Table of Contents

Cover Page

About the Author

Title Page

Epigraph

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Copyright

DORIS ELAINE FELL

With books and dolls as her companions, Doris knew from the time she was seven that she wanted to be a nurse and a writer when she grew up. Challenged by these childhood dreams, she escaped the confinement of a tiny hometown to pursue a multifaceted career as a teacher, missionary, nurse, freelance editor and author. Her diverse professions have taken her to a Carib village in Guatemala, a Swiss chalet in the Alps, through rugged mountain passes in Mexico, and to a bamboo schoolhouse in the Philippines. She also thoroughly enjoys her teddy bear collection and sitting by the river in eastern Washington with her great-nieces and nephews.

But it was as a high schooler that Doris knelt by her bedside and asked God for the privilege of one day writing for His glory. For the past nine years she has written full-time, expressing her love for a gracious God and her love of life and living. As evident in Long-Awaited Wedding, her first romance novel with Steeple Hill, the subtle theme of forgiveness marks her writing. Other publishers of her work include Crossway Books and Fleming Revell. She is currently under contract for her fifteenth book.

Long-Awaited Wedding
Doris Elaine Fell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.

—Psalm 139:23-24

To

HANNAH MARIE

WHO WANTS TO BE A WIFE AND MOMMY

WHEN SHE GROWS UP

Chapter One

Maureen Davenport entered the restaurant on the arm of Dwayne Crocker, an affable, rangy man in his late thirties, a brilliant engineer with a genius for math, a drolly humorous man…a total bore. She wondered now why she had agreed to come with him.

She had planned on leaving work on time and heading straight home for a relaxing soak in the hot tub. It was her way to unravel, to close out the day, to shut out her anxieties over the pending merger between Fabian Industries and Larhaven Aircraft Her preoccupation with the merger had left her without defense or excuses when Dwayne blocked her exit at closing time and asked, “How about dinner and a show this evening?”

So here she was, sitting across from him in a crowded restaurant that smelled of fried chicken and wondering how she could endure five hours in Dwayne’s company. She had expected this type of place—an economical menu with a quaint old-fashioned setting, tables crowded together and an abundance of fussing children.

She ran her hand over the closed menu, deciding on the house salad and a steaming cup of tea. Idly she watched Dwayne adjust his silver-rimmed glasses. The glasses magnified the glossy gray of his eyes—his best feature—and now as she met his glance, she saw the flecks of dark blue in the gray. His dancing eyes were evenly set in his narrow face, a not unpleasant face in spite of the prominent bony structure.

Before she could tell him what she wanted, he turned to the waitress, arched his thick brows and said, “We’re starving. Make it two chicken dinners—the whole works. Tea for the lady—”

So he remembered her preference, she thought.

“And coffee for me. And bring plenty of biscuits.”

As they waited, he knuckled his fingers. “Did I blow it?”

She mellowed her response. “I only wanted a salad.”

“And some place more exclusive?” He pulled a candle from his pocket and shoved it in the flower vase. Then he whipped out a lighter and made a ceremony of lighting it. “There, is that better?” he asked.

The flickering flame caught the light in his eyes again. “Do you always carry candles in your pocket, Dwayne?”

“Your secretary told me you like candlelight and fancy restaurants in Los Angeles or Newport. But getting a reservation this late—well, actually I didn’t bother. We’d miss the show.”

The show. Maureen had momentarily forgotten the theater. She moved her arm as the waitress set the rhubarb and house salad in front of her and put a plate of hot biscuits on the table.

“Maureen, are you married?” Dwayne asked.

She stared him down. “Dwayne, if I were married I would not be having dinner with you.”

He glanced at the opal ring on her left hand. “Don’t take offense. I’ve asked around and no one seems to know anything about your life outside of the office.”

“That’s the way I like it.”

At thirty-seven, Maureen was a poised, confident woman. Men often commented on her stunning appearance and her stylish clothes. Her good looks and social skills had helped her, but she’d managed to climb the ladder of success mainly through her intellect and sheer hard work. She had earned respect and equal footing with the men she worked with. But she was still a private person, her life outside Fabian strictly her own.

She said guardedly, “I was married once to Carl Davenport.”

She had met Carl in Indianapolis, where she worked right out of graduate school. He was wealthy and charming, witty and handsome, a superb dancer. Carl had liked his music fast and his tempo of living even faster.

She sighed. “Perhaps you’ve heard of my husband—Carl drove the Indianapolis 500.”

“Carl Davenport?” Excitement brightened Dwayne’s ordinary features. “I would never have guessed—”

An awkward pause cut his sentence short. He met her gaze and then said quietly, “He was killed driving the Indy 500, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, five years ago. His car crashed and burned.” She shivered, and felt the fine hairs on her arm curl. They had been on the verge of real happiness—of working out their differences. She felt her lips pinch. “He was only thirty-two when he died.”

“Too young.”

She smiled wanly. “He was doing what he liked doing best.”

“Yeah, I guess you can look at it that way. So you’ve been married and widowed. That’s a well kept secret at the office.”

Over the years, Maureen had kept another secret. Whatever you do, Dwayne Crocker, she warned silently, don’t ask me if Carl and I had children. I would have to lie and I have denied my daughter long enough.

Even as she looked across the table at Dwayne, Maureen remained calm, the thudding of her heart not visible to him. But surely he would think it was Carl’s child, not Allen’s. No one knew of the birth of Allen’s child, given up for adoption nineteen years ago. Almost twenty. Maureen rarely allowed herself to dwell on the infant daughter she had given away. And yet the girl was always there in Maureen’s mind. In her heart In her dreams. In this restaurant filled with strangers.

“Any kids, Maureen?”

“One daughter,” she said, and then quickly asked, “And you, Dwayne, have you ever been married?”

“I’m still waiting for the right girl to come along.”

Don’t wait too long, she thought You’re pushing forty.

But what did she want? She had no immediate plans to remarry again and settle down. She would if the right person came along, but for now she was carving out her niche in the business world.

But what if the “right man” came along? She knew for certain that Dwayne Crocker was not the one. As he talked on, she did what she always did when she sat across the table from a boring dinner date—she imagined that “special” person sitting there. Allen was always the right one, but he was gone, presumably lost in one of the country’s peacekeeping missions. After all these years, it was like lighting an old torch, like awakening a sleeping giant, like plucking back a painful memory. She tried to picture Allen across the table from her—older, wiser, handsome. Smiling and leaning forward and boasting that his father was grooming him to take over the family dynasty.

“So what do you think?” Dwayne’s question cut into her thoughts.

“Excuse me?” Maureen asked, embarrassed to have drifted off.

“I just suggested that you run away with me to some far-off island and get married.”

She laughed. “You do know how to get a woman’s attention.”

Maureen was thankful when their waitress arrived with fried chicken, mashed potatoes with country gravy, and biscuits with honey. She ate more than she had intended, as Dwayne monopolized the conversation.

He was unstoppable, inexhaustible, talking figures through much of the dinner. The billions of dollars of government overspending and predictions for the Dow Jones averages. Then—just when she thought that he was running out of steam—he offered statistics that would iron out the flaws in the Fabian missile project He was right, too. Dwayne Crocker didn’t make mistakes.

Normally she might find his conversation stimulating. But tonight the information seemed wearying, irksome, oppressive.

As the last roll disappeared from his plate, Dwayne carefully licked the honey from his finger. Over steaming cups of coffee and tea, he discussed the financial advantages of merging. He favored the merger with Larhaven.

She dreaded it.

“It’s nothing but a hostile takeover,” she said hotly.

“But, Maureen, Larhaven will come out on the winning side. Once we combine building military aircraft and the skins of commercial liners and keep signing contracts for more missiles, there’s no stopping us.”

“I dislike the bidding wars,” she told him.

“Look, a merger means billions of dollars on the drawing board. Fabian can’t keep pace with the industry unless we merge.”

But it wasn’t fair to be so close to being CEO at Fabian and then lose out to a merger, she thought She’d never have another opportunity to move to the top. “Jobs will be slashed,” she reminded Dwayne. “Hundreds of them. I expected to replace Eddie McCormick when he retired. Now I don’t even know whether I’ll have a job at all.”

“You know why McCormick stayed on? He’s fishing for better dollar signs and benefits in his retirement package. But my job’s secure,” Dwayne boasted. “They need my mathematical genius.”

“I wouldn’t count on it Larhaven will bring in their own management team.”

He looked surprised. “No chance they’ll let me go. If they do, I head right to their competitor. They won’t let you go either, Maureen. They may not want women as vice-presidents, but they will need research scientists.”

He pushed his plate aside and told the waitress to bring two apple pies. “Why are you so worried, Maureen? What did you do—have a run-in with the powers that be at Larhaven?”

“A long time ago. Old man Kladis doesn’t favor women on his board.”

“He’s been dead for ten years. His eldest son runs the show.”

