T he wedding reception was held in a beautiful restored turn-of-the-century house with three stories of corniced gingerbread, wraparound porches, upstairs verandas, cupolas and a grand total of eight bay windows. It was called the Victorian Club, and inside was as evocative of a bygone era as was its immaculate white exterior and latticed backyard gazebo.
Arriving at the Victorian Club where all the wedding guests were waiting, Winnie experienced afresh the phantasmal sensation that for this day she was someone other than Winnifred Gardner, contemporary woman, careered, affianced. Indeed, everything today seemed to tug at Winnie's heartstrings and urge her into a fanciful state of deja vu, as if she'd been dressed for the part intentionally by some omnipotent force so it could sweep her back to a time she formerly knew.
The four cars pulled to the curb in front of the stunning architectural eye-catcher, and as the wedding party disembarked from the high old-fashioned seats, laughter and gay badinage spilled into the warm afternoon.
Winnie reached for her door handle, but Joseph was right there to stop her with a quick hand on her arm. "Wait!" Immediately he was out his side and around to hers. The foot block was narrow, and as she turned in her seat to search it out with her high heel, Joseph's hands came up, catching her about the waist and swinging her down beside him. His hands were sure and lingered a bit longer than prudent. Was it her imagination, or had he intentionally swung her down too swiftly so her hip collided with his stomach? If so, he took scarcely a moment to savor the contact before turning her by an elbow toward the walk.
Merrymakers had noted their arrival, and a throng of them rushed from the house to encircle and accompany the bride and groom inside beneath a shower of rice, while Winnie and Joseph ran at their heels.
The house was decorated with lush antiques, its oaken floors varnished to a high gloss, and its ceiling-to-floor casement windows topped off by eyebrow sashes and decorated with antique sheer lace curtains that let the daylight stream inside. An elegant staircase curved up from the enormous central entry hall, and wide sliding double doors were rolled back on either side of the generous area, vastly expanding the space where the dancing would be done later. The dining room was at the rear of the house just off the kitchen, which was the only room closed off to guests, for it had been converted to meet modern standards of efficiency for the accommodation of large groups such as today's.
As Winnie stepped inside with Joseph's hand at the small of her back, she caught her breath at the setting. Something here called to her heart, and she turned to Joseph with an appreciative gaze in her eye. "Isn't this place-" she glanced up the thick red runner on the curved stairway "-evocative? I was with Sandy when she first came to see it, and I was so afraid she might not choose it."
"Yes, it's really beautiful." But his eyes made only a cursory swing past the ballroom-width entry and sweeping stair before returning to her as he spoke the words.
"Now, Joseph, you promised."
"I did? What did I promise?" His hand moved caressingly on her back.
"You said you had to watch yourself today, didn't you?"
"Ah, yes, but does that mean I can't admire the scenery?"
She laughed into his glinting eyes, then the two of them turned and ambled toward the rear of the hall, his hand still riding the shallows of her spine. "Do you know what my first impression of you was when I met you last night?" she asked, gazing at the ceiling's domed windows.
"No, what?" He admired the arch of her neck as she looked up.
"That you are a consummate flirt, and that I should take everything you say with a grain of salt."
It was his turn to laugh. "Define the term consummate, if you will."
She shrugged, thought about it for a second and made a vague gesture toward the heavens. "Consummate… you know." Again she beamed him a grin. "Perfect."
"The perfect flirt? Is that how you see me?"
"You see? You're doing it again. Perhaps the word I should have chosen was incorrigible flirt."
"I think I like consummate better. It sounds sexual, and it's nice to think one woman finds me perfect in some way."
Just then a voice spoke behind them. "Winnifred, dear, there you are."
At the sound of Paul's voice Winnie spun around, pressing a hand to her thumping heart, wondering if he'd heard Jo-Jo's last remark, certain he'd seen Duggan's hand lingering on her waist. It took an effort to keep her voice light and lift her cheek for Paul's kiss while Jo-Jo looked on.
