Wedding For One

1

Present Day

MARIAH RIPPED off her rainbow wig and clomped up the stairs to the apartment she shared with Nikki, careful to point her flappy feet outward so she wouldn’t trip. If she never in her life had to make another Pokémon animal balloon at a kiddie party it would be too soon.

As she unlocked the door, she heard the phone ring. Maybe it was the temp agency with a new job adventure for her. She’d had enough of Party Time Characters, the company she’d created with four friends from her acting class. She was near her six-month mark—her max for sticking with a job—so she’d sell Leon the costume inventory and he could take over.

She lunged for the phone, tripped over her flappy feet and crashed against the table, catching the phone as it fell.

“Hello?” she managed on a gasp of air.

“Hello, sweetie. This is your mother.” She always said that, as if Mariah wouldn’t instantly know the honey bubbly voice of Meredith Monroe.

“Hi, Mom,” Mariah said on a sigh, rolling onto her back. “Thanks for the package. The paint-by-number set was nice, except in my painting class we work freehand.” Even long-distance, Meredith continued to try to nudge Mariah’s life into a shape she recognized. She’d been doing it for the eight years since Mariah had left Copper Corners.

“The saguaro blossom taffy hardly melted at all.” She hated saguaro blossom taffy.

Sensing the apartment was empty, Mariah unzipped the clown suit and slid out of it, holding the phone against her ear. Cool air washed over her sweaty body. Ahhh. She unhooked her bra and tossed it to the side, then lay back to rub her back on the carpet. No wonder the Disney costume characters went on strike over their working conditions. These costumes were deadly hot.

“Your father will be glad. He knows how much you love his taffy. I’m not calling about the package, though. This is urgent. It’s about Nathan.”

“Nathan? What about him?” Her heart took the same hop it always did when she heard his name. She hadn’t seen him since before they’d jilted each other on their wedding day, but she still had that maddening reaction to him. It was like a superstition or a tired habit.

“It’s so terrible. We’re fit to be tied beside ourselves.”

“What happened?” Was he sick? Dead? Married?

“He’s leaving us. We can’t believe it.”

“Why is Nathan leaving?”

“It’s insane, I know. He’s perfect here. Personally, I think he’s having a midlife crisis.”

“Mom, the man is only twenty-nine. He can’t have a midlife crisis. Why does he say he’s going?”

“Oh, some nonsense about figuring out what he really wants. He sounds like you, with your self-actual-whatzit, and live-for-the-moment hooey. Have you been talking to him?”

“Of course not.” She never talked to Nathan. She made sure of that. An arrangement she was positive he preferred. She’d been home five times in the past eight years—visits she kept short to minimize her mother’s meddling—and though Nathan was always invited for a dinner, he begged off, saying it was a family time.

Which made no sense because Nathan was like a son to her parents. A fact on which she depended, since it took the pressure off her. She counted on Nathan to be the good kid she could never be.

“This just ruins everything for us,” Meredith said. “Now your father won’t retire.”

“What?”

“I’ve been talking to your father about retiring until I’m green in the face. Finally, he agrees, but only if Nathan takes over,” she said in her dramatic way. “Now Nathan’s leaving, so your father won’t retire.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I know. You have to talk some sense into him.”

“You can put him on, but I doubt Daddy will listen to me.”

“Not Daddy. Nathan. You have to talk to Nathan. Convince him to stay. It’s the only way. You know your father. He won’t budge. The Monroe Doctrine—never give an inch. Come and talk to Nathan, please. Otherwise, I don’t know what we’re going to do.” The catch in her mother’s voice didn’t even sound theatrical. She really was upset.

“Why would Nathan listen to me?”

“Because you’re you. I know you don’t want to hear this, but he still cares about you.”

“Mom, stop it.”

“I know, I know. You’re past all that. But my point is he’ll listen to you.”

“I doubt it.”

“Wait until you see him. He gets more handsome every year.”

“Mother.”

