The Wedding Plan

by Abby Gaines

  “And you have no intention of loving anyone the way you loved your wife,” she said helpfully.

  “It’s a big jump between a few dates and falling in love,” he said in his own defense. “I don’t know if you and I might end up together in the longer term. But I’m not ruling it out.” He stopped, appalled. He sounded like an arrogant jerk.

  “I am ruling it out,” she said, so calmly that it took a moment for her meaning to sink in.

  “What?” he said.

  “I admire the fact that you still love your wife and still miss her,” she said. “I understand that it’s not easy to date again. It certainly hasn’t been easy for me.”

  He hadn’t thought much about her side of their relationship.

  “It’s been worth pushing myself through the hard parts,” Cathy said, “because I like you. A lot. The fact is, John, I could love you.”

  His heart started beating faster. “Cathy, I—”

  “Quiet,” she barked, in what Merry would call her Nurse Ratched manner. John shut up. “Perhaps at my age I should be lowering my expectations,” she said. “But I don’t believe I’m such a bad bargain that the best I can hope for is a man who’s settling.”

  “It’s not like that,” he said, the back of his neck burning.

  “Are you offering more than that, John?” she asked. “Can I expect ever to be more than a runner-up to Sally? A consolation prize?”

  Her brown eyes fixed on his with that steady intensity he was getting used to. He owed her honesty.

  “No,” he said. “You can’t.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  MERRY WASN’T SURPRISED to hear the next day, Sunday, that her dad and Cathy had broken up.

  That mug had been a terrible gift.

  Her father seemed quiet, but not depressed, so she and Lucas went ahead and told him, along with Dwight and Stephanie, that the marriage they’d rushed into for John’s benefit wasn’t working. That they would separate immediately and “at some stage in the next few months” they would divorce.

  Handling the questions and “helpful” suggestions from their fathers took a couple of hours, but at last they convinced everyone that no one had a broken heart (not entirely true) and that they were still friends. Which, oddly enough, was true. Even without the fact they were having a baby, something about having known Lucas forever made it impossible for Merry to contemplate cutting him out of her life in order to allow her heart to heal.

  John planned to move back into his cottage the following day, so Merry and Lucas went there to pack.

  “Dad will probably be pleased to be home,” Merry said as they walked into the house.

  “Will you stay with him?” Lucas asked.

  She shook her head. “I’ve missed my apartment. So you could stay on here if you’d rather not be with your parents.”

  “I’ll think about it.” He let Boo in from the backyard. In keeping with his new preferences, Boo ignored Merry and spent his time getting under Lucas’s feet.

  “He’ll miss you,” Merry said.

  Lucas nudged the dog with his knee. “He’s not a bad mutt. But he’d be losing me to the Gulf soon, anyway.”

  Merry felt that potential loss far more keenly than Boo, but she said nothing. They both packed up their possessions and replaced the furnishings where John had had them.

  By lunchtime, they’d unraveled the brief life they’d built together.

  “That’s it, then,” Lucas said, as Merry pulled the front door shut behind them.

  She headed to her Aveo, Lucas to Stephanie’s BMW, which he’d borrowed.

  Merry opened her car door. “Good luck with your eye test.”

  “Thanks. But I’ll probably see you before that.”

  “Probably,” she agreed. Not if I can help it. Lucas wouldn’t be at work this week, since he planned to spend as much time as possible preparing for his physical. It would be best if she didn’t see him at all.

  She loved Lucas, far more than he loved her, and it hurt. That wouldn’t be so easily unraveled.

  * * *

  IN THE SUN PORCH THAT SERVED as an occasional studio, John looked at the sketches he’d drawn the day he and Cathy went fishing. He still hadn’t had a chance to paint any of them. The good news, since she had dumped him and he was back in his own home, was that he had all the time in the world.

  It was Wednesday, four days after her birthday dinner and the mug fiasco.

  Four days in which he’d felt relieved to be rid of a relationship he hadn’t wanted in the first place.

  Four days in which he’d felt out of sorts and niggled.