"Oh, hello, Paul. I'm sorry I missed you in the church lobby, but things were so hectic. We were swept outside before I could catch my breath."
Jo-Jo Duggan watched as the tall perfectly groomed man slipped his hands around Winnie's ribs and dipped his head to kiss her briefly on the cheek. "You… look… sensational, darling." As he straightened, his head caught the brim of her hat, and her hand flew up to hold it on.
"Do you like it?" She smiled at the prepossessing man whose blond head towered above hers by a good ten inches.
"Like it!" Hildebrandt backed off and ran his eyes down to her hem and back up again. "I love it. The hair and the hat-" he captured her hands and squeezed them for emphasis "-and the dress." Once more his eyes dropped to assess her more feminine points while she wished Jo-Jo would politely refrain from watching every place Paul touched her and looked at her. "You look ravishing."
From the corner of her eye she saw Jo-Jo grimace, and felt a thrill ripple along her skin. She returned the pressure of Paul's hands and turned him toward her escort. "Paul, I want you to meet the best man, Joseph Duggan. Joseph, this is my fiance, Paul Hildebrandt."
They shook hands. "Hildebrandt." Joseph nodded.
"Hello," Paul greeted simply.
"So you're the lucky guy, huh?" Jo-Jo transferred his amiable smile from Hildebrandt to the woman on his arm. "She's been talking about you a lot while we were out doing the after-wedding joyride."
"Oh-oh. I'm probably in trouble."
"Not at all. Everything she said was highly complimentary."
Hildebrandt's eyes rested on his betrothed, then made another tour of her appealing hairdo and hat. It suddenly irked Joseph Duggan to watch the man assessing her as if she were a pink-and-white striped parfait in a stem glass, and he'd just been given a spoon. Hildebrandt surprised Duggan by returning, "Today it looks like you're the lucky man, escorting her when she's dressed like that." Then with scarcely a glance at Jo-Jo the suave executive type turned the maid of honor away by her arm. "I'll bring her right back. I have to talk to her for a minute."
Joseph watched the "computer man" commandeer Winnifred Gardner's elbow and appropriate her. Hildebrandt was dressed in an impeccable three-piece suit of proper navy blue, accompanied by the expected baby blue shirt and striped tie of muted wines and gray blues. His haircut looked like something out of Gentleman's Quarterly, and his shoes were polished like mirrors. As the pair turned away, Hildebrandt's arm slipped around Winnifred's shoulders, and he pulled her up tightly until she was tipped against his ribs and hip. Her face was raised and wearing a radiant smile as he spoke down at her, then she replied and together they laughed.
The sight of them that way made Duggan want to drive his fist into the wall.
"There's got to be some private corner where we can hide for a minute," Paul was saying.
"To what end, Mr. Hildebrandt?" Winnie teased coquettishly.
He hauled her hip against his, and his hand rode higher up her side, almost to the armpit, fingertips extended toward her breast. "Find me that corner and I'll show you."
She laughed and they rounded a corner, then walked down a broad central hall and eventually came upon what must have been a butler's pantry in its day. Pushing open a swinging door, they found a long narrow room with built-in glass-doored cabinets on their left, bearing wide storage drawers for linens and silverware. There was another swinging door at the far side of the walk-through and to their right a broad window rising from a waist-high counter top to the twelve-foot ceiling. The blue sky beyond was framed by an arching tangle of ivy vines, bare of leaf now, but swollen with buds.
When the door swung closed behind them, Paul confiscated her basket of flowers, set it aside with careful deliberateness, then circled Winnie with both arms, pulling her securely against his body as he dropped his head to kiss her and pressed her hips back against the rounded edge of the ivory-painted cabinet below the window. "Mmm…" he murmured as his tongue slipped seductively into her mouth, which opened willingly. His head moved, and his hand pressed the side of her breast, then kneaded it firmly.
