The Wedding Plan

by Abby Gaines

  I need to stop thinking about him. Period.

  Merry’s cell phone rang, and Sarah passed it to her.

  “It’s Patrick,” Merry said in surprise.

  Lucas straightened as she said hello.

  “Merry, I got your text,” Patrick said.

  “My— Oh.” She glared at Sarah. Who’d obviously decided to implement her own advice and find someone for Merry to flirt with. Merry hoped the text hadn’t been too risqué.

  “It’s wonderful to hear from you,” he was saying. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  Which admittedly was nice to hear. “Thanks,” she murmured, aware of Lucas watching her from about three inches away. He might even be able to hear Patrick. She switched the phone to her other ear.

  “I knew you were special, but I didn’t realize how incredible you were until you were gone,” Patrick continued dramatically.

  Until you dumped me, she amended silently.

  “Does he know you’re married?” Lucas sounded annoyed.

  She waved a hand to shush him. Because Sarah was right, there was no harm in getting an ego boost from an ex. But since Lucas looked as if he might grab the phone and enlighten Patrick himself, she said, “Patrick, that’s so sweet, but I’m with some people at the moment. There are a few things you need to know—can I call you tomorrow?”

  By the time she got him off the phone, Sarah had dashed out the door, trilling a goodbye over her shoulder.

  “Why was he calling?” Lucas asked.

  “Why did you invite Nurse Ratched for dinner?” Merry countered. She hadn’t talked to him since then.

  He laughed, and this close, she could see little lines crinkling around his eyes. “Why not? Dating a nurse makes a lot of sense for your dad.”

  “You think he should date her because he might need medical assistance?”

  “Why not?”

  “Which means I should date Patrick, a vet, because I own a dog.”

  “Not the same thing at all,” Lucas said instantly.

  She paused to let him elaborate.

  Instead, he stared her down.

  “What happened to dating someone on the basis of attraction?” she said. “What happened to exploring the depths of human emotions? To love?”

  He broke eye contact to take a swig of his beer. “Assuming that your father likes the nurse, which isn’t a bad starting point, why not take practical considerations into account?”

  “Because Dad will never be happy with less than what he had with Mom,” Merry said.

  “How do you know?”

  The question flummoxed her for a moment. “Dad was blissfully happy with Mom. He says himself he won’t find that again.”

  “Sometimes less is more,” Lucas said. “The nurse is presumably keen, and she hasn’t met her own soul mate.” He used the term mockingly. “She has medical skills. Most importantly, she’s here.”

  “That’s the worst rationale I ever heard,” Merry said.

  “Not everyone wants to ‘explore the depths of human emotion,’” he returned. “Why should everyone have to do it the way you want? If, this time around, your dad’s happy to find someone he likes, what’s it to you?”

  There didn’t seem any point answering that. “I still don’t want her here for dinner,” Merry said.

  “But you need her. You heard your dad—Cathy thinks our marriage is having problems. So if your theory about your marital happiness being key to lowering his blood pressure is right…”

  Merry pressed her hand to her mouth. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “It makes sense for us to invite them to dinner.” Lucas’s gaze alighted on her fingers. “To convince Cathy there’s nothing wrong. Unless you think your father’s condition is stable enough for us to tell the truth…”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. His blood pressure’s still volatile.” She twisted around, which put her face very close to Lucas’s. “Inviting Cathy was a good idea. I’m sorry for all the rude things I said to Sarah about you.”

  Lucas laughed. “While you’re feeling contrite, which by the way I don’t think I’ve seen in twenty-three years, it’s about time you apologized for Date Number Three.”

  Lucas couldn’t believe he’d brought that up. But in the past few days, each of their nine previous dates had crossed his mind. They’d all been disastrous—even Number Eight, with that incredibly hot kiss, which had led directly to the fiasco in Baltimore six months ago. But each had been disastrous in its own unique way. All of them had had that undercurrent of physical attraction that they could never quite pull together, which threatened to ruin a decent friendship. It made for a memorable dating history.

