Prelude to a Wedding (26 page)

"What is there to decide, Paul? Are there
drawbacks?"

"Yeah, there are drawbacks," he shot back
with something close to bitterness. "You sound just like my father,
and he learned it from the master—Walter Mulholland. Just because
it carries you one more step up that great career ladder doesn't
make it automatically the right move." He paused.
Just like my
father . .
.
learned it from the master.
A glimmer of
understanding crossed her thoughts, but slipped back as he
continued, slow and controlled. "I'd have obligations to them. I'd
have to be in D.C. a certain number of days each month. It would
cut into my business here. I have obligations to clients here.
Loyal clients."

"And of course," she started silkily, "it
would entail having to look ahead enough to keep some sort of
schedule. Even if only for a few days a month."

The smoothness of her tone didn't fool him.
He flicked her a look, then made a sound that could have meant
anything. A noncommittal sound. Under her breath, she swore.

"What?" His sharpness indicated he'd caught
the drift of her sentiment, though she didn't bother to
clarify.

She knew exactly how this situation with the
Smithsonian had come about. He'd probably been all friendly and
helpful at first, making them think he was exactly the sort of
person they needed, leading them on to believe he'd be there when
they needed him. Then, at the last minute, he'd backed off and left
them to be the ones to make the final move.

Just the way he had with her.

She swore under her breath again, then turned
to stare blindly at the bookcase in front of her.

Oh, he'd worked it perfectly. He had pulled
her along. He'd pushed and prodded and chased—up to a point. Then
he'd backed off and waited for her to make the next step. At each
level, he'd forced her to make the final decision whether to go on
to the next. Until there was only that final step to take toward
him—to give her heart.

Well, she had. And now she'd just have to
live with the resulting pain. But she wasn't going to live with it
alone. He wouldn't take the step himself, but by God she wasn't
going to let him pretend she hadn't.

Pivoting, she faced him.

"I love you, Paul."

For all the uncertain anger bubbling inside
her, Bette knew her voice carried conviction. Heaven help her, she
did love him. In a way she knew she'd never get over.

As she watched, his eyes lost their narrowed
look of defense, then widened in astonishment. They stayed wide,
but into them leaped a flame that seemed to add a glow to his
entire face as he rose and started toward her.

She held him off with one outstretched arm.
Desire wasn't enough this time. There was more to say. Words that
desire couldn't burn away.

The glimmer of understanding grew brighter,
bright enough to illuminate the connection between past and
present, between father and son, grandfather and grandson.

"I love you, and that's my problem."

He frowned at the word
problem
but she
went on. "You pretend you're a free and easy spirit who doesn't
commit to anything, but we both know that's a lie. You're committed
to your business and your friends and your family. And probably, in
your own way, you're committed to me. But that's not the kind of
commitment I want. I want the kind that doesn't wince at the word
marriage, that makes plans for a home and a family, that arranges a
life together. The kind that doesn't need options left open because
loving each other is the best option there is. The kind that
doesn't mind strings."

Looking at Bette, Paul imagined for a moment
that he could feel the strings she said bound her to him breaking
loose, snapping so hard and so fast that they rebounded back to
whip at him. God, she was going to leave him.

"That's what I've wanted as long as I can
remember, Paul. I knew from the beginning that you wouldn't— maybe
couldn't—give that to me. You were totally honest about that.
That's why I tried so hard to stay away from you. But you can be
persistent. And charming."

Her mouth, still red and swollen from their
passion, lifted on one side in a smile that squeezed his heart. And
in his pain, he lashed out.

"Are you saying I seduced you? Sold you a
bill of goods? Because I didn't. I never made you promises I didn't
keep."

"No. You never made promises. You were
honest. At least about that. But you haven't been honest with
yourself."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"No-o-o." She drew out the negative. "You
probably don't. But I should have seen it before. That first night
you practically spelled it out. Your whole life has been spent
opposing your grandfather. Whatever his expectations and goals were
for you—school, career, attitude toward life, marriage, family—you
did something different."

He didn't bother denying it. It was true.
He'd been determined from the start not to do what Walter
Mulholland ordered. "And what about you? Haven't you spent your
whole life living up to your grandfather's expectations? No time
for fun, only time for work and advancement. Life goals and
schedules and step-by-step plans."

Her eyes opened wide and he saw the blue
intensified by pain, then they narrowed. "I see now. All this time,
you've thought I was just like your grandfather, haven't you? That
what my grandfather taught me was what your grandfather tried to
force on you. Maybe you've even worried that I'd try to run your
life, to remake you like your grandfather did."

'"That's bull—"

She didn't seem to hear. "I won't ask for
anything from you, Paul. I just want to be as honest as you've
been. I love you, but I don't want to. God, I don't want to." Her
voice held such hurt he almost reached for her, even as the words
struck at him. "Because loving you means I want all those things
with you that scare you so much—a home, a family, a future. So
someday I think—I hope—I'll stop loving you. And then I'll
leave."

Chapter Twelve

She'd gone. She'd said she loved him. She'd
said she asked nothing of him. And then she'd left.

Oh, he knew the trip had been planned a long
time. But it came down to the same thing. She'd left, and she'd
left him behind.

Would she have asked him to come if he'd said
yes to the Smithsonian, if he'd proved he was following the "right"
path in life? Was that the price of admission to her heart?

His rush of anger receded as quickly as it
had come. No. That wasn't fair. That wasn't Bette's way.

More likely she was trying to spare him. If
her family was anything like his, bringing someone to a function
like this would have been tantamount to an engagement announcement.
Five days of expectant looks and probing questions; she'd known how
that would rub against him.

Your whole life has been spent opposing
your grandfather
. Yes, she'd been right there. By the time
Walter Mulholland had died, his junior year in college, the pattern
had become second nature. Whatever Walter Wilson Mulholland would
have approved of, he didn't do.

