Lemonade & Loathing

by Beth Byers

  Simon considered and then said, “I’d take you back if you cheated on me.”

  I leaned back, shocked. I didn’t see how he could say that so simply. “I’d never, ever cheat.”

  “I know.”

  “But really? Without even thinking or hearing my apology, you already think you’d ‘take me back’?”

  Simon nodded. “You’re not getting away from me, Rose. I waited a long time to get married because I wanted a forever love. I won’t let you get away from me. I’d drag you to therapy and we’d work it out instead.”

  “That sounds creepy. I won’t let you get away from me. It sounds like something your stalker says before he cuts of your hair to wear around his wrist and locks you in the basement.”

  Simon laughed and I wound my fingers through his. “If you cheat on me, I will adopt three more dogs. So don’t do it. I will take us straight up to double digits in the dogs and never let it fall below that.”

  “I would never,” he said, and I grinned at him, because I was absolutely sure he wouldn’t. He was everything to me. The strangest thing was that I was everything to him as well. It felt foreign to mean so much to someone who wasn’t my mom. Especially since my dad was long since gone and my grandparents had never been close. Before Simon, I had never been in love. In fact, I’d long since given up on expecting—or even hoping—to be in love.

  He was an endless surprise. He breathed me in too. Like he couldn’t get enough. Or I’d wake in the middle of the night and find him clutching me as if he were afraid I wouldn’t be there when he woke. I was a simple person. I liked to play with flavors, eat waffles, find out what made people tick, and snuggle my dogs. Why would anyone find something precious in someone as normal as me? Somehow he did.

  Sometimes, I wondered if it was the sheer fact that he loved me that made me appreciate him. That he found something in me worth cherishing? Not that he wasn’t worth cherishing back, but I had to admire his taste. The thought made me smirk at him, and he kissed my fingers before he said, “We should wrap more things in bacon.”

  “Not until after the honeymoon,” I said. “I’m a bit worried about the dress fitting.”

  “Then buy another,” he said simply. “You’re perfect.”

  “You’re blind,” I countered, “And getting your dress altered is no joke, Simon my love. If I want a wedding dress, it needs to be that one.”

  * * * * *

  The next day dawned bright and beautiful, and I leaned back against the headrest as Simon drove around the curves of Highway 101 towards the Silver Tides Club and Spa. It was the newest venue on the coast with an all-inclusive resort and golf course. A little out of the place, in my opinion, for the Oregon Coast. That type of thing seemed to be a better fit for Maui or Cancun whereas a family lodge seemed to work better for our part of the world, but they had open dates for weddings and were throwing a big event for the day showcasing not just their wedding options and menu but a bunch of the local wedding vendors would be there.

  “We could get married in that church on the bluff,” Simon said, “Have the reception here, and then jet off on our honeymoon.”

  “But won’t we really need to drive to Portland in order to jet off? I think we’d need to get a place here for the night, drive to Portland, and then jet off too…” I trailed off with my brows high trying to get him to mention where we were going.

  Simon grinned at me, taking my hand as he said, “I’m not falling for that. I promise sand and sun. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Will I need my passport?”

  “If you do, it’ll be in my bag.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him and turned back to the window. It was lovely here. The rolling hills of the golf course weren’t all that surprising to me. They were all the same, but the trees lining the drive to the resort were striking. They were too perfectly placed to be natural, but so large they must have been transplanted. I couldn’t help but wonder what this place had spent on those trees alone. Whatever it was, I’d heard a membership was crazy expensive. Probably because of the trees and other similar extravagances.

  “I heard from Carver that he and Zee came over for breakfast the other day.”

  I raised my brows surprised that Zee had gone anywhere for breakfast. I knew she got sick of breakfast food and her best version of ‘breakfast’ on her days off was sleeping through it and waking up for lunch.

  “He said their waffles aren’t as good, but they have a buffet which he liked. Zee only ate the weird fruit, a bowl of yogurt and then complained about the mimosas being too heavy on orange juice.”

