Zoe And The Best Man

Zoe fingered the slender stem of the flute for a second or two, then gave her friend a crooked smile of conciliation. “That’s all right. I probably overreacted. But it’s a sensitive subject with me.”

“‘It’ being—” Annie inclined her head toward the dance floor “-him.”

This time Zoe did look. But only for an instant. Flynn’s tuxedoed image was already burned into her brain. She’d entertained a desperate hope that he’d resemble a trussed-up penguin in formal wear. That hope had died as she’d watched him take his place next to Luc at the altar for the start of the wedding ceremony. To say that black-tie elegance suited Flynn was to understate the case.

“Exactly,” she confirmed, her throat constricting.

“After nearly sixteen years?” Annie’s forehead was furrowed. She looked genuinely concerned.

“Don’t worry.” Zoe pushed the champagne glass away from her and gave a humorless little laugh. “I’ll be over it tomorrow morning.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. I’m going for closure.”

Annie grimaced. “I thought you had to spill your guts on some sleazy syndicated talk show to get that.”

“What can I say?” Zoe shrugged. “I like to do things on my own.”

“Mmm.”

There was another silence. Less charged with tension than the previous one, but still not particularly comfortable. Eventually Zoe felt compelled to say, “I’m okay, Annie. Honestly.”

Annie shook her head slowly, her eyes narrowing. “I don’t think so.”

“Annie—”

“No, Zoe.” The tone was determined, brooking no dispute. “I can’t let this go. I have never seen you as unraveled as you were a few minutes ago when I was ragging you about Flynn. You’ve always been the epitome of poise. And that’s not just my opinion. Last night at the rehearsal dinner, I overheard Terry Bellehurst tell someone it’s too bad the United States doesn’t have a titled aristocracy because you’d make a fabulous Serene Highness. He also thinks you’d look swell in a tiara, by the way, but that’s neither here nor there. The thing is…this, uh, ‘sensitivity’ you say you’re going to get over…is it because you, uh, uh—Lord, I don’t know how to put this. Okay. Okay. Let me ask you this. How…different is Gabriel Flynn now from what he was before? In the jungle, I mean. With you. For those, uh, five days.”

“He’s older.”

“Zoe!”

“Well, he is.”

“And so are you. Is he more intense?”

“I don’t-”

“More attractive?”

“Annie—”

“Sexier?”

“What do you really want to know?” Zoe glared at her friend. “Whether he was as much of a hunk then as he is now?”

God.

Oh, God.

What had she said?

Zoe would have given almost anything to recall the words that had just erupted out of her. Because implicit in them was something she’d never admitted to herself, much less to anyone else.

She’d gone from girlish oblivion to womanly awareness during those five days in the jungle with Gabriel James McNally Flynn. And one of the reasons she’d hated him so much was that he’d never noticed.

Annie blinked several times, clearly taken aback. But she recovered very swiftly. “Yeah,” she said after a second or two, her voice mild. “Basically. Was he?”

Zoe leaned back in her seat, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters. Look, Zoe, both Eden and I have always taken it as gospel that Gabriel Flynn was a Neanderthal in camouflage whose hobbies probably included biting the heads off live chickens. But after seeing him today, after hearing Luc and other people talk about him…”

“You think I’ve been unfair to him?”

“I’m not saying that,” Annie denied. “Maybe the guy had an emotional epiphany after he left you and totally transformed himself. People can change. Improve. Still, I can’t help thinking, if the Flynn of sixteen years ago was essentially a younger version of the Flynn of today, he probably was capable of having a pretty stunning effect on members of the opposite sex. Especially those without any real…experience. Heck, if I’d been thrown together with someone like him back in my virginal days I would have been lucky to escape without having my psychological circuitry permanently fried! So what I’m wondering is, well, is it possible you developed some sort of, uh, crush on Flynn?”

Zoe said nothing. This was partly because there was nothing to say, partly because she seriously doubted that she had the wherewithal to utter a single syllable. She wanted to avert her head but the same paralysis that had gripped her vocal chords seemed to have severed the link between her brain and body.

“Oh, honey.” Annie reached forward and placed a soothing hand on her arm. “You don’t have to look like that! It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’m not—” Zoe gulped convulsively “—ashamed.”

