Wisconsin Wedding (Welcome To Tyler, No. 3) (18 page)

Then she said, “You know, the bastard
could
have left me a note.”

Nora smiled. “Yes, he could have. And Byron could have called again by now.”

Liza watched the honey drip from her spoon onto her split muffin. “I’ve never been to Rhode Island, either.”

Nora got up, tore a scrap of paper from the notepad by her phone, sat back down and pushed it across the table to Liza.

“What’s this?” Liza asked.

“The times of today’s flights from Milwaukee to Boston and Providence.”

This time, Liza’s smile reached her sparkling eyes. “You, Miss Gates, are far more devious than you look.”

* * *

I
T WAS A CLEAR
, sharply cold New England morning in late autumn. As he walked onto the quiet, isolated stretch of Nantucket Island beach, Byron could smell the salt in the air, feel it on his skin. The wind off the Atlantic penetrated his bones. In the distance, the sea gulls swooped and croaked. These, he thought, would always be the sights and
smells and sounds of home. Which was why he’d known his brother would come here.

He could see Cliff walking slowly along the ocean’s edge, his shoulders hunched against the cold.

Byron hesitated, then moved across the white sand. And in his mind, he could see two small boys and their father running across the sand, discovering tide pools, scooping up shells, chasing waves. He could hear the father’s laughter. It was clear and strong and filled with love and hope. The two boys responded with hoots and squeals. For the boys and their father, and their mother who would join them later for a clambake, Nantucket was a retreat, a place of peace and beauty where they could be together without the pressures of the outside world—of war, family, commerce, reputation. On Nantucket, they preferred to live simply, in harmony with the rhythms of the sun and the tide.

Then Byron was standing beside his brother, and he could see that the two boys had become men. And he knew that the father was gone and had been for too long. Cliff didn’t look at him. He didn’t speak. He and Byron continued along the beach together.

Finally, Cliff said, “We all did our best.”

“Yes,” Byron said, “we did.”

“It wasn’t enough to save Dad.”

“No. There was never any way it could be. But he knew that. He didn’t expect it.”

Cliff nodded, looking out at the choppy ocean that was so impossibly blue, so impossibly beautiful, under the cloudless sky. “I know he knew.”

For a while longer, they walked in silence.

Then Cliff said, “I couldn’t save everyone I wanted to save in Cambodia.”

“You saved more than most, Cliff. More than anyone could have asked you to save.”

Cliff’s gaze cut toward his younger brother; the bright sunlight revealed every line, every scar, a harsh reminder of the years that had passed, the time they’d lost. “Until Liza, I’m not sure I ever really understood what it must have been like for Mother to lose both of us, Dad and me.”

“She didn’t lose you, Cliff.”

“I know that now. I didn’t for a long time.”

They walked into the wet sand where a wave had receded, making footprints that wouldn’t last. Cliff seemed unaware of the cold. Byron zipped up his leather jacket.

“You’d knew I’d be here?” Cliff asked.

“Yeah.”

He nodded, not needing to know how Byron had known. It was enough that he had. “We were all at our best here. I had to come before I walked down the aisle on Saturday. I had to know I could.”

They started back across the empty beach.

A woman was coming toward them, over the same ground Byron had come, moving slowly, uncertainly. Her head was wrapped in a flowing challis scarf against the increasingly fierce wind. If it didn’t die down, Byron thought, the plane he’d chartered would be grounded and even the ferry wouldn’t run.

But then, beside him, Cliff whispered hoarsely, “Mother.”

And she recognized him, too, and hesitated, and Byron could feel his brother’s pain that his own mother would hold back when she saw him. But, for a time, that was what he’d wanted, what he’d needed. Now it wasn’t.

He grinned suddenly and waved.

Even with the wind, Byron could hear their mother’s cry of happiness and relief. Cliff was moving faster. Byron hung back. This was their moment.

Their mother’s scarf had come undone, trailing down her
back, and she wasn’t the young woman who’d tried to explain to her sons their father’s sense of duty when he’d gone back to Vietnam for yet another tour, who’d tried to give them hope and stability in their grandfather’s historic house in Providence during those difficult years, first of absence, then of uncertainty, finally of loss. Anne Forrester had grown older since her husband had gone off to war, never to come home, even to be buried. But she’d retained her strength and courage and humor. Byron could sense those qualities, even as he saw tears glistening on her cheeks.

