Wedding Series Boxed Set (3 Books in 1) (The Wedding Series) (43 page)

“No, you don’t,” he agreed solemnly.

“You’re really very sweet.”

“Yes, I am.”

She almost smiled at that. “Thanks for the ride, Grady.”

“Take care of yourself, Tris.”

“You, too.”

She hefted her suitcase from the back seat and turned it over to a skycap, gave Grady a wave and disappeared from view among the people hurrying onto other destinations even at this hour on a Sunday morning.

Michael sat on the corner of the bed, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him. The sun rose in front of unfocused eyes.

He’d known. He’d
known
. And still he couldn’t stop himself. One night of loving Tris, and that was all he’d ever have again. No more out-of-the-blue phone calls. No more affectionate messages relayed through Paul. No more right even to ask how she was doing these days. No more . . .

Twelve years before, he’d known how it was between them. And he’d accepted it then. Not always gracefully, but he’d accepted it. He had never let her see his hunger for her. He had never jeopardized their friendship. Until last night.

He hadn’t had the strength to turn her away, even knowing the emotions that moved her. He’d even tried to rationalize it in that last, sane moment when he’d felt the framework of his resistance giving way. He’d told himself that making love to her once might be the answer, might be the way to finally still that ghost of hope. To get her out of his system.

What a fool. He should have known she would never be out of his system, and now the feel of her, the sensations of her body, the sounds of her pleasure, the smell of her hair, the taste of her skin were all memories imprinted in every cell of his body.

God, how sweet she was. He had never . . . No, of course, he’d never. Because never before had the woman been Tris.

He couldn’t let her go out of his life like this, couldn’t let go even those fragile threads to her of the past few years. If he could talk to her, make her see that their friendship could survive this. That she could trust him to never again let desire overrule his control, to never again let the taste and touch of her inflame his senses until he had to possess her, had to wake her to love her again. And again.

He bowed his head a moment, then pushed himself off the bed and hurriedly dressed. He had to face this, try to salvage something.

Mrs. Monroe and Judi were already in the kitchen, their slippers slapping lightly against the floor as they moved around making coffee, pouring juice. Mrs. Monroe greeted him warmly.

“Good morning, dear. I can’t believe you revelers are up so early.”

“Where’s Tris?” He saw her surprise at his brusqueness, and didn’t care.

“Tris? Tris is gone, dear.”

“Gone?” He heard the stupid note in his own voice. How could she be gone already? She’d just left. He caught sight of the clock over the range and realized more than an hour had passed since she left his room.

“Yes. To the airport. I had a note from her. She said she had to change her plans. The office needed her to get back early.” She hesitated, as if faced with a small puzzle. “Although I don’t know how she was going to get there. I didn’t hear a taxi honk or anything—”

“Grady took her,” supplied Judi. “I saw them leaving from my window.”

“Tris left with Grady.” He said it with detachment, as if he just wanted to verify the facts.

“Yes. I heard his car and saw her taking out her suitcase.” Judi was watching him intently. “She looked upset.”

“Oh, dear. Did she?” Nancy Monroe asked her daughter, a frown pulling her brows. “Oh, I almost forgot. In her note, she asked me to give you this, Michael.” Automatically, his hand closed around what she held out to him. His Phantoms shirt. He thought he could feel Tris’s warmth still in the material; he crushed it in his fist, trying to absorb the sensation.

“Tris left with Grady,” he repeated numbly. What a fool he was. What a damned fool.

“Are you all right, Michael?” He could feel Nancy Monroe’s hand on his arm. He could feel the aged material of the shirt straining under his grip on it. But mostly he could feel pain.

“Fine. I’m fine.”

“America loves an underdog,” the newscaster intoned, “and especially when the underdog successfully pulls off a stunning upset. So, America, prepare to meet your latest darling.

“It’s well past midnight here in Illinois, and for Joan Bradon and her staff, the day that started at dawn this morning is still a long way from being over . . .”

