Spring fancy

refreshing flouting of tradition in planning this wedding.

'Did you know they're opening their own gifts tomorrow afternoon at Sandy 's parents' house?'

'Yes, Mick told me. Will you be there?'

She looked up into his direct gaze. Lord, but he has devastating eyes, she thought. I should answer an unqualified no and stick to it. There's no way I'll get Paul to come along, not when he has work to entice him.

'Yes, will you?'

'Now I will.'

They were playing cat and mouse, and she knew it. Yet she assuaged her immediate guilt feelings by telling herself being with him was 'legal.' She'd been paired off with him for the duration of the wedding, and wasn't tomorrow part of the ongoing celebration? Suddenly she realized she'd been staring into his eyes for too, too long and dropped hers to her plate, then quickly scanned the room to see if Paul was watching the head table. But he was immersed in conversation with someone else at his own.

'Miss Gardner?' Joseph paused expectantly, and she turned to find those inexcusably beautiful brown eyes still resting upon her. 'What does he call you? Winnifred? Winnie?'

'Winnie, most of the time.'

'Then would it be okay if I called you Winn?'

Her heart reacted in a way no heart of an engaged woman should react, and she wondered if people noted how often she and Joseph gazed into each other's eyes during the course of the meal.

The server interrupted just then. 'Would either of you care for coffee?'

Winnie jumped at the chance to be diverted. 'Yes… oh, yes, coffee, please.' Too late she realized she hated coffee. Maybe it'll sober me up and make me behave properly.

'Winn?' The word sent her heart ka-whumping more erratically than before, and the tone of his voice compelled her to lift her eyes to his once more. 'What did you two fight about?'

'It wasn't a fight exactly, just an ongoing difference between us. And I'm in the wrong about it, and I know it.' She glanced at Paul and found him watching her. He raised a hand in silent salute, and she returned the hello, then dropped her eyes to the tablecloth. 'You see, Paul is a very dedicated man. He has set goals for himself, for us, actually… things he wants us to own, to achieve. Only sometimes when he works overtime, I get…' She stopped, unsure of how to say it.

'You get?'

He touched the knuckle of her index finger where it was threaded through the handle of the coffee cup. At the brief contact she jerked back, sending the liquid sloshing to the rim of the cup. Alarmed, she looked up, striving to put Paul between herself and this very attractive man. 'I get a little jealous of the time he spends with his computers. He has a terminal at home in the spare bedroom, and after his regular job he does contract work, programming on an independent basis during evenings and weekends. He does it because we've bought the house, and naturally there are fairly good-sized payments on it, plus he's bound and determined we'll have it totally furnished by the time I move in with him. So I should be grateful. I have a man who's got ambition and drive, I know. It's selfish of me to make demands on his time, I guess. But sometimes I…' Again her eyes wandered to Paul, but she left the thought dangling.

'Sometimes you'd rather have his time than the money it can earn,' Joseph filled in, leaning forward, resting an elbow on the table and turning his back to the room at large, shielding her from the eyes of her fiance.

'Yes. I know it sounds absolutely ridiculous that a woman can be jealous of a… a panel of silicon chips, but…' Her eyebrows puckered and her lips trembled. 'Do you know they even give computers names? He's named his Rita. Rita, for God's sake! I mean, what kind of a man gives a woman's name to a hunk of metal and refers to her as she all the time?' Her lips were trembling even more. 'And what kind of woman gets jealous of her?' She was directly confronted by Jo-Jo Duggan's serious brown eyes, and to her horror she realized her own eyes were floating in tears. 'Oh, darn…' She felt utterly ridiculous to have admitted such a thing. She reached up to dash the salt away but had no handkerchief. 'I feel like a fool, getting all emotional over a thing like this, but he promised me he'd come to the wedding and dance all night. And I just love to dance, and I thought b-because I'm all d-dressed up and everything…' She stammered to a halt, more self-conscious than ever, after babbling on about such inconsequential and childish wishes.

Into her line of vision came a blurred hand, extending a clean folded handkerchief. 'Here, dry your eyes.'

She touched their inner corners gingerly and wiped the end of her nose. She lifted her face then, and there was Joseph Duggan only inches before her, unsmiling, watching her too carefully, still shielding her from the rest of the room. 'I'm sorry, Joseph. What a stupid thing to do, get all teary eyed because my man wants to work hard so he can buy me a houseful of furniture.'

'That's not the reason you're crying, and you know it.'

'It's not?'

'Hardly.'

'Then tell me why I am.'

'Because you're three months away from marrying a man, and all of a sudden you're discovering some very disturbing differences in values between the two of you. Deep differences. You like to dance, and he likes to talk to computers. But is that as deep as it goes?'

'Ye…' She'd been about to say yes but halted to give it some serious reflection. But, thinking, she decided it best not to dwell upon it. 'I want to have fun tonight, and this isn't helping. Can we talk about something else?'

'Of course. Are you all dried up now, so I can remove myself from between you and the curious multitude?'

She smiled and chuckled shakily, handed him his handkerchief and sniffed once. 'Yes. But I probably am in need of some makeup repair again. If you'll excuse me, I'll sneak back to the foyer and touch up my eyes.'

He immediately got to his feet and pulled her chair back. When she stood beside him, he detained her for a second with a hand on her arm. 'Winn, if it'll make you feel any better, I'll fill in for old Hildegard on the dance floor, inept as I am. You want to dance all night, you've got it, sweetheart. Two clubfeet and all.' He glanced self- deprecatingly at his shoes, then straightened and gave her a teasing grin.

It was like a shot of revivifying sun.

'I think, Joseph Duggan, that you're a very nice man underneath all that flirting and teasing. And I'll hold you to it.'

They stood for a breathless moment, transfixed, staring at each other.

'Winn…' His fingers tightened on her arm. But his touch felt too welcome, too good, too exciting. She forced herself to turn and walk away.

Chapter 4

T here's an old custom at Polish weddings that the groomsmen steal the bride sometime during the reception. When Joseph Duggan disappeared an hour later, Winnie missed him immediately. She'd danced with Paul, but now he was gone. She wandered from group to group, visiting with acquaintances, but the zest seemed to have fizzled out of the party once Joseph disappeared. She took her makeup bag to an upstairs bedroom, checked her mascara, refreshed her blush, but wiped all vestiges of the scarlet lipstick from her mouth and applied instead a soft pink, as luminescent as the recesses of a conch shell. She touched Chanel No. 5 to her wrists, neck and knees, then went back downstairs to wander around restlessly, listening to the music of the four- piece band that played in the large central hall.

It seemed forever before the front door swept open, and several laughing men crowded through, bearing the bride upon their shoulders. At the sight of Joseph Duggan the night suddenly regained its flavor. He spotted Winnie immediately and was crossing the hall toward her the moment the bride was lowered to the floor.

'I'm sorry I had to abandon you, but duty called.' He captured her hand and towed her toward the area set aside for dancing. 'But I do keep my promises for better or for worse. Come on, Twinkle Toes, let's make you happy again.'