“Hi, Tyler. I’m Sierra, Austin’s mom.” She could see the family resemblance between Tyler and his Uncle Matt. Both were on the tall side and had dark blond hair and the most amazing light blue eyes. The square, stubborn-looking jaw had to be a Porter trait.
“Hi. Who are you visiting?” asked Tyler.
“We don’t know anyone here. We’re just visiting your town and the surrounding area for a couple weeks.” She smiled down at the boy. “It’s a wonderful place to call home, Tyler.”
“We went out on a really fast boat and saw a whale,” added Austin, trying to gain back Tyler’s attention.
“What kind?” Tyler’s face lit up with excitement.
“Finback,” answered Austin, who seemed very proud of the fact that he remembered what kind of whale it had been.
“No, what kind of boat?”
“If it was real fast, I’m betting it was Lawrence Blake’s.” Matt ruffled the top of his nephew’s head until dark blond hair was standing up in all directions. “Tyler’s the boat fanatic of the family. The faster it goes, the better he likes it.”
“Don’t you like whales?” Austin seemed confused as to why Tyler wouldn’t be excited about the whale he had spotted.
“Whales are okay, but boats are cooler. You can’t ride a whale.” Tyler glanced up at his uncle. “Can I have a hot dog too?”
“Sure thing.” Matt gave Sierra a crooked apologetic smile. “He’s seen quite a few whales, so they’ve lost their ability to fascinate.”
She tried to ignore the hot slide of desire Matt’s smile had caused. The man was lethal, but he didn’t seem to be aware of that fact. Amazing. She glanced down the hill, toward the docks. From her limited vantage point, she could still see more than a dozen boats were bobbing in the harbor. “Tyler’s never seen or been on a boat before? How did he see all those whales?”
Matt’s gaze followed hers and he chuckled. “My nephew has wheedled and begged his way onto just about every boat down there. My brother John swears Tyler was born going thirty knots. My sister-in-law disagrees, claiming ten hours of labor doesn’t constitute a speed demon.”
She couldn’t help but agree with that logic. “Well, he would have loved our whale-watching adventure. Your friend Lawrence and Tyler have one thing in common: the need for speed.” She had had such a firm grip on Austin for the entire ride that her hand had ached for the rest of the day. But at least her son hadn’t been flung overboard during the hair-raising ride. Lawrence should have his captain’s license taken away from him for what he put those poor engines through. If she closed her eyes, she could still hear all that horsepower screaming.
“There was a bathroom on the boat,” Austin said, trying to impress Tyler and regain his attention and admiration. When that didn’t seem to work, he played what any four or five-year-old would consider his trump card. “Two ladies and a guy threw up over the side of the boat. It was gross.”
Tyler’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Cool! What did it look like? Did they gag like this?” Matt’s nephew then proceeded to execute a stunning display of gagging and hacking. Three people who had the misfortune of standing nearby, moved back a couple of steps, out of the splatter zone.
She shivered as a shudder went through her, and she hoped her complexion hadn’t turned as green as she felt. Tyler was so convincing that she had to wonder if Misty Harbor’s nursery school offered drama lessons. Or had he been born with that natural talent? She gently grabbed the back of Austin’s shirt and pulled him farther away from the future Academy Award winner just in case he wasn’t acting.
Matt rolled his eyes and groaned at his nephew’s acting ability. “Hey, Sport, why don’t you and Austin go over there”—he pointed in the direction of some wooden picnic tables that had been set up for the occasion—“and save us a seat. Sierra and I will pick up lunch.”
Her son looked up at her. “Can we, Mom?”
“Sure.” The tables were only a few yards away under the leafy canopy of some maple trees. Austin and Tyler wouldn’t be out of their sight for a moment. “Pick the first empty one you come to, sit down, and stay there.” Austin had obviously taken a liking to Tyler.
Matt grinned at his nephew. “You heard the lady, get.”
Both boys hurried off with a squeal of delight.
She watched as they settled themselves at the first empty table. Austin was talking about something and gesturing wildly with his hands. By his movements, she didn’t want to know what the topic of conversation was. Her queasy stomach already knew that answer. “Amazing. That is the same little boy who won’t touch brussels sprouts and claims cauliflower will make him puke.”
