Wisconsin Wedding (Welcome To Tyler, No. 3) (7 page)

Nora screwed up her courage. “Have you heard from any of Cliff’s family or friends in Rhode Island?”

“Oh, I only invited family—just his mother and younger brother. His father’s dead. I don’t know any of his old friends.”

So Byron Sanders
hadn’t
been invited to Tyler. The lying fink. How had he found out about the wedding? From the Rhode Island Forresters? The mother or the younger brother must have blabbed to someone who’d blabbed…well, Byron would be on the receiving end of any manner of gossip and news. He was that way. If the reclusive Cliff Forrester did indeed come from a prominent East Coast family, Byron could have himself quite a coup if he managed to photograph his wedding.

“How long has it been since Cliff’s seen his family?” Nora asked casually.

Liza was getting well ahead of her. “Five years at least,” she said over her shoulder. “Why?”

“I was just curious. Sorry if I seem nosy—”

“No, that’s okay. You don’t seem nosy.” Liza stopped in the middle of the narrow path until Nora caught up with her, a matter of thirty seconds. Nora was intensely aware
of her new friend’s scrutiny. “You do seem a little…I don’t know, nervous or something.”

“I’m not—”

But Nora stopped, feeling her face drain of all color. Up ahead, probably on the same path, or not bothering with a path at all, two men were walking toward them. One clearly was Cliff Forrester. The other, just as clearly, unless Nora had gone completely off her rocker, was Byron Sanders.

“Hey, there!” Cliff called, waving.

Spotting him, Liza beamed and waved back. A woman in love. “What’re you up to? Who’s that with you?”

“I can’t hear you. Wait there and we’ll join you.”

Liza frowned, her hands on her hips as she peered down toward the lake and the two men. “That’s not one of Joe Santori’s crew, is it?”

“I don’t think so,” Nora said, gritting her teeth.

Then the two men came up over the rise and she could see Byron’s dark hair glistening in the sun, the hard edges of his face, his strong, even gait. The prospect of such ignominy, of having to deal with this man again, and in front of two friends—two potential victims of Byron Sanders’s wiles and charms—thoroughly unsettled and annoyed Nora.

She thought she saw him smiling.

The cad. Had he just recognized her? Did it amuse him to know he threw her off balance? Did he
enjoy
making her miserable?

I won’t give him the satisfaction,
she thought.

But as the two men came closer, Nora found herself muttering an oath Aunt Ellie certainly had never taught her.

Liza glanced at her, eyes twinkling. “Gee, Nora, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Nora could feel the color returning to her cheeks. “Sorry. I’m just…it’s possible I know this guy.”

“No kidding?”

Then they were approaching and Nora gritted her teeth, saying nothing, refusing even to look at Byron Sanders. She felt his presence, though. It was just that way with her and him—one of those uncomfortable realities, like poison ivy and root canals.

“Hi, Cliff,” Liza said. “Who’s your friend?”

“He’s not a friend.”

Nora’s eyes shot up. Cliff was looking pointedly at Byron Sanders. Had he found out what a two-faced weasel his fellow Rhode Islander was? Had he—

With a brief, dark glance at Nora, Byron stepped forward, stretching out his hand. “Hello, Liza,” he said in his most suave, debonair voice. “It’s a pleasure finally to meet you.”

“Oh, yeah? Who are you?”

Only Liza.

“My name’s Byron,” he said, with no detectable catch in his voice. “Byron Sanders Forrester.”

Nora’s knees when weak.

Liza said, “Then you’re…”

“Yes. I’m Cliff’s brother.”

G
IVEN THAT SHE HAD
an audience, Nora managed to keep her mouth shut and not go for the bastard’s throat. She prided herself on her ability to make a quick recovery and hold back her emotions under the most trying circumstances, but this was beyond trying. She knew she must look shocked, pale, stiff, furious. But at least she wasn’t in the process of committing a felonious act of violence.

“It’s great to meet you, Byron,” Liza said, not a little unnerved herself. Nora could see her glancing sideways at her husband-to-be, who hadn’t, of course, known his brother was invited to their wedding. “When did you get here?”

