The Chesapeake Bride

by Mariah Stewart

  “About Cassidy House. Here’s the short version.” He turned off the car and pocketed the key. “Once upon a time, some ancestor of mine owned that place. Built it, actually. But when he and his family were driven out of town and onto the island, a man who lived in St. Dennis—someone who worked for that ancestor of mine in his mill—claimed the house because it was now for all practical purposes abandoned, and he moved into it with his family. His name was Cassidy. Now, it never bothered Lis or me, but it drove my father to drink. I mean, literally drove him to become an alcoholic. He couldn’t leave the past where it belonged, blamed St. Dennis for everything that was wrong with his life, when he should have been blaming himself. He was a really miserable human being, and it was all because he couldn’t let go of something that had never been his to begin with.”

  “I’m sorry. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have mentioned it,” Cass said softly. She reached her hand across the console and touched the side of Owen’s face. For a moment he thought she was going to kiss him, but she merely let her fingers linger on his skin for a moment.

  The gesture instantly soothed him. “There’s no way you would have.” He took her hand in his and held it. “I’d told you about my dad, but I didn’t mention that.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “It’s not worth talking about.”

  “No, it isn’t. Especially today when it’s such a happy time for your family.”

  “It is. I’m really happy for Lis. She deserves only good things in her life.” He got out of the car and walked to the passenger side to open the door for Cass.

  “The weather is perfect for an outdoor wedding.” She took the hand he offered to help her. She stood for a moment and smoothed her dress. “Did my dress wrinkle in the back?” She turned around.

  “Nope. It’s perfect.” He would willingly have stared at the view for a moment longer, but he knew they were right on the border between almost late and late. He took her hand and they hurried across the road and onto the point.

  A string quartet was playing to the right of the pier, a song Owen didn’t recognize but that Lis said was the theme from On Golden Pond. Almost all the guests had been seated, and several turned around as if watching for the bridal party to appear.

  The door to Lis’s cottage stood open. Lis had planned on getting dressed there, and the bridal party was to meet inside.

  “This looks amazing,” Cass exclaimed. “What a perfect place for a wedding. Would you look at this? It’s positively transformed.”

  “Lucy did an incredible job.” Owen nodded. “Looks like everyone’s been seated except for the—ahem—latecomers. Go ahead with Ford, he’ll find you a seat. I need to get inside. I’m sure Lis must think I’ve gone fishing or something and I’ve forgotten what day it is. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  He took one last look over his shoulder. Lucy had indeed transformed the point into a sparkly wonderland. Thousands of tiny white fairy lights twinkled in every one of the towering ancient pines from the cottage all the way to the pier where the ceremony would be held. White chairs were set up in a fan pattern, with an aisle strewn with flower petals down the middle. Off to the right a large white tent had been set up for dining and dancing after the ceremony. Lis said a cocktail hour would be held outside the tent, which was carefully closed off from the prying eyes of the arriving guests. She’d wanted everyone to be surprised when the tent flaps were pulled back. Owen had no idea what was inside, but he was sure that between Lis and Lucy, it was going to be great.

  He went up the cottage steps and pushed open the door.

  “There’s my boy.” Kathleen Parker Long patted his arm when he entered the great room. “And doesn’t he look handsome?” For a moment, he was afraid she was going to pinch his cheek.

  “Thanks, Mom.” He gave her arm a squeeze and looked around.

  Two women in floaty pink dresses held bouquets with pink and purple flowers with just a touch of something orange. Owen spotted Alec and made his way to him. Everyone seemed to be sipping champagne but Owen. He grabbed a glass from a tray on a table and took a sip. He’d rather have a cold beer, but there weren’t any.

  “Hey. You all ready for this?” He clapped Alec on the back.

  “I’ve been ready. I just want to get on with it. What’s taking Lis so long?” Alec glanced down the hall toward the bedroom.

  “How about I send someone in to find out.” Owen looked around for someone to send. “Carly, would you run back and ask my sister what her timetable is? I think we need to get started real soon.”

