Every Detail she knew the first step was to find out the facts. She would go back to calm Miss Trudi, then filter what she said through what Steve had told her. “I apologize if I formed an erroneous conclusion about your views. I certainly did not intend to take a cheap shot at you. But—” she squared off to him “—I stand by what I said about your needing to tell her the whole truth.”

  He made no promises, but the steady look he gave her convinced her that he would do his best to get through to Miss Trudi.

  There didn’t seem anything left to say—maybe Annette had already said too much. “Goodbye, Steve.”

  She had reached the door when he said her name. She turned.

  “That crack outside, when you accused me of putting off people—Nell, you—by saying later, that was the cheap shot I meant, not about Miss Trudi. I don’t try to sidestep people’s feelings.”

  Conflicting reflexes to spit fire at him and to retreat into icy distance died as she saw that it truly bothered him.

  “I’m sorry if you think so, but—”

  “It’s another part of your saying I’m like Mother. It’s no more true than—”

  “It’s true, Steve.” She sounded almost gentle to her ears, yet he looked as if she’d struck him below the belt. “You said we’ll talk about it later to Nell the other day. And you said it more times than I can remember to me when we…before. The last time was at the wedding, when I asked for the truth about Lily. I swore that no one would ever say it to me again. So I’m sorry you felt it was a cheap shot, but I’m not going to apologize for the truth.”

  Tell the truth. The whole truth.

  Steve sat at his desk, looking out the window. The old glass waved like a pool not quite at rest. Was that why he’d refused to replace these windows?

  In swim workouts, the pool had been his private realm. Water cushioned the world’s sounds. Voices barely reached him. The long, steady cadence of his stroke was a form of meditation. As long as he moved, the water cradled him. He’d kept going because of a limb-dragging reluctance to leave the water’s refuge.

  We’ll talk about it later.

  Was that another sort of reluctance to leave a refuge? He remembered saying it at the wedding—he remembered every word of that. He didn’t remember saying it to Nell when she’d asked Annette questions, but he did Monday at dinner.

  There had been pleasures out of the water. Uncomplicated camaraderie expressed in nicknames and backslaps. Straightforward expectations distilled to seconds and their decimals. No lies and few secrets.

  Secrets. It’s as bad to tell lies by not saying anything. He’d considered himself an honest man. But by Annette’s definition he was far from it.

  Meets had been his least favorite part of swimming. With the cacophony of shouts, buzzers and whistles, the water offered no solace, so he had no reason to linger. That’s why his times always fell at meets.

  He’d thought Coach Boylan had figured it out, but the coach would simply shake his gray flattop and say, “Whatever works, Corbett. Whatever works.”

  The hard part was accepting that sometimes nothing worked.

  The whole truth.

  Not later, but now.

  Max had obviously returned, but was gone again—for a walk, according to the P.S. on a note taped to the kitchen cabinet that informed her Suz had called.

  A walk along the cold, slick lakeshore. Great, just what a guy with a broken wrist, a cut on his head and bruises needed.

  Annette rubbed her forehead. She could go out and see where he was. But Max would take one look at her and demand to know what was wrong. She paced from the kitchen to the living room, looked out the front windows to snowflakes drifting past the porch overhang. Then paced back.

  She picked up the phone and dialed Suz’s cell phone.

  “We’re not ordering eight kinds of pizza. Let’s get some consensus here.”

  Steve’s turn had arrived to let the sextet practice walking in a straight line for the parade in his living room. Nell bamboozled him into feeding them.

  “Common sense? But—”

  “Consensus, Nell. It means agreement. In this case—” the phone rang, and he started toward it “—it means I’ll order two large pizzas and each half can have a different kind of topping. That’s four total. So you girls get your list down to four, and then I’ll order.” He picked up the phone. “Hello.”

  “Steve?”

  Annette’s voice on the phone. Had he dreamed of hearing her voice on the phone? He’d known she wouldn’t come back, not of her own accord. But had he allowed himself to dream she might call? Out-of-the-blue unexpected. Maybe on a pretext. And they would start to talk. Talk and heal. Work their way back—

  “Is this the Corbett residence?”

  “Yes. Sorry. There’s a lot of noise here.” He held the receiver to absorb the background of Nell and company coaxing one girl to try pepperoni on her pizza.

  “Steve, it’s Annette…Trevetti.”

  Like he didn’t know. “Yes.”

  “Steve? I have an offer to make, for Miss Trudi’s sake. If you think it would help, I could come with you to talk to her. Part of my business has been as a go-between for people who need technical work.”

  Maybe she’d had it right before. When she’d walked out of the wedding. When she’d turned around instead of coming down the pier. When she’d said they had nothing to talk about that morning outside the dry cleaners. Maybe those were reality. And the other moments, the instances of laughter and connection, floating like perfect bubbles through these past days, were the tease of fantasy.

