Hero at Large (16 page)

“Oh my God,” Ken said. “She's got my mom with her.”

The two women stood side by side in the small office. They seemed about the same age and were of comparable build. Good sturdy sausages wearing sensible shoes and warm woolen coats. Edna glared at her niece defensively, her expression silently communicating. “This isn't my fault and don't you dare say otherwise!” Mrs. Knight smiled warmly.

Edna pressed her lips together. “Margaret, this is my niece, Chris Nelson. Chris, I'd like you to meet Mrs. Knight.” Edna rolled her eyes. “This here's Ken's mother…all the way from Pennsylvania.”

Mrs. Knight extended her hand. “I hope I didn't come at an awkward time.”

Chris smiled warmly at the woman and shook her hand. She cocked an eyebrow at Edna.

Edna bobbed her head up and down and tapped her foot on the rubberized carpet. “It was just after Thanksgiving. You remember when your mom called, Ken? She called to say happy Thanksgiving and you never seemed to be home when she called, and we got to talking and having a wonderful conversation. And so, of course, I told her about you being engaged, and all. And how it would be nice if she came down to meet Chris, here…and
we could all plan the wedding together.” Edna's eyes narrowed pugnaciously. “And then in all the excitement, danged if I didn't forget!”

Ken shifted behind Chris. “Sounds like a setup,” he whispered into her hair.

“Mmmmmm,” she murmured, more in response to his proximity than to his statement.

Mrs. Knight smiled at her son and held out her arms. “It's so good to see you. You don't come home enough.”

Ken hugged his mother and returned the smile. Some of the strain left his eyes as laugh lines crinkled in the corners. “You don't fool me for a minute. You're in league with Edna to patch things up, aren't you?”

Mrs. Knight flushed and turned to Edna, who was studying the ceiling. “Well, Edna did mention something this morning about some difficulties…”

Chris shook her finger at Edna. “Your meddling has gone too far this time.”

“Bunch of dang silliness,” Edna snorted. “Making a ruckus over nothing,” she told her niece. “And you!” she turned on Ken. “You don't know beans about what you're doing. You let her slip through your fingers.”

There was a noticeable silence in the lobby. The
sounds of hammering and sawing had been replaced with whispers and stifled chuckles. Ken reached behind his mother and closed the office door. “I have to make a phone call about a new heating system. It'll only take a minute, and then I can leave for a while. I'd be delighted to take you two ladies to brunch.”

“Nonsense,” his mother said. “I came all the way down here to meet Chris. I'd like to see the ice arena, and then we can all go to brunch.”

Ken was silent for a moment while he contemplated his options. He sighed and checked his watch. “Okay, but I haven't much time…”

Chris scowled at him. Haven't much time? For his mother? Isn't that typical, she fumed. Kenneth Knight, Big Tycoon! Chris linked her arms with the two women. “Come on, I'll give you the grand tour, and then we can find someplace quiet for a cup of tea. We really don't need Ken along, at all.”

“Hmmmph,” Edna grunted. “Of course we need Ken. How do you expect to plan a wedding without the groom?”

Chris stopped short. “There isn't going to be a wedding.”

Edna narrowed her eyes. “That's what you think. I'm no quitter. Ken's the perfect husband for you.”

“Yeah,” Ken mumbled. “No one else is rich enough to afford the medical insurance.”

Chris whirled around and glared at him, nose to nose. “What a horrid thing to say. I've never said a word about your poisonous food, but you bring broken bones into the conversation every chance you get.”

He looked genuinely injured. “What do you mean…poisonous food?”

“You tried to make me eat a potholder!”

Edna shook her head. “This isn't going too good,” she told Margaret Knight.

“Are you sure they used to like each other?”

“Maybe we should just plan the wedding without them,” Edna mused.

Ken and Chris exchanged looks of exasperated disbelief. “The heating system can wait,” Ken decided. “Let's just get them out of here.”

 

Chris sat with her fingers curled around a cup of cold coffee. The conversation buzzing around her was grimly fascinating. So fascinating that for the second time that morning she forgot to drink her coffee. Edna and Margaret were planning a wedding.

