The Long Way Home

Maureen spoke again, but the words were muffled and Natalie couldn’t see her lips behind the veil.

“May I?” Natalie asked. She gently lifted the veil. “This is antique, isn’t it? Does it belong to someone in your family?”

“It was my nana’s.” Maureen’s lips quivered. “She died a year ago.” Then she shook her head. But her tough mask had slipped, and for a moment, Maureen had looked like the vulnerable teen Natalie remembered.

“Will you be my bridesmaid?” Maureen blurted.

“I...” What?

Maureen’s determination had come back, the fighting attitude that made her such a good salesperson. “Here’s what I need you to do,” she said crisply. “You said you wanted to help me, right? Well, this is the help I need.”

She abruptly stood and stalked to the front of the church, and Natalie had no choice but to follow her. They stopped in front of the altar.

Maureen pointed. “Jim—my fiancé—will be standing there. You remember Jimmy Hannaford?”

“Yes.” He was a former classmate of theirs, a skinny, quiet kid who liked computers and reading science fiction. “James was in all my math classes.”

“Yeah, well, he runs Wallis Point PC now. If you want your computer fixed, Jimmy is your guy. His office is two blocks over from your father’s law firm.”

Natalie nodded, but Maureen kept talking. “Jim will have four groomsmen—his best friend and my twin brothers. Bruce is the fourth groomsman, and he’ll be standing here.”

Natalie stared at the spot Maureen had indicated, and could easily see tall, good-looking Bruce Cole standing there dressed in a black tux and white tie. With his dark hair and his dark eyes, he would be heart-stopping.

She swallowed, missing half of what Maureen was saying.

“...then, on my side—” Maureen pointed to the left of the altar “—I have Jim’s sister and my two sisters-in-law as attendants. Plus you.” She suddenly turned to Natalie, and Natalie blinked at the undisguised pleading in her eyes. “If you’ll do it. If you’ll stand up for me.”

Maureen clutched the veil in her fist, and Natalie felt her heart go out to this hard, hurt woman who didn’t have a best friend or a sister of her own to stand up for her on her special day.

Just like me, Natalie thought. Just like me.

“I’m honored you asked me,” she said.

“So will you do it?” Maureen stared hard at Natalie. “Bruce will be paired with you in the wedding party, first for the chapel ceremony, and then for the reception afterward. I won’t have much time to spend with him, so I’d be depending on you to make him feel comfortable.”

Natalie looked again to the spot where Bruce would stand. Then to where she would stand, across from him. They would walk down the aisle together, and later, dance at the reception with the rest of the bridal party.

“Where...where is the reception?” Natalie asked, cringing inwardly because she was sure she knew the answer. Where else did locals host their parties?

Maureen’s eyes narrowed. “The Grand Beachfront Hotel,” she snapped. “Is that okay with you?”

Bruce wasn’t going to like it at all.

“It’s fine with me,” Natalie said. But her knees were shaking and her tongue felt tied. Why had she regressed to a shy, awkward teenager? Maybe she wasn’t up for this task.

“Bruce is single, by the way,” Maureen said. “He’s not bringing a date, so you don’t have to worry about any awkwardness there.”

Lovely. Natalie should say no. She should run away. This could be an absolute disaster.

Then again, if she was able to pull off what Maureen wanted, wouldn’t it be best for everyone? She would help her father and Maureen and the Cole family and Bruce...heck, in a sense she could help the entire town by keeping the law firm local. If she had learned any of the skills she’d claimed to have during those years on her own, then she had to do this, for everyone’s sake.

“Okay,” Natalie said. “I’ll do it.”

CHAPTER TWO

BRUCE COLE STOOD in the rental car office at Boston’s Logan airport and shook his head in disbelief.

They’d assigned him a minivan? Really?

He glanced at the electronic board listing the last names of the arriving platinum-level customers. There he was, “Cole, B.,” assigned to the vehicle parked in spot 367. Here he was at spot 367, and there sat a minivan, which was against the explicit instructions on his frequent-traveler profile.

