Wisconsin Wedding

“You were invited? By whom? Why?”

She was looking at him as if he’d just told her Cliff and Liza had invited a gorilla to their wedding. Byron didn’t appreciate her incredulity, but he realized he’d set himself up three years ago to have Nora hate him. He could have told her everything. About Cliff, their father, his own demons—he hadn’t done enough, hadn’t saved his father, hadn’t saved his brother, hadn’t been able to stop his mother’s suffering. Probably Nora would have been sympathetic. But she’d had her own problems—Aunt Ellie’s impending death, what to do about the store, and about staying in Tyler. And there’d been Cliff. Three years ago staying in Tyler hadn’t been a option for Byron, any more than leaving it had been one for Nora. He’d come uninvited into a world where his brother had finally found stability. Byron couldn’t destroy that stability. It wasn’t the only reason he’d left, but it was an important one.

Still, he hadn’t explained any of this to Nora. He’d told her he was moving on, let her think he was nothing more than an itinerant photographer, a bit irresponsible, wont to loving and leaving women. So she’d called him a cad, a bloodsucker, a leech and the rest. Because at the time that had been easier—for him and for her—than admitting they’d broken each other’s hearts. Three years later, he’d chased away the worst of his demons, but he wasn’t about to risk hurting Nora Gates again. If she needed him to be a cad, fine.

“This is just a courtesy call, Nora. I’m trying to be nice—”

“The hell you are.”

“You know,” he said calmly, “for a woman who prides herself on being something of a Victorian lady, you have a sharp tongue.”

She raised her chin. “I want you out of my house.”

Byron sighed, leaning one hip against the edge of her piano. “Nora, you have an attitude.”

“Byron,” she mimicked, “you have a nerve barging into my house after what you did to me.”

“What I did to you?” he repeated mildly.

She got the point and flushed clear to her hairline, almost making him believe she was a maiden lady. “What we did to ourselves,” she corrected. “Now get out.”

He switched tactics. Not that he wanted to prolong this scene and have her attempt to forcibly remove him, but he did have a nonrefundable return ticket to Providence for the Sunday morning after the wedding. If he was to survive until then, he needed to neutralize Nora Gates as a potentially explosive force.

Of course, the truth wasn’t going to help that process. “Look, Nora, I know it must seem presumptuous of me to walk in here after all this time, but I knew if I rang the doorbell you’d never let me in.”

“I never said you were stupid.”

So far, reason wasn’t working with the woman. “Then we’d have ended up having this discussion on the porch,” he added, “which I know you wouldn’t want. As I recall, you’d prefer to be a receiver of gossip than a subject of gossip—”

It was a low blow. He could see his words scratch right up her spine. “Leave, Byron. Slither out of my house and out of Tyler the same way you slithered in. I can’t imagine that Cliff Forrester needs a friend like you.”

Probably he didn’t, but they were brothers, and that was something neither of them could change. “I haven’t seen him in five years.”

That wasn’t strictly true. He’d seen Cliff three years ago. From afar. They hadn’t talked. Byron had sensed that Cliff wasn’t ready yet, might never be, and for his brother’s sake he’d left.

Nora’s clear, incisive gray eyes focused on him in a way that brought back memories, too many memories. Of her passion, of her anger. Of how damned much they’d lost when he’d left Tyler. “Did he invite you?” she asked, her tone accusatory.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? No—no, don’t tell me.” She dropped her hands to her sides, then pointed with one finger toward the front door. Her precious self-control had abandoned her. “Out, Byron. Right now. You’re worse than a cad. I don’t know what your game is, but I’m not going to let you crash Cliff and Liza’s wedding. Cliff’s pulled himself together after an ordeal probably none of us in Tyler can imagine. He’s happy, Byron. You are not going to play games with the man’s head. You both might be from Rhode Island and maybe you do know his family or something, but you’re not his friend. I know you’re not. Cliff didn’t even invite his own mother and brother to his wedding—Liza did. He doesn’t even know about it, and if you tell him…” She gulped for air. “By God, I’ll come after you myself. So you go on and leave him alone.” She took a breath. “And leave me alone, too.”

