Spring fancy Page 2

  "How am I doing?" he whispered.

  Her eyes flew up to find him grinning down at her.

  "You must be a dancer."

  His grin shifted to a wince, and he whispered, "Hardly."

  "Well, maybe you should be. You have impeccable timing."

  "Thank you, Ginger. Next time I'll bring my top hat and cane."

  She nudged his ribs and hissed, "Shh. Not here, Fred."

  They'd reached the chancel rail and followed the verbal and hand directions of Father Waldron, separating and taking their places on either flank.

  Turning to face the pews, Winnie watched Mick approach. She liked the fact that he and Sandy had chosen to walk up the aisle with their parents-Mick first, so he could be waiting when Sandy arrived to be given over from the arm of her father. She herself had never known a father and would be disinclined to walk up the aisle with her mother.

  Just before Sandy reached the chancel, Winnie glanced across at Joseph and found his eyes resting steadily on her, as if they'd been there for some time. He smiled briefly, then looked away, and the rest of the instructions began. When they'd walked through the ritual of the bridal service itself, the attendants were instructed to file into the front pew, again in pairs, for the remainder of the Nuptial Mass.

  Winnie and Joseph were seated side by side, their hips separated by a few scant inches of hard wooden pew. His upper arm brushed hers, and she felt him glance at her when she crossed her arms to end the contact.

  "Are you Catholic?"

  She looked up in surprise. "Of course. Why?"

  "Just wondering. I am, too, but I've never been too comfortable sitting through all this hoopla our church puts on at weddings. Reminds me of a carnival."

  She smiled at her lap, trying to imagine him sitting through it dressed in a tux and ruffles. Somehow the picture didn't fit.

  Just then Father Waldron raised his voice toward the choir loft. "And that will be my cue for you to begin the recessional, Mrs. Collingswood. Attendants, you'll come and take your places beside the new bride and groom before the final wedding march begins."

  They lined up along the front of the church again, and this time when the organ boomed its call to exit, Winnie and Joseph met in the center aisle with a chuckle, a smile and the sense of growing familiarity such routine practices often generate.

  They walked through the entire service once more before the entourage again clustered in the vestibule, and Mrs. Malaszewski reminded everybody that the groom's supper would be served at their house as soon as everyone got back there.

  "So you drove, huh?" Winnie found Joseph Duggan again at her side, this time holding her coat. Slipping it on, she wished she could say no, just to see what he'd suggest.

  "Yes… remember the gas?"

  "Yes, I remember. Too bad, or we could ride over to Mick's house together."

  "Well, in any case, I'll see you there."

  He opened the exterior door, and a blast of wind nearly knocked her back against his chest. Instinctively he took her elbow as they ran down the steps together, her coat flapping back across his thighs, and her hair slicked straight back from her face. In the parking lot he stopped her with a forceful pressure of his thumb in the hollow of her elbow.

  "If you get there first, save me a place next to you."

  The wind worked its way inside his jacket and ballooned it out. He dropped her elbow and reached to raise the zipper higher up his chest. The curls on the upper right-hand side of his skull were forced flat, while her own collar-length hair blew across her mouth and eye. She stood in the wind looking up at him, wondering what to reply, knowing she wasn't permitted to encourage him, yet answering, "And if you get there first, save a seat for me."

  "It's a promise. Only don't comb your hair this time!"

  "I…" A strand of it whipped into her open mouth. "What?"

  He'd started jogging away but turned and jogged backward five steps while calling, "I said don't comb your hair this time. It looked great when you first walked into church!"

  Some off-tempo warning slanted through her heart. Beware. He's an inveterate flirt and a practiced flatterer. And you're only walking up the aisle with him by accident. In three short months you'll be walking up the aisle for real!

  * * *

  The groom's dinner turned out to be served buffet-style, but the dining-room table was extended as wide as it would go, and when Winnie took her plate and sat down, Joseph Duggan followed. He swung his leg over the seat of the chair as if it were a barbed-wire fence he was climbing over and deposited before himself a plate that needed sidecars to hold all the food he'd heaped upon it.