Bruce sighed. The golden rule of traveling was that anything could go wrong, at any moment, for any reason. Terminal shutdowns, bad weather, airplane mechanical problems, a hotel closed by Legionnaire’s Disease. He considered himself lucky he hadn’t been a passenger in an emergency landing on a jumbo jet in the Hudson River. Yet.

But the corollary to the golden rule was that there were some things a frequent traveler could influence, even control. And road warriors, with their points and their elevated status, had more power than those people who only traveled once in a blue moon.

Civilians, the travel companies could afford to inconvenience. Customers like him, not so much.

He left his suitcase and his briefcase on the pavement and peered inside the van’s window. Fate must be laughing at him, because there was a child seat strapped in the back.

Sorry, fate. That wasn’t ever going to happen. Even though he was only driving back to Wallis Point for this one night—and against his best instincts—this van was the worst vehicle he could show up in. His parents and Mark and Mike wanted him to stick around and be part of the family. Maureen, the headstrong real estate agent, would be trying to sell him a town house right down the street from hers.

Not a chance in hell.

His life was exactly the way he wanted it. He was free. Independent. Unencumbered.

No close relationships.

The only reason he’d made room in his schedule to fly back to Wallis Point to be in his sister’s wedding was that she had nagged him until he’d given in.

Not that going back made any difference to him. He didn’t care what anybody thought of him.

He stayed out of their lives. He stayed out of everybody’s life but his own.

Usually.

He grimaced, visually plotting the trip ahead, and his subsequent escape. After he got a decent car, he’d roll into town, witness the happy event for Maureen, raise his glass in a good-natured toast and then he’d roll right on out.

Be back in the air first thing tomorrow morning on the earliest flight out—that was his plan.

First, though, he needed a car that fit his image. Shuddering, he opened the van door, plucked the paperwork from the visor and then wheeled his luggage toward the customer service counter. A place that frequent travelers avoided like the plague.

The line stretched five deep, with even more people being unloaded from a courtesy bus at the curb. It was Friday evening on the Memorial Day weekend—the beginning of the summer season in New England—what did he expect?

By instinct, he scanned the parking lot and realized that, predictably, the rental service had run out of cars. The wait to snag one could last hours. Bruce was a road warrior by profession, he knew the ins and outs of navigating airports, hotels, car rental services and business conventions—it was his life. Normally he loved it.

Better than anyone, he knew that by flying on a Friday evening—any Friday evening, never mind the Friday before a long weekend—he’d broken a major rule of road warriors: never travel with the amateurs. They didn’t understand the arcane system of U.S. travel—how to make it as smooth and problem-free as possible—and because they didn’t get it, they made life difficult for the people depended on fast entrances and quick exits.

The thing was, road warriors stuck together. They knew all about traveling out first thing Monday morning and home last thing Thursday night. Fridays were for paperwork and telecommuting from home. Bruce did his laundry and errands on Saturday and relaxed on Sunday. Then on Monday he flew to whatever client site he was currently contracted to, fixed the computer systems and was a hero. Or a bum, if something went wrong. Either way, he was free. Nothing held him down. Nothing locked him in place.

Don’t make eye contact.

He walked past the snaking line—caught glimpses of families and old people and young, wide-eyed couples—and ambled up to the counter. This wasn’t his normal rental-car place—he knew the staff in the Fort Lauderdale office personally—so he opened his wallet to get his identification card, just in case. It was tucked behind his gold American Express card, which he removed gingerly. The fragile plastic had been swiped by so many machines that the card was cracked almost in half.

He caught the eye of a clerk on duty. Desmond, the clerk’s nametag read. Bruce nodded at Desmond, and subtly flashed his platinum-colored customer ID.

Desmond nodded back, but continued listening to the customer who was venting at him, a guy about Bruce’s age with a goatee and backpack—and absolutely no power to make anything happen in his favor. A guy who didn’t stand a shot at getting a car.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Desmond said patiently, “I know you have a reservation, but we are absolutely empty at the moment. There is nothing I can do.”

Then Desmond hurried over to assist him. He took the paperwork Bruce offered. “Good afternoon, sir. How can I help you?”

“I need to switch this for a sedan,” Bruce said. “Something smaller and low mileage.”

