“Getting dressed,” Michael said.
“I’ll go see if she needs any help,” Sam said, and Michael handed her another glass of champagne to take to Leigh.
He gave the last glass to McCord along with an inquiring look, which McCord understood. “I’m here to deliver a wedding gift from the mayor,” he explained.
Since McCord had a glass of champagne in his right hand and his left hand was in the pocket of his black tuxedo trousers, Michael said, “What gift?”
“You have to look out the window to see it,” McCord replied, strolling over to the wall of glass that overlooked Central Park West. “Look down there on the street.”
Michael did, and what he saw, twenty-eight floors below, was his limousine surrounded by a bevy of uniformed police officers on motorcycles. “Oh, good,” he said dryly. “Cops. Just what I always wanted.”
“It’s a motorcycle escort,” McCord clarified with a chuckle. “Compliments of His Honor, the Mayor.”
“Really? From up here, with those helmets on, I thought they might be skeet, and I was going to ask to borrow your gun.”
Together they strolled back to the bar. The granite countertop was high enough for Michael to comfortably lean his right forearm on it, which he did while keeping his eye on the living room, waiting for his first glimpse of Leigh in her wedding dress. “We have to leave early,” Michael said idly, taking a sip of champagne. “We’re picking Solomon and Eric Ingram up at the theater and taking them to the hotel.”
McCord walked around to the other side of the bar and leaned his left forearm on the granite countertop. “Why?” he asked, lifting his own glass to his mouth.
Michael shook his head, his voice filled with tolerant amusement. “I have no idea why Leigh agreed to pick them up there, but she did. Do you want to ride with us?”
“We’ll pass,” McCord replied. “Solomon is in a snit because the IRS is auditing him. He thinks it’s because we questioned him about Manning’s two-hundred-thousand-dollar cash deposit, and then sent the IRS after him. He’s written a stern letter of protest to the governor.”
Michael chuckled and sardonically said, “That will do him a hell of a lot of good.”
“Sam and I are getting married,” McCord said quietly.
Michael glanced over his shoulder and quirked a brow at him in mock surprise. “What kind of drug did you use on her to get her to agree to that?”
“A slightly less potent one than you used on your bride, I imagine,” McCord replied unconcernedly.
“I own a chateau in France. If you actually get that beautiful woman to marry you, instead of shooting you, you could use it for your honeymoon.”
“Sam’s a hell of a marksman,” McCord remarked proudly, taking another sip of champagne.
“In that case, be sure you never let her go to bed with you when she’s angry,” Michael replied with a chuckle, taking a swallow of his drink.
“She’d love a honeymoon in a French château, I think. So would I.”
Michael nodded. “Let me know the dates you want it, and I’ll make sure it’s staffed and ready.”
Sam and Leigh emerged from the bedroom, started across the living room, and then stopped in amused surprise at the sight of the two men at the bar. They were both leaning on a forearm, drinking champagne, and regarding each other over their shoulders. “They are so much alike!” Sam whispered with a laugh. “I realized it a long time ago.”
“So did I,” Leigh replied. “But they don’t think they’re anything alike.”
Sam was quiet for a moment, thinking of an analogy that fit them. “A pair of lions,” she said aloud.
Leigh nodded, looking at Michael. “They would have made terrible foes.”
At the sound of their voices, Michael looked up and his breath caught at the sight of Leigh walking toward him in a long, strapless cream sheath covered in French lace. At her throat she was wearing the diamond-and-pearl choker he’d given her. Deep inside her slender body, she was sheltering his child.
She handed him the aquamarine velvet wrap she was carrying over her arm, and she turned around. He draped it over her shoulders; then he slid his hand protectively over her flat abdomen. “Thank you,” he whispered.
She covered his hand with hers and gave him a melting smile over her shoulder. “I was going to say the same thing to you.”
Chapter 78
* * *
It was twilight when the motorcade turned onto Broadway, and O’Hara slowed the limousine down. On the street, pedestrians turned to watch them go by, trying to see inside the darkened windows of the long Mercedes.
In the backseat, Michael glanced out the window, automatically waiting to see the name “Leigh Kendall” lit up on the marquee above Solomon’s theater. It was a habit of his—this watching for her name on theater marquees. He’d been doing it for years, consciously and unconsciously, whenever he happened to be on Broadway. Invariably, the sight of her name there had given him a surge of nostalgia followed by a plunge into fatalistic reality because he’d passed up his long-ago chance with her.
