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The Groom Said Maybe!
Sandra Marton
Three Brides, three grooms - and they all meet at THE WEDDING OF THE YEAR When the bride's mother sat Stephanie Willingham and David Chambers together, well, enough sparks flew to start a fire! Stephanie was a woman in search of a lawyer, David was one of the best. Stephanie revealed that she needed money, no questions asked, and David confessed he needed a fiancee, quickly.Suddenly, they had a full-scale blaze on their hands! Stephanie and David thought theirs would be a cool engagement of convenience… until passion melted their hearts. Could they make it to the altar?Find out in this, the third and final part of Sandra Marton's thrilling trilogy!


Letter to Reader (#u08af088f-1727-5f8b-aece-0bda9d0deca6)Title Page (#uf29215a5-4d13-51c9-90be-b413cfaea704)CHAPTER ONE (#u30121b7d-d09b-59d4-89b0-f5ddeecc2595)CHAPTER TWO (#uc81c4c1b-8b91-52d9-b6ff-9885c2e2c073)CHAPTER THREE (#ue9cb2429-db03-51b1-96ec-fc1a7b985268)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Happy 25th birthday, Harlequin Presents,
May the next 25 years be as much fun!
Love, as always,
Carole Mortimer
Dear Reader,
I have a confession to make: I love weddings! Fancy ones, simple ones—it doesn’t matter. I end up happily sniffling into a tissue each time. What could be more fun, I thought, than writing about a wedding? Writing about three weddings, that’s what! Welcome to the sexy, funny, tender and exciting tales of three brides and three grooms who all meet at—that’s right—a wedding! Three books, three couples...three terrific stories. Here’s the third—and the last. You’ll enjoy it, even if you haven’t read The Bride Said Never! and The Divorcee Said Yes!—though I hope you have!
Stephanie Willingham is thirty-five, stunning and a widow. David Chambers is divorced. He’s an attorney and a rancher, as handsome and rugged as the Arizona hills he calls home. Each has enough memories of just how bad marriage can be to last them a lifetime. Theirs will be an engagement of convenience... or so they think, until the sparks begin to fly in The Groom Said Maybe!
Settle back, open up a box of chocolates and enjoy. If you want to drop me a line, I’d love to hear from you. Write to me at: P.O. Box 295, Storrs, Connecticut 06268, or E-mail me via SandraMarton@worldnet.att.net
With my warmest regards,


Sandra Marton
The Groom Said Maybe!
Sandra Marton

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
DAVID CHAMBERS sat in the back row of the little Connecticut church and did his best to appear interested in the farce taking place at the altar.
He had the sneaking suspicion he wasn’t managing to pull it off very well, but then, how could he?
Lord, what utter nonsense!
The glowing bride, the nervous groom. The profusion of flowers that made the chapel look like a funeral parlor, the schmaltzy music, the minister with the faultless vocal cords intoning all the trite old platitudes about loving and honoring and cherishing one another...
David frowned and folded his arms. He felt as if he were sitting through the second act of a predictable comedy, with act three—The Divorce—lurking in the wings.
“Dawn and Nicholas,” the minister said, his voice ringing out with emotion, “today you embark upon the greatest adventure of your young lives...”
Beside David, a woman with a helmet of dark hair sat clutching her husband’s arm with one hand and a frilly handkerchief with the other. She was weeping silently and wearing a look that said she was having the time of her life. David’s blue eyes narrowed. Other women were sobbing, too, even the bride’s mother, who certainly should have known better than to be moved by such saccharine sentiment.
Any human being over the age of thirty should have known better, dammit, especially the ones who’d been divorced, and their number was legion. David suspected that if a voice suddenly boomed down from the choir loft and demanded that all those who’d lost the marriage wars stand up, the shuffling of feet would drown out the cherub-faced man at the altar.
“Nicholas,” the minister said, “will you take Dawn to be your lawful wife?”
The woman next to David gave a choked sob. David looked at her. Tears were streaming down her cheeks but her mascara was intact. Amazing, how women came prepared for these things. The makeup that didn’t run, the lace hankies... you never saw a woman carrying a hankie except at weddings and funerals.
“In sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer...”
David slouched in his seat and tuned out the drivel. How much longer until it was over? He felt as if he’d spent the last week airborne, flying from D.C. to Laramie, from Laramie to London, from London to D.C. again, and then to Hartford. His eyes felt gritty, his long legs felt as if they’d been cut off at the knees thanks to the hour and a half he’d had to spend jammed into the commuter plane that had brought him to Connecticut, and sitting in this narrow wooden pew wasn’t helping.
The church dated back to 1720, some white-haired old lady who might have stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting had confided as he’d made his way inside.
David, suspecting that two and a half centuries of history would boil down to pews so closely packed that he’d end up feeling exactly the way he felt now, had offered what he’d hoped was a polite smile.
“Really,” he’d said.
The smile hadn’t worked. He knew, because the old lady had drawn back, given him a second, narrow-eyed stare that had swept over him from head to toe, taking in his height, his ponytail, his stirrup-heeled, silver-tooled boots, and then she’d raised her eyes to his and said, “Yes, really,” in a tone that had made it clear what she thought of a Westerner invading this pristine corner of New England.
Hell.
Maybe she was right. Maybe he shouldn’t have come to the wedding. He was too tired, too cynical, too old to pretend that he was witnessing a miracle of love when the truth was that those two kids up there had about as much chance of succeeding at the thing called wedlock as a penguin had of flying to the moon.
The bride lifted worshiping eyes to her young man. Her smile trembled, full of promises. Pledges. Vows...
And right about then, David suddenly thought of the world’s three biggest lies.
Every man knew them.
The check is in the mail.
Of course, I’ll respect you in the morning.
Trust me.
Lie number one, at least, was gender neutral. As an attorney with offices in the nation’s capitol, David had spent more time than he liked to remember sitting across his desk from clients of both sexes, either of whom had no trouble looking you straight in the eye and swearing, on a stack of Bibles, that whatever sums were in dispute were only a postal delivery away. And they usually were—so long as you assumed United States mail was routed via Mars.
The second lie was unabashedly, if embarrassingly, male. If pressed, David would have had to admit offering it himself, back in the days of his callow, hormone-crazed youth.
The memory made him smile. He hadn’t thought of Martha Jean Steenburger in years, but he could picture her now, just as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.
Martha Jean, home for the summer after her freshman year at college, somehow much, much older than her eighteen years and as gloriously endowed as any sixteen-yearold boy stumbling into manhood could imagine. Martha Jean, eyeing him with interest, making him blush as she took in the height and muscle he’d added since she’d last seen him. She’d flashed him a hundred-watt smile across the barbecue pit at the Steenburgers’ July Fourth party and David had gulped hard, then followed her swaying, denim-clad backside to the calf barn and up into the hayloft, where he’d nervously tried to plant a kiss on her parted lips.
“But will you respect me in the morning?” Martha Jean had said with a straight face, and when he’d managed to stutter out that of course he would, she’d chortled in a way that had made him feel dumb as well as horny and then she’d tumbled him back into the hay and introduced him to paradise.
Ah, but the third lie... The dark scowl crept over David’s face again. It, too, was supposed to be strictly male, but any man over the age of puberty knew that women told it just as often and with devastating effect, because when a woman said, “Trust me,” it had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with love. That was what made it the most damnable falsehood. For all he knew, it had started as a whisper made by a ravishing Eve to a defenseless Adam, or a promise breathed in the ear of Samson by Delilah. It might even have been the last vow made by Guinevere to Arthur.
Trust me.
How many males had done just that, over the centuries? Millions, probably—including David.
“Well, they probably mean it, when they say it,” a fraternity brother had once told him. “Something about the female of the species, you know what I mean?”
It was as good an explanation as any, David figured. And all it took was one trip through the marriage mill for a man to learn that when a woman said a man could trust her, what it really meant was that he’d be a fool if he did. It was a hard lesson to learn, but he’d learned it.
Damn right, he had.
Put in the most basic terms, marriage was a joke.
