Almost To The Altar

by Neesa Hart

  Frowning, she thought back to the time in her life. She’d been unhappy then, struggling to find her place in the world, more interested in books than in boys, self-conscious about the way her body had developed faster than her friends’, a fact that her ill-fitting clothes only emphasized. Wil had seemed a safe haven. In his garage, in his home, she’d felt comforted. She’d belonged. “If I’d known,” she confessed, “I’d have been all over you.”

  “I thought about that. Actually, I thought about you being all over me so much, it’s amazing I didn’t lose my mind.”

  “Does this explain why you got so surly with me?”

  “Yeah. Every time you walked into the garage, I started having the fantasies.”

  “Really?” The notion made her avidly curious. And more than a little heated.

  “Really. I had this one continuing fantasy about what you and I could do in the back seat of that 1932 Cadillac my father was restoring.”

  “I had quite a few of those myself,” she admitted.

  “I doubt yours and mine had much in common.” He downed another sip of the root beer. “Mine had all the lurid markings of a nineteen-year-old male in heat.”

  Elise couldn’t prevent the mischievous smile that curved her lips. “Wil, I’m so amazed.”

  “Yeah, well, I wasn’t amazed. I was about to go stark raving mad. If my hormones had been running any hotter, I’d have combusted.” He shook his head. “Damn, Elise. The way you filled out those dresses gave me the sweats.”

  “I can’t believe you waited until I was twenty to make love to me. You know I would have fallen at your feet if you’d asked me sooner.”

  “I knew. But I wanted you to see me, not Maks’s best friend. I wanted you to look at me and want me the way I wanted you.”

  “That night in the garage.”

  “Yeah, that night. I saw it in your eyes that night. Even you were amazed.”

  “For the first time, what I wanted from you had nothing to do with cuddling.”

  He gave her a rueful smile. “It’s a good thing. I’m surprised I didn’t shock you.”

  “You couldn’t have shocked me. I wanted you so des-!!perately.”

  “I don’t remember it being very pleasant for you the first time.”

  “Want to know a secret?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “It knocked my socks off that you wanted me so much you lost control like that. I didn’t have any experience, you know.”

  “I know. The minute I discovered that, I lost any shreds of restraint I had.”

  “But I knew enough to know that a man your age wouldn’t normally go wild like that.”

  “Not unless he wanted the woman so much he couldn’t help himself.”

  She smiled at him. “That’s pretty much how I saw it. I have to tell you, it was really flattering to have you paw me that way.”

  “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have been so thorough the second time.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got no complaints about our sex life. You were incredible.”

  “We were incredible together,” he told her. “That’s what we need to talk about.”

  “Wil?”

  “This isn’t going to be pleasant.”

  She felt the warmth drain from her heart. “What’s the matter?”

  After a long pause, he dropped the front legs of his chair back to the floor with a dull thud, then rose to walk to the window. “What you said the other night, about how I pushed you away—didn’t you ever wonder why?”

  “Of course. I think I was too blind to see it at the time. You wanted to marry me. I wanted that, too. I always figured the rest would work itself out.”

  He braced one hand on the window frame. “I didn’t want to do it, Elise. God knows, I was petrified of losing you, but I just didn’t see how I could love you the way you wanted and not tell you the truth. You weren’t going to let me keep any secrets.”

  “The truth?”

  “About Maks.”

  Ah. Elise felt a warm kind of relief seep through her. She’d always wondered if these demons haunted Wil the way they haunted her. This, she knew how to handle—she’d dealt with it herself. All she needed to do was let him talk it through. It made her sad, an aching kind of sad, to realize that he’d carried this pain for so long. She wanted to go to him, to heal his hurt. His tense posture told her how much of a strain the burden had been, and Elise had to restrain herself from crossing the room to wrap her arms around his waist. Even from her distance across the room, she could feel the anguish in him. “What about Maks?” she gently prodded.

  “You were so young when he died, Elise. You idolized him.”

  “You think so?”

  “I knew it. He was the oldest in your family, and all of you, from Andrei to Nikolai, believed in Maks.”

  “I loved him very much.”

  The inarticulate sound that tore from his throat seemed a cross between a laugh and a groan. “You all did. I did, too.”

  “I know.”

  “Maks was my friend. I loved him like he was my own brother. In fact, I loved him so damned much that I never told anybody, not you, not your parents, not anybody, what I knew.”

  “What did you know, Wil?” she prompted, wishing she could spare him this, knowing she couldn’t.

  “Elise,” his voice was harsh, “Maks’s accident wasn’t an accident.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “No. About three years before it happened, he’d started getting involved with things he had no business doing. He was drinking regularly by the time we were thirteen. I’d say he was an alcoholic by his fourteenth birthday, maybe sooner. At fourteen, he started doing drugs, and by fifteen, he was dealing.”

  Wil turned from the window to face her, his face a ravaged mask of longing. Elise bit back a sob. She’d give any-!!thing to spare him this. Wil scrubbed a hand over his face. “Back then fifteen-year-olds did not deal drugs. It’s norrible now, but then, it was unspeakable. I didn’t know what to do. I knew he was handling for this guy on the East Side named Gino Scartoni. I also knew that Maks didn’t want to fool around with the kind of guys Gino worked with.”