Then Cliff caught up with her, and he held her, and both mother and firstborn son were still and silent, and crying, in the autumn wind.

* * *

“H
OLY COW
,” Liza Baron said as she and Nora stood in the reception area of the very sedate, very plush Providence offices of Pierce & Rothchilde, Publishers. “Cliff wasn’t kidding when he said his family were East Coast mucky-mucks.”

Nora doubted those had been Cliff’s exact words, but Liza did have a point. She couldn’t imagine a better symbol of East Coast blue bloods than the beautiful brownstone headquarters of one of the most prestigious publishing houses in the country. Mrs. Redbacker, Byron’s intrepid secretary, came out to greet them, reluctantly bringing them back to the offices of the president.

“Mr. Forrester is away this week,” Mrs. Redbacker said.

Liza, in her serape and leggings and much more herself now that she was
doing
something, spoke up. “I know. He went to Wisconsin for his brother’s wedding. I’m his almost sister-in-law.”

Mrs. Redbacker nodded, as if outrageous Liza Baron was about what she’d expected. Nora, in a more conservative
outfit of wool pants and plaid blazer, took in the antique furnishings, the computer, the fax machine, the steely-eyed portraits of Clifton Rutherford Pierce, Cofounder, and Thorton Pierce, Past President, above the marble fireplace mantel. And for three years she’d thought Gates Department Store was as close as Byron had come to corporate America. She gritted her teeth. The man did have a way of setting her off.

“So Byron hasn’t been around today?” Liza asked.

Mrs. Redbacker sniffed. “No, he hasn’t. And I’m sorry, but I don’t expect him.”

Liza frowned, in no mood for anyone to tell her anything she didn’t want to hear. They’d checked at the airport in Milwaukee and then again in Providence—she’d vetoed flying into the bigger airport in Boston, which was farther away—but there was no word, anywhere, from either Byron or Cliff. Not at the lodge, not at her mother’s, not on Nora’s message machine, not at the store. This did not sit well with Liza. It was sitting less and less well with Nora.

Nora tore her gaze from the two Pierce portraits and smiled at Mrs. Redbacker as she would at a dissatisfied Gates customer. “That is a surprise,” she said calmly, “because Mr. Forrester—Byron—asked us to meet him in his office.”

She glanced at Liza, hoping her friend would realize what she wanted: she had to see Byron’s office. She might never get another chance. And it could tell her so much about this man who’d wormed his way into her life, into her mind and heart. She wanted to know everything about him, regardless of what the future held.

“He did?” Mrs. Redbacker asked, not expecting an answer. “Well, I suppose it’s entirely possible.”

Her tone was unmistakable; she thought she’d make a better president of Pierce & Rothchilde, Publishers, than
Clifton Pierce’s great-grandson and Thorton Pierce’s grandson did. Possibly she thought almost anyone would. There was no rancor in her voice, just the long-suffering of a secretary devoted to her company more than to a particular personality slated at birth to run it. Mrs. Redbacker seemed not to resent or dislike Byron Forrester as much as she simply believed he wasn’t where he belonged. Nora had employees herself who were more loyal to Gates and its meaning to the community than to her personally. And Aunt Ellie’s longtime personal secretary had retired just before her boss fell ill, at which point Nora had hired a full-fledged assistant in Albert Shaw. Not that it would have mattered; most people regarded her as another Aunt Ellie.

Clearly Byron was not another Clifton or Thorton Pierce.

Which Nora found curiously heartening.

She decided to intervene. “Byron and I are old friends.”

Mrs. Redbacker narrowed her eyes. “Oh?”

“He did a series of photographs on my great-aunt three years ago,” Nora said, trying to stick to the truth as much as possible. “He’s an award-winning photographer, you know.”

“I’m aware of that.” Mrs. Redbacker’s tone was a little too sharp for Nora’s tastes. It wouldn’t be easy to get past her. She narrowed her eyes. “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t, but it’s Nora. Nora Gates.”

Liza warmed to the project. “We’re here to pick up something for Byron from his office. It’s a special gift for Cliff. His brother. You know—”

“Yes,” Mrs. Redbacker said. “I know all about Cliff Forrester.”

Liza snorted. “You don’t believe us!”

