Remember When

Spence wisely refrained from reminding Corey that she hadn't believed a carpenter's assistant was stealing tools from their garage a month ago, even when she saw a wrench sticking out of his back pocket.

Corey refrained from pointing out to Spence that he had liked Dan Penworth, who had turned out to be a world-class rat. That wouldn't have done any good anyway, because the whole family had liked Dan. 'Can you at least try to give Cole the benefit of the doubt? It would make everything so much easier.'

Spence looked at her worried face and gave in with a deliberately suggestive leer. 'Okay, beautiful, but it'll cost you,' he said; then he turned to leave. Corey caught his arm. 'Cute loincloth,' she teased, reaching around his waist to free the towel.

Spence returned the compliment by turning toward her, reaching behind her, and playfully cupping her derriere. 'Cute butt,' he said and nipped her ear.

To their left, Glenna marched in on her silent, rubber-soled orthopedic shoes. 'I'll just get the duck off the grill before it turns into a chunk of charcoal,' she volunteered in a long-suffering voice.

Corey stiffened and Spence froze; then he pulled her tighter to him and, laughing, kissed her anyway.

Chapter 36

When Cole walked into the formal dining room beside Diana, he assumed from what he saw that her family had decided to try to pretend Diana's sudden marriage was a reason for celebration instead of homicide.

A large bowl of yellow roses in the center of the dining room table was flanked by candelabra aglow with tapers; the table was laid with formal china and gleaming silver flatware. A large china platter contained succulent slices of roasted duck breast, a large plate was piled high with fluffy buttermilk biscuits, and two serving bowls held new potatoes roasted with olive oil and rosemary, and steamed young asparagus.

The ladies made gallant attempts to smile at him, and even Grandpa managed a polite nod as he took his place at the head of the table and indicated Cole should take the seat at his right. Diana's grandmother sat on her husband's left, directly across from Cole, but when Diana started around the table to sit beside Cole, Gram said, 'Corey, dear, why don't you sit next to Mr. Harrison and let Spence sit next to me so we can all have a chance to get to know each other.'

Mrs. Foster took her place at the foot of the table and Diana sat between her mother and Spence. Cole saw Mrs. Foster register confusion at the peculiar emphasis on an even more peculiar seating arrangement, but one glance at the lineup Gram had neatly arranged showed him that Gram had managed to put him squarely in the 'hot seat.' Grandpa was on his left, Gram and Addison were directly across from him, Corey was on his right, and Diana—his only ally—was well removed.

Nothing could have made Cole feel like a bigger hypocrite than thanking an imaginary God he didn't believe in for things He hadn't accomplished in the first place, and then compounding the idiocy by asking for favors He had neither the power—or perhaps the inclination—to grant. Hypocrisy was not one of Cole's many faults, and so he bent his head less than an inch and studied the hand-embroidered yellow rose on his napkin while he waited for the official inquisition to begin.

Henry Britton was not a man given to procrastination. He finished the prayer and said, 'Amen. Cole, what are your plans?'

Before Cole could phrase an answer, Diana looked squarely at Corey and said, 'Corey's dying to hear about the wedding, and I made her wait until now, when I could tell all of you at once.'

Corey unhesitatingly picked up her cue. 'Let's hear about the wedding first, Grandpa. After we catch up on the present, Cole and Diana can tell us all about the future.' To Cole she added, 'Will that be all right?'

In those few moments, Cole arrived at several meaningful conclusions: Gram was not, as he had earlier supposed, merely elderly, outspoken, and endearingly eccentric, she was elderly, outspoken, possibly eccentric, and probably wily as hell.

Corey was an unswerving ally of Diana's, and possibly neutral where he was concerned, while Diana—Diana with her lovely features and soft voice —was skilled enough in diplomacy to be a tremendous asset at any table, be it dinner table or boardroom table.

He watched her give an enthusiastic accounting of an abrupt, unromantic wedding she barely remembered and flavor it with the sort of details guaranteed to interest both sexes.

'We left the hotel in Cole's limousine and went to the airport. Cole's plane is a Gulfstream, Grandpa, and much larger than a little Learjet. You could add it to the model airplane mobile you've designed for boys' bedrooms. Anyway, there was a magnum of champagne in a cooler when we got on board, and one of the pilots was already in the cockpit doing— whatever pilots do before the plane takes off,' she said, dismissing the preflight ritual with a wave of her graceful fingertips. 'A few minutes later, the other pilot, whose name is Jerry Wade, arrived. Oh, and, Gram— ' she added, turning to include that lady in the conversation, who had been frowning intently at Cole until then, 'in the dark, he's a dead ringer for your favorite movie star! I told him he has to drop by and visit you some evening.'

Fascinated by the way that remark pulled Rose Britton's attention away from him, Cole waited to discover who her favorite movie star was. 'He does! Really?' Grandma said with a mixture of doubt and delight. 'He looks like Clint Eastwood?'

'Clint Eastwood is practically bald,' Grandpa put in irritably, 'and he whispers when he talks!'

Corey leaned sideways and answered Cole's unspoken question as she handed him the platter of asparagus, 'Gram is crazy about Eastwood, and it makes Grandpa jealous. It's so cute.'

'Mom, you'd love what Cole has done to the inside of the plane. You feel as if you're walking into a beautiful living room, furnished in platinum leather, with touches of brass and gold. There were two curving sofas that faced each other, with an antique coffee table between them, a matching buffet with brass hinges, and several chairs.'

She'd neatly captured her artistic family's attention, and as Cole listened to her colorful descriptions of everything from the Waterford crystal lamps to the oriental carpet in the plane's main cabin, he made two more interesting observations about Diana: first, she had an indisputable talent for using words to create a vivid picture, and second, she was not mentioning the plane's second-most important feature—its bedroom.

In his mind, he could still see her startling beauty as she lay across the bed's gleaming silver satin comforter, propped up on an elbow, draped in a vivid purple silk gown that provided him with an erotic glimpse of her full breasts above her bodice. Her face had been turned up to his, inviting his kiss, but as he'd bent over the bed, he'd hesitated. Cold reason and hard logic went to battle against his desire, and they won out over everything else, just as they always did with Cole. Regretfully but resolutely, he'd whispered, 'No'; then he'd started to draw back.

Her hand lifted, sliding over his shoulder and behind his nape, her fingers gliding into the short hair above his open shirt collar, and he'd looked into eyes as green as wet jade and as vulnerable as a hurt child's. 'No,' he repeated, but he heard the hesitation and regret in his voice. So had Diana.

Diana switched to a description of the plane's cockpit, and he wondered whether she'd not mentioned the bedroom out of delicacy, embarrassment, or actual lack of memory. It was hard to believe she could remember that the interior of the plane was upholstered in pale gray leather and forget that one-third of the plane's cabin was a bedroom. On the other hand, she hadn't seen the bedroom until after they were married, after the stress of a ceremony in a garish, neon-lit chapel, a stop at a casino, and more champagne provided by him to eliminate the stress. She'd forgotten much about the wedding ceremony and the casino; Cole supposed it was equally possible she'd forgotten about the time they'd spent in the plane's bedroom.

Diana paused in her story to serve herself some of the roasted duck that had just been passed to her, and Diana's grandmother seized the opportunity to proceed where her husband had left off: 'Tell us about yourself, Mr. Harrison,' she said.

'Please call me Cole, Mrs. Britton,' he said politely.

'Tell us about yourself, Cole,' she corrected, though he noticed she did not suggest he call her by anything other than Mrs. Britton.

Cole deliberately referred to his present, not his past. 'I live in Dallas, but I travel a great deal on business.