A Misty Harbor Wedding (28 page)

“What about the time I caught you behind Bailey's ice cream shop playing tonsil hockey with that girl? What was her name?”

Matt sat up straight as a flush swept up his cheeks. “Gee, look at that fountain, Sierra. I wonder who picked it out?”

Sierra giggled. “You're cute when you blush.”

“Guys don't blush.” Matt glared at Millicent.

Millicent smiled serenely as she looked around Matt to the bare-breasted mermaid pouring water out of a shell. “I'd say from the size of her bosom, your father, Matt.”

Matt's eyes opened wide. “What do you know about my father and his preferences in the female form?”

“What, you think he married your mother for her cooking?” Millicent laughed with delight.

Matt groaned and buried his face in his hands.

Sierra patted Matt on the back. She could sympathize with him. Children should never have to think about their parents having sex.

The music from the tent unexpectedly stopped in the middle of a song. “Excuse me, everyone, I need to make an announcement.” John Porter took the DJ's mike. “Ethan and Olivia Wycliffe have just become the proud parents of a baby boy. Olivia and son are doing exceptionally well, and from all accounts, Ethan managed to pull through it without too many complications.”

Someone shouted a question that Sierra couldn't hear.

“The baby weighs eight pounds, four ounces, is twenty-one inches long, and no name has been given to the little tyke yet. Olivia and Ethan are still discussing it.”

Cheers erupted, and somewhere over by the bar another champagne cork popped. The music was turned back on and more people crowded their way onto the dance floor.

“Ah, that's the fourth baby born this year.” Millicent beamed with pride. “We're going to need another teacher or two soon.” Millicent looked at Sierra. “You wouldn't happen to know any teachers, would you?”

Considering she'd just had dinner with one, it was an easy question to answer. “Gordon's daughter, Juliet, teaches third grade.”

Juliet stood in the doorway of the bookstore and looked across the street to where Gordon stood in conversation with Harvey Krup, the owner of Krup's General Store. Both men were puffing away on their pipes and more than likely discussing yesterday's wedding. Sunday mornings in Misty Harbor were quiet and peaceful.

A few residents had stopped in earlier. Most wanted to gossip about who had drunk too much at the reception and who had danced with whom. Some had even placed bets with Gordon on whether Chelsea, the maid of honor, would be going back to Philadelphia.

Seemed Chelsea had partaken a little too freely of the nectar of the gods and had declared she wanted to become the mayor of Misty Harbor. Someone had tacked up a
VOTE FOR CHELSEA
poster on the door of Buddy's Bait Shop down at the docks. In the middle of the poster was a blown-up digital photo of Chelsea at the wedding. She looked like Miss America. The only thing missing had been the crown and sash. A petition was already circulating throughout town to put Chelsea's name on the November ballot.

Gordon had signed the petition without blinking an eye.

Juliet didn't know what shocked her more, the fact that what appeared to be normal, sane residents were taking Chelsea seriously, or that Juliet's father was running a booking operation out of the shop.

Juliet had placed five bucks on Chelsea waking this morning with a killer hangover and regretting her impromptu speech about a lobster in every pot and a Johnson outboard engine in every garage. Juliet had missed the speech but had heard the highlights from Gordon this morning over coffee. That's what she got for leaving the reception early with Steve to go strolling down by the docks. They had missed all the politics.

“Hey, you're scaring all the customers away with all this fresh air.” Gordon knocked the ash out of his pipe and into the ashtray filled with sand next to the front door. A
NO SMOKING
sign had been taped to each front door. “It's still a little chilly out.”

“No, it's not.” Juliet moved away from the doors but kept them open. A breeze was ruffling a couple pages of the magazines. Gordon had opened the shop while she had slept in. Once he had filled her in on the local gossip, she had kicked him out front for his morning smoke. “It's a beautiful morning. The fresh air will do you good—clear out those lungs.”

Gordon raised his sunglasses to the top of his head, snorted, and placed his now-empty pipe next to the cash register. “You got in awfully late last night.”

“I thought you weren't going to wait up.” It had barely been after one in the morning, and she knew for a fact she'd hardly made a sound when she had come in. She had even avoided the squeaky step on the stairway. “I discovered something last night.”

Gordon frowned. “Do I need to buy a shotgun?”

Juliet laughed and tried not to blush. Although no home runs had been scored last night, a couple of the bases had been tagged. “I was referring to you.”

“Me?” Gordon looked intrigued. “What about me?”