The clerk glanced at the sleeve of Bruce’s paperwork. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cole, but there are no cars available. We have at least an hour wait. Your best bet is to keep what you have.” He tried to hand back the paperwork.

Bruce smiled slowly. Held Desmond’s gaze. Kept his palms flat on the counter. With an easy look that said he understood, he felt for Desmond, he really did, but he knew the rules—hell, he had his own rules, too—and this was the way it was gonna go down. He’d do it gracefully, without inciting a riot in the line—especially from the guy in the goatee, practically blowing a gasket beside him, but either way, they were going to do this.

“There are always cars,” Bruce said, softly, his body angled away from the waiting crowd.

The clerk swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving up and down.

And then he went to his computer. Bruce tucked his customer ID card back inside his wallet.

Desmond glanced from the monitor to Bruce. Bruce smiled at him. He knew that the computer system—similar to the ones he designed himself—was telling Desmond that Bruce had rented one of his firm’s cars every week, never fail, for the past eight years.

“Excuse me, Mr. Cole,” Desmond said, reaching for the phone. “I need to get an override from management. Would you mind waiting a moment?”

“No problem,” Bruce replied. He went to slide his wallet into his back pocket, when his elbow bumped against something soft.

Actually, against someone soft.

A kid, no more than six or seven years old, had come up beside him. Well inside his personal space. Now what? He raised one eyebrow at the kid, who didn’t take the hint.

Big trouble, he thought. Don’t go there.

“My dad says you’re cutting the line,” the boy said.

Bruce had a niece about the same age. She was a real firecracker, too. Maybe that was why he was considering ignoring his own rules about not interacting with civilians. It seemed nothing was going to be normal about this trip.

“Does he?” Bruce replied. In curiosity, he lifted his gaze past the kid to the guy with the goatee who’d been expressing his irritation to the clerk.

“Daniel,” the man said, his face red with either exasperation or embarrassment, “get over here right now.”

But the kid didn’t move. Bruce frowned, looking down at him. What was it about this kid? Thin and determined, he had a set to his mouth. The parents were just...tired and worn-out from their travels, and kind of clueless about what was happening around them, to tell the truth. The mother rocked and cooed at a toddler girl, cute kid, with wispy hair a blinding blond that was almost white. There were two older kids, eleven or twelve, but they were arguing over an iPod, or maybe an iPhone. The father was sidetracked now, distracted with reading them the riot act, and attempting to get them to line up and behave, although even Bruce saw what a futile gesture that was.

Bruce looked down at the kid again. This was none of his business. But he couldn’t seem to help himself.

“I’m not cutting the line on you,” Bruce explained. “This is a special line for people who travel a lot.”

The kid stared at him. “How can we get in the special line? We need a car. We need to get to Grandma’s house before the traffic starts.”

Bruce had news for him; it was already well into rush hour. Waiting another hour for a car might be the best thing for them to do.

“I think you’ll be stuck in traffic even if you leave now.”

The kid’s chin set. “It’s better if my brothers fight in the car than fight here. My dad won’t be as mad.”

“That’s uh...good thinking.”

“I know.”

Bruce blinked and looked at the boy again. Something about this kid was just...sucking him in. The thing was, Bruce could relate to parents who were absorbed in their own world and not paying attention to the wide world around them. To older siblings who were equally absorbed in their world of petty squabbles, of scuffling with each other instead of behaving. To the baby, so cute and helpless. And to this precocious middle kid, the only one who paid attention to the bigger picture. A leader in the making.

“What’s that big ring?” The kid asked, pointing to Bruce’s heavy gold Annapolis ring with the blue stone on his left ring finger. “Were you in the Super Bowl? Are you famous?”

“It’s my Annapolis ring. I earned it at the U.S. Naval Academy.” Bruce pushed away his unease. He didn’t usually wear the ring, but this week he’d had meetings scheduled with the upper brass of the navy—captains and admirals. His life tended to flow more smoothly when the people in charge accepted him as part of their club. So he’d dug it out of his top drawer, and now he was stuck with it for the night.

“What’s the U.S. Naval Academy?” the kid asked him.

“It’s where the country trains leaders for the U.S. Navy,” he said by rote.

