Stop the Wedding! Read online

  The first blast of early summer heat hit her as she climbed out of the stairwell up to the train platform. A few strands of her dark hair had escaped the haphazard clip she preferred on non-work days, and her split ends tickled her nose. She fingered the hair behind her ears, then donned her yellow-lensed sunglasses against the intense glare bouncing off the concrete. Sunny and H-O-T.

  Annabelle smiled—welcome to Atlanta.

  When the train ground to a halt at the station, she joined the crowd pressing forward, then dropped into a hard seat facing backward. People spread out to maintain their personal distance, the doors slid closed, and the train shimmied forward. The cross section of passengers ran the gamut, from tattooed college kids to wide-eyed tourists to stoic professionals. Annabelle loved to people-watch and weave a story about the characters based on their body language.

  The petite brunette ignoring her rowdy kids was wondering what had happened to her marriage. The elderly couple sitting close had arrived for a visit with their grandchildren. And the stone-faced businessman drumming his fingers on his expensive watch wanted to be somewhere else—with his lover?

  She squinted. No, his dark features were too hard-edged for him to be thinking about anything remotely romantic. His olive-colored suit and white shirt were duly crisp, but the knot of his tie sagged and his black eyes and jaw were shadowed with jet-lag. He stared slightly to his left, out the plexi-glass window, but she suspected he saw none of the blurred scenery. The unshaven man wasn’t on his way to a meeting—maybe a funeral? Her imagination took root and flowered. Yes, he’d come home to attend a funeral. A funeral for someone he wasn’t close to, but should have been.

  He glanced her way and caught her staring. The intensity of his expression sent a tickle of feminine awareness up the back of her neck. Annabelle swallowed, but couldn’t bring herself to look away. Satan himself couldn’t have been more compelling. His large nose, strong jaw and heavy brows were assembled in a way that would make a photographer keep walking, but cause an artist to pause. He sat a head taller than most men, and his wide shoulders spilled his frame into the empty connected seat. He looked vaguely familiar, although she was sure they’d never met. She might have asked, but the man wore his dark features like a caution sign: Approach at Your Own Risk.

  He flicked his gaze over her, giving no more deliberation to her face than to her clothing, but stopping when he reached her feet. With much effort, she resisted curling under her toes to hide them. Two days ago, in an effort to connect with a fourteen-year-old witness who’d locked herself into a bathroom stall, Annabelle had suggested an impromptu dual pedicure with blue nail polish that rolled out of the girl’s backpack. The strategy had worked, and since her conservative pumps had concealed the deed, Annabelle hadn’t yet bothered to remove the stuff.

  The man’s mouth twitched down at the corners before he looked back to the window, once again preoccupied. Embarrassment bolted through her. She’d been stared down by some of the most intimidating judges and attorneys in Detroit, but she’d never felt more completely dismissed in a seconds-long look. Whatever the man did for a living, he was either a miserable failure or a phenomenal success.

  Or more likely, a miserable success.

  She forced her attention elsewhere through the next few stops, but she was mindful of his presence a mere six feet away, through both her peripheral vision and something that could best be described as colliding energy fields. The man’s aura clobbered everything in its path, commanding regard even when his focus was elsewhere. Unnerved and flushed, she kept her gaze glued on a movie poster scribbled with graffiti.

  The man rose as the train slowed at the financial district station, then picked up a black leather duffel bag in one hand, an extra-deep briefcase in the other. From the corner of her eye, she noted that he allowed everyone else to disembark before he stepped out. But she recognized his cool politeness as a power ploy. She had studied people’s actions enough to know that the most influential, the most commanding figures always exited rooms and elevators last—a symbolic attempt to maintain their power by protecting their back, in her opinion. He strode away, head high, feet knowing, and took the first few steps two at a time, disappearing up into the stairwell.

  After the doors slid closed, the air inside the train seemed to collapse in the man’s absence, but Annabelle released a sigh of relief. She’d hate to tangle with the likes of him in a courtroom. Or in a bedroom, her infuriatingly hyperactive mind whispered.

