A Convenient Proposal

Chapter Twelve

It had been one hell of a week.

Now that Griff had returned, his dad increased the surgery load at the clinic and okayed a heavier appointment schedule on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with farm visits set up for Tuesdays and Thursdays. Emergencies, as always, got fitted in immediately.

As a result, the workday stretched until seven-thirty or eight, or even later if a patient needed supervision or a farm emergency required more time. Griff spent all Tuesday night at the clinic, treating a collicking pony. If the pony hadn’t cleared his intestinal blockage by noon on Wednesday, the owners would have had to take him to the state university for surgery. Wednesday included two spays and three castrations, plus six regular appointments every hour.

Griff called Arden on the drive home, explaining that he’d sleep in his own room at his parents’ house rather than disturb her. But he hadn’t made it past the couch in the den before collapsing, asleep before he hit the cushions.

Tonight, Friday, his sisters had abducted Arden for the evening, citing “girl stuff.” Griff hated to think what that might mean, other than he wouldn’t be able to spend the evening making love to his “fiancée.” Sex was the only way they could really communicate anymore.

And he hated to waste the whole night at home alone. He wasn’t in the mood for a bar or a restaurant filled with strangers, so he decided to check in at the country club. Not his usual hangout, but he would probably see somebody he knew to talk to.

Wearing the required jacket, though not the optional tie, he strolled into the club as if he spent every Friday night there.

“Good evening, Dr. Campbell.” The manager, who’d been there as long as Griff could remember, stepped out of his office to shake hands. “We’re glad you stopped by. Can I get you a table in the dining room?”

“Thanks, Harris. I thought I’d just eat in the lounge, if that’s okay.”

“Of course. I’ll send Thomas in to take your order.”

The General’s Den, as the lounge was called, had once been the bastion of the male members of the club, a center of social intercourse on evenings and weekends. There wasn’t much of a crowd these days, but Griff said hello to the three patrons present, all of them his dad’s age, then settled into a secluded corner seat with a view of the basketball game on TV, and a tall, cold beer.

As he ate, he gradually picked up on the unmistakable sounds of a party coming from down the hallway.

“Hey, Vince, what’s going on?” he asked, when the bartender brought a refill for his beer. “Sounds like a frat mixer.”

Vince rolled his eyes. “More or less the same thing. It’s a bachelor party for Al McPherson, in the club room. Open bar plus kegs of beer. We’ll be hauling them out in wheelbarrows.”

Griff didn’t comment. To himself—and to Arden, if the subject arose—he would admit that he missed his best friend and hated knowing that he couldn’t be Al’s best man. Not that they’d ever thought in those terms…until Griff and Zelda had gotten engaged.

But maybe Al was already in love with Zelda at that point, and hated the assumption that he would be the best man. When had things changed among the three of them? How, Griff wondered, had he missed the signs?

As he indulged in the club’s signature dessert—banana bread pudding—he watched a giant cardboard mock-up of a wedding cake roll past the door of the lounge, complete with lacy “icing” on the sides, plus a pair of dolls in wedding dress on top.

“The strippers,” Thomas said, taking away Griff’s empty plate. He was only about seventeen, still young enough to grin when he added, “Wish I could be in there when they jump out.”

“You’ll get your chance.” Griff made a mental note not to attend his own bachelor party, should there be one. There was only one woman in the world he wanted to see naked, and she didn’t jump out of cardboard cakes. Thank God.

Inevitably, Al’s party spilled out of the club room. Inebriated revelers, most of them friends or acquaintances of Griff’s, wandered into the lounge to watch the ball game and harass the bartender. The older patrons soon abandoned the scene, but Griff couldn’t resist remaining as an observer. None of the drunks had noticed him. As long as he kept his mouth shut, he wouldn’t get into trouble.

Then Al wove his way into the room. He patted a few backs, called for a double whiskey, neat, then turned around and fixed his bleary gaze on Griff’s face.

“You,” he said loudly. “What’re you doin’ here?”

Griff got slowly to his feet. He kept his voice down, as he did when he talked to Igor. “Leaving.”

But his old friend stepped in front of him. “Runnin’ away again?”

“My specialty.”

“No, your specialty is screwing up my life.”

“Don’t do this,” Griff begged. “Let it go.”

That wasn’t going to happen. Al had always brooded over his hurts, then exploded to release the pressure. “Do you know how long it took her to get over you leaving? Huh? It was six weeks before she’d talk to me on the phone.”