But she was. Lord in heaven help her, she was. And it was all Flynn’s fault!

“Embarrassed, then,” Annie quickly amended. “Look. I don’t have any idea what happened when you and Flynn saw each other outside the church before the wedding but I don’t imagine you had time for any meaningful conversation. I do know that you’ve been avoiding him since then. And except for that incendiary stare he gave you when he was walking down the aisle with Eden after the ceremony was over, he’s more or less been ignoring you. You’re not going to achieve that ‘closure’ you were talking about earlier unless you make contact with the man. So why don’t you get up and go talk with him as soon as he finishes dancing with Peachy?”

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can. Tell you what—I’ll even go over with you.”

“Oh, great.” There was a bitter taste on Zoe’s tongue. “You can perform the necessary introductions.”

“Huh?”

She looked her friend directly in the eye, wanting there to be no misunderstanding. Then, slowly and distinctly she said, “He doesn’t remember me, Annie.”

“Who doesn’t remember you, Zoe?”

The source of this pleasant, baritone inquiry was Annie’s husband of roughly four months, Matthew Douglas Powell, who’d just materialized next to the table where Zoe and Annie were seated.

Stunned by the interruption, Zoe watched as Matt dropped a brief but obviously tender kiss on the top of his wife’s head. He then sat down next to Annie, saying, “Sorry I took so long. I bumped into Francis Smythe—you know, the Brit who supposedly used to be a spy—outside the men’s room, and we started talking about cyberspace security.”

“Heavens.” Annie’s lips curved in a deeply affectionate smile as she shifted emotional gears with no apparent glitch. “I’m surprised you came back at all.”

Matt, who co-owned a small but highly successful Atlanta computer company with his older brother, Rick, grinned seemingly unaware that he’d disrupted a minor psychodrama. “Well, I was tempted to ask whether he could offer any tips about hacking into the Bank of England and borrowing a couple of billion pounds, but I managed to restrain myself.”

“Such willpower.”

“I can resist everything but you, love,” Matt declared, scooting his chair closer to Annie’s and slipping an arm around her shoulders.

“Funny,” his wife riposted as she snuggled contentedly into his embrace. “You seem to do a pretty good job resisting me whenever I ask you to pick up your socks.”

Matt gave Zoe a comic look. “I guess this means the honeymoon’s over. Just wait. She’ll start nagging me about leaving the toilet seat up next.”

“I’ve given up on that,” Annie informed him sweetly. “I’m resigned to having my tush hit water every time I sit down on the commode.”

Zoe slumped in her seat, dizzyingly grateful for the diversionary banter. Matt and Annie shared one of the most remarkable relationships she’d ever seen. They’d been friends all their lives. Literally. Born in the same Atlanta hospital just twenty-four hours apart, they’d grown up next door to each other. The first time Annie had spoken to Zoe about him, she’d described him as “my best buddy.”

There’d been nothing sexual between them for thirty-one years. Indeed, Zoe could remember Annie guffawing—and occasionally getting angry—at people who suggested there might be. Their platonic bond had unexpectedly turned to passion after the untimely death of Matt’s wife, Lisa.

Zoe knew Lisa had been Matt’s first love. He’d fallen for her—“Like he was struck by lightning,” Annie had recalled during an all-night gab session back in college—at age seventeen and married her some nine years later. He’d taken her loss, after less than five years of marriage, very, very hard.

He’d needed a long time to recover from his grief. Zoe had heard a lot about his struggle during anguished telephone conversations with Annie, who’d been terrified he might surrender to his grief and do something irreparable. Fortunately Matt had stumbled back from the brink and healed to the point where he’d decided that he should try to move on with his life. He’d turned to his happily single, socially active “best buddy” for help in doing so.

If she lived to be 150, Zoe doubted she would forget the phone call during which Annie had reluctantly confided in her what was going on. Looking at Annie and Matt now, it was difficult to believe that that phone call had taken place just a little more than a year ago.

“I know how worried you’ve been about Matt since Lisa died,” she’d said, realizing that her friend was deeply troubled and wanting to discover why. “I should think you’d be relieved that he’s finally getting out and about.”

“I am,” Annie had claimed. “It’s just that Matt and I…we, uh, dated a few times.”

“What?” Zoe had been unable to hide her shock.