“Yesterday.”

Byron, Nora observed, was the only one who didn’t look as if he wanted to strangle someone. He was used to sticky situations, however, and wasn’t a man who could be easily analyzed from his outward appearance.

“Do you need a place to stay?” Liza asked. “Cliff and I have tons of room at the lodge—”

“That’s okay. I’ll manage.”

Her hands locked into fists, Nora struggled to retain her composure. Had Byron squealed to his brother about their affair? There were too many dangers, too many questions.

Cliff moved close to his fiancée. “I promised Byron something to eat.”

“Sure,” Liza said. “Nora, would you care to join us? We could have an early lunch.”

Nora would rather have joined a public snake roasting. “No, thank you.” She sounded hoarse and a bit overcome even to herself. She cleared her throat. “I need to get back to the store. It’s good to see you, Cliff.” She made herself turn to the dark-eyed weasel. “Good to meet you, Mr. Forrester.”

Because she was trying to be grown-up and not betray her true feelings, the way she said “Forester” was frosty but not icy-sharp.

Cliff must have noticed. “Come on, Liza. You and I need to talk.”

“About what?” Liza asked innocently.

“You know.”

Never one on whom subtlety worked with any degree of regularity, Liza frowned. “I don’t get it.”

With a sigh of love and exasperation, Cliff took her by the elbow and hustled her off.

Nora tried to follow them, but Byron stopped her with one soft-spoken word. “Stay.”

In the ensuing silence, Nora could hear the rustling of the breeze in the grass and in the woods beyond the path. She could hear birds, the distant honking of geese and the quiet lapping of lake water on the rocky shoreline nearby. Her ex-lover hadn’t made another sound. She would have wondered if he’d slithered off to a sunny rock, but she could see his shadow. She refused to look at him. First she had to get a grip on herself.

Finally, he said, “I couldn’t think of any decent way to tell you.”

“Of course not. Decency isn’t your style.”

“I don’t blame you for being angry.”

He didn’t go on, but waited for her to respond. She kept
her silence. She couldn’t yet allow herself to indulge in a full reaction. She might start screaming or cursing at him. She might jump him. Worse, she might cry. She’d hate that. The absolute worst, however, was not knowing what she’d do. And that was how it had been from the start when she was around this man: she couldn’t count on being sensible. She couldn’t always predict how she’d react.

“Cliff is…” Byron broke off with a grunt of frustration and, Nora guessed, out-and-out irritation. She didn’t care. What did he want her to do? Look up at him angelically and say all was forgiven? If he was annoyed with her for her stony silence, with himself for the deep, dark hole he’d dug for himself, then good. She had no sympathy. But he went on quietly, in that gentle voice of her dreams, “Cliff’s my only brother, Nora. He’s been through a hell I can’t even imagine. I had to come back.”

“Yes,” she said stiffly, in her most holier-than-thou old maid tone. “I suppose so.”

“Sanders is my middle name.”

It had a nice ring to it. Byron Sanders Forrester. One of your good upper crust East Coast names. No doubt he knew how to sail and play lacrosse. Probably had a pair of horn-rimmed glasses tucked in a tweed coat pocket somewhere.

When she didn’t respond, Byron added, “My paternal grandmother was a Sanders. From Boston. Cliff’s named for my mother’s side of the family—Clifton Pierce Forrester. It’s just the two of us. We were raised in Providence. The Pierces have been there almost since the Puritans banished Roger Williams from Massachusetts in 1636 and he came to Narragansett Bay.”

By now his tone was only half-serious, but Nora neither smiled nor relaxed. She wished she trusted herself to be as spontaneous as Liza Baron was. But Byron wouldn’t charm
her. Not this time. “Liza said that Cliff’s from a prominent East Coast family.”

“That would be the Pierces.”

