“So what are you in for?” Walter asked.
Riley looked confusedly at the older man. “In?”
“In the doghouse.”
Riley practically growled, and, in that moment, he reminded Kyle of their father. “I’ll have you know I don’t hover!” Riley insisted.
“Good for you,” Walter said.
Rather than call Riley out on the falsehood, Kyle took another drink. Hell, Riley had been hovering all week. Madeline couldn’t make a move without him asking how she was feeling or, worse, if she should be lying down. In Riley’s defense, he was in love with the woman. And love made men do stupid things.
Look at him, Kyle thought. He’d had it made. He’d found a woman who practically came apart in his arms every night, a woman who had good taste in music and was a magician in the kitchen. And what had he done? He’d told her he loved her in the same breath he’d issued an ultimatum.
Tell me a secret, he’d said.
In the heat of the moment he’d felt vindicated, invincible, ten feet tall. Now, ten hours later, he wondered what he’d been thinking.
What was wrong with him?
“What’s wrong with women?” Walter said, his face reddening from his jowls up. “Why do they have to be so difficult?”
“How do they do it?” Kyle asked, getting into the spirit. “How do they make us so mad our blood boils and still make us want them?”
Before the other two came up with an answer, three guys who looked almost as morose as Kyle and his table-mates came in.
Riley jumped to his feet. “What are you doing here? Is Madeline alright?”
“Relax,” a muscular man sporting a day-old beard and a baseball cap said.
Another man who looked a lot like the first, only younger and rougher, shouldered his way between the other two. “If we were going to tear you limb from limb, we would have done it a few weeks ago.”
It looked to Kyle as if any one of them could have gone a few rounds with Riley, if they’d been so inclined. Kyle wondered who they were.
“Madeline asked us to come on down,” the third man and only blond in the group said. “Demanded is more like it.” This one had the same taste in clothes as Kyle. “That baby sister of ours gets more difficult every damn day.” Baby sister? Ah, Kyle thought. These were Madeline’s older brothers, the Sullivan men.
The billiards game in the back of the room was getting loud, and the air in the room was getting dank, just like the air in a hole-in-the-wall bar should.
“Pull up a seat,” Walter said, moving his chair slightly to the left. “I just proposed a toast.”
The waitress brought out three more beers and Riley performed the introductions. In almost no time, Marsh, Reed and Noah Sullivan were practically family.
“To difficult women,” Walter said, lifting his beer.
Each man around the table pictured someone. Walter was thinking of a spirited redhead, Riley his newly pregnant soon-to-be bride. The Sullivan brothers had somebody in mind, too. One was blond. One was a brunette. And one was a mistake. The woman who sauntered unbidden across Kyle’s mind had hazel eyes, impeccable taste and a stubborn streak a mile wide.
Lifting his beer in a salute of sorts, Kyle said, “To lines drawn in the sand. And why it’s better to be a man.”
Six glasses clanked. And six men drank to that.
Glasses clanked and silverware clattered as Abby and Chelsea gathered up dessert plates and silverware. Laughter trilled and the word thank-you was issued a dozen different ways.
Summer was oblivious.
Dazed. Fazed. And amazed.
That summed up her frame of mind.
She’d surfaced enough throughout the bridal shower to look around Abby’s living room and participate enough to keep the others from calling 9-1-1. Now, lamps were on, and golden light pooled on tabletops and spilled onto the floor where ribbons and torn tissue paper lay, forgotten. Gift bags containing everything imaginable a new bride could need were waiting near the door. Chairs were still scattered throughout the room. Every one was empty except Summer’s.
Madeline’s bridal shower was over, but Summer had barely noticed.
Voices carried from Abby’s open bedroom door. Summer sat in the adjoining room, her head in the clouds where Kyle’s voice seemed to be echoing.
I’m in love with you.
Tell me a secret.
I may be easy, but I’m not free.
The breakfast dishes were still soaking in the kitchen sink in the inn. Summer’s guests had returned after a long day’s work. They had exchanged pleasantries, but she couldn’t recall a single word they’d said. It seemed she hadn’t been able to remain focused long enough to complete anything she’d started.
She’d put on ten miles in her new shoes. And that was before she’d left the inn.
I’m in love with you, Kyle had said. I’ve entrusted you with my secrets. Tell me yours.
Guys had told her they loved her before. They might have even meant it at the time or thought they did. Nobody had made the declaration the way Kyle had, and nobody had stunned her more.
“Well?”
Summer recognized Madeline’s voice.
“Just a minute. Let me get the last button fastened.”
That was Chelsea’s.
“What do you think we should do about Summer?”
The lilting third voice belonged to Abby.
A movement in the doorway caught Summer’s attention. Madeline stood on the other side, Abby on her left, Chelsea not far behind.
Summer’s breath caught. As dazed as she was, she couldn’t help reacting to the vision Madeline made in her wedding gown.
The dress had belonged to her mother, who had died when Madeline was a young girl. Just this afternoon, the last of the alterations had been made. This would be the last time Madeline put the gown on before she dressed for her wedding day.
