California Dream (19 page)

Lee led the way through an impressive house, past marble floors and expensive art to the patio. An aquamarine swimming pool glittered in the bright sunlight at the center, along with several chaises and an umbrella table situated in the shade. The patio sat above an inviting expanse of green lawn that stretched down to an adobe wall and a riot of flowering plants.

“Why are there only two places at the table?” Thomas wondered when he noticed the discrepancy.

Lee let go of his hand and smiled like a vixen. “Because you and Roddy are dining alone. Roddy has some things he wants to talk to you about, and I’m going out to reacquaint myself with some friends.”

With that, she disappeared, leaving the two men who loved her to stare warily at each other.

“Have a seat,” Roddy invited, still looking blatantly nervous.

Thomas sat at the brightly-set table with Roddy and gave him a fatherly look. “She knows how to wrap a man around her little finger when she wants, doesn’t she?”

Roddy chuckled. “She does. The press here loves her.”

“And you?” Thomas surprised himself with the blunt question.

Roddy surprised him by looking dreamy. “Oh, yeah,” the younger man said on a sigh. “She changed my life.” He paused for a second and then looked directly into Thomas’s eyes. “I want to marry her.”

Thomas took a moment to digest that. Naturally, he had hoped that the man his daughter loved more than anything else on earth wanted to marry her, but he hadn’t been quite prepared for the reality of Roddy. The man just didn’t instill feelings of paternal security. Thomas knew it was just his looks, though. Lee had picked him, and his daughter had always had good sense.

“I see,” he said finally when it was obvious Roddy expected him to say something. “I know you’ll be able to take care of her, but you’ve got a reputation.”

Roddy seemed stunned by his remark. He obviously hadn’t expected to be grilled by Lee’s father. Thomas was not a snob who looked down his nose at others, but Roddy had to know he also wasn’t a pushover.

“I would never cheat on Lee,” he promised fervently. “For one thing, she’d rip my heart out with her bare hands and stomp on it, and for another, I just couldn’t do that to her.”

“What about on concert tours? I’ve heard about what goes on during those.”

Roddy smiled a little. “That’s actually kind of how I met Lee.”

Thomas scowled and Roddy chucked nervously. No father wanted to hear the story of how his daughter had indulged in a night of debauchery with a rock star. Thomas had already figured out Roddy and Lee hadn’t been playing cards that night, but he also didn’t really want to hear about what actually happened.

“All that is in the past now,” Roddy was quick to say. “I’ll be taking Lee along with me on tour when I go again.”

Thomas stared holes into him. “You better be sure this is what you want. I don’t want Lee getting her heart broken later because you changed your mind.”

“I’m almost thirty years old,” Roddy said with his back up. “I think the wild part of my youth is behind me. Lee is what I want now.”

Thomas’s eyes made a slow perusal of Roddy’s appearance once again, and he finally grunted and said, “I hope so.”

He had to admit he wasn’t exactly comfortable with the ruffian who had stolen his daughter’s heart. Yet, after sharing lunch with the unusual young man, he realized Roddy was an intelligent, serious guy who knew what he wanted out of life and how to get it. His rebel appearance was part of his success, and Thomas would simply have to get used to it.

Thomas was thrilled when Lee told him Roddy had bought her a bookstore as a wedding gift. Not many men could afford to give their brides such a present, and it was certainly better than a pair of diamond earrings. Lee would no longer feel bored and useless with her own business to run.

Thomas and Roddy were amicably discussing work issues when Lee returned. Thomas was in the middle of giving Roddy his opinion on his record label, and Roddy was intently listening, when she appeared in the doorway to the house.

Chapter twenty

The California sun beat relentlessly down onto the greenery in Roddy’s back yard. The smell of flowers was heady in the air. Not a single cloud marred the unending blue of the sky as sunlight glistened off the pool. Gardenias floated in the still water while the soft sounds of a string quartet warming up wafted on the air. Tables groaned under the weight of the huge trays of food displayed over every inch of space. A huge, white cake sat sentinel in the middle of it all, with a hand-painted bride and groom standing on the top layer, waiting for the festivities to begin.

Belying the peace of the scene were the dozens of red-jacketed waiters and waitresses who scurried about, laying on the final touches. They weaved around each other with their trays of food and skirted men in coveralls carrying stacks of folding chairs. The chairs were being set up in neat rows on the expanse of green on the lower part of the lawn while technicians set up lights and sound equipment.

Huge pots of flowers dotted the premises, their colors and scents mingling with the plants that grew on the grounds, and the whole setting looked like a fairytale land.

Margaret O’Neill surveyed her handiwork with a satisfied smile. It hadn’t been easy to achieve, but her persistence had served her well, at least on the grounds. She was still a little worried about the goings-on in the house.

She turned on her heel with a slight frown. Roddy was creating problems. She had known he wasn’t a conformist since he came home with a tattoo at the age of fifteen, but she had expected a little more cooperation from him on his wedding day. He had insisted he be allowed to wear a bandanna for the ceremony, and much to Margaret’s chagrin, Lee sided with him on the issue. Only Margaret’s persistence, along with Thomas Miller’s, and their unexpected ally Eddie, had made them change their minds.

Margaret made her way back into the house to check in on her son one more time. She would have to keep a close eye on him that day if she wanted to keep him in line, and Margaret wasn’t about to let him get away with anything during the wedding she had waited her whole life to arrange.

