Wind Chime Wedding (A Wind Chime Novel Book 2) (3 page)

“Hi, Natalie.”

His stepmother sighed. “Why do you insist on making this difficult for me?”

Colin smiled. “Because I don’t need you to set me up.”

“But I have so many friends with nice
single
daughters.”

“I don’t need you to set me up,” he repeated.

“But what about Priscilla Davenport’s daughter, Julie—remember her? Your father said you two went to pre-school together.”

“Oh?” Colin said. “Were we an item back then?”

“Please be serious, Colin. Julie just moved back to the area and she’s recently divorced. I think you two would really hit it off.” She added a note of hope into her voice. “I could arrange for you to sit together on Saturday night…”

“Natalie.” Colin pushed off the doorframe. The woman was relentless. “I’m bringing someone.”

“Who?” she asked, surprised.

“You’ll meet her on Saturday.”

“Won’t you at least tell me her name?”

“No.”

His stepmother lowered her voice to a whisper. “She’s not one of those women you pick up at the bars, is she?”

Colin choked out a laugh. “What?”

“I know what goes on in downtown Annapolis on the weekends,” she huffed. “I hear things.”

Colin rolled his eyes. “I’m not bringing a woman I picked up at a bar.”

“Then who is she?”

“Someone you’ve never met before.”

“How…mysterious.”

Yes, Colin thought. She was. She was so mysterious she didn’t even exist yet.

“You’d better not be making this up,” Natalie warned. “Last time you told me you were bringing a date, you came alone, and there was an empty seat beside you all night. We had to put your father’s jacket on the back of your chair so it didn’t look like you’d been stood up.”

Colin shook his head, smiling. No one at that party had thought he’d been stood up. But appearances were everything to his stepmother. And ever since she’d taken it on as her life’s mission to find him a wife, he hadn’t had a moment’s peace. If he had to spend one more night talking to a woman who made him want to claw his eyes out from boredom, he’d lose it. “There won’t be an empty seat this time, I promise.”

“I wish you would tell me who you’re bringing,” she said. “What if I forget her name when I’m introducing her to people?”

“You won’t forget her name,” Colin said. Natalie Foley never forgot a name. “I’ll see you on Saturday.” Ending the call, he slipped his phone back in his pocket.

Jimmy walked out to the porch, unscrewing the cap off a tarnished silver flask. “I made a few calls. Looks like I can get a bigger crew here to start on Monday.”

“Thanks,” Colin said.

Jimmy handed him the flask.

Colin took it, walking down the steps to where a pile of raw lumber sat under a blue tarp. He lifted the tarp with the toe of his boot, inspecting the quality of the wood.

“I saw your picture in the paper last weekend,” Jimmy said.

“Yeah?” Colin said distractedly.

“Who was that woman you were with?”

“Last weekend?” They were all starting to run together at this point. Letting the tarp fall back into place, he glanced back at Jimmy. “Christy Caraway, maybe?”

“Christy Caraway of Caraway’s Crab House? The heir to the biggest chain of seafood restaurants in the Mid-Atlantic?”

Colin nodded, taking a sip from the flask.

Jimmy whistled. “I’m impressed.” Leaning back against the house, the contractor dipped his hands in his pockets. “Nice rack, too. Have you seen her naked?”

Colin smiled. “She’s easy on the eyes, but that’s about all she’s got going for her.”

Jimmy grinned. “She looked pretty good in that picture.”

They all looked good in the pictures, Colin thought. Every woman his stepmother set him up with was the same: attractive, wealthy, well connected, and only interested in him for one reason—because he was the governor’s son.

He’d been engaged to a woman who’d only wanted him for his status before—for being a SEAL. He hadn’t realized it at the time, but his ex-fiancée had made it perfectly clear when she’d broken up with him a week after he’d returned from Afghanistan without his leg, saying she couldn’t marry an amputee.

Gazing out at the wide expanse of water, he watched the late afternoon sunlight glint over the surface. He could hear the water lapping against the rocks along the shoreline, the wind whipping at the layers of plastic covering the gaps in the walls where a few of the downstairs windows were being replaced.

There was no going back, no point in remembering what he’d lost or who he’d once been. This place was his future. And the first step was opening by Memorial Day.

Nothing was going to get in the way of that.

Screwing the cap back on the flask, he tossed it to Jimmy.

Now, all he needed was to find a date for Saturday night.

I
t was close to four o’clock when Becca walked out of the elementary school. The parking lot was empty except for the few cars that belonged to the teachers who hadn’t left yet—teachers who were going to find out next week that they would soon be out of a job.

Unlocking her Toyota Corolla, she set her purse in the back seat, and looked across the street at Magnolia Harbor. April winds whipped at the sailboats in the slips. Halyards clanged against metal masts and white caps chopped over the surface of the Chesapeake Bay. She could hear the gravelly voices of several watermen talking to each other as they prepped their lines and traps for the morning.

The teachers weren’t the only ones who would be out of jobs soon. The watermen on this island had been struggling to make ends meet for years now. Many of them, including her father, had already taken on second and third jobs on the mainland.

Their hearts might still be out on the water, but deep down, they all knew that their way of life was slowly dying.

You picked a good time to leave.

