Wisconsin Wedding (Welcome To Tyler, No. 3)

by Carla Neggers

  But Nora knew Byron Sanders. He wasn’t nearly as upright and honest and sensitive as he came across on first impression. How could she stand back and let him work his charms on an unsuspecting Cliff and Liza? They’d end up in a spread in a Chicago newspaper.

  If any two people could take care of themselves, she knew, it was those two. But still, it was her duty to find out what the weasel was up to.

  And she would. Come morning, she’d track him down, for sure.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BYRON SAT on a battered Adirondack chair in a clearing along the shore from Timberlake Lodge, the sun sparkling so brightly on the water it hurt his eyes. He’d planned to stay in a motel in the next town, but Cliff had found him an old tent at the lodge and let him pitch it on an out-of-the-way stretch of lakefront. With hardly a word, Cliff had disappeared for the night. He’d reappeared shortly after sunup, bearing stale doughnuts and a thermos of piping-hot black coffee, more from duty, Byron suspected, than from a desire to be nice.

  Now Cliff was standing on a rock, staring out at the lake. Byron drank from the thermos cup and dipped his plain doughnut into the coffee to soften it. Even as kids, Cliff hadn’t been picky about food. Byron wasn’t, either, but he did prefer fresh doughnuts.

  So far, neither had had much to say. Byron had opted against trying to explain his trip to Tyler three years ago—one attempted explanation in the past twelve hours had already backfired. And from Cliff’s reaction to seeing his younger brother in town, Byron guessed Miss Liza hadn’t yet confessed she’d shot off an invitation to her future in-laws. Byron wasn’t going to step into that particular pile of warm Wisconsin dung. Nor did Cliff initiate any conversation. How had he come to fall in love? What had his life been like the past five years? What were his plans now that he was getting married? Answers would have to wait. Byron was patient. It was enough, for now, that he and his brother were together by a beautiful lake on a cool, bright morning in Wisconsin.

  “Are you going to tell me about you and Nora Gates?” Cliff asked without turning around.

  Byron sipped his coffee, feeling it—or guilt—burn a path to the pit of his stomach. He’d never told anyone about his brief, fiery, insane affair with Nora Gates. He’d promised her. She’d insisted on calling it, derisively, his “fling.”

  Cliff interpreted his brother’s silence in his own way. “This isn’t good, Brother.”

  “No.”

  Looking around at Byron, Cliff asked, “Does she hate your guts?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Because of the photos?”

  “That’s one reason.”

  “I can’t imagine Nora Gates hating anyone,” Cliff said thoughtfully, “but when she asked about you…” He sighed. “Dammit, Byron, did you break that woman’s heart?”

  “That woman,” Byron said, popping a soaked piece of doughnut into his mouth, “doesn’t have a heart capable of breaking. Don’t let her fool you. She needs your sympathy about as much as a badger does. You know what she eats for breakfast, don’t you? A five-pound bag of nails. Guaranteed. Check it out yourself.”

  Cliff frowned. “She’s not that kind of woman.”

  “That, Brother, is what she wants everyone in Tyler to believe. She has the tongue of a witch.”

  Overhead, in the distance, he could hear the seemingly chaotic honking of a flock of Canada geese. Winter was coming to Wisconsin. The geese knew when to clear out. Pity, Byron thought, he lacked their good sense.

  His brother’s mouth twitched in what Byron decided passed for a smile these days. “Do you care about her?”

  “Cliff, I have to warn you, you’re treading on thin ice even bringing up the subject. What did or didn’t happen between Nora and me three years ago is between us. I can’t talk about it. If I did, she’d hunt me down like a rabid weasel and put me out of her misery.”

  His brother’s smile almost blossomed, then faded abruptly. It seemed suddenly as if he’d never smiled before and never would again.

  “Are you and Nora friends?” Byron asked.

  “Not in any normal way.”

  And Cliff’s eyes, hinting of the years of pain and self-imposed isolation and loneliness he’d endured, reached Byron, reminding him that his brother had come a long, long way from where he’d been five years ago, ten years ago. And there was healing still to be done—for him, for Byron, for their widowed mother. Had Liza Baron made his tortured life a thing of the past? But if Cliff encouraged Byron to talk, listened intently, he avoided himself as a topic of conversation. Cliff was guarded about his upcoming marriage, the life he’d been leading, where he planned to go from this point, even the body that had been dug up not too far from where they now sat. Byron knew he needed to continue to be patient.

