Sunshine and the Shadowmaster (21 page)

Marnie stayed for dinner and then to play chess with Mark afterward. Heather enjoyed having the kids there—and it made it easier for her to let the whole evening go by without trying to tell Lucas her feelings.

But once Mark was in bed, Heather knew what she had to do. She went to Lucas's room. When he let her in, she was the one to close the door.

“Lucas,” she said, leaning back on the door as much for support as to keep him from escaping before she made her declaration. “We have to talk.”

His lips slowly turned up at the corners in a smile that was incredibly sensual—and totally unknowable. He came toward her, took her face in his hands and kissed her.

And then he took her to bed.

Afterward, dazed and physically sated, she found herself in her own room once more. She had told him nothing; he hadn't allowed her to.

The next day was Friday, the last day before the wedding. At breakfast, before Mark came to the table, Heather did manage to speak to Lucas privately for a moment. She asked for some time alone with him before the wedding. Some time for a talk, when they would not be interrupted.

He promised they would talk that night, after the rehearsal dinner.

“Talk,”
she insisted, “not...make love.”

He gave her a hooded look. “You don't enjoy making love?”

She couldn't decide whether she wanted to strangle him—or kiss him. “Of course I do,” she whispered shyly. “But there's really something I, um, want to say to you.”

Mark appeared from the hall right then, still in his pajamas. He yawned and stretched. “What's for breakfast?”

“French toast,” Heather said.

“Yum.”

She turned to Lucas again before she rose to fix Mark's food. “Tonight, then. No matter what.”

Lucas seemed to be looking out the window.

“Lucas, did you hear me? I said tonight.”

He gave her a distant smile. “Of course.”

After that, the day flew by. Lucas worked all morning; Heather packed. Then after lunch there was the rehearsal at Regina's. And then the big family dinner at Delilah and Sam's.

They arrived back home at a little after nine. Mark stayed up for another hour after that. And then, at last, Heather and Lucas were alone.

They sat on the couch in the living room. And Heather leaned close to him.

“Lucas, I—”

She was cut off by the sound of men's voices in the yard. Men's voices singing.

Roll me over, in the clover.Roll me over, lay me downAnd do it again...

“Oh, no,” Heather moaned.

Lucas looked bewildered. “What is
that?
”

Before she could answer, her grandfather burst in the door, followed closely by her father and her uncles.

“Drury, you're comin' with us,” Oggie announced. “Get ‘im, boys.” He snapped his fingers and his sons and son-in-law moved toward Lucas.

“Oh, please. You can't be serious,” Heather cried.

“Don't be whinin', girl,” Oggie said. “It's Lucas's last night of freedom. He's gonna spend it with the men.”

“Getting drunk and getting into trouble.” Heather shook her head. “I don't think so.”

But her uncles and her father had already slid past her. They surrounded Lucas, who stood by the couch.

“I hope you'll come with us peaceablelike,” Uncle Patrick said in a fair imitation of the sheriff in a bad melodrama.

Lucas put up his hands. “I surrender, boys.” He looked perfectly content to be spirited away.

Heather saw her last chance for a quiet talk slipping from her grasp. “Lucas, you promised.”

He had the nerve to shrug. “Heather. Come on. What can I do here? These guys are serious.”

“You're damn straight,” Oggie said. He snapped his fingers again.

The men grabbed Lucas and, between them, lifted him high in the air. They carried him out, ducking in unison to clear the door.

Oggie followed behind them, barking instructions. Heather took up the rear.

“When you get back, Lucas!” she shouted as they strode off down the front walk. “No matter how late it is!”

Lucas only waved from his prone position on the shoulders of her male relatives.

Muttering to herself, Heather climbed the stairs. She put on her pajamas, found a book to read and went to Lucas's room. After propping the pillows against the headboard, she climbed into the bed and turned on the reading light. She didn't care how late her blasted menfolk kept him out. They were going to talk when he got home. She was not going to marry Lucas until he knew the truth she held in her heart.

