by Arlene James
“I couldn’t agree more,” Dale put in, looking at Petra. “I think she’s one of the best managers I’ve ever worked with.”
She thanked him with a smile, prompting Anderton to proclaim, “She could wind up running my European acquisitions inside of a year.”
“That’s wonderful!” Maryanne Chatam exclaimed.
“Well done,” Murdock congratulated. “I knew you’d hit your stride.”
Petra merely nodded and looked at her lap. She didn’t seem as pleased as she should have by the praise of her parents, but Dale realized he couldn’t ask her about that while sitting at the table with them. He would try to find an opportunity to speak to her alone after the meal. At least sitting beside her allowed him some conversation. He managed to engage her with small talk from time to time through an entrée of filet mignon and grape potatoes with asparagus hollandaise, followed by a plate of fruit.
“The wedding was wonderful,” he said.
“Very moving,” Petra agreed, adding with a little laugh, “I cried so much I had to repair my makeup before I could show my face here.”
“You look lovely,” Garth immediately put in from across the table.
Dale had wanted to tell her the same thing, but Garth had beat him to it, so he said instead, “Don’t women always cry at weddings?”
“A wedding fifty years in the making ought to evoke tears,” Dallas interjected. “I remind you that I engineered the renewed romance which precipitated said wedding.”
“Yes, we have all heard,” her mother said with a touch of impatience.
“But you can’t manufacture a romance out of thin air,” Petra stated pointedly. “They were already in love.”
“And had been for fifty years,” Asher noted.
“A smaller wedding might have been more tasteful,” Murdock murmured, glancing around the room, “given their ages.”
“Oh, Aunt Odelia will never grow old,” Phillip said with a chuckle. “I considered giving them a climb as a wedding gift.”
That moved conversation into his line of work—mountain climbing.
“I’m not one of the main guides,” he told Dale, “more of an operations manager, but I fill in when I’m needed.”
His mother frowned at this. “You’re too thin, Phillip, which tells me that you’ve been on that mountain more than you admit.”
“I spend most of my time in an office, as you well know,” Phillip said calmly.
“Still,” Dale felt compelled to say, “it’s dangerous work, isn’t it?”
Phillip brushed that off. “Our company has teams on the highest peaks in the world, but we’ve never lost a climber, not a guide or a client.”
“That’s an impressive track record,” Dale admitted, “and I enjoy a thrill as much as anyone, but I can just imagine what my parents would have said if I had decided on so risky an occupation. My mother already worries that I’ll cut off a thumb or some such thing,” he added with a chuckle.
“We try to respect the individuality of our children,” Maryanne Chatam said stiffly. “Let them find their own way.”
Dale glanced at Petra and found her frowning in contemplation.
“We aren’t all intrigued by antique light fixtures and rooms without closets,” Garth quipped. Dale smiled tautly at his napkin, just about fed up with these little digs.
Petra laid down her fork, saying starchily, “Excuse me while I visit the ladies’ room.” She glared at her sister. “Dallas, you can come with me.”
Both Dale and Garth immediately came to their feet as the sisters pushed back their chairs, both frowning. Dale couldn’t very well follow after the women, so he murmured something about needing to stretch his legs and made for the other set of doors, but no sooner did he step out into the hallway than he felt a hand latch on to his arm. He turned to find Garth Anderton smiling crookedly.
“Why don’t you give it up, old boy. She’s out of your league.”
“I don’t dispute it,” Dale told him, lifting his chin, “but I’ll ‘give it up,’ as you say, when she tells me to and not before.”
“I offer her everything she’s ever dreamed of,” Garth pointed out, “a stellar career, world travel, wealth, status. I can give her an even better life than she’s already known. What do you have to offer her?”
My heart, Dale thought, children, a loving family, a job working right along beside me, if she likes, a common faith. That seemed like enough—until Garth reached into his coat pocket and brought out a diamond ring the size of a walnut.
“I had planned to wait,” he said, “but you’ve forced my hand.”
Dale knew he would never be able to afford something like that. The best he could do was his great-grandmother’s old wedding set, which he had inherited as the only grandson. The main diamond was nearly a full carat, but the others were just bits of sparkle in an old-fashioned gold setting. It held a wealth of sentimental value, however, and he’d always imagined how proud his mother would be when he slid those rings onto his bride’s hand.
But could Petra be happy with that?
* * *
“I don’t understand why you’re not happy!” Dallas exclaimed, throwing up her hands as Petra closed the door to the family parlor off the back hallway. “Your career’s on track, our parents are thrilled with you, and one of the world’s most attractive men is in love with you!”
Petra gasped, her mood lightening instantly. “Do you think so?”
Dallas parked her hands at her waist. “You don’t think he flew back here just to attend Aunt Odelia’s wedding, do you?”
Oh, Petra thought, deflated. Garth. Of course.
Sighing, she put a hand to her head. “Garth falls in and out of love with the seasons.”
“You don’t know that,” Dallas scoffed.
