The Honeymoon Cottage (A Pajaro Bay Romance) (31 page)
Read The Honeymoon Cottage (A Pajaro Bay Romance) Online
Authors: Barbara Cool Lee
He nodded silently.
The arbor was a riot of flowers. The florist must have plucked every bud from the garden in back of Camilla's office in Torres Alley. She'd be looking at bare branches for months. But it was worth it to give her this moment.
The music changed mood, and Ryan heard the brief fanfare from the violin that signaled the bride's entrance.
Everyone stopped talking.
His throat constricted. The fanfare segued into a rousing classical piece that he'd only heard fifty times as Camilla sampled mp3s and debated music choices.
Then she was there, outside the dutch door.
Her dress was a mass of snowy tulle, old fashioned looking, but somehow fitting her just the same. Her curls were loose, he was glad to see, without any fussy arrangement that took away from her natural beauty.
The sun hit her curls as she stepped out of the shadow of the cottage's peaked roof, and his breath caught. She had looked like that the first time he'd seen her, with the sun making a halo of her hair and her green eyes the color of fresh-mown grass, wide and guileless in her round face.
She didn't look nervous. Oddly, once he saw her he didn't feel nervous either. All this elaborate ceremony was just a celebration of what they already knew in their hearts.
Oliver, in his little gray suit and lavender tie, with his polished shoes already scuffed from running around, ran up beside her.
"Wait!" he said, loudly enough to be heard over the joyful chorus of the string quartet. "Don't start yet. We have to go up the aisle."
"You're supposed to march," Marisol corrected him from her position as flower girl. She walked with great dignity across the lawn between the folding chairs, throwing petals around enthusiastically as she passed through the crowd. Several people ducked as they were pelted with handfuls of flowers.
Oliver took Camilla's hand. "Okay, now, march!" He pulled her down the aisle.
All the people of the little village rose to their feet as she passed.
When she came to stand next to him under the overflowing arbor, he saw that she had lavender ribbons in her curls. She carried a bunch of flowers that she'd spent hours picking out, with lavender to go with the color theme of the wedding, green ivy to symbolize the tiles above the cottage's fireplace, and blue buds, she'd told him, to match his eyes.
This woman was really going to be his wife. She loved cinnamon in her coffee, hated grape juice, and had freckles all over. She owned eight different pink sweatshirts, could rewire a lamp in five minutes flat, and liked to kiss at the top of the roller coaster. She told Oliver the cottage had invisible fairies living in the chimney, and Ryan wasn't absolutely sure she was making it up. She was a far better person than he could ever be. But she was forcing him to be better than he'd ever been.
He'd learned to let go of responsibility for the whole world. Well, he'd let go a little. He still went over the line sometimes, but he'd learned that Camilla, and Leah, and Joe, and the rest of humanity, really could exist without his constant supervision. And when he forgot, which was still often, Camilla just crossed her arms, glared at him with those big green eyes, and said, "get over yourself, Ryan," and he did.
But he was never getting over her.
"Hey!" Oliver said at his elbow.
Oliver grabbed Ryan's hand and pressed it together with Camilla's. "I give you guys to each other to get married. Hurry up so we can eat the cake," he said, in a complete mangling of the speech Camilla had so carefully taught him.
"Thank you, Oliver," he said, finding his voice.
Camilla smiled. "Thank you, Oliver. Cake later. Wedding first."
"Hurry up then," Oliver said before Robin quickly scooted him off to the side. "I'm ready."
Ryan couldn't agree with him more.
~ The End ~
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Sneak Preview
"Turn" the page for an excerpt from the next Pajaro Bay story,
In Deep Water
.
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Recipe
Which recipe mentioned in the book is a real recipe from Barb's family? Artery-Clogging Clam Chowder, of course! Go to http://www.BarbaraCoolLee.com to print the recipe and try it yourself.
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Charities
10% of the profit from every Pajaro Bay novel is donated to charities whose work is connected to the topic of the book.
