Ethan looked at his wife with love and sympathy in his eyes. “Would you really like to dance?”
Olivia beamed with happiness. “Yes, as long as it’s a slow one. I don’t think I’m up for anything more strenuous than a slow shuffle.”
Ethan looked at his wife as if she had just lost her mind, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. “Of course.” He stood up and held out his hand so he could help Olivia out of her chair.
It took Olivia a moment to get the right momentum, but she managed to stand using Ethan and the table for leverage. Matt wanted to cheer at the feat. Olivia Wycliffe did not look like a woman who could walk, let alone dance. Ethan’s arms were never going to fit around her.
Olivia’s eyes shot wide open as she grabbed for her stomach with both hands. “Ethan!”
“What?” Ethan looked at his wife in alarm.
“I think my water just broke,” Olivia said in awe.
Every ounce of color drained from Ethan’s face. “You think?”
Olivia tried to see over her bulging stomach. “You look. I haven’t seen my feet in three months.”
Sierra chuckled.
Matt felt the blood leave his own face. Holy hell, Olivia was going to have the baby right now. Right here! “I’ll get Doc Sydney.” He had just seen Sydney Olsen with her husband, Erik, and their infant daughter over by the fountain. He jumped up and hurried away. The last place he wanted to be was anywhere near Olivia. Someone might make him do something he didn’t want to do.
Sierra saw that they were starting to attract a bunch of interest from nearby tables. “Ethan, why don’t you help your wife to your car?”
Ethan gently held Olivia’s elbow. “Can you walk?”
Olivia, who knew Sierra had a son, looked at her, rolled her eyes, and silently mouthed the word “men.”
“Ethan, sweetheart, light of my life, I’m having a baby, not knee replacement surgery.” Olivia started to slowly waddle her way across the yard with Ethan matching her steps and lecturing her about something the entire way.
A moment later, she saw Matt and a woman follow. She assumed that the brown-haired woman was Doc Sydney.
“Well, that’s an interesting development,” said Gordon, who looked a little dazed by the turn of events.
“I guess that means she’s not going to get to dance after all,” said Juliet.
Everyone was laughing when Matt rejoined them. “Doc’s going with them to the hospital.”
“Problems?” Sierra asked.
“No,” said Matt, chuckling as he shook his head. “Doc just didn’t trust Ethan to drive.”
Juliet loved being in Steve’s arms. “For a guy who spends most of his time out on a boat, you sure can dance.”
Steve chuckled and pulled her closer. “I can do all kinds of things.”
“I bet you can.” She laid her head against his shoulder. The wooden dance floor was crowded with couples enjoying the reception. The DJ had a lamp next to his equipment, giving him plenty of light to see by. Four huge weeping figs were strung with hundreds of miniature lights that lit the interior of the tent nicely without blinding anyone. The low lighting gave everything a romantic glow.
Steve kissed the top of her head. “When are you coming back?”
She knew what he was asking. “Gordon invited me to spend Thanksgiving with him.” It was the first long break of the school year.
“That’s three months away.” Steve’s feet were barely moving to the music. “I don’t know if I can last three months without seeing you.”
“Well”—she took a deep breath and screwed up her courage—“you could always come to Boston for a few days.”
“Is that an invitation?” Steve stopped dancing and gently tilted up her chin so he could see her face.
“Yes.” She wondered if she had the same look of hope in her eyes as Steve had in his. “The last couple of weeks have been an emotional roller coaster ride for me, with meeting and then getting to know Gordon. His being my father has answered a lot of my questions about myself and why I was always so different from my brothers and sister. But there are still a ton of questions left to be asked.”
“I can imagine.” Steve ran his thumb over her lower lip. “Meeting me hasn’t helped, has it?”
She smiled against his thumb. “I need to spend time with Gordon, to get to know him, but I want to spend time with you. I’m being torn in two very different directions. I expected Gordon—whom I didn’t expect was you.”