She heard a wry bitterness creep into his voice, prompting her to look at him square in the face. Immediately she wished she hadn’t. The man was still, after three years, one handsome devil. If she’d known she’d be seeing him again, she would have prayed to her fairy godmother to turn him into a frog. At the very least, she’d have hoped that she’d take one look at him and ask herself what all the fuss had been about three years ago: how could she have fallen for someone as transparently rotten as he was? He was so obviously wrong for her. Not even sexy. Sort of lazy and worn-out looking.

But that wasn’t how she’d reacted. If wrong for her on other counts, the man who’d swept her off her feet three years ago still possessed the roguish sexiness and charm that had drawn her to him so disastrously. She could no longer try to blame bad timing. Aunt Ellie wasn’t dying anymore and she wasn’t reexamining the choices and assumptions she’d made about her own life. She was stable, satisfied, successful. In a word, she was happy.

And still damnably, irreversibly, it seemed, attracted to Byron Sanders. And not just physically. Their attraction to each other had never been purely physical. She and Byron Sanders, in a very real way, had been kindred spirits and—

She seethed. Byron Sanders
Forrester.
She’d have to remember. She couldn’t allow herself to forget that he was a liar, if a dangerously irresistible liar.

He didn’t turn away from her, but met her probing gaze straight on. His eyes were as dark as his brother’s, with fine, almost imperceptible lines spraying out from the corners. They were memorable eyes. But where she’d once found only unshakable confidence and humor, she now de
tected hints of pain and regret, hints of complexity. He wasn’t
just
a cad or a rake, and she knew it. Perhaps, deep down, she’d always known it.

“They were publishers,” he said, still talking about the Pierces. “My great-grandfather and a friend of his founded Pierce & Rothchilde, Publishers, more than a hundred years ago. They moved to their present location in Providence in 1894. The Rothchildes got out of the business in the twenties. Cliff and I are the last of the Pierces.”

And Cliff was a near-recluse, Byron an itinerant photographer. Pierce & Rothchilde was one of the most prestigious publishers in the country. Nora was intrigued by the questions and potential conflicts those facts presented, but she’d already made up her mind. “I don’t need to know anything about you or your grandmother Sanders or the Pierces or the Forresters. I really don’t.”

He sighed. “I know you don’t. I guess I just don’t know what the hell to say to you.”

“Goodbye would be nice.”

“All right. Goodbye, Nora.”

But it wasn’t good enough. Nora got three steps back up the path and knew she needed satisfaction. The man had slept with her and she hadn’t even known his real name! She whirled back around, the sun almost blinding her.

“Unless you can uproot a tree,” Byron said calmly, “there’s nothing handy for you to throw at me.”

He was maddening. How did he know what she was thinking? What she was feeling? She tilted up her chin, hanging on to the last shreds of her dignity. “Does Cliff know about us?”

“He knows you don’t like me.”

“But I never indicated…”

Byron grinned. “You aren’t as good at hiding your emo
tions as you think, Miss Gates. But you can relax—he doesn’t know why you dislike me so much.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing.”

“He just thinks I dislike you because of the series on Aunt Ellie?”

Byron shrugged, his eyes clouding, his expression unreadable. “I don’t know what he thinks.”

Nora exhaled at the blue autumn sky. “I could strangle you, Byron.” But the truth was out, and at least it explained—even excused—his presence in Tyler. It did, in fact, have nothing to do with her. She looked back at him. “And that’s only the half of it.”

“I’m sure,” he said. His tone was neutral, but she saw the lust—the damned amusement—in his eyes.

“Don’t you get any ideas, Byron Sanders Whoever. You don’t mean any more to me than a bag of dried beans.”

“Remember the fairy tales, Nora. Jack’s beans turned out to be magic.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“I’m not—”

“You never did take me seriously—
my
hopes,
my
dreams, who
I
am. You were only interested in your photography career and a little quick, convenient sex with an unsuspecting small-town woman.”