Her body went rigid. Allen Kladis? “I thought Allen was dead,” she said softly.

“No, his wife died. About a year ago. But Allen is still going strong. He’s the force behind this merger. I can’t believe you. Haven’t you been listening in the conference room? Eddie keeps talking about A. G. Kladis. The guy’s about my age.”

Allen’s age.

So Allen was the head of Larhaven, not the father? What was his father’s name? Adam? No, Alexander G. Kladis, a tall man with olive skin and a barrel chest and anger in his black eyes, a father who had been determined to make millionaires out of his three boys even if he had to stomp on the heart of a seventeen-year-old girl who loved his eldest son more than anything else in the world.

“Maureen, are you all right? You look sick.”

“I have a headache. I just need to get some air.”

Dwayne dropped a tip on the table as they stood.

He gave her a winsome smile as they left the table. “Can we have dinner again soon, Maureen?”

She smiled back. “I’m too full to think about it right now.”

“Then I’ll keep asking.”

As they reached the door he gently touched her elbow. “Maureen, I’ve apparently given you a shock. I’m sorry. But when you get back to the office tomorrow, read the correspondence—check the masthead on the Larhaven contract. A. G. Kladis is CEO at Larhaven.”

Allen Kladis, not his father Alexander. She felt a stinging betrayal. Alexander Kladis had won. Why had the older Kladis lied to her so long ago? Why had he told her that Allen was dead?

Allen was alive—alive, and he never came back for her!

Chapter Two

Outside, she was grateful to take Dwayne’s arm again and sense his strength as they strolled companionably along the avenue of quaint shops.

“Would you rather skip the show and just take a walk?” he asked quietly.

“Actually, I’m not feeling very well, Dwayne,” she answered honestly. “I think I’d better go home.”

She felt his disappointment as his hand wrapped around hers. Just ahead of them a commotion broke out. Several people ran out into the street, staring up in the sky.

Someone shouted, “Look, there’s been a midair crash.”

Maureen listened for the sound of falling metal. Was it a plane taking off from nearby John Wayne Airport? If so, run for cover! she thought. Don’t just stand there.

But Dwayne Crocker was already propelling her toward the crowd. Overhead a brilliant, blazing light illuminated the sky. The resplendent glow of a rocket missile—dazzling, magnificent

As if awakening a slumbering planet, the missile had split the heavens on soundless wings—mute, echoless as it soared into the clear evening sky. As she watched, it hovered to the left of Venus, shining brighter than the evening star. And then its diaphanous haze cut a course through the clouds, swirling into shimmering vapor trails, churning into eerie streamers.

Dwayne said, “That thing can be seen for a hundred miles.”

She looked up at him. Crocker actually looked like some little kid whose kite had blown higher than his friend’s.

“It just takes minutes to reach an island in the Pacific Ocean,” she said. “Four thousand miles away, quick as a wink.”

“That puts it at a missile range near the Marshall Islands.”

She agreed. Now that he had pinpointed the location to the minute, she felt more inclined toward Dwayne than she had at dinner. In front of them, a young couple craned their necks looking up, a small child clutching their hands.

“What is it, Daddy?” the boy asked.

“It’s a missile, son. Remember, we looked at a book about them the other night. And that’s the planet Venus to the right,” the father said, pointing toward it

What was he? Six? Seven? At unexpected moments like this, Maureen felt a tightness in her chest, an ache that wouldn’t go away, a fresh flood of shame that she had given her own child away. She looked at the father and volunteered, “That splendor in the sky is a firststage separation from the missile. Those blue and orange colors in the sky are vapors that occurred right after the missile was launched and separated.”

As she noticed the boy’s interest wane, she told him, “It’s like painting pictures in the sky.”

“So that’s what they did. Daddy, they spilt their paints.”

Maureen’s heart did flip-flops, as it often did when she thought of her daughter. To the boy’s father she said, “What we’re seeing with our naked eyes is nothing more than burned fuel and water droplets hitting the atmosphere.”

Dwayne rubbed his jaw reflectively. Give it to Dwayne from a mathematical perspective and he would know to the nth degree how much water, how much fuel.

The vapor trails twirled and arced out of control as they moved from the center and spread across the sky. Maureen gripped Dwayne’s arm to steady herself. Something was wrong! How had she stood here for two minutes without realizing what was happening? She hadn’t made the connection. But she did so now. The Fabian missile had misfired.

“Dwayne, that was one of the Fabian missiles. Look at the way it blew apart—at the lights streaming across the sky, like they’re exploding from the center. Out of control.”

“Can’t be, Maureen. The air force agreed to hold off testing any more of the Fabians until the flaws were ironed out.”

But as another burst of streamers spewed from the center, he said, “You may be right”

Of course, I’m right, she thought. And if that was a Fabian launch, I’m in trouble. The misfiring of another missile would set the wires sizzling between her office and the Pentagon. She whispered, “I have to get back to the office.”

“Let me go back with you.”

“No.” She was adamant

As vice-president of Research Operations, her department was responsible for what was happening. And if Eddie McCormick was going to have her head, she didn’t want Dwayne Crocker there to witness it. She turned abruptly and eased her way through the throng, walking hurriedly to her sleek sports car parked beside Dwayne’s. She climbed into her car, the wheels squealing as she raced from the parking lot.

Twenty minutes later, she sat at her desk and dialed the Wallingdale Air Force Base. When she couldn’t get beyond the duty officer, she slammed down the phone and called her friend at the Pentagon. As the phone rang, she glanced out into the evening sky. The lights from the missile had vanished completely. As suddenly as the brightness had erupted into the heavens, it had died away and floated into nothingness, leaving only the evening star surrounded by its unbroken layers of clouds.

Someone on the other end picked up the phone. “Roland Spencer,” he said.

“I was hoping I’d catch you. It’s Maureen Davenport, in California. Roland, they launched that Fabian missile ahead of schedule. What went wrong?” she demanded. “They promised to postpone the launch until we could work out the flaws—”

“I’m sorry. There was a mix-up.”

“Not mine,” she said tartly.

“Ours,” he acknowledged grudgingly. “Look, sweetheart, I’m still your friend. Remember?” He had been her friend since her first visit to the Pentagon. “If I didn’t have a flat top, I’d be pulling out my hair. So I’m tugging at my mustache instead.”

“Not funny,” she said. “McCormick is going to blame me for not getting word to Wallingdale Air Base in time.”

“They knew in time. I’ll vouch for you. So stay calm. I just had a call from the commanding officer at Wallingdale Air Base. He apologized.”

“Apologized? Half of southern California saw their blunder.”

Spencer laughed good-naturedly. He had a throaty chuckle that always made his rimless glasses bob; she pictured them doing so. “The C.O. from Wallingdale said it was a splendid show that could be seen for a hundred-mile radius.”

“So when does Larhaven get wind of it, Roland?”

“Whenever McCormick sends them an e-mail. Hold just a minute. I have a call waiting.”

While she waited, she tried to picture Roland’s square face and wide brow bathed in scowls. He was a solidly built man of forty-eight, twenty pounds heavier than he should be, and yet he cut a favorable impression in his army uniform with the rows of service ribbons across his broad chest

He was back now. “It wasn’t your mistake, Maureen. Larhaven wanted that missile to go off.”

“But we had orders from them to delay it.”

“That was Eddie McCormick on the line. He said for you to stay at the plant. He’ll see you there in an hour. He has one of the Kladis brothers with him.”

“Allen Kladis?”

“That wasn’t the name. Would it make a difference?”

All the difference in the world, she thought.

“Allen is a reasonable man, Maureen. Much fairer than his father. We’ve met over some government contracts. Hope this misfiring isn’t his kind of reverse reasoning. The Kladis brothers are determined to beat out the competition and merge with Fabian.”

The kind of reasoning that Allen Kladis was capable of? she wondered. But Spencer called him “fair.” That would be the Allen that she remembered. “Will the merger go through?” she asked.

“It looks like the boys at the Pentagon want another corporate giant. The White House agrees.” He cleared his throat. “The merger will help maintain our position on the world market”

“But it all boils down to money?” That didn’t sound like Allen. Or had he changed once he joined the family business?

“We’ll put a ban on firing any more missiles until this thing gets settled, Maureen. I’ll check things out on this end in the morning and get back to you. By the way, you’re staying with Larhaven when they merge, aren’t you?”

“If they want me.” If Allen wants me, she corrected silently.

“Their loss if they don’t. And if they don’t, we’ll find you a spot here at the Pentagon.”

As she cradled the receiver, she unlocked the top desk drawer and slid out the oriental jewelry chest that Allen Kladis had given her when she was seventeen. She kept the chest at the office because, with all the security there, she felt it was safer than keeping it at home. And still accessible to her most any time she wanted to journey back to the past. She dusted it off with the back of her hand and then took a tiny key from her purse and unlocked it. As she swung the lid back, tears burned behind her eyes.