  “No way,” Merry said. “Dad would have had a heart attack if I’d gone bungee jumping with anyone else.”

  “I forgive you, anyway,” Lucas said. “Specifically, for pretending your retina was detached.” When she’d stumbled toward him after the jump, her hand covering her eye, Lucas had just about had a heart attack. He’d scooped her into his arms, ready to commandeer a chopper from the local airfield and fly her to the top eye specialist in New York City.... Then she’d dropped her hand and laughed, both perfectly healthy gray eyes brimming with amusement.

  “If anyone needs to apologize,” she said, “it’s you. Date Number Five. That restaurant on the beach in Mystic.”

  “You’re the one who walked out halfway through dinner.”

  “Because you were ogling the redhead with the boobs at the next table,” she agreed.

  “I wasn’t ogling her. She was arguing with her boyfriend, and the guy seemed like a jerk. I wasn’t sure what he might do.”

  “I’m certain your interest was strictly protective.”

  “I didn’t even notice her figure,” he said virtuously.

  Merry laughed, rightly disbelieving him.

  “Okay, I behaved badly,” he agreed, “but you punished me for it. I drove around for hours looking for you. Only to discover you’d hitchhiked home.” He’d shouted at her over that. She’d stuffed in her iPod earbuds and ignored him.

  “Just to clarify,” she said, “did you apologize for your behavior on that date or not?”

  She slipped her fingers into the back pockets of her jeans, which pushed her breasts forward. Lucas couldn’t figure out why he always noticed her breasts when there was so little to see.

  “No, I did not. Honeybun,” he added. There was a subtle shift in the atmosphere. Did she notice it?

  A part of him wanted to go with the shift, see where it led. But he knew where it led, as far as Merry was concerned. To complications neither of them needed. Without even the promise of great sex to make it worth the risk.

  He downed the last of his beer, then stood and scooped up the empty pizza box. “Guess I’ll head upstairs. I have some Magic Eye books to work on.”

  He was putting a lot of time into making sure Merry’s dad’s blood pressure had every chance to settle down, which was fine, because that’s what he’d decided to do. But he also needed to focus on getting back to the Gulf. He’d called Admiral Tremaine last week to apologize for the abrupt end to their meeting. The man hadn’t agreed outright to push for a retest, but he’d asked Lucas to keep him informed of his progress with his eyesight, and hinted he might step in if it looked as if Lucas could achieve a pass. Lucas needed something more to report than the tiny, incremental gains he’d made with Heather.

  He needed to stop thinking about Merry and her tantalizing curves and her tight butt. He needed to start thinking about what mattered.

  * * *

  MERRY COULDN’T CALL PATRICK from work the next day because she never knew when her dad or Lucas might walk into the office. The conversation was going to be difficult enough in private.

  She did it the moment she arrived home, even though she should really be getting dinner ready for her father and Cathy. Merry had to tell Patrick she was married to Lucas. That the proposal he’d turned down had evolved from a temporary engagement
to a temporary marriage, to a slightly longer marriage.

  She expected him to be relieved he hadn’t been sucked into all that. Instead, he blamed himself for abandoning her in her hour of need, and invited her out to dinner. “As friends,” he added, when she pointed out that dating him while she was married might be a complication too far.

  She turned him down, but by the time the call ended, she had less than an hour to prepare for their dinner guests.

  Right away, she discovered she’d forgotten to buy pecorino cheese for the onion and pecorino tarts that she planned to serve with the beef fillet.

  She called Lucas, and was lucky to catch him just as he was leaving the boatyard. She asked him to buy pecorino at Clark’s Deli on the way home. It would delay his arrival, which was unfortunate, but only by ten minutes, tops.

  Wrong.

  Lucas arrived home twenty-five minutes late, only a minute before their guests were due.

  “What’s the problem?” he asked, as she snatched the pecorino from his hand.

  “I’m running out of time, and I need this meal to be perfect.” It was her mom’s recipe; she wasn’t about to ruin it in front of a woman who likely wanted to be the second Mrs. John Wyatt. Merry took a calming breath and said, “Thanks for the cheese. Was Clark’s busy?”

