"Does this mean Jax has forgiven you?"
"That would be too much to hope for. It will be a long time before I earn his trust." Lauren sighed philosophi cally. "God hasn't given me any of those things I wailed and stamped my feet and demanded He give me after Danielle died, but the more I practice my serenity, the more I see He has given me much better."
There was a long pause. JJ was getting ready to wind up the call when, in an oddly shy and serious tone, Lauren went on. "JJ, you haven't told me why you're bent on avoiding a fairy-tale marriage—and I'm not asking. One of our AA slogans is 'Mind your own business.'
"Goodness knows, I'm the last person in this world to pass out relationship advice, but listen. Don't go by my experience or Danielle's. There is such a thing as love that survives marriage. Some marriages are easy; some are hard. Marriages to SEALs can be very hard. But you can't judge them by that. The issue is not how hard they are, but whether they are worth it. Don't turn down love."
Chapter 31
"HARRIS AND I WANT TO TALK TO YOU." DAVID'S SISTER, Eleanor, spoke from the doorway of the bedroom David had been assigned in Lucas's house. Her round blue eyes were grim, the soft line of her lips spoiled by tight grooves at the corners.
Behind her stood her twin, Harris. Both were already dressed for the wedding. Elle's simple blue dress brought out her blue eyes and fair skin. Everything about Elle was round. Round face, round cheeks, and a pleasing roundness to her figure. David saw a resemblance to their mother he'd never noticed before.
Harris wore a brown tweed sport coat, a little baggy at the elbows. Being fraternal, the twins looked no more alike than any brother and sister. Neither looked at all like dark-haired, olive-skinned David, a circumstance that had made people ask more than once if one of them was adopted.
David stopped tying his own tie to wave them in.
"We don't believe you're in love," Elle stated flatly once they were inside. "We think you're only doing this for us."
David caught Harris's eye. "You've seen JJ," he grinned man to man. "Does it look like I'm sacrificing myself?"
"Deal with me," Elle snapped. "Stop making jokes and skipping away. I don't understand what's going on here."
"What's to understand? Men and women get married all the time."
"Yeah, well you don't. You've never acted serious about anybody. Mom was afraid you would never settle down. She thought it was her fault."
"Her fault? No. It was because I was too much like my da—" David caught himself before the wrong word slipped out. "My father, Carl," he amended. David was the child of his mother's first marriage. Try as he would, he'd never been able to be like the gentle, thoughtful man who was David's stepfather and the only "dad" he'd ever known.
Elle gave him one of those I am female, and so I under stand things forever beyond your ken looks. "She thought it was because she sent you to military school," she ex plained, carefully spacing her words. "She was afraid you felt squeezed out of the family when Riley came along, and so you turned your back on us. And that's why you never brought any girls home for us to meet. You showed no signs of wanting a family of your own."
Squeezed out was exactly how he had felt, but you'd think enough years had passed for his eyes not to get hot and wet when that time was mentioned. He'd been a wild kid, skipping school, into mischief, with too few outlets for his energy. When Riley with his special needs was born, his mother had been overwhelmed by a baby who screamed if you put him down, screamed if you picked him up, screamed if you changed his diapers or dressed him, and often screamed for no reason at all.
The strain on the family had to be relieved some where. The twins, Eleanor and Harris, were too young to leave home. They still needed their mother. David was a problem, and so he had to go. He, at least, was old enough to take care of himself. He'd long since accepted responsibility for being sent away.
"Nah. Mom and Dad did the right thing. Who knows what kind of a juvenile delinquent I would have turned into?" He pressed the bridge of his nose.
"Headache?"
"Trigeminal neuralgia. Maybe. It's atypical."
"Bad?"
"It's okay. It makes my eyes water."
"Can I get you anything for the pain?" Elle asked.
"I took some aspirin."
"Then can we please get back to the subject? You're marrying her for her money, and there's only one reason you would do that. We can't let you—" Elle stabbed her chest with a forefinger. "I won't let you—sacrifice yourself for us."
The backs of his eyes burned again. When had she turned from a little girl into a lovely woman capable of fiercely protecting her own? David suspected Harris would be happy not to look too closely at whatever fate was keeping him in med school.
David and JJ had a story prepared about meeting a year ago, falling in love but not being ready to commit— not until his brush with death had shown them both his mortality. They'd been given a second chance and this time were determined to take it.
He didn't want to lie to Elle—she deserved better than that.
"Mom was wrong to think I turned my back on fam ily life. I was just…" he struggled for a word that would encompass what it meant to be a SEAL—the joyful absorption that dimmed everything else in comparison. He couldn't think of one. He shrugged. "Just… busy, you know? Even though I haven't been around much, I care about you guys. I'll never be half the man Dad was, but I did learn one important thing from him. A man looks after his family."
Elle's eyes narrowed. "I was right. You are marrying a woman for her money—for us."
