Wedding Series Boxed Set (3 Books in 1) (The Wedding Series) (53 page)

Tris met his intense eyes. He remembered.

“Yes. Please.” Her voice seemed oddly breathless for such a mundane request.

Or maybe it wasn’t so odd, she decided as she watched him wrap one strong hand around the bottle and the other around the towel-covered cork. How hopeful she’d been that night. It had all seemed so simple, so inevitable. She’d discovered a bright, new feeling for Michael Dickinson and had been certain, deep in her heart, that he shared that feeling.

Now she knew the name for that feeling—love. She also knew that simple and inevitable were not among love’s guarantees.

He filled the last glass and put down the bottle, two drops from the lip of the bottle dropping to his finger. She followed his automatic motion as he brought his hand to his mouth, reaching out quickly to stop him short. He stood very still. Meeting his eyes, she brought his hand to her lips instead, sipping those two precious drops slowly and carefully.

He finally moved, twining his fingers into her hair and bracketing her cheeks with his palms, holding her face so his eyes bored into hers. She felt, as she had before, that he was searching for something that would answer forever his questions. She opened her eyes and her heart to him, hoping it would be enough.

When he abruptly brought his mouth down to hers, she couldn’t help a feeling of sadness at the same time she relished the feel of his lips and tongue and teeth. He hadn’t found the answer he’d been seeking.

Michael, if I could give you certainty I would. But only you have the power to believe in me, in my love
.

“Did you say you were going to find out what’s taking so long? With the champagne? In the kitchen?” Leslie’s raised voice of warning penetrated the mist of desire Michael so easily raised in Tris. She backed away quickly and was fussing with the tray when Grady and Paul came around the corner.

“Good. Here, you each carry a couple glasses and then we won’t need a tray.” She handed them the glasses and hustled them out of the kitchen, taking one covert look at Michael before heading to the living room with him following.

The look told her that he had been as affected by their kiss as she was. There were so many emotions in it. So many questions. So many declarations. She knew she couldn’t begin to sort them out.

She looked from Bette to Paul. She was thrilled for them, and she envied them.

They hadn’t always had a smooth road, she knew. But they’d passed that. They’d been sure enough to marry, and now sure enough to have a baby.

She wanted a baby. She wanted Michael’s baby, with Michael’s warm eyes and tousled hair and errant dimple. But how could that be, how could a marriage work for them if he didn’t truly believe she loved him?

“A toast,” Michael announced.

Everyone raised a glass, turning to Michael to say the words. His eyes never wavered from Tris. “To Paul and Bette, to old times, old friends and…”

She remembered the words she’d added to this same toast he’d made in the small room over the garage five months before. Would he remember? Would he give her hope by using them?

“ . . . and new beginnings.”

“Hear, hear,” came the voices around her. Michael leaned forward to clink his glass softly against hers. She saw him through a mist of tears. If only he could truly believe in the power of new beginnings.

Tris stared at her image in the bathroom mirror, and wished Michael’s were next to hers.

He’d said he was going to his office for a while before returning to his apartment to dress for tonight’s ball. He and Grady would pick up Leslie, then come here to get her, Paul and Bette.

She’d put on her dress, a shimmer of garnet red that rippled with light when she moved. But she’d never be ready if she didn’t stop staring into the mirror making useless wishes. She picked up her brush with determination.

If Michael were beside her, the wishes wouldn’t seem so useless. If she could keep him beside her all the time, maybe his doubts would finally be eased.

But that wasn’t realistic. Just as her first expectations five months ago that the new feelings they’d discovered for each other would be perfect weren’t realistic. How could she have expected them to switch from years of friendship to being lovers without any hitches? That was the foolishness of someone who, indeed, led with her heart, and she wasn’t that person anymore.

It made sense that Michael had doubts and concerns. It was reasonable and understandable, especially considering his family history and what he’d seen of her track record with relationships. She couldn’t blame him for not feeling the absolute sense of rightness that she experienced every time they touched. She might wish he could feel it, but she couldn’t blame him if he didn’t.