  When the swaying ride north resumed, she pushed the image of the unsettling stranger from her mind, noting subtle and drastic changes to the landscape. Identifying progressive areas of the city was as simple as looking for mounds of orangey-red clay where the earth had been turned in preparation for homes and roads and malls. Downtown Atlanta and the metro area were an economically prosperous mix of gray and green, concrete and trees.

  Remembering the man’s fleeting appraisal, Annabelle repaired her scant makeup and random hairstyle as much as possible with a mirror the size of a matchbook, and pondered how to best approach the situation ahead. Blame lay heavy on her heart for Belle’s impromptu decision to marry. If she’d spent more time with her mother after her father’s death, if she’d visited more often, if she’d encouraged her to sell their old high-maintenance house, Belle wouldn’t have met and been taken in by Martin Castleberry. And since her neglect had contributed to the situation, it was up to her to help her mother see she was on the road to certain ruin.

  So should she simply sit Belle down and be brutally honest about the lunacy of marrying Martin Castleberry, or would her opposition strengthen her mother’s resolve? On the other hand, if Belle’s infatuation was simply a result of loneliness—as Annabelle suspected—perhaps she should use reverse psychology and feign exuberance to make her mother take a step back and analyze the situation more clearly…although doing so might stretch the limits of her own acting ability, not to mention her sanity.

  By the time the train reached the end of the northern line, Annabelle had settled upon a strategy of reserved enthusiasm until she could better feel out her mother’s state of mind. She left the train, exited the station and flagged down a taxi at the curb. In the few seconds it took for the car to pull to a stop, she could almost feel the freckles popping out on her nose. Hundreds of lemons in college had lessened the effects of outdoor swim meets and practices, but her skin remained susceptible. Annabelle scrubbed a knuckle over her nose and sighed. Freckles did not lend themselves to the authoritative look she needed on the job. Or to feel grown up, which always seemed harder around her mother.

  During the cab ride, she practiced a hi-Mom-I-was-just-in-the-neighborhood greeting, but was admittedly a bit nervous by the time the cab pulled up to the familiar white house with red shutters. Her heart pounded as she tipped the driver, then she climbed out and allowed the memories to roll over her. Voices and smells and images from the past rose up to comfort her…she was home.

  The driveway sat empty, but her mother had told her she’d cleaned out the garage and started parking inside. On the way up the sidewalk, Annabelle pivoted and nodded in appreciation at the magazine-worthy curb appeal of the sprawling ranch-style home. The mulch beds on either side of the stoop featured the biggest and brightest of the perennials Belle had accumulated over the years. A gray birdbath with a fairy on the pedestal sat off to the right, providing nourishment to a gaggle of butterflies. The yard was immaculate, save for a single wad of crabgrass. Annabelle stooped to uproot the offending weed, an act that had her father smiling down in approval, she was certain.

  I’ll take care of her, Daddy, just as I promised.

  When she straightened, she caught sight of a three-story coral-colored stucco home through the trees and frowned. Martin Castleberry’s house, she presumed, from her mother’s description. The man probably watched her mother with a pair of binoculars before he asked her out.

  Annabelle climbed the stacked-stone steps of the house she’d grown up in,
noticing the same rock on the same corner of the same step was loose—just loose enough to remove and put a note behind it for her friend Lisa who’d lived in the house closest to theirs at the time. But Lisa and her family had moved to Illinois when the girls were eight years old, and Annabelle had lost count of how many times their house had changed owners, as had most of the homes in their isolated neighborhood as the developers crept closer and closer. The juxtaposition of the neighborhoods today could best be described as Southern Living meets Metropolitan Home.

  She rang the doorbell and smiled wide, ready to throw open her arms and embrace her mother. A minute later she stopped smiling and rang the bell again. Where would her mother be at two o’clock in the afternoon? A heartbeat later, she bit down on her tongue in realization. Probably at her boyfriend’s. Correction—her fiancé’s. Annabelle grimaced. She had never liked that uppity complicated word. Fiancé. Americans had simply adopted a pronunciation from the French to sugarcoat the sticky implication of the word: Constrained. Bound. Trapped.

