Mixed Blessings (4 page)

It was hard not to be swayed by Charlie's constancy, his adoration, his devotion, his just plain decency, and in the end Barbie decided that she really did love him. But now, standing here, it was terrifying all over again. What if she was doing the wrong thing? What if they hated each other in two years, or if it didn't even take that long? "Then what'll I do?" she whispered to Judi.

"It's a little late to worry about that now, isn't it?" Judi said, smoothing down her red lace dress. She had endless legs, and breasts that were exploding out of her cleavage. She had had implants done in Vegas by a doctor she knew there who gave her a great deal on the surgery, and everyone she knew thought they were terrific. Except Barbie, who had thought buying boobs was silly, because her own were big, firm, and real. But hell, Judi told herself, from a distance, who could tell the difference?

Barbie had a sensational figure, with her full bust in sharp contrast to her tiny waist, which was so small that Charlie could put his hands around it and almost touch his fingers. She wasn't tall, but she had shapely legs. She was a striking-looking girl, and even in a burlap bag, she would somehow have managed to look sexy. She just did, no matter what she wore. And now in the short, tight, white satin wedding gown, she was an overwhelming contrast of the innocent and the erotic.

"Do you think my dress is too tight?" She looked nervously at Judi again. She felt as though they'd been waiting forever.

She didn't know why they couldn't just have gone to City Hall, but Charlie had insisted he wanted a "real" wedding.

This wedding had meant everything to him, so she'd gone along with it for his sake. She would have been a lot happier spending the weekend in Reno. But Charlie had planned everything, and invited all his friends. They were having sixty guests, and she knew this was the fanciest hotel in L.A.except maybe the Beverly Hills Hotel, she had told him, but he had insisted this one was even better. They'd chosen the least expensive menu, and the simplest plan, but he'd wanted their wedding here, even if it wiped out most of his savings. "You deserve it," he'd said to Barbie.

"Your dress is fine," Judi reassured her, and she honestly thought the other girl looked terrific. Scared, but very pretty.

"Everything's gonna be okay, kid. Just relax." She was beginning to wonder what the delay was, and then finally Charlie's best man appeared, and the music began. Charlie had hired a bass, a violinist, and an electric piano for the occasion.

They played "Here Comes the Bride," and Judi looked toward the little gazebo that had been set up for the occasion.

Charlie had found a minister somewhere, and he hadn't asked Barbie too many questions about being a Mormon, so she had finally agreed to let him do the wedding.

And then Mark, the best man, offered Barbie his arm, and looked down at her with a fatherly smile. He was twice Charlie's age, and heavyset.

He had been Charlie's supervisor at work for two years, and in some ways, he was almost like his father. He was still a good-looking man, although he was overweight, and little rivers of perspiration were running down the sides of his face from the neatly combed gray hair at his temples.

He looked very serious as he bent toward Barbie just before they began their walk toward the gazebo.

"Good luck, Barbara . . . Everything's going to be just fine." He patted her hand, and she tried not to let herself think of her father.

"Thanks, Mark." He had agreed to give the bride away, and be best man.

He had also given them all their champagne, because his brother-in-law knew a wholesaler with a terrific source in the Napa Valley. He wanted everything to be right for them. He was divorced himself, and had two daughters, one married, and the other in college.

They started off down the aisle, and Barbara tried not to think of what lay ahead, the wedding, or the years of commitment. And then suddenly there he was . . . Charlie looking so sweet and innocent and young, with his blue eyes and red hair and sweet smile. He was wearing a white dinner jacket with a white carnation on the lapel, and he looked like a kid who had borrowed the jacket from his father for the senior prom. It was hard to be afraid of him, or of committing her life to him. And as Mark squeezed her hand encouragingly, she suddenly realized that all her fears were incredibly foolish. No harm would come to her as Charlie's wife. She was doing the right thing, and suddenly she knew it.

