Forever by the Sea

by Traci Hall

  “I can’t even imagine what that card would look like,” she said with an apprehensive giggle. “Definitely not a Hallmark.”

  He slipped his hand over hers and squeezed. “I’ll call Collette.” His sister ran a local marketing firm, specializing in selling things on the beach. Nobody could make up a slogan or jingle faster than Collette.

  As if on cue, his cellphone rang and he dragged it from his front shorts’ pocket. “Collette!”

  “Welcome home. How was the cruise?”

  “Amazing. How the hell did all of these gifts end up in our living room?”

  “Back off, baby brother. It took an extra six pack of Guinness to get the cousins to load all of that and stack it in your house. I told you I’d take care of it, remember?”

  “I had no idea there would be so many gifts. Sinead thinks we need to send them back.”

  “What?” Collette squeaked. “No way. You guys are still getting married, right? I mean, you didn’t toss her overboard did you?”

  “She does realize that I can hear her, right?” Sinead glared at his phone.

  “She’s being loud and obnoxious on purpose,” he assured Sinead. To Collette he said, “We are still getting married.”

  “I am not being obnoxious.” Collette huffed. “I was teasing. Actually, I kind of hoped you’d have the ship’s captain do it for you while you were in the Bahamas. That’s what I would have done, anyway.”

  “And miss sharing our vows with the most important people in our lives?”

  “Oh my God,” his sister said. “You seriously plan on doing the whole thing again.”

  “You are so not the romantic of the family.” Christian shook his head at Sinead who smiled with understanding. Collette was pragmatic to the degree that her dating life never made it beyond three times. She could tell, she said, that it wasn’t going anywhere by then. She created magic for others without really believing in it.

  “Are you?” Collette demanded.

  “Yes.” Christian turned his back on the tower of gifts.

  “When?”

  “We haven’t decided. It’s on our to-do list.”

  Collette groaned. “Well, all of the out-of-towners have gone.”

  “We have to wait until the bruising goes away for pictures.”

  “That bad, huh?” He could almost hear the wheels of Collette’s mind churning. “Spring is nice. New beginnings. Grab a calendar and avoid Easter and Passover.” She sighed. “Never mind, I’m coming over. You two are crazy.”

  Collette ended the call and Christian looked at Sinead with a helpless smile. “Better call Fianna,” he said. “She’ll be pissed if she thinks we’re doing this without her.”

  Every Wednesday for the past year the three women had gotten together to strategize for the wedding. And while his sister was a marketing genius, Fianna’s charm made her the highest earning insurance salesperson in her office.

  Sinead pulled her phone from her small black purse. “I’m on it. Will you bring in the suitcases so I can toss our things into the wash?” They’d dropped off the wedding dress at the cleaners on the way back from the cruise, but the fabric was so delicate that the chances of it being saved were very, very slim.

  “I don’t want that memory, anyway,” she’d said as she wiped tears from her eyes. “I’ll choose something else if we decide to have another go around. There was a Vera Wang I liked.”

  He’d nodded as she rallied. He didn’t care about the cost—Christian just wanted her to be happy. Sinead wandered down the hall to their bedroom, her phone to her ear.

  He flipped on the lights in the kitchen on his way to the garage. Getting their things from the car didn’t take long and Sinead was off the phone when he met her in the laundry room. “What did Fianna say?” he asked.

  “She’s grabbing a rotisserie chicken and some salad and she’ll be on her way.”

  “Beer?”

  “Already in the fridge, I checked.”

  It would take a lot of beer, he knew, hammering out the next step.

  “Do we have a game plan, or should we let them go for it?” Sinead asked, dumping their jeans and socks and his underwear into the washer. Her lingerie went into a special bag and he’d learned years ago to Not Touch It.

  “I just want to marry you,” he said.

  She flipped the knob on the washer and turned to him, stepping up on tip-toe to kiss him. “I want that too. But this time, you take the lead in the decisions. I feel like I let you down.”

