Anna Marie Sorenson's Secret Affair (30 page)

“Hey, Dal, what a surprise!” Cameron hugged him hard. “Did you just fly in? Come on

in.”

“Yeah, in from D.C.”

“You just caught us on our way out,” Cameron said.

“Where you off to?”

“To my sister’s pre-wedding dinner,” Pepper said, throwing the wrap around her. “You remember my sister, Anna?”

Dallas’s face was expressionless as was his voice. “Yes, I do. Anna Marie.”

“It’s her dinner. She’s getting married.”

Dallas stared at Pepper for a moment. “When?”

“Tomorrow, three o’clock at St. Johns Church in Petaluma.”

“I

see.”

“Hey, why don’t you come along with us?” Cameron offered.

“The dinner’s for family and those in the wedding,” Pepper reminded her husband.

Cameron shrugged. “Dallas is family. Besides, I don’t think Anna would mind. Unless

you want to stick around here until we get back, Dal. You know there’s plenty of food in the fridge. Make yourself at home and relax.”

Dallas said equably, “You know what, I think I will take you up on the offer to tag along.

I’ve nothing better to do. I’ll stick with what I’m wearing if that’s alright with you.”

“Sure, the women will go nuts over you in your whites as they always do,” Cameron said.

“Just drop your gear in the hall and let’s go.”

At the restaurant, Anna Marie was jumping with nerves. She knew she was drinking too much champagne but it was the only way she could think of to calm herself. She tried to listen to Richard as he excitedly told his and her parents that the investment he had just set up for both he and Anna Marie had just earned a quarter of a point due to the slight increase in the U.S. dollar overseas. She tried to pay attention, at least tried to look interested. She knew he would think it irresponsible of her if she did not pay attention when he was discussing their retirement investment.

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She sighed with great relief when she saw Cameron’s tall form appear through the

doorway. Beside him, she saw her sister examining disdainfully the restaurant, finding little to her liking. She felt she could get through the next twenty-four hours as long as her brother-in-law and Beatrice were present. Her friend, who was also her matron of honor, should be coming along in another twenty minutes after she closed up the library.

She excused herself and walked up to Pepper and Cameron. “Thank you for coming

early.” She kissed both of them on the cheeks. She grabbed some champagne from a passing waiter. “Might as well drink up.”

Pepper wrinkled her nose when she drank hers. “It’s not very good, is it?”

“Don’t start,” Cameron warned her, to which she made a face. To Anna Marie, he said, “I hope you don’t mind, but we brought someone along.”

“Oh, of course not. Who?”

“Me,” Dallas said behind her.

Anna Marie turned and found herself staring at a very broad expanse of a male chest that was covered in white with brass buttons down the middle. She lifted her eyes and staggered back when she met his very green eyes, the champagne glass that she had been holding dropping from her nerveless fingers and shattering on the floor. Her face turned white, her pale gray eyes stretched almost painfully with shock then with horror.

“Hello, Anna Marie,” he said coolly, his eyes unwavering on her pale face.

“Oh, my God! Dallas,” she gasped. She stumbled back as a busboy hurriedly mopped up

the spilt champagne and swept up the broken glass. “Wha…wha…wha…How…Oh, my God. I

had no idea…”

Dallas gave a sharp smile that was a little unpleasant. His voice, though, was bland. “Of course you didn’t. Why would you? I hope you don’t mind that I invited myself to dinner tonight.”

“No, of course not,” she said, swallowing hard what felt like a huge lump in her throat.

“I…I…that is, we…I didn’t know if I should…I mean, I didn’t know where you were…”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Anna.” Pepper plucked the fresh glass of champagne that

Cameron had placed in Anna Marie’s hand. “You’ve had enough to drink if you can’t finish your sentences. We don’t want you squinty eyed at the alter and not remembering the name of the man you’re supposed to say I do to.”

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Dallas smile turned congenial, and Anna Marie wondered if she were the only one who

could see the icy hardness behind his pleasant façade. He said conversationally, “I wanted to tell you, Anna Marie, before I forget, that I did get your last letter. I think that was five, six months ago?”

Her face turned white again, her eyes staring at him, stunned, while her sister and

brother-in-law looked at her.

“You never told us you two were corresponding,” Cameron said.

