Next Time...Forever

by Sherryl Woods

  Here, only the free-flowing French wine kept the occasion from being deadly dull. In fact, as tongues began to loosen, Dillon anticipated fireworks. He was just getting interested in the ebb and flow of the tense conversation around him, when the elderly, blue-haired belle beside him put a gnarled, but perfectly manicured hand on his and drawled in a sweetly seductive tone that belied her age, “Why, Mr. Ryan, where ever has Catherine been keeping you?”

  “In a closet,” he whispered confidentially and enjoyed the confusion that flickered for only an instant in the depths of her quick, intelligent eyes.

  “A closet?” she repeated skeptically, amusement playing about her pursed lips.

  “Why, certainly. Isn’t that where all the best-kept secrets are hidden?”

  After another slight hesitation, she reproached him lightly, “Oh, Mr. Ryan, you are teasing me, aren’t you?”

  Dillon grinned and decided he liked this slightly dotty, aging coquette. “Yes, ma’am. I believe I am.”

  Her laughter was pure as a bell. “You young devil. I’m so glad Catherine found you. You’re not at all like that stuffy ex-husband of hers.”

  “Matthew was stuffy?” According to Mrs. Devereaux’s earlier recitation, Matthew had been the next best thing to a saint. Though he understood why she’d trotted out the memory of her ex-son-in-law, he was anxious for another view from a more impartial observer.

  “Dull as dishwater,” she confirmed. “But don’t you dare say I told you so. Catherine’s a very private woman. She wouldn’t like me spreading gossip about her marriage. Still and all, a woman like Catherine should have a family, don’t you think so?”

  “A family?”

  “Children, Mr. Ryan, a whole houseful of them. You look as though you could do the job,” she said bluntly. “You do want children, don’t you?”

  He’d never really given the question any serious thought. He already had Jonathan and Kevin. He found himself glancing across the table at Catherine and trying to imagine a tiny version of that dark beauty. The image took his breath away. “Yes,” he said softly. “I think you’re right, Mrs. Brandon.”

  She nodded in apparent satisfaction. “You call me Aunt Mildred, young man. I suspect it won’t be long before you’re family, if you have any say about it.”

  “Not long at all,” he confirmed impulsively before the older man on his left claimed his attention with a brusque opinion on the disgraceful state of banking.

  “You’re just as well off hiding your money under the mattress as putting it into one of those savings and loan places,” George Franklin declared, waving a shaky finger at Dillon. Like Aunt Mildred, he seemed to be well into his seventies, but also like her, age hadn’t dimmed his wit one little bit. He leaned closer and peered into Dillon’s eyes. “Well, what do you have to say about that?”

  “I think it’s a matter of choosing the investment program that’s best for you,” Dillon said diplomatically.

  “Bah! That’s a wishy-washy answer, young man. What do you really think?”

  “I think you’re trying to get me into trouble, sir. I know perfectly well that you are president of one of the largest savings and loan institutions in the state of Georgia.”

  The old man threw back his head and hooted at the reply. “Done your homework, boy. I like that.” He banged his fork against his water goblet to get the attention of the rest of the people at the table. “I’d like to propose a toast,” he declared. “To Catherine and Dillon. May your love prosper along with your bank account.”

  At the foot of the table Mrs. Devereaux looked as if she’d been forced to swallow vinegar. A deep blush colored Catherine’s cheeks as Dillon’s gaze caught hers. Her sophisticated, cool veneer slipped away and she became once more the vulnerable, sensual woman with whom he’d fallen in love on that sultry, long ago night in Savannah. He grinned with unabashed enjoyment at the transition.

  “Later,” she mouthed, attempting to look stern.

  “Indeed,” Dillon replied, lifting his glass in a more private toast.