  “You did not let me down.” He pulled her close, lifted her up and sat her on top of the dryer so that her legs dangled and they were nose to nose. “You could never do that. We want the same things. Marriage, seven kids and a corn field.”

  Laughing, she put her arms around him and hugged him tight. She gave amazing hugs, her embrace filled with love. “Slow down. I’m still in recovery mode.”

  “I want this wedding to be just as special,” he insisted. “I don’t want to feel like this is less important the second try.” He held her gaze. “It’s important to me.”

  “All right.” She nodded, brushing his hair back over his ear. “All right. We had a trial run but this will be the main event.”

  “I like that.”

  And because Sinead was the kind of woman who kept her word, Christian knew that she would put her heart into it.

  Collette and Fianna arrived at the same time, Fianna carrying food while Collette juggled notepads and notebooks from the previous wedding plans.

  “I almost tossed these from our Wednesday lunches,” Collette said. “Something made me hang on to them.”

  Their home was a single story with the bedrooms on one end of the house with a master bedroom and adjoining bath. The front door opened into the living room and if you walked straight, you’d hit the kitchen. Beyond the kitchen was a covered patio, to the right of the kitchen as a formal dining room and to the left of the kitchen was the attached garage. Their small fenced backyard didn’t have room for a pool, but it was a shaded sanctuary with a fountain and bird feeders. He knew Sinead loved it—he did too. But he was not entirely kidding about getting something bigger.

  He led the ladies to the kitchen where they dropped the goods on the kitchen counter. “Drinks?” he asked.

  “Wine,” his sister said.

  “Do you have a white open?” Fianna asked. “If you do, I’ll have that.”

  He opened a local amber ale for him and poured wine for the ladies. Sinead walked in and both women turned to her with a squeal.

  Hugs, curses and admiration for Sinead’s shiner abounded. Collette silenced the chaos by stating, “Everybody’s wondering if you’re preggers.”

  “What?” Sinead shouted.

  “Blame Cousin Misty,” Fianna said. “Folks might have been thinking it, but she said it. Loudly. In a raised toast to the absent couple.”

  Sinead covered her stomach and accepted the glass of white wine he’d poured her. Her eyes were wide and he could see she wasn’t finding the humor in the rumor. “I’m going to kill her.”

  Collette eyed the wine glass Sinead brought to her mouth. “I mean, when I remembered how you didn’t have champagne in the waiting room, I wondered too.”

  Sinead sipped.

  Collette’s shoulders sank. “I guess not.”

  Grinning, Sinead took a bigger drink. “No. I didn’t have champagne in the room because I didn’t want to pay the stupid hundred dollars. That’s it. I figured that we were only waiting in there for fifteen minutes—why bother?”

  “Next time we get married, don’t skimp.” Christian lifted his beer. “Relax. Enjoy.”

  She shifted her bare feet. “Deal.”

  Fianna picked up a notebook and rifled through the pages. “Mom called me on the way over to see if you’d gotten back yet.”

  “And why didn’t she call me? I’ve had my phone on since we docked.” Sinead set her wine down on the counter, her shoulders hitching. Christian had learned long ago that
Madge was a source of tension. He rubbed Sinead’s back and she gave him a grateful smile.

  “You know Mom. She’s got her own logic.” Fianna put the notebook down. “I mean, considering her matrimonial track record, you would think one of us would have been born in wedlock.” Fianna lifted her glass in salute. “Not the case.”

  “Which is why I want to do everything right,” Sinead said.

  “That’s a lot of pressure.” Collette sipped her wine. “Especially these days. Nobody cares. You two are insane for wanting another wedding put together.”

  “Insane, but united.” Christian put his arm around Sinead and eyed all three women. “I want to marry the love of my life with witnesses, bells and whistles and cake.”

  “Well, if you stick with the red velvet, we saved the bridal cake. Mom put it in the freezer,” Fianna said.

