Back Where I Belong: A Wonderfully Witty and Completely Absorbing Love Story (Susan Wade Series Book 3)

by Virginia Gray

  “Never seen anythin’ like it in my whole life,” Billy added.

  “I heard tell of black magic, but I never believed it,” Vic Jr. added.

  I snorted. “I’m with you, Vic.”

  Mona and I returned to her booth. “That was awful nice of Joe to show her around the place,” she said, innocent as the lamb she was.

  “Very gentlemanly,” I replied, scooting in beside her. I glanced at Jimbo, who was trying very hard not to laugh as he stacked glasses.

  ♥

  Returning from a whirlwind tour of my district that included stops in Charlotte, where my western district office now lay; Greensboro, to sign off on a rather impressive contract with Federal Express; and the most taxing destination of all, Winston-Salem, for an overnight stay with my mother. I was damn tired. Late afternoon Saturday, I crossed the bridge to Atlantic Beach, smiling as I glimpsed the tip of the miniature lighthouse.

  I knew I would never forget the first time I saw it…

  It had been one week after my triumphant return to Havelock. Pete and I had spent the entire morning making love. After so much time apart, we could barely last minutes without simply touching one another. And touching always led to…other things.

  I hadn’t even asked where we were going when Pete navigated Bessie out of the marina, mostly because I didn’t care. I was with Pete; nothing else mattered.

  We’d headed east on the Intercoastal Waterway, and then skirted Morehead City to Bogue Sound. Crossing under the big bridge, the water had glimmered as if covered in gold. As we raced down the shoreline, I noticed a bizarre-looking silo structure that had certainly not been there last year.

  “What the heck is that?” I’d asked, pointing.

  He’d smiled hugely. “Let’s check it out.” Steering into a cove that vaguely resembled one I remembered, he tied the boat to a sturdy pylon then helped me onto the very impressive dock.

  “Whoa! This is awesome. Did you design it?” I asked, looking at the mammoth wooden skeleton.

  “Uh huh.” He’d kissed my cheek and then guided me between several huge stacks of lumber, around mounds of building supplies, and away from mud puddles left over from last night’s rainstorm.

  “Is the customer local?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” he said, smiling even wider. “Want me to tell ya what it’s gonna look like?”

  “Please.”

  We slowly wandered around the exterior. “It’ll have tiered decks on the first and second stories that’ll wrap all the way around the house. You’ll—I mean, the customer will have perfect views of the sunrise and sunset.”

  “Nice.”

  “A large living room, complete with a functioning fireplace, will take up the whole west side of the first floor. C’mon, I’ll show you.” The house was mounted on a staggering number of super-high stilts. We climbed the exterior stairs, passing through a framed box I assumed would eventually be the front door, and then up another flight. The smell of fresh wood and sawdust was heavy in the air. “There’ll be twelve-foot ceilings throughout the entire structure. The dining room will overlook the sound, and you can’t even begin to imagine the kitchen,” he said, his eyes lighting incandescently. “We’re havin’ slabs of granite shipped up from Brazil for the island and countertops. Here, I’ll show you pictures.” He pulled out his phone and flipped through them as excitedly as a kid showing off his baseball card collection.

  With splashes of copper spilling over a kaleidoscope of multicolored veins, and what appeared to be a swirling white cyclone tearing down each slab’s center, I’d never seen their like. “The owner must be spending a shitload.”

  “Well, since he knows the couple, Mike’s helping ease the pain a bit.”

  “Oh, so they’re from New Bern.”

  “Originally, yeah—he is.” He took my hand, and we wandered the footprint. He pointed out some structural features I didn’t quite understand but really didn’t care to. I just nodded and smiled as his excitement mounted. “Now let’s go to the upstairs.”

  We crossed a huge area. “This will be the master bedroom. Floor to ceiling windows on three sides. No way they could miss a sunset from in here.” After showing me the enormous master bath area, and what would surely be the largest set of closets in history, I followed him to the other end of the level, where three more bedrooms were framed out. After a brief explanation, we stopped at the foot of another flight of stairs. He jerked his chin. “Best part. Ya ready?”