"I love you," he whispered as she stood at his side, and as she looked at him, she realized that she really loved him. He was doing something wonderful for her, he was giving her a beautiful new life, and offering to protect her forever. No one had ever done anything like that for her, and she knew, as she looked at him, that he would never fail her.

She was suddenly sorry for all the doubts she'd had, all the fears, all the times she had secretly thought she could do better. He was just right for her, a good friend, a good man, a good husband, and she had been a fool to want more. She was thirty years old, and Prince Charming was obviously otherwise engaged somewhere on another planet.

Charlie Winwood was enough of a prince for her, she didn't need more than that, didn't want more than he had to offer.

"I love you, Charlie," she whispered to him as he put the ring on her finger, and when he kissed her, he cried, and she held him close to her, wanting to make up to him for all the loneliness in his life and all the sorrow.

"I love you so much, Barb There were no words to tell her how much he loved her.

"I promise, I'll be a good wife . . . I really will "I know you will, sweet girl." He smiled at her, and later he toasted her with Mark's champagne, and then led her out on the temporary dance floor. They had set a small dance floor out on the lawn, and there was a buffet near the bar, just beyond the music.

It was a terrific party and everyone had a good time, particularly the bride and groom, both of whom drank handsomely of Mark's champagne, as did all the other guests. And Mark seemed to be having a good time, dancing withJudi. Everyone was in high spirits by the time the band started playing things like "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "Hava Nagila."

Afterward, they played some slow music again, to get everyone calmed down and cooled off. They played "Moon River," and Mark asked the bride to dance, while Charlie danced with Judi.

"You're a beautiful bride, Barb," Mark told her as they danced slowly around the floor. There were a million stars in the sky, and it was warm. It was a magical evening. "You two are going to have a wonderful life," he said with certainty.

"And a lot of gorgeous kids to show for it," he announced with assurance.

"How can you be so sure?" she asked, smiling at him. He was a nice man, and a good friend.

"Because I'm so old, and I know so much. And I know how much Charlie wants children." She knew it, too, but she had already told Charlie that she wanted to wait a few years, so she could pursue her career as an actress. He wasn't thrilled with that idea, but they had both agreed to talk about it later. He didn't know it yet, but having kids was the one thing that really scared her. And even Mark talking about it now gave her a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"May I cut in?" Charlie smoothly interrupted Mark, and handed Judi over to him, as he made off with his bride for the last dances of the evening. They had both had a lot to drink, but Barbie felt as though she were in a dream, and all of the people there seemed so happy. "Did you have a good time?" he asked as he nuzzled her neck, feeling her breasts pressing against him. Every time he touched her it just drove him crazy, and she loved to have a good time. She never said no, she never objected to anything he wanted to do, she was a good sport, and a hell of a sexy woman. He felt like the luckiest guy in the world as he twirled his bride around the dance floor.

"I had a great time." She grinned happily at him. "What about you?"

"Best wedding I ever had." He smiled at her. They were almost the same height, and he looked her in the eye, feeling as though he owned the world.

"That's not saying much." She pretended to pout, and he pulled her even closer.

"You know how happy I am, Barb . . . at least I hope you do. For me, this is the dream of a lifetime." It was the beginning of everything he never had. The love, the warmth, the home, the family, everything he had so desperately wanted.

"I know," she whispered, and her head swam dizzily as he kissed her.

All she could think of now was lying on the beach at Waikiki with him.

They were leaving for Hawaii in the morning on a great package deal.

And they were spending their wedding night in Charlie's apartment. The had talked about spending their wedding night at the Bel Air, but they just couldn't afford it, and she didn't care. She already knew that she would never, ever forget this night or this moment.

In Santa Barbara that night, there was a star-filled sky, too, as twenty-five friends stood silently watching Pilar Graham and Bradford Coleman kiss in the moonlight. There was a long silence and then they turned to look at their friends, with a startled, happy look, and everyone laughed and cheered and applauded. Marina Goletti, the judge who had performed the ceremony, declared them man and wife, and they were instantly surrounded by well-wishers.

"What took you so long?" a friend of Brad's teased.

