A Wedding in Truhart

by Cynthia Tennent

  Ever since the weekend in Atlanta I had hounded Nick for answers about why he never visited Truhart. I had accused him of ignoring his mother and caring more about himself than her loneliness. I had baited him. I had teased him. And I had locked him in the old barn. A place that haunted him.

  Like an imbecile, I hadn’t thought past my own worries. I had failed to recognize that this wonderful, caring man would never be cruel to anyone, especially his family. A sheet of icy perspiration grew at the back of my neck and I rubbed it away. I was too ashamed to stay.

  I turned and rushed through the kitchen and out the back door to the annex. When I reached my bedroom I flung myself on my bed and curled into a ball. As I sat there surrounded by my old pastel wallpaper and sentimental belongings, images of my childhood rose before me.

  I remembered all the times Ian and his friends had called me annoying names, broken my toys, and made fun of me for being a pesky little sister. But not Nick. If I fell off my bike, he had been the first to pick me up off the ground while everyone else laughed. When the boys stole my doll to use as Queen of the Damned in their superhero games, he had wrestled it away from them. Even if Aunt Addie was about to yell at me for using her curlers to build ramps for our Matchbox cars, Nick would say it was his idea.

  But instead of thanking him for his protection, I had done things like throw sticks at him, or chase him when we played tag—even if I wasn’t “it.” I had spied on him when he swam in the pond, and stolen his towel before throwing it up to the highest branch of a tree.

  I had stood near him at his father’s funeral and watched a war I didn’t understand play across his face. And then I had harassed him about not coming home, failing to recognize that his war was right here.

  And now, I had accused him of being coldhearted. Of caring more about granite than his mother.

  The truth was, even though I loved Nick with all my heart, I hadn’t been kind to him.

  Chapter 15

  As the winter sun sank lower in the sky, I helped in the kitchen, hiding from the guests and Nick, and tried to pull myself together. I had been through worse. I had seen death and sickness and sorrow. Hell, I had photographed sorrow.

  And Nick had never really been mine.

  Somewhere in my girlish crush, I had failed to realize that he was more than just a hero on a pedestal. He was a man with complications and fears and all the messy things that people had in their lives.

  I loved him even more for that.

  But I didn’t deserve him.

  I stood at the sink and smoothed the apron at my waist. I took a deep breath. My sister was getting married in two days and there was so much more to think about than myself.

  As if my thoughts had conjured her up, Charlotte swung open the door to the kitchen.

  “Have you seen my wedding dress?” she asked. Her hair hung down over her eyebrow as if she had been pulling at it, and her eyes were round with panic.

  “Your wedding dress?” I asked dumbly.

  “Yes. My dress.”

  “You mean you can’t find it?”

  She turned from me in exasperation and I followed her as she ran to the lobby.

  “Annie hasn’t seen it. But it has to be here! Are you sure you didn’t unload it somewhere?” she asked Ian, who was looking down at her warily. “Ian, my God, if this is your idea of a joke, I’ll kill you. This isn’t funny!”

  Ian put his hands up. “I haven’t seen it.”

  I looked out the open front doors and saw Henry and Nick searching through the backseat of the SUV. All the doors of the cars were open and Aunt Addie was yelling at them from the front bumper.

  “It was in an oversize black bag with Bellasposa written on it,” Charlotte said through the doorway.

  “Maybe with that fancy French name the French guy thought it was his,” said Aunt Addie hopefully.

  “Bellasposa is Italian, Aunt Addie,” said Charlotte, rolling her eyes in exasperation.

  Mom entered the lobby, a worried look on her face. “Grady hasn’t seen it. Charlotte? Didn’t you see your dress at the airport?”

  “Yes. They let me carry it on the plane for an extra fee. And I carried it off the plane.”

  Scarlett and June hurried down the stairs. “I’ve checked with Alain and he hasn’t seen the dress since we were in baggage claim.”

  “Well, I know I saw it when we picked up the rental cars,” said June.

  “Me too,” added Charlotte.

  “Okay, that’s something,” said Mom, who stood with her arm around Charlotte. Charlotte had begun to breathe in frantic gasps and I reached out and rubbed her back to try to calm her as well.