Leaning against the wall, Griff folded his arms. Maybe the solution was to let him talk it out.

“Then I finally got her to say yes, plan a wedding, get started on our life together and what happens? You show up again. Only this time…” He wiped a hand over his face. “This time, you bring another woman with you…one who has every guy in town panting over her.”

Behind Al, the lounge had gone quiet, except for the TV. So they all heard Griff when he said, “Shut up, McPherson. Not another word.”

But Al wasn’t listening. “And Zelda goes crazy. Absolutely insane. ‘He wants me to be sorry,’ she says. ‘He’s trying to make me jealous.’ And damn if it didn’t work. I couldn’t—”

“That’s enough.” Griff grabbed him by the shoulders, turned him around and pushed him toward the door. “The party’s over for you, buddy. You’re going home.”

They got as far as the entry hall before Al recovered his balance and his instinct for self-defense.

“Oh, no, you don’t. I’m not lettin’ you order me around.” He pivoted, then started swinging.

Griff ducked, but didn’t hit back. “Give it up, Al. You never could beat me in a—”

He saw the last punch coming, but reacted a second too late. Knuckles slapped into flesh. Pain bloomed on the side of his head from ear to nose.

What he hadn’t counted on was the shove in the chest that followed, and the crack of his skull against the floor.

Or the black hole he fell into after that.

ARDEN HAD ACCEPTED Kathy’s invitation to join the Campbell sisters’ “girls night out” for only one reason—by going, she could avoid an entire Friday evening alone with Griff.

His hectic week at the office had worked to her advantage, because he’d been too tired in the evenings to do much more than eat dinner and go to bed. He certainly hadn’t been his usual eagle-eyed, perceptive self.

She believed she could hide the truth from his sisters, too. Especially since Kathy had promised champagne as the drink of choice for the evening. A glass or two would keep Dana and Lauren from noticing anything off in Arden’s mood. And she figured she’d get a boost of her own from the bubbly, at least enough to evade Kathy, who would be staying sober because of her baby.

Then she walked into Kathy’s charming bungalow and found that girl’s night included Griff’s mother, which created a much more dangerous situation. She might not be as insightful as her husband, but any hint of a threat to Griff’s welfare would put her on alert.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Arden said as she gave Kathy her coat. “I missed a couple of turns.” Because she’d been musing over her deception with Griff rather than watching where she was going.

“Arden.” Rosalie Campbell caught her hands and squeezed. “I just got here myself. I’m so glad you decided to come.”

“Champagne,” Kathy said, offering a glass to each of them. “Dana and Lauren are already ahead of you. Drink up.”

Once they were all seated in the living room, the conversation developed in a predictable direction.

“I haven’t had a chance to talk to you this week,” Rosalie began. “Semester exams are as onerous for the teachers as they are for students. And I haven’t seen Griff at all. But I’m still fielding questions about you from everybody in town. You’re a concert violinist, and you never said a word? I’m just so amazed. And delighted, of course.”

Arden took a gulp of champagne. “Mrs. Campbell, I know you must feel I’ve been deceptive—”

Dana nodded. “Dad stomped around all day Sunday, muttering, ‘I knew she was hiding something. I knew it.’”

Rosalie gave her daughter a disapproving glance. “That’s overstating the case. But…why, Arden? Did you have a reason for keeping your career a secret?”

She explained about her retirement. “You saw what happens when people learn that I play,” she said. “And, really, it’s pretty painful to have given up what was once my entire life.”

The four women nodded in sympathy.

“I avoid most music,” she told them honestly. “I’d rather not have to think about what I can no longer do. It’s not a good coping mechanism, I admit. Perhaps I can improve with time.”

Lauren, sitting beside Arden on the couch, put a hand over hers. “I do understand. I used to play basketball—I had a college scholarship and just knew I could lead a championship team. Then I blew out my knee in a skiing accident. I haven’t watched a basketball game since. It would hurt too much.”

“Exactly.” Arden breathed a sigh of relief. Her story had been accepted. “Keeping the secret avoids situations like last weekend, where I can’t get out of performing.”

Then Kathy spoke up. “But why did you stop playing? What caused you to retire?”

After drawing a deep breath, she explained about her hearing loss.