“Can’t blame Austin. I won’t touch brussels sprouts either.” Matt crossed his eyes and made a gagging sound that rivaled Tyler’s earlier attempt. “Do you know what those things taste like?”
She chuckled at his antics. “I now see where Tyler gets his acting ability. The talent must run on the Porter side of his family.”
Matt’s sexy grin curled her toes. “You think?”
“Yeah, I think.” What she was thinking had nothing to do with his acting accomplishments and everything to do with the way his light blue eyes lit up with his smile. Here she had thought a woman could drown only in men’s eyes that were deep, dark, and brown. At thirty-one years old and divorced, she still was learning a thing or two about the male population. With warm liquid desire tugging at her gut, she had only two words to say to that: Thank heavens !
Life was too short to think she had seen and experienced all it had to offer. To top that, she loved surprises. Matt Porter looked like he could be full of surprises.
Her smile matched Matt’s, but she was thankful for the dark lens of her sunglasses hiding her eyes from his scrutiny. Everyone had always told her that her eyes were windows into her soul, that her every emotion sparkled in her gray eyes. She didn’t want Matt to see whatever feeling she was experiencing. The delicious sense of longing was too new and different. She didn’t fully trust it, but she was curious enough to see where it might lead.
She was in Misty Harbor on a working vacation. There was nothing preventing her from enjoying the vacation part of the next six weeks. “So, Matthew Porter, do you attend the Blueberry Festival every year?”
“Only when there’s something interesting going on.” The glint in his gaze told her exactly what he was interested in, and it had nothing to do with blueberries or the surrounding activities.
Her vacation was certainly looking up. “So what has you so interested? The hot dogs or the hamburgers?”
Matt was saved from answering, as an older man with a combed-over bald spot and a grease-splattered apron approached the folding table that was set up as a makeshift counter. “Well, Sierra, I see you already met one of the town’s most eligible bachelors.” Lenny Holmes had big brown eyes, a gut so big the apron barely covered it, and one of the warmest smiles she had ever seen.
“You did warn me, Lenny, that they would be falling out of the trees and lying thick on the ground.” She grinned at the memory of meeting Lenny on her third day in town. He had shown up at the Alberts’ house ready to mow the lawn bright and early one morning. The grass hadn’t really needed cutting, so he pulled a few weeds, entertained Austin with wild tales of shipwrecks and pirates, and stayed for breakfast.
So far Matt was the only bachelor she had met, if one didn’t count the annoying Wendell Kirby, who had cornered her one evening while she and Austin had been enjoying double-scoop cones at Bailey’s Ice Cream Parlor and Emporium. Wendell had given her the creeps with his slicked-back thinning hair, fake smile, and pushy ways.
“I take it you two know each other.” Matt seemed both amused and embarrassed about being labeled an eligible bachelor.
“Sierra makes a western omelet so hot and spicy that you will think you’ve died and all your sins have caught up with you.” Lenny chuckled at his own description.
“I thought you liked it.” She had warned Lenny
the omelet was going to be spicy, and he had assured her the hotter, the better. Maybe she had spent too much time in the southwest and had become accustomed to the Mexican influence in her cooking.
“I didn’t like it. I loved it.” Lenny gave her a big grin. “I’ve been trying to get my gal, Evelyn, to make one just like it, but so far it’s just not the same. Is there a secret ingredient or something you forgot to tell me when you gave me the recipe?”
“You stood there and watched me make it, Lenny. There was no secret ingredient.” She chuckled at the sweet thought of sixty-one-year-old Lenny having a girlfriend. One who made him breakfast, no less. “Maybe your Evelyn can come over one morning and I’ll show her how I do it.”
“Evelyn Ruffles wins the Misty Harbor Bake-Off every year with a German chocolate cake that is out of this world.” Matt closed his eyes and sighed at some dreamy distant memory.
She tried not to laugh. The men of Misty Harbor sure liked their food.