  "Aw, you combed it," he chided, then sank his teeth into a slab of sliced ham.

  "Mr. Duggan, do you always flirt with every girl you meet within five minutes of meeting her?"

  "Was I flirting?"

  "It's only a rough guess, because I'm really not up on the subject, but it felt like it to me."

  "You're not up on the subject? A girl with your face and-" his eyes flickered downward, not quite reaching her breasts before starting up again "-hair?"

  She ignored his continued flattery and commented, "Yes, I combed my hair. It looked like an explosion in a silo."

  "Never." He assessed the subject of the discussion. "And it's pretty. A really pretty color and length."

  She felt out of her league. "There you go again."

  "You call that flirting?"

  "Well, isn't it?"

  He lifted a glass of milk, took three enormous swallows, ran a thumb along one corner of his mouth-and all without removing his eyes from her hair. When at last they dropped to hers, he replied, "No, just a compliment. I like your hair, okay? What are you so defensive about?"

  It was the perfect opening. She lifted her left hand, pressed her thumb against the inner platinum band of the engagement ring so the stone stood out away from her fourth finger. "This."

  His eyes dropped, and for a moment there was no change in his expression. "Oh, I see. Well, you can't blame a man for trying." She rested her hand on the edge of the table, and without warning he picked it up, studied the modest diamond at very close range and surprised her by carrying it to his mouth, tilting his head and pretending to bite the rock. Drawing back, he continued holding her hand while grinning engagingly. "Damned if it isn't real," he said softly.

  She burst out laughing but left her hand where it was. Inadvertently his tongue had touched her fourth finger and left a tiny spot of skin damp at the knuckle. It seemed to burn now as he studied the diamond and fingered it with thumb and index finger. He glanced up and bestowed that teasing little-boy grin. "Some guys have all the luck."

  Reluctantly she withdrew the hand and began eating again. But she could feel his eyes on her time and again in between the moments of attention he gave to his plate.

  "So, when's your big day?" he asked.

  "Only three months away. The third Saturday in June."

  "Ah, a June wedding, no less."

  "Yes, we've had the date picked out for almost a year."

  "You and-?"

  "Paul Hildebrandt."

  "Paul Hildebrandt," he repeated thoughtfully, then filled his mouth with potato salad. When he'd swallowed, he studied her askance. "So, what's he like?"

  "Oh, he's…" She drew circles on her plate with a celery stick. "He's ambitious and extremely intelligent, and very easy on the eye." She sensed that Joseph Duggan had stopped chewing, so quirked a quick peek at him from the corner of her eye.

  "Naturally," he grunted sardonically, "he would be good-looking."

  "But then, maybe I'm biased. You'll meet him tomorrow, and you can see for yourself."

  "He'll be at the wedding?"

  "Yes, though he only knows Sandy and Mick through me. He wasn't part of my old college crowd. I met him after I graduated."

  "From the University of Minnesota?"

  "Uh-huh. I went there, too, at the same time as Sandy and Jeanne and Larry and some of th
e others."

  "That makes you…" He squinted an eye while doing mental calculations. "Twenty-four years old."

  "Twenty-five. And how old are you?"

  "Twenty-seven."

  "And I take it you're not married, nor considering it?"

  "Absolutely not."

  "And there's no… girl friend coming with you tomorrow?"

  "There's a girl friend-" he mimicked her pause perfectly "-but I'm not sure if she'll make it back in time. She's gone to South Dakota for a funeral."

  "Nobody close, I hope."

  "An aunt."

  "Mmm…"

  They fell silent for a moment. Their plates were empty. Winnie carefully wiped her mouth and more carefully avoided eye contact with the man beside her. But after some moments curiosity got the better of her, and she turned to find he'd been sitting with an elbow propped on the table, jaw to knuckle, studying her for some time. Discomfited by his close scrutiny, she groped for a conversational diversion.

  "What's her name?"

  "I have no idea."

