The wall hanging wasn’t right, though, so she took it down and tried again. No matter how hard she concentrated, a question kept staining the back of her mind. Exactly what did she owe Reed?
She stepped back and knew immediately she’d hung it too high.
How could she possibly make a major life decision based on feelings for a man who’d only been back in her life for a couple of weeks? And darn it, why did Garrett ever have to come back into her life? She’d known there were issues in her marriage with Reed. But she might have been able to make Reed happy-might have been able to settle herself-if Garrett had just never come home.
She stepped back from the linen wall hanging and gritted her teeth. Now she’d hung it too low.
“Hey, Emma.” Josh poked his head in the doorway. He was working in the front with a group of volunteer kids-they’d battled over who got to do that job because they both loved working with the teenagers, but Josh had won. This time. “Your mother’s on the phone in the office.”
“Thanks.” Could this day get more frustrating? But it could, she discovered, when she picked up the phone in the office and heard her mother’s slurred voice.
“Emma?”
“Mom. It’s only three in the afternoon!”
“Couldn’t help.” Emma heard the chink-chink of ice cubes. “Your father…” The phone dropped or something else made a heavy thump. “…so mean. Nothing I do is right. Come home tonight? You have to. I need you.”
After that cheery call, Emma returned to the wall-hanging project, thinking, okay, okay, what did she owe her parents? And how come she couldn’t seem to escape any of the hairy life questions today, no matter how hard she tried?
To add insult to injury, she still hadn’t conquered the wall-hanging problem before noticing a silver van with Weddings By Felicity for a logo. Seconds later a platinum blonde flew into the room, wearing heels too tall to walk on and a short, sassy haircut that matched her short, sassy print dress. “Oh, good, you’re not busy!”
Emma glanced at the boxes heaped all over the room. “Felicity-”
Her old friend motioned with her head toward the door-since both her hands were filled, one with a long bottle of wine, the other with two crystal glasses. “You and I are going to talk. Right now. Don’t even try arguing with me.”
“I’m not arguing. I’m always glad to see you. But-”
“Uh-uh. No buts. Move the tush, cookie. We’re drinking and talking behind closed doors for at least the next half hour, and that’s that.”
Felicity looked a lot like a young Meg Ryan, except that Meg used to play such nice roles in movies, and Felicity shared more in personality with an army tank. She set up behind Emma’s steamed-cherry desk, burrowed in her purse for a corkscrew and, predictably, found one. She poured one glass to the brim and shoved papers aside to push it toward Emma.
“If you weren’t one of my dearest friends, I’d have mopped the floor with you long before this.”
“Me?” The sign over Emma’s desk said Our Lives Are Reflected in the Things We Choose. Ironic, she thought, because the gallery was brimful of elegance and style in all forms, yet her office walls were wallpapered with children’s work. Finger painting. Shaving-cream art. Pictures made from macaroni and spangles and beads and buttons. Of course, no one ever hung out in the gallery office but her. And bossy, nosy, intrusive friends, it seemed.
“Look,” Felicity said firmly. “I know that Reed’s already made the honeymoon plans. Which means you both have to know when the wedding’s going to be, yet somehow you still aren’t calling me to pin down the date.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. It’s wrong…” She looked down at the wineglass. “Felicity, honestly, I can’t drink in the middle of the day.”
“Of course you can. Because we need to talk, and right now you’re way too buttoned-up. Now listen to me.” Felicity leveled herself into the wraparound red velvet chair and cocked her very long leg with its very tall heel on Emma’s priceless desk. “I’ve been through this a million times. I know brides like no one knows brides. Brides get cold feet. It’s nothing new, nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, you’re likely to get colder feet than most.”
“Why do you think that? That I’d get colder feet than most?”
“Because you’re the kind to take marriage more seriously than the rest of us,” Felicity said as if that should have been obvious. “Admit it. You think marriage is for keeps, don’t you?”
“Well, yes.”
