by Zoe York
Eric rolled over on his tummy, more interested in talking than getting up and going inside. “I don’t want to get married.”
“Why not?”
Now it was the kid’s turn to laugh. “I don’t know!”
“I’ll tell you this much. My sister? Today is the best day of her life. She’s over the moon happy about this wedding. And if you grow up and fall in love with someone, and they get that happy about having a party to celebrate your love, you might just change your mind.”
“Nope.” Eric poked at Zander’s suit jacket. “I don’t like clothes like this. I only like jogging pants.”
Zander knew the feeling. “It makes girls happy, though.”
“I like to make my mom happy,” Eric said quietly.
“Me too, bud.”
“Is that why you’re wearing the suit?”
“Nah. This is for my sister. But I asked your mom to come with me because I knew she’d have fun getting dressed up.”
“My mom?” Eric shook his head. “She hates getting dressed up.”
She might stress about it, but the twirling skirt and bright eyes he’d left inside said otherwise. “You think?”
“That’s what she says.”
“Life lesson number one, Eric. Girls don’t always say what they mean.”
“That’s weird.”
“Yep.”
“Hey, do you want to come to the park with me tomorrow?”
Zander’s chest squeezed tight. “I…I’m getting on an airplane tomorrow. I’m flying back to my army base.”
“Oh.”
“Next time I visit, okay?”
“When will that be?”
Shit. Not until Christmas. “Maybe in the winter. Can you still go to the park in the winter?”
“I think you can. But my mom says it’s not safe.”
Zander couldn’t quite figure that one out, but he’d already learned not to disagree with Faith’s mama bear instincts. “Does it get slippery?”
“I guess.”
“I’ll be back for a week at Christmas. We’ll do lots of fun stuff. Safe, fun stuff,” he hastened to add, because he wasn’t going to promise anything he couldn’t deliver.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll talk to your mom and find out what we’re allowed to do.”
Eric giggled and buried his face in the blanket.
Zander cleared his throat. “You know, even at work I need to get permission to do things. We have to fill out a threat assessment and get five different people to sign it.”
Eric lifted his head and gave him an appropriately scared look.
“Right? It could be way worse. How much paperwork does your mom require for a park visit?” Zander hopped to his feet and held out his hand. “Come on. Let’s go tell your mom she’s not as bossy as a Canadian Forces base commander. She’ll get a kick out of that.”
— —
From the upstairs window, Faith watched Zander help Eric fold up the blanket they’d been lying on together, then she turned to her mother who was fussing about what earrings she should wear.
Nothing dangly, Faith thought, remembering the brush of Zander’s lips against her neck.
“Mom…” God, this was harder than she thought. “If I didn’t come home tonight…?”
Miriam nodded. “I’ll make pancakes in the morning and distract Eric.”
“Am I being foolish?”
“I can’t answer that for you. Do you love him?”
Faith jerked her head back, alarm zinging through her body. “What? No.” Not yet. It’s too soon.
“He’s flown across the country to see you.”
“He flew back for his sister’s wedding.”
“Honey, most of the time, for a family wedding, there’s a lot of milling around and pictures being taken before the ceremony. Most brothers of brides don’t leave town to go pick up a date, and lie down on the grass and have a deep and meaningful chat with a four-year-old.”
“Do you think we’re distracting him from something more important?”
Miriam laughed. “I think to that man, you are more important.”
Well, that did nothing to calm the nerves zinging around in her belly. “He’s not moving here until the spring.”
“Good.” Her mother handed over a pair of simple diamond studs. “That’s probably how long it will take you to figure out whether or not you can love him.”
“What are you now, a relationship expert?” But Faith said it softly, because between the two of them, her mother was the expert. She’d had a better marriage than Faith had, longer too, and now she’d shifted into happily dating a new man with zero drama.
Faith had no clue how to do zero drama. It sounded nice, though. Like something she might want to try if she could lock down her overactive imagination long enough to be a normal person.
— FOURTEEN —
ERIC detoured to the couch and Faith’s iPad as soon as they were back in the house. He waved as Zander bid him goodbye, but his attention was already elsewhere.
As a door opened again upstairs, Zander’s focus shifted as well. He straightened his tie and squared his shoulders, proud and yet nervous about introducing Faith to his family.
Faith ran down the stairs, stopping on the second to last step. She’d put her hair up in a fancy twist, but already the shorter pieces around her face were coming out. Her makeup was subtle, but…damn.
“You look incredible.” When she beamed at him, he swivelled his index finger in the air. She wanted compliments? He’d give ’em to her all night. “Turn around, let me see this dress.”
She hopped down the last step and spun in a slow circle. If her mother hadn’t been watching, he’d have dropped to his knees and worshiped her as she deserved. Since they had a chaperone he settled for taking her hand and brushing his lips against her delicate knuckles. Her fingers were paler than they’d been in the summer—he’d noticed the last two nights that she was losing her bare whisper of a tan already.
He got halfway hard thinking about her porcelain limbs wrapped around his darker body as he made love to her.