  “Mafia?”

  “Yeah. Big in the trucking industry. Union thugs. Pop and I had talked about it, about the influence they had in the neighborhood. He always believed that I couldn’t make good decisions if I didn’t know what was going on.”

  “Smart man, your father.”

  “Like most of the ethnic areas in the city, we had mostly blue-collar workers—unionists.”

  She nodded. “And men like Scartoni knew that they needed our fathers if they wanted to stay in power.”

  “That’s right. I kept warning Maks, telling him not to get involved. I pleaded with him. When he started selling that crap, I hated him for it. One of the reasons I spent so much time with him is because I thought I could keep him straight.”

  Elise swallowed the tight knot in her throat. Honest, decent, caring Wil. He’d given up so much for her, for all of them. “But you couldn’t?”

  He shook his head. “The day of the accident, he’d confessed to me that morning that he’d started stealing money from the guy he handled for. He’d taken almost a thousand dollars by then, a nickel and a dime at a time, and was using it to buy his own stock. He wanted to set himself up as a dealer, without running interference for somebody else.”

  “And the dealer found out?” Elise asked.

  “He found out. Maks was run down deliberately.”

  “Oh, Wil.”

  “I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “Maks was so important to you, to your family. I didn’t think I could tell the truth and hurt you more.”

  At the pained expression on his face, Elise wanted to gather him into her arms. But she knew he’d have to face the demons his own way. Wil turned to the window once more. “Every time your father said something about Maks’s memory, I got a little sick inside. At fifteen, I was just scared to death. I was
afraid that if I said anything, Scartoni would get to all of you. As I got older, and I saw what Maks’s death had done to you, how your relationship with Andrei had started to disintegrate, I was terrified to get close to you. I was caught in a trap between loving you and needing to protect you.”

  “Didn’t you think I’d understand if you told me the truth?”

  “I don’t know what I thought, but I knew I couldn’t be with you, love you, and not do something to ease the guilt and grief you felt over Maks’s death.” He turned to stare at her again. “If I told you the truth, I knew how much it would hurt you. I couldn’t destroy you like that.”

  The look on his face sent her running to him. Elise wrapped her arms, tight, around his middle, and tried to absorb his pain. Wil seemed stunned by her embrace. For long seconds, his arms hung by his side, then slowly came around her shoulders. “Oh, Wil,” she said, pressing a kiss to the hollow of his throat. “How can two people as smart as we are be so stupid?”

  She felt him tense. “What are you talking about?”

  “I knew,” she told him. “I always knew. I was twelve years old. I wasn’t blind. I didn’t know the depth of what was going on, but I knew the substance. I’d seen him drinking. I’d even covered for him a time or two. I knew what he was doing, and I couldn’t make him stop. That’s one of the reasons I resented my father so much after Maks died.”

  With a soft groan, Wil dropped his head back against the window. “My God,” he breathed. “What have I done?”

  “Wil—”she laid her handagainst his bearded cheek “—we were kids. We didn’t know better. Maybe if we’d been older, we could have handled it, but the whole time you were protecting me from the truth, I was protecting you.”

  “Aina.” He rubbed his tips across her forehead. “There was a time when I would have given ten years off my life for you.”

  “I felt the same way.”

  “The day you argued with your father, I had an engagement ring in my pocket. I was going to propose to you that weekend. I can’t believe we got that close, and then I threw it all away.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” Raining kisses along his jaw, she cradled his face in both her hands. “It wasn’t.”

  “I couldn’t fight it anymore. I needed you. My soul needed you.”

  “I needed you, too.”

  “Then you argued with your father.”

  She relaxed against him, then went easily into the vee of his thighs when he seated himself on the wide window ledge. Wil’s hands rested on her waist as he gazed up at her. Elise threaded her fingers into his thick hair. “No wonder you were so hurt,” she said. “If you were carrying around all that guilt over Maks, I understand, now, why you felt like I’d betrayed my father. The way you saw it, you’d done everything including hiding what you knew about Maks in order to protect my family. When my father told you I’d turned my back on them, you must have felt like all your hard work had been in vain. Am I right?”

  “You’re right. I would have done anything for Maks. Keeping your family together was so important to your father. When I realized I’d carried around that burden for so long—and it didn’t seem to matter to you—I just exploded. It was like setting off a time bomb.”

  They spent several minutes finding solace in each other. Wil finally found the courage to finish the conversation. “Elise?”

  She seemed to sense his mood change. “Yes?”

  “I want you to know something about last night.”

  “What?”

  “The reason I didn’t make love to you had nothing to do with the fact that you were still wearing Parker’s ring.”

  She leaned back so she could see his face. “It didn’t?”

  “No. I’m not that honorable.” He studied her serious expression in the waning afternoon light. “I didn’t because I couldn’t give you what you wanted.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ten years ago, we were lovers. You were right about what you said. I was ready to give you a physical commitment, but not an emotional one. If I’d made love to you last night, we’d have been right back where we started.”