“Is that like the Marines? I want to be a Marine.”

Bruce had felt that way once, too. “Yeah, I get that. When I was your age, I had a buddy whose father was—”

Whoa. He suddenly felt light-headed. Where was this coming from?

He was over all that old stuff. Way over it.

The kid stared at him, but Bruce shook his head in response. He couldn’t tell him that once, a long time ago, he’d had nearly the same conversation with his best friend’s irascible father. Because Bruce had been the precocious kid in his neighborhood. The inquisitive leader who’d felt the burning need to take care of everybody close to him because they weren’t doing such a good job of it themselves. Maureen was the baby sister his mom fussed over, dressed in pretty clothing and took to girly things like ballet class and shopping. His brothers, twins, older than him by eight years, were the ones always distracted by hunting and fishing and boating, and fighting with each other. Their father was cut from the same cloth as Mark and Mike, and though they were all three good guys at heart, they had never understood Bruce. He baffled them. He was different from everybody else they knew.

Slowly Bruce let out his breath. Desmond the clerk had returned. He was smiling now, suddenly willing to be Bruce’s buddy. People loved being able help somebody else out, when their hands were no longer tied from doing a good deed for someone who would appreciate it of them.

You could do a good deed, too.

No, another part of him said. Don’t get involved.

He closed his eyes. Alarm bells were going off all over the place, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted to be that carefree kid again, for once.

This wedding was going to be a mess for him, he could just tell.

But he opened his eyes and glanced down at the kid. He was looking at Bruce eagerly, as if Bruce was a hero or something.

How could he say no to that?

“You want me to get you a car, little man?” Bruce asked softly.

The kid—Daniel, was it?—put his hands on his hips and nodded.

“Is a minivan okay? With a car seat for your sister?”

Daniel grinned. “That sounds real good. She isn’t big enough to sit on her own yet.”

“Got it.” He looked at Desmond, who was clearly baffled. “You heard the customer. Give them the Chrysler van in space 367.” He held out his old contract. “And while you’re processing the paperwork, transfer as many of my points as you need to cover their full fee.”

Desmond squinted at the computer screen. “You’ve used all your points, Mr. Cole. Transferred the bulk of them last week, to a...Maureen Cole. A Mark Cole. And a Mike Cole.”

He’d forgotten about Maureen’s honeymoon, along with his parents’ and brothers’ trip to Disney World with his nieces and nephews at the same time.

“Yeah, well...” Bruce reached for his wallet again, skipped past the almost-broken-in-half corporate card, and reached for his personal card, stuck way in the back. “Put the base rental charge on my credit card. Use the renter’s credit card for their gas, insurance and security holds. I don’t want to be liable if they lose the car or crack it up or something.”

He was a good guy, not a stupid guy.

“Certainly, sir,” Desmond said. And as he returned to the computer to process the minivan, Bruce accepted the paperwork for his sedan. Luxury Collection, the header read. And Bruce’s heart beat a bit faster, because every road warrior had heard of the mythical stock of high-end luxury and sports cars that were reserved for the high-end customers, but also available at regular rates for platinum-level members whenever there was an out-of-stock situation. Such as this one.

Yeah, Bruce had hit the road warrior jackpot. What would he get? A Lexus? A BMW?

He felt so good he saluted the kid, who promptly saluted back. Then Bruce hightailed it out of there before the parents chewed him out for overstepping his boundaries. But really, he was only serving himself. Going about his business, the way he always did.

As he walked to the parking lot, he thought of sharing the news about the car he’d scored, but who would he call? It was the weekend. The guys he worked with, work buddies, were all at home, spread to the four corners of the country.

For a moment he felt all alone.

And then he saw the car. Gleaming white. Black-top convertible. A Mercedes.

Wait a minute—he was taking a Mercedes convertible back to Wallis Point? Was this some kind of sick joke?

Fate was really sticking it to him tonight. For a moment he wavered, thinking he might be sick, but no, he overcame the physical reaction. Trained his mind to control his body. Remembered the boiling anger he’d once felt. The unfairness of other people’s attitudes toward Maureen. Recalled how stubborn she had to be not to leave Wallis Point as soon as she’d graduated high school, like he had.