“I know, I know. You have a full life. A new boyfriend every time I turn around. Someone like Nathan couldn’t possibly appeal to you. He owns his own boring custom-built home, has a dull management job and lives in an annoying little town where everyone supports each other through the good times and the bad.”

“Okay, Mother.”

“What? I’m agreeing with you. So, just talk to him. Come for a visit. We haven’t seen you in a year. You’ve probably changed your hair color three times since then.”

“I don’t see the point.”

“We miss you. Who knows how long we’ll last? You know Fred Nostrad had a stroke and died at sixty-five, not one week after his retirement dinner at the bank.”

“Are either of you sick?” Her heart clutched for a second.

“Not so far. Though your father’s cholesterol…through the roof.”

Mariah blew out a breath. It was just Meredith playing the life-hangs-by-a-thread card.

“So, come out. You can see us and remind Nathan that Cactus Confections is his home. What more could anyone want than to run a candy factory?”

“Maybe something more meaningful?” Though Nathan was pretty much a nose-to-the-grindstone guy. Work was work.

“What’s more meaningful than candy?”

“Millions of dentists agree, I guess.”

“Your father has been happy here for thirty years. You could have been happy here, too, you know.”

“I’m happy here, Mom,” she said. Absently, she rubbed the callus on her thumb from making Pikachu balloon animals. Well, she would be happy as soon as she found another job.

“Well, hel-lo…”

The male voice made her look up. Raul, Nikki’s latest boyfriend, grinned down at her from the door of Nikki’s bedroom.

“Whoops!” Mariah yanked the puddle of clown suit over her bare breasts.

“Don’t do that on my account,” Raul drawled. He wore tattered jeans and a leather vest that revealed three of Nikki’s original tattoos. By the way his eyes took a slow trip along her body, she knew he’d be interested in her when Nikki was through with him.

Raul was sweet, for a biker. But Mariah wasn’t interested in him. She’d been taking a break from boyfriends, spending some alone time with the VCR and, lately, she’d felt like painting again. That seemed more fun than dealing with casual boyfriends. She could never quite be herself. She had to stay on guard for when they got serious. Keeping it easy in a relationship was hard work. Right now, the only thing she wanted to change was her job.

She gave Raul a neutral smile. He got the message, shrugged, then stepped over her on his way into the kitchen.

“Mariah? Hello?” Meredith said.

“I’m here, Mom.”

“You don’t want Nathan to make a mistake, do you? You want the best for him, don’t you?”

“Sure I do,” she said on a sigh. She owed him a lot. In a way he’d helped her make her own life. Her parents had lavished their concern, affection and appreciation on him, and that reduced the hassle they gave her and the amount of worrying they did about her. He was the son her father never had and the business partner he would have wanted Mariah to be.

Nathan was probably just having the identity crisis her mother had guessed at. Or maybe he didn’t think he could handle the factory on his own when her father retired. Maybe she could talk him through it, get him back on track. Maybe her mother was exaggerating.

“How about if I give him a call?” The thought of seeing him in person made her pulse race and her head pound. Maintaining the two-hundred-mile distance between them seemed the safest bet. She’d call and straighten this all out. Easy.

“PUNKIN!” Mariah’s dad said, meeting her at the door when she arrived two days later. He tugged her into a hug against his portly frame.

“Hi, Daddy.” After three failed attempts to call Nathan—she kept panicking and hanging up—Mariah had decided she’d have to talk to him in person. After eight years of silence, how could disembodied voices ever connect about something so important? Face-to-face would be the only way. She was much more convincing in person. Plus, if this was just a Meredith maneuver to get her out for a visit, she might as well get it over with, before her mother faked a heart attack or something.

So here she was home again, for better or worse. She felt the familiar mix of nostalgia, homesickness and being smothered with a pillow. She loved her parents, but she loved her own life more. And her freedom most of all.

