by Natasha Boyd
Beach Wedding
A Butler Cove Novel
Natasha Boyd
Contents
Title Page
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Part 2
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Untitled
Beach Wedding Playlist
Chapter 1
Untitled
Copyright © 2017 by Natasha Boyd
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Other books in the Butler Cove Series:
Eversea (Eversea #1) (Butler Cove Series #1)
Forever, Jack (Eversea #2) (Butler Cove Series #2)
My Star, My Love (Eversea #2.5) (Butler Cove Series #3)
All That Jazz (Butler Cove Series #4)
Beach Wedding (Eversea #3) (Butler Cove Series #5)
One Night (Butler Cove Series #6) Add to Goodreads
ISBN: 978-0-9971464-7-9
Created with Vellum
For you.
KERI ANN
One
EIGHT MONTHS EARLIER
Chilly early winter sun slanted through the windows of Jack’s study at our home on Daufuskie Island. I stood between Jack’s thighs, my hands on his shoulders. “Do you think anyone knows there’s a wedding happening here?” I asked him.
He shook his head. His cheeks held the roughness of a day without shaving. His green eyes were stark in the naturally lit room. “Nope.”
I’d just read the script he’d been working on. The one that was based on his early life, and my heart was equal parts brimming with love and shattered with sadness at Jack’s childhood.
I realized that this beautiful man had never had what he wanted more than anything else—to feel secure and settled and safe. And it was within my power to give it to him. My heart ached that I’d withheld it from him so long by putting off talk of marriage. Although I did think it was nice we would witness his mother marrying her longtime partner, Jeff, before we considered our own marriage.
“Hmm,” I mused, keeping my tone measured. “I wonder if we should have ours here, too.”
Jack’s shoulders stiffened under my fingertips. His hands at my waist dug in, and I swore he stopped breathing. For a moment I felt like I’d misjudged. “What are you saying?” he asked and it was then I saw the cautious hope in his eyes and I felt bad all over again at how long I’d made him wait. He’d told me we were forever for the last four years.
I let a wide smile cross my face and watched as Jack’s green eyes darkened and his breathing faltered. I squeezed his muscled shoulders. “Just getting everything ready for the ceremony this weekend made me realize how much I want it to be us,” I admitted. “And once I started thinking that, I couldn’t stop.”
He didn’t answer for a long while, and I felt another twinge of nerves. He still wanted this, right? He’d never pushed me. I appreciated that, but now I started to worry maybe he didn’t push me because he’d changed his mind. Perhaps he was okay with the status quo.
“I’m relieved,” he finally said, though the words seemed pushed out. “However,” he added, and I braced myself. “You’re going to have to be the one to wait now.”
Wait, what? I frowned.
“Yeah. You don’t think I’m just going to ask you and be done with it, do you? You’re gonna have to sweat a little,” he said with an eyebrow lifted.
Two could play that game. “What? And give me time to change my mind?” I joked and instantly felt bad as he paled. I ran my fingers over his warm, rough cheek.
He grabbed my hand, bringing my palm to his mouth to kiss it. “Don’t rob me of doing something romantic for you. Besides, you pretty much just did the proposing. At least let me save my pride and pretend to be the one doing the asking.”
“Did I?” I slapped a hand to my forehead. “I guess you’re right. Well, don’t wait too long,” I whispered, suddenly realizing that I was okay with becoming Jack’s wife in every way, and now I wanted it to happen as soon as possible. And I hoped to God he still felt the same, and he was not just putting this off to let me down easy.
Jack took a breath. “I ... William John Rhys Thomas, who would have been the 21st Earl of Huntley had he not been declared missing and presumed dead, a.k.a Jack Eversea ... am utterly in love with you, Keri Ann Butler.”
“Well, Earl Huntley.” I grinned. “I think I prefer Jack. You’re too big for your britches as it is, you can’t expect me to start calling you Lord.” I laughed and took his hand, sliding it under my sweater and along my belly. I loved the feel of him on my skin, and I leaned down and pressed my lips to his. His mouth moved under mine, the softness of his lips, the rasp of his stubble. Goose bumps broke out across my skin. He breathed against my mouth. “But we should probably get a head start on creating an heir,” he joked between kisses, his hand still moving over my belly. “I’ve heard it can take some time.”
Marriage and babies. My eyes pricked with a surge of emotion as I realized how much I wanted that. And how long I’d put the idea out of my head. Perhaps wondering if Jack and I were too good to be true. This would be more than forever. “I guess I’m ready for that, too,” I said and I wanted to gasp. Saying it out loud felt enormous. Too big.
His hand stopped its idle caress, and he flicked his gaze down to my belly. He swallowed audibly, and his skin flushed lightly across the tops of his cheekbones.
When he looked back up at me, I smiled nervously and went all in. “Now, if you like.”
