Stand-In Groom (34 page)

Electronic planner in hand, George met Cliff in the front foyer. “Good evening, sir. Welcome home. How was your trip?”

“Long and tiresome.” Cliff started up the stairs. “Have someone bring me a Mountain Dew and a fried bologna sandwich.”

George nodded at the butler, who left his post at the door to relay the message to Mama Ketty. “Would you like to go over your schedule?”

His employer stopped in the middle of the wide staircase. “Yeah. I guess we have to. Come on up.”

At George’s request, the valet he’d hired for Cliff for the weekend had laid out several outfits across the bed. The young man followed the assistant butler into the bedroom-sized dressing closet and proceeded to unpack for their employer. George nodded his dismissal at the assistant butler and took out his stylus.

The schedule Anne had e-mailed him for the evening made up the majority of today’s agenda. George read through the line items as Cliff went about the suite from bathroom to closet.

“What am I wearing tonight?” Cliff interrupted.

“Your valet has laid out some clothing here on the bed, sir.” George returned to reading the agenda.

Cliff exited the closet and examined the outfits. He pointed at one and motioned for the valet to assist him in changing.

“If that’s all, sir, I would like to check on Miss Courtney.”

Cliff dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “Yeah. Go. Hey, boy—what’s your name?”

George left him to get acquainted with his valet and went down the long hall to the bedroom suite on the opposite end. The door stood open. Courtney sat on the window seat reading, Anne in a cushioned armchair with her back to the door.

Courtney looked up and held one finger to her lips, then pointed at Anne. He walked around until he faced the chair, and smiled.

“She came in to go over the schedule with me,” Courtney
whispered, “and the next thing I know, she’s asleep. I don’t think she’s been sleeping well at night, worrying about my wedding. It was too much for her to take on by herself. She really needs an assistant.”

“Yes, she does.” George sank onto the window seat.

“Did I hear Cliff come in?” Courtney tried to sound disinterested, but the hurt still came through her small voice.

“He’s changing.” After four weeks apart, the least he could have done was greet his fiancée upon arrival. “I’m certain he’ll be along directly.”

“Then you probably ought to wake up Anne so he doesn’t see her right off. I know he’s not happy I hired her.” She reached over and patted his arm. “Don’t look so uncomfortable, George. Anne told me everything after the engagement party. She even offered to resign and help me find another planner. But I wouldn’t let her.”

He crossed to Anne and gently shook her shoulder.

Her eyes popped open. “George?”

“You have a wedding rehearsal to oversee, madam. I suggest you quit dillydallying and get to it.” He kissed the tip of her nose and offered his hand.

“How long…?” She looked at Courtney, her cheeks bright red.

“Just a few minutes. I didn’t wake you because I knew you needed the rest.”

“I’m so sorry. I’m so unprofessional.” She gathered up her planner and paperwork from the small coffee table.

“No, just overworked.” Courtney came over and hugged Anne. “Just in case I don’t get a chance to say it again this weekend, thank you for everything. You’ve made every dream come true.”

He heard a door down the hall and held his hand out toward Anne. “We should go.”

She nodded, kissed Courtney’s forehead, and followed him out of the room. Cliff’s new valet caught up with them at the door to the service stairs.

“He sent me away when his food arrived. Should I just wait
outside the door? He’s not changed clothes yet.”

“Yes. Wait outside the door. Did you finish unpacking the suitcases?”

The young man nodded. “Most of it needed to go to the laundry, he said. So I put it in the orange bags like you showed me. In England, are there really people who do this for a living? Like, all the time for one person?”

“Yes. That was one of my first positions as an adult.” He squeezed the college student’s shoulder. “But not a career path I’d recommend for most.”

“Thanks.”

George followed Anne down the two flights of dark, narrow stairs to the kitchen. The serenity above the stairs belied the pandemonium below. He and Anne had to give way on the landing between the main floor and the lower level to several young women running up with table linens and silverware. In the kitchen, Major O’Hara commanded his staff like a general while Mama Ketty directed the young men loading the china into the dumbwaiter.

