Wedding Song

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  2

  KERRY HAD COUNTED on the children’s parade, an annual Fourth of July event in Eternity, as a chance to take stock of Judd Roarke without being observed herself. If he hadn’t known who she was, she easily could have hidden in the mass of humanity called the Muldoons. Each year at this time her whole family gathered to renew old traditions and ensure the next generation would someday do the same. Nobody missed a parade unless they were sick.

  This year Kerry’s three brothers and two sisters, all married, were contributing eleven children, two crepe-paper-decorated bikes, a wagon and countless red, white and blue balloons to the parade. Kerry’s mother shepherded her grandchildren and their accoutrements to the beginning of the parade route at the school, while Kerry and the others staked out a position in front of the library on Sussex Street. The children would march from the school past Soldier’s Green on Elm Street, circle the green at First, and finish up on Sussex before they disbanded for prizes and popsicles.

  Nearly every building within Kerry’s view, commercial and residential alike, boasted a decoration of flags or bunting. The draped cloth fluttered in a breeze scented with the tang of the ocean and the sweetness of mowed grass. The bandstand stood ready for the afternoon’s concert, with hand trucks of folding chairs parked nearby. Kerry’s stomach churned as she looked at the stage where she would perform this afternoon in front of Judd Roarke.

  After the morning’s incident on the beach, Kerry would have preferred to stay home from the parade. Rachel would march in it, and her father would probably show up to watch her. Kerry wanted to stay out of his way until this afternoon’s concert in the hope that he’d have time to forget her rudeness and listen to her music objectively. Unfortunately her nieces and nephews would never forgive her if she missed the parade, so here she was, trying to be inconspicuous.

  As the Muldoons laid claim to a section of sidewalk, Kerry urged the others to stand in front of her while she peered between them.

  “Will you relax?” her sister Maureen asked, bouncing little Erin, who was too young to be in the parade, on her hip. “What you said wasn’t that bad.”

  “You don’t think calling him a crafty old goat could have a teensy effect on his opinion of me?”

  Maureen laughed. “If he’s that much of a stuffed shirt, you don’t want a contract from his record company, anyway.” Maureen, the oldest sibling in the Muldoon family, often made pronouncements like that.

  “Yes, I do, Maureen,” Kerry insisted patiently. “I’ll never have a golden opportunity like this again.”

  Her brother Sean turned from his seat on the curb. “That’s b.s., and you know it. Just keep sending out demo tapes. Somebody, maybe even better than Lighthouse Records, will snap you up.” He lapsed into an elaborate brogue. “Sure, and don’t be forgetting it’s The Muldoon Gift you have, lass.”

  Kerry laughed and punched him on the shoulder. His confidence in her was nice, but he, along with the rest of her family, thought becoming a star was easy if you had the talent. Kerry was pleased they credited her with talent, but they didn’t have a clue how many talented performers never made it. Contacts were everything in the music business—and so far she’d done her best to louse up the one she’d been handed on a silver platter.

  Then, across the green on Elm Street, she saw him. She gripped Maureen’s arm and stepped behind her.

  “What? What?” Maureen asked, turning to frown at her. “Have you spied the great god Roarke? Is that why you’re hiding like a rabbit?” She went up on tiptoe and craned her neck. “Where is he? Point him out. I want to see if he’s wearing his halo today.”

  “Maureen, cut it out. I don’t want him to see me here,” she muttered.

  “Why not? You’ll be in full view at the concert this afternoon. What’s the difference? Stand out here like a woman.”

  “Aw, Maureen, leave her alone,” said Dan, the youngest brother, only a year older than Kerry. “Come over here, Ker. Susan and I will hide you, won’t we, Sue?” He grinned at his eight-months-pregnant wife, who made a face at him.

  “I think I see him.” Shannon, Kerry’s other sister, shaded her eyes and stared across the green. “The tall guy with the Woodhouses, right? Madras shirt, khaki chinos? He’s pretty cute, Kerry. Doesn’t look much like an old goat to me. What’s the deal with his wife? Is he divorced or widowed?”

  “Widowed,” Kerry said. “Rachel told me her mom died a long time ago.”

