by Amie Denman
“You’re a good son, coming home to help your father through a rough patch.”
“He’s the only parent I have,” Nate said, and then he caught himself. What made him reveal something so personal to a man he hardly knew? Even in his own family, Nate never talked about his mother’s accident anymore. He cleared his throat. “How did you know I was...uh...helping my dad?”
“Jack told me. He didn’t say much more than that.”
“It’s not just a rough patch,” Nate said. “It’s a road ten miles long.” Nate hesitated a moment, afraid to share too much with Henry. “But we’ll get down it okay.”
The crowd around them thinned, and Alice and Virginia walked off. His conversation with Henry wasn’t likely to be overheard, but it still paid to be cautious.
“I’m sorry about that,” Henry said, putting a hand on Nate’s shoulder. “I’m coming home again, too, after a life on the road and in the skies. Inherited my parents’ place in Bayside. Most days I love it, but some days remind me it’s tough to come home again.”
Nate nodded, but he didn’t reply. He’d already said too much.
Henry patted Nate’s shoulder and then dropped his hand. “The longer I live, though, the more I know everything gets easier with time. Sometimes you just have to wait for it.”
Virginia waved to Henry from across the midway as crowds of people walked between them. Henry raised a hand and waved back.
“All the Hamiltons have been terrific to work with,” Nate said, glad to turn the conversation away from himself. “I hope these fall weekends pay off.”
“Alice has been working on it nonstop, except for the weddings part. I think June had to talk her into adding the weddings when the Hamiltons realized what a great market it was. Easy money, I guess, since people spend ferocious amounts of money on getting married.”
“Good business,” Nate agreed. “And free PR. If the wedding guests leave with a great impression of Starlight Point, it’s a win all around.”
Across the midway, Virginia and Alice parted ways, and the older lady came over to Nate and Henry. “It’s going to be a great weekend, weather-wise,” she said, smiling broadly.
“Are you working tomorrow morning?” Henry asked.
She shook her head. “Not until later in the day. I’m having breakfast with the kids downtown at Augusta’s bakery.”
“I love that place,” Henry said.
Nate noticed Henry’s eager tone. Was he hoping for an invitation? Nate knew Henry and Virginia were friends, and he’d noticed them working together on numerous special events.
Virginia’s expression sobered. “We love it, too, and Augusta finds us a spot in her side room where we won’t be disturbed. We have family business to discuss.”
“Well,” Henry said. “Doughnuts will make even business a lot more pleasant.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t pleasant. It’s been five years since my husband died, and we had to put a few things in place at the time that have run their course now,” Virginia said. “In a good way.”
Nate watched the crowds passing and wished he wasn’t in the middle of an awkward conversation. Although Virginia wasn’t his boss and had, in fact, handed over ownership to her three children equally, Nate felt uncomfortable and a little sorry for Henry because he’d been subtly shot down.
“I hope you have a nice breakfast,” Henry said congenially, “and maybe I’ll see you later in the day.”
Virginia smiled and gave them both a little wave as she walked away.
“Piloting a jet is easier than navigating personal relationships,” Henry said.
“You’re telling me,” Nate agreed. “That’s why I save myself a lot of trouble by avoiding them.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE WEDDING FESTIVITIES were only moments from starting.
Alice had already heard the bride and groom’s story, and it was one of her favorites so far. Two lovers who had met one summer working at the Point wanted to get married on the old-fashioned train that chugged around the perimeter of Starlight Point, giving low-thrill rides and scenic views to thousands of people a day. The bride had spent a summer loading and unloading passengers, and the groom had been a conductor giving a colorful spiel over the train’s public address system.
Whereas most of the weddings she planned seemed overblown and overly expensive, she liked the sentimentality of this one. When they’d met in her office months earlier to talk about the wedding, Alice had cautioned them that the only way a wedding on the train would work was to have it early Friday afternoon before the gates opened at five o’clock for the evening fall festival. With special permission from the Hamiltons, Alice had lined up employees to shovel coal and operate the train. She’d had the benches removed from one of the open-air train cars and replaced with several rows of chairs for immediate family and the wedding party to witness the ceremony.
Alice and Nate planned to be one car back overseeing the unusual event and taking photographs for the company website. The orchestra was already set up in the second car and the two remaining cars awaited guests. The entire train would make two low-speed circuits of the park while the ceremony occurred, and then guests would disembark at the station in the Wonderful West where a tent was set up for a reception.
“I think this has potential for disaster,” Nate said. “Who ever heard of getting married on a moving train?”
“It’s not the weirdest wedding I’ve been approached about,” Alice returned. “At least it makes more sense than getting married on a roller coaster.”
“Gotta be a metaphor in that,” Nate commented.
Alice rolled her eyes. “It’s our job to give people what they want. As a public relations man, I’d think you’d be all about that.”
Nate studied Alice with a long stare.
“Sometimes people don’t know what they want,” he said. “They just act like they do until it’s too late.”
