by Leon, Judith
Four Days Later—New Year’s Eve—8:00 p.m.
Suleema stood on a step near the bottom of the stairs leading down to Clevon and Regina’s living room. She’d stopped a moment to savor the view. Alex and his friend Ronnie sat, legs crossed, on the floor playing some wildly inventive space game on the Xbox Clevon had given Alex for Christmas. The boys had picked a quite reasonable volume so as not to be too intrusive, but still the sounds of blasts and clanks and zaps reached all the way to the stairs.
The two families had shared a sumptuous roast lamb, New Year’s dinner. They had all agreed it would be a quiet time together because Mrs. Obst remained shocked and grieving for her husband and Ronnie for his father.
Suleema studied Mrs. Obst for a moment. She and Clevon and Regina were eating dessert, talking and watching their boys. That her boy lived, Suleema figured, was the thing that would ease Mrs. Obst’s grief as she moved into a new year and a new life without the man she loved.
I am so blessed, Suleema thought as she went to join them in the joy of chocolate cake.
“What kind of wedding dress shall I wear?” Nova said to Joe. They were curled up together in bed in his condominium in Washington. No party. No night on the town. They had lives filled with parties. This New Year would begin where it ought to begin—just the two of them. They had been making love or talking for most of the last four days.
“What kind do you want to wear?”
“It’s a problem, don’t you think?” She laughed and nestled closer. “I sure can’t see me in virginal white.”
“Don’t take this wrong, but I once envisioned you wearing red or black. Red for seductress. Black for warrior.”
“No, Joe. It won’t be red or black. What horrible ideas.”
“It was a joke.”
“My mom would expect me to wear a white one, long and fancy. After all, I’ve never been married and she doesn’t have a clue what my life is like. I think it would sadden her if I just wore a suit.”
He rose on one elbow and kissed her. “I think I’d like it to be something soft, that moves with your body. But I’m sure you’ll find just the right thing. You always do.”
Epilogue
San Diego, California, May 1
Nova ran her fingers over the tight bodice of her wedding gown, a floor-length chiffon in the palest green color her seamstress had been able to find—“seafoam,” Star called it. Nova definitely had the jitters. With a nervous finger she touched the single emerald set in the center of a string of pearls, Joe’s gift to her along with matching earrings.
The material of the skirt did move with her body in the sensuous way of water lapping gently on a shore. There was a slight breeze today in San Diego, and since the wedding was outdoors in Balboa Park, the dress would be “flowy,” Joe’s only stated preference.
Star’s gown was of the same material and cut like Nova’s, but of a deep emerald green. It looked fabulous with Star’s red hair. Nova watched as Star stepped in front of the floor-length mirror in the dressing room the Prado Restaurant provided for brides. The white terrace below the restaurant, with its white wishing well and stunning background of eucalyptus, palm, cypress and sycamore trees, was a favorite wedding spot in San Diego. Nova imagined that hundreds, if not thousands, of couples had pledged their love here. The sounds of a harp and a string quartet, now playing Vivaldi’s “Spring”, reached into the dressing room.
She stepped behind her sister and put both hands on Star’s shoulders as the two of them studied each other in the mirror. “You are a stunning matron of honor.”
“Ah, but I do not outdo the lovely bride.” Star turned. “It’s time for me to put on your veil.” She fetched the veil, so thin it looked more like a green halo, and put it over Nova’s upswept hair. “I still think Joe will have a fit when he sees you in green, not white. Although I’ll admit, it’s almost white.”
“Joe will love it. I just hope Mother is over her disappointment. Maybe when she actually sees it.”
Star stepped away from the completed bride, shook her head and smiled broadly. “It works, Nova. What with your green eyes and all the trees out there and everything, the seafoam is perfect. You’re happiest in a jungle, so why not green?”
“His family may think I’m nuts.”
“They’re from Texas. They’ll just think it’s a wacky California thing.”
“I like them, Star. His brothers, my new sister-in-law. She’s very sweet. His mother is so different from ours. It creates a sort of balance. She’s of the earth and land, not the world of diplomats and wealth that Mama came from. And his dad is just as solid as his mom. I think I’m already in love with his dad.”
Nova turned to the mirror and studied the finished creation. This was the day most girls dreamed of and women lived for, and a day she had always believed would never be hers for many reasons, among them that undercover agents often didn’t marry, even those with no psychological hang-ups against it. Their lives were too full of lies. If they did marry, they rarely had big weddings, and in that, hers and Joe’s would be no exception. Penny was here, really her only close friend. Having lots of friends was impossible when a huge hunk of the life you claimed to be living was a fraud. Penny had been in seventh heaven fixing her hair this morning in an airy mass of soft curls atop her head that matched the mood of the gown.
Star handed Nova her long gloves and started pulling on her own long green ones. “I wish Stephen and I could get away for a vacation. Even our honeymoon was only a weekend in Vegas. And then it was kids and work. Marrakech, Morocco, sounds so fabulous and exotic.”
Nova worked her fingers into the gloves. “It’s a place we figure no one can reach us for any reason.” She stroked the gloves up both her arms. She’d only worn long formal gloves twice before that she could recall, except when she and Star had played dress-up as little girls.
Her brother-in-law was giving her away, and of course Star and Stephen’s kids—Bryan, Blake, and Maggie—were here. Nova and Maggie had shopped for Maggie’s dress together and laughed themselves silly. Somehow Nova had still avoided any discussion of children with Joe. Maybe someday she’d have her own little girl. But that was something for the future. Joe understood that just getting married had Nova genuinely scared.
Deirdre and Cleo had flown in for the dinner last night. And then there was Joe’s family and his friend Benjamin from flight training in his pilot days. That was it. They would keep the fiction that Joe worked for IBM as a traveling troubleshooter, and he would move in with her in San Diego.
“Okay,” Star said. “That’s the beginning of the song before the wedding march.” She handed Nova the bouquet of white roses bound with green ribbon. “Let’s go.”
They walked out into a beautiful, spring midmorning. Cottonball clouds broke up a perfect, robin’s-egg-blue sky. Star stepped onto the ivory runner that led from the dressing room to the bower, where a Catholic priest and Unitarian minister waited to share the ceremonies, walking stately between five-foot-high, lit wrought-iron candelabras draped with the same wispy cloth as Nova’s dress.
Her brother-in-law, Stephen, stepped to Nova’s side with a big grin. He’d confessed at last night’s dinner that he would have bet a bundle that Nova was destined to be single for life, and that he would never have been happier to lose a bet.
A dramatic pause of silence, and then the musicians began the wedding march, solemn with tradition and the weight of many vows. The guests rose and looked her way, every last one of them smiling. Her hand on Stephen’s arm, her heart pounding, and then suddenly Joe dressed in a tuxedo in her vision, waiting for her, no smile, only a quiet glow—sure that nothing else in all the world really mattered, Nova walked down the aisle into a brand new adventure.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5122-3
CAPTIVE DOVE
Copyright © 2006 by Judith Hand
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by
any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.SilhouetteBombshell.com
*stories featuring CIA agent Nova Blair
*stories featuring CIA agent Nova Blair
*stories featuring CIA agent Nova Blair