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“It is? Oh, you mean he is. Lancelot. Huh?”
“You’re going to take him for a walk in the park, and you’re going to just happen to meet a woman with a dog.”
“Mary and Guinevere,” Van breathed with a smile so wide it hurt. “I’ll tell her Lancelot needs to go home to Guinevere, and so do I.” Van mopped his feverish brow. “When? When do you think I could do it?”
His aunt beamed. “Right now. That’s what I went to check on. Mary is walking in the park right now, taking her usual circuit. It was meant to be.”
Van tugged off his tie and draped it over the arm of his man-chair. He unpasted Lancelot from his chest to unbutton his shirt collar and vest. He reached up and mussed his hair.
“How do I look?”
“You’re all set to knock ’em dead,” Brock said.
Aunt Cynthia placed a leash in Van’s hand.
“Okay.” Van drew a deep breath. “Lancelot? Let’s go.”
Chapter Forty-Four
A Stalk in thePark
V
AN BURST INTO THEpark on the run, but slowed down as he approached the area where Aunt Cynthia’s spies had spotted Mary, Guinevere, and a tangle of puppies from their vantage point in the adjacent high-rise. Then he saw her.
“Full alert, Lancelot,” Van muttered out of the corner of his mouth. He gave the dog’s leash a short, jerky, edgy jiggle. “Target straight ahead.”
Lancelot woofed an objection and looked up at Van accusingly.
“Sorry. Make that targets. Plural. And, yes, I know it’s my fault Aunt Cynthia borrowed you. I know you want to get back together again with your lady love too, and your youngsters.”
Van rubbed his damp, non-leash-bearing hand nervously down the perfectly creased pants he’d tried to rumple before he and Lancelot hit the park. He hadn’t succeeded then, and he wasn’t succeedingnowindryinghishandonthem,either.Whatelse could he try so that he would look like the laid-back, mussed-upguyhe’dbeenbecomingbeforeMaryleft him? “There they are, straight ahead. Aren’t they beautiful?”
He crossed his fingers behind his back at the little whitelie.Beautifulwasn’tthefirstwordhewoulduse to describe big, smart, loveable Guinevere.
But Mary. Ahhh, Mary. Beautiful was a good start on the million words that would all come up short in trying to capture the true magnificence of his Mary. Uhh, make that his-Mary-again-he-hoped.
“Takeagoodlook,Lancelot,”Vansaidwithlonging. “Aren’t they the most beautiful sights you’ve ever seen? Round and soft and bouncing just enough to make their presence known — ”
Van stopped right there. The round, soft, and slightly bouncing portions of Mary’s anatomy were the merest drop in the buckets of what made up the woman he adored. Besides, Lancelot, as a respectably married dog, might not approve of Van waxing eloquent about any portions of Mary’s anatomy, even the two bounteously beautiful ones that made a man’s hands feel empty and yearning. Not yet, at least. Not unless he could talk her into marrying him.
Wait a minute. Marry? Marry Mary? Well, who else would he marry? But really, had the thought of marriage just crossed his mind?
Maybehe’dbettertrytofocusonherhipsswinging and her legs flashing — Nah, that didn’t help. He just wanted to marry them too.
How about concentrating on that beautiful blonde mop of hers, hanging down into her eyes as usual, obscuring the allure of their rare, neon tourmaline blue. No good. He wanted all that in his life for the rest of his life too.
And the person. Above all, the warm, wonderful, witty person he wanted in his life for the rest of that life.
He’d told Aunt Cynthia, and he’d told himself, he felt like a different man. He was realizing he was even more different than he’d thought.
No, if his heart would only get out of his mouth and drop back down to where it was supposed to be, he could concentrate on the agonizing wait to see her reaction when she first looked up and saw him. He had time, maybe a few seconds more, a whole lifetime, it felt like, to sweat over the minutes ahead, the most important of his life.
One thing he knew without a doubt. He wouldn’t ever push her away again. He wouldn’t ever let her go away again. If she forgave him now.
Strange how long it had taken him to understand she meant everything in the world to him. Maybe he was so used to winning that he hadn’t known what to do when things, important things, went wrong.
Things like not finding the right husband for his aunt. She’d had to find her own. Things like puppies hecouldn’tprotect,andtheworkersatVanDeventer Ventures. Devastating things like knowing Mary was going to leave him because he couldn’t measure up to what she expected of him, and what he expected of himself.