Not that he’d given up on women. Taken at face value, he liked them still. What man wouldn’t? There was nothing as pleasurable as sharing your bed and your life with a beautiful woman for a few weeks, even a few months, but when the time came to end a relationship, that was it. He wanted no tears, no regrets, no recriminations. Women didn’t fault him for his attitude, either. David figured it was because he was completely up-front about his intentions, or his lack of them. He wasn’t a man who made promises, not of forever-after or anything even approximating it, but he’d yet to meet a woman who’d walked away after he’d shown interest in her.
Jack Russell, one of his law partners, said it was because women saw David as an irresistible challenge. He said, too, that the day would come when David changed his mind. A wife, according to Jack, had a civilizing influence on a man. She’d run your home, plan your parties, help entertain your clients and generally get your life in hand. David agreed that that was probably true, but a good secretary and an inventive caterer could do the same things, and you didn’t have to wonder what day of the week they’d turn your life upside down.
Love, if it even existed, was too dependent on men trusting women and women trusting men. It sounded good but it just didn’t work...and wasn’t that a hell of a thing to be brooding over right now?
David sighed, stretched his legs out as best he could, and crossed his booted ankles.
Jet lag, that was his problem, otherwise why would he be thinking such stuff? The kids standing at the altar today deserved the benefit of the doubt. Not even he was jaundiced enough to be convinced this bride would do a Jekyll and Hyde after the honeymoon ended. The girl was the daughter of an old friend. David had watched her develop from a cute kid with braces on her teeth to charming young womanhood...and he’d watched her father and mother end up in divorce court. In fact, he’d represented Chase in the divorce.
There was just no getting away from it. Marriage was an unnatural state, devised by the female of the species to suit her own purposes, and—
Bang!
What was that?
David sat up straight and swung around. The church doors had flown open; the breeze had caught them and slammed them against the walls.
A woman stood silhouetted in the late afternoon sun. A buzz of speculation swept up and down the aisles.
“Who’s that?” the weeper beside him hissed to her husband. “Why doesn’t she sit down? Why doesn’t someone shut those doors?”
Why, indeed? David sighed, got to his feet and made his way to the rear of the church. This was going to be his day for charitable works. Annie had kissed him hello and whispered that she’d seated him with a special friend of hers.
“She’s no one for you to fool around with, David,” she’d said with a teasing smile. “Her name is Stephanie Willingham, and she’s a widow. Be nice to her, okay?”
Well, why not? He’d been hard on the old lady outside the church but he’d make up for it by being nice to this one. He’d chat politely with the widow Willingham, maybe even waltz her once around the room, and then he’d cut out, maybe give Jessica or Helena a call before he flew back to D.C. On the other hand, he might just head home early. He had some briefs to read before tomorrow.
The woman who’d caused the commotion nodded her thanks. She was the bride’s aunt; he’d met her a couple of times. She was a model, and probably accustomed to making theatrical entrances. He gave her a polite nod as she made her way past him.
David shut the doors, turned—and found himself looking straight at the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
She was seated in the last pew, as he had been, but on the opposite side—the groom’s side—of the church. Her face was triangular, almost catlike in its delicacy; her cheekbones were high and pronounced. Her eyes were brown, her nose was straight and classic and her mouth was a soft, coral bow that hinted at endless pleasures. Her hair was the color of dark chocolate and she wore it drawn back from her face in an unadorned knot.
With heart-stopping swiftness, David found himself wondering what it would be like to take out the pins that held those silken strands and let her hair tumble into his hands.
The image was simple, but it sent a jolt of desire sizzling through his blood. He felt himself turn hard as stone.
Damn, he thought in surprise, and at that instant, the woman’s eyes met his.
Her gaze was sharp and cold. It seemed to assess him, slice through the veneer afforded him by his custom-made suit and dissect his thoughts.
Hell, he thought, could she tell what had happened to him? It wasn’t possible. His anatomy was behaving as if it had a will of its own, but there was no way for her to know...
But she did. She knew. He was sure of it, even though her eyes never left his. Nothing else could explain the flush that rose in her face, or the contemptuous expression that swept over it just before she turned away.
For what seemed an eternity, David remained frozen. He couldn’t believe he’d had such a stupid reaction to the sight of a stranger, couldn’t recall a woman looking at him with such disdain.
Primal desire gave way to equally primal rage.
He saw himself walking to where she sat, sliding into the empty seat beside her and telling her that he wouldn’t have her on a bet—or better still, he could tell her that she was right, just looking at her had made him want to take her to bed, and what did she intend to do about it?
But the rules of a civilized society prevailed.
He drew a deep breath, made his way to his seat, sat down and fixed his attention on whatever in hell was happening at the altar because he was, after all, a civilized man.
Damn right, he was.
By the time the recessional echoed through the church and the bride and groom made their way out the door, he had had forgotten all about the woman...
Sure he had.
Stephanie Willingham stood at the marble-topped vanity table in the country club ladies’ room and stared at her reflection in the mirror.
She didn’t look like a woman who’d just made a damn fool of herself. That, at least, was something to be grateful for.
She took a deep breath, then let it out.
How much longer until she could make a polite exit?
Long enough, she thought, answering her own question. You couldn’t sit through a wedding ceremony, hide in the powder room during the cocktail hour, then bolt before the reception without raising a few eyebrows. And that was the last thing she wanted to do because raised eyebrows meant questions, and questions required answers, and she had none.
Absolutely none.
The way that man, the one in the church, had looked at her had been bad enough. Those cool blue eyes of his, stripping her naked....
Stephanie’s chin lifted. Despicable, was the only word for it.
But her reaction had been worse. Her realization that he was looking at her, that she knew exactly what was going on inside his head...that was one thing, but there was no way to explain or excuse what had happened when a rush of heat had raged through her blood.
Color flooded her cheeks at the memory.
“What is the matter with you, Stephanie?” she said to her mirrored image.
The man had been good-looking. Handsome, she supposed, in a hard sort of way—if you liked the type. Expensively put together, but almost aggressively masculine. The hair, drawn back in a ponytail. The leanly muscled body, so well-defined within the Western-cut suit. The boots. Boots, for goodness’ sake.
Clint Eastwood riding through Connecticut, she’d thought, and she should have laughed, but she hadn’t. Instead, she’d felt as if someone had lit a flame deep inside her, a flame that had threatened to consume her with its heat, and that was just plain nonsense.
She didn’t like men, didn’t want anything to do with them ever again. Why on earth she should have reacted to the man was beyond her, especially when the look on his face had made clear what he was thinking.
Exhaustion, that had to be the answer. Flying in from Atlanta late last night, getting up so early this morning—and she’d had a bad week to begin with. First the run-in with Clare, then the meeting with Judge Parker, and finally the disappointing consultation with her own attorney. And all the while, doing what she could not to show her panic because that would only spur Clare on.
Stephanie sighed. She should never have let Annie talk her into coming to this wedding. Weddings weren’t her thing to begin with. She had no illusions about them, she never had, not even before she’d married Avery, though heaven knew she wished only the best for Dawn and Nicholas. She’d certainly tried to get out of coming north, to attend this affair. As soon as the invitation had arrived, she’d phoned Annie, expressed her delight for the engaged couple, followed by her regrets, but Annie had cut her short.
“Don’t give me any of that Southern compone,” Annie had said firmly, and then her voice had softened. “You have to come to the wedding, Steffie,” she’d said. “After all, you introduced Dawn and Nicholas. The kids and I will be heartbroken if you don’t attend.”
Stephanie smiled, put her hands to her hair and smoothed back a couple of errant strands. It had been a generous thing to say, even if it was an overstatement. She hadn’t really introduced the bride and groom, she’d just happened to be driving through Connecticut on her way home after a week on Cape Cod—a week when she’d walked the lonely, out-of-season beach and tried to sort out her life. A drenching rain was falling as she’d crossed the state line from Massachusetts to Connecticut and, in the middle of it, she’d gotten a flat. She’d been standing on the side of the road, miserable and wet and cold, staring glumly at the tire, when Dawn pulled over to offer assistance. Nick had come by next. He’d shooed Dawn away from the tire and knelt down in the mud to do the job, but his eyes had been all for Dawn. As luck would have it, Annie had driven by just as Nick finished. She’d stopped, they’d all ended up introducing themselves and laughing in the downpour, and Annie had invited everyone for an impromptu cup of hot cocoa.
