Every Time I Love You (14 page)

“I know that marriage is supposed to be a scary step,” Tina teased, “but weren't you overdoing it a bit, Gayle?”

“It was the man she was marrying,” Chad said solemnly.
“Muy hombre!”
His eyes went wide and they all laughed.

“Oh, yeah, sure, but she already knew that,” Liz said innocently; then she clamped her hand over her mouth, realizing that Brent's parents were standing right behind her, as well as Alexandra and Jason. Everyone laughed again, and Brent's mother assured her that since Brent and Gayle were over twenty-one, she couldn't really have much to say about it.

“Besides which,” Brent's dad, as tall as his son, slim though, now, with a nice head of white hair and very distinguished features, cut in, “he's made an honest woman of her now. Or she's made an honest man of him. One or the other. We're just delighted.” He took Gayle's hands and kissed her knuckles, and Gayle gave him a quick thank-you hug. Then the photographer cleared his throat, and they spent the next thirty minutes posing for pictures.

When they were done, they came back out into the light of day. Most of the guests had gone on to the reception hall, but enough remained to shower the bridal couple with rice as they laughed and ran to enter the limousine that awaited them at the curb.

They were alone then. Alone for the first time since the ceremony, for the first time since Gayle had fallen to the floor in a pool of ethereal white.

“Hello, Mr. McCauley,” Gayle said softly, leaning against him.

But he didn't smile in return. His eyes were serious again, his jaw set and somber. He stroked her chin with his thumb, staring down into her face. “What happened, Gayle?”

She frowned, pulling away from him. “Brent, I don't understand you. I'm sorry, I certainly didn't mean to pass out in the aisle—I mean it isn't like 'something borrowed and something blue,' or anything like that. I told you that I was sorry—”

“That's not what I mean.” He caught her hand, nearly grinding it between his own. “Why were you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“As if you hated me. As if you were terrified of me.”

She shook her head, staring at him incredulously. “Brent, I swear, I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You don't remember?”

She felt like bursting into tears. Here was this beautiful Cinderella wedding; here lay her “happily ever after”—here lay their futures and their lives. Why was he doing this?

“Brent, there is nothing to remember. I swear to you, I did not look at you in any peculiar way. I love you with all of my heart and we were married today because—I thought—you feel the same way about me. Because we want to grow old together, share our lives. Because we can't stand being away from each other. Because—”

He laughed. He swept an arm around her and pulled her tight against him, and when his dark, striking eyes fell on her again they were full of tenderness and love and amusement, and she felt deliciously secure in their love again and awed that such a man as he could love her as he did.

“I'm sorry,” he murmured, and he delicately touched her chin, thumbing her lower lip, stroking her flesh. “I'm sorry. I married you today, Mrs. Brent McCauley, because I do want to share my life with you. I want you to have my children—”

“How many of them?”

“A dozen? No? Well, that point is entirely debatable, completely up to you, I should say. I love you. I was just very, very—worried.”

She shook her head, searching out his eyes, entranced, her eyes brimming with tears again, of total happiness.

“Oh, Brent, I do love you so much.”

“I adore you.”

He bent and kissed her. She kissed him back, heedless of her gown, heedless of the car, heedless of anything but the feel and heat and scent of him and the way his heart beat beneath her fingertips.

The limousine came to a halt. Brent heard the driver coming around. He grinned at Gayle sheepishly. “I ordered champagne for back here. I forgot all about it. I even thought about sipping it out of your shoe.”

She wrinkled up her nose. “Very unhygienic.”

“Well, I'm not going to forget to sip it out of a few other things.”

She arched a brow. “Really?”

He winked. “I'll do it hygienically, of course. An alcohol scrub on your navel.”

“That's unromantic,” she charged him.

“All right—I'll head straight for the raw flesh.”

She laughed. “Now you sound like a cannibal.”

“I can't seem to win. Come on, Mrs. McCauley. The reception is awaiting us. And when it's over, we're on our way—”

He broke off because, as the door had opened, another shower of rice came flying at them. “Hey!” Brent protested with a laugh. “We're not leaving yet—we just got here.”

They discovered that Chad and Gary had been behind the rice incident as they were ushered through the hotel to the ballroom. Ria and Jonathan were already there, ready to form the reception line. Brent and Gayle slipped into place. For forty-five minutes she received handshakes and kisses, welcomed friends, and quickly met strangers. Gayle was just a little bit nervous. Every once in a while one of Brent's old friends came through the line, and another teasing comment would be made. “She's a beauty, Brent. Nice to meet you, Mrs. McCauley, are you really all right? Passed out 'cause you realized you really married the old bugger, huh?”

His smile only slipped once though, Gayle noticed, and she was glad. She felt at a complete loss. She couldn't remember anything at all; she knew that their fingers had been entwined; she knew that they had been hurrying down the aisle, breathless and elated and smiling at each other in that sheepish, silly way that only newlyweds could. Yes, we've done it. We're man and wife. We've been living together for six weeks now, but this is it, this is different. We're man and wife. And for the magical beginning of it all, it was almost like being children again. Little kids. We've done this thing; we've played doctor, so now we can play house.
Father Knows Best
and
Donna Reed.
They were united; they were a family. Times had changed; she wouldn't be doing housework in a dress, and she wouldn't be saying good-bye to him with a kiss each morning at the door. He was an artist and he worked at home and she imagined that in the near future, on the days when she did not go to the gallery, she would work with Brent. He still had to do the finishing touches on his first oil of her; he had said that he wanted to do others. He was rich, but he liked to spend money, and so he had to keep making it. He wanted to keep that first oil for himself, for them, for their children. He wanted to do others, perhaps a series, to sell.

And she wanted whatever he did. She would sit for him from now until doomsday—she had that much trust in him.

