by Anne Stuart
“So why not now? Why send him away now?”
“Because I’m afraid. I’m not like your aunt Lou,” she said. “I don’t have the nerve to throw everything away for love. And I’m afraid you’re just like me.”
“But Aunt Lou didn’t throw everything away for love, did she?” Susan demanded. “You told me she married Ned Marsden and died. Didn’t she?”
Mary didn’t answer. “I’m going to lie down for a while. I don’t want to think about...”
“When did he leave?”
Mary shook her head. “His flight left this morning. He begged me to let him stay but I told him no.”
“You could go after him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I made the wise decision.”
“You made the stupid decision,” Susan said flatly. “Your sister would be ashamed of you. I’m ashamed of you. Go after him. Catch the next flight to wherever it is he lives, show up on his doorstep wrapped in Saran Wrap and beg his forgiveness. Tell him you made a mistake, and if he still loves you you’ll never leave him again.”
An odd expression came into Mary’s eyes. “What’s gotten into you? You’ve always been so careful, so determined to make the wise decision.”
“I’m making the wise decision. I’m not marrying Edward.”
“Thank God,” Mary breathed.
“And I’m sending you after the man you love. Once you get there it’s up to you not to screw it up, but I’m not letting you use me as an excuse. Go after him. Don’t waste the rest of your life.”
Mary stood stock-still, watching her. And suddenly twenty years fell off her, like a blanket, and she smiled a dazzling smile. She threw her arms around Susan with an exuberance almost foreign to her nature. A moment later she was racing out the front door.
The house grew still and quiet around her. She turned off the telephone, locked the doors and stretched out on the living room sofa, Tallulah’s satin gown draped around her. She could only hope Edward had done something about canceling the wedding. Otherwise four hundred guests were converging on St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, and there’d be no bride.
Like her mother before her, she’d sent away the right man. And there was nothing she could do about it.
She watched the hands on the grandfather clock move inexorably onward. The clock had come from the old house, as well—she remembered Ridley setting it. It moved past five, then five-thirty, and she breathed a deep sigh of relief. Wondering why she still felt so empty inside.
It was after six when she heard the rumble of the car in the driveway. It sounded like the little sports car that Jake had been driving, and she froze, until she heard the key in the door. She didn’t move from her spot on the sofa. Only her mother had a key to the house—she must have chickened out at the last minute. Maybe the two of them could be tiresome old maids together, sharing a house and an empty life.
But it wasn’t her mother’s footsteps in the hall, moving with slow, stately care toward the living room. A figure appeared in the shadows at the entranceway, tall, stooped with age but still graceful, and Susan stared at her in shock.
“So I travel halfway around the world just for the chance of disrupting another wedding at St. Anne’s, and it’s all for nothing,” the old lady said in a tart, deep voice. “Obviously you have more sense than your mother gave you credit for.” She moved into the room, an ebony cane in one gnarled hand, and went straight to the huge leather chair, sinking down with a faint grunt. “I always hated this chair,” she said in a conversational voice.
Susan stared at her, unable to move. She was a very old woman, her silvery hair piled high on her aristocratic head, her dark eyes bright with intelligence and the wisdom of age.
“Who are you?” Susan’s voice came out in a shocked croak. But she already knew the answer.
The old lady let out a bark of laughter. “That dress looks almost as good on you as it did on me. Though some might call it unlucky. This is the second wedding that didn’t go through. Make sure your mother doesn’t want to borrow it when she remarries your father, or she might be doomed.”
Susan sat up, staring in shock. “Aunt Lou?”
“Of course. Or your godmother Louisa, if you prefer.”
“But you’re dead. You died in a train crash the day you married Neddie Marsden.”
“I never married Neddie. I took off in the middle of the service and went after the man I loved. Of course the family covered it all up with a bunch of lies, and after fifty years not too many people know or care about the truth. Your uncle Jack and I were married on board the Lizzie B. and we never spent a night apart for the last forty-eight years until he died.”
“I’m sorry,” Susan murmured.
“Hell, we wanted to spend those nights together,” Lou said with a deep laugh. “Oh, you mean you’re sorry he’s dead. So am I, love. More than I can say. But he lived a good, full life and he went very fast, so you can’t ask for much more. I miss him every day. But Jake looks after me, and I’m old enough to know you can’t live forever.”
“Jake?”
“He’s Jack’s nephew. We brought him up. Never could have children of our own for some reason, so we’d pick up any loose strays we could find. You have about twenty-seven cousins. I may have lost count.”
“Including Jake?” She felt like Alice after she’d gone through the looking glass, lost in a crazed world where dead women walked and nothing made sense.
“Well, not by blood, of course. That was my past, and there’s no way to change the past. You can only change the future.”
“That’s what my mother said.”
“Where is she, by the way? I haven’t seen her since Jake dropped me off here this morning. I was looking forward to meeting Alex.”
“She sent him away.”