"Mmm…" she echoed into his mouth, smiling beneath his open lips, running her hands over his smooth back.
He lifted his head and backed away only enough to see her but still held her prisoner between himself and the cabinet. "If you look even one-quarter this tantalizing on our wedding day, I'll have a hard time keeping my hands off you in front of the entire congregation."
She ran her fingertips demurely under both of his lapels. "Well, now, wouldn't that be something? The unflappable Paul Hildebrandt, losing control. I think I'd like that."
"I'm far from unflappable where you're concerned, and you know it."
She kissed his chin. "Not in public, you're not. Otherwise you would have kissed me back there in the entry instead of sneaking off into this pantry with me." Was it a subconscious wish to show Jo-Jo Duggan her fiance desired her that made Winnie voice that comment? She pushed Duggan from her mind and lifted up on tiptoe, seeking Paul's mouth again. But in the middle of the kiss her hat began slipping, and she jerked free, both hands flying up to the long pearl-headed hat pin.
"Oh, shoot. We're not done taking pictures yet, so I have to keep this thing on and make sure my hair doesn't get messed. But I'll be able to get rid of it at the dance tonight, then we can take up where we left off here."
With characteristic seriousness Paul backed away from her and slipped a hand into his trouser pocket. "About the dance, Winnie…"
Already her hands were on her hips-angrily. "Paul Hildebrandt, if you tell me you're not staying for the dance, I'm going to throw a fit right here and now!"
"Winnie, quiet down before somebody finds us in here. It isn't that I won't stay for the dance. I'll just have to leave a little bit earlier than I expected."
She tucked her lips against her teeth and made a pair of tough fists. "So what is it this time? Did the Almighty decree that he needed the lowly Mr. Hildebrandt to process some data before-"
"Winnie, you're being shrewish again."
"Shrewish!" She spun to face the window, presenting her back. "I have a right to be shrewish after you promised." She whirled again to face him. "You promised. You said we'd dance until the last dog was hung, and that nothing would make you miss it. So what came up?"
"Must you sound so antagonistic?"
She considered his question seriously. "Yes. Yes, I must, because I'm sick and tired of taking a back seat to your computers and your incessant late hours. It is your contract work again, isn't it?"
"They need it by Monday, and this extra money is going to come in so handy when we move into the house."
"Paul, how many times do I have to tell you, I don't care about the house. I can live with a card table and two chairs and a pair of fifteen-dollar bean bags! I don't need four thousand dollars' worth of carefully chosen decorator furniture. We'll have the rest of our lives to buy furniture. Now-especially tonight-I wanted to be ours."
"I know." His voice was repentant, and he slipped his hands inside the bell-shaped sleeves of her lace overdress, running them up past her elbows. "I know, Winnie, but I have… ideals. Goals. And one of them is seeing that you start with nothing but the best. Everything you deserve. You know I've given my solemn promise to your mother that I'd see to it."
But the subject of her mother was one Winnifred could not quite confront head-on in relationship to Paul Hildebrandt. If she voiced her true feelings on that score, she feared she'd sound neurotic, or at the very least, petulant. She dropped her head forward, staring at the crisp crease in Paul's trousers as she sighed deeply.
"Yes, I know," she replied wearily. She lifted her head. "I'm sorry I complain about it, but I… you…" How was it she always ended up feeling the one in error when this argument erupted between them again and again? His motives seemed very noble on the surface, and her complaints so juvenile, as if she were a spoiled child who demanded more attention after getting her just dole.
She circled his neck loosely with both hands. "Paul, I just wanted today to be special. I feel special, dressed up this way. And I know you'd like to see me dressed up more often than you do. I thought you'd want to be with me."
"I do. And I am." He kissed her nose and looped his hands loosely behind her back. "I can stay for a couple of hours."
"During dinner?"
He brightened and smiled. "Yes, during dinner and for a few dances."