“If I come to Boston for a visit?”
“There will be only you and me. I won’t have to worry about Gordon staying up at night until I get in.” She laughed. “It’s a little strange, to say the least, but I can sympathize with his confusion about this whole father-daughter relationship.”
Steve relaxed, pulled her back into his arms, and started the slow shuffling of feet. “So I’m not the only one who thinks there’s something special happening here and that we should explore it?”
She smiled against the lapel of his suit jacket. Her tawny marine biologist looked scrumptious in a suit and tie. “I think we’d be fools not to.”
Sierra sat on the bench and kicked off her shoes. Wearing new shoes to dance in wasn’t the smartest decision she had ever made. The soft bubbling of the fountain next to her helped drown out some of the noise coming from the dance floor. It was after ten o’clock at night and the reception was still going in high gear. She was exhausted. Matt and his brothers had sneaked around front to decorate Ned’s pickup truck. She didn’t even want to think about what they were doing to it.
The wedding and reception had been perfect. No one could have asked for a better day. The only incidents to mark the day were Olivia’s water breaking, and two seagulls that dive-bombed the fountain, causing quite a stir among the children. It had taken five hulking men and a kitchen strainer to rescue the goldfish and put them in the house where they were safe.
Sierra tilted back her head and closed her eyes. Matt wasn’t allowing her to sleep very much at night. She smiled at the memories.
“May I join you?”
Sierra opened her eyes and smiled. “Please do, Ms. Wyndham.” She had been introduced to Millicent Wyndham earlier. The matriarch of Misty Harbor was just as she had pictured her: a true lady.
“Thank you, Ms. Morley.” Millicent sat. “Or should I call you by your maiden name, Miss Randall?”
The lady had steel beneath that elegant facade. Sierra had had a feeling that Millicent knew who she really was when they had been introduced. “Please call me Sierra.” What was that old saying, “the jig is up”? “How did you find out?”
“I knew Lucas Randall would be sending someone to scope out the property and the town. I just wasn’t expecting his daughter. The Internet is a wonderful invention. It’s full of all kinds of information.” Millicent glanced down at Sierra’s sandals. “Nice shoes, by the way.”
“Thanks.” The older woman hadn’t sat down to discuss shoes. “When I first came here, no one informed me that someone else was interested in the lighthouse property. Being told by that person over a nice romantic dinner put a damper on my evening.”
“I see.” Millicent gazed off in the direction of the dancing. “So you had no idea Matt wanted the property when you met him?”
Sierra followed Millicent’s gaze. Chelsea, the maid of honor, was leading the bunny hop and having the time of her life. Considering the stir Chelsea was causing with all the single men of Misty Harbor, it was going to take a crowbar to pry the girl out of town.
“None at all,” she answered, “which is causing quite a dilemma now. I didn’t want anyone in town to know who I was, because I wanted a fresh, unvarnished perspective. I didn’t want any of the town’s residents to try to sway my view in one direction or the other. It was you, after all, who told my father you weren’t sure if a hotel would be in the town’s best interest.”
“Has Matt tried to sway your view?”
“Matt doesn
’t know I work for the Randall Corporation, or that Lucas Randall is my father.”
Millicent frowned. “You haven’t told him?”
“The moment just never seemed right.” She felt that sick, twisted feeling in the bottom of her stomach. “I made my decision concerning the property before I became involved with Matt.” Before she had fallen in love. “While the property and the lighthouse are quite charming, they don’t meet our needs.”
“I see.” There was a smile playing at the corner of Millicent’s mouth. “So why haven’t you told Matt who you are? From what I’ve seen, the boy obviously has some strong feelings for you.”
Only Millicent could get away with calling Matt a “boy.” “It’s complicated.”
Millicent chuckled. “Life usually is.”
Wasn’t that the truth? “My mother was a very fragile woman, both physically and emotionally. My father loved her dearly and used his money, power, and strength to protect her from the world. She died when I was seven.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Growing up without a mother must have been hard.”