Stephanie’s smile faded. Avery would never have understood that a friendship could be forged out of such a tenuous series of coincidences, but then, he’d never understood anything about her, not from the day they’d married until the day he’d died....
“Mrs. Willingham?”
Stephanie blinked and stared into the mirror. Dawn Cooper—the former Dawn Cooper—radiant in her white lace and satin gown, smiled at her from the doorway.
“Dawn.” Stephanie swung toward the girl and embraced her. “Congratulations, darlin’. Or is it good luck?” She smiled. “I never can remember.”
“It’s luck, I think.” The door swung shut as Dawn moved toward the mirror. “I hope it is, anyway, because I think I’m going to need it.”
“You’ve already got all the luck you’ll need,” Stephanie said. “That handsome young man of yours looks as if he—Dawn? Are you all right?”
Dawn nodded. “Fine,” she said brightly. “It’s just, I don’t know...it’s just, I’ve been waiting and waiting for this day and now it’s here, and—and—” She took a deep breath. “Mrs. Willingham?”
“Stephanie, please. Otherwise, you’ll make me feel even older than I already am.”
“Stephanie. I know I shouldn’t ask, but—but... Did you feel, well, a little bit nervous on your wedding day?”
Stephanie stared at the girl. “Nervous?”
“Yes. You know. Sort of edgy.”
“Nervous,” Stephanie repeated, fixing a smile to her lips. “Well, I don’t—I can’t recall...”
“Not scared. I don’t mean it that way. I just mean... Worried.”
“Worried,” Stephanie said, working hard to maintain the smile.
“Uh-huh.” Dawn licked her lips. “That you might not always be as happy as you were that day, you know?”
Stephanie leaned back against the vanity table. “Well,” she said, “well...”
“Oh, wow!” Dawn’s eyes widened. “Oh, Mrs....oh, Stephanie. Gosh, I’m so sorry. That was such a dumb thing to ask you.”
“No. Not at all. I’m just trying to think of...” Of what lie will sound best. “Of what to tell you.”
She hadn’t been nervous the day she’d married Avery, or even scared. Terrified was more accurate, terrified and desperate and almost frantic with fear...but, of course, she could never tell that to this innocent child, never tell it to anyone, and the fact she was even thinking about the possibility only proved how frazzled her nerves really were.
Stephanie smiled brightly. “Because, you understand, it was such a long time ago. Seven years, you know? Seven—”
Dawn grasped Stephanie’s hands. “Forgive me, please. I’m so wrapped up in myself today that I forgot that Mr. Willingham‘s—that he’s—that you’re a widow. I didn’t mean to remind you of your loss.”
“No. No, really, that’s all right. I’m not—”
“I am such an idiot! Talking without thinking, I mean. It’s my absolutely worst trait. Even Nicky says so. Sometimes, I just babble something before I’ve thought it through and I get myself, everybody, in all kinds of trouble! Oh, I am so sorry, Stephanie! Can you forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Stephanie said gently, smiling at the girl.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“No wonder you looked so sad when I came into the room. It must be so awful, losing the man you love.”
Stephanie hesitated. “I suppose it is,” she said after a minute.
“I can just imagine. Why, if anything ever happened to Nicky...if anything were to separate us...” Dawn’s eyes grew suspiciously bright. She laughed, swung toward the mirror, yanked a tissue from the container on top of the vanity table and dabbed at her lashes. “Just listen to me! I am turning into the most maudlin creature in the whole wide world!”
“It’s understandable,” Stephanie said. “Today’s a very special one for you.”
“Yes.” Dawn blew her nose. “I feel like I’m on a roller coaster. Up one minute, down the next.” She smiled. “Thanks, Stephanie.”
“For what?”
“For putting up with me. I suppose all brides are basket cases on their wedding days.”
“Indeed,” Stephanie said with another bright, artificial smile. “Well, if you’re sure you’re okay...”
“I’m fine.”
“Would you like me to look for your mother and send her in?”
“No, don’t do that. Mom’s got enough to deal with today. You go on and have fun. Did you pick up your table card yet?”
Stephanie paused at the door and shook her head. “No. No, I didn’t.”
“Ah.” Dawn grinned. “Well, if I remember right, Mom and I put you at a terrific table.”
“Did you?” Stephanie said with what she hoped sounded like interest.
“Uh-huh. You’re sitting with a couple from New York, old friends of Mom’s and Dad’s. You know, from when they were still married.”
“That sounds nice.”
“And my cousin and her husband. Nice guys, both of them. He’s an engineer, she’s a teacher.”
“Well,” Stephanie said, still smiling, “they all sound—”
“And with my uncle David. Well, he’s not really my uncle. I mean, he’s Mr. Chambers, but I’ve known him forever. He’s a friend of my parents’. He’s this really cool guy. Really cool. And handsome.” Dawn giggled. “He’s a bachelor, and very sexy for an older man, you know?”
“Yes. Well, he sounds—”
The door swung open and two of Dawn’s bridesmaids sailed into the room on a strain of music and a gust of laughter. Stephanie saw her opportunity and took it. She blew a kiss at Dawn, smoothed down the skirt of her suit, and stepped into the corridor.
Her smile faded.
Terrific. Annie had put her at a table with an eligible bachelor. Stephanie sighed. She should have expected as much. Even though her own marriage had failed. Annie had all the signs of being an inveterate matchmaker.
“Oh,” she’d said softly when she’d learned Stephanie was widowed, “that’s so sad.”
Stephanie hadn’t tried to correct her. They didn’t know each other well enough for that. The truth was, she didn’t know anyone well enough for that. Not that anyone back home thought of her as a grieving widow. The good people of Willingham Corners had long-ago decided what she was and Avery’s death hadn’t changed that. At least, nobody tried to introduce her to eligible men...but that seemed to be Annie’s plan today.
Stephanie gave a mental sigh as she made her way to the table where the seating cards were laid out. She could survive an afternoon with Dawn’s Uncle David. He’d surely be harmless enough. Annie was clever. She’d never met Avery but she knew he’d been in his late fifties, so she’d matched Stephanie with an older man. A sexy older man, Stephanie thought with a little smile, meaning he was fiftyor sixty-something but he still had his own teeth.
She peered at the little white vellum cards, found hers and picked it up. Table seven. Well, that was something, she thought as she stepped into the ballroom. The table would be far enough from the bandstand so the music wouldn’t fry her eardrums.
Stephanie wove her way between the tables, checking numbers as she went. Four, five... Yes, table seven would definitely be away from the bandstand out of deference to Uncle David, who’d probably think that the dance of the minute was the merengue. Not that it mattered. She hadn’t danced in years, and she didn’t miss it. She just hoped Uncle David wouldn’t take it personally when she turned out to be a dud as a table partner.
Table seven. There it was, tucked almost into a corner. Most of its occupants were already seated. The trendylooking twosome had to be the New Yorkers; the plump, sweet-faced woman with the tall, bespectacled man were sure to be the teacher and the engineer. Only Uncle David was missing, but he was certain to turn up at any second.
The little group at table seven looked up as she dropped her place card beside her plate.
“Hi,” the plump woman said—and then her gaze skittered past Stephanie’s shoulder, her eyes rounded and she smiled the way a woman does when she’s just seen something wonderful. “And hi to you, too,” she purred.
“What a small world.”
Stephanie froze. The voice came from just behind her. It was male, low, and touched with satirical amusement.
She turned slowly. He was standing inches from her, the man who’d sent her pulse racing. He was every bit as tall as he’d seemed at a distance, six-one, six-two, easily. His face was a series of hard angles; his eyes were so blue they seemed to be pieces of sky. Clint Eastwood, indeed, she thought wildly, and she almost laughed.
But laughing wouldn’t help. Not now. Not after her gaze fell on the white vellum card he dropped on the table beside her.
Stephanie looked up.
“Uncle David?” she said in a choked whisper.
She remembered the way he’d looked at her the first time they’d seen each other. The smoldering glance, the lazy insolence of his smile... There was nothing of that about his expression now. His eyes were steely; the set of his mouth gave his face a harsh cast.
