that at all. My date had spiked my punch. How was I to know—”
A drumroll and a clash of cymbals drowned out her voice.
“...and now,” an oily, amplified voice boomed, “Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Babbitt will take their very first dance as husband and wife.”
People began to applaud as Nick took Dawn in his arms. They moved onto the dance floor, gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes.
Annie gave Milton a beseeching look.
“Milton,” she said, “listen—”
“It’s all right,” he said quickly. “Today’s a family day, Anne. I understand.” He started to reach for her hand, caught himself, and drew back. “I’ll call you tomorrow. It was...interesting to have met you, Mr. Cooper.”
Chase smiled politely. “Call me Chase, please. There’s no need to be so formal, considering all we have in common.”
Annie didn’t know which she wanted to do more, punch Chase for his insufferable behavior or punch Milton Hoffman for being so easily scared off. It took only a second to decide that Chase was the more deserving target She glared at him as Hoffman scuttled back to his seat.
“You are lower than a snake’s belly,” she said.
Chase sighed. “Annie, listen—”
“No. No, you listen.” She pointed a trembling finger at him. “I know what you’re trying to do.”
Did she? Chase shook his head. Then, she knew more than he did. There wasn’t a reason in the world he’d acted like such a jerk just now. So what if Annie was having a thing with some guy? So what if the guy looked as if he might faint at the sight of a mouse? So what if he’d had a sudden, blazing vision of Annie in bed with the son of a bitch?
She could do what she wanted, with whom she wanted. It sure as hell didn’t matter to him.
“Are you listening to me?” she said.
Chase looked at Annie. Her face was still shot with color. It arced across her cheekbones and over the bridge of her nose, where a scattering of tiny freckles lay like sprinkles of gold. He remembered how he used to kiss those warm, golden spots after they’d made love.
“I know what you’re up to, Chase. You’re trying to ruin Dawn’s wedding because I didn’t do it the way you wanted.”
Chase’s eyebrows leaped into his hairline. “Are you nuts?”
“Oh, come off it!” Annie’s voice quavered with anger. “You wanted a big wedding in a big church, so you could invite all your fancy friends.”
“You are nuts! I never—”
“Keep your voice down!”
“I am keeping it down. You’re the one who’s—”
“Let me tell you something, Chase Cooper. This wedding is exactly the kind Dawn wanted.”
“And a damn good thing, too. If it had been up to you, our daughter might have ended up getting married on a hillside in her bare feet—”
“Oh, and what that would have done to Mr. Chase Cooper’s image!”
“—while some idiot played a satyr in the background.”
“Sitar,” Annie hissed. “It’s called a sitar, Cooper, although you probably know a lot more about satyrs than you do about musical instruments.”
“Are we back to that again?” Chase snarled, and Annie’s color heightened
“No. We are not ‘back’ to anything. As far as I’m concerned—”
“...the bride’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Chase Cooper.”
Annie’s and Chase’s gazes swung toward the bandstand. The bandleader was smiling benevolently in their direction, and the crowd—even those who looked a bit surprised by the announcement—began to applaud.
“Come on, Annie and Chase.” The bandleader’s painted-on smile widened. “Let’s get up on the dance floor and join the bride and groom.”
“Let’s not,” Chase growled, under his breath.
“The man’s out of his mind,” Annie snapped.
But the applause had grown, and even the wild glance for help Annie shot toward Dawn, still swaying in the arms of her groom, brought only an apologetic shrug of her daughter’s shoulders.
Chase shoved back his chair and held out his hand.
“All right,” he said grimly, “let’s do it and get it over with.”
Annie’s chin jerked up. She rose stiffly and put her hand in his.
“I really hate you, Chase.”
“The feeling, madam, is entirely mutual.”
Eyes hot with anger, Annie and Chase took a couple of deep breaths, pasted civilized smiles on their lips and swung out onto the dance floor.
CHAPTER TWO
IMPOSSIBLE, miserable woman!
That was what she was, his ex-wife, what she’d turned into during the years of their marriage. Chase held Annie stiffly in his arms, enough space between them to have satisfied even starchy Miss Elgar, the chaperone at Annie’s Senior Prom.
“Propriety, please,” Miss Elgar had barked at any couple daring to get too close during the slow numbers.
Not that she’d approved of the Frug or the Mashed Potato, either. It was just that she’d figured those insane gyrations were safe.
Even all these years later. Chase smiled at the memory. Safe? A bunch of horny kids shaking their hips at each other? And no matter what the old witch thought, the sweetly erotic, locked-in-each-other’s-arms slow dancing went on behind her back just the same, in the hallway, in the cafeteria downstairs, even in the parking lot, where the music sighed on the warm spring breeze.
That was where he’d taken Annie, finally, out to the parking lot, where they’d danced, locked in each other’s arms, alone in the darkness and so crazy about each other after four months of dating that nothing else had mattered.
That was the night they’d first made love, on an old patchwork blanket he’d taken from the back of his beat-up Chevy and spread on the soft, sweet-smelling grass that grew up on Captree Point.
“We should stop,” he’d kept saying, in a voice so thick it had seemed to come from somebody else, though even as he’d said it, he’d been undoing Annie’s zipper, removing her gown and baring her beautiful body to his eyes and mouth and touch.
“Yes,” Annie had whispered, “oh, yes,” but her hands had been moving on him, even as she’d spoken, trembling as she’d undone his silly bow tie, sliding his white dinner
