A Misty Harbor Wedding (4 page)

“That's my Evelyn.” Pride deepened Lenny's voice. “How about if I can get her to make you one of her prized cakes, and you can teach her how to make that western omelet?”

“Sounds like I'll be getting the better end of that deal.” She loved chocolate in any form and it would be the perfect excuse to invite Matt over one evening. “How about you talk it over with Evelyn and then let me know?”

“Deal.” Lenny glanced at the customers waiting not so patiently behind them before turning his attention back to them. The time for small talk was up. “What can I get you two?”

 

 

Matt felt like a teenager on his first date. This evening's meal wasn't really a date. It was an all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner at the Methodist church. Adults were nine dollars, kids under twelve were five, and anyone three and under got to eat free. He had eaten there a couple times over the years, but he wasn't very fond of slightly overcooked spaghetti noodles with meat sauce. He was a steak and potato kind of guy, but what did one expect for nine bucks? Plus it came with dessert.

It was going to be a totally ho-hum meal that didn't require him to change his shirt for the third time. So why was he standing in his bedroom trying to decide between the blue plaid button-down shirt or the designer polo shirt he had gotten last Christmas? He decided on comfort and went with his first choice, the blue plaid.

Sierra and Austin seemed anxious to experience all that Misty Harbor had to offer. Who was he to disappoint them? Besides, his brother John and his wife, Kay, were having a great time teasing him about hijacking their son, Tyler, to get a date. With his brother Ned's upcoming wedding, he'd be the last unattached Porter, the butt of their jokes and matchmaking attempts. He loved his sisters-in-law greatly, but they had lousy taste in women.

He preferred to find his own dates.

Even though technically this wasn't a date. He and Tyler were going to meet them outside the Methodist church in half an hour. This way Sierra would know someone there, and Austin would get to spend some more time with his new friend. A totally harmless evening. So why did he just misbutton his shirt?

With a curse of self-disgust, he rebuttoned the shirt and finished getting ready. It was time for him to get going.

Twenty minutes later he was standing on the edge of the town's park, directly across the street from the Methodist church. His brother John, his wife, Kay, and the kids were running late, as usual. His three-year-old niece, Morgan, could make a Rolex watch run late.

“Hey, Matt. How's it going?” asked a deep, softly spoken voice.

Matt knew it was Gordon Hanley by the smell of his pipe. “Fine, Gordon. How's it going with you?” Gordon owned the local bookstore and tobacco shop on Main Street, the Pen and Ink. It was a strange combination for a store. Tobacco products were in a decline, even with the strange phenomenon a couple years back with everyone thinking they were cool by smoking cigars. Gordon's love was his pipe. He had never seen the man without one. Hence the problem with his store. Every book, magazine, and stationery supply smelled like Prince Albert or whatever tobacco Gordon was currently smoking.

“Can't complain.” Gordon puffed on his pipe. “Expecting a shipment of books on Tuesday. Want me to put aside the Koontz, Fairstein, and Lescroart?”

“Of course.” He watched as a wreath of smoke circled Gordon's head. “Our usual deal?” Gordon sealed Matt's books in a Ziploc bag to prevent them from absorbing the smell and smoke of the shop. The last time he bought a book at Gordon's that had been sitting out on the shelf, he'd had to leave it sitting on the windowsill for days trying to air it out. He never could get rid of the stench.

“Won't dream of changing it.” Gordon puffed on the stem of his pipe and another billow of smoke filled the air. “If you took up the pipe, you wouldn't notice it.”

Matt had to chuckle at the thought. When he had been twelve years old, a friend had dared him to smoke a stogie. He had never been so sick, or green, in his life. He wouldn't touch a tobacco product if Catherine Zeta-Jones handed it to him herself. “You just want another smoking buddy to sit in your back room and play chess all day.” Everyone in town knew that Gordon was an excellent chess player. Gordon was always on the lookout for a challenge.

“Can't blame a guy for trying.” Gordon took the pipe out of his mouth and held it out for inspection. “Look at this beauty. Treated myself to an early birthday present.” The pipe had a clear amber-colored stem and a beautifully carved figure head as the bowl. “It's a Meerschaum. It's called Swashbuckler.”