  She lifted the shiny brass knocker and rapped it loudly. Finally she retrieved a ring of keys from her purse and unlocked the door. Thinking her mother might be in the back yard, Annabelle walked through the living room toward the kitchen. Along the way, she scrutinized the newly painted walls with a critical eye—where were all the pictures of her father? In the kitchen, she stopped and stared at the counter.

  Was that a dirty glass? And—she rubbed her eyes—a saucer with crumbs on it?

  Well, there was her answer—some messy person had obviously kidnapped her mother and was occupying her home.

  She crossed to the sliding glass door, opened it, and stepped onto the deck her father had added a few years ago. “Mom?” The back yard was vacant, but she paused to admire the two rose arbors Belle had added since her last visit, purple Damask and Americana Red, assuming her mother’s tutoring had sunk in. Her mother possessed a green thumb and the picturesque back yard reflected her considerable talent, from clusters of rare perennials to common black-eyed Susans. Annabelle scanned the staggered perimeter of waist-high shrubs that faded into a wooded area and frowned at a worn spot leading out of the lawn in the direction of the coral-colored house.

  Good grief, they’d literally beaten a path to each other.

  The back of the towering structure was more visible from this vantage point, as well as the tall privacy fence around what she assumed was the home’s back yard. In addition to sheer size, vast Palladium windows and copper roof accents set the house apart from those on her mother’s street.

  “Mom? It’s me,” she called tentatively, but was almost relieved when she heard no answer—she preferred talking to her mother alone before meeting the infamous Mr. Castleberry.

  Knowing her mother would probably return soon, she retraced her steps and turned on the shower in the bath closest to her old room. While the water warmed, she walked into her mother’s bathroom in search of a robe, but instead of Belle’s usual cotton shifts and quilted housecoats, she could find only silky kimono-style robes. Short ones. Glaring at the rainbow collection, she chose the most modest garment in the group, a mid-thigh turquoise wraparound number, and padded back to the shower.

  When the thought crossed her mind that her mother’s lingerie selection was more extensive than her own, Annabelle squeezed her eyes shut and scrubbed her scalp harder.

  *****

  Clay unlocked the door to his loft condo and keyed in the password to the security alarm. The odors of fresh paint assailed him and he groaned—he’d forgotten he’d contracted to have his condo painted while he was in Paris. Two stepladders, several five-gallon drums of paint, and miles of drop cloths littered the hallway.

  His lower back ached from the prolonged plane ride, and his eyes felt gritty. He set his gym bag and briefcase on the floor, then stretched and yawned. The thought of catching a few winks in his own bed sounded wonderful, but he resisted the temptation, stripping his suit on the way to the shower. Unpleasant business was best taken care of quickly, he could sleep later. For an extra jolt of alertness, he stepped inside the glass and chrome stall while the water still ran cold.

  He grunted at the almost painful rush, then lathered his jaw and shaved. His father had made a living on the image of a rebel with a perpetual two-day-old stubble, and with too many of his father’s features for his own comfort, he wasn’t about to give anyone added cause to compare the two of them. Damn his father—why couldn’t the man be like normal seventy-five-year-olds: puttering around a garden, begging for grandchildren, walking in the shopping mall every morning before it opened to the public.

  He smiled wryly as he soaped his chest. His father would definitely die kicking. Clay only hoped the circumstances wouldn’t be scandalous enough for the press to serve up with a juicy headline.

  Refreshed, he dressed in country club casual clothes. Jeans would have been a welcome change after days of suits, but he knew his performance would be more effective in nicer clothing. While shining his shoes, he phoned directory assistance and gave the name ‘Belle Coakley.’ After a mechanical pause, he was rewarded with the woman’s street address and phone number. Clay then called his bank and arranged to withdraw twenty thousand dollars. He’d never had to pay more than ten thousand for one of his father’s lovers to take a hike, but since the proposed bride was a neighbor, he might have to foot the bill for a summer vacation far from Atlanta.

