Wisconsin Wedding (Welcome To Tyler, No. 3)

by Carla Neggers

  * * *

  CLIFF WAS NOWHERE to be seen. After saying his hellos and being introduced all around, Byron found his older brother out on the veranda.

  “I can’t wait for this circus to be over,” Cliff muttered.

  Byron could sense his discomfort. “Going to get through it?”

  “If it’s what Liza wants. I’ve already gotten what I want—my life back.”

  If his brother seemed more at peace after his excursion to Rhode Island, it was also clear to Byron that he didn’t enjoy being in the public eye, that the people-activity of his wedding—being something of a spectacle, the burned-out recluse marrying Judson Ingalls’s granddaughter—continued to take its toll. He wasn’t in danger of flipping out. He just didn’t like what was happening.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “I feel like grabbing her and getting the hell out of here.”

  “Hey, you guys,” Liza called from the door, “lunch is on.”

  Byron clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Tomorrow morning it’ll all be over.”

  Cliff nodded grimly. “My tux arrived this morning. Can you imagine?”

  Byron couldn’t. But it wasn’t his place to tell his brother and future sister-in-law that they were going about their wedding all wrong, trying to please everyone but themselves. And when it came to romantic advice, Byron supposed he did lack a certain credibility.

  At least, he thought somewhat more optimistically, for the time being. Who knew what tomorrow would bring?

  * * *

  FRIDAY NIGHT was quiet, cool and rainy, and Nora spent it deliberately alone, before a fire in her study. She’d made herself a cup of hot cocoa and had dug out one of her favorite Agatha Christie mysteries, featuring the indomitable Miss Marple. Byron and Anne Forrester had taken Cliff and Liza and Liza’s family to dinner. They’d invited Nora to join them. She’d declined with thanks, on the grounds that she had piano students. But she was not a Forrester. She was not a Baron. She was not an Ingalls. She was not a member of the wedding party. There was no reason Miss Manners would support her presence at the dinner, except as Byron’s date.

  Alone in her study, Nora tried to get in touch with the life she’d had since Aunt Ellie died, before Byron’s second visit to Tyler. Peaceful evenings. Independence. Freedom. Time and space to think and reflect.

  The cuckoo clock struck ten, and she counted each cuckoo as she blew on her steaming cocoa, feeling its warmth on her fingertips and mouth. It was almost erotic. A reminder, if a strange and unexpected one, of making love with Byron on her study floor.

  “Independence doesn’t mean solitude,” Aunt Ellie had lectured more than once over the years. “I’m an independent woman—but so was your mother, who was married and had a child. I might not be married, and I have no children, but I’m not alone. Even before you came to live with me, Nora, I never considered myself someone who ‘lives alone.’ I have too many friends and neighbors—I’m too involved with people—to feel isolated.”

  Even after three years, Nora missed her great-aunt’s wisdom and solid presence.

  But it was her mother, now, who came to her mind. She’d been a quiet, hardworking woman who’d died far, far too young. In her grief, Nora had wanted never to inflict the kind of loss she’d endured on anyone. Life with Aunt Ellie only reaffirmed her determination never to marry, never to have children, never to let anyone get close enough to be hurt.

  Someone pounded on her front door, startling her from her introspective mood. She went into the entry.

  It was Liza, smiling tentatively, nervously. “No emergency—the Forrester clan’s splitting a bottle of champagne before the festivities tomorrow. I ducked out. Nora, I need a favor. Actually, it’s more than a favor.”

  “Sure.”

  “Be my bridesmaid tomorrow.”

  Leave it to Liza Baron not to beat around the bush. Taken by surpirse, Nora invited her back to the study, where she threw a log on the fire while Liza, with her usual restless energy, paced.

  “Look,” Liza said, “you’re the best friend I have in Tyler right now. I wasn’t going to bother with a bridesmaid—my sister didn’t mind being spared—but you’ve been so incredible, I’m not sure Cliff or I would have made it through this week without you. I know I brought a lot of this stress and strain on myself by inviting the Forresters and opting for a big wedding, but I’m glad I did. I have no regrets. And I’m so grateful for all you’ve done. You’ve been there for me.”