The carved face was that of an old man with a beard and a big old-fashioned hat with a feather sticking out of it. It took guts to walk around town smoking the unusual pipe, but he'd seen Gordon puff on stranger-looking things. “He kind of looks like Shakespeare to me.”

Gordon chuckled. “I thought so too. That's why I got him.” Gordon stuck the stem between his lips and puffed away. “The Bard had a Vandyke, though, not a full beard.”

“If you say so.” Gordon was a Shakespeare nut. The man could probably recite entire scenes in his sleep.

Gordon closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. “I'm trying a new brand of tobacco tonight, Captain Black Royal. I must say that I like the aroma, but it is awfully expensive.”

“Smells like any other pipe you smoke.” He couldn't smell a difference. Tobacco was tobacco to him.

Gordon almost matched Matt's six foot three inch height. Gordon missed it by an inch, but Matt had a good thirty or forty pounds on the older man. With an unusually pale complexion, startling hazel eyes, rail-thin build, and an angular face, Gordon had long been rumored to be a vampire. The interior of the Pen and Ink was always dark, dreary, and stunk of cigars, cigarettes, and pipes, which only added to the allure.

School-age boys started to place dares on who would be brave enough to walk into the shop and buy the latest comic book. Gordon went along with the gag and started stocking more comic books and being more mysterious to the young customers. He was Misty Harbor's vampire, and he loved it.

Matt figured he was just lonely.

“Aren't you afraid to be seen out in the daylight?” He tried to keep the laughter out of his voice when he noticed two boys, around ten, hiding behind a nearby tree listening to their every word.

Gordon must have sensed the boys were there. “These special sunglasses protect my eyes, and it's after six. The sun really isn't that strong.” Gordon's thin, pale fingers raked through his long black hair, which was liberally streaked with gray. For the benefit of their young audience, he added, “Besides, I'm feeling awfully hungry.”

He coughed to cover up his laugh, as both boys sprinted across the park without once looking back. “Gordon, that wasn't very nice of you.”

Gordon's lips curved around the stem of his pipe. “Ah, it will give them something to talk about tonight with all their friends.” Gordon chuckled. “I wonder what they'll say if they see me enjoying a plate of spaghetti and meat sauce?”

“Probably the same thing we used to say when we caught you out in sunlight or eating real food.” He could still remember the dares and the spine-tingling excitement of entering Gordon's store when he had been around nine years old. Gordon Hanley used to scare the starch right out of his shorts. “That you were only doing it so the adults wouldn't suspect what you really were”—he lowered his voice and whispered dramatically—“one of the walking dead.”

Gordon roared with laughter.

“What's so funny?” asked Matt's brother John as he joined them on the sidewalk. Three-year-old Morgan was perched on his shoulders. She was wearing a pink tutu, fairy wings, and a silver tiara. She also was waving a sparkling silver wand at everyone.

“Just reminiscing about the good old days.” At thirty years old, he thought it seemed strange having old days, good or bad. “You're late. What happened?” Matt glanced down the walkway to where Kay was busily combing Tyler's hair and straightening out his shirt. His nephew looked like he had just crawled out from underneath some bushes. Either that or he was being raised by wolves.

“Tyler was supposed to bring Cletus into the house while I belted Morgan into her car seat.”

Cletus was John and Kay's two-year-old, sixty-five-pound black Labrador that was as obedient as a kitten. “Let me guess, a chipmunk?”

“Close, a squirrel. Before I could stop him, Cletus was across the yard and in the undergrowth with Tyler right on his tail.” John had a couple of fresh scrapes on his arm and one nasty-looking one running the length of his jaw. “I honestly don't know which one is worse—my son or the dog. Took me fifteen minutes to fish them both out of the thistles.”

“Ah,” Gordon said. “Did they catch the critter?”

“No, it ran under a bush.” John reached for Morgan's wand after it whacked him on the head for the third time. “Morgan, sweetie, how many times have I asked you not to hit people with that wand. It hurts.”

Morgan stuck out her lower lip and pouted. “One, two, three, four, five.”

