The Chesapeake Diaries Series (153 page)

“She’s seen better days,” Barbara returned the hug. “A lot of us independent bookstores have had ups and downs these past few years, but we’re holding our own. Especially during the summer when all the tourists and the day-trippers come into town. But enough about me. How are plans for the big wedding going?”

“Fabulously well,” Steffie responded before Lucy could. “Lucy is a genius. Wait till you see the inn. That’s all I’m saying. Just wait till you see what she’s got planned.”

“I can’t wait.” Barbara handed a beautifully wrapped package to Steffie. “Much happiness to you and Wade.”

“Aw, thank you, Barb.” Steffie kissed the woman on the cheek.

“You’re very welcome, dear.”

“Do you have time to sit for a few minutes …?” Steffie gestured toward the table where Brooke sat.

“I really don’t, but thank you. I have to get back to the shop.” Barbara waved to Brooke. “I’ll see you all on Saturday. Can’t wait!”

Steffie walked Barbara to the door and closed it behind her. She turned to Lucy and said, “Why would I ever want to leave here?”

“Forget I mentioned it,” Lucy said as she sat down at the table again.

Steffie walked over and leaned on the back of the chair she’d earlier been sitting in. “You know, I’ll bet your mother could get those ghosts to leave.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “If I’d known you were this into the otherworld, I’d have planned a different
theme for the wedding.” She pretended to be thinking. “I wonder if it’s too late to put some gauzy things in the trees to look like floating spirits.”

“Scoff if you must,” Steffie said loftily. “You’re the one who isn’t getting any sleep.”

“Sorry, Stef. I just don’t believe in spirits,” Lucy told her. “I really believe that once you’re gone, you’re gone, and you don’t come back.”

“That’s a debate for another time.” Steffie finished her ice cream. “The real issue right now is getting you some sleep so that you can turn the ballroom into my fantasy winter-wedding wonderland.”

“Why don’t you stay out at the farm with us?” Brooke suggested. “It’s Clay’s farm now, but my son and I are staying there until we’re able to get the old tenant house renovated, and my mom is staying there until her new house is ready for her to move in, so you’ll be well chaperoned.” She grinned. “So you wouldn’t have to worry about gossip going around about you and Clay.”

“There are worse things that could be said about a woman than that she’s tangled up with your brother.” Steffie tapped Brooke on the head and tossed her dish, spoon, and napkin toward the trash can near the door.

Brooke thought she saw a bit of a flush creep up Lucy’s neck, but she wouldn’t have sworn to it.

“No way could I get away with that,” Lucy said. “What excuse would I give my mother and Daniel for not staying at the inn?”

“I know.” Steffie snapped her fingers. “You can stay at my place. We just finished fixing up the guest
room and it’s really sweet. I made Wade move back to Berry’s for the week before the wedding, so it would be nice to have the company.”

“Stef, that’s really nice, but again, what do I tell Mom?”

“You tell her …” Steffie paused. “You tell her that you can’t sleep at the inn because you keep thinking about the wedding and getting up to go down to the ballroom to check on this or that and you need to get away from it for a few hours at night. And you can tell her we’re … we’re working on the wedding favors.”

“Someone else is doing that,” Lucy reminded her.

“Does your mother know that?” Brooke asked.

“Probably.” Lucy appeared to think it over. “I think she’ll understand the can’t-sleep-’cause-I-keep-running-downstairs-all-night excuse, though. She knows how particular I am about details.” She nodded. “I think that’s believable. Thanks, Stef. I really appreciate it.”

“I close up here at seven,” Steffie told her. “Come by and follow me home.”

“I’ll do it, thanks.”

“Can’t have my wedding planner slipping into some sort of sleep-deprived psychosis the day before the wedding.” Steffie gathered up the empty bowls. “Anyone want seconds?”

Brooke and Lucy both shook their heads. “Thanks but no thanks,” Brooke told her. “Any more and I’ll never get that dress zipped on Saturday.”

She turned to Lucy. “So we’re set, right?”

“I think so.” Lucy opened a notebook that lay on the table and turned a page so that Brooke could see
the diagram. “After the cake is cut, we’ll have the cupcakes and ice cream served from this table.”

“You mean cakes, right? Two different cakes?” Brooke asked.