The television camera panned over the happy chaos of a victorious campaign headquarters on election night, centering on a tall, rawboned woman who radiated energy and determination. But in a darkened living room in Washington, D.C., the viewer’s attention focused on the background, where a man with his loosened tie askew and a phone tucked into his shoulder used one hand to sign something held out to him by a teenage messenger, while he drove his other hand through his thick, unruly hair. He smiled at the teenager, a smile that didn’t mask his weariness, but made it clear that no amount of tiredness would change the basic decency of the man.

In the living room in Washington, the watcher folded her knees more tightly to her chest, covered her mouth with a fist and tried to ignore the twin tears burning down her cheeks.

Tris subtly withdrew from the conversation. It wasn’t impolite to do that when you wanted the other two people at the dinner table to get to know each other, as she hoped Leslie Craig and Grady Roberts would.

She deserved this slightly smug feeling. It had been a stroke of genius to insist Leslie come with her to dinner. She might not have done it with any ulterior motive where Leslie and Grady were concerned, but once she’d seen them together the idea had taken hold. They acted a bit wary of each other, but she hoped that would pass, especially if she participated less so they could talk more to each other. It didn’t hurt that that also served her initial purpose in inviting Leslie—deflecting some of the questions she had a feeling Grady was dying to ask her.

She’d been surprised when he called last week and said he was going to be in D.C. a few days and wanted to get together for dinner. But not as surprised as she would have been a few months ago. He’d called her more in the three months since Paul and Bette’s wedding than he had in the previous six years. Almost as if, for the first time, he felt comfortable being her friend.

Tris watched him laugh at one of Leslie’s medium outrageous comments, and thought again that maybe all of them underestimated Grady.

“Oh, look, it’s the Filbertsons. I simply must go say hello to them on my way to the ladies’ room. I’ll be back in a bit,” announced Leslie, significantly pressing Tris’s hand. “That’ll give you a chance to catch up on old news without an outsider here.”

She looked from one to the other of them, then swept away. Tris watched her go with an inward grimace. She’d underestimated Leslie, too. She should have known Leslie would maneuver it so she’d have to face Grady alone, at least for a while.

In the first weeks after the wedding, Leslie had plied her with worried questions about what was wrong and what had happened. When Tris had finally made it clear she didn’t want to talk, they’d reached a tacit truce—Tris would pretend everything was normal, and Leslie would pretend she didn’t notice anything different. That agreement, however, bent a little when Tris invited Leslie to this dinner. Leslie had given her a sharp look and asked if Grady Roberts was the cause of her unhappiness. She hadn’t looked particularly convinced by Tris’s terse “no,” but at last she’d agreed to come along tonight. Now Tris wished she’d thought to get a promise from her friend on the issue of desertion.

She felt Grady’s eyes on her and gave him a half smile.

“You look great, Tris.” But he said it with an inflection of doubt, so she knew he could see the signs of tiredness that went heart deep.

“It’s been a busy time at work.” She answered his tone rather than his words. “It’s always a little crazy with funding requests during an election year.”

“I’ll bet. Well, with the elections over last week, things should settle down some for you.”

“Yes.” She knew what would come next.

“I suppose you know Joan Bradon won the senate election.”

“Yes, I know. That was great news. It must have made . . . everybody very happy.” Lord, she couldn’t even say his name.

“I guess. Although Michael acted pretty weird about it.”

She looked up from the silverware she’d been aligning and realigning on the white tablecloth. “What do you mean? Is something wrong?”

“Wrong? I don’t know. Would you call it wrong when a guy works like crazy for something for more than a year, something he really believes in, and then when it happens he acts like he’s not totally aware of it? Would you call it wrong when someone looks like being miserable would be one hell of an improvement in his life?”

“Don’t. Please, Grady.” She blinked hard at the tears she thought had evaporated months ago, along with the hurt pride. She knew Michael must regret that she’d been hurt—of course he would. But how could she feel sorry for his pain when all she had left to feel for herself were weariness and sadness?

