Second Chance With the Rebel: Her Royal Wedding Wish

by Cara Colter

  “I thought those days were a long way behind us,” she muttered. “Besides, you never participated in any of those things!”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I felt I didn’t fit in.”

  It was an admission of something real about him, and for the second time Lucy was startled. He had never once said anything like that when they were together. He had revealed more about himself in the last ten minutes than he had the whole time they were together.

  “That never showed,” she said. “You always seemed so supremely confident. Everybody thought you were so cool. Unafraid, somehow. Bold. If you wore a pair of jeans with a rip in the knee, half the school had ripped their jeans by the next week.”

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t have the right stuff—the clothes, the great bike, though I didn’t—it wasn’t that. It was that your crowd was all so damn normal. Two parents. Nice houses. A dog. Allowances. Born into expectations of how they would behave and what they would become. I felt excluded from that. Like I could never belong, only be a visitor.”

  “I hope I never made you feel like that.”

  “No, Lucy, you never did. In fact, for those few weeks—” He stopped.

  “For those few weeks what?” she breathed.

  But he rolled his shoulders, like a fighter shrugging off a blow. “Nothing.”

  And the veil was down over his eyes, and that was what she remembered most about him. Get close, but not too close.

  “You kind of bucked all those expectations of you, didn’t you, Lucy?”

  Oh, yeah. Because she had had one life before Mac and a completely different one after.

  “My life may not be what my father and mother expected, but I have a really good life. I love what I do.”

  “Mama keeps me posted.”

  She felt mortified, and he saw it and laughed.

  “Don’t worry, nothing juicy, just tidbits of news. I heard about your online bookstore, and according to Mama, you do very well at it, too.”

  “Ah, well,” Lucy said, wryly self-deprecating, “You know Mama. When she loves you, you can do no wrong.”

  “When did you two become so close? When I lived here there was always a kind of barrier, imposed by the doctor, between your family and her. You and Mama were polite to each other, and good neighbors, but you weren’t mowing her lawn or repairing her house.”

  Again, Lucy had to fight with a voice inside her that said, Wouldn’t it be nice to tell him?

  But she reminded herself, firmly, that that summer when she had loved him, she had given and given and given until she had not a secret left. And he had not divulged anything about himself. Laughing at her efforts to find out.

  I killed a man. With my bare hands.

  “I don’t remember the exact details,” she lied. But oh, she remembered them so clearly. Flying across that lawn in the dark, the emotional pain in her so great, she was unaware she had stepped on a sharp rock and her foot was bleeding.

  The door opening and Mama standing there.

  Liebling! What is it?

  “So, to get back to my original question, what do you do for fun?”

  “My work’s fun,” she said firmly.

  “I hope you’re joking.”

  She felt mutinous. “What do you do for fun?”

  “My work is fun. I developed a company that’s all about fun. I think the roots of Wild Side started right here.”

  “So, your work is what you do for fun, too.”

  “Touché,” he said. “But I do love the white-water kayaking. It is so physical and requires such intense concentration. It makes me feel more alive than just about anything I’ve ever done.”

  But a sudden memory flashed through his eyes and it was as if she could see it, too: lying in the sand beside him, the moonlight bathing them, never having ever felt quite so alive as that before.

  Or since.

  “I guess that’s what I’m asking, Lucy. What makes you feel like that?”

  “Like what?’ she stammered.

  “The way I feel when I am in a kayak. Alive. Totally engaged. Intensely in the moment. What makes you feel like that?”

  If she said nothing, he would think she was a total loser. And in fact there was something that made her feel exactly like that.

  “I have something,” she said reluctantly. And she did. “It makes me feel alive, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t call it fun.”

  “Try me.”

  “Not today.” To tell him would just make her feel way too vulnerable.

  “Drink the schnapps and I’ll ask again.”

  She marched into her kitchen, got down a shot glass, filled it from Mama’s bottle and went back out. She slammed the liquid back. She blinked hard.

  “Okay,” he said. “What do you do for fun, Lucy Lin?”

  “You already figured it out,” she said, “I work. Now, shoo. Because I have a lot of that to do today.”

  Shoo. She wished she had worded that differently. He looked way too closely at her. He was too close to striking a nerve.

  He turned to go. “I’ll be back.”

  “I was afraid you would say that,” she muttered as she watched him go. Even though she ordered herself not to, even though she knew she shouldn’t, Lucy went and watched him cross the yards back to Mama’s house.

  He was whistling and the melody drifted in her open door, mingled with the scent of the trees, and tingled along her spine.

  Rebel. It was a warning if she had ever heard one, and yet Lucy was aware that she felt alive in ways she had not for a long, long time.

  * * *

  Mac went back across the lawns, pensive. Something was so different about Lucy. What had changed in her?

  He got the sense that maybe she had become an outcast from the Lindstrom Beach crowd, which was the most surprising thing of all.

  As surprising as her mowing lawns and trying to fix floorboards and renting canoes.

