It had been a long time since he’d sent his brother Artie’s battered croquet ball hurtling into their mother’s flower beds. They’d played badminton, too. Gus looked over his shoulder, saw a privacy fence on the back property line and a sagging net suspended between thin metal poles. He and Artie had played with their parents’ tennis rackets, which had sent the shuttlecock whizzing over the net at light speed.
The memory gave Gus a sharp stab of nostalgia, loss and a twinge of unease. No matter how it looked, he wasn’t behaving like a Victorian patriarch. He didn’t give a damn about the money. He cared about Aldo. His tall, lanky, goofy nephew was all the family he had left, and Artie had trusted him—little Gus the geek, who’d used to pretend he was John McEnroe charging the net at Wimbledon—to take care of his son.
“I’ll bet your missing wicket is buried in leaves,” Gus said, crunching through leaves the size of his hand shed by the maple tree soaring over the roof of the house.
“Probably. But I love to watch the leaves blow around.”
So did Gus. He liked birdbaths, too. Cydney Parrish had one on the front lawn and one here in back. Birdfeeders hung from the maple tree and sat on the brick wall lit by carriage lamps that enclosed the patio. Evening dew sparkled on the redwood furniture, chairs and a table with benches. No umbrella and no drapes on the French doors that led into the house, into the dining room. Cydney Parrish must like the sun.
“Have a seat.” She opened the right-hand door, stepped inside and gestured him toward an oval oak table. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
Gus followed her, shut the door and took off his jacket. She turned left into the kitchen, through a doorway between half walls with spindles. He hung his jacket on the back of a ladder-back chair padded in mauve corduroy that faced the kitchen and creaked when he sat down. He smelled furniture polish and roses, looked behind him and saw a basket brimming with potpourri on a hutch with glass doors. An open doorway next to the hutch led into a sunporch with jalousie windows, an artist’s drawing board and a banker’s lamp burning on a desk.
Gus turned around and watched Cydney Parrish open a drawer for spoons, a cabinet for mugs and pluck a tea bag from a canister. He didn’t know what to make of her. Until half an hour ago he’d thought she was a man. Until Aldo floored him with the news that he was marrying Fletcher Parrish’s granddaughter, he’d thought the old bounder had only one child, Gwen. The mother of the bride, soon to be a bride herself.
He’d seen the headline—GLAMOROUS GWEN TO MARRY RUSSIAN PRINCE—on the front page of a tabloid in the convenience store where he’d stopped for gas. He’d bought a copy and read the article. This was Gwen Parrish’s fifth marriage, to an honest-to-God Romanov, a very distant cousin of Czar Nicholas. She’d been widowed the first time—Aldo told him Bebe’s father was dead—and divorced the rest. Her father was on wife number six. Gwen Parrish lived out of a suitcase, which was, Gus suspected, the reason her daughter lived in Kansas City with her aunt.
Cydney didn’t fit in the same picture with Fletcher and Gwen Parrish. She didn’t look anything like her sister—a Candice Bergen ringer with a Kathleen Turner voice he’d seen on 60 Minutes—or her larger-than-life father. Except for talking to pictures of him cut out of magazines, she seemed perfectly normal.
“Help yourself.” She brought a tray into the dining room and put it down in the center of the table. “I’ll be right back. I have something to show you.”
She cut through the kitchen and vanished down a dark hallway. Gus hoped she wouldn’t reappear in a negligee.
Speak for yourself, Munroe, his inner voice said, which surprised Gus. Cydney Parrish wasn’t his type.
A plate of macaroons, homemade by their lopsided shapes, sat on the tray next to the coffee. They were good. Gus was midway through a second one when Cydney came back with a brown Kraft envelope. Uh-oh. Manuscript size. Gus swallowed and took a swig of coffee.
“I don’t read manuscripts by aspiring writers, Miss Parrish. It’s nothing personal. Just my rule.”
“Don’t worry.” She nudged the tray aside, undid the clasp on the flap and upended the envelope. “This isn’t a manuscript.”
Several smaller envelopes tumbled out onto the table, all labeled in magenta ink and a neat, boxy script. One said “IRAs,” another “Stock Portfolio” and a third “Trust Fund from Dad.” She opened this last one, unfolded a sheet that said “Quarterly Summary” at the top, laid it in front of him and pointed to a bottom line that made him gulp. Gus glanced up at Cydney Parrish, her hands spread on the table and fire in her eyes.
