Duncan smiled at that. “Really?”
The way he was looking at her, he probably figured she’d bought something spectacular. “It’s more a café, a breakfast place. I call it Pancake Haus.”
“Sounds good. I might have breakfast there tomorrow.”
“I’ll give you breakfast on the house,” she said. “As a thank-you,” she added, nodding at the tire. After all, she didn’t want him to think she was interested.
Except when he came in the next day and they got to talking, she found she was, just a little. He was the sort of nice guy she’d turned her nose up at when she was young. He didn’t dress like James Dean. He didn’t even smoke. And he sure didn’t drive any souped-up muscle car, just a simple Plymouth Savoy.
“It gets me where I want to go. That’s all I care about,” he said.
She poured him a cup of coffee. “Where do you want to go?”
“Not far from here. This looks like the kind of place where I could raise a family, do a little fishing, have a barbecue on a Sunday afternoon. I like what they’ve done with the town. There’s a lot of potential for growth, new houses going up. A good place for a guy in real estate.”
“Is that what you do?”
He took a sip of coffee and nodded. “Your real-estate office here in town is taking me on as a broker.”
Suddenly, and she wasn’t quite sure why, Dot was glad this man was going to stick around. Maybe it was his smile. Or the fact that he wanted to be a family man. Or maybe just the fact that he didn’t hit women.
She’d found plenty to like about Duncan, and discovered more once he left Seattle behind and put down stakes in Icicle Falls. He was sweet and he loved funny movies and picnics by the river. Mostly, he loved being with Dot, and she loved being with him. When the holidays came, he jumped right in, helping the town’s movers and shakers string lights on the giant Christmas tree in the center of town and playing Santa Claus at the grade school’s PTA Christmas pageant.
The night before Christmas Eve he proposed to her. “Marry me, Dottie. Let’s ring in the New Year planning our wedding.”
A wedding, maybe even in a church instead of at a girlfriend’s house. With a fancy wedding cake and her sister as her maid of honor. And her stepsister...hopefully out of town. And a real honeymoon instead of two nights at a dumpy hotel out on Highway 99.
They went to Seattle on Christmas Eve and met his family, a normal happy family like on The Donna Reed Show. His parents had been happily married for forty-two years and he had two older brothers, also happily married with a passel of children. Not a smoker in the crowd. Would anyone care if she had a cigarette?
As if reading her mind, her future mother-in-law brought out an ashtray. “Duncan tells me you smoke. Please, feel free.”
Okay, she really liked this family.
“They’re all so nice,” she said once she and Duncan were in the car.
“Why are you surprised by that?”
She shrugged. “Maybe it’s because I’m not used to normal. I hope my family doesn’t scare you off.”
“What, do they have satanic rites and drink the blood of goats?”
She made a face at him. “No. They’re okay. They’re just not like your family.” She thought of her hard-faced fairy-tale-worthy stepmother and her bratty younger stepsister. What her father had ever seen in Eunice was beyond Dot. She’d come with a daughter in tow, who was a spoiled brat. Dad never noticed. Dad never noticed much of anything that went on in his house. Or if he did, he didn’t care. So their stepmother indulged the little beast, and if either Dot or her sister, Joyce, did anything to make Ronnie cry they were in big trouble with Mom. They’d grown to strongly dislike Ronnie, which made her even more of a brat. Now that they were all grown women nothing had changed, really.
Dad seemed glad enough to see Dottie engaged. “Well, look at that. You found another live one,” he joked, pumping Duncan’s hand.
Next to him Eunice smiled, happy enough to see Dot find someone and maybe hoping she’d attach herself to her new family and stay out of their hair.
Her uncles were too busy loading up on the spiked eggnog to do much more than wave hello. Her grandfather was busy yelling at one of her nephews, but Grandma was quick to give Duncan a hug and so was Dot’s sister.
Ronnie, single after a messy divorce, sidled up to Duncan and sized him up while taking a drag on her Lucky Strike. “And where did you two meet?” she asked and blew smoke out the side of her mouth.
Dot always felt pretty good about how she looked—until she was around Ronnie. Ronnie was stacked and she had a pouty little mouth that she kept ripely red with Revlon lipstick. Ronnie was also a tramp and Dot hadn’t been at all surprised when her marriage broke up. Flirting with men was like a drug to her. Which was, of course, what she was doing now. She wasn’t interested in Duncan with his red hair and freckles and skinny body, just interested in making him want her.
“We met on Highway 2,” Duncan said. “Dot had a flat and I stopped to fix it.”
“Oh, now that’s truly romantic. You’re quite the knight in shining armor.”
Duncan, bless him, didn’t even realize what Ronnie was up to. He simply blushed and said, “Just thought it would be nice to help.”
“What if I had a flat tire? Would you help me?”
“Not if he knew what a spider you are,” Dot said shortly. “Don’t you need some eggnog or something?”
Ronnie frowned at her. “Cute, Dot.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe you’ve found another man to marry you.”
