THE EIGHT SECOND WEDDING

by Anne McAllister

  She craned her neck to get a look at the gaming tables as Chan led her past. The blackjack dealers really did wear tuxes. She stopped to watch, but it wasn't their tuxes or their red cummerbunds and pleated white shirts that attracted her. It was their hands. They dealt so smoothly with such economy of movement. Her own fingers itched to try it, to learn their tricks. She leaned closer. She wasn't into gold lamé and polyester or high-stakes gambling, but cards fascinated her, the odds, the chances.

  A hand grabbed her arm and hauled her away. "More'n my hide's worth if I let you near those tables."

  Madeleine blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

  "Be like a lamb at the slaughter," Chan muttered. "Come on."

  Madeleine cast a longing glance over her shoulder, then allowed herself to be dragged. She didn't think she'd get fleeced – or worse – but she wasn't going to argue with him. Yet.

  They reached the dining area and the hostess appeared in front of them. She had a beehive of lacquered black hair, a pound or two of eye makeup and bright pink lipstick. She looked right past Madeleine and batted her lashes at Chan. "I saw you ride this afternoon. You were fan-tas-tic."

  Chan grinned. "Thanks. I'm lookin' for some friends. They should already be here. Ah, yeah," he said as someone waved a cowboy hat from the far side of the room.

  But before they could proceed, the hostess stepped in front of him and laid a hand on his arm. "You gonna be around later, honey? I get off at eleven." She still didn't seem to see Madeleine.

  Chan shook his head regretfully. "On my way, right after we eat."

  "Pity," the hostess said. The neon pink lips pouted prettily, then she gave him a coquettish look. "Maybe next time."

  Chan grinned. "Could be." He stepped past her.

  Madeleine followed, steaming as he steered her across the room. "Are you crazy?" she hissed.

  "Bringing you in here? Probably."

  "Not me! Her! She was trying to pick you up!"

  "No? Really?"

  "Yes, really. And you didn't even say no!"

  He blinked. Then a corner of his mouth lifted. "It wouldn't have been polite."

  Madeleine looked at him, dumbfounded, unable to say a word.

  He flashed her a grin. "Come on, Decker. Don't worry about it."

  He hauled her through the dining room to the table where his friends already sat. They were nibbling on popcorn, drinking beer and watching the two of them with undisguised interest.

  Madeleine, who, if she didn't believe Antonia about everything else, did agree that first impressions were important, pasted on her best, most cheerful smile.

  "These are my buddies," Chan said. "Devlin Gray." He nodded to the handsome, dark-haired, clean-shaven cowboy in the corner. "Tom Holden." Holden was blond, with a bushy mustache. "And Gil Trabert."

  "The punctured lung," Madeleine said, remembering. She smiled at him.

  "What? Oh, yeah." Chan frowned. "You were there that day, weren't you?"

  "She was?" Gil's eyes widened. "How the hell did I miss that?"

  "She wasn't there to see you. She came to see me."

  "Not exactly your type, is she?" Devlin Gray said.

  Chan bristled. "Just what the hell is my type?"

  At the same time Madeline said, "No, I'm not."

  Gil and Tom and Dev laughed, but Chan's scowl deepened. "Very funny."

  "So who is she, really?" Tom asked.

  "My name is Madeleine Decker. I'm from New York," Madeleine told them.

  "So'd you just run into him in the lobby?" Gil asked.

  "No," Chan said. "I went to the airport to pick her up. She's traveling with me for the summer."

  Three mouths dropped open. Three sets of eyes grew narrow, then wide, then narrowed speculatively again.

  "You're kidding," Tom said.

  "She's the reason you wanted to be on your own?" Gil's eyes were like silver dollars.

  "Well, hell," Dev said. "Are there any more like her at home?"

  "No, there aren't," Chan said shortly. He held a chair for Madeleine, then took the one next to her.

  "Where'd you find her?" Tom asked.

  "My mother gave her to me." Chan leaned back and laid a proprietary arm along the back of Madeleine's chair.