She spread the items out and lifted the velvet case with the five-carat diamond from Carl. Then, unfolding a packet covered in tissue paper, she wrapped her fingers around the pink-beaded baby bracelet. Baby Birkland, it read. Maureen Birkland’s baby. It was all she had of her infant daughter. The couple who adopted her baby took everything else. Her daughter. Her life. Her dreams.

Ten yellowed one-thousand-dollar bills were held together with a rusty clip, still unspent after almost twenty years. Maureen shrank back from the money even now, still seeing it as Alexander Kladis’s payoff to a frightened seventeen-year-old, his silent warning to stay away from his son, to never use his son’s name. A son who was still alive—not dead as Alexander Kladis had told her.

As she waited for Eddie McCormick to arrive, she picked up Allen’s last note to her. Inside was the snapshot of himself, taken on board his carrier as it lay anchored near Cyprus. Her tears splashed on the picture—Allen at nineteen in his navy uniform, his sailor’s hat perched cockily on his head, his enormous dark eyes smiling out at her.

She clutched the snapshot and took up his note. She could almost hear him saying,

Dear Reeny,

I see you always in our last happy moments together. Mostly at the winter campsite where you sat on the log beside me above that frozen brook and wrote so intently on your notepad, I love you. I look forward to the day when I will see you again, Reeny. I am counting the days until this winter of separation is gone and we are together always.

Last, Maureen unfolded the letter that she had written as a seventeen-year-old. Words written to Allen, about Allen. Words that she had never sent to him.

Dear Allen,

I love getting your letters, but I wonder if I have them all. Sometimes Mother beats me to the mailbox. But would she keep your letters from me?

I have learned to listen for the mailman’s truck on the street behind ours and to hurry outside and wait for him to reach our block. When I do that, he waves and gives me the mail. Allen, I tuck your letters inside my pocket so Mother will not see them. And at midnight, when everyone is sleeping, I read them.

Mother tells me we are too young to be in love. It makes me sad. I want my mother to like you. To be nice to you. We were such good friends and now she seems like a stranger to me. My loving you has hurt her. She kept asking me about that weekend we went away together. Five months ago now. She knows.

Two weeks ago she took me to the doctor. Mother is furious with us. And so I must tell you that I am carrying your child. I am five months pregnant. Yes, I am going to have a baby. Your baby, Allen.

At first I was terrified. I didn’t know where to turn. I couldn’t tell anyone, not even my friends at school. I tried to hide it from Mother as long as I could. When we left the doctor’s office, she wouldn’t speak to me. Even now I can hear Mother upstairs, packing what we will take with us. She insists that we must move. She will not allow me to disgrace the family name.

I have refused to go back to Indiana with her. And so we are moving to Running Springs. But I will not be far away. I have promised you that I will wait for you. No matter what Mother says, I will be here.

Your father came to our house again last week. But Mother would not let me see him, not the way I look now. But I was leaning over the banister and heard her tell him to go away—the way she told you to go away. Your father insists that I must never see you again. Our parents are determined to keep us apart. But, dear Allen, summer is coming.

Of all the seasons, Allen, summer is best. For you will come again in summer. Back to me as you promised. For now, I feel like we have been torn apart like the dull brown leaves outside my window, drifting from the trees into the yard. Falling before their time.

Last month I found Cyprus on the map. I wish that I could be with you, but I am not as pretty as when you went away. I put my hand on my belly and it is full and round, blossoming with our baby. I am frightened, but I am glad, too, because it is part of you. I cannot touch your face or lips or hold your hands. If I could, I would put your hand on my belly and let you feel our baby kick.

Mother won’t talk about her grandchild. She keeps me isolated at home, but when we move to Running Springs, I can walk in the woods over the red-soiled trails covered with twigs that do not snap and leaves that do not crunch. I will look for footprints not my own. I will be looking for your footprints, Allen, and pretending that you are there with me.

* * *

Maureen sat at her desk at Fabian Industries, crying. She had never mailed the letter. Twenty years ago, while she was still penning the words to Allen, the phone had rung.

“It’s for you,” her mother had called up the stairs. “Mr. Kladis is on the line.”

“Allen? Is it Allen?”

“It’s about him.” Her mother’s voice had sounded shocked, stricken. And as she handed Maureen the phone, she had said gently, “Darling, you must be brave. It’s Allen’s father.”

Across the bottom of the letter, she had written the postscript that Allen would never read:

They tell me that you are gone now, Allen. Dead. Killed in Cyprus. Drowned in the waters near the island you loved. Your mother’s island. Your mother’s people.

I clamp my ears, not willing to hear those words. Surely they are lying to me—my mother and your father. How can you be gone and never know about the baby? You promised to come back to me. And I sit alone, feeling our baby kicking inside of me. Our baby is alive, and you are dead. I am so afraid. And I weep because you will never know about our child. No. They are lying to me, dear Allen. I must keep listening for your footsteps, longing for summer to come.

Maureen heard Eddie McCormick’s thudding, dragging steps coming down the corridor, then his voice speaking heatedly to someone else. The footsteps stopped, doors from hers, the argument between the two men raging. Maureen placed her treasures back into the jewelry strongbox, the beaded baby bracelet on top of Allen’s picture, her unmailed letter folded beneath them. She shut out the sound of the men in the corridor. Allen is alive, she thought. And Allen was married to someone else. Like I was married to someone else so briefly. The seasons had closed in on both of them. Still, she felt sadness for him. Allen with his unforgettable smile was too young to be a widower already.

Chapter Three

Maureen pulled herself forward, her arms resting on the desk, her hands clasped. Her eyes remained closed. Even when she opened them seconds later, it was as though she faced a thick fog bank, the white vapors slowly lifting, a figure coming to meet her. It was an image at first, swirling her back in time…and then a remembered face. A remembered time. A remembered place.

Allen—the memory of all her yesterdays, the unhealed wound of her quiet tomorrows. Allen—tousled and barefoot in a blue wet suit, a surfboard under one arm. Allen—defiantly facing her mother, declaring his undying love for Maureen. Allen in uniform, turning back to wave as he boarded the plane that would carry him back to his ship. The ship that would take him to Cyprus.

Allen! Allen, out of her life so long ago, yet crashing back into her thoughts again and again. Refusing to leave on this harried evening as she sat alone at Fabian Industries.

It had not been like that with Carl Davenport, the vigorous, fun-loving man she had married. There had been good moments with Carl, but when he died, her grief had been measured. She had grieved for Carl, a dignified sorrow for someone who had been special. She remembered him periodically with sadness for his fast-paced commitment to racing, to living, even to her. With sadness for the dynamic, energetic way he lived, the foolish way he died.

Whenever she thought of Carl, she recalled a laughing, spirited man who lacked nothing financially, and yet who sacrificed everything careening around a race course. Sometimes on holidays or special occasions, Maureen still visited Carl’s mother in her isolated fifteen-room estate, enduring the long hours of a mother’s reflections while the elderly woman talked as though her son would walk into the room any minute.

With Allen, it was different. She had no ties with Allen’s family. The twenty-year-old memories were her own. She had grieved deeply for Allen, and when she remembered him now, she did so with searing intensity and always with thoughts of his child—a grown young woman now whose image she couldn’t conjure up to comfort her. That part of Allen that she could only think of as “Meggy.”

Allen. The well-remembered face of her first love with its Athenian features, a lock of wet black hair cresting over his broad forehead, the mesmerizing dark-brown eyes, the amused tilt of his head as he waved goodbye. A remembered time: high noon on the hard-packed beach. The sliver of a midnight moon peeking through the trees. The five o’clock flight that left on time. And the remembered places: Huntington Beach Pier, the iso lated campsite at Big Bear, the crowded terminal at John Wayne.

Now with missiles and mergers and mayhem crowding in on her, it could well be Allen Kladis who would unknowingly take her down, topple her corporate climb— A sharp knock on her door announced Eddie McCormick’s arrival. Without waiting for Maureen’s reply, McCormick shoved open the door and came in, a dark-haired stranger behind him.

She caught her breath. It was like seeing Allen walk into her room, the stranger’s likeness to Allen was so striking. Her palms dampened; her locked fingers tightened. She looked away, her eyes focusing on Eddie McCormick.

“Davenport, what in blazes went wrong this evening?” McCormick roared.

She steeled herself for a dressing-down and prepared to fight back, but at the sight of Eddie’s ashen face, she bit her tongue. The once robust man came across the room in a halting gait, strands of his sparse gray hair falling limply across his forehead. A year ago he’d been a giant of a man, but his illness was taking its toll.

“Well, Davenport, do you have an explanation for what happened tonight with that missile?”

“Eddie, I didn’t give that order.”

