Diana Palmer - The Wedding In White

“Can it, Nat,” Mack said as he opened a stall and led a horse out. He proceeded to saddle it, ignoring Natalie and Bob.

“I’ll be back by midnight!” Bob called, seeing an opportunity to escape.

“You heard what I said,” Mack called after him.

Bob made an indignant sound and stomped out of the barn.

“He’s just sixteen, Mack,” she said, regaining her composure enough to join him as he fastened the cinch tight.

He glanced at her. “You were just seventeen when you were dating the football hero,” he reminded her.

She stared at him curiously. “Yes, but except for a few very chaste kisses, there wasn’t much going on.”

He gave her an amused glance before he went back to his chore. He tested the cinch, found it properly tight and adjusted the stirrups.

“What does that look mean?” Natalie asked curiously.

“I had a long talk with him when I found out you’d accepted a date for the Christmas dance from him.”

Her lips fell open. “You what?”

He slid a booted foot into the stirrup and vaulted into the saddle with easy grace. He leaned over the pommel and looked at Natalie. “I told him that if he seduced you, he’d have me to contend with. I told his parents the same thing.”

She was horrified. She could hardly breathe. “Of all the interfering, presumptuous—”

“You were raised in an orphanage by spinster women, and then you lived with your aunt, who couldn’t even talk about kissing without going into a swoon,” he said, and he didn’t smile. “You knew nothing about men or sex or hormones. Someone had to protect you, and there wasn’t anybody else to do it.”

“You had no right!”

His dark eye slid over her with something like possession. “I had more right than I’ll ever tell you,” he said quietly. “And that’s all I’ll say on the subject.”

He turned the horse, deaf to her fury.

“Mack!” she raged.

He paused and looked at her. “Tell Viv she can have her friend over for supper Saturday night, on the condition that you come, too.”

“I don’t want to come!”

He hesitated for a minute, then turned the horse and came back to her. “You and I will always disagree on some things,” he said. “But we’re closer than you realize. I know you,” he added in a tone that made her knees wobble. “And you know me.”

She couldn’t fight the emotions that made her more confused, more stirred, than she’d ever been before. She looked at him with eyes that betrayed her longing for him.

He drew in a long, slow breath, and his face seemed to lose its rigor. “I won’t apologize for looking out for you.”

“I’m not part of your family, Mack,” she said huskily. “You can tell Viv and Bob and Charles what to do, but you can’t tell me!”

He studied her angry face and smiled gently, in a way that he rarely smiled at anyone. “Oh, I’m not telling, baby,” he replied softly.

“And don’t call me baby, either!”

“All that fire and fury,” he mused, watching her. “What a waste.”

She was so confused that she could hardly think. “I don’t understand you at all today!”

“No,” he agreed, the smile fading. He looked straight into her eyes, unblinking. “You work hard at it, too.”

He turned the horse, and this time he kept riding.

She wanted to throw things. She couldn’t believe that he’d said such things to her, that he’d come so close in the barn that for an instant she’d thought that he meant to kiss her. And not a chaste brush on the cheek, like at Christmas parties under the mistletoe, either. But a kiss like ones she’d seen in movies, where the hero crushed the heroine against the length of his body and put his mouth so hard against hers that she couldn’t breathe at all.

She tried to picture Mack’s hard, beautiful mouth on her lips, and she shivered. It was bad enough remembering how it had been that rainy night that Carl had died, when one thin strap on her nightgown had slid down her arm and…

Oh, no, she told herself firmly. Oh, no, none of that! She wasn’t going to start daydreaming about Mack again. She’d gone down that road once already, and the consequences had been horrible.

She went back into the house to tell Viv the bad news.

“But that’s wonderful!” her friend exclaimed, all smiles instead of tears. “You’ll come, won’t you?”

“He’s trying to manipulate me,” Natalie said irritably. “I won’t let him do that!”

“But if you don’t come, Whit can’t come,” came the miserable reply. “You just have to, Nat, if I’m your friend at all.”

Natalie grumbled, but in the end, she gave in.

Vivian hugged her tight. “I knew you would,” she said happily. “I can hardly wait until Saturday! You’ll like him, and so will Mack. He’s such a sweet guy.”

Natalie hesitated, but if she didn’t tell her friend, Mack certainly would, and less kindly. “Viv, did you know that he got a girl in trouble?”

“Well, yes,” she said. “But it was her fault,” she pointed out. “She chased him and then when they did it, she wouldn’t let him use anything. He told me.”

Natalie blushed for the second time that day, terribly uncomfortable around people who seemed content to speak about the most embarrassing things openly.

“Sorry,” Viv said with a kind smile. “You’re very unworldly, you know.”

“That’s just what your brother said,” Natalie muttered.

Vivian studied her curiously for a long time. “He may not like the idea of Whit, but he likes the idea of your friend Dave Markham even less,” she confided.

“He’s one to criticize my social life, while he runs around with the likes of Glenna the Bimbo. Stop laughing, it isn’t funny!”

Vivian cleared her throat. “Sorry. But she’s really very nice,” she told her friend. “She just likes men.”

“One after the other,” Natalie agreed, “and even simultaneously, from what people say. Your brother is going to catch some god-awful disease and it will be his own fault. Why are you still laughing?”

“You’re jealous,” Vivian said.

“That’ll be the day!” Natalie said harshly. “I’m going home.”

“He’s only gone out with her twice,” her best friend continued, unabashed, “and he didn’t even have lipstick on his shirt when he came home. They just went to a movie together.”

“I’m sure your brother didn’t get to his present age without learning how to get around lipstick stains,” she said belligerently.

“The ladies seem to like him,” Vivian said.

“Until he speaks and ruins his image,” Natalie added. “His idea of diplomacy is a gun and a smile. If Glenna likes him, it’s only because she’s taped his mouth shut!”

Vivian laughed helplessly. “I guess that could be true,” she confessed. “But he is a refreshing change from all the politically correct people who are afraid to open their mouths at all.”

“I suppose so.”

Vivian stood up. “Natalie?”

“What?”

She stared at her friend quietly. “You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”

Natalie turned quickly toward the door. She wasn’t going to answer. “I really have got to go. I have exams next week, and I’d better hit the books hard. It wouldn’t do to flub my exams and not graduate,” she added.

Vivian wanted to tell Natalie that she had a pretty good idea of what had happened between her and Mack so long ago, but it would embarrass Natalie if she came right out with it. Her friend was so repressed.

“I don’t know what happened,” she lied, “but you have to remember, you were just seventeen. He was twenty-three.”

Natalie turned, her face pale and shocked. “He…told you?”