Mother of the Bride (18 page)

Cydney sucked a breath, so hurt she could hardly think. She'd read an article once about children leaving home who subconsciously picked fights with their parents to make the break less painful. For the child or the parent, she'd wondered, and now she knew.

“If that's the way you want it,” she managed to say evenly. “It's your wedding, Bebe.”

“Mine and Aldo's,” she snapped, and spun out of the bathroom.

What's wrong with you? What happened to the sweet kid who apologized in the kitchen not fifteen minutes ago, Cydney wanted to shout, but her throat was clogged with
tears. She trailed Bebe into the bedroom, watched her open the door and slam it behind her, hard enough to knock a painting of a sunny Ozark hillside on the wall askew.

Cydney sat down next to her suitcase on the blanket box at the foot of the bed, her insides shaking. She'd wanted to leave, but not like this. She got up and straightened the picture, walked to the window and lifted the embroidered curtain. Lightning still flickered, but the rain had stopped and she could see the moon behind a scud of racing clouds.

It would be practical and prudent to stay until morning and drive home in daylight, but she couldn't bear the thought of seeing Bebe or trying to explain this to her mother. And why should she? It was Bebe's decision to uninvite her—let Bebe explain it to Georgette.

She'd miss the shopping trip with Gus. Oh boy, would she miss it, but it was just as well. He liked her and that's all she'd wanted. She'd thought it was all she could hope for, but his easy, offhand touches stirred feelings in her she was sure he didn't share. If she stayed he'd break her heart. He wouldn't mean to, and he'd never know it, but he would.

Cydney glanced at her still-packed suitcase. All she had to do was shut it, throw on her clothes and she could leave.
You mean creep out the front door in the middle of the night, don't you?
her little voice asked.

“Call it what you want.” Cydney swiped the flashlight off the bed and headed for the bathroom. “I'm going home.”

She blew out the candles and left them on the back of the toilet. They were too hot to pack. Maybe her mother would think to collect them. She put on clean underwear, her crop pants and her blue shirt and left the shopping list on the Duncan Phyfe desk. She tossed her sandals in the suitcase, sat down to lace on her Keds and stubbed her toe on something on the floor next to the blanket box.

“Ow!” She rubbed her foot, reached for the flashlight and shined it on her laptop, the one with the blown graphics card she'd picked up from the repair shop on Wednesday and forgot to take out of the Jeep.

She tucked it in her suitcase and zipped it shut, tugged the
pullman-on-wheels off the bed and raised the handle, slung her purse over her shoulder, gently opened the door and listened. All quiet.

Rather than risk the hallway and waking someone, Cydney took the carpeted back stairs, easing her suitcase down step by step. She couldn't remember where she'd left the map, but she had a plan. She'd get herself as far out of these hills as she could, then call the Highway Patrol on her cell phone and ask them to come find her.

She inched herself and her suitcase across the mostly bare living room floor so the wheels wouldn't squeak. She'd made it almost to the foyer when the moon broke through the clouds and silvery light poured through the glass wall, gleaming on the edges and curves of furniture and casting long pewter shadows on the pegged-pine floor. Cydney turned off the flashlight she didn't need anymore and put it on a table, lifted her suitcase up the steps and set it down by the door.

“Made it,” she sighed, reaching for the handle.

She clicked the latch and
then
saw the alarm panel on the wall, one of the tiny red bulbs leaping from solid red to flashing red. Cydney jerked her hand away, expecting a siren to blare, but all she heard was a door banging open and footsteps thudding at a run down the stairs from Gus' bedroom.

A flashlight switched on, trapping her in the beam like a convict making a break for the wall. Cydney turned her head and saw Gus in the backwash, standing on the third step in red silk boxer shorts, the flashlight in his left hand and a baseball bat in his right.

“Going somewhere?” he asked.

“Yes. Home.”

“Was it something I said?”

“No. Something Bebe said.” Cydney tore her gaze away from his naked, dark-haired chest and looked at the floor. “Nice underwear.”