  I nodded, latching onto his excitement. Emerging onto a large hexagonal platform level with the roof’s sharp peaks, I simply gasped. The vista was awe-inspiring. To one side, over the expanse of emerald bushes and scrub, I could see the beautiful blue-green ocean, and on the other, the sound.

  “It’s a lighthouse,” he said, wrapping his arms around my waist and kissing the top of my head. I leaned back against his strong chest, thinking he should have designed this house for himself. He should command such a view.

  “It’s magnificent.”

  “It’s yours,” he murmured.

  I spun around. “What?”

  “I built it for you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “See, I decided I’d sit out here in the evenings, keeping watch…hopin’ that one day you’d see it and find your way back to me.”

  “This is your house?” I croaked as tears welled.

  He nodded and lifted my chin to meet his eyes. Then taking my hand, he pressed my palm against his chest. “You are my heart’s lighthouse. You always will be.”

  ♥

  Pete met me in the driveway of the now nearly completed home, holding two bottles of champagne.

  “Are we having a party?” I asked.

  “A celebration.” His smile was huge, and though I had no idea why, I found it thoroughly infectious.

  “Alright, I’ll play.”

  After a huge welcome home kiss, he said, “Follow me.”

  It was hard to say no to someone whose backside was so utterly delectable, harder still to deny his twinkling eyes anything.

  We stopped in front of the sound-facing façade. “Ta-da!” he announced, spreading his arms wide.

  “What am I looking at?” I asked.

  “You, my darlin’ love, are lookin’ at our completely finished home.”

  “They installed the carpet?”

  “Yep.”

  “Fixed the shower?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Finished hanging the light fixtures?” He nodded. “Painted the kitchen and hallway?”

  “Yes, ma’am. You won’t even recognize the place. I even planted a tree to mark the day,” he said, nodding to a rather impressive palm.

  “Yippee!” I squealed, jumping up and down. “Pop the cork.”

  “One last order of business first.” He handed a bottle to me. It hadn’t been chilled, and when I read the label, I noted it was cheap—like, Food Lion cheap.

  “Ew. We don’t have to actually drink this, do we?”

  He snorted. “That one’s for the house christening.”

  “Isn’t that only for boats? Wait! You’re not going to name the house are you?”

  He grinned madly. “I was thinkin’, The Susie-Q Two.”

  “No.”

  “All the houses down here have names. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “Yes, but those are rental properties. This is a private home.”

  “Tradition’s tradition. Break the bottle.”

  I felt a little silly hitting our house with a bottle of booze, but when in the South… Mentally shrugging, I walked over to the left corner. “Is this okay?”

  Nodding, he urged me on. I tapped it against the wood. Nothing happened. I looked back at him.

  “Sorry to break it to ya, sweetheart, but you’re not all that strong. Go ahead and give it a good whack. It’s not like you’re gonna hurt anything.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, took up a Major League Baseball stance, and swung the bottle
with all my might. Glass shards flew out in all directions, foaming liquid exploded into the air, and several gray chunks of unidentifiable debris hit the ground with a thwack.

  He took a few steps towards me, picked up a piece of debris, and analyzed it. Then he looked at me, his expression suffused with astonishment. “Damn, Susie-Q, ya broke the house!”

  I covered my mouth with my hands because, sure enough, the latticework had a bottle-sized hole in it, and there was an impressive dent in a newly exposed flooding stilt. Pete and I analyzed the situation. He stuck his hand in the hole and pulled out the remaining pieces dangling there. Then he raised a brow. “Bad week?”

  “Mom?” I squeaked. But then I straightened up and poked him in the chest. “Plus, I might be a little stronger than you think.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  5

  The Flamingo

  Little Miss Propriety in her little pink bikini squealed as Jimbo threatened to dunk her in Bogue Sound. The transformation he’d undergone still amazed me, and I continued having trouble reconciling the stoic, sometimes sullen man I’d known nearly as long as Pete with this smiling, even laughing creature.

