“May the years bring happiness,” the guests repeated in a random singsong, raising their glasses in yet another salute.
The ginger ale in Gentry’s glass tasted flat. Or maybe the flatness was a result of the endless shower of happy wishes raining down around her. Sonny’s family was overly fond of protocol, and there seemed to be an endless array of it surrounding the celebration of marriage. Each family member was delighted to propose a personal toast, often preceded by a “Sonny” anecdote, and always followed by a chorus of “hear, hear” and then the clink of glassware.
As she recalled, there had been a similar barrage of good wishes two years ago. That party, too, had been held at The Silver Palm, in this same room, with many of the same people, at almost the same time of year. Sonny had wanted it that way. He seemed to believe that if he could replicate the past and just rescript the ending, then her elopement with Jake would be erased from everyone’s memory…especially his. He hadn’t said that in so many words, but she knew. She wished he could have been satisfied to make a new beginning, but she was discovering that Sonny’s forgiveness came with a price tag labeled Pride.
Uncle Alexander rose and tapped a spoon against his glass to gain the attention of his audience. “I’d like to propose a toast.” He lifted his glass. “To Sonny and Gentry. Here’s to your happiness…and a heartfelt wish that this time the wedding goes off as planned.”
The toast was endorsed by a spurt of laughter and a round of applause. Even Sonny’s mother laughed at the joke, as if it were too hilarious to think anything might interfere this time around. Gentry didn’t laugh, but she managed a happy smile…at least a reasonable facsimile of one…as she clinked her glass to Sonny’s. She ought to be enjoying the party. Sonny’s family had gone to great expense to make it a memorable occasion, and she was ashamed of herself for not being more appreciative.
It was Jake’s fault. If he hadn’t appeared out of the blue today, walking back into her life as if he’d never been out of it, pretending Ben had imposed upon his friendship in extracting a solemn promise to deliver that silly old wedding dress…Oh, no, Jake had to accept responsibility for this disaster of an evening. It was entirely his fault that she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
“You remember Aunt Dot,” Sonny whispered close to her ear as a tall, kind-eyed woman with a generous smile rose to offer her good wishes. “When Sonny was only three years old…” Aunt Dot began.
Gentry’s smile solidified. This was going to be a very long night.
SONNY SWEPT GENTRY around the dance floor to the tune of “You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You.” They danced well together, never missing a step, their movements flawlessly executed and as smooth as spun cotton. She and Sonny were a perfect match. Everyone said so.
Gentry couldn’t understand why the song seemed to play on and on and on.
“Tired, sweetheart?” he asked, and she nodded because a more honest excuse eluded her. “We probably should stay at least another hour. I wouldn’t want to disappoint everyone by leaving too carly.”
“I’m fine. Really.” She offered a smile as proof. “I just need a little fresh air, that’s all.”
If he heard an echo from the past in her words, he gave no sign. She could hardly believe she’d repeated herself so exactly. “I just need a little fresh air,” she’d said at the party two years ago. But it hadn’t been fresh air she needed that night. It had been Jake.
The song ended, and after a spattering of applause, another song began. Other couples moved from table to dance floor, and two of Sonny’s cousins pressed forward to bestow more good wishes. As soon as they walked on, Sonny took her elbow again and started for the door.
Halfway there, Uncle Alexander stopped them. “You won’t mind if I borrow Sonny for a few minutes, will you?” His skin was wrinkled from years of hard work and his eyes held the shadow of habitual worry, but he managed a cagey wink at Gentry before he took Sonny’s arm and pulled him aside. “I know this is not the place to talk shop, but the manager you hired to oversee operations at the Alabama plant called me today and…”
Sonny’s mouth tightened at the interruption, but he listened as the older man talked. Gentry eyed the walkway outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of The Silver Palm. When the club’s restaurant was open to the membership, the walkway provided a buffer between the diners and other club activities going on at the same time. At private parties like this one, the windows could be removed completely, opening up the interior to the outside air. Tonight, tables were set up on the walkway to provide a place for private conversations or a respite from the noise and clutter of the party.
