Almost To The Altar Read online

  Jan had spent a full ten minutes exclaiming over Elsa when they reached the shop. After pumping her full of coffee, and hugging her so many times Wil was fairly certain she’d have bruises on her shoulder blades, he’d finally scurried off to the office with some imaginary excuse designed to let him leave them alone. “You can’t fix it, Wilem?” he asked in his accented voice. Jan Larsen had never lost his Swedish accent, despite spending more years in Illinois than he had in Helsinki.

  “No, Pop. No part.”

  “How long will it take to get one?” Elsa asked. At the soft question, Edsel, the obscenely overweight tomcat who’d taken up residence in the garage, seemed to take interest in the conversation. He uncurled from his favorite spot, inside an old tire, to plod across the concrete floor. Wil watched, envious and irritated all at the same time, as Edsel twined between Elsa’s legs. She gave the monstrous tabby a surprised look, then scooped him up in her arms. As if the fat beast knew precisely what Wil was thinking, he squirmed against Elsa’s full breasts, purring in rapture as she scratched the sensitive spot between his ears.

  Wil cleared his throat. “The part may be hard to get. I can tow the car into the city for you and leave it with a dealer, or I can have the pump sent out. Either way, probably about three days.”

  “All right.” She continued to stroke Edsel’s fur with her elegant hands. “Parker’s coming to pick me up. I’m sure he’ll just want to leave it here to be fixed.” Her gaze slid to the Stutz. “If you have time.”

  Jan nodded. “Yah. Of course we have time. Not a problem. We are cleaning the engine of the Stutz now, and won’t be able to start on the Suiza until I find a few more parts. We can fix your friend’s car between jobs. Done?”

  Elsa didn’t look at Wil. “Done. Thank you, Jan.”

  Jan chuckled. Wil frowned at him. With a twinkle in his eyes, his father turned a full smile on Elsa. “Glad we were here,” he told her.

  Wil grunted, then walked to the Stutz, whose still-open hood beckoned him like a safe haven. The famed “straight-eight” engine he’d been working on when she called seemed to smile at him as he picked up a wrench and went to work on the adjustments it needed.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Elsa set Edsel on the floor. When the cat whined, Wil glared at him. Elsa picked up her navy trench coat from the workbench and shrugged into it. “If you don’t mind, Jan,” she said, “I’d appreciate it if you could call me Monday or Tuesday and give me your final estimate on those parts for the restoration. I know all this paperwork is a pain, but I need to brief Mr. Philpott on the progress for this auto auction.”

  Jan laughed. “Tell me, Elsa—how does a lawyer like you end up with a project like this auction?”

  With a tight smile, she looped the belt of her coat around her narrow waist. “If an associate at Philpott, Philpott and Drake wants to make partner, she handles whatever cases Roger Philpott dumps on her desk, even if it is something as mundane as Chester Collingham’s estate liquidation.” Shrugging, she added, “At least I get to work with the cars. There have to be some advantages to this.”

  Giving Wil a meaningful look, Jan patted her on the back. “I want to thank you again for thinking of us. I hope everything has been pleasing to you.”

  Wil felt, rather than saw, the way her eyes rested on his face. His gaze remained stubbornly fixed on the Stutz en-!!gine.

  “It has,” Elsa told Jan. “So far, I’ve been very pleased—”

  The low hum of an auto engine interrupted her comment. Wanting to faint with relief, Elise watched as Parker pulled into the garage. His handsome face and concerned eyes had never looked better to her. He hurried from the car to her side.

  “Elise, honey, are you all right? I got here as quickly as I could.”

  She almost sagged against him when he bent to drop a perfunctory kiss on her cheek. “I’m fine, Parker,” she told him. “Tired and wet, but fine.”

  He rubbed his hands on the sleeves of her coat. “I’m so sorry about this. I should have left you the cell phone.”

