But things had changed. When he’d returned to the States things had seemed different. His relationship with Eloise, seemingly so suitable, had suddenly seemed cloying. Dull?
A month later he’d told Eloise he couldn’t go through with it. Not because of Georgie—or not directly because of Georgie. It was just that Georgie had showed him there was a life on the other side of control. He hadn’t wanted it, but it hadn’t been fair to Eloise to settle for her as an alternative. Eloise had hardly seemed disappointed, staying friends, accepting his decision with calmness. That had been great. That was why he admired her so much. He wanted that level of control.
He had it—except when he saw Georgie.
He couldn’t stay to watch Georgie sleep. It didn’t make sense.
But he wanted to stay.
‘It’s no use wanting what we can’t have.’ It was his mother’s whiny voice, echoing from his childhood. When his father had disappeared in a cloud of gambling debts, taking off with a woman half his age, his mother’s voice had moved to whine and had never returned to normal.
‘You keep your life under control. You make sure—make sure, Alistair, any way you know how that you never put yourself in the position where you can be humiliated so much you want to take your own life. I’m so close to suicide … All I have is you. Oh, Alistair, be careful.’
It had been a dreadful threat to hang on a child, but Alistair had known she’d meant it. If he’d threatened her nice stable existence—her pride in her son …
Well, he hadn’t. He wouldn’t even now, when his mother was long dead. So what the hell was he doing, staring down at this sleeping woman and thinking …?
He shook himself. He wasn’t thinking anything that’d worry anyone, including him. This was jet-lag. Exhaustion after this morning’s operation. Concern for a woman who had more than she deserved on her shoulders.
So get a grip, he told himself, but he let himself look at her for one long moment before he stood and walked slowly to the door.
And left her to her sleeping.
This wind was getting frightening. As Alistair walked out into the living room a shutter slammed off its hinges, hit the wall, broke off and tumbled crosswise past the house. He heard its progress, not falling but being blown. It was a big shutter.
One of the assembled bridesmaids screamed.
There were so many bridesmaids, still clustered. Apparently they’d dispersed to get their make-up done and now they’d regrouped. How long did bridal preparations last? The photographer was trying to get them lined up but was having trouble.
Gina waved to him from the back row. He hadn’t recognised her until now. Pink tulle?
‘It’s ridiculous,’ she said, abandoning the photo set-up and sidling out of her spot to join him. ‘Poor Em.’
‘Didn’t she plan this?’ he said, staring at … pink?
‘Mrs Poulos planned this,’ she said. ‘Sophia. Mike’s mum. This is a big Greek wedding, just as she’s always dreamed of. Em loves her too much to say no.’
‘I never thought I’d see you in pink tulle.’
‘Apricot,’ she retorted.
‘Right. Apricot.’
‘Sophia wanted the men in apricot dinner suits with apricot and white frills on their dinner shirts. But Mike put his foot down at that. They’re in black tuxes.’
‘Cal, too?’
‘Cal, too.’
‘And for your wedding?’ he asked in a voice of deep foreboding, and she chuckled.
‘If I asked you to wear apricot ruffles to my wedding, would you? Cousin?’
‘No,’ he said, revolted.
‘Not even if I said please?’
‘There’s no love in the world great enough to encompass apricot frills.’
‘Or red stilettos?’ she teased him, and he stopped smiling.
‘Gina …’
‘I know.’ Her smile widened. ‘It’s none of my business. But you and Georgie aren’t slugging any more, I hope?’
‘We were never slugging.’
‘She’s had such a hard time.’
‘I’m starting to realise that.’
‘Georgie’s my only bridesmaid so you have to be nice to her.’ She grinned. ‘And, I promise, no tulle.’
He smiled back. He was trying to think of Georgie in tulle and failing dismally.
‘She’s OK?’ Gina asked.
‘She’d be better if she knew where Max was. I’ve been ringing through a list of her father’s friends.’
‘She let you do that?’ Gina’s eyes widened.
‘I offered.’
‘Yeah, but Georgie …’ She hesitated.