“Dallas decided at the last minute that there should only be one cake and it should be Stef and Wade’s. She said she’s happy with cupcakes. The display will be amazing, by the way. Just leave it all to me.”

“If you need help setting them up …” Brooke began to offer, but Lucy waved her away.

“Your job on Saturday is to be a gorgeous bridesmaid in all those photos that we know are going to surface from here to Beijing by Sunday morning. My job is to make sure everything is arranged perfectly in the ballroom.”

“Then you’d better get some sleep between now and then.” Brooke grabbed her bag from the back of her chair. “We’re done for now?”

“We’re done till Saturday.” Lucy nodded.

“Great. I’m going to run. I have another eight million cupcakes to frost.” Brooke waved to Steffie, who was waiting on a customer, and took off for the farm and the work waiting for her in the kitchen.

The Day was seasonably cold with clear blue cloudless skies. Guests arrived at the Inn at Sinclair’s Point for the first wedding, which was scheduled for one in the afternoon. There were whitecaps on the Bay, and over the inn’s vast lawns, dozens of gulls swooped low. One of Dallas’s West Coast guests noted that they looked like flying confetti, and wondered how they trained the birds to fly around the inn at the precise moment the guests were arriving.

Brooke stood in an anteroom with Dallas and the other attendants, adjusting the flowers in one another’s hair and retying the glittery sashes that circled their waists. The last wedding she’d been in—her own—weighed heavily on her mind. On that day, she’d been the one crowned with roses, in a long satiny gown, and she’d marched into the church on the arm of her father. Eric’s smile had lit up the room when he saw her walking down the aisle.

Brooke was painfully aware that both Eric and her dad were no longer with them. It saddened her. Since that day, her life had seen many changes, some good, some not so welcome. She’d made her peace with it all, and today, wished only to celebrate the new beginnings of her friends.

Funny, though
, she mused,
that I’d be a bridesmaid for Dallas MacGregor in her wedding to Grant, since Dallas and I spent our high school years vying for his attention
. Dallas, of course, had always won, and if Brooke had hated her with all the might of a scorned teenager back then, these days, she’d grown to love Dallas like a sister. No one, Brooke had told Jesse, was happier for Dallas and Grant than she herself was.

Strings played softly in the smaller of the two ballrooms, where rows of chairs had been set up to form a center aisle covered with a white cloth runner that led to a wooden arch covered with white roses, orchids, hydrangea, and stephanotis. The ends of the rows were draped with white tulle gathered in waves and held together with huge bunches of lavender roses and white baby’s breath. The Hollywood elite sat elbow to elbow with the local guests, and everyone
stood when the strings announced the arrival of the bridal party and the back doors opened.

Berry Eberle, the bride’s great-aunt, walked down the aisle proudly on the arm of her beau, Archer Callahan. They were followed by the groomsmen: the best man, Gabriel Beck, the town’s chief of police and the groom’s best friend; Clay Madison; Cameron O’Connor; and the bride’s son, Cody. The bride’s two-year-old nephew, Wade’s son Austin, toddled along behind Cody and waved to everyone he knew.

Then came the bride’s attendants: Laura Fielding, whose comeback as a star had been orchestrated by Dallas when she selected Laura to star in the debut film of Dallas’s film company, served her old friend as maid of honor. The bridesmaids followed, all dressed in shiny silver satin and carrying lavender and white roses: Steffie, Vanessa, and Paige Wyler, daughter of the groom, headed up the aisle in front of Brooke. Her eye caught Jesse’s in the crowd, and his wink brought a smile to her face.

Then the music changed, and the bride stood in the doorway wearing a long fitted dress of silver sequins with a high neck and low back that shimmered with her every move. In her arms she carried a bouquet of white flowers and trailing ivy. She walked up the aisle on the arm of her brother, who would soon celebrate his own wedding in this very room—after a suitable change of decor at the instruction of the wedding planner, of course.

The ceremony was performed by Archer Callahan, who was a justice of the peace as well as a retired judge, and was short and very sweet, both the bride and the groom promising to love, honor, and cherish—though
not to obey—every day of their lives, in this world and in the next.

Next came a cocktail hour in the inn’s solarium, which was decked out in more roses and orchids and clouds of white tulle. Brooke shared a glass of champagne with Jesse and nibbled on a few excellent hors d’oeuvres before having to disappear upstairs to change the accessories that would outfit her for Steffie’s wedding.

