Forever by the Sea

by Traci Hall

  Ferguson opened the door and a gust of wind blew in. “Do you mind a little weather?”

  “No,” she said.

  “No!” Christian echoed. “Grab your hats, folks, and let’s get married.”

  She heard the excitement in his voice which added to hers and made everything worthwhile.

  The guests were escorted outside first, each laughing with relief and joy that was contagious. Or maybe it was the shots of whiskey Christian’s dad bought in the bar.

  She waited by the door as they all went outside.

  Ferguson smiled at her.

  Her mom stood at her elbow, her eyes sparkling. “I finally get to walk you down the aisle.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” She squeezed her mother’s hand. What had she been thinking? Curses? She didn’t believe in curses any more than she believed in all of that wedding superstition.

  She and Christian forged their own path.

  A few raindrops spattered against the glass. A gust of wind howled. “We need to hurry,” she said. Hurry.

  “There’s a ten minute window before the next storm band is supposed to hit,” Ferguson said, frowning out at the courtyard.

  He walked away, talking into a lapel mic. He tugged at the side of his hair in frustration.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” He smoothed his features, though his jaw was tight.

  Dread tickled her belly and spread throughout her body.

  Christian waited outside, at the end of the aisle, for her. She, without hesitation, would meet him and marry him in the rain.

  Two minutes. She could say I do in two damn minutes.

  “I’m going out there.” She pushed against the handle.

  Ferguson put his hand on the door above her head to stop her. “Wait. Just another second.”

  “For what?” She couldn’t take it.

  He shifted from one foot to the next.

  Her mom walked to the door and peered out at the waiting guests. They’d skipped music and all of the bells and whistles to get the deed done.

  “Everybody is seated. It’s starting to get blustery. I say we go,” Madge said, pushing at the door. A streamer tangled in a palm tree outside.

  “We can’t find the minister.”

  Her mom swiveled around and stared at Ferguson. “What?”

  No minister? Sinead’s temper rose, looking from Collette to Fianna to her mom and then Ferguson. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

  Collette lifted her bouquet in confusion. “I paid him extra to stay. I sent a reminder to him before Laura and Ken’s ceremony.”

  Ferguson, pale, nodded. “He knew the importance of this wedding. We gifted him a hotel package for future use in addition to what you paid him. No way would he have walked out.”

  “Is this a joke?” Fianna looked at Collette.

  “No joke,” Collette said. “I’m ready to shoot somebody.”

  Sinead’s nerves erupted into harsh laughter as she held her bouquet to her waist and stared out the window to where the love of her life waited. Salty drizzle from the rain made patterns against the glass. Palm fronds shook in the building wind. “We’re cursed. The Monroe women can’t stay married—hey, we can’t even get married. At least Mom got to walk down the aisle.”

  Fianna turned a bright shade of purple. “There is no curse, Sinead.”

  “You haven’t tried. Just wait. I’ll remind you of your words!”

  Her sister swallowed, then lifted her ring hand, which wore something it hadn’t before.

  Sinead’s stomach churned. “What is that?”

  “Yes, what is that?” Madge asked, grabbing Fianna’s hand and flipping the platinum band that had been showing to reveal the pretty diamond hidden palm-side in.

  “Who did you marry?” Sinead stumbled and leaned against Collette.

  “Xavier.” Fianna’s shoulders lifted.

  “You and Xavier? Married? Before me?” Sinead snapped her mouth shut.

  “We just went to the courthouse. After watching you guys and all of this drama, we didn’t want to plan or spend too much money or energy.” Fianna’s green eyes welled with tears. “It just happened.”

  Sinead shook her head and backed away from her sister into the door leading outside. Using her hip, she pushed against the door, pausing to take in the scene, half inside, half out.

  The damp guests waited for her to walk down the aisle, to join Christian, who stood his ground with a hard jaw and gritted teeth.

  A guy in a hotel uniform walked around the guests and whispered into Christian’s ear, then stepped back with an apologetic shrug.

