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An impatient Hale interrupted the exchange. “Here comes our transportation,” he said, indicating a pair of horse-drawn sleighs cutting along the edge of the ice in the direction of the dock.
“Bells and all,” Nancy observed with an expression of envy. “A Christmas wedding in a marvelous old lodge on a winter-wonderland island, and with horse-drawn sleighs to get you there. Now, you can’t get much more romantic than that.”
Dan Whitney chuckled. “Not to mention slightly impractical, considering the place was meant chiefly as a summer retreat, but our Allison here has been stubbornly insistent about this weekend.”
Rather mysteriously so, Lane thought, agreeing with him. In fact, there were too many little intrigues connected with this whole situation. Including her own involving that promise, she supposed. But Nancy Arnold was right. The concept of Allison’s Christmas Day wedding on the island tomorrow was wonderfully romantic. She just wished it didn’t require crossing the ice.
But she was not, Lane promised herself, absolutely not going to be a coward about it. Anyway, not an obvious one. Allison deserved to have her special holiday wedding without anything spoiling it.
The Arnolds wished the company a pleasant crossing and then retreated to their inn as the sleighs, decorated with wreaths for the occasion, arrived at the landing. The drivers began to load the luggage.
The fifth member of the party, silent and bored until now, muttered, “Finally we get to go. My cheeks are frostbitten standing around on this dock. And I don’t mean the ones on my face.”
Lane wasn’t surprised. Along with triple earrings in one of his earlobes and a badly scarred bomber jacket, fifteen-year-old Stuart Bauer wore the regulation torn jeans of a rebel teenager. The denim was so faded and thin that it barely covered his backside.
Veronica Bauer, mother to both Stuart and Hale and the sixth member of the group, favored her younger son with an indulgent smile. “I wouldn’t count on that, Stuie.”
Lane eyed the woman in her expensive mink coat, sensing she wasn’t the type to be concerned in the least about political correctness. Ronnie Bauer amazed her. She had to be well past fifty, but artful makeup and a head of glorious black hair took almost two decades off her age. That and a few surgical enhancements, Lane suspected. There was a flamboyant, hungry quality about Ronnie. Hale was plainly embarrassed by her, his much younger half brother barely tolerant.
“Yeah?” Stuart challenged his mother. “How come?”
“Because, pet,” she drawled, turning up the collar of her fur, “we’re still missing the best man. Or hasn’t anyone noticed?”
Lane was confused. She knew that Dan Whitney, as a Wisconsin judge, was scheduled to marry his cousin and Hale tomorrow. She had assumed, therefore, that Stuart would serve as his half brother’s best man. This was the first she had heard about an addition to the party.
And there it was again—Allison casting another of her swift glances in her direction. Lane was beginning to have a distinctly uneasy feeling.
“Allison?” she softly questioned her friend.
“He’ll get here,” Allison announced loudly to the company. “He promised.”
She would say no more, but Lane noticed that the subject was completely uninteresting to Hale. Odd, since it was his best man they were discussing.
The luggage was loaded by now. They spent another five minutes waiting on the dock. Stuart complained again about the cold, which really wasn’t all that bad since there wasn’t a breath of wind.
Lane was about to tackle her friend again over the subject of the best man when a powerful, sporty car flashed onto the scene and swung sharply into the parking lot adjoining the dock area.
Stuart passed judgment on the gleaming red vehicle with an emphatic “Cool!”
And then it happened, the realization of Lane’s worst nightmare. The driver’s door popped open and a male figure, with a compact body still familiar to her after all these years, emerged from the car. Her heart went down to the vicinity of her knees.
Lane’s panicked gaze flew to Allison. Their eyes met, exchanging a silent communication.
You might have told me.
If I had warned you, you wouldn’t have come, and I need you here.
It was no explanation, and Lane meant to have one. However, this was hardly the time or the place to demand it, especially since she was here herself under a slightly false pretense. Besides, like it or not, the compelling figure at the car had recaptured her full attention. She watched him as he slung his suitcase with ease out of the trunk of the vehicle.
There was no question about it. Had Jack Donovan been born two hundred years ago, he would have been a buccaneer with a cutlass between his teeth and a struggling wench under his arm. No, make that willing wench. There were few women immune to the wicked grin he wore like an Irish charm, not to mention the sexual energy he radiated without will.
Veronica Bauer certainly wasn’t oblivious to all that masculine appeal. “Well,” she murmured eagerly, feasting her eyes on Jack as he strode toward them with his energetic gait. “The term best man is certainly no exaggeration in this case. The weekend is suddenly looking much more interesting.”
