Stop the Wedding! (17 page)

“What took you so long, dear?” Belle asked, casting an anxious glance over both of them. She probably thought they were arguing, he realized. If she only knew.

“Remember that flak vest Daddy used to wear?” Annabelle asked, her voice breezy.

Belle stopped, her full attention on her daughter. “Of course.”

She held up the button. “Look what was in the bottom of my boot. How do you suppose it got there?”

As her mother took the button, Clay found himself studying Annabelle. Was the entire incident a setup? If so, what could the women possibly hope to gain? And deep in his heart he didn’t want to believe that Annabelle would stoop to using the memory of her father as some kind of a ploy.

“It must have fallen off his vest and into your boot when I was packing away those things,” Belle murmured, seemingly far away.

“This place is beautiful.” Pink-nosed Annabelle changed the subject abruptly, lifting her arms and turning in a circle, encompassing the green, moist landscape. Using her phone, she snapped several photos of the incredible view, a few of Belle and Martin, and to his chagrin, one of him.

Clay squirmed. Never at ease in front of a camera, he was especially unnerved at the idea of Annabelle having a photo of him—it seemed familiar and
intimate
. Then he chastised himself for reading too much into a simple gesture—one might think he was projecting his own muddled feelings onto the woman.

Meanwhile, Annabelle put one arm around Belle’s shoulder, and the other around Martin’s shoulder. “Thank you for inviting us to come along. I’m having a great time.” She gave him a pointed look.

Clay narrowed his eyes—what a little chameleon she was. Following her lead, he nodded his agreement. Actually, he
was
enjoying himself more than he’d expected. It was the fresh air, he reasoned. Invigorating.

“In fact, I think you should continue to celebrate your anniversary every month even after you’re married.” Annabelle kissed her mother’s cheek, then took a seat at the table.

Clay bit down on his cheek. Where was this headed?

“We just might,” Martin said, winking at Belle, then he leaned over to snatch a pickle from a vegetable-laden paper plate.

“With the failure rate of repeat marriages,” Annabelle continued in a casual tone, “it’s probably best to take it a month at a time.” She plucked a celery stick from the plate and bit into it, snapping off the end with gusto.

Clay suppressed a smile, shed his own backpack and removed a bottle of water. “She’s right,” he added. “You two were smart to set a precedent of celebrating every month—so many couples never even reach their one-year anniversary.”

At the wary exchange of glances between Martin and Belle, he knew they had struck a nerve, so he kept talking. “Was that your idea, Dad?”

Belle’s gaze was glued on Martin. “Yes,” she answered for him, her tone tinged with suspicion.

“Ah, that makes sense,” Clay said to Annabelle as he swung his leg over the bench seat next to Martin, opposite his accomplice. “Because Dad’s last four marriages didn’t make it to the one-year mark.”

Annabelle made a sympathetic noise, then swept her gaze over the food-laden table. “Whew, I’m starved.”

“My stomach has been growling for the last two miles,” Clay chimed in, then unwrapped the sandwich on the plate in front of him and lifted the top piece of crusty bread to appraise the filling. “Why is it everything tastes better in the outdoors?” He addressed their parents, but Belle still stared at his father, unsmiling.

“Everything Belle prepares is a delight,” Martin boasted, oblivious to the tense undercurrents. “She’s a wonderful cook.”

Annabelle nodded her agreement, swallowing. “So, Martin, you expect Mom to cook, what—three meals a day?”

Clay chewed a bite of his roast turkey club. Surely his dad was smart enough to dodge
that
land mine.

“Of course not,” Martin said, patting Belle’s hand. “Two meals a day will suit me fine.”

Clay winced. Belle shot Martin a sharp glance.

“Well, you’re right about Mom’s cooking,” Annabelle said, licking mustard from her finger. “Has she made you her special fried pork chops with biscuits and gravy?”

Martin nodded, moaning in appreciation, which elicited a forgiving smile from Belle.

Clay took a long drink of water, studying Annabelle. For someone who was trying to get to his father’s money, she was doing a good job of sabotaging the engagement. Could he have been wrong? Could Henry have been mistaken? A blow to his shin beneath the table took his breath, and he nearly choked. Annabelle’s eyes widened meaningfully, and he realized she expected him to jump in.