‘Gina, get back in line,’ someone yelled, and Gina sighed and shrugged and smiled.
‘Duty calls. Come and watch the wedding.’
‘I’m not invited.’
‘This is Croc Creek. Everyone’s invited. Come at least to the church. It should be fun.’
And they all left, just like that. The photographer abandoned his work as hopeless and the car drivers ushered the girls out to the waiting cars. They were almost blown off their feet as they ran from house to cars.
Then they were gone, and the silence was unnerving.
What to do?
He’d already offered to help out at the hospital, thinking all the doctors would be at the wedding. But apparently two young doctors had arrived only three weeks ago—two eager and skilled interns on a working holiday from Germany. Herrick and Ilse were more than capable of taking charge and calling for help when needed.
Maybe he could go for a swim. But the wind made being outside unpleasant. The pool was protected, but even from here he could see the surface was littered with plant matter.
He should … He should …
Stay here. But … Georgie was sleeping off the bruise to her cheek, as well as making up, he suspected, for the sleep she hadn’t had the night before. The thought of staying alone in the same house with the sleeping Georgie was somehow unnerving.
He’d head out onto the veranda to read. But just as he was making that decision, Mr and Mrs Grubb arrived. They swept into the kitchen to deliver a couple of casseroles—‘for the doctors’ supper if they get called away from the wedding, poor dears, and there’s that nice young German couple as well need feeding up’. They were ceremoniously attired in their Sunday best. Dora’s hat was … amazing.
‘Why are you still here?’ Dora demanded, and she seemed almost offended by the sight of him.
‘Georgie’s asleep.’
‘All the more reason for you not to be here,’ she snapped. ‘Is that the only reason you don’t want to come to the wedding?’
‘I’m not invited.’
‘That’s a nonsense. Everyone’s invited and it’s not proper for you to stay here with Dr Georgie. You could be anyone.’
‘As if I’m going to—’
‘You’re American, aren’t you?’ she demanded. ‘I know your reputation. Overpaid, over-sexed and over here. Go put a suit and tie on and we’ll wait for you.’
Some things weren’t worth fighting. Deciding that defending his national dignity wasn’t ever going to work, he decided on the second option. It seemed he was going to a wedding.
And so was Georgie.
It only took him a moment to change into his suit and when he returned to the kitchen Georgie was there. She was dressed, demurely for Georgie, in a tiny suit. In her beloved pillar-box red. And red stilettos. The skimpy skirt and jacket showed every curve of her gorgeous body. She’d applied make-up skilfully over her bruise, and it hardly showed under dark glasses. She was … gorgeous.
He stood in the doorway and stared.
She turned and saw him. And grinned.
‘I overheard,’ she said, and she chuckled. ‘I decided I’d better come to the wedding. Maybe I needed Dora’s chaperonage.’
‘You need to be in bed.’
‘I’m too scared to stay in bed. Over-sexed, eh?’
‘You shouldn’t be sc
ared,’ he said sourly. ‘I’m going to a wedding.’
‘Me, too,’ she said cheerfully, and linked her arm through his. ‘Overpaid too?’
‘That’s from the war,’ Mr Grubb said, disconcerted. ‘It’s what we said about all the Yankee soldiers. They’re not like that now,’ he told his wife. ‘At least this ‘un isn’t.’
‘I can see that. How nice.’ Mrs Grubb had changed tack, beaming at the unexpected expansion in her wedding party. ‘You make a lovely couple. My mum’s best friend, Ethel, ran away with an American sailor. He bought her silk stockings and they lived happily ever after.’ She poked Mr Grubb in the ribs. ‘Silk stockings. That’s the way to a girl’s heart.’
‘We have other things than silk stockings,’ Mr Grubb said with dignity.
‘What things?’ Dora demanded. Then she relented and giggled. ‘Oh, well, I guess you are OK in the cot.’ Then at the sight of Georgie and Alistair’s stunned expressions she choked back her giggles and sighed. ‘Oh, what it is to be young. Look at the pair of you. Ooh, I hear Cupid in the wings.’
