The Chesapeake Diaries Series (229 page)

Ellie could hardly believe that the room she entered was actually in Maryland and not a tropical place. The lobby and the ballroom of the inn sported a forest of palm trees, the trunks and branches of which had been wrapped in tiny white lights. Real orchids of every color, appearing to grow on the branches, delicately scented the air. Silver pitchers on each table held lush arrangements of orchids, stephanotis, pale pink roses, dusty miller, and ivy. The cloths covering the tables were silvery gray and the napkins were palest pink. Somehow, in the shortest possible time, the ballroom had been turned into a subtle fantasy of flowers and soft lights. It was the most romantic wedding Ellie had ever attended.

The ceremony itself was performed by Reverend Alston at the church in town that both Lucy and
Clay’s families had attended for many years. It, too, was handsomely draped with flowers and candlelight. Lucy had asked her business party, Bonnie Shaefer, to be her maid of honor, and Brooke, Clay’s sister, to be her lone bridesmaid, and Clay had tapped Cameron for his best man. Clay’s business partner, Wade MacGregor, and his eight-year-old nephew, Logan, served as ushers. Because there’d been little time to prepare, Lucy opted out of having a slew of bridesmaids.

“I don’t have time to deal with the drama of bridesmaids’ dresses,” Lucy had told Ellie when they ran into each other at one of the houses on the Christmas Tour. “This one doesn’t like that color, that one likes the color but not the style. I only had a few weeks to put this all together. I didn’t have time for dress drama. Brooke understood completely, and chose a dress that she and I both liked. So much easier when you’re only dealing with one or two other people.”

Lucy did have time to find a dramatic dress for herself: a pure white silk floor-length sheath with one shoulder and silk-covered buttons all the way down the back. There was a wide sparkly belt complemented by long sparkly earrings, and a long lace veil that both Grace and Grace’s mother had worn. Escorted down the aisle by both her mother and her brother Daniel, Lucy carried an enormous bouquet of orchids and wore high silver shoes that added four inches to her petite height.

“Gorgeous.” Steffie Wyler, seated behind Ellie and next to Vanessa and her husband, had sighed.

“Totally.” Ellie had turned around to agree.

“I heard the ballroom is drop-dead magnificent,” Vanessa whispered.

“It is. Wait till you see,” a wide-eyed Steffie said. “I peeked when I dropped off ice cream before we came to the church. It’s gorgeous.”

“Shhhhh …” A woman at the end of Ellie’s row hushed them.

Steffie mouthed the words “You’ll see,” and turned back to the program, which her niece Paige and Gabi had handed out at the door to the church. The two young girls wore white blouses and black straight skirts, and had carried out their duties in a mature manner that made Dallas, as stepmother of the former, and Ellie, as sister of the latter, quite proud.

The church was still dressed for the holidays, resplendent in white poinsettias, the altar marked with urns filled with evergreens and hollies, to which Lucy had added twinkling lights. The ceremony was brief but deeply personal, the minister having known both the bride and the groom from their preschool days. Lucy and Clay wrote their vows together, promising to be “best friends always, to celebrate the passing of the seasons together, to greet each new day with love, and to never be too busy to spend an afternoon crabbing on the Bay.”

Ellie looked upon the cocktail hour at the inn as a sort of coming-out—the first time she was in a crowded public place since Grace’s interview ran in the
St. Dennis Gazette
. While the paper had played up Ellie’s relationship to Lynley, and had barely mentioned her father, there was no question that the cat was definitely out of the bag, just as Ellie had wanted it to be. For every person who made a comment about
her father—polite or otherwise—there were ten who wanted to talk about Lynley. Before the reception was over, Ellie had compiled a list of older residents who remembered Lilly and who might be excellent sources of information for Carly’s book.

“Are you having a good time?” Cameron’s arms slid around her on the dance floor and they swayed to the band’s rendition of “Wonderful Tonight.”

“The best time ever.” Ellie leaned back to look into his eyes. “I feel … I don’t know … 
free
, I guess is the right word.”

