The Wedding Gift (11 page)

He looked to Madeline to answer.

“It's a long story,” she said.

Riley hadn't intended to interrupt Madeline's lunch with her friends, but he'd seen her saunter in. She wore black slacks that fit her like a pair of kid gloves, black sandals and a deep red shirt that hugged her torso and made her hair, which now just touched her shoulders, look like spun gold. His Neanderthal instincts had kicked in. He wanted everyone in Orchard Hill to know who he was. More importantly, he wanted everyone to know who he was to Madeline. He wanted to stake his claim right there in the restaurant. But he didn't.

Not yet.

Yesterday he'd driven from one end of Orchard Hill to the other, getting a feel for the lay of the land. It wasn't as small as he'd expected. According to the city map he'd picked up at the historical society, Orchard Hill had more than one hundred houses on the historic registry and more than twenty-thousand residents. College students accounted for almost half of that number, and lived near campus across the river. This side of town belonged to people with deep roots and long memories.

This was Madeline's side.

He could hardly believe it had been three weeks since he'd seen her. His memories didn't do her justice. He had a lot to make up for, and a lot to prove.

He started with the truth. “I'm a changed man.” He could feel the other three looking at him, but he kept his gaze trained on Madeline. “I've done everything you suggested. I named my dog. I'm living in my house. And I can feel my heart beating.”

“You can?” she asked.

He got the distinct impression she'd meant to say,
“That's nice.” She wasn't going to make this easy for him. He was glad about that, for nothing warmed him like a good challenge, nothing except her, that is.

One of her friends, he was pretty sure her name was Abby, said, “Does it take time to regain feeling after a transplant?”

“Not normally,” he answered. “In fact, I've never heard of another case like mine.”

“So this sensation of being able to feel your organ is fairly recent. Ow.” The petite blonde with a pixie haircut and evidently a little pixie dust in her head rubbed her shin and glared at Summer, who was sitting across from her. “Kindly take your mind out of the gutter.”

Summer Matthews was the only person Riley had encountered who'd refused to talk to him. When he told her his name at the Orchard Inn, she'd closed the registration book and said there were no vacancies. He smelled a lie, and where there was a lie, there was a reason. Summer wasn't from Orchard Hill. She and Madeline looked nothing alike, and yet they were protective of one another. They reminded Riley of him and Kipp.

Madeline could see Riley taking stock of her friends. She didn't know what she would do without them, any of them. She understood Abby's curiosity, because she couldn't contain hers, either. Riley
could feel his heart. Madeline wanted to know when, how, why. “How recent?” she asked him, drawing his attention.

“Since shortly after my mother walked in on us. By the way, Mom says hello.”

Madeline felt herself getting warm. It wasn't embarrassment. It was surprise and the first stirring of desire.

He was good at this. She'd known it the first day she'd met him.

Riley stood and smiled around the table. “It was nice meeting all of you.” He looked at Madeline last. “I'll be in touch.”

Four pairs of eyes watched him saunter away. And then three pairs turned to stare at Madeline.

“His mother walked in on you? You mean, during sex?” Chelsea asked.

“You and Riley had sex? Oh my God,” Abby exclaimed. “Did Aaron know?”

Since Madeline was blonde, too, she couldn't blame Abby's airheadedness on that. “Of course not. It was last month,” she said. “Remember when I went to the lakeshore? Well, I drove up to Gale. I had no intention of meeting Riley. I thought that once I saw the man in possession of Aaron's beating heart I could start to believe in goodness again.”

“But you met him, Riley Merrick, I mean,” Chelsea said.

“How else could she have slept with him?” Abby pointed her finger in warning at Summer.

“Out with it,” Chelsea said to Madeline.

“Yes,” Abby agreed. “We want the story. Don't even think about leaving out a single detail.”

In a quiet voice, Madeline retold the entire tale. Even Summer, who'd already heard it, leaned forward to better hear.

Madeline recalled driving out of Orchard Hill by the light of the waning moon, and how easily she'd discovered the hidden lane she'd been looking for near Gale, and how she'd felt the quiet chiming of something sweet and delicate sprinkling into the empty spaces inside her when she'd first come face-to-face with Riley. She told them about his dog and his house and his smiles. And she told them how he never pressured her, how he'd left the decision up to her, and how she knew that if she didn't make love with him that night she would regret it for the rest of her life. She included Riley's mother's unexpected visit, and concluded with Riley's reaction once the truth was out in the open.

