Hoping someone would rescue the terrified tot, Lucinda arranged the bride’s elaborate train, guiding her and her father to stand at the edge of the aisle; when the bride kicked off her sparkling sandals and went down the white runner barefoot, Lucinda simply closed the sanctuary doors and ducked into the foyer. As the minister began the familiar “Dearly beloved” introduction, she tried her best to keep her laughter silent.
Eventually all nightmares end. A little before midnight, Lucinda began the thankless task of cleaning up after the wedding party left. The path of destruction wasn’t small, and by the time she’d finished, every bone in her body was protesting further movement. Balancing her handbag and emergency kit, she shoved back the cuff of her black jacket to look at her watch. Twelve-thirty, well past midnight, and too late to call Jeff. She was too tired to think about dinner anyway, and had no inclination to see another human being tonight.
A slow walk around the bride’s dressing room, church parlor, and kitchen assured her she’d left nothing undone. Time to bring this day to an end. Lucinda pulled the building key loose from the notes and receipts in her purse and dropped it into the mail slot in the door of the pastor’s office. The thunk of metal on flooring assured her she’d finished with the last detail of this unmentionable day. Feeling as if she’d crossed a mountain range in high heels, she leaned against the pushbar to open the outside door. A last quick glance, a flick of the switch to turn off the lights, and she was outside breathing clean, cold air and hearing the lock click behind her.
The parking lot was lit by a single pole light, and she’d made sure to park directly under it. Pulling her cape closed and her wool scarf over her head, Lucinda started across the pavement to her Honda. As she stepped out of the cover of the church porch, she realized the light swirl in the air wasn’t mist. Snow, just barely visible, had begun to fall. It wasn’t sticking to the pavement, but the cold sting on her face suggested it well might cover the ground by morning. And she could sleep in and enjoy it!
Hurrying through the sharp night, she unclipped her keys from the handle of her bag and clicked the button to unlock the door. The headlights didn’t flash in response.
Drat! I should have brought the other key ring. This one always shorts out when the weather gets damp. She dropped her emergency bag on the pavement, unlocked the trunk with the manual key, and tossed the bag into the trunk, slamming the lid closed. Time to get home. The light snow wasn’t sticking, but it certainly was making her cape damp, and her feet were freezing.
The film of snow on the windshield hadn’t melted. The temperature was definitely dropping. Shivering, she quickly unlocked the car and ducked into the driver’s seat. Not bothering to fasten her seat belt, she pushed in the key and turned it to start the car. Nothing happened, just a rather dry, mechanical click.
“No, you can’t quit on me, not now!” She tried again but—nothing! Lucinda fumbled for the overhead light, found it switched to the “on” position, and silently cursed the moment when she’d rushed from the car in the morning fog, hurrying to meet the florist in the church, and failed to turn it off. Result? Dead battery. How long would it take for her auto club to send someone to give her a jump? Lucinda glanced at the glowing dial of her watch. Almost one in the morning. It could be an hour or more before help arrived if the snow was making problems on the highway. Resigning herself to a long wait in a cold car, she freed her phone from its pocket in the side of her purse. Flicking it on, she scrolled for the auto club number. Even as she tapped the number, she saw the single bar of energy fade. The phone went blank.
For a long moment her tired brain refused to believe what she saw. A second attempt raised no signal at all. She was stuck in a cold, dead car, locked out of the church she’d just left, without a working phone. She supposed the dozens of calls she’d made during the day, trying to keep the wedding on track, had drained the phone. But what was she going to do?
Wearily sorting through options, Lucinda saw she had only one choice. She couldn’t walk back to her apartment above the shop. Too far for someone in heels and an evening cape. And much too cold. But she was downtown, so she might find a taxi along one of the main streets. Or someplace open with a public phone. Resigned to a cold walk in the thickening snow, she pushed the car door open and forced herself out into the white flakes solidifying around her.
A vista of deserted streets with darkened doors lining them met her as she rounded the outside corner of the church. Along the sidewalk she could see the silhouettes of businesses closed and barred. An occasional light in an upper floor suggested cleaning crews were still busy, but she didn’t see any way to contact them.
