Damn, he wished Jimmy were still here. Jimmy would never have let something like this happen. If Jimmy hadn’t been killed in France during the last days of the war, he’d be back home, married to Lou, and there would already be at least one baby on the way.
And just maybe Jack wouldn’t have minded.
But he minded like hell a war profiteer like Marsden ending up with Jimmy’s true love. And he wasn’t about to let that happen.
He had two days to stop it. So far he’d been unable to get enough proof that Marsden was crooked, and he was ready to give up trying. He had to get on with his life. He couldn’t bring Neddie down without toppling the mighty Abbotts, as well, and while he didn’t give a tinker’s damn about Elda and Ridley, Lou and her little sister were a different matter. He didn’t want to see their lives ruined.
But he could keep Lou from wrecking her future by marrying the wrong man.
Tomorrow they were holding a rehearsal dinner, and all it had taken was a little well-applied flirtation, and Elda had invited him, despite Neddie’s glower. He’d find time to talk to Lou once more, to try to convince her that she was making the mistake of her life. It was up to her whether she’d listen or not.
At least he would know he had done his damnedest, for Jimmy’s sake and for Lou’s. He was going back overseas—he had an offer to work for one of the foreign news bureaus, and he found he’d developed a bad case of itchy feet. America didn’t seem like home anymore. There were too many places to see, too much stuff going on in a world turned upside down by the cataclysmic war.
Most people he knew were buying those tiny little houses Levitt and Marsden and others were putting up. They were settling down to a safe, carefully circumscribed life.
It wasn’t for him.
Funny, but he wouldn’t have drought it was for the likes of Lou Abbott, either. As a kid she’d always been full of imagination and adventure, longing for distant lands and travel. Life must have beaten that out of her.
But he still wasn’t going to stand by and let her de herself to Neddie Marsden without her knowing exactly what she was getting into. Maybe Jack couldn’t pin anything on him, but sooner or later someone would, and Lou would be dragged down with him. If he gave her a chance to escape he would have done his duty.
And then he could leave for Asia with a clear conscience, and just maybe, when he ran into her again, he’d finally be over her.
And maybe pigs would fly.
Mary Abbott pushed her silvery hair back with a weary hand, closing the bedroom door as she stepped back. “She must be exhausted, poor girl,” she murmured.
Alex Donovan stood watching her, his expression giving nothing away. “She’s not sick is she?”
“Just worn-out You don’t realize how much work a formal wedding is.”
“No, I suppose I don’t Do you suppose we would have had better luck if we’d had one?”
Mary shook her head, a regretful smile on her face. “They never would have let us get that far. That’s why we eloped, remember?”
“I remember,” he said. “Are they why you left?”
“Don’t,” Mary said. She leaned her head against the closed door for a moment taking a deep, calming breath. “I don’t need to worry about her, do I?” she asked, knowing she sounded helpless, somehow not minding. In Susan’s thirty years she’d never been able to turn to Susan’s father for support.
“Not about Susan,” he said. “You raised her well, Mary. She’s a fighter. I think you’re right—her body’s worn-out and needs to recoup its strength. She’ll wake up when she’s ready to.”
“She’s slept all day.”
“She’ll be all right, Mary,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. The touch, after so many years, was still familiar. “Trust me,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. And she knew, deep in her heart, that she always had.
Nine
The sun was beating against her closed eyes, but Susan was afraid to move. She wanted to postpone the moment as long as she could, the realization that her dream wasn’t over yet. The bed was soft beneath her, the faint smell of old cigarettes clung to the pillow and sheets, and she was still back in 1949, about to marry the wrong man, about to die within hours of making that mistake.
There used to be some television show about someone who traveled through time, trying to fix people’s mistakes. She’d never been into TV much, except for old movies, but she’d seen an episode or two and liked it. Maybe that was why she was here. To stop her aunt Tallulah from making the mistake of her life. To change history. And then Tallulah might still be alive.
Except this wasn’t an episode of “Quantum Leap,” and there was no gorgeous actor around. Well, Jack McGowan did happen to be unsettlingly attractive, but he wasn’t the one traveling through time. And neither was she. This was a dream, a crazy, mixed-up dream, brought on by the stress of the wedding. She simply needed to get through it and she’d wake up back in her own bed, ready for her own wedding.
She grabbed the chenille bathrobe and headed for the luxurious, pink-tiled bathroom, which Mary had assured her was the recently remodeled height of modern plumbing conveniences. There was no shower stall, but the huge tub at least came equipped with a shower head, and even smoked-glass doors, and she had every intention of getting thoroughly clean. She couldn’t wait to get the smell of cigarettes out of her hair.
She hadn’t taken into account how strange it would be to brush someone else’s teeth. Her mouth wasn’t that dissimilar from what Susan was used to, but the body was strange indeed. She’d never soaped such ample breasts before, and the flesh beneath her hands was softer, less muscled than the body she was used to. Obviously women in the late nineteen forties didn’t work out.