“Now I understand.” Griff’s mother nodded. “And I’m sure Jake will, as well. There have been times when he asked me not to mention his profession at a party or in a crowd. People try to get him to deliver a diagnosis in the middle of dinner.”

“You play the piano beautifully, of course.” Rosalie brought up the subject again as they gathered around the dining room table to fill their plates from a buffet of Kathy’s favorite appetizers. “Couldn’t you have continued your career with that instrument?”

The question required more creative truth telling. “I don’t have a professional repertoire on the piano.” Pretending a calm she didn’t feel, Arden spooned artichoke dip onto her plate and added crackers. “I couldn’t compete at the same level as before.”

“But you would still have your music.”

“Perhaps I can move in that direction. But my retirement occurred at the same time as my broken engagement. There was just too much to deal with.”

“How awful.” Griff’s mother folded her into a hug. “You went through a terrible time, didn’t you? And call me Rosalie,” she whispered. “It’s past time I said that.”

Blinking back tears, Arden set her plate on the table and rested her hands on Rosalie’s shoulders, gingerly returning the embrace. She couldn’t remember the last hug she’d received from her own mother.

While they ate chicken Kiev and wild rice for dinner, the conversation became more general, and Arden found herself diverted for minutes at a time from her preoccupation with a barren future. The champagne did seem to help, and she allowed herself to drink more freely than usual. After all, she didn’t have to worry about harming a baby anymore.

Once they’d each had a substantial helping of Kathy’s “better than sex” cake, they relaxed again in the living room with refilled glasses of wine.

“I had an ulterior motive for asking y’all over tonight,” Kathy announced.

Dana groaned. “I am not scrubbing your kitchen floor.”

“And don’t put me down for the bathrooms, either,” Lauren said.

“Of course not.” Kathy frowned at her sisters. “You two wouldn’t get anything clean enough to suit me.”

A sisterly pillow fight ensued, as the girls threw couch cushions back and forth, while Arden and Rosalie ducked, laughing.

Kathy stockpiled the pillows thrown at her behind her chair, where no one could reach them. “Mom, could you bring out the books?”

Rosalie went to a closet, returning with large, flat volumes of wallpaper samples, plus thick piles of fabric swatches.

Kathy looked at Arden. “My Jimmy is totally color-blind. Ask him how a room looks, and he says ‘Fine, darlin’. Do these socks match?’ And of course they don’t, because one is blue and one is green. So when I decorate, I have to solicit other opinions. And now that I’m getting into the fourth month with Junior here—” she placed a hand on the slight mound at her waist “—I thought I’d start getting ideas on the nursery. So tonight we’re havin’ a decor orgy, so to speak. Dig in, girls, and show me what works for you.”

With cries of delight, Lauren and Dana slid from their chairs to the floor and began leafing through wallpaper pages. Rosalie started with fabrics. The samples, mostly from children’s collections, featured animals of every description, toys, clouds, clowns, castles and farms, cities and parks, fields and mountains, printed in colors from pastel to bold and bright, in every imaginable style and design.

Arden reached for a wallpaper book, then drew back her hand and finished her glass of champagne instead. She tried looking over Rosalie’s shoulder, but her heart twisted at visions of fluffy lambs printed on pale aqua cotton, bunnies on pink, bears on yellow.

The cover of the book at her feet caught her attention—a fully decorated nursery, all white furniture with red, yellow and blue striped fabrics on the bed and at the windows. Above a white chair rail, the wallpaper featured balloons in those same colors floating merrily through the sky. Below the rail, a wallpaper mural depicted a little town with shopping district and offices, neighborhoods and churches, a big park and outlying farms and fields with horses and cows—a child’s world on the walls.

And in the center of this perfect room sat a happy, dark-haired mother holding a little boy with blond curls and blue eyes.

Arden stared at the picture, losing awareness of anything happening around her as she drowned in what-might-have-been.

“Honey, are you okay?” Rosalie set a hand over the fists Arden had clenched in her lap.

Looking up, Arden found the three sisters staring at her, too.

“What’s wrong?” Kathy crouched in front of her. “Are you sick?”

In the next moment, the phone rang, and Arden was saved by the bell.

ONCE HIS DAD ARRIVED at the hospital, Griff wasn’t surprised to see his mother show up.

But he was somewhat startled when, one after the other, his sisters, their husbands and Arden entered the emergency room cubicle.

