A Wedding In the Family (5 page)

Soon they were eating hamburgers that were overcooked and baked beans that were barely warm. The kids opted for hot dogs, which seemed to have been the wiser choice since they ended up going back for seconds.

When the meal was finished, David, Nathan and Heather all headed in the direction of their friends, and Angela and Adam sat down once again with the Granstons. That’s when Ed’s questions became a little unnerving for Angela: he asked Adam about previous
marriages. Adam had one, he explained without hesitation. It had ended in divorce.

“And children?” Ed inquired.

“No children,” Adam answered quietly and more politely than Angela thought her father deserved. She decided that it was time to take action.

“Okay, guys, it’s getting late and, Dad, you’re getting a little too personal. Help me round up my kids before it gets dark so we can head home.” She leaned near Adam and whispered, “Save my place. I’ll be right back.”

Adam offered, “I’ll go—”

“No, please, stay here. Let Dad help me find them. I want to talk to him about his investigative work,” she remarked.

His mouth curved into a smile in response to her comment Then he squeezed her hand before letting her go.

“It’s hard for Ed not to nose into his children’s business,” Grace stated after Angela and Ed were out of hearing range.

“I understand,” Adam responded. “I’d be the same way if I had a daughter.”

“I believe you would. And I say that as a compliment, you know.”

“I know,” he replied. “And I want you to know that I really like Angela. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anyone significant in my life, but Angela…”

”…could be significant?” Grace suggested with a mother’s smile.

“Yes,” Adam concurred and studied the gentle
face of this older woman across from him—a face much like Angela’s might look twenty years from now.

“You’re a wise man, Adam Dalton, and you have great taste in women.” Grace stood up, and Adam did, too. “I’m going to try to catch up with those two and help with the children. Thanks for coming here tonight. I’m sure you could have done something more enjoyable than being at this church gathering of people you don’t know, meeting us, eating hamburgers that tasted like lighter fluid.”

Adam laughed. “Mine wasn’t so bad.”

“Well, mine was,” Grace remarked, “but fortunately, I wasn’t very hungry. They never seem to get someone to grill the meat who actually knows what they’re doing.” She reached out and touched Adam’s cheek. “We hope to see you again soon.”

“You will,” he answered.

Grace nodded, and left him to join her husband and daughter.

Adam stood at the edge of a group of people gathered around the bonfire, and watched Angela cross the grassy area toward him. She hugged her corduroy jacket closer as the chilly air of the early October evening settled in.

“Where are the kids?” he asked when she neared.

“Mom and Dad offered to take them for a while.” She looked toward the dwindling crowd. “And they all wanted to go.” Then Angela raised her gaze to study the shadows falling across Adam from the roaring
fire close by. His eyes seemed more distant than she’d noticed before, and she looked away.

“The temperature has dropped since the sun set,” he remarked. “Do you want to walk up where it’s warmer?” He touched only her coat as his hand moved to her arm.

“No,” she said a little too quickly, and then paused. She wanted to say it right “I…I’d like to leave now.” Her cautious blue eyes returned to meet his dark gaze.

Adam searched her face in the flickering firelight, then responded with no more than a slight nod. He clasped her hand in his and gave an easy tug.

They walked hand in hand across the gravel parking lot. Angela kicked up some pebbles with the toe of her boot, while Adam slid the key into the lock, and opened her door. She smiled up at him through the twilight Even in air rendered smokey from the bonfire, she was close enough to enjoy the spicy scent of his cologne, and it filled her with unfamiliar longing. As she moved past him toward the passenger seat, her right arm and shoulder brushed against his chest in an unintentional contact that jolted her. Her hand flew up spontaneously, involuntarily to touch the front of his shirt. Never before could she remember wanting anyone’s kiss as much as she wanted Adam’s in that solitary moment And it took all her willpower to pull away from him and climb into the van.

Adam looked away from her toward the subdued light of sunset in the western sky, giving no indication that he had noticed the awkward moment Then he
shut the door and walked slowly around to the driver’s side to join her in the vehicle.