No, what she had to do was work to overcome his doubts.

And work she would, until he couldn’t do anything but believe she loved him. And when that happened, then . . . then, she’d take about two seconds to say yes if—no, when,
when
he again asked her to marry him.

“If you keep sighing like that you’re going to fog up the mirror.” Paul grinned at her from the doorway before being scooted aside by his wife.

“Why don’t you go wait downstairs? You’re all ready, but we have a few more finishing touches. Just a few minutes.”

Paul groaned as he went down the stairs but was wise enough not to question Bette’s time estimate.

Pulled from her reverie, Tris rapidly finished arranging her hair and checking her makeup. Gradually, she became aware of Bette watching her in the mirror. She met the look and saw sympathy and understanding there.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” Bette confirmed, but stayed where she was a moment longer. “Hang in there, Tris. It’ll work out, and he’s a wonderful man.”

“I know he is.”

“It’ll work out,” Bette repeated with a brief squeeze of Tris’s shoulders before they headed downstairs.

It had to. Please, it had to.

He closed the report slowly, not wanting even the rustle of paper to disturb the total quiet of the office or the acceleration of his thoughts.

Tris had done an impressive job. Her proposal sold itself. It was solid and professional—not the work of a wide-eyed, idealist girl, but of a pragmatic, resourceful woman. He’d responded to the former when she’d first talked about the proposal in August. He’d seen glimpses of the latter in the notes on her desk ten days ago. Which had he been expecting to encounter within the pages of this report?

He’d checked the phone number and was dialing before his mind acknowledged the impulse.

“Hello.” The voice was familiar and—yes, for all the faults—loved.

“Hello, Mom.”

“Michael! Dear, how wonderful to hear from you! Is everything all right? It’s been so long! Are you enjoying Washington? So exciting! Are you going to all the parties? Tell me what you’ve been doing!”

At the characteristic mixture of exclamations and questions, he found himself smiling a little as he complied. Then he listened to her enthusiastic description of the widower she’d seen every night since she’d met him the week before in the grocery store.

She was still like an exuberant teenager, still a kid. And for all his smooth sophistication, so was his father. To give them their due, he knew they’d done their best to love and care for him. But they’d never really grown up.

They’d never really grown up
.

The phrase seemed to slam into his mind, pumping an adrenaline mixture of hope and fear so strong that his hand shook a little as he said goodbye and hung up the phone.

They’d never really grown up
.

But Tris had.

The proposal under his hand was the solid proof of that. But he shouldn’t have needed that. His fear had made him equate her with his parents, but she’d never been like them. Even as the seventeen-year-old he’d first met. And certainly not as the woman he’d made love to five months ago and over the past two weeks.

Only now could he look into the past and see how his craving for permanency had blinded him. He’d seen Tris’s youthful infatuation for Grady, and because he wanted her to be so different from his parents—needed her to be so different—he’d imbued it with the trappings of a lifelong love. Even her marriage he’d twisted into some sort of echo of the one love his view of her had allowed. To meet his needs she could make no mistakes of the heart. Because if she did, then the fear lurking in him would pounce, and would convince him she indulged in the same undependable, unenduring loves he’d seen his parents go through.

He’d left her no middle ground, no room to be first a girl, trying out her heart, and then a young woman, making her mistakes and learning her way, and now a woman.

She was a woman now.
Wasn’t she
? A mature woman, who would know her own heart.
Wouldn’t she
? Who, if she said she loved somebody, truly did.
Didn’t she
? She’d been telling him that, and showing him, but he hadn’t believed it—he’d been afraid to believe it.

Afraid of the change?

What about her accusation that the person he loved was the girl Tris had been, not the woman she’d become? Was he so afraid of change that he couldn’t accept changes in her? Or was he so afraid of being his parents’ son that he refused to admit that his own love might have changed, might have grown out of a young man’s infatuation and into something deeper and richer?