  The three pair of narrowed eyes immediately widened.

  "Your mother?" Dev choked.

  "He's kidding," Madeleine said quickly. She edged forward so she wouldn't have to lean back into his arm.

  "Am not," Chan said. "It's the truth. Or do you like your version better?"

  Madeleine blinked. "Mine?"

  "That you propositioned me?"

  "I never!"

  "You weren't the one who said you wanted to go down the road with me?"

  "Well, yes, but you know very well why. My mother thinks I ought to marry him," she told the three astonished cowboys. "And so does his."

  The three jaws dropped farther.

  "God Almighty," Tom breathed.

  "This is a joke, right?" Gil said.

  A slow grin started to spread across Dev's face. Madeleine shook her head. "It's not a joke." They looked at Chan. He shook his head, too. Dev whistled softly. Gil rolled his eyes. "Well," Tom said, "you came to the right place. You can get married tonight if you want in Vegas."

  "We don't want!" Chan and Madeleine said together. "It's like this," Madeleine said earnestly. "We knew they wouldn't give up unless we proved to them we wouldn't suit, so we thought that if we spent two months together we could compile enough evidence to show them that we were basically incompatible and that the odds were we wouldn't make a good marriage."

  All three men stared at them in silence.

  Then Dev said, "You and Chan thought of that?"

  "Why not?" Chan said a trifle belligerently.

  Dev muttered something under his breath and shook his head.

  "So you're really taking her around for the summer?" Gil asked Chan tentatively.

  "Yeah."

  "Day in and day out in that truck of yours? Just the two of you?" Tom said. "Compiling evidence?" He grinned.

  Chan scowled at him. "That's right."

  "And while you ride bulls, what's she gonna do? Iron your shirts?"

  "Not on your life. I'm typing my dissertation," Madeleine said quickly.

  Dev whistled. "Dissertation?"

  "You got a new career as an echo?" Chan said irritably.

  "Dissertation on what?" Gil asked her. "From where?"

  "On free will. From NYU."

  The men looked at each other, at Chan, at Madeleine. They looked at each other again and shook their heads.

  "Ho, boy," Tom breathed.

  Gil started grinning. Dev rolled his eyes.

  "What?" Chan demanded.

  Gil's grin widened. "That's a hell of a lot of evidence right there."

  Chan looked like he couldn't decide whether to agree. Finally he just picked up the menu and started to read.

  "Well, in spite of all this evidence," Gil said with a wink, "you don't think it's, uh, maybe temptin' fate, spending all this time together?"

  "You don't reckon that – all those things you don't have in common aside – you might just sort of fall in love?" Dev suggested.

  "You don't think your mothers might win?" Tom said.

  "Of course not," Madeleine said.

  "Hell, no," said Chan.

  Gil and Tom and Dev looked at each other and didn't say anything at all.

  * * *

  "Did he pick her up?" Antonia demanded the minute Julia answered the phone.

  "I don't know. He hasn't called. And frankly, I don't expect him to. He's not exactly thrilled."

  "And you think Madeleine is?"

  "Well, what do they know?" Julia said huffily. "They're much too young to have any idea what's best for them."

  "I suppose," Antonia said. "To be honest, I'm surprised she's doing this. I thought she'd jump at the chance to come to Bali with us."

  "Maybe she thought she'd prefer Las
Vegas," Julia said.

  "Las Vegas? She met him in Las Vegas?" Antonia hadn't known that.

  Madeleine hadn't been exactly forthcoming recently. In fact, ever since she'd announced that she was going down the road with Channing Richardson, she'd been extremely quiet.

  Sometimes Antonia despaired of ever understanding what went on in Madeleine's head. When Madeleine had been little, Antonia had always thought they were as alike as a mother and daughter could possibly be. They dug holes, talked to strangers, played poker. In general they enjoyed all the same things.

  And when Madeleine had chosen to go into anthropology, she'd even imagined they'd someday be able to share in their fieldwork.

