A Wedding on Primrose Street (Life In Icicle Falls Book 7) (25 page)

Half an hour later found her on a wooded mountain path, surrounded by evergreens and ferns, walking through dappled sunlight, taking in the earthy scent and breathing the fresh mountain air. It had been ages since she’d walked this trail. She really needed to get out more, have more fun.

She eventually made it up to Lost Bride Falls. By the time she got there, she was definitely ready for a break. She sat down on a little wooden bench by the scenic outlook to rest her foot and enjoy the sight of water cascading over a rocky outcrop. What a history that waterfall had. She wondered what had happened to Rebecca Cane, Joshua Cane’s mail-order bride, who’d mysteriously disappeared so many generations ago. Had she run away with his younger brother, Gideon, or had Joshua truly killed the two of them in a fit of jealous rage, as so many people had speculated? The lurid story of the disappearing bride had, over the years, turned into something positive. Legend said that any woman who caught a glimpse of the ghost of the lost bride under the falls had a proposal of marriage waiting for her in the near future.

Roberta had never seen the ghost.

She took off her hiking shoe and rubbed her aching foot, then gulped down her painkiller. Even though it was a relatively easy hike, it was probably longer than she should have attempted. She’d go home, kick off her shoes and relax with her latest romance novel.

She’d just put the shoe back on when two strangers came up the path. They were both good-looking men, lean and fit, wearing T-shirts, jeans and hiking boots and carrying water bottles. Roberta judged the younger one to be somewhere around Daphne’s age. The other was probably in his seventies, with white hair and plenty of lines to show he’d logged in some hours out in the sun. He resembled a younger version of Clint Eastwood. Roberta had always adored Clint Eastwood.

The younger man said hello, then got busy taking pictures of the falls with a camera that looked very expensive. The older man smiled and said hello. “Nice day to be out,” he added.

“Yes, it is,” Roberta said.

He strolled over to where she sat. He was a tall man. Put him in a cowboy hat and poncho and give him a cigar and he could
be
Clint Eastwood. “Great view.”

“You’d be hard put to find a better one anywhere.”

“Do you live here?”

It had been about a million years since a man had been interested, but Roberta hadn’t forgotten the signs. “I do,” she said and introduced herself.

“My name’s Curtis White. This is my son Brian.”

“Good to meet you,” Brian said and continued to take pictures.

“Mind if I join you?” asked Curtis.

“Not at all.” She scooted over to make room on the bench, and he sat down, causing a flutter in her chest.

“We came up with some friends to do a little fishing and hiking.”

“This is the place to do it.” Roberta couldn’t help herself; she had to check his left hand for a ring. Bare-naked. A bare-naked Clint Eastwood.
Really,
she scolded herself,
at your age
. Well, what was wrong with feeling the cold embers stir at her age? She wasn’t dead yet.

But just because he wasn’t wearing a ring didn’t mean he wasn’t married...

He was checking out her ring finger, too. “Have you lived here long?”

“For years.”

“Lucky you,” he said. “I’ve always thought it would be nice to retire over here somewhere, have a cabin, fish every day. Never got around to it.”

“It’s not too late.”

He smiled. The man had a great smile. “You know, you’re right.”

They chatted for a few more minutes, long enough for him to confirm that she was single and find out she was in the business of providing brides and grooms with a place to get married. She learned that he was a retired banker and had been a widower for five years. And he was in town until Monday.

“Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?” he asked.

“Oh, I couldn’t. You’re up here with your son.”

“And his brother. They won’t miss me.”

“You can say that again,” teased the son.

“Well...”

“I hear there’s a restaurant that offers traditional German food. I haven’t had schnitzel since I was stationed in Germany. Do you like schnitzel, Roberta?”

“I do, as a matter of fact.”

“Well, then, let’s make it a date.”

Roberta suspected Daphne would have plans for the evening, so why not? They agreed to meet at Schwangau at six. Then, with his son finished taking pictures, the two men said goodbye and made their way back down the trail. Roberta watched them go and wondered what silliness had prompted her to accept a date at this age. Clint Eastwood, that was what.

