Primrose Lane

by Debbie Mason

  He recognized his mistake the moment Liv finally managed to stay upright on the board for more than a few seconds. She got this incredible look of triumph on her face like she’d conquered Mount Everest. But that wasn’t the precise moment he knew. It was just the lead-up.

  The moment he knew without a doubt that he was head over heels, no turning back, crazy-in-love with his wife was when a rogue wave took her out and she came up laughing, still looking like she’d won the prize.

  That moment of enlightenment felt like a rogue wave had taken him out. It was a new experience for him. He used to be unshakable on his board, a master of the waves. Loving a woman like he loved Liv was uncharted territory. Now what the hell was he supposed to do?

  Just ride the wave, a familiar voice in his head said. It was the same voice that had urged him on every adventure. Skydiving, mountain climbing, swimming with sharks, that voice had always been there.

  Liv was his adrenaline rush. The thing that made him want to get up every morning and take on a new day. She was it, his everything. He’d never done anything small or safe. He should have known that, when he fell, it’d be like free falling from a mountaintop.

  He stood, brushing the sand off his board shorts. He might not be able to ride the waves like he used to or swim from the lighthouse to Twilight Bay, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to sit on his ass and let the woman he loved think for one second longer that she was in this alone.

  She hadn’t taken her love back when he hadn’t returned the words. She hadn’t laughed them off as a joke or pretended she didn’t mean them. She hadn’t acted resentful or tried to make him pay in subtle ways. No, that’s not something she’d do. Because Liv was brave and amazing, and his. She’d suffered a heartbreaking loss, yet she’d been willing to take the risk, to open her heart to George, to him. Now she’d given him the courage to do the same.

  Finn walked to the water’s edge, the midafternoon sunshine glinting off the harbor. He shielded his eyes, looking to where he’d last seen Liv and George. He spotted George and laughed. The kid was like his mini-me. Standing on the board like a pro, she appeared to be lecturing Liv, who was once more pulling herself out of the water and onto the board.

  He started out. The tide was low, the warm water still lapping around his ankles several yards from shore. It was fairly crowded but not annoyingly so. That was the nice thing about Harmony Harbor. With more than thirty miles of coastline, there was a plethora of sandy beaches and coves to take advantage of, so you never had to worry about fighting for a spot.

  Or so he thought until he turned to grab a little girl who’d swallowed a mouthful of water and spotted a guy walking over and dumping a pile of beach towels and a cooler practically on top of theirs.

  Finn handed the little girl back to her mother, the smile he’d just given the woman falling when the guy who was horning in on their territory kicked off his sneakers and spewed sand all over their towels. He was really starting to tick Finn off. Instead of swimming out to his woman to tell her he’d seen the light, he had to defend their territory against a man who looked like a mean son of…The guy whipped off his black T-shirt and tossed it on Liv’s towel.

  Okay, Finn didn’t care how mean or ripped the guy was, he…That tattoo looked familiar. So did the beard. But there was no way Aidan would be caught dead wearing his hair in a stubby ponytail, a fedora on his head, and Elton John–style sunglasses. What really threw Finn, though, was the cigarette hanging off the guy’s lip.

  From a distance, he heard George call, “Mia! Mia!”

  He glanced to the right. His niece was scrambling over the grassy sand dune and onto the beach. She tossed her towel and flip-flops at squatter guy. “Thanks, Uncle Aidan! Hi, Uncle Finn!” she called as she raced past him and into the water.

  Ava and Sophie came next, followed by Griff and Liam, who were carting blankets, coolers, and beach umbrellas between them. Next came Lexi, who had Gabe strapped to her back, followed by Byron Harte, who was struggling with a deluxe-model stroller. Interesting addition. Finn wondered how his big brother felt about Harte tagging along.

  Finn walked over to greet his family. He gave Aidan a chest bump as he plucked the cigarette from his mouth. “No smoking around the kids.” Checking to be sure the cigarette was unlit, Finn stuffed it in the pocket of his board shorts and then picked up Liv’s towel. “You got sand all over our stuff. You’re lucky Mia said your name. I was ready to take you out.” He moved away to shake out the towel. “What’s with the hat and shades?”