“He’s already been married and divorced twice, Dallas.”
“Maybe he finally met the right woman.”
“And maybe he’s fallen right back into a familiar pattern,” Petra countered. “Both of his ex-wives were employees of Anderton Hotels.”
Dallas frowned. “Maybe they went after him.”
“Are you suggesting that Garth is attracted to me because I haven’t gone after him?”
Folding her arms, Dallas plopped down on one of a pair of comfy flowered sofas. “Why haven’t you?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Petra admitted. “Maybe I was too focused on work. Or maybe he’s just not the right man for me.”
“You won’t know unless you give him a chance,” Dallas pleaded.
“It’s too late for that,” Petra told her, shaking her head.
Gasping, Dallas popped to her feet. “Has Dale Bowen asked you to marry him?”
“No.”
“Good! Because Garth is the man for you. I know it.”
“Dallas,” Petra said, rolling her eyes, “you are not God’s little matchmaker. Take care of your own love life, and let me take care of mine.”
“I hadn’t noticed you have one,” Dallas muttered.
“Well, stay tuned,” Petra told her smartly, heading for the door. “I just might surprise you.”
Dallas gusted out a deep sigh. “Really, Petra,” she snapped, “are you ready to be the kind of wife that Dale Bowen surely expects?”
Petra paused, half turning, to say, “I’m ready to be the kind of wife that God wills me to be.” With that, she left her sister and went back to the reception.
* * *
Dale lounged near the stairwell until he saw Petra return to the ballroom through the doors at the far end of the hallway. He pushed away from the wall, intending to return to the table, only to draw back as Garth stepped into view. Clearly, the other man had been lying in wait for her
in the hall on the other side of the staircase. Dallas joined him an instant later. Laying a hand upon his arm, she stretched up to speak softly into Garth’s ear as he bent toward her. The two engaged in a quiet but spirited conversation. Then Garth checked his wristwatch and looked toward the ballroom. Dale swiftly took off, beating Garth to the table by mere steps.
Petra’s cousins, Harmony and Lyric, had begun a spirited piano duet, using different pianos, while the orchestra took a break. The room was crowded with too many tables to allow any sort of dancing, so Dale opted for a stroll on the patio.
“Maybe you’d like to join me?” he asked Petra.
She immediately got to her feet again. “Of course.”
Dale offered Petra his arm and took a small measure of comfort in the way she curled her own around it. They wound their way through the tables and out the glass doors at the end of the room to the patio beyond. Others were taking advantage of the terra-cotta-tiled outdoor space, which had been arranged with potted trees, hanging pots of flowers and glowing lanterns. Several guests sat on the ledge of the rectangular fountain, letting the breeze that blew across the water feature cool them.
“Ah,” Petra said, “this feels good. I was a little chilled in the other room.”
“Would you like my coat?” Dale asked, ready to shrug out of it.
Petra laughed. “No, thank you. It’s quite warm out here.”
“Well, it is Texas in June,” Dale commented dryly.
“Yes, it is,” she said, moving toward a corner of the expansive patio. “I’m glad we came out. I’ve been wanting to tell you something.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
She went to stand with her back to the white painted brick of the wall between two tall windows. Music from the room beyond filtered into the night.
“I’ve been thinking about some of the things you’ve said,” she told him, “and you’re right.”
“That’s nice,” Dale quipped, smiling. “About what, exactly?”
“For one thing,” she said, drawing her slender brows together thoughtfully, “I have held my family at bay somewhat. I didn’t realize it until you told me I ought to reach out to them. I think I let resentments and insecurities from my childhood dictate my behavior.”
“And I think it takes a wise, mature and caring woman to admit that,” he praised, settling a hand at the nape of her neck.
She tilted her head, resting her cheek briefly against his arm. “I don’t know about that. I do know that I want to be closer to my family. We may never be the Bowens, but we do care for each other.”
“I can see that,” he told her.
Smiling, she looked down and softly said, “You were also right that it isn’t an either/or proposition when it comes to career and marriage.”
Dale felt his heart thunk inside his chest. He wanted to gather her into his arms and hug her to his chest, but he managed to curtail that impulse by glancing around at the others on the patio. “What changed your mind?” he asked gently.
She lifted her gaze to his and eagerly queried, “Have you ever read the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs?”
Thinking swiftly, Dale recalled a particular verse. “‘Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting,’” he quoted, “‘but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.’”
“‘Honor her for all that her hands have done,’” Petra went on, “‘and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.’”
“That passage seems to have made quite an impression on you,” he observed, pleased.
“And the ones before it,” she affirmed, growing animated. “They’re all about the worthy wife.”
He remembered another snippet. “A wife of noble character…is worth far more than rubies.”
“And she conducts her own business. She manufactures goods, buys and sells, even land. The Bible explicitly says that she turns a profit.”
“So she contributes to the household income,” he surmised, nodding.
“It even talks about how she should treat her servants,” Petra went on enthusiastically.