“Silly woman,” she muttered and rose to her feet. Her back was stiff from sitting, and she paused to stretch and take in the view one last time before starting back. The waterfall was a gorgeous, roaring thing, with rainbows dancing in its waters and in that little cave behind the falls... What was that? She saw the figure for only a few seconds. It looked vaguely like a woman in a long gown.

The lost bride!

She blinked and looked again. Of course there was nothing. “Honestly, Roberta, you really are a silly, old woman.”

By the time she was halfway down the trail she was limping and chiding herself for walking so far. Then she remembered Curtis White and decided her hike had been worth the pain. But she could hardly wait to get home, pop another pill and put her foot up.

When she got to the house Daphne was back. “I thought you’d be out with Hank,” Roberta said.

“No. I came back looking for you. Where’d you go?”

“I went for a hike.”

“It hasn’t been that long since you had the surgery,” Daphne protested. “And you said your foot hurt.”

“I thought exercising it would do me good. Anyway, the doctor said I could walk on it now.”

“A little. Not a hike. Where’d you go?”

“Up Lost Bride Trail.”

“Oh, Mother,” Daphne said, her voice a mixture of disgust and worry.

“I’m fine,” Roberta assured her and went to the kitchen, trying not to limp noticeably. She got some water and washed down a pain pill.

“I can tell,” Daphne said. “Let me get you some ice.”

Roberta hobbled to the back parlor and sat on the couch. Daphne was right behind her, carrying a gallon freezer bag filled with ice and wrapped in a towel. She helped Roberta prop up her foot, then laid the ice on it, over the towel. “You’re a good daughter,” Roberta told her. She was beautiful, both inside and out, and Roberta was glad she’d come home.

“Thank you,” Daphne murmured.

“Now, tell me how you managed to get away from Hank. You know he’s not going to give up until you go out with him.” Whether that was a good or a bad thing remained to be seen.

“I told him I’m not rushing into anything.”

“Very wise. I have a feeling he’ll wait.”

Daphne shrugged. “I do, too. He’s taking me to Zelda’s for dinner. We’re just going out as friends,” she hurried to add.

Roberta wished she’d had the good sense to find a male friend to do things with. Maybe she had that afternoon.

“Do you mind? I know we talked about spending the day together.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Roberta replied. “I have plans for tonight myself.”

“You do?”

“I’m going to dinner at Schwangau.”

“Oh? With who?”

“A very nice man I met while I was taking my walk. He’s up here with his sons.”

Daphne looked incredulous. “You met a man?”

Roberta scowled. “Old people do make friends, you know.”

“I know. It’s just that, well, I’m surprised. All these years, you never dated.”

She had, for a brief time when Daphne was little, only a casual date or two with a couple of the locals. And then that disastrous affair...

1967

Nobody knew about it. He was a salesman from Seattle. He’d stopped at the diner, soon to become Pancake Haus, for a coffee on his way home from Coulee City and they’d struck up a conversation. Conversation had led to dinner, and afterward Roberta had given him a kiss and her phone number. How fortunate that she’d popped in for a bite on her lunch hour that day!

The next month he came back and rented a small cabin and Roberta got a babysitter. He took her to dinner, to a different restaurant this time, one in nearby Wenatchee, and then back to the cabin, and suddenly her dull life began to sparkle. Love at last!

A month later he was in town again. Janice Lind took Daphne for the night so Roberta could supposedly have a getaway with a girlfriend, and Roberta returned to the secluded cabin.

On Sunday morning she made him bacon and eggs. He reached across the small wooden dining table and said, “It’s been a wonderful weekend.”

She thought so, too, and went to take his hand. That was when she spotted it, the barely discernible band of white on his left-hand ring finger. Surely she should have noticed that before. “You’re married.”

Guilt flashed across his face and she pulled her hand away. He tried to cover it with an earnest look. “I am, but it’s over.”

“Until you go home to Seattle?”

“It’s not like that, Roberta. We don’t get along. She...”

“Doesn’t understand you.” The oldest lie in the book.

“It’s true,” he insisted. “We’re separated.”

Roberta had no desire to play that game. She’d already been used once. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be used again. She could almost hear her mother sneering, “Foolish, wicked girl,” as she walked out of the cabin and back to her single life. She was better off alone. The only man a woman could trust was the kind she met between the covers of a book.