She studied him with a new, disturbing insight, recalling Joseph Duggan's words: "That's the first sign of a healthy relationship between you and your fiance that I've seen yet." Paul Hildebrandt was all the things a sane woman wanted in a husband. Hadn't her mother reiterated the fact time and again during the past two years?
She sighed again and leaned back against the cabinet edge, pulling him with her. His weight felt secure, pressing against her hips again. She pulled his head down, forgetting about the hat, commanding him to kiss her with a full exchange of tongues that grew into a greedy seeking of body pressure. Her hat fell off. She raised up higher, forcing her curves into his coves, wishing to assure him she would and could be content with a couple of hours with him.
"Paul, I love you," she said ardently against his neck. He smelled of Pierre Cardin cosmetics, as he always did-nothing but the best when it came to image, he always claimed. The clothes make the man. First impressions last longest. He was always clean, flawless and fragrant.
"I love you, too," he said, bracketing her face with his long tapered hands that were ever as immaculate as those of any dentist.
What's the matter with me tonight, she wondered. Why am I assessing him so caustically when he has no outstanding faults? Am I searching for some all of a sudden, after what Jo-Jo Duggan intimated?
"It's time I got back. They'll be seating the wedding party at the main table soon. I can't hold things up."
"Oh." A shadow crossed his handsome green eyes. "I guess that means I can't sit with you during dinner."
"I'll be seated next to the best man. But we can dance the first dance afterward, all right?"
"I'll mark your name on my program." He grinned, handed her her basket, and turned her toward the swinging door.
The main hall was emptying, but Joseph Duggan was waiting near the archway to the dining room.
"Ah, there you are. They're seating the guests first, Hildebrandt, and they've already sent out the call." He noted Winnie's flushed face and that unmistakable swollen look of a woman who's just been well kissed. She'd had a faint sheen to her lips before slipping off with the computer man, but it was all gone now. He noted also a coolness as she told her fiance, "I'll see you after dinner, Paul."
Hildebrandt left them and disappeared into the dining room. Winnie felt Duggan's eyes assessing her, missing nothing. He wore no grin this time as he advised, "You got a little bit messed in there. There's a hank of hair hanging from under the side of your hat, and you could use a touch of lipstick-for the camera, of course," he finished sardonically.
She felt a surge of color mounting her chest and bathing her chin, and bit back the sharp retort that it was none of his bloody business. "I left a small makeup bag in your car. Would you mind terribly running out to get it for me?"
"Not at all. What does it look like?"
"It's a lavender-flowered zipper bag about so big."
"Be right back." He turned and crossed the entry, but just before the door closed behind him, he paused and looked back with a frown on his face. It made her sizzling mad to feel his skewering eyes were reprimanding her.
When he returned, the crowd in the front hall had thinned even more. He thrust the bag into her hand, and she thrust her flower basket into his. Then he stood behind her shoulder-very, very close-watching her reflection as she faced a long ornate pier glass hanging on a wall to the left of the door.
She fished in the bag for a wand of lipstick, but when she found it, her hand trembled on its way to her lips. Joseph Duggan's brown eyes were relentless as they followed each move she made. She opened her mouth, pouted her lips toward the glass and began carefully outlining them.
"You have very beautiful lips. I like them better when they don't have that red crap on them and are left in their own natural shape."
The wand with its red tip trembled two inches from her mouth. Her eyes met Duggan's in the mirror, and she wanted to ask him please to forgo any further compliments tonight. She just wasn't in the mood anymore.
"Go ahead, princess, put it on, anyway. It'll take away that puffy look that tells what you and Hildegard were doing in the butler's pantry."
"Hildebrandt!" she spit and continued slashing the red hue on her lips.
"I beg your pardon," he returned silkily. "Hildebrandt." He raised his eyes to her hat. "And fix that hair, too… for the time being."
