Volcano (43 page)

“Where's the chapel? Call the preacher. There's always one of them hanging around places like this.”

“I think you need a license,” she reminded him politely. “And I want Beth beside me. You'll have to wait.”

He lowered her carefully. “Not long,” he threatened.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I know, we've waited long enough, life happens, you believe in doing not talking, and I suppose there's no time like the present.”

Charlie steered her down the corridor toward the bank of elevators. He couldn't hurry Beth's operation. They couldn't possibly do anything today, but he had this urge to rush, as if she'd change her mind if he didn't. “Damned right. We'll have it in your sister's hospital room. If you want a fancy wedding, we can repeat it again later. I'll not have you accepting a better offer. I want this contract signed, sealed, and delivered.”

“Charlie, this isn't a business....”

She was still protesting as he hauled her into an empty elevator and kissed her even before the doors closed.

***

“I believe the operation went reasonably well,” the doctor intoned. “We removed the clot causing the pain. You do understand her eyesight will never return to normal,” he warned them, directing his attention particularly to John. “There may be some degree of light and dark, but no more than that.”

“But no pain, and no more danger to her health?” John asked anxiously.

“None that we can foresee.”

Penelope watched as John took a deep breath of relief and jabbed his fingers into his hair with the look of a man reprieved from death. Instead of condemning him as she had in the past, she would have to sing his praises to her twin. They deserved a second chance.

She slid her fingers around Charlie's sturdy arm and leaned her head against his shoulder. Beth would be all right. That's all they could ask for now.

“Tammy and Raul took the kids back to your place, Penny. Somebody ought to go back and relieve them,” Charlie reminded her. “Want me to go while you wait for your sister to wake?”

John's head jerked up. He focused a determined glare on Penelope. “She's my wife. Leave me with her.”

Penelope heard the warning in his voice and smiled. “Ex- wife,” she reminded him gently. “And I'm not our mother, John. I won't take her away. But I won't let anyone hurt her either.”

He looked momentarily uncertain, then nodded. “I won't hurt her. I just want her to know I'll be there for her, okay?”

“Tell her I'll look after the kids until she's ready.” With a shrug, she added, “I don't think I'll be going back into work anyway.”

John didn't even question her as she left. Penelope endured the tearing pain of separation from her twin, but it was time to let go. Beth had to put her own life together.

Charlie clasped her shoulders, but he hadn't missed her comment at all. “You talked to your boss?”

She shrugged again. “Checked my voice mail. Jacobsen got to him. I've been fired. They're sending my personal effects by courier.”

“I can get you the job back, if you want it,” he assured her.

She threw him a curious glance. “I don't particularly want it, but I don't know how much of this operation Beth's insurance will cover. John's salary certainly won't handle it. As much as I'd like to take your suggestion and start my own company, it's not a wise idea to start a new business while thousands in debt. I've had offers from other firms. I'll be all right.”

“I got you into this; I'll take care of it,” he said firmly.

***

“Poindexter?” Holding the phone close to his ear, Charlie could still hear the kids screaming with laughter in the front room of Penelope's apartment. They'd sent Tammy and Raul back to his place last night, and he and Penelope had stayed here, waiting for word on Beth. The general cheer in the other room now was mostly relief at Beth's phone call this morning. She'd promised them she'd be home soon to teach the kids how to tickle their father.

At the sound of Penelope's employer's voice on the other end of the line, Charlie returned his attention to the matter at hand. “Poindexter, this is Charles Smith of Smith and Son Construction. We met last week. I understand Miss Albright is no longer with your firm. I want to cancel my account with you. Send me a finalized bill. My stepfather will be withdrawing his proposal for the Foundation's account as well, so you may as well get that one together also.”

Charlie listened briefly to the older man's prolific excuses and offers of better personnel, but he didn't have the patience for more and cut him off. “You don't understand, Poindexter. Miss Albright was the only reason we even considered a stagnating firm like yours. Now that Jacobsen and his companies are being indicted for fraud, corruption, and a list of charges longer than my arm, I don't want my companies to have any association with a firm that harbors criminals.”

Charlie smiled into the stunned silence and threw the final blow. “I've warned the builders associations, Poindexter. Mine won't be the only company taking a long hard look at the way your firm does business. I hope you enjoy your association with Jacobsen. Expect to spend the next few months in court. Have a good day.” Gently, he returned the receiver to its cradle.

Charlie looked up to find Penelope standing in the bedroom doorway, watching him. He didn't know how much she'd heard, but it didn't embarrass him. He crossed the room and kissed her. “You've got Cheerios in your hair,” he whispered in her ear.

She crushed her fingers into his shirt as if to hold him off but he had full confidence in the ties binding them now. She wouldn't kill him for having a little fun.

“That was getting my job back?” she asked mockingly. “Did he have a heart attack?”

“Probably,” he said cheerfully. “He was sputtering pretty good there at the end.” He retrieved the Cheerio and handed it to her. “I'm not done yet though. I know ten contractors right off the top of my head who've told me they've been thinking about setting up better computer systems. Corporations can have different divisions, can't they?”

She looked at him through eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Of course. Why?”

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer. Her hips rubbed his, but she held him off with her hands so she could watch him.

Charlie smiled. “I'm thinking if I put you on my payroll, we can cut out all that extra tax business and insurance you'd have if you started your own shop, and you can head up some kind of financial division of my company, specializing in construction software.”

She stared at him. “Charles Maximillian Smith, you've already planned a wedding, two babies, and a house. Now you want to take over my career?”