She could go out there alone. Sonny didn’t have to accompany her. There was no need. Jake wasn’t here. Not that it would matter if he were. Tonight, she wanted only a breath of fresh air. Nothing more.
Sonny caught her eye and motioned for her to go on without him. He hated to talk business at social gatherings. He didn’t actually like to talk about it anywhere, but he was courteous to a fault. He was also conscious that Harris Manufacturing provided the funds for his art gallery. Lending a sympathetic ear to Uncle Alexander’s latest concern was a small price to pay for the life-style he enjoyed.
Sonny Harris was a good man, considerate and kind, even if he did want desperately, and try too hard, to fit in. A minor flaw, she thought. Certainly nothing like Jake, who wanted his way or no way, who didn’t care if he fit anywhere in the world outside the boundaries of the Two-Penny Lodge. He was the only man she’d ever known who had expected her to be more than she was, who challenged her to try harder, be stronger, grow up. His passion had energized and exhausted her, comforted and frightened her, and in the end, defeated her.
Two years ago, at a party nearly identical to this one, he’d asked her to run away with him. And she’d refused. Until he kissed her. Not far from the walkway she was approaching now. Out there, in the scentsweet darkness of the summer garden, he’d slipped up behind her and whispered so softly she could almost believe he hadn’t said the words aloud at all. “I love you in blue…and every other color under the sun.” And then he’d taken her in his arms and kissed her until she would have gone anywhere with him.
The memory of those stolen moments made her shiver as she stepped out into the warm summer night. There was an eerie similarity tonight, a sense of déjà vu, of having felt this same hushed expectancy before. She shook it off with a tight shudder. Jake wasn’t here. He hadn’t been invited and she was sure he had no interest in tonight’s celebration. But with just the thought of him, the memory of his kiss, came the illogical idea that he might be in the darkness, watching and waiting for her.
Gentry turned on her heel and walked briskly back inside.
“This party needs something.” Sydney accosted her the moment she reentered the room. “A male stripper would do wonders for my attitude, about now.”
“Not to mention what it could do for the blood circulation of Sonny’s aunts.” Hillary ducked behind a fig tree to take her place on Gentry’s other side. She smiled and waved at Aunt Dot.
Gentry sensed mischief weaving toward her like a drunken sailor. “This party doesn’t need anything except to be over.”
“Aha, I knew you had to be as bored as we are,” Sydney said. “Come on, Gen, let’s have some fun. Spike the punch. Swing from the chandelier. Do a table dance. Don’t shake your head at me. You deserve to have one last fling before you settle into a life brightened only by stories of Sonny as a precocious child.”
Gentry’s suspicions formed a definite shape. “Where’s Heather?”
“Haven’t seen her.”
“Me, either.” Hillary’s shrug was too pat, too quick. “She could be in the bathroom, I guess. Maybe we should look for her.”
“Oh, no.” Gentry backed away from their obvious ploy to separate her from the party. “I’m not falling for that. If you’re determined to embarrass me, you can just wait until the Hamiltons’ brunch. At least they know what nitwi
ts you three can be at times.”
Sydney gasped in mock offense and drawled in her finest imitation of a Southern belle, “Why, Gentry Elizabeth Northcross, you can’t believe that your dearest and best friends would ever do anything to put you to the blush. It would be so undignified, not to mention so unlike us.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Gentry edged closer to Sonny’s steady, no-nonsense presence. “You forget I was with you the night you decided to drop a cherry bomb down the toilet of the Alpha Phi fraternity house as a grand and final last fling before graduation. If I hadn’t convinced you how undignified that little prank would be, we’d have been expelled from the university for sure.”
“If only we could have gotten our hands on a Jiffy John that night,” Hillary said with a sigh.
Sydney chimed in with a wistful sigh of her own. “There was a good reason we were called the Four Horsemen in those days.”