But fate had given him a second chance, Michael thought with an inner grin, and he hadn’t let this one slip past, nor had he wasted a moment’s time. Three months ago, Leigh had been Logan Manning’s wife. Since then, Michael had swept her from widow to bride—with a stop for motherhood in between.
Only twelve weeks ago, she’d stood in front of him at a party wearing a red dress and hiding her disdain behind a polite mask. Tonight, she was sitting beside him in his car, wearing a gorgeous wedding gown and holding his hand. In a little over an hour, she was going to stand beside him in front of a supreme court judge and voluntarily join her life with his. And seven and a half months from now, she was going to give him his first child.
He had, of course, been aided in all that by an attraction between them that was so strong, and so vital, that it had sprung instantly to life after being dormant for fourteen years.
“What are you thinking about?” Leigh asked him.
“Second chances,” he said with a smile at her upturned face. “I was thinking about fate and second chances. I was also thinking that if Solomon isn’t ready and waiting for us at the theater, I will haul him bodily into this car in whatever state of dress—or undress—he’s in when I find him.”
Leigh laughed at his threat and nodded out the car window. “We’re almost there now, and I can already see Jason on the sidewalk, but it looks like he’s having lighting problems again.”
Michael looked out the window and saw that the marquee above Solomon’s theater was lit up with the words BLIND SPOT, but Leigh’s name was dark. Solomon was standing on the sidewalk in a tuxedo, his head tipped back toward the marquee, a cell phone at his ear. Eric Ingram was standing a few yards back, also in a tuxedo, looking up at the marquee. At the box office, people were already lining up in hope of buying unclaimed tickets to the show if any became available at the last minute.
“Poor Jason,” Leigh explained with a sympathetic little sigh. “He’s been plagued with lighting problems of one kind or another since opening night.”
Michael’s mind was on marriage, not marquees, so he missed the odd, tender note in her tone when she said, “Could we get out for a minute? Otherwise, he’ll stand there forever, frustrating himself and yelling at the lighting supervisor on his phone.”
He nodded, resigned and amused that when show business was involved, lighting problems evidently took precedence over everything else, including impending marriages. Raising his voice a little, he said to O’Hara, “Pull over in front of the theater as close to the curb as you can get us. We’re going to get out. Solomon has lighting problems.”
“You gotta be kidding!” O’Hara exclaimed, gaping at Michael in the rearview mirror. “You’re both in your wedding clothes, and I’ve got four cops on motorcycles in front of me and four more behind me. Can’t Solomon call an electrician like everybody else does?”
“Evidently not,” Michael
said wryly.
A moment later, eight police motorcycles and one limousine bearing a bride and groom in formal wedding attire all pulled slowly over to the curb—because Jason Solomon had lighting problems.
The maneuver caused a traffic jam as motorists tried to move out around the halting cavalcade and also get a look at who was in it and why it was stopping at a theater two hours before most Broadway shows began.
Michael helped Leigh out of the car; then they walked over to Solomon and stood beside him on the sidewalk, all three of them looking up at the marquee. “I’ll have it fixed in a minute, I think,” Solomon assured them.
In the street, the cops on the motorcycles started looking up at the marquee and so did pedestrians, who began gathering into groups. The people in line at the box office couldn’t see what everyone else was staring at, so they stared at the growing spectacle on the sidewalk.
Suddenly one of the women in line to buy tickets recognized Leigh and called out her name. “Miss Kendall!” she cried excitedly. “Could my daughter and I have your autograph?”
“I’ll be right back,” Leigh said with an apologetic glance at Michael; then she walked over to sign autographs.
He looked at his watch. They still had plenty of time, thanks to their motorcycle escort, but he was running out of patience with Solomon. “What the hell is wrong with the lights?” he demanded.
Solomon gave him a distracted smile as he gazed up at the marquee and stepped back a few paces to see it better. “We’ve got it now,” he said. To whoever was on the phone with him, Jason added, “Light it up. One at a time.”
A moment later, Michael watched Leigh’s name begin to flash on in bright white lights . . .
L—E—I—G—H
V—A—L—E—N—T—E
He slowly lowered his gaze from the marquee, an unfamiliar constriction tightening his throat.
Beside him, Solomon said, “There’s something you should know—something that makes Leigh’s decision to use your name very significant.”
“I can’t imagine anything that could possibly make it seem more significant than it does now,” he said gruffly.
“You’ll change your mind about that,” Solomon predicted, “when I tell you that Leigh made that decision the night we met at the St. Regis. You went to make a phone call, and she insisted that I be ready to switch her name to yours.”
The constriction in Michael’s throat doubled.