A familiar stab of embarrassment, regret and guilt carved a path across Alice’s chest. “It’s never too late to be honest about what you want.”
Nate’s expression didn’t waver, but his ears turned pink.
“Here they come,” Alice said as a throng of people in formal clothes approached. They had entered the park through the marina gate where the parking lot had been reserved, and the bride and groom led the pack. “Get ready with your camera.”
Nate snapped pictures of the group’s arrival. The groom wore a dark suit and the bride’s white gown billowed in the autumn sunshine. Wedding guests fanned out behind them as the group approached. Although it was quite an entrance, Alice was sorry to miss the wonder-eyes moment when the bride and groom first saw each other. The traditional walk down the aisle wasn’t there, but holding hands and walking together toward their ceremony almost seemed better.
Maybe this marriage was about more than just the splashy ceremony. She wished all of them were.
“If I ever get married,” Haley said, “I think it will be on the cable cars. I’ll toss rose petals out and shower people below on the midway.”
“Very romantic,” Alice said. “And expensive.”
Haley frowned.
“But fragrant and memorable,” Alice added. “Unique.”
Haley smiled. “I’d be afraid to hire you to plan my wedding. If I looked fat in my dress or my veil was a big mistake, you’d probably tell me.”
Alice laughed. “Maybe not. But I would tell you if I thought you were marrying a big jerk.”
Nate cleared his throat behind Alice and she felt a wave of nausea. Of course she hadn’t meant to say he was a big jerk. She’d called off their wedding for some good reasons, but none of them involved him being a Neanderthal or a horse’s hind end.
As the wedding party and other guests arrived, Alice directed them to their train cars. The bride and groom had requested an au
thentic old-time experience for the wedding, so each guest had a train ticket with their car and seat number in fancy script. Alice and Haley had created over one hundred of the unique tickets. The train cars were decorated with purple bunting and flowers. Bridesmaids wore strapless short purple dresses, and the groomsmen wore suits. Not terribly formal, but appropriate for an afternoon outdoor wedding.
As the guests boarded the cars, Alice noticed that most of them were in their mid-twenties like the bride and groom. They were about her age, and many were wearing wedding bands. Good for them.
It took the efforts of Nate, Alice and Haley to get the guests in the correct rows. It should have been easy—each row of bench seats in the train cars was numbered with an ornate purple sign—but several of the guests wanted to vie for a better seat closer to the car where the ceremony would be held.
“After you,” Nate said as he waited for Alice to board their car. He didn’t take her arm or offer to hold her bag of supplies as she climbed up the two steps, but he stood silently with a completely neutral expression.
Did they teach that bland everything’s fine expression in public relations classes? Nate had it down to a science.
Maybe he was right and everything was fine. The conductor blew the whistle, and the train lurched into motion. Alice and Nate stood by the rails of the second car, right behind the orchestra. The usual quintet was supplemented by several more instruments to guarantee enough volume to compete with train noise and wind. They played a traditional wedding march, and Alice held on to a post supporting the train car’s roof to watch the ceremony unfold.
It’s going well. The bride and groom met under a garland of flowers suspended from the ceiling and kept their balance thanks to a flower-covered railing. Their small bridal party sat in the front row of white chairs and parents and immediate family were right behind.
Nate smiled at Alice. “It’s different, that’s for sure.”
“Every wedding is unique,” she whispered. She listened to the vows over the train’s public address system. Despite a few railroad puns, the vows were in substance, much like the ones Alice had heard dozens of times. The bride’s long brown hair was arranged in a complicated twist with a short veil attached to the back. Purple ribbons wove through her hair and edged the hem of her gown. The groom teetered a little as he turned to take the ring from his best man’s outstretched hand. His boutonniere slipped sideways with the quick movement, but otherwise the wedding was flawless.
As the train passed through the Wonderful West station for the first time, the bride and groom kissed. Alice breathed a sigh of relief. The ceremony was officially over. Now all they had to do was enjoy a full circuit of Starlight Point while the orchestra played, and then they’d all disembark for the reception.
“They went through with it,” Nate whispered to Alice when the minister made the final proclamation.
Alice cut him a glance. “I’m happy for them.”
Nate gripped the railing. “We used to ride this train when we were—”
“Younger,” Alice said, before he could use a more powerful word such as lovers or engaged. Nate’s expression held a trace of sadness, even vulnerability in the set of his lips and the line between his eyebrows.
The photographer in the first car aimed his camera in Alice and Nate’s direction, and Nate’s expression immediately flashed to PR neutral.
Everything’s fine.
It was now. She had a job she loved, a future and a life of her own in Bayside. There was no point in speculating about how it might all have been different.
The train passed Virginia and Henry, who stood waiting by the large white reception tent, and Alice waved. Their presence assured Alice that every detail had been followed to the letter. She’d be glad when everyone was off the train and under the tent. She already had a bus lined up to pick up all the guests at four o’clock and return them to their cars in the marina lot. That would give her crew an hour to clean up from the reception and remove everything but the tent for the evening festival.
