Open Invitation? (2 page)

A
RED-BLOODED
A
MERICAN
guy does not belong in some friggin' charm school.

Dan wiped the sweat from his eyes, neck and naked chest. He stood in faded Wranglers and beat-up ropers at his kitchen sink in Amarillo, Texas, feeling pissed off and reflecting that time ran faster than the water from his faucet.

Lilia London's voice had been like cool water, pouring down the telephone lines. Too bad he hadn't been able to feel it on the back of his neck. Dan grabbed an old hand towel and soaked it under the tap. He wrung it out and pressed it to his face, wiping away some of the day's grime.

Claire can't possibly be getting married
. Wasn't his little half sister still a ten-year-old tomboy?

Through the window over the sink, Dan watched two bay quarter horses nip at each other playfully and then swat flies from their flanks with their long black tails.

Beyond their coral, his father stood in paint-spattered overalls with one of the field hands, covering the barn in a fresh coat of deep red. They'd have to scrape and paint the house, next. Dan didn't look forward to
the work, but he wouldn't avoid it, either. It was all for a good cause: his dream of starting a boys' retreat out here. Next summer, they'd bring twenty at-risk urban teens out to take classes and work on the ranch. He'd show them a different way of life…and a good time, too.

The interior of the house was sorely in need of a woman's touch, and had been since his mother's departure twenty-two years ago. While Dan wasn't inclined to shop for floral curtains or wallpaper borders, he did see to it that the house was well-maintained on the outside.

Inside they still had the same beat-up plaid sofa they'd had since 1977 and the same worn avocado-green recliner with the ugly crocheted afghan that his aunt Mary Beth had made. Dan had added an area rug he'd had in college, which lent the room a certain something: the smell of old beer.

The walls held nothing but a functional calendar, courtesy of John Deere, and some photos of Dan as a child and his parents. The bridal photograph of his mother in her long white dress was conspicuously absent.

The focal point of the living room was a massive forty-eight-inch wide-screen television, which he'd rather be watching than remembering the conversation he'd had with Mama three weeks ago. It still rankled.

Dan had been scrubbing the dirt out from under his fingernails when the phone rang. The sound was shrill and unrelenting, like a nagging wife. He'd been sorely tempted to ignore it. But with a sigh he'd knocked the faucet to the off position with an elbow and grabbed for
the worn dish towel on the countertop. Then he'd picked up the phone and, by doing so, sealed his miserable fate.

“Yo, Granger here.”

The connection sounded fuzzy, thousands of miles away, and he didn't need caller ID to know who it was.

Mama…calling from England. He took a deep breath and cracked his neck, his gaze resting again on the stoop-shouldered figure of his father.

“Daniel, really. What kind of greeting is that?” Her voice was peppered with disapproval.

It never ceased to amuse him that the former Louella Granger had trained her West Texas drawl, like some hardy vine, to climb a worldly trellis until it flowered into a British accent.

“It's a functional greetin',” he told her. “Brief, to the point, states who I am. No bullshit about it, Mama.”

“Mummy. Please, call me Mummy, dear boy. And don't curse.”

Dan grimaced.
Dear boy? Christ. Oh, I say, old chaps. Are y'all fixin' to watch the telly?
“Apologies, Mama. How are you?”

“Splendid! And you?”

“Can't complain. Dad's fine, too, by the way.”

She expelled an audible breath.

He added, “Salutations to dear Nigel, of course.”

“Daniel, your sarcasm is not appreciated.”

“Sarcasm?”

“Nigel is a lovely man. I'm very lucky.”

Uh-huh. Nigel-the-Lovely had broken up Dan's par
ents' marriage without a qualm and whisked Louella off to Merry Olde England without her fourteen-year-old son.

Nigel, being a real peach, hadn't wanted a sullen teenager weighing down the bliss of his new marriage. And Louella had preferred the guilt of leaving her son behind to the realities of raising him. She was very sorry for the way things had turned out, but young Dan had been a little wild and needed the firm guidance that only his father could give him. He was to visit for a month out of every summer though. Wasn't that just divine?