As Summer found her feet, Madeline floated closer. Since Riley was staying with Madeline, Abby was storing the gown for safe keeping until Friday. It had something to do with it being bad luck if the groom saw the dress before the wedding began. Madeline didn’t believe in luck. She believed in destiny, and, looking at her—her cheeks rosy, her blue eyes shining, the dress rustling as she came closer—Summer wished she believed in it, too.
The silk had aged like fine wine, mellowing from the bright white it had been on Madeline’s mom’s special day to the soft, shimmering ivory of today. The gown was sleeveless, the skirt loosely gathered.
“The seed pearls were a good idea, weren’t they?” Madeline asked.
Just today Jolene Monroe had finished sewing the delicate row of pearls to the gown’s neckline and hem. There was no other adornment, and the effect was ethereal. Or maybe that was just Madeline.
“I think I’ll pull one side of my hair up and leave the rest down.” Madeline demonstrated with her right hand. “What do you think?”
Tears sprang to Summer’s eyes. Abby blew her nose. Even tough-as-nails-on-the-outside Chelsea sniffled softly.
“You are going to take Riley’s breath away,” Summer said.
It was the perfect answer. For the perfect bride-to-be. For what would undoubtedly be a perfect wedding day.
Madeline linked her arm with Summer’s and gently drew her into the circle of her friends. Summer felt surrounded and as wobbly as the newborn goat whose birth she’d witnessed last week, unable to stand on both feet. Her dear, dear friends were here, holding her up.
They’d been doing it for six-and-a-half years. A lot of people believed she was strong. Sometimes Summer thought it, too. The veil was thinning before her eyes, and she was seeing her life more clearly than ever before.
What was strong and brave about pretending to be someone else?
“Help me get out of this dress.” Madeline presented the three of them with her back. “Who wants ice cream?”
Ice cream, Summer thought. She was sifting through layers of self-discovery, and Madeline wante
d ice cream. It was profound and fitting, and it made Summer smile.
“Tell me you don’t want pickles, too,” Chelsea said.
“No, just ice cream.”
Chelsea and Abby unfastened the buttons down Madeline’s back and gently lifted the gown off her. Unmoving, Summer stood in the midst of them.
When she was dressed again and her wedding gown was safely and meticulously hung in Abby’s closet, Madeline linked her arm with Summer’s. “Are you going to talk to him?”
There was no sense wondering how she could have known.
“Kyle gave me an ultimatum,” Summer said.
“Who does he think he is?” Abby declared.
“What sort of ultimatum?” Chelsea asked.
Madeline said nothing. She and her soul sister shared a long, meaningful look. Chelsea and Abby fell silent, watching the hallowed exchange.
When Summer finally spoke, she began with her response to Abby’s question. “I know who Kyle is. He’s a man who needs to be trusted.”
Her eyes strayed to Madeline’s again, for Summer realized that the real question was, Who am I?
Wasn’t that what Kyle was asking?
There was a short answer and a long answer. Summer knew where to begin.
Kyle was a man who needed to be trusted. And she was a woman who needed to trust.
It all seemed so natural suddenly. Summer ran to Madeline and hugged her. She gave Chelsea and Abby a hug, too.
Next, she spun around and let herself out of Abby’s apartment. In her mind, she was already back at the inn, gently, tentatively perhaps, finally putting her other foot on the ground.
Chapter Eleven
The stars were out when Kyle finally got back to the inn, but he didn’t give them more than a cursory glance. The wind sighed and two dogs howled from opposite corners of distant neighborhoods. He dismissed those, too.
It was one o’clock in the morning, and the lamp was on in the bay window, just as he’d expected. After letting himself in with his keycard, he listened for a moment. The stately old inn was perfectly quiet. With his right foot on the first step and his right hand on the newel post, he hesitated once more.
Fixing his gaze straight ahead, he climbed the stairs. Somebody was snoring in a room he passed on the second floor. All was quiet at the top of the third. By the light of the nearby wall sconce, he took his key from his pocket and opened his door.
“My name is Serena Nicole Imogene Matthews.”
Kyle jolted in the dark. He banged his elbow so hard God only knew whom he woke up, yet he still felt a smile coming on. Cradling his buzzing hand, he peered in the direction of Summer’s voice.
“You smell like a brewery,” she said. “I hope you’re not drunk. I really don’t want to have to say this twice.”
She talked tough, but he heard the little tremor in her voice. His eyes had adjusted enough to make out the hazy shape of her head and shoulders at the table ten feet away.
“I smell chocolate,” he said. “What are you eating?”
He heard rustling, footsteps and paper crinkling. A lamp he’d never used came on, and at last his eyes met hers. She was standing now, one hand on the back of a chair.
The ends of her hair brushed the delicate edges of the neckline of a dove gray tank, and her long skirt nearly brushed her ankles. The box of chocolates he’d given her lay open in the center of the table. He didn’t see any pieces missing.
He couldn’t decide what to react to first. How damn good she looked in his room. How damn good she looked, period. Or how profoundly relieved he was that she’d come. “Serena Nicole Imogene Matthews is a lot of—”
One second Summer was standing ten feet away. The next she was in front of Kyle, her fingertips over his lips, afraid that if he spoke, she wouldn’t be able to.