“You all didn’t have to come down here,” he protested. “I told Dad he shouldn’t have called. I was out for only a few seconds.”

“More like ten minutes,” Jake growled. “The folks at the club called the ambulance.”

Lauren, Dana and Kathy took up one side of the bed, with their men and his parents on the other. Arden stood at the end, looking pale and frightened.

He ached to get his arms around her and chase the shadows from her eyes.

First, he had to answer all the questions, including what happened? Who did this? Why? What did you say? What did he say? Why didn’t somebody else stop him? Why did you try?

And he had to deal with his dad’s anger. “I’m going to tan that boy’s backside when I get hold of him.”

“You’re going to stay away from Al if Mom has to tie you in a chair,” Griff told him. “Leave him alone, all of you. Zelda, too. We need to stay out of their way until the wedding.”

His mother nodded in approval, but the girls took more convincing.

Kathy propped her hands on her hips. “She dumped you, and I think a little suffering is good for her.”

“She’s suffered,” Griff said. “At least as much as I have. And Al’s had the worst of it.”

“They could have let you know sooner,” Dana said. “They embarrassed all of us, waiting till the last minute.”

“Not to mention how hard you worked on the house, only to sell it.” Lauren shook her head. “I painted and wallpapered. I put a lot of work into those walls.”

“I know you did.” Griff grabbed her hand. “But it’s over and done, and we need to forget. Let’s think about the future.” He looked at Arden as he said that, but she avoided his eyes.

“So, can you leave now?” Kathy asked. “You don’t have to spend the night, do you?”

“Waiting on test results,” his dad said. “Then they’ll let us know.”

The doctor did a double take when he came in a few minutes later. “Did I miss the reunion announcement?”

“Just the standard family conference,” Griff announced. “So, can I leave?”

“The CT scan looks good. Do you have someone who can keep an eye on you overnight?”

Nine people in the room nodded.

The doctor surveyed the group of them, then turned back to Griff. “I guess you’re covered. I’ll sign your release papers.”

“Thanks,” he said, offering a handshake as his sisters hugged each other and everyone else. “I told you I was fine.”

“Better safe than sorry.” The doctor waved as he left. “Enjoy the reunion.”

The argument over where he would spend the night might have lasted until dawn if his mother hadn’t spoken up.

“Griff has a very capable woman to look after him tonight. He doesn’t need his sisters—”

“Though he loves them,” Griff interjected.

“—or his parents. Arden will make sure he’s alive and kicking tomorrow morning.”

Jake was still protesting as Rosalie pushed him out of the room. “You’re the one who sent him to the woods at age fifteen to live off the land for two days. Don’t try to coddle him now.”

She came back to the bed and bent over to kiss Griff’s cheek. “I’m glad to see you’ve learned so much in these last six months,” she said quietly. “I’m proud of you.”

And she stopped by Arden as she left. Griff couldn’t hear what she whispered, but saw Arden nod.

Then, finally, they were alone. “Come here,” he said, sitting up on the side of the bed and holding out his arms.

After hesitating a moment, she walked over to wrap her arms around his waist.

Griff sighed. A truce, of sorts.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” She rubbed her forehead against his shoulder. “I can’t believe Al pushed you like that. Isn’t that dirty fighting?”

“I think it’s mostly called drunk and disorderly.” Griff took a deep breath, drawing in crisp, floral perfume, creamy shampoo, almond lotion and lavender sachets, plus the unique essence of the woman herself. “Let’s go home.”

At the cottage, he insisted on taking Igor for a walk while Arden got ready for bed. “Fresh air cures everything,” he said, when she argued with him.

“Except frostbite,” she retorted.

Griff found himself grinning at her. “I won’t be gone that long.”

When he returned to the bedroom, the lights were already off—not Arden’s usual style. The bed was empty, but a crack of light showed under the bathroom door. Not sure what message he was supposed to be getting, he donned his sweatpants and a T-shirt before climbing between the sheets.

She turned the bathroom light off before opening the door, and crossed the room in darkness. When he reached for her, she didn’t turn away.

“Arden,” he whispered, tracing the contours of her waist, her hips and thighs with his palms. “We don’t have to be so angry.”

“No.” Her lips played with his earlobe. “We don’t.”

Saying “I love you,” though, was simply too hard. Using the words, even in a pitch-dark room, required more pride than he could risk.

And so they spent another wordless night together, connected in every way…except the one that mattered most.