“Okay, Nell. Okay.” She stroked the girl’s hair. “Start at the beginning. How did you hear your grandmother?”
“I told Fran I had to walk to school early, but that was a fib. I wanted to go to Grandmother’s house because Fridays are waffle days. Mrs. Grier makes the best waffles ever. Lots better than Fran’s oatmeal.”
She looked over Annette’s shoulder toward Fran, who said, “I understand. I’d take Mrs. Grier’s waffles over my oatmeal, too.”
Nell looked at Annette again. “Mrs. Grier’s okay. She doesn’t tell Grandmother I come for waffles. Mrs. Grier was in the basement, getting more jam, and I heard Grandmother in this room by the kitchen, talking on the phone about Miss Trudi. About being at Bliss House at one o’clock, and she said it would be all settled before my daddy gets back.”
Nell’s distress must have been contagious, because Annette felt a swell of concern. “What would all be settled?”
“Dunno.” Nell gulped back tears. “You gotta help Miss Trudi!”
“We will,” Annette promised. “We all will. And the way you can help is to think hard if you remember anything else that your grandmother said.”
Nell’s face scrunched into lines of concentration. She repeated much of what she’d already said before adding, “She talked about an attorney with power.”
“Power of attorney? Is that what she said, Nell?”
“Maybe.” Nell couldn’t be any more positive.
Power of attorney. If Lana could get Miss Trudi’s power of attorney…
Annette looked at the clock again. One o’clock was not that far away.
“Okay, this is what we’re going to do.”
Miss Trudi was so primed that when the doorbell rang—they’d removed the sign for this occasion—she yanked the front door open practically before it sounded.
From a triangle of space Annette shared with Fran behind the partially open door to the back hallway, she sent up two quick prayers—that the others waiting in the kitchen would not give themselves away before the cue and that Miss Trudi would play her part.
Lana Corbett swept into the house followed by a quartet of men in designer suits and topcoats. Miss Trudi flattened herself against the wall and fluttered a hand to point them toward the parlor, as if that were all she could muster.
Annette amended her prayer. Please don’t let Miss Trudi overplay her part.
After a few minutes to let Lana and company settle in, she and Fran exchanged a nod, then eased forward, hoping the creaks of their footsteps would blend in with the old house’s noises.
“But I don’t understand,” Miss Trudi said as Annette caught her first glimpse into the room.
Miss Trudi was a trouper. She had maneuvered Lana and the four men—all still wearing their coats against the house’s chill—so they sat with their backs to the door. She occupied the center of a horsehair sofa with a shawl wrapped over her layers of chiffon, looking small, alone and confused.
“It’s simple, Trudi. This house and this estate have become too much for you. No one blames you.” Lana’s crisply impersonal style robbed that statement of reassurance. “Now something must be done. As trustees of your father’s estate, these gentlemen—” she gestured to her left to two of the suits perched on spindly-legged chairs “—agree. My lawyer has drawn up the papers, and his associate is here to represent you.”
Lana deftly shuffled legal-looking papers, moving one to the top and setting them on the table between her and Miss Trudi, along with a pen, which she opened. “All you have to do is sign.”
“But what is it?”
“It’s a power of attorney, so someone responsible can oversee your finances.”
“But Steve is working on something. I’m sure he said that…almost sure…”
“Trudi, we both know Steven is reluctant to make difficult decisions. Whatever he might have said to you, this is what Steven wants.”
“That’s a lie.”
Lana’s head jerked around. Annette had stepped into the doorway. She supposed her entrance caught the interest of the men, too, but she didn’t care. As Annette went to Miss Trudi’s side all her attention was focused on Lana.
“You are dead wrong about Steve, Lana. He does not flinch from difficult decisions. And as for Miss Trudi’s situation—”
“This is family business—Corbett business—and you are not a Corbett.”