  “I didn’t go to Clark’s. It took me a while to find somewhere else that sold pecorino.”

  “If you’d just gone to Clark’s…” she grumbled, as she started grating.

  She registered Lucas’s shuttered expression. And remembered. “Lucas, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” he said coolly.

  “I didn’t think.” Clark’s Deli was where his mom had suffered a sudden stroke and died when he was twelve years old.

  “What needs doing around here?” He pushed up his sleeves.

  Okay. Merry got the message. He didn’t want to talk about it.

  “You could trim those beans.” She pulled a knife from the block and handed it to him, then took another to slice the onions. “I need to brief you about tonight.”

  His face lightened. “There’s a briefing?”

  “I thought you’d like that,” she said. “I thought it sounded military.”

  “Depends on the briefing,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes. “Okay, if Nurse Cathy—”

  “We probably shouldn’t call her Nurse Cathy.”

  “—mentions she saw the text message about our divorce, we tell her it’s a private joke. That we threaten to divorce each other, jokingly, whenever we disagree.”

  “This marriage sounds really unhealthy,” Lucas said.

  She lobbed an onion at him; he caught it and handed it back.

  “As you said last night, Nurse Cathy needs to see us as a loving couple,” she said. This conundrum had been on her mind all day. Having told Sarah she needed to stifle her physical attraction to Lucas, she’d signed on for extra challenges tonight.

  “Loving couple,” he said. “Check.” Something—tension?—crackled in the air between them.

  “But you and I will know that any PDAs between us mean nothing,” she reminded him too emphatically.

  “You mean public displays of affection, right? They mean nothing—check.”

  The doorbell rang. Boo started barking, which wasn’t like him. The tension must be getting to everyone.

  “I’ll put him outside,” Lucas said. “You get the door.”

  Her dad kissed her cheek as he entered. “Merry, you remember Cathy.”

  The nurse looked better out of her uniform, Merry conceded. Softer. But only a little.

  “It’s nice to meet you properly,” Merry lied as she led the way to the living room. “Lucas, darling, could you get Dad and Cathy something to drink?”

  Unfazed at the endearment, Lucas handed Cathy the white wine she asked for.

  The nurse stared around John’s living room. Merry tried to see it through fresh eyes, and realized just how quirky this place she took for granted was. She couldn’t imagine Cathy liking quirky. Lucas was right; this dinner was a great idea.

  “As you can see,” Merry said, “Dad likes to collect stuff.” This room spoke of John Wyatt’s passion for the sea. A display of vintage oars on one wall, a lifebuoy above the fireplace and several ships in bottles on the mantel…

  “It must be a nightmare to dust,” Cathy said. If she was joking, it wasn’t obvious.

  John shifted on his feet. “I don’t worry too much about that. A lot of these things I collected with Sally.”

  Cathy moved to the fireplace to inspect the ships in bottles.

  “My mom gave those to Dad,” Merry said. “One for each wedding anniversary.” There were eight bottles on the mantelpiece. “They’re his greatest treasures, aren’t they, Dad?”

  “Sure are,” he said.

  See, Cathy, my mom was Dad’s greatest treasure.

  Outside, Boo’s barking had turned to howling.

  “What’s wrong with your dog?” Lucas asked.

  “He sometimes howls when he has nightmares,” Merry said, “but not usually at this time of night. Can you give him a couple of liver treats? Darling?”

  Her father had moved to join Cathy, pointing out some of the ships’ features to her in a low voice.

  Merry ducked out to the kitchen to put her tarts in the oven. When she came back to the living room, Cathy was scrutinizing a watercolor on the wall. “It’s the view from this window,” she said, clearly surprised.

  “Dad painted it,” Merry said proudly.

  “It’s wonderful,” Cathy said. “John, you’re so talented.”

  Her eyes met Merry’s and for a fraction of a second there was warmth between them.

  “What do you like to do in your spare time?” Merry asked. “Are you artistic?” Do you and my father have anything at all in common?