Lane would willingly have stepped aside in favor of Ronnie, but Jack was making straight for her. She had time to do nothing but caution herself: Careful. And suddenly there he was standing directly in front of her, all riveting blue eyes and hair black as midnight.
“Lane Eastman,” he said in that deep, resonant voice that had frustrated her on too many occasions, and using her full name as though he’d just learned it. He held out his hand.
You can do this, she instructed herself firmly. You’re no longer nineteen and vulnerable. You’ve had seven years to build maturity and confidence. Show him just how self-possessed you’ve become.
“How are you, Jack?”
Her greeting was smooth and easy. Good. She was in control. Until, that is, she accepted his offered hand and his strong fingers clasped hers. Mere physical contact with him was her undoing, just as it always had been in a past she preferred not to remember. She could suddenly feel herself coming apart inside. And, damn him, he knew it! She could tell he knew it by the smoldering gleam in his eyes. He’d always recognized her vulnerability to him.
Wonderful. There was already an element of strain about this whole weekend. She’d been sensing the undercurrents ever since they’d all come together at the dock. Now this!
“Never better,” Jack assured her. “So, how about you, Lane?”
He didn’t wait for her to tell him. She could feel those deep blue eyes carefully appraising her. Discovering, perhaps, that she knew how to dress her slender figure with more style these days, that she wore her cinnamon hair longer and with less curl, even noticing that she’d learned restraint in the use of makeup on a face that qualified as winsome if not sublime. She was aggravated with herself that it should matter in the least whether he approved of these changes.
Managing to extract her hand from his grip, she covered her inner turmoil with a hasty response. “I’m fine.”
“Still rising in the hotel business?”
“I try to. I’m assistant manager now for one of the chain’s four-star inns.”
“Good for you. In St. Louis, right?”
She was surprised that he knew.
“I manage to stay informed,” he assured her.
It worried her that he would make the effort. She was relieved when Ronnie Bauer, hovering close by, impatiently interrupted their absurdly polite exchange. “Are you going to share him, dear?”
Allison saved the moment by introducing him to those he hadn’t already met. “Dr. Jack Donovan, everyone.”
Ronnie was impressed, and purring flirtatiously. “Do you specialize, doctor?”
“Bones,” he said.
“I’ll certainly remember that if I ever break one.”
“I don’t mend them, Ms. Bauer. I dig them up.”
Ronnie was plainly confused until Hale corrected her misconception. “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Mother, he’s not a medical man. He’s a doctor of paleontology.”
“Fossils?”
“Dinosaur, to be exact,” Jack said.
“Even better,” she cooed. “All those exciting expeditions. Just like the hunk in Jurassic Park.”
“Hunting for usable fossils is no Hollywood adventure, Ms. Bauer,” he informed her dryly. “It’s a lot of time-consuming, hot-as-hell labor.”
How well she had learned that truth, Lane thought.
“Hey,” Stuart demanded, “are we going or not?”
Jack eyed the waiting sleighs. The first one had places for six people, including the driver. The second, carrying all the luggage for the party, had space for only two passengers in the rear.
“Give us a minute,” he said.
Before Lane could object, Jack drew her off to one side for a private exchange.
“I’d like for us to ride together in that second sleigh.”
There was a determined look in his eyes that warned her to avoid any such intimate arrangement. “Not a chance.”
“Look,” he pressed her, “it isn’t what you think. It’s just that I’d feel better if we rode together.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t trust the situation.”
“The sleighs?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s the whole setup of this weekend that bothers me. I learned something last night I don’t like. All right, so it probably doesn’t mean a thing. Let’s just say you humor me, and we stick together.”
There was a mysterious grimness in his undertone that frightened her. Was he serious? For a moment she was inclined to think so. Then she dismissed the whole thing, remembering how often in the past she had fallen for Jack Donovan’s take-charge, overprotective tactics. Well, not this time.
“Sorry,” Lane said at a volume that could be heard by the others, “but I’ve already promised Judge Whitney I’d ride with him.”
She hadn’t, and she regretted the necessity for her impulsive lie. She could see how surprised Dan was when she rejoined the group, but he offered no word of contradiction.
Before Jack could object, Ronnie linked a proprietary arm through his. “Sit with me, and you can tell me all about these important fossils of yours.”
Lane watched an irritated Jack being hauled off to the second sleigh. She felt sorry for him. Almost.
Dan, falling in step beside Lane as the rest of them moved toward the sleighs, whispered in concern, “Is something wrong?”