  Carly Summit Sinclair—Lis’s matron of honor and wife of Ford, Alec’s cousin and best man—nodded, grabbed another glass of champagne, and headed down the hall. She returned in less than a minute and told Owen, “Lis wants to see you.”

  Oh, God, she’s got cold feet, Owen thought. He knocked softly on the door, then opened it, expecting to find Lis pacing nervously. Instead, she stood, cool and calm, looking out the back window at a rosebush she’d planted earlier in the summer.

  “They’re doing really well there. The roses. Everyone told me they wouldn’t grow, that it wasn’t a good spot for them, but Gigi said she used to have one planted there and it bloomed from May till November. One year, she had roses at Christmas.” Lis turned and smiled at her brother. “Or so she claimed. She told me to have faith and it would bloom. And it has.”

  Owen stared at Lis. He’d never seen her look so beautiful. He’d always thought of her as a pretty kid, but today she was radiant. Her hair was swept up at the back, intertwined with small pink dahlias he recognized from Ruby’s garden. Her dress was lacy and long, off the shoulder, and had long sleeves and she looked like . . .

  A bride. Today my little sister is a bride.

  “Why, Owen Parker. Are those tears?” Lis walked toward him, scrutinizing his face.

  “What? Me? No. Of course not.” He swiped at his eyes. “Lis, you look . . . pretty.”

  “Pretty? I spent the entire day getting buffed and made-up and hair and yada yada yada, and my brother tells me I look pretty?” She snorted. “That’s the best you can do?”

  “I guess beautiful is more accurate. You really do look beautiful.”

  “Does it pain you to say that?”

  Owen laughed. “No. Well, maybe a little. I’m not used to seeing you all fluffed up like that.”

  “Fluffed? Well, yes, I guess we can add fluffed to the rest of it.” She reached into a box for his boutonniere. “Hold still so I can pin this on you.”

  She took a minute to affix the small pink flower and green fern to his lapel, then stood back. “You look pretty, too, big brother. The ladies will be lining up for your attention tonight.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “But you only have one girl on your mind these days, right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Uh-huh.” Lis kissed his cheek. “I hope it works out for you. Life is very different when you find the one you’re meant to be with. It’s better. Stop fighting it.”

  “I’m not fighting anything.” He couldn’t explain to Lis that while he couldn’t read Cass, he could feel her somehow, and what he felt, felt right. He almost didn’t understand it himself.

  “Good. Don’t get in your own way. Cass is special. I may not have the eye, but I can see that much. If you want her, you have to let her know. Thinking about her isn’t going to get you anywhere. And don’t deny that you think about her. I watched your face at dinner last week. You melt every time you look at her.” Lis took his hand. “Lecture over. Let’s get this show on the road, as they say. Go tell my handsome almost-husband to go on out to the pier. Ask Ford to escort Mom to her seat. Do you believe she actually showed up?”

  “Yes, and she’s glad to be here.”

  “Good. I really wanted her to come.”

  “Did you tell her that?”

  Lis shook her head. “I wanted her to be here because she wanted to be, not because my wanting her here made her feel obligated.” Lis sighed. “Why do things always have to be so com
plicated in our family?”

  “They don’t have to be. She loves us both, but being around us reminds her of a very unhappy time in her life. We both know how we felt, growing up in that house with Dad, but neither of us knows what she felt or what she had to put up with. She always tried to make it seem for us that things were okay, even when we all knew they weren’t. She’s finally found someone who makes her feel good about herself, and who cares enough about her to come with her to your wedding. The fact that she’s here should tell you all you really need to know, Lis. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “You’re right. Of course you’re right. So, yes, I’m going to focus on the fact that she cared enough to come.” Lis paused. “Do you think I should have asked her to walk me down the aisle, too?”

  “You already have me and Ruby walking with you. Unless you want to look like you’re leading a parade, I think I’d leave things as they are.”

  “Good point. Now get moving so I can get married.”

  “You say that as if I were the one holding things up.”

  “Out. Now.”