They got separated by different people needing their help. He winked at Anne as she went outside to approve the setup at the gazebo.

After a few minutes, he disengaged himself from Mama Ketty’s string of complaints about the hired-on linens and went to see if he could help Anne with anything in the last few moments before the bridal party started to arrive.

At the gazebo, her young cousins Jonathan and Bryan checked the sound system. George stood at the rear of the area staked off for guest seating and gave them a thumbs-up on the volume before approaching.

“Where’s Anne?”

Her cousins exchanged a look. “He came and got her. Mr. Ballantine, I mean,” Jonathan said. “Said he needed to talk to her.”

George’s heart jumped into his throat.
Lord, let her say what needs to be said. Let her forgive him, but don’t let him hurt her
.

W
hen Cliff’s hand closed around her elbow, Anne’s skin burned as surely as it had from the debris from the plane crash. He led her back into the house and to the office on the main floor where she and George had spent many happy hours working side by side on the wedding. She stopped behind a tall wing chair; Cliff crossed to look out one of the two tall windows.

“Do you remember the time I invited you to go on that weekend ski trip with a bunch of my friends from the fraternity?” Cliff asked, his back to her.

She smiled in spite of her anxiety over this tête-à-tête. “I said I couldn’t go because it involved flying.”

“I thought it was just an excuse to get out of spending time with my frat brothers. I knew you didn’t like them much. I knew you didn’t like the person I became when I was around them.” He turned to face her, arms crossed. “Did I ever tell you how horrible that weekend was?”

She shook her head. “Aside from breaking your arm? I had a feeling other stuff happened from the fact that you didn’t really talk about it after you got back.”

“All they did was drink and try to get the girls who did go into bed with them. And a lot of the girls gave in. I was so glad you weren’t there to witness it all. I knew you’d be disappointed.”

Anne moved around to sit in the chair. This was going to take
awhile. “You really worried about that?”

Nodding, he clasped his hands behind his back and ambled around the room, pausing to look at objects on shelves, books, the large painting hanging behind the desk.

“Cliff, I—” Now alone with him, Anne didn’t know how to start. “I’m happy for you and Courtney.”

He turned to face her, surprise in his expression. “When I found out Courtney had hired you, I wondered if God was punishing me for what I did so many years ago.”

Laughter bubbled up in Anne’s throat. “When I found out it was your wedding, I wondered nearly the same thing.”

He crossed the room and sat in the adjacent chair. “Anne, you have to understand. You were one of the few true friends I ever had. I never felt as close to anyone as I did to you. You understood me. You knew what it was like to feel alone in a room full of people. You didn’t have any expectations of me.” He hung his head. “And I took advantage of that friendship. I let you give and give and give—your time, your money, your friendship—without giving you anything in return. I wouldn’t have made it out of school if it hadn’t been for you. I wouldn’t have gotten where I am today if it hadn’t been for you.”

Anne studied her recently manicured nails, the remaining bitterness and accusations she’d harbored for the past decade replacing her amusement of moments before.

“I wanted to marry you, Anne. Really, I did. I wanted us to get married just like you’d planned and then bring you out to California to be with me. God knows I needed you those first few years after—” He jumped up and started pacing again.

“Then why?” She gripped her hands to keep them from shaking.

He tossed his hands in the air. “It sounds so stupid now, really. When I signed the contract to make
Mountebank
, the studio hired a publicist for me. They wanted to make me into a star. When I told them I was supposed to be getting married, they went ballistic. Told me it would have to be postponed. Made me call you to tell you
that. I didn’t want to disappoint you, Anne. And I never wanted to hurt you.”

Tears burned her eyes. It hadn’t been his idea to call off the wedding.

He spun and came to kneel in front of her. “They wouldn’t let me call, but I could at least have the studio secretary mail letters for me.”

Anne shook her head. “I never got any letters. I thought once you got your big break, you had everything you wanted and didn’t need me anymore.”