“Who then? Some idiot in your de-department”

She heard the quiver in his voice, knew that his anxiety was peaking. She considered offering him a chair, but thought better of it. These days he took common courtesy as unwanted sympathy. She did pity him, but not in the usual sense of the word. She ached for him. She hated his struggle for control, his need to blame.

Lately he had taken to standing with his hands folded, his stronger one gripping his left wrist in a futile attempt to control the tremors. Tonight he stood with his left hand in his pocket, but she could still see the jerking of his upper arm.

Parkinson’s disease is a cruel adversary, she thought.

She was accustomed to discussing industry problems with Eddie, but the thought of Allen Kladis’s brother standing in the shadows, listening to her, was disconcerting. She tried to keep a clear head, saying, “The order to launch was phoned in to the air base, but no one in my department gave that order, Eddie.”

“A gremlin?” he scoffed.

She ignored his sarcasm. “I talked with Roland Spencer at the Pentagon. He insists that someone at Larhaven made that call.”

McCormick dropped in the chair across from her. “I didn’t want the Pentagon involved.”

“Our contract is with the Pentagon. You are familiar with the last communication from them. No more tests on the Fabian missiles until the problems are corrected. I had nothing to gain by giving an order to the contrary.”

“My position,” McCormick said. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Taking over before Larhaven does?”

She didn’t argue. That had been the original plan. He would take an early retirement, and Maureen, groomed and qualified to fill the job, would have been Fabian’s first female CEO. Her disappointment at missing that opportunity was as keen and sharp as his mood swings.

Moving to the top had slipped through her fingers. Once Allen Kladis learned that she was on the corporate rung at Fabian, what chance did she have? Allen had always liked competition—but from his first love? If he had wanted to see her again, he would have come back long ago, wouldn’t he?

Sighing, she said, “Eddie, what matters now is who gave that order at Larhaven. And whether it will affect our government contracts.” She aimed her barb at the stranger. “As far as I’m concerned, Eddie, we’re still in business until Fabian and Larhaven sign on the dotted line.”

“Seems to me it is a bit more involved than signatures,” the stranger said.

Maureen allowed herself to look at him again, forced herself to do so. She drew in another quick breath. He was a shorter, heavier version of Allen, and equally attractive if it weren’t for the cunning twist of his mouth. In that flash she likened him to his father. She had seen the head of the clan twice—a stocky, powerful man, a tad over five-eleven, with an authoritative voice and steely black eyes. His wide mouth had curled at the corner—exactly the way this man’s was doing now.

She wanted to cry out, to ask about Allen.

The stranger eyed her curiously. He was casually dressed in dark slacks, an open-neck shirt, a forest-green sports jacket. He held up his hands and shrugged. “I’m a Kladis, but I don’t give the orders.” His voice was deep, half-amused, and his eyes mocking as they met hers. “That’s my brother’s department.”

Even without the name, she would have guessed it. The family resemblance was definite, the voice quality so much alike. “Allen Kladis?” she asked, thrusting the name between them, challenging him, hoping that he would speak of his brother.

“I’m Nick. Allen’s my elder brother, the company CEO.”

“The owner of the company, then? The one who would have given the order to the air base. Call him. Find out what’s going on.”

He winced, his gaze shifting quickly to McCormick and then to a space beyond Maureen’s desk. “Mr. McCormick, you told me you’d get to the bottom of this.”

He nodded. “But, Mr. Kladis, this is Maureen’s department”

Nick turned his gaze on her again. “Then I think you’re making a mistake, Miss Davenport. Larhaven had nothing to do with that launch.”

“Mrs. Davenport,” she corrected. “And Roland Spencer rarely gets it wrong.” She had to hear Allen’s voice—to know that he was really alive. “Why don’t you call Mr. Kladis and find out what’s going on?”

His eyes and tongue snapped at the same moment “You’re out of line, Davenport. We wouldn’t do anything to stop the merger.”

Wouldn’t you? she thought.

She knew that she wanted to place the blame for the misfired missile on Allen Kladis. But even more, she wanted to hear his voice.

“The number?” she said, lifting the receiver.

“Look, don’t bother my brother now. Allen won’t thank us for calling him this late at night.”

“Then when? When can I discuss this problem with him? The reputation of Fabian Industries is at stake,” she said evenly. “I have to have answers when Roland Spencer calls in the morning.”

“That’s why I’m here. I’m capable of making company decisions.” He glanced at McCormick.

But Eddie seemed at a loss for words. She wanted to cover for him. “We should stop production on the Fabian missiles,” she suggested. “Can I tell Spencer you’ve given the order for that?”

He nodded. “If that’s what you think best.”

“You’ll lose the government contract that way,” Nick argued.

“It will just affect part of the assembly line. The tests for the flaws will go on. It’s a good program. I dare say your brother will be pleased for the millions it will bring in.”

“Finances? That’s my department,” Nick told her proudly.

She frowned. “I thought your brother Allen was CEO.”

“Our father left the company to the three Kladis boys.”

But he left Allen in charge, she thought. She was certain of that. He had been grooming his eldest son for the job. It had been the reason that the elder Kladis didn’t want Maureen standing in the way.

“Oh, Allen got his hog’s share of the company all right Fifty percent. But Christophorous and I are still in the running.”

She heard the bitterness in his voice.

“Christophorous?” she asked.

“Chris, the kid brother. The one who likes flying better than building planes. Couldn’t care less who runs the company.”

For some reason she remembered Allen calling him the “waif” of the family—the non-Greek, the question mark, the independent thinker. “Dad will never mold him. He came along ten years after the rest of us. Blond and fair-skinned and Mother’s favorite.”

But it was Allen who mattered to Maureen.

She stood silently, the receiver dangling between her fingers. Staring straight into Nick Kladis’s dark gaze she asked, “Did you give that order to launch the missile, Mr. Kladis? To help the merger go through quickly?”

He didn’t answer, but Maureen was certain that she had struck a bull’s-eye. If Nick gave the order, was Allen even aware of it?

“Were you trying to humiliate Fabian Industries? Trying to force the bidding figure down?”

Or were you trying to undermine Allen’s leadership? she wondered. She had to talk to Allen. Or had Allen changed? Had he become shrewd and cunning like his brother Nick? As cagey and cruel as his father had been?

“I need answers, Mr. Kladis.”

“Wait until I tell my brother that a woman is handling the missile project.” He laughed sardonically, his dark eyes smiling nonetheless.

He was outwitting her for now. “Will you be around in the morning?” she asked.

He made a point of pushing back his cuff, glancing at his expensive watch. “It’s already morning. I’ll be flying out in a few hours. But we can talk by phone when you know what happened.”

You’re behind it, she thought. But why? You had no reason to destroy me, to tamper with my authority. But you’re in a power play with your brother.

“Then we’ll talk later,” she said.

“I’ll let Allen know.” Again his eyes were mocking, amused.

Long after the men had gone, Maureen lingered at her desk, thinking about Allen. She had long ago come to terms with him dying on Cyprus, but to learn now that he was alive—that she had been deceived by both father and son—was unthinkable. Now the only picture she could conjure up in her mind was the youthful Allen, the young man she had fallen in love with, untainted by the Kladis’s greed and conniving. But the businessman? The head of an aircraft company? Had he changed?

Meeting him again would be painful. Not meeting him would be unbearable.

Slowly she brought her attention back to the crisis at hand and jotted down notes for the morning schedule. At 2:00 a.m. she left a message on Dwayne Crocker’s answering machine, asking him to meet her at eight in the morning. She had a vague recollection of him talking about new statistics that would iron out the flaws on the Fabian missile project. She wished she had listened more closely. It was the most important thing he had said all evening.

When she came face-to-face with Allen Kladis, she wanted answers that would guarantee her own job, and secure her reputation. Dwayne Crocker, with his mathematical genius, could give her those answers.

She tidied up her desk, closed up her office and locked it, then went through the security checks with a forced smile and a pleasant good-night to the security guards as she walked out to the parking lot. The night was mostly gone, but automatically, as she reached the car, she glanced up and saw the evening star still glowing brightly in the pre-dawn sky.

Chapter Four

In the Pacific Northwest, on what proved a surprisingly warm and dry spring morning, Allen Kladis moved barefoot across the thick carpet of his condominium. He paused at the mantelpiece, staring down at Adrian in the framed picture of their wedding day. Setting his water tumbler down, he braced his hands against the shelf, his gaze fixed on the bride and groom in the photo. His chest constricted, the emotional pain tormenting him with its harshness, its swift onset. It was a pain that never completely went away.

Had they really been that young, that jubilant? He saw it now, their absolute trust as they looked at each other, so confident that they had a lifetime ahead of them, not just twelve years. He felt cheated, robbed too soon of his dearest friend.

Adrian at twenty-three had been beautiful in satin and lace, his grandmother’s clutch pearls around her slender neck. In the photo, she had just tilted her chin up, her blue eyes meeting his. Brilliant peacock-blue eyes. She looked so trusting, sheltered there in the crook of his arm. He looked rather striking himself in his black tuxedo.

