Judith McNaught (88 page)

Julie shoved her hair off her forehead, stood up, and looked at him with exasperated amusement. "I would never have noticed."

With an irritated sigh, he stacked the scripts he'd been reading on the table and said, "What do you think

we should do tonight?"

"Have you considered the sedative benefits of reorganizing the kitchen cabinets?" she teased, her shoulders lurching. "That always worked for me. We could do it together."

Zack opened his mouth to snap a retort, but the phone rang, so he jerked it up and took his frustration

out on whoever was on the other end of the line.

"What the hell do you want?"

Sally Morrison, his publicist in California said dryly,

"Good evening, Zack. So nice to talk to you. I'm calling to talk to Julie. She needs to tell me now whether you want the wedding invitations delivered by

limousine tomorrow morning or by courier. I've already phoned the lucky fifty people who are going to

receive a coveted invitation, so they'll have time to make arrangements to be in Texas bright and early Saturday morning. No one declined. Betty and I,"

she added referring to his secretary, "have arranged for limos to meet them at DFW and get them to Keaton, and I've reserved blocks of suites for them on

Saturday night in the Dallas hotels that met your approval."

Some of Zack's former annoyance faded. He waited until Julie walked into the dining room, then he lowered his voice and said, "Does she have any idea who's going to be here?"

"No, boss. In accordance with your instructions to surprise her, I told her to count on having fifty of your

most boring business associates in attendance. Fifty-one, including me."

"What about the press?" Zack asked. "How are you keeping them out of our hair? They know I'm here, and they know I'm getting married Saturday. It's all over the network newscasts. I've only seen a couple reporters hanging around and they keep their distance. I figured they'd be swarming over us like locusts

by now."

Sally hesitated for a pregnant moment. "Didn't Julie tell you how she decided to handle the press?"

"No."

"She allowed them all to be present for one hour. If you don't approve, I'm going to have a hell of a time trying to back out of our deal with them."

"What deal?" Zack demanded.

"Ask Julie after we hang up. Can I talk to her now?"

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Zack held the phone out and looked over his shoulder. "Julie, Sally needs to talk to you."

"Be right there," she said. She walked in carrying the ever-present tablet she used to keep track of whatever details seemed to occupy women when a wedding was imminent, and he watched her pull off her right earring and tuck the phone between her shoulder and chin. "Hi,. Sally," she said with a pleasant

softness that made Zack feel like an irascible, belligerent, selfish jerk who couldn't control his own sexual

urges and manage to behave like a gentleman.

"What's up?" She listened for a minute and then said,

"I'll

ask Zack."

She smiled at him, which made Zack feel worse, and said, "Sally still wants to know whether to have your invitations delivered to the California people by limousine tomorrow or whether to use a messenger service." She consulted her tablet. "Using limousines will cost four times as much."

"Limousines," Zack said.

"Limousines," Julie repeated into the phone.

When she hung up, Zack looked at her and all of his impatience turned to admiration. Despite the incredible pressure Julie was under, getting ready for their wedding at the end of the week, she never lost her cool. Rachel had spent months of time on their wedding and a quarter million dollars of Zack's money

to create a three-ring media circus that required the efforts of two publicists and an army of servants, consultants, and assistants to pull off, and Rachel had been used to dealing with the pressures of public life. Even so, by the day of the wedding, Rachel had been behaving like a frantic virago for weeks and popping tranquilizers like M&Ms.

Julie had spent a week on their wedding with only the help of Katherine and the long-distance aid of Zack's competent California staff. At the same time, she had continued with her regular job and arranged to sublease her house, and she had neither lost her temper nor slighted Zack. Because the entire citizenry

of Keaton had gone so far out of their way to make Zack feel comfortable and welcome and because Julie was so much a part of their town, the decision had been made to limit the guests at the afternoon wedding ceremony to family and close friends, but to invite all of the Mathisons' vast circle of friends and

acquaintances to the evening reception, which was scheduled to take place in the park. The decision to invite 650 people instead of having a small, intimate reception had been made at Zack's urging. In the days that he had been here, he'd enjoyed more honest companionship with decent, down-to-earth people than he'd ever known in his entire life.

Despite his complaints, he'd thoroughly enjoyed the simple

things they'd done together while he was here. He'd liked dancing with her in a restaurant where friends of theirs joined them without ever intruding, he'd loved going to the movie in town with her, eating stale

popcorn, necking in the back row, and then walking her home, holding her hand in the balmy night air.

Last night, he'd played pool at the senior Cahills'

house with Ted and his friends, while Julie, Katherine,

and the other wives brought in food and cheered their men on, and then he'd watched in amazement as

Julie took on the winner—and beat him.

Somehow she'd managed to do all that as well as make arrangements with a dozen local women to handle the catering for the reception, hire musicians, go over the music selections, order flowers from the local florist, and arrange for white canopies to be sent down from Dallas to be used in the park by the caterers. Zack, who'd listened to the arrangements periodically, had the amused hope that this second wedding reception of his would make up for the decorum and beauty it was probably going to lack with

warmth and a festive atmosphere. If not, it had all the earmarks of becoming a ludicrously corny disaster.

In which case, he devoutly hoped it would rain.

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The only thing that had given Julie momentary pause was the question of a wedding gown and gowns for

Katherine, Sara, and Meredith, who she'd decided should be her only three attendants. Meredith had volunteered the solution to that problem when Julie called to invite her to be in their wedding: She'd had pictures of all the wedding gowns and attendants gowns available from Bancroft & Company's exclusive

bridal salon sent down by overnight mail for Julie to peruse. Julie had settled on three possibilities, which were picked up the next day in Chicago by the Farrells' pilot and flown to Keaton. Rachel had deliberated for weeks over the selection of a wedding gown; Julie, Katherine, and Sara

deliberated for

two hours, made their selection, and brought their gowns to the Eldridge twins to be altered to fit.