“I needed you, Anne.” He clasped her hands in his. “I needed you more than anything. I was miserable making that movie—especially since my character fell in love with a character named Anne. I poured my heart into those scenes, the dialogue between us, because I hoped if you ever saw it, you’d know I was talking to you.”

She stared at the ceiling, blinking to keep the tears from spilling out.

“When I never heard back from you, I got mad because I thought you didn’t want to talk to me because I’d postponed the wedding. I hadn’t wanted to think you were that shallow, but then when I got your letter…” Cliff shrugged his broad shoulders.

Her gaze snapped back to his. “
My
letter? Cliff, I never sent you a letter. I thought you never wanted to hear from me again.”

A frown furrowed the area between his well-groomed brows. He let go of her hands and reached into his jeans pocket. “This letter.”

She took the yellowed piece of paper from him. The folds were fragile, the edges darkened from years of handling. In old dot-matrix print was a brief note with what looked like her signature under it. It was dated nearly six months after he called off the wedding:

Dear Cliff,

Congratulations on your new career as an actor. I wish you all the best as you follow your dream. I don’t want to hold you back, and I feel that if we marry, that’s what I’ll be doing.
Please know that I will always support you from afar. Please do not try to contact me again. This is for the best.

Anne

“I didn’t write this, Cliff. That’s not my signature. It’s a good forgery, but it’s not mine.” She handed the page back to him.

He folded it and put it in his pocket. “I always suspected. It didn’t sound like you. You’d only typed one letter to me before that—you’d handwritten the rest of them. But I just wasn’t sure.”

“Why didn’t you call? Or come see me whenever you came back to town?”

He stood and ran his fingers through his stylishly tousled hair. “I was going to. The first time I came back after the movie came out, I went by Aunt Maggie’s house, but they didn’t live there anymore. The people who did live there didn’t know where y’all had moved to. I finally tracked down Forbes’s phone number. I went to his office to meet with him. He told me how hurt you’d been, how you’d dropped out of graduate school just to be able to send me money.”

Forbes. Anger started to rise. How dare he try to manipulate her life!

“Before you get mad at Forbes, let me explain what I told him. I told him that I wanted to see you, to apologize. He asked me if I still intended to marry you. I had to be honest with him, Annie. I’d just started dating someone else. I thought I was falling in love with her. He thought it best that we didn’t see each other again. You had been my best friend. But—” He pressed his lips together as if unwilling to continue.

“But you were never really in love with me.” Anne pressed her hands together and rested her forefingers against her lips.

“He thought it would hurt you more to see me on those terms than to never see me again. I’m so sorry.”

Closing her eyes, she sat in silence for a long time, trying to remember when she’d stopped loving him. She’d loved the idea
of being married to a handsome, talented, interesting man—the only one who’d ever shown any interest in her. But in all honesty, he hadn’t broken her heart. He’d broken her trust—an emotion stronger than love.

“I forgive you, Cliff.” The words, softly spoken, came from a place in her heart she hadn’t felt in a very long time. “I was angry at you for so many years—especially while I was still trying to pay off all that debt, knowing how rich you were getting.”

“Wait a minute! I asked my manager to have a check cut for you—I had kept a running tally of everything I owed you. The least I could do was pay you back with interest.”

Anne shook her head. “Didn’t get the letters, didn’t get the check, either. I hope whoever that manager was doesn’t work for you anymore.”

Cliff started to puff up the way she remembered when he was angry. She bit her bottom lip as a smile threatened. Nice to know some things didn’t change.

She stood and rested her hand on his arm. “Never mind about that. God knew what He wanted from both of our lives and that we were better off not together. And now look.” She waved her hand toward the window overlooking the lawn where members of the wedding party were starting to congregate. “You do get to pay me back—with interest. You know, I never would have gotten into this business if it hadn’t been for you borrowing that money and my dropping out of graduate school. Thank you.”

He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

She laughed—a feeling of freedom overwhelming her. “Come on. Let’s go practice getting you married.”

8

“How did it go?” George asked when she joined him in the kitchen moments later.