“Um, Dad, didn’t you tell your agent you’d drop ten pounds by Labor Day to emcee that fitness award show?”

Martin’s hand stopped, a deviled egg halfway to his mouth, and looked down at his midsection. “You’re right, son, I did.” He returned the fattening morsel to his plate, and gave Belle an apologetic look. “Perhaps you
could
start cooking lighter meals. It would be good for both of us, Belle.”

Annabelle gasped. “You think my mom is fat? I think she looks fabulous, don’t you, Clay?”

At the bewildered look on his father’s face, Clay almost felt sorry for him, but he reminded himself he had Martin’s best interests at heart. “Yeah, Dad, Belle looks great. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Belle stood abruptly, her expression hurt. “I’m not twenty-one, Martin.”

Martin jumped to his feet. “I know you’re not twenty-one! If I’d wanted a twenty-one-year-old—”

“Again,” Annabelle injected.

“—again,” he repeated involuntarily, “I would’ve proposed to a twenty-one-year-old!”

“Again?” Belle asked, leaned forward to plant her hands on the table. “And just exactly when
was
the last time you dated a twenty-one-year-old?”

“Wasn’t Barbie twenty-one?” Clay asked his father, then removed the tomato from his sandwich. She was the last lover Clay had bought off.

“No!” Martin thundered. “She was twenty-five!”

“
Who
is Barbie?” Belle demanded.

“She’s no one,” Martin hurried to explain. “Just a girl who had a crush on me…a long time ago.”

“For shame, Martin,” Belle said, crossing her arms. “That’s younger than my own daughter!”

“But I didn’t marry her!”

Clay watched the drama unfolding, unable to believe that a few well-placed statements could have triggered such bedlam. Across the table, Annabelle quirked one eyebrow in triumph and chewed her food slowly.

He swallowed. The woman was frighteningly good at manipulation—there was a lesson to be learned here.

“Did the girl sign a prenuptial agreement?” Annabelle whispered loudly to Clay, although the comment was clearly meant to be overhead.

“No,” he replied, which was true because she’d taken the pay-off money and disappeared.

Belle’s jaw fell and she glared at Martin. “Is that why you’re picking a fight? Because I haven’t signed a prenuptial agreement?”

“Of course not!” Martin thundered.

“Have the papers drawn up,” Belle declared. “I’ll have Annabelle take a look at them and make sure I’m not being taken advantage of.”

Clay cleared his throat. “But how could you be taken advantage of if the money belongs to my father?”

“My mother has assets of her own,” Annabelle said, standing and planting her hands on the table in front of him.

Clay stood and leaned toward her. “The situation is hardly comparable.”

Annabelle’s mouth tightened. “Mom,” she said, not taking her eyes off him, “the first day I met Clay—”

“Annabelle—” he warned, shaking his head.

“—he thought
I
was Martin’s fiancée, and he offered me twenty thousand dollars to walk away.”

“Clay,” Martin admonished. “You didn’t!”

Clay shifted his gaze to his father. “You know it wouldn’t have been the first time I’ve had to pay off a woman for you, Dad.”

“Martin!” Belle cried. “Is that true?”

While his father fumbled for an answer, Annabelle crossed her arms and donned a satisfied smile. “Clay told me Martin
expected
him to make the offer to get him off the hook of marrying you.”

“I think it’s time to go home,” Belle said, her voice tremulous. She began shoving food into containers. A deviled egg slid across the table and rolled off, plopping onto the ground.

Martin put his fingers to his temples. “Would somebody tell me what just happened?”

“Dad,” Clay said quietly, then made a cutting motion with his hand.

“I’ll help you, Mom,” Annabelle said, making comforting sounds as she joined her. Martin walked away from the picnic table, shaking his head. Clay looked at his sandwich with longing, then begrudgingly re-wrapped it and shoved it into his backpack.

His father stood with one hand leaning against a sycamore tree, staring out over the valleys of northern Georgia, the hues of green hinting at the distances—hunter, evergreen, olive, emerald, pistachio. Martin’s head was down, reminding Clay of a little boy, and the irony of the child becoming the parent swept over him. His father’s sadness always shook him—he remembered the ghastly weeks following his mother’s and baby sister’s funerals. Only the knowledge that his father’s heart was resilient and his affection for Belle temporary kept Clay from feeling morose for the current situation.