  He had not counted on Mrs. Devereaux when he’d uttered that seductive taunt at the dinner table. Either the old lady was a mind reader or she’d long ago decided to do everything in her power to keep Catherine and Dillon apart. She sent the men off to the living room for cigars and brandy. The suggestion, which carried the weight of a matriarchal order, clearly startled several of the younger women, who were already on their feet.

  “Sit down, Catherine, Melanie. We’ll have our tea in here.”

  “But, Mother,” Catherine protested mildly, only to be silenced by a look that would have withered the heartiest weed in the vast Devereaux gardens.

  Grinning at Mrs. Devereaux’s obvious ploy and Catherine’s apparent frustration, Dillon bent over to whisper in her ear as he passed. “Try to bear up, darlin’. We menfolk will come to rescue you soon.”

  “Go to blazes,” she whispered back just as sweetly as Mrs. Devereaux looked on disapprovingly.

  Not bothering to hide his amusement, he winked boldly. “That’s the spirit, sweetheart.” It reassured him that she no longer seemed one bit intimidated by her mother’s repressive actions. Only when he was casting one last lingering look back did he notice the glint of mischief in Lucinda Devereaux’s eyes.

  * * *

  “I can’t imagine what got into Mother,” Catherine said later, when she and Dillon had finally managed to escape to the sun porch that swept across the southern side of the huge old house. Christmas lights twinkled in the yards of distant neighboring houses. If it hadn’t been for her mother’s attitude, it would have been a magical evening. She’d liked watching Dillon hold his own with Aunt Mildred and Uncle George. This was the way she’d imagined things would be in New York. Instead, they’d spent all their time with business associates. Despite the quirky nature of her family, she loved them. She just didn’t understand them all the time. “Why do you suppose she insisted on such an old-fashioned tradition? She never has before.”

  “She’s protecting her chick from Northern invaders,” Dillon suggested.

  “I suppose that could be it,” Catherine agreed.

  “You aren’t planning to let her intimidate you, are you?”

  Catherine met his fierce gaze with a look that was pure southern belle. She wondered if he had any idea how manipulative her mother was capable of being, of the influence her mother tried to wield, not just over her, but the entire family. “I’m not the one she’s trying to intimidate.”

  “You’re wrong, my beauty. She read my intentions the first time she looked into my eyes. She’s been preparing her battle plan ever since.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s been a long time since Mother has successfully run my life.”

  “But not so long since she’s tried.”

  “It’s in her blood,” Catherine confirmed with an easy laugh that bore surprisingly little resentment. Over the past months she actually had come to terms with that. Maybe she was getting stronger and more independent after all.

  “She would have made a wonderful queen, don’t you think?” she said thoughtfully. “She loves waving her hand and watching everyone scatter to do her bidding. If she’d had her way, my father would have arranged marriages for all of us while we sat demurely in the garden and awaited word of our fate.”

  “If that had happened, would you have gone along with it?”

  Catherine thought it over, realizing that in many ways that was exactly how she’d come to choose Matthew—through the subtle prodding and encouragement of her parents. Her mother might not have been crazy about him, but she had found him suitable. “I think perhaps I did,” she admitted.

  “And now?”

  “Now I’ll make my own choices.”

  “Are you going to choose me, Catherine? Even if I don’t fit in with your mother’s idea of a respectable husband?”

  “Who wants respectable?” she taunted, refusing to be led into a serious conversation on the subject of marriage. Though
the thought entered her mind with increasing regularity, she had yet to think of a way to make it work. At her age, she was just beginning to realize marriage often took more than love. Dillon’s obsession with work was not something to be so easily overcome. And tonight was not a night for discussing anything that serious.

  “I’m after your body,” she said in an attempt to distract him.

  She felt Dillon stiffen. His fingers caught her chin and tilted her head up until she was forced to meet his gaze. His eyes condemned the flip remark. “Why would you say something like that? It sounds like a line from some silly romantic comedy.”

  She kissed his cheek. “I was teasing, Dillon. You’re always telling me to lighten up.”

  “Not when the subject is as serious as marriage.”

