The Cinderella Deal (12 page)

Move before she wakes up,
he told himself, but he didn’t want to. She was so soft and warm and round and he felt so good pressed up against her. It took all the self-control he had not to move his hand up to the fullness of her breast. She’d be terrific to sleep with in the winter, he thought as he moved his cheek against her. hair, and then he realized that he wouldn’t be sleeping with her in the winter.
She’d be terrific to sleep with anytime,
he thought, growing dizzy with the thought.
Maybe we could…

No. The last thing in the world he needed was to have an affair with a temporary wife. That would simply add an emotional element to an already impossible situation. No, no, no.

So why is your arm still around her
? he asked himself.

“Why is your arm around me?” Daisy asked sleepily.

“I never had a teddy bear when I was little.” Linc held himself very still. “I’m compensating. Go back to sleep. This is completely asexual.”

“I don’t think so.” Daisy yawned and stretched a little, which compounded Linc’s problem. “Is that a gun in your pajamas, or are you just glad to wake up with me?”

He rolled away from her and got up to get dressed. “That’s your imagination.”

“Right,” she said, and fell back asleep.

She had to be the calmest woman in the world. Either that or she trusted him completely. That was depressing somehow. He went to take a cold shower.

After Linc left, Daisy took a cold shower.
Do not think about this man,
she told herself as she shuddered under the icy water.
Do not think about how good he felt wrapped around you. Do not think about how good all that hardness would have felt moving inside you.

She felt hot in spite of the cold water.
Stop it, Daisy
, she told herself.
He’s not the kind of person you want to get involved with. Just marry him and forget him
.

Right.

She plunged into her work, concentrating on unpacking her clothes and answering the phone and planning the house.

Linc called and his voice made her warm again. She listened absently to him telling her that their blood tests were at eleven and that he’d called his mother.

Pansy
, she thought guiltily, and then asked, “What did she say?”

“Congratulations.”

“That’s it?”

“She said she’d try to be here for the wedding.”

“Oh.” Meeting Linc’s mother was probably going to go a long way toward explaining his furniture and his car.

“My brothers are coming,” Linc went on. “We’d better make some reservations at the college inn. One for my brothers and one for my mother in case she makes it. Anyone else?”

“Julia. She’s driving over on Wednesday. And my mother. I haven’t called her yet, but she’ll be here.”

“Oh, great.” He sighed. “At least it’ll all be over by Friday.”

Daisy looked at the phone in disbelief. No, it wouldn’t. That’s when it would start. They’d be
married
. The thought galvanized her into action and she called her mother.

“Mom, this is Daisy.”

“How are you, baby?” Her mother’s voice was vague as usual, and Daisy pictured her staring into space, trying to concentrate.

“I’m getting married, Mom.”

Pansy’s voice sharpened considerably. “What? To who? Since when? I don’t understand.”

Daisy took a deep breath and plunged into her mother’s questions. “He’s a wonderful man, Mom. A college professor. He just swept me off my feet. We’re getting married Thursday here in Prescott, Ohio.”

“Where?” Pansy’s voice rose to a squeak. “What’s going on?”

“I’m marrying Lincoln Blaise in Prescott, Ohio, on Thursday,” Daisy repeated. “Can you come?”

“Can I come? What are you talking about? Of course I can come. Oh, Daisy, are you sure?”

Not at all,
she wanted to say, but instead she said, “I’m positive, Mom. Let me give you the address and phone number.” Daisy repeated it twice while Pansy dithered on the other end of the line.

“Oh, dear,” Pansy said finally. “Are you sure? Oh, Daisy. Let me call you back.”

There was a dial tone suddenly, and Daisy blinked at the phone. What could her mother possibly be doing?

Half an hour later, as Daisy was going out the door to meet Linc for the blood tests, the phone rang again.

“I found Prescott on the map,” Pansy said. “It’s near Dayton. I’m flying in this afternoon at one-fifteen, so you come pick me up, and then we can talk.”

“This afternoon.” Daisy closed her eyes. “You bet, Mom. This afternoon.”

Chickie called a minute later, catching her again on her way out the door, to tell her that they had a judge lined up for Thursday, and that they needed to order a cake and a dress.

“Let’s do the dresses this afternoon.” Chickie’s voice came over the phone vivid with excitement. “We’ll drive to Dayton and pick them out and then we can make sure the cake and the napkins coordinate.”

“Dresses? Coordinate?” Daisy sat down on the floor.

“How many bridesmaids are you having?”

“Bridesmaids?”

“Oh, honey…”

“One.” Julia was going to drive in for the wedding anyway. She might as well participate.

“Size?”

“Small,” Daisy said, thinking she’d look like a giantess at her own wedding.

“I’ll pick you up at twelve. We can have lunch first. Is that okay with you, honey?”

“Make it twelve-thirty,” Daisy said. “I’ve got blood tests right now and the bank. And we might have to have lunch at the airport because I’m picking my mother up at one-fifteen.”

