A Christmas to Remember (5 page)

“So?” He stared at her.

“Yes?”

“When are we getting married, Sara? People keep asking me. It’s getting embarrassing. We’ve been engaged a year.”

“Not quite…well, at Christmas I guess it will be.” She sighed. “It’s not unusual for couples to be engaged for a year. Or even longer. I don’t know what you’re embarrassed about.”

“Because those people are
planning
weddings. Big, fancy weddings that take casts of thousands. We haven’t even set a date yet. We haven’t done a thing…. Do you even want to marry me? I’m starting to worry.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I do…. I’ve done stuff. Lots of stuff.” Sara knew she sounded defensive but couldn’t help it. “It’s just so hard to figure out. It’s like a full-time job, except I have a full-time job. So who has time to do this, too? Besides, why should it be up to me to plan everything? Men can read a bridal planner. The print doesn’t turn into invisible ink.”

“Very funny. Give me the planner. I’ll fill it in.”

“Fine. But a football game on wide-screen TV, accompanied by beer and pizza do not qualify as Entertainment, Beverages, and Dinner.”

Lucy appeared, carrying their orders. She glanced at Sara and then back at Luke. “Whoops, sorry to interrupt. Just remember, don’t argue at mealtime. Impairs the digestion. Too much stomach acid.”

Luke smiled at her despite his foul mood. “Thanks for the health tip, Lucy.”

Lucy set their food down. “Enjoy your meal…and don’t
worry too much about the wedding. These things have a way of working themselves out.”

“I hope so,” Luke said.

Luke started eating his sandwich, but Sara felt too nervous to touch hers. “Listen,” she began, “the thing is, every time I start thinking about the wedding, I get all confused. My family in Maryland wants us to have the wedding down there. My mother keeps telling me about all these nice places she’s been looking at. I know my parents will be very hurt if we decide to get married here.”

Luke shrugged. “So let’s get married in Maryland. My family can get there from Boston. They don’t care where it is. I think they’re all still in shock that a girl like you would marry me.”

“Luke, I’m trying to be serious here. It’s not your family I’m worried about. It’s Emily. I know she wouldn’t make a big deal about it, but I think she has her heart set on us getting married in Cape Light. I don’t want to hurt her feelings either.”

Sara picked up her sandwich and put it down again. “And even if we do decide where to have it, then we have to decide what kind of wedding we want. Whenever I read those bridal magazines…I don’t know…the Bridezilla mindset just scares me. So many choices. How do people figure it out? Gowns, veils, flower arrangements, Hummer limos, DJs, heart-shaped chocolate fountains…”

“Okay, I get your point.” Luke looked up from his plate. “At least we’re getting to the bottom of it. We don’t have to have a big fancy wedding. It’s not a law, you know.”

“Not yet.” Sara sighed. “Emily said she would help me. She has a restaurant for us to see. She wants us to meet her there for dinner one night next week.”

“That sounds promising.”

“Not to my parents in Maryland. For them it promises to be a disaster.”

“You know,” Luke said, “I’m starting to think I have to kidnap you and drag you off, caveman style. Just you, me, and a justice of the peace.”

“Oh, Luke. Not that again.”

He smiled and nodded. “Time to go to Plan B, Sara. I don’t know why you keep resisting. It would make life so simple.”

Every time they had this conversation, Luke came up with the same solution. Sara knew she should have expected it. Plan B: run off and elope. At first she had dismissed the idea, but as their engagement dragged on, it was starting to sound better and better. She was tired of fretting about where to have the wedding and stressing over whom she might upset with her decision, Emily or her adoptive parents. She loved them all so much, it seemed impossible to choose.

Besides, she just wanted to be married to Luke. Period. A big party for their wedding didn’t seem at all important to her.

“Just give me a little warning. So I can have my hair trimmed or something? And I’d rather not get married in jeans and a ratty old sweater.” She looked down at herself, surveying her usual outfit.

“No warning. I’ll be wearing the same. We want to make a statement. Maybe you could write a column about it for the paper. An anti-wedding-industry-that-exploits-young-couples-in-love kind of thing.”

“I think you’re trying to weasel out of wearing a tuxedo.”

Luke shrugged. “Okay, that, too.” He grinned and leaned across the table to kiss her. “Now finish up before Charlie shuts the lights off and makes you take that sandwich home in a doggy bag.”

Sara poked at her sandwich. She was starting to agree with
him. She wished they could skip a real wedding and just run off to get married on their own. It would make life so simple.

But of course, Luke had only been teasing her. And she had been teasing him back…hadn’t she?

Crane’s Beach, Cape Light, August 1955

L
ILLIAN HAD WALKED ALL THE WAY TO THE STONE JETTY
,
RESTED
there for a few minutes, then started back toward Charlotte and her friends. As she grew closer to their striped umbrella she noticed a man sitting there in the midst of the three women, looking like a satyr among the nymphs.

Oliver Warwick. Who else would it be? She stopped in her tracks then realized they had all turned to look at her. Charlotte waved. Lillian realized she was too close to turn around and walk down the beach again. She took a breath, fixed her face in a neutral expression, and headed up the sandy slope to meet them.

“That was quite a walk, Lily. You’ve been gone an hour.” Charlotte rose and walked a few steps to meet her. “We were worried about you.”

“I guess I lost track of time. The beach is beautiful at that end, so empty and quiet.”

“Lily loves the quiet,” Bess said to Oliver. “She made us hike out here to no-man’s-land. I’m surprised you found us.”

“It wasn’t easy,” Oliver admitted. He looked up at Lillian and smiled. She didn’t smile back. She poured herself a cup of iced tea from Charlotte’s cooler and drank it down quickly.

Oliver looked completely different today from the way he had the night before. Though unfortunately, no less attractive.