“I discovered why all the kids seem to be afraid of you.” Juliet sat on the stool behind the counter and grinned. “That question has been bothering me since the first day I got here.”

“Why didn't you ask?” Gordon laughed. “It's no secret.”

“I realize that, but the adults had the good manners not to believe it or bring it up in normal conversation, and the little kids were avoiding me too. I was guilty by association.”

“Who let the cat out of the bag?”

“Don't you mean the bat out of the belfry?” Juliet was enjoying herself. “What I don't understand is why in the world you let the kids think you're a vampire.” She had put two and two together and couldn't believe the four she came up with, but it all made sense. When she expressed her suspicions to Steve, he had come clean and admitted that even he had been scared of Gordon as a little boy.

It seemed Gordon played a very convincing vampire when he wanted to.

Gordon shrugged. “Winters get kind of boring here. The kids need something to inspire their imagination. Lord knows they don't get it from most of the crap they have to read in school nowadays.” Gordon wrapped his arm across his nose and mouth and in a deep Hungarian accent said, “I vant to bite your neck.”

“Isn't it a little too early for Halloween, Gordon?”

Juliet almost fell off the stool. “Mom!” Victoria Carlyle was standing in the doorway of the shop with her gaze glued to Gordon's back.

Gordon slowly turned around and dropped his arm. “Vicki?” He couldn't believe that Victoria was standing in his shop. Twenty-seven years since he had last seen her, and she hadn't really changed that much. Her blond hair was now streaked with gray and cut short. Designer glasses were perched on her nose and her eyes were just as blue as he remembered. Her mouth was just as luscious. Brown leather sandals, well-worn jeans, and a sleeveless top with lots of embroidery clothed her still-trim body. Chunky wooden bracelets encircled both of her wrists.

No, Vicki hadn't changed much over the years. She was still the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on.

“Hello, Gordon.”

His brain froze and he forgot how to talk. All he could do was stare at Vicki and sink into the past.

Victoria flushed when he didn't say anything in return and then turned to her daughter. “Juliet, you look wonderful.” Victoria walked over to her daughter and pulled her up off the stool. “Whatever you have been doing, it agrees with you.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Juliet kissed her mother's cheek. “What brings you here?”

“Can I say I was in the neighborhood?” Victoria nervously glanced around the shop. She felt like an idiot. She shouldn't have come, or at least she should have called first. Gordon hadn't even returned her hello. He was standing there staring at her as if a ghost of Hamlet's father had just walked into the bookstore.

Maybe it was Halloween after all, or at least the opening act of a great tragedy.

“I don't think that one will cut it, Mom.” Juliet glanced over at Gordon, then back to her mom. “Misty Harbor's a good five-hour drive, and that's pushing it with no breaks. What time did you leave home, anyway? It's only ten-thirty.”

“I spent the night at a small bed-and-breakfast outside of Camden.” She had found the place by pure luck late yesterday afternoon and decided to stop there for the night. She needed the time to build up her courage. Facing Gordon after all these years was going to take a heap more courage than she usually possessed. Besides, she had known that Gordon and Juliet were attending some wedding yesterday and wouldn't be there anyway.

Seeing Gordon for the first time in more than two decades after driving for nearly six hours wasn't what she wanted to do. She wanted to be well rested, fresh, and looking her best. She wanted to impress the hell out of him. Instead, he had gone totally speechless.

She didn't consider that a good sign.

Gordon had every right to toss her tush back out on the street. She hadn't told him he had a daughter for fifteen years. Then out of the blue she had dropped that bombshell by sending him not only a picture of Juliet but also a letter begging him not to have contact with her, and saying that Juliet was being raised by a loving man she thought was her real father.

She never should have come.

Juliet looked wonderful. There was color in her cheeks and her eyes were sparkling. Her daughter was not only fine, she seemed to have blossomed. The nightly phone calls home hadn't been telling the whole story. “I've been worried about you.” It was the truth. Her quiet, shy, sweet Juliet had done something so out of character by coming to Maine all by herself. What mother wouldn't have been worried?

No matter how many times Juliet had reassured her that everything was fine, she was fine, and that Gordon seemed very happy to have her there, she still had to come to Maine to see for herself. She was dying of curiosity to see and meet Juliet's version of her Gordy, the man she had fallen in love with more than twenty-seven years ago. The man who had fathered her first child.

Juliet gave her a hug. “Mom, I'm fine. I told you everything was okay.”

