May The Best Man Wed

“Gone.”

Click.

HER PARENTS’ red Cadillac was already in front of the Walkers’ brick Georgian when Savannah arrived that evening to discuss “the McCormick matter,” as the situation had been discreetly termed. She reached the library where liquor and coffee were being served along with civility, and where, at this moment, Franklin Walker was pointing his brandy at his oldest son.

“You’re home not even twenty-four hours, and your brother takes off in the middle of the night without letting anyone know where he’s going or for how long.”

Stretched out in a corner club chair, Cash sipped his own drink, his enjoyment undisturbed. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

“He did leave a note.” Savannah moved into the high-ceiling room. She waved her hand to tell her future mother-in-law to stay seated and helped herself to the coffee set up on the sideboard.

“A note.” Franklin’s hard gaze stayed on Cash. “That you delivered.”

Pauline Walker set her china cup on the coffee table only to pick it up again. “What your father is trying to say, dear, is that younger brothers often idolize their older siblings and are easily influenced. McCormick adored you.” Pauline’s use of the past tense did not go unnoticed by Savannah nor, she suspected, by anyone else in the room.

Cash’s voice softened as he spoke to his mother. “McCormick’s been a big boy for a long time now.”

Wistfulness stole into Pauline’s features as if she dreamed of a carefree past. A past, Savannah knew, few, including the Walkers, had been privileged to. Pauline stood as if unable to sit still any longer and smoothed her skirt repeatedly. “I won’t go through this again,” she announced. She moved to where Savannah stood stirring cream into her coffee.

Savannah’s father, sitting near the unlit fireplace, caught his daughter’s eye, raised his empty glass to her. She picked up the crystal decanter near the silver service.

“Do you know how much money is tied up in this wedding next weekend?” Jack Sweetfield asked. Savannah poured. Her father downed his drink in one long swallow. Savannah poured another. “Helluva time for your boy to take a powder.” His sharp northeast accent, which twenty-five years in genteel Georgia had failed to erase, thickened with agitation. “What kind of stunt is this to pull a week before tying the knot?”

“Actually, the wedding is eleven days away,” Savannah corrected.

“Do you know the money already spent for this little affair?” her father repeated.

Pauline’s delicately lined lips pursed as she carried the silver coffeepot to Savannah’s mother on the settee. A flush appeared on Belle’s cheeks.

“Has anyone tried calling him again?” Savannah’s mother attempted to direct the subject away from her husband’s blunt observations.

“His cell phone is turned off.” Pauline poured fresh coffee. “And he must be using cash because no charges have been reported.”

“Sounds to me like a man who doesn’t want to be found.” Jack finished his drink.

“What if something has happened to him?” Belle wondered. Pauline paused. Her eyes, a subtle pewter shade, stared down at Belle. Savannah watched her mother’s blush deepen, knew she felt raw and unfinished before the real thing.

Franklin turned to his oldest son. “If you had anything to do with this…”

Pauline laid a discreet hand on her husband’s arm as she passed with the coffeepot.

Franklin eyed his heir. “What did you and your brother talk about last night when you went out?”

Cash settled back in his chair, no reaction on his face. “The Braves, the Falcons, the Broncos.” He turned his far-too-handsome face to where Savannah stood. “Miss Sweetfield.” His green eyes met hers as if they were accomplices. She knew he was waiting for her to look away—evidence of how little he did know about her despite his claim of McCormick’s confidences.

“Did McCormick mention anything about this? Talk about taking off, getting away for a few days?” Franklin interrogated.

Cash lazily swung his head to his father. Despite his composed expression, tension burned in the space between the two men, seeming to bind them even as it forced them apart.

“We did talk about my adventures.” The sarcasm was implicit. “He mentioned he’d like to travel more if he had the time, perhaps someday visit my lodge. I told him, ‘Any time. Any time at all.’”

An expletive came from the senior Walker. Savannah didn’t have to look at Pauline to know her lips tightened further. Instead she watched Cash’s strong profile. Don’t smile, she silently warned. Too late. The corners of that fascinatingly mobile mouth lifted.

Franklin stabbed the air with his cigar. “Tell me this, son—”

Savannah heard more sarcasm, glimpsed something raw come into Cash’s eyes.

“—why would a man who has never done an irresponsible, foolhardy, childish—”

A wild torment flared in the unguarded green of Cash’s eyes, then, just as abruptly, it extinguished. His gaze became cold and hard as stone.

“—thing in his life, decide to do so now?”

Cash raised his drink to his father. “Obviously it was time.”

Franklin leaned down to stub out his cigar viciously, but, as he raised his head, Savannah saw where his son had learned to mask his feelings.

“The boy’s probably halfway across the country by now,” Savannah’s father told the group. “He’ll probably be shooting craps and eyeing whores in Vegas by morning.”

“Jack!”

Savannah’s father ignored his wife’s warning. “The million-dollar question, which I’m sure the bills are beginning to tally, is what are we going to do about it?”

“Let him go,” Savannah stated.

All gazes converged on her. She set down her coffee cup. “McCormick is a big boy, and if he decided he needs a few days away, maybe do something out of the ordinary by heading out in the middle of the night to some place different he’s never seen, some place such as his brother’s Colorado home…” She looked at Cash, trying to spy confirmation or denial but saw only a veiled interest. She turned back to the others. “The least we can do is respect his wishes. Let him go.”

Belle shifted on the settee. “But it is a mite close to the wedding.”

Savannah smiled at her mother. “Exactly.” She smiled at them all. “McCormick is less than two weeks away from taking one of the biggest steps of his life. Is it any wonder he’s acting a tad irrationally?” She paused for effect. “He’s scared.”

“What about you?”

Cash’s question came so swift and unexpected, it might have thrown one who hadn’t learned long ago that decisiveness and resolve could cover a multitude of insecurities.

“Are you scared?”

It was the first time anyone had asked her about her feelings. Feelings just waiting to waylay her.

“No,” she answered with unflappable faith.

It wasn’t until Franklin declared, “Cold feet,” that she tore her gaze away from Cash.

“Exactly,” she agreed with her fiancé’s father. “Lots of people have second thoughts, last-minute doubts right before their wedding. Everyone here can probably tell me a story about a similar situation.” As soon as she said the words, she realized her blunder. She swallowed hard as if to take them back. The others were discreet enough or, as she sensed in Franklin’s case, disgusted enough not to look at Cash.

“How ’bout you, Daddy?” She tried to shift the focus. “You can’t tell me you didn’t have a moment’s hesitation?”

Her father looked to where her mother sat and Savannah knew she’d made another mistake. Her beautiful mother had always been the center of her father’s life, followed by his business, work, and finally, in varying degrees, his children. Savannah, with hard work crowned by her celebrated engagement, had eventually found herself fitting in there somewhere.