  “A widower with a young child.” Shannon sighed. “That’s so romantic, Kerry.”

  “Maybe he’s even available,” Maureen said.

  “Hey, yeah.” Shannon stood on her tiptoes to get a better look. “What do you think, Sean? Is he husband material?”

  “For crying out loud.” Kerry felt heat building in her cheeks. “I should have known better than to try and fade into the woodwork with this family. Why don’t you all shout and wave at him?”

  “Okay.” Sean stood up. “Hey, J—”

  Kerry leapt on him from behind and clapped a hand over his mouth.

  “Good, Ker,” Dan observed. “Real inconspicuous.”

  Kerry slid from Sean’s back and covered her face with both hands. “I’m doomed.”

  “That’s what you think,” Shannon said. “From what I can see, he’s smiling. A nice smile, too.”

  “He thinks I’m a fool,” Kerry moaned.

  “A fool with The Gift,” Sean said, putting his arm around her. “The famed Muldoon voice, passed down through the generations. Come on up here where you can see. The kids are coming. And there’s old Louis Bertrand leading them, like he does every year. God, I love this place.”

  * * *

  JUDD SPOTTED Kerry almost instantly, despite her attempt to hide behind her relatives. He guessed some were brothers and sisters, judging from the dark curly hair they had in common with Kerry. The whole bunch constituted just the kind of big boisterous family he’d always envied, having grown up with only one brother. He and Steve had even been deprived of aunts, uncles and cousins because both their parents were only children. Now his brother was gone. The family had winnowed down to Rachel as the sole representative of the next generation. Judd wished he could give her relatives by the score and family reunions that filled a place like Soldier’s Green. He shook away the thought.

  He watched Kerry’s vain attempts to control her family’s curiosity about him and smiled. Her ability to be embarrassed charmed him. He spent most of his time around seasoned performers who never turned a hair no matter whether they forgot lyrics or lost pieces of their costume on stage. They had to become unflappable to survive, but Judd always hated to watch the creation of the protective shell.

  Then one of Kerry’s brothers put his arm around her and drew her out into plain view. For a moment she resisted, but then she straightened her shoulders and stared across the green straight at him, her chin high. His heart contracted. He knew now that she had the courage to perform at the concert this afternoon. Was she building her shell even now?

  * * *

  KERRY PACED the open-air bandstand that had been assembled on Soldier’s Green. The chairs had been set up in front of the bunting-draped platform, and a few people had begun to arrive, although the concert wouldn’t begin for another thirty minutes. “I’ve never been this nervous before a performance, Grubby,” Kerry muttered. “Never.”

  “Afraid of the crafty old goat, are you?” Elton Daniels, known to anyone who’d lived in Eternity more than a week as Grubby Daniels, grinned at Kerry. He still had the cherubic face that had prompted neighbors to offer him treats when he was a toddler. Finally his mother had hung a sign on him that read Don’t Feed Me, but not before he’d acquired a nickname that had followed him into adulthood.

  “I should never have told you what happened this morning,” Kerry fumed.

  “Didn’t need to.” He took his guitar from its case and plugged it into the amplifier. “It’s all over town. By the way, can I have a new list of our bookings for
the month?”

  “You lost it again?”

  “Afraid so.” He gave her a winning smile. “That’s why you’re the booking agent for this outfit. I could never keep it straight.” He winked and turned back to his task.

  “You know, if I land this contract, somebody else will have to take on that job.”

  “I know, and I don’t like to think about that, but we’ll manage something, sunshine.” The speakers whined as he adjusted the knobs on the amplifier. “Go test that front mike, would you?”

  Kerry gathered the folds of her skirt in one hand and walked across the platform to the microphone. She, along with the rest of the band, was dressed in a period costume. She wasn’t used to the layers of petticoats, the laced bodice and the delicate shawl around her shoulders, but the inconveniences of her outfit were nothing compared to her inner turmoil.

  She wanted to run away, but that would leave her band without a lead singer, and she was too much of a professional to do that to them. She tapped on the mike and sang gently, “Yankee Doodle do or die, Yankee Doodle dandy.”