“This is the business of Miss Trudi’s friends, and I am her friend. She has a lot of friends. And Steve is—”
“You think you know my son so well, but you don’t know anything. I have had to spend his entire life doing what is best for him, even when he is too foolish to know it. I should have stopped his idiotic notion of marrying you in the first place. If I hadn’t given in to him, he would be building a political career instead of letting himself be dragged down by this—”
Annette never knew what Lana might have added, because apparently the group in the kitchen interpreted her comment about Miss Trudi having a lot of friends as their cue, and they were fast filing into the room—Fran, Nell, Gert, Lenny, Muriel Henderson, Kim Jayne and two fellow checkers, Miriam Jenkins, Tom Dunwoody Senior, a trio from the library and many more. Some Annette knew and some she didn’t, but each had answered the call when she and Fran started a telephone campaign saying Miss Trudi needed help.
The men flanking Lana looked nervously around the room as it grew crowded, but Lana’s face remained impassive.
“Miss Trudi, do you mind if I—” Annette nodded toward the papers.
“Not at all, my dear,” Miss Trudi said in her usual voice.
“These are private papers,” said the older of the two lawyers.
Annette gave him her best don’t-tread-on-me stare. “Papers that have Trudi Bliss’s name on them, and you heard her give me permission.” Without waiting for his reply, she scanned the sheets then looked at Lana, who returned her gaze without any reaction. “Papers that give Lana Corbett power of attorney for finances and property for Trudi Bliss.” Speaking over a growing grumble from Miss Trudi’s supporters, she added, “Among other things, as Miss Trudi’s agent, Lana Corbett could sell, convey and mortgage realty for prices and on terms as considered advisable.”
“Sell!” squawked Miss Trudi. “You were planning to sell Bliss House? How dare you, Lana—”
“No one would buy this rubbish, Trudi. It’s only the land that has value. It could be doing this town some good—and you. You could go away, travel the world. But no one has had the nerve to do what needs to be done.”
“I think we should, um—” Fran tipped her head toward the kitchen, and Annette nodded.
“Yes, I think Mrs. Corbett and Miss Trudi have more to say to each other in private.”
Miss Trudi grabbed Annette’s hand. “I want you to stay, Annette. And the rest of you, please, wait in the kitchen. It’s good that you all know what she was up to, but don’t go away yet. I don’t trust her.”
Lana stood, and Annette thought she might walk out. Instead, she went to the window that looked out on the wreck of a front garden. “This is absurd.”
But no one else objected. Lana’s attorney joined the other suits being herded out by Lenny and Tom Dunwoody. Fran escorted a reluctant Nell out, leaving Annette, Miss Trudi and Lana.
“You’ve gone around the bend, Lana,” Miss Trudi said.
Annette supposed Miss Trudi was entitled to be irked, but as a conversation opener it ranked with a battering ram.
Without turning, Lana said, “I am not going to tolerate this any longer. To let my granddaughter acquire habits that are totally inappropriate for a Corbett. To see Steven brought down by his unreasoning devotion to a crazy old woman. I will not tolerate it.”
Lana Corbett was jealous. My God, why had Annette never seen that before? The green practically oozed from the woman’s beautifully maintained pores. She was jealous of Nell and Steve’s genuine affection for Miss Trudi.
Her motivation was not to make money out
of selling the Bliss House property, but to give Miss Trudi no home in Tobias along with the means to travel far, far away from Steve and Nell.
For an instant, sympathy pulsed through Annette. Sympathy and something close to pity because Lana thought the way to win a closer relationship with her son and granddaughter was to send Miss Trudi away.
That was a short instant, however, as Lana turned from the window.
“Steven has ruined every single thing I have done for him. I gave him the Corbett name. I gave him position and family he never would have had otherwise.”
Lana’s voice was even and emotionless. But the words somehow twisted her mouth, spotlighting the lines around it that were otherwise so cleverly masked. Did she realize how clearly she revealed her deepest secret—that Steve was not a Corbett by birth? Annette started to look toward Miss Trudi to see if she caught that implication, but Lana’s next words recaptured Annette’s intention entirely.