“Oops. Sorry.” He switched off the flashlight. “If I go put my pants on you won't leave, will you?”

She shook her head no and he turned up the stairs. Enough
light filtered into the foyer from the living room and through the stained-glass door panels that she saw a timbered bench on the wall behind her. She sat down and waited. Gus came back in his jeans and his white T-shirt, turned off the flashlight and sat down on the steps.

“You would've made a clean getaway if I hadn't installed a battery backup on the alarm.”

“I wish I'd known that. I would've tried the window.”

“What did Bebe say to you?”

“She accused me of spying on her and Aldo, which is ridiculous, but it started an argument and I think that's what she intended. She told me she didn't want me at her wedding and asked me to leave.”

“Kids do that. It's unconscious, the experts say, but it helps them make the break when they leave home.”

“I read that article, too.”

“Doesn't help much, does it?”

“It doesn't help at all.” Cydney's throat ached and her eyes filled. She raised a hand and wiped tears off her cheeks.

“C'mere, Uncle Cyd.” Gus patted the stair beside him. When she hesitated he patted it again. “C'mon. I don't bite.”

Cydney crossed the foyer and sat on the stairs, not beside him but on the step below his. He scooted down next to her, peeled off his T-shirt and handed it to her.

“Pretend it's a handkerchief,” he said, and she burst into sobs, her face buried in his shirt, her elbows braced on her knees.

He drew her against his warm, sleek side, being kind and sympathetic, his arm around her shoulders, and that made her cry harder. She cried until she gave herself hiccups, and Gus went to the kitchen and brought her a glass of water. Cydney held her breath, drank every drop and wiped her last tear with the last dry inch of his shirt.

“Thanks.” She sighed. “I feel better.”

“Glad to hear it, 'cause you're gonna look like hell in the morning.” Cydney laughed and he looked affronted. “I always do,” he said, and she laughed harder, rocking back into
the curve of his left arm as he looped it around her and smiled. “You don't really want to leave, do you?”

“No. But Bebe doesn't want me here and it's her wedding.”

“It's Aldo's wedding, too, and this is
my
house. Bebe has no authority to kick anybody out of Tall Pines. If you're determined to go, I'll carry your suitcase out to your truck, but I'd like you to stay.”

Cydney tipped her head back and looked at his face, the curve of his jaw etched in silver by the moon. “Really?”

“Really.” He nodded. “Your mother scares the hell out of me.”

She laughed and leaned her head against his shoulder. Just for a second, to see what it would feel like. It felt … wonderful. The warmth of his skin, the smooth tone of muscle beneath. He leaned his chin on her head and breathed into her damp hair, lacing a shiver down her back.

“Can I bring a guest to the wedding?”

Cydney's heart seized. You fool, she told herself, you idiot. Of course he already has somebody.

“Well, yes,” she said, shooting straight up beside him and out from under his arm. “Certainly you can bring a guest.”

“Then how'd you like to be my date for the wedding?”

Cydney turned sideways on the step to face him. He winked. Her throat swelled with tears and she bit her lip. Gus caught her hand and gave it a firm yet gentle squeeze.

“Bebe can't do a thing about it. This is my house and I'll invite who I please. The worst she can do is stick out her lip and risk falling over it on her way up the aisle. You can leave and come back for the ceremony, but I'd be damned if I'd let her run me off.”

“You're right. I'll stay. And I'd love to be your date for the wedding.” Cydney squeezed his hand and smiled at him. “Thank you, Gus. I think you're the nicest man I've ever met.”

“Gee, thanks.” He grinned at her. “I've waited all my life to hear that from a woman.”

chapter

fifteen

Even critics who didn't especially like mysteries admired Angus Munroe's way with a plot, his “uncanny knack for moving characters through complex and emotionally charged scenarios.”

That was fiction. This was real life. The Parrish clan had been here less than twenty-four hours and already the plot outline Gus had written, titled Grand Plan to Wreck the Wedding, was so far off track he wasn't sure he could get it back. Or that he wanted to.

