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ou sure your mother wants to do this? My mother is more than willing.” In fact, Lois hadn’t taken kindly to the news that the Dillons were hosting the wedding and reception.
“Mom’s loving it. And I’ve promised your mother she could have a party for us when we get back from the honeymoon.”
* * *
New Year’s Day dawned clear and cold. Leigh awoke fresh and well-rested. She and Chad had agreed the night before to eat a quiet dinner at home, and he had left early, grumbling about having to toast the New Year all by himself.
She spent the morning packing, doing her hair and nails, and getting together Sarah’s things for her stay at the ranch house. At noon Leigh’s parents arrived to drive her to the Dillons’. Leigh was wearing a pair of jeans. Her hair was full of curlers and she looked like anything but a bride.
“Leigh, really,” her mother said chastisingly.
“I’m going to finish dressing over there, Mother. Don’t worry. By four o’clock the caterpillar will have become a gorgeous bride.”
* * *
She did. By three thirty, in fact. The winter-white wool crepe suit with its ice-blue satin blouse was a perfect choice for a second wedding at home. She had pulled her hair into a loose bun on the back of her neck, and dark tendrils hung bewitchingly around her face and on her neck. Tiny pearls in her ears were her only jewelry, besides the two sparkling ring guards. She was radiant.
And nervous. That surprised her. She didn’t remember being this jittery before she married Greg. Her first night with him she had faced as a virgin, yet she felt more anticipation about her honeymoon with Chad.
In the last few weeks she had asked herself why she had slept with Chad before they were married. Her standards hadn’t changed. She still didn’t condone sex without love. It was shocking to realize how quickly she had yielded to Chad, and to her own desire. What had happened to her scruples?
Maybe her sense of propriety had been altered because of the intimacy they had been forced to share when he delivered Sarah. Or perhaps she had grieved too often over the times she could have loved Greg better. She didn’t want to waste any time with Chad. Moments of love were precious. She had learned that lesson the hard way. And she had no regrets for the hours of ecstatic lovemaking she had shared with Chad before their wedding.
But the times they had been together hadn’t weakened their desire for each other. On the contrary, they had enhanced it. The words the minister said over them today would only make legal in the eyes of the world the commitment they had made to each other since their first joining. Leigh knew unquestionably that they belonged together.
Why, then, this nervousness? This intuition of impending doom? She hadn’t felt like this since the night she had begged Greg not to leave—
“God, no,” she prayed, and closed her eyes against such a thought. The gardenia bouquet Chad had sent her trembled in her hands.
“Did you say something, dear?” her mother asked.
Shaking off the ghost of apprehension that had wafted over her, Leigh replied, “No, I was only anxious about how Sarah will behave during the service.”
A few minutes later she was meeting her father at the bottom of the garland-bedecked staircase. He led her into the living room where the invited guests—many of whom she’d met at the birthday party she’d attended with Chad—were gathered in front of an arch decorated with flowers and greenery. Chad waited for her there with his pastor.
Her heart turned over, and whatever fears lurked in her mind were pushed aside at the sight of the man she was marrying. He was dressed in a dark navy three-piece suit, white shirt, and gray-and-navy striped tie. From the windows, now banked with baskets of flowers instead of a Christmas tree, the sun shone in to highlight his shining dark hair. His eyes seemed to touch her with their luminous intensity. He radiated strength and confidence. How could she ever be afraid with Chad as her husband?
They recited their vows earnestly and without nervousness. Sarah was quiet until the exchanging of the rings. As soon as Leigh had slid the gold band onto Chad’s finger, she turned to her mother and swapped her bridal bouquet for her daughter. Sarah was included in the wedding prayer. When the groom kissed the bride, he kissed his new daughter as well. Everyone applauded.
For once Amelia had conceded control of her kitchen to someone else. The caterer served sumptuous hors d’oeuvres and punch. Since Amelia didn’t approve of hard liquor, only champagne was served to toast the handsome couple.
Chad ate seven of the pastry cups filled with crab salad, a handful of salted nuts, three cucumber sandwiches, and two pieces of wedding cake. Leigh even caught him poking cake icing past Sarah’s smacking lips. The baby seemed happy to be carried around on her new father’s shoulders and proudly introduced to one and all.
“You’re beautiful when you’re naked.” Leigh heard the lecherous drawl in her ear only a second before she felt Chad’s lips on the back of her neck.
“You’ve got guests,” she said through stiff lips as she smiled at the minister who was watching them from across the room. “Behave.”
“I’m giving you fifteen minutes, then we take our leave. Kiss whoever needs to be kissed, get whatever needs to be gotten, go powder your nose or do whatever needs to be done in the bathroom, and then I’m dragging you out of here by the hair if necessary.”
Pastor notwithstanding, she turned around and kissed Chad soundly. “Yes, sir.”
She said her moist good-byes to Sarah, clinging to the baby with a heartwrenching reluctance to part from her child. As he came down the stairs with the last of their luggage, Chad caught her eye and Leigh knew he understood how painful she found this first separation from her daughter. Consolingly he said, “We’ll be back in ten days, Leigh. And you can call every day if you want.”
“It’s not that I don’t think you’ll take good care of her,” she rushed to assure Amelia.
“She won’t let that baby out—oh, excuse me,” Stewart said, breaking off his assurances to Leigh to answer the telephone.
“What he was about to say,” Amelia continued for her husband, “is that I won’t let that baby out of my sight. Not for one minute.”