‘Dora,’ Georgie said, quelling her with a look. ‘I’m only going for the service.’
‘Me, too,’ Alistair said, and Dora beamed some more.
‘Yes, dear. And then you can walk home together after. If this wind settles, like Sergeant Harry says it’s going to settle—which it’s not going to. It’s going to be a biggie. I said to Grubb just before we got dressed, I said, it’s going to be huge. I can feel it in my waters.’
‘Um … what are your waters talking about?’ Georgie said nervously, while Alistair said nothing at all. He was feeling like he was having an out-of-body experience and it was getting weirder by the minute.
‘Cyclone, dear, that’s what I’m feeling, no matter what Sergeant Harry’s telling us. Veering offshore indeed.’ Dora puffed herself up like an important peahen—or maybe peacock with that hat—gathered her shiny purse and took her husband’s arm. ‘But no matter. We’ve weathered cyclones before and we’ll weather them again. Now, then, Grubb, let’s all of us go to this wedding. Ooh, I do like a good wedding. Mind, one wedding breeds ten more, that’s what I always say, and this one’s no different.’ She cast a not so covert look at Alistair and then at Georgie. ‘I can feel that in my waters as well.’
‘You have truly impressive waters, Mrs Grubb,’ Alistair said, feeling it was time a man had to take control and move on. He took Georgie’s arm just as possessively as Dora held Grubb, and he smiled down at her. ‘Let’s go see if they’re right.’
Which meant that they were together. They were driven to the church together. In deference to Georgie’s wounded face, Grubb insisted on dropping them off right at the church door before he went to find a parking place. Georgie and Alistair were practically blasted into the church together. Of one mind, they turned to the back pews, finding seats in the most obscure corner of the chapel.
‘How come you’re not a bridesmaid?’ Alistair whispered as they settled in their back pew, and Georgie poked him in the ribs.
‘Shh.’
The wedding hadn’t started yet. Céline was singing ‘My Heart Will Go On’ at the top of her lungs, courtesy of Mrs Poulos, who was in control of the volume button. There was time for a brief conversation, even if Georgie didn’t want it.
‘But everyone else is,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d be a shoo-in.’ Then he frowned. ‘Isn’t this the song from Titanic?’
She giggled. ‘Nothing stops our Sophia. No little iceberg could get in the way of this wedding.’
‘So why aren’t you a bridesmaid?’
‘Mike has three sisters and two cousins who, according to Mrs Poulos, would be offended enough to cause a rift in the family for generations to come if they’re not bridesmaids. Em had already asked Susie so that made six, and enough was enough. However, one of Mike’s sisters left coming here too late—the storm’s stopped her—so Gina’s taken her place. This is amounting almost to a plague of bridesmaids. I’m going to be Gina’s bridesmaid and that’s one bridesmaid experience too many in my book.’
‘But you are Em’s friend,’ he said, watching the clutch of men around Mike at the altar. There were almost more wedding party participants than guests.
‘I come from the other side of the tracks from Em,’ she said, and he blinked.
‘You mean there’s a reason you weren’t asked?’
‘No, I …’ She shook her head. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. Em doesn’t care.’
‘That you’re from the wrong side of the tracks.’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean you’re illegitimate?’
‘I mean my family’s dole bludgers and petty crims.’
‘But you’re not?’
‘Maybe not,’ she whispered dully. ‘But you can’t escape your family.’
He thought about his mother. And then he thought he’d rather not think about his mother. ‘That’s a hell of a chip on the shoulder you’re carrying,’ he ventured cautiously.
She glowered. ‘Deal with it. I know when people are patronising me.’
‘I’m not patronising you.’
‘Right.’
‘You know, I’m not exactly blue blooded either,’ he said, eyeing her with caution. ‘I’m not so far from the other side of your tracks that you’d notice.’
‘Says the eminent neurosurgeon.’
‘To the eminent obstetrician.’
She tried to glower. He smiled. She tried a bit harder to glower. He glowered for her.
She giggled.
It was a really cute giggle.