  Christian held her gaze then tossed his head back with a howl of frustration that answered the pain in her own heart.

  Ferguson’s lapel mic crackled and he adjusted the headphone in his ear. “You have got to be kidding me.” He turned to Sinead, who stared at him, one arm on the open door, letting the wind in, and the other fisted in the delicate fabric of her skirt.

  “What?”

  “The minister is in the bathroom. Sick. He’s allergic to shellfish and didn’t realize that Laura and Ken’s crab cakes were real crab.”

  “What was he expecting?”

  Collette’s cold voice made Ferguson wince.

  “Crab with a k—the imitation stuff, I guess.”

  “At the Breakers?” Collette smacked her bouquet against her leg. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Ferguson strode outside as if he’d rather face the elements than face her. “Really.”

  Sinead followed Ferguson outside, pulled toward Christian. Christian walked toward her, his heels scuffing the wet paper aisle.

  Next thing she knew, she was running for him, needing his strength above all else.

  His arms opened for her, catching her as she cried. The guests, unsure what was happening, jumped as thunder crashed and lightning sliced the sky. Within seconds, a deluge of rain soaked them and Ferguson urged everyone back inside to the bar.

  She and Christian trailed behind—she wasn’t ready for the moment to be over. Lucas met her eyes and shrugged in sympathy, his shoulders wet.

  “You can’t say you didn’t try.” Lucas rushed Aline inside where the staff waited with fluffy towels.

  “Dad’s right,” Christian whispered in her ear as a fat rain drop landed on her cheek. “We have. Maybe it’s enough.”

  She wiped a rivulet from his eye lash. “I don’t care about that anymore. I can’t. I can’t do this and keep my sanity.”

  “Let’s go.” Christian kept his hand on her back in the rain. As they went inside, he added, “You know, this is the first time we will be able to eat our own cake?”

  “Always looking for the silver lining,” Collette said, having caught the tail end of the conversation.

  “I try.” Christian’s voice was thick.

  “Yeah? What do you make of Fianna marrying your best friend?” Collette asked in angry tones.

  Sinead cringed as she watched confusion cross Christian’s face. “They’re engaged? How? When?”

  “Not engaged,” Sinead clarified, her heart hammering with emotions she couldn’t identify. “They’re married.”

  “No damn way.” He looked around the bar and the guests waiting. Xavier saw him, smiled in sympathy, and then realized from Christian’s expression that Sinead and Christian knew he was married to Fianna.

  Fianna tugged him out of the bar, but not fast enough. Christian caught up with him in the hall. “How could you get married behind my back?”

  Xavier held up his palms. “It wasn’t meant to be like that.”

  “You aren’t in love.”

  “We are too!” Xavier shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “When?” Christian demanded. Sinead put her hand on his arm to calm him down before he did something he’d regret later.

  “It’s been building over the last year. While you were going through the motions of getting the wedding ready, we fell in love ourselves.�
�

  “We are in love,” Fianna interjected, hanging on to Xavier’s elbow. “Christian, we’ve kept it a secret because we didn’t want to ruin your special day. But then Sinead kept going on about curses and I just wanted to prove that there is no curse.”

  “When?” Sinead asked, sick to her stomach.

  Fianna and Xavier shared a look and then she answered, “Three months.”

  “Right after you were taken hostage in your own damn car,” Xavier said. “We realized that crazy stuff happens and we didn’t want to waste another moment.”

  “And you didn’t think you needed to mention it?” Christian stared at Xavier.

  “It’s been tricky, but we thought it best, considering.” He shrugged, his expression miserable. “I wanted to tell you at the Funky Buddha but Fianna didn’t want to.”

  Sinead remembered that day clearly, wondering what her sister had been lying about. Marriage to Xavier, evidently.

  Christian remembered that Xavier had seemed less flirtatious with the ladies than usual that day at the brewery, but in no way had his best friend been on the verge of a confession. Or had Christian been too wrapped up in his own drama to notice?