“It was for practice,” Annie had rushed on. “Matt decided he didn’t know much about being single. I mean, he spent his entire adult life with Lisa. From the first time he saw her, he was totally in love. She was his all. His everything. He never thought about another woman. He never had a chance to get into the, uh, contemporary male-female thing.”

“I see.” She hadn’t, of course. But what else could she have said?

“It was Matt’s idea.” Annie had stressed the possessive with great force.

“The dating?”

“The practicing.”

She’d stayed silent for several moments, acutely aware that she was treading on very alien territory. Still, as the daughter of anthropologists, she was accustomed to trying to make sense out of strange-seeming situations. Finally she’d said, “This ‘practicing’ you and Matt did. I gather it didn’t…ahem, work out?”

“Of course it worked out!” Annie had sounded indignant. No, worse. Insulted.

“Then what?”

“He kissed me, Zoe.”

“Matt kissed you?” She’d been flummoxed. “Where? When?”

“Outside my condo. At the end of our third practice date.”

“And you…”

“I—I kissed him back.”

“So who’s the guy, Zoe?” Matt’s friendly query jerked her back to the present.

“Wh-what?” she stammered.

“The one who doesn’t remember you.”

Zoe caught her breath and just narrowly managed to prevent herself from slanting a betraying glance toward the dance floor. “Oh, uh…”

“The best man,” came the calm response from her former roommate.

“You know Gabriel Flynn?”

Zoe shot a quelling look at Annie. “I met him once,” she replied in what she hoped was a casual tone. “A long time ago.” She mentioned the small Central American country in which she and Flynn had found sanctuary at the end of their five-day odyssey.

“What in heaven’s name were you doing—” Matt stopped in midquestion, comprehension dawning in his blue-gray eyes. “Oh. Of course. You were there with your parents, right? Annie says they started taking you into the field when you were a baby.”

“Exactly.” Zoe affirmed his less than accurate assumption without hesitation. “I met Flynn with my parents.”

“But he doesn’t remember you, huh?”

“As I said, it was a long time ago.”

“Nearly sixteen years,” Annie contributed, apparently trying to help.

“I was just a—” Zoe darted another sharp look at her friend “-child.”

“Uh-huh.” Matt toyed with the delicate silver chain that encircled his wife’s neck. Zoe could tell he was not persuaded. After a few seconds he asked rather warily, “Is there some kind of, a ‘girl thing’ going on here?”

Annie wrinkled her nose. “Well, actually, yes. Sort of.”

“Do you want me to leave you two ladies alone until you get it squared away?” The tone was wry, but Zoe sensed that the offer was genuine. “I could lumber off and find some guys to bond with. We could guzzle beer. Grunt about babes in swimsuits and last year’s Super Bowl. Indulge in the usual testosterone-crazed activities—”

“Matt!” The laughing admonition was accompanied by a wifely elbow to the ribs.

“There’s no reason for you to go, Matt,” Zoe assured him. “Annie and I are done with the subject of Gabriel Flynn, aren’t we, Annie? To tell the truth, I didn’t even recognize him at first. He came roaring up to the church on the back of a motorcycle—”

“He hitched a ride from some DEA agent who served a couple years in the same Special Forces team as he and Luc,” Matt interpolated.

Zoe blinked, totally thrown by this unexpected tidbit. “A federal drug agent?”

Matt nodded. “Mr. Smythe mentioned that Luc was a tad ticked off the guy didn’t stick around for the wedding. Anyway, you just said you didn’t recognize Flynn at first, right? Maybe that’s his problem with you. Not recognizing rather than not remembering, I mean. People change in—” he glanced at Annie “—what did you say? Nearly sixteen years? Besides, while you probably wouldn’t guess it to look at him, I gather the best man’s not exactly functioning on all cylinders at the moment. He traveled more than forty-eight hours straight from some refugee camp in Asia to get here. Through a monsoon, if you can believe Terry Bellehurst. So—”

“So he’s probably having difficulty not walking into walls, much less identifying old acquaintances,” Annie concluded. “You should definitely make a point of reintroducing yourself to the man, Zoe. It would be rude not to.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Zoe concurred with deliberate ambiguity. It would be rude. But not as rude as a lot of other scenarios she could envision.