“I rest my case. You’re hopelessly naive. But that’s not the point, Em. The point is that nerves like yours are why Weddings By Felicity exists. So I can take the stress off your back. And because this one’s about you, and I love you, I don’t care if it all has to be done at the last minute. I’ll make it happen. It’s also a lot easier to make it happen because it’s at your mom’s place. And when there’s no limit on money, obviously that’s a major help, as well.” Felicity downed another sip of wine. “Although, I have to say, your mother is driving me batty. She wants everything her way.”
Emma was listening. It was just…All right, she wasn’t listening. She hadn’t been listening to anyone or anything in days now. Ever since that afternoon with Garrett, she seemed to have suffered a complete brain meltdown. She just couldn’t seem to stop replaying those moments. When he’d tugged her wrist and they’d been inches apart. When desire had risen in her like a fierce wildfire. She’d wanted to be kissed at that moment more than she’d wanted life or air. Wanted to kiss him. Wanted to be kissed by him. There’d been nothing else in her head, her heart, nothing. It was like being swooshed under by a tidal wave.
A tidal wave named Garrett.
And damn it, it was one thing to settle when you thought pale was all there was. But now she knew she hadn’t come close to the possibilities before.
“Hey.” Felicity snapped her fingers. “Wake up, you. Remember, I’m the one who paid for the great wine?”
“Yes. And that was really nice of you. And I’m sorry my mother’s being a pain.”
Felicity waved a hand. “Brides’ moms and grooms’ moms come with the territory. It’s like having to eat your spinach when you’re a kid. I can deal with it. And I can deal with your nerves, too, if you’ll just let me. So either start talking to me or I’ll have to slap you.”
Emma understood she was supposed to laugh. But somehow what came out of her mouth was a question. “Do you think I’m a cold fish?”
“Huh? I was talking about cold feet, as in being nervous. Not cold fish, as in being frigid.”
“But do you think I am? I mean…do I come across as less…sexual…than the rest of the group?”
“Oh, boy, this is getting good.” Felicity dipped the wine bottle into her glass again, then squirmed her fanny back in the chair. “Honey, no one we grew up with is likely to wear a white dress at her wedding, if you know what I mean. Although…” She suddenly squinted at Emma. “Holy horseradish. You couldn’t still be a virgin, could you? I didn’t think it was possible.”
“At my age? Come on,” Emma scoffed and for the first time reached for her wineglass and took a gulp.
“You couldn’t be,” Felicity repeated, but she was still squinting at her. Squinting hard.
“I’m not. I’m not.”
“Well…” Finally Felicity let it go. “Let’s go back to the original question. What was the cold-fish remark all about?”
Emma couldn’t sit. She walked over to the window, rubbed her itchy back against the frame. “There are a lot of reasons…why I’m no longer sure I’m the right person for Reed,” she said quietly.
“Okay. Since you bought up the cold-fish thing, I assume sex is the real issue we’re not talking about, right? And if that’s all you’re worried about, chill.” Felicity relaxed again, as if relieved to discover nothing important was the problem. “Come on, you know it’s the same for everyone. Sex is always great in the beginning. Then the first lust fades like the bloom on the rose. Then the c
ouple both have to work at it-and good lovers do just that, so they tend to end up just fine. You know how it goes.”
“Yes, of course I do,” Emma said and this time filled the wineglass herself, keeping her expression averted.
“My theory, though, is that if it isn’t great in the beginning, then the relationship just isn’t worth going for. I mean, a guy who’s selfish from the get-go never improves. That’s not about sex, it’s about a character flaw, you know?” Felicity suddenly looked startled. “Reed isn’t that kind of selfish, is he? I mean, I barely know him. But he seems like such-”
Josh suddenly rapped on the open door. He rarely interrupted when she had someone in the office-partly because he rarely needed to. He was more than capable of handling most problems himself, but this time he clomped in with a frown, dropped something in her hand and closed her fingers around it. “You gotta quit putting that in the bathroom. I’m scared it’s going down the drain,” he said and then clomped right back out of the room again.