  A puzzled frown puckered Winnie's eyebrows. "You have no idea what your girl friend's name is?"

  He laughed and seemed to force himself out of a deep reverie long enough to stop staring. "Oh, I thought you meant her aunt. My friend's name is Lee Ann Peterson, but I wouldn't really call her a girl friend. We've been seeing each other, that's all."

  "And what's she like?"

  He squared his shoulders and pressed them against the cane-backed chair. "Like all the rest." Did he pronounce that rather wearily, she mused. "A little bit smart, but a lot more dumb. A little on the ball, but often vague. Not quite as mature as she should be for her age and kind of scatterbrained." He glanced at Winnie sharply, as if owing her an explanation. "These are only impressions, of course. I don't know her well enough."

  "And what does she look like?"

  He flashed his devilish grin. "She's got a great body."

  Winnie felt herself blushing. He hadn't passed his eyes down her torso, but she felt as if he had, for comparison's sake.

  "You're a body man, then?" she ventured, trying to cut him down with a note of cool disdain.

  A wicked glint sparkled in his eye. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. You see I have this-"

  "Spare me, Mr. Duggan." She lifted both palms and held her eyes closed for a full five disgusted seconds. "I'm not interested in the graphic details."

  "You didn't let me finish… Miss Gardner. I was about to say I have this little shop in Osseo where I refurbish old cars. Two of my brothers are in it with me, and sometimes when we buy a wreck, there's plenty of bodywork to be done."

  She covered her eyes and groaned, then peeked from behind her fingers. "I think I've been adequately put in my place."

  "No, it was my fault. I deliberately made the comment about bodies. I'm sorry."

  "So, you own a body shop."

  He tipped his head aslant and puzzled silently. "Mmm… sort of, but not specifically. We do bodywork to earn money, but our labor of love is restoring classics."

  "You mean like '57 Chevys?"

  "No, mostly older, classicker than that. Right now I'm restoring a '54 Cadillac pickup."

  "A Cadillac pickup? They never made pickups," she stated suspiciously.

  "Oh, yes, they did. They used them as hearses for funerals. 'Flower cars,' they were called, and had rollers on the bed to roll the casket on."

  "And where does one find such jewels?"

  "In farmers' fields, at antique auctions, places like that. I bought this one from an old duffer up in Brooten, Minnesota, and it was in pretty decent condition. She's turning out to be a beauty-four hundred cubic inches and a V-8 engine, and-" Suddenly he cut himself off, then shrugged. "Well, you're not interested in that. I get carried away when it comes to cars."

  She found it pleasant to be with a man who got carried away with something more understandable than computers. Duggan's eyes had danced with enthusiasm as he'd spoken of the collector's item he prized. But now he turned the conversation over to her.

  "Tell me. What does the lucky Mr. Hildebrandt do?"

  She was beginning to understand: flirting and flattery were second nature to this man. They scintillated from his eyes and rolled from his tongue with an effortless mindless ease. More than likely he was scarcely conscious of employing them so often. Ignoring his last ego tickler, she answered only the sensible portion of his remark.

  "He's in computer work. They call him an 'optimizer.' He solves all the long-running problems nobody else has been able to solve. He's sort of a wizard, I guess you'd say."

  "And how about you?"

  But now she couldn't resist the temptation to tease. The subject was simply too opportune. "Well, I'm in bodywork, too." The grin had already begun climbing his attractive cheek when she hurried on. "But I work with human bodies. I'm a physical therapist at North Memorial Medical Center."

  "An odd combination-a computer man and a physical therapist."

  "No more odd than a body man and a-what is she again?"

  "A hostess at a Perkins Pancake House."

  "Ah," she breathed knowingly, laying a finger along her rounded cheek. "A hostess."

  "Do I detect a supercilious note?"

