Love,
Candace
So he already was checked in. Pocketing the note and palming the key, David headed upstairs. Leave it to Candace to figure a way around those 3 P.M. check-in rules, he thought with a rueful grin, but he was supremely grateful. Not only was he emotionally drained by his dealings with Astrid Garrison and his trip to the museum, he was rummy from days of almost no sleep.
Upon entering the room, he was surprised to see four suitcases, two arranged on the bed as well as one on each of the room's two folding metal luggage racks. Four suitcases did seem a little much for an overnight at the Ritz, especially since the bathroom was already fully stocked with robes, hair dryer, and a selection of toiletries. Evidently the female side of the Oak Park Waverlys didn't believe in traveling light.
Hoping he had time for a quick nap, he closed the black-out curtains and then undressed. Before stripping off his shirt, he discovered Astrid's diamond engagement ring still lurking in his pocket. He had meant to give the ring back to his grandmother before he left, but he had forgotten.
Shaking his head, he put the ring on the nightstand along with his watch. He thought about leaving a wake-up call so he could be showered and dressed before Candace's arrival. In the end he decided to sleep until he woke up or Candace arrived, whichever came first. Lying down on the bed, he tried to relax, but that wasn't easy. He was smitten by an attack of conscience.
If you don't want to marry her, he thought, then what the hell are you doing here?
Hopefully screwing your brains out was the short answer, he decided, grinning ruefully up at the darkened ceiling overhead. But for that-for plain old getting your rocks off-most any place would do, from Motel 6 up. The Ritz had been Candace's idea. And even if Candace had sold him on the proposition that this special night on the town was both a graduation and a going-away gift from her, he had the distinct feeling that Candace's daddy's law firm was actually picking up the tab.
Despite Astrid Ladd's none-too-subtle lobbying, things weren't all sweetness and light between David Garrison Ladd and Candace Eugenia Waverly.
They had met the previous December, when they had both been participants in what they still laughingly referred to as the wedding from hell. Candace had been maid of honor and David best man at a pre-Christmas wedding that had fallen victim to an unseasonal but vicious mid-December blizzard. The storm had stalled prospective guests-including most of the groom's family-at airports all over the country while O'Hare and Midway airports were shut down for four solid hours.
As 'best' people, Candace and David had both had their hands full. Candace had been stuck baby-sitting a somewhat hysterical bride and her mostly hysterical mother while David was closeted with an exceedingly nervous groom who had been close to bagging the whole idea well before the snow started falling. By the time they finally made it through the wedding, the maid of honor and best man were comrades-in-arms.
From that beginning, it was a simple step for Candace to invite her new friend to her parents' traditional Christmas party the following week-the night before David Ladd was due to fly home to spend his winter vacation with his family in Tucson.
The prospect of meeting the Oak Park Waverlys-as Astrid Ladd soon took to calling them-wasn't nearly as daunting to David Ladd as it would have been had he gone straight there from his mother's and stepfather's place in Gates Pass. Following Candace's directions through the still ice-rutted streets, he arrived at a house that was much the same size as his grandmother's lakeshore mansion, only this one was alive with lights visible in every window of all three floors.
The gateposts at the end of a long curving drive glowed a holiday welcome with hundreds of white Christmas lights. The house itself was outlined with thousands more. Handing his Jeep off to a valet-parking attendant, David rang the doorbell. One glimpse of the tux-clad butler who opened the door and relieved arriving guests of their coats made David more than happy that he'd gone to the trouble of renting a tuxedo himself.
For fifteen or twenty interminable minutes he was there on his own, trying to make acceptable small talk with people he had never met and most likely would never see again. Just when he was ready to bolt back the way he had come, Candace appeared in a slick, low-cut red dress with a slit that came halfway up her thigh.
'I see somebody put a drink in your hand,' she said. 'Have you tried the buffet?'
'I was waiting for you. Are you hungry?'
Candace made a face. 'Not really. Mother uses the same caterer every year, although I've never quite figured out why. The food reminds me of those breakfast sausages they serve at hotels in England. They look great but they taste like they're made of sawdust.'
David couldn't help laughing at that. Encouraged by an appreciative audience, Candace continued. 'My two older sisters and I learned early on to load up a plate and carry it around awhile just to keep peace in the family. I suggest you do the same, but you don't have to eat it. Later on, we'll go up to my room and order a pizza.'
'Order a pizza?' David echoed.
'Sure. I have my own entrance. The delivery people know to bring it there instead of to the front door. My sisters and I have been doing it for years.'
'Your parents have never figured it out?'
Candace grinned at him conspiratorially from behind her champagne flute. 'Never. Come on. I'll introduce you to my folks, but don't breathe a word about the pizza. If you do, I won't let you have any.'
It turned out there was a whole lot more waiting for David Ladd in Candace Waverly's upstairs room than a thin-crust pepperoni and cheese. For one thing, it wasn't a room at all, but a three-room suite, complete with bedroom, sitting room, and Jacuzzi-equipped bath. And Candace Waverly wasn't particularly interested in staying in the sitting room.
David Ladd had taken his time with school, changing majors several times before finally finishing his BA and deciding on law school. At twenty-seven, he certainly wasn't a virgin, but he hadn't encountered anyone like Candace Eugenia Waverly, either. Slipping out of her bright red dress along the way, she led him into her bedroom. Davy was still nervously fumbling with his cuff links when a naked Candace stepped forward to help him and to drag him, unprotesting, into her bed. Two frenetic hours later, she sat up in bed, propped herself upright on a mound of pillows, and matter-of-factly reached out for the phone to order a pizza. By then David Ladd had experienced several exotic sexual activities he had previously only imagined. Or read about.
Candace might look delicate and ladylike, but in bed she was anything but, and in the six months since, David Ladd had found himself deeply in lust if not in love. He and Candace spent a good deal of time together-as much as possible, considering his course load. And because of Astrid Garrison's prying eyes, most of their fun and games had happened in Candace's chaste-appearing bedroom.
The sex had been great. The problem was, David Ladd still didn't feel as though he was remotely in love. During the last few weeks, tension had been building as Candace Waverly dug in her heels over David's stated plan of returning to Tucson to go to work.
'I don't see why you're taking this internship out on an Indian reservation,' she had pouted one day early in May as the two of them sat sipping late-evening lattes in downtown Evanston's Starbucks.
With an important paper due in two days, this wasn't exactly the time for Davy to work his way around such a complex issue. Candace already knew that David's sixteen-year-old sister was adopted and that she was a full- blooded Native American. School-trained as a disciple of cultural diversity, Candace hadn't batted an eyelash when David had given her that bit of information, but she had cautioned him that he maybe ought not mention it to her folks. Like the secret Christmas-party pizza, as well as some of the other things that went on in Candace's upstairs bedroom-this was something Candace's mother might be better off not knowing, and it made David Ladd wonder if the elder Waverlys of Oak Park might be somewhat bigoted when it came to dealing with Indians.
Maybe Candace was, too, for that matter, he thought as he grappled with how to make her understand exactly what the internship meant to him. Should he try to tell her about Nana Dahd? By working on the reservation he hoped, in some small way, to repay Rita Antone for all she had done for him, all she had meant to him, but the words to explain that refused to bubble to the surface.
'I'm smart,' he said at last, knowing it sounded limp and probably stupid as well. 'I speak the language, and I think I can make a contribution.'
'You mean make a contribution like people do in the Peace Corps?'
It wasn't at all like the Peace Corps, but David didn't know where to begin explaining that, either. Peace
