Kitabı oku: «Three Brides, No Groom»

Prologue

The fountain located in the center of Queen Anne University in Seattle was thought to be the very heart of the private college. It was here, in the dead of night, where young lovers with pounding eager hearts rendezvoused. It was here that words of love were whispered between urgent kisses, where promises were made and, sadly, promises were broken. Its shadow had entertained laughter and joy, sorrow and tears.

The fountain had borne witness to it all.

It was to this fountain that three women came that summer afternoon, each arriving from a different direction, each burdened with memories from fifteen years past.

The first to arrive was Gretchen Wise. Miss Popularity, the class president, beautiful and smart, too. Unfortunately not smart enough to recognize the kind of man Roger Lockheart was before she accepted his engagement ring.

The second was Carol Furness, the head cheerleader, filled with energy, enthusiasm, joy and purpose. She’d built her future around a football hero, only to learn Eddie Shapiro was anything but.

And lastly Maddie Coolidge, the class “bad girl,” who’d played a tricky game of looking for love and, like so many before her, searched in all the wrong places. Who would have believed that math professor John Theda would steal far more than her heart?

The fountain welcomed them all.

* * *

Gretchen Wise walked slowly toward the old cement fountain and smiled as the memories swirled around her the way water rushed around a rock in a swift stream.

She could almost hear the echo of laughter from those long-ago years. How happy she’d been back then: young, carefree, excited and so very much in love—with the wrong man. Fifteen years earlier she’d barely been able to appreciate her own graduation, not with her head full of wedding plans and Roger.

Roger Lockheart, the love of her life. The man of her dreams.

The rat.

She thought about him now and again, fleetingly and with a twinge of sadness. Sometimes she entertained thoughts of all the might-have-beens. Only natural, she concluded.

How handsome her old college sweetheart had been, how confident, his future on a fast track to success. He’d been scheduled to take his bar exam two weeks before their society wedding, and had been guaranteed a position in his father’s high-powered law firm.

The day Roger had presented her with an engagement ring had been one of the happiest in her young life, the day she’d removed it from her finger one of the saddest.

Many an afternoon had been spent soaking up the sunshine at the beautiful old fountain. Students had cooled off in the cold spray or splashed barefoot in the ankle-deep water. The fountain was as old as the university itself. Every brochure the college had produced in its distinguished one-hundred-year history had pictured students gathered around the fountain socializing and studying.

Sitting on the cold concrete rim now, Gretchen swung her gaze to the nearby law school. The two-story redbrick building with the wide flight of stairs leading up to the double doors remained much the same. The ivy had been clipped back, and the lawn on the side of the building had been replaced with a concrete patio.

She had spent many an idle afternoon sitting in this very spot, anticipating Roger’s arrival, never guessing where he’d actually been.

It had been a warm afternoon like this one when she’d first talked to Josh Morrow. Heedless of rules, Josh had ridden his Harley-Davidson motorcycle down the narrow pathway and attempted to pick her up. The man lacked nothing if not audacity. It was one of the rare times she’d seen him without some blond bimbo sitting behind him, clinging to his waist. More often than not it had been Didi Wilson. When Roger had seen Josh flirting with Gretchen, he’d been livid. As if she’d ever given Roger reason to be jealous! Maybe she should have.

Gretchen nearly laughed out loud at the memory. Josh Morrow had enjoyed life on the edge. He drank, swore and gambled on a conservative college campus that frowned upon all three. He was said to live on beer and cigarettes. He challenged every teacher unfortunate enough to have him in class, fought the establishment and generally raised cain. Josh had grabbed life by the throat and courted danger, and he’d fascinated her.

* * *

Everything was different, and yet nothing had changed. Carol Furness strolled across the lush green grass toward the fountain. Oh, my, had it really been fifteen years? It didn’t seem possible, and in many ways it felt like yesterday.

Carol had been the envy of every girl in class. Shortly after Christmas her senior year, she’d become engaged to Eddie Shapiro. Eddie was now a football legend at Queen Anne. A legend in Carol’s mind, too, but for other reasons. Their romance was a classic: the football hero and the head cheerleader. Fifteen years ago she had been athletic, bright and talented. She liked to believe she still was.

No thanks to Eddie. The worm.

And yet she had much to thank Eddie for. If he hadn’t dumped her, she might never have gotten to know Clark Rusbach. The class brain, a wizard with computers, a genius. Clark was technically too cute to be classified as a geek, although Eddie had often referred to him as one. In retrospect it was easy to recognize that Eddie had been jealous of Clark.

Clark knew a lot about computers, but next to nothing about women. Carol had admired him from afar, had gone out of her way to be friendly in the few classes they’d shared, and tried to tell him, without upsetting Eddie, that she admired him.

The dividends of her kindness had been rich indeed, if only she’d been smart enough to recognize what she’d had.

* * *

Maddie Coolidge wondered if anyone would recognize her as she sauntered across the campus in the direction of the fountain. She’d changed. The outlandish attention-seeking bad girl of her youth was no more. The girl she’d been had died a painful death, the victim of a costly, but worthwhile, lesson.

With the fountain in sight, her steps slowed. It had been at this fountain fifteen years earlier that she’d last seen John Theda.

The cheat.

A number of other choice descriptions filled her mind, but she pushed them aside, refusing to dwell on her former mathematics professor. He’d courted her, wooed her with words and deeds—all on the sly, of course, lest word escape that he’d fallen for a student. John had pledged his love and asked her to be his wife. She had accepted, her joy exploding. What fun it had been to pretend with him, to act as if there was nothing romantic between them.