* * *

“I was running a business,” she told Daphne now.
Protecting my heart from further injury.
She’d tried to protect her daughter, too, but Daphne had never listened. She’d kept believing there had to be a good man out there somewhere. Maybe Daphne had been right all along. Maybe Roberta simply hadn’t encountered one until now.

“And only this morning you said you didn’t want a man in your life.”

“A woman can change her mind, can’t she?”

“Absolutely, and it’s about time,” Daphne said now with a smile and an approving nod. “I hope you have a great evening.”

“I do, too.” It had been years since that disastrous, short-lived affair, and Roberta hadn’t been on a date since. She was a female Rip Van Winkle waking up after years of sleep. What was she going to wear? What was she going to say? Was this a bad idea?

Bad or not, she went to Schwangau. She donned a pair of cream-colored slacks, her favorite pink top and floral jacket and her comfiest shoes, and sailed out the door, feeling as nervous as a young girl going on her first date.

Seeing Curtis White waiting for her in the lobby of Schwangau, wearing black jeans and a button-down shirt with a dark blue tie, set her tummy doing flips. She couldn’t remember when she’d found a real, live man so attractive.

“You look lovely,” he said.

Lovely, at her age. She could feel herself blushing. “And you look... Has anyone ever told you that you look like Clint Eastwood?”
What a silly thing to say!

He didn’t seem to mind. “I get that a lot,” he said with a smile. “Normally, I clean up better. I’m afraid I didn’t realize there was a dress code at this place. This is the only shirt I had with me. I had to borrow a tie from the maître d’.”

“You clean up just fine.” Roberta told him. Now, there was an understatement. She should pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Except she didn’t want to wake up. At this point in life, a woman deserved a good dream or two.

The dream only improved as the evening progressed and they shared a bottle of Riesling and life stories (Roberta’s highly edited). Curtis confessed to a love of old fifties doo-wop groups, and then she did sneak a quick pinch. This
had
to be too good to be true.

Nothing vanished. It was still evening and she was still in a fancy restaurant with a great-looking man. “How about breakfast tomorrow?” he asked as they left the restaurant.

“I think I could manage that.”

Breakfast was even better than dinner, so they decided on lunch, including his sons and her daughter. “He kind of looks like Clint Eastwood,” Daphne whispered as he and his sons walked into Zelda’s.

“He thinks I look like Audrey Hepburn,” Roberta whispered back. “The mature version,” she said with a smile. Of course, other than being slender, she didn’t look anything like the famous actress, but she wasn’t about to disabuse the man. Let him have his fantasy.

Later that day, after their children had discreetly drifted off, they took a walk on the bank of the Wenatchee River, admiring the view of sparkling blue water wending its way past a forest of pines and firs. He took her hand and said, “Roberta, I’ve had a wonderful time this weekend.”

A little gremlin landed on her shoulder and whispered,
Here’s where the letdown begins. He’ll say, “But now I have to go back to my real life.”

“I hope you have, too,” Curtis went on.

“It’s been lovely,” she replied, careful to keep her voice neutral.

“I’d really like to do this again.”

“You would?”

He looked surprised. “Wouldn’t you?”

She smiled. “Yes, actually, I would. But let’s take it slow,” she added, picking up her daughter’s new mantra.

He smiled back. “Okay. But not too slow. I’m not getting any younger, and I’d like to cruise the Greek isles before I die. That isn’t the kind of thing a man wants to do alone.”

“I’d like that, too,” Roberta said. She was sure she would.

“Glad to hear it,” he said and kissed her.

It was a kiss filled with both tenderness and promise, and probably the best kiss Roberta had ever had. Maybe life began at seventy-one.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Anne, Mother of the Guest of Honor

T
he Sunday before the wedding weekend Kendra hosted a bridal shower for Laney. It was a balmy afternoon with the kind of blue skies that made Seattleites ecstatic, and the temperature hovered somewhere in the low seventies. The same pleasant weather was expected for Icicle Falls the next weekend.