“It should be a Christmas wedding,” Edna pronounced. “Christmas weddings are nice.”

Margaret agreed. “I had a spring wedding, but if I had it to do again it would definitely be a Christmas wedding. I think it's so nice when you can decorate with holly and red bows.”

Chris looked at the man sitting silently beside her. He, too, was absorbed in the older women's conversation. He relaxed against the padded cushion of the booth, his long legs reaching almost to the side occupied by Edna and his mother. One hand held his empty coffee cup, the other unconsciously traced circular patterns across Chris's shoulder and along her neck. A bemused expression hovered at his mouth and lurked in his eyes.

“I think spice cake is good for a December wedding,” Margaret said. “Of course it should have white icing and be decorated like any other wedding cake, but if the inside were spice, it would be nice.”

Chris wriggled to get Ken's attention. “How can you let them go on like this?” she whispered. “How can you just sit there smiling?”

“They're enjoying themselves. Anyway, I don't know how to stop them.”

“Now I know why you got along so well with Aunt Edna.”

Ken grinned. “She's just like my mom.”

Chris looked at Ken sidewise. “I'm not going to marry you.”

“Of course not.” The circles at her neck grew lazier, more provocative.

He has great thumbs,
Chris thought.
It's the thumbs that make the difference between a good massage and a great massage.
Little prickles of pleasure warmed her skin.

He leaned against her, snuggling her against his chest and his shoulder. “They don't even know we're here.”

“Mmmmm,” she agreed, her curly lashes drooping over slightly glazed eyes.

“You've got a big family, Margaret,” Edna worried. “We wouldn't want to leave anyone out, but I don't know if I can fit such a bunch of people into the town house. I suppose we could hire out a restaurant room.”

The two women looked depressed at the thought. “Those restaurant weddings always seem so cold,” Margaret finally said.

Edna looked hopeful. “How about your house? Is your house in Pennsylvania big enough to hold everyone?”

“I don't know. It's a nice house, but it's not real big. It's pretty much busting at the seams during holidays.”

Chris was startled out of her trance by Ken's deep voice joining the conversation. “How about Darby Hills?”

Chris sat up straight and squeaked, “Are you crazy?”

Ken chuckled and tweaked an orange curl.

“What's Darby Hills?” Edna asked.

Margaret beamed. “It's this huge awful house he bought. It sits on this little hill like a fat lady squatting on an orange.”

Edna shivered. “It don't sound like a place for a wedding.”

“It's not that bad,” Chris offered. “The land around it is really beautiful. There are cows and big oak trees and lots of azaleas…” She stopped short and flushed red. She closed her eyes tight and sank into her seat, unable to believe she'd just risen to the defense of Darby Hills. She opened one eye and glared at Ken, daring him to even crack a smile.

Ken's eyes were wide with surprise. Edna and Margaret stared at her openmouthed. Chris grabbed her cup of cold coffee and drained it.

“I'm not going to touch this one,” Ken assured Chris. “I don't mind a little danger in my life every now and then, but I'm not suicidal.”

Chris looked at her watch. “I should be getting back to the rink.”

Ken reached across the table and took his mother's hand. “What are your plans, Mom? How long will you be down here?”

“I'm just here for the day. I drove down with your sister.”

“Erin? Where is she?”

Margaret elbowed Edna, and the two women giggled.

“She was chicken,” Edna answered with a mischievous grin. “She wouldn't come with us.”

Ken's mother smoothed her napkin on the table in front of her. “Erin decided to stay at Edna's town house while we visited with you and Chris, and then this afternoon we're going into Washington together. We're going to be tourists.”

The sadness returned to Ken's eyes. “I'd like to take you out to dinner, but I have to get ready to go to Chicago.”

“I understand. You take care of yourself. You look so tired.”

He did look tired, Chris thought. There were times when the animation returned to his face and his smile reached his eyes, but there were also dark circles and lines of tension that testified to sleepless nights.

He took out a billfold and removed a credit card. “You take this and have a nice afternoon.
Take Erin out to lunch. Someplace fancy.” He stood and pulled Chris out of the booth. “We're only a short distance from the rink. I'll walk back with Chris. You can take your time over another cup of coffee here and then drive Edna home in the Mercedes.”