“Silly fool,” Lou said with asperity. “I thought she was smarter than that. He’s a good man. She shouldn’t let him get away a second time. Ridley and Elda were too much for Mary to fight back when you were born. They’d already lost me, and they thought if they convinced Mary to get rid of Alex she would remarry befitting an Abbott. They were wrong, of course. She never stopped loving him.”
“She’s gone after him.”
“Well, thank goodness,” Lou said tartly. “Now we just have to figure out how to drum some sense into you. I was sure by the time I showed up here you’d have dumped your fiancé and fallen for Jake. He was my final wedding present for you.”
“Fallen for Jake? You mean this has all been some crazy matchmaking scheme? I can’t stand the man—he drives me crazy. What makes you think I could ever fall in love with someone like him?”
Lou’s smile was full of ancient wisdom. “Instinct. A gypsy in Bulgaria. A shaman in Zaire. A wise woman in Thailand. They all said you two were made for each other.”
“New-age crap.”
“Old-age crap, my dear. Wisdom from an age far greater than yours. So you’re going to tell me you don’t care about Jake?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“And you usually spend the night before your wedding having sex with people you don’t care about?”
“Did he tell you that?”
“He didn’t have to. I could tell by that dazed look in his eyes, by the love bite on his throat and by the tone of his voice when he said your name. He’s been a son to me, and I know him better than he knows himself. He’s in love with you, like nothing he’s ever felt before. And it looks like you’ve decided to break his heart.”
“He left me!”
“Pooh! Men leave all the time. If they love you they come back. Do you mean to tell me you threw away love because you’re a coward?” Lou rose to her full height, looking very stern. “Haven’t you learned anything from the last few days?”
“You know what happened?” Susan gasped.
Lou’s ancient, gorgeous face creased in a smile. “You had a dream, Susan. A strange, wonderful dream. And you had it for a reason. Don’t ignore the lessons it taught you.
”
The grandfather clock struck six, a somber tolling, and for a moment Susan was back in the old house, listening to the clock chime her life away. She looked across at the elegant old woman. “Where is he?”
“You know where he is. The ship has a different name, but the berth is the same. You can find him if you hurry.”
“I can’t—”
“Of course you can. All you have to do is want to.”
“My mother took my car. And I need to change my dress—”
“No time, my dear. I brought your cousin’s car—you have just about enough time to jump in and drive into Manhattan before the ship leaves. It still has a manual transmission, but I’m sure you can handle it.”
“What cousin?” she demanded, confused.
“Todd Abbott. He’s aged well, the little charmer. I borrowed his Miata—you can drive it into the city and leave it there. He probably won’t appreciate losing another car, but I imagine he’ll get over it.”
“He didn’t die? But I thought you couldn’t change the past?”
Lou’s smile was enigmatic. “Sometimes we’re given blessings.” She crossed the room and took one of Susan’s hands in her strong, gnarled grip. She pulled her up with surprising force for someone so thin, and for a moment, in the shadowy room, she looked exactly like the reflection Susan had seen in the mirror. Young and strong and beautiful. “Get a move on, girl. It’s a family tradition.”
“But what if he doesn’t want me?”
Aunt Lou snorted. “He’s not that stupid. You need to make a leap of faith, or you’ll deserve to live your life with a broken heart.”
She looked at her aging aunt. “Didn’t I just do this a couple of days ago?” she asked plaintively.
Lou laughed. “You had a dream, Susan. Time to wake up and live.”
The traffic on the Merritt Parkway was horrendous on a Saturday afternoon, but at least the Miata came equipped with powerful air-conditioning. She drove like a race car driver, fast and dedicated, but it was still close to eight o’clock by the time she crossed the George Washington Bridge.
She’d never been in the docks of Manhattan except in her dream, but they didn’t look as if they’d changed much in the past fifty years. There was no place to park, but she didn’t care. She simply left the car, keys inside, and grabbed her suitcase in one hand, her satin train in the other, and headed toward Pier 18.
The Barbara K. didn’t look much newer than the Lizzie B. The night was dark around her, and this was hardly the safest section of Manhattan, and if she had any sense at all she’d run back to the car and get the hell out of there.
But she had no sense. The time for smart choices was over. It was time to lead with her heart.
A leap of faith, Aunt Lou had said. And surely Jake Wyczynski was worth it.
The sense of déjà vu was so powerful she almost felt dizzy with it. She found her way to Jake’s cabin with no arguments from the busy crewmen, and she found it empty, with a wide bunk, not too dissimilar from the room where Tallulah had spent her honeymoon.
She sat down to wait.
She wondered what she’d do if the boat left before she had a chance to see him. To make sure he really wanted her. But she already knew the answer to that. She’d wait.
He came back to the room just as the Barbara K. started out into the harbor. His shirt was unbuttoned and pulled loose from his jeans, his expression was bleak, and he didn’t even see her when he first walked in.
“Surprise,” she said in a soft voice.
All expression left his face as he stared at her. He kicked the door shut and leaned against it, not moving. “I can’t give you what you want,” he said finally.