  And he wanted to hear Cliff’s views on Nora Gates. It was crazy, he thought, but there it was.

  “You could say,” Cliff went on, looking out at the glistening lake, “that Nora’s one of the people in Tyler I’ve admired from afar. Until yesterday afternoon, I’d never even spoken to her. But I’ve seen her around town, heard about her from time to time from Alyssa Baron, read about her in the newspaper. She’s her own person. She sits on the town council and is active in various local charitable organizations. She has strong views on certain issues and she’s direct, but she manages to be gracious at the same time. People listen to her, even when she’s saying something they don’t want to hear, because they know she cares about them and Tyler.”

  Byron knew his brother spoke the truth, but couldn’t help recalling that saintly Nora Gates had thrown a book of Beethoven sonatas at him. If she’d had any kind of arm, she’d have knocked him out.

  “I doubt she takes to liars,” Cliff added.

  The geese were directly overhead, flying in picture-postcard formation against a sky as clear and blue as any Byron had seen, from Maine to Florida to California to Alaska. He could think of worse places to end up than Tyler, Wisconsin. His mahogany-paneled Providence office, for one, he decided wryly. He drank more of his coffee, the warmth of the plastic cup finally penetrating his fingers. It had been a chilly night. He was used to camping out in every type of weather, although there’d been something eerie about pitching his tent not far from where a body had been mysteriously buried for who knew how long. And his memories of Nora Gates, both past and current, hadn’t been conducive to sleep. But it was simpler to blame the weather.

  With the sun climbing higher, sitting outside wasn’t so bad. Anyway, Cliff hadn’t invited him into the lodge.

  “I lied to Nora about who I was,” Byron said, “because I was afraid of what would happen if word got out that Cliff Forrester’s brother was in town.”

  “If I found out, you mean?”

  Cliff’s tone was deadly calm, even neutral, but Byron sensed the regret, the guilt, the uneasy resignation. “You did what you had to do, Cliff,” he said carefully. “So did I.”

  Bending down suddenly, Cliff snatched up a small rock, straightened and skipped it across the calm lake. Yards out, it disappeared in spreading concentric circles. “Father taught us that,” he said, his back to Byron. “Remember?”

  “I remember.”

  Cliff turned, his expression harsh and unyielding in the bright sun, maybe more so than he meant it to be. But his eyes looked as if they were melting. Byron was almost seared by his brother’s torment. “I thought this would be easier.”

  Byron tossed the last of his coffee into the grass. “Me, too.”

  “Liza…” It was the first time Cliff had mentioned her directly. He turned back to the lake, where the last of the concentric circles had vanished, leaving behind a glasslike surface. “She thinks all things are possible. Sometimes I get to thinking that way, too.”

  “Cliff—”

  “She told you and Mother about us, didn’t she?”

  “You’ll have to talk to her about that.”

  “She would, you know. She’s meddlesome like that—the kind of woman who’d teach a k
id to swim by pitching him headfirst into the water.” He sighed. “But this time she went too far. I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

  “That’s why I came early. To see if you were. She can’t understand what it’s been like, Cliff. No one can.”

  He nodded.

  “If you’re not ready to see me, I’ll leave. Now, today. Mother won’t come at all. It’s your call.”

  Cliff was silent. Then he said, “Tell her who you are, Byron.”

  Back to Nora Gates. Cliff, apparently, would go only so far in articulating his innermost thoughts. Byron smiled thinly. “That might mean the end of me.”

  “And if you want to stay,” Cliff said, his face expressionless, “then stay.”

  “I’ll see how today goes. As for Nora— I’ll tell her the truth after the wedding.”

  “Before.”

  “She’s invited?”

  Cliff jumped from his rock, landing as silently as a panther. “Half the damned town’s invited.”