  “It can’t be the same!” Collette lifted a notebook. “But I have the list of bakers we liked best.”

  “Why can’t it be?” Fianna asked with some heat. “Those red velvet cupcakes were delicious.”

  “These things are events. People don’t want to see the same show twice. Trust me—this is my job, and I want my brother to be a satisfied customer.”

  “You aren’t being paid,” Fianna pointed out, her red eyebrow hiked.

  “Nobody got to see the “happy couple”—folks saw an ambulance leave. Is that the memory you want to recreate?” Collette had her hand on a slim hip.

  Fianna walked around the counter to get a knife from the drawer and opened the package of rotisserie chicken. “Now that I agree with. White or dark meat?”

  “White,” Collette said. “Christian? You’re absolutely sure you want to do this again?”

  “Yes.” He couldn’t be surer of anything. Christian joined Sinead where she stood with her back to the sliding glass window leading to the patio. After four, the backyard was shaded by palm trees. The outdoor table looked inviting.

  “I was thinking spring would be nice. Around the first weekend in April.” Collette tapped a pen to a stack of papers. “I double checked the calendar and there are no family events or holidays. We have six weeks to get this put together, but I know we can. Sinead?”

  Christian held out his hand and Sinead slipped her palm into his. She said in a firm voice, “We’re in.”

  Chapter Five

  Two weeks until the Main Event

  Sinead got home just after seven. Work had been a bitch and by the end of that last phone call with the supplier, so had she.

  She parked her CRV in the driveway knowing she had to run back out for laundry soap and wine, but she hadn’t had the energy to stop on the way home. If she was lucky, she’d catch Christian and he could bring home supplies. There was lasagna in the freezer she could nuke in the microwave, and then open a bag of salad.

  Not her finest meal, but it beat stopping somewhere for fast food. Where would she find the energy once they had a child? Christian was so anxious to start their family that she’d gone to the doctor to get off the pill and they were using condoms for birth control. Blood work came back two days ago in an email with a green light and the doc wishing them luck.

  Luck. She scoffed at the notion of luck. Hadn’t she done everything right the last time around? Who faints and needs stitches for heaven’s sake? She tromped up the stairs.

  A box waited on the covered front porch. She and Christian had moved all of the wedding gifts to spare room that held the treadmill and her overflow of clothes. They’d agreed it wasn’t right to open the presents until they actually exchanged I do’s, which they had every intention of doing.

  According to Collette, who looked it up on Emily Post, they had three months to send thank you cards. Well, they were having another wedding before then so they’d decided to add an explanation at the bottom of all invites.

  She’d called the out-of-towners personally and assured them that it was wonderful that they’d made it the first time—they didn’t have to come the second time. They whittled the guest list from 150 to 75. No gifts. Just come and celebrate.

  Once inside she flipped on the lights. The house was empty without Christian in it and she called him to get his ETA.

  “Hey!” he answered. “I was just thinking about you.”

  “You were? Were you thinking you needed to bring home wine?”

  He laughed. “Got it. But I’m still going to be another hour or so.”

  “I think I can scrounge up something until then.”

  “Bad day?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Work or wedding?”

  This time around the wedding planning was easier. Maybe because the worst had already happened so she had nothing to lose. “Work. The suppliers didn’t come through again. I might have to find somebody else to provide our paper products. An office can’t function without computer paper. Someday maybe that won’t be the case, but for right now, I want what I paid for.”

  “Go get ‘em Sinead. I love it when you get all fierce.”

  “Stop laughing at me. I can take you.”

  “I know it. And then we end up in bed.”

  She smiled. “Sex is not the answer to everything.” Her shoes off, she paraded down the hall in her bare feet toward their bedroom. “Lasagna okay for dinner?”

  “Sounds good, but like I said, it might be 8:30 before I get home.”

  What would their lives be like with children in it? Right now they could have sex whenever they wanted, wherever they wanted. Walk around naked, get drunk. Eat ice cream for dinner, or hell, skip dinner.