Byron had debated interrupting three or four times, but had kept his mouth shut. “Nora,” he began reasonably, “you don’t understand. I…”

“Out!”

“I didn’t come here to bother you or Cliff.”

“Now, Byron. Now, or I swear I’ll—”

She didn’t finish, but instead grabbed a huge book of Beethoven sonatas from the gateleg table. She heaved it at him. Byron ducked. The book crashed into the piano, banging down on the keys, making a discordant racket. Nora was red-faced.

Clearly this was no time for revelations destined only to make her madder. Byron grinned at her. “Bet you haven’t lost your temper like that since I was last in Tyler.”

“You’re damned right I haven’t!”

Then a big blond kid was filling up the doorway behind her. “This guy bothering you, Miss Gates?”

Byron could see her debating whether to sic the kid on him. Yeah—throw him in the oven, will you? But she shook her head tightly, and said even more tightly, “Not anymore.”

This time, Byron took the hint. As he walked past Nora and through the living room, he heard the kid make the mistake of laughing. “Gee, Miss Gates, I guess you’re stronger than you look. That book’s heavy.”

“Chromatic scale, Mr. Travis. Four octaves, ascending and descending. Presto.”

Byron decided not to hang around. But he had no intention of leaving Tyler. There was his brother to see, Cliff’s fiancée to meet, a body at a lake to learn more about. And there was Nora Gates herself. Piano player, department store owner, would-be Victorian old maid. She was a woman of contradictions and spirit, and as he walked back to his rented car, it occurred to Byron that the past three years had been but a pause—a little gulp—in their relationship. It wasn’t finished. There’d been no resolution. No final chord.

At least, he thought, not yet.

* * *

NORA DIDN’T CHARGE Ricky Travis for his lesson. In fact, for the first time since she’d had pneumonia six years ago, she cut a lesson short.

“You okay, Miss Gates?” Rick asked.

“I’m fine, just a little distracted.”

“That guy—”

“I’m not worried about him. Don’t you be, either.”

He shrugged. “If you say so. I’ll have the Bach down by next week. Promise. It’s just hard with it being football season.”

“I understand. It’s not easy being both a talented musician and a football player at this time of year. But you’ve had a good lesson, Rick. It’s not you. I’m just…well, it’s been a long day.” She rose from her chair beside the piano. “I’ll see you next week.”

“Sure thing, Miss Gates.”

With Rick gone, the house seemed deadly quiet. Foregoing Bach and Beethoven, Nora put on an early Bruce Springsteen tape and tried to exorcise Byron Sanders from her mind.

She couldn’t.

She hadn’t forgotten a single thing about him. He was as tall as she remembered. As strongly built and lithe, and every bit as darkly good-looking. His eyes were still as blue and piercing and unpredictable—and as dangerously enticing—as the Atlantic Ocean.

It would have been easier, she thought, if there’d been things she’d forgotten. The dark hairs on his forearms, for example, or his long, blunt-nailed fingers. But she’d remembered everything—the warmth of his eyes, the breadth of his shoulders, the way he had of forcing her not to take herself too seriously, even how irritating he could be. Especially how irritating he could be.

How had he learned about Cliff and Liza’s wedding? It wasn’t a secret, but how had an East Coast photographer heard that a Wisconsin couple was getting married? Maybe he did know Cliff—but Cliff had said he didn’t know a Byron Sanders. Perhaps Byron knew the Forresters, the mother and brother Liza had taken the liberty of inviting. Nora wondered if she should warn Liza about Byron.

Singing aloud with Bruce, she made herself another pot of tea and dug in her refrigerator for some leftovers for supper. If Sanders had shown up before Cliff had, she’d have pressed Liza’s reticent fiancé a little harder about his fellow Rhode Islander.

Well, she thought, pulling a bit of brown rice and chicken from the fridge, someone was lying.