He glared at her. “Who told you about that Maximillian part?”

“Did you think you'd hide it from me forever? Your mother and I had a long talk.” Grinning, she slid her hands from his chest to circle his waist. Then she wiggled her hips against his. His response must have been pretty obvious, because she giggled and pressed herself closer. “Can't, not now. We've got kids, remember?”

“We'll hire a nanny,” he growled. At a shriek from the far room, he grimaced. “Maybe two.”

Beth adjusted the wide-brimmed lacy concoction of her hat at a jaunty angle. “No one can see I look like warmed- over death, can they?” she asked anxiously.

Penelope kissed her sister's cheek. “You're so radiant, they'll think you're the bride.”

“Oh, Pen, I wish I could see you. I bet you look gorgeous.” She fingered Penelope's silk brocade. “I'm glad Mother could be here to see you wearing her gown.”

“Umm, well, it's a good thing she was pregnant with us when she got married or my waist would never fit in it,” Penelope replied with a sniff, adjusting the circlet of flowers holding back her hair.

“Penelope! That's a terrible thing to say. You have a lovely waistline. Mother was only eighteen when she married. We were a lot skinnier at that age too. The gown fits just fine.”

“Ladies, I suggest you hurry. The groom's threatening to come after you.” John appeared in the doorway of the reception room they were using for last-minute preparations. He'd taken the day off from his new job at the DA's office, where his legal background had proved invaluable in tracking the evidence for the Jacobsen case.

“Well, tell him to hold on to his cummerbund; we'll get there when we're ready,” Penelope said acerbically. “He's the one who decided to make a production of this.”

Beth shook her head at John. “She's just nervous; ignore her. We'll be right out. Tell the piano player to stand ready.”

Penelope could see John standing there stubbornly, waiting for Beth. It was a damned good thing this was a casual affair. The argument over whether Beth could walk the aisle alone had been an ongoing one from the very start. The small garden beside the apartment complex had a path accessible to all its physically challenged occupants. Beth could maneuver it with a cane, but she'd been hesitant about using one and ruining the look of the wedding. Penelope hadn't objected, but John had insisted that he could rent a tux and walk beside her. After that, Penelope had just stayed out of the way.

The first strains of the wedding march rang through the open doorway, carried on the same breeze as a strong scent of gardenias. A tear crept from the corner of Penelope's eye as Beth hesitated, then slowly accepted the offer of John's arm. They looked wonderful together. She'd not lied earlier. Beth looked so radiant, people would mistake her for the bride, and John just beamed with happiness. To heck with formality, this was what weddings were all about—love.

She gulped nervously as her turn came to walk down the aisle. Her father had stayed home, probably too broke to afford airfare or too ashamed to face them, so she had to walk the aisle alone. She didn't mind. She'd walked alone for years. It was just the principle of the thing right now. If a love like Beth and John's, or her mother and father's, could go so far wrong so easily, what were her chances of succeeding?

Remembering she had already made that decision, that it was far too late to turn coward now, she took a deep breath and stepped out.

One look at Charlie's face at the far end of the aisle provided all the reassurance she needed. He broadcast his love and happiness with his smile, in the pride with which he followed her progress, in the eagerness with which he reached for her. A breeze rippled his thick chestnut hair, and impatiently, he shoved a blunt hand through newly shorn locks. He was probably the most impatient man alive, but Penelope understood his eagerness to grasp life. For too long, she'd been afraid to grasp anything. She took his hand proudly now.

She scarcely noticed Charlie's best man until the minister said the words and Raul handed Charlie the rings. Charlie's mother and stepfather were here somewhere, and Tammy was with them, for now. That was another battle that had raged these past weeks, with no winner. Tammy would be staying in Miami and attending the university. Penelope would wager the chance of the love between Tammy and Raul surviving was even slimmer than the chances she'd given herself and Charlie.

Still, here she was, taking a chance on love. Standing before the minister, they exchanged vows, and donned the visible symbols of the chains of love they'd forged together.

The crowd cheered and blew clouds of rainbow-prismed bubbles over their heads as Charlie kissed her, and they turned to meet their audience as husband and wife. Sunlight sparkled through the bubbles, in the tears of the women watching, on the roses bobbing on the trellis overhead. Joy filled Penelope's heart as Charlie took her hand and proudly paraded her down the path.

They'd scarcely had time for each other in these last frantic days of preparation. He'd had lawyers and accountants lined up putting together the new division of his company. He'd testified against Jacobsen and his firm. He'd ordered Raul back to St. Lucia, finally getting the project under way. And he still had his other projects to oversee.

He'd left Penelope to help with Beth's children while Beth recuperated, and to organize the wedding on her own. He hadn't wasted any time in talking to his fellow builders about her software, and in between the kids and the wedding, she'd been putting together proposal packages and interviewing with prospective clients. She had no fear of being a burden on Charlie's income. With all these new clients, she could pay for Beth's operation on her own.

Not that she had anything to fear about bankrupting Charlie. She'd discovered Charlie really hadn't been bragging when he'd said his company was larger than Jacobsen's. Her muscle-bound, T-shirted construction worker had more money tucked away than he knew what to do with.

Actually, he knew what to do with it. He just hadn't bothered until now. They'd already hired the architect for the house they were planning to build together. Penelope smiled up at him as Charlie drew her onto the dance floor of the reception room with the first beat of the Beatles tune they'd last danced together. Ridiculous wedding song, she knew, but she loved him for the choice.