A Vineyard Thanksgiving (The Vineyard Sunset Series Book 4)

by Katie Winters

  “Charlotte’s the wedding planner,” Lola interjected. “Although we haven’t been able to track her down for quite a while...”

  “I’m sure she’s off somewhere finalizing something else in that silly wedding,” Susan said as she poured Everett a glass of wine.

  “Mom! Come on. It’s not silly,” Amanda argued playfully. “It’s going to change Aunt Charlotte’s career forever.”

  At that moment, another guy around Amanda’s age snuck in from the porch, kissed Amanda on the cheek, and then introduced himself as Amanda’s fiancé, Chris.

  Everett’s heart pounded with each new person. I didn’t know families could really be like this—the way they are in the movies. Everyone is so welcoming. So eager. So loving.

  “Oh, and you absolutely have to taste one of Christine’s croissants,” Susan said. She dropped into a cupboard to drag out a big basket of buttery, flaky morsels. “I wanted to save them for dinner, but you look like you haven’t nibbled on anything yet today, Everett.”

  “He looks like he eats healthy,” Uncle Trevor said. “We don’t want any of that around here, Everett. Not on Thanksgiving.”

  “Hear, hear! The day we celebrate all things sugar and fat!” Audrey called from the corner as she cracked through another few MMs.

  “Where’s your family these days, Everett?” Uncle Trevor asked.

  “They’re up in Seattle,” Everett replied. He sipped his wine idly, then added, “My father passed away a few years ago, so it’s just my mom and my brother and his family up there.”

  “You must be sad to miss out on dinner with them,” Uncle Trevor said as he leaned up against the counter.

  “I really am,” Everett said. Again, he was surprised to really feel that sadness. He hadn’t expected it, had kind of rushed across the continent, hoping that any of that would remain out west.

  “Well, it’s a good thing you met our Lola and Christine out at the bar,” Trevor said.

  At that moment, three men stomped in from the porch, where, it seemed, a grill had been lit. They introduced themselves as Zach, the cook, Tommy, and Scott, who wouldn’t let anyone else light the grill.

  “You’re in for the wedding, right?” Zach asked, sliding past him and back into the kitchen. He yanked open the oven to check on the last of the turkey.

  “Yep,” Everett said.

  “I’m the chef for that thing,” Zach said. “I’ve spent the past few weeks training all these caterers, some of which I’ve worked within the past, and others... not so much.” He snapped the oven door back into place and then slipped his hands across his apron. “I have this busboy, Ronnie, who works with me at the bistro. Suffice it to say; the kid is an anxious wreck. But he looks at this wedding as another chance to prove himself. I’m a sucker, I guess, and I’m letting it happen. But the first time he drops a tray at this multi-million-dollar wedding...”

  Christine snuck up behind Zach and wrapped her arms around his middle. Her eyes connected with Everett’s. “Don’t mind him. My boyfriend is a little cynical when it comes to all this.”

  “Not cynical. Just worried,” Zach said, rubbing her arms.

  “Don’t bring all those doubts in here,” Lola said. “You’ll make a mess out of Charlotte.”

  “But it’s not like anyone has seen Charlotte in the past hour,” Audrey insisted.

  Susan shot through the group again, grabbed a spare plate, and filled it with various things from the dining room table—appetizers, she called them. She then pointed to a big vat and said, “Aunt Kerry made some of her famous clam chowder. If you don’t eat some of it, she’ll never forgive you.”

  Everett poured some clam chowder into a small bowl and then sat on the floor near Audrey’s feet. This motion put him face-to-face with a beautiful orange kitty, who looked at him ominously. Wes bent down to bring the cat into his arms.

  “Don’t mind him,” Christine said. “He’s a New Yorker through and through. Still hasn’t taken to the whole family dynamic thing.”

  “Oh, but he loves me,” Wes said, singing the words.

  “Yeah, yeah. He loves Dad,” Christine said, rolling her eyes.

  Through all this, Everett was suddenly struck with the realization that the young woman in the portrait in the lobby of the Sunrise Cove Inn—the woman who seemed to be Lola, Christine, and Susan’s mother—wasn’t among them.

