Five Brides (33 page)

Betty pressed her lips together. “Maybe you
should
come along. I might need the moral support.”

“Don’t be silly. If the family is
anything
like Pat, you’ll be in the best possible hands.”

As she’d done on every trip to George’s childhood home, Evelyn sat in the passenger seat of George’s car and gazed with wide eyes at the lawns and houses along the way. Especially the one she knew he lived in, the one he’d purchased a little over a year earlier “for a steal at fifteen thousand.” The one he’d believed Betty would occupy as “lady of the house.”

But Betty had turned him down.
Betty’s loss,
Evelyn thought now,
became my gain.

Evelyn tried to imagine herself in such a role, living with George . . . as his wife, of course. She’d never been inside the house—that wouldn’t be proper—but she’d envisioned the various rooms. The nooks and crannies, the high ceilings, the spacious closets, the sun streaming through wide windows. She’d pictured their children running from room to room—toddlers to teenagers—as she and their father grew old together. Gray and happy. Until death did them part.

She sighed. “Such
joie de vivre
,” she whispered.

“What’s that?” George asked from the driver’s seat.

She looked at him with a smile, which he returned. Deeply. Genuinely.

Oh, Betty. You’re so, so wrong about him. I just know you are.

“Nothing,” she answered. Then she giggled. “Actually, I said
joie de vivre
without thinking about it.” She laced her fingers together, then flexed them beneath the tan shortie gloves.

Evelyn frowned at the remembrance of how George had drilled her on glove etiquette. Her whole life she’d worn gloves and no one had ever told her there were rules. When to wear them, how to wear them, when to remove them, how to remove them.

Of course, until coming to Chicago and meeting George, she’d never been around anyone who would care whether she took her gloves off
before
sitting for dinner or
after
being seated. No one. So perhaps, she now reasoned, his instruction had been for a good cause.

“I guess the French classes are paying off,” George said, “if you’re speaking in French without thinking about it.”

“Are you proud of me?” she asked, hope rising in her voice.

He didn’t answer. Instead he concentrated on turning into his parents’ driveway.

“George?”

He turned the key in the ignition to Off. “Hmm?”

“I asked if you were proud of me.”

George turned to look at her, taking long seconds to answer. He ran a hand over his perfectly coiffed hair, then leaned toward her. “Yes, sweetheart. I’m proud of you.” He rested his right arm along the back of the seat. “Come. Give me a kiss.”

She complied. She always did whenever he asked . . . the few times he asked. And, as always, she felt sparks, and prayed he felt them as well.

“Let’s go inside,” he said after pulling away. He looked out the windshield and up the driveway. “Looks like Sandie and her family haven’t gotten here yet.”

Evelyn sighed, torn somewhere between frustration and contentment. “I look forward to seeing them again,” she said. And she meant it. After all, this time next year, they’d be family.

She just
knew
it.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Pat said as they left his family home in Lake Forest, a near-one-hundred-year-old city located along the Lake Michigan shore just a few miles north of Betty’s family home in Highland Park. “How about a penny for your thoughts?”

Betty adjusted her coat around her knees, tucking the hem under her to keep her legs warm. “I was just thinking that I had no idea you had such a large family.”

Pat laughed easily. “You knew there were six of us kids.” He released the steering wheel to point at her playfully. “And by the way, I want no less than that when my turn to be a father rolls around.”

“Six, huh?” She forced a smile. “Be sure to let your wife know of your intentions
before
you propose.”

He gripped the steering wheel at ten and two, his fingers flexing. Betty allowed her gaze to travel up the sleeve of the black wool overcoat until it reached his face. His green eyes held hers for the briefest of seconds before turning their attention back to the highway. “I just did.”

Betty heard the words, but chose to ignore him. “I had no idea so
many
of your family would be there. Aunts. Uncles. Cousins.” She threw up her hands. “You even had a set of grandparents on board.”

“I take it you don’t have a big family,” he said.

Betty shifted to relieve the crick forming in her neck. “You know I’m an only child.”

“What about your mother and father? Were they only children?”

“No, but there’s not a lot to tell in that department either. I have a few aunts and uncles, but we don’t gather together on holidays, I’m afraid.”

“You don’t?” Pat asked, as though the notion of absence during special days seemed nothing short of ludicrous.

“No,” Betty said plainly, and she stared out the window. They neared home . . . and the end of what had proven to be a day of both gratitude and a troubling in her spirit. She’d appreciated the way Pat’s family welcomed her into their home, but had felt ill at ease with how easily they’d drawn her into their family. “By the way,” she said, tilting her chin, “your family home is lovely.”