“My niece has a name, Mr. Munroe. It’s Bebe. Short for Beatrice, which is Latin for ‘she who makes others happy’ She makes Aldo happy, he makes her happy, and that’s all I care about. I love Bebe and I will not let you break her heart. I have enough money to support her and Aldo and put them through college, so why don’t you take this—” she pulled the faxed codicil out of her pocket and smoothed it flat on the table in front of him “—and Aldo’s fifteen million dollars and shove them where the sun doesn’t shine.”
“Uncle Gus!” The French doors banged open and Aldo burst into the dining room. “What are you doing here?”
His nephew raked back his shoulder-length hair—which Gus hated—and glared at him. His jaw twitched and two bright angry spots burned in his cheeks. Gus shifted in his chair to face him.
“I’m having coffee, Aldo, and being put in my place by—”
A goddess. A tall, lithe young goddess with a flaming braid, a face by Rubens and a body by Playboy stepped into the house behind Aldo. A diamond solitaire big enough to choke a horse flashed on her left hand. Bebe. Worth her weight in diamonds. She who makes others happy. Just by breathing.
She flicked Gus a nervous glance with the biggest, dewiest brown eyes he’d ever seen, then dropped her gaze to the table. She blinked and lifted a startled, worried frown to Cydney Parrish.
“What’s going on, Uncle Cyd? This is your God-Save-Me-and-Bebe-from-Living-in-a-Refrigerator-Crate-and-Eating-Cat-Food Fund. Why are you showing it to Mr. Munroe?”
“Yeah, Uncle Gus.” Aldo flung himself hands first onto the table and into Gus’ face. “What are you trying to pull?”
“Nothing. I just drove up to meet your fiancee and—”
The dazzling Bebe reached for the faxed codicil. Gus made a grab for it and so did Cydney. They both missed and ended up slapping hands in the middle of the table. Bebe raised the fax to her nose and read it, her lips moving, a frown puckering her flawless brow.
“What is it, Bebe?” Aldo peered over her shoulder.
“Read it.” She handed him the fax and turned her big, brown bedroom eyes on Gus. “I’m not very smart, Mr. Munroe, but I understand enough of what’s on that paper and I know my Aunt Cydney well enough to figure out what it means.”
Aldo looked up from the codicil, bewildered. “You do?”
“It means your uncle doesn’t like me and he’s going to keep your money until you’re twenty-five, but Uncle Cyd is going to cash in her God-Save-Me-and-Bebe Fund so we can get married.”
Her full, perfect lips trembled and tears formed on her incredibly long lashes. Gus felt like a heel, a jerk. A Victorian patriarch.
“That’s what it says.” He got quickly to his feet and came around the table. “But that’s not necessarily what I plan to do.”
“Isn’t it?” Cydney snatched the fax from Aldo and threw it, a crumpled-up little ball of thermal paper, at Gus’ chest. “Then why did you barge into my house and shove that under my nose?”
“Good question, Miss Parrish. Glad you asked it. The truth is—”
The truth was, he’d seen red when he’d heard the name Fletcher Parrish. It was also true that he’d felt old and alone and left out, but his pride wouldn’t let him admit that.
“The truth is—” Gus drew a deep breath and let it go. “I feel like a horse’s ass and I wish somebody would kick me.”
“How ‘bout a punch in the nose?�
�� Cydney asked darkly.
“Why not?” Gus smiled sheepishly. “I think I deserve it.”
“Okay,” the beautiful Bebe said, and then she slugged him.
chapter
six
Gus woke up surrounded by flowers, baskets and vases heaped with blooms in every color and variety known to horticulture. Panic shot through him and his heart seized. I’m dead, he thought. Dead and laid out in a funeral parlor. Then he blinked and his eyes focused on a plastic glass full of ice chips on the narrow, laminated table that was pushed up against his chest.
Hospital room, he realized. I’m in a hospital room. How in hell did I get here? He’d never been able to take a punch, but this was ridiculous.
Gus pushed himself up against a rock-hard pillow. The mattress beneath him rasped and felt like it was stuffed with corn husks. The hiss it made, like a tire losing air, brought Cydney Parrish to his bedside.