  Griff looked up from fitting an umbrella in the sand. “Word on the street is the matchmakers of Harmony Harbor have him in their sights.”

  “He should be safe. They’ll never find him under all that hair,” Liam quipped. “Have you ever heard of manscaping, bro?”

  Aidan gave Liam the finger, which Sophie must have missed, probably because she was trying to get comfortable on a lawn chair. “It’s one of the services we’ll be offering at the spa. You can be our first client,” she said.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. A little too girly for me.”

  “Have it done and then come tell me how girly it is,” Byron said as he dragged the stroller through the sand.

  “Yeah, not going to happen.” Aidan glanced at the hair-free, golden brown chest Byron’s open shirt revealed. “But if you want to take my place, go for it.” He picked up the stroller with one hand and walked it over to where Ava was helping Lexi lift Gabe from his carrier.

  Finn waited for Motorcycle Man to give a manly grunt as he deposited the stroller in front of the women. Instead, he kind of leaned out like he was looking at something in the water, his brow furrowed, and then he jerked upright. “Jesus, it’s a shark!” He took off, spraying Sophie with sand, waving his arms. “Shark! Shark! Everyone out of the water!”

  “He can’t seriously believe that is a shark,” Griff said, sounding thoroughly disgusted as they ran after their brother, who was galloping into the water, pushing kids out of the way.

  “Aidan, stop throwing the kids out of the water! It’s not a shark! It’s a kid’s toy!” Finn yelled. At least that’s what the iridescent blue fin looked like to him.

  “The guy’s paranoid. He’s seeing danger and bad guys on every corner. Yesterday, he gave Mia’s friend Braden the third degree. Then he told the kid he couldn’t play with Mia because he’s sure Braden’s going to end up in prison.”

  “Baby bro, that’s maybe something we needed to know,” Griff said to Liam when they reached the water’s edge to see Aidan grabbing the shark by the tail. “We might have saved him from embarrassing himself and possibly being charged with indecently exposing a mermaid,” his brother finished succinctly as Aidan stared at the long length of blue and green iridescent scaled fabric hanging from his hand.

  “Mommy, he killed Millie,” a little girl wailed, her cries echoed by several other girls and boys.

  “I’d say he has a fifty-fifty chance of being the one who is murdered. Look at their faces,” Liam said.

  Four of the braver souls had waded out to where Aidan was still holding the mermaid’s tail, splashing and yelling at him, “You killed Millie the Mermaid!”

  Just down from Finn, a couple of kids were complaining about injuries sustained when Aidan tried to save them from the mermaid. “I’ll take care of the injured kids,” Finn said. “You guys take care of the antihero.”

  “Todd, Trish, Tina, Tara, over here. Look, see, I’m okay,” a sweetly feminine voice called out.

  They turned to see Julia Landon with just her head and shoulders above the water, wearing a wig of long, cherry-red hair.

  “It’s Millie the Mermaid! Look! Look! She’s alive!” As the cry went up, boys and girls, including the ones who not two minutes ago had been complaining about wounded hands and feet, plowed through the water toward her.

  “No, no, don’t come any closer. Just, um, stay back, okay?”

  Millie the Mermaid’s predicament became clear when a blue bikini
bottom floated past Aidan.

  A tall blonde strode across the sand with a long-range camera hanging around her neck. “I got great shots. Are you going to do the interviews, or am I?” the woman asked Byron, who was stripping off his shirt and toeing off his deck shoes.

  “You do remember Julia, our friend? Well, thanks to He-Man over there, she’s skinny-dipping and about to be converged upon by her many fans. So let’s save the shop talk until after I rescue her, shall we?”

  “As if she wants you to see her naked. Give me that.” The blonde took his shirt from Byron and slipped off her flip-flops. “I’m coming, Julia. I mean, Millie,” she said, waving the shirt like a flag and then walking over to Aidan, who’d scooped the bikini bottom out of the water and was holding it straight-armed away from him.