  “We were not talking about marriage.”

  “Weren’t we?”

  “Dillon, we’ve been over this and over this. We can’t even think about marriage until we can figure out how to keep this relationship afloat. Your life is in New York. I can’t imagine myself even visiting there more than a couple of times a year, much less living there.”

  “So much for whither thou goest.”

  “Exactly. Unless I miss my guess you feel exactly the same way about Atlanta.”

  “I have nothing at all against Atlanta, but my business is in New York.”

  “And my life is here or will be as soon as I finish school in Savannah. That’s another reason why I can’t very well pack my bags and go traipsing off to New York. You pushed until I enrolled. I’m happier than I’ve ever been. Do you expect me to walk away before I graduate?”

  Dillon sighed. “No,” he admitted with obvious reluctance. “I’m glad you’re taking the classes. You’re obviously more focused now, more self-confident. But what happens when you do graduate? Will you be willing to work in New York then?”

  “That’s too far down the line even to contemplate.”

  “So you want us to put our life on hold until then?”

  “Isn’t there room for compromise?”

  “Offer me one,” he said reasonably.

  But as hard as she tried, Catherine couldn’t think of a solution that was any more workable than what Dillon was asking. Finally, though, she was forced to admit that they’d simply been dancing around the real issue, at least as she saw it. “Dillon, it’s more than simply choosing a city to live in. I don’t like the way you are in New York, the way we are,” she finally said wearily. “We were at each other’s throats the first night. We had no time alone. You barely take the time to be with your children. You plan your entire life around business functions with people you barely know and don’t even seem to like very much.”

  “That’s the nature of the work I do. Are you saying you want me to give that up?”

  “Of course not. But couldn’t you modify it just a bit, separate your work and your personal life a little more?”

  He refused to meet her gaze as he paced around the room. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. But I do know that I love you. That I want this to work more than I’ve ever wanted anything. Come back with me now, Catherine. Let’s try it again until classes start after the first of the year. If we can talk about what’s not working, we can handle this. Please, sweetheart. Give it another chance. The kids are dying to see you again. New York is especially beautiful this time of year. We can spend New Year’s Eve in Times Square.”

  The very idea made her shudder. “Not in this lifetime,” she vowed fervently.

  He grinned at that. “Okay, a quiet dinner just for the two of us at the fanciest restaurant in the city. We can dance ‘til dawn. No business.” He touched his lips lightly to hers, sparking a fire deep inside her. “Please,” he urged, his tongue caressing the curve of her mouth. A delicious shiver raced through her. There was no place on earth she would rather start the new year than in Dillon’s embrace. If she was going to have to brave the gray gloom and idiotically fast pace of New York to be in his arms, then brave it she would.

  This time.

  “When do we go?” she asked as he pulled her willingly against him.

  “We could sneak out tonight, but I’m trying to win points with your mother. I suspect that’s not the way to do it.”

  “Good guess.”

  “Then we’ll leave in the morning after dutifully paying homage to the queen and opening our gifts.”

  “Don’t let her hear you call her that. She doesn’t know that’s how my sisters and I think of her.”

  “Coming from me, though, she’ll just think it’s her due,” he said dryly.

  “Oh, Dillon,” Catherine said as a low chuckle escaped. “I do love you so.”

  “I love you, too. And we’re going to make this work. I promise you that.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  New Year’s Eve

  For a while Dillon thought it was going to be all right. When they first got back in the city, they played tourist. They saw a play, an off-Broadway production that Catherine loved and he hated. They argued about it for hours over cappuccino and cannoli in a Little Italy bakery. They went to an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art that she found offensive and he found fascinating. Without wasting her breath, she dragged him into a taxi, asked to be taken to the Metropolitan and tugged him into one of the galleries, waving at the paintings by the Old Masters.

  “That’s art,” she told him.

  “But if artists only painted portraits and landscapes in that style, they’d stagnate. Art is a creative medium. It’s supposed to change and evolve. That’s what you said about that play that didn’t make any sense.”

