Read Online Wisconsin Wedding (Welcome To Tyler, No. 3) by Carla Neggers - Free Book Online Page B

deadly calm, even neutral, but Byron sensed the regret, the guilt, the uneasy resignation. “You did what you had to do, Cliff,” he said carefully. “So did I.”
    Bending down suddenly, Cliff snatched up a small rock, straightened and skipped it across the calm lake. Yards out, it disappeared in spreading concentric circles. “Father taught us that,” he said, his back to Byron. “Remember?”
    “I remember.”
    Cliff turned, his expression harsh and unyielding in the bright sun, maybe more so than he meant it to be. But his eyes looked as if they were melting. Byron was almost seared by his brother’s torment. “I thought this would be easier.”
    Byron tossed the last of his coffee into the grass. “Me, too.”
    “Liza…” It was the first time Cliff had mentioned her directly. He turned back to the lake, where the last of the concentric circles had vanished, leaving behind a glasslike surface. “She thinks all things are possible. Sometimes I get to thinking that way, too.”
    “Cliff—”
    “She told you and Mother about us, didn’t she?”
    “You’ll have to talk to her about that.”
    “She would, you know. She’s meddlesome like that—the kind of woman who’d teach a kid to swim by pitching him headfirst into the water.” He sighed. “But this time she went too far. I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”
    “That’s why I came early. To see if you were. She can’t understand what it’s been like, Cliff. No one can.”
    He nodded.
    “If you’re not ready to see me, I’ll leave. Now, today. Mother won’t come at all. It’s your call.”
    Cliff was silent. Then he said, “Tell her who you are, Byron.”
    Back to Nora Gates. Cliff, apparently, would go only so far in articulating his innermost thoughts. Byron smiled thinly. “That might mean the end of me.”
    “And if you want to stay,” Cliff said, his face expressionless, “then stay.”
    “I’ll see how today goes. As for Nora— I’ll tell her the truth after the wedding.”
    “Before.”
    “She’s invited?”
    Cliff jumped from his rock, landing as silently as a panther. “Half the damned town’s invited.”
    For a moment, Byron dismissed his troubling thoughts about Nora Gates. She was a strong woman, a survivor. He didn’t need to coddle her. He remembered every second of their time together, wishing like hell he didn’t. He had loved her. And he’d tried, amid his own pain and confusion, to do the right thing, even as he’d lied to her and ended up making her hate him. But through knowing her, through knowing Aunt Ellie, he’d learned that before he could help anyone, commit to anyone or anything, he had first to save himself.
    It was his brother, once again, who worried him. “Are you going to make it through this thing?”
    “I will. For Liza’s sake.”
    “She wants a big wedding?”
    But Byron had stepped over the line. The mask dropped into place, covering up the raw, exposed parts of himself that Cliff preferred to deal with on his own. He looked out past Byron to the lodge. “Company.”
    “Work crew?”
    “Nope.” And because the mask was in place, because he was the big brother and didn’t need anything from Byron, Cliff managed one of his twitching smiles. “That’s Nora Gates’s car.”
    Byron followed his brother’s gaze, but could only make out a champagne-colored BMW. Far too racy and expensive for frugal, demure Nora Gates. “Where?”
    “The BMW.”
    “That’s no Victorian old maid’s car.”
    Cliff grunted. “And you think you know everything about Nora Gates.”
    * * *
    N ORA HAD DRESSED conservatively for her trip out to Timberlake Lodge, not for Liza’s sake—Liza greeted her in jeans and an oversize Tyler Titans sweatshirt—but for her own. Her reliable double-breasted wide-wale charcoal corduroy jacket, her black wool gabardine trousers and her stark white cotton shirt reminded her that she was smart, successful, responsible and perfectly capable of handling most