  “Where was the last place anyone saw it?” Mom asked.

  The wedding party arrived in the lobby wearing looks of concern. They had searched their rooms and found nothing. Everyone agreed it had been on the curb when they were loading the rental cars. Nick and Henry returned from the cars empty-handed and shut the front doors. Nick cast a glance in my direction and I turned my head away.

  “Charlotte,” said Henry. “Did you put it in the SUV or the car?”

  “I didn’t put it in anything. I thought you did,” she said.

  “I didn’t see it at all. I assumed you took care of it.”

  “It was by the car, Henry. You were handling the luggage. That was your job!” Charlotte’s tone had reached a fevered pitch as she looked at Henry accusingly.

  “You had been guarding it with your life the whole trip. Why would you just assume I was going to handle it because we were standing by a car?”

  “Oh my God! I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “It’s okay, Char,” said Nick in a soothing tone he might have used on me not too long ago. “We can call the airport and see if anyone has claimed it.”

  “That’s right,” said Travis Hartwick. “This kind of thing happens all the time. They have a place for unclaimed luggage and I am sure even wedding dresses end up there sometimes.”

  “We can even ask some of your cousins who are flying in tomorrow to double check when they get to the airport,” said Henry.

  “Tomorrow?” Charlotte looked at Henry like he’d lost his mind.

  Charlotte, June, and Mom spent the next half hour making phone calls. “We will find it, honey. Don’t worry,” Mom repeated over and over.

  I couldn’t stand to watch Henry and Charlotte continue to blame each other, and it seemed neither could anyone else. We drifted away to various parts of the inn, occupying ourselves before dinner.

  By the time we gathered at the table, everyone’s good spirits were returning. Bebe, Patty, Kevin, and Richard joked about their trip to Vegas. And Henry teased a glazed-looking Charlotte about her sorry gambling skills.

  I helped Nestor serve the meal. Earlier we had pushed several tables together so that we could sit at one long table, family style. It seemed like the right thing to do since this wasn’t supposed to be a formal meal. Even so, Nestor had outdone himself.

  Kevin closed his eyes after his first bite. “Wow, I’m in Nirvana. Thank God we didn’t get delayed on our flight to Traverse City or we would have missed this.”

  “It’s too bad we don’t have a closer airport,” Mom said.

  “Hey, Nick,” shouted Aunt Addie from the end of the table. “George Bloodworth has been talking about an airport for years. If we built ourselves something here nobody would have to use Traverse City’s airport. You should talk to him about a design.”

  I was still putting plates on the table and as I passed her I put my hand on Aunt Addie’s wrist. “Nick doesn’t do that kind of thing, Aunt Addie.” I could feel Nick’s eyes on my face.

  “Well, he might—

  “No, I don’t think so, but tell me—does Corinne’s nephew still have a plane?”

  Aunt Addie was easily rerouted as she talked about our local daredevil.

  Finally, I sat down at the end of the table next to Jessica and opposite Alain and Aunt Addie. Between Jess
ica’s lack of conversation and the way Aunt Addie seemed to enjoy mispronouncing Alain’s name, I felt like I was sitting at the kiddie table. At the other end, Henry and Ian entertained everyone with their views on football while June and Scarlett name-dropped. Nick and Brittany sat together, their heads bowed in conversation. It must have been riveting, the way Nick nodded his head and gazed at her so intently.

  The more lively the other end of the table grew, the quieter ours became. Aunt Addie seemed to have decided Alain wasn’t worth her time because she turned her back on him and asked Nestor about morel mushroom hunting.

  As for me, I barely had a chance to eat. Every time I raised my fork to my mouth someone needed something. I had just returned from the kitchen with a third helping for Travis, when Charlotte asked, “Can you get us some more water since you’re up again, Annie?”

  I moved to the sideboard and grabbed a pitcher. Making my way down the table, I refilled glasses while everyone continued their conversation. From the corner of my eye I caught Nick frowning down at his plate. Maybe he was finally bored with Brittany’s chatter. Just as I approached him he put his hand over his glass.

