Tomorrow Will Be Too Late (6 page)

‘Just forgot something
.’ S
he smiled at the puzzled waiter and walked on, locating the second exit and
opening the back door with one decisive push. Once outside, she paused, her back pressed against the industrial door. The shoes were the first thing to go, she decided,
pulling
them off and
tossing
them
in
to
the dumpster
at the back of
the
restaurant. The thudding sound of them landing in the metal bin made her shiver, her bare feet cold and sensitive on the gravel. She should keep
going,
she decided, afraid that he might come back to look for her after all.

The street full of people seemed safe enough
,
and soon she was blending in, barely anyone noticing her bare feet. She wove her way from store to store, aware of the bigger and bigger distance she put between herself and the bar. In the end
,
she felt safe enough to flag a cab, slipping into the yellow car with a sigh of relief. She gave the driver her home address and relaxed, her eyes looking at the street outside the window. She didn’t even notice she was crying until the view was too blurry to tell where they were going. She wiped her wet cheeks with the back of her palm, biting her lower lip until she tasted blood. She would not fall apart in a cab, for god
’s
sake! The driver would be horrified, his cautious glances in the
rear view
mirror telling her he was already worried about his passenger. She would have to suck it up just a bit longer, she told herself, as she wrapped her arms around her
self
, her knuckles white with effort.

Just a moment longer, and the miserable evening
would
be over, forever. The memory of Justin’s blue eyes and handsome smile would fade away
together with
the
pain that radiated from her already swollen ankle. And while she was sure she could recover from the physical pain quite easily, she wasn’t so sure about the first part. But she could always hope…

‘
Alice, I don’t know
.
’ Kate found herself cornered between the large fridge and the solid slab of the granite countertop in her
sister
’s kitche
n.
She had
no escape from
Alice’s
accusing glare
as
her sister
charged once again. She wasn’t very impressive with her five foot
three
, hundred
and
ten pound frame, but whatever
Alice
lacked in size was made up for with spirit many times over and then some.

‘What exactly don’t you know?’
Alice
asked, her brown
eyes furious. ‘
How
many times do you think I
’
m planning on getting married? Is it too much to ask to
have
my one and only sister be my
maid of honor
? Wow, that’s something you don’t get to hear every day
.
’

She practically dragged Kate to her bedroom, her face stormy and determined.

‘Here, tell me that you don’t like it.’ She demanded, pointing to
the
perfectly made bed.

‘
Oh
, all right, there
’
s no need to be so dramatic.’ Kate grabbed the dress that lay on the bed between them, a vivid splash of aquamarine against the pristine white coverlet. It had not
one
single wrinkle on it, Kate noticed with morbid amusement, her sister’s perfectionism something she
had come
to admire and hate at the same time. ‘That’s what I
’
m supposed to wear?’
she
asked resignedly, knowing that any further resistance was futile. Alice wanted her to be her
maid of honor
,
and she couldn’t really come up with one good reason why it was impossible.

‘
It
will go great with your hair and eyes.’ Alice eyed her critically, her perfect little nose
crinkled
as she added
,
‘
Of
course
,
it would look a bit better if you weren’t so tanned, Kate. You
’
ll stick out like a sore thumb with your Australian tan, but I guess that’s something that can’t be dealt with, right? What were you doing there, kiddo? I thought you went for a project
,
not for
lazing
on a beach with local hunks.’

‘I was working most of the time,’ Kate
said with a grin
, the note of envy in her sister’s voice something so rare and precious that it deserved to be relished and savored to its very limits
.
For most of their lives, Alice
was the one
who took the better share of the pie, be it the looks or the grades or even the boys she dated.
Her latest success was the reason why they were sitting here,
inside,
wasting a perfectly sunny
May
afternoon. Alice was getting married to no
ne
other
than
Thomas
Garrison Jr. His family was definitely crème de la crème of the local society, their orchards, horse
breeding
,
and
eco
-
gardening known to everyone.

The only thing Kate had
going
for her was her work
,
and she
had been
immensely proud to be cherry
-
picked by the agency to travel for a
yearlong
project in Sidney. The campaign she worked on was a huge success
,
and she
had been
extended for another year, jumping on this opportunity with enthusiasm that made her mom worry she had raised a true workaholic. Kate had to spend a lot of time explaining to her that no, she didn’t plan on a
permanent
move to Down Under,
and yes, she realized there were other things in life than work and campaigns, however important and influential they might be.