  “Wait. Shouldn’t I be walking Mom to her seat?”

  “If you weren’t walking with me, I’d say yes. But now I want to get the whole party moving. So go.”

  Owen tagged Ford to walk Kathleen to her seat along with her new husband, after which Ford would join Alec at the pier, where the officiant—Dan Sinclair, Ford’s brother—waited to perform the ceremony. Lucy sent Alec on his way, with instructions to get everyone in line. She sent a text to the violinists who were waiting near the pier that they should begin to play “Canon in F” for the processional.

  Lis’s two attendants—a former roommate of Lis’s from New York named Olivia, and Carly—went out the door first. Owen found Ruby seated in the living room, waiting for her cue. She wore a long-sleeved dress of purple lace and a cream-colored wide-brimmed hat covered with pink and purple flowers. On her feet she wore—yes, the ever-present clean-as-a-whistle white tennis shoes.

  “You’re a stunner, Gigi.” Owen helped her to her feet.

  “It be such a happy day. My granddaughter be back home and my great-grandbaby be marrying her fellow. All right here in this same spot where my Harold brought me to begin our life together. It all be right, son.”

  He nodded. “I couldn’t agree more. Lucy went to get Lis . . . oh, there she is. What do you think of your girl now, Gigi?”

  Lis seemed to float through the hallway.

  “Pretty as a cornflower.” Ruby nodded, and her eyes, much like Owen’s, brimmed but did not spill over. She took Lis’s hands in hers and simply held them. Finally Ruby said, “It be time, Lisbeth.”

  Owen opened the door and helped Lis and Ruby on the steps. With Lis in the middle, the three prepared to walk the short aisle to the strains of Clarke’s “Trumpet Voluntary.” Owen wondered how much of that walk Lis would later remember. While leaving a lot of oohs and aahs in her wake, she looked straight ahead. When she and Alec locked eyes, she smiled, and Alec looked as if he were about to burst with the joy of the moment. Owen left his sister with Alec and Dan on the pier, the sun setting behind them, to take their vows.

  Owen gave Ruby the aisle seat so she could see the proceedings better, which put him between his mother and his great-grandmother. Ruby surprised him by reaching for his hand and holding it throughout the entire ceremony. A few minutes later, his mother did the same. He felt as if he were pinned down on each side. He tried to focus his attention on the ceremony, but he found himself drifting in and out.

  A sailboat halfway across the bay came into view, and he watched for a few minutes as it passed by. There was no wind, and little breeze, so he imagined the owners were using the engine to keep the boat moving. He wondered where it was moored.

  Ruby squeezed his hand and brought him back to the ceremony.

  “I, Lisbeth Jane Parker . . .”

  His sister had been named after a great-aunt and another long-ago ancestor, and Owen toyed with the idea they could be watching, spirits from another dimension, gathered invisibly on the point as one of their own entered into marriage.

  Another squeeze from Ruby, as if she knew his mind was elsewhere.

  Of course she did.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t care that this was his sister’s wedding. It was just that he was a guy, and there were distractions. Such as knowing Cass was sitting back there looking like the best dream he’d ever had in that silky dress that seemed to flow like water through his hands when he’d touched the small of her back.

  Ruby turned and glared at him, and he gave her his most innocent look before turning back to the wedding.

  “I, Alec Matthew Jansen . . .”

  It was strange thinking about his little sister being someone’s wife. Not a bad strange. She looked so happy, her face was glowing.

  His mind wandered back to the skipjack that used to sit on cinder blocks behind the store. Once upon a time it had belonged to his great-uncle Eben, who’d taken it out on the bay every day of the week except Sundays from the day he bought it. Owen had been shocked when he arrived home over the summer and looked out the window to find the boat gone. Ruby had given it to Alec as payment for all the work he’d done in the store, building her new living quarters. It turned out that Alec’s uncle—the one who’d raised him—had built that boat. Owen was glad Ruby was happy with her new rooms and that she didn’t have to climb those steep steps anymore, but he still missed the sight of that boat standing above the dune like a sentinel. Of course, with Lis marrying Alec, the boat was now back in the family, more or less.