Angela looked straight ahead, staring steadily out the window. If she so much as glanced his way, he would read these emotions in her eyes. No feelings this strong could be hidden for long, she knew, but if they could get away from here—all the people, cars coming and going, the kids, her parents…If they could be alone, some place, any place, private—even if only for a few minutes…If he kissed her, she’d know how he felt about her. She closed her eyes momentarily at the thought of Adam
not
kissing her, and sighed audibly. That couldn’t happen. Surely he felt something similar for her, didn’t he? These feelings in her didn’t arise out of nowhere. Their beginning was with him, in him, from him.

Adam drove in silence for several minutes. Then when they did speak, they did so sparingly. Had she enjoyed the evening? Would he join her for another cookout? Mostly they rode silently in the hush of evening for the quarter of an hour it took to reach the large white garage directly behind Angela’s apartment. But to Angela, it seemed her heart had been racing for far longer than fifteen minutes.

When the ignition was switched off, Adam got out of the van, walking around the rear of the vehicle toward the passenger side to open her door—as she knew he would. Angela’s teeth sank into her lower lip at the sound of his footsteps against the concrete and the lowering of the garage door which shut them off from the rest of the world. What if he didn’t feel
as attracted to her as she did to him? What if she moved first…reaching for him when his heart was not reaching for hers? Then her door came open. She turned to step out but found Adam leaning in, his hands catching her around the waist as she eased off the seat and into his arms. And for the first time since they left the cookout, she looked directly into his face and discovered the very tenderness she had feared she wouldn’t find, waiting there in his eyes.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you all day,” Adam admitted in words that fell gently across her lips. His hands cupped her face, drawing her to him, and his mouth met hers, moving against its softness. She returned his kiss with equal longing. Never in her life had she felt so alive, so wanted. Now. Here. Amid paint cans and bicycles in a cold, dark garage.

But much too soon he let her go.

“I was afraid you didn’t feel what I was feeling.” The admission rushed from her when she had caught her breath enough to speak. “I didn’t know, I couldn’t tell—”

“You’re driving me crazy, and you don’t even know it, do you?” He gave a hint of a smile as he studied the beautiful blue eyes that had so easily captivated him.

“What are you talking about? I’m not doing anything.”

“You don’t need to ‘do’ anything, Angela. Just be near me,” he explained quietly. “That’s becoming difficult enough to deal with.”

“Hmm,” she responded at the significance of his
words and the feel of his hands resting on her shoulders, stopping her from slipping too far away. “I probably should warn you—you have exactly the same effect on me.”

“Good,” he remarked, and now it was a confident smile that curved the mouth Angela knew was still warm from her kiss. “That’s the way I want it to be. Now, let’s go inside your apartment before your neighbors begin wondering why we haven’t come out of this garage yet.” Adam released her, but not without taking hold of the soft hand he’d already grown accustomed to holding. He grazed her knuckles with a kiss. “C’mon,” he said, “let’s go.”

They walked through the small backyard at a leisurely pace, still holding hands. The autumn air smelled wonderfully fragrant with the scent of apples and wood-burning stoves, and the unraked leaves crunching beneath Angela’s boots had never sounded quite as remarkable as they did this night

They entered the back door to the kitchen, and Angela reached for the light over the sink, although she disliked relinquishing the privacy of the moment A few more minutes in his arms in the dark would have been welcomed…Instead she flipped the switch on, and Adam reached for her jacket, helping her out of it before placing it with his own on the hooks by the door.

Angela’s first order of business when she returned home from anywhere was to slip off her shoes. Tonight, her boots were no exception. They came off easily and she set them in the corner. Then she adjusted
her soft socks and moved to a spot in front of the oak cabinets.

“Sit here with me,” she said as she sat down on the carpeted kitchen floor and leaned back against the smooth cabinet doors. She raised a hand to him. “For a while?”

“You like to sit on the kitchen floor,” he stated quietly, trying to find logic in her thinking. But he joined her there, logical or not He placed an arm around her, and she leaned her head against his shoulder.