He smelled of beer and late night breezes and peppermint. There was a dark smudge on his chin—she thought it might be ink. His eyebrows were drawn together, an indication that patience came at a price. Something about that small imperfection gave her the courage to begin.
“In every life there comes one pivotal moment so monumental and profound it becomes a reference point to everything that came before and comes after. My moment occurred six years, seven months and three days ago.
“I was born into an affluent family from Philadelphia. My father’s name is Winston Emerson Matthews the Thurd.” She exaggerated the pronunciation, and added, “His ancestry can be traced to the Mayflower. I suppose that means mine can, too.
“My sister, Claire, and I had every imaginable luxury and opportunity growing up. In the deepest vagaries of our minds, we knew that not every girl shopped for school clothes in Paris and went to London to see plays and had maids at her beck and call.
“In those circles, it’s still the man of the house who makes the money and the woman who runs the household. It was our mother who took us to dance recitals and music lessons, who made certain we belonged to the right clubs and learned the proper etiquette. She was wise and kind. Everyone loved her. On nights our father wasn’t home, and there were a lot of those, she often spun stories about mythological places and divinities with names we’d never heard. I wish she’d written them down because her words painted pictures of chariots blazing across the sky.
“Our father touched our lives peripherally. He doled out praise sparingly and bestowed his smiles the same way. On occasion he engaged us in conversation. I was twenty-three when I realized it was a test.”
“A test of what?” Kyle asked.
Summer looked at him. Instead of answering directly, she wandered to the far side of the room where the window looked out over the backyard and the river. Staring unseeingly into the dark, she said, “When Claire was twenty-four she became engaged to a man from a family nearly as wealthy as ours.
“From the beginning, there was something about Drake Proctor that bothered me, but Claire was head-over-heels in love with him, and our mother was dying. Maybe Claire needed to love someone then.
“After Mom died, Claire threw herself into planning the wedding. Two months before her wedding day, my phone rang in the middle of the night. Claire was crying and talking out of her head. She said she had migraine, and it felt like her skull would explode. I wondered where Drake was, but I told her I was coming, hung up and dialed 9-1-1.”
Kyle listened from the other side of the room. Summer opened the window, and her words seemed to flow like the river, haltingly at times, stumbling over rocks, gaining momentum as if nearing a powerful waterfall. And he knew that pivotal moment she’d spoken of would soon be revealed.
“My sister died on the way to the hospital. I held her hand until it grew cold and my father and Drake arrived. For the next several weeks I felt my father watching me. At the time I thought he was looking for hysteria. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
“One afternoon I’d curled up on a cushion in the window seat in a little alcove in a room next door to my father’s office. It was a seldom-used odd little nook and contained a dainty desk and heavy velvet drapes and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. It had been my mother’s favorite room and was the only place in that monstrous house that didn’t feel as empty as a crypt.”
Summer could almost feel herself being transported back to that nook. Once again, it was as if she could hear the voices that had carried through the wall. The first belonged to her father; the second was Drake’s. She didn’t recognize the third. The tone of the conversation was serious, the words too low to be heard clearly. Summer assumed they were discussing business. After all, Drake’s marriage to Claire would have merged two of the largest, privately owned companies on the east coast.
She’d known that with the merger, the company would have gone public, opening to shareholders and stocks. A great deal of money would have been made by both families, who were already decadently wealthy and didn’t need any more money. She’d learned there was a fine line between need and greed. Through the wall that day she could hear her father out
lining the timeline his lawyers were working under, now that the merger was a moot point. Her father was as controlling as a nobleman or a king, and he wouldn’t have considered the idea of merging without the marriage between the two families.
“My son would like to talk to you about that, Simon.” For the first time Summer recognized Drake Proctor’s father’s voice.
“With all due respect, sir,” Drake Junior said, “You have another daughter.”
Summer hadn’t heard her father laugh often. She would never forget the sound of it then.
“I do, don’t I? I couldn’t have said it better myself. You have my blessing. But I’m warning you, Serena isn’t as malleable as her mother and sister were. She won’t look the other way if she catches wind that you frequent the red-light district and worse.”
Summer didn’t move. She couldn’t. Her stomach pitched. Her thoughts reeled. Was that where Drake had been the night Claire died? She prayed her sister hadn’t known.
She understood her father better in that moment than she had in her entire life. To him, his wife and daughters were collateral to be used in business deals, more binding than cold hard cash and far easier to manipulate and placate with trips abroad and the finest luxuries money could buy. Summer wanted to wretch, but she didn’t dare for fear the men in the next room would hear.
Her father had given Drake his blessing. His blessing.
As the fog in Summer’s brain had cleared, her spiraling thoughts had formed a united front. Suddenly she’d known what she was going to do.
When Drake sought her out a week later on the pretense of spending time with the only other person in the world who missed his beloved as much as he did—gag—she was ready, or as ready as she could be. She sniffled and nodded and reminisced. He began stopping over, and they began spending time together.
A Bride Until Midnight Page 14