“A handsome pair,” the photographer had said.

Allen slid his tumbler across the fireplace shelf and moved three steps to the other picture of Adrian by herself. He had taken it two days after meeting her out by Snoqualmie Falls, where the 268-foot waterfalls had drenched them. In the photo she was laughing, pushing her wet, windblown hair back from her lovely face.

Without these two photos and without the shoe boxes of snapshots that she had hidden under the bed—photos she was always going to put in albums when she found the time—Allen would not remember how beautiful she had once been.

Adrian at thirty-five had been barely recognizable. Holding up his tumbler of iced water, he saluted her. “I still miss you,” he said.

A year and a half ago she had been the healthiest woman he knew. Then, within weeks, she was suddenly tired, not feeling well, nauseated. Oh, Adrian, he thought, forgive me. I was so elated, so certain you were finally embarking on a rolling sea of morning sickness. A baby. The baby we always wanted. But you knew, didn’t you?

He tilted his head back and ran one hand through his thick hair, still wet and unruly from the shower. He tried to block out the memory of picking her up in his arms that day and saying, “If you’re pregnant, you’ll make me the happiest man on earth.”

Her smile had matched the glow in the photograph. But ten seconds after twirling her around and setting her down, she ran to the washbasin, deathly pale, deathly sick. When they saw the family doctor the next morning, Allen grinned and said, “Just tell us, Doc. When is the baby due?”

Allen had never considered any other diagnosis until the doctor came back into the examining room. “Adrian is not pregnant,” he said kindly. “But let’s run some blood tests and see what’s making her so tired. I’ll call you when the reports come back.”

Four days later he referred them to a hematologist “What’s wrong?” Allen asked.

“Mr. Kladis, let’s not get alarmed. Let’s just see what the specialist says.”

What he had said was “acute myeloblastic leukemia.”

“What are you telling us?” Allen demanded, sitting with Adrian across from the large mahogany desk.

Calmly, the physician repeated the words and added his medical mumbo jumbo. “We’ll do a bone-marrow aspiration and chemotherapy to induce remission. Chemo may give her an extra few months.”

Allen had doubled his fist and lunged forward. If it had not been for the grace of God and Adrian’s swift grip on his wrist, he would have knuckled the hematologist’s jaw and silenced his bluntness.

“My wife is not dying!” Allen had shouted, his angry words bombarding the four walls. “She’s as healthy as I am. We swim every day at the club. Sail on Lake Washington. Ski all winter. Don’t come in here with your crazy diagnosis, doctor. My wife is pregnant. Take another look at those tests.”

“Don’t, Allen,” Adrian had said, reaching across the chair and clutching his arm. “I’ll be all right You’ll see. We’ll fight this together.”

But it was a crushing, one-sided battle. Five months later, he sat by her hospital bedside, barely touching her bruised hand, not holding her the way he wanted to do because her pain was too severe. She was shockingly thin. Dark half-moons clung beneath her sunken eyes. She had fought a good fight—but she was losing. For days she slipped in and out of consciousness. On that last day, she came out of the murky depths of a coma and cried, “Allen, take me home.”

His grip tightened on the mantel as he remembered the lie fitly spoken. “I will, honey, as soon as you’re better.”

You knew I was lying, he recalled. But I wanted to take you home again.

A tiny smile had touched her cracked lips. “What’s happening to me? Where do I go after this?”

“Honey, I don’t understand. What are you asking me?”

“I’m dying. You know that, don’t you, Allen?”

He nodded, not wanting to lie to her anymore.

Her chest heaved. “But what happens to me when I die?”

He’d spent hours thinking about that—a mahogany casket with a white-satin lining. A cemetery plot, six feet deep. A miserable memorial with useless platitudes. He didn’t need anyone to remind him how lovely she was, how much he loved her. But Adrian hadn’t wanted to hear about a casket or cemetery plot any more than he did. She’s talking about herself, he thought. About what happens to her when she dies.

He had struggled to his feet, leaned down and kissed her lips gently, the weight and pressure of his chest forcing the oxygen tube to hiss. “Honey, I’ll get the chaplain for you.”

“No, don’t leave me…I’m afraid. You tell me.”

How could he? He didn’t know. She winced as he took her hands. “You’ll go to heaven.”

“What’s heaven like, Allen?” She closed her eyes, her breathing raspy. Then she was back again, fighting to stay alive long enough to find her answers.

He groped for lessons from his childhood: the memory of his grandmother talking about heaven. “It’s a pretty place,” he said. “I know that. Streets of gold. A river of life.”

It kept coming back, thoughts he had ignored for years, and doubted for some of them. He saw desperation in her eyes and longed to comfort her. “There’s no pain there, Adrian. No tears.”

“How do you know?” Her words were barely a whisper.

“My grandmother. She believed all of that”

“No tears?” With great effort she lifted her hand and touched his bristled chin. “Won’t I cry for you, Allen?”

He held her hand against his lips. “Not half as much as I will cry for you.”

As he stood in his living room, his hand shook visibly as he put the tumbler down again. He gripped the shelf as he thought of Adrian asking, “Will those I love be there?”

“My grandmother is there.”

“No one else?”

He nodded, tears coursing down his cheeks. “God,” he had said. “God will be there. And his Son.” His grandmother had said the Son would be on the right hand of the Father—that He would be there to greet His children.

The oxygen had bubbled as Adrian gasped for air, her breathing so labored that Allen held his own breath. “Don’t leave me,” he begged. “I love you.”

Slowly she focused on him, her eyes more glazed now. “How do I get to heaven, Allen?” she whispered.

On the wings of angels, his grandmother had said. But he wasn’t certain. He didn’t know where truth ended and his grandmother had improvised on her picture of eternity. But he did remember Grams declaring, “The way to heaven is through Jesus.”

He leaned down, his face on the pillow beside Adrian. “Jesus is the way. You won’t go alone. Jesus is here to go with you.” He was quoting his grandmother again, and saw a flicker of hope in Adrian’s glazed eyes. “Jesus,” he repeated.

“Jesus,” she said. She pushed the oxygen prongs aside. “Hold me, Allen,” she had cried.

And he did, tenderly, lovingly, gently caressing her, his cheek pressed against her own. Ten minutes later the nurse gripped Allen’s shoulder. “It’s over, Mr. Kladis. Your wife is gone.”

He stared now at Adrian’s photo on the mantel. “She’s gone, Mr. Kladis,” he repeated solemnly.

To heaven? Yes, he was certain Adrian had been borne on the wings of angels—surely his grandmother had told the truth—and that she was safely there now. Pain free. With not even a tear for him. But in the eleven months since her death, he had shed enough tears for both of them, buckets of them in the shower, more as he lay in the empty bed alone, crushing her pillow against his chest

After her death, work became his salvation. He poured himself into the planned merger between Larhaven and Fabian. During Adrian’s illness, the merger had been tabled. Now, with the threat of a third party bidding for Fabian, Allen had attacked the project with renewed energy.

He ran his hand over his bare chest, willing the tightness to go away. Unraveling to his height of six-foot-two, he secured the strings on his jogging pants and walked back through the house. He stopped to fill his tumbler with an iced soft drink before reaching the bedroom. The king-size bed remained unmade, the spread sprawled on the floor, his pillow pounded to shreds. He had turned out to be a poor housekeeper these last eleven months, depending instead on the woman who came in three days a week.

He grabbed the merger file from the dresser, opened the sliding glass door, and stepped out onto his veranda that overlooked Lake Washington. Sinking into the chaise lounge, he stretched out his lanky legs and propped his feet on the iron railing. Business magazines were strewn on the porch. He felt useless, weary at thirty-nine, empty inside. With a sigh, he carelessly dropped the merger file on the floor.

Even from where he sat, an eddy—a violent little whirlpool—swirled, spinning out of sync with the rest of the lake. It was headed nowhere, with nothing but dark churning depths beneath it. His life had been on replay all day, one scene after the other, hitting him full force and then dropping into the bitter pools of memory. It hadn’t been this intense lately, but he guessed the upcoming anniversary of Adrian’s death had much to do with his mood.

He heard his brother’s footsteps coming through the veranda door. “Figured you’d be here. I just let myself in,” Nick said.

Nick slid a porch chair over beside Allen and dropped into it. “Thought you had company, big brother. Guess you were just talking to yourself.”

“When did you get back, Niko?”

“On the morning flight. Nonstop straight from L.A.—haven’t even checked in with the wife and kids yet.”

“You never make them top priority. You did travel alone?”

“Scout’s honor. Strictly business.”

“Did Fabian give an excuse for the misfired missile?” Allen saw his brother’s crafty eyes shift. “You didn’t step out of line, did you, Nick? The agreement with Fabian was to wait.”