Jack sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. Then he moved forward on the chair, coming off the edge and dropped to his knees on the floor. His arms wrapped tightly around my waist, and he buried his head against me.
Wrapping my hands around his dark head of hair and pressing him to me, I knew I’d done the right thing.
I’d waited. And now I was ready. For us. Forever.
Two
PRESENT DAY
The sound of waves lapping and my sea glass wind chime tinkling softly as the morning breeze sifted through the open window woke me gently. I loved to sleep with the windows open. It was only possible in spring and fall in the Lowcountry. In the fall though, little biting no-see-ums could even make it through a screen, but not up here on the second floor of our elevated beach house. And here, in our sanctuary on the secluded island of Daufuskie, we could leave the doors and windows uncovered without fear of people taking pictures or spying on us.
Behind my eyelids, I could tell the sunrise had cast its warm glow into the room. At my back, Jack’s slow deep breaths stirred the hair at my nape, his hand curled possessively around my middle, and his heavy leg anchored between my own.
I savor
ed these moments. The quiet moments when I could forget how distant we had become over the last few months.
Jack was never going to ask me to marry him.
It had been months since I’d told him I was ready to get married and start a family. Something I’d known he wanted. And since he filmed The Missing Earl and it was now in post-production editing, I’d felt his agitation. His stress, nerves, and lack of sleep were evident in every interaction with me. Perhaps I was imagining it, but I had a bizarre feeling that the man who’d left to film that movie wasn’t the same one who’d returned to me.
We’d been through a vibrant spring and a sweltering Lowcountry summer and at some point the waiting for Jack to propose turned from anticipatory to strained to painful, and now it was almost too late. If he asked me now, I’d probably snap and do something stupid. Like say no.
It was only these pre dawn hours when he finally succumbed to rest, and his body reached out subconsciously to mine, that I allowed myself to believe in us still.
Though I hated to miss a moment of this time with him in bed, my bladder prodded me to slip out from the heat of his body and pad my way to the bathroom. There was a chill in the air this morning. I quickly took care of business and stood at the white stone vanity to wash my hands and take my birth control. I slipped open the drawer and withdrew the package. One more for this month.
I’d finally graduated last year, seeing my dream of going to college through. I’d been lucky to build my reputation, still not altogether convinced being Jack Eversea’s girlfriend didn’t have something to do with it. I’d grown to accept this, where before I’d fought every aspect of it—trying to be independent to the point of driving Jack crazy. But marrying him and starting a family had been the one thing I’d withheld completely throughout college.
To Jack’s credit, he’d been patient, but I’d known how badly he wanted it. Sometimes I felt like a vile creature for keeping the man I loved from the thing he desired most. Now I wondered if it really was too late. Had we missed the sweet spot of our relationship? The perfect spot on the springboard into bliss?
I fingered the pill package and looked up at myself in the mirror. For a while after his parents wedding, after I’d told him I was ready for our next chapter, I’d stopped taking them. I don’t know if we were expecting to get pregnant right away, or if I was expecting Jack to propose right away, but neither of those things happened. He’d left for filming a few months later and been gone for twelve torturous weeks. He’d returned almost two months ago, and it was nothing I could put my finger on, but he was ... different.
As the chasm between Jack and I grew, it felt irresponsible to leave things to chance. So one day about a month ago, without much deliberation, I’d simply started taking my pill again. I wasn’t even sure if Jack had noticed. Or if he cared.
I tried to see myself as a mother, but I still felt like a little girl playing dress up. Trying to be her own person, trying to find out who she was. Would that ever change? Was there ever a time one could look oneself in the eye and think, There you are. You finally did it. You’ve grown up. You have all your shit together?
I grabbed a glass and filled it, swallowing the pill down. I was twenty-seven. My birthday was in just a few days. Did I look older? Wiser? Wife material? Ready to form another human?
There was a sound at the door, and Jack stumbled in sleepily. His dark hair was in disarray as he raked his hand through it.
I eyed his bare chest with a hint of dark hair snaking into the band of his white shorts as he came up behind me, catching me in the act of ogling him. He grinned sleepily at me in the mirror as he pressed his warm skin against me, and I couldn’t help but smile back at him. His green eyes held mine in the mirror and my heart expanded in my chest as the love inside me reminded me of its magnitude.
“Hey,” I whispered and inhaled sharply as I felt him press his lower body against me.
“Hey,” he said, dropping his face so his lips could graze my shoulder. Too late I remembered I was holding my now empty package of birth control pills. Why did I feel guilty? He’d never asked me not to take them. I’d never hidden it. But somehow this package, this decision that now seemed to be mine alone was like a symbol for how distanced we’d been recently. How much we’d been withholding from each other. He stiffened slightly behind me and pulled away. I dropped the package in the small trashcan and left the bathroom to give him privacy.