  “Daddy!”

  “What?” It wasn’t loud, but it was sharp enough that Nell looked at him with her eyes large. He never shouted at her. Never. But did he sidestep her feelings as he did to Annette at the wedding? We’ll talk about that later. “You have to wait a few minutes until I finish this phone call. It’s…business.”

>   Did he hear an indrawn breath? “If this is a bad time, Steve…”

  “It isn’t the best time. Come by my office in the morning and we’ll talk.”

  They set a time, like colleagues. No muss, no fuss, no bother. Only, after she’d hung up, he didn’t budge until the phone buzzed in irritation.

  “Daddy? Are you okay?” Nell patted his side in childish consolation.

  “I’m fine.” He hung up the receiver. “Now, one pizza order coming up.”

  Chapter Eight

  The meeting had gone as well as it could have, Annette decided as she gathered her coat, gloves and scarf in preparation to leave Steve’s office Wednesday. They hadn’t come up with solutions, but they had agreed on a sequence of what needed to be done to get some answers.

  And Annette hadn’t mentally cursed Suz for pushing her into this more than a half dozen times.

  He as much as said that I wanted someone to take care of me, Suz. Someone to fight my battles. Can you believe it?

  Do you want the truth?

  Not really. But of course, she hadn’t said that. And Suz had laid out a convincing case. It boiled down to two simple points.

  Point one. Annette had always been protected by Max, and that was what she had expected of Steve as a fiancé. Only after she’d left Tobias had she taken care of herself.

  Annette had acknowledged that one, remembering Steve’s reaction when she’d said he should have shared his discovery—and feelings—about his parentage that last summer. That wasn’t part of the deal you’d signed on for.

  Point two. Annette had jumped to conclusions about Steve’s guilt in regards to Miss Trudi because she had wanted a wall to hide her attraction behind.

  Suz was way off there.

  But, as her friend reminded her when she’d protested, the issue now wasn’t Annette or Steve—it was Trudi Bliss.

  You could help him tell her the truth, couldn’t you? It had sounded so reasonable when Suz said it. Like it would be irresponsible not to do such a little thing.

  Getting Steve to let her help might be another matter.

  Steve said he would take it from there; since it was a town problem, it was his responsibility. Instead of arguing, Annette turned to his assistant, Bonnie, who had taken notes, and asked for a printout so she could explore some avenues on her own. Bonnie agreed without even looking at Steve.

  “I’m heading for a meeting with the highway maintenance chief—could be a lot of snow later this week,” Steve said. “I’ll walk you out.”

  He quirked a challenging brow at her, daring her to argue, while at the same time he held her coat for her to put on. She wasn’t going to argue in front of Bonnie. Besides, they had not come back to the issue of whether she was going to accompany him when he talked to Miss Trudi the next time.

  Debating with herself how to broach that subject occupied her until he pushed open the massive main door, stepping out ahead of her to hold it.

  No time for finesse. She descended the first step and stopped. Another step down, he turned to look at her in question. “Steve, my offer still stands to go with you to talk to Miss Trudi, or I could talk to her first.”

  “Thank you, but it’s my responsibility.”

  “Weren’t you the guy griping that not even cute little rodents helped you? Maybe that’s because you—excuse me if I repeat myself here—don’t accept help.” She came down to the step he was on. “I know you’re not used to needing help, but I think this might be one time when Cinderella’s got the upper hand.”

  He’d gone still at her first reference to their conversation on the pier. Still, heck, he looked thunderstruck—at least by his standards. Could he possibly have missed the connection between her offer, his refusal and their conversation?

  She brushed a touch to his coat sleeve. Too lightly to press it against his arm. Yet she felt as if a flow of heat had come into her fingertips.

  Focus, Annette. Focus.

  “I know it’s daunting, but I’m sure we’ll find a way to help Miss Trudi without hurting the town’s best interests.”

  “We? You know, Annette—” one side of his mouth lifted “—you sound like someone who’s thinking about the future of Tobias, like someone who might stick around.”

  “I can care about an old friend even after I leave Tobias.”

  She saw the change in him as he looked over her shoulder. She turned. Lana Corbett had emerged from the bank, Jason Remtree holding the door for her. Steve’s mother would not be happy seeing him talking to her.

  “I have to go—”

  He moved in front of her before she could retreat toward the door. “No, you don’t.”

  If a meeting between his mother and Annette had to happen—and her vote was no—surely he wouldn’t want it to happen on the steps of Town Hall as if some particularly malicious fate had set them up on a stage for passersby. “Steve, I…”

  He didn’t touch her. Just looked at her—he was so close, he had to look down. The vapor of his breath swirled, as if reaching to touch her face. His heat flowed around her. Did he…

  No. There was nothing to react to here. Nothing to…feel.