  Now that, I thought, sounded like my friend.

  “But, Zee said that you would like the garden option for the reception and that you should check it out.”

  The whole reason we were coming here instead of just using the church was because of rain. Planning a garden reception sounded stupid given that we were getting married in the spring. Western Oregon had the monopoly on endless rain during the spring and I reminded him of that.

  “I guess they put up tents. But they’re really good, so you don’t have to worry about leaks. And they have heaters, in case it gets too cold. Inside it would be all lit up with strings of lights, but Zee said you’d like it because you could smell the rain the whole time.”

  “Oh.” Well yeah. That did sound good. “I do love the sound and smell of rain,” I admitted. “What I want to know is whether this wedding Lothario will be here and if we can figure out who he is. I want to see his face. Maybe talk to him and see what the big deal is.”

  Simon glanced at me before turning back to the road. His face was just quizzical enough that he’d caught my tone. I obviously wasn’t interested in this guy as a potential love interest, but I was interested in seeing a guy who could persuade a girl who clearly loved her fiancé into a hot kiss. Was he irresistible? Magical? Was the bride just stressed? How had that happened?

  Joy at the cake place had spent the afternoon offering us weird flavors of cake, taking our order, and sharing story after story of this guy. Danny Harvey. I needed to see him, my curiosity was rankling in a way that demanded I hunt him up. This was, I realized, what made me get involved in so many of Simon’s investigations. Curiosity that couldn’t be contained.

  “Why?”

  “I’m sooooo curious,” I said, grinning at him. “What if he knocks my socks off? I need to see what that feels like.”

  “You should be the crazy cat lady instead of Zee,” Simon said wryly.

  He parked our car by a fountain and we both paused to admire the greek-style statue pouring water from vases. The statue was white with carved abs and biceps that would have stopped any woman even before you saw he was naked with strategically placed vases. I wasn’t sure I bought the idea of this young adonis carrying vases of water. It felt like this should be a half-dressed female statue instead of this man, but I suppose this was why they were imitations. I doubted any ancient Greek artist would have carved a warrior carrying in the water supply. Let alone spilling it into the fountain.

  “Zee is as curious as I am,” I told him. “She ordered me to find him and send her a picture. And don’t think she isn’t asking those shrews she knits with about him.”

  Simon tangled our fingers together as we followed white balloons to a reception hall set up with tables from wedding vendors. So far all we’d done was get our cake and my dress. I wanted lots of roses and to have to set back and pay someone to do all the work.

  “Joy said his name is Danny Harvey,” I told Simon, refusing to make eye contact with a woman who had terrible flower displays.

  “Who is Joy?” He asked indulgently. He tugged me close to him and kissed the side of my forehead.

  “The cake girl. But I see her. We need to go that way.”

  “You already bought cake,” he said, but he let me tug him behind me.

  “They have samples,” I told him, knowing he didn’t want one. He might have been interested in that person holding a
tray of bacon wrapped asparagus, but I needed Joy first. I let Simon go as I cornered the girl.

  “Hi,” she said, glancing at her boss and widening her eyes. She clearly did not want me to ask her what she knew I was going to.

  “Where?”

  She shot me a pleading glance. But nope, Joy shouldn’t have gossiped with me all afternoon, spiking my curiosity. Now she had to deal with it. I raised both of my brows. She didn’t need to be my friend to read the threat in my gaze. She jerked her head to the side and then said brightly, “Perhaps you should see Harvey over at Harvey’s music. They offer a good DJ package. I know the resort offers music services, or you can bring in your own.”

  I grinned and then brightly and a little too loud, “Thanks for the recommendation. You were so helpful yesterday with my cake. I’m sure it’ll be amazing.”

  “Oh,” her boss said, “Are you the one who ordered dog cupcakes too?”

  “Yup,” I said brightly as Simon laughed at me.

  “And you ordered the pink lemonade cake? The pink champagne? And the rose?”