This had seemed like such a great idea in Kansas City. He'd been sure Cydney Parrish would lose her appeal out of context, but he was wrong. She'd looked so damn cute yesterday, stuck in her Jeep in his driveway, a pissed-off little pixie with a smudge of gravel dust on her nose. He'd wanted to rub it off with a kiss. He hadn't, but he'd wanted to, and that was the Grand Plan's first wobble on the rails.

Gus stood at the big window in his office with Artie's ancient and dinged-up Louisville Slugger resting on his shoulder, the one he'd grabbed when Cydney tripped the alarm. He'd taught Aldo how to play baseball with this bat. It was way too short for both of them now, but it worked for hitting stones into the lake. Gus usually did his best thinking with Artie's bat in his hands, but not this morning. His brain felt as thick as the fog he could see curling off the lake.

If he'd been thinking yesterday he would've said yes when Cydney asked him if he'd paid to have the dirt from the rest of the house dumped in the great room. What a perfect opportunity to throw a monkey wrench in the wedding plans. A
simple yes, and the Parrish clan would've gone straight back to Kansas City in a huff, but he'd just stood there, lost in a fantasy of Cydney naked and up to her nipples in bubbles in his hot tub. Gus turned the bat in his hands by its tape-wrapped grip and thought about whacking himself in the head with it.

How did she come up with stuff like paying to have dirt dumped in the great room? How come he couldn't?

'Cause men are from Mars, Munroe,
his inner voice said.
And women are from Venus. Although Cydney Parrish could be from Pluto.

“Yippee. You're back,” Gus said to his AWOL muse. Or his conscience, or whatever the hell it was. “You can stay, but no bad-mouthing the woman I'm in lust with.”

He wished it were only lust he felt for Cydney. He'd tried bed-hopping in college but it just wasn't in his nature. He had to like a woman before he could sleep with her and he liked Cydney. He liked her a lot. He liked her humor, her honesty and her sincerity. He liked the almond shape and color of her eyes and her pert little nose … the glimpse of cleavage she'd innocently given him when she'd leaned back into the curve of his arm on the stairs.

He didn't like petite women, but he thought Cydney was adorable. He didn't like blondes, either, but her silver-blond curls had felt like silk and smelled like lilacs when he'd laid his chin on her head. He wanted to do that again real soon. He wanted to do all kinds of things to her, starting with carrying her upstairs to his bed.

It wasn't in his nature to plot and scheme, either. In fiction, yes—in real life, no. But he'd come upstairs by flashlight after Cydney went to bed, patting himself on the back for being so damn smart. The electricity was still off, but he'd written the Grand Plan to Wreck the Wedding on his laptop Tuesday night when he got home from Kansas City. He'd forgotten to buy gas for the generator, but he always kept the batteries for the laptop charged. He nudged the PC's monitor aside to make room on his desk, fired up the laptop at 1:32
A.M.,
opened the file named GRAND PLAN and sat down to update it.

What a stroke of genius to ask Cydney to be his date for the wedding. Of course she said yes. He'd known she'd say yes. He worked Bebe ordering Cydney to leave into the Plan and added notes on how to make the best use of it. He'd smiled and hummed while he typed, the last of the storm rumbling away into the predawn darkness.

When he'd paused to think, leaning back in his chair with his glasses and his fingers laced together on the top of his head, his mind drifted to how soft and sweet Cydney felt tucked in the curve of his arm. If the revised Plan held together, he could have the wedding in shambles by the end of the weekend and Cydney in his bed. He remembered her hiccups and smiled, then her tears, and that's when it hit him— the utter rottenness of what he was doing.

He'd damn near broken his neck jumping out of his chair and backpedaling away from the laptop. He'd stared at the screen, appalled at what he'd written. Who in hell did he think he was, playing with people's emotions, jerking them around by their heartstrings like marionettes?