Emma knew what it was without looking…but she did look. There, in her palm, was the breathtaking sapphire Reed had given her.
She just couldn’t seem to keep the engagement ring on her finger lately. Couldn’t even try to pretend.
Felicity didn’t seem to notice the exchange, just kept on chatting. Eventually she stood up to leave-although not until the bottle was nearly leveled. She carried the two crystal glasses and the corkscrew as far as the doorway, but then stalled there, clearly in no hurry to leave…not once they started on everyone else’s gossip.
“Did you hear the police talked to Abby again? Apparently she got them to take fingerprints of her mother’s safe-and they found a thumb and forefinger-and the prints weren’t of any family members! So they’re questioning Edith Carter again. You know, Bunny’s housekeeper-”
“I just don’t get it,” Emma said, closing her hands around the ring again, feeling the stone pinch. “When it comes down to it, Abby’s mom only told a bunch of gossip. Sure, people wouldn’t want it in print if they were discovered sleeping in the wrong bed. But to kill her?”
“I know, I know. But then if someone had the cojones to blackmail Jack Cartright, you have to believe some people get pretty shook up over their secrets being told.”
“Yeah,” Emma said thoughtfully, again feeling the weight and shape of the sapphire in her palm.
“And another secret thing…I ran into Mary Duvall again. I know you used to be good friends with her.”
“Yeah, we were really close back in high school.”
“I think she’s great. But she just looks so different than when we were in school. Suddenly turned into a Pendleton-and-pearls type. No more wild cookie. I think there’s another mystery there.”
“Maybe she just grew up,” Emma said drily.
“And maybe she has a deep, dark secret that made her want to come hide out at home again…Hey, I heard maybe they were going to let Caroline out of the hospital in another day or two. Maybe, anyway. You haven’t heard what her secret is, have you?”
“No.”
“Well, it has to be something big. A girl doesn’t swallow a bucket of pills if she’s got nothing going on behind locked doors. God, this town. Big money makes for big secrets, eh?”
When Felicity finally left, Emma set the engagement ring on her desk and let out a sigh softer than a southern wind. Her family had secrets, too. But right now her own private heartache of a secret weighed so heavily on her conscience that she could barely think.
There was going to be hell to pay if she ducked out of a marriage this far along in the planning stages. But the more she worried about what she owed Reed-and what she owed her parents-the more she slowly realized that in her entire life she’d never asked the buffalo side of that nickel question.
Wasn’t there some point in a woman’s life when she got to ask, what did she owe herself?
Six
Garrett hurried through the hospital doors, past desks, past people, past carts, past anything and everything. Because the elevator was too slow, he took the stairs. He stumbled on the top step. Hell, a man could hardly run in the slick-soled dress shoes he was stuck wearing with a tux.
His tie still wasn’t tied-he never could do tux ties. But he’d been dressed and grabbing the car keys to drive to the Eastwick Country Club dance when he got the call from the hospital.
At the head nurse’s desk he barked, “Where is she?”
His sister’s room had been changed. She wasn’t back in Critical Care, thank God, but they’d moved her to the small psychiatric unit, where they could keep her monitored full-time. Caroline’s recovery had seemed on a clear upswing until an event that afternoon, when the doctor feared she was a suicide risk again.
Just outside her room he slowed his step so he didn’t barrel in there like a noisy elephant. But his stomach tightened when he saw his sister. She was lying on the bed, all curled up like a wounded baby, facing the wall. Straps on her wrists prevented her from removing the IVs or getting up on her own.
The same thought kept echoing in his mind-that he wished Emma were with him. She’d know what to say, what to do. He knew how to work, how to make money but not how to deal with people. He never had.
His sister must have sensed his presence, because she suddenly turned her head. “Hey, big brother,” she murmured.
“Hey back.”