“Why in the world would Anna write a letter to you, Dallas?” Pepper asked, as if she found the idea preposterous.

“Because I asked her to,” Dallas said coolly. “She’s been writing to me for nearly a year, haven’t you, Anna?”

All Anna could do was open and close her mouth like a fish, too overwhelmed with one shock after another to begin putting together a coherent sentence.

“Anna, why didn’t you tell me that you were writing to Dallas? How can you keep

something like that from me?” Pepper demanded. “Anyway, I can’t imagine you really having anything interesting to say to him.” She said to her brother-in-law, “She must have bored you to tears in those letters.”

“I enjoyed your sister’s letters very much.” His eyes bored into Anna Marie’s face.

“Except maybe the last one. It wasn’t your usual chatty detail of home life. But, now, I see why.” He looked around the dining room. “Who’s the lucky man?”

“It’s really no one you know,” Anna Marie managed to whisper in a strangled voice.

Pepper pointed a finger towards Richard who was talking to her parents. “He’s right over there.”

Dallas gave the groom a slow once over. Richard turned, smiled broadly and gave thumbs up sign. Blushing furiously, and not really knowing why she should be, Anna Marie gave a faint smile in return and gave a wave.

“And your parents approve of this marriage?” Dallas asked.

Pepper laughed in the superior way of hers. “Now why should Anna need to get approval from our parents? What are we, in the Victorian age?”

Dallas gave her a mild look, and then said to Anna Marie, “This is all pretty sudden, isn’t it?”

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Before Anna Marie could answer, her sister laughed again. “Sudden? I wouldn’t call a spinster almost thirty years old getting engaged for the first time as sudden. My parents and I feared for her future for so long, we thought she would never find a man.” She gave a great wink at Dallas. “We even suspected that Anna might be a virgin, because we hardly ever saw her with a man, or maybe even a lesbian. And, now, we can all allay our fears with a big sigh of relief.

Her future is set with Richard and it’s all taken care of.”

Dallas looked down at Anna Marie. “Is that why you’re marrying this man? Because he’s rich and can give you a comfortable life?”

She shook her head emphatically. “No, no, no.”

“And what’s wrong with that, if she is?” Pepper asked. “Every girl has a right to look out for her future. I’m not ashamed that I was when I hooked Cameron.”

Dallas ignored her and kept his eyes on Anna Marie’s ashen face, waiting for her answer.

However, she was saved when Richard appeared and put his arm around her waist. “I’m

told by the waiters that it’s time to sit down so they can start serving the dinner.” Anna Marie gave a hesitant smile up at Dallas and allowed Richard to lead her to their table.

But, then, to her horror, Dallas somehow, and ruthlessly so, managed to maneuver

himself to seat right across from where Anna Marie and Richard were sitting at the long dinner table. She felt her stomach drop when her eyes met his calm, very green ones across the table, and she lost whatever little appetite she had. And, apparently, her coordination, as well, because she was concentrating so hard on avoiding those unwavering male eyes. She nearly knocked everything she reached for. Whenever someone said something to her, all she could manage was to mumble short answers.

Completely oblivious to the tension that was wringing his fiancée’s nerves, Richard, always mindful of networking, struck up a conversation with Dallas. “So, Dallas, your brother tells me that you’ve been a Navy SEAL for many years, now.”

Dallas’s eyes flicked at him. “Yes.”

“That’s admirable. I hear it’s a very tough job. Not a lot of men, I understand, pass the training.”

“Training isn’t a walk in the park, that’s true.”

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“I myself have never been in the military, although I would have liked to have joined the Green Berets.”

Dallas’s eyes glanced over at the other man, noting his slender unmarred hands that

looked as if they had never handled anything more lethal than an expensive pen. Anna Marie’s fiancé wore on his placidly handsome face an expression of well-being and general satisfaction of life, making his expression border on smugness that rising affluence often lent. He had baby-fine short brown hair that was just beginning to recede at his temples, and the beginning paunch of a young man who was on the verge of settling into a comfortable middle age.

Dallas said blandly, “I’m sure you would have been a good Beret.” Then he said, “How did you meet, you and Anna Marie?” and did not glance over at Anna Marie when her eyes flew to his.