Meredith, who was back in Chicago with Matt, was being fitted for hers there.

During all that time, the only disagreement Zack and Julie had took place the night of their engagement, and it was about Zack's adamant insistence on paying for the wedding. He'd finally settled it in private

with Julie's father, who, thankfully, had absolutely no conception of the cost of a wedding gown from Bancroft & Company or jet fuel, which Zack was going to compensate Matt for, or much of anything else. Zack had "graciously relented" enough to let Reverend Mathison contribute $2,000 toward the cost

of the wedding, then he volunteered—with equal graciousness and less honesty—to have his accountant

in California handle the tedious business of paying all the bills and to refund Reverend Mathison any excess.

Now, as Zack looked at Julie who was making notes on her tablet, he thought of all the pressure she was under and how gracefully she coped with everything. In comparison, his own days had been wonderfully peaceful and filled with

accomplishment. Free from the constant

interruptions he'd have had

in California, he'd been able to read scripts, which was his most pressing current task, and consider what

he wanted to do as his first film project. The studio heads and producers and bankers he needed to meet with would all wait until he got back home. His dramatic escape from prison, his recapture, his subsequent release, and now his marriage to the young teacher who'd been his hostage had combined to

make him into an even bigger "legend" than he'd been before he went to prison. He didn't need to read
Variety
to know he was now the hottest property in the film business. Beyond attending to his work, the only other problem he'd needed to handle personally in the last week had been the issue of Julie's public image. Originally, when the tapes of his arrest in Mexico City had been shown, Julie had been regarded

by the world as a heroine who'd trapped a deranged mass murderer. A few weeks later, when Zack had been proved innocent and released from prison, those same tapes had made him into a heroic martyr to

police brutality and Julie into a treacherous bitch who'd betrayed him. Rather than let her continue to suffer from the taint of that, Zack had quietly sent a copy of the tape he'd gotten from Richardson to a friend at CNN without first consulting with Julie.

Within twenty-four hours of the first broadcast of it, the

world had reacted to Julie's hysterical suffering just as Zack had done when he saw the tape.

Now, as he remembered all that had transpired in her life in the last week, Zack felt guilty and ashamed for his irascibility over what was, after all, only two weeks of enforced celibacy in the presence of a woman he desired more than he'd have imagined possible. Walking over to her, he took the tablet out of

her hands, kissed her forehead, and said softly, "You are an amazing woman, sweetheart. Unfortunately, you're marrying an oversexed, bad-tempered jerk who happens to want you desperately."

She leaned forward and kissed him with enough ardor to make him groan and move her away again.

"All

you have to do," she reminded him, "is either break your word or tell my father his deal with you is off."

"I'm not going to break my damned word."

She chuckled and shook her head, picked up the tablet again, and pulled the pencil out of her shiny hair

as if she'd already forgotten the kiss that still had his blood running hot. "I know. I'd be disappointed if you did."

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"It might help," Zack said, irrationally irked by the same patience that he'd admired only moments before, "if I thought this sexless arrangement was driving you just half as crazy as it's driving me."

Julie tossed the tablet aside and stood up, and he realized for the first time that either she wasn't nearly as serene about the wedding plans and their enforced celibacy as he'd thought or else his own disposition was wearing her down. Or all three. "We're supposed to be on the baseball field tonight, remember?" she said testily. "This is a very special game between the little League team I've helped to coach all year and our rivals in Perseville. You agreed to umpire, and everybody's all excited about that. Let's not argue.

Or

if we're going to disagree, then save it for the game."

Zack did, and they did.

Three hours later, with two stunned Little League teams looking on and the bleachers filled with amazed

parents, Zack Benedict reaped the unpleasant rewards of a week of unjust impatience he'd inflicted on

his overstressed fiancée. Crouched behind home plate during the end of the seventh inning, with the bases

loaded and the score tied, Zack watched from behind his obligatory umpire's mask as Julie's second star runner slid toward home base. "Out!" he called, throwing up his arm in the ritualistic symbol. As he'd already discovered during the past seven innings, Texans took their sons' Little League baseball games seriously, and not even a famous movie star who'd they'd all begun to like was immune from the indignant

outrage aimed at any umpire who made an

unpopular, if accurate, call. The crowd from Keaton booed

and yelled their disapproval at him.

To Julie, who was seated on the coach's bench on the sidelines, Zack's call against her team was not only unpopular, it looked as wrong and unjust as his last two calls had seemed. This time she didn't merely grind her teeth, she shot off the bench and marched onto the field to confront him. "Are you crazy!" she burst out to Zack's amazed disbelief. "He was safe!"

"He was out!" Zack said.

She plunked her hands on her hips, oblivious to the shouts and laughter beginning to come from the crowd who was watching the argument, and said furiously, "You're taking out your ridiculous frustration

with me on my team and I won't stand for it!"

Zack looked up at her from his crouching position, his own temper beginning to ignite at this unjust—

and

embarrassing—public assault on his judgment and sportsmanship. "He was out! Now, sit down on that bench where you belong," he said, pointing to it. Too late, he realized that the laughter that followed Julie as she angrily obeyed and marched back to the bench was going to scrape her strained temper to the breaking point.

Her third batter made two strikes, wound up, and stepped away from a pitch that missed being a bad one by a hair. "Strike three!" Zack called, and because it had been such a close call, even from his vantage point, he wasn't at all surprised when the crowd roared with outraged disapproval. He was, however, very surprised when Julie shot off the bench, shouting at her dejected team to stay on the field,

and marched over to him like a bristling virago.

"You need glasses!" she exploded, shaking with anger.

"That was a ball, not a strike, and you know it!"

"He's out!"