Cathie Linz - A Wife In Time

“Which one is he?” Roy asked.

The lying, deceitful one, Susannah was tempted to reply. Instead she said, “The dark-haired one with the wire-rimmed glasses.”

“Sounds like nerdiness runs in the family,” Roy noted with a laugh.

Guess again, Susannah thought to herself. If there was a nerdy bone in Kane Wilder’s body, she hadn’t seen it. His dark business suit had a European cut that spoke of quiet elegance. Not a nerdy plastic penholder in sight. The only nonconforming element of his attire had been the tie he’d been wearing, as she only now recalled the tiny blue computer screens that had adorned the burgundy silk.

He might have been attractive, had it not been for the way he’d glared at her. Not the kind of man to make an apology easily. But apologize to her he would, because he’d made a mistake big-time when he’d crossed her. Talk about computer chips might make her tremble, but Kane Wilder she could handle!

* * *

Kane entered his hotel room and headed straight for the phone. His afternoon had been consumed with taking care of his company’s business. Now it was time for family business.

Automatically punching in the numbers for his calling card, Kane reflected back on his meeting with Susannah Hall. It hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped. He hated surprises, and she’d certainly been one.

He’d expected something different, someone different—not a sweet-faced, sharp-tongued woman with a temper to match his. And big brown eyes that seemed to secretly laugh at him, effectively telling him that she thought he was an idiot.

Kane wasn’t accustomed to being looked at that way. Most people considered him to be of above-average intelligence. Way above. He’d skipped ahead two years in grade school and another two in his college’s accelerated program.

The bottom line was that Kane had been called “gifted” by his teachers and “good-looking” by the women in his life. He prided himself on not conforming to the nerdy stereotype so many of his cohorts were tagged with. He’d been called “a maverick” and “a loner” accustomed to being on his own.

But he wasn’t entirely on his own. He never had been. He had Chuck. Their mother had died when Chuck was only four. Kane had been fourteen—ready, willing and able to take his brother under his wing to protect him from their abusive alcoholic father. The old man had finally drunk himself to death on the eve of Kane’s eighteenth birthday. Kane held no fond memories of his father.

With help from Philip Durant, his counselor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kane had petitioned the court for legal custody of his then eight-year-old brother. Philip and his wife had become surrogate grandparents to Chuck and firm believers in Kane’s determination to make a better life for himself and his brother.

Now Kane had that better life, but his brother didn’t seem to appreciate it one bit. Kane wished Philip or his wife were still alive to advise him, but they’d both passed away in a car accident two years ago. Kane still missed them, especially at moments like this.

The sound of his sister-in-law’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Hi, Ann,” he said with deliberate cheerfulness. Despite his initial misgivings about the advisability of his brother marrying at the young age of nineteen, he’d decided that Ann was good for Chuck. She kept his feet on the ground. At least she always had in the past. She was a sweet girl and she deserved better than this, Kane noted savagely. But his voice reflected none of his inner feelings as he asked to speak to his brother.

“He’s not here right now,” Ann replied in an unsteady voice that was husky with tears.

“What happened?” Kane demanded gently, not wanting to set his sister-in-law off again. “Did you two have another argument?”

“Chuck doesn’t really argue, you know that. He just quietly does whatever he wants.”

Kane swore softly. “I’ve been too easy on him.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Ann said. “We both know there’s only one person to blame. Her. Did you find her? Did you talk to her?”

Since this entire thing had begun, Ann had refused to use Susannah’s given name. Kane had told Ann about his intention of confronting Susannah once he’d discovered she was attending the conference. Working out of Boston as he did, this was his first chance to meet Susannah. “I found her and I talked to her,” he replied.

“What did she say?”

Kane was reluctant to tell Ann that Susannah Hall claimed she was innocent of any wrongdoing. Until Kane could talk to his brother himself, he decided not to be too specific about the details.

“Don’t you worry, Ann,” he reassured her. “I’ve got everything under control.”

* * *

Susannah was running late. So what else was new? she asked herself as she dumped her briefcase on the bed and kicked off her high heels. She sighed in relief, rubbing her toes as she sat on the bed for a second to catch her breath.

Two heartbeats later, her second was up. She headed for the closet. She only had half an hour to get ready for the big party tonight.

It was a must-attend function and promised to be a spectacular spread. The organizers had rented one of Savannah’s most impressive historical homes for the evening. Everything had been taken care of: from providing charter buses to take participants from their hotels to the historical district, right down to supplying rental costumes in the requested sizes.

Susannah’s period costume had arrived while she was still at the convention center, so it was with some trepidation that she pulled back the opaque garment bag to reveal a lovely dress in deep red velvet. She couldn’t believe the costume company had actually supplied her with the right color and size.

Finally, something was going right! Although she’d never admit it to a living soul, Kane’s appearance as an avenging angel this afternoon had thrown her. So had his accusations.

After stripping off her business suit, she carefully tugged the dress over her head. She was relieved to see that it did fit. She wasn’t relieved by the amount of cleavage it showed.

The dress, which zipped at the side so she was able to fasten it herself, had a long skirt, ending just above her ankles. After a long day on her feet, she wasn’t about to cramp her feet into another pair of high heels for what would no doubt be more standing tonight, so she instead chose a pair of velvet flats.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to do much with her hair. Savannah’s springtime humidity had turned her dark waves into an uncontrollable mop. The best she could do was pin it up so she wouldn’t get too hot.

The finishing touch to her outfit was an antique garnet necklace that was a favorite of hers. A matching pair of drop earrings and bracelet completed the set, which she’d inherited from her great-grandmother. Normally, Susannah didn’t bring the set on a business trip, but the promise of the costume party tonight had been too good an opportunity to resist.

Glancing at her watch, she swore softly. She only had five minutes to get downstairs and catch the charter bus going to the party. Susannah grabbed her purse and was out in the hallway before realizing that she should have switched to a smaller bag.

Such was her life in a nutshell, Susannah noted as she impatiently jabbed at the elevator button. She was almost organized. Almost together. But inevitably there would be one thing that threw a wrench in the plan. Tonight that one thing was her purse.

She was the last one to board the bus, where everyone was dressed to the nines. Once they reached the historical house, guests had to show their invitations at the door in order to be allowed inside. It took Susannah five minutes to find the gilt-edged invitation in her bag—which still held the apple she’d picked up for lunch, along with the personal cassette player she’d listened to on the flight that morning, among other things.