  Leaning back in his captain’s chair, beer in hand, Pete propped his brown legs on the nearby bench and met my eyes. From somewhere near the stern, Mona screamed out an indignant “Jimbo!”, and we both grinned.

  A year ago, those two barely had the courage to touch elbows, and now… I sighed happily.

  Pete pulled me onto his lap. “I did good,” he said haughtily.

  “You failed epically,” I scoffed.

  “Not from where I’m sittin’.” After running his thumb down my cheekbone, he took my face in his hands and kissed me deeply. He tasted of beer, saltwater, and a healthy dash of Pete—one very delicious combination. When he pulled back, his eyes smoldered with the certain promise of an evening bonfire, and my insides melted solely from the thought. “I got exactly what I wanted out of the deal.”

  Smiling, I bit my lip. “Me, too.”

  “So, ya wanna run off and get married?”

  “I’m thinking Elvis in Vegas.”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “You read my mind.”

  The thing was: we were still ironing out details. He’d alluded to a big wedding with several thousand of his closest friends and relatives. I was of the on the beach with our very dearest mindset. My mother wanted it held in my hometown—when I could skate on hell’s surface!—and Mona had suggested Havelock, where Pete and I first met. In fact, pretty much everyone I knew had offered me their unsolicited opinion.

  Though Pete had never mentioned location, I knew his true heart’s desire: to be married in the church in which he’d grown up; the one in which his parents had said their vows; the one in which their funerals had been held. I planned to give him exactly that, but take a chunk out of everyone else in the process. I just hadn’t figured out how.

  “What about while skydiving?” I offered. “I hear you can do that.”

  “Hmm,” he murmured, brushing his lips from my temple to ear. “If memory serves me correctly, you’re not a near-death-experience kind of girl.”

  “A destination wedding in the Caribbean? White sand, blue sea?”

  “Mm hm.” His nose skimmed my jawline, and then his tongue began a slow, slithering trip down my neck. When his fingers lightly traced the skin beneath my bikini bottoms on their way to the Promised Land, I gasped. This could end in one of several ways, however, the only scenario I could visualize at the moment was me straddling him on deck.

  Mona’s giggle reminded me we were very much not alone. “Then it’s settled,” I said, grabbing Pete’s head and kissing him quickly. I leaned over the railing. “Hey Mona, we’re having a destination wedding!”

  Suddenly, I was the one in the water, squealing.

  First thing Monday morning, I called Centenary Methodist Church of New Bern.

  “Church office,” an elderly voice answered.

  “Yes. I would like to book the church for a wedding.”

  “Oh, that’s lovely. Let me get out the calendar.” After a bit of shuffling, she said, “Now, what date were you wantin’?”

  “April twenty-sixth.”

  I heard pages flipping as she hummed “How Great Thou Art”. “Well, that date’s still open.”

  “Excellent.”

  “What’s the name, dear?”

  “Wade. Susan Wade.”

  “Wade…hmm. I’m sorry, honey, that name doesn’t ring a bell. Are you a Centenary member?” How odd.

  “No.”

  “Well, we generally give members first choice.”

  I was not losing that date. Unlike Mona, I’d chosen a reasonable time of year for a wedding—warm, but not too warm, flowers, but not so many bugs. April was perfect. And, as an added bonus, during that particular week, I would be neither PMSing nor MSing. “My fiancé is a member.”

  “Oh, well that should be fine then. Name?”

  “Pete Walsh.” I held the phone away from my ear, prepared for the standard response. And thank goodness I had, or my eardrum would have ruptured.

  “I’ve known Peter since he was a baby! I was his third grade Sunday School teacher. He’s such a fine man… Yada yada yada.” Five minutes later: “I surely should have recognized your name from the paper…though, I don’t recall seein’ your announcement. Did y’all just get engaged?”

  “Recently, yes.”

  “Well, yew need to call The Sun Journal soon as we get the sanctuary penned in. People need to know these things. Now, what time did yew want?” I was following in Mona’s footsteps, procedurally: late afternoon wedding, quickie refectory reception followed by an extended evening of dancing in some plowed field in the middle of nowhere.