“That’s my Evelyn.” Pride deepened Lenny’s voice. “How about if I can get her to make you one of her prized cakes, and you can teach her how to make that western omelet?”
“Sounds like I’ll be getting the better end of that deal.” She loved chocolate in any form and it would be the perfect excuse to invite Matt over one evening. “How about you talk it over with Evelyn and then let me know?”
“Deal.” Lenny glanced at the customers waiting not so patiently behind them before turning his attention back to them. The time for small talk was up. “What can I get you two?”
Matt felt like a teenager on his first date. This evening’s meal wasn’t really a date. It was an all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner at the Methodist church. Adults were nine dollars, kids under twelve were five, and anyone three and under got to eat free. He had eaten there a couple times over the years, but he wasn’t very fond of slightly overcooked spaghetti noodles with meat sauce. He was a steak and potato kind of guy, but what did one expect for nine bucks? Plus it came with dessert.
It was going to be a totally ho-hum meal that didn’t require him to change his shirt for the third time. So why was he standing in his bedroom trying to decide between the blue plaid button-down shirt or the designer polo shirt he had gotten last Christmas? He decided on comfort and went with his first choice, the blue plaid.
Sierra and Austin seemed anxious to experience all that Misty Harbor had to offer. Who was he to disappoint them? Besides, his brother John and his wife, Kay, were having a great time teasing him about hijacking their son, Tyler, to get a date. With his brother Ned’s upcoming wedding, he’d be the last unattached Porter, the butt of their jokes and matchmaking attempts. He loved his sisters-in-law greatly, but they had lousy taste in women.
He preferred to find his own dates.
Even though technically this wasn’t a date. He and Tyler were going to meet them outside the Methodist church in half an hour. This way Sierra would know someone there, and Austin would get to spend some more time with his new friend. A totally harmless evening. So why did he just misbutton his shirt?
With a curse of self-disgust, he rebuttoned the shirt and finished getting ready. It was time for him to get going.
Twenty minutes later he was standing on the edge of the town’s park, directly across the street from the Methodist church. His brother John, his wife, Kay, and the kids were running late, as usual. His three-year-old niece, Morgan, could make a Rolex watch run late.
“Hey, Matt. How’s it going?” asked a deep, softly spoken voice.
Matt knew it was Gordon Hanley by the smell of his pipe. “Fine, Gordon. How’s it going with you?” Gordon owned the local bookstore and tobacco shop on Main Street, the Pen and Ink. It was a strange combination for a store. Tobacco products were in a decline, even with the strange phenomenon a couple years back with everyone thinking they were cool by smoking cigars. Gordon’s love was his pipe. He had never seen the man without one. Hence the problem with his store. Every book, magazine, and stationery supply smelled like Prince Albert or whatever tobacco Gordon was currently smoking.
“Can’t complain.” Gordon puffed on his pipe. “Expecting a shipment of books on Tuesday. Want me to put aside the Koontz, Fairstein, and Lescroart?”
“Of course.” He watched as a wreath of smoke circled Gordon’s head. “Our usual deal?” Gordon sealed Matt’s books in a Ziploc bag to prevent them from absorbing the smell and smoke of the shop. The last time he bought a book at Gordon’s that had been sitting out on the shelf, he’d had to leave it sitting on the windowsill for days trying to air it out. He never could get rid of the stench.
“Won’t dream of changing it.” Gordon puffed on the stem of his pipe and another billow of smoke filled the air. “If you took up the pipe, you wouldn’t notice it.”
Matt had to chuckle at the thought. When he had been twelve years old, a friend had dared him to smoke a stogie. He had never been so sick, or green, in his life. He wouldn’t touch a tobacco product if Catherine Zeta-Jones handed it to him herself. “You just want another smoking buddy to sit in your back room and play chess all day.” Everyone in town knew that Gordon was an excellent chess player. Gordon was always on the lookout for a challenge.
“Can’t blame a guy for trying.” Gordon took the pipe out of his mouth and held it out for inspection. “Look at this beauty. Treated myself to an early birthday present.” The pipe had a clear amber-colored stem and a beautifully carved figure head as the bowl. “It’s a Meerschaum. It’s called Swashbuckler.”