“Free to be Ellie Chapman?”

“Yes, but more than that.” She looked around the floor and saw several of her new friends dancing and chatting with their significant others. Steffie and Wade. Vanessa and Grady. Brooke and Jesse. “I feel like I’ve come home. I feel like I’m where I was meant to be all along.” She grinned. “Do I sound like Dorothy from
The Wizard of Oz
?”

“I don’t know, was that the clicking of heels I just heard?”

“Quite possibly.”

They moved around the dance floor, cheek to cheek, and Ellie closed her eyes, just to savor the moment. She’d made a decision tonight, one she’d share with Cameron before the night was over, and she hoped he’d understand. She had only to find the right moment.

It came just before midnight. Cameron had gotten into a conversation about flavored beer with Clay and Wade and Ellie had wandered out onto the inn’s lovely front porch. She’d been standing near one of the fireplaces and had absorbed more than her share
of heat from the blaze. The air outside was cool but was welcome on her skin—for about the first two minutes. She wasn’t dressed for the evening’s chill, having splurged on a pretty but thin metallic tank top and wrap from Vanessa’s shop. She turned to go back inside when she felt a warm jacket slip over her shoulders.

“You’re shivering,” Cameron said as he wrapped his arms around her from behind.

“Thanks. I was just thinking I should probably go inside. It’s cooler than I thought.”

“Pretty night,” he said, making no effort to move.

“It’s a beautiful night. It was a beautiful wedding. I can’t remember ever attending a wedding where I felt so much love in the room. It really was extraordinary.” Ellie sighed. The wedding she would have had with Henry would have been nothing like Clay and Lucy’s. Thank God she’d not married that man. For one thing, she’d never have come here, never have met Cameron.

“It was that. Beautiful bride. Handsome groom.” Cam kissed the tip of her ear. “Not to mention the best man.”

Ellie turned to face him. “You
are
the best man, Cam. You’re the best man I’ve ever known. It seems that the worst time in my life has brought me to the best. The best place and the best man.” She touched the side of his face. “I have something to say to you, and I hope you understand.”

“Uh-oh. Is this where you tell me that Carly sold all those paintings for millions and you don’t need the money from the sale of the house, so you can just leave now?”

Ellie felt him tense in her arms.

“Because I need you to know that I’d give up buying the house if you’d stay.”

“You love that house.”

“I love you more.”

“Do you?” Her eyes searched his face.

“I do.”

“Then that makes this easier.” She took a deep breath. “I have decided to stay in the house. I really feel that I’m meant to be there, that St. Dennis is where I’m meant to be. That house … it’s been a sanctuary to so many troubled souls over the years. My mother. You and Wendy. Gabi. Me. We’ve all been affected by it. When I came here, I didn’t expect to be healed of the pain of the last year, but I have been. I’ve realized that the past just doesn’t hurt as much, it doesn’t matter so much anymore. I don’t want to leave.”

“I’m so glad that you’re staying.” He lifted her in his arms and swung her around, his mouth finding hers in the process. When he set her down on her feet again, he said, “You know, I never believed that someone could sweep into your life and that you’d know that that person would change your life. That’s what I felt when I first saw you. It scared the crap out of me—I saw what that kind of love did to my father—but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I guess it happens that way sometimes. The fact that you were living in ‘my house’ did complicate things a bit. I wanted the house, but the more time we spent together, the more I realized that it was you I wanted most.”

“Then you’ll like the rest of it.”

“The rest of what?”

A cheer went up from inside the inn as the countdown to midnight began.

Ten
.

“The rest of what I have to say.” Ellie took a deep breath. “I am planning on staying in St. Dennis, making this my home. But I feel a little guilty about having made a promise to you. I mean, I gave you my word, to sell the house to you.”

Nine
.

“So I tried to come up with some way to ease my conscience. So while I can’t sell it to you, I am willing to share it with you.”

“Share it? Share the house?”

Eight
.