“And a better reason we’re not called that these days.” Gentry knew these women as well as she knew herself, and when it came to mischief, she didn’t trust them either in or out of her sight. “Whatever you two have cooked up with Heather for tonight is officially called off as of now. Sonny’s family is not boring. Mingle a little. Find someone interesting to talk to. Aunt Dot, for instance, is a retired nurse. She ought to be able to tell some stories that will satisfy your thirst for excitement.”
“Speaking of thirst…” Hillary reached across Gentry to nab a glass of red wine from a tray held by a solemn-faced waiter. “I’d like to make a toast, Gen. To true love.”
Sydney barely managed to grab a glass of champagne before the waiter passed by. Lifting the champagne flute to Gentry, she clinked her glass with Hillary’s. “To the magic of a true and lasting love.”
Sonny turned, frowned at the sight of Gentry flanked by trouble on the hoof, and moved to intercept. “Having fun, ladies?”
Hillary giggled…and Gentry knew with a rueful certainty that whatever was about to happen would not be conducive to Sonny’s happiness.
“Oh, look,” Sydney said brightly. “There’s Heather.”
Gentry followed Syd’s gaze to the doorway where Heather stood, partially in the room and partially in the foyer. Lifting her hand in an absentminded sort of wave, Heather leaned forward as if she were addressing someone much shorter. Her expression altered with amusement as she straightened and turned to someone just out of view.
“What is that dog doing here?” Sonny’s tone was suddenly sharp. “You don’t suppose she followed us all the way across town, do you?”
“What dog?” Sydney went up on tiptoe, trying to see.
Hillary, who was taller, looked over Sonny’s shoulder. “It’s only Cleo.”
“Cleo?” Gentry repeated.
“How did she get—” Sonny’s question tightened with anger. “I can’t believe this,” he said.
“Are you sure it’s her?” Gentry tried to think of an explanation for the dog’s presence. “It could be another dog.”
“It is. It’s Daniels,” came his answer, and, with it, Gentry experienced a warm, rousing and embarrassing surge of excitement. Jake was here.
“What’s Jake doing here?” Sydney turned a sudden frown on Sonny. “Did you invite him?”
“Of course I didn’t. Did you?”
“Don’t be insulting,” Hillary said. “Inviting a guest to someone else’s party would be rude.”
“You don’t say.” Sonny took a step toward the door. “What about punching an uninvited guest in the nose?”
“Tactless and undignified.”
“Just ask him to leave.” Gentry put a restraining hand on Sonny’s arm. “There’s no reason to create a scene.”
“You stay here.” With that stern warning, Sonny headed for the door.
Gentry cast an accusing eye on her friends. “I don’t know how you two convinced Jake to show up tonight, but it’s your responsibility to make certain nothing happens to Sonny.”
“What about Jake?” Sydney asked. “Don’t you care if something happens to him?”
“Not particularly. He should have better sense than to show—” Gentry brought up her hand and, somehow, caught the suddenly too-close underside of Hillary’s arm, knocking her elbow and sending the wine in her glass shooting into the air like Old Faithful. The bright red wine sparkled for a moment in the light and then splashed down…all over the front of the pearl gray sheath.
“Aaaah!” Gentry’s exclamation wasn’t loud, but it startled Sydney, who swung around with a jerk, which sent the champagne in her glass splashing across the wine stain already in place.
“Oh, Gen, I’m sorry.” She brushed at the sheath with her hand and managed to spill the rest of the champagne down Gentry’s leg and into her shoe.
“Quick,” Hillary said. “What is it you’re supposed to use to take out wine stains? Ginger ale or club soda?”
“Club soda,” Gentry said.
“Ginger ale,” Sydney answered, still rubbing at the spreading discoloration. “What are you drinking, Gentry?”
“Ginger ale, but—” Before she could clarify that she wasn’t drinking anything at the moment, a glass on the nearest table was picked up and its contents applied full strength to the stain.
“Oh, way to go.” Hillary took the empty glass out of Sydney’s hand and set it back on the table. “That was not Gentry’s ginger ale.”
“Well, whose was it?”