  “I don’t have a creative bone in my body.” Cathy darted a small, apologetic smile at John. “I like to garden, and I enjoy doing crosswords.”

  Nothing in common. Merry tried not to give her dad a significant look. “Dad met my mom when they were crewing in a yacht race,” she said. “It was love at first sight.”

  Lucas came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She jolted. Whatever she’d been about to say, she lost her train of thought.

  They sat down to eat in the formal dining room, a space used maybe once a year. Merry and Lucas sat on one side of the table, her dad and Cathy opposite. As far as Merry could see, there was no chemistry between the older couple. How could her father even contemplate such a relationship?

  “How long did you two date before you married?” Cathy asked. Of course, she’d attended their wedding.

  “Nine years, on and off,” Lucas said.

  Cathy smiled slightly. “Not love at first sight, then.”

  “Lucas wanted to marry me when he was ten years old,” Merry said. “That’s near enough.”

  Lucas slid his hand beneath her hair. His fingers found the sensitive nape of her neck. “This meal is delicious, honeybun,” he said.

  “It’s one of Mom’s recipes,” Merry told Cathy.

  “Honeybun, we need more wine,” Lucas said. “Come help me choose one that matches the food. Excuse us, John, Cathy.”

  Out in the kitchen, he closed the door before he spoke. “What’s going on out there, Merry?”

  “We’re acting happily married. You’re doing a great job, thanks.”

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

  She pulled a corkscrew from a drawer. “The wine’s in the laundry room. A sauvignon blanc would work for me, but the others might prefer red.”

  Lucas took the corkscrew. “You’re showing Cathy up,” he said. “Right now you look meaner than she does.”

  Merry couldn’t stifle a gasp. “I just want Dad to see that she’s not…Mom.”

  Lucas lifted a hand, as if he might caress her face, then dropped it again. “You think he doesn’t know that? If you’
re not careful, you’ll upset him.”

  “He doesn’t even seem to like her that much.”

  “All the more reason for you to go easy.” Lucas stepped into the laundry room and reappeared with a bottle of sauvignon. “And if John does like her, you don’t want him stressing about how his daughter and his girlfriend are getting along.”

  “You’re right,” she muttered. “I just wish Dad would aim a bit higher.”

  “In the real world,” Lucas said, as he deftly removed the cork from the bottle, “love is about compromise and practicality and hard work. Not an overflow of emotion that defies logic.”

  “You don’t get to lecture me about logic over emotion,” she said. “When was the last time you shopped at Clark’s Deli?”

  He stiffened.

  “It occurred to me,” she continued, “Date Number Seven—your ex-girlfriend’s wedding. I needed to buy a stain remover pen to clean up that soda I spilled on my dress. You drove past Clark’s, past the church, to a store three miles away. We were late for the ceremony.”

  “I wasn’t worried about being late,” he said. “So why should it bother you?”

  “Have you been into Clark’s since your mom died?”

  Lucas glared.

  Merry waited.

  He leaned in and kissed her long and hard on the lips. When she tried to pull back, he clamped his hands on either side of her head. His fingers moved in her hair, mussing it.

  “What was that for?” Merry gasped when he stopped.

  “We’ve been out here awhile,” he said calmly. “Best for your dad and Cathy to think it’s because we can’t keep our hands off each other.” He picked up the wine and strode to the dining room without a backward glance.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FRIDAY, THE DAY OF THE PLANNED sailing excursion, dawned sunny and with the kind of moderate breeze that made for pleasant yachting.

  Lucas had hoped for a storm. Hoped for an excuse not to spend time with Merry, or a whole day in the presence of their parents, which would necessitate another demonstration of marital love. At least Cathy was working today, so they didn’t have to prove anything more to her.

  So far, on this marriage mission, he’d been doing just fine on the PDAs, as Merry called them. He’d managed the touches, the kisses, by thinking of them as part of the drill, nothing to do with his libido. Sure, once or twice his gaze had strayed in a way that was definitely libidinous—usually when Merry’s was doing the same—but by and large he’d done pretty well.