Male Order Bride (23 page)

She smiled, letting go of the past and focusing on the man
sitting beside her. She shook her head, but touched his hand to let him
know she liked having him touching her. At least Rafe wasn't opposed to
other people's weddings. She wouldn't be here now if he were.

After the wedding, Rafe took Lacey's hand and strolled out
of the church with her, meeting people and introducing her as they
stopped and chatted, asking directions to the reception. Lacey smiled.
She would never remember everyone's name, but clearly quite a few would
be remembering her after today. She was new, and she was with Rafe, and
that would be a subject for talk among his friends.

At the reception, Lacey stood proud and tall beside Rafe,
pleased that he had chosen to bring her with him. Groups of strangers
like this gave her a lot of information about the man she was with,
without telling her a word. Everyone seemed happy to see him, coming up
to him, shaking his hand, slapping him on the back, asking him,
"Remember when?" Someone who wasn't well-liked wouldn't be getting that
much attention, especially when the bride and groom were supposed to be
the stars of this show.

The couple arrived after the photo session at the church.
Lacey walked ahead of Rafe in the reception line, introducing herself
to stranger after stranger while he lingered slightly behind her,
talking with more friends from the wedding party. When they reached the
bride and groom, Lacey was delighted to see the surprise on the groom's
face that Rafe was here. Rafe had gone out of his way to attend, which
said something about his positive attitude toward marriage.

She started thinking again while he took time to talk with
the newly married couple. Dominick had gone with her to a wedding, but
it had taken a lot of coaxing and apologizing from Lacey after an
argument in which she had tried to convince him he should go. It had
been a miserable day for Lacey. She would have enjoyed it if she had
made excuses for Dominick and gone alone.

Dominick's latest girlfriend had been at the wedding,
which at least explained to Lacey why she had managed to talk him into
going with her. He had spent more time at the girl's side than he had
Lacey's. Lacey had felt miserable, plastering a smile on her face, but
fading into the background, trying not to put a blight on the happy
couple's day because of her own anger. Several of their friends knew
about the situation, and Lacey knew her bottled anger was obvious to
her best friend.

So Lacey sat in a chair in the corner, a single chair next
to an antique bureau so that it wouldn't be easy for anyone to sit next
to her or even stand comfortably and talk to her. She had a collection
of champagne glasses she kept adding to on the bureau beside her, and
she picked a nice blank spot on the opposite wall and smiled at it all
afternoon. She had already made up her mind it would do no good to tag
along after Dominick or hang on to his arm the way the girl was doing.

Dominick had come by a couple of times asking Lacey, "Is
anything wrong?"

Lacey had just stared back at him, smiling wider, but with
less warmth than she had given the blank wall.

"Can I get you some champagne?" he had asked her.

"Just exactly what I need," she said, looking at the four
glasses next to her and the fifth in her hand.

Dominick looked best in blinders. They suited his
personality. He had smiled and disappeared, returning with another
glass of champagne and handing it to her, saying, "I need to go talk to
Tom. See you later."

And he had left Lacey sitting there with a glass of
champagne in either hand. That was when the spirit had gone out of her
and she had decided a life with Dominick was hopeless. Even if she got
him to marry her, she would be more miserable than she was that day.
Seeing the happiness on her friends' faces on their wedding day told
her she hadn't felt that kind of happiness in a long time. It was an
innocent kind of expectation about what a life together would mean.
Problems might arise, but the love they had for each other would let
them work through the bad days together. Lacey had never felt that way
about Dominick. She had begun to wonder if it was possible for her to
ever feel that way, and then she had met Rafe.

"Is anything wrong?"

Lacey didn't respond at first; that was what Dominick had
asked her at the wedding that day.

"Lacey," Rafe said, putting his hand on her arm. "Are you
all right?"

Lacey blinked, and smiled: it wasn't Dominick. Rafe was
here now. Rafe wouldn't be so unkind as to parade his other girlfriends
in front of her. Surely they existed, but he knew enough to keep the
past behind them, as he would allow her to do. The present and the
future had started on the day they met.

"I'm fine, just don't get me any champagne."

He looked closely at her, not convinced by her words. He
had just seen her, standing alone, with all the life gone out of her.
It made him feel protective; he wanted to pull her into his arms and
tell her everything would be all right, whatever it was that was
bothering her. But he couldn't do more than touch her arm here in this
crowded room. "There isn't any champagne," he said, hoping his light
tone would bring a sparkle back to her eyes. "Will punch substitute?"

"Lovely," she said, her eyes focusing more clearly on Rafe.

He stared at her a moment longer. Whatever it was had
disappeared. She looked like herself again. He caught his breath,
realizing how tense he had become just watching her. A shaft of fear
had penetrated him when he had seen that look on her face. Now that it
was gone, he had time to think about it and realize he had felt a
measure of what life would have been like if she left him. For those
few minutes she hadn't been with him, but was in a world which had
excluded him. "If I go away and come back, will you still be here?"

Lacey smiled at him. "Of course," she said, and then
realized he was asking her something more serious than whether she was
going to move when he left her side to get a drink for her. "I don't
want to leave you," she said, reaching up and brushing his cheek with
the back of her hand. "The only thing that could make me do that is if
you tell me to go. And if you must do that, do me a favor?"

"What?"

"Come right out and tell me you want me to get lost. Don't
use any psychological warfare on me that's going to drive me away. I've
been through that. I'd rather have the walking orders given very
clearly, black and white, typed. Okay?"