While she might have fooled everyone else, Brent Holliday had known. Who or what had allowed her secret to escape, Maddie never learned. The preacher’s son seemed to think a few well-chosen words would set her on the straight and narrow path, but he had been wrong. But then, she’d had a few difficult lessons to learn in those days. Lessons that hadn’t come easy.

* * *

“Gretchen?”

At the sound of her name, Gretchen turned and was greeted by a familiar face. Someone from her graduating class. She struggled to dredge up a name to go with the face.

“It’s Carol. Carol Furness.”

“Carol.” Gretchen couldn’t believe she’d stumble on a sorority sister here at the fountain an hour before the formal reunion festivities were scheduled to start. They hugged each other fiercely.

“I wondered if that was you,” Carol said, sitting down next to Gretchen on the edge of the fountain.

“Have I changed so much?” Gretchen asked. “Lie, if you have to.”

Carol responded with a good-natured laugh, her blue eyes twinkling. “Not at all. You look the same as you did the day we graduated. I would have known you anywhere. The years have been good to you.”

“Ditto for you, Carol.” Gretchen smiled. “I couldn’t resist coming down and walking around the campus.”

“Me either,” Carol admitted as she scanned the grounds. “I haven’t been back in all these years.”

“Nor have I.” But Gretchen doubted that the reasons for her absence were the same as her old sorority sister’s.

“Are you attending the dinner and the dance later?”

The day of the reunion was here, and Gretchen had yet to make up her mind. “The dinner definitely, but I don’t know if I can drag my husband to the dance.”

“The same with me,” Carol said. “My husband’s a wonderful dancer, but he refuses to believe it.”

“Gretchen? Carol?” The voice belonged to a tall striking auburn-haired woman approaching from the left.

Gretchen hadn’t a clue who it was, and she looked at Carol for help. Carol just shook her head.

The redhead grinned. “Not more than two minutes ago I wondered if anyone would recognize me. I’ve changed, I know. It’s me, Maddie Coolidge.”

“Maddie?” Gretchen couldn’t believe it. The Maddie Coolidge she remembered was nothing like the well-groomed woman who stood before her now. Maddie had been outlandish in appearance, as well as in word and deed. Stubborn and defiant, a nonconformist. Yet beneath all the bravado Maddie had a heart of gold.

Gretchen recalled that Maddie had struck up a close “friendship” with John Theda, a math professor. It was supposed to have been a secret, but everyone knew the two were secretly engaged. The romance had caused quite a stir about campus, but then “controversy” was Maddie’s middle name.

“You look wonderful,” Carol said, standing up and hugging Maddie. Gretchen did likewise, and then all three sat down, with Gretchen in the middle.

“I’m pleased someone else thought to stop off at the fountain,” Maddie said.

“It brings back memories, doesn’t it?” Carol murmured thoughtfully.

The three were silent for several moments. Caught up in the wonder of years past, Gretchen suspected.

“I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you, Carol,” Maddie said excitedly. “I bet you’ve had a fabulous fifteen years. I don’t pay much attention to professional sports, but whenever I hear anything about football, I keep my ear open for news of Eddie.”

“Eddie Shapiro?” Carol asked on a disdainful note. “The guy’s a worm.”

Maddie looked shocked. “You were engaged to him, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, but he dropped me like a hot potato once he was picked up by the pros.” Carol folded her arms and crossed her legs. Her foot swayed so hard she created a draft. “Let’s change the subject, shall we?”

“Of course,” Maddie said apologetically.

A short awkward silence followed while Gretchen absorbed the information. Like Maddie, she’d assumed Carol and Eddie had married. “What about you, Maddie? Being a professor’s wife certainly appears to agree with you.”

Instant hot color blazed in Maddie’s cheeks, and her eyes snapped with fire. “I never married John Theda. The man’s a cheat.”

“Weren’t you two engaged?”

“Oh, yes, until John got what he wanted, and it’s not what you think. I suspect it was one of the shortest engagements on record.”

“What about you, Gretchen?” Carol asked, quickly changing the subject once again. “How many children do you and Roger have?”

“Roger Lockheart?” Gretchen said. “I haven’t seen that rat in years.”

Gretchen watched as her two college friends exchanged glances. It seemed they were as shocked by her news as she was by theirs.

“Well, it appears we have a lot more to discuss than we realized,” Gretchen said. And to think she’d worried herself sick about this silly reunion. She leaned back on her hands and smiled softly. “If I’m hearing you correctly, you were both engaged and then dumped.”

They nodded.

“Me too,” Gretchen confessed. “So there we were—three brides and no groom. Who would’ve believed it?”

“I can’t believe you didn’t marry Roger,” Maddie whispered, apparently having trouble taking it all in. “He was always so…so perfect.”

“I used to think he was wonderful,” Carol added.

“At one time I thought so, too,” Gretchen admitted.

“What happened?” Carol asked. “From what I remember, you and Roger were less than a month away from your wedding.”

“Yup.”

“If you tell your story, I’ll tell you what happened with John,” Maddie promised. “I’d like you to know.”

Carol grinned. “And I’ll spill my guts about Eddie Shapiro.”

Gretchen laughed. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Carol said.

“I do—” Maddie smoothed her hand down her skirt “—and you’ll get the whole story from me. It’s time someone knew exactly what kind of person John really is.” She glanced at Gretchen. “You go first, then Carol and then me. I can’t think of a better way to spend the afternoon.”