  His heart darkened.

  Again, he felt the push to call his own mother.

  But it was still early on the west coast.

  And what could he possibly say?

  That moment, another knock rang through the house.

  “That’s probably Stan,” Lola said. She popped up from her chair and stretched her legs toward the back door. Moments later, another older guy followed in after her. She gestured toward him and said, “Everett, this is Stan. Stan, this is Everett. This is Stan’s first Thanksgiving with us, isn’t it, Stan?”

  Stan looked about as nervous as Everett felt. He prayed that his face wasn’t so blotchy and that his hands didn’t shake. In the awkwardness that fell, Tommy strode forward and placed a hand on Stan’s lower back.

  “I got a chair all set up for you, Dad,” he said. “Just this way.”

  Dad? They didn’t look anything like one another. Everett snapped a pretzel between his teeth and made peace with never really understanding the Sheridan clan at all.

  Everyone seemed locked into their own conversations, which left Everett to stir in his mind for a second. He turned his head right so that his eyes peered through the legs of the dining room table and toward the yonder bedrooms. One of the doors was open, just a crack to reveal a lilac-painted bedroom.

  He had a hunch that someone was in there.

  He could feel someone’s voice, echoing through the crack.

  You had to focus on it to know it was there.

  Everett stood, placed his half-eaten appetizer plate on the counter, and snapped his hands together to scrub off the crumbs. When he reached that crack in the door, he bent down, curiosity taking hold of him. Nobody else in the dining area, kitchen, or living room noticed him.

  “I understand that Ursula, I do,” a voice said.

  The voice was beautiful, fluid, girlish yet sure of itself. Everett would have said it reminded him of a song if he had been the sort of poetic human to do something like that (which he wasn’t).

  Still, the voice itself captured his curiosity, along with his realization that, in actuality, this woman spoke to Ursula Pennington herself.

  “I understand it’s been a hard journey,” the woman continued. “And that the private plane wasn’t as well-stocked as you’d been led to believe. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in charge of that portion of your...”

  Oh, this poor woman. Everett had dealt with a number of celebrities over the years, but it never seemed to get easier.

  “You’re still on track to arrive tomorrow afternoon, aren’t you?” Charlotte asked. “No, no. I understand that it’s essential you eat only fish in the days leading up to... I’m sure you’ll look remarkable in your wedding dress. It was how many million dollars? Oh. Yes, that should be enough, then. ... No, it was a joke. Terribly sorry. Yes...”

  Everett chuckled to himself. Ursula had trapped her. Now, this woman was in a kind of labyrinthian hellscape for the next two and a half days—maybe a little bit more. He pitied her.

  Suddenly, however, the door yanked open, and there she stood: the wedding planner.

  And her eyes reflected danger.

  She knew he’d been spying on her.

  He had been caught.

  Chapter Nine

  Charlotte still felt vaguely a part of another world. Ursula’s voice—now a borderline screech, so close to the wedding—still filled her ears as she stood, her chin lifted, her eyes peering into the most glorious cerulean ones. The man in the crack of the door at the Sheridan house was entirely too handsome, his dark brown hair shaggy, but in a model-way, and his lips just the slightest bit crooke
d, as though he was always on the verge of uproarious laughter.

  “And what else, what else...” Ursula continued, clucking her tongue over the line. “I swear, there was something else I wanted to go over with you. Gosh, I just cannot...”

  “You know what? You can give me a call if you think of it,” Charlotte said, witnessing her first opportunity to jump off the line in over forty minutes.

  “I would really lose my head if it wasn’t for you, Charlotte,” Ursula said, erupting into giggles. “Pardon me. My mother’s just given me a huge glass of champagne. How am I meant to...?”

  With that, Ursula hung up the phone. Apparently, she had lost interest.

  Charlotte exhaled, pushing air into her cheeks. She dropped her phone against the little wardrobe beside her and furrowed her brow at the stranger.