“When I was a child, I’d sit on the floor in our kitchen sometimes just so I could be alone to think. Now that I have children of my own, I sometimes sit out here with one of them to have a serious talk or to find out what they’re struggling with. We usually end up praying about whatever the problem is and then having a snack…right here on the floor. Strange, huh?” she added with a gentle laugh and placed her hand on the front of his shirt much more leisurely than she had done in the parking lot after the cookout.

“We all have our idiosyncrasies,” he commented. His hand moved easily to cover hers where it rested against his chest.

“Tell me one of yours,” she prompted.

“I’ll let you discover mine over time,” he replied without smiling.

Time. That was what she wanted with Adam. Lots of it. Was it too soon to feel this way? Probably. But she couldn’t help it. She just did.

“Your father asked me some important questions
today,” he stated, a solemn look stealing over his expression. “Questions it would have been all right for
you
to ask, you know.”

“With a dad like mine, I don’t need to ask. He’s quite a detective, and his prices are very reasonable.” She smiled. “So, you’ve been married,” she stated softly. She had not been surprised. She’d felt certain there was a specific woman, a special love lost, or some other heartache she might not be able to ease.

Adam’s hand closed a little tighter around hers as he pulled it away from his chest and placed it on the floor, his hand still resting snugly against hers. Angela watched his restless movement and wondered what he was thinking…remembering.

“Who is it I need to know about?” she asked, waiting for the name she didn’t really want to hear.

“Patty,” he said and squeezed her hand. “I was in love with her for a long time. We married when we were in college.”

“And…?”

“It didn’t last. We’d only been married about a year when she found out she was pregnant.” He paused, collecting his thoughts. This was only the beginning of what he needed her to know. “Patty didn’t want to have the baby, but…the idea of an abortion just because this child was coming at an inconvenient time in our lives didn’t feel right to me. I wasn’t a particularly moral person then; I wasn’t raised that way. But an abortion didn’t seem fair to the baby, and that’s what it was to me—a baby.” He hesitated again, remembering. “So I talked her out of it.”

“And you stayed together? She had the baby?”

“Yes. We stayed together and adjusted to the idea of being parents. We even went through the childbirth classes. By the time he was born, I actually felt like a father.”

“A little boy,” Angela commented and thought of the birth of her first son. Nothing she could think of was as wonderful, as frightening, as overwhelming as having the doctor hand that tiny infant to her in the delivery room. And never before had she felt such a wave of love wash over her. She was linked to her children in a way that she never would be free of—nor would she want to be. She looked at Adam’s grim expression and suspected it was much the same for him.

“Brandon,” he quietly stated. “He was healthy and strong and beautiful.” He looked down at Angela’s hand as he continued. “The first six months were rough. We had classes, jobs, studying to do…and a baby to care for. Patty and I pretty much divided up the time with Brandon so we could each meet our other obligations.” He stopped talking for what seemed an eternity.

She studied Adam’s profile as he continued to look down. “Those early months can be difficult,” she commented needlessly, rather than enduring the silence.

Adam laughed gently. “There was never enough sleep, Patty and I had no time for each other, and there was always more to do than there was time to do it. I guess if I hadn’t loved them so much, the
marriage probably wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did.” He paused again. “And in all those months, it never occurred to me once to ask if the boy was mine.”

Angela winced. “Oh, Adam…how awful.” She had considered possible endings to his story, but this hadn’t been one of them.

He nodded and laughed harshly. “Yes, it was awful. I didn’t believe her at first. I hoped she was lying to try to get out of our marriage. But after the blood tests, I knew it was true. Brandon was the son of a co-worker of hers that she’d apparently been involved with off and on for a couple of years. His wife found out about Patty and divorced him. Since he was free, Patty wanted to marry him.”

“And you let Brandon go,” she said, knowing his answer before hearing it.

He nodded again. “There wasn’t much I could do to prevent it. I wanted to make the marriage work, and I tried to convince Patty to stay with me. I wanted to adopt Brandon and be a family…be the family I had
thought
we were all along. But she wasn’t interested, and Brandon’s biological father wanted him. The law was on their side. Brandon wasn’t my son—at least, not in any legal way. The court deals with facts, not feelings.”