In addition to family, Laney’s bridesmaids, Autumn, Ella and Darcy, were present, along with her coworkers at the coffee shop and several friends from church. Laney was all dolled up in a green sundress that complemented not only her hair but also the mermaid swimming up her arm.

“She’s going to be a stunning bride,” Mrs. Ostrom, the pastor’s wife, said to Anne as she made the rounds with Laney, saying hello to everyone. Mrs. Ostrom was pushing seventy. She either had no problem with tattoo overload or was too polite to say anything. Probably the latter.

But it was proof of how much everyone loved Laney, and knowing that made Anne happy. Right now it would’ve been impossible to be unhappy. It had been a race to the bridal finish line, but everything had finally come together.

“You have been busy, haven’t you?” Cam’s mother said to Laney as she hugged her. “Planning a wedding so quickly.”

“I had a lot of help,” Laney said, smiling at Anne.

“The best,” added Julia, who’d come over to greet her daughter and granddaughter.

Anne smiled at her mother’s praise. She was still smiling when Aunt Maude approached, but she felt the smile getting a little stiff. Aunt Maude was one of Cam’s aunts, the polar opposite of his mother. She was tall and skinny with a lack of bustline that she accentuated with a horrific blouse in a wild purple print. To complete her ensemble, she wore a faded black, crinkly skirt from a long-gone fashion era. She tried to distract from the wrinkles growing on her face by dyeing her hair a color of red found nowhere in nature. To complete the look, she showed off her perpetual frown with bright red lipstick. She was a walking sour lemon and purveyor of doom.

“Laney, you seem tired,” she said, patting Laney’s arm.

“She’s been busy, Aunt Maude,” Anne said.

Aunt Maude shook her head. “Girls these days, they take on too much. I blame it on the women’s movement.”

No one quite knew what to say to that—and remain polite. Julia turned to Laney and Anne. “Let’s get you girls some punch. Excuse us, Maude.” As they walked over to the refreshment table, she muttered, “Who invited that woman?”

“I couldn’t not invite her, Mom,” Anne said.

“
I
could have.”

Once everyone had had an opportunity to chat and enjoy a glass of punch, Kendra started a game that involved unscrambling letters to form words that all had to do with weddings. “I love this kind of game,” Cam’s mom enthused.

“Good for your brain,” agreed Maude, who’d taken a seat next to Anne. “Did you know that an estimated 5.2 million people now have Alzheimer’s?”

There was some cheery news. “Where did you hear that?”

“I can’t remember,” Maude replied. “You know, one of the signs is losing your sense of smell,” she informed Anne.

Just what she wanted to talk about at her daughter’s bridal shower. She found herself surreptitiously sniffing her wrist to see if she could detect the perfume she’d sprayed there earlier. Whew. Her brain was still okay.

They moved from the game to eating, with Kendra’s terrier, Barney, posing hungrily in front of various guests, hoping for a handout. “Barney, no!” Kendra commanded. “Don’t anybody feed him.”

Cam’s mother, who was about to share some of her prosciutto, drew back her hand, making Barney whine. Not that he should’ve been remotely hungry, since he’d already begged several handouts when Kendra wasn’t looking.

Kendra the social director soon moved on to the purpose of the shower, giving the bride her gifts. With Autumn on one side, writing down who gave Laney what, and Darcy on the other, forming a ribbon bouquet for the wedding rehearsal, Laney set to work, dipping into gift bags and opening boxes containing everything from margarita glasses to dish towels. The ribbon bouquet began to swell.

“A baby for every ribbon you break,” teased Drake’s mom.

Laney said she liked kids, then with a grin yanked off a ribbon, letting it snap apart. Ella folded and stuffed wrapping paper in the ginormous gift bag that had contained a cashmere blanket from Julia.

Barney found this all fascinating. And appetizing. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d been denied that final treat earlier or maybe he was simply being a dog. Whatever the cause, the four-legged garbage disposal, who’d managed to snarf cake off an abandoned plate, now developed a fondness for wrapping paper and began noshing on a piece that hadn’t made it into the bag.

Anne watched in disgust as he shredded a bow of pink curling ribbon. “Should he be doing that?” she asked Kendra.