  “I’ve hated keeping it from you, man. I know how much you want to marry Sinead, so it just didn’t seem right. You know, like we’d be flaunting it or something.” Xavier took Fianna’s hand. “But you wanted everything so perfect.”

  “Just right,” Fianna echoed, her eyes dark with misery.

  “We knew right away we just wanted to tie the knot.” Xavier shrugged but didn’t look away from Christian.

  Christian, angry, but angry for the wrong reasons, shoved his fisted hand in his pants’ pocket. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Me either.” Sinead trembled at his side. “My own sister, lying!”

  “Protecting you, I thought,” Fianna explained through shaking tones. “From being hurt.”

  “Sneaking!” Sinead retorted. Christian felt Sinead’s temper rise and realized that she was probably trying to figure out what to feel as well.

  Christian took Sinead by the elbow. “Listen, I don’t want to do this in front of everybody. Just stay on the other side of the room for a while until we can figure it out.”

  “We can leave,” Xavier offered. Repentant.

  “We shouldn’t have to leave,” Fianna said, her eyes narrowed as she looked from Sinead to Christian. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “It’s storming—you have to stay.” Christian looked away from Xavier. “At least until the rain stops.”

  “Sinead?” Fianna touched Sinead’s arm.

  “I want to be happy for you, but you’ll understand if it’s a little difficult at the moment?”

  Fianna bowed her head.

  Sinead’s body shook and Christian slid his arm around her waist, walking with her away from Fianna and Xavier.

  “This sucks.” Christian smoothed Sinead’s hair from her cheek. “I’m so sorry, Sinead. I really thought that this time we’d do it.” He patted his suitcoat and the rings tucked inside the pocket.

  “It’s a good thing there won’t be any pictures of this wedding either.” Her low tones broke his heart. “I don’t think I could muster a fake smile.”

  Christian scanned the bar area where the wet guests were doing their best to have a good time. “The photographer is sitting with Dad and Collette.”

  Sinead started to cry, turning her face into Christian’s shoulder. “Well, make sure to get some of Mr. and Mrs. Xavier Wilson.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You can’t act like your sister doesn’t exist,” Madge whispered into Sinead’s ear. “I am sorry she got married behind your back, behind everybody’s back, but she’s family. You have to get a few pictures taken, together. You will regret it if you don’t.”

  “I can live with regret.” Sinead ignored her mother’s dire warning and poured herself another glass of white wine. Self-pity had some appeal. Third time loser at the wedding game? Bring it on! “Besides, I don’t need wedding pictures because we didn’t actually get married. Again.”

  Christian, standing next to his dad and Collette at a table across the room, looked a little pissed as well. His hair had fallen forward over his forehead and he kept his hand tucked in his pants’ pocket. Xavier and Fianna stood near the window, shoulder to shoulder, and watched the torrential downpour batter the hurricane-proof glass.

  “The photographer seems like a nice guy.” Sinead followed where her mom pointed and saw a guy in his late fifties with gray hair that reached the back of his shirt collar, clean-shaven. Madge gave him a small wave. “No ring, but that doesn’t mean anything these days.”

  Her mom’s casual words hit to the heart of the matter.

  The ring, or lack of one, didn’t mean squat. Sinead drank her wine and studied the bar shelves for a bottle of Patron.

  “Go talk to him. I don’t need a babysitter.” She needed a dark room and her own bottle, maybe some lime.

  “I will not go talk to him.” Her mom sniffed. “You’ve chased everyone else off. Even Christian. You want to be alone to mope and wallow but I am made of sterner stuff and I am not going anywhere.”

  “I have not.” The truth was that Ferguson had disappeared after Sinead had reamed him a new ass. It hadn’t been his fault, really. He’d been trying to do her a favor. Obviously she and Christian were not supposed to be married in the traditional sense. Statistics on kids born out of marriage showed them at a disadvantage to their peers in a conventional home.