  He’d tested his blood pressure several times. There was a slight rise. Any change in routine or environment could impact the reading, and over the past few weeks he’d gotten used to having Cathy—

  He didn’t want to think about her, and, yes, some of that was due to a sense of guilt. He’d known she cared more about him than he did about her. She was the one who’d done all the asking out, after that initial date. But he wasn’t obliged to love her, just because she “could love” him, was he?

  The vulnerability of that admission still haunted him.

  John rubbed his temples. It didn’t help that he was coming down with the flu. He’d thought it was embarrassment heating him up that night at Cathy’s place, but since then his limbs had been aching, and when he felt his forehead he thought he could detect a mild fever.

  He looked at his sketches again, holding them up to the early-afternoon light. The seascape with Jonkers Island… He’d paint that.

  He hoped Cathy was all right. He’d called her home and her cell phone a few times, wanting to reassure himself, and with the idea of preserving some kind of platonic link. She hadn’t picked up.

  He pottered around, setting up his easel, then paints, brushes, water, rags. He found the swivel stool he liked to sit on when he was painting in the kitchen; the kids must have moved it. He carried it back to the sunporch, as easily as he would have done twenty years ago. The marvels of modern medicine. And hospitals. And nurses.

  John planted himself on the stool. He gripped the edge for balance as he closed his eyes, and tried to picture the sea that day, the dappling effect of the sky on the waves. Jonkers Island, harsh and gray, breaking out of the water.

  He was having trouble building the image in his head. Instead, he saw Cathy, sitting in the middle of the boat, her face by turns serious and animated. She’d been talking about her sister, Rue.

  He wondered what she was up to right now. If she was lonely. John had had twenty-three years to get used to being alone, while Cathy had only had a year without Rue.

  She should get a dog. That’d cheer her up.

  Maybe I’ll get her a dog. It would make up for that dreadful mug.

  Cathy had mentioned Rue’s dog a few times, and been fiercely adamant—too adamant?—that she would have struggled to look after it. But John had heard the wistfulness in her voice. He wondered what sort of dog Rue had owned. Wondered if Cathy would prefer one of those big, protective breeds—a husky or the like—or a miniature something-or-other that she could take anywhere. Her town house had only a small garden, but if Merry could manage Boo in her apartment with just that tiny terrace… Mind you, it helped that Merry didn’t have to worry about getting Boo to a toilet area. Who ever heard of a dog mourning its owner for this long?

  Wait a minute. Didn’t Boo’s owner…? Could it be…? Nah. Not a chance.

  Maybe.

  John picked up the phone and called Merry.

  “What did you say the name of Boo’s owner was?” he asked.

  “Ruby. Ruby Kramer. Why?”

  Ruby. Rue. More than possible. Cathy’s sister had been married, so he wouldn’t expect to recognize her surname.

  “You said she died on vacation overseas, right?” he asked. “About a year ago? Of a heart attack?” New London had a population of about twenty thousand people. How likely was it that two women from the town had died from
a heart attack while on vacation overseas late last year?

  “She was on a cruise,” Merry confirmed. “In the Caribbean.”

  Rue had died in a hospital in the Bahamas.

  “Brace yourself, Merry-Berry,” John said. “I have news.”

  * * *

  THE DOCTOR HAD CLEARED JOHN for driving on Monday, but he hadn’t yet gotten behind the wheel. He felt shaky and odd as he drove to Merry’s apartment at about twenty miles an hour. She brought Boo downstairs. As a sign of faith, she’d packed up all the dog’s belongings. She put them in the bed of the pickup truck, while Boo got in the cab.

  After another slow, nerve-racking drive, John pulled up outside Cathy’s house. She didn’t know he was coming, since she still wasn’t taking his calls.

  He got out of the pickup and went around to open the passenger door. Boo squeezed out while the door was still half-closed, and proceeded to go berserk.

  Barking, leaping, chasing his tail.