She shook her head, then offered a quick apology. “I’m sorry about that. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Riding with you? On the contrary, it’s my pleasure.” She could feel his curious gaze on her as they reached the end of the dock. “An old friend of yours?”
She knew he was referring to Jack. “Not exactly.” She hesitated. There was no reason he shouldn’t know. “Try an old husband. Now,” she added, just as buoyantly as she could, “would you like to suggest some graceful way to climb down from this dock and into that sleigh?”
* * *
THE HORSES WERE POWERFUL Belgians, able to draw the heavy sleighs over the fractured ice of the broad harbor with an effortless ease. The snow cover, thick in places, almost nonexistent in others, formed swirling patterns across the wrinkled surface. Through the brittle air the sleigh bells called to each other musically.
It should have been a pleasant experience, one that Lane could enjoy without reservation. Instead, she twisted in her seat to gaze back longingly at the receding village where a pair of white church steeples rose through the dark evergreens against the steep hillside. Those spires looked so solid and comforting, the ice beneath her so fearfully insecure.
“No need to be nervous,” her insightful companion assured her. “We don’t very often get safe ice on the bay this soon in the season, but it’s been an unusually early winter with a lot of hard freezes. And the Nordstrom brothers,” he added, referring to their drivers, “are experienced and know what they’re doing.”
Lane turned her head, managing a lopsided smile for Dan beside her. “That obvious, huh?”
“Your tension? Well, a little,” he conceded with a gentle smile.
She considered him, thinking how different he was from his cousin, Allison, with his relaxed manner and brown hair frosted with gray. He was the sort of person who prompted confidences, probably a good quality in a judge. She decided to share a confidence of her own.
“And I was hoping it wouldn’t show. But I really do have a good reason for minding so much. Bad memory.”
“Something traumatic?” he guessed.
“You could say that. When I was about eight or so a playmate and I went out skating where we had no business to be. The ice was rotten, and it collapsed under us. I was lucky. They managed to fish me out. She wasn’t. She was dragged under the ice. When they did get to her it was, well, too late.”
“Good Lord,” he murmured sympathetically, “then this crossing must be a real ordeal for you.”
Her laugh was shaky, and she knew it. “Let’s just say that when it comes to ice I prefer it in my drinks to having it under my feet. Uh, I’d appreciate it if my little confession was just between the two of us.”
“Done.”
“Thank you.”
Lane made another concentrated effort to enjoy the crossing. Or at least tolerate it. Not easy considering their present position. They had left the harbor behind them and were now on the open reaches of the great bay. The frozen sea, like a lunar landscape, was seamed with hazards around which the sleighs carefully detoured. The ice had faulted and folded in some past thaw—huge, upthrust slabs of it scraped head-high along a shoal. The stacked shards glittered like crystal under the winter sun.
Dan pointed to small, jerry-built shelters scattered across the surface. Some of them had small Christmas trees anchored to their roofs. “Fishing shanties,” he explained. “If it’s clear tomorrow, holiday or not, the ice fishers will drive out here in bunches in their trucks and spend most of the day.”
She knew he meant it as another encouragement. It didn’t work. She was too busy minding the alien ice. She could swear it was alive. She could actually hear it now creaking, snapping with the cold, rolling like drums in the distance. Awful.
“Have you and Allison been longtime friends?” he asked her.
Lane suspected that his question wasn’t motivated by curiosity but was actually a further attempt to distract her from the terrors of the ice. She was more than willing to accommodate him.
“Have I been kept a secret?” she teased.
“Well, we’re the only family each other has these days, but with Allison way off in Chicago most of the year, I’m afraid we don’t keep up with each other’s lives.”
“Then to answer your question, yes, we do go back a few years. Since our undergraduate days at Northwestern University, actually. And it was a pretty unlikely beginning. Our friendship, that is.”
“Why is that?”
“Well—” The sleigh runners struck a rough spot in the ice, jouncing them. Lane fought her anxiety and continued. “We were universes apart. I was fresh off the farm—Indiana, to be exact—and as green as they make them. I wouldn’t have been there at all if it hadn’t been for a generous scholarship. And here was Allison and her crowd with every advantage behind them.” She realized how that might sound to Dan. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply—”
His small laugh interrupted her. “Don’t apologize. It’s Allison’s side of the family with all the money, not mine.”
“Anyway, I completely misunderstood her. I thought she was...oh, you know, the stereotypical spoiled heiress. And to be honest about it, I guess there is that side of her. But nobody minds it, do they? She’s too lovable and generous.”
“To a fault,” he agreed. “So the friendship was born?”