  Nora wasn’t so sure she’d been there for anyone this past week, including herself, but she didn’t argue. “I’m very flattered, Liza, but I don’t have a dress—”

  “You own the best store in town, Nora.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But it’s short notice and you don’t do much on short notice.” Liza stopped pacing a moment and smiled. “Remember what you said? Bridesmaids are about sisterhood. Nora, please. I want you to be by my side tomorrow morning.”

  Nora sighed, touched by Liza’s offer of real friendship. Then she, too, smiled. “What color should I wear?”

  Liza being Liza, she had an answer. “Got anything in burgundy?”

  * * *

  AT TEN O’CLOCK Saturday morning—just an hour before his wedding—Clifton Pierce Forrester was out at the lodge woodpile in a tattered plaid flannel shirt and patched jeans. Byron, in a navy summer suit himself, found him. “Mother says you vetoed the tux.”

  Cliff steadied a chunk of wood on the block, heaved his ax up high, then swung it down sharply splitting the wood neatly in two. “I tried it on. Looked like an ass. Tuxes aren’t me, Brother.”

  Neither, Byron thought, were big weddings with hundreds of invited guests. “You own a suit?”

  He picked up the two halves of cordwood, tossed them onto his growing pile. “Nope.”

  “Then what’re you going to wear?”

  “Clean clothes.”

  His brother, Byron could see, had withdrawn into himself to a perilous degree. “Cliff, what’s going on?”

  He set down his ax. Sweat poured down his temples and stuck his shirt to his back. Last night’s showers had moved east, leaving southeastern Wisconsin under clear skies with warmer-than-average temperatures. Cliff and Liza couldn’t have asked for a more perfect wedding day.

  “I’m okay,” Cliff said. “Guess I’d better get cleaned up, huh?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Marrying Liza’s what I want more than anything else in the world. If I have to do it in front of a crowd, then so be it.”

  In his mind, Byron had the bare inklings of an argument, but before it could take shape, Anne Forrester showed up at the woodpile. She was in her version of a mother-of-the-groom dress, meaning she’d opted for a plain blue wool dress instead of her usual tweed suit and had put on her best gold earrings. “There you two are. Cliff, I wanted to give you your wedding present. It’s something…well, I’ll let it speak for itself.”

  She handed him a small, flat, battered case that Byron doubted contained a dozen Waterford goblets.

  Inside were about two dozen seashells, most of them broken, none of them worth a nickel.

  “They’re the ones you and Byron and Dad and I collected on vacations on Nantucket when you two were little boys,” Ann said unnecessarily. “I wanted you to have something tangible of your childhood—something that would have meaning for you—to keep with you here in Wisconsin.”

  Cliff struggled visibly to retain his composure. “Thanks.”

  His mother laughed. “You’re welcome.”

  And Byron’s argument—his idea—took shape. He waited for his mother to go back inside. Then, walking slowly back to the lodge with Cliff, he and his brother talked, poured out their hearts, and plotted, coconspirators—really brothers—once more.

  * * *

  ALYSSA BARON GREETED Nora at the front door of her beautiful Victorian home on Elm Street, where Liza, bowing to tradition, had decided to get ready. Wearing a slim, silver-gray sheath with a
matching beaded jacket, Alyssa looked radiant, calmer than she’d been in the weeks since the body was uncovered at her father’s lodge.

  “You look so wonderful!” she said warmly to Nora, who was dressed in a lovely burgundy silk dress she’d worn the night she was elected to the Tyler town council. “The orchids just arrived,” she said, “and Amanda and Jeffrey and Dad are meeting us at the church.” But she licked her lips, a hint of worry creeping into her eyes. “Liza’s upstairs. I—I’ve never seen her so reflective. You know it’s more like her just to plunge ahead. Nora…Nora, if this wedding isn’t what she wants, if she’s doing it for my sake, please tell her she’s making a mistake. I only want what she wants. I mean that. I trust her.”