  John didn’t need to put him on the lead; Boo raced ahead of him to the front door. Just as well, since John wasn’t strong enough to control fifty pounds of overactive dog.

  He didn’t need to ring the doorbell, either, since Boo set up a frantic barking that only a dead person wouldn’t hear.

  Then Cathy opened the door, and it was hard to say who made the most noise, her with her shrieking or Boo with his excited yelps.

  “I take it this is Rue’s dog?” John shouted over the frenzy.

  “Yes.” Her whole face was alight in a way John hadn’t ever seen it. She dropped to her knees, her arms around the dog’s neck. “Boo, darling, welcome home.” She buried her face in his fur and laughed as the dog twisted his head to lick her.

  John was pathetic enough to feel jealous of the damn dog.

  “Where did you find him?” Cathy asked. “I asked the vet for the details of his new owner, and he refused to give them out.”

  “Because the new owner was his girlfriend.” John told her the whole story.

  “But Boo is yours now,” he concluded. “Merry wants you to have him.”

  Cathy didn’t utter a word of protest. She opened the front door wide. Boo gave one sharp bark, then streaked for the kitchen. When Cathy and John followed, they found him waiting by the back door, tail thumping against the floor.

  “I know what you want.” She opened the door, tutting indulgently.

  Boo raced past her, heading unswervingly to a patch of ivy in the bottom right-hand corner of the yard. He made his way into the middle, squatted.

  “No way,” John said, flabbergasted

  At Cathy’s querying look, he explained the dog’s bowel problems.

  She laughed, a full-throated laugh he hadn’t heard from her before. “This is where Boo always goes.”

  Sure enough, the dog was having the time of his life. The dump of his life.

  When Boo came back inside, John would swear he was grinning.

  It dawned on John that he had no further reason to hang around. To stand side by side with Cathy, beaming down at the dog like a proud parent.

  He shoved his hand in his pocket, jiggled his keys. “Guess I should hit the road.” She didn’t argue, so he added, “This was my first time driving.”

  At last she dragged her gaze away from the dog and paid him some attention. Even if it was only professional courtesy.

  “John, you look flushed,” she said.

  He was grateful for even that crumb of concern. “I think I’m getting the flu,” he said, making his voice just a little feeble.

  She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead, and he realized he’d missed her touch. That’s probably more about my loneliness than about Cathy.

  “What are your symptoms?” she asked.

  “Aching limbs, a bit of nausea.”

  “Lift your pant legs,” she ordered, as brusquely as if they were back to “Mr. Wyatt” and “Nurse Martin.”

  He obeyed.

  She gasped, and he looked down and saw what she did.

  His ankles and calves were swollen. Uh-oh.

  “John, you’re having a rejection episode.” Her calm words struck a chill into his heart. “It’s quite common and possibly not at all serious—” in which case, why had her voice started shaking? “—but we need to get you to the hospital.”

  Two minutes later, they were in her car, reversing out of her garage.

  John knew it was psychological, but he felt sicker already. “I thought I had the flu,” he said, as Cathy swung out into the road.

  “You’re an idiot,” she said.

  “I know.”

  * * *

  “DAD’S FINE,” MERRY TOLD Lucas the moment he opened the door at Dwight’s house. She could have phoned, but she’d annoyed him, possibly even upset him, so she wanted to explain in person.

  “I ought to toss you out on your butt.” He stood aside to let her in. “I’ve been calling the hospital. As John’s family I’m entitled to updates about his condition…but apparently you instructed them not to tell me anything.”

  “Sorry,” she lied.

  He didn’t sound as angry as she expected. Which suggested that he trusted there might be method in her madness.

  “Dad and Stephanie are on their way to the hospital,” Lucas said. “Apparently, they are allowed to visit.”

  She widened her eyes innocently.

  He tsked. “When you say your dad’s fine, what exactly do you mean?”

  She followed him into the dining room. “Seventy percent of transplant patients have a rejection episode, according to Cathy. Most don’t lose their new kidney. The doctors are feeding Dad some stronger drugs for a couple of days, and keeping him in the hospital for observation, since he lives alone.” And since Cathy had insisted on it. Merry would happily have stayed with her dad at his home, but she preferred knowing he was in the hospital.

