Their Child?. Karen Rose Smith
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beautiful, important day of her life.
The ceremony took place at the Billingsworth family church—the Church of the Way of Our Lord, to be specific—with Pastor Partridge presiding. The guests oohed and ahhed at the sight of the sanctuary, where lilies and roses, festooned with ivy and white satin ribbon, dripped from every available surface. More flowers stood in tall vases along the aisles and at the altar.
The place was packed. By the time the first familiar chords of the wedding march filled the air, it was standing room only.
Lena’s three flower girls, in green satin dresses, hair braided with ribbons and rosebuds, strolled down the white satin carpet that had been rolled out by two of the groomsmen before the wedding march began. All three little girls wore adorable shy smiles and carried ribbonbedecked baskets full of pink and green silk petals. They cast the petals out along the satin aisle as they went.
Next were Lena’s lifelong girlfriends, her bridesmaids and matrons, all eight of them in shimmering celery-green silk, each with a bouquet of pale pink roses and Peruvian lilies.
Lori, as matron of honor, followed the bridesmaids. Her gown was blush-pink, her flowers white roses tipped with green, threaded with green ribbon and ivy, rimmed in green lace. About five slow steps toward the groomsmen waiting at the altar, she made the mistake of glancing slightly to the right.
And there he was. Tucker. In the sixth row, with Tate and Molly.
Tucker caught Lori’s eye and held it. She almost stumbled.
But she recovered just in time. She pulled her shoulders back, set her gaze firmly front where it belonged and continued her slow, stately progress toward the altar.
The best man took her hand and guided her to her spot at his side and then, with all the bridal attendants in place, the music swelled louder and Lena appeared in a long-waisted snow-white gown sewn all over with seed pearls. She carried a cascade of white Casablanca lilies, gardenias, freesias and roses twined with faux pearls and heart-shaped ivy. At the sight of her, a long, admiring sigh seemed to rise from every throat.
It was Lena’s shining moment and she knew what to do with it. Through the white froth of her veil, she had eyes only for Dirk as she proceeded along the satin-carpeted, petal-strewn aisle. When she reached her groom at last, she handed her huge, trailing bouquet to Lori and she and Dirk turned to face Pastor Partridge.
The sacred exchange of vows began. Dirk faltered once or twice. A fast talker as a rule, he seemed struck speechless by the moment. Lena’s voice was strong and clear and never wavered.
Lori’s thoughts, there at the altar with her sister’s wedding flowers in her hands, were not easy ones.
All her life, Lori had judged her twin and found Lena lacking. Deep down, Lori had considered herself superior to Lena in the ways that really mattered. To Lori’s eyes, Lena, with her bright smiles and charming ways, only skimmed the surface of life. Lori, the quiet one, the straight-A student, had seen herself as thoughtful, as the one with real depth.
Now, today, standing there at the altar, Lori faced a hard truth: Lena was the better woman. Lena had waited for just the right guy. And when she found him, she never hesitated. She set about proudly and joyfully binding her life with his. Lena might have a selfish side, but she was also open and aboveboard about what she wanted and where she was headed.
Lori, on the other hand, had yet to even manage to tell her child’s father that he was a dad.
In spite of her determination not to look in his direction, her gaze shifted again to Tucker in the sixth row. His eyes were waiting. Full of heat and hope.
And promises, too.
Dear God. The way he looked at her…
Like Dirk looked at Lena. Like Tate looked at Molly. As if she, Lori, was the only woman in the world.
Incredible. Her dream of all those years ago had somehow become reality: Tucker Bravo was looking only at her.
He saw her now. He’d told her so, that night out by the pool. He saw her now and he was interested.
More than interested.
And, Lori admitted to herself as her sister said, “I do,” she was more than interested, too.
It was like some fairy tale come true.
Or it might have been, if not for the secret and the tangled, suffocating web of her lies.
Black clouds boiled up to the southwest as the bride and groom ducked into the long, white limo for the ride to the Throckleford County Country Club. The promised rain was on the way.
But folks weren’t all that worried about the weather. The gala reception would be held at the club, a big sit-down dinner in the main dining room and then dancing in the adjacent ballroom late into the night. A little thunderstorm or two wouldn’t matter, with the festivities being held indoors.
Tucker, who had slipped out of the church ahead of everyone else, reached the clubhouse well before the other guests. He tossed his keys to the parking attendant and went straight up the wide front staircase, through the main foyer to the dining room, with its eggplant-purple walls, white woodwork and ornately framed paintings of misty country scenes.
Sometimes, looking back, Tucker felt as if he’d grown up at the club. Ol’ Tuck was always dragging them out there for family dinners—dinners they shared in that very dining room—or for any number of gala events put together by his grandmother and her women friends. Tucker knew every nook and cranny of the clubhouse. He and Tate and their friends used to sneak away from the adult festivities to hide in the housekeeping closets and run up and down the main staircase in the foyer.
Lena’s wedding dinner was going to be one hell of a sit-down. There were at least forty round tables set with blinding-white linen and gold-rimmed crystal and china. Down at the far end, on a raised platform, stood a lone rectangular table set for six. That one had to be for the bride and groom and their two sets of parents. Tucker took a wild guess that, as the matron of honor, Lori would be seated somewhere near that main table.
He was right. He found her place card—and Brody’s to the right of it—directly in front of the dais. Then he went looking for his own place.
Ten minutes later he hit pay dirt. His seat was just about dead center among the sea of tables, with Molly and Tate to his right.
Feeling no shame at all, he snatched up his place card, carried it up front and switched it with the one on Lori’s left.
If any of the scurrying serving staff noticed he was messing with the seating, they didn’t call him on it. They were too busy straightening silverware and making certain the impressive floral centerpieces wouldn’t block the guests’ views of their dinner companions.
The switch accomplished, Tucker headed for the Cottonwood Room—the club’s dim, wood-paneled lounge. He took a seat at the bar and enjoyed a Scotch and water while he waited for the arrival of the rest of the wedding party.
Tucker returned to the dining room twenty minutes later. By then, the tables were filling up fast. The big room hummed with a hundred conversations. The serving staff moved in and out between the tables, setting out bread and butter, serving champagne, Cokes and cold tea on request. From a corner of the room, a sixpiece band played “It Had to Be You,” keeping it low, so folks could chat.
Lori and Brody were already seated. Tucker stopped near the door from the foyer and drank in the sight of them. As he watched, Lori leaned her bright head toward Brody. Her lips moved. Brody nodded and picked up his napkin, which sat on his plate folded into the shape of a swan. He shook it out and spread it in his lap.
Tucker grinned. The kid looked cute in a suit, his brown hair all slicked down, a wild little cowlick sticking up at the crown. Tucker knew about cowlicks and what a pain they could be. He had one, too, in just about the same spot as Brody’s. He had to wear his hair long or in a slight spike, as he did now, to keep it in hand.
And Lori…
Damn.