  But then abruptly Madeleine had seemed to lose interest. In her last year at Radcliffe, while Antonia was in Ecuador, Madeleine had cooled perceptibly. And though she'd finished and graduated in anthropology, she'd chosen philosophy for her graduate degrees.

  "I've changed my mind," was all she'd said to her mother. "I have a right to." Her green eyes had flashed the way Antonia remembered Lothar's used to.

  She hadn't argued; she'd tried to understand. But Madeleine wouldn't talk about it, and she'd felt she was losing contact with her daughter after that.

  And the deeper Madeleine had gone into the philosophy nonsense, the greater the gap between them. To Antonia it seemed that Madeleine had retreated into a world of logical constructs instead of living real life.

  She had nightmares that her grubby tomboy daughter would marry some ethereal flake like that Malcolm character or, worse, old tweed-and-dust Douglas, and shut herself up in some ivy-covered ivory tower for the rest of her life.

  That was when she'd started talking about Channing Richardson. Not because she actually expected Madeleine to listen to her, to run right out and marry him. But because she'd wanted to shake Madeleine up.

  Julia Richardson's eldest son could certainly be counted on to do that. And if it turned out the way she and Julia hoped, so much the better. But—

  "Las Vegas is hardly going to start things on the right foot," she grumbled now. "Madeleine hates tacky."

  "So do I," said Julia. "But it's where he needed to be. I can't change the rodeo schedule."

  "I know. I know," Antonia soothed. "It will probably be fine." She laughed softly now as she thought about it. "I'd love to see Madeleine's face when she first sees Las Vegas."

  "Didn't you win five thousand at the tables when you and Lothar went to that conference there years and years ago?"

  Antonia smiled. "Did I! We might have been independently wealthy if he'd ever dared to take me back."

  "Well, maybe we should consider it an omen. If your one and only visit brought you luck, maybe Madeleine's visit will bring her luck, too."

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  « ^ »

  "Your friends think we're crazy," Madeleine told Chan as they were going back to the truck after their meal.

  "We are."

  "Nonsense. We're just doing what any two sane, sensible adults would do confronted with a pair of bossy mothers."

  "If you say so."

  "I do. I don't know what else we could have done."

  "We could have ignored them."

  "Yes, well, that might have worked for you, but…" Madeleine's voice died out.

  "But what? You couldn't ignore her?"

  "Of course I could. It's just that… Never mind." She pressed her lips together and got a mulish expression on her face, the one that Chan had already begun to recognize as meaning "Forget it, fella."

  He shrugged. "They're just jealous."

  "Jealous? Our mothers?"

  "No, Decker," he said patiently. "Dev and Gil and Tom."

  "Why?"

  "They wish they were sharing a truck with you."

  "Why should they wish that?"

  Chan rolled his eyes. He opened the door and climbed in, then let the door bang in her face. Serve her right. She opened it again and followed him in. He felt like he'd gained a shadow.

  "Why?" she repeated. "I mean, it's not as if we're doing anything."

  He didn't say anything, just looked at her.

  Her gaze narrowed. "We aren't doing anything," she reminded him.

  He spread his hands. "Not yet."

  "What the hell do you mean, not yet?"

  "I think I'd know if we were. I'm fully dressed. So are you." He turned and headed toward the driver's seat.

  Madeleine grabbed his arm. "Now just a damned minute—"

  "No swearing, Decker. It doesn't become you."

  "I'll swear if I want to. Just what do you think is going to happen during these two months, Richardson? Perhaps we should get that straight right at the start."

  "Should've got it straight a long time ago," he muttered, reaching over to straighten the window blind.

  She stepped forward so he had to look at her. "So? What?" she demanded.

  He shrugged. "Well, heck. I thought you said we were testing for compatibility." He gave her a bright hopeful leer.

  "That does not mean sleeping together!"

  "Well, maybe not sleeping, but—"

  "Or going to bed together. No sex! Read my lips, Richardson. No. Sex."

  "No … sex?" He shook his head sadly. "Then what're we gonna do for two months? Compatibility-wise, I mean?" he added after a moment.