“No one’s. It wasn’t ginger ale.”
“Excuse me, but I was only trying to help clean up the mess you made by spilling your wine all over her.”
“Oh, stop it.” Gentry was torn between irritation with her friends and a pressing need to make certain a fight wasn’t about to break out on the other side of the room. “I’ll send the dress to the cleaners tomorrow.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t wait.” Hillary’s tone rose with alarm. “By tomorrow that stain will be set. You should probably go to the bathroom and rinse it out now.”
“Rinsing won’t work,” Sydney warned. “You’ll have to soak it in hot water.”
Gentry frowned, feeling there was something in this conversation that had very little to do with the stain on her dress. “I’d have to take a bath in the sink to do that.”
“No, you don’t. We’ll do it for you. Soak the dress, that is. And we can use the hand dryers to blow it dry. You’ll be washed, dried and presentable in less time than it took Sydney to ruin the dress in the first place.”
“I didn’t ruin it, Hillary. You did. I was just standing there.” Sydney took Gentry’s arm and steered her through the crowd and away from the confrontation across the room. Not many of the guests appeared to be aware that anything out of the ordinary was going on. Maybe there wasn’t. Maybe it wasn’t Jake who’d been standing in that doorway. Maybe her friends had had one too many of Pop’s special drinks today. Maybe they weren’t acting strangely at all. On the other hand, her dress had had not one, not two, but three glasses of various beverages poured on it. That was enough evidence to make her extremely suspicious.
“I probably should just go home,” she said.
Hillary disagreed with a shake of her head. “There’s no need to do that. We’ll take care of everything, don’t worry.”
“She’s right.” Sydney added her persuasive powers. “You don’t want to miss the rest of the party. Not when you’re having such a good time.”
Like a white flag over Fort Apache, suspicion fluttered in Gentry’s thoughts. It had looked like an accident, all right. But when it came to these two friends, there was always room for doubt. “I have a feeling I should refuse to go anywhere with the two of you.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Sydney’s voice snapped with impatience. “You’re beginning to sound paranoid. We’re your friends, remember?”
All the more reason to worry, she thought.
It wasn’t until some ten minutes later that she grasped the entire scope of their plan. By the time they reached the ladies’ rest room,
there was a consensus of two that Gentry might as well be comfortable while she waited for them to rinse and dry the dress. So, at Sydney’s suggestion, she’d gone into one of the darkened offices, slipped off the pearl gray sheath and handed it out to Hillary. The dress was barely out of her grasp and the door closed behind it, when she caught a glimpse, an elusive twinkle, of bridal white hanging in a corner of the darkened room. She didn’t know how they had gotten the wedding dress here without her knowledge, but here it was.
“You know, Gen,” Sydney said on the other side of the door. “I’m afraid your pearl gray sheath is ruined, after all. But don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll find something to wear.”
Footsteps clipped briskly down the hall and away, leaving Gentry undressed down to her undies and pearl gray heels, and alone with the magic wedding dress.
Chapter Five
Sonny was heading in his direction and Jake could see a cordial welcome was not on his agenda. Maybe crashing this party hadn’t been such a hot idea.
“Bogey coming in at four o’clock,” he said to Heather. “If you have any interception skills, now would be the time to test them.”
“Most of the men I try to intercept go right past me,” she said with a sigh. “You’d be better off sending Cleo.”
“If only Sonny had the foresight to carry a rump roast.” Jake patted the dog sitting politely beside him and watched his host’s shoulders square with emphatic body language. “I certainly hope all the rumors about him being a gentleman are true.”
“Even gentlemen lose their charm when threatened.”
Jake glanced at Heather, but had no chance to ask if she thought Sonny Harris had good cause to feel threatened.
“What are you doing here, Daniels?” Sonny delivered the question like a security guard, all authority and demand. “And I’ll warn you right now, it better not have anything to do with Gentry.”
“Is she here?” Jake raised his brows in surprise. “I thought you didn’t let her stay out past nine o’clock.”
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