“And the widow Willingham.” A thin smile curved across his mouth as he drew Stephanie’s chair out from the table. “It’s going to be one hell of a charming afternoon.”
CHAPTER TWO
STEPHANIE sat down.
What else could she do? Everyone at the table was watching them, eyes bright with curiosity.
David Chambers sat down beside her. His leg brushed hers as he tucked his feet under the table. Surreptitiously, she moved her chair as far from his as she could.
He leaned toward her. “I carry no communicable diseases, Mrs. Willingham,” he said dryly. “And I don’t bite unless provoked.”
She felt her face turn hot. His voice had been lowpitched; no one else could have heard what he’d said, but they’d wanted to—she could see it in the way they leaned forward over the table.
Say something, Stephanie told herself. Anything.
She couldn’t. Her tongue felt as if it were stuck to the roof of her mouth. She cleared her throat, moistened her lips...and, mercifully, an electronic squeal from the bandstand microphone overrode all conversation in the ballroom.
The guests at table seven laughed a bit nervously.
“Those guys could use a good sound engineer,” the man with the glasses said. He grinned, rose and extended his hand toward David. “Too bad that’s not my speciality. Hi, nice to meet you guys. I’m Jeff Blum. And this is my wife, Roberta.”
“Call me Bobbi,” the plump brunette chirped, batting her lashes at David.
The other couple introduced themselves next. They looked as if they’d both been hewn out of New England granite, and had the sort of names David always irreverently thought of as Puritan holdovers.
“Hayden Crowder,” the man said, extending a dry, cool hand.
“And I’m Honoria,” his wife said, smiling. “And you folks are?”
“David Chambers,” David said when Stephanie remained silent. He looked at her, and the grim set of his mouth softened. Okay. Maybe he was overreacting to what had happened when he’d first seen her, and to her reaction to it.
Actually, when you came down to it, nothing had happened—nothing that was her fault, or his. A man looked at a woman, sometimes the moment or the chemistry was just right, and that was that—although now that he was seated next to the widow Willingham, he thought wryly, he couldn’t for the life of him imagine why his hormones had gone crazy back in that church. She was a looker, but so were half a dozen other women in the room. It was time to stop being an ass, remember his manners and get through the next few hours with something approaching civility.
“And the lady with me,” he said pleasantly, “is—”
“Stephanie Willingham. Mrs. Avery Willingham,” Stephanie blurted. “And I can assure all of you that I am not here with Mr. Chambers, nor would I ever choose to be.”
Bobbi Blum looked at her husband. Hayden Crowder looked at his wife. All four of them looked at Stephanie, who was trying not to look at any of them.
Ohmygod!
What on earth had possessed her? It was such an incredibly stupid thing to have said, especially after the man seated beside her had made an attempt, however late and unwanted, at showing he had, at least, some semblance of good manners.
“Do tell,” Bobbi Blum said with a bright smile. She sat back as the waiter set glasses of champagne before them. “Well, that’s certainly very, ah, interesting.”
Honoria Crowder shot a brilliant smile across the table. “Champagne,” she said briskly. “Isn’t that nice? I always say champagne’s the only thing to serve at weddings, isn’t that right, Hayden?”
Hayden Crowder swallowed hard. Stephanie could see his Adam’s apple bob up and down in his long, skinny neck.
“Indeed you do, my dear.”
“Oh, I agree.” Jeff Blum, eager to do his part, nodded vigorously. “Don’t I always say that, too, Bobbi?”
Bobbi Blum turned a perplexed smile on her husband. “Don’t you always say what, dear?”
“That champagne is—that it’s whatever Mrs. Crowder just said it was.”
“Do call me Honoria,” Honoria said.
Silence settled over the table again.
Stephanie’s hands were knotted together in her lap. Everyone had said something in an attempt to ease the tension—everyone but David Chambers.
He was looking at her. She could feel the weight of his gaze. Why didn’t he say something? Why didn’t she say something? A witty remark, to take the edge off. A clever one, to turn her awful words into a joke.
When was the band going to start playing?
As if on cue, the trumpet player rose to his feet and sent a shattering tattoo of sound out into the room.
“And now,” the bandleader said, “let’s give a warm welcome to Dawn and Nicholas!”
The Crowders, then the Blums, looked toward the dance floor as the introductions rolled on. Stephanie breathed a small sigh of relief. Perhaps David Chambers’s attention was on the newlyweds, too. Her hand closed around her small, apricot-silk purse. Carefully, she moved back her chair. Now might be the perfect time to make another strategic retreat to the ladies’ room...
“Leaving so soon, Mrs. Willingham?”
Stephanie froze. Then, with as much hauteur as she could manage, she turned her head toward David Chambers. His expression was polite and courteous; she was sure he looked the picture of civility—unless you were sitting as close to him as she was, and you could see the ridicule in his eyes.
Okay. It was time to take a bite, however small, of humble pie.
“Mr. Chambers.” She cleared her throat. “Mr. Chambers, I suppose—what I said before—I didn’t mean...”
He smiled coolly and bent toward her, his eyes on hers.
“An apology?”
“An explanation.” Stephanie sat up straight. “I was rude, and I didn’t intend to be.”
“Ah. What did you intend to be, then?” His smile tilted and he moved closer, near enough to make her heartbeat quicken. For one foolish instant, she’d thought he was going to kiss her.
“I simply meant to make it clear that you and I were not together.”
“You certainly did that.”
“I’m sure Annie meant well, when she seated us this way, but—”
“Annie?”
“Annie Cooper. Surely, you know—”
“You were seated on the groom’s side.”
“I know both the bride and the groom, Mr. Chambers.”
“But you’re Annie’s guest.”
“I can’t see of what possible interest it could be to you, sir.”
Neither could David—except that it had occurred to him. as he’d gone down the receiving line, that word had it that the groom’s uncle, Damian Skouras, had a mistress in attendance at the wedding. Perhaps Stephanie Willingham was she. Or perhaps she was a former mistress. Or a future one. It was a crazy world out there; there was no telling what complications you got into when you drew up guest lists. He’d avoided the problem, his one time in the matrimonial sweepstakes. You didn’t draw up a guest list when you said “I do” at city hall.
“Humor me, Mrs. Willingham,” David said with a chilly smile. “Why did you choose to sit on the groom’s side?”
“What do you do for a living, Mr. Chambers?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with my question.”
“Suppose you humor me, and answer it.”
David’s frown deepened. “I’m an attorney.”
“Ah. Well, I suppose that explains it.”
“Explains what?” David said, his eyes narrowing.
“Your tendency to interrogate.”
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Willingham. I did not—”
“I must admit, I find it preferable to your tendency to strip a woman naked with your eyes.”
The band segued from a bouncy rendition of “My Girl” to a soft, sighing “Stardust.” Stephanie’s words rose clearly over the plaintive opening notes.
A strangled gasp burst from Honoria Crowder’s lips. Her champagne glass tipped over and a puddle of pale golden wine spread across the white tablecloth.
“Oh, my,” Honoria twittered, “how clumsy of me!”
Bobbi Blum snatched at a napkin. “Here,” she said, “let me get that.”
Saved by the spill, Stephanie thought hysterically. She smiled blindly at the waiter as he served their first course. The Crowders and the Blums grabbed their oyster forks and attacked their shrimp cocktails with a fervor she suspected was born of the desire to leap to their feet and run from what was turning into the kind of encounter that ends with one of the parties bleeding.
If you had any brains, Stephanie told herself, you’d do the same...
Instead, she picked up her fork and began to stuff food into her mouth because if she was chewing and swallowing, maybe—just maybe—she’d stop saying things that only made this impossible mess messier.
“I don’t.”
Stephanie’s head snapped up. She looked at David, and the smug little smile on his face sent a chill straight into the marrow of her bones.
“Don’t what?” Bobbi Blum said, and everyone leaned forward in eager anticipation.
“Don’t have a tendency to strip women naked with my eyes.” His smile tilted, and his gaze swept over Stephanie again, sending a flood of color to her cheeks. “Not indiscriminately, that is. I only focus that sort of attention on beautiful women who look to be in desperate need of—”
Music blared from the bandstand.
