Loe raamatut: «May The Best Man Wed»

Chapter One

All of Atlanta slept except Savannah Sweetfield. Her feet, resplendent in open-toed Pradas, shoes being her one frivolous passion, click-clicked across the concrete. Her thoughts spoken into the microcassette recorder in her right fist held the same peal of purpose.

“Cathedral flowers?”

“Two dozen urns filled with larkspur and white waxflower branches, fourteen feet tall, front pew to back. Candles on metal stands ringed with lemon leaves and gardenias at aisles. Confirm white candles on altar.”

She jabbed Up for the elevator connecting the underground garage to the Sweetfield corporate offices.

“Champagne?” she asked into the recorder.

“Perrier-Jouet,” she answered herself.

“Crystal?”

“Baccarat.”

The elevator ascended.

“Guests?”

“Double-check Grammy Eta is seated as far away from Auntie Luanne as possible. Have Cousin Charlene keep count of Great-Uncle Pom’s gin fizzes. Check on hotel gift bags for out-of-town guests. Remind—monogrammed gold W on bag or no go.”

The elevator stopped, the doors opened and Savannah stepped out, her staccato steps swallowed by carpet. All was silence as she walked through the reception area, past the offices on the fifteenth floor of Sweetfield’s corporate headquarters. She was the first to arrive. Always.

The click of the record button broke the silence. “Cocktail buffet?”

“Dungeness crab cocktail shooters, iced jumbo prawns, eastern oysters shucked to order, served on cracked ice.”

Her mother had suggested one of the wedding planners renowned in their circle, but Savannah had rejected flat-out the very idea of trusting a complete stranger with the needs and nuances of this event. This was more than a wedding. It was an alliance between old Southern stature and new South self-made standing; a merger between a Goliath of old-guard tradition and a Goliath of modern capitalism. And everybody who was anybody in Georgia had been scrambling for the right outfit and the perfect present since the day the engagement of Savannah Ainsling Sweetfield and McCormick Beauregarde Walker hit Atlanta’s society pages.

Even Savannah’s immediate family had been impressed enough to conceal their surprise that she would be the first of the five Sweetfield offspring to marry. She’d been born somewhere amongst three handsome brothers and a sister whose inherited beauty and charm had secured her place in the world since birth. When nothing else had developed on Savannah except her comprehension of her position in the overall scheme of things, she had realized she’d have to work harder, longer and smarter than any of her siblings just to be more than an afterthought in her family of natural wonders.

Her mother, a woman of complex and contradictory passions, had been most moved by the news of her less-endowed daughter’s engagement. Once bold enough to go by train unescorted all the way to New York City to dance on the stage, Belle Sweetfield had soon found her way back to the bosom of her birth—but not before marrying a Yankee whose canny business abilities, it was politely whispered, had been supplemented by enigmatic resources. Motherhood had swiftly followed, diverting the young beauty’s energies into more conventional channels and sterner standards which now, as she wept, seemed to have culminated in her daughter’s betrothal to a family with land and money and pale skin and blond hair and blood as blue as anyone else’s in Dixie. Savannah had even witnessed, prompted by his wife’s joy, a sheen in the eyes of her father, Jack Sweetfield, a man whose fortune had given the woman he helplessly adored everything except the social acceptance she so craved.

Such was the impact unleashed by Savannah and McCormick’s engagement announcement. That day, standing there before her parents’ highly unlikely display of emotion, Savannah had reached for her fiancé’s hand and held on tightly, suddenly humbled by the magnitude of their decision.

Not that she wasn’t certain about marrying McCormick. It was just that Savannah and her intended, both sharing and admiring the same practical nature, had arrived at this juncture in a somewhat less-than-impassioned manner. They had first met as emissaries of their family’s respective empires, a meeting generated by each other’s desire to achieve unprecedented success for their companies, their families and themselves. Small talk had swiftly been tabled in order to discuss the possibility of the two businesses forming an unshakable conglomerate in direct response to a looming overseas threat. Savannah had known right off that her future fiancé had chosen to approach her first in the family because she was a woman. Rather than being indignant, she had appreciated her opponent’s strategy—just as he’d soon learned to enjoy an equal who wasn’t a pushover in the boardroom or the bedroom.