  For a moment, Byron dismissed his troubling thoughts about Nora Gates. She was a strong woman, a survivor. He didn’t need to coddle her. He remembered every second of their time together, wishing like hell he didn’t. He had loved her. And he’d tried, amid his own pain and confusion, to do the right thing, even as he’d lied to her and ended up making her hate him. But through knowing her, through knowing Aunt Ellie, he’d learned that before he could help anyone, commit to anyone or anything, he had first to save himself.

  It was his brother, once again, who worried him. “Are you going to make it through this thing?”

  “I will. For Liza’s sake.”

  “She wants a big wedding?”

  But Byron had stepped over the line. The mask dropped into place, covering up the raw, exposed parts of himself that Cliff preferred to deal with on his own. He looked out past Byron to the lodge. “Company.”

  “Work crew?”

  “Nope.” And because the mask was in place, because he was the big brother and didn’t need anything from Byron, Cliff managed one of his twitching smiles. “That’s Nora Gates’s car.”

  Byron followed his brother’s gaze, but could only make out a champagne-colored BMW. Far too racy and expensive for frugal, demure Nora Gates. “Where?”

  “The BMW.”

  “That’s no Victorian old maid’s car.”

  Cliff grunted. “And you think you know everything about Nora Gates.”

  * * *

  NORA HAD DRESSED conservatively for her trip out to Timberlake Lodge, not for Liza’s sake—Liza greeted her in jeans and an oversize Tyler Titans sweatshirt—but for her own. Her reliable double-breasted wide-wale charcoal corduroy jacket, her black wool gabardine trousers and her stark white cotton shirt reminded her that she was smart, successful, responsible and perfectly capable of handling most anything, including the return of Byron Sanders to Tyler. It would not be a repeat of three years ago. She would keep a level head, unsettling dreams or no unsettling dreams.

  “Nora,” Liza said, obviously surprised. “Well, hi—what on earth brings you out here?”

  “I hope I’m not too early. It’s such a beautiful morning I thought I’d take a ride out. The place looks great.”

  “Doesn’t it, though? Come on inside— I’ll give you the grand tour.”

  “I’m not disturbing you?”

  “Not at all. I was just stewing about this wedding getting out of hand, and Joe Santori isn’t around this morning so I can’t pester him. Cliff’s off somewhere. It’s just me and the cobwebs right now.”

  Liza’s infectious cheer helped Nora recover her own steady manner. They climbed onto the old lodge’s formidable porch, which overlooked the beautiful lake. The long-abandoned lodge was a grand dinosaur of a place, but Nora, as a member of the Tyler town council, was thrilled to see it being renovated. It was a pity the discovery of a body on the premises had put a damper on things.

  “Stay all morning if you want,” Liza said. “I’ve got nothing special planned, except a phone call to my mother tactfully reminding her that it’s my wedding, not hers.” She smiled guiltily over her shoulder. “She’s such a sweetheart, though. We’re both under a lot of strain. I keep telling myself she means well—”

  “And she just wants you to do the right thing.”

  Liza’s smile broadened into a grin. “Isn’t that true of all mothers?”

  “I’m sure it is,” Nora said softly. Her own mother had been dead for twenty years.

  “Oh, drat, me and my big mouth again. I’m sorry, Nora. I forgot—”

  “It’s all right. Gosh, Liza, I can’t get over how much you and Cliff have accomplished in such a short time.”

  Her small faux pas behind her—Liza Baron wasn’t one to beat herself over the head for long—she breezed through the front door into the entry. She seemed cheerful and content, if also somewhat hyper and overwhelmed by all that was going on in her life. Nora thought she could understand. Never mind finding a dead body in your yard, one, no less, that might be that of your long-lost grandmother. Never mind coming back to your hometown to live. As far as Nora was concerned, falling head over heels in love as fast and furiously as Liza Baron had with Cliff Forrester would turn anyone’s life inside out. Even if Liza was used to doing everything fast and furiously. From her own glaring romantic mistake, Nora was convinced that if there was one area in life where a woman should always act with great deliberation and extreme caution, it was in affairs of the heart. A woman should take her time about falling in love. Shop around. Be careful. Romance was not an area in which to be precipitate. If she was feeling reckless, Nora would head to the racetrack before she would dial Byron Sanders’s number.