Standing here in the cold, with snow in your shoes, isn’t getting you anywhere, my friend. With another glance up the street, she started walking toward the nearest major intersection. Shivering before she’d gone a block, she crossed an empty street and was halfway to the next when she saw the top of the tallest building in town, a rectangular black patch rising into the grey skyline. Jeff’s building! She could get there, and he’d have a phone. She wouldn’t ask him to take her home, not at this time of night and under such dismal conditions, but she’d be able to call her auto club and get her car started.
A viable solution gave her energy, and Lucinda was able to quicken her steps. The snow was whiter now, not just a fleecy grey cloud, and it had begun to stick in cracks and corners near buildings. Texas didn’t have the long, wet winters of many other states, but it did get flurries of the white stuff about every third or fourth year. Looked like this was the year for it.
The blocks seemed to get longer as she pushed herself to hurry. The cold had long since penetrated her cape and suit. Now her layered garments felt wet and icy against her skin. She gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering. Her feet were nearly numb, and though she pulled her scarf over her nose, every breath felt like ice picks in her lungs.
In the last few yards Lucinda began to doubt she’d make it to the glass doors of the building. The ten wide steps up from the sidewalk were slick enough to make her grab the handrail with both hands and mount one step at a time. Through her gloves, the frosted chrome drained what little feeling she had in her hands. Eventually the steps came to an end in a slushy pile of barely melted ice. Lucinda sidestepped the puddle and managed to reach the great glass door. It was locked. Of course it was locked at this time of night. What had she expected?
But she and Jeff had come in pretty late when they came to look at the house plans. The building was locked then, too, but Jeff had done something…something. Yes, a house phone; that was it. There was a house phone outside the doors for visitors and tenants who came in after the doors locked. She felt her way along the dark entrance to a panel at the end of the building. The metal plate set into the wall had pushbuttons for each office and one for the building manager. Wiping snow away from the frigid rectangle, Lucinda was barely able to read the names in the glow from one faint strip of light at the top. Sinclair, Sinclair, there it was. J. Sinclair. With fingers too numb to feel it, Lucinda pushed the dark button.
The muted buzz seemed to go on forever without response. He could be asleep and not hear me! He might have decided not to wait for a call and gone out! Frantically Lucinda pushed the call button again.
“Hello? Who’s there, please?” His voice sounded mechanical, but it was definitely Jeff.
“Jeff! Thank God you’re there. It’s Lucinda, and I’m outside your building in the snow. My battery is dead and I’m stranded. I need to call my auto club.”
“Lucinda! I’ll be right down.”
Shivering under the overhang of the entry, Lucinda pulled her wet scarf closer around her mouth and nose. Jeff seemed to be taking ages to let her inside. She rubbed a clear place on the glass door so she could see the elevators. The indicator above one was lit, the floor numbers glowing one by one as the car descended. So slow! Is it ever going to get down here? The car seemed to creep between floors and stall at each numeral. It’s
taking forever! The door of the car began to open, and Jeff dashed across the marble floor. As Lucinda silently urged him to hurry, he tapped a code into the keypad beside the door. He looked so warm in his forest green running suit, his fleece-lined slippers. She shook with violent shuddering, gripping the massive door handles with stiff fingers that had no feeling left.
“My dear girl!” Holding the door open with his body, he all but lifted her into the lobby. “Car trouble? You should have called me.”
“Cell phone died.” She couldn’t stop shaking from the cold. “I couldn’t get back into the church.”
“Explain later. You’re soaking wet.” He hurried her across the marble floor and into the elevator. “Let’s get you upstairs and dry before you take cold, or worse. Where is your coat?”
“I was just going from the car to the church, and a coat gets in the way when I’m driving. So I just had my cape.”
Once inside his apartment, Jeff paused only long enough to divest her of the dripping cape. “And those shoes are soaking wet. Leave them by the door.” He hurried her through his study and into the hallway opening off it. “Bathroom is on the left, Lucinda. Get out of those wet things and into the shower. You’ll get warm in there quicker than anywhere else. I’ll find you something dry to wear. I think one of the girls left some things here. And I’ll get you something hot to drink.”