Forks clattered to the table.
The Crowders and the Blums pushed back their chairs and rushed to the dance floor.
Stephanie sat very still, though she could damn near feel the blood churning in her veins. She thought about slugging the man beside her, but that wouldn’t be fair to Annie, or Dawn, or Nicholas. Besides, ladies didn’t do such things. The woman—the girl—she’d once been might have. Would have. Steffie Horton would have balled up her fist and shot a right cross straight to David Chambers’s square jaw.
A tremor went through her. Steffie Horton would have done exactly what Stephanie Willingham had been doing all afternoon. She’d have been rude, and impolite; she’d have spoken her mind without thinking. She might even have reacted to the heat in a stranger’s eyes. It was in her genes, after all. Avery had been wrong about a lot of things, but not about that.
What was wrong with her today? She was behaving badly. And even when David Chambers had held out an olive branch—a ragged one, it was true, but an olive branch nevertheless—she’d slapped it out of his hand.
Stephanie took a deep breath and turned toward him.
“Mr. Chambers...”
Her words caught in her throat. He was smiling... no, he wasn’t. Not really. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in a way that reminded her of a mastiff Avery had owned when she’d first married him and gone to live in the house on Oak Hill—when she’d still been young enough, stupid enough, to have thought their arrangement could work.
“Oh,” she’d said, “just look at your dog, Avery. He’s smiling at me.”
And Avery had guffawed and slapped his knees and said that he’d truly picked himself a backwoods ninny if she thought that was a smile, and maybe she’d like to offer the mastiff her hand and see if it came back with all the fingers still attached.
“Yes?” David said politely. “Did you have something you wanted to say?”
“No,” Stephanie said just as politely. “Not a thing.”
He nodded. “That’s fine. I think I’ve just about run out of conversation, myself—except to point out that, with any luck at all, we’ll never have the misfortune to meet again.” His wolfish smile flickered. “Have I left anything out?”
“Not a thing. In fact, I doubt I could have put it better.”
David unfolded his napkin and placed it in his lap. Stephanie did the same.
“Bon appétit, Mrs. Willingham,” David said softly.
“Bon appétit, Mr. Chambers,” Stephanie replied, and she picked up her fork, speared a shrimp, and began to eat.
More toasts were drunk, the wedding cake sliced. The Blums and the Crowders continued to make themselves scarce, appearing only from time to time and then just long enough to gobble down a few mouthfuls of each course as it was served.
“We just adore dancing,” Bobbi Blum gushed between the Boeuf aux Champignons and the salad.
“Same with us,” Hayden Crowder said as his wife sat smiling uneasily beside him. “Why, we never sit very long at these shindigs, no matter who’s seated at our table, do we, honey?”
“Never,” Honoria said, and jumped to her feet. “We never stay seated, no matter what.”
David watched with a thin smile as both couples hurried off. Then he pushed his plate aside, tilted back his chair and folded his arms over his chest.
“Well,” he said after a minute, “this is one wedding they’re never going to forget.”
Stephanie glanced up. “No. I suppose not.”
Across the dance floor, the Blums and the Crowders were standing in a little huddle, looking back at table seven as if they expected either the police or the men with straitjackets to show up at any minute.
David couldn’t help it. He laughed.
Stephanie’s lips twitched. “It isn’t funny,” she said stiffly—and then she laughed, too.
He looked at her. Her cheeks had taken on a delicate flush and there was a glint in her dark eyes that hadn’t been there before. She looked young, and beautiful, and suddenly he knew that he’d been kidding himself when he’d told himself she wasn’t the most beautiful woman in this room, because she was. She was more than beautiful, she was indescribably gorgeous.
And he’d been sniping at her for the past hour. Damn, he had to be crazy! Everything he’d done had been crazy, since he’d laid eyes on her. He should have sat down beside her, introduced himself, asked her if he could see her again. He should have told her she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever met....
He could still do all of that. It wasn’t too late and, heaven knew, it was the best idea he’d had in the past couple of hours.
“Mrs. Willingham. Stephanie. About what happened earlier...” Her face lifted toward his. David smiled. “In the church, I mean.”
“Nothing happened,” she said quickly.
“Come on, let’s not play games. Something happened, all right. I looked at you, you looked at me...”
“Mr. Chambers—”
“David.”
“Mr. Chambers.” Stephanie folded her hands in her lap. “Look, I know this isn’t your fault. I mean, I know Annie probably set this up.”
“Probably?” He laughed. “Of course, she set this up. You’re unattached. You are unattached, aren’t you?”
Stephanie nodded. “I’m a widow.”
“Yeah, well, I’m divorced. So Annie took a look at her guest list, saw my name, saw yours, and that was it. It’s in her blood, though I can’t imagine why, considering her own record.”
Color flooded Stephanie’s face. “I assure you, Mr. Chambers, I have absolutely no wish to marry, ever again.”
“Whoa!” David held up his hands. “One step at a time, Mrs. Willingham—and before anybody takes that step, let me assure you that I’d sooner waltz Mrs. Blum around the dance floor for the next three weeks than ever do something as stupid as tying another knot. Not in this lifetime. Or any other, for that matter.”
Stephanie tried not to smile. “There’s nothing wrong with Mrs. Blum.”
“She dances on her husband’s feet,” David said, “and she outweighs the both of us.” Stephanie laughed. His smile tilted, and his gaze dropped to her mouth. “You have a nice laugh, Stephanie.”
“Mr. Chambers...”
“David. Surely we’ve insulted each other enough to be on a first-name basis.”
“David, maybe we did get off on the wrong foot, but—”
“So did Mrs. Blum.”
She smiled again, and his heart lifted. She really did have a nice smile.
“Let’s just forget it, shall we?”
“I’d like that, very much—especially since it was all my fault.”
“That’s kind of you, David, but, well, I was to blame, too. I—I saw the way you were looking at me in the church, you know, when you went to shut the doors, and—and I thought...” She took a deep breath. “All I’m trying to say is that I didn’t mean to be so—so—”
“Impolite?” he asked innocently. “Judgmental? Is that the word you’re looking for?”
Laughter glinted in her eyes.
“You’re pushing your luck,” she said. “Putting words in my mouth that way.”
He thought of what he’d like to do with that mouth, how badly he wanted to taste it, and cleared his throat.
“Ah,” he said, shaking his head sadly, “and here I thought the widow Willingham was about to offer a full apology for her behavior. So much for the mystique of Southern good manners.”
“My manners are usually impeccable. And how can you be so certain I’m from the South?”
He chuckled. “‘An’ how can you be so suhtain Ah’m from th’South?’” he said.
Stephanie tried not to smile, but it was impossible. “I’m glad my accent amuses you, Mr. Chambers.”
“I promise you, Mrs. Willingham, I’m not laughing at you. Matter of fact, I like your drawl. It’s very feminine.”
“If you’re waiting for me to say I like the sound of your Montana twang, Mr. Chambers—”
“Montana?” David slapped his hand over his heart. “Good God, woman, you do know how to wound a man. I’m from Wyoming.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? Is that all you can say, after you accuse me of being from a state where the cows outnumber the people three to one?” He grinned. “At least, in Wyoming, we only have one critter that walks upright for every two point something that moos.”
Stephanie laughed politely. “My apologies.”
“Apologies accepted. And, just for the record, I have no accent.”
Her smile was warm and open this time. He had an accent; she was sure he knew it as well as she did. His voice was low and husky; it reminded her of high mountains and wide open spaces, of a place where the night sky would be bright with stars and the grassy meadows would roll endlessly toward the horizon....
“Gotcha,” he said softly.
Stephanie blinked. “What?”
“You smiled,” David said with a little smile of his own. “Really smiled. And I agree.”
“Agree about what?” she said in total confusion.
“That we got off to the wrong start.”
She considered the possibility. Perhaps they had. He seemed a nice enough man, this friend of Annie’s. There was no denying his good looks, and he had a sense of humor, too. Not that she was interested in him. Not that she’d ever be interested in any man. Still, that was no reason not to be polite. Pleasant, even. This was just one day out of her life. One afternoon. And what had he done, when you came down to it? Looked at her, that was all. Just looked at her, and even though she hated it, she was accustomed to it.
