“So, how’d it go?” Because Robert was too kind to hold grudges, there was no lingering annoyance in his gray eyes, no resentment that Neely had argued against his coming to lunch. There was only affection and a hint of amusement.
“Great.” She leaned against his kitchen counter, where breakfast and lunch dishes were stacked. Must not have been room for them in the sink—not with last night’s dinner plates, abandoned in passionate haste, still piled beneath the faucet. “It went great.”
Other than Vi thinking she was a lesbian, her divorced brother becoming uncharacteristically withdrawn after he’d absorbed the wedding news and their mother’s insistence on calling Neely’s soon-to-be in-laws the Yankees.
With a sigh, she abandoned the pretense. “My family makes me crazy.”
Robert laughed. “Isn’t that what families are for, to offset all the needless sanity in our lives?”
Grinning back at him felt good. “Then my mother deserves some kind of award for going above and beyond. She’s known about the wedding less than twelve hours, and already she’s trying to take over. How many groomsmen were you thinking, because she’s suggesting distant cousins I swear I’ve never met to be bridesmaids.”
“Groomsmen? Well, there’s Stuart, of course. Maybe Bryan. Is it okay that I haven’t actually given this part much thought? I’ve only been engaged for a day.”
Engaged. Her heart fluttered at the newness of it, the wonder that she’d found someone who wanted to spend his life with her. “Of course it’s okay that we haven’t figured out the details yet. One step at a time. But it might have simplified my life, at least short term, if I’d waited until later to tell her.”
His arms fell to her waist, and he pulled her closer. “How much later?”
“Umm…June?”
He chuckled again, as he so often did. Robert had a perfect laugh, deep and warm—neither self-conscious titters, nor the loud, my-jokes-are-so-funny bray of a guy who pokes fun at others. Merely the comfortable reaction of a man who saw the humor in life. And helped her see it more clearly.
She’d always been reserved, figuring someone in the family should be. She wasn’t like outgoing Savannah who knew the perfect response to every social occasion, mouthy Vi who delighted in audaciousness, or Douglas, who, in the course of charming and joking his way through life, sometimes failed to respect the gravity of a situation. Except for one disastrous period of college rebellion she didn’t like to remember, Neely had clung to hard work and staying focused. As a result, she now held a good position working for Cameron Becker. Seriousness had served her well.
It just hadn’t gotten her laid very often, Vi would point out.
Neely’s relationships with men who matched her personality had been sensible, but boring. On the other hand, her two affairs with guys her polar opposite had ended badly, the first in college which had left her humiliated and heartbroken, the second just before she hit forty. She’d ended the latter relationship quickly, before she killed the man and had to retain Douglas to defend her.
But now she had Robert. It was one of life’s ironies that she’d found her perfect balance when she wasn’t even looking. Between all the time she’d devoted to work and the girls’ nights she’d spent helping Leah through her separation and eventual divorce, Neely had barely dated in four years before Robert kissed her on that beach.
She snuggled into his shoulder, the memory of sea air superimposed over the familiar smell of his aftershave. “If the end result is marrying you, I can handle anything my mother dishes out over the next three months.”
“I love you, too.”
“Just remember that later this week, okay?” Neely finally had escaped her parents’ house today with sworn oaths to bring Robert over in a few days and discuss wedding plans more then. The thought of the coming conversations made her head hurt. “You’re sure I can’t talk you into eloping?” Quick, simple, and no worries about assigning someone to keep cousin Phoebe away from the bar.
“Sorry.” He grinned that rakish smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. “Since I’ve waited so long to find the right bride, I insist we do the wedding right. Have you recruited Leah as your maid of honor yet? Maybe she can help run interference with your mom.”
Recalling the shadowed expression in Douglas’s eyes before he’d left, Neely struggled against a wince. It was tough to share the news of your engagement with someone whose own marriage had collapsed. Still, she knew Leah would be thrilled for her. It should help that her friend already knew about Robert and that she’d been divorced considerably longer than Neely’s brother.
“I’m telling her tomorrow. I asked her this morning if we could meet for lunch.”
“Well, then. That will take care of the most important people, except…”
“Your parents.” She’d never met them, but since they were the people who’d raised Robert, she assumed they were wonderful.
“They’ll be back from their cruise by next weekend. Not nervous, are you?”
“No.” Sure, she’d experienced the odd apprehensive moment over informing the future in-laws that their only child was taking a bride, but it had to be easier than dealing with her family today. “Your family’s normal, right?”
He grinned. “Normal is such a relative term.”
CHAPTER 3
Neely strode through the Lenox Square Mall, which was pretty crowded for a Monday. Leah worked as a cosmetics consultant in one of the upscale department stores, so they were meeting in one of the restaurants inside the mall. Declining a sample of teriyaki chicken as she passed the food court and zigzagging around two women oohing and ahhing over some Kenneth Cole shoes outside a store window, Neely recalled how Leah had sounded on the phone yesterday morning. Distracted, sniffly. Her friend had claimed seasonal allergies and the disorienting effects of antihistamine, which was certainly plausible in Georgia this time of year. If it had been twelve months ago, or even six, Neely would have assumed that Leah was crying over her rat bastard ex-husband, but her friend seemed adjusted to her single life lately.
She looks terrific, anyway. Neely watched Leah step off the escalator. With her wave of red-gold hair and slimming uniform of black turtleneck and slacks, she was easy to spot among browsing housewives in pastel spring fashions. Whereas Neely had put on a few pounds after lingering over meals with Robert, Leah had lost at least fifteen since her divorce, largely because she took out her aggression in workouts at a women’s gym. Her body was in the best shape it had been since Neely had known her.
But as the two women came to a stop within a few feet of each other beneath the emerald awning of the agreed-upon bar and grill, Neely could see Leah’s pretty face sported more makeup than usual. Still not enough to disguise her red and slightly swollen eyes.
Antihistamines, my ass. “You’ve been crying.” At times like this, she wished she had Savannah’s diplomatic knack of knowing what to say.
“Not in the last five minutes,” Leah said, trying to make a joke of it with her wobbly smile.
“Well, let’s get you to a table, I’ll buy you lunch and you can tell me what’s wrong.”
“Okay, but I don’t actually have much of an appetite and margaritas are a no-no since I have to go back to work right after this. Don’t want unsteady hands while I’m wielding a mascara wand near a customer’s eye.”
An impossibly skinny hostess with towering heels and a fall of straight, glossy hair showed them to a booth. Neely hoped for the pretty young woman’s