LaVyrle Spencer - Spring Fancy

She forced a broad smile, laced her hand beneath his sleeve and followed his lead, conscious of Paul's eyes following as she and Joseph made for the head table. When the entire wedding party had been introduced, Joseph stepped behind her chair to pull it out solicitously. As he moved to his chair, she whacked her basket of flowers down between two candles, yanked her gloves off and slapped them down beside her silverware.

As soon as he was seated, he turned his full attention to her. "Well, I detect a bit of frost in the air."

"I'd rather not talk about it while one hundred wedding guests can watch everything that passes between us."

"You're angry with me."

"Yes, among other things."

"Then, I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd be so touchy about things like that. I shouldn't have teased."

"I'm not touchy, all right?"

"Then why are you throwing things around and pulling your mouth up like a purse string?"

She inhaled, closed her eyes for a second and forced her facial muscles to relax. "I'm not touchy. And I'm not quite as angry with you as I am with Paul, and I don't want to talk about it, if you don't mind."

"A lovers' quarrel? At a wedding? In a pantry? What could you possibly find to quarrel about when you were only gone five minutes?"

When she refused to answer but turned her head away from him, he searched out Paul Hildebrandt in a far corner of the room. "Mmm… your fiancé is looking pretty mellow and happy over there. Apparently he's not mad at you."

She snapped her head back toward him. "Mr. Duggan, I said I didn't want to talk about it."

"All right, I'm versatile. What else would you like to talk about?" A white-clad waitress moved before them and offered to fill their stem glasses with champagne. He lifted his own glass and asked Winnie, "Champagne?" At her curt nod he held her glass, too, for filling. "There you are," he said amiably, offering it to her. Their discourse was sidetracked as Joseph declared, "I'd better do my duties as best man. We'll pick this up later."

He arose, raised his hands for silence and turned toward the bride and groom, lifting his glass. "Ladies and gentlemen, I think a toast is in order on this auspicious occasion. It goes without saying that we're all happy for you, Mick and Sandy, and each of us thanks you for inviting us to celebrate your great day along with you. It comes from the heart when I wish you a lifetime of love as rich as the love you're feeling today. May your blessings be many, your hardships be few." He lifted his glass momentarily higher. "To my friends Sandy and Mick Malaszewski." He drank, set his glass down, then moved between the bridal couple. Mick was on his feet, and the two men embraced, their arms wrapped securely around each other's shoulders. Then, as they clasped hands, they exchanged some private words too low for Winnie to catch. But they looked into each other's eyes, and for a moment she thought she saw an emotional glitter in both pairs of eyes. Again Joseph lifted his voice to the crowd. "And, as best man, I believe I'm entitled to what I'm about to take!" The wedding guests applauded as Joseph took Sandy's hand and prompted her to her feet. Then he wrapped her in his arms and planted a long firm kiss on her mouth before backing away and laughing into her rosy face. "Be good to him, you hear? I love that big galoot."

"I will," Sandy answered. "So do I."

Joseph nodded, released her hands and returned to his chair beside Winnie. By the time he refilled his glass and lifted it to hers, there was a warm appreciative glow where her anger had been. He was a man who loved and showed it, and voiced it. Unashamedly. How rare.

"I'd rather not spend the rest of the night with you mad at me, so let's have a toast to peace, okay, Miss Gardner?"

She touched the rim of her glass to his. "Pax," she agreed as the ting of crystal sounded faintly. "And I'm sorry, too. It really was never you I was upset with."

"Good." He drank, but his eyes never left hers as the rim of his glass tipped up, and her gaze remained steadily on his arresting dark eyes until she thought she saw the sparkle of the wine bubbles reflected in their brown irises. A vague nagging ache of tension seemed to disappear from between her shoulder blades now that they were on equable terms again.

Their dinner was served, and while they ate chicken breast and mushroom sauce on a bed of wild rice, they talked about nice safe subjects: his business, the vintage-auto club, her job at the hospital, the bride's and groom's 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.