Mother of the Bride (8 page)

“Chicken and noodles, thanks to my mother.” Cydney smiled to hide her panic. If he'd said yes this morning, she could've had her nails done and bought a new outfit. Maybe scheduled a quickie liposuction. “Mother and Bebe should be here soon,” she added, gathering up the cord of the leaf blower. “Why don't you take your uncle inside, Aldo, while I put this away?”

“You go ahead, Aldo,” Angus Munroe said. “I'll help Miss Parrish.”

He pushed off the Jag and picked up a green tissue-wrapped cone of flowers, one of two lying on the trunk lid. Chrysanthemums, Cydney guessed, by their spicy scent and purple-tipped lavender blooms.

Her best falling asleep fantasy of Angus Munroe involved an armful of roses. Peach roses, her favorite. He brought them to her first book signing, went down on one knee beside the table where her fans were lined up for her autograph, smiled and laid the roses in her lap.

“Miss Parrish,” he said to her, starry-eyed and worshiping at her feet. “Cydney. I'm in awe of your talent.”

Ob gag me,
her little voice said.
Not that one again.

“Stop right there.” Cydney flung up her gloved right hand as Angus Munroe reached the fence. “I haven't found the wicket yet.”

“I'll risk it.” He unlatched the gate and stepped into the yard, the sunlight slanting through the branches of the maple tree winking on the lenses of his sunglasses. “I'm sorry about last night, Miss Parrish, and about the flowers in my room
this morning. They were delivered to the wrong person. I hope you'll accept these with my apologies.”

Holding the mums out to her, he waded toward her through the shin-deep leaves she'd blown away from the fence so they'd be easier to rake. He didn't see the wicket and neither did Cydney, though she supposed she should have. It was a natural, after all.

She did see the catch in his step, the startled O his lips formed when he put his foot through it. And a flash of the headline in tomorrow's
Kansas City Star
—
AUTHOR SUES HOME OWNER FOR NEGLIGENCE
—as he tripped and fell face first in the leaves with a crunching plop.

“Mr. Munroe!” Cydney dropped the leaf blower and raced toward him, skidding onto her knees beside him. “Are you all right?”

He didn't move, just lay sprawled on his face, the shoulders of his navy suede jacket and the backs of his blue-jeaned legs scattered with leaves. Cydney's hands fluttered around him. Did she dare touch him? Could a person suffocate in leaves?

“Uncle Gus!” She glanced up as Aldo came pelting toward them. “Uncle Gus! Are you all right?”

Cydney laid a hand on Angus Munroe's shoulder and felt him groan. So did she, certain that this time he'd call his attorney.

“Uncle Gus?” Aldo leaned over him. “You okay?”

Angus Munroe pushed himself up on one arm. The bill of his ball cap was crushed, his sunglasses bent and hanging off his face by one twisted earpiece. He plucked a hand-size red maple leaf out of his right ear and squinted a bruised eye at Cydney.

“I think I found your wicket, Miss Parrish.”

A joke? Was that a joke? Cydney wasn't sure, but Aldo grinned as he caught his uncle by the arms and helped him up. Angus Munroe took a step as he stood and stumbled, favoring his right foot. Oh no, Cydney thought.
All aboard for the emergency room,
her little voice said.

Cydney dropped her gaze to the chrysanthemums. He'd
fallen on them and crushed them as flat as her last hope that he'd like her. That's all she'd wanted. Angus Munroe to like her, and to make a good impression for Bebe's sake. She picked up the bouquet and touched the squashed blooms. Was that so much to ask?

“I'm sorry about the flowers, Miss Parrish.” So was she. They weren't peach roses, but Angus Munroe had bought them for her. It wasn't her fantasy but it was close enough.

“That's all right, Mr. Munroe. It's the thought that counts.” Cydney handed the flattened mums to Aldo and crawled toward the fence. She found the wicket, stuck tight in the ground like it was embedded in concrete, pulled and tugged but couldn't budge it. She rose on her knees, grasped it in both hands and gave a mighty heave. It came free and tumbled her over on her fanny at Angus Munroe's feet.

He stood brushing leaves off his jacket and looking down at her, his sunglasses in his pocket, his crumpled hat pushed back on his head. Both his eyes were turning black, his nose so swollen it hurt just to look at it. Cydney realized she was staring at him and that he was staring back at her. Like she was depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.

“Got it,” she said, raising the wicket in her gloved left hand.