"We were practicing," Pilar said in a dignified voice, as the white silk Grecian gown molded her long, lithe figure. She swam and exercised every day, and Bradford liked to tell her that she had the body of a young girl. She was a beautiful woman and she was proud of the thick, straight gray hair that hung to her shoulders. It had been almost white since her early twenties, and she had worn it that way for almost twenty years now.

"Thirteen years is a long time to practice!"

One of her law partners, Alice Jackson, whispered to her, "We're glad you finally figured it out and married Brad." She smiled.

"Yeah." Her other partner, Bruce Hemmings, added, "I know, you two just didn't want any scandal now that Brad's been made a judge."

"You got that right." Brad's deep voice rang out just next to her, as he gave Pilar's shoulders a squeeze. "I didn't want anyone accusing her of sleeping with the judge to get special favors."

"As though you'd be that good to me!" Pilar teased right back, as she leaned her body against him. Everything about them suggested the comfortable and intimate and familiar.

And the interesting truth was that they had been archenemies for three years, after Pilar had graduated from law school and moved to Santa Barbara. She'd gotten a job as a public defender and he'd been a prosecutor, and it seemed as though every major criminal case that came up pitted them against each other. She hated his ideas, his politics, his style, his relentless way of hammering at a case until he won, or simply wore down the jury. And more than once, their tempers had flared and they'd had raging battles in the hall outside the courtroom.

They'd been called to order by the bench more than once, and Pilar had almost spent a night in jail for contempt of court when she'd called Brad a bastard in front of a judge once. But Brad had been so amused by her attack that time that he had compounded matters even more by inviting her to dinner as soon as court was recessed.

"Are you insane? Did you hear what I said?" she had asked him as they made their way out of the courtroom. She was still trembling with anger over his style in trying a rape case.

"You still have to eat. And your client is guilty and you know it."

She did know it, and she was uncomfortable, but someone still had to defend him, to the best of his or her ability, and that was her job, whether Brad Coleman liked it or not.

"I'm not going to discuss my client's innocence or guilt with you, Mr.

Coleman. That's improper. Is that why you want me to have dinner with you? So you can get me to admit something you'll use against me?" She was furious with him, and she didn't give a damn if he was attractive.

He was the Cary Grant of the prosecutor's office. He was in his late forties, had snowwhite hair, and all the women in her office talked constantly about how handsome he was, and how sexy. Pilar Graham was not interested in that, not with him. As far as she was concerned, this was strictly business.

"I wouldn't stoop to that," Bradford Coleman said quietly, "and I think you know that. I wish you worked in our office, instead of for the public defender. I'd like to be on the same side of a case with you sometime. We could do one hell of a lot of damage to the opposition."

She had to smile at what he said, and she was flattered by his words, but she didn't go to dinner. She knew he was a widower and he had kids, and she knew he was universally liked. But all she could see when she saw him was her opponent. She never allowed herself to see more than that, until they were once again adversaries in an illustrious case that had been smeared all over the papers. It was a big murder case, and unfortunately, the press had grabbed onto it, and were making as much of it as they could, and it was very ugly. A young girl was involved, accused of murdering her mother's lover. She said the lover had tried to rape her, but there was no evidence of it, and the mother sided against her. The testimony was long and arduous in that trial, the lawyers' tactics brutal, and then halfway through the trial, Bradford Coleman had come to her, quietly, simply, and told her that due to new evidence, he had come to believe that her client wasn't guilty. He asked for a recess, and became the champion of the young girl's cause. It was his skill and his careful investigation that had freed the girl, Pilar always said, not her own work. She had gotten nowhere. And it was then that they had finally had dinner. After three long years. Nothing ever came easily to them, or quickly.

His children had been thirteen and ten by then. Nancy was thirteen, and Todd ten, and from the moment they met Pilar, they resisted the idea that she was going out with their father.

Their mother had been dead for five years and they had had Brad exclusively to themselves ever since then. They had no intention of giving him up, even part time, to another woman.