  “Isn’t it a little late to be worrying if a big wedding’s really what Liza and Cliff want?”

  “No,” Alyssa said, suddenly very sure of herself. “No, it’s not too late.”

  “But people are already arriving at the church and the reception—” Nora broke off. “I’ll talk to Liza.”

  Upstairs, Liza had put on her hand-sewn wedding dress, made from fifteen yards of silk organza and five-inch-wide lace that Gates had special-ordered for her from Paris. She was staring out the window overlooking her mother’s backyard, fingering a simple clamshell she’d strung around her neck. “Cliff brought it from Nantucket with him. It’s just a worthless shell—it isn’t even pretty. But it’s a part of who he is, where he’s come from. God, I never thought I’d find anyone I love as much as I love him. I want…I want today to reflect who we are together and all that we can become. That sounds corny, I know, but it’s true.”

  “Liza, it’s ten o’clock,” Nora said firmly. “You have to decide. It’s up to you. Cliff is going to do what you want. If you want to go through with this big wedding, then let’s get a move on. If not, then let’s think of alternatives. Traditionally, weddings are much more the bride’s responsibility.”

  “Mother—”

  “Forget Alyssa. She wants what you want. She’s told you, she’s told me. Believe her.”

  Liza bit her bottom lip. Tears shone in her beautiful black-lashed eyes. “I want her to be happy, Nora. She seems so alone—and with all I’ve put her through over the years with my little rebellions, and now with this damned body stirring up painful memories…and Dad…” She exhaled sharply. “I just want to make up for some of what she’s had to suffer.”

  “Then do it, Liza. Do it by having the wedding you want to have, because that’s what your mother wants for you. That’s what will help make her happy.”

  Turning back to the window, Liza said, “Last night I dreamed Cliff and I were married at the Lake—just him and me, you, our two families. It felt so right. It’s where we met, where he’s spent so many years healing. I’m not…we’re not your traditional wedding types.”

  “Don’t you think your mother and everyone else in town knows that?” Nora asked, realizing time was a-wasting and it was high time a decision was made.

  “Cliff shouldn’t have to be a spectacle, even if he gladly would for me. And it’s such a beautiful day.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “People are already arriving at the church.”

  “This isn’t their wedding. It’s yours.”

  Then Alyssa Baron was standing in the bedroom door, looking very maternal. “I’ve called Jeffrey. He said he can grab the preacher and meet us at the lodge. Amanda will get my father. They’re waiting by the phone for me to give the word. What’s it to be?”

  Liza broke into a huge smile and ran to her mother, hugging her, even as Cliff Forrester, looking like a derelict, showed up in the doorway and announced that he wanted to get married at the lodge.

  “Well, then,” Liza said, laughing, “let’s get a move on.”

  * * *

  IT WAS ENTIRELY appropriate, somehow, that Liza Baron and Clifton Pierce Forrester were married in a short ceremony on the banks of Timber Lake, with a rotting dock in the foreground, a partially renovated lodge in the background. Liza wore her wedding gown, and Cliff, looking absolutely stunning, had put on the handsome tuxedo his bride had picked out for him.

  It was one of the most beautiful and touching Wisconsin weddings Nora had ever attended. She stood beside Byron, slipped her hand into his, not caring if anyone saw, and cried. She always cried, if very discreetly, at weddings. This time she wasn’t so discreet. She knew what she wanted, she knew who she was. If word got around Tyler that Nora Gates cried at weddings, well, that was fine with her.

  Even Judson Ingalls admitted the lodge had been the right choice for his youngest grandchild. “But how’re we going to explain this to all those folks waiting at the church?”

  Byron stepped forward. “Nora and I will handle it.”

  They took her car, and Nora drove fast—ten miles over the speed limit, which, given her position in town as a business and community leader, she hated to do. But she wanted to get to the church not too much after the eleven o’clock ceremony was scheduled to begin. And when this is settled, I’m going to tell Byron I want ours to be the next Tyler wedding. She was suddenly very sure that was what she wanted. As sure as she’d been that warm August day when she’d been working on the back-to-school window at Gates and had spotted Byron for the first time and known he would change her life.