Rather than ask the obvious question, she jerked the hat pin free and handed him the hat by swatting it across his belly. He grinned as he added it to his collection of female frippery. It was beyond her why a frilly hat and a basket of pink hyacinth should enhance a man's masculinity as he held them in his wide blunt hands. She dropped her eyes from the reflection, feeling betrayed by two inanimate objects.
She lifted her arms to smooth the single strand of hair that had been jerked from its moorings, tucked it securely into the roll at the base of her neck, found a hidden hairpin and rammed it into place. Throughout the adjustments her chin rested on her chest, and her breasts jutted upward. She secretly peeked up to glimpse Joseph Duggan's eyes on her upturned focal spots, then wander to her bare arms, where the loose sleeves of her dress had slipped down to her shoulders as her elbows lifted to heaven. His gaze moved up and caught her watching him. One corner of his mouth tipped up slowly, and at the proper moment he reached around her with one arm and placed the hat against her stomach. When it touched her, something inside Winnifred Gardner went woozy.
"Thank you," she snapped sarcastically, jerking the hat from his fingers.
"Anytime, ma'am," he drawled. "If the damage is all repaired now, let's go. They're waiting for us, I'm sure."
Luckily the proceedings hadn't been held up, for Sandy had planned a rather unique substitute for the often disliked formal receiving line. Instead of forcing her wedding party to go through the polite ritual of making small talk to total strangers, she'd arranged for all dinner guests to be seated first, after which the members of the wedding party would be formally introduced and would make their entrance through the center aisle of the dining room toward the head table, where all the guests could see them and know exactly who each person was.
As Winnie and Joseph joined the others waiting at the entrance to the dining room, the announcer was calling, "I give you Mr. and Mrs. Michael Malaszewski!"
Joseph burst into applause, then bit his little fingers and shrilled an earsplitting whistle. Winnie clapped her hands over her ears and winced. He grinned, clapped louder and bellowed, "Way to go, Ski!"
The announcer called, "The maid of honor and the best man, Miss Winnifred Gardner and Mr. Joseph Duggan."
He postured a miniature bow, presented his elbow and invited, "Shall we, Miss Gardner?"
She forced a broad smile, laced her hand beneath his sleeve and followed his lead, conscious of Paul's eyes following as she and Joseph made for the head table. When the entire wedding party had been introduced, Joseph stepped behind her chair to pull it out solicitously. As he moved to his chair, she whacked her basket of flowers down between two candles, yanked her gloves off and slapped them down beside her silverware.
As soon as he was seated, he turned his full attention to her. "Well, I detect a bit of frost in the air."
"I'd rather not talk about it while one hundred wedding guests can watch everything that passes between us."
"You're angry with me."
"Yes, among other things."
"Then, I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd be so touchy about things like that. I shouldn't have teased."
"I'm not touchy, all right?"
"Then why are you throwing things around and pulling your mouth up like a purse string?"
She inhaled, closed her eyes for a second and forced her facial muscles to relax. "I'm not touchy. And I'm not quite as angry with you as I am with Paul, and I don't want to talk about it, if you don't mind."
"A lovers' quarrel? At a wedding? In a pantry? What could you possibly find to quarrel about when you were only gone five minutes?"
When she refused to answer but turned her head away from him, he searched out Paul Hildebrandt in a far corner of the room. "Mmm… your fiance is looking pretty mellow and happy over there. Apparently he's not mad at you."
She snapped her head back toward him. "Mr. Duggan, I said I didn't want to talk about it."
"All right, I'm versatile. What else would you like to talk about?" A white-clad waitress moved before them and offered to fill their stem glasses with champagne. He lifted his own glass and asked Winnie, " Champagne?" At her curt nod he held her glass, too, for filling. "There you are," he said amiably, offering it to her. Their discourse was sidetracked as Joseph declared, "I'd better do my duties as best man. We'll pick this up later."