  Hank Anderson glanced up from his instrument and adjusted his tricornered hat. “That’s the spirit, Kerry. Do or die. Knock ’em dead. Somebody like Judd Roarke wouldn’t let a little thing like a personal insult stop him from making money. When he hears you sing, he’ll also hear the sweet ring of the cash register, and he’ll forget that remark about being an old goat.” Hank was a high school English teacher by day, a keyboardist for the Honeymooners by night and on weekends.

  Kerry moved away from the mike and groaned.

  Ted Webster, who ran the tuxedo-rental shop in Eternity, played rhythm guitar. He came up to put his arm around her. “Look at it this way. You’ve already pulled about the worst stunt you could in front of this guy, so things can only get better.”

  Kerry shook her head. “That’s where you’re wrong. He can tell me I’m a no-talent excuse for a vocalist, which he might do just to get even.”

  Bill Northquist beat a little tattoo on the metal rim of his snare drum. “How about if we dedicate one of our numbers to him? How about working in that old Brenda Lee tune from the fifties, that one where she begs some guy to please accept her apology? How about that?”

  “May all your clients have IRS audits.” Kerry stuck out her tongue at him.

  Bill grinned. “That little thing on your head, that mob cap or whatever, is falling off.”

  “Of course it is.” Kerry reached up and pinned the white puffed cap more firmly to her dark curls. “Whose idea was it to wear these dumb costumes, anyway?”

  “Yours,” Grubby said. “I personally thought we’d look like Paul Revere and the Raiders, but you insisted, as I recall, and—”

  “I like them.” Ted lifted his guitar strap over his head and held the instrument like a musket against one shoulder while he struck a minuteman pose. “Ruthie says that tight breeches show off my manly charm.”

  Hank snorted. “Watch out or we might have to shoot you with that guitar.”

  “I have to admit Kerry looks like dynamite in that lace-up thingamajig,” Grubby said. “If I were Judd Roarke I’d take one look at her cleavage and sign her right up.”

  “Grub’s a sexist!” Bill challenged with a roll on the drums.

  “Fifteen minutes to show time,” Grubby reminded them. “And we’re gonna be hot today, right?”

  “Yes, sir, Grubby, sir!” chorused Bill, Hank and Ted as they snapped to attention and saluted.

  “We’re gonna give Kerry the smoothest backup she’s ever had, right?”

  “Yes, sir, Grubby, sir!”

  Kerry smiled fondly. “Thanks, guys. You’re the best.”

  “You just think that because you don’t know any better,” Bill said. “Wait’ll you get to New York.”

  “Yeah.” Ted hit a few experimental chords. “We’d better enjoy her adulation before she finds out we’re really pond scum.”

  Kerry laughed, then took a deep breath. She felt a million times better, thanks to the efforts of her friends. She’d known Grubby and Ted all her life. Hank and Bill were relatively new to Eternity, but in the short time she’d shared gigs with them, she’d found them to be staunch allies in a crisis. “You know something? We really do look like Paul Revere and the Raiders.”

  “I told you,” Grubby said.

  “The thing is,” Kerry admitted with a grin, “I liked Paul Revere and the Raiders when I was a little kid. And so did you, Grub. I can remember you running around singing at the top of—” She paused as she glimpsed a tall man in the crowd. Her heart began hammering. “Well, he’s here.”

  * * *

  JUDD’S ATTENTION was riveted on the bandstand with its red, white and blue bunting. He hadn’t realized how much he’d been looking forward to seeing Kerry again until he’d stepped onto Soldier’s Green and she’d caught his eye. His mouth had gone dry, and he was grateful for the sunglasses that disguised his fascinated gaze. If the shorts and skimpy top she’d worn this morning epitomized one male fantasy, her outfit for the concert certainly embodied another.

  The material was the bright color of daffodils, but it was the way the material draped her body that stirred his lusty hormones. The skirt was full and billowing, drawing attention to her small waist, and the tight sleeves ended in swirls of white eyelet at her elbows. Beneath a scooped neckline, the bodice laced firmly to push her breasts up in a tantalizing feast for male eyes.

  Then, to add the demure touch sure to drive every man in the crowd wild, she’d thrown a gauzy white shawl around her shoulders and secured it with some sort of decorative pin. The thin material didn’t hide much, but he’d bet most men in the audience longed to remove that tease of a shawl.

