Nancy Herkness (7 page)

“Aha, he has a harem in the Far East.” She looked closely at Charlie. “Seriously, my dear, you need to be careful. This man is a total stranger. A most attractive stranger but a stranger nonetheless.” Something in Charlie’s face made her say, “Ah, you think he’s attractive too.”

Charlie flushed.

“That’s very dangerous for you,” Isabelle said, shaking her head. “Perhaps you should find another topic for a book.”

“I can keep it strictly business,” Charlie insisted. Then she sighed. “You know how much I want a child. I was so close, and I just can’t bear to wait another year. But it’s such a bizarre idea.”

Isabelle considered for a moment before she shrugged and said, “Marriages have been made for stranger reasons.”

By Sunday evening, Charlie had picked up and put down the telephone so many times she had lost count. Finally, she sat down on the sofa, took a gulp of white wine, patted Major and Twinkle, and dialed Jack’s cell phone number.

“Jack Lanett.”

“I know,” Charlie said. “It’s Charlie Berglund.”

She heard a grinding noise in the background.

“Just a minute. I’ll move to a quieter place.”

The noise receded, and Charlie took a deep breath. “Jack, I’ve thought a great deal about your proposal. And although I think it’s a rather unusual way to handle our, um, situation, I’m going to say yes.”

“Fine. I’ll have my lawyer contact you on Monday.”

“You mean I haven’t just made you the happiest man on earth?”

“This is a business arrangement, pure and simple,” he said more emphatically than she thought necessary.

“That was a joke.” Charlie gave up trying to keep it light. “Fine, strictly business. I’ve checked it out, and we can get married on Friday if we do it here. You’ll need to get a blood test and sign some papers. I can fax you the necessary information.”

He gave her his fax number.

“We also have to coordinate our story for the social worker and present a convincing picture of a married couple.”

“We can discuss that at our wedding.” His tone when he reached the word wedding became distinctly ironic. “Or are you inviting the social worker?”

“I might,” Charlie said just to annoy him.

“Fax me the information, and we’ll talk again. And I appreciate the honor you do me by accepting my proposal.”

“Better late than never,” Charlie said, chuckling. “Good-bye, Jack.”

“Until Friday, Ms. Berglund.”

Jack hit the “end” button and slipped the phone back into his pocket. He was amazed to discover that he was smiling. He walked back into the sculptor’s studio Miguel had rented to work on meteorites while they were in New York. Miguel was cutting an especially fine stony-iron, slicing it into pieces which would highlight the large greenish-brown olivine crystals embedded in the metal. Jack flipped down his safety glasses and walked over to pick up a cut slab. He started toward a grinding machine when Miguel stopped his saw.

“Hey, amigo, what are you doing with that?”

“I’m going to finish it for you. You know, I actually did my own prep before you joined the firm.”

“Yeah, but I’m better at it,” Miguel said, pushing up his welding mask and wiping a sleeve across his forehead. “Leave that piece to the expert. You can work on this one.” He picked up a small chunk of an iron and tossed it to his friend.

Jack caught it and turned it over in his hands for a moment. “I can’t do much damage to this.”

“You have other things on your mind. The pallasite requires concentration.”

Jack dropped the iron on the work table. “Will you be my best man?”

“Sure, when the day comes.”

“It’s coming Friday.”

“In which decade?”

“I’m getting married this Friday.”

“Tell me you’re joking.” Miguel sat down hard on his stool.

“No joke. I’m marrying the nosy reporter.” Jack filled him in on the details.

“You’ve done some crazy things in your life, amigo, but this one is the craziest,” Miguel said, shaking his head.

“What’s so crazy about it? It solves both our problems, and then it’s over.”

“That’s what you think now. But remember Rapunzel: long blond hair can turn into a very strong rope.”

“Have I ever come close to getting tied down?”

“This one’s different. She’s got noble intentions. And we all know what a sucker you are for a good cause.”

Jack picked up the small meteorite and studied it a moment. “You know, it’s been a long time since I made an iron ring.”

“Isabelle, will you be my maid of honor?” Charlie asked as she hefted a box of organic mangos onto her neighbor’s porch Monday morning.