  “I can do that for myself, Annie,” he said quietly, still staring at his glass. Brittany kept talking, but he didn’t notice her.

  “Sorry,” I said, and moved on. Evidently just my presence in the same room irritated him. If this was the way he was going to be for the next few days, I didn’t know how I was going to keep myself from falling apart.

  By 11:00 p.m. only a handful of people were still awake. Earlier, Ian and Nick had taught the guys how to play euchre. Now Kevin, Ian, Henry, and Nick sat around the game table in the corner of the lobby and argued about their cards among empty beer bottles and cookie crumbs. Travis Hartwick and Scarlett Francis had signed on to WiFi and I was glad that a friend of Ian’s had finally fixed it last month. They were buried in their laptop screens.

  The shrill sound of the lobby phone made Charlotte jump. She answered it before the first ring ended. It was the airline. We waited impatiently for the news.

  Two minutes later, she hung up the phone and clapped her hands. “They found my dress!”

  A collective cheer went up around the room. In a bizarre turn of events, her dress had ended up in Houston, of all places. The airline was flying it back to Traverse City and it would be in Truhart by tomorrow night.

  “Damn! I was looking forward to seeing you in Annie’s ugly old prom dress,” said Ian. Charlotte threw a sofa pillow at him. Nick caught it in midair as it missed its mark and re-aimed, hitting Ian on the head. I tried not to stare like a sick puppy as Nick laughed at Ian. It was one of the few times he had smiled since dinner.

  “Well, it looks like you might have some more luck, Charlotte, honey,” said Travis, staring at his computer. “The weather report says Michigan is going to have a little snow tomorrow.”

  Scarlett laughed. “If that’s the weather report from the GATE Network, they always get things wrong. It will probably rain.”

  “That means there could be ice,” said Mom as she rose to go to bed. “Ian, did you get the new bag of sidewalk salt out of the golf shack like I asked?”

  “Mom, I’ll do it tomorrow. I’m beat,” said Ian. The game had just finished. He threw his cards on the table in defeat. Losing always made him crabby.

  “I asked you three times—”

  “I’ll do it,” I said. “But you owe me, Ian.”

  I could use the cold air and a good walk.

  “See you all tomorrow,” said Nick as the rest of the card players said good night. He flung on his coat and found his keys in his pocket, not once looking my way. He bent down and kissed Charlotte on the cheek. “Glad you found your dress, Char.”

  When Nick closed the front door, the remaining group needed little encouragement and trudged off to bed. It had been a long day for the weary travelers, and tomorrow was a big day, with the rehearsal dinner and last-minute preparations.

  Slipping into my coat and gloves, I grabbed the keys to the golf shack and flipped on the outdoor lights to help me see my way. It wasn’t far from the house. But the moon was behind the clouds and the night was darker than usual.

  When we were little, we always begged my parents to let us host sleepovers in the golf shack. My father would guide us to the shack with a flashlight and make sure we were settled before heading back to the inn. One of our favorite pastimes was to play truth or dare. The most terrifying dare was to run back and forth between the shack and the house in the dark of the night without a flashlight.

  When I reached the shack I pulled my hands out of my gloves and unlocked the door. I flipped the light switch and the bulb flickered and cracked before it went out. Great. I felt my way to a low table in the corner and turned on a small camp lamp. Its dim glow cast shadows in the room that reminded me of all the nights we had conjured up shadow monsters on the wall with our hands.

  Two old couches sat across from each other with a low table between. Near the doorway was an old refrigerator where we kept sodas and beer for hot days on the golf course. I moved a pile of boxes in the corner and cleared away the extra golf clubs and shoes that were piled up. I searched until I located several bags of rock salt tucked between a box and the refrigerator. I grabbed one that was half empty. I hoped we would need it. With its rustic charm, the inn looked its best in the winter. A pretty snow would be perfect for Charlotte’s New Year’s Eve wedding.

  I turned to leave and bumped into a dark form.

  I screamed.

  Or at least I thought I did. What came out was more like a hiccup. It took me a moment of hyperventilating panic to realize who stood in front of me.