“Great place,” he observed, filling his lungs with pine-scented air.

Martin remained silent and Clay was startled to see his eyes were unusually moist. A blink later, the sheen was gone. “Your mother and I used to come up here.”

Clay’s heart squeezed. “I didn’t know that.”

“We brought you once or twice, but you were small.” Martin laughed suddenly. “Delia wouldn’t even put you down for fear you would run off the edge of some cliff.”

“I don’t have clear memories of Atlanta until just before she died,” Clay admitted.

His father turned back to the view. “The two of you were with me most of the time in Los Angeles. When she became pregnant the last time, she wanted to come back home to Atlanta and be with her mother, and I agreed. By that time I was tiring of L.A. myself, so I sold the house there and secured an apartment to work out of, then commuted back and forth to see her.” Martin looked back and smiled. “And to see you, of course.”

Clay’s throat tightened.

His father sighed. “I guess I thought by bringing Belle up here, I’d recapture some of the happiness I had with Delia.” He looked past Clay’s shoulder. “Maybe I was trying too hard.”

One aspect of Martin’s personality that had always kept Clay at arm’s length was his father’s capacity for melodrama—the few times he’d invested himself in whatever Martin was passionate about at the moment, he’d been left holding the bag while his father moved on to another pursuit. Clay closed his eyes against a mounting tension headache. Why couldn’t life be simple?

“We’re ready to go if you are,” Annabelle called.

And if he didn’t already have enough to worry about….

Suppressing a groan, Clay inhaled deeply for strength to turn and face what was rapidly becoming his most perplexing problem of all.

Chapter Thirteen

“SO, THE LOVEBIRDS are having second thoughts?” Michaela asked.

“Uh-huh.” Annabelle sat in a chaise lounge beneath a small elm tree in her mother’s back yard. “They decided to postpone the wedding and give each other a little space. Mom agreed to come back with me and stay until I’m settled into the house.” She frowned up at the scant branches swaying above her. Trapped in the shadow of Martin Castleberry’s towering pines, her mother’s trees would never have a chance to grow. How very fitting. “We’re catching a flight to Detroit the day after tomorrow.”

She squirmed in the piece of wicker furniture, restless and itchy. The temperature teetered on the verge of ninety, as did the humidity level. The sky was a hodge-podge of clear patches, cottony clouds and distant charcoal-colored thunderheads. Somewhere in Atlanta it was raining, but at the moment, the real storm raged here, inside her.

“I thought that was what you wanted,” Mike said, bringing her back to earth. “Why don’t you sound happy?”

She laid her head back and sighed. Why, indeed? “Because Mom’s been crying for the last three days.” The tears wrenched her heart and reminded her of the dreadful days following her father’s funeral.

Mike made a sorrowful sound. “Poor Belle. Maybe she really loves this man.”

“Maybe she does,” Annabelle conceded. “But that doesn’t mean that Melvin—”
“—Martin—”

“—loves
her
, or will be faithful to her.”

“And you’re positive that he doesn’t, and won’t?”

She stood and rolled her neck side to side to help ease the tension in her shoulders—sleep had eluded her again last night. “Mike, the man’s history with women is irrefutable.”

Her friend laughed. “Always the lawyer. Can’t people change?”

She frowned. “No.” She thought she heard a splash from the other side of the fifteen-foot wooden privacy fence that separated her mother’s backyard from the Castleberrys’. A swim would feel fabulous about right now. She wondered if it was Martin or Clay indulging in the cool water.

Or perhaps a female guest?

“People can’t change?” Mike whistled. “You’re being awfully defensive. What else is bothering you?”

Annabelle picked her way between the orange day-lilies toward a coin-sized hole in a fence plank left by a knot. “Nothing is bothering me. I mean, I’m sorry that my mother is upset, but she’ll recover.”

“Why do I have the feeling you had something to do with their little spat?”

“Clay and I—”

“Clay?” Mike cut in. “So you’ve been plotting with the junior Mr. Castleberry?”

She bristled at her friend’s insinuating tone, and pushed away the memory of sneaking a photo of the man on their hike. “We have the same goal, that’s all. And we might have given our parents a little push, but better they acknowledge their differences now rather than later.”

Annabelle leaned forward and pressed her eye to the opening just in time to see Clay hoist himself up out of the pool. Her pulse surged.