“Oh, I don’t want to be a bother, Jeff. I’ll just call my…”
“I’d think pneumonia would be more of a bother.” Jeff turned her toward the open door of the bath and gave her a slight push. “Go on in there and get warm and dry.” His forehead wrinkled in thought. “Say, did you have dinner? Or have you been at the church all this time?”
Lucinda laughed. “Dinner? Jeff, today was…” She started laughing again. “Today was one for the books. Did I have dinner? My friend, I didn’t even have lunch. What I had was unmitigated hell, with a large helping of pandemonium for dessert.” Remembering the grueling, absurd day—the endless snafus, the outrageous changes, the family hostilities—reduced her to helpless laughter bordering on tears. “Barnum and Bailey, complete with clowns and animal acts, and me trying to be the ringmaster!”
His hands firm on her shoulders, Jeff shook his head. “Sounds like you’ve been on the firing line too long, lady.” He pulled her into his arms, taking no notice of her wet clothes and dripping hair. “Get in the shower before I put you into it myself. When you’re finished, I’ll have something for you in the kitchen. And you can tell me all about it.” With one arm around her shoulders, he steered her into an opulent bathroom with a glassed-in shower large enough to hold a committee meeting. Jeff opened the door and turned the controls. Cascades of steaming water gushed from multiple showerheads.
“There you are. It’s hot, but it shouldn’t be too hot for you.” He pulled bathsheets, cream-colored and soft as down, from a shelf and put them in her hands. “Soap and shampoo are in the shower. Hair dryer in the second drawer of the dressing table.” He started out the door. “And I’ll bring you some clothes. At least something warm and dry.”
With fingers too numb to feel the fabric, Lucinda fumbled the buttons on her jacket through their buttonholes. She finally managed to tug the wet wool away from the sodden sleeves of her turtleneck. Straggling strands of hair pasted themselves to her face and neck. Running her fingers through the tangles, she felt for hairpins and pulled them free.
“Candace left these here on her last visit,” Jeff stopped at the doorway, a fleecy pair of blue sweatpants and a red-and-blue-striped T-shirt in his hands. “And I brought you some socks. Your feet must be half frozen.”
“Thank you, Jeff. I didn’t mean to invade you, especially this late. Good of you to take in a half-frozen ragamuffin at this hour.”
“The prettiest ragamuffin I’ve ever seen.” He put the garments on the dressing table. “I’ll see you in the kitchen for scrambled eggs and toast.”
The thought of food, something hot and savory, and dry clothes, even borrowed ones, motivated Lucinda. She peeled off her wet garments and ducked into the steaming shower. Slowly the chill began to lose its grip on her. Blessed warmth replaced the bone-deep cold. Her skin lost its leathery, stiff feeling. When she finally emerged from Jeff’s mammoth shower and swathed herself in a luxurious bathsheet, she was reasonably certain she’d not have any lasting effects from her walk in the snow. She rubbed her skin to a pink glow and tugged on the pants and tee. The hair dryer was exactly where he’d said. Finger-combing her hair, she blew it dry. Without styling gel or any of her other products at hand, she let it simply fall in its natural, silky waves around her face. Not sophisticated, she knew, but all she could manage.
Jeff turned as she came into the kitchen. “Bad day at the office, honey?” His open arms were an invitation she couldn’t ignore. Enfolded in his embrace, his scent of sandalwood and citrus surrounding her, she felt the frustration and exhaustion of the day lift.
“If I’d known how this day was going when I started out this morning, I think I would have driven in the other direction.”
Jeff pulled the bar stool away from the breakfast bar. “Get yourself on the outside of some eggs and toast while you tell me about it. I have chamomile tea steeping.”
“Anybody ever say you’d make a wonderful mother?” Lucinda took the seat he offered, accepted the plate he slid in front of her, and let relief wash over her. “Sometimes I wonder why I do this job. And sometimes…sometimes I think perhaps I make a little headway where sheer chaos is trying to take over.”