She marveled at the transformation Lucy had orchestrated, turning the small ballroom from white sophistication to a celebration in red in a very short amount of time. The white runner remained, but was strewn with red rose petals. Gone were the yards of white tulle and the white-and-lavender bouquets at the ends of the rows. In their place were cone-shaped vessels covered in red, green, and white tartan fabric that held the red-and-white bouquets of roses, ivy, and branches of holly. The arch that previously had sparkled in silver and white was now festooned with red and white flowers and streams of tartan ribbon. Everything was bright and cheery and smacked of the holiday season, just as Steffie had wanted.

Grant escorted his mother, Shirley—the mother of the bride—to her seat, then joined the groom and his groomsmen at the right side of the arch. Next to Wade stood Grant, the best man, Beck, Clay, Cameron, and Cody. A trumpet sounded to alert the guests to rise and the bridesmaids—Brooke, Dallas, Paige, and the bride’s married cousin Kristin, with Vanessa as maid of honor—began their march. They wore the same silver satin gowns with a difference: the wide
sashes at their waists, their high heels, and the ribbons wrapping their bouquets were all done in the red, green, and white of the MacGregor tartan. Even Dallas had added the tartan accessories to her wedding attire. They looked, Brooke had quipped, like an advertisement for Scottish shortbread.

The bride, dressed in a white silk dress with a wide skirt that was gathered on one side, entered on the arm of her father, George Wyler. The same wide sash of tartan plaid circled her waist and her shoes matched those of her attendants. She carried white roses interspersed with red holly berries and trails of ivy. On her head she wore a short veil held back with a crown of white rosebuds. She was breathtaking, and as Brooke had told her moments before the doors opened, Steffie needn’t be worried about walking in the shadow of her famous sister-in-law.

Judge Callahan performed the second ceremony as well, this one slightly longer than the first. When the judge pronounced Wade and Steffie husband and wife, the bride raised her bouquet over her head and hooted to the applause of their guests.

A second cocktail hour not being needed, the guests followed the wedding party into the large ballroom, where the decor wowed everyone. Tall leafless trees in silvery planters lined the room, their branches draped with tulle and tiny white twinkling lights—Steffie’s “fairy lights.” The tables were covered alternately in red or white with the opposing color overlay, and centered with tall vases of curly willow spray painted with a glittery silver paint. From the branches hung tiny lanterns that flickered like fireflies, and around
the bottoms of the vases were smaller vases filled with white orchids and red roses.

“I can’t believe Lucy was able to pull this off,” Brooke said to no one in particular as the wedding parties stood in the receiving line.

“Neither can I.” Vanessa slid into line next to her. “It’s mind-blowing. No mortal could have arranged this. Let’s start a rumor that Lucy’s an alien.”

“She’d have to be to have done all that,” agreed Kristin. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” She pointed around the ballroom. “It’s spectacular.”

“Have you talked to Stef yet about … you know,” Brooke whispered to Vanessa.

“Uh-uh. Grady and I agreed to wait until she and Wade get back from their honeymoon. He totally agreed with you, just so you know,” Vanessa told her in the same low, confidential tone. “He thinks we need to do the wedding thing.” She looked around the room. “It sure won’t be anything like this one, though.”

“Doesn’t have to be,” Brooke assured her. “Whatever you decide to do, just make sure that all the people you most love are there with you, then you’ll never have regrets when you look back on the day.”

“You’re right, of course.” Vanessa nodded.

“What are you two whispering about?” Steffie leaned behind Wade to ask.

“I just asked Brooke if she thought this dress made my butt look big,” Vanessa told her solemnly.

Steffie rolled her eyes and turned to greet the first of the guests to come through the line.

It seemed to Brooke that the line was endless, as if everyone in St. Dennis were there.

Close enough
, she thought as she glanced down the line. Every face was familiar, from Grace Sinclair to Violet Finneran to Steffie’s two part-time workers and the veterinary assistants from Grant’s animal hospital. Jesse stood next to his grandfather, and Nita Perry, who owned the antique shop on Charles Street, chatted with Luke Haldeman, who’d just bought the boat sales showroom and marina from the estate of the previous owner. Brooke’s mother was deep in conversation with the new librarian and Mr. Clausen, who’d taught American history to both Grant and Steffie in high school and was somehow related to Berry.