“That's about right.” John stuck the end of the wand into the back pocket of his jeans. “After dinner, if you're a good girl, I'll let you have it back.”

Morgan's lower lip started to tremble, and if he wasn't mistaken a sheen of tears glistened in her eyes. The waterworks were about to begin. “Now, Daddy.”

Matt looked down at his shoes and tried not to laugh. It only encouraged his niece more. Morgan was a handful and had her daddy wrapped around her little finger. At the first sight of tears, John would give her back the wand. It wouldn't matter if she bashed his head in with it. John, all six feet five inches of him, was a sucker for tears.

Then again, Matt would give her back the wand too, just so he wouldn't have to hear the fit his niece was about to throw. If Sierra thought Tyler had inherited the drama gene, wait until she got a load of Morgan at full volume.

“My, Matt, who do we have here?” asked Sierra as she was gazing up at Morgan. Speak of the devil—Sierra and Austin had come down the sidewalk to join them, and he hadn't even noticed. Sierra smiled up at Morgan. “Are you a fairy or a princess? Maybe a princess fairy?”

Morgan's pout turned into a grin. “Hi.”

“Hi yourself.” Sierra smiled at John. “You must be a Porter.”

“How can you tell? The height?” John smiled back at Sierra, apparently enjoying the view.

“No, the stubborn-looking jaw.” Sierra glanced at him and winked.

Matt felt the concrete beneath his feet shift. He had thought Sierra's eyes were the color of a wind-tossed sea, a beautiful turbulent gray. The glint of laughter in her eyes appeared to be more green than gray. He wondered if Sierra had eyes that slightly changed color with her every mood. He'd heard about eyes like that but had never actually seen them. An intriguing thought occurred to him as Tyler ran up to Austin and his nephew pulled something from his pocket. What color would Sierra's eyes turn if he kissed her?

His sister-in-law Kay joined the group. “If you think John's jaw is stubborn, try arguing with him. I've known rocks that are more flexible.”

Sierra's soft laugh caused his stomach to clench with desire. “Kay, I would like you to meet Sierra Morley and her son, Austin.” He looked at the woman who had suddenly made life a lot more interesting. “Sierra, this is my sister-in-law Kay and my brother John.” He reached up and swept his niece off of John's shoulder. “This little fairy princess is Morgan.”

Sierra placed her hand on Austin's shoulder. “Glad to meet you all, and this is my son, Austin.”

“We heard all about Austin and his very, let's say, bumpy boat ride,” said Kay. John laughed, while Kay just shook her head. “All men have a twisted sense of what's important in life.”

“Hey, I have to take exception to that.” Gordon had joined the conversation.

“Oh, sorry, Gordon.” Matt had completely forgotten about the man standing next to him. With Sierra looking so darn beautiful he would be lucky to remember his own name. “Sierra, I would like you to meet Gordon Hanley. He owns the bookstore, the Pen and Ink, on Main Street.”

“I've already met Mr. Hanley. He was kind enough to assist me in locating a couple books I was looking for.”

“It's Gordon, remember.” Gordon gave her a warm smile. “Sierra doesn't mind the smell of my shop. In fact, if her son, Austin, hadn't been bored by the selection of books, I might have been able to talk Sierra into a game of chess.”

“Next time I'll bring something along to keep Austin amused for a couple minutes.”

“A couple minutes?” Gordon raised a brow at that boast. “You think you're that good?”

Sierra's smile bordered on being wicked. “My father taught me to play.” She nodded at his pipe. “My father also smokes a pipe, and I find the smell of pipe tobacco quite comforting. I know enough about pipes to know that's a Meerschaum.”

“‘This is the very ecstasy of love,'” quoted Gordon.

“Shakespeare?” Sierra looked intrigued.

Gordon's expression turned to one of pure devotion. “ ‘She's beautiful and therefore to be woo'd , She is a woman, therefore to be won.' ”

Matt heard his brother and sister-in-law groan. “Don't get him started, Sierra. Gordon will quote Shakespeare all night long if you listen,” explained John.

Gordon's smile was boyish. It made him look not only younger but slightly dashing, like the poets of old. “Guilty, as charged.”