He wore khaki Bermuda shorts, boat shoes, and a short-sleeved
cotton sports shirt, dark blue with vertical grey stripes. His shirt hung open, revealing his bare chest; he was more muscular than she would have expected. The wind tossed his dark hair in all directions, and sunglasses hid his eyes. She could still feel him watching her every move, like the heat of the sun on her bare skin.

“Why don’t you sit down, Lily? You must be exhausted.” Charlotte jumped up from her chair. “Here, sit in the shade a while and cool off.”

The chair in the shade did look inviting. But Oliver sat on the blanket right beside it, his arms folded loosely around his long legs. She was angry at the idea of him following her and afraid of what she might say.

She had plenty to talk to him about. But not in front of Charlotte and her friends.

“I do need to cool off. I think I’ll take a swim.” Lillian grabbed a towel and headed for the water.

Charlotte wasn’t much of a swimmer, and Lillian knew she wouldn’t follow. Neither would any of the others. Penny and Bess were too busy flirting with Oliver, and he wasn’t even dressed for swimming.

“The water’s rough today, Lily. Be careful,” Charlotte called after her.

Lillian nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

The surf was rough. The wind was strong and the waves were coming in close together, peaking high and breaking with lots of spray and foam. There were no lifeguards on this stretch of shoreline, but Lillian wasn’t concerned. She had been swimming in the waters of Cape Light and Newburyport all her life. She was a strong swimmer who knew how to handle herself in the surf.

She waded in a bit until the water swirled around her hips, then dove in, slipping under the breakers. She popped up on the
other side and floated. Even at this relatively calm point, the waves rose and fell quickly, lifting and dropping her into deep ocean troughs.

The rough, cold water quickly cleared her head and cooled her temper. She felt ready to return to the group on the blanket. After a few moments, she turned on her stomach and did a breast stroke, swimming back toward the beach.

But while it had been easy to get into the water, it was another matter to get out. She bobbed up and down in the big waves, waiting for the chance to ride one to shore. But the waves were coming in so close together and from several different angles. She could bob around here until midnight, Lillian realized. There would never be a really good time to make her move.

She waited for the next big wave and started swimming madly, feeling it sweep her into the shore, just as she had planned. She noticed the group on the blanket watching her and as she reached the shallow water she tried to get up and exit the water as gracefully as she could, despite the load of sand—and maybe even a few small crustaceans—that had been swept down the cleavage of her suit.

Lillian rose on wobbly legs and shook out her hair. Foamy whirlpools swirled around her legs. She started to walk out of the water, while the sand beneath her feet was sucked from under her by the outgoing wave.

The last thing she saw was her cousin, leaping out of her chair, her expression terrified. Charlotte yelled something to her. Lillian couldn’t hear anything over the roar of the ocean, but Charlotte was pointing madly and Lillian glanced behind her to see what Charlotte was pointing at.

A wave had crept up behind her, and the swell of water was now towering over her head. Lillian turned and tried to dive into it
but she wasn’t fast enough. The wave smashed down on her, knocking her off her feet. She fell face-first into the water and immediately tried to push herself up. But it was impossible. Tons of water crashed down over her, pushing her down. She gasped and flailed her arms and legs, her lungs about to burst. She felt her body sucked under, swirling in the blue-green water. Finally, she felt herself making some progress.
Up
, she thought.
Swim up!

Then she felt the sand in her hands. She had been swimming in the wrong direction, to the bottom. She turned, feeling her lungs about to burst. She tried to head up toward the light, but the undertow gripped her, twisting her as if she were a bit of seaweed.

I’m going to drown,
Lillian realized.
This is it. I can’t breathe. I’m being suffocated. I can’t get up. I’m not strong enough….

W
HEN SHE OPENED HER EYES AGAIN
, O
LIVER WAS STARING DOWN
at her. His face was very close. He looked so serious. She hadn’t imagined he could ever look that serious.

She felt his hand under her head, lifting it off the sand. “Thank God,” he said quietly. “Say something,” he prompted her.

She swallowed and made a face. She had sand in her mouth and tried to spit it out. “I feel sick….”

Unable to stop herself, she rolled away from him and spit up in the sand.

She felt his hand rub her back in soothing circles. “You must have swallowed half the ocean out there.”

“Here’s a towel,” she heard Charlotte say. “I put some fresh water on it.”

Lillian quickly wiped her face and took a long, shaky breath. She felt as if she were going to cry and fought to hold it back.

“Go ahead and cry if you want to,” he said quietly so that only she could hear. “I might feel better after a good cry myself.”

Lillian glanced up at Oliver, his dark lashes spiked with water, his hair slicked back wet. She realized he must have jumped in and pulled her out. He had saved her life. Just narrowly.

“I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly. Apologies had never come easily to her. “That’s never happened to me before. I’m a very strong swimmer….”

“Of course you are.” He patted her shoulder, his hand lingering there. “You were knocked down. That could happen to anyone.”

“You weren’t breathing, Lillian. You didn’t move. I thought…the worst.” Charlotte’s face was pale as paper, and Lillian realized she had scared her cousin half to death.

Had Oliver given her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?

Lillian was too embarrassed by the idea to even ask.

“I’m all right now, Charlotte. Don’t worry.” She forced herself to sound much stronger than she felt and started to get up. She wasn’t about to lie there like a hospital patient.

Charlotte moved toward her. “Here, let me help you.”

“I’m fine,” Lillian insisted.

Oliver didn’t ask permission and didn’t believe her either. As she tried to stand he hooked his arm around her waist, lifting her up off the sand as if she weighed nothing at all.

“Come on, lean on me. Don’t be so stubborn, or I’ll toss you back in the ocean again.”