“How did we meet?” Richard put his arms across the back of her chair and smiled down at her, his smile full of pleased approval. “Why, that’s simple. Her sister, Pepper, brought us together. If it weren’t for her, I’d still probably be at home checking out the porn sites of under-aged girls.” He threw his head back and laughed heartedly, thinking he had made a great joke, not at all noticing that Dallas’s face had stiffened and his fiancée was staring at him with some horror.

“So my sister-in-law brought you two together,” Dallas commented. “She must be

pleased with herself that she hit it out of the park on her first try at matching up Anna Marie.”

“Oh, believe me, I wasn’t the first man Pepper tried to put her way. From what I

understand from Pepper, she’s been matching men up for Anna for years.” Richard leaned towards Dallas conspiratorially. “She actually confided in me that she had feared that she was running out of men who were willing to go on blind dates with her sister and that Anna would forever remain unmarried like an unwanted changeling.” Then he laughed and looked very pleased with himself as he placed his arm around Anna Marie’s shoulder. “Pepper said I was her last hope. It was fortunate for Anna, here, that I was at that time in the market for a wife. I mean, look at me, I make a pretty good living now, my retirement is set and growing every year, and it’s time I thought about having kids. By the time Pepper had introduced us, we were both more than ready to take the big leap.”

Dallas looked from the groom to the bride, watching the acute discomfort on her face.

“So, you’re basically doing Anna Marie a favor by marrying her?”

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Richard shook his head. “No, that wasn’t what I meant. I consider myself very grateful that I get to marry her. I know she’ll make a wonderful wife for me as well as a good mother for our children. And I’ll do my part to be a loving and supportive husband. In fact, I take the role of a husband so seriously that I even mapped out our retirement long before I considered taking the matrimonial step. That’s one of the main reasons why Pepper thought I’d make her sister an excellent husband. Because with me, she’s already set in her old age.”

A slight smile flashed briefly on Dallas’s face. “It never occurred to me that you were so preoccupied with old age, Anna Marie.

Before she could answer, Richard said quickly, his face earnest and eager, “You see, that’s what’s wrong with a lot of men today, especially the younger ones. They don’t think enough about their retirement. In fact, the younger you are, the better. When you’re twenty, it takes a minimum of depositing one hundred dollars per month in an IRA to have a nest egg worth over a million dollars once he’s ready to retire. Now, with me, once I graduated from high school, since I had a talent for finances, I took investments more seriously than most young men.

I got a degree in finance and then hired on with Goldman Sachs, then two years later, I opened my own brokerage firm. Now, I consider my firm as a firm where people don’t need to think about their money, because I do it for them.” He leaned towards Dallas as he warmed up to his favorite topic. “I’ve saved many people hundreds and thousands of dollars, even millions in some cases in steering them away from wrong investments. Even though I’ve never worked at Wall Street, I have very good contacts in New York as well as San Francisco, Chicago, and Los Angeles. I’m also beginning to establish some investment partnerships overseas, especially in Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, and Paris. With such connections, I’ll be able to handle clients with portfolios that firms like Goldman Sachs and Schwab do.”

Dallas stared at him, his expression still, as he let it sink in that Anna Marie’s fiancée was actually soliciting him for his family’s business.

Anna Marie avoided his glance, her face suffused with heat from shame and

embarrassment, looking anywhere else, as if she were searching for a place where the earth could swallow her up. She had tried a few times to gently hint to Richard that peddling his business to her in-laws was perhaps not the wisest idea, especially when his first attempt had already fallen on deaf ears. But Richard either was unable to comprehend the socially bad taste of peddling to rich relatives or he chose not to.

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Dallas picked up the glass of water that the waiter had set in front of him and took a sip.

He said to Anna Marie, “At least you’ll be able to quit your job to go back to school full time to get your graduate degree in Library Science. Then you’ll be able to work at the Library of Congress like you’ve always dreamed of.”

Richard gave a laugh and rolled his eyes. “Please, don’t get her started on that. Do you know what it took to finally have Anna give up such a silly notion as getting a useless degree as Library Science and working for the Library of Congress? When she first told me that, I thought she was joking at first. I mean, the Library of Congress. Do you know how far of a commute that would be? Of course, being savvy with women, I didn’t let her know that. But, eventually, we had to address it when we decided to get married.”