He arose, raised his hands for silence and turned toward the bride and groom, lifting his glass. "Ladies and gentlemen, I think a toast is in order on this auspicious occasion. It goes without saying that we're all happy for you, Mick and Sandy, and each of us thanks you for inviting us to celebrate your great day along with you. It comes from the heart when I wish you a lifetime of love as rich as the love you're feeling today. May your blessings be many, your hardships be few." He lifted his glass momentarily higher. "To my friends Sandy and Mick Malaszewski." He drank, set his glass down, then moved between the bridal couple. Mick was on his feet, and the two men embraced, their arms wrapped securely around each other's shoulders. Then, as they clasped hands, they exchanged some private words too low for Winnie to catch. But they looked into each other's eyes, and for a moment she thought she saw an emotional glitter in both pairs of eyes. Again Joseph lifted his voice to the crowd. "And, as best man, I believe I'm entitled to what I'm about to take!" The wedding guests applauded as Joseph took Sandy 's hand and prompted her to her feet. Then he wrapped her in his arms and planted a long firm kiss on her mouth before backing away and laughing into her rosy face. "Be good to him, you hear? I love that big galoot."
"I will," Sandy answered. "So do I."
Joseph nodded, released her hands and returned to his chair beside Winnie. By the time he refilled his glass and lifted it to hers, there was a warm appreciative glow where her anger had been. He was a man who loved and showed it, and voiced it. Unashamedly. How rare.
"I'd rather not spend the rest of the night with you mad at me, so let's have a toast to peace, okay, Miss Gardner?"
She touched the rim of her glass to his. "Pax," she agreed as the ting of crystal sounded faintly. "And I'm sorry, too. It really was never you I was upset with."
"Good." He drank, but his eyes never left hers as the rim of his glass tipped up, and her gaze remained steadily on his arresting dark eyes until she thought she saw the sparkle of the wine bubbles reflected in their brown irises. A vague nagging ache of tension seemed to disappear from between her shoulder blades now that they were on equable terms again.
Their dinner was served, and while they ate chicken breast and mushroom sauce on a bed of wild rice, they talked about nice safe subjects: his business, the vintage-auto club, her job at the hospital, the bride's and groom's refreshing flouting of tradition in planning this wedding.
"Did you know they're opening their own gifts tomorrow afternoon at Sandy 's parents' house?"
"Yes, Mick told me. Will you be there?"
She looked up into his direct gaze. Lord, but he has devastating eyes, she thought. I should answer an unqualified no and stick to it. There's no way I'll get Paul to come along, not when he has work to entice him.
"Yes, will you?"
"Now I will."
They were playing cat and mouse, and she knew it. Yet she assuaged her immediate guilt feelings by telling herself being with him was "legal." She'd been paired off with him for the duration of the wedding, and wasn't tomorrow part of the ongoing celebration? Suddenly she realized she'd been staring into his eyes for too, too long and dropped hers to her plate, then quickly scanned the room to see if Paul was watching the head table. But he was immersed in conversation with someone else at his own.
"Miss Gardner?" Joseph paused expectantly, and she turned to find those inexcusably beautiful brown eyes still resting upon her. "What does he call you? Winnifred? Winnie?"
"Winnie, most of the time."
"Then would it be okay if I called you Winn?"
Her heart reacted in a way no heart of an engaged woman should react, and she wondered if people noted how often she and Joseph gazed into each other's eyes during the course of the meal.
The server interrupted just then. "Would either of you care for coffee?"
Winnie jumped at the chance to be diverted. "Yes… oh, yes, coffee, please." Too late she realized she hated coffee. Maybe it'll sober me up and make me behave properly.
"Winn?" The word sent her heart ka-whumping more erratically than before, and the tone of his voice compelled her to lift her eyes to his once more. "What did you two fight about?"
"It wasn't a fight exactly, just an ongoing difference between us. And I'm in the wrong about it, and I know it." She glanced at Paul and found him watching her. He raised a hand in silent salute, and she returned the hello, then dropped her eyes to the tablecloth. "You see, Paul is a very dedicated man. He has set goals for himself, for us, actually… things he wants us to own, to achieve. Only sometimes when he works overtime, I get…" She stopped, unsure of how to say it.