The carved face was that of an old man with a beard and a big old-fashioned hat with a feather sticking out of it. It took guts to walk around town smoking the unusual pipe, but he’d seen Gordon puff on stranger-looking things. “He kind of looks like Shakespeare to me.”
Gordon chuckled. “I thought so too. That’s why I got him.” Gordon stuck the stem between his lips and puffed away. “The Bard had a Vandyke, though, not a full beard.”
“If you say so.” Gordon was a Shakespeare nut. The man could probably recite entire scenes in his sleep.
Gordon closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. “I’m trying a new brand of tobacco tonight, Captain Black Royal. I must say that I like the aroma, but it is awfully expensive.”
“Smells like any other pipe you smoke.” He couldn’t smell a difference. Tobacco was tobacco to him.
Gordon almost matched Matt’s six foot three inch height. Gordon missed it by an inch, but Matt had a good thirty or forty pounds on the older man. With an unusually pale complexion, startling hazel eyes, rail-thin build, and an angular face, Gordon had long been rumored to be a vampire. The interior of the Pen and Ink was always dark, dreary, and stunk of cigars, cigarettes, and pipes, which only added to the allure.
School-age boys started to place dares on who would be brave enough to walk into the shop and buy the latest comic book. Gordon went along with the gag and started stocking more comic books and being more mysterious to the young customers. He was Misty Harbor’s vampire, and he loved it.
Matt figured he was just lonely.
“Aren’t you afraid to be seen out in the daylight?” He tried to keep the laughter out of his voice when he noticed two boys, around ten, hiding behind a nearby tree listening to their every word.
Gordon must have sensed the boys were there. “These special sunglasses protect my eyes, and it’s after six. The sun really isn’t that strong.” Gordon’s thin, pale fingers raked through his long black hair, which was liberally streaked with gray. For the benefit of their young audience, he added, “Besides, I’m feeling awfully hungry.”
He coughed to cover up his laugh, as both boys sprinted across the park without once looking back. “Gordon, that wasn’t very nice of you.”
Gordon’s lips curved around the stem of his pipe. “Ah, it will give them something to talk about tonight with all their friends.” Gordon chuckled. “I wonder what they’ll say if they see me enjoying a plate of spaghetti and meat sauce?”
“
Probably the same thing we used to say when we caught you out in sunlight or eating real food.” He could still remember the dares and the spine-tingling excitement of entering Gordon’s store when he had been around nine years old. Gordon Hanley used to scare the starch right out of his shorts. “That you were only doing it so the adults wouldn’t suspect what you really were”—he lowered his voice and whispered dramatically—“one of the walking dead.”
Gordon roared with laughter.
“What’s so funny?” asked Matt’s brother John as he joined them on the sidewalk. Three-year-old Morgan was perched on his shoulders. She was wearing a pink tutu, fairy wings, and a silver tiara. She also was waving a sparkling silver wand at everyone.
“Just reminiscing about the good old days.” At thirty years old, he thought it seemed strange having old days, good or bad. “You’re late. What happened?” Matt glanced down the walkway to where Kay was busily combing Tyler’s hair and straightening out his shirt. His nephew looked like he had just crawled out from underneath some bushes. Either that or he was being raised by wolves.
“Tyler was supposed to bring Cletus into the house while I belted Morgan into her car seat.”
Cletus was John and Kay’s two-year-old, sixty-five-pound black Labrador that was as obedient as a kitten. “Let me guess, a chipmunk?”
“Close, a squirrel. Before I could stop him, Cletus was across the yard and in the undergrowth with Tyler right on his tail.” John had a couple of fresh scrapes on his arm and one nasty-looking one running the length of his jaw. “I honestly don’t know which one is worse—my son or the dog. Took me fifteen minutes to fish them both out of the thistles.”
“Ah,” Gordon said. “Did they catch the critter?”
“No, it ran under a bush.” John reached for Morgan’s wand after it whacked him on the head for the third time. “Morgan, sweetie, how many times have I asked you not to hit people with that wand. It hurts.”
A Misty Harbor Wedding Page 3