  Winnie was abashed to realize he had, so rushed to deny it. "Not at all. I was just… well, making small talk. After all, she…" But suddenly Winnie had the surprising urge to tell the truth. She met Joseph Duggan's eyes directly, hoping she looked properly contrite. "Yes, I confess. I was being supercilious. I get it from my mother, whose main goal in life has been to succeed. And success to her is career. I find myself at times mirroring her-shall we call it, her middle-class disdain for the careerless multitudes? And when I catch myself at it, I hate it. But underneath I don't really think I'm as bigoted as I sound when I make comments like that. I sometimes think I've been programmed by mother to say things, whether I mean them or not."

  It was one of the first times she'd seen Joseph Duggan's face neither smiling nor teasing. It reflected only deep thought, then a straightforward study of her own face, ending with a glance at her forehead and hair. His deep brown eyes returned to her sapphire blue ones with a look of approval.

  "You're remarkable."

  "I'm…" She chuckled and shook her head, glancing at her lap self-consciously, for this time she thought his compliment sincere. "I'm not remarkable at all. I'm very ordinary and filled with flaws. That's only one of them I just foolishly blurted out."

  "Foolishly? I wouldn't call it foolish. I'd call it honest, and a little humble. Not many people assess their motives with that kind of clearheadedness. Is your… Paul Hildebrandt as honest as you?"

  She met his eyes again, surprised at how she suddenly hated to recall that there was a Paul Hildebrandt while in this man's very enjoyable company. Guilt immediately followed, making her sing Paul's praises perhaps a little too vehemently. "Oh, yes! He's not only honest, he's hardworking, successful and bound to give me an absolutely secure life."

  Joseph Duggan studied the clear-eyed blond woman whose first appearance had captivated him thoroughly. Throughout the pleasant meal with her that first impression had only been magnified. She was a remarkable woman-pretty, shapely, intelligent, the tiniest bit shy and the tiniest bit bold, honorable to her man and honest about herself.

  But dammit, she was spoken for!

  Chapter 2

  W innifred Gardner wasn't a morning person. She usually had to claw her way up from sleep like a person brushing thick spiderwebs aside while ducking through an abandoned building. The next morning, however, she came awake as if a light had been turned on directly above her face.

  Joseph Duggan, she thought, staring straight at the ceiling. You're going to see him again today! You're going to walk down an aisle with him. You're going to be photographed beside him. You're going to share the head table seated side by side with him. You're going to dance with him. She smiled, recalling that he'd claimed to be no dancer. She found tha
t hard to believe. He was one smooth mover was Joseph Duggan. In more ways than one, she suspected.

  The thought brought her up sharply. Whatever was she doing, lying here at six in the morning, woolgathering about Joseph Duggan when she was engaged to marry Paul Hildebrandt in three months?

  Paul. He'd promised to make it to the wedding today, and she was holding him to it! Why couldn't he get it through his flawlessly groomed head she didn't give a tinker's damn whether or not they had a furnished living room by the time they got married? Or even the house he'd insisted was a prerequisite. He was living in it already-so proud of the fact that he'd managed to provide it for her even before the big day. But the house wasn't enough for Paul. He'd taken on contract work to earn extra money for all the worldly goods he told her she deserved, and had installed a computer terminal in one of the three bedrooms, where he often worked Saturdays and evenings, rapping away at the keyboard that produced all the mysterious solutions to problems she could not grasp, in a language she could not understand and in methods that made her feel ignorant when he tried to explain them to her.

  But he'd promised: today he'd be with her at the wedding and the dance.

  With that reassuring thought she got up, concentrating on Paul and the pleasant surprise in store for him when he saw her in the ultimate dress. If he complimented her today-and he'd better-she promised herself she'd accept it at face value and not search for ulterior meanings.

  The day was clear and sunny, but by ten in the morning the March winds had picked up again. The bridesmaids were all meeting at McLean 's Beauty Shop to have their hair done into Gibson Girl hairdos.

  When Winnie studied the finished results in the mirror, she knew instinctively Paul would glow with admiration when he saw her. He was as old-fashioned as a man could be when it came to women and femininity, and though it was often a burr under her saddle, preferring as she did casual clothing for her active personality, today Winnie could face him in a hairdo, hat and dress that would please him tremendously.