The bride was about to make her entrance. Mrs Poulos did her worst with the control button. Whitney at her finest. ‘I will always love yoo-oo-oo …’
The church was festooned with apricot and white ribbons, flowers and bows as far as the eye could see. It was …
‘Very tasteful,’ Georgie said, still giggling, and they rose to their feet as the priest motioned them all to stand. ‘Someone should tell Sophia this is a farewell song. Why are you from the wrong side of the tracks?’
‘Um … my parents didn’t have much money.’
‘Is that all? That’s not the wrong side of the tracks. That’s shabby genteel.’
‘My dad went to jail. Embezzlement. He stole to feed a gambling habit.’
That made her pause. Her smile died. ‘Your real dad?’ she asked cautiously, and he nodded.
‘Golly. You almost qualify.’
‘Thank you,’ he said dryly. ‘So where’s your real dad?’
‘He lit out when I was four.’
‘Mine lit out when I was fifteen. With a waitress from a burger joint, and a year’s profit from AccountProtect First Savings.’
‘Wow,’ she said, and almost as a reflex she touched her face.
‘He never hit me,’ Alistair said. ‘Did yours?’
‘I … My stepdad did, yes.’
‘So does that put you further on the wrong side of the tracks than me?’
She stared up into his eyes. Her gaze held. Suddenly her lovely lips curved at the corners and she chuckled again.
It was a good sound. A really good sound, he thought. And he felt pleased with himself. For just a minute she was putting aside her terrors for Max and her pain from her injured face, and she was enjoying herself.
And who could not enjoy this over-the-top wedding? Mike was standing at the end of the aisle, looking stunned. Nervous as hell, despite the array of assorted males supporting him.
This was ridiculous, Alistair thought. What a production.
And then the great front doors swept open. ‘I Will Always Love You’ had segued into a full orchestral rendition of the Bridal March and the guests turned as one to see the bride make her entrance.
Emily. The bride.
This was crazy. She was a powder puff of brilliant white sweeping into the church, with Charles Wetherby in his wheelchair beside her. Charles looked proud fit to burst.
Emily was seeing no one. She
looked straight ahead until she saw Mike and faltered in mid-step.
Alistair turned to look at the bridegroom. And he saw the look that flashed between the pair of them …
The whole ridiculous bridal production faded to nothing. This was what it was all about, he thought, stunned. One man and one woman, committing to each other, with all the love in their hearts.
It was no wonder Em hadn’t put her foot down over the apricot tulle. The apricot tulle was nothing.
This man and this woman loved each other.
He had been right to break it off with Eloise, Alistair thought suddenly with a flash of absolute certainty. Eloise would never have looked at him like that. And the way he’d felt about Eloise …
No. This was loving. Out-of-control loving, letting go, a leap of faith—and who cared about apricot tulle? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they belonged together.
He didn’t belong here, he thought suddenly. He felt like an impostor, an outsider privy to emotions he hardly understood.
Embarrassed—or maybe not embarrassed but caught in some emotion he couldn’t begin to fathom—he turned away. He didn’t want to intercept that look again.
He turned to Georgie.
She’d caught the look as well. Her face had changed. Her hands had risen to her cheeks as though to drive away a surfeit of colour.
Her eyes were filled with tears.
‘Georg,’ he whispered, but she shook her head fiercely, denying him the chance to say a word.
He wasn’t going to say a word. He couldn’t think of a word to say.
But tears were slipping down her cheeks. He felt in his pocket, produced a handkerchief and handed it over. Then, as she wiped her face, he took her free hand in his and held it.
What sort of man still used handkerchiefs?
It was a bit of an errant thought but it helped.
Why was she crying at a wedding? This was dumb. It was the stupid analgesics, she thought. It had nothing to do with the way Mike was looking at Emily.
She didn’t do weddings. She didn’t even do relationships. The only relationships she’d ever experienced had led her to disaster.
It was her own fault. She didn’t know who she was herself. She was dumb. She’d go out with a lovely gentle fellow doctor. He’d treat her as if she were Dresden china and she’d feel … empty.
The Australian's Desire (Mills & Boon By Request) Page 9