  Her new aloneness in this community, was it her choice or theirs?

  What mattered, really, was that Lucy was shouldering all that responsibility for Mama and he had let her. She seemed alone, and she seemed just a little too grim about life.

  Somewhere in her was a woman who wanted to paint her house purple, and probably wasn’t going to.

  Without an intervention. He was going to be the man Mama expected him to be.

  Before he left here, he was going to help Lucy have some fun.

  * * *

  Lucy actually felt light-headed.

  It was the schnapps, she told herself, not Mac Hudson crash-landing in her world. She went back upstairs and looked at herself critically in her bedroom’s full-length mirror. First soaking wet, now in her housecoat! These were not the impressions she had intended!

  She had intended to look sophisticated and coolly professional. Even if she did have a job where she could work in her pajamas if she wanted to.

  Lucy found herself dressing for the potential of another meeting with him, and then made herself get to work. First, she turned on her computer and reviewed orders that had come in overnight. There were also a dozen more RSVPs for the Mother’s Day Gala, three of them from girls she had gone to high school with, saying “will NOT be able to attend.”

  She felt something sag within her, and told herself it was not disappointment. It was pragmatic: the people refusing to come were the ones who could make the best donations to her cause.

  But, of course, her cause was at odds with their vision for life around the lake.

  Lucy forced herself to think of something else. She went into a spare room that had become the book room, retrieved the book orders and began to package them.

  Later, she would review her re
zoning proposal for Caleb’s House, the documents lying out on her dining room table where she hadn’t wanted Mac to see them.

  As the day warmed, Lucy moved out onto her deck to work, as she often did. She told herself it was a beautiful day, but was annoyed at herself for sneaking peeks at Mama’s house.

  She could hear enormous activity—saws and hammers—but she didn’t see Mac.

  She wanted to go see what he was doing over there, but pride made her stay at home.

  When she had finally succeeded in putting him out of her mind, the radio was on and she heard the ad about the donation of the Wild Side clothing in thanks for the donation of the yacht club for the Mother’s Day Gala.

  Within an hour she had been phoned by several representatives of the yacht club—notably not Claudia—falling all over themselves to make sure she knew she was most welcome to the space for the Mother’s Day Gala, and that the regular charge had been waived.

  Now, as evening fell, Lucy was once again cozy in her pajamas, trying to concentrate on a movie. She found herself resentful that he was next door. She and Mama often watched a movie or a television show together in the evenings.

  She hated it that she felt lonely. She hated it that she was suddenly looking at her life differently.

  When had she allowed herself to become so boring? Her phone rang.

  “Hello, Lucy.”

  “Mac,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to call and thank you. The yacht club has confirmed.”

  He snickered. So did she.

  “You didn’t tell me Mama’s car isn’t even insured.”

  “Why would she insure a car she can’t drive?”

  “I took it to town three times for building materials before she remembered to tell me, ever so casually, that the insurance had lapsed. I could have been arrested!”

  From loneliness to this: laughter bubbling up inside her.

  “Anyway, Mama would like to see a movie tonight. Can you drive me to town so I can get one for her?”

  “You’re welcome to borrow my car anytime you need one.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, thanks, but Mama says I’m not allowed to pick a movie without you there. She says I’ll bring home something awful. A man movie, she called it. You know. Lots of action. Blood. Swearing.”

  “Yuck.”

  “Just what Mama said. On the other hand, if we send you to get a movie without me, it’ll probably be a two-hanky special, heavy on the violin music.”

  “Why don’t you and Mama go get the movie?”

  “She’s making apfelstrudel.” He sighed happily. “She says it’s at the delicate stage. It’ll be ready by the time we bring the movie back. She says you have to come have some.”

  It was one of Mama’s orders. Unlike an invitation, you could not say no. As if anyone could say no to Mama’s strudel, anyway. Still, it was not as if Lucy was agreeing to spend time with him. Or plotting to spend time with him. It was just happening.

  “She hasn’t stopped cooking since you got there, has she?”

  “No, because I also made a grocery run before I found out I was driving illegally. She made schnitzel for supper,” he said happily. “You know something? Mama’s schnitzel would be worth risking arrest for. She’s already started a new grocery list. Would you mind if we picked up a few things while we’re in for the movie?”

  Lucy did mind. She minded terribly that she had been feeling sorry for herself and lonely, and that now she wasn’t. That life suddenly seemed to tingle with possibility.

  From going for a movie and to the grocery store.

  Her life had become too boring.

  Of course, she wasn’t kidding herself. The tingle of possibility had nothing to do with the movie or groceries.

  Sternly, Lucy reminded herself she was not a teenager anymore. Back then, being around Mac had seemed like pure magic. But she’d been innocent. As he had pointed out earlier, she had believed in fairy tales. She’d been a hopeless romantic and a dreamer and an optimist.