  Not that either of them were big on eating ice cream naked—it was the principle of the thing.

  “Take your time. The dry cleaner called and asked if I wanted the dress despite the stains. I said yes. I mean, someday we might need it for a costume or something.”

  “I’m sorry. But I like the new one you picked out.”

  She’d gone from a Cinderella ballroom skirt to a mermaid style with ostrich feathers at the bottom. “I do too. It’s kind of fun being able to have two wedding dresses.”

  “You’re beautiful no matter what.”

  They were doing an afternoon wedding instead of evening, with light hors d’ oeuvres, a champagne fountain and lemon with dark chocolate cake. Pale lemon accents with silver tuxes, and silver dresses for Fianna and Collette with varied shades of yellow bouquets. Her own bouquet was gardenia, pale yellow snapdragons, bright yellow roses with dark green fern.

  Her mother would walk her down the aisle and they’d already had their honeymoon so they planned a quiet dinner afterward with family.

  She couldn’t wait to wear the band that went with her engagement ring. To be Mrs. Christian Sharp in truth. All nerves about the wedding were long gone. “I love you. See you when you get here.”

  Sinead changed into shorts and a t-shirt with a scalloped neckline, remembering the box on the front porch with a snap of her fingers.

  Instead of going to the kitchen for wine, she opened the front door and dragged the box inside.

  “What the hell?” It was heavier than it looked. She decided to wait until Christian got home and they could open it together. Folks that hadn’t made the wedding had still sent gifts, and she’d hate to accidentally open something for both of them without him.

  Her phone rang and she cringed as she read the caller ID but then forced a happy tone. “Mom! Hey—how’s it going?”

  “Fine, fine. Are you sure my charcoal pantsuit will be alright?”

  “Yes.” For the millionth time. “Unless you want something new.” Just stop nagging.

  “No, no. I hate for it to go to waste. It was custom fitted for me.”

  I know. Sinead opened the refrigerator and eyed the three inches of white left in the bottom of the bottle. Screw the glass, she thought. Pulling the cork from the bottle with her teeth, she drank it down.

  “—date.”

  “What did you just say?”

  “I said, do you mind if I bring a
date?”

  “To my wedding.” She shook her head and foraged through the refrigerator for another bottle but there was no more. Sinead took a beer in desperation. “Do I know this person?”

  “Not yet,” her mom said with the giggle she reserved for her new lovers.

  “I don’t want to meet my new step-dad at the wedding.”

  “Don’t rush me!” Her mom paused. “But dinner before then might be a good idea. Just to put Jerry’s mind at ease.”

  Jerry. She drank deeply of the malted beverage. “Can’t wait.”

  “He’s in stocks.”

  Her mind conjured up the image of a balding man in old-fashioned perjury stocks, in the middle of a medieval town, being pelted with rotten tomatoes. Did he know he was in line for husband number six?

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “The produce section at Whole Foods. He asked me how to know if a cantaloupe was ripe.” Her mom chuckled as if inviting her to share the melons joke.

  I will never, ever get that out of my mind.

  “And then he asked me to dinner. Why not, right?”

  “You are absolutely right. Why not.” It wasn’t her mother’s fault that the majority of her husbands had died. Only one had been a divorce, and then her mom had been the one to leave because he’d cheated. She married the men in her life. It was better than being lonely, Sinead understood that.

  Fianna always liked it better when their mother was dating or married because then she butted out of Fianna’s business.

  “Mom, I’d love to meet him. But I just got home from work and I need to get something together for dinner.”

  “All right. If you’re sure about the suit?”

  Deep breaths. “I’m sure. Love you!” She hung up before her mom could start on a different subject. Jerry. Cantaloupes. Ugh.

  Screw dinner, she thought, climbing on the counter to reach the tequila in the tall cupboard.

  Christian came home to pop music blaring from the television mounted on the wall in the kitchen. The hallway light was on, and he heard Sinead singing off-key.