  Lucas had obviously been working in the dining room. His laptop was open, and a number of Magic Eye books were spread across the table.

  He leaned against the edge of the table, arms folded across his chest. “So what was all that about? One vastly inadequate text message, then telling the hospital I wasn’t allowed to visit or receive information over the phone.”

  “How did it make you feel?” she asked.

  “How do think?” he growled. “Powerless. Useless. Desperately worried.” His voice cracked, revealing a raw vulnerability that filled her with contrition.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it this time. “But, Lucas, there was nothing you could do, and if it had turned out to be more serious, if Dad had died or something, I didn’t want you to have a single thing to hang your overdeveloped sense of responsibility on.”

  It took Lucas a moment to process that. “Are you saying you kept me out of it so that I wouldn’t get hurt?”

  “I guess you could put it like that,” she said.

  “But I wanted to be there. To support you. To do what I could for your dad.” He hadn’t slept last night for worrying about her, and it was all because of some crazy whim?

  “I would have loved to have you there in support,” she admitted. “No one’s better at that than you are.”

  “Don’t pander to me now,” he grumbled. Though he did feel somewhat mollified.

  “But you couldn’t do anything for Dad,” she said. “Not a thing. And I know you, Lucas. If he’d died last night, you’d be torturing yourself for goodness knows how long about what you might have done differently.”

  He wanted to yell at her that he wasn’t that stupid. But…she was right. He was conscious of feeling enormous relief that he would have been spared that burden. But at the same time…

  “I can’t just not show up at life, so that I don’t have to feel bad afterward,” he said. “What if that had been our child?”

  “Then of course you’d have been there,” she said quickly. “And I won’t do this to you again. I just wanted to, I guess, teach you something.” She bit her lip on the left sid
e. “Did it work?”

  “You are such a pain,” he said, half laughing, half wanting to shake her.

  “It did, didn’t it?” she said, adorably pleased with herself. “Go on, tell me what you’re thinking.”

  He rolled his eyes. But she’d earned the right to an answer. “I’m thinking,” he said slowly, “I might have to accept that even if I’d been there with Mom that day, it wouldn’t have changed anything.” The admission left him with an ache in his throat. “It’s not like I didn’t know that in my head already,” he said severely.

  “I realize that,” she said. “But maybe you had trouble accepting it—” he thought she would say in your heart “—deep down.”

  Deep down. That was better. He nodded. “But I think…I think just now I’ve accepted it.”

  Merry blinked rapidly. “Okay. Good.”

  Feeling himself flush, he turned away.

  “How are your eye exercises going?” she asked, a change of subject that was clunky but welcome.

  “I’m going nuts,” he said. “When I do the online tests, I feel like I’m improving, but I still can’t see a damn thing with those Magic Eye books. And neither of them is comparable to the navy test, so I have no idea if I’m going to pass.”

  She made what he considered a moderately sympathetic sound. Insufficient.

  “My test is tomorrow,” he reminded her.

  She grinned. “Okay, okay, poor Hero Chopper Pilot, how awful, et cetera.”

  “Thanks a lot,” he said, but he couldn’t hold in a grin.

  “Maybe I can help,” Merry said. “Let’s take a look at one of these Magic Eye books.”

  “What’s the point?” he said.

  She snickered at his petulance. “Come on, I’m good at these. Maybe I can coach you through it.”

  They sat at the table, and she opened the nearest book. Sitting this close to her was as disturbing as Lucas remembered. She smelled of wild strawberries and her lips were a crushed pink. He loved her mouth.

  “Have you been holding the book right up to your face?” she asked.

  “Uh-huh.” Her nose was pretty cute, too.

  “Okay, let me take a look at a couple of these, and then we’ll do them together.” They tried four pictures, all of which Merry found instantly. But when she talked Lucas through it, he always lost focus before the hidden image showed up.