“I know,” Pat said, winking. “You told my mother about a half-dozen times.”

Betty shoved her arms together. “I did not.”

“Sure you did. The first thing you said to my mother in our foyer was how
lovely
her home was. And then, throughout the day, you had something to say about
this
painting and
that
piece of furniture.” He shook his head. “Quite frankly, lassie,” he said, sounding—now she knew—exactly like his paternal grandfather, “I had no idea you knew of such things.”

She chuckled. “That’s because you don’t know
my
mother.”

He reached across the seat for her hand, squeezing it. “I’d like to change that, if you don’t mind. With both your mother
and
your father.”

Betty slid closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder. “I’d like that too.” She sighed. “But first I’d better tell them about you.”

The car bounced and rattled as Pat shifted it to the side of the
road, where he slipped the gearshift to Park. Betty sat straight as he turned to her. “You haven’t told them about me? But Betts, we’ve been exclusive for the last several weeks.”

Betty laid her hand against Pat’s cheek. Even with her glove on, she could feel the light, masculine stubble. “Weeks, darling. Not
months
.”

He kissed her. “I knew after a
day
.”

She rubbed her nose against his. “Knew what?” she asked, keeping her eyes down.

“That you were it for me, Betty Estes. You’re the girl I’ve been waiting on—
gracious
. My whole life, I’d be willing to say.”

Betty slid her arms around his broad shoulders and felt his strong ones as they embraced her as well. “I feel the same way, Pat. I do. But . . .”

He drew his face back, his neck forming an extra chin. “But?”

She slipped back into his arms. “But I think it might be time to tell you about a certain man named George Volbrecht.”

Magda had tried on no fewer than six outfits before she settled on a simple, three-quarter-sleeved dress with a belted waist, light-flare skirt, and bow-shaped buttons from midbodice to the top of the V-neck. Upon inspection in the mirror, she thought the gentle green color gave her less of a vixen look and more of one that reflected maternal instinct.

She sighed. Perhaps that wasn’t wise either.

A tap on her open bedroom door caused her to swirl in its direction. “Inga,” she said, genuinely surprised by her sister’s presence. She held her arms out at forty-five-degree angles from her body. “How do I look?”

Inga stepped in as though she were a chief inspector—arms
crossed, eyes set on their subject. “Mmm-hmm-mmm-hmm,” she said, then looked to Magda’s face. “Not too sexy. Not too matronly. I’d say you’ve made the right choice.”

Magda released a pent-up breath. “Oh, good.” She took Inga by the hands. “You’re so much better at this than me.”

A look of sadness—or was it regret?—crossed Inga’s face, but only for the briefest moment. “I’ve had more practice,” she said, her words gentle.

“Inga, are you all right?”

Tears shimmered in her eyes, but she nodded in spite of them. “Just tired from all the traveling I’ve done lately.” She breathed in deeply and exhaled as though cleansing her body of something distasteful. “So nice to have a Sunday off.”

Magda turned back to her dresser and reached into the trinket box in the center for the only pair of elegant earrings she owned—clip-on drop rhinestones shaped like daisies losing their first petal.

He loves me,
she thought, remembering the childhood game she and Inga had played growing up. Their mother had called it “The Decision of the Flower” and had taught them to change “He loves me not” to “He loves me lots.”

“That way,” she’d said, smiling down at her cherub-faced daughters, “you are never without love.”

Magda sighed as she slipped on her gloves.

“I have something for you,” Inga said from behind her.

Magda half turned to see a simple one-strand pearl bracelet. Inga clasped it around her wrist, allowing it to fall beneath the glove’s hemline. “So when you take off the gloves, you’ll have something pretty to show off.”

“Where’d you get this?” Magda breathed. “It’s lovely.”

Inga shrugged. “It was just a gift. No biggie.”

Magda kissed her sister’s cheek. “I’ll be sure to get it back to
you,” she said as a knock at the front door reverberated through the apartment. Magda pressed a hand against her stomach. “Oh, dear.” Her eyes locked with a pair that looked exactly like hers. “I so want them to like me, Inga.”

Inga wrapped her in a hug. “They won’t have any other choice,” she said. “Just wait and see.”

Apparently, Magda thought as she sat with Barry and his family at one of the fanciest restaurants she’d ever dined in, waiting for their salads to be served, his children and mother-in-law had not gotten the memo about liking her.