  “You couldn’t have known,” she told him reassuringly. “I’m just glad you got here so quickly.” With unusual affection, she wrapped her arms around his waist as she leaned against him. Parker generally didn’t approve of public displays of warmth, but at the moment, she needed his solid strength.

  If he objected, he didn’t let on, merely extended his hand to Jan. “You must be Jan Larsen.”

  “Yah,” Jan told him, giving his hand a firm shake.

  “I’m Parker Conrad, Elise’s fiancé. She’s told me a lot about you.”

  Jan pursed his lips as he studied Parker. “Has she, now?”

  “This auction is driving her crazy,” Parker continued, making light conversation, despite Elise’s insistent pressure on his waist. She wanted him to shut up and drive her home, anything to get away from the feel of Wil’s gaze boring into the back of her head. “More than once she’s told me how glad she is that you’re handling the auto restoration. That’s one set of details she doesn’t have to worry about.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Jan told him. “We’re enjoying the work.”

  Elise reached for Parker’s hand. “Parker, I’m sure your parents are waiting for us.”

  He lifted their entwined hands to press a brief kiss to the back of hers. “Of course. You must be exhausted.” With a friendly smile for Jan, he said, “I assume there won’t be any problem fixing my car.”

  “No, no problem.” Jan glanced at Wil. “My son, Wilem, will order the part. We should have it done in a few days.”

  Parker flashed Wil a million-dollar smile. “Nice to meet you.”

  Wil grunted what might have been “hello,” though Elise doubted it. Parker seemed unaware of the tension in the garage. “I was sure Elise would know how to handle it,” he told Jan. “She knows three times as much about the thing as I do.”

  Jan shot Wil a contemplative look. “I’ve always been impressed with Elsa,” Jan said.

  Wil forced himself to concentrate on the Stutz’s engine until the sound of Parker’s departing car faded into the distant rain.

  Chapter Two

  Damn it.” Wil swore when he banged his knuckles for the third time on the new fuel pump. From his position on the fender, Edsel gave him a knowing look.

  His father handed him a towel. “Here. Let me do it, before you break your hand.”

  “I’m not going to break my hand.”

  “Hmm… The part, then.”

  “Funny, Pop.”

  Jan gave him an amused look. “You’ve been cranky, like a bear, since Friday. It wouldn’t have anything to do with Elsa?”

  “No. It wouldn’t.” He hoped the succinct answer would end the conversation.

  He should have known better. “I didn’t think so,” Jan said as he picked up a socket wrench. “You wouldn’t let a woman get to you that way.” He lowered himself to the dolly so that he could roll beneath the car. “It was good to have her back here, no?” he continued once he was positioned beneath the chassis. “You still like this one.”

  “Sure. The same way I like oral surgery.” Edsel momentarily stopped licking his paw to give Wil a sleepy-eyed look. Wil glared at the obese cat and mouthed a succinct curse.

  “No, no.” Jan’s voice came from beneath the car. “This one you like. You’ve always liked her. She bothers you.”

  “She bothers me, all right.”

  “It’s a good bothers. I know you.”

  Wil shot him a disparaging look. “Knock it off, Pop. What happened between me and Elsa was over a long time ago. She’s changed, and I’ve changed. She’s not my type.”

  “Bah! Your type. At the rate you’re going, you’ll be dead before you find your type.”

  “My type isn’t a society lady from Chicago. I tried that, remember?”

  “Celine.” His father had always been able to make his ex-fiancée’s name sound like a four-letter word. “A baccaruda, that’s what she is.”
r />   Wil suppressed a smile at his father’s mispronunciation of the word, “Bar-ra-cuda. Like the car.”

  “Whatever. This one—” he rolled out from under the Jag to give Wil a meaningful look “—this one is no Ce-!!line.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “She knew it was the fuel pump, didn’t she?”

  “I hate to break this to you, but just because a woman knows her car has a faulty fuel pump, that doesn’t mean she’s a high-caliber dame.”