“Oh, good,” Chickie said, but she didn’t sound enthusiastic.

Daisy headed for the door and the phone rang again. She picked it up prepared to tell Linc she was on her way, but a woman answered.

“This is Gertrude Blaise.” Linc’s mother had a voice like unrisen bread.

Daisy heard herself chirping to compensate for the deadness on the other end of the line. “Mrs. Blaise. How nice—”

“I am driving down today but I am not sure of the location of the campus. Could you please arrange for Lincoln to meet me at the Dayton airport at one o’clock? He is not answering his office phone.”

She heard the front door open and turned to see Linc coming in.

“Daisy, we’re late—” he began, and she grabbed him by his tie.

“He just came in the door, Mrs. Blaise,” she told his mother. “But I’ll be able to meet you at the airport. My mother’s coming in at the same time. We can all talk.”

There was a long silence as Linc looked confused and Gertrude thought things over. “Thank you,” she said finally. “That will be most satisfactory.” Then she hung up.

Linc peeled her fingers off his neckwear. “What’s going on?”

Daisy looked at him with undisguised distaste. She was going to spend the Afternoon in Hell while he went out to the college and taught people who couldn’t talk back if they wanted to graduate. “Your mother and my mother are both coming into Dayton this afternoon. Chickie and I will be picking them up, and then we’re going to buy a wedding dress and order a cake. All of us. Together.” She folded her arms and looked at him.

“I’ll make it up to you somehow.” Linc’s eyes were full of sympathy. “I don’t know how, but I’ll find a way.”

The phone rang again. “We have given that number to too many people,” Daisy told him, and went to get her purse while he answered it. When she came back, he said, “The movers aren’t bringing your furniture until Thursday.”

“I’m getting married Thursday.”

“So am I. Maybe we can make them ushers.”

Linc’s mother wasn’t hard to spot at the airport; she looked just like her son. Tall and broad with dark eyes and iron-gray hair that must have once been black like Linc’s, she looked like the kind of woman who would raise repressed sons. She looked like a prison warden right before the big break, sensing the tension in the air. She looked like Linc when he was being a pain in the butt.

“I’m Daisy.” Daisy walked up to her and extended her hand. “And I’m just so pleased—”

“Thank you for meeting me.” Gertrude did not extend her hand, so Daisy transferred the gesture into a wave toward Chickie.

“And this is Chickie Crawford. She’s having the wedding and the reception for us in her garden.”

“We just love your son.” Chickie grabbed for the hand that Daisy hadn’t captured. “Linc is just the sweetest thing.”

She exhaled a lot of gin, and Gertrude looked at her with distaste. “Thank you. I am parked in the short-term parking lot, so if we could go to the hotel now…”

“Oh, no,” Chickie said gaily. “We’re going to pick out Daisy’s dress first.”

“I have to get over to Gate Thirty-one.” Daisy backed away. “I’m late. My mother—”

“We’ll be right behind you, honey,” Chickie said, and Daisy left the two women together and ran for the other gate, where she found Pansy pacing and checking her watch.

“Oh, Daisy!” Pansy fell on her and cried, her fluffy yellow curls bobbing with her sobs. “My baby.”

“Easy, Mom. I’m all right.”

“You’re getting married.” Pansy hung on Daisy, looking up from her five feet two inches at the giant of a daughter she’d borne.

“You’re going to love him, Mom. He’s a nasty-looking Yankee. A carpetbagger if I ever saw one.”

“Did he just sweep you off your feet?” Pansy had pulled back and was clasping Daisy’s shoulders, looking up into her eyes. “Do you just love him to death?”

“Absolutely,” Daisy said, and stopped when she realized she sounded like Linc. She waved her ring hand at her mother. “Isn’t my ring cute?”

“He got you pearls,” Pansy said in a flat voice. “Why not diamonds?”

Oh, boy. “Because I wouldn’t wear diamonds. He gave me my own checking account to do whatever I want with. And he wants me to paint full-time. He calls me Magnolia. And”—Daisy searched desperately for something else that was true that would make Linc look good—“and he’s never been married before. And he bought me this darling little Victorian house and told me I can decorate it any way I want, and—”

“Oh, Daisy, he sounds wonderful.” Pansy began to cry again.

Good
, Daisy thought,
because I was running out of things to say. I was down to the Nazi car and furniture, and that would have been bad
.

“Yoo-hoo!”

“And this is Chickie and Gertrude!” Daisy made the introductions as cheerily as possible. Gertrude took being called by her first name fairly well for a prison warden. Chickie and Pansy sized each other up, two southern belles not happy to share the charm sweepstakes.

“Gotta get my dress!” Daisy swept them all off to the car, cursing Linc, who was safe in Prescott.

“Now, for your flowers I think you should have roses,” Chickie said as they drove down the interstate. “Pink roses.”