  Clay unearthed his car key and exited by the door to the parking garage. He hadn’t moved the Mercedes in over a month. In fact, except for infrequent treks to his father’s house and occasional dinner dates, he walked everywhere, or drove his black quad-cab pickup. A shame, he decided as he unlocked the door to the silver sedan, since it was ‘such a nice ride’—as his last dinner date had declared at least five times before they’d arrived at the restaurant.

  On the way to the Coakley woman’s house, with money in hand, Clay marveled at how streamlined the process had become over the last few years: he would withdraw a sum of money, pay a visit to the object of his father’s affliction, deliver a well-practiced story about the wisdom of taking the money and dropping out of sight, then whisk away his father for a few days on an impromptu golf, tennis, ski, or sailing trip. Depending on his father’s and the girl’s reluctance to end the liaison, he might hire a private investigator to uncover the woman’s skeletons, then present the damaging information to his father before they returned home. Martin was usually miffed at first, but would eventually agree with Clay that the relationship wouldn’t have worked and good-naturedly return to his idle pursuits.

  Buying off the gold-diggers revolted Clay, but he had negotiated each of his father’s divorce settlements and knew that pre-nuptial agreements were not iron-clad, especially considering his father’s tendency to make generous verbal promises in the throes of passion. Even with him handling his father’s investments personally, the funds had been rapidly depleted. He could provide handsomely for his father, and the recent settlement check from their drawn out lawsuit would restore Martin’s reserves, but Clay was determined to plug the sugar-daddy leak. Consequently, circumventing marriage altogether seemed the most expedient end.

  He slowed to scan the road signs. Martin’s former girlfriends had lived in slovenly apartments—and worse—so he was surprised to discover this woman owned a relatively nice home in an established neighborhood. Clay wondered if the house was a gift, or maybe an inheritance from the girl’s last wealthy boyfriend. He hated to be cynical, but he’d discovered that most of the women who cozied up to his gullible father had a history of rooking older men.

  He stopped in front of the sweet-looking white home and smirked. How charming. Unmoved, he parked and made his way up the sidewalk. The top story of his father’s home—his home really, since he’d assumed the payments and the title—was visible through the top-heavy pine trees. Proximity was a variable he hadn’t had to deal with before, but he’d think of something.

  Clay filled his lu
ngs with tepid air and climbed the steps heavily, anger toward the unknown woman building with each footfall. Please don’t let her be another stripper.

  He rang the doorbell, then stepped back and prepared himself for the appearance of a garish young woman. Blond and busty, if his father’s taste ran true to form. And neither virtue had to be God-given.

  When a couple of minutes passed, he rang again, then realized the woman was probably lounging by his father’s pool. Just as he turned to leave, a muffled female voice sounded from the other side of the door.

  “Can I help you?”

  She sounded young—naturally. “Ms. Coakley, I came to talk to you about Martin Castleberry.”

  Seconds passed, then, “Who are you?”

  “I’m Clay Castleberry, his son.” He felt like an idiot talking to the door, but apparently the woman inside had no such compunction.

  “I didn’t know he had a son.”

  Clay bit the inside of his cheek—he could almost hear the echo in her empty head. How could his father consider marrying the woman and omit the fairly relevant fact that he had a son? Of course, Martin might have told the woman and she’d simply forgotten. If she were that ditzy, at least she’d be a pushover for the money he offered. “Ms. Coakley, we need to talk about the engagement.”

  “How did you know I was here?”

  He shook his head. Great—she was simple and paranoid. He floundered for a response that wouldn’t spook her. “My father told me.”

  The handle rattled and the door swung open. “I knew it—he’s watching the house through binoculars, isn’t he?”

  Clay blinked and a bolt of pure male admiration shot through him. Dressed in a short turquoise robe with her dark wet hair falling around her shoulders, Belle Coakley was a vision. Pale hazel eyes flashed from a slender face, flanked by long dark lashes and a surprising display of freckles across the bridge of her small nose. A memory chord pinged, but he couldn’t imagine where he might have met the woman. His father’s taste in mistresses was definitely improving, but she couldn’t be much over twenty-five. A simple, paranoid, angry twenty-five.