Grady covered her hand, stilling her infinitesimal straightening of her dessert spoon. “I didn’t want to upset you, but it’s hard seeing my friends hurting like this. Especially you two. You were always so . . . so close, I guess. You always seemed to understand each other so well. Don’t you think if you just talked it out . . . ?”

She shook her head. “There’s nothing to talk out.”

She’d already forced the issue. If he’d once thought she still was infatuated with Grady. her actions surely had disproved that. How could Michael doubt that he was the one she wanted? Good heavens, she’d practically thrown herself at the man—no, she
had
thrown herself at the man. So, he’d been only human. He’d probably half convinced himself it was what he wanted, too, just because she wanted it. But in the morning, he’d seen it for a mistake—he didn’t feel that way toward her--and he’d been too honest not to tell her.

Yes, he’d been only human and she’d been a fool. This time, their famed ability to communicate had been way off the mark. She’d been so sure she and Michael must be feeling the same thing that she hadn’t even stopped to listen to the doubts he’d tried to express.

But now she saw exactly how he’d tried to warn her. She just hadn’t listened.

“Nothing to talk about,” she repeated.

Grady looked unconvinced.

“It was a mistake, that’s all. . . a mistake.” Her mistake. “We didn’t know each other as well as we thought we did. It’s all right.”

He patted her hand a little awkwardly and released it, staring into space a long moment before turning back to her with narrowed eyes. “Joan Bradon could be in a position to help you with your homeless project. She’s shown a lot of interest in things like that. And she’s not the type to be afraid of plunging in.”

“How did you know about the project?”

He shrugged. “I knew. And Paul told me some of the details, some of the problems you’ve had with it. Are you going to submit the proposal to Michael?”

“No!” She said it with enough vehemence that heads turned at neighboring tables, but Grady didn’t seem to notice.

“Why not?”

“I don’t think it would be, um, appropriate, taking advantage of our, uh, our connection.”

“Baloney. I may not be a politician, but it can’t be all that different from business. Of course it’s appropriate to go to somebody you know. And you know darn well Michael wouldn’t ever recommend something to Joan Bradon that he didn’t think was right.”

She tried to meet his suddenly searching look, but when his eyes narrowed again, she found the sight of her salad fork too fascinating to ignore.

As much as she wanted this project to survive, as much as Joan Bradon’s backing might help cut through the red tape and encourage the agencies to pool their money for it, she didn’t want to go through Michael. She could tell herself it was because he wouldn’t give the proposal a fair chance, judging by the way he’d reacted in August. She could even say she felt insulted at his treating her like an untried seventeen-year-old. But she knew those weren’t the real reasons.

She didn’t think she could bear it. Talking to him, seeing him. And knowing that the night of love and passion that had finally and completely opened her eyes to this man, had convinced
him
that what he felt for her wasn’t deep enough, wasn’t strong enough. He’d desired her, yes, but the feelings that had been a revelation for her had merely been an aberration to him.

Talking to him couldn’t make her ache any more than she already did, but it wouldn’t help her forget, either.

Perhaps if that had been the only way to get help for the project, she would have. But there were other avenues to bring it to the senator-elect’s attention, avenues she was already pursuing. Over these past months, she’d deliberately thrown every bit of energy and emotion she had into work, vainly hoping that there would be less to devote to missing Michael. She’d honed the proposal, making it as practical and well documented as she could, with support and explanations and contingencies for every aspect of it. At each step, she’d heard Michael’s voice advising and assisting. But that wasn’t unusual, because she heard his voice all the time. She heard all the words and inflections stored up from a week in August and more than a decade of friendship.

“That stuff about appropriateness is an excuse, Tris. So what is it really? Do you think Michael would dismiss your proposal because the two of you have had this misunderstanding?”

“Of course not.” The snap in her voice punished his temerity for suggesting Michael could be so unfair.

“Then you shouldn’t handicap this proposal because of a ‘mistake’ you and Michael made.’’

Not Michael. Just me, alone, making the mistake
. And paying dearly for it.

Relief swept into her as she saw Leslie slowly making her way back to the table. That would put an end to this cross-examination.