“What’s done is done. McCormick blamed it on one of his vice-presidents. And Davenport swears the air force blew it.” He met Allen’s gaze for a second. “Allen, one of the first things you better do when the merger goes through is get rid of Davenport.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“What’s wrong is he’s a woman. Powerful, from what I gather. Her job should go, once we merge. Mark my words.”

“That’s my decision. McCormick we keep for a time. The next five names on their management team go. Straight off the top. That saves millions right off.”

“Good. The top five snares Davenport. She won’t like that.”

“A personal problem, Niko?”

“We had a few words about the missile going off.”

“Your problem. But if I find you had anything to do with firing that missile, Niko, you’re on your way out, too. But don’t worry, I’ll give you a good retirement settlement.”

Nick frowned. “I hate the way you play with my life. Allen, you have everything. Give me a chance.”

“I’ve lost everything that was important to me.”

“You’re still running Larhaven Aircraft.”

“Just keep that in mind. And, Nick, I’ve decided to take that Wednesday meeting with the Board of Directors at Fabian.”

“I tell you, Allen, I can handle it. Aren’t you worried about clashing with Eddie McCormick?”

“No. He works with us or he bows out gracefully.”

“Why don’t you do the same, Allen? Take a leave of absence?”

“And put you in charge? You’re not ready for the job.”

Nick glanced morosely out on the lake. “I can handle it.”

“Not the way I do.”

Nick—dependable? Somehow he had always managed to slip into class as the bell rang, or to arrive at the table by the time their father finished his perfunctory prayer. But trust Nick to run the business or make major decisions? Not good.

“I’m going to see this merger through, Nick. Larhaven still has a good reputation. Let’s keep it that way.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t take over until I’m dead. That’s a promise I made to Mother. And with just three years between us, I’m apt to be around making decisions for a long time.”

“We never know when our time will be up, Allen. Look at Adrian.”

“We’re not talking about my wife,” he retorted.

For a few minutes silence hung between them like a dark cloud. Then Nick said, “Be glad you didn’t have kids, Allen.”

“I’d still have something of Adrian in my life then.”

“It’s not that Fran and I don’t feel sorry for you—”

“I don’t want your pity.”

“That’s why we haven’t given it I think my wife is right You can’t go on mourning. Get out. Go on a date. Make yourself available.” He tented his fingers. “Life goes on. Get on with your own.”

“I suppose you have someone in mind?”

“What about one of the gals at Larhaven?”

Allen had already gone that route. He saw no need to tell Nick that he had dated twice since Adrian’s death—both times a total fiasco, a botched evening, a wipeout One was with his attorney’s attractive new assistant While dropping off a file he had asked for, she boldly suggested having dinner together that evening. The other foolhardy venture was with a divorcee living in the condo above his. They had been picking up their mail at the same time. In the midst of inconsequential chatter, the girl fessed up to an empty fridge and a growing hunger.

Through both dates, his wife’s name seemed to worm its way into the conversation, and he knew that the evening was falling flat All he could do was to pick up the tab—hefty on both occasions—and to offer his date a safe ride home. One elected to go alone by taxi, and his neighbor rode in silence back to their building.

No, it just wasn’t the time yet to think seriously about a new relationship. He was still sorting out Adrian’s loss, trying to adjust to an empty condo and the terrible ache in his chest that wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t that he would never marry again. To the contrary, he longed for companionship, needed it and knew deep down that he was not intended to live alone, that he was capable of another commitment. But not yet, not when he would still compare any other woman—no matter how lovely—to Adrian.

But he was ready to do battle with Nick because the subject had come up again. He didn’t need the advice of his younger brothers about his social life or lack of one.

“No dating, Nick. Not yet.”

“My wife has friends looking for an eligible bachelor.”

“I’m not a bachelor. I’m a widower.”

“You can’t let this drag on forever. Adrian wouldn’t want you to. With your mood swings, you’ll mess up the merger.”

“There was only one woman for me, Niko.”

Nick cocked his head, a touch of mockery in his gaze. “What about that romance of yours back when you were wet behind the ears? The one Dad got all fired up about? Doesn’t that count?”

This time the frown was Allen’s. “Maureen?”

Maureen. The sun reflected off the lake, a gentle breeze blowing across the water carrying him back twenty years in time. He could see her face, her beauty, her youth. He could even remember the curve of her mouth, the cut of her chin, the softness of her skin. And those wide violet-blue eyes had blown him away. For just a flash he felt that same searing pain that he had experienced when he went on shore leave, back to her hometown to find her. She was gone. Gone without a trace.

“Her name—it was Maureen Birkland, wasn’t it?” Nick asked.

“How did you know that?”

“Dad’s old file on her. He never did like her, you know. But she was some looker. Dad had a picture of her in the file.”

Allen nearly toppled out of the chaise lounge, but caught his balance, his feet straddling the chair. “What was Dad doing with a file on her?”

“You told him you were going to marry her.”

I was, he thought.

“That marriage bit was a shocker, I’m here to tell you. You take off for a ten-day surfing trip to California, and the next thing Dad knows, you’re not coming home. You’re getting married.”

“She was a sweet kid. What did Dad have against her?”

“He said she was a nobody, Allen. Poor family. No social standing. No money. No future. You know Dad. Only the best for his boys.”

Allen hadn’t seen it that way. They had met at a small café down by the beachfront. He was standing barefoot in the sand, his surfboard propped against the wall. He had just ordered a peach milk shake when he saw Maureen pushing her tawny hair back from her face and looking up at him with those magnificent eyes. He grabbed two straws and offered to share the shake with her.

She surprised him and accepted. They sat on the beach, side by side, as they drank the shake. Eighteen, not quite nineteen, he had toppled head-over-heels in love with her, his passions awakened in a way he had not understood. First love. And it had been real enough. She was working part time as a file clerk in a bank and going into her senior year of high school. Allen was bigtime. High school behind him, the job at his father’s aircraft industry hooked.

“We’ll get married,” he had told her on their third date, “and move back to Seattle.”

“Mother won’t let me. I have to finish high school first.”

Allen never hit it off with her mother. Mrs. Birkland had disliked him from the beginning. She knew his family was rich and didn’t believe his intentions toward Maureen were honorable. She told Maureen he was using her—”a summer fling,” she’d called it. But the more she opposed Allen, the more Maureen was drawn to him.

Nick’s words thundered again. A poor family. No social standing or money. No future.

It hadn’t mattered back then. He would stay in California and marry her. And his father had blown his lid. That’s one reason I joined the navy, he thought. To break Dad’s shackles, to guarantee my freedom. To find a way to support a wife.

“After you sailed to Cyprus, Dad flew to California to meet her. He figured anyone could be bought off. Must have worked.”

Stunned, Allen sat there. Maureen Birkland had been his first girl that summer so long ago, his reason for not going back to work for his dad. And his dad had bought her off. No wonder she wasn’t there when he went back to find her. After all these years, the realization still hurt.

Keep cool, he told himself. Don’t let Nick goad you. If Maureen hadn’t been bought off, Adrian would never have come into your life. With Maureen you had nothing but a few weeks. But at least with Adrian you had twelve happy years.

“Where is Dad’s file on Maureen Birkland?” he asked.

“In storage. Can hardly think of Dad tossing anything away.”

“I want it. Find it for me.”

“Forget that old file. We have more important things to worry about Your whole executive board thinks you’ll blow this merger unless you snap out of this grieving process.”

“Did you put that idea into their heads, Nick? You know I’ve been better lately. I’ll take care of my private life. Leave the Larhaven-Fabian merger to me,” he said acidly.

Nick had never learned when to back off. He sat there sullenly, twiddling his thumbs. “You’ve run the show for ten years ever since Dad’s death, even though you never wanted the job. Let me have a crack at it now.”

“Dad left the job to me because he knew I could handle it. You and Chris weren’t ready for it.”

“Chris doesn’t want it. I do.”

Nick was their father all over again. Greedy for power. Ready to cut down those who stood in his way. “Nick, I’m only going to say this once. I’m going to see this merger under way and running smoothly. Work with me or get out.”

The wind had picked up. He felt as empty as the whirlpool spinning on the lake, as though his life were swirling out of control. It was tough having your family oppose you. Perhaps Nick was right. Maybe it was time to resign and let his brothers take over.

How he longed to escape to a cabin on the river, do nothing. How he longed for inner peace. Peace like Adrian had found. But he didn’t know where to find it. And God, if He existed, seemed distant

Chapter Five

An hour down the Pacific Coast Highway from Maureen Davenport’s apartment, a young woman with Allen’s dark eyes and Maureen’s smile and long thick lashes stood by the window of her parents’ home, a bride’s magazine clutched in her hand.

Outside, a violent windstorm was piping through the canyon, howling through the tree tops, and rattling the windowpanes where Heather Reynard stood. The gusting wind swept everything in its path, bending sign posts, crumpling tree limbs like tissue paper. A few logs slid down the hillside and were swallowed up in the yawning mouth of a ten-foot wave that surged along the rocky shoreline.