She rose to her knees, the wedding gown pooling around her in the wide bunk. “What do you think I want?”
“Safety. A fancy house in the suburbs, a husband who wears three-piece suits. Two imported cars in the garage, a stock portfolio and an HMO.”
“What makes you think I want that?”
“Why else would you marry someone like Edward?”
“I didn’t marry him.”
“No, I guess you didn’t. When did you decide that?”
“Last night.”
“But you told me—”
“I know what I told you. You annoyed me.”
He had a beautiful mouth, and it curved in a wry smile. “A young woman of my acquaintance told me I can be very annoying. Of course, two hours later she was in bed with me, so maybe I should take that with a grain of salt.”
“Maybe some women find annoyance to be an aphrodisiac.”
“I don’t stay put, you know. I wander from one place to the next. I’m like Lou and Jack—I don’t like settling down for too long.”
“All right.”
“I don’t care about money or possessions. Sometimes I’m broke, sometimes I’m rolling in cash. I have a gift for making money, and a gift for spending it. I don’t worry about the future, I just take each day as it comes.”
“All right.”
“The only family I have left, the only family I care about, is Aunt Louisa.”
“I thought you had twenty-seven brothers and sisters.”
“She told you that? I do. I call ’em the horde. We all get along well enough, though most of them are more settled than I am. When did you see Lou?”
“She told me to come after you.”
“Are you always so obedient?”
“When I want to be.”
“So what do you want from me?”
It was that simple, and that difficult. She pushed her hair back from her face and took a deep breath.
“I want you to love me,” she said. “I want you to love me as much as I love you.”
He didn’t even blink. “Impossible.”
“Impossible?” she echoed, her heart collapsing.
“There’s no way you could possibly love me as much as I love you. I’m out of my mind for you. Demented, obsessed, crazed, and tempted to buy you that damned house in the suburbs and join a firm of stockbrokers. You could never even begin to understand how much I love you.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
He looked shocked, as if he’d just realized the ramifications of it all. The ship was steaming down the Hudson River, and she was kneeling in his bed, looking up at him with her heart in her eyes.
“Yeah,” he said, wondering. “You’re here.”
She looked around her. “Where are we going?”
“Does it matter?”
“No. Not as long as I’m with you.”
He took a breath, and it was almost painful. “The ship’s headed for the coast of Spain then on to Africa. I was planning on leaving there and going across country.”
“Will you take me with you?”
He touched her then. Crossed the cabin and put his hands on her shoulders, pulling her up against his smooth, hot chest. “Yes,” he said. “And I’ll never leave you.”
She slid her arms around his neck and kissed him, her heart in her mouth. “Help me take off this damned wedding dress,” she whispered, “and I’ll never let you go.”
And he did.
Epilogue
Two years later
The palazzo in Venice had to be her favorite of the seven places they’d lived in their two years of married life together. The farmhouse in Spain ran a close second, and the cottage in the Hebrides had been wonderful, as well.
But the palazzo, tumbledown and damp with mold and rotting plaster, was her absolute favorite. Because her first child was going to be born there.
It was the only place large enough to hold a sizable section of her extended family. Alex and Mary had rooms on the third floor, Aunt Lou had left her villa in Tuscany for a state apartment on the first floor, prepared to await the arrival of the newest member of the family in style. There were at least a dozen half brothers and sisters, all different ages, races, nationalities and sizes scattered throughout the ramshackle building, and Jake divided
his time between some obscure project to shore up a section of the sinking city and spending time with his myriad siblings, all of whom uniformly adored him. Not to mention his very pregnant wife.
She never would have thought Jake Wyczynski could be so patient and tender. She never would have thought he’d be exactly what she needed in her life. Someone to annoy and challenge her, someone to nurture her and shove her out on her own. Someone to love her for being Susan, not an Abbott of Connecticut.
It was a perfect autumn day, cool and clear, and even the canals seemed serene. That was what they called the city—La Serenissima. The Most Serene. She could only hope they came back here later on. She’d like all her babies to be born in Venice.
But in the end it didn’t matter. Her home was the people she loved, and they were scattered all over the world. As long as she had Jake with her she’d always be at home.
She could hear the thunder of footsteps on the broad staircase, and Jake’s shout of laughter as he chased his teenage brothers, Mamoo and Walter, past Aunt Lou’s room. From overhead she could hear the ripple of laughter floating down from the balcony outside Mary and Alex’s room, and somewhere in the distance a radio was playing opera at a distorting bellow.
She leaned back against the moth-eaten divan and stroked her belly. The pains had been coming, regular as clockwork, for the past two hours, and they were getting close enough together that she knew this time was no false labor. She’d have to go fetch her husband to take her to the hospital, unless Aunt Lou had her way and delivered the baby herself. She insisted she’d delivered more than a hundred children, and Susan believed her, but she still had a nostalgic longing for a real doctor.
For a few minutes more she would simply lie back and listen to the noise all around her, feel the baby move inside her and know that life was very good indeed.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-5008-6