From there, the couple’s remarkable compatibility began and continued into all other weighty areas. Savannah couldn’t even remember who first came up with the idea of marriage. It had seemed a natural and foregone conclusion to such harmony between two individuals. After marriage, they’d agreed both would continue flourishing at the new megacompany currently in the long process of being created. Without question, Savannah would keep her maiden name, no hyphen. They’d have children eventually—two or four. Certainly not one or three—odd numbers were too awkward. And although her daddy’s beginnings were farther north and a wildness had once run in her mama’s blood, Savannah suspected neither she nor McCormick would leave the South until they were planted side by side in the family plot.

She smiled as she walked down the silent hall, anticipating the jangling phones and whirring faxes and constant interruptions that would make a less-competent woman crazy. In a little under two weeks, she was going to be a wife, and like everything else she took on, she would do her job as near to perfection as possible—beginning with a perfect wedding, right down to every last petal on the thousands of sugar roses that would cover the six-foot, ten-tier vanilla buttercream cake.

Striding through her office suite, Savannah took advantage of the calm before the storm that was often her day to review her recorded checklist. She marched through the private reception area appointed by her favorite designers, ignoring the deliberately impressive sweep of the city outside the conference room’s windows as she finalized the status of each detail with every exact step. She might have been stepping in high cotton by the time she arrived at her private office. She clicked off the recorder, the decisive sound making her smile. No, not one thing would go wrong with this wedding. She pushed open her office door, thoroughly triumphant.

And stopped dead for the first time in what might have been decades.

Between her two prized Eames armchairs, behind the great black rosewood desk, in her custom chair of plush gray velvet, sat a man.

A shallow breath later, Savannah’s facilities snapped back into operating mode, summoning the determination and composure that had defeated many adversaries—predominantly male—before. She assessed her current enemy. Late twenties, early thirties, Caucasian but tan. Very tan. More than very tan—burnished, bronzed, a life-risking, severely glorious golden. Even at this ungodly hour of the morning when all was wan, this man was radiant. Hadn’t he read the AMA reports about the dangers of excessive sun exposure? This radiance was unique, unprecedented, more than a color or a cancer-causing factor. It seemed a heat, a flare, an ignited pyre. Her climate-controlled office was, as always, a moderate seventy-one degrees, but she felt a dampness beneath the curve of her underarms, between her knees, at the juncture of her thighs.

She hated to sweat.

Preferring anger to fear, she suddenly didn’t care if the brilliant male specimen before her was Ra the Sun God himself. His rear, which judging from the rest of the package was probably equally golden-brown and magnificent, was in her chair. At her desk. In her office.

She strode to the desk, grabbed the phone and dialed Security. “My office, immediately.”

“Nice man, George.” The sun god spoke, his tone languid, his voice warm and smoky as if fueled by the heat. She stared at him without expression. She was still sweating.

“The night security guard. His first name is George. Last name McCallahan.” The man’s eyes were gem-green in a face sinful in its seduction. “You didn’t know that, did you?”

Even if her excessive sense of responsibility and guilt gave her the inclination, she could never know everyone who worked for the Sweetfield Corporation. “This building employs hundreds of people.” Terrific. She was defending herself to a psychopath.

“His wife, Velma, is going in for a knee replacement on her right knee next week. Had the left one done five years ago. Went like a breeze. Still, George is a little apprehensive.”

Play nice with the nut case now. She smiled while her mind worked overtime. Security would be here in less than a minute. Her silver letter opener could gut a catfish but it was in her top desk drawer. Still smiling, she sat down as if to have a nice chat and employed the one weapon at her disposal—she crossed her legs. While her sister had received the bulk of her mother’s beauty, and Savannah had got whatever was left, her mother’s dancer genes and Savannah’s perverse need to exercise had eventually resulted in a facsimile of Belle’s former Radio City Music Hall Rockette legs. Psychotic or not, the man was, after all, a man.

She twisted to the side, turning her entwined legs to greater advantage. If she could distract him, she might be able to grab the solid brass sculpture on the nearby table before he could stop her.

She shifted again, uncrossed her legs slowly, then recrossed them several inches higher on her thigh. The man was in a trance now. She edged her fingers along the chair’s arm.

“Ms. Sweetfield?”

Savannah jumped, startled by the voice at the door. Her arm flung out, knocking the sculpture onto her exposed toes.

Pain shot from the point of impact up her limbs. Savannah howled. She’d never howled in her life. She grabbed the murderous objet d’art off her well-shod foot and waved back the security guard as he rushed toward her.

The man sitting in her custom chair eased back and propped his long, lean legs across her polished desk. She stared at his heavy boots wriggling hello at her from the desk’s corner.