Still Heather and her family were lucky. Last week it had been the fires raging out of control in the Silverado Canyon, flames leaping and bounding and turning the sky from a brilliant red glow to a smoky-gray. It had destroyed homes in its path and turned them to ashes, leaving hillsides charred with an ominous black canopy that had made both people and animals homeless. A hundred acres had already burned. With the winds tonight, the hot spots of the recent fires in the Silverado Canyon and the San Bernardino foothills could flare up and fan into raging infernos.

Heather shivered, the chill of the windowpane cold against her arms. Not one twinkling star could be seen. The only movement was the light of a jumbo jet. A smoky haze lined the horizon, and rain clouds hid the Big Dipper. But as she crouched lower and stared out the window, she saw a full hazy moon lying low in the sky, peeking out from the clouds, round as a yellow pumpkin.

“Oh, Brett,” she exclaimed, “come look at the full moon.” Her fiance crossed the room and slipped his arm around her slender shoulders.

“Beautiful,” he said, but when she turned to face him, he was looking at her.

“Oh, Brett!”

“You said that already.”

Brett. Martin, at twenty-six, was a foot taller than Heather, and seven years older, his height and broad shoulders rendering him a fortress of strength that pleased her. He was as fair-skinned and blond as she was dark. His eyes were wide-set, his brows thick, his smile full. Brett was not handsome, but she thought of him that way. Her own good-looking knight, so wholesome with his brown maple-sugar eyes, eyes that made her melt when he looked at her, the way he was looking at her now.

“Brett, the storm is worse. I don’t want you out in it.”

“Honey, I have to drive back to Los Angeles this evening.”

“Not in this wind. Mother’s making up a room for you.”

He sighed resignedly. “I have class at eight”

“And I want you alive so you can attend it. You can get up early. I’ll even set my alarm and make you breakfast.”

He looked doubtful. “Okay,” she told him, “Mother can cook it for you. But. I’m learning, Brett. By the time we marry, I’ll be a pretty good cook. Mother is determined.”

“With your unpredictable schedule with the airline, I hope she’s successful. And if not,” he teased, “I’ll talk your mom into moving in with us.”

“She wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Is she still opposed to our marrying in August?”

“No, she’s resigned herself. She thinks I’m too young, but. I’ll still be too young when I’m thirty. Mothers are like that. And as long as I eventually finish college—”

The bride’s magazine slipped from her fingers. Brett stooped to pick it up. “Then what’s wrong, honey?”

“This miserable weather.”

“We have no control over that” He lapsed into his lofty seminary voice. “The storms and winds come from God’s storehouse. Oppose the weather and we oppose God.”

“You’re preaching again, Brett,” she cautioned.

“That’s what. I’m training for, my darling.”

“But you’re not in the pulpit now, and I don’t want you to sound that way ever. It’s your openness and honesty that first attracted me to you, Brett. You’re too genuine to play a role.”

“Heather, all my life I’ve wanted to be a preacher. I’m a third-generation—”

“I want you to be what you want to be. But be yourself, Brett. Lost men and women are depending on you. They’ll like you better and trust you more if you don’t sound preachy.”

“Do you have someone lost in mind?” he asked.

She nodded. “A woman I’ve never met.”

“I’m not up to a guessing game. Who?”

“My birth mother. She may not know that. God loves her.”

“We just have to trust that she will,” he said confidently.

Heather fell silent. Faith and simplicity were easy choices for Brett. He really did credit the winds and storms to God’s storehouse. She leaned against him as his arm tightened around her.

“You look so upset, Heather. What’s troubling you?”

“It’s the guest list for our wedding. I want to invite someone and I’m afraid to tell you—and even more afraid to tell Mom and Dad.”

He winked. “Let me guess. That older flight attendant who gives you such a bad time when you work together?”

“No, but we’re doing much better now. Or maybe I’m doing better on the job.”

“Not your old boyfriend? We agreed not to invite him.”

“He’s coming anyway. His family and mine are old friends.”

“You want to invite someone you don’t know to our wedding? Then you’d better tell me.”

Her voice trembled. “I don’t think you’re going to like what. I say—but. I want my birth mother there.”

The storm had moved inside. The way Brett looked down at her now, there was no way that his maple-sugar eyes could melt anything. He was obviously displeased with her decision.

“You can’t be serious. What if she rejects you again?”

“That’s cruel.”

“She was cruel to leave you.”

“But. I won’t know why she left unless I try to find her.”

He turned to face her and placed his hands firmly on her shoulders. “You said your birth mother. What about your father?”

“Have you forgotten? He died before I was born.”

“Do you know that for certain? Maybe he just ducked out. Some men are not willing to take responsibility.”

“It’s not like that, Brett. When I was adopted, Mom and Dad were told that he died in Cyprus on a peacekeeping mission.”

“The army?”

“The navy, I think. I—” she faltered. “I don’t really know. I used to ask questions, but. I could see that it hurt. Dad. Dad was afraid of losing me if I found my birth mother.”

Brett looked more perturbed than Heather had ever seen him. His usually cheery face was taut with worry, perhaps even a touch of anger. “Heather, I thought we agreed that we would be honest with each other, that we would make major decisions together.”

“I was afraid to tell you.”

“So why is it so important now to find someone that—”

“That never cared about me?” Her voice cracked. “We don’t know that. We don’t know why she didn’t want me.”

He touched her cheek. “I don’t want you to be hurt.”

She groped for words. “Oh, Brett, you can’t protect me from everything. There might be reasons why they gave me away. Reasons why you and I shouldn’t have children.”

“I’m willing to take the risk,” he said. “You know that. We’ve talked about it. Seminary first. And then a family.”

“And what if I get pregnant before you graduate? My birth mother was only seventeen.”

“Seventeen? But you’re almost twenty—and very mature.”

“That didn’t answer my question, Brett.”

“If the babies come before I finish seminary—before you have a chance to finish college—then we’ll welcome them. I can’t imagine a greater joy than you being the mother of my children.”

She was grateful to him. He was trying to stop the battle building between them, trying to protect her from the unknown. “That doesn’t change anything. I still want to find my mother,” she said again. “I must find her.” She looked up and met his gaze. “I want to start our marriage with the record clean, with the questions about my birth parents answered. Whatever it takes, whatever the outcome, I want to find the woman who bore me. I want to know about the father I’ve never seen.”

“But. Nan and Todd—they’ve been good to you. They love you.”

“I know that. They’ll always be Mom and Dad. My parents. But there’s a part of me that still feels a void inside.”

He drew her into his arms. “I thought. I made you happy.”

She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him—a light, feathery kiss. “You do. I love you. But. I’d be so much more complete if I knew who I was.”

“You’re Heather Reynard. You’re going to be Heather Martin. That’s enough for me. Isn’t it enough for you, honey?”

She shook her head. “Please help me find my mother.”

He led her to the sofa and sat beside her, his head in his hands. “What if we haven’t found her when August rolls around?”

Only the sounds of the storm filled the room. Outside the torrential rain washed away the sight of the moon from the sky. Lightning flashed across the horizon. Thunder roared in the distance. Rain splashed the windows, pelted the tiled roof, and ran in widening rivulets down the hillside.

“I asked you a question,” he said gently. “Tell me.”

“Does helping me depend on it, Brett?”

“No,” he said huskily. “It’s your life. Your past. I can live with things the way they are. I don’t think you can.”

“Neither do we,” Todd Reynard said from the doorway.

“Oh, Daddy. I didn’t mean for you to hear.”

“And I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. Your mother sent me down. She was worried that your young man here would be foolish enough to try driving home in this storm. She has his room ready.”

Todd Reynard ran his hand nervously through his hair, causing a tuft of it to stand up wildly. He was a solidly built, pleasant-faced man of average height, with eyes that usually danced when he talked with Heather.

“What should I tell your mother?” he asked.

“He’s staying, of course,” Heather said.

As Todd turned to leave, Brett stopped him, saying, “We were talking about the guest list for the wedding, sir.”

“Yes, Brett. I overheard,” Todd said apologetically. “Don’t let me disturb you.”

“But this concerns you and your wife. I think the four of us should talk it over, sir.” He glanced morosely at. Heather. “What do you think, honey?”

Heather nodded. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

“Then let’s put everything on the table—out in the open.” He glanced at. Todd. “Why don’t you call your wife down?”

They watched Heather’s dad go to the foot of the stairs. “Nan, dear!” he called. “Could you come downstairs for a bit.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Todd,” came a lighthearted voice. “I’m in my nightclothes.”

“It’s all right. Just throw your robe on and come join us.”

Minutes later she came into the room in her bathrobe, her feet bare. “Is something wrong?” she asked, her gaze going worriedly from face to face.

Todd pulled her down in the chair beside him and squeezed her hand. “The children have something to say.”