“Yes.” She nodded. “But then it occurred to me that you moving in … living with me … would not send a very good message to Gabi. She’s at an impressionable age.…”

Seven
.

“As much as I hate to say it, you’re right. You wouldn’t be much of a role model for her.”

“So I’m thinking if we’re going to live together, we should get married.”

Six
.

“Do you realize what you just said?”

“I do.” She laughed nervously. “Oh. I guess that’s a line for another time, right?
I do?
”

Five
.

“Ellie … you just proposed to me.” Cameron seemed stunned.

“I did, didn’t I? I know it’s a lot to take on, I mean, Gabi and I are a package deal now—and the house,
too, of course.” Ellie sighed. “I can’t imagine my life without you, Cam. I can’t imagine being with anyone but you, spending the rest of my life with anyone but you.”

Four
.

“I never expected to find a real home here, but I did. I never thought I’d find what I’d lost of my mother here, but I did.”

Three
.

“I never thought I’d find my heart, but …” She gestured, hands up. “But here you are. You’re the love of my life, Cam, pure and simple. So what do you say?”

Two
.

“What do you think?” He swept her up in his arms and kissed her mouth as the cheers were raised inside.

One
.

“Happy New Year!”

“The happiest year yet,” Cam whispered in her ear.

“The happiest year ever,” she agreed.

Diary

Oh, my, what a week we have had here in St. Dennis! First and most important, of course, was Lucy and Clay’s wedding. What a beautiful affair that was! I’ve seen Lucy’s work before, of course—the double wedding that we had here last year for Dallas and Grant, Steffie and Wade, and then Robert and Susanna Magellan’s wedding last summer—but oh, that anyone could pull off such a production in so short a time! The church had already been decorated by the ladies there, so other than adding some flowers to the end of the pews, there was nothing much for her to do. Which was a good thing, after all, because it gave her more time to focus on the reception here at the inn. In anticipation of the wedding—and her silver-and-pale-pink color scheme—we decorated the inn’s trees with a predominantly silver theme this year (Lucy’s idea, of course). Everything was sparkly and silvery and just so festive and beautiful—“ethereal,” my dear friend Trula called it
.

And it was. I can’t imagine a more beautiful wedding or a more beautiful bride … yes, I say that even though she is my daughter. She looked so … so grown up and sophisticated, so unlike my little Lucy and yet so perfectly her. I would have given anything for her father to have seen her. Oh, I know he was looking down from whatever cloud he
was assigned to, and he was probably as teary-eyed and proud as I was. But it would have been so much better if he’d been here, flesh and blood, to hold my hand and walk his girl down the aisle. Though I have to say, Daniel did us proud. If only Ford had been able to make it home. He did try, he said when he called, but the plane that was supposed to pick him up never arrived. Which, of course, has me worried about where that boy is and what he’s really doing
.

But back to the happy time … my daughter’s wedding. We’re so happy to welcome Clay to the family. He’s always been the one for her. We’ve always known it, even when she fought against it—moved clear across the country to keep it from happening, but there it is. Lucy and Clay are married, and all’s right in my world
.

Except for Ford … but hopefully, his dad is watching over him, too
.

And other big news! Ellie Ryder—Ellie Chapman, now that she’s come to terms with her family issues—and Cameron O’Connor will be the next to walk down the aisle! I have it on very good authority that the wedding will take place at the house on Bay View Road—Lilly’s house—this spring
.

Ellie’s hoping to have the entire first floor of the place painted and fixed up by then, though I don’t know when
she’ll have time to do much work there since she’s working full-time for Cameron now. I ran into her this morning at Cuppachino and she told me that Cam’s teaching her how to use all sorts of power tools. She said that next she wants him to teach her how to build tables like the one he made her for Christmas out of reclaimed oak boards from the Madisons’ old barn that came down last year. She said it’s the most beautiful table she ever saw—and that she’s never been happier. I’m betting that before long, the sign on the side of Cameron’s truck will read O’CONNOR AND O’CONNOR
.