Prelude to a Wedding by Patricia McLinn

parents.
    James Monroe, however, nodded, as if he'd
half expected the response to his question to be "four days," then
took Bette by the elbow and started her toward the house.
    "I don't imagine in that time he's introduced
you to any other relatives, has he? No? I didn't think so. So we
can understand your being a bit taken aback by all this. We just
hope you'll commiserate with us, since we've known him for
thirty-two years last March, and he's never brought a young lady
home to meet us before."
    * * * *
    "Is that true? You've never taken a woman
home to meet your parents?"
    Paul gave Bette an extra beat to add the word
before, but she didn't, and he felt a frown growing. The way she
said it made it sound as if bringing her to the Lake Forest house
today didn't count.
    "There really wasn't much need to," he
finally said.
    He looked down the stretch of pebbly sand,
then out beyond the huge, jumbled boulders that created shallow
pools for summer-time beach-goers at the municipal park. This late
in the year, with the sun rapidly fading, the beach and the boat
ramp farther down the lake were deserted. Two distant fishermen on
the pier beyond the ramp were their only companions. He narrowed
his eyes as he considered the darkening eastern sky. The breeze had
picked up, and if he didn't miss his guess, Indian summer's spell
would soon be broken.
    After a soft drink at his parents' house,
he'd brought Bette here by a roundabout route through town. He'd
been telling her about youthful summers he'd spent divided between
this beach and his home. "I think half my high school graduating
class spent three days a week at our house, so everyone I dated was
there all the time anyhow. Then in college we were too busy proving
we were grownup by going into Chicago to bother coming home."
    "And since college?"
    His head jerked around in surprise, then he
had to bite off a grin. He hadn't mistaken that note in her
voice—she was more than mildly curious. But her eyes, darkening
with storm warnings just like the lake behind her, told him the
consequences if he dared to make anything of it.
    He knew a few people who'd be surprised to
hear it, but he could be cautious.
    "Since college, there hasn't been anyone I
thought my parents would enjoy meeting."
    Pleased with himself—he'd told the truth and
paid her a compliment without tying himself to anything—he took her
arm and headed toward the pier. They could walk the length of the
beach before taking another path to where they'd left her car
overlooking the water.
    He easily slipped into more tales of growing
up, including one of a sailboat race when he'd had his younger
sister as his crew, and had nearly thrown her overboard.
    "Do you sail, Bette?"
    "Not the kind you're talking about. Just
Sunfish on small lakes."
    "You'd like it. I'll take you next—" He broke
off. He'd been out to say "next spring." He'd always believed in
keeping promises, which was why he didn't make them. But he'd been
about to commit himself to something six months in the future. What
had gotten into him?
    Bette didn't seem to notice anything amiss.
She walked beside him, watching waves slip into shore.
    "Anyway, it was a great neighborhood to grow
up in," he finished lamely.
    "I'm sure it was." She sounded as if her mind
might be on another track. "It certainly doesn't look anything like
the house you described."
    Contemplating the upward curve of her top lip
and remembering how it had felt against his own, he almost missed
what she said. "Oh, the house. Mom made a lot of changes. Actually,
the same fall after I ran away. I started thinking some of the
workmen were going to live with us permanently."
    Work had kept his father so occupied those
months that James Monroe probably wouldn't have noticed if they'd
blown up the house. His mother hadn't gone quite that far, but
close. By the time her father had visited at Christmastime, light
and color had replaced somber bulk.
    "It must have been quite a job."
    "Yeah. Turning a