  “There’s Kerry!” Rachel said, tugging on his hand and pointing.

  There she was, indeed, he thought. Every time he’d seen her today—on the beach, in the midst of her family, on the stage—she’d presented him with images he was unlikely to forget. As a businessman he should be rejoicing. If she had that charismatic effect on him, chances were she could make Lighthouse Records a lot of money. But he was reacting as a man, and that was inconvenient. A budding recording artist wasn’t the right woman to excite him, considering he needed a mother for Rachel.

  “Come on, Daddy. Let’s go over and say hi.”

  “Go ahead,” Stella said from behind them. “Allen and I will save you some seats.”

  “Kerry’s dressed up, too,” Rachel observed as she and Judd made their way up the narrow aisle between the rows of folding chairs. “Doesn’t she look beautiful?”

  “She looks very nice,” Judd said, issuing the understatement of the year. Kerry’s dark hair beneath her saucy little cap hung in artful ringlets that looked both sophisticated and seductive. Styling hair was another thing women learned and passed on, he thought. Rachel was already complaining that he didn’t know how to French-braid hers. Kerry would probably know how, he realized. For all that it mattered.

  He watched her move around the stage with the rhythm of someone who’d studied music all her life. Her care not to look in their direction suggested she knew they were approaching and wanted to avoid the moment of confrontation as long as possible. She must be dying inside, he thought, and wished that he were someone else so she wouldn’t have to be afraid of him.

  As they drew closer he noticed that her cheeks were very pink and her breathing rapid. She was definitely paying for her unguarded comments this morning.

  “Kerry!” Rachel called when they neared the stage. “Look at my dress!”

  Kerry glanced in their direction, and inexpertly feigned surprise at seeing them. Her gaze flicked over him and she flushed a deeper pink. “What a beautiful dress, Rachel.” Kerry smiled tightly as she walked, skirts swaying, to their side of the stage.

  “My grandma made it for me,” Rachel announced for the zillionth time.

  Kerry leaned down for a closer look. “It’s wonderful.”

  Judd swallowed hard
as Kerry presented him with a gauze-covered view of paradise. The shawl was held together with a cameo brooch, he could see now. If she asked what he was staring at, he’d pretend an interest in antique jewelry.

  She didn’t, but she must have realized he was admiring her breasts, because she straightened quickly. To her credit, she looked directly at him, her color still high. “Hello, Mr. Roarke.”

  He had a good ear for nuances. Otherwise he might not have caught the quiver in her voice. She had courage. “I’m looking forward to my second concert of the day,” he said, smiling. She had the greenest eyes he’d ever seen, and they were focused on him with such intensity his breathing quickened.

  “I guess there’s no point in being coy, Mr. Roarke,” she said. “I’m hoping you’ll forget my obnoxious comments of this morning and listen to this performance with an open mind.”

  Rachel gaped at her. “You were obnoxious?”

  Kerry’s smile trembled as she looked over at Rachel. “I’m afraid so.” She turned her attention to Judd. “I apologize, Mr. Roarke. If we could forget this morning, I’d be very grateful.”

  Judd knew he’d never forget what Kerry looked like prancing on that beach. It would make a great album cover, although he’d rather not suggest it, would rather keep the image all to himself. Which was uncharacteristic and probably dangerous thinking for the CEO of a recording company. The Eternity magic must be fuzzing up his brain already.

  “Daddy, what’s all this apology stuff?” Rachel asked, tugging on his arm.

  “Nothing.” Judd glanced up at Kerry. “Whatever you said this morning has no bearing on whether you’ll record on the Lighthouse label. If I allowed personal feelings to interfere with my business decisions, I wouldn’t be fit to run a company.”

  “Of course I know you wouldn’t do that!” She looked miserable. “I didn’t mean to imply that you would. But I was hoping you and I could be fr—”

  “Just sing for me, Kerry Muldoon.” He didn’t know if he could be her friend, not when every time he looked at her he thought of kissing those full lips and holding that ripe body. “Nothing matters but your performance. If you display the same level of talent this afternoon that you did this morning, then we need to talk.”