Nope. Dan couldn't stomach tea and crumpets and Lovely Nigel. He'd lasted for exactly ten days on his first visit before announcing that he hated Nigel's stuffy mausoleum, he couldn't stand British food and there was no way in hell he'd ever call Mama “Mummy.” He'd taken the first available flight to Dallas. Hard to believe that was twenty-two years ago. Even harder to believe that little Claire, his twenty-one-year-old half sister, was now getting married in just three short weeks. Claire had been the only bright spot in his visits.

Mama waxed poetic and floral about the upcoming wedding, while all he could think about was how he'd adored his little barefoot hellion of a sister. In an odd arrangement, she'd come to visit a few times with Mama.

Claire the sweet, funny tomboy with the sunny personality and Nigel's snooty accent. Dan had taught her to appreciate the value of a good peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich on Wonder bread instead of those vile crumpets. And as for tea—the only way to drink the
stuff, as far as Dan was concerned, was cold and sweet, with a healthy dose of lemon. No fussy porcelain with curlicue handles. No silver sugar tongs. No milk.

“So, darling,” his mother said, her voice holding a note of determination. “I said you'd call her. You understand it's only for Claire that I ask.”

Huh? He'd obviously missed something. “Mama, I'm sorry—my mind was wandering. Who am I supposed to call?”

“Lilia London, Daniel. Of Finesse.”

“And why am I supposed to call this woman?”

“Daniel! I may as well have been talking to a stump. Now listen to me this time.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“As I told you, Claire's fiancé is a gentleman of impeccable lineage, and the family is very prominent. His father has a seat in the House of Lords. He's a viscount.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Well, the thing is, Claire wants to be sure the wedding and reception go smoothly. And she doesn't want to…” his mother trailed off delicately. “She would like to avoid embarrassment. Not to mention that she'd like you to be comfortable—”

“I'll be fine. I couldn't care less about rubbing shoulders with the snoots. I'll hang out with the common folk. The, uh, hoi polloi, I believe you call them.”

“Yes, well. I'm afraid that there won't
be
any common folk at the festivities, Daniel. That's rather the issue here, darling.”

Dan felt irritation spark somewhere in the region of
his liver. Now what? “Would you like me to just stay in the kitchen, then, Mama? Wash the pots and pans?”

“Of course not, silly goose! What a mad idea.” She trilled with laughter. “It would never do for the bride's brother to be working in the kitchen.”

Of course not. Bad for the family image.

“But you have to admit that you're rather rough around the edges, and this will be a challenging social situation. Five forks at the sit-down dinner, you know. Ballroom dancing with a live orchestra. And a Sunday morning mini-steeplechase—it should have been a hunt, but the horrid government put an end to that—followed by a champagne luncheon.”

Dan tried to imagine what in the hell anybody did with five forks at one meal, besides use them to stab obnoxious dinner companions whose politics you didn't agree with.

“…so I want you to call Lilia, dearest. She'll work with you for the next two weeks. Teach you conversation, table etiquette and dancing. She's going to outfit you with proper clothes, too.”

The irritation in Dan's liver flamed into full-fledged annoyance, not to mention hurt. “You have got to be kiddin' me. You want to train me like a chimp just for this blasted, stupid, redcoat wedding?”

“It's not blasted and stupid! It's the most important day—weekend—of your sister's life. This is a very small favor to ask.”

“Uh-huh. And how much will this small favor cost? Is Lovely Nigel footing the bill?”

Silence. “Daniel, you've done very well for yourself with the ranching and the oil leases. There is no reason Nigel should be asked to…to…pay for your civilization.”

Dan stuck a finger in his ear and jiggled it, hard. “My
what?
Did I hear you right? Did you just say my
civilization?
”

Louella sighed. “It's only a figure of speech.”

“It's a figure of speech that implies you think I'm a savage!”

“Daniel, on my last visit I distinctly remember you eating some sort of vile pasta product direct from the can with a plastic spoon. You also slept in your clothes.”

“I was twenty-two years old! That's how long it's been since you've visited.”