Mrs. Redbacker sighed. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what to believe. Mr. Forrester—Mr. Byron Forres
ter—did leave something in his office for Miss Gates. But I understood I was to send it to her.” The very experienced secretary, clearly out of her element, turned to Nora. “If you’re Nora Gates of Gates Department Store, Tyler, Wisconsin.”

“I am.”

“Well, then, come along. It’s a photograph of an elderly woman—your great-aunt, I believe—and some girl. I’ll show it to you and you can decide if you want to take it with you or have it sent to Wisconsin.”

Liza was grinning. “Yeah, that’d be great.”

Nora, however, found herself unable to speak, and silently followed Liza and Mrs. Redbacker into the elegant office of the president of Pierce & Rothchilde, Publishers.

* * *

“M
Y PERSONALITY
was probably more suited to running this place than yours,” Cliff said as he and Byron headed down the cream-colored corridor to the office occupied by a Pierce for most of the past century. “But it wasn’t meant to be.”

“It’s not a bad job.”

“It wasn’t a job to Grandfather. It was a passion—the way Gates is for Nora.”

Byron nodded. “That’s to be respected, unless it interferes with a person living a full life. Anyway, my passions lie elsewhere.”

“Photography,” Cliff speculated.

“For a few years, yes. But I don’t want to make a job of it. I like it as something I can do when the muse strikes, so to speak.”

They’d come to his office.

In the outer room, Mrs. Redbacker was speaking to a slightly paunchy security guard. “I don’t believe they’re in any way dangerous, but they…well, they just won’t
leave.
They insist Mr. Forrester is bound to show up sooner or later. One or the other Mr. Forrester, they say. They keep dialing his home but get no answer. If they did, I suspect they’d go harass him there. Why, I do believe they’ll
sleep
here if he doesn’t return. And it’s after five now!”

“I’ll talk to them,” the guard said.

Cliff hung back, amused. “Sounds like you’ve got company. Do your thing, Brother.”

Imagining boycotters and protesters of various descriptions—someone could be found to disapprove of virtually any book on any given publisher’s list—Byron stepped forward, trying to look presidential. “What’s up, Mrs. Redbacker?”

She was clearly flustered, an increasingly frequent state during his three-month tenure at Pierce & Rothchilde. “Oh, I’m so
glad
you’re here.” Which had to be a first. “Early this afternooon two women barged in here. One claimed to be your brother’s fiancée and the other seemed quite respectable and normal at first, and I…well, I fell for their act, I must admit. They’re in your office now. They’ve been there for hours, and they won’t leave. They…they’re playing
darts,
Mr. Forrester.”

“Darts?” Byron repeated.

Behind him, Cliff said, “Liza couldn’t hit the side of a barn.”

Byron grunted. “I’ll bet Nora could take the eyes out of a bull at a hundred feet.”

“Ol’ Granddaddy Pierce is probably doing flips in his grave.”

“Both ol’ Granddaddy Pierces,” Byron said.

“Think we should leave ’em to security?” his brother asked.

“It’s a thought.”

Then his office door swung open, and a dart came flying
out, landing with a precise thwack on Mrs. Redbacker’s bulletin board, just inches from Byron’s head.

“I think,” Cliff said, coming up beside him, “your lady’s pissed off.”

“Mine?
You’re
the one who skipped out on your fiancée three days before your wedding.”

Then another dart whizzed out of the inner sanctum of the president of Pierce & Rothchilde, Publishers. It thwacked against the wall near enough to Cliff for him to know he was the intended target, but the plaster wouldn’t hold it and it fell onto the floor.

Mrs. Redbacker had ducked behind her desk. The security guard was looking to Byron for guidance. With some effort, he remembered he
was
the boss. He grabbed the dart off the bulletin board. Cliff got the idea and snatched up the one on the floor.

Apparently the two interlopers in Byron’s office got the idea, too, and slammed the door shut.

“You two can go on home,” Byron told his secretary and security guard.

He and Cliff waited until the two had retreated, Mrs. Redbacker with a frosty good-night, the guard without a word.

Then, darts in hand, the two brothers took their grandfathers’ office in a frontal assault.

* * *

C
LIFF ADMITTED
he should have left Liza a note. He said he should have called. He said he loved her with all his heart and soul.

She relinquished her cache of darts.