  “That’s me,” I said, loving Simon’s wince from the cake description.

  “You’re going to make me eat those aren’t you?”

  I nodded happily.

  “Interesting,” he said carefully, but he re-tangled our fingers and didn’t even ask as we headed towards Harvey’s Music display.

  In fact, he smiled and said, “We’ve heard good things about Danny. Are you him?”

  The man who was sitting behind the table was clearly not the lothario. He had to be at least as old as my mom, had quite the beer belly, and laughing eyes. His wedding ring was on his finger as though he’d never take it off.

  “I’m Harvey,” The man grinned. “Danny is my nephew. That boy is pretty good, but this is my business. I can help you.”

  Simon talked music with Harvey while I looked around for Danny. Finally I said, “Is Danny here, though?”

  Harvey shot me an irritated look, but he said, “He’s around here somewhere. He works for a few of us in different capacities. Everyone’s handyman and not much of an expert. I think he might have been helping Flora with a display?”

  I nodded brightly and then glanced around. We had an appointment for a tour in twenty minutes and wouldn’t be hiring anyone until after I talked to the resort. I wanted to see if the place would work. If they seemed good, I was going to dump it all on them and run away laughing.

  Wedding aside, however, I wouldn’t be able to face Zee in the morning without a picture of Danny Harvey. We were gonna need some coffee, waffles, and a dissection of his attractiveness before either of us would be satisfied with the mystery of the wedding planning Lothario.

  “Keep your lady away from my nephew,” I heard Harvey say under his breath to Simon. I wasn’t supposed to have heard him, but I had pretty good hearing and I suspected he’d spoken a little louder than he would have if he weren’t irritated with me for blowing him off in favor of Danny.

  “Thanks man,” Simon said lowly. “I’m not too worried about her.”

  “You should be,” Harvey said flatly while I pretended not to hear him.

  “You don’t know Rose,” Simon said simply.

  Harvey grunted and shot back, “You don’t know Danny.”

  Simon knew me well enough to say we’d be back after we had our resort tour and then using his height found the table for Flora’s Flowers. I winced for Flora over her choice of business names.

  Before I could demand to see Danny, my phone rang and it was work. I sighed and stepped aside while Simon talked to Flora. The girl who ran the dog shelter was pretty good, but she needed a little more hand holding than I would have wanted. Zee promised me the girl would be fine in six months. I hoped so. I wasn’t answering the phone on my honeymoon. But, Shane was calling less and less and the shelter continued to do really well caring for our dogs. We’d even added three birds and a rabbit in the last month, though we’d already re-homed two of the birds.

  The last was a full grown and psycho cockatoo, and I was going to have to be pretty creative in getting rid of him. I had an idea I was working on, but I would need Zee to execute it. It would be vengeance and a safe place for the bird at the same time.

  This call was about a pet skunk that someone wanted to surrender. I hadn’t realized that was a thing, but I told Shane to take the skunk as soon as she told me she was pretty sure they’d just leave it outside the shelter if she didn’t. They’d muttered about it just loud enough to make sure she knew their plan.

  “You can’t have the skunk,” Simon said as he tugged us away from Flora and towards our appointment. We’d have to hunt down Danny afterwards, but I was going to be triumphant.

  The tour started in the garden area per Simon’s request, and they’d set up the area with one of their tents while showcasing the other half of the area without a tent. Our wedding was scheduled for March, so we could spend three weeks in our undisclosed tropical location before we had to head back to Silver Falls. The chances of rain were pretty high and even today, it was gray outside. The tent with the heaters, the strands of swooping lights, and the plethora of flowers was shockingly beautiful.

  “Yes,” I said to our guide, Christie, before she’d even finished explaining the amenities.

  “Agreed,” Simon said. “Can we be done?”

  “Did you want to see the other options?”

  “No,” I shook my head, glancing at Simon who shrugged and said, “Whatever you want Rose.”