  Jan smiled. “There was a time when you thought so.”

  “Any eighteen-year-old boy would be turned on by a pietty girl who knew her way around an engine.”

  “Still, I don’t see Celine sticking her head under the hood of a car with you.”

  Wil shook his head with a brief laugh. “Celine’s idea of hard work was a hotel with bad room service.”

  “This one, you like,” Jan insisted, then rolled back beneath the car.

  “I haven’t spoken to her for the last ten years.” He scooped up a grease rag from the workbench and began wiping the oil from the accumulated tools. “She didn’t look any happier to see me than I was to see her.”

  “You were surprised, that’s all.”

  “Pop?” he said, finally broaching the subject he’d studiously avoided all weekend. “Why didn’t you tell me that the Bise Christopher you’ve been grumbling about for two weeks is Elsa?”

  After a long pause, Jan rolled out from beneath the car. “I wasn’t sure what you’d say. It’s a good job, Wilem. Elsa is paying well for the work.”

  “I wouldn’t have turned down the job.”

  “I’m not so sure.” He waved the socket wrench. “The air between you, it was thicker than ice, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “You resent her. Am I right?”

  “I resent what she did to her family, to our family.”

  “You don’t necessarily know all you think you know, Wilem.”

  “Stop talking in riddles.”

  “There’s more to Elsa than meets the eye. You were quick to believe Andrei when he told you Elsa had betrayed him.”

  “She did betray him.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Of course. Elsa decided she didn’t want to be the kid of a Russian-speaking butcher and a German-speaking mother anymore, so she packed herself off to Chicago, where she could ignore her past. Look at her—she’s even engaged to that Conrad character.”

  “Interesting theory.”

  Like a thermostat, Wil’s temper kicked his blood temperature up a couple of notches. “Look, Pop. I don’t know exactly what happened between Elsa and Andrei, I admit, but I know he was devastated when she left. So was Anna. Elsa’s even calling herself by a different name now. Isn’t that enough to show you something’s wrong?”

  “Perhaps. I’ve been on this earth a good while longer than you, Wilem. I’ve learned things aren’t always as they seem.”

  “This is.”

  “You sound sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Jan gave htm a speculative look, then sat up on the dolly. “Sometimes, our life is dictated by the choices we make. It’s true. But no one said we couldn’t change our choices.”

  “I’m not in the mood for a philosophy lesson,” Wil said, deliberately keeping his voice calm. “What happened between me and Elsa is over and done. End of story.”

  “Still, you’re not going to stand there and tell me you haven’t been thinking about her all weekend. I saw the way you looked at her when her boyfriend…”

  “Her fiancé, “Wïil corrected.

  Jan ignored him. “…picked her up on Friday afternoon. That woman is under your skin.”

  “You’re making something from nothing. It had been a long time since I’d seen her. Things were tense the last time we spoke.” He paused. “She seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see her.”

  Jan tipped his head to one side. “Perhaps she was.”

  “You hadn’t told her I work here with you, had you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “She didn’t ask about you.”

  “You didn’t want to tell her.” Frustrated, Wil studied the spoked wheels of the cream-colored Stutz. Over the weekend, he’d all but finished what minor restorations were needed to bring the car to showroom quality—a remarkable achievement, considering that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Elsa since she’d left the garage.

  He didn’t even want to consider the implications of the long hours he’d spent staring at the leather-bound pocket calendar she’d left behind in his truck. He remembered giving it to her, remembered how she’d gushed over it as if it were a diamond necklace. The fact that she still carried it disconcerted him. Perhaps that explained why he’d taken such pains on Saturday to find a part and replace the faulty catch for her.

  “Wilem,” Jan said, prompting him, “stop fighting your heart. It’ll attack you again.”