“And after I saved Zachary from marrying that harpy Lily, Steven stepped right into her trap—ever noble. The fool. If I’d known he intended to marry her after the way she’d acted—”
“You saved Zach?” Annette demanded.
“Are you really naive enough to think Lily didn’t try something before that disgusting scene at your wedding? She came to me when she realized Zachary wasn’t coming back and threatened to make public her situation—threatened! Me!” Lana’s expert makeup couldn’t hide the veins throbbing at her temples. “She talked some nonsense about Steven but said she wanted more. I told her the Corbetts would never submit to blackmail—”
“When? When did she come to you, Lana?”
Lana flicked her hand in the air as if the question were a pesky bug, easier to dispose of by answering than ignoring. “Before that debacle of a wedding, I told you. The cleaners were there. She would have made a scene in front of them, so even though I had no time to spare… Thursday. Two days before the wedding.”
“Oh, God.”
Annette was vaguely aware of Miss Trudi blasting Lana’s interfering ways, but her mind was too occupied to pay close attention.
Lily must have panicked before the wedding. Whether she had been trying for more money than Steve had promised or had simply wanted reassurance, they would never know. Lana had not only turned her away but had refuted Steve’s pledges of support. So Lily had taken a desperate gamble at the wedding, probably hoping to startle a public acknowledgment out of Steve or Lana or both that Zach was the father of her baby, paving the way for her claims on the family.
She couldn’t have guessed how well her gamble would pay off when Annette walked out and Steve took on the responsibility for her and her child.
All because Lana, in her hypocrisy, had—
No, not all because of Lana.
Lana, in her wrongheaded way, had been trying to protect her sons. But she hadn’t accounted for Steve’s reactions, or Annette’s. None of them had accounted for the others’ reactions.
Noises from the kitchen yanked Annette’s attention to the moment. Or perhaps it was the growing stridency between the two other women in the parlor.
“Steve wants to—”
Miss Trudi’s protest of something Lana had said died under a spurt of ugly laughter from Lana. “He doesn’t want to be saddled with worry over you and this monstrosity. You are just another problem to him. Deep down he would be thrilled to have me take care of this. I’m doing what Steven really wants and doesn’t have the strength to acknowledge.”
“Steve has more strength than any man I know. A hundred more times than you have.” Annette was on her feet. Her throat was raw from not letting herself shout. “He has the strength to care about people and to let them care about him. He has the strength to worry about how people feel and not what they think of him or the damned Corbett name. Steve is a far better man and a far better son than you have any earthly right to expect and far, far better than you deserve. He’s the best man I know, and I love him.”
Annette felt the silence drop on the room like a curtain. It took another second to realize the silence was too big to have come from three women.
She looked past Lana’s tense form and saw Steve standing in the doorway, the complete cast from the earlier confrontation, with the addition of Max, ranged behind him.
In that moment Annette discovered a new law of physics—wanting both to run to and to run away from a man looking at her like he’d been hit by a bolt of lightning could hold a person utterly motionless.
Steve felt the sizzle run through his body as he watched her eyes widen. The dark chocolate depths of them encompassed joy and fear, the past and the present…and so much uncertainty about the future.
Uncertainty was a hell of a lot better than what he’d been seeing. But he wanted more. He needed more.
Without releasing her gaze, he advanced into the room. What he wanted to do and what he was going to do were two different things. She might say it was because of his Corbettness. But it was really because of her and that uncertainty.
“Miss Trudi, this is the paperwork for the program we talked about. We will go over it in detail before you sign—” he cut a look toward his mother without making eye contact “—and we have a good start on the funds.”
He and Max had tried to call Annette with the good news as they left Madison, but Max’s phone and her cell had been busy. Attempts on the road had gotten more busy signals, then no answer. So they’d decided to stop at Miss Trudi’s.