After her mother had almost bulldozed her into that false marriage to Nathan, she’d promised herself she’d never depend on them—or anyone else—to make her choices. She’d make her own way, her own decisions. She was a butterfly, light on her feet. There was nothing wrong with that. Butterflies brought beauty into the world. They didn’t stay long, but they dazzled you while they were here, and left you breathless with memories when they flew on.

She so much liked thinking of herself as a butterfly, she’d asked Nikki to sketch one she’d had made into a tattoo on her left shoulder. Nikki’d gotten a tattoo, too. And that experience had made Nikki decide to become a tattoo artist. As soon as she got together some bucks, she’d have her own shop.

“You’re skin and bones,” her mother said, swooping down on her from the kitchen, smelling of rosemary, onion and fresh-baked dinner rolls. “What are you eating? Soda crackers and ketchup soup? Do you have enough money?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” she said, leaning down to kiss her mother’s powdery cheek. She caught her mother’s hand before she could slip a wad of bills into Mariah’s jeans pocket. “Really, I mean it.”

Before long, her father would do the same, she knew. It was a point of pride that Mariah hadn’t spent the money her parents were forever mailing her or slipping into her pockets or luggage or handbag when she visited. She’d opened a mutual funds account with the money and planned to use it as a retirement gift to them.

She gave up thumb-wrestling her mother. “Thanks,” she said on a sigh, and tucked the wad into her pocket. Her eyes scanned the room. “What’s all this?” She walked to the dining room table, which held a laptop computer, a globe and stacks of travel brochures. A half-dozen maps were tacked to the walls.

“The nerve center of our retirement campaign,” her mother said, joining her. “Your father’s finally got the travel bug and we’re just itching to get going. We’re thinking Barbados.” She handed Mariah a thick brochure about the place.

“But now and then I do this.” Meredith spun the globe, closed her eyes, then touched a spot. She studied where her finger had landed. “Tierra del Fuego. Hmm. That’s a new one. Then I go to the Internet and read about the country.”

“That’s great,” she said, then turned to her father. “I’m glad to see you’re finally going to give yourself a break.”

“What am I saving all this money for?” he said, though he didn’t seem quite as enthusiastic as her mother.

“Now, all we need is someone to entrust with the business,” Meredith said.

Her father looked at her lovingly. “You going to help out your old dad, Punkin?”

“M-me. Oh, no, not me, Daddy.” She took a step backward. “I’m just here to talk to Nathan. Didn’t Mom tell you?”

“Sure, sure,” he said, a shadow of disappointment crossing his face. “Nathan’s stubborn about this, though.”

She’d been afraid of that. She both dreaded her visit to Nathan and couldn’t wait to see him. The whole thing made her feel schizoid. As soon as she got settled she planned to head right over to his house. Drop in unannounced, get it over with.

“This all you brought?” her father asked, hefting her suitcase.

“I’m not staying long, Daddy,” she said, trying not to see how sad that made him. “I can carry it upstairs just fine.”

“Nonsense. When I’m too old to carry my daughter’s bag, they’ll have to pry my cold dead fingers from the handle.”

Her heart ached at his words. She loved him so much. Maybe she should try to visit more….

“I made a special batch of saguaro blossom taffy for you.”

Ick. She’d made the mistake once of telling him she liked the stuff, just to be polite, and now he thought it was her favorite. “Great,” she said, swallowing hard. “I can’t wait to taste it.”

Once in her bedroom, bittersweet memories bloomed, as they had each time she’d returned. The walls were the way Mariah had left them eight years ago, each a bright color—cranberry, purple, lime green, orange. It almost hurt to look. Every inch of wall space was filled with Mariah’s artwork. Abstract oils and watercolors in garish ceramic frames, charcoal sketches, etched prints, collages, even some weavings.

She’d been so intense about everything back then. Only Nikki had understood her passion—because she shared that fascination with the mystery in ordinary objects, the magic of creating something, saying something with paint or clay or paper.