“Steel toes, sweetheart. Only way to go in this big, bad world.”

She met the sun god’s calm gaze. In her mind’s eye, she jumped up and lunged toward him, her hands circling that bronzed throat. For the first time, she wished she were a woman who followed her impulses. Her hands gripped the sculpture. “When the police arrive to take this man away,” she spoke to the security guard without taking her eyes off the trespasser and his size-thirteen tootsies resting on her rosewood desk, “tell them I’ll be down before lunch to personally press charges.”

George cleared his throat. “Are you sure you want to do that, Ms. Sweetfield?”

Her head whipped to the guard. “A man breaks into my office—”

“Well, no, actually he didn’t break in, Ms. Sweetfield.”

“What’d he do—just ask for the key card at the front desk?”

“No.” The security guard glanced at the man behind her desk. “I let him in.”

“You let him in?” After the howl, she was careful to keep her voice temperate but firm. Her hands tightened on the sculpture.

“I figured, being the man is your fiancé and all—” Savannah’s head swung to the intruder.

“And since policy had been sent down to show Mr. Walker directly to your office on arrival, I escorted him here as instructed. Had a nice chat, too.”

“Well, I, for one, appreciate your rare sense of hospitality, George.” The sun god spoke. “And your even rarer, although mistaken, identification of me as worthy of this lovely lady.”

Amusement twinkled in the sun god’s emerald eyes as he flashed the whitest teeth she’d ever seen. Had he actually just winked at her? Her knuckles popped as she clutched the sculpture.

“No, George, my brother is the lucky man who gets to marry Ms. Sweetfield. I have only come as Cupid, bringing my soon-to-be sister-in-law a message from her one and only.”

“You’re McCormick’s brother?” The question came although Savannah already knew the answer. She’d heard enough of the stories. The one repeated most often was how he’d left his bride at the altar seven years earlier. The poor girl had died in a car crash a week later, but many said it was a broken heart that had killed her.

Savannah waited for the man to answer, the clear picture of her hands wrapped around his neck keeping her calm.

“Ms. Sweetfield, if I’ve—” The security guard’s apology was already in his tone.

“Don’t give it nothing but a chuckle, George,” the man interrupted. “Ms. Sweetfield’s confusion is understandable.”

When had he become the one in charge? And she the one whose actions needed explanation?

Probably about the time she imagined herself bounding over the desk to throttle him.

She looked at the smooth column of his neck. Would it be cool beneath her touch? Or pulsing with the heat of life the man seemed to thrive on?

“You see, George, my name is only mentioned in whispers or paired with colorful expletives. Certainly not repeated in the presence of a lady such as Ms. Sweetfield.”

“Cash Walker.” Savannah’s hands released from his throat. She held only the sculpture.

“Welcome to the family, darlin’.” Full lips that were rumored to have kissed countless women curved with complete enjoyment. “Was it the whispers you heard or the profanity?”

She stared right back at him. There was none of the predominant refined Walker fairness in this brother. The strong, clean lines of his face were harsh and unrepentant as if they, like the man, didn’t give a damn. Grooves running from his handsome nose to a mouth that seemed to say sex enhanced his image. His hair, the color of tarnished gold and swept back off his face with a natural carelessness, was several inches longer than her classic bob.

Her hand lifted, almost made it to her shoulder before she reminded herself that the urge to check her hair could be perceived as a sign of insecurity…or something worse.

Keeping her gaze on her future brother-in-law, she spoke to the guard. “Yes, this is all just a silly mixup. Thank you, George.” She emphasized the name, to Cash’s amusement.

She stood and extended her hand, keeping her gaze as firm as the shake she intended to deliver. “Cash.” His name made her voice sound breathless. “When McCormick mentioned you’d be coming in early, I didn’t realize he meant literally.” She smiled a future sister-in-law’s smile. “But unusual circumstances or not, I’m pleased to finally meet you.”

He pushed back from the desk and stood. His shoulders were wide and square, his long waist tapering into an elegant V toward narrow hips and long legs. He had the lean, physically alert look of one who spent much time running. He captured her hand. She felt the thickness of his fingers, his palm’s hard fullness. A man’s hand. She fought to keep her grip solid.

“I hope you’ll excuse my somewhat inappropriate welcome, but certainly you understand my confusion,” she said.

Laughter came from between those curved, full lips, his eyes staying strong on her. And she knew all the things they said about him were true.