  “Shame to let a good wedding go to waste,” Byron said casually.

  A chill went through Nora. Was he thinking what she was thinking? “Cliff and Liza will make an appearance at the reception. That will help. People will understand.”

  “I’m sure they will, but everyone loves a wedding. No question a lot of folks are going to be disappointed.”

  She gripped the steering wheel, taking a sharp curve. “Well, we can’t cook up a replacement in the next five minutes.”

  Her heart was pounding. Because she knew they could.

  Byron was silent. Then he said softly, “We could.”

  Nora nearly drove off the road. “Who?”

  “Don’t be dense, Nora. You know I’m talking about us.”

  “Us,” she repeated.

  He shrugged, confident, every inch of him a man she didn’t want to live without. “Why not?”

  “Because…” She pulled over to the side of the road, a few yards from Barney’s pumpkin patch. She swallowed, but like Byron, she was suddenly confident, absolutely sure of herself and what she wanted. “No reason that I can think of.”

  “Do you love me?” he asked softly, his eyes penetrating all the way to her soul.

  “Yes, Byron. Oh, yes, I love you. You’ve known that for a long time. You knew before I did.”

  He smiled, but she could see the relief—and the pleasure—in his dark eyes. “I knew before you’d admit you loved me. Nora…Eleanora Gates the Younger, I do love you. I always will. There’s no going back.” Then his smile broadened into a grin. “So let’s get married.”

  “I’ve never done anything so impulsive in my life—”

  “It’s not impulsive. It’s been three years in the coming. Look, we’ve got a church full of people—we won’t even have to send out invitations. My mother’s here, my brother, my sister-in-law. Couldn’t be easier.”

  “You’re serious?”

  His smile vanished. “Yes.”

  “But Byron, where will we live? What will you do? What will I do?”

  He sighed, hunching down in his seat, not looking the least bit worried about those particulars. “I’ll remain on the Pierce & Rothchilde board. I called the appropriate parties this morning and resigned as president. I have a new idea for a series of photographs, but it’ll take some time to accomplish—it won’t, however, require a great deal of travel.”

  “No living in a tent?”

  “I wouldn’t ask a woman who needs her oatmeal and raisins every morning to spend the next umpteen years wandering from place to place and sleeping in a tent. Besides, that’s not what I want.”

  “So you’ll be a photographer—”

>   “As an avocation. I don’t see it as my work. I’m also thinking about writing a book, teaming up with Henry Murrow.”

  “The literary novelist?”

  “Yeah.” Byron seemed very comfortable with the idea. “We’re going to collaborate on a technothriller. He’s tried one on his own, but it needs a ring of authenticity I can help provide, being my father’s son and an ex-Air Force officer myself.”

  Nora didn’t move. “A what?”

  He laughed. “You sound so shocked. Yes, it’s how I spent a part of my youth. I didn’t make a career of it. I went to Harvard after I got out, then to Pierce & Rothchilde. Then I came to Tyler, Wisconsin, and met you and Aunt Ellie, and everything changed. I became a photographer and worked through what I needed to with regard to my past.”

  Nora felt a warm breeze against her cheek. “You’re sure this is what you want?”

  “Yes.”

  “We haven’t…there’s so much we don’t know about each other, about our pasts.”

  “Well, we have to have stories to tell each other on cold Wisconsin nights. We know the important things, Nora. We know we love each other and that that’s not going to change.”

  But she was staring at him, making sure. “Then you don’t need to live in Rhode Island?”

  “I haven’t made that clear by now? No, I do not need to live in Rhode Island. It’ll always be home. I’m sure I’ll whisk you off periodically to Nantucket and visits to Benefit Street, but I’m already feeling as if Tyler’s my home. I’ve followed in a lot of people’s footsteps. When I came here three years ago, Aunt Ellie helped me realize I needed to find my own path so I could make my own footsteps. I’ve done that. Now I want to do it with you, Nora— I want us to find a place where our paths come together and become wide enough for us both to walk.”