Tales From Sea Glass Inn (34 page)

“My ex-girlfriend bought a sailboat. She
wanted to leave everything behind and sail around the world, or through the
Panama Canal. I don’t know. She changed her mind every other day.”

Tam raised one eyebrow. “Sounds like a
responsible way to plan a serious sailing venture.”

“Yeah. I think her main goal was to live
without obligations or time schedules, not to be a responsible sailor.”

Tam shook her head with a stern expression.
“Sailing, especially on the ocean, is a dangerous activity. Without careful
planning and the right skills and equipment, she’d be putting herself in danger
as well as the lives of those who eventually had to try to rescue her…Sorry.
I’ll stop my lecture. You apparently weren’t party to her irresponsible
behavior. Were you one of the things she wanted to leave behind? If so, she was
dumber than I originally thought.”

Maggie grinned at Tam’s quiet addendum to her
question. She rested her arm on the railing so her hand was next to Tam’s
shoulder. “No. She asked me to go with her, and she had some brutally expressed
opinions about my character when I said no.”

“Aargh,” Tam said with a visible shudder.
“The thought of you out there with her, clutching the mast while she tried to
sail through an ocean storm, makes me sick.” She grabbed Maggie’s hand off the
railing and kissed it. “You made the right decision.”

“I doubted myself at first. Not really about
going with her, because it would have been a disaster, even without the
mast-clutching and the storm. But a lot of the criticisms she threw at me
really hit home. Jocelyn’s sickness scared me. Facing the loss of my twin
sister was overwhelming when I was little—of course, it would be at any time in
life, but I was old enough to be aware of death and too young to really understand
it on an intellectual level. I got scared, and the fear never went away. I’m
still protective of Jocelyn, even though she’s better now and old enough to
take care of herself. Even more, though, I shelter myself from any chance of
loss. It was easy to let go of Gem, and I realized how little I truly cared
about her or the other women I’ve dated. But you? I’d give up my career and my
home and sail to the end of the world with you. That scares the hell out of
me.”

“But you’re here anyway, aren’t you, brave
Maggie?” Tam cradled Maggie’s hand against her cheek.

Maggie shrugged. “I’m here. Hoping you’ll let
me stay.” The expression on Tam’s face was glowing with what Maggie suspected
was a mix of loving and being loved. She had to look away and get her breath back
again, but she didn’t make any move to pull away. “I’m here, but I have one
request.”

“Anything.”

Maggie scooted across the bench and into
Tam’s arms when she heard the utter truth behind Tam’s single word. “Well, if
we do decide to drop everything and sail away, can we get a bigger boat? As
cute…er, fierce as this one is, it looks like it might break into splinters if
the swells got too high.”

Tam gave an indignant gasp and then held
Maggie against her and tickled her side until she breathlessly begged her to
stop.

“Say you’re sorry first,” Tam said, wrapping
her arms around Maggie’s waist.

“Fine, I’m sorry I called your boat—”

“Not to me. To my boat.”

“Okay, okay,” Maggie said with a laugh. “I’m
sorry, tiny boat…”

Tam laughed along with her and settled Maggie
between her legs, with Maggie’s back pressed against her chest. “We’ll need to
work on your respect for this craft,” she said. “But we’re both willing to
forgive you and bring you aboard as first mate.”

Maggie turned her head and kissed Tam, lingering
as their joking and playfulness subsided and her arousal grew. “First your
secretary and now your first mate? We’ll need to discuss a role reversal before
this relationship goes any further.”

Tam rested her hand on the side of Maggie’s
face and kissed her again. “Then, in the interest of moving this relationship
into the cabin, I’ll give you an immediate promotion.”

Maggie twisted around and rested her body
flush against Tam’s. “As long as the boat has a bed, it’s big enough for me.”
She kissed Tam with all the passion they’d shared in the pond, but without the
need to push her away and force distance between them. Never again. She broke
away from the kiss with all the willpower she could muster. “I’d like a tour of
the cabin right now, please.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Tam said with a grin.