Men had always looked at her, even before Avery had come along.
Besides, she wasn’t guiltless. For one heart-stopping instant, for one quick spin of the planet, she’d looked at David and felt—she’d felt...
“Stephanie?”
She raised her head. David was watching her, eyes dark and intense.
“How about we begin over?”
He held out his hand. Stephanie hesitated. Then, very slowly and carefully, she lifted her hand from her lap and placed it in his.
“That’s it,” he said softly. His fingers closed around hers. They were warm, and hard, and calloused. That surprised her. Despite what he’d said about being from the west, despite the cowboy boots and the ponytail and the incredible width of his shoulders, everything about him whispered of wealth and power. Men like that didn’t have hands that bore the imprint of hard work, not in her world.
He bent his head toward hers. She knew she ought to pull back but she couldn’t. His eyes were still locked on hers. They seemed to draw her in.
“You’re a very beautiful woman, Stephanie.”
“Mr. Chambers...”
“I thought we’d progressed to David.”
“David.” Stephanie ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. She saw him follow the motion with his eyes and the tiny flame that had come to life hours before sprang up again deep within her. A warning tingled along her skin. “David,” she said again, “I think—I think it’s nice that we made peace with each other, but—”
“We should be honest, too.”
“I am being honest. I don’t want—”
“Yes. You do want.” His voice had taken on a roughness. A huskiness. It made the trembling flame within her burn brighter. “We both do.”
“No!”
He could feel the sudden tension radiating from her fingers to his. Don’t be a fool, David told himself fiercely. There was plenty of time. The longer it took to go from that first beat of sexual awareness to the bed, the greater the pleasure. He’d lived long enough to know that.
But he couldn’t slow down. Not with this woman. He wanted her, now. Right now. He wanted her beneath him, her body naked to his hands and mouth, her eyes liquid with desire as he touched her, entered her.
“Come with me,” he said urgently. “I have a car outside. We’ll find a hotel.”
“You bastard!” She tore her hand from his. “Is that what the past few minutes were all about?”
“No,” he said, trying to deny it, as much to himself as to her. He felt as if he were standing on the edge of a precipice, that the slightest gust of wind could come by and send him tumbling out into space. He’d met women before, wanted them, but not like this. Not with a need so fierce it obliterated everything else. “Stephanie—”
“Don’t ‘Stephanie’ me!” She shoved back her chair. Her face was flushed; she glared at him, her mouth trembling. “You’ve wasted your time, Mr. Chambers. I know your game.”
“Dammit, it isn’t a game! I saw you, and I wanted you. And you wanted me. That’s why you’re so angry, isn’t it? Because you felt the same thing, only you’re afraid to admit it.”
“I’m not afraid of anything, Mr. Chambers, especially not of a man like you.”
It was a lie. She was afraid; he saw it in her eyes, in the feverish color in her cheeks.
“I know your type, sir. You see a woman like me, your mind goes rolling straight into the gutter.”
“What?” he said with an incredulous little laugh.
“As for what I want... You flatter yourself. I’d no more want you in my bed than I’d want a cottonmouth moccasin there! Why would I? Why would any woman in her right mind want to subjugate herself to a—a—”
“Hey, guys, how’s it going?”
Stephanie clamped her lips together. She and David both looked up. Annie Cooper stood over them, smiling happily.
“Annie,” David said after a minute. He cleared his throat. “Hello.”
“I hated to interrupt,” Annie said, smiling. “You two were so deep in conversation.”
Stephanie looked at David, then at Annie. “Uh, yes. Yes, we were.” She smiled brightly. “It’s a lovely wedding, Annie. Really lovely.”
Annie pulled out a chair and sat down. “So,” she said slyly, “I figured right, hmm?”
“Figured right?”
“About you guys.” Annie grinned. “Dawn and I were doing the seating chart and Dawn said to me, ‘Mom, except for Nicky, the best-looking man at the wedding is going to be Uncle David.’ And I said to her, ‘Well, except for you, my gorgeous, too-young-to-be-a-bride daughter, the most beautiful woman at the wedding is going to be your very own cupid, Stephanie.’”
“Annie,” David said, “listen—”
“So my brilliant offspring and I put our heads together and, voilà, we put the pair of you at the same table.” Annie smiled. “Clever, if I say so myself, no?”
“No,” Stephanie said. “I mean, I’m sure you thought it was, Annie, but—”
Annie laughed. “Relax, you two. We won’t expect you to announce your engagement or anything. Not today, any-way... My gosh, Stef, I’m making you blush. And David...if looks could kill, I’d be lying in a heap on the floor.” A furrow appeared between her eyes. “Don’t tell me we goofed! Aren’t you two having a good time? Haven’t you hit it off?”
“We’re having a terrific time,” Stephanie said quickly. “Aren’t we...David?”
David smiled tightly and shoved back his chair. “Better than terrific,” he said. “Excuse me for a minute, will you? I’m going to get myself a drink. Annie? Stephanie? Can I bring you ladies something?”
“Nothing for me, thank you,” Annie said. “I’m on overload as it is.”
A bludgeon, Stephanie thought. “White wine,” she said, because Annie was looking at her expectantly.
David nodded. “Be right back.”
Damn, he thought grimly as he made his way across the ballroom, damn! Why in hell was he making such a fool of himself with Stephanie Willingham? She was wild as a mustang and beautiful as a purebred, and okay, there wasn’t another woman in the place who could hold a candle to her, but either he’d read the signs wrong and she wasn’t interested, or she liked to play games. Whichever it was, why should he care? The world was filled with beautiful women and finding ones who were interested had never been a problem. They seemed to go for his type, whatever that was.
It was just that there was something about Stephanie. All that frost. Or maybe the heat. It was crazy. A woman couldn’t be hot and cold at the same time, she couldn’t look at a man as if she wanted to be in his arms one minute and wanted to slap him silly the next unless she was a tease, and instinct told him that whatever she was, she was not that.
What he ought to do was walk right on past the bar, out the door and to his car. Drive to the airport, catch the shuttle back to D.C....
David’s brows lifted. He began to smile.
“Chase?” he called.
There was no mistaking the set of shoulders in front of him. It was his old pal, Chase Cooper, the father of the bride.
Chase turned around, saw David, and held out his hand. “David,” he said, and then both men grinned and gave each other a quick bear hug. “How’re you doing, man?”
“Fine, fine. How about you?”
Chase lifted his glass to his lips and knocked back half of the whiskey in it in one swallow.
“Never been better. What’ll you have?”
“Scotch,” David said to the bartender. “A single malt, if you have it, on the rocks. And a glass of Chardonnay.”
Chase smiled. “Don’t tell me that you’re here with a lady. Has the love bug bitten you, too?”
“Me?” David laughed. “The wine’s for a lady at my table. The love bug already bit me, remember? Once bitten, twice shy. No, not me. Never again.”
“Yeah.” Chase nodded, and his smile flickered. “I agree. You marry a woman, she turns into somebody else after a couple of years.”
“You’ve got it,” David said. “Marriage is a female fantasy. Promise a guy anything to nab him, then look blank when he expects you to deliver.” The bartender set the Scotch in front of David, who lifted the glass to his lips and took a drink. “Far as I’m concerned, a man’s got a housekeeper, a cook, and a good secretary, what more does he need?”
“Nothing,” Chase said a little too quickly, “not one thing.”
David glanced back across the ballroom. He could see Stephanie, sitting alone at the table. Annie had left, but she hadn’t bolted. It surprised him.
“Unfortunately,” he said, trying for a light touch, “there is one other thing a man needs, and it’s the thing that most often gets guys like you and me in trouble.”
“Yeah.” Chase followed his gaze, then lifted his glass and clinked it against David’s. “Well, you and I both know how to deal with that little problem. Bed ‘em and forget ’em, I say.”
David grinned. “I’ll drink to that.”
“To what? What are you guys up to, hidden away over here?”
Both men turned around. Dawn, radiant in white lace, and with Nick at her side, beamed at them.