She sighed when she was finished. Her friends sighed, too.

“You're in love with him, aren't you?” Chelsea asked.

Summer met Madeline's gaze.

Abby nodded emphatically. “When you were at the lakeshore, you were worried he would think you only loved him because of Aaron's heart. What's he doing here?”

“I don't know,” Madeline said.

She planned to find out. And she planned to do it soon.

M
adeline wasn't watching where she was going when she left the restaurant. Luckily, she somehow managed to avoid running into other diners and the frazzled waitress named Roxy, who'd worked the lunch crowd as long as Madeline could remember.

As dazed as she was, she noticed Riley leaning against the building the second she stepped outside, though, the sun-warmed bricks at his back, Gulliver at his feet. His gaze never wavered from her as she neared.

She saw Riley push away from the corner, a marvelous shifting of lean muscles and smoldering man.
He started toward her, his sunglasses in his hand, Gulliver at his side. They took their half out of the middle of the sidewalk, purpose in Riley's every step, and stopped directly in front of her.

She saw everything, but honestly, she never saw the kiss coming. But kiss her he did, right there on Village Street in front of God and everyone.

Her bag slipped off her shoulder and slid down her arm, landing on the sidewalk with a quiet plop. She left it there, and went up on tiptoe, diving into a frenzied kiss. Oh, she'd missed this.

Her hands glided around his waist, her body straining against his. She felt his arms slip her around back, too, but she was most aware of his lips on hers. It was a hard kiss, a deep kiss, an I'll-die-if-I-don't-do-this-kiss that lit up the pair of them on the sidewalk better than any neon sign.

They weren't exactly living in the dark ages, and it wasn't as if everybody watching hadn't seen far more explicit embraces on the soaps or at the movies. But they didn't normally see this sort of kissing on the streets of Orchard Hill in the middle of the day.

Four heads appeared at the barbershop window, two others in curlers at the hair salon next door. Brett Avery at the hardware store stopped pricing out lawnmowers and looked, too. Edith Wilson, the
sternest librarian to ever shake her finger at an errant third grader stopped on the library steps and stared, and so did anybody else who still had at least one decent eye. And every person who witnessed that red-hot kiss was going to tell somebody. It was the way of small towns. For better or for worse, news traveled fast.

Their darling Madeline was in a liplock with that charming Riley Merrick. Nobody could say for sure who'd started it, but it was obvious to everybody that this was no first kiss.

Madeline wasn't smiling when it ended. She was reeling.

“What did you do that for?” she asked. The insinuation that it had been Riley's doing might have held more weight if she hadn't had to consciously remove her arms from around his neck in order to put a little distance between them.

“I couldn't help myself,” he said.

She still didn't know why he was in town or how long he planned to stick around, but lordy, she hadn't been able to help herself, either. “Where are you staying?”

She could see him visibly trying to pull himself together after that kiss, too. “Not in your friend's inn,” he said.

She supposed that made as much sense as could be
expected. She came within a hairbreadth of asking him if he wanted to come back to her house with her.

As if reading her mind, he said, “I have a little more unfinished business to take care of. Through it all I'm getting to know all the people who know and love you in Orchard Hill. There are a lot of them.”

“Riley, we need to talk.”

“Yes, we do. Will you be home later?” He took a step back, away from her, and called Gulliver.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

The wind lifted his hair off his forehead and fluttered his collar at his throat. “There's one more person I have to see.”

Madeline had been afraid of that.

 

She was going to stop trying to make sense of her life. She was also going to stop expecting the next person who knocked on her door to be Riley.

That didn't mean she could hide her complete astonishment when she opened her door to Aaron's parents. She'd known Jim and Connie Andrews since she'd accepted his invitation to attend a Halloween party at his house when she was twelve. She'd eaten supper at their table and slept in their spare room, as comfortable in front of their television growing up as she'd been in front of hers.