Mel rearranged some bottles of liquor on the small
mahogany table to make room for the covered containers of cherries and lime
wedges. She flipped through the thick stack of papers on her clipboard until
she came to the page labeled
Bar
and crossed off the two items. Then she went over to the long folding tables
lining the back wall of the studio and mumbled to herself as she made sure
everything was in place. Stainless-steel chafing dishes and decorative glass dishes
stood on the sea-foam green linens, ready to be filled with either hot or
refrigerated food. Everything Mel could leave on the table during the ceremony
was already there—pale peach plates and napkins, freshly baked rolls, and big
bowls of early-summer fruit.

She went over her to-do lists one more time
before looking up from her clipboard with a huge sigh. Hosting weddings at the
inn was one of the most time-consuming and stressful parts of her job, but also
her very favorite. She agonized over every detail even though she’d done so
many weddings by now, she had the routine down cold. The responsibility of
caring for a couple’s most important day was overwhelming, especially when the
brides were her close friends.

Mel looked around the studio. The artwork
usually took center stage here, but for this day it was relegated to a back
corner. The task of moving the fragile items used to be easy, but now that
Aspen was working here with Pam, there were large sculptures to move as well as
Pam’s easels and canvases. Mel walked among the pieces, making certain any
interested guests could move among them without jostling anything. She noticed
a few new student sculptures and drawings in the mix. Heather was taking her
role as Pam’s new partner seriously, and she’d kept a steady flow of visiting
artists coming through the studio. The blend of ideas and approaches was
exciting to Mel, both because the studio was a popular place for the inn’s
guests to visit and mostly because she could see how much the fresh input invigorated
Pam.

Mel turned away from Aspen’s recent work, a
stunning life-sized nude female. The woman was twisting away from the viewer,
and a curtain of hair and a raised hand kept the form general and not
recognizable as a specific person, but Mel was pretty sure the model was
Heather. She shook her head. TMI. The finished sculpture would be a gorgeous
addition to any home or gallery, but Mel felt a little awkward looking at it
too directly when she spent so many evenings sitting across a dinner table from
Heather herself, either here at the inn or in Pam’s old beachside bungalow
where Heather and Aspen now lived.

“Anyone order a cake?” A familiar voice
interrupted Mel’s musings. “Oh, hi, Heather. I didn’t see you there.”

Mel came out from behind an easel and laughed
when she saw Helen pretending to address Aspen’s statue. Helen and Jenny were
carrying a piece of plywood with an enormous sheet cake on it.

Jenny gave a loud wolf whistle. “Looking
good, Heather. But when the invitation said casual attire I don’t think it
meant stark naked.”

“You two have to stop or I won’t be able to
look the real Heather in the eye when I see her today,” Mel said. She looked at
the cake Helen had made in the shape of a large open book. Beautiful cursive
writing in icing spelled out the phrase
The
story of my life began the day I met you
on the pastel fondant.
“Helen, it’s lovely. What a perfect design for them.”

“It’s lovely and heavy,” Jenny commented with
an exaggerated sigh.

Mel took one edge of the plywood and helped
them carry the cake over to a table near the dance floor. She was more than
delighted to hand over the job of cake baking to Helen these days. Before the
Sand Dollar Bakery had become a fixture at Cannon Beach, Mel had made most of
the cakes for weddings at the inn. The tiers were a nightmare to assemble, and
the most intricate decorations she could make were frosting roses. Once they
set the cake in place she leaned over and examined it more closely. “You do
such marvelous design work.”

“Maybe you can ice a blouse onto Heather over
there,” Jenny said, wrapping her arm around Helen’s shoulders as soon as her
hands were free.

“I have an extra apron in the car. She can
wear it during the reception.”

“Come on, you two.” Mel put her hands on her
hips and tried to speak with mock severity, although her laughter betrayed her.
“Aspen’s just expressing her love. It’s sweet.”

Jenny tilted her head and regarded Mel for a
few moments. “Did Pam express her love through oil paintings when the two of
you first got together?”

“Of course not,” Mel said. She felt her
cheeks burn and knew she must be bright red. “Well, there might have been some
sketches, but nothing we’d put on display.”

Helen turned to Jenny. “I’ll bet they’re in
her bedroom. You distract her and I’ll go search.”

“What’s so funny?” Heather joined their trio.
She still dressed in tailored and pressed clothes as if she was heading back to
her old banking job, but Mel saw the transformation in Heather’s face. Her
expression was soft and happy, a far cry from the tension and uncertainty she’d
shown when she’d first arrived at the ocean.

