Carole Buck - Zoe And The Best Man

“All right. All right,” Annie backpedaled. “What I’m trying to say is that now that I’ve finally met you know who after so many years of hearing about him…well, to be perfectly honest, hon, Gabriel Flynn is not what I expected.”

“And just what, pray tell, was that?”

“It’s hard to put into words. Sort of a…mmm…sort of a cross between Rambo and a male chauvinist troglodyte.”

The observation was vintage Annie, Zoe thought wryly. “But now that you’ve seen him you’ve decided he’s a fine piece of beef?”

“He’s certainly no Congressman Talcott Emerson III.”

This jibe was vintage Annie, too.

“Please.” Zoe held up her right hand, palm forward, like a traffic cop. She should have known her friend would get around to this, she chided herself. She really should have. While Annie had never been particularly complimentary about her choice of men, she’d become increasingly vocal on the subject since marrying Matt Powell in late April. “Do not—I repeat, do not—start up with that, Hannah Elaine.”

Zoe had had a relationship with Congressman Talcott Emerson III referred to by many as T. E. Three—several years ago. She’d thought he was everything she wanted in a man. He was so solid. So stable. Yet when it had come to the crunch, when this seemingly perfect-for-her man had brought out an engagement ring set with a flawless two-carat diamond that had belonged to his grandmother and proposed marriage, she’d found herself shaking her head and shrinking away.

For reasons she still couldn’t explain, the idea of spending the rest of her life with Talcott had suddenly filled her with an irrational sense of nothingness. Her brain had told her that she was being offered the normalcy she craved as an antidote to her harum-scarum upbringing. Yet something else had ominously warned that this normalcy would be, for her at least, a very numbed-out form of existence. And so, to her vast astonishment, she’d wound up thanking Talcott for his proposal, then politely turning him down.

He’d seemed surprised by the rejection but not terribly upset. He hadn’t even suggested that she might like to take a bit more time to think it over.

His political handlers had been less sanguine in their reaction. Apparently convinced that she was prime congressional spouse material—“A potential First Lady!” one of them had enthused—they’d come to her without Talcott’s knowledge and pleaded with her to change her mind.

She hadn’t.

Her employer, Arietta Ogden, had assured her that she’d done the right thing in saying no to Talcott. So, too, had Annie. After a certain amount of soul-searching, and some intensive questioning of her sanity, Zoe had decided that she agreed.

“I wasn’t denigrating your ex-almost fiance,” Annie protested. “My opinion of him has been going up ever since he punched out Trent Barnes, who, incidentally, Peachy tells me just happens to be the MayWinnies’ great-nephew, during that ambush-interview attempt on the local TV news last December. Just a few mornings ago I said something very nice about him. There was a photograph of him and the soon-to-be Mrs. Congressman Talcott Emerson III—you know, the multimarried Melissa ‘Call me Honeychile’ Reeves—on the front page of the Atlanta Constitution. I pointed it out to Matt, and I told him that even though nobody’s ever going to mistake T. E. Three for a wild and crazy guy, he’s definitely looking a lot less stodgy than he did back when you were going out with him.”

Zoe groaned.

“Speaking of stodgy—”

“Don’t.”

“I was just wondering about your latest beau,” Annie said, all brown-eyed innocence. “The Harvard-educated lawyer you met at the White House. You know. The one with the reversible name.”

Zoe reclaimed her champagne flute and took a healthy gulp. “Carter Howard.”

“Oh, right. Carter Howard.” Annie edged forward in her seat, her expression conspiratorial. “How would you rate him against Flynn?”

Zoe drained the remainder of her sparkling wine and signaled a passing waiter for a refill. “I wouldn’t.”

There was an unpleasant silence. It came to an end when Annie heaved a remorseful-sounding sigh and said, “I’m sorry, Zoe. Really. Forget I asked. I don’t know what got into me. I’d blame PMS, but it’s not that time of the month.”

Zoe fingered the slender stem of the flute for a second or two, then gave her friend a crooked smile of conciliation. “That’s all right. I probably overreacted. But it’s a sensitive subject with me.”

“‘It’ being—” Annie inclined her head toward the dance floor “-him.”

This time Zoe did look. But only for an instant. Flynn’s tuxedoed image was already burned into her brain. She’d entertained a desperate hope that he’d resemble a trussed-up penguin in formal wear. That hope had died as she’d watched him take his place next to Luc at the altar for the start of the wedding ceremony. To say that black-tie elegance suited Flynn was to understate the case.

“Exactly,” she confirmed, her throat constricting.

“After nearly sixteen years?” Annie’s forehead was furrowed. She looked genuinely concerned.

“Don’t worry.” Zoe pushed the champagne glass away from her and gave a humorless little laugh. “I’ll be over it tomorrow morning.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. I’m going for closure.”

Annie grimaced. “I thought you had to spill your guts on some sleazy syndicated talk show to get that.”

“What can I say?” Zoe shrugged. “I like to do things on my own.”

“Mmm.”

There was another silence. Less charged with tension than the previous one, but still not particularly comfortable. Eventually Zoe felt compelled to say, “I’m okay, Annie. Honestly.”

Annie shook her head slowly, her eyes narrowing. “I don’t think so.”

“Annie—”

“No, Zoe.” The tone was determined, brooking no dispute. “I can’t let this go. I have never seen you as unraveled as you were a few minutes ago when I was ragging you about Flynn. You’ve always been the epitome of poise. And that’s not just my opinion. Last night at the rehearsal dinner, I overheard Terry Bellehurst tell someone it’s too bad the United States doesn’t have a titled aristocracy because you’d make a fabulous Serene Highness. He also thinks you’d look swell in a tiara, by the way, but that’s neither here nor there. The thing is…this, uh, ‘sensitivity’ you say you’re going to get over…is it because you, uh, uh—Lord, I don’t know how to put this. Okay. Okay. Let me ask you this. How… different is Gabriel Flynn now from what he was before? In the jungle, I mean. With you. For those, uh, five days.”

“He’s older.”

“Zoe!”

“Well, he is.”

“And so are you. Is he more intense?”

“I don’t-”

“More attractive?”

“Annie—”

“Sexier?”

“What do you really want to know?” Zoe glared at her friend. “Whether he was as much of a hunk then as he is now?”

God.

Oh, God.

What had she said?

Zoe would have given almost anything to recall the words that had just erupted out of her. Because implicit in them was something she’d never admitted to herself, much less to anyone else.

She’d gone from girlish oblivion to womanly awareness during those five days in the jungle with Gabriel James McNally Flynn. And one of the reasons she’d hated him so much was that he’d never noticed.

Annie blinked several times, clearly taken aback. But she recovered very swiftly. “Yeah,” she said after a second or two, her voice mild. “Basically. Was he?”