Including marrying Bette?

He pushed the question away.

Why hadn't he told her the things he'd been
tempted to say? He could have told her he'd nearly decided to
accept the Smithsonian offer, that after a couple months of talking
with them he thought they'd worked out an arrangement that overcame
the drawbacks. He could have told her he loved her. The words had
been there, pushing to escape.

Instead, she'd told him she loved him and
she'd left.

And he felt as if men with pickaxes were
working in syncopation inside his head, heart and belly.

"Paul." Norma Schaff's voice came through the
intercom. "Grady Roberts is on line two."

With a deep sigh, he dropped his feet from
his desk and leaned forward to pick up the receiver.

"Hey, Grady, what's up? But make it short.
Some of us work for a living, you know, not just make a few phone
calls and rake in a million."

"Paul, I'm in my office and you know how I
can see a lot of the financial district from here—"

"If you're calling to brag about your
view—"

"Paul, shut up and listen, will you? There's
a fire, a big one. It's your dad's building."

Paul was out of the chair without realizing
it. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. I just checked with somebody's
binoculars to make sure before I called you."

"Thanks, Grady."

He'd already started to hang up, when Grady's
voice stopped him. "Paul!"

"Yeah."

"Paul, it looks bad. There are trucks all
over. You may have trouble getting close. Be careful."

"Thanks."

He snatched his coat and, after a split
second of hesitation, also grabbed the ratty raincoat left over
from last spring, plus a hat from an undetermined source. Before he
finished his hurried explanation to Norma, she'd dug out two
umbrellas, a wool scarf and a pair of gloves, tucking them into
pockets as efficiently as an experienced kindergarten teacher.

By the time he gave up on the crawling cab
and struck out on foot for the final three-quarters of a mile, he
was grateful for every layer. The wind sliced sleet into his raw
skin. Running made it worse, but still he ran. Even when the
sidewalks became as clogged with pedestrian traffic as the streets
had been with vehicles, he ran, dodging and, when necessary,
pushing through the crowds. Only when a police barricade blocked
the way did he stop, and only then because a slicker-outfitted
member of Chicago's finest snagged him by the sleeve.

"Stay back!"

"I've got to—"

"Nobody's got to go in there, buster, but the
firemen. Just back up here and let them do their job."

Paul pulled in a couple deep breaths as he
considered the pugnacious expression and broad shoulders of the
cop. Then his eyes went to the building, belching smoke that seemed
to hiss as it met the cold, wet air. Nobody could still be in
there, at least not alive—

"The people. Where'd they take the people?
They must have evacuated—"

A flicker of understanding lit the cop's
eyes. "Around this corner, go to the middle of the block, there's
an insurance company, glass all across the front, big open lobby.
That's where they've been taking 'em. Leastwise the ones the
ambulances didn't take."

Ambulances. The word reverberated in Paul'ss
head even as he started at a run in the direction the cop had
indicated.

The lobby was a dizzying mass of people.
People with mismatched jackets flung over their shoulders or with
blankets wrapped around them. Some sitting quietly against a wall,
others talking feverishly to anyone who would listen.

Forcing himself to be methodical, Paul worked
his way through three-quarters of the room before spotting a
familiar face.

"Miriam!" His father's associate had been out
to the house with her husband many times for dinners both business
and social.

"Paul. What in the world are you doing
here?"

"I heard about the fire. I haven't seen— I
can't find—"

"He's fine, Paul. Everybody got out
safely."

Some of the tension went out of him. But he'd
feel certainty only when he saw his father himself. "A cop said
they were taking people to hospitals."

She nodded. "Some smoke inhalation, and some
shock, I think. But they've told us everyone's in good condition.
Everybody was evacuated in time."

"Do you know where he is?"

"He and some others were trying to find a way
to get taxis through the streets to start taking people home. He
was going to the next street over to talk to someone in charge of
the police to see if they could help."

Leaving the building, Paul noticed the cold
more this time. He wasn't sure whether it was because the
temperature was dropping or because fear no longer held such a
stranglehold on him. By the time he found his father twenty minutes
later, the raw chill was in his bones.

The sight of his father talking to a man with
a walkie-talkie a few dozen yards away brought welcomed warmth into
him. James Paul Monroe nodded at something the other man said, then
turned away and stood coatless and hatless, staring up to where
smoke rose against an equally gray twilight sky. His suit jacket
shimmered in the huge spotlights the fire department had directed
on the area, as if the moisture caught in its fabric had turned to
frost.

"Dad." Paul waited until he was close enough
that he could say the word without shouting.

His father turned toward him, but slowly, as
if he didn't have full control over his muscles. Paul's heart
wrenched at the slightly dazed sheen in his father's eyes.

"Son."

Paul pulled his father into his arms, in a
fierce and grateful hug, remembering a hug he'd received some
twenty years before by the side of a dark and rainy street.

"You'll freeze out here, Dad. Take this."

Quickly, he shrugged out of his topcoat and
put it around his father's shoulders. As he pulled on the raincoat,
he pulled out the scarf to put around his father's neck. Through it
all his father stood, just looking at him. Paul knew he was acting
a bit like a mother hen, but he couldn't help it, and he had the
oddest certainty his father knew exactly how much he needed to do
these things.

A memory flashed through his mind of the time
when he'd been fifteen and had broken his arm, of his father each
morning neatly rolling the shirtsleeve over the cast while Paul
fretted to be off.

"You better put the coat on, Dad. It'll be
warmer that way." He helped his father put his left arm through one
sleeve, but when he reached for the other arm, a slice of light
showed him the red, blistered skin of a burn across the knuckles as
his father gripped something hidden in the shadows by his side.