The compliment warmed her, but it didn’t dispel her concern. That was just the problem. At bottom, her mother wasn’t like her.
Melanie bit her lower lip as she watched the pair move in slow circles on one tiny section of the dance floor. Go easy on him, Mama.
Chapter Two
Margo raised her head to look up at the man who managed to extend an attitude of respectfulness toward her even while he held her close enough to make her pulse beat in time to the music. She knew without being told that Bruce Reed was a shy man. A hundred years or so ago, he might have even been referred to as a courtly man.
There was a lot to be said for courtly, she mused, enjoying the feel of his arms around her.
The thought occurred to her that chivalry and manners had definitely been underrated in the past few decades.
Or maybe, a small voice whispered to her, it might be that she had gotten just the least bit weary of life in the fast lane. Bruce Reed, with his reluctant, shy smile, his kind eyes and polite ways was like a breath of fresh air to her.
Mentally, Margo shrugged away the choices. Whatever the cause of her feelings, it was nice, dancing like this with the tall, handsome stranger fate and the state of California had linked her to. Drifting with the music, she let herself just enjoy the moment. That had been her credo for the last twenty some odd years. Enjoy the moment, because the next one might just come by and knock you on your seat
Margo moved her hand up along his arm, resting it lightly on his jacket. Even so, she could detect the hard muscle that was just beneath. Handsome and strong, she thought. That was unusual in a man over thirty.
The smile she directed Bruce’s way was slow, deep and, some had told her, lethal. His unspoken reaction to it pleased her, as well.
She studied his face. “How old are you?”
Leery about where this was going, he asked, “Why?”
She shrugged, her shoulder brushing against him. It was a nice sensation. Going with it, Margo laid her head against his chest. “You don’t look old enough to have a son like Lance.”
This was nice, he thought, surprised by her familiarity and his own reaction to it. They were hardly moving on the floor and yet it felt nice. His cheek brushed ever so slightly against the top of her head. The vague tingle he felt made him forget that he hated to dance. “Thank you,” he told her. “I can honestly say I return the compliment.”
Margo raised her head. A smile curved her mouth. “I don’t look old enough to have a son like Lance?” she asked, teasing him. “I’m not.”
That had gotten twisted somehow. “No, I meant—”
“I know what you meant,” she told him, taking him off the hook he seemed destined to impale himself on, although she had to admit, he made being flustered seem almost adorable. “That I don’t look old enough to be Melanie’s mother. And it’s a very nice compliment.”
It took Bruce a moment to focus on the conversation. The way she had looked up at him had temporarily blown all thoughts out of his mind, filling the space with her image. He’d never seen eyes quite so blue before, or quite so compelling. Hypnotic was the word for it, he amended. And for the lady, as well. It was like holding solidified quicksilver in his arms. There for the moment, but not for long.
Lance’s new mother-in-law, he caught himself thinking, was one hell of a remarkable woman.
“It’s not a compliment,” Bruce corrected her. She was probably on the receiving end of a dozen a day. He had no intention of getting involved in some sort of unofficial competition. “It’s an observation. You really do look more like Melanie’s sister than her mother.”
She’d heard it before, but it wasn’t something she was about to become tired of anytime soon. As time went by, she cherished the compliment more and more.
With a stately nod, she replied, “I had her when I was eleven.”
Her face was so straight, her voice so solemn, Bruce didn’t know whether she was pulling his leg, or, fueled by champagne, revealing a deep, dark confidence to him. There were women in his acquaintance, his sister, Bess, being one of them, who couldn’t take more than a few sips of anything remotely alcoholic without feeling compelled to make a clean breast of any and all past sins and transgressions, whether minor or major. He had no idea which category Margo fell into, although he had his suspicions.
The best way to handle this, he decided, was gracefully. He just hoped he remembered how. “You’re that much older than she is?”
The guileless remark caught her off guard. And then she laughed, completely charmed by a man she could tell wasn’t trying to be charming. Despite the very handsome figure he cut in his tailor-made tuxedo, Bruce Reed was very obviously just struggling not to commit any unforgivable social error on this very important day in his son’s life.
Here was a man, she decided, she’d really love to spend some time with.
“Oh, Bruce, you are good for me.” When her eyes swept over him, Bruce felt a good deal warmer than he had just a moment earlier. “The truth is, I’m seventeen years older than Melanie.” Margo paused, quickly subtracting the months that separated her birthday from her daughter’s. “Seventeen and a half, to be precise.”
The figure struck very close to home. It occurred to Bruce that they had an unofficial bond, Margo and he, both becoming parents before they reached their twentieth birthday.
“My wife was almost nineteen when Lance was born. She was five months older than I was.” He was unaware of the fond smile that took possession of his lips as he allowed himself, for the space of a heartbeat, to be transported to another time and place.
But Margo wasn’t. What she didn’t understand was why his smile sent such a ripple of bittersweet longing through her.
“I always told her I had a fondness for older women,” Bruce said. A ream of memories tumbled through his mind and he laughed. “She never cared for that remark.” And then he sobered slightly as the sadness, even after all this time, came to embrace him. “But she never got to be old enough for that to become an issue.” And then he realized he probably sounded as if he were rambling. Margo deserved an explanation. “My wife died while she was still very young.”
And he was still in love with her. Margo was touched by the sentiment she saw in his eyes.
She supposed that the appropriate response to his revelation was something along the lines of offering her condolences, but somehow she had a feeling he didn’t want to hear empty words from a stranger. They wouldn’t change what was.
Instead she told him what she felt. “Your wife was a very lucky woman.”
Surprised, Bruce raised a brow. How could a woman who died too young to see the autumn of her years, too young to see her child reach his destiny, be considered lucky? “What makes you say that?”
“The way your face lit up when you mentioned her.” She couldn’t help but envy Lance’s mother. Though gone, the woman still retained her husband’s love. It said a lot about the woman. And a lot about the man who loved her. “The most important ingredient in a person’s life is love, and it appears to me that she had it in abundance.”
Yes, he thought. Ellen had. He couldn’t remember a day when he hadn’t loved her. It seemed to him that they had always been together, right from the very beginning. Whatever had come before that time was a blur. Just like life without her had become.
As they turned on the floor, he caught a whiff of Margo’s fragrance again. It sharpened his senses and he smiled at the woman in his arms. “You’re very perceptive.”
Margo took her due without vanity. Perception was closely interwoven with her