Not a great start to an entire day spent with other people, including his mother.
He cleared his throat. “Ready to go?”
The wedding took place at Dani and Jake’s house, a gorgeous custom-build at the end of a road that butted up against the provincial park just outside of Pine Harbour. Zander parked his rental car on the side of the road, behind a long line of other vehicles. It looked like the entire adult population of the peninsula had turned out for the wedding, and still more were arriving behind him.
The ceremony was at a brand-new dock Jake had built for Dani, way at the far end of their property, where a forest spilled out to a rocky descent down to the lake—but Zander’s brand-new brother-in-law had put in stairs, too.
“This is stunning,” Faith said as they made their way down the stairs to the water’s edge. Most of the guests were milling around an open bar serving champagne and beer out the side of the boat house.
“None of this existed at the start of the summer. Jake’s been busy.”
“Does he like boating?”
Probably nobody else would have noticed the hitch in her voice, and Zander knew Faith wouldn’t want to make a big deal about her own past on a day like today, but he still took her hand and lead her through the growing crowd, over the pine-needle covered path to the back door of the boat house, where he opened the door and ushered her inside—to show her Jake and Dani’s matching kayaks.
“Only the sedate paddling kind,” he murmured.
She let out a shaky breath. “Was that silly?”
He shook his head. “And I really just brought you in here to steal a moment of privacy. You okay?”
“Yep.” She reached for him, touching his waist briefly, then fiddling with his jacket lapels and finally pressing her palm against his cheek. “Thank you. I’m not anti-boating, I just… I’ve met Dani and Ja
ke, and I was surprised to see this kind of elaborate building down here. I didn’t think…”
“That Jake was a pretentious ass?” Zander laughed. “He’s not. But he and Dani have been a long time coming, and he wanted to do this right. Make it right, a little bit, because he’s secretly loved her since…well, since a time when he was way the fuck too old for her.”
“Really?” Faith’s eyebrows shot up and she grinned. “That sounds dirty.”
“Hey. That’s my baby sister you’re talking about.”
“Oh. Sorry.” She winked and pressed up on her toes, brushing her lips against his. “Let’s replace that mental image with one of me in one of your t-shirts and no panties, yes?”
He growled and hauled her against him.
Yes.
— —
“Mrs. Minelli, it’s so nice to meet you,” Faith murmured, hoping the faint residue of colour in her cheeks from Zander’s scorching kiss in the boat house could pass as artfully applied blush. The freshly almost fucked look, so in this year.
Anne Minelli gave her a practiced smile that gave nothing away. “The pleasure is ours, of course. Zander’s kept you a well-guarded secret. But I understand you are a successful author.”
“Ma…”
Anne fluffed her hand in the air. “Oh, Zander. I’m just making conversation.”
Faith laughed. “I don’t know who has been talking me up, but yes, I write books. And some people like them.”
“There was a feature display of them at the library, my dear.”
Now she was blushing for a whole other, more acceptable reason. “One of my fans is Chloe Dawson at the Pine Harbour Library, yes.”
“She’s the one with the…” Anne trailed off and glanced away from Faith’s own nose piercing. Becca had a hoop through her eyebrow, but Faith wasn’t about to finish that sentence. Or snarkily add “the masters degree in Information and Library Sciences?” because while that was totally on the tip of her tongue, there were some instincts you stifled the first time you met your boyfriend’s mother.
Zander’s father, on the other hand, seemed totally lovely, and chose that moment to change the subject to dinner. Then it was time to take their seats, and Faith could let loose the breath it felt like she’d been holding in her chest the whole exchange.
As soon as they were seated, Zander took her hand and casually started rubbing his thumb across the inside of her wrist. Back and forth. Back and forth.
The man was going to make her combust and the ceremony hadn’t even started yet.
They were sitting with the other guests on lovely, padded white folding chairs. Some on the wider part of the dock that was built into the hill, some on the boardwalk that surrounded the boat house, and others on the two landings on the wide staircase that wound up the hill into the forest. She was sitting with Zander and his family on the left hand side of the dock, and Faith was glad for the friendly face of Olivia Minelli, who served as a buffer between them and Zander’s parents.
Dani and Jake had gone without a wedding party, Olivia explained as they sat waiting for the bride to appear at the top of the hill, because of the size of the dock. Olivia would be Dani’s witness on the marriage certificate, and Dean would be Jake’s, but they were sitting with everyone else until that point in the service. The other brothers would all have speeches and toasts during dinner.
Jake stood alone with the minister on the dock, pride of responsibility—for marrying this woman, hosting this celebration—projecting loud and clear. He didn’t need a best man to hold him up.
A string quartet had been playing quietly for the last half hour, and when the minister raised his hands, they paused playing for a moment while everyone stood, then started again, shifting from the standard classical fare to…it took Faith a minute to place the cover of Led Zeppelin’s “All of My Love.”
This was going to be a fun wedding. Zander needed to keep his hands to himself so she could focus.