  It would be good to see how Mac fared with her adult self! It would be good to do a few ordinary things with him. Certainly that would knock him down off the pedestal she had put him on when she was nothing more than a kid. It would be good to see how her adult self fared around Mac.

  It was like a test of all her new intentions, and Lucy planned on passing it!

  “Meet me in the driveway,” she said. “In ten minutes.”

  Did she take extra care in choosing what to wear? Of course she did. It was only human that while she wanted to break her fascination with Mac, it would be entirely satisfying to see his with her increase.

  She wanted to be the one in the power position for a change.

  If she looked at her life that was the whole problem. She had always given away too much power to others. Fallen all over herself trying to win approval.

  If she had a fatal flaw, it was that she had mistaken approval for love.

  “You know,” Mac said, a few minutes later, “they say that people’s choice of cars says a lot about them.”

  Lucy looked at her car, a six-year-old compact in an almost indistinguishable color of gray.

  She frowned. The car was almost a perfect reflection of the life she seemed to be newly reassessing. “It’s reliable,” she said defensively.

  “I can cross driving off the list of things you do for fun.”

  “What do you drive?”

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “I’m guessing something sporty that guzzles up more than your fair share of the world’s resources!”

  “You’d be guessing right, then. I have two vehicles. One a sports car and the other an SUV great for hauling equipment around.”

  “Both bright red?” she asked, not approvingly.

  “Of course. One’s a convertible. You’d like it.”

  “Flashy,” she said.

  “I don’t enjoy being flashy,” he said without an ounce of sincerity. “I just want to find my vehicle in the parking lot. It’s crowded in the big city.”

  They got in the car. She did not offer to let him drive. It wasn’t that her car would be a disappointment after what he was accustomed to. It was that she was not letting him take charge. It was a small thing, but she hoped that it said something about her, too.

  “I’m glad you came with me,” he said after her disapproving silence about his flashy car lengthened between them.

  Something in her softened. What was the point of being annoyed at him? He wanted to be with her. She ordered her heart to stop. She glanced at him, and he was frowning at the list.

  “I didn’t want to have to ask a clerk where to find this.” He held the list under her nose.

  “Hey! I’m trying to drive.”

  It was a good reminder that the point of being annoyed with him was to protect herself.

  “It’s after seven. There’s no traffic on this road.” Still he withdrew the list. “C-u-m-i-n.”

  “Cumin?”

  “I wouldn’t have pronounced it like that. What is it, anyway?

  “A spice.”

  He rapped himself on the forehead. “See? I thought it had something to do with feminine hygiene.”

  “Mac. You’re incorrigible! What an awful thing to say!”

  “Why are you smiling then?”

  “My teeth are gritted. Do not mistake that for a smile! I do not find off-color remarks funny.”

  “Now you sound like you’ve been at finishing school with Miss Claudia. Don’t take life so seriously, Lucy. It’s over in a blink.”

  That was twice as annoying because she had said almost the very same thing to herself earlier. Lucy simmered in silence.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “SAME OLD PLACE,” Mac
said, as they entered the town on Lakeshore Drive, wound around the edge of the lake, through a fringe of stately Victorian houses, and then passed under the wooden arch that pronounced it Main Street.

  Lucy’s house was two miles—and a world—away from downtown Lindstrom Beach. Main Street had businesses on one side, quaint shops that sold antiques and ice cream and rented bicycles and mopeds. Bright planters, overflowing with petunias, hung from old-fashioned light standards.

  On the other side of the street mature cottonwoods formed a boundary to the park. Picnic tables underneath them provided a shaded sitting area in the acres of white-sand beach that went to the water’s edge.

  “Charming,” she insisted.

  “Sleepy,” he said. “No. Make that exhausted.”

  The shops would be open evenings in the peak of the summer season, but now they were closed, their bright awnings rolled up, outdoor tables and chairs put away against the buildings. There were two teenagers sitting at one of the picnic tables. She was pretty sure they were both wearing Wild Side shirts.

  They left downtown and the main road bisected a residential area. Lucy Lindstrom loved her little town, founded by her grandfather. This part of it had wide tree-shaded boulevards, a mix of year-round houses and enchanting summer cottages.

  Under the canopy of huge trees, in the dying light, kids had set up nets and were playing street hockey. They heard the cry of “car!” as the kids raced to get their nets out of the way.

  “I bet you don’t see that in the big city.”

  “See?” he said. “You still believe in the fairy tale.”

  “I don’t really think it’s so much a fairy tale,” she said, a trifle defensively. “This town, my house, the lake, they give me a sense of sanctuary. Of safety. Of the things that don’t change.”

  In a few weeks, as spring melted into summer, the lake would come alive. Main Street Beach, which Lucy could see from her dock, would be spotted with bright umbrellas, generations enjoying it together.

  There would be plump babies in sun hats filling buckets with sand, mothers slathering sunscreen on their offspring and passing out sandy potato chips and drinks, grandmothers and grandfathers snoozing in the shade or lazily turning the pages of books.