  “Anything in particular that brings you out here, or did you really just seize the moment?” Liza asked.

  “I guess I wanted to see how you were doing.”

  She shrugged. “On the whole, I’m doing great. A little nuts maybe, but I’ve never been happier.”

  Something only someone madly in love would say. Nora had felt that way when she’d thought she was in love with Byron Sanders. She’d learned, in the years since, that she could be just as happy out of love, if not happier. It was a matter of perspective and self-discipline. People in love always thought they were happier than people who weren’t. In her opinion, that kind of thinking was just…hormones.

  “Have you ever been up here before?” Liza asked.

  Nora pulled herself out of her introspective mood. “I trespassed once or twice when I was a kid—hunting wildflowers, as I recall. And I’ve canoed by a number of times.”

  “You and Aunt Ellie used to go canoeing together, didn’t you? She was something else. Damn, she used to make my grandfather mad sometimes. But she’d always remain so calm and composed. Granddad told me once that he wanted to get her mad enough to spit nickels, but I don’t think he ever succeeded. She just refused to let him get to her. You’re a lot like her, Nora. You don’t let people get to you, either.”

  Nora kept her expression neutral and refrained from comment, wondering what Liza Baron would think if she’d witnessed her throwing a book of Beethoven piano sonatas at her ex-lover just last evening. Fortunately, Ricky Travis wasn’t a big mouth or the story would have been all over town by now. If his little brother Lars, another of Nora’s piano students, had caught her, she might as well have taken an ad out in the Tyler Citizen announcing the news. Lars did like to talk.

  “Your grandfather must be thrilled with how the lodge is shaping up,” Nora said, deftly changing the subject.

  “Oh, I think he would be, if we hadn’t…” She waved a hand awkwardly. “You know.”

  The Body. Nora nodded sympathetically, sorry she’d brought it up, even indirectly. But Judson Ingalls’s lodge, where his wife had had so many of her wild parties in the late forties, was showing fresh potential, new life. No one but Cliff Forrester had lived in the place since Margaret Ingalls had left her husband in 1950. And now, of course, Liza and her dai
ly influx of renovators. Her creative spark was evident in the ongoing work, in the choice of walls she’d had Joe Santori knock down, in the colors she’d chosen, in her attention to detail, even in the way she’d made the spare furnishings and torn-up rooms seem downright homey.

  “What do you think of my rug?” Liza asked as they passed over a small Oriental rug in the entry. “Neat, huh?”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “I found it up in the attic when Cliff and I—well, when we were still stalking each other, you might say. I think it’s a real Oriental, not a fake. Cliff’s not so sure. Look at those colors, though. I don’t know if you can get that rich burgundy from a fake. I don’t really care, except if it’s real, my grandmother might have bought it on one of her infamous shopping trips.”

  Nora, who treasured her own family heirlooms, was intrigued. Margaret Ingalls was on the minds of just about everyone in Tyler; Nora wanted more insight into the woman Aunt Ellie had believed was rather misunderstood by the townspeople. “Did you ask Judson or your mother about it?”

  “No, not yet. Margaret’s not the best subject of conversation to bring up right now. And I’d hate Granddad to make me take up the rug just because she might have bought the damned thing—you’re never sure how he’ll react. You know what an old curmudgeon he can be.”

  One, however, who adored his irrepressible granddaughter Liza. Nora had never pretended to fully understand the Ingalls family. But Liza seemed reluctant to say anything further about her grandfather.

  “And I’d ask Mother,” she went on, sighing, “but she hasn’t had much of anything to do with the lodge since she was a little girl. Of course, I wasn’t even born when my grandmother hit the road—I have to remind myself that she was my mother’s mother, not some stranger.” She made an exaggerated wince, as if she’d just caught herself doing something naughty. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to bore you with all this stuff. Anyway, it’s no big deal. There’s so much junk squirreled away around here I got excited when I found the rug, but it’s probably just junk, too. Oh, well, I like it, regardless. I’m going to have it cleaned and appraised, but I thought I’d wait until the dust settles around here.” She gestured broadly toward a partially destroyed wall as they made their way to the kitchen. “Literally.”