sparkled with rainbow-hued water. Formally attired waiters carried sterling trays. The guys were all in tuxes, but the women wore every color in the universe-bridal whites and sassy reds, sea-greens and shimmery yellows, the glitter nearly blinding even from the distance where he parked. Jewels twinkled and shimmered on every neck, every ear, every wrist.
Garrett walked around to the back entrance, away from the crush, hoping to slip into the crowd without being noticed. In the old days, the club would have hired an orchestra. These days, club members tolerated a traditional waltz now and then, but they also wanted spice for their money-rock and roll, fandangos, music with a beat and some sex to it. Still, some traditions never changed. Flowers spilled over onto wrists, in women’s hair, scenting the centers of the tables.
He suddenly hesitated. He wasn’t afraid of such gatherings.
He’d grown up in this echelon of Eastwick society. He’d rather be working than stuck making small talk, but that wasn’t what suddenly made him pause.
From a distance, the scene looked like a dream, with beautiful people laughing, dancing, enjoying each other. That was what it had always been about, Garrett suddenly realized. Belonging. People didn’t hunger to join the country club for the prestige of it.
They hungered to belong. To something. To someone.
When push came to shove, he figured that had to be the core of his sister’s problem. He didn’t know the how, the when, why or who. But the only threat worth the kind of despair Caroline was enduring had to emanate from that kind of source-the threat of losing someone who mattered.
Or maybe he was imposing his own hunger to belong on his sis’s situation, he thought wryly. Until coming back home-until meeting up with Emma again-he’d never thought of himself as lonely. He’d never thought he needed anyone. Yet now that desire to be with her, to belong with her, was as fierce as-
And then he saw her. Emma was weaving through the dancers, then past them and outside, past the spill of lights and music on the patio. She’d surely have seen him-he was just standing in the tree shadows by the walk-if she hadn’t been so obviously intent. She headed straight for the black iron gates of the club pool.
The pool was closed for swimming tonight, but the underwater lights had been left on for atmosphere. He watched Emma unlatch the gate, step inside and out of sight of the partyers. Her gown looked luminescent in the aquamarine light. The style made him think of a Roman toga, nothing fancy, just a swath of sapphire-blue fabric that draped over one shoulder and fell to her ankles. Slim gold ropes twisted around her waist and under the bodice.
The simplicity and classiness of the gown suited her perfectly.
She liked her jewels-what woman didn’t?-yet she was wearing none tonight, unlike all the other women there. Her bare throat gleamed, her skin its own adornment. Her eyes had more shine and emotion than any gem. His heart surged just to see her, just for the chance of being near her.
But she wasn’t alone.
She was talking to the one man Garrett kept conveniently trying to forget. Her fiance. And it looked as if they were having a damn serious private talk, because Reed Kelly had the posture of a man who was furious enough to snap.
Emma thought she’d go out of her mind. Naturally she couldn’t talk seriously to Reed in the middle of the club dance, but she had hoped they could take off halfway through the evening, and then she’d have a chance to talk with him privately.
That was her goal, but she just couldn’t seem to make it happen. She’d barely seen Reed for two seconds since they’d arrived, much less had a prayer of escaping. Being in charge of the club’s fund-raising committee didn’t help, because everyone and his mother stopped to chat.
The social craziness started when frail, slender Frank Forrester cornered her. Frank had been so generous to the club and community that she couldn’t avoid speaking with him. Besides, he was a darling-although Delia, his current wife, was quite an experience. Lots of women visited a plastic surgeon for one reason or another, but Delia’s boobs were so fake they looked like mighty ball bearings. She’d gone for a tight sheath in a glitzy lame and covered every finger in rings. To each his own, Emma always thought, but Delia was so, so unlike the quietly generous Frank.
After that, Emma had to spend a few minutes with the Debs Club-all the girls were there, with either their mates or appropriate rail meat. Felicity, of course, kept shooting her meaningful looks, as if determined to remind her of their earlier conversation. And then Mary Duvall showed up, covered modestly from her throat to her ankles, very quietly making her way through the crowd, looking as if she needed a friend and someone to reintroduce her to Eastwick again, so obviously Emma had to step in there.
Abby Talbot swung her away from Mary for a while after that. Gossip was still buzzing about her mother’s death-and who was going to take on writing the
And if she wanted justice, she had lost all faith she was going to get it through the police investigation.
After that, Emma was corralled by Jack and Lily Cartright. Emma had gotten involved in the Eastwick Cares organization-where Lily had been a social worker-several years before, so they’d become friends. Heaven knew Emma loved working with the teenagers. This time, though, Lily tracked her down, looking radiant and blooming, to ask if she had any free time the following week for a special kids’ project.
Emma said yes. Darn it, her schedule was too packed to add any more to it, but she’d never been good at saying no to anything involving kids, and by then she’d been too frazzled to even try.
Reed found her and swirled her into a waltz, but almost immediately they were separated again. Someone claimed Reed’s attention at the same time Garrett’s parents descended on her. Barbara and Merritt Keating were using every public opportunity to say that their daughter, Caroline, was all right. She’d just accidentally taken “the wrong pill” and had “a chemical reaction.”
“You know so many people in Eastwick, Emma,” Barbara said. “It would help so much if you’d help set the record straight.”
“Garrett’s around here somewhere,” his father boomed. “He’ll tell everyone, too. We’re very concerned about some of the hurtful rumors we’ve heard spread about Caroline.”
Immediately Emma searched the crowd for Garrett yet couldn’t spot him. Her mother grabbed her arm before she had another chance to even try. Her mom was dressed in ivory-her favorite color-and looked slim and elegant. Only the slightest slur in her speech would give anyone the impression that she’d started partying much earlier that day. Her drinking was one of the best-kept secrets in Eastwick, but tonight her mom was on a happy buzz for a different reason.
“I heard from Felicity that you were likely going to announce the wedding date for sure. Like tonight, dear? I admit, I’ve been passing a little hint around our friends…”
Emma’s pulse picked up a frantic beat. She’d meant to talk to Reed tonight-but now she knew she had to talk to him immediately, before her mother started spreading the wedding gossip even further. All these dutiful conversations had been necessary, and truthfully she loved all these people, had all her life. But now she had to find Reed and drag him to a private spot somewhere, somehow.
She found him talking to a wannabe senator and snagged his wrist. He was happy to be dragged off, but not for the reasons she had in mind. Long before she’d gotten them out to the private spot by the pool, she’d known this talk was going to be hard. But she started out saying honestly, “Reed, I’m not sure either of us really wants this marriage,” and he just didn’t seem to believe her.
He went back to fetch her a drink, a pinot noir-her favorite-and then walked around the pool to a spot where they were completely cut off from any view of the partyers. He seemed determined to believe she had bridal nerves or that she was fussing over the stress of putting on the wedding.
Finally, though, he seemed to pick up that the tears in her eyes weren’t from a minor case of stress. “All right, Emma. Just say it straight. What is all this really about?”
She desperately wanted that wine to soothe her nerves, yet she put it down, afraid she’d choke on it. She’d never deliberately, willingly, hurt anyone. “Reed, you don’t really want me. You have to know it.”
“Huh? Of course I want you. Why on earth would I have asked you to be my wife if I didn’t want you to be part of my life?”