The clutter of cars behind Bliss House had been a surprise. The crowd in her kitchen had been a shock. The casseroles on the table proclaimed it a true Tobias crisis. Five voices had come at him at once with scraps of information that had no pattern until Fran stepped up and gave a succinct recap of what had happened and what was happening in the front parlor.
Nothing could have prepared him for walking in on Annette telling off his mother in his defense, with that kicker of saying she loved him.
Once his heart restarted, all he wanted to do was grab her and kiss her and escape. But there was that uncertainty.
He lifted the papers to the view of the people behind him.
“This is the outline for a plan to give Miss Trudi an updated, convenient home on the grounds, and to convert Bliss House to a major center to sell and promote local crafts, making Tobias a regional draw. It’s going to be a big project, an important project, not just for Miss Trudi, but for all of us.” Still looking at Annette, he said, “And no one could do a better job of overseeing it than Annette Trevetti—getting it started and then running it.”
“Marvelous!” Miss Trudi said.
The confusion in Annette’s eyes quadrupled. She started to shake her head.
“I know it’s not what you had in mind. I know you have reservations.” About Tobias. About him. “But I hope you’ll give it a chance. Stay and give it a chance.”
“I can’t.” Annette turned to Miss Trudi. “I’m sorry. I just can’t. No. It’s not—”
A chorus of voices urged her to accept. Miss Trudi clasped Annette’s hand. With her free hand Annette pushed her hair back, the confusion in her eyes deeper.
“Steve, let’s talk about this—”
“Later? No need.” He was going to say this now, in public. He should have said at least this much seven-and-a-half years ago. “I thought that might be your answer, so I have a couple of things to say. First, I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you.” Her mouth rounded into an O, but no sound escaped. “Second, when my current contract runs out at the end of June, I will be leaving Tobias. I—”
“No!” She pulled away from Miss Trudi and took two steps toward him. “You won’t. You can’t.”
“I can.” He cut the gap to arm’s length. “You were right—there are some choices you might not want to have to make, but when it comes down to it, it’s so damned obvious.”
“Nell—”
“Will be happy wherever she’s loved, and she’ll be loved wherever she is with us. If you
’ll let there be an us. We’ll go wherever you want for that chance.”
“You can’t, Steve. You’re not done here. There are so many things you want to do, and the town needs you, and you and Nell belong here.”
“We belong with you.”
“I couldn’t be the one who takes you away.” Twin trails of tears silvered her cheeks. “I couldn’t—”
She bolted past him, past Fran, into the hallway, then out the front door, since the spectators blocked the other exit.
He followed. She was already down the front steps and disappearing around the side of the house. “Annette!”
“Give her a little time, Steve,” Miss Trudi said from behind him. “My, my, you do pick the most surprising times for drama.”
“It’s disgraceful. Making a spectacle that way again,” his mother said. “She’s not worthy of a Corbett. It’s bad enough that she left you at the altar once and that she can’t control her emotions, but now she has you acting like—”
He turned toward his mother, and her words stopped. Only his mother and Miss Trudi had followed him onto the porch, but the entire state of Wisconsin could have been listening. It wouldn’t stop him.
“Annette has me acting like I have emotions because I do. And the most important emotion is that I love her. And you will never criticize her again if you want any contact with me or Nell.”
“You have a position to maintain in this—”
“Damn right. A position as the man who loves Annette Trevetti. That’s what—”
“As a Corbett!” Lana’s voice rose over his.
“As a Corbett, Mother? Exactly how did I come to hold that position and that name?”
This time the lacquer, instead of preventing any expression, set in place the lines of strain. She said nothing.
“I will carry Ambrose Corbett’s name for the rest of my life, and I’ll respect that name. But that’s not the position you’ve been pushing me into all these years, is it? It’s being your son. Being like you—hiding the truth and living lies—that’s the position you’ve tried to make sure I maintained. Well, the hell with it, Mother. It’s time for the truth between us. I’m not counting on you to tell the truth, but someone very wise said to me that it was more important that I tell the truth than that I hear it. So sit down and start listening.”
Wedding of the Century Page 21