Rafe leaned down and kissed her, ignoring the roomful of
people. Lacey was the most important thing that had happened to him in
a long time. She fit well into his world, too easily sometimes. How
could he have been so lucky as to find someone who put up with him as
he was, without trying to manipulate him to be the Prince Charming of
every girl's poster pinup, which he wasn't about to try to be. He was
Rafe Chancellor, take him or leave him. And she seemed to enjoy taking
everything he threw her way—from the ABC instructions he had
given her for their first meeting, to arriving in the 1933 Chevy with
someone else, to making love with him whenever the mere thought entered
his mind.

"Rafe…" Lacey said, touched by the tenderness
of his kiss, knowing it was unusual for him to display such emotion
with a crowd of people hovering around them, even if they weren't the
center of attention right now. "Rafe, I love you," she said, tired of
playing the wait-and-see game.

Rafe looked at her, confusion on his face. "I want to say
the same thing to you. I do," he said. "I love you too. But you don't
know what you're getting into."

"Maybe not, but I'm in already."

"I love what's happening between us, but I have Angela to
think of too, not that she won't like you when she meets you, but I
have a lot of responsibilities to think of that you don't deserve to
have dumped on you."

"What if I'm holding out my arms, waiting to accept it?"
she asked, smiling, her heart skipping because he had said "I love you"
and because now he was explaining why he hadn't been able to say the
words sooner. "I already accept the fact that you come as a tandem
deal. That just makes you more lovable to me. Angela was one of the
reasons I was so impressed by you when I first heard the legend of Rafe
Chancellor!"

Rafe sighed, wanting to say more, but this wasn't the time
or the place, and someone was trying to get his attention. He gave
Lacey a look that said, "I love you, I adore you, I'll be right back
with your punch," and he disappeared.

Story of my life with Rafe Chancellor
,
Lacey thought, grinning as she watched him walk away with an elderly
woman. Someone or something's always going to be taking him away from
me. She had better get used to the idea, because he was the type of
person who could be relied upon, and everyone who knew him knew that.
And he was the type of person who was driven by his own desires and
goals. To take that away from him would change him. Besides, during the
time he spent with her he gave her his full attention: quality time.
While no one could guarantee fidelity to her, Rafe was one man she
would put money on if it came to a contest.

They didn't have a chance to talk the rest of the
afternoon, as the events of the wedding continued to dominate
everyone's attention. First the cutting of the cake, then the toasts,
and more informal chatter. Whenever Rafe looked at Lacey or Lacey
caught his eye, they both knew they were thinking the same thing, that
all they wanted right now was a corner to themselves to discuss further
the love topic they had just introduced.

The bride was getting ready to toss her bouquet into the
air and someone was trying to round up all the eligible girls. Lacey
hung back, pretending attachment to Rafe. All she needed was a bouquet
to dangle in his face reminding him that she was the next to get
married. It would be nice, however, if he caught the garter.

They waited until the couple had changed clothes and were
ready to leave, taking satin roses filled with rice to throw at them as
they hurried from the building to the car, which someone had locked,
giving everyone who was in on the deception a chance to pour a sackful
of rice down the groom's collar.

It had rained while the reception took place. As promised,
the sun was peeking out of the clouds now and the streets were steaming
from the downpour. Rafe drove with his hand on Lacey's knee, which made
Lacey smile as she stroked his arm.

He took her to eat freshly caught seafood in a small
restaurant located right on the wharf where the fishing boats came in
each day. Lacey waited for Rafe to return to the subject they had
started at the wedding, but the conversation never seemed to head in
that direction. Yet the love lay unspoken between them. Lacey finally
decided all that needed to be said had been said. The problems Rafe
anticipated with Angela, and Lacey's acceptance of her, would have to
be worked out as they arose. Time alone would provide the answers to
their relationship.

She looked across the table at him in the flickering light
from the candle. The scarred side of his face was in
shadow—just as the circumstances surrounding how he had
gotten the wound wouldn't be brought to light unless Rafe decided to
tell Lacey about it. But she could still imagine the pain he must have
suffered. It probably had a connection with why he seldom showed his
emotions around her.

Being an officer, especially in Vietnam, had required that
he not reveal his feelings. He had to set an example for his men, and
that didn't involve opening up to them, telling them when he was
lonely, when he hurt, when he was just plain tired of holding
everything inside. He had to always give the appearance of granite
strength, even if that was the last thing he felt like inside. Lacey
could see where that kind of necessary conditioning could become second
nature to him. And she wouldn't have even thought about it if one of
his friends this afternoon hadn't told her about some of the missions
they had been on together in Vietnam.

"A good man to go to war with," his friend had described
Rafe to Lacey. Lacey smiled across the table at him now and thought he
was a good man to go anywhere and do anything with.

Because he had lived so long with that cold, calculating
existence, which might be behind him in fact, but would probably never
completely be behind him in mind, Lacey wanted to make up for what he
had missed. She wanted to be the tenderness and the loving and the
emotion he had denied himself out of duty to his country. She wanted to
be spontaneity and surprise and frivolity— especially
frivolity, because she liked to see him laugh.

There was no way she could tell him that. It would have
less impact put into words. Showing him was the best method. She hoped
he already saw some of her efforts in action, because she didn't want
to lose him. He gave her so much, things that she had never had before
and had not realized how important they could be. Like respect for her
as a person, wanting to see her be the best she could be in whatever
she chose. He watched in awe as she pursued her career, and supported
her efforts to make the business better and create a name for herself.
And he did his best to understand the complications of her field
instead of treating it, the way Dominick had done, as if it was a hobby.

Rafe gave her tenderness and loving and more variety than
she had yet had a chance to categorize and label. He constantly
surprised her with the diversity of his interests. His own dedication
to his goals in business and with his daughter challenged her to do
more with her latent abilities. He pulled her up when she was down, and
approached everything from a positive standpoint. She was almost afraid
to think negatively around him. The impossible was not in his
vocabulary. And he had never yet taken her for granted.