  Despite his sour mood, Wil smiled. When he suffered a stress-induced heart attack at thirty-six, he’d made plenty of radical adjustments in his life. One had been to leave his high-pressure job as a commodities broker in favor of the slower, more contented life he enjoyed sharing his father’s business. The other had been a conscious decision to cope with stress as it happened, rather than allow it to eat him alive. Since Elsa had crawled into his truck on Friday afternoon, he’d forgotten rule number two. No wonder Ed-!!sel had spent the weekend frowning at him. He drew a deep, calming breath. “So what do you think I should do about it?”

  Edsel had taken a sudden interest in the conversation, and by some miracle of gravity defiance he managed to leap into Jan’s lap. Studying the cat’s orange fur, Jan said, “I think after ten years, perhaps you should listen to Elise’s side of the story before you make up your mind.”

  “All we’d do is argue.”

  “Hmm…” he muttered.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I knew your mother ten minutes, and I knew I would marry her.”

  “That’s not the way she told it.”

  “That’s because she remembered arguing with me that afternoon about what was wrong with her bicycle. That’s how I knew. The good ones, you argue with.” He set Edsel aside, then reached for a rag to wipe the grease from his hands. “The car. It is fixed. You promised to tow it into the city.”

  “You promised.”

  “I think you should take it.”

  “You think I should see Elsa.”

  “This one,” Jan insisted, “she is good for you.”

  “This one irritates me.”

  “It’s good irritation.”

  “Pop…”

  “Wilem, I think you should do this.”

  “I’m too busy.”

  “Busy,” Jan scoffed. “There’s nothing here I can’t han-!!dle.”

  “It’s a two-hour drive into the city.”

  “An hour and a half.”

  “Damn it—”

  “Ah,” Jan said, giving Wil a triumphant look. “I was right.”

  “Right about what?”

  “If you didn’t want to see her, you wouldn’t be swear-!!ing.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you will take the car to prove me wrong.”

  Wil studied his father for several long seconds, then released a frustrated sigh. He didn’t want to see her again, didn’t want to reopen old wounds, but a part of him knew they’d taken an irrevocable step forward on Friday. If he didn’t work Elsa out of his system, she’d haunt him for another ten years. Best to get it over with, he decided, reaching for his truck keys.

  “Hook up the car, Pop,” he told his father.

  “Elise, stop pulling at your dress,” Parker told her as they stepped from the elevator into the Art Institute of Chicago. “You look fine.”

  She squelched the burst of irritation she felt at his
condescending tone. Parker had a tendency to treat her like a sixteen-year-old debutante. Normally she ignored it, but after the long and somewhat harrowing weekend she’d spent with his parents, it grated on her nerves more than usual. “I’m not pulling on it. I’m just making sure my sup’s not showing.” She gave her red silk chemise a dubious look. She’d purchased the dress on a whim, and she hadn’t realized until later that it revealed more than she would have liked. “It isn’t, is it?”

  Parker dismissed her question with a brief shake of his head, as if he’d considered the topic, made a decision and dispatched it. “It looks fine.”

  “Of course,” she mumbled, and just barely refrained from telling him that “fine” was hardly glowing praise. With a weary sigh, she concentrated on the task at hand. After the weekend in Wilmette, the last thing she wanted was to be on display at this black-tie event. Business, however, was business. Alex Devonshire was one of her primary clients, and nothing short of a death in her family— preferably her own death—could have excused her from his company’s annual charity bash at the Art Institute. “Do you see Alex?” she asked, already weary. She’d slept little over the weekend.

  Parker, looking a little too perfect in his tailored tuxedo, scanned the room. Elise tried not to resent the way he assessed the occupants, mentally estimated their value to him, then dismissed them or calculated the importance of his approach.

  Normally she valued his insight into the politics of society. She’d never had much stomach for it, and Parker had proved to be an important tutor in the intricacies of playing the game. In many ways, she owed Alex Devonshire’s business, and its positive effect on her career, to Parker’s wizardry. Tonight, however, after having spent an entire weekend under the disapproving scrutiny of his parents, she loathed the thought of working the crowd.