  “The Walsh-Wade weddin’ at four o’clock,” she sang. “Why look, you won’t even need to change your initials. Isn’t that nice?”

  “I hadn’t even thought of that.”

  “Well, it certainly helps with the monogrammin’ and such.”

  After she wished me every happiness in the world and all that crap, she said, “Now, where are you from?”

  “Winston-Salem, originally.”

  “Okay, we’ll just need your membership records sent down. I assume you’ll be joinin’ our church?”

  “Um, well, I wasn’t really planning to.” I wasn’t a church-going girl anymore. Though I’d been Bible-flogged weekly for the entirety of my youth, my grown-up self had walked away from the guilt—mostly. And though God had served up one heavenly favor in giving Pete back to me, I still had a difficult time enduring sermons.

  Her voice raised an octave. “It’s tradition for a husband and wife to be members of the same church, especially considerin’ yours is so far away.”

  “Oh.”

  “What’s the name of your church, honey? I’ll contact them for yew.”

  I didn’t actually have a church home, per se. I’d lived in Winston-Salem, Chicago, Philadelphia, Columbus, Havelock, and now Atlantic Beach. And I wasn’t exactly a regular anywhere. I gave her the church in which I’d been baptized. “Silas Creek Baptist.” Silence on the other end of the phone. “Hello?”

  “You’re not Methodist.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “I’ve been a member of this church for nearly sixty years, and I can’t recall a time when a couple of ‘mixed denomination’ was married here.” I rolled my eyes to the heavens. “If you want to get married at Centenary, you’ll just have to convert over, I suppose.” Seriously?

  “Convert? It’s not like I’m Jewish. Who cares?”

  “We do, Miss Wade.”

  Becoming Methodist was something Pete would never ask of me, but I realized suddenly that this was one of those “Gift of the Magi” moments. Giving him a wedding in this church would mean so much to him. And if switching from one flavor of Protestantism to another was all it took to score the sanctuary, then I was damn well going to do it. Suddenly, a demonic thoug
ht warmed my rotten soul; becoming Methodist would absolutely torque my staunchly Southern Baptist mom.

  “Let’s do this thing.”

  She giggled. “I’ll mail you the information.”

  After reciting my work address, I said, “Martha, let’s just keep this between you and me, okay? I want it to be a surprise.”

  ♥

  The following Sunday, Pete sauntered into the kitchen, swim trunks on, muscled bare chest gleaming. I swear, the sight of his naked torso still made me drool. “Ya wanna go out on the boat?” he asked, his teeth sinking into his lower lip.

  I nearly panted. Pete + water + alone = mind-blowing sex.

  “Um, aren’t you going fishing with Jimbo?” I groaned as he ran his thumbs across my nipples.

  “If it’s a choice between fishin’ with Jimbo and watching you wiggle around in a bikini, I believe I’ll take the latter.” He sucked my earlobe into his mouth and latched onto it with his teeth, sending a panty-scorching lightning bolt through my body.

  Sometime during his powerful seduction, I glanced at the clock. I had to be at Centenary in less than an hour for my first come to the Methodist Jesus class. Lying probably wasn’t the best way to get this whole enterprise underway, but I had to do something before I lost all control of my bodily functions.

  “I know how much fishing means to you—and Jimbo,” I said between kisses. “You two don’t get to hang out as often as you used to.” I gasped as his hand ducked under my skirt and slid up my thigh. “And I take up so much of your time. I just don’t want his feelings hurt,” I whimpered, my hips moving involuntarily.

  He stopped moving his fingers and quirked a brow. “Since when did you start carin’ about Jimbo’s feelings?”

  That was an excellent point. Unless they involved Mona, I didn’t. I pulled on the string at his waist. “I just don’t want to drive a wedge between you two. I mean, we’ll be family soon—cousins-in-law and all.” I slid his trunks off his tight hips, and they fell to his ankles.

  He pulled back from a very deep kiss and looked at me through eyes that held me far too high on his invisible pedestal. “You are the most thoughtful creature,” he said, unlatching my bra. “Ya sure?”