Page 70 of Summer Weddings
“You want some coffee?” Ben felt obliged to offer.
“No,” Christian answered for her. “She doesn’t want anything.”
“Do you have orange juice?” Mariah asked.
“He has orange juice,” Christian told her, “at five bucks a glass.”
“Fine.”
Another moment of strained silence passed while Ben delivered the four-ounce glass of juice.
“You had something you wanted to tell me?” Christian asked impatiently.
“Yes,” she said, her voice gaining strength. “I’m sure my family’s responsible for Ms. Santiago’s visit. You see… I didn’t exactly tell them I’d accepted your job offer. They didn’t know—”
“You mean you were hiding from your parents?”
“I wasn’thiding,” she argued. “Not exactly.” She brushed a long strand of hair away from her face, and Ben saw that her hands were shaking badly. “I wanted to prove something to them, and this seemed the only way I could do it.”
“What were you trying to prove?” Christian shouted. “How easy it is to destroy a man and his business?”
“No,” she replied, squaring her shoulders. “I wanted to demonstrate to my father that I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. That I can support myself, and furthermore, I’m old enough to make my own decisions without him continually interfering in my life.”
“So you didn’t tell him what you’d done.”
“No,” she admitted, chancing a quick look in Christian’s direction. “Not at first. It’s been a while since my family heard from me, so I wrote them a letter last week and told them about the job and how after a year’s time I’ll have the title to twenty acres and the cabin.”
“And?”
“Well, with Hard Luck being in the news and everything, Dad had already heard about Midnight Sons advertising for women. He…” She paused and bit her lower lip. “He seems to think this isn’t the place for me, and the best way to get me home is to prove you’re running some kind of scam. That’s why he hired Ms. Santiago. I… I think he may want to sue you.” She closed her eyes again, as if she expected Christian to explode.
Instead, he stared sightlessly into space. “We’re dead meat,”he said tonelessly. “Sawyer and I can forget everything we’ve ever worked for because it’ll be gone.”
“I explained the situation as best I could to Ms. Santiago.”
“Oh, great. By now she’s probably decided I’ve kidnapped you and that I’m holding you for ransom.”
“That’s not true!”
“Think about it, Mariah. Tracy Santiago would give her eyeteeth to cut me off at the knees—and all because you wanted toprove somethingto your father!”
“I’ll take care of everything,” Mariah promised. Her huge eyes implored him. “You don’t have to worry. I’ll get everything straightened out. There won’t be a lawsuit unless I’m willing to file one, and I’m not.”
“You’lltake care of it?” Christian repeated with a short bark of laughter. “That’ssupposed to reassure me? Ha!”
* * *
Lanni Caldwell glanced at her watch for the third time in a minute. Charles was late. He was supposed to pick her up in front of theAnchorage News,where she was working as an intern. She should wait outside for him, he’d said. It had been ten days since they’d seen each other, and she’d never missed anyone so much.
They’d agreed to postpone their wedding until the first week of April. At the time, that hadn’t sounded so terrible, but she’d since revised her opinion. If these ten days were any indication of how miserable she was going to be without him, she’d never last the eight months. Her one consolation was that his travel schedule often brought him to Valdez, which was only a short airplane trip from Anchorage.
Just when she was beginning to really worry, Lanni saw him. He was smiling broadly, a smile that spoke of his own joy at seeing her.
Unable to stand still, Lanni hurried toward him, threading her way through the late-afternoon shoppers crowding the sidewalk.
When she was only a few feet away, she started to run. “Charles! Oh, Charles!”
He caught her around the waist and lifted her off the ground. They were both talking at once, saying the same things. How lonely the past days had been. How eight months seemed impossible. How much they’d missed each other.