“Daddy,” she said, kissing her father’s cheek. “And Mr. Chambers. I’m so glad you could make it.”
“Hey.” David smiled. “What happened to ‘Uncle David’? I kind of liked the honorary title.” He held out his hand to Nicholas, said all the right things, and stood by politely until the bridal couple moved off.
Chase sighed. “That’s the only good thing comes of a marriage,” he said. “A kid of your own, you know?”
David nodded. “I agree. I’d always hoped...” He shrugged. “Hey, Cooper,” he said with a quick grin, “you stand around a bar long enough, you get maudlin. Anybody ever tell you that?”
“Yes,” Chase said. “My attorney, five years ago when we got wasted after my divorce was finalized.”
The men smiled at each other, and then David slapped Chase lightly on the back.
“You ought to circulate, man. There’s a surprising assortment of good-looking single women here, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“For a lawyer,” Chase said with a chuckle, “sometimes you manage to come up with some pretty decent suggestions. So, what’s with the brunette at your table? She spoken for?”
“She is,” David said gruffly. “For the present, at least.”
Chase grinned. “You dirty dog, you. Well, never mind. I’ll case the joint, see what’s available.”
“Yeah.” David grinned in return. “You do that.”
The men made their goodbyes. Chase set off in one direction, David in the other. The dance floor had grown crowded; the band had launched into a set of sixties’ standards that seemed to have brought out every couple in the room. David wove between them, his gaze fixed on Stephanie. He saw her turn and look in his direction. Their eyes met; he felt as if an electric current had run through his body.
“Whoops.” A woman jostled his elbow. “Sorry.”
David looked around, nodded impatiently as she apologized. The music ceased. The dancers applauded, and the crowd parted.
Table seven was just ahead. The Blums were there, and the Crowders.
But Stephanie Willingham was gone.
CHAPTER THREE
THE only thing worse than leaving Washington on a Friday was returning to it on a Monday.
Every politician and lobbyist who earned his or her living toiling in the bureaucratic fields of the District of Columbia flew home for the weekend. That was the way it seemed, anyway, and if Friday travel was a nightmare of clogged highways, jammed airports and overbooked flights, Mondays were all that and more. There was something about the start of the workweek that made for woefully short tempers.
David had made careful plans to avoid what he thought of as the Monday Morning Mess. He’d told his secretary to book him out of Hartford on a late Sunday flight and when that had turned out to be impossible. he’d considered how long it would be before he could make a polite exit from the Cooper wedding reception and instructed her to ticket him out of Boston. It was only another hour, hour and a half’s drive.
A simple enough plan, he had figured.
But nothing was simple, that Sunday.
By midafternoon, hours before he’d expected to leave Stratham, David was in his rented car, flooring the pedal as he flew down the highway. He was in a mood even he knew could best be described as grim.
Now what? He had hours to kill before his flight from Boston, and he had no wish whatsoever to sit around an airport, cooling his heels.
Not ever, but especially not now. Not when he was so annoyed he could have chewed a box of nails and spit them out as staples.
There was always the flight out of Hartford, the one he’d turned down as being scheduled too early. Yes. He’d head for Bradley Airport, buy a ticket on that flight instead.
Maybe he should phone, check to see if there was an available seat.
No. What for? Bradley was a small airport. It didn’t handle a lot of traffic. Why would a plane bound for D.C. on a Sunday afternoon be booked up?
David made a sharp right, skidded a little as he made up his mind, and took the ramp that led north toward the airport.
The sooner he got out of here, the better. Why hang around this part of the world any longer than necessary?
“No reason,” he muttered through his teeth, “none at all.”
He glanced down, saw that the speedometer was edging over sixty. Was fifty-five the speed limit in Connecticut, or was it sixty-five? Back home—back in his real home, Wyoming—people drove at logical speeds, meaning you took a look at the road and the traffic and then, the sky was the limit.
But not here.
“Hell,” he said, and goosed the car up to sixty-five.
He’d done what had been required, even if he had left the reception early. He’d toasted the bride and groom, paid his respects to Annie, shaken Chase’s hand and had a drink with him. That was enough. If other people wanted to hang around, dance to a too loud band, tuck into too rich food, make a pretense of having a good time, that was their business.
Besides, he’d pretty much overstayed his welcome at table seven. David figured the Blums and the Crowders would make small talk for a month out of what had gone on between him and Stephanie, but they’d also probably cheered his defection.
The needle on the speedometer slid past seventy.
“Leaving so soon?” Bobbi Blum had asked, after he’d made a circuit of the ballroom and then paused at the table just long enough to convince the Blums and the Crowders that he really was insane. Her voice had been sweet, her smile syrupy enough to put a diabetic into a coma, but the look in her eyes said, “Please, oh, please, don’t tell us you’re just stepping outside to have a smoke.”
Maybe it had something to do with the way he’d demanded to know if any of them had seen Stephanie leave.
“I did,” Honoria had squeaked, and it was only when he’d heard that high-pitched voice that reality had finally made its way into David’s overcooked brain and he’d realized he was acting like a man one card short of a full deck.
And for what reason? David’s mouth thinned, and he stepped down harder on the gas pedal.
It wasn’t Honoria’s fault—it wasn’t anybody’s fault—that he’d let Stephanie Willingham poison his disposition before she’d vanished like a rabbit inside a magician’s hat.
“Give us a break, Chambers,” he muttered.
Who was he trying to fool? It was somebody’s fault, all right. His. He’d homed in on Stephanie like a heat-seeking missile and that wasn’t his style. He was a sophisticated man with a sophisticated approach. A smile, a phone call. Flowers, chocolates...he wasn’t in the habit of coming on to a woman with all the subtlety of a cement truck.
He could hardly blame her for leaving without so much as a goodbye.
Not that he cared. Well, yeah, he cared that he’d made a fool of himself, but aside from that, what did it matter? David’s hands relaxed on the steering wheel; his foot eased off the pedal. The widow Willingham was something to look at, and yes, she was an enigma. He’d bet anything that the colder-than-the-Antarctic exterior hid a hotter-than-the-Tropics core.
Well, let some other poor sucker find out.
He preferred his women to be soft. Feminine. Independent, yes, but not so independent you felt each encounter was only a heartbeat away from stepping into a cage with a tiger. The bottom line was that this particular babe meant nothing to him. Two, three hours from now, he’d probably have trouble remembering what she looked like. Those dark, unfathomable eyes. That lush mouth. The silken hair, and the body that just wouldn’t quit, even though she’d hidden it inside a tailored suit the color of ripe apricots.
Apricot. That was the shade, all right. Not that he’d ever consciously noticed. If somebody had said, “Okay, Chambers, what was the widow wearing?” he’d have had to shrug and admit he hadn’t any idea.
Not true. He did have an idea. His foot bore down on the accelerator. A very specific one. His brain had registered all the pertinent facts, like the shade of the fabric. And some nonpertinent ones, like the way the jacket fit, clinging to the rise of her breasts, then nipping in at her waist before flaring out gently over her hips. Or the way the skirt had just kissed her knees. He’d noticed the color of her stockings, too. They’d been pale gray. And filmy, like the sheerest silk.
Were they stockings? Or were they panty hose? Who was it who’d invented panty hose, anyway? Not a man, that was certain. A man would have understood the importance of keeping women—beautiful, cool-to-the-eye women—in thigh-length stockings and garter belts. Maybe that was what she’d been wearing beneath that chastely tailored suit. Hosiery that would feel like cobwebs to his hands as he peeled them down her legs. A white lace garter belt, and a pair of tiny white silk panties....
The shrill howl of a siren pierced the air. David shot a glance at the speedometer, muttered a quick, sharp word and pulled onto the shoulder of the road. The flashing red lights of a police cruiser filled his rearview mirror as it pulled in behind him.
David shut off the engine and looked in his mirror again. The cop sauntering toward him was big. He was wearing dark glasses, even though the afternoon was clouding over, as if he’d seen one old Burt Reynolds’ movie too many. David sighed and let down his window. Then, without a word, he handed over his driver’s license.
The policeman studied the license, then David.
“Any idea how fast you were tooling along there, friend?” he asked pleasantly.