“Good,” he said. “For God's sake, don't drop it.” He offered her a hand. Cydney took it, noting the wince he made as she pulled herself to her feet.

“I think you've hurt yourself again, Mr. Munroe.” “Again, Miss Parrish? I didn't hurt myself the first time.” “Oh no. No, of course not. Bebe hit you, then Aldo and I dropped you and—”
You're blithering,
her little voice interrupted.
Like that idiot with no village.
“Never mind. I'm sure you remember what happened.”

“Actually I don't. Just bits and pieces.” “Can I get you anything? An ice bag?” “Relax, Miss Parrish. You warned me about the wicket. I'm not going to sue you.”

“Thank God,” she blurted, and Angus Munroe scowled. She snatched up the leaf blower and backed away. “Excuse me. I'll just put this away. And hide the croquet set where I'll never find it again.”

Cydney hurried across the yard, gritting her teeth and crunching leaves beneath her feet. Damn Angus Munroe. She'd never again be able to enjoy watching leaves blow around her backyard. Or let them pile up until November, when she spent a whole Saturday raking and bagging. She loved those Saturdays. The spring of the rake tines in the grass, the ripe smell of leaves half decayed into compost. Her flushed cheeks and sore muscles, the hot chocolate and sleeping like a hibernating bear afterward.

The inside of the garage felt cool after the hot sun and the heat of Angus Munroe's scowl. Cydney tossed her goggles, her gloves and the wicket on the bench where she kept her gardening tools. She hung the leaf blower between two nails driven into the back wall and watched the cord swing from the handle. Make a nifty noose. Or maybe she could bend the wicket into a garrote. She couldn't decide which one Angus Munroe deserved more for barging into her life—hanging or strangling.

She'd liked him better when he was just a picture cut out of a magazine, a goal she could strive for and a face she could dream about. In person he was arrogant and hidebound and she didn't like him. Good thing, since she was sure he didn't like her, either.

Cydney hadn't felt this hurt and disappointed since the photographer from
People
asked her to stay behind him so she wouldn't accidentally end up in one of the pictures. Tears pricked her eyes but she blinked them away. She heard a slam in the driveway, drew a breath and walked back to the open overhead door.

Her mother's silver Lincoln Town Car sat behind her truck. Georgette and Bebe were already in the backyard with Aldo and his uncle, a nest of shopping bags at their feet. Bebe held the other bouquet Cydney had last seen on the trunk of
his car. Daisies, she could see, as her niece peeled back one corner of the paper.

Georgette smiled and held out her hand to Angus Munroe. He said something that made her laugh but Cydney was too far away to hear. Bebe looked up at him from the daisies cupped in her hands, a dazzling you-like-me,
you-really-like-
me smile on her face.

Few men could withstand Bebe's innocently devastating smile, but Angus Munroe just stood looking at her. Like he was trying to decide what to make of her, Cydney thought.
Or maybe,
her little voice suggested,
what to do about her.

“Uh-oh,” Cydney muttered, frowning as she watched Aldo pick up Bebe's packages and lead her toward the house.

She waded gracefully along beside him despite the leaves and the air boot on her right ankle. Angus Munroe offered Georgette his arm, picked up her packages and escorted her toward the patio, limping just a little on his right foot. Aldo opened the French doors and helped Bebe up the step into the dining room. Angus Munroe did the same for Georgette and shut the door behind them.

Cydney stood in the open garage door, her hands clenched into fists. Why hadn't he stayed in Crooked Possum? He could've remained her secret fantasy then, and no harm done. She wished she could just stay out here in the garage, but she couldn't. For Bebe's sake she had to play gracious hostess and serve him dinner. Good thing her mother made the chicken and noodles before she took Bebe shopping. The way Cydney's day was going, she'd probably poison him.

Maybe you'll get lucky,
her little voice said.
Maybe he'll choke on a chicken bone.

If he did, she could save him—she knew the Heimlich maneuver. He might not like her, but he'd owe her one. The stuff of great blackmail if he continued to be difficult about the wedding.

Why was he being difficult? This morning he'd said he couldn't care less about Aldo's money. So if the fifteen million dollars wasn't the problem, what was? Why hadn't she thought to ask him? And why was she just standing here? She needed
to change, set the table and fawn and fuss over Angus Munroe before he rethought the idea of suing her. Cydney shut and locked the overhead door and headed for the house.