“It’s even harder when every time your father looks at you, he sees his beloved wife. I inherited my father’s height, but I look just like my mother. My father makes the mistake of thinking I’m just like her, that I need protecting from the realities of life. He believes women are frail and delicate creatures, and we have no place in the cutthroat business world.”
Millicent snorted. “Please.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. I’ve been trying to prove something to him since I graduated from college and joined the business. So far I’ve impressed him twice: once by marrying his heir apparent to the business, Jake Morley, and once by giving him a grandson.”
“Ouch.”
“Oh, I know he loves me, and I’m not complaining. Just once I want to do something in the business that will knock his socks off and make him realize I am not my mother. I don’t want to inherit the business. I want a life. Whoever runs the Randall Corporation will not have a life. I want to be part of Austin’s life.”
“What does Jake Morley think about all this?”
“Jake thinks I should demand the business and that I’m not assertive enough with my father.”
“So where does Matt fit into all this?” Millicent asked.
“I’m not sure, but I do know if he finds out who I really am, his first reaction is going to be the same as yours and everyone else’s—that I was using him.” She watched as the cheerleaders and their mothers went back and forth between the house and the buffet tables. They were holding up their end of the deal by doing the cleanup work. “I’m not sure if what Matt and I have now is strong enough to survive that first reaction.”
“If it doesn’t, maybe it wasn’t meant to be. But what if it does? What then?”
“I want to knock his socks off too.” Sierra smiled. “I believe I have it all worked out where I not only impress my father and Jake, but Matt too. Being a businesswoman is who I am. Matt has to understand that.”
Millicent nodded. “Teddy’s property.”
“Excuse me?”
“Teddy Jefferies’ piece of land out on Route 186.”
“How do you know about that?” Here she had thought she had been low-key about the whole business.
Millicent chuckled. “I keep my ear close to the ground when it comes to Misty Harbor.”
“The Jefferies property is twenty miles away.”
“Practically right around the corner.” Millicent leaned back into the bench and relaxed. “Just because the Randall Corporation doesn’t want the lighthouse property doesn’t mean that another hotel or business won’t. The value of the land is considerable, and the taxes I pay on it go a long way to fill the town’s budget. If I donate the land to the town, it will lose the tax revenue, and they’re having trouble meeting their expenditures now, which means they would raise everyone’s property taxes. I also sincerely doubt Matt would be able to afford the piece of ground at its current value.” Millicent gave a weary sigh. “As you said, it’s complicated.”
“Life usually is.” Sierra quoted back Millicent’s words.
Millicent laughed. “I like you, Sierra Morley, even though I still think you’re making a mistake with Matt. Tell him the truth.”
“I haven’t lied to him.” She had just been awfully careful to make sure the subject never came up in their conversations.
“He’s not going to see it that way.” Millicent laughed as the three Porter boys came sneaking back around the side of the house. “Now there’s trouble if ever I saw it.”
Sierra laughed with Millicent. John, Paul, and Matt all looked so proud of themselves. “How much money do you want to wager that they tied more than tin cans to the back bumper of Ned’s truck?”
“I’m a betting woman, Sierra, but I won’t bet on that. I’ve seen the Porter boys in action since the time they could walk.”
“Well, the town’s still standing.” How bad could they have been? They all had grown into remarkable men.
Millicent snorted as Matt started walking toward them. “No thanks to them.”
“How are my two favorite ladies?” Matt sat down between them and spread his arms wide on the back of the bench.
“I was just about to tell Sierra about the time I caught you up on my roof,” Millicent said.
Matt shrugged. “Lost baseball.”
“The night Paul and you dug up six of my prize rose bushes and replaced them with six dead ones?”
Sierra cringed at that one.
“It was a dare we had to do so we would be allowed to get into the clubhouse.” Matt looked guilty for that one.