* * *

At a quarter to four, Lucas quietly let himself in the front door. He took off his shoes, almost falling over sideways in the process because he'd consumed a large amount of beer.

They'd taken him to Jared's place, where Eden and the baby were nowhere to be found. Oggie had produced several kegs of beer and the men had laughed and talked. It had all been pretty harmless really, except for all that beer. The toasts had been never ending.

Lucas had enjoyed himself. In fact, he was discovering that he could get used to his in-laws-to-be without much effort. They were good people, expansive and true at heart.

With his shoes in his hand, Lucas tiptoed up the stairs and slowly pushed open his bedroom door.

Heather was there in his bed as he'd suspected she might be. She'd fallen asleep sitting up. An open book lay across her lap, right where it had fallen when she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer.

Lucas hovered near the door, not daring to approach her. She might wake. And want to talk. She was getting insistent enough about talking that he doubted he could use lovemaking to sidetrack her again.

But this was it. The day of the wedding. By three this afternoon, she'd be solidly committed to him in the most binding way that man and the law could devise. More and more each day, he doubted whether that would be enough. But it was all he could do.

If he could just hold out against any of the soul-baring she kept demanding, maybe...

Standing there in the doorway, Lucas shook his head.

Hell. It did no good to think too deeply about it. He was a man in a trap. And it was a trap of his own devising.

Carefully he backed away from the room. He found a blanket in the hall closet and went downstairs. There, he stretched out on the couch to see if he could catch an hour or two of sleep.

* * *

Heather woke to daylight, alone in Lucas's room. She sat there among the pillows, rubbing her stiff neck and coming to grips with the fact that she'd been given the slip once more.

The leather-covered travel clock on the bed stand said it was past eight.

They were due at Aunt Amy's for breakfast at nine. And after that, she had to get over to Santino's Barber, Beauty and Variety Store on Main Street, so that Alma could fix her hair.

Time had run out on her. There would be no more opportunities for intimate talks. Today at two she would say “I do” to a man who wouldn't let her near, a man to whom, for some unfathomable reason, she seemed to have given her heart.

She could guess without much effort where he was right now: downstairs, on the couch. Maybe, if she hurried, she could get down there and catch him while he was still asleep. She could shake him awake and announce, “Lucas, I love you. Now hurry up, we're due for breakfast at nine.”

Heather groaned, grabbed one of the pillows from behind her head and threw it at the door across the room. Then she got out of bed, traipsed into her own room and stood under the shower for a good twenty minutes.

When she was done, she blew her hair dry, anchored it off her face with two combs and left the makeup for later, so it would be fresh for the big event. She put on a butter yellow sundress and a pair of thin-soled yellow sandals. Then, at 8:50, she went down the stairs.

Lucas and Mark were waiting in the living room, all dressed and ready to head for Aunt Amy's. Heather studied Lucas's face, noting that the only evidence of his night out with the boys was a slight puffiness around the eyes. His shirt and slacks weren't the ones he'd been wearing last night, which meant he must have sneaked up to his own room to change after she returned to
her
room. It was amazing, she thought bleakly, just how far the man would go to avoid a private conversation with her.

“It's about time,” Mark said. “I wanted to come up and get you, but Dad said to wait, you'd be down.”

Lucas lifted an eyebrow at her. “All ready?”

She was angry and disappointed with him. And she loved him so much it caused an ache beneath her breastbone. “I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Let's go.”

* * *

At Aunt Amy's there were ham and eggs, muffins and potatoes, coffee and milk—and three kinds of juice. And Uncle Brendan served Bloody Marys, the oldest cure in the world for too much of a good thing the night before.

Grandpa Oggie, still going strong after staying up all night, gave a long, impassioned speech about how the bad blood between the Drurys and the Joneses was now a thing of the past.

“For now at last,” he concluded in his usual extravagant style, “Drury blood and Jones blood will flow as one in the coming together of our Sunshine and Rory's boy, Lucas.” Oggie raised his Bloody Mary high. “So let's drink to that, all of us. To a better world, where old hatreds are but a memory and true love rules the day!”