  “I…” Christie glanced at us and then said, “Usually people aren’t so decisive. But maybe you’d like to see the part of our gardens with the fountain feature? We can set up there as well. In March the roses won’t be blooming, so the fountains and the maze might be more to your liking.”

  I glanced at Simon who nodded, and we followed Christie through the gardens. They were new and lovely and by late spring, they’d be gorgeous.

  We worked our way through garden paths where you could barely see the golf course or resort. They’d kept a lot of the natural pine trees and thick ferny undergrowth while taming it enough to make it seem intentional. The winding path led through trails that could have been a forest hike before bursting out into the pristine culture of what would be a perfect English garden. Before us was a half-grown maze. I paused, taking in the scene and imagining the pictures for my wedding.

  “I want pictures here regardless of where we setup,” I told Christie.

  She nodded and said, “Of course. If we reserve this area for you too, however, it will add to the cost of the wedding, it would be more economical to select your setup where you’d like to have your pictures done, or there may be another event in the way of your picture plans.”

  I glanced at Simon and he said, “Let’s walk through the maze. We can see the features and make sure this is better than the rose area.”

  It wasn’t hard to find our way through the maze given that it was only about half-grown. We told Christie to let us figure it out, so she trailed behind us, explaining that they’d planned to wind lights through the trees throughout the resort. If we did an evening reception, there would be strands of lights and candles turning the grounds into a fairyland. I closed my eyes to imagine it, and then spun slowly trying to picture the maze full grown, at night, and with strings of lights.

  It was then that I saw it. Them.

  At the center of the maze, near where we were standing was another fountain with a greek-style statue. This one was truer to what I thought it should be with the goddess Artemis and two deer were being showered by sprays of a fountain. That, however, wasn’t what caught my attention. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, wondering—hoping really—that what I was seeing was a trick of the light. But the shoes that were hanging out of the fountain didn’t go away when I rubbed my eyes.

  I grabbed Simon’s arm, fingers digging in as I realized that the shoes were attached to legs. And the legs were attached to a body inside the water. And that body
wasn’t moving.

  “Rose?”

  I choked. I could feel him shift under me, but my own gaze was fixed on the fountain.

  “Rose?”

  “Simon,” I said and turned to look at him.

  My tone caught his attention and his smile faded. He looked my way and became even more concerned. Was my face to white? Maybe I looked sick? My face and ears felt hot. My neck felt like it was burning, and my breath was definitely jerking in my chest. But maybe he just knew me well enough to know I’d seen something horrible.

  “Not again,” I said and then choked on my own spit ending up in a coughing fit reminiscent of just after the fire.

  “Rose, honey,” Simon said, grabbing me. I fought and failed to catch my breath, finally I just grabbed his face, coughing into it, before I turned him towards the fountain, pointing with a jerking finger.

  Simon saw it in an instant and didn’t fight the vision like I had. Instead, he cursed and let me go.

  “Stay here,” he ordered.

  I couldn’t nod, I saw coughing too hard. Finally Christie realized something was wrong. I could see her head jerk around as she looked for what we’d seen. A moment later, she screamed and fainted.

  Chapter 3

  “Would you like to guess or shall I just come out with it?” I asked. I was seated on a stone bench as I watched Simon pace around the water fountain. He’d pulled the body from it, but Simon hadn’t bothered with life saving procedures beyond checking for a pulse. I assumed, based upon that, that the body was well and truly, unmistakably beyond saving.

  “Is he ridiculously hot? Did you attack him right in front of Simon with big slobbery kisses? Tell me you did and tell me that Simon fought him off of you.”

  I took in a deep breath and met Simon’s gaze from across the garden. He noted the phone in my hand and the look he gave me told me he was displeased. He didn’t need to guess who I was talking to, it was obvious that I had called Zee. I tried for a pleasant smile, but it didn’t fade his disapproval. I went with a cheeky grin, and I was pretty sure that he turned away to prevent himself from grinning back.