  The woman, whom Finn now recognized as Byron’s sister Poppy and co-publisher of the Harmony Harbor Gazette, gave Aidan an up-and-down look. “Just FYI, your disguise isn’t working. Someone at the manor has been posting what you’re wearing and where you’ll be on Greystone’s Facebook page. But don’t worry. When we publish the pictures and story on the front page of the Gazette tomorrow, interest in you will probably level off.”

  Aidan scowled at her, which seemed to be his default expression these days. “I’d think twice before you publish the story and pictures. They could be used as evidence against your friend.”

  “Oh, please, I’m not that gullible. You’re just embarrassed you made an idiot of yourself. What are you going to have her charged with? She was just trying to get into character for her performance. See what it feels like to be a mermaid.”

  “Really? And I’m the idiot?”

  “I’d stop while you’re ahead, Gallagher. My sister has photographic evidence and isn’t afraid to use it. You do want a job with the Harmony Harbor Police Department, don’t you?” Byron asked.

  Finn shared a look with his brothers. He thought Aidan already had the job. From Liam’s and Griff’s expressions, they were as surprised as he was. But any thought of questioning his brother went out of his head when George, paddling to shore with Mia on her board and Liv coming up behind her, said, “He’s a really big shark, but he won’t hurt you, Julia.”

  Finn shared an out-of-the-mouths-of-babes look with Griff and Liam and smiled at George. “You’re right, sweetheart. Uncle Aidan is a big guy, but it was an honest mistake. He didn’t intentionally try to hurt—”

  “I wasn’t talking about him. I was talking about the shark over there.” She twisted at her waist and pointed to the fins cutting through the water about fifty yards away. “Oh, it’s got a friend.”

  The water churned with thrashing arms and legs, the word shark vibrating in the hot summer air as kids stampeded toward shore. “Don’t panic! Stay calm!” Finn called out, keeping an eye on Liv and George paddling to shore.

  Griff, Liam, and Byron were wading out deeper to calm things down while Aidan stood transfixed in the last spot Finn had seen him. What the…“Aidan…” Finn trailed off when a naked Julia Landon with Lady Godiva hair streaked toward shore.

  His brother broke free from his stupor, grabbed the shirt from Poppy, charged after Julia, leaped into the air, and flattened her in the sand to the sound of kids screaming and the clicking shutter of a camera.

  Two hours later, Griffin walked across the sand to where they were unloading the coolers. “George was right,” he said.

  The Gallaghers had planned to spend the day and evening at the beach and have a family BBQ. Everyone had agreed they weren’t going to let a shark sighting spoil their plans. Griffin had gone to talk to a couple of guys from the Coast Guard.

  “Two twenty-foot basking sharks. All they’re interested in are small fish and zooplankton, not little kids or mermaids,” Finn’s oldest brother quipped, looking to where George and Mia sat farther down the beach with the other children who’d remained to see Millie the Mermaid and the By-the-Sea Band.

  Olivia admired Julia for going ahead with the scheduled performance after what had transpired. Julia had covered it well, but Olivia was positive she’d been inwardly dying of embarrassment. In her place, Olivia would have been. She glanced at the cause of Julia’s embarrassment.

  As though Ava, Lexi, and Sophie had been thinking the same thing, they also turned to look at Finn’s brother. Aidan looked up from flipping a burger on the small grill a few feet away. “Would you all just get over it? I apologized, okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, we heard you. We also heard you calling her a loon toon under your breath when she was leaving. And every time you glance over there, it’s as if you’re channeling Elvis Presley,” Lexi said.

  At Aidan’s blank look, she did an impression of the King’s signature lip curl. Lexi wasn’t holding back. Given that Julia was a good friend to all of them, Olivia wasn’t totally surprised by Lexi’s aggressive defense of Julia, but she thought it might have just as much to do with Byron begging off the BBQ because of work. It had been obvious Byron wasn’t a fan of Aidan, and vice versa.

  Aidan rolled his eyes. “I get how you’re all friends and stick together, but you have to admit there’s something off about a grown woman who spends eighty percent of the time pretending to be a character from a book.”

  “Ah, no. She owns a bookstore with one of the best children’s sections in New England. She’s amazing with kids and does what she can to encourage their love of reading,” Lexi said.