“What?” Kendra turned and saw the last of the paper about to go into Barney’s mouth. “Oh, Barney, no!” She took away what was left of it and Barney slinked off to a corner where, later on, as Laney was thanking all the guests for their presents, he threw up both the wrapping paper and his earlier snacks.

“Eeew,” said Autumn, wrinkling her nose.

Aunt Maude shook her head. “It’s a sign.”

“Oh, really, Maude,” Julia said, sounding disgusted.

Maude refused to be put in her place. “When things go wrong at a bridal shower, things will surely go wrong at the wedding.”

Anne had never heard that before. “Is that a real saying? Where did you hear it?”

Maude shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“And how’s your sense of smell?” Julia asked, sneering.

Maude harrumphed and took herself off to the refreshment table for another helping of lemon dessert.

“That woman,” Julia said, shaking her head. “She’s a regular encyclopedia of misinformation and nonfacts. I never heard such nonsense in all my life.”

That’s what it is, nonsense
, Anne told herself for the rest of the afternoon. When Cam asked how the shower had gone, she replied, “Great.” It had been a lovely shower and Laney was going to have a lovely wedding.

She continued to tell herself all evening long, and again when she lay in bed, thinking of everything that could possibly go wrong. Finally, around one in the morning, she took a melatonin tablet to help herself sleep. One wasn’t going to do it. She took another and finally drifted off.

And went to Laney’s wedding. But instead of wearing her mother-of-the-bride dress, she was prancing around in some skimpy showgirl outfit and sporting a huge, feathery headdress that was so heavy she had trouble holding up her head. This made it hard to keep her balance, and when a groomsman wearing an Elvis-style white rhinestone jumpsuit escorted her down the aisle, she found herself weaving back and forth like a woman who’d had too much champagne.

She toppled into her seat. Cam should have slipped in beside her but he was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Kendra’s dog, Barney, jumped up onto the pew, pink wrapping paper hanging from his jaws.

She looked up front and there stood Drake in raggedy pirate garb, a patch over one eye. The “Wedding March” began to play, but it wasn’t wedding music. Instead, Elvis, the King himself, appeared, dressed in a white rhinestone jumpsuit, and began to sing “All Shook Up” backed by the Flesh Eaters, who wore zombie makeup. And here came Laney in some kind of serving-wench outfit. Where was her wedding gown?

Anne tried to stand up and demand her daughter march right back down the aisle and put on her gown, but the heavy headdress propelled her forward and she fell on her face. Barney leaped off the pew and began tugging at the headdress, growling playfully.

“What a disgrace,” hissed Aunt Maude, who’d seated herself directly behind Anne. “The woman can’t even plan her daughter’s wedding. I knew this would happen. Didn’t I say this would happen?”

The woman seated next to Maude seemed to be her twin. She whispered back, “I heard they wanted to go to Vegas and Anne put a wrench in it.”

“I did not,” Anne protested, trying to struggle to her feet.

“Get that woman out of here,” said the minister, who looked suspiciously like Jack Sparrow. “She’s messing everything up.”

“I’m the mother of the bride!”

Drake pointed a finger at her. “She’s a Momzilla. Get her out of here.”

“I’m going to be your mother-in-law. You can’t do this to me!”

But they did. Two burly men in white rhinestone-encrusted tuxes dragged her down the aisle, past the guests. Some stared at her with pity. Some giggled. One fellow showgirl laughed out loud.

“Sorry, sis,” Kendra called. (Why was she dressed like a zombie?) “I’ll save you a donut.”

Down the aisle they went and into the foyer. They pushed open the church door and hurled Anne out.

But there was no sidewalk to catch her. The church gripped the edge of a cliff and she found herself falling, screaming as she went.

She awoke before she landed, Cam gently stroking her arm. “It’s okay, Annie. You’re having a bad dream.”

Bad dream? There was the understatement of the century.

“You all right now?”

She swallowed and willed her heart to stop doing the Indianapolis 500. “I’m fine.”

It was just a dream, she told herself. But what did it mean?

Nothing. She was simply suffering from the combined effect of too much melatonin and too close proximity to Aunt Maude. Everything was fine and the wedding was going to be perfect. Anne closed her eyes and snuggled back under the covers.

But she never got to sleep again. Maybe that was just as well.