They could hear her sigh above the pounding rain. She sat motionless, an expression of alarm frozen on her face. “The two of you—?” she faltered. “You’re all right?”

“We’re fine,” Brett said. “But we need to talk to you about the guest list for the wedding.”

Nan’s voice filled with exasperation. “You called me down at this time of night for that? We have four months before the wedding. Honestly, Heather, dear, put the name on the list, get an address—” She picked at the lint on her worn robe. “If there’s a problem we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“We don’t have an address,” Brett said.

“We don’t even have a name,” Heather added.

Nan’s voice wavered now as she said, “I don’t understand.”

Todd ran both hands through his hair, his fleshy cheeks drained of color. “I think you do, Nan.”

Nan looked at her husband and then away. “Oh, dear. I guess I expected this.” She sighed and covered her mouth with her hand.

“Mom, if you and Daddy don’t want me to—I’ll just forget it. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything in the world. It’s just—”

Brett folded his hand over Heather’s and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“Are you certain, Heather, that this can’t wait?” Nan asked tearfully. “Couldn’t we take care of this after the wedding?”

“Finding missing persons takes a long time,” Todd said, his eyes downcast

Brett’s hand tightened around Heather’s. “Nan, Todd,” he said, “I told Heather it doesn’t matter as far as I’m concerned. That you are her mom and dad and that’s good enough for me.”

“But not for you, Heather?” Nan asked.

Brett cleared his throat. “I think Heather is willing to put off the wedding if she has to. It’s that important to her.”

They were talking in circles, all of them knowing what. Heather wanted without saying the words. Heather lifted her face and felt the defiance and tears come at the same moment as she looked across at the parents who had raised her.

“I love you,” she said. “Surely you must know that! You’re the ones who adopted me—the Mom and Dad who loved me through the ups and downs of my rebel years. You prayed for me. Prayed for my future.” She smiled up at. Brett. “You prayed for the man I would many. But there has always been a question mark about my beginnings.”

Nan nodded. Before Todd could protest, she reached across and patted her husband’s knee. “Yes, Heather, dear, we know that you love us…” Her voice trailed. “But, Heather…Brett, it’s your guest list. We promise, we won’t interfere.”

“Mom. Dad,” Heather whispered. “Then you don’t mind if I search for her? Please help me. I want to find my birth mother before my wedding day. There’s so much I want to know…so much I need to tell her.”

Her father’s smile turned ragged. “We love you, Heather.”

Nan straightened her shoulders and said bravely, “But right now that isn’t enough, Todd.”

“Not enough?” he asked. “We’ve done—”

Nan reached across and touched his lips. “It has nothing to do with what we’ve done, Todd. We’ve seen this coming—”

“Please, Mom…Dad.”

Her dad looked as lost as Heather felt as he glanced at his wife for confirmation. Then he cleared his throat as he turned back and faced her. “It’s your decision. Your Mother and I will stand by you.”

Outside, the rain kept coming down in torrents. The howling winds whipped up, pushing the rain against the patio door. Lightning streaked across the sky. Claps of thunder bolted and roared back. The electric lights in the room blinked, then blacked out, and they were left in total blackness—a darkness nearly as palpable and pervasive as the empty space in Heather’s heart

Chapter Six

As the jet rolled down the runway at SeaTac International on a nonstop flight to southern California, Allen Kladis shut out everything, even the presence of his brother Nick beside him. The last thirty-six hours had revitalized Allen. Once he decided to fly south, he was in charge again. Galvanized by Nick’s mishandling of the merger and by the strong possibility of Nick’s involvement in the missile launch, Allen took back the reins that had been slowly slipping from his grasp. Larhaven was his responsibility, the planned merger totally his own doing.

He was the old Allen—efficient and forceful, brisk and robust With renewed energy, he set the wheels in motion, jumping on track like a car running on new spark plugs. Yesterday he had called an emergency meeting with his executive board. Assignments were delegated with definite nods of approval from the older men. Nick slid into his chair five minutes late, shock registering on his face when he saw Allen conducting the meeting.

It took Allen’s secretary ten seconds to see what was happening—and she was off, gathering up the reports that he needed. Booking him a flight on the airline seemed to please her most.

Vangie had been with him for ten years so she said, “I’m glad you’re going, Mr. Kladis. Your brother Nick—I don’t like to say it, but he still needs your supervision.”

At the last minute, Allen agreed to take Nick with him, and Vangie went off with a satisfied smile to book two reservations for Tuesday.

For the first time in eleven months, Allen had whistled as he showered and packed. He’d even made a last-minute call from the airport to his brother Chris. “Christophorous, is your invitation for a Canadian camping trip still on…? Good. I’ll be back in time, raring to go.”

He had stood there grinning like an idiot into the receiver. “That’s right, little brother. I’m ready to go camping or even flying with you in that Cessna of yours…”

Another pause and then he added, “And, little brother, I’d like to talk to you about taking flying lessons. Yeah, me. I’m ready to soar.”

So here he was, flying off on a business assignment for the first time in months, sitting in first-class with his attaché case stowed in the overhead above him and allowing his thoughts to shift to Adrian. His thoughts of her were pleasant ones, not memories draped in sadness. He found himself smiling, an unexpected sense of peace and freedom surging through him. It was like taking a quick glance at her picture on the mantel or her snapshot in his wallet. But somehow it was different this time. It was like checking in with her to see how he was doing. He knew she’d be pleased that the old Allen was back in charge. Right now, it was as though he wanted to flood his memory with her and then really let her go, to let her soar free from the bounds of earth and from his lingering hold on her. Adrian.

Promise me, she had said, that you won’t grieve. That you will let yourself love someone again.

He had promised, never believing he would lose her. But Adrian had been borne on the wings of angels away from him. He could no longer bring her classic features clearly into focus. Still, these were good memories, as though he’d raked through the bitterness and was taking stock of his future.

Looking down on a ribbon of clouds, he had the feeling that they had both broken the bounds of earth. He had reached a pivotal point over these last few months, and knew that life was still worth living. He didn’t have to hang on to the past or even know what the future held. Companionship, he hoped. Even the thought was guilt-free. He wasn’t looking, but then he hadn’t been looking when Adrian came into his life.

The challenge of working was back. He wanted Larhaven to continue as a top competitor in the aircraft industry. But, unlike his father, he wanted to retire early. He was wealthy enough to do so now, but he had to hang on until he was convinced that Nick could take over. Allen felt like a man at the top of a ski slope, ready to take the mountain. The change had crept up on him. But he felt alive, whole again. The ache inside was still there, but he knew there would be good days ahead.

He grabbed an envelope from his pocket and jotted down the things that he and Adrian had always planned to do: Paris in the spring, a night course on computers, and a crash course in German. Then he struck a line through each one. That was part of his past: Adrian’s goals, no longer his own.

What do I want to do? he asked himself. I’m on my own now. And he wrote down several things: Retire in five years. Travel abroad. Take flying lessons—see Chris about this one. And then he wrote, Pursue peace.

He stared at the words. What had possessed him to write them? Adrian again? No, his Grecian grandmother. She was an old-fashioned woman with the old country ingrained in her life-style. She wore black mostly—shawls, dark stockings and laced-up shoes. But she was bubbly and full of pearly bits of wisdom. When she hugged you against her ample bosom, you felt secure.

“Allen,” she had predicted, “when you have dollar bills coming out of your ears and you’re stinking rich like your father, you won’t be happy. My son never was.” She had squeezed Allen’s hand. “There’s something more to life than making a good living. You find it, Allen. Then you can help Nick and Chris.”

He lifted the pen to cross off the words, then changed his mind. What was wrong with pursuing peace? Allen looked out the aircraft window. The jet was beginning to rumble and bounce from the turbulence. The clouds beneath were gray-white, uneven like snowdrifts.

For the last fifteen minutes, Nick had wandered restlessly through the first-class cabin, talking to other passengers. Now he was up by the kitchen keeping his balance with his feet apart, a third cup of coffee in his hands. And flirting with another flight attendant Nick pointed toward Allen and the attendant peered around the kitchenette.

Now, I can expect sympathy and pity that I don’t want, Allen thought

Allen leaned back in his leather seat and thought about his brothers. Things were going better with Chris, but he was always at odds with Nick. Putting him down. Never thinking he measured up. But that was the way his father had treated all three of them. So he wrote on the back of the envelope: Reconcile with your brothers, particularly with Nick.

The seat belt sign flashed on. Nick would be back, talking nonstop all the way to John Wayne. Allen glanced ahead and saw Nick groping his way down the aisle. As Nick dropped in his seat and fastened the belt, he asked, “What are you doing, Allen?”

“Writing out my want list”

“That’s kid stuff. My sons do that all the time. Christmas wish list Birthday list. Any holiday they can throw in.

Allen thought, I should spend more time with Nick’s kids. Start being the kind of uncle they need.

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