“So you accepted the hunter?” Isabelle ripped open a box of pesticide-free carrots and began sorting them into clients’ baskets.

“The wedding is Friday.”

“Friday!” Isabelle’s carrots landed on the floor in a heap. “We have to get organized. I know just the place to buy the dress. Mike and Ernst can have the reception on their patio—”

“This is not a real wedding. I don’t need any of that.”

“Nonsense. If nothing else, you need pictures to show your social worker. Authenticity is important in deception. And you will be legally married, won’t you?”

“Yes. But—”

“Then we plan a wedding.”

Seven

In the end, Isabelle had her way, and the wedding planning was fast and furious. Mike vetted the prenuptial agreement, and insisted on adding several clauses to protect Charlie’s assets. He also found a justice of the peace to perform the ceremony. Ernst organized hors d’oeuvres and a small wedding cake for the patio reception. He ordered flowers, including a bouquet for the bride and a boutonniere for the groom. Charlie faxed forms back and forth to New York, went to the doctor for a blood test, made two trips to the county courthouse, and cleaned out space in her closet for Jack’s clothes. She also endured an exasperated diatribe from her agent when she killed the book idea. Isabelle dragged her to a vintage clothing store and persuaded her to buy an ivory silk crêpe de Chine dress with a square neck, elbow length sleeves and bias-cut skirt.

The morning of the wedding Isabelle helped the bride smooth her hair back into an elegant figure-eight chignon. Charlie had decided not to invite Rhonda Brown. A romantic, spur-of-the-moment decision seemed to fit the story she had concocted for the social worker better. So the only people present—besides the bride and groom—were Isabelle and Miguel, the justice of the peace, Mike, Ernst and a photographer Isabelle brought along.

Having not had the nerve to ask Jack what he would wear, Charlie was relieved when he appeared at the courthouse in the same silver gray suit he had worn to the lecture. This time, though, he was wearing a yellow tie that coincidentally matched the spray of yellow alstroemeria Charlie pinned on his lapel.

“How very wifely,” Jack commented as she carefully wove the anchoring pin through the fine fabric of his suit.

She made the mistake of looking up.

He was so close she could see the fine lines around his eyes and a few glints of silver in his dark eyebrows. His smile held a disarming hint of teasing. Without thinking, Charlie laid her palms against his chest. It felt like sun-warmed brick: utterly solid and inviting to lean against. She sighed and said, “Not wifely, professional. I have to make my business partner look good.”

“I’m going to have a hard time looking as good as my business partner,” he said, taking one of her hands and raising it to his lips.

“Charlie! Jack! The justice of the peace is ready for us!” Isabelle’s voice yanked Charlie out of her bemused trance.

The ceremony at town hall and the reception by the channel passed in a blur.

Isabelle’s scruffy-looking young photographer was from one of her environmental groups. She assured Charlie young Warren Bixby was very skilled and would produce portrait quality prints of the festivities within a week. So Charlie and Jack posed and blinked in the glare of the camera’s flash.

Jack sailed through the afternoon with almost eerie poise and good humor. As she stood on Mike and Ernst’s lawn, absently twisting the newly acquired ring on her fourth finger—a complete surprise, the one detail she had overlooked—Charlie watched him charming her three friends with a certain amount of irritation. Even the photographer had taken a shine to him. Unfortunately, she was just as susceptible to him as everyone else.

Miguel must have noticed because he stopped by her side and said, “It’s an occupational hazard.”

“What is?”

“Instant intimacy with total strangers.”

“He’s good at it,” she said, “except I wouldn’t call it ‘intimacy.’ He doesn’t reveal much of himself in the process.”

“That’s an occupational hazard too,” Miguel said, chuckling. “Your occupation.”

“What’s he afraid I’ll find out?”

Miguel shrugged. “He’s a private man, and he likes to be in control.”

Just then, Isabelle announced it was time to cut the cake. Charlie marched to the buffet table. “Isabelle, this is ridiculous! We don’t need a cake cutting ceremony,” she hissed as Jack strolled over looking amused.

“It’s just for the photographer,” Isabelle said, offering her a silver cake knife.

“Try to be gracious, sugar,” Jack said, taking the knife and wrapping her fingers around it by the simple expedient of cupping her hand in his. “Smile for the man, and then we’re done with it.”