That her friend would have pressed the matter, she had no doubt. Fortunately the band chose that moment to segue into a jazz-flavored medley of tunes Zoe instantly associated with Fred Astaire. She made the link because Annie, who had a long-standing passion for the debonair entertainer, had made her watch the movie musical from which the songs came about a dozen times when they’d been roommates.

“’Top Hat,’” Matt said with an assurance that suggested to Zoe that he, too, had more than a passing familiarity with the score of the celluloid classic. He rose to his feet and extended a hand to his wife. “They’re playing our song, Mrs. Powell.”

Annie favored her husband with an intimate smile as she accepted his invitation. “I thought the theme from 2001 was our song, Mr. Powell.”

“That’s our other song. And it’s impossible to dance to.” Matt turned. “Zoe, would you mind?”

She shook her head. “Absolutely not. Please. Go enjoy yourselves.” She gestured toward the dance floor. Just gesturing would have been fine. But something made Zoe shift her gaze as she spoke. And in the same instant she did so, Flynn danced by with Peachy.

Forget about the man not recognizing or remembering her.

From where Zoe sat, frozen like a fawn caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, he didn’t even seem to register her existence.

“Are you okay, Flynn?” Peachy asked.

“Just fine,” Flynn answered automatically. He’d been a fool to look at Zoe again, he berated himself. What did he think? If he stared at her enough times he would arouse some glimmer of recognition? Provoke some spark of response?

She didn’t know him. Didn’t want to know him. She radiated indifference from every pore of her exquisite, ivory-rose skin.

“You must be exhausted,” Peachy said after a moment or two, her voice sympathetic. “I know it was hard for you to get here.”

Flynn shrugged. “It would have been harder if I hadn’t been able to.”

“Because you gave Luc your word.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it means a lot to him, having you for his best man.”

“It’s my honor.”

“I just wish—what’s his name? The man who brought you to the church?”

Flynn smiled fleetingly. “Grizz.”

“Oh. Yes. Well, I just wish Grizz had stayed for the ceremony. Or at least had come to the reception. I know Luc wishes it, too.”

“Grizz didn’t feel he was appropriately attired for the occasion.”

“As if appearance matters with friends,” Peachy scoffed. “I mean, I wouldn’t have minded if the other Wedding Belles had shown up in sneakers and sequins—not that either one of them would, of course—as long as they’d come today.”

Flynn gave himself a few moments to try to sort this last sentence out. He failed.

“What’s a Wedding Belle?” he finally asked.

The question drew a winsome smile. Not for the first time, Flynn thought that Luc Devereaux was a very lucky man.

“I guess you could say we’re like members of a sorority,” the bride declared. “The Wedding Belles—that’s Belles with two e’s, like Scarlett in Gone with the Wind—got their start more than ten years ago, a few days before my older sister Eden’s marriage to Rick Powell. She’s expecting now.”

Flynn feigned surprise. “Oh, really?”

“All right, all right,” Peachy said, laughing. Her red-gold hair shimmered in the illumination from the overhead lighting. “I know her condition is abundantly obvious. I suppose I keep telling people who are perfectly capable of noticing for themselves because it seems like such a miracle to me. Eden getting pregnant, that is. She and Rick had pretty much given up on being able to have a baby.”

“She certainly looks very happy—and healthy.”

Peachy’s green eyes sparked with mischief. “She also looks like she’s going to give birth to the entire state of Rhode Island any minute. Poor Terry nearly passed out when he saw her. I’m sure he had visions of her going into labor and disrupting all his carefully organized wedding arrangements. The truth is, she’s not due until mid-October.”

“I’m relieved.”

“But you would have known exactly what to do if Eden had started having her baby, am I right?”

“I’ve helped with a few deliveries in the field,” Flynn admitted neutrally. He closed his mind to the memory of the first time he’d held a newborn infant he’d helped bring into the world. The elation he’d felt had been astounding. It had also been very short-lived. It had died when he’d looked around at the dire poverty which would define the baby’s existence.

As though sensing his withdrawal, Peachy let a few measures of music go by before she reverted to their original topic. “Anyway,” she picked up. “Back to the Belles. There are three of us. We were bridesmaids at Eden’s wedding. And the weekend before she got married, Eden gave each one of us—” she glanced downward at herself “—an engraved silver locket shaped like a bell.”