Nikki was a great artist. Mariah was only good. Her biggest problem. She had an artistic streak, not a path or a yellow brick road to a career.

Over the years, she’d accepted the fact that she didn’t really excel at anything. She contributed where she could for as long as she could, then moved on.

Her bureau was filled with jewelry—much of it she’d designed herself. Scarves dangled from the mirror along with a program she’d taped there from the one-woman play she’d performed on talent night her junior year—Dishwater March.

She usually didn’t unpack, but this trip would be longer than usual, so she opened her bureau drawer. Right on top was the black negligee she’d gotten for the honeymoon trip to Hawaii. She’d tossed it out of her bag when she and Nikki packed to leave. And now here it was in all its sex-kitten glory. Her heart squeezed tight and she shut the drawer with a bang that knocked over a ceramic picture frame.

She picked it up. The frame, which she’d made herself, held the photo of her and Nathan that Nikki had taken just after they’d gotten engaged. In the photo, Mariah leaned into Nathan’s chest as if he were a windbreak protecting her from a storm. She looked timid and sad, with flyaway hair and frightened eyes. Her heart pinched at the sight of how insecure she looked.

She was just lucky she’d realized her mistake in time and not married Nathan. What a disaster that would have been. She would have tried to be a suburban wife and failed miserably. Suburbia was not her, though at the time, she’d have done anything to please Nathan. Now she knew she had to be true to herself.

The photo got suddenly blurry and she realized her eyes had filled with tears. The past always made people sad. She’d been too young to be in love. She’d simply had a crush. She’d been infatuated with Nathan’s college degree, his four years as a man on his own, his maturity and his confidence about his future.

And the way he’d looked at her. That had been the kicker. Seeing herself reflected in his eyes, she’d felt not goofy and ditzy, but beautiful and artistic. And loved. So loved. But Nathan had probably just wanted to rescue her.

Now he was having some identity crisis and might be about to make a terrible mistake. Maybe, this time, she could rescue him.

2

NATHAN’S TWO-STORY ranch home—just a block away from her parents’—was gracious and classy and very Nathan. The only thing wrong was the garish for-sale sign stuck in the middle of the perfectly trimmed rose bed. The sight made her stomach sink. His house was already for sale. If he’d gotten this far with his plan, convincing him to stay might not be easy.

She followed the curving flagstone path to the huge door, on either side of which was a stained-glass panel featuring a hummingbird on a prickly pear cactus. Before she rang the doorbell, she became aware of an awful honking that at first she thought was a goose in great distress. After a few seconds, she realized it was a musical instrument being played badly.

She rang the bell and the tortured fowl fell silent.

In a second, Nathan stood in the doorway wielding the saxophone he must have been abusing. The instant he saw her, his face lit with amazement, then joy, and he gave her a smile as big as the one he’d delivered when she’d agreed to marry him.

“Mariah? What are you…?” Abruptly, the light switched off and the smile faded. “Your mother sent you.”

She didn’t answer. She was busy storing the memory of the joy on his face when he’d seen her.

“My mind’s made up, but come in,” he said.

She stepped into the entryway, which was tiled in whitewashed saltillo, with a high ceiling and a bright airy feeling. It opened into a spacious step-down living room at the far end of which a floor-to-ceiling window invited her into the backyard with its glittering pool, lacy palms and Mexican bird of paradise bushes, iridescent with feathery orange blossoms.

“Your home is beautiful,” she said. “It’s so…” you, but that would sound silly.

“So predictable, so yuppie,” he said with a tired sigh. “I know. Come in and sit down.” He laid his saxophone on the marble entry table.

She stepped down into the living room and went to sit on the white leather sofa, soft and yielding as a gloved hand. Seeing Nathan again made her heart pound so hard she was afraid he might hear it. She concentrated on the bad art on the wall—completely dead couch paintings, probably chosen because they matched the decor, not for their power. She wished she could have advised him. “I didn’t know you played the saxophone,” she said.