“How do you feel, Mr. Munroe?” She leaned toward him, peering anxiously into his face. “Can I get you anything?”
Now that he was semiupright, Gus felt the slow, sick thud in his head and a wash of dizziness. He raised his hand to cover his eyes until the room stopped spinning, just as Cydney Parrish raised hers to tug the cement pillow up behind him. Her hand smacked his nose. Gus howled.
“Oh I’m sorry!” she cried. “Oh Mr. Munroe! Let me—” She reached for him again and Gus clapped his hands over his nose.
“No!” he said, only it sounded like “Dough!” He lay back against the pillow and closed his eyes. “I’m okay.” Gus swallowed the foul taste in his mouth and felt his stomach lurch. “I think.”
He heard a screech and cracked one eye. Cydney Parrish pulled a high-backed, lime-green chair close to his bed and sat down. The vertical blind on the window behind her was closed, but the thin line of sunlight that edged the slats— Sunlight? Jesus. He’d been out all night!—blazed like a klieg light. Gus winced and shut his eye.
“Why am I in the hospital?”
“Bebe hit you. Do you remember?”
You bet he remembered. The beautiful Bebe. She who makes others happy and packs a punch like Evander Holy-field. He remembered the crunch of her fist against his nose but he didn’t remember hitting the floor. Or what happened after that. Like how in hell he’d ended up here.
“Is my nose broken?” It felt like it was, throbbing like a stubbed toe in the middle of his face.
“No. The cartilage is just cracked.”
“Then why do I feel like somebody dropped an anvil on my head?”
“Uh, well. I—um—I imagine it’s the concussion.”
Gus opened his eyes. Slowly, avoiding the window, focusing on Cydney Parrish. She sat jiggling nervously in the chair, her knees crossed and her fingers clasped around them. He’d last seen her in jeans, a sweatshirt and a droopy navy blue cardigan. Now she wore tan trousers and a creamy turtleneck. A beige and brown and orange tartan shawl lay over the arm of the chair. She didn’t look waifish and woebegone. She looked well tailored and well heeled. A very fetching nut, if you liked petite blondes with tiny noses and big brown eyes, which Gus didn’t.
“How did I end up with a concussion, Miss Parrish?”
“We didn’t mean to drop you, Mr. Munroe.” She edged forward in the chair. Earnestly, Gus thought, beseechingly, her fingers so tightly clenched on her knees that her knuckles were white. “We tried to wake you up, but we couldn’t, and Bebe was getting hysterical. She thought she’d killed you. Aldo and I were trying to get you off the floor.”
He remembered now. Sort of. A hazy recollection of thumps and shrieks and tears. “And that’s when you dropped me?”
“No. We dropped you in the backyard. We were trying to get you into my truck so we could take you to the hospital. I had your feet, Aldo your shoulders. Bebe was walking beside you holding your hand. Everything was fine until she tripped over the wicket.”
What wicket? Gus almost asked, then remembered trailing Cydney from the garage to the house, the leaves crunching under his feet … their smoky scent and the memories of Artie they’d stirred … the shapely curve of Cydney Parrish’s silhouette in the wash of the patio lights. When had he noticed that? Gus couldn’t remember and it made him scowl.
“The wicket you couldn’t find because it was buried in leaves?”
“That’s the one.” She nodded miserably. “Bebe fell flat on her face and Aldo let go of you to help her up. The resident in ER last night thought she’d broken her ankle. So did I. It was so swollen and Aldo was frantic. They took an X ray. It’s just a bad sprain. A double sprain.”
Cydney Parrish rattled on about ice packs and air boots. Gus listened, wondering where he’d been while the entire emergency room staff, or so it seemed hearing her Uncle Cyd tell it, devoted themselves to Bebe and her sprained ankle. He could see himself lying unconscious on a gurney pushed out into the hall, nurses flitting past him like he was a stiff waiting to be wheeled off to the morgue.
It hadn’t been that way at all. Someone had taken the time to determine his nose was only cracked, not broken, his skull only concussed, not fractured—but that’s how Gus felt. Pushed off and forgotten. Dropped like an afterthought—or a crabby old Victorian patriarch with a glass jaw—when the beautiful Bebe tripped over the wicket.