Victoria hugged her daughter back and felt tears come to her eyes. “I know you did.” She turned her head and looked at Gordon through the tears.

Professor Gordon Hanley had been every college girl's dream. He had been twenty-nine, six-foot-two, thin, with long, flowing black hair and hazel eyes that were either dreamy or sparkling with intelligence. They had been, until they made love, then his eyes turned a deeper green and filled with fire and love. At least she had thought it was love. Gordon had looked at her as if she were the only woman in the world. He had once called her his Juliet.

Their affair had started before Christmas, and by Easter break Gordon had shattered her heart and her dreams. She didn't remember all the words he had spoken to her that night so long ago, but she did remember how much it had hurt, and that their relationship was over.

Eight weeks later, back at her parents' house, she had discovered Gordon had left her with more than a broken heart. He'd left her carrying their child.

She had been so scared back then. If Gordon didn't love her, how could he love their child? He wouldn't. She had run to her old high school sweetheart and friend, Ken Carlyle, and cried her heart out. Ken had held her, comforted her, and promised her that everything would work out. And it had.

By July she and Ken were married, and no one had guessed that the bulge under the empire waist of her wedding gown was not Ken's child. Ken had gently held Juliet the minute after her birth, and there had been nothing but pride and love on his face.

Juliet had been Ken's firstborn child—his little dark-haired bookworm, as he liked to call her.

Ken had been a wonderful husband and father to all four of their children. She had fallen in love with him, but it was a sweet love, one that grew every year, until nine months shy of their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. One night while driving home from work he had been killed by a drunken driver.

That time, when she cried her eyes and heart out, she had been surrounded by their four children. That time it had been she who had held them and promised that everything would be okay. That everything would work out. And it had. Life went on and eventually the joy and the smiles came back into their lives. But Ken Carlyle had left a big void in all their lives.

“Victoria, you're here!” Gordon seemed to snap out of his daze.

She stepped away from Juliet and straightened her top. If her daughter had found the courage to face the man who fathered her, so could she. “Hello again, Gordon.” His hair was still dark and flowing, but now it was streaked with gray. The angles of his face seemed sharper.

Gordon looked at Juliet, as if seeking her help. Whatever message passed between father and daughter, Juliet caught it.

“Mom, come, I'll give you the nickel tour of Gordon's shop.” Juliet grabbed her mother's hand and tugged her over to a bookshelf. “You wouldn't believe all the great books I've found here.”

Victoria let herself be led around the shop and listened as her daughter went on and on about the different sections of books and how she had convinced Gordon to make a separate section for children.

Although the books were interesting, Victoria liked the small selection of elegant stationery and the pens. Who would spend that kind of money on a platinum fountain pen?

“Come look at these, Mom.” Juliet tugged her away from the pens and over to a case filled with fancy containers.

“What are they?” Some looked like crystal, some wood, and some silver. Most looked like antiques.

“Gordon, why don't you explain the tobacco humidors to my mom?” Juliet shot a look across the shop that dared Gordon to argue with her. “I think I'll run upstairs and see what we have to make for lunch.”

“No,” she blurted out a little too fast. “I mean, it's not even eleven o'clock. What's the rush?” She didn't want her daughter to leave her alone with Gordon. She didn't know what to say to him.

“Your mother's right, Juliet. There's no rush.” Gordon walked across the shop and joined them by the display cases. “It's good to see you, Victoria.” Gordon bowed. “ ‘ She walks in beauty, like the night.'”

“Lord Byron. Very good.” She smiled at the memory of the quote game they used to play—a game she had taught their daughter. “‘Whenever a man's friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure that they think he is growing old.'”

Gordon raised a brow. “Washington Irving. Really, Vicki, I expected better from you.”

Juliet's laughter filled the room.

Victoria faked an indignant glare. “‘It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.'”

Gordon's laughter joined Juliet's. “Twain's
Pudd'n-head Wilson
?” It took Gordon a moment to catch his breath. “I now know where Juliet gets it from.”

“Not everyone believes the English language rises and falls with Shakespeare.” She remembered nights lying in Gordon's bed as he read Shakespeare to her.

“Careful, Gordon, I've heard her quote Janis Joplin once when she was really mad.”

“Janis Joplin?” Gordon looked impressed.

Victoria blushed a brilliant red and confessed, “It wasn't Joplin. I lied. The quote was all mine. I yelled something I shouldn't have, and at the time figured it sounded like something Janis would have sung about.”