Three Times A Bride. Catherine Spencer

minute they were seated at their usual window table at the Riverside Club, Natalie Chamberlaine went into a recital of the prenuptial affairs being hosted during the coming week in Georgia’s honor. What she forgot to mention, Samantha, Georgia’s younger sister, supplied.

      Georgia bent her mouth into what she hoped passed for a smile and tried to look interested. Apparently, she didn’t try hard enough.

      “You know, Georgia,” her mother commented, visibly annoyed, “people are going to quite a lot of trouble for you. It seems to me that the least you could do is show a little enthusiasm and appreciation in return. It is the second time they’ve done this, after all.”

      “Yes.” Samantha nodded smugly, secure in the knowledge that, unlike her older sister, she’d managed to get married on the first try without making a botch of things.“Smarten up, Georgia. It’s not as if we’re just recycling leftovers from the first time.”

      Except for Adam! Georgia thought, and fought to stifle a burst of hysterical laughter.

      “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong, dear?” Her mother peered at her narrowly.“You really don’t seem yourself today.”

      Georgia toyed with her spinach salad. All morning long she’d debated on when and how to tell her family the news that was doing a great job of turning her nicely ordered world upside-down. But she’d held back because she knew there’d be an uproar from both her mother and sister when they heard. On the other hand, Adam wasn’t exactly sneaking around in secret, so how long could she afford to wait before letting them in on the fact that he’d turned up again?

      Perhaps now was as good a time as any, after all. If nothing else, it would keep the outcry of protests down to a dull roar because nothing less than seeing her daughters held up at gunpoint would allow Natalie Chamberlaine to indulge in public hysteria. It wasn’t considered seemly behaviour for members of the upper echelon of Piper Landing society.

      “Actually, there is something I need to tell you,” Georgia admitted.

      “I don’t like your tone of voice,” Natalie broke in, playing nervously with the string of pearls around her throat.“I don’t like it at all, Georgia. It’s not bad news, is it?”

      “That all depends on your point of view, I suppose…”

      “Oh, for God’s sake, Georgia!” Samantha leaned back in her chair and rolled her eyes, very much the smart young matron thoroughly in charge of her own affairs and unable to comprehend why everyone else coudn’t follow her fine example.“Are you going to spit it out, whatever it is, or would you like us to drag it out of you, one syllable at a time?”

      When they had been children, Georgia had sometimes found Samantha so intolerable that she’d forgotten she was always supposed to act like a little lady and had hauled off and smacked her sister. She felt like doing the same thing now.

      “I’m trying to find the words to lead up to this gently, Samantha,” she said.“It’s not something I feel I can just ‘spit out’.”

      Doing her best to ignore Samantha’s heaving sigh of exasperation, she glanced around the dining room, searching for the inspiration that would enable her to detonate her little bombshell casually and discreetly, with a minimum of aftershock. However, when her gaze fastened on the sight of Adam and his grandmother entering the dining room and being shown to a table not ten feet away, all thought of nonchalance or restraint fled her mind.“Adam isn’t dead,” she blurted out.

      Natalie’s head shot up, though not quite as high as her voice. “What did you say?”

      “Adam isn’t dead, Mother. I saw him last night, and again this morning.”

      “Georgia, if this is your idea of a joke…” Natalie groped for her wineglass.

      But Samantha, too, had seen, and was staring fixedly across the room.“She isn’t joking, Mother,” she confirmed faintly.

      Natalie swiveled round in her chair, her gasp of dismay attesting to what most of the other people in the room also were noticing: the not-so-late Lieutenant Colonel Adam Cabot, large as life, sitting across from his grandmother and inspecting the menu.

      Gradually becoming aware that the dining room had grown unusually silent, he looked around and found himself the object of everyone’s stunned attention, not the least among them Natalie and Samantha. Excusing himself to his grandmother, he rose from the table. Georgia supposed it was too much to hope he wouldn’t come over to theirs, and she was right.

      “Hello, Mrs. Chamberlaine,” he said, as easily as if he’d last seen her only the week before.“How are you?”

      If there was one thing a person could depend on, Georgia thought, watching the exchange with horrified fascination, it was that Natalie Chamberlaine never forgot her manners. She rose beautifully, if shakily, to the occasion.“Very well, thank you, Adam. And you?”

      “Never better,” he said, all charming smiles.

      Samantha didn’t fare quite as well as her mother.“We thought you were dead,” she said.

      Adam’s smile assumed an edge that would have cut glass.“Lovely to see you again, too, Sammie.”

      “People don’t call me by that name now that I’m married,” she said, smoothing her impeccably cut hair.

      “Married? Little Sammie?”

      Only Samantha could have missed the amused irony in his tone.“Yes,” she said, and held out her hand defiantly to show off her broad platinum wedding ring.

      Adam inspected it with the tolerant awe of an uncle admiring his niece’s latest toy.“Very nice, Sammie.”

      Flushed with annoyance at his continued lack of proper respect, Samantha unwisely attempted to punish him.“In case you haven’t heard, Georgia will be wearing one, too, next month at this time.”

      His smoky blue gaze switched then and settled gravely on Georgia. His smile faded.“Will she?” he said softly.“Are you sure?”

      If his first question was directed at her sister, his second was meant exclusively for her. Georgia knew Adam too well to be mistaken about that.

      She tried to look away but he held her prisoner in his gaze and refused to let go. To her horror, she felt herself being drawn into those sultry blue depths and suffused with another bout of unspeakable longing.

      “Very sure,” she croaked, her mouth so dry she could scarcely get the words out. But when she tried to relieve the situation by taking a sip of wine, her hand shook so badly that she had to set the glass down again in a hurry.

       No, you’re not, his eyes said. You’re remembering how it felt when I kissed you this morning and you’re no longer sure of anything.

      “Why are you here?” Samantha asked belligerently.

      “To have lunch with my grandmother. Does that offend you?” Adam answered, never once allowing his gaze to stray from Georgia.

      “Of course not, Adam. That wasn’t what Samantha meant at all. You can understand, I’m sure, that we’re…well, ‘taken aback’ scarcely describes it.” Fully in control of herself again, Natalie flicked her serviette much as a matador might have tried to deflect the attention of a wayward bull.“I’m sure you have a quite remarkable explanation for your absence and we’d love to hear it, but this is not the time. Your grandmother is obviously anxious to have you rejoin her. Please don’t keep her waiting on our account.”

      “Oh, she’s waited fifteen months for the pleasure of my company at lunch,” Adam said, ignoring the hint and keeping his gaze glued to Georgia.“I think she can wait a couple of minutes more, or as long as it takes for me to offer my congratulations to the bride and her family.”

      “Listen, Adam!” Samantha, who never had learned when to leave well enough alone, wagged a finger at him.“We don’t know where you’ve