  Chapter 16

  The dim light cast a glow on half of Nick’s face, making him look like a character in an old B horror movie. His shadow lurking on the wall was twice as large as my own and his hand was braced on the wall in front of me, blocking my path to the door. The half of his mouth I could see was turned up in the corner. He was obviously amused at my funny scream.

  “You scared me to death, Nick.”

  “Really?”

  I waited for an explanation, but he said nothing.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Wondering if I should lock you in and leave. Would that make us even, Annie?”

  I looked beyond him to the doorway. Would he be that vindictive? He tilted his head and crossed one leg in front of the other as if he was enjoying my fear.

  “Only if you tell my mom about it,” I said. “I mean, that’s what I did. Told yours you were locked in . . . so . . . so, you should be fair.” I clutched the bag of salt to my chest, wondering halfheartedly if it would be a decent weapon. Nick would never hurt me. But he was mad at me, after all.

  “Hmm. You know, I would hate to wake up your mom,” he finally said.

  He stood up straight, removing his hand from the wall, and took a step forward. Feeling like a stalked animal, I took a step backward.

  I juggled the bag in my arms and held up a hand. “Okay, I know I deserve your anger. In fact, I have a lot to apologize for.”

  “Why does it seem like you are always apologizing, Annie?”

  “Because I feel like I do a lot of stupid things.”

  He took another step toward me and grabbed the bag from my arms. Putting it on the floor, he straightened up and asked in a soft voice that sounded like a caress, “Why is that?”

  Without my salt-bag shield I felt defenseless. I crossed my arms and tried to figure out how to explain myself. He reached out and ran his hand down my shoulder until he reached my elbow. Then he grazed my forearm and tugged until my arms loosened. He was closer now, so close I could feel his breath on my face. His eyes glittered like black diamonds in the lamplight and I couldn’t look away. His fingertips stroked my limp arms and moved to my waist. I was having trouble concentrating.

  But what I had to say was important. I couldn’t be distracted.

  I raised my hands to his
chest, which was a big mistake. It was the only enticement he needed to wrap his arms around my back.

  This wasn’t what I expected. Was he actually trying to seduce me? “Hang on a minute, I thought you were mad.”

  He bent his head until his mouth nuzzled my neck. He smelled of pine and soap and something else. I breathed deeply and tried to collect my scattered thoughts. But with the prickly feel of his chin against the soft skin of my neck, I couldn’t concentrate.

  “I decided to forgive you . . .”

  “Nick, wait, I have so much I want to say . . .”

  “Shit, Annie, why are you always talking?” He moaned, and then he bit my ear.

  One hand moved away from my back and brushed over my chest. I could feel my nipples responding. His hand at my back pulled me close.

  Then he lowered his head and kissed me. But the word kiss was a feeble description. The moment his lips met mine was pure combustion. Every touch, every kiss, was like a rocket blast. I would have screamed if my mouth wasn’t so busy trying to breathe in between kisses.

  I fought to get to his skin as my hands traveled under his shirt and tried to pull it off. What started out eager turned frantic. Our hands tangled as we fumbled to remove each piece of clothing. We couldn’t stop. His touch was like a drug that magnified my sensitivity. I wrapped my legs around him and pulled his hips closer. He lifted me toward him and groaned.

  His mouth trailed down my body, scorching a path along the way. I ran my hands through his hair and he looked up at me, his hair mussed and his eyes unfocused.

  “Annie, I don’t know if I can stop . . .”

  “I don’t want you to.”

  I pulled him back and shivered as his tongue flicked across my nipple and then tugged harder. Nick mumbled against my breast, “Are you cold?”

  I shook my head. It wasn’t the cold that made me shiver. But he slowed his pace for a moment and lifted me up, placing me on the couch and covering me with his body. I arched against his weight, wanting him closer, and smoothed my hands over his shoulders as my tongue explored his mouth. His smooth chest with its thin layer of hair rubbed against my wet nipples, making me crazy. I bent my head and bucked, pushing him up so I could trail my mouth down his body. He froze and then shuddered. I kissed his nipples and I heard him gasp, trying to catch his breath above me. He pressed his lower body into mine and I opened up to him.