She was about to take her hand back when his head bent. With a soft brush of sweetness to her cheek, she was given a vague idea of what those lips had done to so many other women.

“Remind me never to play poker with you, Slick.” A wash of breath warmed her skin.

She stepped back, ending physical contact. Her Southern manners and acquired ability to control herself and any situation allowed nothing but a gracious smile on her face and a polite hospitality to her tone.

“Please.” She gestured to the circle of chairs and couch set up for conversation as well as negotiation. She waited for him to move away from her desk.

“Ladies first.” The deep, thick drawl was still the song of the South, uninfluenced by his years away and his travels all over the world.

She smiled her appreciation and though the pain from her bruised toes stabbed with each step, her posture was finishing-school admirable, her steps smart as she walked to the other side of the room. She sat, crossing her legs at the ankles this time and indicated the opposite chair with her hostess smile. “We’ve certainly had quite a beginning. Already we share a delightful story to tell at family gatherings. Let’s get to know each other further.” She would be the perfect bride, the perfect wife, and for now, the perfect sister-in-law.

He crossed his own long legs and leaned back, the tilt of his lips indicating amusement and the rest of his strong, hard features naturally offering something else.

“Normally I’d be pouring you a bourbon right now, but, of course, it’s a bit too early for that.”

“Not by my book.”

His expression gave no indication whether he was kidding or not. She suspected the latter. Still, she laughed in appreciation. Being a woman executive in a man’s world, not to mention the boss’s daughter, she’d encountered obstacles similar to Cash Walker and his obviously well-deserved wild-man reputation before. And she’d always won.

“My secretary will be here shortly. I’ll have her bring us coffee and sticky buns. In the meantime, auspicious beginnings and delightful anecdotes aside, I must say you do aim to surprise, Cash.”

“Did you expect anything else, darlin’?”

“Please do call me Savannah.” She was proud of how the honeyed hospitality in her tone never wavered. “Yes, I’ve heard the stories. I believed about half of them.”

“Believe them all.”

Her smile turned real. There was nothing she liked more and found rarely than an equal opponent. “While I’m happy to finally meet my fiancé’s infamous big brother, I must admit to curiosity over your early visit. I can’t imagine we share a mutual fondness for rising at dawn. Certainly you don’t subscribe to the early bird gets the worm theory?”

He stretched his legs out longer. “On the contrary, my fondest memories are of being in bed.”

He didn’t even have to add overtones. Obviously he enjoyed an equal contender also.

“Well then, since I can’t imagine you forfeited any fond memory merely to meet me, I’m naturally intrigued by the timing of your introduction.”

“I’m sorry if I frightened you.”

“I don’t frighten.” She said it with a smile.

He smiled, too, as if enjoying himself. “It seems my brother has decided to take advantage of my role as best man as much as possible and has already pushed me into service.”

She was forced to tip her head back as he stood, revealing the vulnerable stretch of her throat. He reached into his pants pocket, pulled out an envelope, and handed it to her. Her name was written on the outside.

“This was on my nightstand with a note from McCormick asking me to give it to you as soon as possible.” The deep emerald of his eyes told her nothing.

“What is it?” She was actually still smiling.

“All I know is I woke too early this morning—still on Central time—and beside my bed was this envelope with McCormick’s instructions to deliver it to you as soon as possible.”

She tapped her fingernail against the envelope.

“He left this address, said it was the most likely place to find you. I couldn’t sleep….” He shrugged, making a simple gesture seductive.

She had several questions. Where was McCormick? Why hadn’t he just called? Yet, even asked in the most indignant of tones, such questions would expose fear, doubt. Completely unnecessary emotions when it came to her relationship with McCormick.

“How unusual,” she said, almost as if delighted.

She endured the man’s study before he said, “Seeing my duty’s done, I’ll be going.” He turned and moved toward the door. She made no attempt to stop him.

She sat, staring at the rectangle in her hand. Finally she stood and walked to her desk, even now not allowing her steps to coddle her throbbing toes. She sat down at her desk. The chair was warm from Cash’s heat. She pulled open the top drawer, removed the silver letter opener and slit the envelope. She slid out a folded sheet of good heavy bond, unfolded it, read the handwriting in straight lines across its width, folded the note exactly as it had been and slipped it back inside the envelope. Laying the envelope on the desk, she reached for the microcassette recorder she’d set on the desk earlier. She punched Record.

“Groom?”

“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.