She noticed his tux. “Whew. You’re looking so hot that I want to whistle, but my throat seems to be mighty dry. They gave me something awfully strong.” She wasn’t completely lucid. Her eyes kept sluggishly opening and closing. “You all dressed up to take me out for a night on the town?”
“I’d take you out in two seconds if you’d go.” He yanked a chair closer, parked on it. “Who phoned you, Caro?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. You were doing fine. We all thought you were coming home in another day or so. Then the nurse said you got a call this afternoon-”
“That day nurse is such a tattletale.”
Garrett ignored that. “And the next thing, she found you in the bathroom with a piece of broken glass in your hand.”
“It was an accident. I broke the water glass-”
“Quit it, Caro. It wasn’t an accident. Who called you?” he repeated, and when she didn’t answer he said, “I know it was a local call, so it had to be someone from Eastwick. What in God’s name is going on that’s got you so terrorized? Tell me.”
She smiled. “Aw, Garrett, you were always my white knight. You always got between me and Dad when I was in trouble. Or between me and a wrong date.” She closed her eyes. “Do you remember when I had a sleepover that one time? Think we were all twelve. Raided the liquor cabinet after Mom and Dad went to bed, all got drunk as skunks, then decided to go swimming. Then you showed up, remember?”
“I remember. All six girls hurled all over me, as I recall. Not counting the messes all over the house.”
“But you saved us all, Garrett.” She smiled at him again. “You’ve got everybody fooled that you’re a coldhearted workaholic. Through thick and thin, I could always count on you. You’re the only one in the whole family with integrity. Real integrity.”
“Obviously they’re giving you some kind of hallucinatory drug. And all this being nice isn’t getting you off the hook. It’s time you told me what’s going on.”
“What’s going on,” she said thickly, slowly, “is that I made a mistake I can’t live with.”
Again he wished desperately that Emma was here. Emma wasn’t judgmental and she had a way of calming people down, making them believe things would be all right. Instead his sister was stuck with just him. “There’s no mistake you can’t live with, Caroline. Nothing I couldn’t forgive you for. Nothing I wouldn’t help you get through. But I can’t prove that to you if you won’t talk to me.”
“You want to help? Then get the hospital to release me so I can go home,” she said.
Yeah, sur
e. And have her get another call at home from the person who’d been terrorizing her? Hell, he didn’t know what to do. But when his sister fell asleep, he stumbled out of the hospital and aimed straight for the country club.
He wasn’t remotely in a party mood, but this summer shindig was one of the year’s biggest galas. Someone there knew what was going on with Caroline. They had to. And Emma might have some ideas about who to question that he hadn’t thought of.
From a half mile away he started seeing the lights. The place was lit up like a miniature galaxy. The multiple French doors of the formal ballroom gaped open onto the patio. People were dancing both inside and out. Fountains sparkled with rainbow-hued water. Formally attired waiters carried sterling trays. The guys were all in tuxes, but the women wore every color in the universe-bridal whites and sassy reds, sea-greens and shimmery yellows, the glitter nearly blinding even from the distance where he parked. Jewels twinkled and shimmered on every neck, every ear, every wrist.
Garrett walked around to the back entrance, away from the crush, hoping to slip into the crowd without being noticed. In the old days, the club would have hired an orchestra. These days, club members tolerated a traditional waltz now and then, but they also wanted spice for their money-rock and roll, fandangos, music with a beat and some sex to it. Still, some traditions never changed. Flowers spilled over onto wrists, in women’s hair, scenting the centers of the tables.
He suddenly hesitated. He wasn’t afraid of such gatherings.
He’d grown up in this echelon of Eastwick society. He’d rather be working than stuck making small talk, but that wasn’t what suddenly made him pause.
From a distance, the scene looked like a dream, with beautiful people laughing, dancing, enjoying each other. That was what it had always been about, Garrett suddenly realized. Belonging. People didn’t hunger to join the country club for the prestige of it.
The Soon-To-Be-Disinherited Wife Page 7