Dani stopped at the top of the stairs. She walked herself down the aisle, as it were, going slowly like she was taking her time to soak it all in—and the whole time, she only had eyes for her husband-to-be. The chemistry zinged across the gathered witnesses and was almost embarrassing to watch, but something about the construct of a wedding that made the personal moment worthy of public celebration.
And this was a wedding unlike most—even unlike Faith’s own, which until this moment she’d thought had been pretty special. When she and Greg got married, though, they were focused on throwing a perfect party, not on having the perfect ceremony. They’d been best friends, lovers, and co-conspirators in knowing that a wedding wasn’t necessary except for social reasons.
Nothing about this moment felt driven by social propriety. Faith hardly knew these people and yet she knew this was a moment years in the making. Years, Zander had told her, spent apart, filled with longing.
She dug furiously in her clutch for a tissue. There was no point pretending she was going to get through this with dry eyes.
After dabbing away her first tears, Faith took a deep breath and tried to take in all the details.
Dani wore a simple dress and carried a large, hand-tied bouquet that had sprigs of berries and greenery zinging off in all directions. It was simple and eclectic, and perfect for a lakeside celebration of love. As she got closer, Faith realized the dress wasn’t actually that simple in the details. The raw-silk, strapless sheath had a subtle layer of lace peeking out from the top of the fitted bodice—it looked like she’d been wrapped tightly in the lace, then bound again in the luxurious silk.
Faith approved. She also loved how the dress barely skimmed the ground, revealing glimpses of Dani’s ballet slippers—a seriously genius idea. She remembered her own three-inch heels and the boned corset that had left painful red marks on her mid-section by the end of the night.
Zander shifted behind her, brushing closer.
But Jake and Dani made a breathtaking couple, him in his dark blue suit and polished brown leather shoes, her with a barely-there veil that fell down her back, somehow affixed by magic in her loose dark waves. And when it lifted on the wind, Faith realized there were a million tiny buttons running down the back of Dani’s dress.
That dress was perfect. Simple from afar, but up close…whoever made it was a design goddess. And it wasn’t Faith’s fault if such perfection whipped her girly insides into a bit of a “what if” fervour.
As the couple turned to face each other, the minister indicated for the crowd to take their seats again. Zander stretched his arm across the back of Faith’s chair and tugged her hand back into his lap as she leaned into him.
She shot him a quick, sideways glance.
He was staring straight ahead.
So it was just his body that was making a possessive, public claim on her.
Not that she minded. With the way her heart was bouncing around like a cheerleader high on life, he could make all the claims he wanted today. Today, she was a sucker for romance and one particular man in a perfectly tailored charcoal suit.
The ceremony was short and sweet, with Dani and Jake each reading their own vows.
Jake went first, his rich voice carrying easily across the wind and water, up into the trees that surrounded them. “Eight years ago, I was sitting on a dock just like this one, and I blinked. That was all it took, and in that moment you went from being little Dani to being my Dani. You stole my heart on a dock, Daniella Minelli, and I couldn’t tell you. Not then. But I can tell you now, and yet that doesn’t seem quite enough. So I built you another dock, just so I could stand here and say…keep it. It’s yours now, forever and ever. Today I stand in front of our family and friends and promise you my love will never waver, my devotion will be sure, and my support is constant and unconditional. You are the light of my life and I am honoured to be your husband.”
Water-fucking-works.
Dani needed a tissue, too, but after she dabbed her eyes, she squared her shoulders—a move that
Faith recognized as a standard Minelli “here we go” gesture—and pressed one hand to her chest as she squeezed her other hand around his. “I’ve only got room in here for one heart, so if I’m keeping yours, you need to hold mine for safekeeping, and I know you will. You are the best partner, the best husband, the best lover and friend a woman could ever want. I love your honour and your integrity. I can’t wait to build a family with you, and sit on this dock in our old age, when we look back on eight years as just a prequel to our entire lives spent loving each other.” She took a deep breath, and Faith realized that those weren’t written vows. They’d just said what was in their hearts. It blew her away. Their formal vows did, too, and when Dani repeated what Jake had added to his own vows, the tears started all over again. “Jake Foster, today I stand in front of our family and friends and promise you my love will never waver, my devotion will be sure, and my support is constant and unconditional. You are the light of my life and I am honoured to be your wife.”
There was an exchange of rings and an epic, bride-tipping kiss followed by a fist-pumping jump in the air by the groom, but Faith was lost in the vows. They’d waited so long to tell each other how they felt. God, the angst of that… she sighed and rubbed her chest.
“So you like weddings, eh?” Zander asked quietly against her ear as they stood and followed the couple up the winding wooden stairs. The rest of the wedding would take place in the field behind the newlyweds’ home. They’d passed the white marquee tent on the way down to the lake.
“Doesn’t everyone?” Faith said lightly, but the real answer was no, she normally didn’t. Not like this.
Today was something entirely unexpected and wonderful and, the more she thought about it, just a little scary.
As they climbed the stairs, Zander’s hand rested lightly on the curve of her hip, his arm wrapping around her back, and when they got to the top of the stairs, he took her hand, weaving his fingers around hers.