Charlie gave a canned grin, all the while intensely aware of her new husband’s body pressed against the length of her back as they leaned over to cut the cake. The thin silk of her dress seemed to evaporate anywhere that he touched her. When he completed the embrace by reaching around to pick up a plate with his left hand, she could feel the buttons on his jacket, the buckle on his belt, and a great deal of muscle beneath his suit.

“Now I know why grooms always seem to enjoy this part of the reception,” he murmured in her ear, his breath feathering deliciously over her skin.

She shifted her elbow so it met his ribs, and was rewarded with a grunt of discomfort. But he didn’t give an inch.

By the time the photographer released them, Charlie had no doubt her new husband was feeling the effect of their proximity as much as she was.

It served him right.

Jack looked up from the suitcase he was unloading into an empty dresser drawer. “Do you really think your Ms. Brown will check the drawers?”

Charlie had grabbed a few suit hangers for Jack’s clothes from her coat closet, and was returning to her bedroom, followed by Major. “No, but if you’re staying here when she comes for the home study, you have to put your clothes somewhere,” she said.

She stopped, watching him. The last man who had folded his clothes into that dresser drawer was her ex-husband Greg. To have Jack Lanett looking so utterly at ease in her bedroom was unsettling. Charlie snatched a pair of slacks out of his suitcase and slid them onto a hanger.

“You’re taking your quest for authenticity to great lengths.” He shook his head. “Although I enjoyed the cake cutting ceremony very much.”

Charlie shot him a glare. “Isabelle got a little carried away bringing a photographer, but she wants to make sure Rhonda believes in the marriage. She even gave me a silver frame as a wedding gift.”

Jack laughed, a surprisingly pleasant sound.

“I didn’t know you were such a clothes horse,” Charlie said, using another hanger.

“I’m just making it look like the real thing.”

He seemed to be in an extraordinarily mellow mood for a man who had recently endured a wedding, and a fairly fraudulent one at that. Jack in a mellow mood was dangerous to her equilibrium. They still needed to discuss their strategy for hoodwinking Rhonda Brown. She felt slightly guilty about fooling the caseworker, but Rhonda had admitted she’d make a good mother … and she had already waited seven years for a baby. She needed to be rational and businesslike to develop a strategy so Charlie decided to hand the hangers to him and get out of the bedroom.

She almost tripped over the dog in her haste to exit.

Charlie went to the refrigerator for a bottle of white wine; a little alcohol might make the upcoming discussion less awkward. She had two glasses poured and a tray of cheese and fruit laid out when Jack came into the kitchen. He had changed into jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt. “That looks mighty tempting, but I have to go.”

“Go? We have to talk about the adoption!”

“I’m sorry, sugar, but I have an appointment tonight. I’ll stop by on Sunday.”

“I thought you’d at least spend the night, get familiar with the house, start filling out the adoption forms.” Charlie realized tears were about to spill down her cheeks and she turned her back.

“Damnation,” he muttered, having noticed the telltale glitter in her eyes. “Fine, come with me. We can talk while we’re driving.”

“To New York?” Charlie surreptitiously wiped her tears and grabbed a glass of wine.

“I’m not going to New York. I’m going to the Poconos.”

“You have an appointment in the Poconos?”

“I’ll explain on the way. Just pack warm pajamas and hiking clothes.” He checked his watch. “We need to get going in a half an hour.”

Charlie took a sip of the wine, and debated for a second. They needed to spend enough time together to pretend to be a couple, and here was a good chance. “I have to see if Isabelle can take care of the animals.”

“I’ll wait in the living room.” He picked up the tray of food, and carried it with him.

When Charlie peeked in after her phone call, he was sitting on the couch with Twinkle draped across his lap. Major sat watching intently as Jack cut a piece of cheese and tossed it to him. She smiled. He already looked at home. She raced back to her bedroom and stripped out of her wedding attire. As she was pulling on a pair of jeans, her wedding ring caught the light, and she paused a moment to examine it closely under the lamp. It had seemed to be a simple, wide band of highly polished silver when Jack had slipped it on her finger. Now she moved her hand and a web of tiny, straight lines crisscrossed over the surface.