  “Steve, let me by.”

  “You’re not chickening out.”

  “Chickening?”

  “Steven.” Lana, climbing the steps at a deliberate pace, gave Annette a long cool look.

  Realization hit Annette. To a Corbett, a public street—or even a stage—didn’t make a difference. Lesser mortals might make scenes, but Corbetts didn’t express emotions in public or private.

  She frowned. Yesterday in his office, Steve had definitely shown emotion. And last week in front of the cleaners. And certainly around Nell.

  “Good day, Annette,” Lana said without inflection.

  “Hello, Mrs. Corbett.” Seven-and-a-half years of accomplishments and successes and learning the world. They were all there in her perfectly modulated—neither too warm nor too cool—greeting.

  Lana continued studying her with no hint of the result of her assessment showing in her steely eyes. “Steven, I wish to speak to you about a family matter.”

  “I’ll just—” Annette backed up a step.

  Steve clamped a hand on her arm. “Go ahead, Mother.”

  Lana’s eyes flickered to Annette, then dismissed her.

  “Very well. I have told you I disapprove of the company you are allowing Nell to keep. Disregarding your reputation is one thing, but letting Nell go to that hovel Bliss House is a disgrace, and to be in such company—”

  “Please don’t stop Nell from seeing Miss Trudi because of me—it would break both their hearts.” All Annette’s resolve to remain uninvolved fled at the prospect of those two being separated because of her. Steve’s hand slid to underneath her arm below the elbow, a warm support through her coat. “I’ll make sure that I’m not at Miss Trudi’s when Nell’s there.”

  Lana Corbett didn’t respond.

  “It’s not you she’s disapproving of, Annette,” Steve said. “It’s Miss Trudi.”

  “But Miss Trudi’s—”

  His smile was grim. “A Corbett? Yes, she is.”

  “Hardly a credit to the family,” Lana said.

  “I’m not the reason you want to stop Nell from seeing Miss Trudi? Because of…because we didn’t…” She couldn’t find words that presented what had happened seven years ago in a neutral light.

  “Naturally, I fault you for running out of that wedding,” Lana said. “After the social capital I expended to create a success. And all for nothing—worse than nothing. If you had stood your ground, we would have emerged from the situation with significantly less damage. It would have looked better if Steve and his wife had united to raise Nell.”

  It would have looked better…. Not that it might have been easier for Steve or better for Nell. Not even that it might have saved Steve hurt. The woman was entirely heartless. To not even consider what Steve and Nell—

  Annette swallowed. Not that she had cause to feel
protective of Nell, and certainly not of Steve.

  “I wasn’t concerned with how it would look.”

  “Yes, you were,” Lana said with cool certainty. “You were concerned that you would look weak and put-upon if you stayed. A woman whose man had strayed before they were even married.”

  “Mother—”

  Annette overrode Steve, looking straight at the woman who had once so intimidated her. “Have you ever given anyone the benefit of the doubt?”

  Lana Corbett hesitated, and Annette wondered if she had penetrated the shell to reach a softer center.

  Then the older woman shook her head slightly and said, “No, I don’t believe I have.”

  Stunned, Annette stared at her. Lana looked back with no show of emotion.

  To her surprise, a bubble of laughter rose in Annette. “Well, at least you are honest.”

  Lana raised one brow slightly as she looked her up and down. “And you are considerably more sure of yourself than you were seven years ago.”

  Instantly serious, Annette said, “I should hope so.”

  “All this is neither here nor there.” Lana looked at her son. Annette had to hand it to the woman, she had a gift for dismissing people. “You have an obligation to the name Corbett in this town, and—”

  “Do I, Mother?”

  Annette thought Lana saw something in his expression that frightened her. Something like the truth. Then that fleeting impression was gone, and Lana spoke with as much certainty as ever.

  “Yes. And you are not living up to it. It’s clear that Miss Trudi belongs in a nursing home, and that building must be razed.”

  Annette couldn’t stop a gasp. Neither Steve nor Lana looked at her, but Steve gave her arm a slow squeeze, as if in reassurance.

  “Neither of those items is clear to most people in Tobias, Mother, and certainly they are not clear to Miss Trudi.”

  “No reasonable person could come to any other conclusion.”

  “Some reasonable people are convinced that Miss Trudi and her home should be left exactly as they are.”

  Lana’s eyes flicked toward Annette. She willed her face not to inform the other woman that she was not among the people Steve meant. She surely didn’t want Miss Trudi sent to a nursing home, but leaving the house as it was? No.