“We were talking about Naked Heather,” Jenny
said, gesturing toward the statue. “We’re debating whether to frost her or
cover her with an apron.”

“Jenny!” Mel exclaimed at the same time that
Helen punched Jenny lightly on the arm.

“Neither one,” Heather said indignantly. She
looked at the statue and grinned. “I like her just the way she is.”

Mel excused herself from the laughing group
when she saw Maggie and Tam entering the studio. As she left, she overheard
Helen making a comment about some risqué drawings Pam had allegedly made. She
wrote a quick note on her clipboard to lock the door leading down to the
bedroom she shared with Pam in case one of the three went searching for them.

“How are you feeling, Tam?” Mel asked, giving
her and Maggie a hug. Maggie’s gold locket gleamed against her simple ivory
dress and her red hair was clipped off her face. She looked as radiant as her
twin had when Mel saw her this morning. Tam, in contrast, was too pale and she
leaned against Maggie for support.

“I’m fine,” Tam said, then she shrugged. “To
be honest, I feel about as ill as you and Pam looked when I took you sailing.
But in another week or two I’ll be back to normal.”

“And your father?”

Tam and Maggie exchanged glances. “His
prognosis is good,” Maggie said. She rested her hand on Tam’s chest, just above
her heart. “Thanks to Tam.”

Mel nodded and didn’t pry. She had never been
told the details of Tam’s relationship with her dad, but she knew enough to
realize it was a touchy subject. Tam had made it through her surgery and she
had saved a life, and that was all Mel needed to know.

“I’m very glad to hear it.” She held out her
arm. “Why don’t we find you a seat in the garden, Tam? Jocelyn is upstairs
getting dressed and probably wants Maggie’s help.”

Maggie kissed Tam and left to find her
sister. Mel thought Tam might brush off her offer of support, but she linked
her arm with Mel’s and they walked slowly out to the garden.

“Did you hear how she proposed?” Tam asked.

Mel stopped in surprise. “Maggie proposed to
you? How wonderful!”

Tam laughed. “Yikes, no. Not yet. I mean we
haven’t…I meant Ariana.”

Mel smiled. Tam wasn’t nearly as pale
anymore. “Oh, my mistake. No, I haven’t heard the story yet.”

“She told Jocelyn it wasn’t fair that she
always recommended books to other people, but no one did the same for her. So
Ari gave her one to read. She’d bound a collection of her journal entries
starting from the first day she met Joss. The last entry apparently was all
about how much she loved Jocelyn and wanted them to spend the rest of their
lives together.”

Mel sighed and started walking again. “How
beautiful.”

“I know,” Tam agreed.

Mel stopped by a chair near the spot where
Maggie would be standing during the ceremony and helped Tam settle in it. “I’d
never have pegged you as a romantic.”

“Me either,” Tam said. She rested her hand on
her lower abdomen and winced slightly as she shifted in her chair. “Until I met
Maggie. She changed everything. They wanted to postpone the wedding in case I
wasn’t well enough to come. I told Jocelyn I couldn’t think of a better place
to recuperate than here, celebrating with them.”

Mel heard the wonder in Tam’s voice. Had Tam
ever before experienced anything like the sense of family Maggie had brought
into her life? She brushed her hand over Tam’s shoulder. Whatever healing Tam
needed after her surgery, both emotional and physical, Mel was certain Maggie
would help her through it.

*

Almost an hour later, Mel had finally laid
aside her clipboard and was sitting next to Pam in the garden. The cry of a
lone seagull whirling overhead blended with the pure scent of salt and
enveloped them in the ocean’s distinct atmosphere. An old sailboat and some
flowering shrubs decorated the small alcove, but Mel never had to add
decorating to the myriad details she oversaw before a wedding. The curve of
Haystack Rock, defined by sharp edges of basalt, and the thump and swoosh of
the waves hitting the beach and then receding made this area more special than
cut flowers or streamers could ever do.

Ariana and Jocelyn stood in front of everyone
and recited the vows they had written. While Jocelyn was speaking, a soft
breeze teased a few strands of her auburn hair free from their tidy coil, and
Ari brushed them back in place with one gentle finger. Mel sighed and squeezed
Pam’s hand. This ceremony was a formal declaration of their commitment, but
small gestures like Ari’s seemed to show real love even more clearly.