And once he’d trained his mind to remember the sweet glow of righteous anger, his body followed suit and he was calm again.

It was as if a curtain of numbness had fallen over what a few moments ago had been...something else. Because the past didn’t matter anymore. It hadn’t for fifteen years. The car accident was a long time ago, with lots of water under the bridge since then. He was done thinking or caring about what anyone thought of him.

He tossed his suitcase into the trunk. Walked around the Mercedes, glanced at the miniscule backseat, too small for anything larger than a briefcase, certainly too small for kids, never mind adults. He had to admit, the car was perfect for his rules. He should concentrate on that.

He slid inside the driver’s seat, feeling better now. Felt the cool leather slide beneath his thighs. Smelled the new-car smell of a sweet, sweet machine with only five hundred miles on the odometer.

Just him and a fast vehicle he could easily escape in. Too bad he was returning it tomorrow.

He started the engine and turned on the radio. Loud, so he couldn’t think.

* * *

NATALIE STOOD BEHIND the three other bridesmaids, and knew that her presence at Maureen Cole’s wedding was awkward and out of place. For a moment she wished she could disappear into the floor.

But feeling uncomfortable and doubting herself had never solved anything, so she stiffened her spine and renewed her grip on her bouquet. White roses interspersed with white lilacs, the bouquet was as fragrant as it was beautiful. Her dress, too, was elegant and flattering—Maureen had let them choose their own gowns as long as they were black, short-sleeved and tea length. The group photos would be stunning, with the men in black tuxes with white rose boutonnieres, the women in black gowns with their white bouquets, and the bride in a simply cut, white silk sheath with a long train and antique lace veil.

Natalie felt her spirits drooping lower. She had always hoped for a wedding like this, in the beautiful chapel on the beach in her home town, saying vows at dusk. The problem was, in Natalie’s teenaged dream wedding, she had been imagining Bruce Cole in the groom’s place. Which was insane.

And now Bruce Cole hadn’t bothered to show.

Natalie swallowed her disappointment, staring down at her hands and purposely avoiding looking at the vacant space opposite her where he should have been standing.

She wasn’t sure what was going on, but something was very wrong. More than once before the ceremony she’d seen Maureen huddled with her mother and her sisters-in-law, whispering.

One of the rose petals was coming loose from Natalie’s bouquet, and she absently tucked it back in. No one else knew it, but Natalie had built up Bruce’s arrival as a pie-in-the-sky fantasy in which he would see her, instantly be sent back to that long-ago night they had confided in one another, and only this time, with her newfound courage and the shyness she had overcome, Natalie could initiate...something...with him.

Wrong again. And the sooner she shook off her unrealistic expectations, the better she would feel.

For a while she had also fantasized that she and Maureen would become fast friends since their meeting last month in the chapel. That wasn’t happening the way she’d hoped, either. Yes, Natalie had been politely invited to the wedding shower, to the rehearsal dinner and even to this morning’s hairdressing session, but it was clear the Coles were a tight-knit clan that didn’t trust Natalie at all.

Or maybe she wasn’t hearing them well enough to know what was going on.

Natalie sighed. One thing she did know for a fact—intelligence gained from her father this morning, unfortunately—was that Maureen had closed on the old Gale place, a National Historic Register home originally built in 1810. Sold to wealthy out-of-towners, Bostonians moving north to take advantage of New Hampshire’s lack of state income tax. Which was fine. Except for the fact Maureen had taken her business to her usual out-of-town lawyer, instead of to Asa Kimball.

Who, as a result, was not happy with Natalie.

True, the closing fees weren’t a lot of money. But the fees added up. And Maureen’s business, added up, would go a long way toward giving Natalie’s father the confidence that he could leave the business safely in her hands, rather than selling out to a stranger.

Loud organ music burst forth from the choir loft. The bride’s processional was beginning, and Maureen appeared at the end of the aisle, looking beautiful and composed as she held her father’s arm. The guests, about seventy-five in number, rose to their feet with a collective sigh.

Natalie pasted a smile on her face. As much as her instincts told her to run away—to cut out early—she needed to stick it out.