“This is my last chance to boss you around,” she said in the face of his protests. “From now on, you’ll have a wife to harass you, so let me enjoy this.”

Lee was almost sweet enough to make up for Roddy’s tantrums. From the first, she had relied heavily on Margaret’s assistance. Margaret knew Lee’s mother was nowhere around, and she gleefully accepted Lee as her daughter. She went with Lee to help her pick out her dress, and Margaret was the one who had insisted one should be created especially for her. When Lee balked at the cost, Margaret simply told her it was an excellent use of Roddy’s money.

“This is probably my last chance to see you in a decent dress,” Margaret had cajoled. “You’re always in some tiny scrap of leather, and I want some pictures of you and Roddy looking respectable.”

Lee never could resist Margaret when she acted motherly, and wound up finally agreeing to the pearl-encrusted, trailing white silk creation Margaret insisted on. She looked absolutely breathtaking in the dress, and Roddy probably wouldn’t even recognize her.

Then again, Lee might not recognize Roddy, Margaret mused. Roddy’s hair was pulled back neatly and he almost looked respectable. He was actually wearing shoes, rather than the cowboy boots he usually liked to clomp around in. His black silk tuxedo fit him to perfection, having been tailor-made to fit every hollow and bulge. If Lee was the slightest bit normal, she would insist Roddy dress that way more often.

Margaret let loose a happy sigh when she opened Roddy’s bedroom door.

He turned to look at her, and his displeased scowl vanished. Marrying Lee was what he wanted, but the wedding plans were all Margaret’s. She knew he and Lee went along with her plans to please her, and appreciated both of them for their cooperation.

Eddie was obviously having a good time. Roddy’s groomsmen were all dressed in white tuxedos with red ties and cummerbunds. Margaret could tell Eddie liked the way he looked. His hair had been allowed to tumble free, unlike Roddy’s, but Eddie pulled off the look with aplomb.

Guests began to arrive, and Margaret left her son in order to greet them and start the festivities. There would be no outside photographers during the ceremony, though there was one hired especially for the event, and Thomas had also hired a videographer. Afterwards, a few select paparazzi would be allowed in for a single hour to snap pictures to their hearts’ content, which was a photographer’s dream with Roddy’s guest list.



Down the hall in a guest room, Lee put the finishing touches on her appearance. Debbie was there to help her, along with Helene and two of her other California friends. Debbie and Helene got on famously, and Helene was already doing her best to convince Debbie she should relocate to the west coast and hook up with a musician. Lee smiled, stealing glances at them in the mirror as she touched up her makeup and let the hair stylist do amazing things to her usually unruly hair.

While Lee was dressed in blinding white, her bridesmaids all wore beautiful, deep red satin gowns. The color became her friends well, she decided. She smiled watching Debbie with her other friends, and chuckled as she remembered Mr. Eggers’s dire warnings that he expected Debbie to return. Lee would let her go for now, she decided, but she was already thinking about luring Debbie back when she was ready to open her bookstore.

It was still hard to believe she was now a business owner. She and Roddy had talked, and they decided she should take a few classes to learn the things she needed to know to run the place. She was already looking forward to every aspect of the new venture.

She was most excited about renovating the store. The current stock ran toward fanzines and pornography, so she had decided to get rid of all the inventory and start over. Plans were already in place to gut the store and rebuild it shelf by shelf. Lee and Roddy excitedly discussed their plans every night, in between their feverish efforts to become reacquainted. Roddy was just as enthusiastic about every bit of it as she was, and was trying to talk her into opening a music section so he would have an excuse to hang out there.

Lee had never dreamed it was possible to be this happy. She had friends, in the plural. She finally had a loving father, and was gaining an excellent substitute for a mother. But most of all, she was going to start a real life with the man she loved.

Roddy could dissolve her with a glance. He could start her on fire with his touch. And when he made love to her, which was often, the entire earth shook with their passion.

Lee loved Roddy more than anything else in the world, and knew that he loved her just as much. Without his money and fame, and the fine house in Beverly Hills, their feelings for each other would still be the same, she knew, but she was really grateful for all of it.

A loud knock at the door startled her out of her reverie.

“Lee!” her father called. “Are you girls ready? The preacher’s here and we’re ready to start the ceremony.”



A hush came over the crowd on the lawn as Lee wafted down the stairs on her father’s arm. Lee didn’t notice. She was too busy staring at the man who was shortly to become her husband.

Roddy looked different in a tuxedo with his hair pulled back. He was handsome that way, but she decided she liked him better in tight leather pants with a bandanna wrapped around his head. The red flower in his lapel looked out of place, and she vowed to remove it as soon as possible.

His eyes locked with hers as she floated down the steps. She smiled as she read the look in them. They were surrounded by well-dressed famous people on one of the most important days of their lives, but when they looked at each other that way, it was just the two of them. She knew he longed to rip her expensive silk dress off her and get her down to her skin. Despite the beauty of her gown and intricate hairstyle, she knew he preferred her in painted-on jeans and a tee-shirt with her hair loose and free. There were only a few more hours of formality to get through, though, and then they could be themselves again.

Roddy held her hand tightly in his as the preacher performed the short ceremony that brought them together. Afterwards, Roddy ravaged her mouth in a possessive kiss, and then led her up to the patio for the cake-cutting ceremony and the hour of popping flashes he was allowing the paparazzi.

The End