David wrapped his hands around the steering wheel and blew out a breath.
“Too fast.”
“You got that right.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s it? Just, ‘yeah’? No story? No excuse?”
“None you’d want to hear,” David said after a couple of seconds.
“Try me,” the cop said. David looked at him, and he laughed. “What can I tell you? It’s been a slow day.”
A muscle clenched in David’s jaw. “I just met a woman,” he said. “I didn’t like her. She didn’t like me, and I think—I know—I pretty much made an ass of myself. It shouldn’t matter. I mean, I know I’ll never see her again...but I can’t get her out of my head.”
There was a silence, and then the cop sighed.
“Listen,” he said, “you want some advice?” He handed David his license, took off his dark glasses and put his huge hands on the window ledge. “Forget the babe, whoever she is. Women are nothing but grief and worry.”
David looked at the cop. “That they are.”
“Damn right. Hey, I should know. I been married seven years.”
“I should, too. I’ve been divorced seven years.”
The two men looked at each other. Then the cop straightened up.
“Drive slowly, pal. The life you save, and all that...”
David smiled. “I will. And thanks.”
The cop grinned. “If guys don’t stick together, the babes will win the war.”
“They’ll probably win it anyway,” David said, and drove off.
A war.
That’s was what it was, all right.
Men against women. Hell, why limit it? It was male against female. No species was safe. One sex played games, the other sex went crazy.
David strode into the departures terminal at the airport, his garment carrier slung over his shoulder.
That was what all that nonsense had been today. A war game. The interval with the policeman had given him time to rethink things, and he’d finally figured out what had happened at that wedding.
Stephanie Willingham had been on maneuvers.
It wasn’t that he’d come on too hard. It was that she’d been setting up an ambush from the moment in church when they’d first laid eyes on each other. He’d made the mistake of letting his gonads do his thinking and, bam, he’d fallen right into the trap.
On the other hand... David frowned as he took his place on the tail end of a surprisingly long line at the ticket counter. On the other hand, the feminine stratagems she’d used were unlike any he’d ever experienced.
Some women went straight into action. They’d taken the equality thing to heart. “Hello,” they’d purr, and then they’d ask a few questions—were you married, involved, whatever—and if you gave the right answers, they made it clear they were interested.
He liked women who did that, admired them for being straightforward, though in his heart of hearts, he had to admit he still enjoyed doing things the old-fashioned way. There was a certain pleasure in doing the pursuing. If a woman played just a little hard to get, it heightened the chase and sweetened the moment of surrender.
But Stephanie Willingham had gone overboard.
She hadn’t just played hard to get. She’d played impossible.
The line shuffled forward and David shuffled along with it.
Maybe he really wasn’t her type. Maybe she hadn’t found his looks to her liking.
No. There was such a thing as modesty but there was such a thing as honesty, too, and the simple truth was that he hadn’t had trouble getting female attention since his voice had gone down and his height had gone up, way back in junior high school.
Maybe she just didn’t like men. Maybe her interests lay elsewhere. Anything was possible in today’s confused, convoluted, three-and-four-gender world.
No. Uh-uh. Stephanie Willingham was all female. He’d bet everything he had on that.
What was left, then? If she hadn’t found him repugnant, if she wasn’t interested in women...
David frowned. Maybe she was still in love with her husband.
“Hell,” he said, under his breath. The elderly woman standing in front of him looked around, eyebrows lifted. David blushed. “Sorry. I, uh, I didn’t expect this line to be so long...”
“Never expect anything,” the woman said. “My Earl always said that. If you don’t expect anything, you can’t be disappointed.”
Philosophy, on a ticket line in Connecticut? David almost smiled. On the other hand, it was probably good advice. And he’d have taken it to heart, if he’d needed to. But he didn’t, because he was never going to see Stephanie Willingham again. How come he kept forgetting that?
End of problem. End of story. The line staggered forward. By the time David reached the ticket counter, he was smiling.
“Mrs. Willingham?”
Honoria Crowder let the door to the ladies’ room of the Stratham Country Club swing shut behind her.
“Mrs. Willingham? Stephanie?”
Honoria peered at the line of closed stalls. Then she rolled her eyes, bent down and checked for feet showing under the doors. A pair of shiny black pumps peeped from beneath the last door on the end.
“He’s gone,” she said.
The door swung open and Stephanie looked out. “You’re sure?”
“Positive. The coast is clear. Mr. Chambers left.”
“You saw him go?”
“With my very own eyes, Stephanie. He gave us the third degree and when we’d convinced him you’d left, he did, too.”
“I’m terribly sorry to have put you through all this, Mrs. Crowder.”
“Honoria.”
“Honoria.” Stephanie hesitated. “I know my behavior must seem—it must seem...” Odd? Bizarre? Strange? “Unusual,” she said. “And I’m afraid I really can’t explain it.”
“No need,” Honoria said politely.
It was a lie. Honoria Crowder would have sold her soul for an explanation. She’d felt like a voyeur, watching the sparks bounce between the Chambers man and this woman. She’d said as much to Hayden, even added that anybody standing too close could almost have gotten singed. Hayden had given one of his prissy little smiles as if he had no idea what she was talking about—but Bobbi Blum, who’d turned out to be lots more perceptive than she’d looked, had leaned over as she’d danced by in her husband’s arms and whispered that what Honoria had just said was God’s honest truth.
“I’m not sure if those two are going to haul off and slug each other senseless, or if they’re going to grab hold of each other and just...” She’d blushed. “Just, you know...”
Honoria knew. She wouldn’t have put it quite so bluntly, but yes, that about summed things up. The Willingham woman and that man had turned out to be the entertainment of the day.
“It isn’t as if I was afraid of him, you understand.”
Honoria blinked. “Beg pardon?”
“That man. David Chambers.” Stephanie cleared her throat. “I, uh, I wouldn’t want anyone to think he’d, you know, threatened me or anything.”
“Oh. Well, no, no, actually I didn’t—”
“It’s just that he...that I...that I felt it was best if...if...”
If what, Stephanie? Why are you acting like such an idiot? Why are you hiding in the ladies’ room, as if this were prom night and you’d just discovered that your slip was showing?
Stephanie grabbed for the doorknob. “Thanks again.”
The door swung shut, and that was it. Honoria Crowder sighed, washed her hands, and headed back to table seven.
“Fascinating,” Bobbi Blum said when Honoria told her the latest details over decaf and wedding cake.
“Interesting,” Honoria corrected.
Bobbi leaned closer. “Wasn’t he just drop-dead gorgeous?”
Honoria opened her mouth and started to correct her there, as well. Drop-dead gorgeous was such a New York kind of phrase. It was overblown. Overdone. Over-dramatic...
But my goodness, it was accurate.
That build. Those eyes. The hair. The face... Honoria’s inborn New England sense of reticence deserted her, and she sighed.
“Drop-dead gorgeous, indeed,” she murmured.
David Chambers surely was.
The wonder of it was that Stephanie Willingham hadn’t seemed to notice.
Stephanie got into her rented Ford, snapped the door locks, and turned on the engine. She checked the traffic in both directions, then pulled out of the parking lot.
She felt badly, leaving this way, never even saying goodbye or thank-you to Annie, but if she’d done either, Annie would have wanted to know why she was leaving so early, and what could she possibly have said?
I’m leaving because there’s a man here who’s been coming on to me.
Oh, yeah. That would have gone over big, considering that Annie had clearly hoped for exactly that to happen.
Stephanie frowned as she approached the on-ramp to the highway. She slowed the car, checked right, then left, and carefully accelerated.
If Annie only knew. If she only had an idea of what had gone on. The way David Chambers had looked at her, as if he wanted to—to—
He’d even said as much! Oh, if Annie only knew. If she knew that he’d told her he wanted to make love to her, that it was what she wanted, too.
Stephanie’s heart did a quick flip-flop.
How dare he?
“How dare he?” she muttered.
She hadn’t wanted any such thing. Never. Not with this—this self-satisfied, smug cowboy or with any other man. She shuddered. Not since Avery—not since her husband had...
Was that the airport exit? Had she missed it? There was a sign, but she’d gone by too fast to read it.

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