And now Bruce Cole hadn’t bothered to show.
Natalie swallowed her disappointment, staring down at her hands and purposely avoiding looking at the vacant space opposite her where he should have been standing.
She wasn’t sure what was going on, but something was very wrong. More than once before the ceremony she’d seen Maureen huddled with her mother and her sisters-in-law, whispering.
One of the rose petals was coming loose from Natalie’s bouquet, and she absently tucked it back in. No one else knew it, but Natalie had built up Bruce’s arrival as a pie-in-the-sky fantasy in which he would see her, instantly be sent back to that long-ago night they had confided in one another, and only this time, with her newfound courage and the shyness she had overcome, Natalie could initiate...something...with him.
Wrong again. And the sooner she shook off her unrealistic expectations, the better she would feel.
For a while she had also fantasized that she and Maureen would become fast friends since their meeting last month in the chapel. That wasn’t happening the way she’d hoped, either. Yes, Natalie had been politely invited to the wedding shower, to the rehearsal dinner and even to this morning’s hairdressing session, but it was clear the Coles were a tight-knit clan that didn’t trust Natalie at all.
Or maybe she wasn’t hearing them well enough to know what was going on.
Natalie sighed. One thing she did know for a fact—intelligence gained from her father this morning, unfortunately—was that Maureen had closed on the old Gale place, a National Historic Register home originally built in 1810. Sold to wealthy out-of-towners, Bostonians moving north to take advantage of New Hampshire’s lack of state income tax. Which was fine. Except for the fact Maureen had taken her business to her usual out-of-town lawyer, instead of to Asa Kimball.
Who, as a result, was not happy with Natalie.
True, the closing fees weren’t a lot of money. But the fees added up. And Maureen’s business, added up, would go a long way toward giving Natalie’s father the confidence that he could leave the business safely in her hands, rather than selling out to a stranger.
Loud organ music burst forth from the choir loft. The bride’s processional was beginning, and Maureen appeared at the end of the aisle, looking beautiful and composed as she held her father’s arm. The guests, about seventy-five in number, rose to their feet with a collective sigh.
Natalie pasted a smile on her face. As much as her instincts told her to run away—to cut out early—she needed to stick it out.
* * *
BRUCE WAS IN NO MOOD to walk down memory lane. Sitting for two hours in Route 95 traffic tended to do that to a guy.
He parked the Mercedes at a lot a few blocks from the beach then cut through the laneway behind a nightclub. The music spilled into the open air, a song from twenty years ago when he’d been a kid. It reminded him of summer campouts and days spent with his buddies in the neighborhood. It made him feel old and nostalgic and depressed. Those had been good days, and they were gone. Good friends who he hadn’t spoken to in years. Most of them he didn’t even know where they’d ended up.
Hell. If he was going to survive this visit, then he needed to stop thinking like that. His lifestyle had served him well for fifteen years since he’d left town. So he yanked open the door to the hotel where all the trouble had started, and marched inside as if it didn’t matter. He quickly checked his computer and his suitcase with the bellhop in the corner—a habit he’d adopted because valuables were generally safer when he tipped someone to watch them rather than leaving them alone in a car in a public parking area—and then shook out the tuxedo jacket he carried and shrugged it over his shoulders, where it weighed heavily.
The reality was, he was so late that for all practical purposes, he had missed his sister’s wedding. His first responsibility was to find Maureen and smooth things over with her.
He passed behind a brass luggage cart and glanced through the lobby windows to the crowded boulevard outside. Darkness was falling. Tourists were wandering past, dressed in flip-flops and shorts. In all these years, not a thing about Wallis Point had changed. This beach town was small, provincial and predictable—and it made him feel trapped. He loosened his tie. He couldn’t wait to get out of here.
As luck would have it, Maureen was standing alone, in the hallway before the ballroom. When he saw her, he felt himself smile. His sister broke into a grin and ran to meet him.
“Hey, Moe,” he whispered, once he had her in a bear hug.
“You’re late and I hate you,” she whispered back, “but at least you came.”
“I’m sorry, I got held up.”
She pushed back and looked at him. “Don’t think I don’t know how hard it is for you to be here.”
“I’m fine.” He didn’t want to talk about his self-imposed exile with her, especially today. “This is your wedding, don’t let me ruin it for you.”
He dug in his pocket. His sister liked pretty things, and he’d done his best to find her a copy of the earrings she’d been admiring in a jewelry store window last Thanksgiving, when the family had come down for their yearly party at his house in Florida. He pressed the box into her palm.
Her eyes widened as she opened it. “Bruce, these are sapphires.”
“Yeah, something blue,” he said.
She stood a long time, clutching the box and blinking at him. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her skin was pale.
His antennae went up. “Where’s Jimmy? Is everything okay with you two?”
A big, sloppy smile crossed Maureen’s face, which was great to see, because Maureen usually looked hard and focused. She’d built a solid career for herself and her daughter, and he was proud of her.
“Come on,” she said, tugging on his arm, “I’ll take you to see him.”
“Wait.” He pulled out an envelope from inside his jacket pocket. He’d stuffed some cash inside. He wouldn’t do anything so tacky at any other wedding, but this was Maureen, and he knew the importance she placed on security. “This is for you. It’s spending money for your honeymoon.”
“Excellent,” Maureen said, and tucked the money inside her bra.
He relaxed. That was the Maureen he knew.
“And now...” She poked him in the chest. “I want you to stop skulking around out here. Go into the ballroom and spend time with the family. Nina has gotten so big lately. She’s been asking about her uncle and she’s been looking forward to her trip to Disney World.” Maureen put her hand to her mouth.
“What’s wrong?”
But Maureen shook her head, blinking rapidly, as if she was upset about something. Before Bruce could question her further, Jimmy came over and put his arm around her shoulders. Jimmy was small and slight, shorter than Maureen. Where Maureen could be fierce and strong-willed, Jimmy was steady and calm. He ran his own independent home-computer consulting business, so in a sense, he and Bruce were in the same industry.
“We need to get inside for the cake cutting,” Jimmy said to Maureen.
“Right,” Bruce said. “You two go on. I’ll join you in a bit.”
“Where are you going?” Maureen asked.
“Ah...” Now that he was here, the best he felt he could do was to disappear into the woodwork and observe the festivities from afar. And there was only one other guy he knew who would be happy joining him there.
“I’m looking for Gramps,” he said to Maureen.
Her mouth tightened. “He’s not here.”
But that didn’t make any sense. Maureen and Bruce had lived with Gramps and Nana during Bruce’s last two years of high school, when their parents had been in Florida on a long-term job assignment. Nana had passed on a year ago, but there was no way Gramps would miss Maureen’s wedding. “Why isn’t he here? Is he sick?”
Maureen sucked in her breath and stared at him. “He’s fine,” she snapped. “He just couldn’t make it.” She had a set to her chin that Bruce didn’t like. He didn’t like at all. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Later he was leaving. Later he had a flight to catch.
“Fine,” he said.
He’d call Gramps and get the whole story when he had the time. Which right now, he did not.
Because he needed to get out of here. He needed to separate from these people and this life he wasn’t a part of anymore. He needed to be free.
But this was Maureen’s wedding day, so he gave her and Jimmy a lazy smile instead. “Sure. We’ll talk later.”