Strategy For Marriage. Margaret Way

      She knew better than to rile him further.

      “What are we going to do with you, Deakin?” Ashe felt like slamming Callista’s brand-new husband against a wall. “My family is very important to me.” And in all honesty he was seething at the sight of Miss Parker near wrapped in Deakin’s arms.

      “It wasn’t what you think.” The panic-stricken Josh assumed a look of deep apology. Tangling with the cattle baron would be like tangling with a charging rhino. “It’s the same old story. You must know it, Ashe.” His mobile features took on a man-to-man expression. “Christy and I had a little fling but when I told her it was over she wouldn’t let go. Women are like that.”

      She had never known this man, Christy thought, gazing at him with a mixture of dismay and pain.

      “You really think I’m going to swallow that?” Ashe near choked, he was so angry. He couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t, relate to this guy. What in the name of God did Callista and this girl, Christy, see in him? He was ninety-five per cent toxic waste.

      “It’s true.” Christy picked that moment to be utterly selfless. Not for Josh. Sometime in the future Josh would get his comeuppance. But for Callista. She had no desire to hurt Callista. Callista was just another woman who thought herself deeply in love with a man she couldn’t see clearly. “I came here to tempt him.”

      “What rot!” Ashe bridled afresh. “About as good as it gets.” He studied Christy with contemptuous eyes. “You’re trying to save his worthless skin.”

      “Your cousin Callista doesn’t deserve this. She’s the innocent party. I owe her something. The question I ask myself now is why did you, astute old you, let her marry him?”

      Ashe’s dynamic face mirrored his frustration. “The fact is Callista is nearly thirty years old.” He rounded on Christy, his anger abruptly abating when he saw how pale she was. Her eyes were enormous, a dead give-away she was deeply disturbed.

      “Get the hell out of here, Deakin,” Ashe ordered, his voice cracking like a whip. “Your playing around with other women ends today. If I hear one word…!”

      “I’m going to be the best husband ever,” Josh proclaimed like a professional con man, looking Ashe in the eyes.

      “You’d better be, my man.” Ashe nodded, his expression grim.

      “I love Callista,” Josh poured it on while Ashe McKinnon threw back his dark head and roared.

      “I have grave misgivings about that. You’re dirt.”

      The rest of Josh’s words dried up. Hastily he crossed to the door, pausing a moment from its relative safety. “As far as I’m concerned Christy is the culprit here. Ex-girlfriends aren’t supposed to gatecrash a man’s wedding.”

      Ashe swore beneath his breath in a near ecstasy of anger. “Get out of here.” The attitude of his body suggesting a panther about to spring into action.

      Josh wasn’t entirely insane. With one last aggrieved look he took to his heels.

      “Not his finest hour,” pronounced Ashe in disgust.

      When the time came—by now time had no meaning for Christy—for the happy couple to leave on the first leg of their honeymoon—an overnight stay in the honeymoon suite of a leading hotel before jetting off for three weeks in Thailand—the guests had assembled on the grand sweep of front lawn of the McKinnon mansion to wave them off.

      Callista, as pretty as a picture in her pink going-away outfit, turned to throw her bouquet. A surprisingly high sweep. Christy, battling with the illusion she was trapped in a dream, made no move to catch it. She felt quite naturally it was inappropriate as well as the fact she had gone off weddings. She didn’t even make a playful gesture of reaching up as all four bridesmaids were doing, but in earnest. The bouquet simply descending gracefully but in a mesmerizing way, twirling and twirling a lovely posy of perfect pink and white roses threaded with traceries of green.

      The bridesmaids were running forward, palms up, fingers steepled, each one determined to catch this wonderful forecast. I’m next! Their faces were bright with excitement and anticipatory pleasure.

      Me. Me. Let it be me.

      But life is full of disappointments and preordained events. Callista’s bouquet fell with a soft fragrant weight into Christy’s nerveless hands.

      She saw the muscles along Ashe McKinnon’s clean-cut jaw tighten cynically before two of the women guests grasped her in affectionate camaraderie and kissed her on either cheek.

      “Lucky girl!” They batted speculative glances at Ashe. God, wasn’t he a drop-dead hunk!

      And why not? Ashe had scarcely left her side. Mercedes had berated him fondly for trying to fool her. Everyone seemed to think she was the new woman in Ashe McKinnon’s life. An irony not lost on either of them.

      And so it was that Christy and Ashe McKinnon left the wedding together. Christy heading into very deep waters indeed.