Byron’s mouth twitched, but apparently he was smart enough not to smile outright, given that there were uproot-able trees in the vicinity. “Nora, it wasn’t a little sex, it wasn’t quick, that wasn’t all there was to our relationship, and you’re about as much the stereotypical unsuspecting small-town woman as Cliff and I are the stereotypical East Coast blue bloods.” He paused while she came to a full boil. “I’d like to explain why I lied to you.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation, and frankly I don’t
require one.” She looked at him for a moment, daring him to respond, but he didn’t. What could he say? She was proud of her cool tone. She had to prove to herself that his remarks about their love life wouldn’t get to her—at least so that anyone would notice. “All I ask is that you keep what we…
were
to each other to yourself.”

And she started back up the narrow path, wondering what she would tell Liza. Because now, for sure, she wouldn’t become involved with the wedding festivities. She didn’t even want to attend the ceremony with Liza’s future brother-in-law there. It was just too dangerous. Even if she trusted him—which she didn’t—she didn’t, in a very different way, trust herself. Seeing Byron Sanders Forrester all dressed up for his brother’s wedding just might do her in.

“I owe Cliff the truth,” Byron said behind her.

That did it. Nora swung around, marched down to Byron and slapped him hard across the face, just as Katharine Hepburn slapped Humphrey Bogart in
The African Queen,
Aunt Ellie’s favorite movie. Before she turned around and flounced back up the path, she noticed the red handprint on Byron’s cheek. It just wasn’t in her to feel sorry for him. He owed Cliff the truth. What about her? She’d spent three years thinking—

Well, she wouldn’t think about Byron Sanders
Forrester
anymore.

“You know,” he said, not far behind her, “you always act like an insulted Victorian virgin when you’re mad. It’s a good defense mechanism. But I don’t believe it.”

She ignored him.

He had to speak a little louder for her to hear him. Thank heaven Joe Santori and his crew weren’t lurking about, eavesdropping. “I think you’d like to do a hell of a lot more than slap my face.”

Like what?
She almost panicked.

“
I
think,” he yelled, “that what you’d like to do right now is skin me alive, and what grates is that you know I know it.”

Skin him alive. Yes, that was it. That was just exactly what she wanted to do with him.

She whirled around, stepping backward. “Skin you alive and throw your bones to the wolves, you cad!”

He grinned. He wasn’t marching in fast little steps the way she was, but moving deliberately, his long legs eating up the distance between them. She wished she’d worn her running shoes and jeans instead of her conservative businesswoman’s outfit. She couldn’t see his eyes against the bright sun. Three years ago, they’d told her what he was thinking, even feeling. Or at least she’d thought they had. She’d only seen what she’d wished to see—which wasn’t like her. She prided herself on her ability to look life straight in the eye.

“I’ve never met anyone like you, Nora Gates,” he said, still grinning.

She scoffed. “You told me that three years ago.”

“Meant it.”

“Then it was the one thing you said that you did mean.”

“Oh, I said a lot of things I meant. But I don’t blame you for being skeptical. Nora, the past is past. Let it go. I don’t want my presence in Tyler to be a thorn in your side. You don’t need to avoid me. I won’t—” He broke off, his dark, dark eyes resting on her. “I won’t let what happened three years ago happen again.”

She didn’t say a word. Could she believe him? Was that what she wanted to hear from him? “What happened and didn’t happen wasn’t just up to you, you know.”

“Oh, really?”

“Byron…”

“No one needs to know that we were lovers three years ago. I just mean that I owe Cliff the truth about why I was in Tyler, what I did, why I left. He doesn’t need to know the sordid details about us.”

He’d said it so easily. As if being lovers with someone was no big deal. Probably the country was dotted with his ex-lovers. Nora raised her chin. “You’re Cliff Forrester’s brother. Everyone in Tyler’s madly curious about him and his relationship with Liza—she’s from one of the town’s more prominent families. He’s been a recluse out here for years and years. You’re going to be well scrutinized.”

“I expect so.”

“Has it occurred to you that someone might recognize you as the photographer who did the series on Aunt Ellie?”

“It’s possible, but—”

“Then not only will people be asking you questions, but they’ll be asking
me
questions as well. Did I recognize you? Have I talked to you? Did I know you were really Cliff’s brother?” She gulped for air, tense and irritated, just imagining what could be in store for her. “You’ve put me in one hell of a position.”