“What about the time I caught you behind Bailey’s ice cream shop playing tonsil hockey with that girl? What was her name?”
Matt sat up straight as a flush swept up his cheeks. “Gee, look at that fountain, Sierra. I wonder who picked it out?”
Sierra giggled. “You’re cute when you blush.”
“Guys don’t blush.” Matt glared at Millicent.
Millicent smiled serenely as she looked around Matt to the bare-breasted mermaid pouring water out of a shell. “I’d say from the size of her bosom, your father, Matt.”
Matt’s eyes opened wide. “What do you know about my father and his preferences in the female form?”
“What, you think he married your mother for her cooking?” Millicent laughed with delight.
Matt groaned and buried his face in his hands.
Sierra patted Matt on the back. She could sympathize with him. Children should never have to think about their parents having sex.
The music from the tent unexpectedly stopped in the middle of a song. “Excuse me, everyone, I need to make an announcement.” John Porter took the DJ’s mike. “Ethan and Olivia Wycliffe have just become the proud parents of a baby boy. Olivia and son are doing exceptionally well, and from all accounts, Ethan managed to pull through it without too many complications.”
Someone shouted a question that Sierra couldn’t hear.
“The baby weighs eight pounds, four ounces, is twenty-one inches long, and no name has been given to the little tyke yet. Olivia and Ethan are still discussing it.”
Cheers erupted, and somewhere over by the bar another champagne cork popped. The music was turned back on and more people crowded their way onto the dance floor.
“Ah, that’s the fourth baby born this year.” Millicent beamed with pride. “We’re going to need another teacher or two soon.” Millicent looked at Sierra. “You wouldn’t happen to know any teachers, would you?”
Considering she’d just had dinner with one, it was an easy question to answer. “Gordon’s daughter, Juliet, teaches third grade.”
Chapter Fifteen
Juliet stood in the doorway of the bookstore and looked across the street to where Gordon stood in conversation with Harvey Krup, the owner of Krup’s General Store. Both men were puffing away on their pipes and more than likely discussing yes
terday’s wedding. Sunday mornings in Misty Harbor were quiet and peaceful.
A few residents had stopped in earlier. Most wanted to gossip about who had drunk too much at the reception and who had danced with whom. Some had even placed bets with Gordon on whether Chelsea, the maid of honor, would be going back to Philadelphia.
Seemed Chelsea had partaken a little too freely of the nectar of the gods and had declared she wanted to become the mayor of Misty Harbor. Someone had tacked up a VOTE FOR CHELSEA poster on the door of Buddy’s Bait Shop down at the docks. In the middle of the poster was a blown-up digital photo of Chelsea at the wedding. She looked like Miss America. The only thing missing had been the crown and sash. A petition was already circulating throughout town to put Chelsea’s name on the November ballot.
Gordon had signed the petition without blinking an eye.
Juliet didn’t know what shocked her more, the fact that what appeared to be normal, sane residents were taking Chelsea seriously, or that Juliet’s father was running a booking operation out of the shop.
Juliet had placed five bucks on Chelsea waking this morning with a killer hangover and regretting her impromptu speech about a lobster in every pot and a Johnson outboard engine in every garage. Juliet had missed the speech but had heard the highlights from Gordon this morning over coffee. That’s what she got for leaving the reception early with Steve to go strolling down by the docks. They had missed all the politics.
“Hey, you’re scaring all the customers away with all this fresh air.” Gordon knocked the ash out of his pipe and into the ashtray filled with sand next to the front door. A NO SMOKING sign had been taped to each front door. “It’s still a little chilly out.”
“No, it’s not.” Juliet moved away from the doors but kept them open. A breeze was ruffling a couple pages of the magazines. Gordon had opened the shop while she had slept in. Once he had filled her in on the local gossip, she had kicked him out front for his morning smoke. “It’s a beautiful morning. The fresh air will do you good—clear out those lungs.”
A Misty Harbor Wedding Page 23