Outside our bedroom window, the morning was crisp and clear, the colors vibrant. The grass lawn, still green in early fall and made more so by the morning sun, was dewy and inviting. The air coming through the cracked opening was icy, though. It raised goose flesh on my arms.
The bathroom door opened, and I turned from the window, suddenly wanting very much to return to the cocoon of warmth in our bed and to love and worship every inch of Jack’s body and show him how much I loved him.
He walked out the bathroom not looking at me and headed for the closet.
“Hey,” I said softly to his muscled back. “Do you want to come back to bed?”
He rummaged around in a drawer for a pair of running shorts and stepped into them, without looking back at me. “Nah. I’m going for a run.”
Three
I walked in the front door of my old home, bringing a cool blast of fall air in with me. The smell of blackberry cassis and firewood assaulted my nose. As soon as she saw me, Jazz slapped a magazine down on the 18th century farm table rescued from an old Carolina rice mill that currently served as a discreet check-in desk.
“What’s wrong?” I laid my bag down by the desk on the dark wood floors and took the chair opposite her. I crossed my denim-clad legs and swung my boot.
“Did you see it?” She frowned, smoothing non-existent stray strands of blonde hair into her low sleek ponytail. She’d taken to straightening it and it made her seem like a different person sometimes. Severe in contrast to the wild, colorful, friend I’d grown up with.
“What? You mean the spectacular write-up in Lifestyle Magazine that’s been on your dream board since you started this business?” I raised an eyebrow and folded my arms, challenging my best friend on her ridiculousness. “I did.”
Jazz let out a long mournful sigh, her breath stirring the flames of the Jo Malone candle that burned steadily on the edge of the table. “It’s the kiss of death,” she went on. “I’m telling you. Tell people we’re impossible to book and no one will even bother trying. We’ll be empty before you know it.”
I laughed. “You’ve been working too hard. You’re just stressed. Do you know when Nicole’s flight lands?”
Nicole was a past guest at the inn who had suddenly decided she wanted to have her wedding in Butler Cove on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was very last minute, but for Jazz, too much business to turn down.
The phone let out its low, muted beep, set that way as to not disturb guests, negating Jazz’s ability to answer my question. She grabbed for it.
“See?” I whispered. “Someone’s calling to book right now.”
Jazz rolled her eyes. “Butler Rooming House. How may I help you?”
Motioning to the door, I headed back outside to get some orchids from Jack’s Jeep I’d picked up for Jazz before leaving Daufuskie this morning.
Outside the front of the Butler house there was now an elegant crushed shell forecourt. The driveway was no longer simply a parking area with weeds I could never get on top of when I’d lived here. The back of the home had also been redone into a beautifully landscaped garden. Nana, may she rest in peace, would have loved it. Jazz hoped to have Nicole’s ceremony out there. As long as Nicole didn’t invite the whole of Manhattan.
Jazz stomped out of the house in her figure–hugging jersey dress and cowboy boots.
“Gah, you look incredible,” I told her. “I’m still so jealous of your boobs after all these years. You’d think I’d get used to them.”
My comment cleared the storm clouds from her features, and a grin tugged at
her mouth. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Whatever. Help me with this stuff please.”
“Shoot, it’s chilly out here. Who has an outdoor wedding in late fall? Oh, yay, you picked up the orchids for me, thank you.” She reached for the open box. “I was trying to think when I’d have a chance to come over and get them this week. What with running this place and planning the wedding, I can hardly find time to take a pee at the moment.”
I shook my head and winced. “Yeah, this time I think you may have taken on too much. I can’t believe you added wedding planner to your hotel manager, slash, concierge duties.”
“For once I won’t argue. But, it’s going to be absolutely perfect.”
“Pity it’s not your own wedding you’re putting in all this work for.” I dropped the comment blithely and quickly headed toward the house before retaliation.
“Or yours,” Jazz retorted, following me up the porch steps. “I’d far rather be helping you organize yours. How long are you going to make the poor guy wait anyway?”
We bustled through to the kitchen and laid out the boxes on the central island, and I tried to hide my face. I was convinced my worries about Jack and me were written all over it.
The kitchen of my childhood home had been redesigned so guests could pop in and make coffee and chat with the chef in the evenings. Breakfast was a continental offering, and the only meal served was dinner, by booking only. So the newly hired chef and his assistant only arrived at two p.m. on the days needed.
So we had the place to ourselves.
“I’m not making him wait.” I answered Jazz’s question, busying myself at the small, expensive Nespresso coffee machine. I’d be bouncing off the walls later. It was hard to say no to the delicious one shot coffee. I never wanted to see filter coffee again. How easily we were spoiled. I let out a half laugh at myself, vowing to make Jack take me to the Waffle House on Interstate 95 as soon as possible to keep my feet firmly on the ground. “Can I make you one?”