“And I can’t believe you found any,” Dot retorted, making Ronnie toss her ponytail and stomp off. Duncan was looking confused. “Don’t mind her,” Dot told him. “Every family has a brat and she’s ours. She’s still mad because her first boyfriend followed me around like a puppy when we were in high school.”
“Well,” Duncan said, and apparently that was all he could think of to say.
* * *
“I thought you said he got cold feet,” Muriel said. “It sounds to me like he was pretty determined to marry you in spite of your family.”
“Oh, he didn’t care about them. What unnerved him was what Ronnie told him.” Dot shook her head. “Ronnie never liked me and I never liked her. I guess I didn’t help matters when I didn’t ask her to become a bridesmaid. She came to the wedding ready to sabotage me.”
* * *
A church in Seattle had been reserved and the rehearsal dinner was held at Rose’s Diner—a popular family-style restaurant outside the city that was famous for its fabulous chicken dinners—in one of the large rooms reserved for parties. Her dad claimed he was too broke to pay for it, so Duncan footed the bill.
It was a June night, unseasonably hot. The men had shed their jackets and the women had given up on powdering their noses. In spite of the warm temperatures outside and the still-warmer temperatures inside, in spite of the fan the owner had going, people were enjoying themselves, standing around chatting before dinner. Dot had slipped away to use the ladies’ room. She returned to find her stepsister in earnest conversation with Duncan. Duncan’s face was ghost white, his freckles in stark relief.
“Duncan, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said, but she could hear panic at the back of his voice.
Dot grabbed her sister by the elbow and marched her to a corner of the room. “What did you say to him?” she hissed.
Ronnie looked at her wide-eyed. “Nothing. I was just telling him about Corey and how he died and how sad it was that so many people thought...” She shrugged eloquently.
“You little bitch,” Dot snarled. “I ought to...”
“What? Push me off a mountain? You don’t have a life insurance policy on me.”
Dot whirled around and returned to where Duncan stood, staring a
t his Tom Collins.
“She told me you beat him with a baseball bat one night when he was drunk and passed out,” he said, not meeting her eyes.
She should lie, tell him Ronnie was a worthless tramp and he couldn’t believe a word that fell from her trampy mouth. “No, I didn’t.”
Relief flooded his face with color and he raised his face to show her a relieved smile.
“I used a frying pan.”
The smile did a vanishing act. He set his drink on the nearby table. “What?”
“I’d just found out he’d been cheating on me. He’d already broken my jaw.” She shrugged helplessly. “I was only twenty-two.” As if age really had anything to do with it. “But to tell you the truth, I’d do it again. He deserved that. And more.”
“And did he get more, Dottie? Did you push him off the mountain? Your sister said there was a trial.”
“Stepsister,” Dot corrected him. “And there was an inquest. I guess I got away with murder, so you’d better not cheat on me,” she finished. Ha-ha. Except this was nothing to joke or act cynical about. It had been a horrible, terrifying experience. And maybe she would have said as much if Duncan hadn’t been looking at her as if she was some kind of Black Widow.
“All right,” her father was saying, “let’s all find our seats.”
And so they did. Regretful about shooting off her mouth, Dot tried to smile at the good-natured toasts and jests from her father and her uncles, hugged her grandma and her future mother-in-law when the party broke up and tried to think what she should say to Duncan.
She didn’t get a chance to say anything. The men dragged him off, insisting on celebrating further on the groom’s last night of freedom. He looked over his shoulder at her and his expression was pleading. Please tell me I’m not marrying the creature from the black love lagoon.
There was only one monster in the room and that was Ronnie. Dot shouldn’t have even invited her to the wedding. As everyone filed out of the restaurant, she grabbed her stepsister by the arm. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Ronnie tried to pull away.
Now Dot’s sister had joined them. “What’s she been up to?” Joyce asked.
“Up to? Why do you always think I’m up to something?” Ronnie protested.
Dot glared at her. “She told Duncan about Corey.”
“You little louse!”
“Somebody needed to tell him,” Ronnie said. “He has a right to know what he’s getting into.”
“Well, and when you bring your next victim around, we’ll be sure to tell him how many men you’ve slept with,” Joyce said sweetly.
“I have not...”
“Met a man you didn’t like,” Dot snarled. “Oh, get out of here before we strip you and strangle you with your bra.”
“You would!” Ronnie shot back and hurried out of the room.
“Do you think she has psychological problems?” Joyce mused as Ronnie ran for the door.
Dot sighed. “I guess it was bound to come out. When you’ve got a past, it always does.”
“The only thing in your past you need to be ashamed of was your bad taste in picking Corey in the first place. He was rotten to the core. And the only thing you should regret is not calling me to come over and help you beat the tar out of him that night.”
Dot managed a smile. But it didn’t last long. “I wonder what Duncan’s thinking.”
“That he’s lucky to have you,” her sister said with a grin and hugged her.
She tried to call Duncan at his house a number of times that night but he never answered. She wanted to see him the next morning, but it seemed that every moment was busy with hair appointments and pedicures. All day she kept expecting someone to deliver a note from him telling her never mind, he didn’t want to get married, after all, but none came.