She was back now, enjoying a
four-week
break before starting work on another project. She seriously doubted that she needed such a long vacation, but she went along, if only to make her mother happy. Being back in Seattle had its pluses, she thought now, watching her sister dig in her closet to fish out a shoe box and open it with such triumph
,
as if it contained real treasure.

‘
See
,
th
e
se are the shoes that go with the dress
.’ S
he picked up a pair of silver sandals that consisted
of
nothing more
than
a few strips of glossy leather and heels that made
Kate
second
-
guess her decision. ‘You
’
ll look wonderful
,
and Sarah can just eat her heart out
,
’
Alice
added, her face
determined
.

Sarah was Thomas’
s
sister
,
and so far the two women didn’t get along well. Kate suspected that it was
a battle where both sides were guilty as charged, her sister’s big mouth and honesty not everyone’s cup of tea, thank you very much. Sarah
had been
the baby of the family for the last
twenty-four
years and was certainly used to getting all the attention. She
had
let Alice know
,
in not the subtlest of ways
,
how much she
did
not look forward to step
ping
aside
one bit
to allow her to join the ranks of the Garrison clan.

‘Why don’t you ask her to be your
maid of honor?’
Kate
asked her sister now, bracing herself against the storm that would follow. ‘
Maybe
that could be seen as a gesture of goodwill
,
and you’d get along better?’

‘Forget about it
.
’ Alice shrugged and plopped on the bed, looking utterly defeated. ‘I know exactly what his whole family thinks of our marriage as it is. You haven’t been around for ages
,
Kate
,
so you have no clue what I have been dealing with here.’
She
grabbed one of the plump, perfectly square pillows and hugged it, her eyes sad. ‘
They
think I
’
m after T
om
’s money,
Kate
. That I
’
m no better than some gold-digger
who found a rich boyfriend and is trying to cash
in on it
.
You should have been there when we announced we would be getting married. I thought his mother would die on the spot and his dad have a heart attack.
’

She smiled bitterly and looked away, fighting her tears. Kate knew how proud her sister was and how futile it would be to try
to make
her feel better with some well
-
meant
,
but meaningless
,
comment. Instead she sat and listened, feeling guilty for not being there for
Alice
in the last
twenty-four
months.

‘I know that we made up our minds rather fast
,
’ Alice grumbled
,
her voice calm again. ‘
But
that’s how it is sometimes, right? Do you believe in
love
at
first sight, Kate?’ S
he look
ed at her expectantly, her
eyes wide open.

The forbidden picture of a man’s face, elegant and handsome with its blue
eyes,
straight nose
,
and firm
,
yet
sensuous
,
mouth rose before
Kate’s
inner eyes faster than she could react, her heart tightening painfully. She made an inhuman effort to smile as she exiled it to the part of her brain that kept it safely locked away. She had been doing it quite successfully for the last two years
,
and she was starting to cautiously hope that maybe she was finally over what happened back then. But it was moments like that
—
a careless comment or even a movie or a
book—that
had the power to bring it back, the emotions as fresh as if it
were
just yesterday.

‘I’m not sure
,
’
she
answered, realizing that
Alice
was still waiting for her answer. ‘
Some
people swear by it, but to be completely honest
,
I have to yet see it work out with my own eyes. I think it
’
s mostly movies and books that propagate this myth, with real life being not such a fairy tale at all
.
’

‘
My,
my
,
aren’t we bitter
.
’
Dripping
with irony, Alice’s voice lowered dangerously, as she
gave
her younger sister a pitying look. ‘
Well
, you don’t know what you’re talking about, obviously. For your information, I think it exists
,
and what’s more, that is
exactly what happened to Thomas
and me. We ran into each other by accident, talked for a moment
,
and boom… I knew this was the
person
I wanted to
s
pend the rest of my life with. Same for him, apparently. He asked me to marry him just
three
months
later
,
and even that was longer than he originally planned to wait. He just didn’t want to scare me off
,
’
she
finished happily, her cheeks pink with pleasure.

‘Well, I
’
m sure that you guys will be the exception that proves the rule.’ Kate grinned, unable to fight such enthusiasm. ‘
Isn’t
it a bit late for me to jump into the wedding like that
,
though?’ she asked tentatively, the big day looming on the horizon in less than three weeks. ‘
Knowing
you
,
I would have thought that you would have lined up backup
s
of your backup
s
of your bridesmaids by now,
Alice
.’