  "Trust you to think that the only kind of compatibility is sexual."

  "It helps."

  "And I'm sure you'd know it."

  "Well, I'm not a virgin, if that's what you mean. But I don't think you could call me promiscuous."

  "I could."

  "I suppose you're some thirty-year-old virgin?"

  "I'm not thirty!"

  "And you're not a virgin, either, are you?"

  By damn, but she could blush! Her fingers were knotting together like they'd like to strangle him. He edged just a little bit back.

  "It's none of your business what I am," Madeleine bit out sharply.

  "I should think it would figure in our compatibility quotient."

  Her eyes narrowed. "What do you know about compatibility quotients?"

  He grinned. "Nothing. I made it up. Relax, Decker." He winked. "I don't care if you're a virgin. Probably better that you're not actually. Then I won't feel bad if I'm the first and it doesn't work out."

  She positively gaped at him. "Let's get a few things straight right now, Chan Richardson. One, I don't care if you care if I'm a virgin or not. Two, I am not having sex with you in any case. And three, there is absolutely no possibility of it, as you so blithely put it, 'working out.' Got that?"

  He was still grinning, damn him. "Loud and clear, sweetheart."

  "And I'm not your sweetheart!"

  "No, Decker. You got that right. You sure as hell are not."

  * * *

  Well, they were off to a dazzling start, that was certain, Madeleine thought, staring at the back of his head as they hurtled down the highway into the setting sun.

  She'd worried that they wouldn't be able to survive two months together. They'd be lucky not to kill each other before the night was out.

  Maybe if they never spoke, they'd cope. The less they said to each other, the better. Time spent in silence was still time. She simply had to keep reminding herself that she was that much closer to going home unencumbered by anyone's notion of a perfect man than she had been two hours ago.

  Could they possibly, she wondered, spend the entire two months in silence?

  Not and bring home evidence, she decided. If she went home and told Antonia she hadn't talked for two months, her mother would be telling her to check out Trappistine convents.

  And anyway, it wasn't silent. The minute they'd hit the highway, Chan turned on the radio. A steel guitar was wailing in the background now, as a man's tenor twanged on about highways and byways and goodbyes and all that rot.

  Madeleine gritted her teeth. Could a summer on Bali with Scott possibly have been any harder to take than
this?

  Well, it was too late to change her mind. She unzipped her duffel bag and began to make herself at home.

  Madeleine had made herself at home on coral atolls and in stilt-legged huts. She'd settled into a West Side efficiency sublet and a Navajo hogan with equal aplomb. She'd even spent a relatively comfortable two weeks in a quinzee that she and three college friends had built out of ice at twenty-five below. She was used to settling in wherever she went. But everywhere else she'd been before now seemed somehow safer and more hospitable than this!

  She reached into her bag and brought out a small box.

  "What's that?"

  She looked around to discover that he had glanced over his shoulder at her. "A trick box from China," she said. "No one knows how to open it but me." She set a yellow, furry stuffed animal alongside it.

  "What's that?" he demanded.

  "This is Leroy. I've had him since I was six."

  "Swell."

  "I haven't commented on your taste in calendars," she said tartly with a glance at it hanging in the closet. She still wouldn't. They might have chaps and boots on, but she was sorry, they didn't look like any cowgirls she'd ever seen.

  "If you've got a problem with it, close your eyes."

  "I'll try."

  "And stop flitting around back there, will you? Sit still."

  "You told me I could move in. It's hard to do that sitting still. Sorry. I didn't realize I was distracting you."

  "You're not distracting me!"

  "I'll wait if we're going to stop soon."

  "We're not going to stop soon."

  "Well, then—"

  "Oh hell, fine. Move. I don't give a damn what you do."

  * * *

  Yeah, right, she wasn't distracting him. And if he could convince himself of that there was no telling the amount of self-deception he could indulge in.

  As night came on, he should have noticed her less. In fact, he was conscious of every move she made. In her black jeans and black scoop-necked T-shirt, she should have become invisible in the increasing darkness. Not a chance.