That evening, the little church was filled with family and with friends who’d come over from Icicle Falls. The flower girls did their walk down the aisle, followed by her sister, and then her father offered her his arm.
“Okay, kid, let’s do this,” he said, and she could smell whiskey on his breath.
She looked at Duncan. He stood waiting next to his best man. The expression on his face wasn’t that of a besotted groom. He looked like old Howdy Doody would look if someone set him too close to a roaring bonfire. They should have talked. She should’ve tracked him down. What kind of way was this to get married? She hesitated.
“Come on,” her father teased. “Too late to back out now.”
Was it? Was that what Duncan thought?
Down the aisle they went. Her father said his piece about giving her away and then sat down next to her stepmother. Duncan held out his elbow. Dot took it, and they climbed the three carpeted stairs to where the pastor stood. It was hot in the church with the evening sun streaming through the stained-glass windows, and Dot could feel perspiration gathering on her brow. Duncan was sweating like a crook under police interrogation.
The bridal party turned to face the minister, who told them that marriage wasn’t a state to be entered into lightly. She thought she heard Duncan whimper. She stole a glance at him. His mouth was set in a determined line. This was not the face of a happy groom anticipating his wedding night.
Now it was time to kneel on the carpeted stairs in front of the minister while her cousin Cornelia sang “The Lord’s Prayer.” She got as far as “lead us not into temptation” when Duncan moaned and fell over like a toppled tree.
Pandemonium ensued. Duncan’s mother let out a cry and his brothers carried him from the sanctuary.
“Get him water,” one of Dot’s aunts called after them.
As if water would solve the problem.
“We’ll continue this in a few minutes,” the minister promised.
Dot wasn’t so sure. She picked up her skirts and followed the men to the choir room, which had served as their dressing room.
Duncan was just coming around, thanks to a couple of not-so-gentle slaps from his brother, when she entered the room. One look at her and he passed out again. Now one of his aunts had entered with a glass of water.
Dot took it from her and commanded, “Leave us for a minute.”
The others exchanged looks, then tiptoed off like people leaving the side of a deathbed.
She walked up to where Duncan lay prone on a church pew and dumped the water on his face, which brought him to, spluttering and shaking his head. “We need to talk,” she snapped. “Do you want to marry me or don’t you?”
His expression turned mulish. “Of course I do.”
She smiled sweetly. “Good. We should be able to live happily ever after...as long as you don’t cross me and we never go mountain climbing.”
That put him back to looking like Casper the Friendly Ghost.
“Oh, honestly, Duncan. Do you really think I killed my husband?”
“No. I... No.”
“So then, why did you pass out?”
“It was hot in there.”
“It was hot for you. If you can’t stand the heat, Duncan, stay out of the kitchen.” This wasn’t going to work. Duncan was a big chicken and her stepsister was a witch. At the moment, she could happily have choked them both. She turned to leave. “I’m going to tell everyone to take their presents and go home.”
He caught her gown. “Don’t.”
She looked over her shoulder and cocked an eyebrow at him. “I don’t see the point in going on. Do you?”
“Yes, I do. But don’t you think whatever happened with your husband is something you could have told me about?”
“You’d have run screaming into the night, just like you want to do now.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Tell me what happened.”
She
made a face. “He was drinking. We were up on Mount Rainier with some lousy friends of his and their girlfriends. They were all drinking. We got into a fight.” She could remember it all so clearly. The angry march away from the campsite, the raised voices. Corey grabbing her arm and her jerking away. Him losing his balance. “He fell down a ravine and broke his neck, plain and simple. Of course, no one saw it. They only came when they heard me scream.”
Duncan said nothing. He sat there on the pew, taking in everything she said.
“He had a life insurance policy. An insurance salesman talked us into getting a policy, told us it would be a good way to save money. I guess it was. I used it to buy my restaurant.” Duncan seemed so relieved she could only conclude that he’d considered her capable of murder. She narrowed her eyes. “Of course, I could be making this all up, so we’d better not get married.”
Again, she turned to go, and again, he grabbed her gown. “Quit grabbing my gown, Duncan. You’re going to rip it.” So what if he did? She’d never wear it again.
“You didn’t kill him. Of course you didn’t. But even if you did, I want you anyway. I love you, Dot. I’ll take my chances.”
“Yeah? I might kill you.”
“Then I’ll die with a smile on my face.”
He stood up and put his arms around her. “Let’s go back out there and finish what we started.”
He was either crazy or the most wonderful man in the world. “Are you sure?”
“You bet. But I’m taking off this jacket. I don’t want to pass out again. I don’t want to miss another moment with you.”
* * *
Dot raised her champagne glass, toasting her dead husband. “You know what? He did die with a smile on his face. Duncan was the sweetest man.” The band was playing a romantic slow dance. She looked out at the couples swaying on the floor, the women with their arms around their partners’ necks, smiling at the other. And the bride and groom... If ever a pair looked ready to hit the honeymoon suite, it was them.
Dot pointed in their direction. “Check out Roberta and Curtis. They’re grinning like they won the lottery.”
A Wedding on Primrose Street (Life In Icicle Falls Book 7) Page 31