“This was a definite tactical error, letting the three of them go to the bathroom together.”

Despite himself, Michael grinned at Paul’s grousing. Since the ladies’ cloakroom was inside the ladies’ lounge, they’d agreed to meet the three women at the base of the broad marble stairs that led from the entry level to the expansive ballroom. He, Paul and Grady had quickly shed their coats and now stood at the bottom of the stairs, waiting.

“Now, this is my idea of a ball.”

Michael turned from where he’d found an open spot by the turn-of-the-century-styled light post that flanked the bottom step, and followed Grady’s gaze, surveying the scene lit by chandeliers and the sparkling of silver and crystal. Tuxedoed men and expensively gowned women circled the packed dance floor, while more of the same watched from the gallery that hugged the sides of the room.

Paul’s waiting was less than patient. Michael thought he understood. He’d known that Paul and Bette had something special since the first time he’d seen them together. But now, when he saw them looking at each other, he saw something deeper. Something that spoke of a marriage that would last, and a commitment strong enough to rejoice at bringing a new life into the world. If Tris were carrying his child . . .

The image hit a velvet, heated blow to his heart. God, to have Tris carrying his child. He’d never let her out of his sight.

“Here they come.”

He heard the undercurrent of unreasoning relief in Paul’s voice, and felt a small echo of it in his own heart.

Turning back, he saw Tris immediately. She and Leslie flanked Bette with a faint air of protectiveness. He recognized that, along with the incredible picture the three women made, especially Tris, tall and straight and blond. But those impressions were pinpricks compared to the burst of awareness in his chest. A kaleidoscope of images overlapped, blurring time and geography as he saw Tris, long-haired and coltish, red-cheeked and irate, laughing and innocent, sleepy-eyed and wise. All Tris. All the woman he loved. All the woman who loved him.

He watched her gaze slide past Paul and Grady with a faint smile on her lips. And he watched her continue her search for something—or someone—else. Another image came into his mind, a double image of Tris coming down a church aisle toward him. Of the way she’d smiled from man to man at the altar until her eyes had met his, and how the impact of that look had rocked him. And how he’d forced his eyes away from her so she couldn’t see too deeply into him.

Not this time.

This time he had to risk it, had to risk seeing what was really there, had to risk letting himself believe in her love.

He made a slight movement toward her, and saw her find him. And he saw.

She lit up from within with the love.

It washed over him, cleansing long-ago scars, healing his wary heart with a belief strong enough to base a life on. He felt his heart expand within his tightening chest as she came into his arms unquestioningly.

He hugged her hard, trying to remember not to crush her. He’d tell her, he’d make her see what he had finally seen. Somehow. And he’d do it tonight, but not now. Not with a couple thousand celebration-minded revelers around them. For now, he’d just indulge in an hour or two of the kind of pleasurable pain known only to a man in love.

He nuzzled the intricate curves of the delicate ear exposed by the curve of her hair, and felt her answering shiver like a tingle of electricity in his nervous system.

“Let’s dance,” he breathed into her ear. “All the slow dances. Real slow.”

“Michael. How nice to see you this evening.”

He stifled a small groan as he loosened his arms from around Tris. Never in his life had he been less thrilled to hear Joan Bradon’s voice. He had no idea of how many dances they’d danced, but he knew it had grown harder with each one to remember they were in a public place, especially since Tris had shown no inclination to object when he’d found this secluded corner devoid of chandeliers.

Grown harder
. His mouth twisted at his mental choice of words. He slipped his arm around Tris’s waist, halfheartedly hoping her skirt would help mask his condition. Ah, well, Joan Bradon was the mother of three and grandmother of one, so she wouldn’t be particularly shocked. Besides, he had the feeling she’d sought him out in this secluded corner, and probably had a good idea of what she’d find.

“Joan. Nice to see you, too. I’d like you to meet Tris Donlin. Tris, this is Senator Joan Bradon.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, Senator Bradon.” Tris extended her hand and Joan met it immediately, then held on to it.