Doris Fell - Long-Awaited Wedding

Keep cool, he told himself. Don’t let Nick goad you. If Maureen hadn’t been bought off, Adrian would never have come into your life. With Maureen you had nothing but a few weeks. But at least with Adrian you had twelve happy years.

“Where is Dad’s file on Maureen Birkland?” he asked.

“In storage. Can hardly think of Dad tossing anything away.”

“I want it. Find it for me.”

“Forget that old file. We have more important things to worry about Your whole executive board thinks you’ll blow this merger unless you snap out of this grieving process.”

“Did you put that idea into their heads, Nick? You know I’ve been better lately. I’ll take care of my private life. Leave the Larhaven-Fabian merger to me,” he said acidly.

Nick had never learned when to back off. He sat there sullenly, twiddling his thumbs. “You’ve run the show for ten years ever since Dad’s death, even though you never wanted the job. Let me have a crack at it now.”

“Dad left the job to me because he knew I could handle it. You and Chris weren’t ready for it.”

“Chris doesn’t want it. I do.”

Nick was their father all over again. Greedy for power. Ready to cut down those who stood in his way. “Nick, I’m only going to say this once. I’m going to see this merger under way and running smoothly. Work with me or get out.”

The wind had picked up. He felt as empty as the whirlpool spinning on the lake, as though his life were swirling out of control. It was tough having your family oppose you. Perhaps Nick was right. Maybe it was time to resign and let his brothers take over.

How he longed to escape to a cabin on the river, do nothing. How he longed for inner peace. Peace like Adrian had found. But he didn’t know where to find it. And God, if He existed, seemed distant

An hour down the Pacific Coast Highway from Maureen Davenport’s apartment, a young woman with Allen’s dark eyes and Maureen’s smile and long thick lashes stood by the window of her parents’ home, a bride’s magazine clutched in her hand.

Outside, a violent windstorm was piping through the canyon, howling through the tree tops, and rattling the windowpanes where Heather Reynard stood. The gusting wind swept everything in its path, bending sign posts, crumpling tree limbs like tissue paper. A few logs slid down the hillside and were swallowed up in the yawning mouth of a ten-foot wave that surged along the rocky shoreline.

Still Heather and her family were lucky. Last week it had been the fires raging out of control in the Silverado Canyon, flames leaping and bounding and turning the sky from a brilliant red glow to a smoky-gray. It had destroyed homes in its path and turned them to ashes, leaving hillsides charred with an ominous black canopy that had made both people and animals homeless. A hundred acres had already burned. With the winds tonight, the hot spots of the recent fires in the Silverado Canyon and the San Bernardino foothills could flare up and fan into raging infernos.

Heather shivered, the chill of the windowpane cold against her arms. Not one twinkling star could be seen. The only movement was the light of a jumbo jet. A smoky haze lined the horizon, and rain clouds hid the Big Dipper. But as she crouched lower and stared out the window, she saw a full hazy moon lying low in the sky, peeking out from the clouds, round as a yellow pumpkin.

“Oh, Brett,” she exclaimed, “come look at the full moon.” Her fiance crossed the room and slipped his arm around her slender shoulders.

“Beautiful,” he said, but when she turned to face him, he was looking at her.

“Oh, Brett!”

“You said that already.”

Brett. Martin, at twenty-six, was a foot taller than Heather, and seven years older, his height and broad shoulders rendering him a fortress of strength that pleased her. He was as fair-skinned and blond as she was dark. His eyes were wide-set, his brows thick, his smile full. Brett was not handsome, but she thought of him that way. Her own good-looking knight, so wholesome with his brown maple-sugar eyes, eyes that made her melt when he looked at her, the way he was looking at her now.

“Brett, the storm is worse. I don’t want you out in it.”

“Honey, I have to drive back to Los Angeles this evening.”

“Not in this wind. Mother’s making up a room for you.”

He sighed resignedly. “I have class at eight”

“And I want you alive so you can attend it. You can get up early. I’ll even set my alarm and make you breakfast.”

He looked doubtful. “Okay,” she told him, “Mother can cook it for you. But. I’m learning, Brett. By the time we marry, I’ll be a pretty good cook. Mother is determined.”

“With your unpredictable schedule with the airline, I hope she’s successful. And if not,” he teased, “I’ll talk your mom into moving in with us.”

“She wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Is she still opposed to our marrying in August?”

“No, she’s resigned herself. She thinks I’m too young, but. I’ll still be too young when I’m thirty. Mothers are like that. And as long as I eventually finish college—”

The bride’s magazine slipped from her fingers. Brett stooped to pick it up. “Then what’s wrong, honey?”

“This miserable weather.”

“We have no control over that” He lapsed into his lofty seminary voice. “The storms and winds come from God’s storehouse. Oppose the weather and we oppose God.”

“You’re preaching again, Brett,” she cautioned.

“That’s what. I’m training for, my darling.”

“But you’re not in the pulpit now, and I don’t want you to sound that way ever. It’s your openness and honesty that first attracted me to you, Brett. You’re too genuine to play a role.”

“Heather, all my life I’ve wanted to be a preacher. I’m a third-generation—”

“I want you to be what you want to be. But be yourself, Brett. Lost men and women are depending on you. They’ll like you better and trust you more if you don’t sound preachy.”

“Do you have someone lost in mind?” he asked.

She nodded. “A woman I’ve never met.”

“I’m not up to a guessing game. Who?”

“My birth mother. She may not know that. God loves her.”

“We just have to trust that she will,” he said confidently.

Heather fell silent. Faith and simplicity were easy choices for Brett. He really did credit the winds and storms to God’s storehouse. She leaned against him as his arm tightened around her.

“You look so upset, Heather. What’s troubling you?”

“It’s the guest list for our wedding. I want to invite someone and I’m afraid to tell you—and even more afraid to tell Mom and Dad.”

He winked. “Let me guess. That older flight attendant who gives you such a bad time when you work together?”

“No, but we’re doing much better now. Or maybe I’m doing better on the job.”

“Not your old boyfriend? We agreed not to invite him.”

“He’s coming anyway. His family and mine are old friends.”

“You want to invite someone you don’t know to our wedding? Then you’d better tell me.”

Her voice trembled. “I don’t think you’re going to like what. I say—but. I want my birth mother there.”

The storm had moved inside. The way Brett looked down at her now, there was no way that his maple-sugar eyes could melt anything. He was obviously displeased with her decision.

“You can’t be serious. What if she rejects you again?”

“That’s cruel.”

“She was cruel to leave you.”

“But. I won’t know why she left unless I try to find her.”

He turned to face her and placed his hands firmly on her shoulders. “You said your birth mother. What about your father?”