“Widmannstatten structures,” she gasped.

She knew from her research that only iron meteorites formed in the core of a large asteroid or planet exhibited the distinctive geometric pattern she saw on the ring. It was created when the nickel-iron alloy at the center of the parent body cooled very slowly, and the atoms of the two metals separated.

The man had given her a ring made from a meteorite!

She slipped a soft, cream-colored turtleneck over her head and walked out to face Jack in the living room.

“Ready?” he asked, carefully moving the cat off his lap.

“Not quite.” She held up her left hand. “I can’t believe you gave me a ring made from a meteorite.”

“Glad you like it.”

“It’s…” Charlie searched for the right word, “extraordinary. I’ll return it to you when the divorce goes through, of course, but in the meantime, I’m honored to be entrusted with it.”

“It’s nothing special; just a bit of an iron with nothing to recommend it but the Widmannstatten pattern. You can keep it even after the divorce. Something to remember me by.”

“No, no, I can’t. It wouldn’t be right,” but she turned her left hand to admire the pattern again. It was too ridiculous to say what she really felt: she was touched to be given something that was unique and important to him.

“Did Miguel make it?” she asked.

“Everyone seems to think I’m incapable of working my own damned meteorites,” he said. “No, I made it.”

“I’d better pack,” Charlie mumbled and returned to the bedroom.

She hurled clothes into a duffle bag, stopping every few seconds to look at the ring her new husband had made for her with his own hands. Soon her duffle was stowed in the Land Rover, and they were on their way. Charlie directed him through a few back roads to the highway.

“Okay, why are we going to the Poconos?” she asked. Suddenly, the aptness of their destination hit her. “Does the hotel have a heart-shaped bed? Or a bathtub like a giant champagne glass?”

“What are you talking about?”

“A mirror on the ceiling?” Charlie was grinning widely. “A white fur bedspread?”

“We’re going to a very simple cabin which has nothing but a couple of regular mattresses and box springs and a pull-out sofabed.” He was starting to sound annoyed.

“Don’t you get it? People go to the Poconos for their honeymoons.”

His chuckle from the darkness sounded like Twinkle’s purr, smooth and deep and relaxed. “Oh yeah. ‘Heir-conditioned.’ I’ve seen the billboards. Well, we’re not going anywhere near those places. There’s too much light.”

“So where are we going?”

“To Miguel’s cabin out in the middle of nowhere.”

“And what appointment do you have there?”

“It’s not exactly an appointment. It’s more in the nature of a pilgrimage.”

Charlie waited.

“I hate reporters,” he muttered but he continued. “We’re going to watch the Lyrid meteor shower. It reaches its peak tonight and tomorrow night.”

“‘Lyrid.’ That means it looks like it’s coming from the constellation Lyra?” More useful facts from her research.

“Actually on the border of Lyra and Hercules, and it’s produced by Comet Thatcher. The Lyrids are one of the oldest meteor showers on record. Chinese astronomers mentioned them in 687 B.C.”

“What’s the ZHR?” Charlie was having fun showing off her newly acquired knowledge. ZHR stood for “zenithal hourly rate” which basically meant how many meteors you could expect to see in an hour.

He raised an eyebrow. “The norm is twenty but it can get up to over a hundred. And sometimes you get fireballs.”

“I’d love to see a fireball. Why is this a pilgrimage?”

He gave a long-suffering sigh. “A long, long time ago—”

“In a galaxy far, far away…” she interjected.

“When I was a kid, about fourteen,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken, “I couldn’t sleep one night. So I lay just staring out the window, and suddenly the sky exploded. Stars were shooting everywhere.”

He stopped.

“And?” she prodded.

“I thought the world was coming to an end, and I dove under the bed. But nothing happened. There was no noise, no explosion, no earthquake. So I crawled out from under the bed and lay down again and watched. I was going through a rough patch just then, and somehow this silent fireworks display put on by Mother Nature seemed to be a sign. Of what, I had no idea. I went to the library the next day and looked up everything I could find about space. That library wasn’t exactly up-to-date so I didn’t find much. But I was hooked. And I’ve been hooked ever since,” he finished.