“My mom was a musician, so I thought it might be in the blood. I think maybe the talent skipped a generation.”

“Practice makes perfect,” she said.

“Maybe,” he said. His eyes flicked over her. “It’s a little early for cocktails, but something tells me I’ll need a drink for this.” He must have caught the hurt look on her face because he quickly added, “Because of why you came.” He headed for the wet bar in a glassed-in alcove. “Would you join me in a glass? I’ve got a nice cabernet here.”

“Sure,” she said. Wine might calm her nerves, but she wished it weren’t red, in case she spilled some onto his elegant white carpet.

He did look good. Her mother had been right about that. More handsome and more masculine than he’d been eight years ago. At twenty-one, he’d been wiry. Now his shoulders and chest were broader and more defined. What she could see of his arms beyond the short-sleeved shirt were tanned and muscled. He must work out. Maybe in that fabulous pool.

His hair, cut fashionably short, was thick and dark. His face looked older, too—more experienced. There were crinkles at the edges of his eyes, and his smile was more relaxed than she remembered. Though he wore a button-down, well-pressed oxford shirt and crisp khakis, he’d be equally at home on a golf course, in a corporate boardroom or a smoky biker bar. In fact, he’d look great in black leather.

With practiced moves, Nathan took two goblets from the rack overhead, opened the bottle and filled the glasses. She realized he probably did this on all his dates. As much as Mariah tried to avoid it, her mother had kept her apprised of the details of Nathan’s love life. In fact, she was pretty sure he had a girlfriend right now. A math teacher, if she wasn’t mistaken.

Nathan came toward her carrying the wineglasses. Now that he knew why she’d come, his smile seemed flat, and she could tell he was being careful not to touch her fingers as he handed her the goblet.

“So, how have you been?” he asked, sitting at the farthest end of the sofa, like he thought she might pounce on him.

“Fine. Good, actually.”

“Your mother tells me you own a condominium now?”

“Hardly. I rent an apartment. Nikki’s my roommate.”

“Oh, yes. Your wild friend.” He shook his head in wonder. Nikki bewildered lots of people. “Living in an apartment is probably fun.”

“Oh, yeah. Gallons of giggles.” She thought of the funky building with its erratic air-conditioning and thin walls, on which they had to pound to get the rock band next door to stop practicing after midnight. Not to mention the deals she and Nikki had to make to keep the phone and gas hooked up.

“It’s nothing like this, that’s for sure,” she said, waving out the window. “I bet you come home every night from a hard day at the candy factory and dive into that crystal cool pool, huh?”

He shrugged as if it were nothing. “How about work? Your mother says you’re acting. Community theater? A play you wrote?”

Oh, for God’s sake. She’d written the skits for most of the costume characters they took out to kiddie parties, but that was hardly theater. “Meredith tends to embellish,” she said. “Actually, I’m between jobs right now.”

She just couldn’t bring herself to explain that she’d turned over her clown suit, Barney costume and Power-puff Girl tights the day she’d left, and told the temp agency to put a hold on her job application until she settled this family situation. “Enough about me,” she said, uncomfortable with the way his blue eyes seemed to dig down inside her. “Let’s talk about you.”

Nathan gave a weary smile. “That’s why you’re here, right? Guess we might as well get to it.”

Very cool, Nathan congratulated himself. He couldn’t believe how relaxed he’d sounded, considering the fact that the woman who’d flitted through his dreams for the past eight years had suddenly lighted on his sofa. He wanted to move very slowly so she wouldn’t zip away. That was stupid, though. Mariah had come here with her own agenda, not to restart their abandoned relationship.

She was prettier than the photo her father’d let him have. The camera deadened her electric blue-green eyes, doused the life in her face, dulled the gleam in her golden brown curls. She’d done something to the ends—bleached them blond. An interesting effect that made her look exotic. Though he’d left plenty of distance between them on the sofa, Mariah’s intensity seemed to fill the room all the way to the predictably high ceiling.