Spring Fever

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and rubbed his eyes. He needed sleep, and yet he couldn’t sleep. It was 3:00 A.M. Too early to call the hospital to check on Sophie. He’d wanted to stay in the waiting room last night, in case she awakened and asked for him, but the nurses chased him off, telling him that Sophie would be just fine without him and promising to call if she did awaken.

Celia had decided to stay with her great-aunt in one of the guest rooms at Cherry Hill. The old lady was overwrought from all the excitement of the day, and Sallie had hinted broadly that she herself was in no condition to play nursemaid.

Just as well, Mason thought. He was in the damnedest mood. Jumpy and irritable. Well, the day had been a disaster, hadn’t it?

He’d left Celia in tears, back at Cherry Hill.

“Our beautiful day,” she’d said, peeling off the false eyelashes and depositing them in the ashtray of the Saab. “All our plans, everything. Ruined.”

“I know,” he’d said, kissing her, trying to soothe her. “And I’m so sorry. But it wasn’t really ruined, was it? I mean, you looked amazing, and everything was just the way you pla

She pulled away and stared at him. “Are you out of your mind? Your daughter collapsed at the altar and had to be rushed to the hospital. All of our guests were just sitting there … stu

“The cake? Can’t we just, freeze it or…”

“No,” she cut him off. “We can’t.”

“Oh-kaaay,” Mason said, trying to tread lightly. “But we will get married. I promise. We’ll do it all over again. We’ll get another cake. Just as soon as we get Sophie home and recovered from surgery.”

“It won’t be the same,” Celia said sorrowfully. “You’re a man, and you’ve already had one wedding. I guess I can’t really expect you to understand. A girl dreams of her wedding day her whole life. She has just one shot at one perfect moment. No matter how hard you try, you don’t get that moment back again.”

“I’m sorry.” It was all he could say. As she’d pointed out, he couldn’t fix it, no matter how hard he tried.

He got up to go to the bathroom and stubbed his toe hard on the foot of a damned chair. Christ! Since Celia had redecorated the house, or decorated it, since, as she aptly pointed out, it had never been decorated at all before she moved in, he was always bumping into things, knocking things over, breaking things.

Mason limped downstairs and into the kitchen. He stood in front of the open refrigerator door, not really hungry, but wanting … what?

Celia’s nonfat yogurt containers were lined up in neat rows, as were the bottles of mineral water. Half a roast chicken nested on a plate under a tinfoil wrapping. There were containers of strawberries and blueberries and raspberries, packages of cheeses he’d never heard of, a crisper drawer full of things like scallions and leeks and arugula, carrots and baby spinach and celery sticks. Everything looked healthy and wholesome and totally uninteresting. At the very back of the top shelf, he spied the comforting sight of a tall-necked brown bottle.

He took the beer and a chunk of the least stinky cheese he could find and went into the room Celia called his study.

It was a handsome room, he had to admit. Celia had taste to spare, even Pokey grudgingly gave her that. She’d had the builder-beige Sheetrock walls covered with weather-beaten boards taken out of an old barn out at the farm, had bookshelves built to line two walls, and had conjured up rows and rows of old leather and vellum-bound books to line the shelves. He’d opened one once, just to see what she thought he should be reading. But it was in German. He didn’t know German. The rug underfoot was some kind of rope-textured thing, sisal maybe—and it felt sandpaper-rough under his bare feet. He’d asked about keeping the old red and blue oriental rug he’d originally brought over from the attic at Cherry Hill when he’d bought the house, but Celia had just laughed and promised she’d find a better place for it when she finished redecorating.

He sat down at his desk and thrummed his fingers on the leather top. The desk was one of the very few things he’d insisted on keeping from his short-lived bachelor years. It had come out of his grandfather’s old office at the bottling plant. It was beat-up mahogany, with two banks of drawers that stuck and a deep knee-hole recess, where he could remember playing with his army action figures as a little kid, pretending that he was in a bunker. The chair had been his grandfather’s, too; it was high-backed, with cracked and peeling green leather upholstery that creaked loudly when he reclined in it.

Mason switched on his computer and idly glanced at his e-mails. Nothing that wouldn’t keep. He’d inherited Voncile as his assistant after his father’s death, and she was ruthless about weeding out e-mails he didn’t need to deal with—especially since he was supposed to be on his honeymoon right this minute.

His honeymoon! A week in Aruba, their own villa overlooking the ocean. He shrugged. Knowing Voncile, he was sure she’d gone straight to the office from the church, and begun canceling flights and arranging for refunds.

Thinking of the office reminded him of A

She really thought she was something, getting remarried, telling him all about this Shane guy.

As though he hadn’t already thoroughly checked him out.

Mason clicked a few keys and opened up the file he’d started on this Shane Drummond clown the day A

From what Pokey told him, A

Voncile had been only too happy to conspire on this little research project. She’d nosed around the Internet for a few days, made some discreet calls to a security firm recommended by a business associate in Atlanta, and put together a fascinating dossier.

He was looking at that dossier now. Voncile had even managed to scrounge up photographs. Mason studied the largest of these, a color publicity still she’d found on Drummond’s agent’s Web site. So this was the kind of guy A

In the photo, Drummond was dressed in a plaid lumberjack-type jacket and scruffy jeans. His curly hair looked unkempt, and he had those dark, brooding, soulful-looking eyes women like A

He shook his head and returned to the document Voncile had assembled.

Hmm. Matthew Shane Drummond, thirty-two. Hah! A younger man. A

From what Mason could tell, A

Drummond owned a car, a 1999 Dodge Aerostar van, and a house, located in what looked like a rural area outside Atlanta, and valued, for tax purposes, at $82,700.