Angus Munroe was already tucked up on the couch, his right foot on a cushion on her coffee table and an ice bag on his ankle. Her mother stood beside him holding another ice bag and a glass of water. Cydney didn't see Bebe and Aldo and didn't stop to look for them. She hurried to her bedroom, shut the door and stripped off her clothes, hopped into the shower in her bathroom and thought about drowning herself.

Too bad she hadn't thought of it
before
Angus Munroe found her talking to pictures of him. It might not have kept Bebe from hitting him and cracking his nose, or Aldo from dropping him, but at least she wouldn't have been around to see it. He could've fractured his skull on the birdbath or broken his neck when he'd tripped over the wicket. Boy, when life turned ugly, it took no prisoners.

Cydney dressed in black slacks and flats and a green sweater set—a scoop-neck shell and a cardigan with a single button on a loop—added the jade lariat necklace and earrings her father sent her from Hong Kong on his last book tour and declared herself as ready as she'd ever be.

Her mother was in the kitchen, whisking Bisquick and milk together for dumplings. She crooked her finger at Cydney.

“Start the coffee,” she whispered, “then finish setting the table.”

“Okay,” Cydney whispered back. “Why are we whispering?”

“Angus Munroe is asleep. He took a pain pill.” She jerked her head toward the living room. “Use my mother's china.”

“Don't you think that's overkill?”

“After Bebe punching him in the nose, nothing is overkill. How could you let such a thing happen?”

“How could I
let
it? How could I have stopped it?”

“You're an adult, Cydney. Bebe is a child.”

“If she's a child, then she has no business getting married,”
Cydney blurted, and blinked. Eek. She sounded like Angus Munroe.

Georgette said, “You sound like your father.”

I should've stayed in the garage, Cydney thought. Why didn't I stay in the garage?

“All right, Mother.” She sighed. “I'll use Grandmother's china.”

Cydney filled the Krups machine and turned it on, then crept into the dining room, where she stored the set of eighty-year-old Spode, ivory with gold-banded edges, in the hutch. By rights the service for twelve belonged to Gwen, but Gwen had no interest in china unless
Time
or
Newsweek
wanted to send her there to photograph the Great Wall.

Georgette had already spread a white damask cloth on the table, tucked the napkins artfully into rings and set the daisies Angus Munroe brought Bebe to float in a crystal bowl between tall white tapers.

Cydney eased open the hutch doors so they wouldn't squeak. She laid places at each end of the table, two on one side for Bebe and Aldo, one across from them for Angus Munroe, and crept to the doorway between the dining room and living room to peek at him.

Poor man. Her left ankle, the one she'd wrenched when she slipped on the grape in the produce aisle, twinged in sympathy. He'd come to Kansas City to talk to his nephew, and now look at him. Packed in ice—one bag on his ankle, the other on his nose—dead leaves and dry grass stuck to his clothes, sprawled in a heap on her mauve sofa.

Weary and beat-up, but handsome as a sin heap, even with two black eyes, a shadow of beard on his jaw and a lock of dark hair falling over the ice bag pressed to his nose. Cydney had never seen a picture of him where his hair wasn't falling over his face. He must have a cowlick, she thought, right there in front.

He'd taken off his size 10 suede hiking boots, the ones she'd brushed mud off last night. Cydney could see bits of crushed leaf stuck to the toes of his socks. White, over the calf tube socks with ribbed tops and gray toes. She'd washed
them last night along with his sweater, size large, his jeans— 34 waist, 36 inseam—and his boxer shorts. Paisley silk that slipped through her fingers like—well, like silk—when she'd taken them out of the dryer.

If she'd had a night and a day like Angus Munroe, she'd be cranky and out of sorts, too. I've been too hard on him, Cydney thought. I should cut him some slack. For Bebe's sake. Her decision had nothing at all to do with the picture forming in her head, of Angus Munroe wearing those paisley boxers and nothing else. Absolutely nothing.

Whoa, mama,
her little voice said, just as Bebe and Aldo came into the living room and bounced down on either side of him, their weight dipping the couch cushions and knocking the ice bag off his nose. He caught it against his chest and looked up, bleary-eyed, at Cydney standing in the dining room doorway.

He smiled at her, a soft-edged, half-asleep smile that made her stomach flutter. He has no idea what he's doing, Cydney told herself, no clue, thank God, that you're thinking about his underwear. He's half-looped, that's all, from the pain pill he took.