Edna turned to Margaret, explaining ruefully, “I don't drive. It's the one thing I don't do. Tried it from time to time but couldn't get the hang of it.”

Chris leaned toward Ken and told him in an aside, “Leadfoot smashed up every car she ever tried to drive. One time in Denver she put Uncle Ed's station wagon into reverse and took out the garage door.”

“I heard that!” Edna snapped. “That wasn't my fault. It was that dang electronic door opener that didn't work right. Besides, my foot slipped. I didn't mean to go just then.”

Ken trundled Chris into her ski jacket and pushed her toward the door. “Don't you know that discretion is the better part of valor? Edna will feed you lima bean soup tonight for that crack about her driving.”

“I hate lima bean soup.”

“I know,” he said softly.

Chris felt a lump form in her throat at the tender intimacy of his response. They stopped and
looked into each other's eyes for a long moment. Chris saw questions there—questions that had no answers. And regret. She knew her eyes reflected the same. Tears prickled deep inside her. She felt them spill over her lower lashes and slide down her cheeks.

Ken stared silently at the tears for a moment. He pressed his lips together and brushed his thumb gently across her cheeks. “I wish I could make you happy,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. He gathered her to his chest and held her close, bowing his head into her hair and closing his eyes against its softness. “I know you're scared and angry, and I obviously did a lot of things wrong. But now I don't know how to make them right.” He pressed a lingering kiss against her ear.

She trembled against him, not knowing what to say. This morning he hadn't seemed to care at all, and now he seemed to love her again. Maybe he was just a sucker for tears, she thought. Or maybe sitting together in the booth had triggered a testosterone attack. Although, there were none of the obvious signs…

A horn blared at them, and a truck pulled into the restaurant parking lot. A burly young man leaned out of the truck window. “We've got problems,” he called to Ken. “The new compressor
was just delivered, and Marty says it's not the right one.”

“Of course,” Ken muttered. “Murphy's Law. If anything can go wrong…it will.” He wrapped an arm around Chris. “Come on, we'll hitch a ride back with Steve.”

Chris quickly wiped away the last remnants of tears and slid up onto the large bench seat of the Ford. Ken read her mind as he took his place next to her. “Yeah”—he smiled regretfully—“life would be a lot less complicated if my truck had been this big.”

 

Paint cans and carpenters' paraphernalia had been stacked in the corner of the box office. A spattered tan dropcloth covered tables and chairs. A bare forty-watt bulb hung from the ceiling, shedding a depressing circle of grim light on the papers in front of Chris. She stared blank-faced at her surroundings, feeling as if she'd been pushed into a corner, both literally and figuratively. A mound of paperwork and the prospect of coming eyeball to eyeball with Ken had kept her chained to her desk. For a fleeting moment in the restaurant parking lot, Chris had thought she felt something holding them together…a gossamer-thin, fragile thread of car
ing and affection. And then it was gone. Broken by the honking of a truck horn.

So here I sit,
she brooded.
Hiding in here like a stupid fugitive.
She rested her chin on her hand. It was damn depressing: She loved a man who didn't exist; her aunt was planning a wedding that would never take place; and she worked for a skating rink that, as far as she could tell, didn't have a name.

Ken stood in the open doorway and watched her. Finally, he forced his mouth into a tight smile. “I'll bet my problems are worse than yours.”

Chris looked up and stared at him stonily.

He slouched against the door and tucked his hands into his pockets. “The compressor is all wrong,” he offered.

“Who cares?”

“You should care. We can't make ice without a compressor.”

I don't want to make ice,
she thought miserably.
I want to make love.

He turned away from her and poured himself half a cup of coffee. He drank it in silence and threw the paper cup into the trash. “I'd like to oversee this project personally, but I can't. It's going to be up to you and Marty to make sure the rink opens in a week.” He took a business card from his
wallet and scribbled a number on it. “This is where I can be reached in Chicago. If there are any problems, business or otherwise, give me a call.”