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” Dan was saying, and everyone applauded. Which meant that both Ruby and Kathleen let go of his hands, which had fallen asleep while in their clutches.

  The happy couple turned to the crowd, and Lis raised her bouquet in a gesture of joy. They danced their way back down the aisle to U2’s “Beautiful Day” coming through the speakers that had been hung on the trunks of two of the trees.

  “Think you could stay tuned in to your only sister’s wedding,” Ruby grumbled.

  “I’m sorry. But it’s not really my fault.” He leaned close to her ear and whispered, “It’s true what they say about guys and short attention spans, Gigi.”

  “Don’t be seeing you drift away when you be watching football last Sunday night.”

  “That’s different. I had money on that game.”

  “I don’t want to hear about it.” Ruby grabbed his arm and all but shoved him into the aisle. At one hundred years, she could still give him a push when she felt like it.

  He found a seat for Ruby near the doorway to the tent, then went in search of Cass. He found her chatting with Grace and Jamie, Dan’s wife.

  “Lovely wedding, Owen,” Grace said when she saw him approaching. “Your sister makes a beautiful bride.”

  “She does.”

  “And you’re looking quite dapper yourself,” Grace told him. “I don’t often see you dressed up. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve seen you in a suit but maybe once or twice in your life.”

  “It’s not my first choice, but today’s a special occasion.” His hand rested casually on Cass’s waist.

  “Lis’s dress was gorgeous,” Cass said.

  “Totally to die for,” Jamie agreed. “Vanessa special-ordered it for her. Don’t you love that off-the-shoulder look?”

  Owen took the opportunity to hunt down a waiter who carried flutes of champagne and another with some scrumptious-looking hors d’oeuvres and led them back to Grace and her group.

  “These are yummy,” Cass said as she nibbled a shrimp, her lips closing over it slowly.

  Owen had no problem keeping his focus on her face. It was an effort for him to look away when the time came to go into the tent, where they found flowers wrapped around the tent poles and Chinese lanterns in shades of pink, purple, and orange hanging from the roof. Farm-style tables ran along both sides of the tent and were joined with o
ne lateral table, where the bride and groom sat with their wedding party, with a dance floor in the middle and the band at the opposite end of the tent. Owen found places at one of the long tables and helped Ruby to her seat. Lis had decided against assigned seating, so Kathleen and Dave and Cousin Chrissie rounded out that end of the table.

  The bandleader invited the bride and groom onto the dance floor for their first dance. They’d chosen an old tune, “I Only Have Eyes for You,” as their song. The twentysomething lead singer did justice to the song, which had been around, Kathleen explained, since before the Second World War.

  “I don’t know the song,” Cass said. “It’s lovely, but I don’t know if I’ve heard it before.”

  “Alec asked for it because it was a favorite of his parents. He said one night he was sneaking out of bed to get a book he’d left downstairs, and he caught them dancing in the living room after they thought he’d gone to bed. This song was playing, and he said he crept back up the stairs because he knew instinctively, even as a five-year-old, that he was intruding on something very special. He never forgot the song. I guess maybe they played it a lot.”

  Next the bandleader announced the bride would dance with her brother in place of her father, and together Owen and Lis danced to “Forever Young” and sang along with every verse. Alec danced with Grace—obviously a surrogate for his mother, Grace’s late sister, Carole—and Grace uncharacteristically wept through the entire two minutes and twenty-eight seconds it took for the band to play a decent rendition of the Beatles’ “In My Life.”

  Dinner had been prepared by Sophie Enright’s crew and featured both Lis’s and Alec’s favorites—halibut and cheeseburger sliders, respectively. They’d been interrupted numerous times for toasts to the wedding couple. Owen’s followed that of the best man, but overcome with unexpected emotion, he’d skipped the rap he’d rehearsed. He concluded with wishing his new brother-in-law tons of luck and lots of patience, because Alec would no doubt need a bundle of both.