Jeff put a cup of tea in front of her. “But today chaos won?”
Lucinda propped one elbow on the bar top, rested her head in her palm, and closed her eyes. “Game, set, and match.”
“Worst moment?”
She took a long time buttering her toast, thinking over the whole panoply of bad taste and social faux pas. “Hard to say whether it was the moment the best man and the bride’s brother ignored a request to pose for a picture because they were threatening to punch each other out, or the thirty seconds that seemed like forever when the bride and groom were coming back up the aisle to a swinging version of ‘Ring of Fire.’ I’m not sure. But the look on the minister’s face when the first bridesmaid pranced down the aisle like a Vegas show girl, in a dress that didn’t cover any of her natural assets, was priceless!”
“I can only imagine what the poor man was thinking by the time he got the couple married.”
“He pretty well let me know what he was thinking. Something to the effect of ‘If you’re planning any more burlesque weddings, kindly take them to the appropriate Elvis Presley chapel.’ I probably won’t be doing another wedding in his church for as long as he’s the minister there. For some reason, he thought it was all my doing. As if I’d knowingly let one of my brides make such a spectacle of herself.” Over her eggs and toast, Lucinda gave Jeff the rest of the highlights of her day.
Across the bar from her, he gripped the marble edge with both hands, first chuckling at her recap and finally shaking with helpless laughter. “Lucinda Parks, you had enough for one day. You didn’t need a dead battery and a long walk in the snow.”
She drained the tea cup and put it aside. “They weren’t in my plans, I assure you.”
He turned from the bar to take a bottle and two glasses from a cabinet on the far wall. “A little Grand Marnier in the study? The seats are more comfortable, and the room is warmer.”
“Sounds wonderful.” Lucinda followed him down the hall to the jewel-toned room. The lights were low enough to cast only a golden glow on the walls. The music was piano, simple, unaccompanied piano, underlining the intimacy of the room. Jeff pulled the parquet table closer as she curled into the corner of the deep sofa. “This is the most inviting room I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how you work in your grim office out there with this lovely place available.”
After pouring a generous dollop into one of the bell-shaped glasses, Jeff passed it to her. “That’s the
point, Lucinda. When I’m in here, I don’t work. This is my place to rest, to withdraw from the world. A place just to think and reflect. Read or escape into music. The office where I work, well, I try to keep all distractions out of it. Works better for me.”
She sipped and let the liqueur warm the last chill from her body. “I’ve never thought of it that way. I fill my workspace with colors, textures, ideas, and they help give my clients a way to explain how they envision their event.”
“But where do you take Lucinda to let her visions develop?” Jeff put his glass on the side table and moved closer to her. His thumb traced a slow circle on the back of her hand. “You said your apartment was little more than a place to leave your things while you were working. Not a home, a refuge for you, when you’ve had a day like today?”
“I’ve not had time, or inclination I guess, to create a nest for myself.” Lucinda let her head tilt back into the lush cushions. “I can see where a—what did you call it—a refuge? I can see where a refuge like this would be a wonderful thing to have.” She shifted slightly so she could see his face. “But I’d think, with all your experience and talent, you’d have more than a couple of rooms behind your office to call home. You’ve never wanted to build a home for yourself?”
He reached for his glass and took a sip. “I guess we’re two of a kind, in a way. You design and pull together weddings to satisfy the fantasies of other women, but you’ve never had one of your own. I build dream houses for everyone else, but somehow I’ve never built mine. So you’re an unmarried wedding coordinator, and I’m a homeless house designer. How strange is that?”
“If our respective clients thought about it, it might send them somewhere else. Just as well they don’t ask.”
His thumb continued to trace circles, moving to her sensitive inner wrist, while the room wrapped them with soft lights and subdued piano. “I like the way you fill that corner of my room, Lucinda. Like it was meant for you. But better than the way you fill the corner of my sofa is the way you fit so nicely in my arms.” He drew her into his embrace. “And your lips feel so good against mine.” His kiss was slow, sweet, flavored with a hint of liqueur. “So engaging, and so right.”
Double Wedding, Single Dad Page 6