"For me. I'm already sleeping better. No matter what happens to me, Riley is secure. He will be cared for the rest of his life, and you and Harris will finish your educations."
"But you don't love her!"
"She's beautiful, smart, and kind—better than I de serve. I'm happy with my choice."
"Then what's the matter with her that she's got to buy herself a husband?" Harris asked.
"Nothing." He gave Harris a warning look. "And you'd better not ever imply anything is."
"I'm not. I'm just saying… why aren't guys throwing themselves at her feet?"
"Because I'm damn lucky, that's why."
"Hmm." Elle tilted her head. "You want to marry her."
"I told you I did."
Elle nodded slowly, a little smile playing around her mouth. "So you did." She hugged him and patted his cheek.
The gesture made something go all mushy all around his heart. Starting when she was a baby, Elle had always liked to pat cheeks, and she'd never outgrown it. All of a sudden he remembered how he'd sprawl on the sofa watching TV. Elle would be playing on the floor with Harris and, for no reason David could see, would leave Harris and scramble onto the sofa beside him, crawl into his lap, and pat his face. When she had his attention, she'd say, "Lub you, Dabid." She wouldn't leave him alone until he said "lub you" back.
He tightened his arms and kissed the top of her head. "Lub you, Elle."
She smiled a little mistily. "Lub Harris, too?"
He grabbed Harris's shoulder and shook it affection ately. Unlike Elle, Harris had never seemed to like hugs. "Love Harris, too. Now you two get out of here and let me finish dressing."
"I wouldn't worry. The maid of honor still isn't here."
David smothered his impatience. He was ready to have the ceremony done with, but every time he turned around, this wedding business got more complicated. Lucas had been right about one thing though. He'd in sisted on waiting until the Thanksgiving break so that David's brothers and sister could come. And David was glad. "Okay, tell everyone I'll be down in a minute."
Great-aunt Althea snagged JJ's hand and peered up at her through dirty bifocals. Althea was Lucas's sister, older by almost ten years. In her cracked, old-lady voice she snorted, "You aren't acting much like a bride, Jane Jessup. Aren't you afraid of bad luck if the groom sees your dress before the ceremony? Or has he already seen too much of you, making your wedding night an anticl
imax?"
Aunt Althea cackled at her poor-taste pun. She was just trying to stir something up. It was what she did. Anytime she thought things were getting a little dull, she'd see if she couldn't make someone uncomfortable enough to start a scene. And God knows, this wedding was dull.
Trying to look on the bright side, JJ had hoped the delay while they waited for the maid of honor to arrive would give the sprinkling of guests assembled in the formal living room of her grandfather's house a chance to mingle and grow more comfortable with each other. It hadn't worked that way. They stood around in tight little knots, even though she had broken with tradition and come downstairs in her borrowed wedding dress to play the role of hostess.
As JJ sank down on the brocade sofa beside the old lady, she wracked her brain for a topic that would keep her entertained. She didn't want to talk about herself. That was the crux of the problem.
JJ didn't like to lie. Even in sticky situations, rather than manipulating, she preferred to tell the truth and live with the consequences. She had found being absolutely up front about her reasons and requirements to be a more efficient way of having events turn out the way she wanted.
She been forced over and over to lie as people in evitably asked when she and David had met, why they were marrying so suddenly, why not a large wedding. But until she had her hands firmly on the business, until she was the legal head, not just the de facto one, no one could know.
If the banks lost confidence in Caruthers' leadership, the effects would be disastrous in today's economy. If they thought Caruthers might close its doors and sell out, they would start calling in loans, which could precipitate a chain of events that would make it a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.
She just wanted the wedding over with, which was the reason for a gathering limited to family and closest friends.
"Oh, stop being rude just to get a rise out of me, you old bat. That's none of your business."
Aunt Althea laughed gustily. Far from being offended when someone called her on her outrageousness, she ap peared to enjoy it.
"These days, pregnancy doesn't seem to make young people hurry up a marriage," she allowed. Unfortunately, since she spoke at the top of her lungs, everyone had heard her. There was a moment of silence while every one assembled pointedly didn't look at her.
The last time JJ had seen David, he had been on the other side of the room talking to his friend and fellow SEAL, Garth, and yet he seemed to appear at JJ's side. He perched on the arm of the sofa. With casual posses siveness, he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "Are you giving my bride a hard time?" he challenged the old lady in his warm, soothing voice.
"I'm just saying—getting married in such an all-fired hurry—willing to show herself in her wedding dress be fore the wedding, she doesn't care very much how the marriage turns out."
"Dress?" He looked confused. "What's wrong with it?"
He looked so adorably, helplessly masculine, JJ couldn't help smiling up at him and patting him on the thigh. "She means letting you see the dress is supposed to be bad luck."
He gave her an intimate smile and trapped her hand. "What kind of bad luck?"
"It might jinx the marriage."
"Gotta see it sooner or later. Hard to see how it makes much difference when." He lifted her hand to his lips. "Fate brought us together. One dress won't take us apart."