Servants, Dale mentally echoed, remembering suddenly what she’d said before about the “household staff.” Garth’s words from earlier ran through his mind. “I can give her an even better life than she’s already known.”
Dale gulped. He’d convinced himself that she had been alluding to marriage to him! More likely, she was just talking about marriage in general. Or possibly, marriage to Garth Anderton. Before he could even begin to sort that out, Maryanne Chatam appeared at his elbow, gesturing for Petra to return to the ballroom.
“Hurry,” she urged. “You don’t want to miss this.”
Petra smiled and moved to her mother’s side, linking arms with her. She gestured for Dale to join them, but his faltering steps left him trailing along behind. He had to wonder if that would not always be the case.
* * *
Kent towed a giggling Odelia to the microphone at the front of the stage as someone rolled in a bulletin board with its empty back to the room.
“Here it comes,” Dale murmured, smiling wanly.
Petra shot him a surprised glance as Kent began to speak.
“A groom who has waited as long as I have for his bride naturally wants to give her an amazing wedding gift,” he began.
He followed with an amusing story of taking Odelia to a swimming party in the early 1960s where he had wound up fully clothed in the pool. While he had soaked the seat of his ’57 Chevy driving home, she had enthused about the possibility of having her own pool one day. Petra recalled that Odelia had said the same many times, but Grandpa Hub had always considered a private pool unnecessarily pretentious. After his death, Petra couldn’t recall Odelia bringing up the matter again.
Kent finished his speech by addressing Odelia personally, saying, “So it is my hope, dear one, that this will fulfill one small dream for you.”
With that, he made a twirling motion with one hand, and the attendant spun the board. Odelia gasped and began to hop up and down. “A pool! A pool!” she cried, turning the board so the whole room could see the artist’s detailed rendering of what Kent intended to install in the backyard just on the other side of the patio.
Kent announced that Magnolia and Hypatia had kindly given their consent to have the pool built, and Odelia ran to them with hugs and kisses before trotting back to shower Kent with the same, while their guests laughed and clapped.
“You knew about this?” Murdock asked of Dale, and the latter nodded.
“He showed me the plans. I made a few suggestions concerning the cabana, so it would blend in better with the house.”
Odelia waved her hankie for attention then and went to the microphone, saying, “This makes my gift look paltry, I’m afraid.” She waved her hankie again, and two waiters rolled in the largest flat-screen TV Petra had ever seen. It required two dollies to move it.
“Good grief,” Dallas exclaimed, “where on earth are they going to put that?”
“Not in their suite,” Dale ventured. “I can’t think of a single wall where it could be viewed from.”
Odelia solved that mystery by thanking her sisters for agreeing to have the television mounted in the family parlor. Kent laughed and made much of the gigantic TV until the waiters wheeled it out again. Then it was time to cut the cake. After the appropriate pictures were taken, the cake went the way of the television set and bulletin board. It began appearing again shortly in generous pieces of strawberry confection topped with creamy white frosting and sugar camellias, alongside slivers of chocolate cake and confectioner’s roses. The waiters moved swiftly through the room, depositing dessert plates at every table setting.
Kent and Odelia, meanwhile, made their own way from table to table, thanking their guests for attendi
ng. When they reached table three, Odelia had yet another announcement to make, specifically for Petra.
“That nice Mr. Anderton,” she said, “has given us a wedding gift of five nights at any of his hotels. Which one would you suggest we choose?”
Dallas smiled like a cat who’d trapped a canary in its mouth. Ignoring her, Petra advised them to choose the Mahila House in Hawaii or the Wallace in Boston. Obviously impressed, Kent and Odelia looked at each other and beamed.
“I think we’ll be having two honeymoons, my love,” Kent told her, chortling as they moved on to the next table.
“That was very generous of Garth,” Dallas praised.
Petra sent her a pointed look and glanced around the table, surprised to find Garth absent. “He can afford it.”
Dallas went into a pout and didn’t emerge again until it came time to toss the garter. Kent put out a call for all single men to gather at the front of the room.
Phillip looked around with a pained face. “That’s me.”
Dale shrugged and said, “Me, too.”
Petra offered him a smile of encouragement as he and Phillip rose and began reluctantly making their way to the front of the room. She thought she’d made definite headway out on the patio. He hadn’t really said that he wouldn’t mind a working wife, but he’d seemed to understand that there were no Scriptural strictures against it.
A cheer went up from the crowd at the front of the room then, and she fixed her attention there. After a moment, Dale strolled out of the crowd. He shrugged and held out his hands, showing that he’d come away empty-handed. Petra saw, to her consternation, that Garth brandished the lacy garter. Beaming, he slipped it on over the sleeve of his tuxedo coat. Dale walked back to his chair and sat down, a complacent look on his face that she couldn’t interpret.
Phillip tried to fill the silence with a jocular quip. “Well, we were lucky this time.”
Dale chuckled. “I don’t believe in luck. I believe in God’s will. Besides, Anderton was quite anxious to get his hands on that trinket.”