  Cheeks pink and eyes flashing, she stared back at him. “Well…”

  “Come on, Catherine. Admit it. I’m right. Experimentation is important.”

  “I never said it wasn’t,” she said huffily.

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No. I just said I didn’t like that experimentation. Now take me to lunch. All this debating is making me hungry.”

  “Where would you like to go? The Russian Tea Room, maybe?”

  She shook her head. “That deli in your neighborhood. I have a craving for pickles.”

  Dillon stopped in his tracks, bemusement settling on his face. “A craving for pickles?”

  Catherine nodded. “What’s so odd about that?”

  “A craving for pickles?”

  She regarded him blankly, then finally her eyes widened in understanding. “Oh, for heaven sakes, Dillon. I’m not pregnant.”

  “Are you sure?” he said, his throat clogged with sudden emotion. He remembered the way he’d felt on Christmas Eve when Aunt Mildred had suggested that Catherine ought to have a houseful of babies. “It would be okay. In fact, it would be wonderful.”

  “Dillon, it would not be wonderful. Call me traditional, but I do believe couples ought to be married before they become parents.”

  “No problem. We could be married by tonight. I can’t think of a better way to spend New Year’s Eve.”

  There was an odd expression on her face, just the tiniest hint of longing, but she was quick to tell him, “Silence those bells, Romeo. The only aisle you and I are walking down in the immediate future is in Bloomingdale’s. I want that dress I saw in their holiday catalog.”

  “We’ll just see about that,” Dillon vowed.

  “The dress?” she inquired.

  “The wedding.”

  “Don’t try to turn this into a contest of wills, Dillon. The only way you’ll ever change my mind is by showing me that we can make it work.”

  “And how am I supposed to do that?”

  “Time.”

  “We’ve known each other for nearly two years.”

  “Yes, but we’ve only actually been together about a month if you add up all our visits.”

  “Be sure to tally in the time we spend on the phone,” he suggested with an edge of sarcasm. “What the hell does time have to do with anything? Some people meet and get married practically ove
rnight.”

  “That’s very romantic. Then they discover all the problems.”

  “And they work them out.”

  “Or they get divorced. I’d rather resolve the big ones before I make any vows, thank you very much. One divorce in a lifetime is about all I can handle.”

  Dillon finally retreated. If he’d learned nothing else about Catherine, it was that once she’d made up her mind, only gentle persuasion, not bulldozer tactics were effective. Maybe if he thought of this as an advertising campaign, he’d be more successful. He was the product. Catherine was the target audience. All he had to do was convince her that her life wouldn’t be complete without one Dillon Ryan in the house. For a man with his collection of advertising awards, it should be a snap.

  As it turned out, it wasn’t. The campaign was sabotaged before it could even get into high gear. He made the mistake of calling his office from a pay phone at the deli. It was a compulsive habit. He did it without thinking of the consequences. Naturally there was a crisis. There was always a crisis.

  “I’ll get back to you in twenty minutes,” he promised his secretary. “See if you can arrange a meeting for this afternoon.”

  By the time he returned to the table, his mind was already at work. He dragged out a leather-bound pocket notepad and began jotting down ideas.

  “You called the office,” Catherine accused.

  Dillon regarded her guiltily. “Yes.”

  “You’re on vacation.”

  “That doesn’t mean I don’t continue to have responsibilities.”

  “I thought you left Evan in charge.”

  “I did, but…”

  “Dillon, how do you expect him to become a partner, if you don’t let him handle the day-to-day work?”

  “I am letting him handle it. I’m just giving him a little input,” he said defensively.

  She sat back in the booth. “What time’s the meeting?”

  “Who said anything about a meeting?”

  “I know the way your mind works. Input equals meeting. What time?”

  Dillon didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of admitting she was right. Unfortunately there was no alternative. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Helene is setting it up.”