“Well, I don't have a great deal of confidence that things have improved much. You may now eat your food from the pot with a fork, that's all.”

Dan hated to admit it, but she was right.

“You need some guidance.”

“This is insulting. And I gotta point out that
you
are the one who brought me up until
you
left. We never used five forks at
our
dinner table, Mama. One was good enough for you then. Dad and I were good enough for you then. So was Amarillo. But I guess all that has changed.”

An awkward silence ensued, and Dan was human enough to savor it. She felt guilty. Well, she should.

Her Southern accent came through more than a little as she said, “Danny, I'm sorry. But I don't know how to fix it now.”

There is no fixing it now
. But he didn't say it aloud. He stared out at the sparse, dry Amarillo landscape, watching the sun set over the parched grass, scrub and mesquite. Unforgiving, this land was. But so beautiful in a rough, raw way. You couldn't force somebody to appreciate it. They just had to feel it in their bones. And if their bones belonged elsewhere…

Dan sighed. How she could prefer cold and fog and miserable drizzle to the baked heat of Texas, he didn't know. But he supposed she'd done what she had to do: escape. He'd have to forgive her one day.

“Just do it for Claire. Please, Daniel,” she said. “Her wedding is very important to her.”

“Why didn't she ask me herself?”

“She was too embarrassed. She was afraid to hurt your feelings.”

Oh, I see. But you have no worries about that…

“Will you do it, Daniel?” His mother's voice was insistent. She wasn't going to take no for an answer. She'd just keep calling and badger him to death.

Dan sighed. “Who is this woman again?”

“She's the etiquette consultant for a Connecticut-based company called Finesse. They're excellent and come highly recommended. Now write this down.”

Dan's mind returned to the present.

For Claire. Not for Mama. It's for Claire that I'm doing this.
He was damned if he'd embarrass her at her own wedding. And he didn't know how to fix himself to her satisfaction.

Dan rubbed a weary hand across the slight fur of his
chest when he hung up. He stared at the name and number he'd scrawled. Lilia London. What a priss-pot, pretentious name. He'd bet it was made up, like a stage name, to fit her profession.

He imagined himself calling her.
Well, Martha Stewart was in jail, so I contacted you…

Claire's request hurt. He'd never ask
her
to change one bit…but all the indicators pointed to the fact that she had. She'd become the sort of person who cared about forks and steeplechases and image. Well, tally friggin' ho. He was off to Farmington, Connecticut.

 

D
ESPITE HER SNOTTY NAME
, Dan entertained himself on the long flight by trying to imagine what Lilia London looked like.

Her voice was cool, elegant and pure. Like the finest vodka poured neat—straight from the freezer. It was the voice of a 1950's movie star: an untouchable, impeccable but oh-so-sexy Audrey Hepburn. Audrey in sterling silver garters.

Dan couldn't get Lilia's crisp enunciation and continental accent out of his baked Texas brain. Truth to tell, her voice did strange and embarrassing things to him. His soldier had come right to attention; a missile at the ready, locking on target. The soldier eagerly anticipated five farks, but not the kind you set next to a dinner plate.

Dan told him to stand down. And at ease. Because though Lilia London's voice still echoed in his head, she was over a thousand miles away and he didn't even know what she looked like. She could be the size of a
redwood tree, with a beard and manly hands. But somehow he didn't think so. He had a feeling that her voice was bigger than she was. She'd be petite and porcelain, the kind of girl who got caught in a dapper hero's fierce embrace by the end of an old film. The closed-mouth kiss was passionate enough to rattle her pearls, but Metro Goldwyn Meyer soon faded her to black, fully clothed.

The Audreys of the world wouldn't know what to do in contemporary Hollywood. Dan tried and failed to imagine her in current love scenes. They would ruin her mystique. Tarnish the whole concept of a lady.

Dan closed his eyes and drifted off into a light, fitful sleep. He kept seeing a ten-year-old Claire walking down the aisle of a church, wearing jeans with holes in the knees. She got to the end and took the hand of a pompous ass in tails and a top hat. The kind of guy the English would refer to as a real “prat.” Ugh.