Jim Andrews was tall and stocky. Aaron had
gotten his height from his father, but in every other way, he'd resembled his mom. Both had been born with blue eyes, blond hair and ready smiles.

Connie hadn't smiled much these past eighteen months. “I know you're busy,” she said gently. “But may we come in, dear?”

Madeline came to her senses. “Of course. Of course you can come in. By all means, come in.” She couldn't help looking past them out the door. There was no wavy-haired man in sight.

Please, God,
she prayed,
don't let them ask me to honor Aaron's memory a little longer.

“We heard you were moving,” Jim said, looking around for a comfortable place to sit.

Madeline moved a box off her overstuffed chair.

“And we heard you took a job with a new doctor in town, too,” Connie said, taking a seat on the sofa near her husband.

Oh, God, Madeline thought. Here it came. “No matter how many things change, I'll always love Aaron,” she said. And she meant every word.

“Oh, we know that, dear. You're a good girl. That isn't why we're here.” Connie looked at her husband. They took a collective breath.

He nodded in moral support, and she continued. “I always worried that you would find someone else. Selfish of me, I know, but a mother can't help being
selfish sometimes. And then we had a visitor today. The young man who has Aaron's heart.”

Madeline sank to the sofa, too.

“He has a heart of gold, that one. He's like Aaron that way. He listened to our stories about raising Aaron. We showed him the photo albums. And watching his face, knowing a part of our boy lives on, well, we both felt a weight lift.”

Madeline didn't even try to check her tears.

Connie stood. It took Jim a minute to get the hint, but he found his feet, too.

“We saw you two, er, ah, in front of the restaurant,” Jim said, despite the elbow he took in his stomach. “Well, we did,” he said defensively. “And we both want you to know you have our blessing.”

Madeline was crying freely now. She hugged them both at the door, sniffled in both their ears. “I'll always love Aaron. And I'll always love you two, too.”

“You'd better!” Jim said.

They all laughed, Madeline and Connie through their tears. Madeline saw Jim wipe his eyes, too, after he was outside.

She had their blessing, she thought, closing the door behind Aaron's parents. Talk about putting the cart before the horse.

 

Her next visitor wasn't Riley, either. This one didn't bother to knock. Madeline's great-aunt
Eleanor thundered in, a long garment bag fluttering behind her.

“It's all over town. Bound to happen sooner or later,” she said, turning in a circle with so much vehemence Madeline felt the air turbulence.

“Aunt Eleanor, it's nice to see you. What do you have there?”

Eleanor Montgomery had been Madeline's height in her day. In her eighties now, she'd grown shorter and wider with every passing decade. She was as daunting as she'd ever been, however.

“Why, it's your mama's wedding gown, of course. I've been holding on to it, and it's a good thing I have, too.”

She hung the garment bag from the parlor door.

“You're young. What's done is done.”

“Aunt Eleanor, what are you talking about?”

The gray-haired woman lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “I'm talking about your virginity. Anybody with half a brain can tell you're hot for that boy who ended up with Aaron's heart. Don't get me wrong. Sex is and always has been too much fun to resist. Oh, girls in my day claimed they beat the beaus off with a big stick, but a lot of us didn't. Your great-uncle Herbert was a rascal, that one.”

She twittered.

Madeline couldn't help it. She just couldn't pic
ture Uncle Herbert and Aunt Eleanor having sex without cringing a little.

“Anyhoo,” Eleanor said, facing her great-niece the way Madeline's mama or grandma would have if they hadn't died too young. “The thing you have to do now is grab your young man by the, well, by whatever you can get a hold of, and get yourselves both down to the church. It's human nature to enjoy sex. My only advice to you girls nowadays is don't give it away free.”

Madeline didn't know how an eighty-year-old widow as solid as a brick wall could move like a whirlwind, but that was the impression she left as she headed for the door. “Heed my advice. And don't let your young man see that dress until you're on your way down the aisle.”

With a pat on Madeline's cheek, the old woman was gone.

Well, Madeline thought, standing in the wake of that storm. She had a blessing, sage advice and an heirloom gown.

The only thing missing was Riley's profession of love.

 

She could tell it was Riley at the door by his knock. She opened the door, and stood back, wanting a little space for some reason.