Everybody clapped and hooted in agreement, then drank long and deep. Heather forced down a sip of tomato juice and wished the interminable breakfast would come to an end. She adored her old grandpa, but sometimes he had a way of saying just what she couldn't bear to hear.

True love, she thought in weary bitterness, is the last thing ruling the day around here.

She knew Lucas, who sat next to her, was watching her. She made herself turn to him and she made herself smile.

He looked back at her, one of those deep, incomprehensible looks of his.

She was marrying a stranger. A stranger who owned her heart.

* * *

Four hours later, Heather stood at a window in an upstairs bedroom at her aunt Regina's house, wearing her grandmother's wedding gown and peering between lace curtains at the crowd in the backyard below.

“Standing room only,” Eden said from behind her.

Heather turned. “Yes.” She forced a smile. “There's barely room to move down there.”

Eden reached out a careful hand and smoothed a stray hair into place beneath Heather's headpiece. “There. Beautiful.” She bent closer. “Did you tell him?”

Heather took in a steadying breath. Her emotions, which had been touch and go all day, were hanging by a thread at that moment. “No,” she whispered in reply.

Eden fiddled with Heather's veil, smoothing out a few wrinkles. “It's all right. You will. Tonight. On your wedding night. That will be the perfect time.”

“I don't know, Eden. I just don't know.”

Eden touched her arm. “Listen. Believe me. Love finds a way.”

Heather had no reply for her stepmother. She honestly felt there was nothing to say. “Eden, if you don't mind, I'd like a few minutes alone.”

“Of course. I'll be back up to collect you. When it's time.”

As soon as the door closed behind Eden, Heather turned to the window again to study the scene below.

The window was closed, but even through the glass, Heather could hear the buzz of a hundred voices. All the family was assembled. And so many friends, too. Heather saw Lily talking to Rocky, who had a drink in his hand, as usual. Even Nellie Anderson and Linda Lou Beardsly were there, huddled together, whispering secrets that wouldn't be secrets for long.

And there was music. In a corner of the big yard, Aunt Regina sat at her piano, which the men had rolled outside for the occasion. Regina's slim fingers flew over the keys, conjuring a melody both haunting and sweet.

Not far from the piano stood an arbor of roses, which Heather's aunts had set up at the edge of the lawn near the redwood fence. It was under that arbor that Heather and Lucas were to exchange their vows just minutes from now. Reverend Johnson, now standing stiffly near the arbor waiting for the proceedings to get under way, would perform the ceremony.

Heather scanned the yard for Lucas and found him over by the refreshment table not far from the kitchen door. She couldn't get over how handsome he looked, with his hair shining as black as a crow's wing in the afternoon sun, wearing a tux that probably cost more than she could make at Lily's in a year. He was talking to Grandpa Oggie, the dark head and the grizzled one bent close together. As she watched, her grandpa threw back his head and guffawed at some remark Lucas had made.

By the look of things, Lucas was getting along just fine with her relatives. She supposed she should be pleased to see that.

But it was hard to be pleased. There was just too much unsaid between herself and Lucas. There were too many mysteries. This should have been the happiest day of her life—and yet she felt nothing but bitterness and the burning of angry tears at the back of her throat.

Lucas simply would not talk to her. He would not let her close, except to make love with her. And there was no reason for her to believe that it would be any different once they'd exchanged marriage vows.

Her future stretched before her, grim and lonely. She'd be married to a man who kept her at a distance, miles away from her home and the people she loved. Mark—and eventually the baby—would bring some solace. But could they make up for a loveless marriage to a man who held himself aloof from her?

The answer came, plain and simple: no.

She'd had a happy, caring marriage. And settling for less now, no matter if she was pregnant or not, just wasn't something she could do, after all.

Admitting to herself that she loved Lucas had changed everything. It put everything into perspective somehow. She was a woman with a heart full of love to give. And the man she married had to be capable of loving her right back. That was why she had to tell him, had to see his face when she told him. She had to know if there was even a chance he might someday love her in return.