The following charities are among those receiving donations from
The Honeymoon Cottage
:
Volunteers of America: http://www.voa.org.
Why? They help vulnerable people, including the children of incarcerated parents (like Camilla).
CASA Court-Appointed Special Advocates: http://www.childadvocates.org/.
Why? They provide a voice for abused and neglected children caught up in the courts and in the foster care system (like Oliver).
A complete list of charities receiving donations will be kept updated at Barb's website.
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About the Author
Barbara Cool Lee is the author of the heartwarming Pajaro Bay series. Her novels have won many writing contests, including the Romance Writers of America's prestigious Golden Heart® Award for Romantic Suspense.
She lives in a cottage by the sea on the California coast.
She loves to hear from readers. You can reach her at [email protected].
You can learn more about Pajaro Bay at her website, http://www.BarbaraCoolLee.com.
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Sneak Preview of In Deep Water, next book in the Pajaro Bay Romances series
January 12th, 4:36 a.m., 1.7 nautical miles NE of Pajaro Light Station, Central California Coast.
Left arm, right arm, turn head, breathe.
Matt DiPietro ignored the fact that he could no longer feel his left leg, that it dragged uselessly behind him while his other leg did its best to propel his body through the sea.
Left arm, right arm, turn head, breathe.
He ignored the fact that the waters of Pajaro Bay were their usual numbing 52 degrees, the same temperature as the pelting rain that threatened to drown him every time he lifted his head above the waterline for a breath of air.
Left arm, right arm, turn head, breathe.
And most of all he ignored the fact that the flash from the lighthouse on Pajaro Isle had gotten farther away in the hour he'd been swimming toward it, because if he thought about that too much he might start listening to the little voice that warned him the tide was carrying him out into the Pacific Ocean, where his body wouldn't touch land until it hit Hawaii.
Left arm, right arm, turn head, breathe.
There was no point going to Hawaii now, he thought idly. He'd already seen Waikiki Beach in January. It was the senior trip at Pajaro High, after they'd won the big game—the night they'd all gotten drunk at the luau, and the guys had taken turns slapping him on the back and saying 'way to go, dude,' and the cheerleaders had fought with each other to ask him to dance, and he'd wandered off down the beach alone in the darkness, feeling vaguely unhappy, but not knowing quite why.
An odd thing to think about now, ten years later, while vainly swimming for his life through the unforgiving Pacific. Maybe not so odd, though. It was that same vague unhappiness that had driven him out in the pre-dawn hours to kayak until his arms ached and he'd drowned his aloneness in sweat. That had been a mistake. It had put him off his guard in the wrong place at the wrong time, so now his life would end with his body drifting off to Hawaii at the ripe old age of 28.
Wrongo, my boy. You'll be passing over the Pacific Trench long before that, where some great white shark will rise out of the fathomless deep to polish his teeth on your sorry hide.
Something brushed against Matt's right leg.
This great white. He fought down the energy-draining panic that surged through him, and forced himself to keep swimming straight toward the lighthouse.
Left arm, right arm, turn head, breathe. Same rhythm, only a little faster now as the adrenaline warmed him like a swallow of double-caf espresso.
A shark had not bumped against his leg. It was a piece of driftwood. Or it was a tendril of kelp. Or it was a fat lingcod heading out to sea before it could get picked up by a fishing boat and end up on a slab of ice back at the wharf.
It was not a shark. And his numb left leg was not leaving a bloody wake behind him, like a neon sign guiding every ocean predator to where his battered body flailed uselessly toward that blinking light on the horizon.
Matt decided this would be a good time to pray.
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Thanks for reading!
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Other Books Available Now and Coming Soon:
PAJARO BAY ROMANCES
The Honeymoon Cottage
In Deep Water
Under the Boardwalk
Billion Dollar Baby (Summer Short Read)
Christmas in Pajaro Bay
Silver Shells (Christmas Short Read)
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