Opening her driver’s side door, Becca slid behind the wheel. How was it a good time to leave when everything was falling apart? It felt like a betrayal, escaping just in time. Like she was turning her back on her friends.

She pulled her phone out to see if Tom had called her back since she’d left him a message an hour ago, but there was only a single text message from Jimmy Faulkner, the contractor in charge of renovating the waterfront inn where her wedding would be held in three weeks.

Ran into a setback. Call me.

Fantastic, she thought, dropping the phone onto the seat beside her and easing out of the spot. What else could go wrong today?

Turning right out of the parking lot onto the long flat road leading toward the inn, she watched a lone osprey glide over the thin fingers of water that snaked in and out of the marshes. She still couldn’t believe Shelley hadn’t told her the school was in danger of being shut down. Up until an hour ago, she’d thought they told each other everything.

Was this the beginning of what her new life was going to be like—her friends hiding their problems from her because she was leaving?

She didn’t want to be cut off from her community, from being a part of this island.

It wasn’t like she was moving across the country.

D.C. was only two hours away.

Dodging a pothole, she fought back another wave of uneasiness as a thick hedge of hollies and blackberry bushes gave way to a private stretch of land surrounded on three sides by water. A pale yellow inn with white shutters and a wide front porch sat at the end of a curved oyster shell driveway. Two trucks were parked outside: Jimmy Faulkner’s red Ford and Colin Foley’s dark blue Chevy.

Her heart did a funny little flip flop in her chest at the thought of running into Colin. She hadn’t seen much of him over the past several months. He spent most of his time in Annapolis and only came down to the island on the weekends, while she spent most of her weekends in D.C. with Tom.

As far as she knew, he was still working on his father’s reelection campaign.

She paused, her eyes widening. Maybe Colin could help them. It might be too late to make any changes to the education budget for next year, but if the governor could promise an increase for the following year, maybe it would be enough to convince the board to keep the school open.

Stepping out of the car with a renewed sense of hope, she saw the sheen of wet paint on the front porch steps and headed around the side of the house to the backyard. The faint scent of viburnums, sweet and spicy, filled the air when she spied the man down at the dock talking on his cell phone. Colin Foley’s back was to her, but there was no mistaking those broad shoulders, that tall commanding frame, that thick shock of black hair that had grown even longer since the fall.

When he turned, and their eyes met across the long stretch of lawn, she felt the punch of heat roll all the way through her.

“Enjoying the view?” a deep voice drawled.

Becca jumped and spotted Jimmy leaning against the side of the house for the first time. “I didn’t even see you there.”

“Clearly.” Jimmy chuckled, lifting a flask to his lips and taking a long sip.

Becca narrowed her eyes, picking her way through the piles of raw lumber to where he stood. She watched him lower the flask until it dangled loosely from his fingertips, almost like an extension of the rest of his arm.

No one should look that natural holding a flask.

Jimmy had always been a drinker, but after his younger brother—Luke’s father—had passed away in January, things had taken a turn for the worse. A few of the islanders had talked about confronting him, but so far he hadn’t done anything to hurt anyone besides himself.

Becca wasn’t crazy about the idea of waiting around for that to happen. She knew far too well the effects alcoholism could have if left unchecked. She held her hand out for the flask, intending to pour the contents onto the grass as soon as he gave it to her.

Jimmy grinned, slipping it into his back pocket. “Why don’t you join me at Rusty’s tonight? Let me buy you a real drink?”

“No, thanks.”

“Why not?” He pushed off the side of the house, looking her up and down suggestively. “You’re still single for three more weeks.”

Becca took in his red rimmed eyes, unshaven face and unwashed flannel shirt. Part of her wished she could say something to convince him to clean up his act, if not for himself, at least for his sister-in-law. Courtney and Luke both needed him right now. But she knew better than to have that conversation when he’d been drinking. “I’m engaged. That doesn’t exactly make me single.”

He took a step closer. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re still single until you walk down that aisle.”

Becca felt a prick of irritation. Jimmy had always been a flirt, but lately his advances had gotten more persistent. “It’s not going to happen, Jimmy.”

He reached up, picking a piece of Easter grass out of her hair. “I like it when you try to be stern.”

She caught the sharp stench of whiskey on his breath and took a step back, putting more distance between them. “I got your text message,” she said, changing the subject. “You mentioned something about a setback.”

He let the piece of plastic grass drop to the ground. “We found a crack in the foundation this morning. It’s going to push everything back a couple of weeks.”

“A couple of weeks?” Becca’s brows shot up. “That only leaves one week to finish the rest of the renovations before the wedding.”

Jimmy nodded.

Becca looked back down at the man on the dock. “I think I’ll walk down and see if I can do anything to help.”

“Suit yourself.” Jimmy pulled his flask back out of his pocket. “If you change your mind about tonight, you know where to find me.”

“I’m not going to change my mind.” She turned, bristling at the sound of his low laugh as it followed her across the yard. She didn’t like the thought of Luke staying at his uncle’s house when Jimmy was drinking this much. She knew what it was like to watch someone drink to the point of blacking out each night. She knew what it was like to try to help them stumbling and staggering into bed only to find them passed out on the floor the next morning, still cradling the bottle from the night before.