  “Are you a spy sent over from Ursula’s team?” she asked.

  He laughed. Gosh, his laugh was deep and delicious, really, when compared to Ursula’s voice.

  “Yes. Ursula Pennington herself sent me all the way to this overly quaint Thanksgiving dinner, just to torment you over pie,” the man said with a grin.

  “I knew it,” Charlotte offered. She tilted her head against the doorframe. Although she had only had a half-glass of wine, her brain felt all foggy. “I should have known she wouldn’t let me get away with ruining her wedding. I had it all plotted out.”

  What was she doing, joking about something she cared so deeply about?

  “Oh yeah? Tell me more,” the man said.

  “Well, first, there’s the threat of the apocalypse,” Charlotte said. “I thought that would go really well with the pre-wedding drinks.”

  “It’s nice to put the fear of God in everyone just as the first cocktails are poured,” the man agreed.

  “And then, as Ursula walks down the aisle, I thought it would be pretty cool to have a meteorite strike through the roof of the mansion and crash into the altar. Nobody’s hurt, of course—”

  “Again, just reminded that they’re not safe. Not even on Martha’s Vineyard,” the man continued.

  “But the worst of it is that some of the crab cakes at the reception will give you food poisoning, and some of them won’t,” Charlotte said, bubbling over with laughter, now. “So it’s kind of like playing Russian Roulette, you know? If you want to eat a crab cake...”

  “Then you had better be ready for the consequences,” the man said.

  It had been years since Charlotte had bantered with a stranger like this. They held one another’s gaze for a moment longer, until the man turned toward the kitchen counter, grabbed one of Christine’s croissants, and passed it toward her—like a peace offering.

  “I’m sorry for spying on you,” he said. “I promise, I won’t reveal any of your secrets.”

  Charlotte laughed and spun back toward the bed. She sat on the edge and swung her feet out in front of her, like a much younger girl.

  “Actually, it’s this snow. It’s what she wanted, you know? But now, the string quintet I hired is having a difficult time getting here, and Ursula is ready to blame me for all of it. I’m like—I don’t have control over the weather! No matter how many weddings I’ve planned, or how many post-it notes I’ve stuck to my office door, I can’t demand that God make it snow, but only a specific amount,” she said. She then took an overly-large bite of her croissant and studied her toes. One of her socks had a massive hole near the big toe. She hadn’t noticed. It wasn’t like her not to notice something like that.

  “I’m going nuts,” she muttered.

  The man remained in the doorway, looking at her with that same half-smile.

  “You should really give yourself a few hours off,” he said suddenly. “Your whole family is out there waiting for you.”

  “Ha. I don’t think any of you understand all the work I still have to do,” Charlotte said. “I don’t mean it in a negative way. Just that... if I don’t stay on top of myself, Ursula herself will bury me six feet under.”

  “Think of that headline,” the man said. “World-famous actress murders wedding planner on Martha’s Vineyard.”

  “It would give the wedding a lot of press, for sure,” Charlotte said. “Maybe I should schedule it in for after the wedding, before the photography session.”

  The man seemed to think every single thing she said was gold. After his laughter calmed down, he said, “If wedding planning doesn’t go through, maybe you should think about comedy.”

  “Great. So I can look like a fool in front of even more people?”

  “Something like that.” He cleared his throat, and then added, “I’ve photographed tons of weddings like this. Big, multi-million dollar, everything-on-the-line weddings, and, even though it always looks like everything is about to crumble just before, I have to assure you: everything always clicks into place. Sometimes, it happens at the last minute. Sometimes, the wedding planner really does end up on the floor in pain. But you seem more organized than those fainting wedding planners.”

  “Ha. Well, I have already bragged about my post-it notes,” Charlotte said. She gripped the stem of her wine glass and sipped it delicately. “You must be the photographer. The one working for Wedding Today.”

  “My reputation precedes me,” the man said.

  “But not your name. What is it?”

  “Everett,” the entirely too-handsome man called Everett said.

  “Charlotte.”