  Seven years was common-law status, anyway. She could wait. Christian, her supposed ally, had drifted to friendlier waters with Lucas and Aline. He could trade their beautiful rings in and buy a boat. Or a time-share in the mountains somewhere.

  Shackles, that’s what those rings were. Platinum shackles.

  “Scowling will give you premature wrinkles.”

  “Leave me alone, Mom.”

  The power flickered as lightning and thunder assaulted the resort hotel.

  The guests laughed nervously.

  The guests. Sheesh. She was related to the twenty people who’d braved the weather to see her and Christian actually get married once and for all.

  They could take the party up to the bridal suite—Gods knows it was big enough. Nobody would have to drive in the awful rain.

  She cried, sorry for herself in the worst way. No sound, just tears dripping down her face.

  “Oh, honey,” her mom said in a sad voice.

  Christian’s woodsy cologne preceded his arm around shoulders. He kissed her cheek, then pulled her hair.

  “Hey!” she said.

  “What?” He stared into her eyes. “You and I are supposed to be celebrating.”

  “A marriage we didn’t go through with. Again.”

  “Right.” He leaned his elbow on the bar.

  “So?” Sinead crossed her arms.

  “We are both being huge downers.” He spoke conspiratorially.

  “I can’t be in charge of party central. Let Collette do it.” Sinead looked inside her glass of wine.

  “She’s stressed because you and I are so very obviously unhappy.”

  “The wedding was an epic failure.” Her heart raced. “Third strike, we’re out.”

  “What?” Christian asked, popping a pretzel into his mouth.

  “You should buy a boat.”

  “I don’t want a boat. What are you talking about?”

  Her head was fuzzy enough that she couldn’t explain. “It doesn’t matter. It you’re worried about the wedding guests, they can come up with us to the suite. We could put Mom in the bathtub.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Madge said with a sniff.

  “What? You’ve seen how big it is.”

  “I’m assuming without water?”

  “I’ll even give you a pillow.”

  Her mom shook her head and sighed, reaching for the wine bottle.

  Christian, bemused, said, “I feel like we ne
ed to put on our happy faces and join the party.” He gestured to Sydney and John, who were singing in the corner with some of Sinead’s friends from work, including Landon. Aline, laughing, was trying to get Christian’s dad to sing along. Lucas was not the karaoke type.

  “Go ahead,” she snapped. “I won’t get in the way of the Sharp family good time.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair.”

  “I am not a Sharp.” Her eyes burned with unshed tears. “It’s not fair. I’m tired of being a Monroe.”

  “You know what, Sinead?” her mom asked in frustration. “That’s enough. I think Christian is right. You had this party, people are here to celebrate your love together. So what if another wedding fell through?” Madge shook the mostly empty bottle at her. “If you can’t see the humor in this situation, well…”

  “It’s too soon, Mom.”

  “I’m going to offer the photographer a glass of wine.” She walked off and left Sinead with Christian.

  “I’m being a brat,” she said. “Awful. And I know it but I can’t help it. I’m sorry, Christian.”

  His hand settled on her lower back. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not. Not really.”

  “This was the last thing we were expecting.”

  “Clear skies.” She turned so that she was facing Christian, her elbows on the bar counter at her back, the sequins on her bodice catching the light. “I would have married you in the rain. But what chance did we have against a minister with a crab allergy?”

  “You can’t plan for that,” Christian agreed, his hands balanced on either side of her at the bar.

  “We’ve been trying to get married for so long.” She sniffed as another layer of hurt pinched her heart. “And then to have Fianna and Xavier just,” she snapped her fingers, “get married. Just like that.” She hefted her chin up, angry and hurt and betrayed. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

  “I know.” He rubbed her shoulder.

  “What can we do?”

  Christian sighed, took a deep breath and said, “We’ve got to talk to them.”

  Her mouth dropped open and she shut it quickly. “Why? And don’t tell me it is because she’s family.”