"You get?"
He touched the knuckle of her index finger where it was threaded through the handle of the coffee cup. At the brief contact she jerked back, sending the liquid sloshing to the rim of the cup. Alarmed, she looked up, striving to put Paul between herself and this very attractive man. "I get a little jealous of the time he spends with his computers. He has a terminal at home in the spare bedroom, and after his regular job he does contract work, programming on an independent basis during evenings and weekends. He does it because we've bought the house, and naturally there are fairly good-sized payments on it, plus he's bound and determined we'll have it totally furnished by the time I move in with him. So I should be grateful. I have a man who's got ambition and drive, I know. It's selfish of me to make demands on his time, I guess. But sometimes I…" Again her eyes wandered to Paul, but she left the thought dangling.
"Sometimes you'd rather have his time than the money it can earn," Joseph filled in, leaning forward, resting an elbow on the table and turning his back to the room at large, shielding her from the eyes of her fiance.
"Yes. I know it sounds absolutely ridiculous that a woman can be jealous of a… a panel of silicon chips, but…" Her eyebrows puckered and her lips trembled. "Do you know they even give computers names? He's named his Rita. Rita, for God's sake! I mean, what kind of a man gives a woman's name to a hunk of metal and refers to her as she all the time?" Her lips were trembling even more. "And what kind of woman gets jealous of her?" She was directly confronted by Jo-Jo Duggan's serious brown eyes, and to her horror she realized her own eyes were floating in tears. "Oh, darn…" She felt utterly ridiculous to have admitted such a thing. She reached up to dash the salt away but had no handkerchief. "I feel like a fool, getting all emotional over a thing like this, but he promised me he'd come to the wedding and dance all night. And I just love to dance, and I thought b-because I'm all d-dressed up and everything…" She stammered to a halt, more self-conscious than ever, after babbling on about such inconsequential and childish wishes.
Into her line of vision came a blurred hand, extending a clean folded handkerchief. "Here, dry your eyes."
She touched their inner corners gingerly and wiped the end of her nose. She lifted her face then, and there was Joseph Duggan only inches before her, unsmiling, watching her too carefully, still shielding her from the rest of the room. "I'm sorry, Joseph. What a stupid thing to do, get all teary eyed because my man wants to work hard so he can buy me a houseful of furniture."
"That's not the reason you're crying, and you know it."
"It's not?"
"Hardly."
"Then tell me why I am."
"Because you're three months away from marrying a man, and all of a sudden you're discovering some very disturbing differences in values between the two of you. Deep differences. You like to dance, and he likes to talk to computers. But is that as deep as it goes?"
"Ye…" She'd been about to say yes but halted to give it some serious reflection. But, thinking, she decided it best not to dwell upon it. "I want to have fun tonight, and this isn't helping. Can we talk about something else?"
"Of course. Are you all dried up now, so I can remove myself from between you and the curious multitude?"
She smiled and chuckled shakily, handed him his handkerchief and sniffed once. "Yes. But I probably am in need of some makeup repair again. If you'll excuse me, I'll sneak back to the foyer and touch up my eyes."
He immediately got to his feet and pulled her chair back. When she stood beside him, he detained her for a second with a hand on her arm. "Winn, if it'll make you feel any better, I'll fill in for old Hildegard on the dance floor, inept as I am. You want to dance all night, you've got it, sweetheart. Two clubfeet and all." He glanced self-deprecatingly at his shoes, then straightened and gave her a teasing grin.
It was like a shot of revivifying sun.
"I think, Joseph Duggan, that you're a very nice man underneath all that flirting and teasing. And I'll hold you to it."
They stood for a breathless moment, transfixed, staring at each other.
"Winn…" His fingers tightened on her arm. But his touch felt too welcome, too good, too exciting. She forced herself to turn and walk away.