JJ heard her best friend, Bronwyn, at the front door and hurriedly excused herself from Aunt Althea. The scalloped-lace, trailing skirt of the late-sixties wed ding gown belled behind JJ on the oriental carpet of the broad entry.
"Oh, Bronwyn, you're here!" she exclaimed folding her friend, damp trench coat and all, in her arms.
"Am I in time? The plane was late taking off in Baltimore, and Ham here kept having to detour around flooded streets."
JJ extended her hand to Ham, who was standing in the doorway behind Bronwyn. "Thank you for going to the airport to pick her up. I knew if anyone could get her here," she told the ex-Marine, "it would be you. I wish you would change your mind and stay for the wedding."
Ham looked down. "I cain't do that. Ain't dressed. Wouldn't be right." He slapped his grimy ball cap against his legs. "Well, you have your maid of honor now, so I guess you're ready to get married. I'll shove off." His gray eyes, set in a permanent fisherman's squint, softened. "You look beautiful, JJ. You be happy now."
A gust of damp air blew in the door as he let himself out.
Bronwyn stared at the closing door in consternation. "Are you sure this isn't a hurricane?"
"It's just a tropical depression, and, really, there's not much wind. Was the turbulence bad?" Bronwyn, for all her cool-headedness under stress in the ER, was a white knuckle flyer. "I'm sorry you had to fly in this weather."
"Don't be silly. I would have come no matter what." Her chestnut brown eyes misted as she looked at her friend. "Oh, Jay, you do look beautiful. This dress is exquisite. Where did it come from? I thought you were going to wear a suit."
"My friend, Mary Cole Sessoms, convinced me I couldn't let the wedding look like I was ashamed. This is the wedding dress she wore in 1967."
"I'm glad." Bronwyn touched white lace set into the dress's sheer georgette sleeve with reverent fingers. "But this pantsuit," she indicated her gray slacks and jacket, the pants darker from the knees down where her raincoat's protection from the downpour had ended, "is the fanciest thing I own."
Mary Cole, elegant in a street-length dress in one of the silvery fabrics she wore so well, came up in time to hear Bronwyn's protest. "You must be Bronwyn. Don't worry about a thing. My daughters raided their closets and sent dresses they thought would work, but really now that I see your dark red hair, I think the emerald green silk will be perfect. Come upstairs with me now, and we'll get you changed. Give us twenty minutes," she told JJ over her shoulder.
JJ watched as her friend was borne away up the curv ing staircase garlanded with white satin ribbon and caught up at intervals with nosegays of burgundy and tealight roses and white baby's breath—the work of an army of florists who had arrived at 6 a.m. A jeweler had arrived last night with a selection of rings. It was amazing what a few phone calls and enough money could accomplish.
Her eye was caught by an unaccustomed sparkle on her finger. David had surprised her last night with his mother's diamond ring—a gesture more sensitive and sentimental than she would have thought him likely to make.
"I don't know if you'd like to wear this. It was my mother's engagement ring from her first marriage—to my father. She said the stone is small but good quality."
"Oh…!" She'd done her best to hang on to the notion that the marriage was a contract. She'd congratulated herself that she'd found a man who, if he was marrying her for her money, at least wasn't doing so out of greed and who expected no more from the marriage than she did. JJ fought her thudding heart and thickening throat. "Uh—no—I—you shouldn't—I can't take this."
He turned her hand palm up and placed the shabby but obviously treasured little box in it. "She always said it was for my bride. You're my bride."
JJ detected a flicker of pain in the clear depths of his eyes. "Please don't get the wrong idea. I didn't mean to reject the ring. It's only that, well, don't you want to wait?"
"For what?"
"Wait until it's real. What if you find the perfect woman? Someone you want to be with forever. You don't want to give her a ring that's used."
"What if this is as real as it gets?" he countered. "What if you're the only wife I'll ever have? I have knocked on the doors of heaven. They are closer than anyone thinks. When my number's up, I have to know I did all I could. That I gave everything I had. I have a ring. For my bride."
"I feel like I'm stealing something—something pre cious. I ought to call this off now. If I had any other option, I would."
"If you don't want it, you don't have to wear it. It doesn't look like much compared to rings you have."
"It isn't that. But shouldn't it go to your sist
er or your brothers?"
"This is mine. It's the ring my father gave to my mother. When Mom remarried, she put it away for me. It's just about the only thing I have to give you."
"It's beautiful. I'll treasure it. And if you ever want it back—"
His face went grim. "Don't say it."
"All right, but…" JJ made a mental note to call her law yer Monday and have him add a codicil to her will, leaving the ring to David's sister in the event of JJ's death.
"Don't say 'but' either. If you don't count Mrs. Gutierrez, my kindergarten teacher; my aunt Katherine; and Serena Brancuzzi in the fourth grade, I've never proposed before."
SEALed with a Ring Page 19