to enter the reception room,” the manager told them.
They stood around the table laden with the wedding cake, calla lilies and glowing candles. Russ stepped up and raised his glass. “It gives me the greatest pleasure to introduce to you Telford and Alexis Harrington.” After the applause, he continued. “To my brother and his wife. May you always be as deeply in love as you are this day.” He let the champagne drizzle down his throat, set his glass down and moved aside.
Drake held up his glass. “I thank my brother for giving me such a wonderful sister and a niece who I adore as if she were my own child. Telford and Alexis, God bless you with a long and happy life.”
It was Henry’s turn. “This is one of the happiest days of my life. Take care of each other, and grow old together in peace and love.” He took a few sips and set the glass aside.
Russ motioned to the orchestra, and Telford waltzed onto the center of the floor with his bride in his arms. His turn, but he felt a little shaky about it. He figured it would pay him to keep his distance from Velma, though he didn’t discount his strong attraction to her. He preferred independent, self-assured women, and Velma had just showed signs of a lack of self-confidence, at least with him. He liked the company of mature people who knew who they were and where they belonged. However, as custom demanded, he stepped in front of Velma and opened his arms. “Dance with me?” he asked her, for he didn’t believe in taking anything for granted.
She smiled, lifted the hem of her gown and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks. I’d love to dance with you.” She danced well, he realized, a point in her favor, for he loved to dance.
The manager announced that dinner was served and that dancing would continue later. After dinner, Russ said to Velma, “Drake’s car is in the hotel garage. If you wish to stay, he’ll drive you home along with Tara and Henry. I’m driving Telford and Alexis to the airport in Baltimore as soon as they change clothes. I can drop you by Harrington House, but no one will be there with you till Drake gets back.”
She thought for a couple of seconds and quickly made up her mind. He liked that. Nothing got on his nerves faster than shilly-shallying.
“I’ll go back with Drake,” she said. “Drive carefully. Will you come back to Eagle Park tonight?”
“Yes, but it will be late. I’ll see you in the morning.” To his own surprise, he leaned down and kissed her cheek. “It was fun. Good night.”
He could take her with him, and maybe he should, but if he did, it would seem that she was his date, and he wasn’t ready for what that would imply. He walked over to Telford and tapped his elbow.
“Alexis will blow a fuse if I speed, so we’d better get started. Check-in time is an hour and a half from now. Say your goodbyes, man.”
It amused him when Alexis, who stood within hearing distance, said, “If he spoke to all these people, we’d miss the plane. Everybody thinks newlyweds are off-the-wall anyway, so why don’t we just sneak out? I’ve already prepared Tara. Let’s go.”
“Woman after my own heart, brother. Meet you in the lobby in ten minutes.”
Telford clapped his hands. “Unmarried ladies to the right please.” About a dozen women including Velma gathered there. Alexis tossed her bridal bouquet, and Adam Roundtree’s cousin caught it.
As Russ was leaving the reception hall, he glanced to his right, toward the spot where he last saw Velma, and noticed that her gaze followed him. His heart battled with his will in a fight to which he was entirely unaccustomed. He stopped, turned and walked over to her.
“Do you want to ride with me? I’ll drop them at the airport and head directly to Eagle Park. Do you want to go?”
She gazed steadily up at him, almost as if trying to see inside of him, to divine his motive. He wasn’t accustomed to that Velma—serious, standing her ground and doing it without the props of wit and quips. He spread his hands palms out, telling her without words, “what you see is what you get.” Suddenly, a smile enveloped her face, and relief flooded him, though he could not imagine why.
“I’d love to go, Russ.”
No silliness such as “if you’re sure you don’t mind” or “if it won’t inconvenience you.” Straight from the shoulder. She wanted to go with him, and she didn’t mind letting him know it. Another point in her favor. He liked a woman who let a man know what she wanted.
He took her hand. “Come on. I’ll tell Drake you’ll be home later.”
“Way to go, man,” Drake said, his voice well contained. “It’s the simple things that count—they can make you or break you.”
“Yeah. It’s easy to forget that.”
“Would you like me to get a vase for your flowers?” Russ asked Velma.
“Thanks, but each stem is in its own little water cup.” She gazed up at him. “You’re a thoughtful man, and it’s something I appreciate.”
He didn’t know what to make of that statement, so he let it go. Fortunately Telford and Alexis appeared, having changed into traveling clothes. To his amazement, neither of them seemed surprised to see Velma with him.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s get this show moving. If we waste another minute, I’ll have to drive ninety miles an hour in order to get you to the airport on time.”
“Don’t tax yourself, brother,” Telford said. “I can get us there driving fifty-five or sixty, so if you’d rather I drove…”
Russ couldn’t help laughing. “All right. All right.” He buckled Velma’s seat belt. “You two buckle up back there.” He ignited the engine and headed for Route 70. He didn’t feel the need to talk; most any subject would take him down from where he was. He didn’t want anything to blight his mood. How many times had he feared Telford would let Alexis slip through his hands? It took him a long time to concede Drake’s point, that Telford was a different man when he was in Alexis’s company, that he had never known Telford to be truly happy until he fell in love with Alexis and Tara. It was an incontestable truth; they belonged together.
He glanced at Velma, who sat beside him serenely with her hands relaxed and the bouquet lying in her lap. “Thank God, she doesn’t feel the need to chatter,” he said to himself. He flipped on the radio and out came the strains of “Will You Dance This Waltz With Me?” As if of its own volition, his head turned toward Velma and, at the same time, she looked toward him. A grin formed around her lips, and then she laughed. He didn’t ask her why she laughed, because he knew. It was the reason why he also laughed. They could duck it as much and as often as they liked, but something would always remind them.
“I won’t ask what the two of you are laughing about,” Telford said.
“Oh, you can ask,” Russ replied, “but it won’t do you much good.”
“What if I ask?” Alexis put in.
“Won’t do you any good either,” Velma said.
That wasn’t the first notice she had given that she would support him, that she’d be there for him if he needed her. He recorded it in his mental notebook. A long-term arrangement with her wasn’t on his agenda, but he had to reckon with it because her attraction for him was