At last it seemed that the final guest had passed by them. Ria McCauley turned to her new daughter-in-law and gave her a big hug. “Did I get a chance to tell you just how very happy we are to have you in the family?” She stepped back, still holding Gayle's arms, and grinning warmly.

Gayle smiled. “Thank you. You've been wonderful.” Ria had a way of smiling with just a touch of mischief that reminded Gayle of Brent. Actually, of course, Brent had inherited the smile from his mother. It was a wonderful smile. It promised a hint of devilment, with lots of laughter and tenderness.

Ria looked past Gayle's shoulder. “Brent, may I steal your bride for a moment? She didn't get a chance to meet Uncle Hick. He's over in the corner.”

Brent nodded. Someone was pulling at his arm and people were already milling between them. “Tell Uncle Hick I'll be over myself in a moment, huh?”

“Will do,” his mother promised.

It took them a while to reach Uncle Hick; it was one heck of a reception, with free-flowing champagne and an open bar, so by now, most of the congratulations Gayle kept receiving were on the sloppy side. Happy—but sloppy. She received lots of hugs, when handshakes would have done just as well, and a few stories about I-knew-Brent-when, but she kept smiling through it all because everyone really meant to be very kind.

“Who is Uncle Hick?” Gayle asked. Ria was holding on to her hand to lead her through the crowd and save her when she was stopped too long.

“Brent hasn't mentioned him? Funny. He adores him.” Ria grinned. “He's Jonathan's great-uncle on his father's side—he's over one hundred years old, though nobody knows by how much. He's a wonderful old man. As I said, Brent adores him. I'm sure you'll like him yourself.”

Ria stopped suddenly; Gayle nearly crashed into her back. “Uncle Hick! I brought you the bride.” Ria pulled Gayle around.

He was a small man, although he had once been a very tall man. Perhaps it was the way he had been sitting, hunched and shriveled over, leaning on a cane. When Gayle appeared, he stood. She started to protest, but he gave her a grin and kept standing anyway.

His face was like leather, brown and crisscrossed by dozens and dozens of wrinkles. His eyes were nearly colorless, a blue so light that it was almost translucent. But he had a mouthful of fine looking teeth—all false, he would tell her later—and a head full of fine white hair—all quite honestly his, as he would also tell her later.

“Welcome, Gayle McCauley! May I kiss your cheek?”

“Of course!” she promised, stepping forward. She was afraid to embrace him, but he proved to be very sturdy. He patted the chair beside him then and asked if she would mind sitting for a moment, which she did. He asked her about how they had met, and she told him about Brent's show at the gallery, and by the way he listened and smiled, it seemed that he had heard a fair amount about the quick progression of the affair. She decided to change the subject, asking him about himself. “Do you live near here?”

“Born and bred Virginian,” he told her, and the way that he said it reminded her of Brent. These people were going to resemble him, she told herself with silent humor. They were his relatives. “Yep. I've got an old home out in the Tidewater area. Not too far from Williamsburg. Closer to Yorktown. Real old home. Older than the country.”

“How wonderful!” Gayle told him enthusiastically. She mentioned her own house, circa 1850, on Monument Avenue. He described his home, telling her about the big deep porch, where summers were more beautiful than one could imagine, and the tall, beautiful Georgian columns.

“You ever seen Mount Vernon, young lady?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Well, the house is just like that one. Built by a lad who was fond of the General and admired him greatly. Course, it's not just the same. Washington made all kind of changes during and after the war. And the lad died in the war.”

“That's tragic.”

“Lot of tragedy in warfare, young woman. Your husband could tell you that.”

“Brent?”

Uncle Hick nodded, his rheumy eyes on his great-great-nephew, who stood across the hall, pouring champagne. Gayle smiled briefly. Sylvia had her hooks on him. Poor Brent. But then, better Sylvia than some of his beautiful ex-models, a few of whom had been invited. Gayle wondered if they had come out of curiosity. Then she felt guilty because she had met a few who were very nice girls and seemed genuinely fond of Brent and happy for her.

“Brent spent six months in 'Nam. He could tell you about war. It gets worse, so they say. I myself can remember what it was like being a kid, with the War between the States barely ended a decade or two before. And then there was the Great War—the war to end all wars—and then the war that came after it. You'd think we'd learn to get along, huh?”

“Yes,” Gayle murmured, “you would think so.”

She felt a little uncomfortable. She hadn't known that Brent had gone to Viet Nam. Maybe it wasn't such a big thing. There was probably a lot that she didn't know.

No. 'Nam was a big thing. She should have known it.

“It don't matter none, now.” Uncle Hick patted her knee and she looked at him, startled. He had read her mind. “What matters is that you're a fine young lady and that the two of you love each other very much. Anything else can come later. You just keep believing that, huh? You believe in love and in nothing else, and everything else can come good and right. You remember that now, all right?”

Impulsively, Gayle kissed him.

“You'll come to visit us?” She asked.

“I'll be delighted to. Can't eat too much of anything, though. These teeth look good, but I'll be damned if I can chew with the things. Hair's mine, but the teeth went early. But you make up some chicken soup, and I'll be happy to come to dinner.”

“It's a deal.”

“And you get Brent to bring you out to the farm, you hear?”

“It's a farm?”

“Sure. Not much of one anymore. I've a few horses, some vegetables—that's about it these days. But it's private and pretty, and I'm sure you'll like it.”

“I'm sure I'll love it.”

She squeezed his hand and murmured that she needed to get back to her other guests. He told her that she must go ahead.

She had barely gotten anywhere before Brent caught her, sweeping her into his arms and out onto the dance floor. They were alone, and the band had just begun to play. Brent smiled down at her.

“Tradition. Well, the bride is supposed to dance with her dad. Since he's not here...”