Thank goodness the haunted houses weren’t opening for another two weeks. There wouldn’t be much foot traffic in the Wonderful West on a Friday evening, and it gave her crew just a touch of breathing room in case things did not go exactly according to plan.
Alice leaned on the railing as far away from Nate as she could manage and watched the familiar scenery go past. She’d been on the train ride dozens of times and knew a fake shoot-out with mechanically animated skeletons was just around the next bend. Even though she knew it was coming, she was still startled every time the pretend guns fired.
Just as the western town came into view, Alice heard shouting from the back of the train. Two men were out of their seats in the last car having an ugly verbal exchange. Nate saw it, too, and he and Alice went to the back of their car, watching in horror as two wedding guests drew back their fists to take a swing at each other.
“Gotta be kidding me,” Nate muttered. He swung a long leg over the back rail of their train car and jumped onto the car behind them. He was going to make his way back there on a moving train? Alice wanted to follow, but her close-fitting dress and high-heeled pumps wouldn’t allow her to swing gracefully along the edge of the train car as Nate was now doing.
The two men in the back car were grappling while horrified guests scooted away. One man was trying to stop them, holding out his hands and shouting. Alice got out her cell phone and called the Starlight Point police department. “Fight on the train,” she said. “Two wedding guests. We’re just passing behind the Lake Breeze Hotel right now.”
Nate had jumped to the rear car by that time and Alice watched him work his way down the side of it. He got to the fighting men just as one of them took a wild swing and fell off the train. Alice made a split-second decision, summoned her courage and jumped off the moving train. Someone had to see if the man was injured. She thought she might land on her feet because she had some athletic experience. Years of figure skating had given her poise and balance and decent jumping ability.
However, it was her first time jumping from a moving train and she completely failed to estimate the difficulty level. She tumbled and flailed, gravel flew, and she came to rest in a thick scratchy brush.
What have I done? She opened her eyes and saw the train disappearing around the next curve. A man dropped to his knees beside her and slid his arms under her. He brushed her hair back from her face. “Are you all right?”
In her scrambled state, Alice was afraid for a second it was the fighting man and he was going to take a swing at her. She risked a look at this face.
Nate’s dark eyes stared into hers and his hand was gentle on her cheek. He must have jumped off the train right after I did.
“If I close my eyes, can I pretend nothing happened?” Alice asked.
She heard Nate’s low laughter. “That’s my job, finding a way to gloss this over.”
He helped her sit up and continued to kneel next to her. “Your dress...” he said, gesturing to a long tear starting from the hem and going halfway up her thigh.
Alice grabbed the edges of the fabric and held them together. Her rose-colored shift was destroyed. She just hoped the rest of it was still decent. Nate took a handkerchief from his suit pocket and dabbed at scratches on Alice’s neck and shoulder. “Superficial, but I bet they sting like crazy,” he said. He handed her the cloth. “Do you think anything is broken?”
“The heel off one of my shoes,” she said as she glanced down and realized her favorite pumps were ruined, “and my personal pride will never be the same.”
“First time jumping off a train?” he asked.
She nodded and found a smile, despite the unexpected twist of the themed wedding.
“We’re not alone,” Nate said. One of the fighting men was walking toward them along the tracks. Nate stood and put himself between Alice and the stranger.
Nate took off his suit jacket and handed it behind him to Alice. “Use my phone and call Henry to let him know what’s coming on the train.”
Alice found his phone in the pocket of his coat, which was still warm and smelled like Nate—a damp forest smell that reminded her he loved the outdoors. A memory of a camping trip they’d gone on flashed over her. As they’d sat by a fire watching the flames, he’d shared some of his grief over his mother’s passing and she’d felt as if she really knew him for the first time. But when the campfire died, he was back to pretending he was fine.
Alice pushed aside the memory and called Henry. She gave him a quick warning and told him to make sure the Starlight Point police officers knew the description of the person they were looking for.
Alice struggled to her feet and swayed a little. She put a hand to her forehead, reminding herself to take a deep breath and assess the actual damage. Nate slid an arm around her and held her against his chest while he kept an eye on the other man. He didn’t look at her, just held her as if she were a pillow or a bag of groceries.
Two Starlight Point police officers came through the trees and bushes separating the train tracks from the rear parking lot of the Lake Breeze Hotel.
“There’s your man,” Nate said. The officers walked over to the assailant. The fight had apparently gone out of him with his wild swing and fall from the train. His shoulders slumped and he kept his hands up in surrender. One of the officers cuffed him anyway.
“Got two cars in the hotel lot. I’ll take him to the station,” an officer said. “You two can ride in the other car and we’ll write up the report.”
Nate bent to pick up his suitcoat from the ground. One of the sleeves was torn. He put the coat over Alice’s shoulders.
“I’m not cold,” she protested.
“You need to look decent in case anyone’s watching.”
Despite his cool tone, he kept an arm around her as they picked through the bushes and trees to the waiting police cars.