He sauntered in with that legendary swagger and
an expression to match. Underneath, he was just a man. Madeline reminded herself of that as she waited for him to speak.

He did, eventually, but not until he'd looked around her living room. “This was built before mine was, wasn't it? It's nice.”

It didn't feel like home yet to her. It felt more like Grand Central Station.

“What's that?” he asked, pointing to the garment bag still hanging over the parlor door.

“My mother's wedding gown.”

“Okay,” he said.

“What do you mean okay?”

Riley looked more closely at Madeline. She didn't appear to be in a good mood. It was probably too much to hope for to think he wasn't to blame for that. He was doing everything in his power to do this right, but he was winging it here. “I don't mean anything,” he said. “You're angry. Why?”

“Why?
Why? Why.
I'll tell you why. You show up in town out of the blue, kiss me senseless like some damn caveman, then rush away without an explanation. Everybody knows. Evidently you're hot and I'm, well, from now on I'm not supposed to give it away free. Where have you been, anyway?”

Riley had done something to upset her. He wasn't sure what exactly, but Madeline didn't get upset for no reason.

He walked closer, reached for her hand, and held it as he said, “I went to the cemetery. Aaron and I had a little heart-to-heart.”

He didn't mean to make her cry.

“What did you two talk about?” she asked.

“Actually I did most of the talking.” He was hoping for a smile but settled for a roll of her eyes. “I didn't know who else to ask.”

“Ask what?” she said.

“For your hand.”

“You mean, as in marriage?” She squeezed his fingers tighter with every word.

It bordered on painful. She was a strong woman. He didn't see how he could love her any more. He could barely contain everything he felt for her. His heart hammered in his chest in what felt like an arterial burst of love.

“Yeah,” he said. “Will you?” His voice sounded husky in his own ears, his body warming by degrees, the sound of distant drums echoing more loudly with every breath he took. She smelled wonderful. He didn't even know what perfume she wore. It was flowery, sexy.

Very gently, she drew her hand from his. Very softly, she took a deep breath. Very calmly, she raised those blue eyes of hers to his and said, “Give me one good reason why I should marry you, Riley Merrick.”

It wasn't the response he was waiting for. It sure as hell wasn't the one he'd been hoping for. He ran through the request in his mind, trying to decide where he'd gone wrong. God help him, it was all wrong. Okay, he was going to start again.

“Madeline—”

Just then there was a little skirmish on her front porch. Three men he didn't recognize jostled each other to be the first through the door. Once inside, they stood three abreast, a solid wall of shoulders and brawn.

“Are you Riley Merrick?” the one in the middle said.

“Boys, this isn't a good time,” Madeline said.

Boys? he thought. Obviously, she knew them. “I am,” Riley said.

“You're all everyone's talking about,” the one on the right practically growled.

“I don't like what people are saying,” the one on the left countered.

Who the hell were they? And what business was this of theirs?

“They're saying you've slept with our baby sister,” the guy in the middle declared.

Baby sister? Uh-oh.

With every statement, the Sullivan men took a step closer to Riley. With every step they took, Madeline said, “Hold it right there.”

She finally threw herself between him and them. Riley found it encouraging that she didn't want to see him killed. “Don't worry, honey,” he whispered close to her ear. “I can handle this.”

She threw up her hands and stepped aside. “Riley, these are my brothers. Marsh. Reed. And Noah. He's all yours, boys. Just don't leave any evidence. I'm only renting this place.”

 

The wind had shifted. Instead of the scent of apple blossoms wafting on the air, Riley smelled trouble.

The three Sullivan men looked capable of defending their baby sister's honor. Riley heard water rushing over rocks in the distance. He hadn't known her lot bordered the river, but eyeing the three men waiting to tear him to shreds, he decided it might be wise to stay away from the water.

The oldest one, Marsh, looked the most like an orchard grower, if there was such a type. He was as tall as Riley but outweighed him by a good twenty pounds. He was in his mid-thirties. His sideburns were dark beneath his ball cap, and he had the kind of tan a man acquired working outside season after season. His jeans were faded, his eyes brown, his gaze direct and assessing. His fingers squeezed into fists at his sides. Oh, yeah, he was ready to tear Riley limb from limb.