  With a wary expression he had come to recognize as a storm warning, she slipped away from him. “Well, that’s just great, Wil. It’s perfectly all right for you to tell me how you were forced to do everything you did because of how you felt, what you needed. But that’s as far as it goes, isn’t it?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “As soon as the emotional stakes get too high, as soon as you might, just maybe, have to admit that you acted like a self-impressed, arrogant fool, then you have to duck out the back door.”

  “That is not true. I told you I was sorry for what hap-!!pened.”

  “You told me you were sorry for the way things turned out. It’s not the same thing.”

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Oh, yeah? So look me in the eye and tell me you were wrong.”

  “Hold on a minute—”

  “You can’t do it, can you?”

  “You’re not—”

  “I didn’t think so. So since you can’t admit that you were wrong, I’m supposed to take all the blame. Again. Well, I’m not doing it this time.”

  “Aina, listen to me.”

  “I can’t believe that after you saw what happened last night with my father, you still think that this is my fault. I can’t make him accept me.”

  “It’s not about him. It’s about you.”

  “I’ve done everything I can do,” she insisted. “What do you expect? Do you want me to grovel to him?”

  “No.” Struggling for patience, Wil drew several calming breaths.

  “I’ve dealt with it, Wil. That’s the best I can do.”

  “Damn it. Don’t you want this to work out?”

  Her laugh was bitter, more like a groan. “Nobody wants this to work out more than I do. But wishing doesn’t make it so.” She retrieved her jacket from where it lay across the back of a chair. “So here we are,” she said. “Back where we started. You resent me, and I resent you.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Ignoring the comment, she shrugged into the jacket. “Only trouble is, Wil, you had to go and turn my life upside down again.” The eyes that met his had a chill in them that threatened to freeze his soul. “I hope you’re pleased.”

  Without waiting for an answer, she headed for the door. Wil levered away from the window. “Elise, wait.” “Sorry, Wil. It’s time for me to move on.” Before he could stop her, she walked out of his house.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Elise stroked Nikki’s hand with her fingertips. Relief had flooded her when she’d found Bill Garrison in Nikki’s room instead of her mother. After she left Wil’s house, Jan had insisted on driving her home to pick up her car. By the time she reached the hospital, she’d been too drained for another emotional confrontation. Bill had explained that he’d dropped by the hospital to see Nikki and found Anna, exhausted, asleep in the chair by her son’s bed. Firmly he’d sent her home, promising to wait until Elise arrived.

  He’d informed her that Nikki’s condition had been upgraded from critical to serious, and that Dr. English seemed to be very optimistic about his recovery. With a shuddering sense of gratitude, Elise had settled in by his bed to talk, and wait.

  She’d made it through the first hour by talking about trivialities. Still stinging from her confrontation with Wil, she’d needed something, anything, to keep her mind off him. She’d read Nikki the sports page and the op-ed section of the Tribune. Soon, however, she’d run out of small talk.

  Before she knew it, she’d been telling Nikki about the events of the past few weeks. At first, she’d felt strange confessing the long story to her silent brother, but soon, the more she talked, the more she’d found she was able to reason things out in her mind.

  Beside her, he lay still, his warm hand clasped in her fingers. The only noise in the room was the raspy sound of his breathi
ng and the buzz of the monitors.

  “So that’s the whole story, Nikki,” she told him. “And now, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Wil keeps telling me that I’ve allowed myself to be governed by what I think I should do and what I think I want, but you know how Pop feels about this. You know I can’t change his mind.” A fresh surge of tears brimmed over in her eyes. She was beginning to feel as if she’d done nothing but cry for three weeks. “He expects me to confront Pop, and I can’t do it. I just can’t. I was so scared last night that I was going to lose you. When Pop couldn’t face me, not even then, I knew there just wasn’t any hope.” Pressing her face to his hand, she kissed the tanned flesh. “I’m so glad you’re all right, Nikki.”

  One of her tears plopped onto his skin. She kissed it away. “I don’t know what I’d have done if I lost you.” Was it just a trick of her imagination, or did his fingers flutter in her hand?

  With a quick breath, Elise glanced at his face. “Nikki?” Had he moved? “Nikki, can you hear me?”

  Again his fingers seemed to flutter. Tightening her grip on them, she leaned over him to brush his hair off his forehead. “Are you awake?” she asked him. “Did you squeeze my fingers?”

  A soft gust of air broke from his parted lips. Elise laid her hand on his face. “Don’t push yourself. You don’t need to say anything.” This time, she was certain she felt him tug on her hand. She leaned closer to his face. “What is it?”

  Slowly, with what appeared to be a supreme effort, Nikki’s eyes fluttered open. Elise stared into the amber-colored depths, seeing recognition, seeing a sparkle that made her want to weep with relief. “Oh, Nikki…”

  He parted his lips to speak, wet them with his tongue, then tried again. “So,” he finally said, his voice a rusty whisper so quiet she had to practically press her ear to his mouth to hear him. “Is he going to marry you, or do I have to beat the hell out of him?”

  Three days later, Elise returned to work. She hadn’t heard from Wil, although she knew from Nikki that he’d stopped by the hospital several times. With the auction just a week away, her days were filled with almost enough details and crises to keep her mind off her problems.