together with his hands. “Come on, I want to see happy little smiles on your happy little faces.”
“Is he related to that artist on PBS?” John asked Hugh out of the side of his mouth.
“The oil-painting dude with the Afro?”
“Yeah. He used to paint happy little clouds and shit.”
“Daddy!” Lexie whispered loudly. “Don’t swear.”
“Sorry.”
“Can you all say ‘wedding night?’ ” Wendell asked.
“Wedding night!” Lexie yelled.
“That’s real good, little flower girl. How about everyone else?”
Georgeanne looked at Mae and they started to laugh.
“Come on get hap-hap-happy.”
“Damn, where did you get this guy?” Hugh wanted to know.
“I’ve known him for years. He was a good friend of Ray’s.”
“Ahh, that explains it then.”
John put his hand on Georgeanne’s waist, and her laugher stopped abruptly. He slid his palm to her stomach and drew her back against the solid wall of his chest. His voice was a low rumble next to her ear when he said, “Say ‘cheese.’ ”
Georgeanne’s breath caught in her throat. “Cheese,” she uttered weakly, and the photographer snapped the picture.
“Now the groom’s family,” Wendell announced as he advanced his film.
The muscles in John’s arm tensed. His fingers curled into a possessive fist, and the hem of her dress rode up her thighs. Then he dropped his hand and took a step backward, putting a few inches between them. Georgeanne glanced at him, and again he gave her that pleasant little smile.
“Hey, Hugh,” he said, then turned his attention to his friend as if he hadn’t just held Georgeanne tight against his chest. “Did you check out Chelios’s when we were in Chicago?”
Georgeanne told herself not to read anything into the embrace. She knew better than to look for motives or attribute feelings that just didn’t exist. She knew better than to fall for his possessive embraces or pleasant smiles. It was best just to forget about it. They meant nothing, led nowhere. She knew better than to expect anything from him.
An hour later, as she stood in the banquet hall next to the buffet table laden with food and flowers, she was still trying to forget. She tried to forget to look for him every few moments, and tried not to notice him standing with a group of men who were obviously hockey players, and laughing with some leggy blonde. She tried to forget, but couldn’t. Any more than she could forget that Virgil was somewhere in the hall.
Georgeanne placed a chocolate-dipped strawberry on a plate she was preparing for Lexie. She added a chicken wing and two pieces of broccoli.
“I want some cake and some of those, too.” Lexie pointed to a crystal bowl filled with wedding mints.
“You had your cake right after Mae and Hugh cut it.” Georgeanne put a few mints on the plate along with a carrot stick and handed the plate to Lexie. Her gaze quickly scanned the crowd.
Then her stomach did a little flip-flop. For the first time in seven years, she saw Virgil Duffy in person. “Go stand by Aunt Mae,” she said, turning her daughter by the shoulder. “I’ll come meet you there in a minute.” She gave Lexie a little push and watched her walk toward the bride and groom. Georgeanne couldn’t spend the rest of the evening wondering if Virgil would confront her and imagining what he might say. She had to get the encounter over with before she lost her nerve. She took a deep breath and, with long, deliberate strides, moved to face her past. She wove her way through the crowd of guests until she stood in front of him.
“Hello, Virgil,” she said and watched his eyes harden.
“Georgeanne, you have the nerve to face me. I’d wondered if you would.” His tone suggested he wasn’t “over it” as John had claimed earlier at the church.
“It’s been seven years, and I’ve moved on with my life.”
“Easy for you. Not so easy for me.”
Physically he hadn’t changed very much. Perhaps his hair had thinned a bit, and his eyes were a little puffy from age. “I think both of us should forget the past.”
“Now, why would I do that?”
She looked at him a moment, beyond the lines on his face, to the bitter man beneath. “I’m sorry for what happened, and for the pain I caused you. I tried to tell you the night before the wedding that I was having second thoughts, but you wouldn’t listen. I’m not blaming you, just explaining how I felt. I was young and immature and I’m sorry. I hope you can accept my apology.”
“When hell freezes over.”
She was surprised to discover that his anger didn’t really bother her. It didn’t matter that he wouldn’t accept her apology. She’d confronted her past and felt free of the guilt she’d carried for years. She wasn’t young and immature anymore. And she wasn’t afraid either. “I’m sorry to hear you say that, but whether or not you accept my apology won’t keep me up at night. My life is filled with people who love me and I’m happy. Your anger and hostility can’t hurt me.”
“You’re still as naive as you were seven years ago,” he said as a woman approached Virgil and placed her hand on his shoulder. Georgeanne immediately recognized Caroline Foster-Duffy from her many pictures in local papers. “John will never marry you. He’ll never choose you over his team,” he added, then he turned and walked away with his wife.
Georgeanne stared after him, puzzled by his parting comment. She wondered if he’d threatened John, and if he had, why John hadn’t told her about it. She shook her head, not knowing what to think. Never in her wildest dreams had she ever thought John would marry her or choose her over anything.
Okay, she conceded as she headed toward Lexie, who was surrounded by the bride and groom and a few tough-looking male wedding guests. Maybe in her wildest dreams she
Georgeanne moved past the stage where a band was setting up and her thoughts returned to Virgil. She’d faced him and freed herself from the burden of her past, and she felt pretty good. “How’s it going?” she asked as she came to stand by Mae.
“Great.” Mae glanced up at her and smiled, looking gorgeous and happy. “At first I was a little nervous about being in the same room with thirty hockey players. But now that I’ve met most of them, they’re really pretty nice, almost human even. Too bad Ray isn’t here. He’d be in heaven around all these thick muscles and tight butts.”
Georgeanne chuckled and plucked a strawberry off Lexie’s plate. She glanced across the room at John and caught him staring at her above the crowd. She bit into the fruit and looked away.
“Hey.” Lexie scowled. “Eat the green stuff next time.”
“Have you met Hugh’s friends?” Mae poked her new husband with her elbow.
“Not yet,” she answered, and popped the rest of the strawberry into her mouth.
Hugh introduced her and Lexie to two men in expensive wool suits and silk ties. The first gentleman, named Mark Butcher, sported a spectacular black eye. “You might recall Dmitri,” Hugh said after he’d made the introduction. “He was at John’s houseboat a few months ago when you came over.”
Georgeanne looked at the man with light brown hair and blue eyes. She didn’t remember him at all. “I thought you looked familiar,” she lied.
“I remember you,” Dmitri said, his accent obvious. “You wore red.”
“Did I?” Georgeanne was flattered that he would recall the color of her dress. “I’m surprised you remember.”
Dmitri smiled and little creases appeared in the corners of his eyes. “I remember. I wear no gold chainz now.”
Georgeanne glanced at Mae, who shrugged and looked up at a grinning Hugh. “That’s right. I had to explain to Dmitri that American women don’t like to see jewelry on men.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mae disagreed. “I know of several men who look fierce in pearl chokers and matching