  They shared another secret smile. From the other room, Charlotte’s father, Trevor, burst into applause and commanded one of the basketball players too, “Get the ball!”

  “I never really got sports,” Charlotte said to Everett. “But that’s my dad out there, howling at them like the players can hear him.”

  “I was always a little too arty for all that,” Everett confessed.

  Charlotte dropped her head back and sipped the rest of her wine. By the time she opened her eyes again, Everett was there before her with a full bottle of merlot. He poured her a second glass and then filled his own. As there wasn’t anywhere else to sit in the bedroom, and the living room and kitchen were blurry with activity, Everett sat at the edge of the bed, next to her. Although he was more than six inches away, the heat of his body emanated across her arm.

  “You work for Wedding Today,” Charlotte breathed.

  “They just interviewed you,” Everett said.

  “True. Very true. And in the interview, I talked about all this like it’s second nature. Since you just eavesdropped on me, you could easily go off and tell them all about my lies. Nothing about this is second nature. I’m just dragging myself through it, making it all up as I go along. And the amount of money I’m responsible for! Do you know how crazy that is? I still buy off-brand cereal!”

  “It tastes the same!” Everett retorted, flashing her a smile.

  Why was he so endearing?

  Charlotte furrowed her brow. “So you won’t tell them—about the very real fact that I’m a complete and utter mess.”

  “Compared to the other wedding planners I’ve seen, you’re basically a queen,” Everett said. He then clinked his glass with hers.

  From where they sat, they could hear Christine and Zach discussing what was left to prepare for Thanksgiving dinner.

  “Christine, can you just keep an eye on those yams.”

  “Zach, the sauce! You almost knocked it over.”

  “Christine, where did you put the pies? Ah, there. Wait, how many did you make again?”

  “Fifteen. I figured fifteen would be enough?”

  Zach laughed uproariously. “With these monsters? They eat everything in sight. Especially that one there.”

  At this point, Audrey marched past the counter, furrowed her brow at Zach, and said, “Excuse me? Are you talking about a pregnant woman right now?”

  Charlotte chuckled. “You probably think my family is insane.”

  “Maybe a little,” Everett said. “Much louder and more alive than my family back in Seattle. It
’s a different change of pace. I can’t say I dislike it.”

  “Just because you’re up to your knees in wedding planning, doesn’t mean you can talk to me about how many pieces of pie I eat on Thanksgiving, Zachary!” Audrey said, placing a finger on the counter between them.

  “I can’t tell if she’s kidding or not. Are any of them kidding?” Everett asked under his breath.

  “It’s sometimes difficult to tell when it comes from Audrey,” Charlotte said. “She’s on the snarky side for sure. But also, Christine and Zach have been huge helps with the wedding—but they’re just as stressed as me in different ways. I can’t imagine what they feel now, having to feed all of us today.”

  “You know what, Audrey? You know what?” Suddenly, Zach lifted a can of whipped cream and smeared a line of it across Audrey’s nose and upper cheek.

  Audrey made a funny screech, grabbed the whipped cream bottle, and spun it around on Zach’s face.

  “Children!” Christine cried.

  “He started it,” Audrey said.

  Susan rushed in from upstairs, bug-eyed, then burst into laughter at the sight of both Audrey and Zach, their faces white with whipping cream.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “You know we have a guest here with us today. You can’t just act like idiots.”

  “Who’s our guest again?” Audrey demanded. She turned her face back toward the bedroom where Everett and Charlotte sat, sipping wine. “Is it that guy who’s already hitting on Aunt Charlotte?”

  “Oh my gosh, Audrey,” Lola said from the far end of the room. “Give it a rest.”

  “Yep. Your family definitely has more personality than mine,” Everett said, taking this awkwardness as an excuse to get up from the bed.

  Charlotte felt vaguely cold, alone as he walked back toward the doorway. When he turned back, she had the funniest idea to tell him to stay. As though he mattered.

  “Sorry I interrupted your work,” he said. He pretended to tip a fake hat.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Lola said, forcing Everett’s head back around. “She’s just grumpy because she wants to eat. How much longer, Christy?”