  “Yeah, well, that’s your perception as a friend. My perception as a cop is she’s a bit of a whack-a-doodle. You should keep an eye on her.”

  Lexi threw a carrot stick at him, and Ava threw a bun. Sophie was at the stage in her pregnancy where it was hard to get in and out of a chair, so she had no access to ammunition. All Olivia had within reach was a fistful of plastic utensils but thought it best not to fling them at Aidan.

  “Bro, you better quit while you’re ahead. If Harmony Harbor had a competition for most beloved person in town, Julia would win hands down. She’s awesome,” Liam said as he and Finn carried a picnic table between them.

  “Okay, whatever you all say,” Aidan muttered, adding under his breath, “Still say she’s a loon toon.”

  Olivia raised an eyebrow at her husband. “I see you’re not the only one who uses the phrase.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, playfully rocking her back and forth. His bare chest was warm, and he smelled like summer. “I only said it the once, but I take it back. Getting married on July Fourth was a great idea. It will go down in history as the best idea of all time.”

  Their wedding had been wonderful. Just the other day, she’d been asked by a newly engaged couple from town if they could incorporate elements of her wedding into theirs. They’d seen photos in the Gazette.

  So she supposed she could understand why her husband said it was the best idea of all time, but something about the remark didn’t ring true. He’d been acting strange since the shark sighting—the real one. Not in a loon toon sort of way; he was just way more touchy-feely than usual, and several times she’d turned to catch him staring at her.

  She pulled back. “What is going on with you? You’ve been acting weird.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know, just more—”

  He smiled and stroked her cheek. “I had something important I wanted to tell you, but then the family arrived. I thought I’d wait until we got home and were alone.” He glanced at the women getting the food on the table as Liam and Griffin critiqued Aidan’s barbecuing. “But I think I should tell you here, with everyone around.” He gave her a quick kiss. “Just give me a sec,” he said, and headed to where Julia was doing her reading.

  True to his word, he returned almost immediately carrying a guitar with Mia and George in tow.

  “What? You’re making us sing for our supper?” Liam asked.

  “No, but I want all of you to take a seat.” Finn patted the bench closest to where he stood. “You sit here, Liv.” Once everyone was settled in and looking
at him expectantly, he began tightening the strings. “You remember the song I sang to you as you walked down the aisle on our wedding day?”

  She smiled and nodded, wondering if she’d been able to cover her disappointment as well as she had on their wedding day. After Griffin and his brothers had serenaded Ava with the romantically sentimental “I Swear” by John Michael Montgomery at her wedding, Olivia had hoped for something equally touching at hers.

  Instead, she got “Moon River.” It was the one point in the wedding where she’d actually wondered if she was making a mistake. It had been blatantly obvious that her husband didn’t have any romantic feelings for her. If his song choice and his failure to join in the singing right away hadn’t made it obvious, the terrified look on his face had.

  His lips twitched. “I can see that you do. When my brothers heard what I initially planned to sing that day, they felt a lot like I imagine you did, Liv. They wanted to know what I was doing marrying a woman I wasn’t in love with.”

  “Finn,” she gasped. Why was he doing this to her? She didn’t understand. “Not here, please, not in front of—” She was going to say George, but he placed a finger on her lips.

  “It’s not what you think. Just let me finish. You’ll see. It’ll be good, Princess. Better than good, it’s gonna be amazing.” He looked at her as though begging her to stay and be okay.

  She nodded and clasped her hands in her lap, forcing a smile for George, who looked worried. Sophie, who sat beside her on the bench, rubbed her shoulder.

  “If we were getting married today, this is the song I’d sing to you, Liv. And I’d mean every word.” He sang “Die a Happy Man” by Thomas Rhett. And it was as romantically sentimental as she could have wished for.

  He sang the words like he meant them, like he loved her as much as the lyrics implied. In some ways, it wasn’t a surprise. He may not have said the words to her before today, but there had been times over the past couple of weeks that she’d wondered, because of how he looked at her, how he touched her and made love to her, if he was beginning to have more than just friendly feelings for her.