Flynn let his gaze drop for a moment, registering the pretty pendant gleaming against the bride’s milky skin. His mind flashed back to the piece of jewelry he’d seen Zoe wearing.

A split second later he realized why the name Eden had seemed familiar when the matron of honor had introduced herself on the way down the aisle after the ceremony. One of Zoe’s two college roommates had been called Eden.

Eden Keene.

“I see,” Flynn said, keeping his tone even, his expression politely interested. “So who are the other Belles? The ones you wouldn’t have minded showing up today in sneakers and sequins?”

“There’s Annie,” Peachy answered. “See the brown-haired woman over there in the green? Doing the Ginger Rogers imitation?”

Flynn nodded. Oh, yes. He saw her. And he’d seen her with Zoe a few minutes earlier when he’d practically tripped over his own feet.

“Well, that’s Annie. Her real name’s Hannah Elaine. She was Annie Martin—”

God! Another familiar name from the information he’d gleaned about Zoe.

It was proof of how far below par he was that he interjected, “She roomed with your sister at the University of Virginia.”

“That’s right,” Peachy confirmed, clearly startled. “But how did you know?”

Flynn gave himself a savage mental kick. “I, uh, think Eden mentioned something about it. She and I talked a little. Right after the ceremony.”

“Oh.” The new Mrs. Devereaux seemed to accept this mendacious explanation. “Well, then, you probably know that she and Annie are sisters-in-law now.”

“Mmm.”

“Annie married Matt Powell—that’s Eden’s husband’s younger brother—in April in Atlanta.” Peachy smiled suddenly, a soft blush flooding her cheeks. “I caught the bridal bouquet.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

The band transitioned seamlessly from one song to another. Flynn forced himself to wait several moments, then asked, “What about the third Wedding Belle?”

“Zoe Armitage. You met her when you arrived, didn’t you? Outside the church?”

“Briefly.”

“She’s not married, in case you’re interested.”

Flynn was interested, of course. Deeply interested. He couldn’t tell whether his dancing partner had divined this or was simply indulging in a little speculative matchmaking. Either way…

“The only ringless Belle, hmm?” he inquired blandly.

Peachy gave a ripple of laughter. “Exactly. She almost got engaged to some congressman a few years ago. I don’t know what happened beyond the fact that Annie told Eden it was a good thing Zoe turned the guy down. And nowadays I think she’s dating some Harvard-educated lawyer in Washington. The type who charges hundreds of dollars per hour and prowls the corridors of power in polished loafers.”

Flynn knew the type extremely well. They ran in one side of his family. The side that had disowned his father and disdained his mother. The side that had done its collective best to shape him to its mold after his parents’ death.

“Zoe lives in Washington, then?”

“Uh-huh. She’s a really remarkable person. Her parents are internationally famous anthropologists and they raised her all over the world. She speaks something like a dozen languages, including a couple of obscure dialects I’ve never heard of. The State Department’s asked her to lecture to new foreign service officers a bunch of times.”

“She’s a diplomat?” His opinion of the striped pants brigade was decidedly mixed. He knew part of his attitude was a legacy of his years in the military. Trained as he’d been to take action, he had problems dealing with people who seemed dedicated to holding allegedly frank and constructive discussions that accomplished absolutely nothing. While his current profession had connected him with a few Foggy Bottom officials who did a hell of a lot more than jack their jaws and dispense red tape, he was inclined to classify these individuals as exceptions to the rule rather than harbingers of a new approach to the conduct of world affairs.

“She’s a social secretary.”

Flynn couldn’t disguise his disbelief. “What?”

“Her job’s a lot more than calligraphy and canapés,” Peachy advised him. “She works for a woman who’s practically a legend in her own time. Maybe you’ve heard of her. Arietta Ogden? Arietta Martel von Helsing—uh—” Her eyes widened. “Oh my God! I just remembered. Luc once said something about someone he knew in the service being a relative of hers. Mrs. Ogden’s, I mean. Was that—is that you?”

“The connection was through a marriage that’s been over for a lot of years,” Flynn replied after a moment, his mind racing. “And it was a very tenuous one even when the bonds of matrimony were still holding. I doubt that Mrs. Ogden would acknowledge it today.”