The Wedding Veil(84)

When we pulled apart, I gasped and put my hand to my lips. How long had it been since a man had kissed them?

“I… I’m sorry,” he fumbled. “I didn’t even think. It was just my natural reaction.”

“Mine too,” I whispered. I was feeling so many emotions that I couldn’t quite place them. But, no, perhaps I could. Relief was top of mind. It was like all that worry, all that stress, just melted away. I hadn’t had to think about this big step, it just flowed; it was pure emotion and chemistry. To me, that was everything.

“That’s good, right?”

“Our first kiss,” I said, finally smiling now.

“No, no. Don’t you remember? Our first kiss was more than sixty years ago.”

I chuckled. “Of course. Of course it was.” Somehow, the remembrance of that night on the riverbank as twenty-year-old camp counselors, fireworks bursting overhead, soothed the part of me that felt conflicted. This wasn’t starting something new and scary, not really. It was falling back into something old and familiar. And old and familiar was what I craved right now. But old and familiar also meant truth. It also meant explanations.

I took his hand and led him to the couch. “You asked me a few days ago why I’d been so set on marrying Reid,” I started, slowly.

His eyes were pinned on mine, searching my face.

“The world is a completely different place than it was when you and I were young. There’s nothing that hasn’t changed, but, even still, I feel a little ashamed…”

Miles squeezed my hand. “You should never have to feel ashamed of anything.”

I smiled. “Well, I’m glad you feel that way, because the night you came to ask me to change my mind about marrying Reid, I didn’t tell you the whole truth. The thing I didn’t tell you, the line in the sand, was that I was pregnant.”

His eyes widened and he leaned back. So I had shocked him, just like I had shocked myself all those years ago. I don’t know why I’d slept with Reid in the first place. To celebrate our engagement, I suppose. But, deep down, I think it was an apology. Miles had part of my heart. I had to give my new fiancé something that was all his own, and my virginity seemed like a good start. Had we waited until our wedding night, as we had planned, my entire life could have been different.

Now, I plunged forward. “I need to be honest in that, pregnant or not, I believe I would have married Reid. We had been together for so long. He knew my heart so well, and everything with you was just so new. I still consider him to be the true love of my life.” I paused and took a deep breath before I said, very slowly, “Reid is my one and only husband.”

Miles nodded, taking it in, studying my face. “I understand that, Barbara.” My heart raced at what he might say next. Was this too hard for him? Too much truth at once? “I don’t need a new wife. I don’t expect anything from you except for you to be your wonderful self.”

He paused. “So, what if we don’t worry so much about what tomorrow holds and, tonight, I take you to dinner?”

I laughed. “Oh, um. Yes. But I need to unpack and freshen up.”

Miles smiled. “You look lovely to me.”

He had to have been lying. After driving all day, I was certain I looked like some unkempt creature the cat had dragged in. But the way he looked at me made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. “Well, love is blind,” I said before I could stop myself. Love. I could feel the color rising to my cheeks. How mortifying. He surely didn’t love me.

“Is it?” he asked. “Or is it through the lens of love that we finally begin to see clearly?”

I was grateful to him for covering for my gaffe. Now we had both said “love.” I started to respond, but Miles interrupted.

“Barbara, in the name of transparency, there is something that is important to me.” He stopped and looked at me seriously. My breath caught in my throat. “Even if you can’t be my wife, could you still be my doubles partner?”

I put my hand over my heart with mock joy. “Oh, Miles! I thought you’d never ask.”

He looked around, searching. “We need something to seal the deal.”

I put my finger up and headed to my room. I opened the top drawer of the antique dresser that had belonged to my mother and would one day belong to my daughters. As I slid my hand inside to retrieve a small jewelry pouch, my fingers hit something smooth that seemed to be stuck to the underside of the top of the chest. I rescued it, surprised to see my mother’s handwriting on the front of a letter that I had never seen before. It felt like a sign, like she was here with me. And, putting it back in the chest to save for later, I knew I would come back to read it to hear her voice.

Walking back to the living room, I held my hand out to Miles, along with the item I had gone to find. He took the object lying in my palm. “What is this rusty piece of tin?” He studied it, then laughed. “Is this my old fraternity pin?”

I nodded and smiled.

“You can’t wear this faded old thing.”

I shrugged. “The older I get, the more the faded things become my favorites.”

Miles laughed and, with great pomp and circumstance, pinned the relic to my collar.

He held out his hand. I took it.

After I freshened up and got ready to go to dinner, Miles slid into the driver’s seat of my golf cart. My pink golf cart. I gasped, suddenly remembering something. I pulled out my phone and texted my granddaughter. We can’t have the Vanderbilt veil! The hair of the woman who gave it to my mother was PINK. Cornelia would never.