Cydney Parrish ran down finally, like a wound-too-tight music box. She had a lovely voice. Clear and smooth. Perfect for distracting him from his cracked nose and concussion and the fact that she was here and not Aldo. He wondered what it meant. Probably that his nephew was still pissed at him.
“How long will Bebe have to wear this air boot?” he asked.
“A week, at least. Maybe ten days.”
“Well then.” Gus smiled. “The wedding will have to wait.”
“No it won’t. Bebe wants her mother here—my sister, Gwen. She’ll be home from Moscow next Thursday, so we’ve scheduled the wedding for the following Saturday. That’s twelve days, which is more than enough time for Bebe’s ankle to heal.”
“Why the rush? This isn’t a have-to wedding, is it?”
“No, Mr. Munroe. Gwen is a photojournalist and she has a very busy schedule, so we’re simply trying to fit the wedding in around her schedule.”
“That’s backwards, Miss Parrish. I know who your sister is, and I’d think she’d want to make sure Aldo and Bebe are certain of their feelings before they leap into marriage. I know I do. Surely if she has, say, six months to plan for it, your sister can find a few days in her schedule to attend her daughter’s wedding.”
Gus would. In his head, in fact, he was already planning around the May first deadline for his next Max Stone mystery. How many more pages he’d have to write per day, how many more hours he’d have to spend at the PC to finish the book and still have time to play father of the groom.
“I’m sure it does seem backwards to you,” Cydney replied, not quite meeting his gaze. “But my mother and Bebe and I are so used to arranging family events around Gwen’s schedule that it’s second nature.”
So was covering for her sister, Gus surmised. Like father, like daughter. He’d read an article in People magazine that said Gwen Parrish was every bit as driven as her father. A not-so-nice euphemism for selfish as hell.
“Aldo put you up to this, didn’t he?” Gus asked.
“What do you mean?” Cydney blinked at him, the picture of innocence. “Put me up to what?”
“Coming in here to con me, bribe me, beg me—whatever it takes to keep me from putting the kibosh on this wedding.”
“Aldo did no such thing. We drew straws and I—I mean, I volunteered. I wanted to give you this.” She unzipped her brown leather purse, withdrew a business card and handed it to him. “My attorney. I told him to expect your call. I should’ve gotten out the leaf blower and found that wicket. I didn’t. I was negligent. Sue me, Mr. Munroe. Don’t use this to ruin the wedding.”
Gus was stunned. What a perfectly brilliant idea. Why hadn’t he thought of it? And w
hy was Cydney Parrish looking at him like she expected him to sprout horns and fangs? Where had she gotten the idea he was such an ogre?
Can’t imagine, Munroe, his inner voice said. Maybe you barging into her house waving Artie’s will had something to do with it.
“I wouldn’t dream of suing family, Miss Parrish.” Gus tossed the card on the table. “I’m offended that you think I would.”
“Perhaps I got the wrong impression, Mr. Munroe.”
She plucked the codicil to Artie’s will out of her bag, unfolded it and smoothed it on the table in front of him. She had to get out of her chair to do it, which brought her close enough that Gus could see how amazingly dark her eyebrows were, how long and thick her lashes. He drew a breath of her perfume, a light, flowery scent that soothed the throb in his nose. The faxed codicil was a crushed and wrinkled mess. Gus had last seen it wadded into a ball in Cydney Parrish’s hand and flung at his chest.
“If I jumped to conclusions,” she said, settling back in her chair and nodding at the codicil, “that’s why.”
See? his inner voice said. Told you so.
“Oh shut up,” Gus snapped. “I hate it when you’re right.”
Cydney Parrish went stiff in her chair. “What did you say?”
“I said—” Gus snatched up the codicil, crumpled it and tossed it into the trash can beside the bed. “I’d like a chance to make things right. We got off on the wrong foot last night. It was entirely my fault and I apologize. Care to start over?”
Cydney’s chin took a swift, dubious jerk to one side.
“I’m Aldo’s uncle, Angus Munroe.” Gus stuck his right hand through the bars on the bed rail. “Pleased to meet you, Miss—?”
He threw in a smile. A rusty, rarely used one. Cydney Parrish didn’t return it, but she inched forward in her chair and slipped her hand into his.
Mother of the Bride Page 4
