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

kitchen, freshly renovated, she saw another side of her new friend, because its unexpected coziness—the rag rugs, the splashes of color, the chipped pottery teapot filled with autumn wildflowers—had to be Liza’s doing. She’d added character and charm to what, with its long stainless steel counters and stark white cabinets, could have been an institutional-looking kitchen. Nora could imagine Liza and Cliff having dinner together at the battered pine table. Thetwo of them, she suddenly saw, were completely right for each other.
    “Hey, what do you say to a cup of hot coffee on this chilly autumn morning?” Liza offered cheerfully, already pulling two restaurant-style mugs down from an open shelf. “I tried to talk Cliff into building a fire to take the nip out of the air, but he was off like a bat out of hell at the crack of dawn. That man. I’ll never figure him out.” She grinned over her shoulder, reaching for the coffeepot. “Guess that’ll make our life together all the more intriguing.”
    Nora smiled. “You have a way of jumping headfirst into the future, don’t you?”
    “It’s the only way I know how. Cream and sugar?”
    “Just black,” Nora said absently, sitting down at the table. She herself plotted and plodded and eased her way into the future, tried to predict it as much as possible, relied on short-term and long-term goals.
    Liza set the steaming coffee in front of her and sat down. Nora finally became aware of her probing, curious stare. “Is something wrong?” Liza asked.
    “No! No, not at all.” Nora sat up straight and tried the coffee. “Hazelnut, isn’t it?”
    “Hope you like it. I only make it when Cliff’s not around. He hates it.”
    “It’s lovely. You and Cliff are so different—”
    “Yep. Keeps life interesting. Nora…” Liza squinted, her expression a reminder of her astuteness. Given her rebellious, outrageous side, people often tended to underestimate her intelligence. “Nora, did Cliff put you up to coming out here?”
    “Actually…”
    “I’m not going to get mad. I told you, he thinks highly of you. He’s that way—makes up his mind quickly about people.”
    Nora sighed. Naturally. People generally did think “highly” of her. But wasn’t that what she wanted? If she had a choice, she’d prefer to inspire respect, not passion. Why not both? That was dangerous thinking, the sort in which she’d indulged when Byron Sanders came to Tyler for the first time.
    “Well, yes,” she said, “he asked me to give you a hand in whatever way I could, but I was going to do that anyway, especially after I saw you in the store the other day. I gather with everything going on you haven’t really had much chance to touch base with your old Tyler friends.”
    “Not really, no,” Liza said, dumping a heaping teaspoon of sugar into her mug of coffee. “My best friend from high school lives in Chicago these days and the rest…” She shrugged. “As you say, there hasn’t been time. I suppose a few will turn up at the wedding. Mother handled most of the Tyler invitations. RSVPs keep pouring in….” Shetrailed off, looking uncharacteristically preoccupied and unsure of herself. “Do you think we’re overdoing it? Or at least me? None of this wedding stuff’s Cliff’s doing—the hoopla, I mean—but I’m trying to pull it off in no time at all. It’s a lot to handle.”
    “Yes, it is, but if a big wedding is what you want,” Nora said diplomatically, “then it’s what you should have.”
    Liza groaned, throwing up her hands. “I don’t know anymore if it is what I want. Maybe I’m trying to please too many people. You know what I mean? Mother’s lassoed one of her friends into having a bridal shower for me. Can you imagine? It’s supposed to be a surprise, but when I started yapping about how relieved I am there wouldn’t be time for that sort of thing, she told me.”
    Liza shook her head, and Nora refrained from comment as she drank more of