Just Married!

by Cara Colter

  And over all the ridiculous things, because he had always called her Samantha and never Sam and she was going to miss the way he saw her so badly it felt as if she might die.

  She hugged the dog she was not keeping to her, let him lick away her tears and thought, Tomorrow I will find Waldo a new place to go, too.

  Ethan hung up his phone, and stared at it with disbelief. He was aware he was shaking with fury, and glad he was not anywhere near the delectable Miss Hall at the moment. He might strangle her!

  How could Samantha, after these intense days together, not know who he was? How could she not trust him? He thought he loved her, and she could believe the absolute worst of him on so little evidence?

  It was the most insulting thing that had ever happened to him. He was astounded by the depth of his hurt. He wanted to smash things. He wanted to stand out on his balcony and yell obscenities at the top of his lungs. He wanted to convince her she was wrong, and in the next breath, he wanted to convince her he was indifferent to her.

  He did go stand on his balcony for a moment, and something in him quieted as the sea breeze touched his skin, reminded him of racing across the sand with her, kites behind them. He remembered bonfires, and laughter, digging for clams, swimming under a sky that was exploding.

  And he remembered her face when she had looked at Annie’s Retreat.

  The wistfulness so naked in it, even though she had been trying to hide it.

  And suddenly the truth came to him, as quiet as that breeze and just as comforting. She wanted to love him, and she was scared to death at the same time.

  This wasn’t about him. Love was asking him not to make it about him, to rise above his bruised ego and see.

  And when he looked hard, what he saw was a little girl who had lost her parents at a young and impressionable age.

  She had probably been scared to death to trust one single thing about life ever since then. What about her life would have made her believe, not just that good things happened, but that they stayed? Look at what had just happened to her business, the building sold out from under her, reinforcing her belief that nothing good could last, nothing good could stay.

  No wonder she was afraid of what he had seen so clearly in her eyes.

  She was falling in love with him.

  That was going to be his job. To show her. That good things happened. And that they stayed. It was going to be his job to show her that she didn’t have to sacrifice her independence to accept love, to not be lonely anymore.

  He picked up the phone and called Annie and Artie Finkle. Artie was away but the next day Ethan sat with Annie in the little cottage Sam had loved. He told Annie the truth. All of it. That he had planned to trick them into thinking he was the ideal purchaser for their property. And that he had talked Samantha into going along with it by holding out a carrot he thought she couldn’t resist, Groom to Grow. But she hadn’t been able to compromise herself, and in that moment, when he had seen the uncompromising strength of her character, he had started to become what he had pretended to be, a man in love.

  “Asking her to pretend to be my bride was my worst idea ever,” he confessed. “Now she thinks,” he said softly, “that I bought the store to win her over more completely, and that I just pretended to love her to get what I wanted from you. And it’s not true.”

  “Of course it’s not true,” Annie said, and placed her wrinkled, age-spotted hand over his, comforting, forgiving. “You couldn’t have bought her building. Artie and I did. I didn’t realize Groom to Grow was Samantha’s business, of course.”

  “You bought her building?” Ethan asked, stunned.

  “I went there shortly after you and Sam had been here. I wanted a cute little hoodie for Josie like the one that Samantha had for her dog. When I saw the For Sale sign on the business, I arranged for Artie and I to see the apartment above it. I just fell in love with it—looking out over the park, over the store, all the wonderful original details giving it so much character.

  “I just felt if we lived there we would still be so much a part of the community, not locked up in some gated community where you can’t even hear children laugh! I’m going to open my shop there.” She lowered her voice. “Artie needs something to do. Retirement is boring him to death. We saw some older gentlemen playing chess in the square the day we were there. I can’t wait to be there, right in the heart of things.”

  “You bought it?” he asked again, and then had a flash of inspiration. “Can I buy it from you, then? I’ll give it back to her, and this whole mess will be fixed.”

  “No,” Annie said, smiling. “You can’t and it won’t. You see, son, you said that getting Samantha to pretend to be your fiancée was your worst idea ever, but in a way wasn’t it the best thing that ever happened to you?”

  He thought of those days with Sam, so filled with laughter and sunshine and discovery. It was true. His worst idea ever had given him the best days of his life.

  “I call that a spirit-shot,” Annie said softly, “when our worst experiences, our mistakes, our lead, are spun into gold. When you get to be my age, you take comfort in knowing something greater than you is running the show.”

  Ethan thought of that: the string of coincidences that had led him to Sam, the impulses that had driven him, though he was the world’s least impulsive man, the “mistake” that had made him deepen his relationship with her.

  “I don’t think what Samantha needs is her store back,” Annie said. “I think maybe she’s made that business fill all the spaces in her life that love is meant to fill. I think you are meant to marry that girl and give her the place we all long for.”

  “And what place is that?”

  Annie looked around the coziness of her living room, her eyes brimming with love. “Home,” she said softly. “Bring that girl home, young man.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ETHAN knocked on the door of the little fisherman’s cottage. It seemed to him the place was badly in need of a feminine hand.

  Mitch threw open the door, recognized him, and his whole face tightened. “You,” he spat out. “Which leg do you want broken first?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My little sister is a mess. Her eyes are nearly swollen shut from crying. She lost about ten pounds—that she can’t afford to lose. She’s letting Amanda run her business instead of going back to her husband where she belongs. Sam hasn’t even been inside the door of Groom to Grow in four days. I may just seem like a dumb lobsterman to you, but I know what a broken heart looks like.”

  “You don’t look like a dumb lobsterman to me,” Ethan said evenly. “You look like a guy who would go to the ends of the earth to make sure his sister was happy. That’s why I’m here.”

  Mitch looked at him suspiciously.

  “I love her,” Ethan said.

  “Oh, sure, that’s why she’s bawling her eyes out as we speak.”

  “She’s afraid to love me back, Mitch. You got any ideas where that would come from?”

  Mitch took a sudden interest in his sock, which, in true bachelor style, had a large hole in it that his toe was protruding through.

  “It was tough enough that she lost her folks,” Ethan said quietly. “But then her brothers wouldn’t get back in the game. So, she fell in love with her business, thinking that was safe. And now it looks like that isn’t any safer than anything else she’s ever loved in her life.”

  “It was safe for her to love me,” Mitch said. “And Jake. And Bryce.”

  “That’s why I’m here. I need your help. I need you to show her exactly how much you love her back.”

  “Why should I believe you know what’s best for her? Why should I help you?” Mitch said, not quite convinced.

  “Because, Mitch, I’m about to become your brother-in-law, and that means we’re going to be putting up with each other and helping each other out for a long, long time.”

  Mitch’s mouth fell open. He stared hard at Ethan. And then he gathered him up in a bear of a
hug that nearly crushed his ribs.

  The banging was at the door again.

  “Amanda,” Sam said over the soundtrack for Shrek, the movie she personally believed to be the most romantic of all time, “you have to talk to Charlie.”

  “That’s not Charlie. He doesn’t know I’m here watching a movie tonight.”

  “He drives around town looking for your car! It’s heartbreaking. Give the guy a break.” And more softly. “Please?”

  “I’m talking to Charlie,” Amanda said stubbornly, ignoring the knocking on the door, “when you talk to Ethan.”

  Well, that was a stalemate. Sam passed Amanda the bucket of Fudge Ripple and got up and answered the door.

  It wasn’t Charlie who stood there.

  It was Mitch. And Jake. And Bryce. Despite Waldo growling ferociously at them, having decided to hate all things male, they were grinning like gorillas who had just hijacked the banana train. They were filthy. Covered in sawdust and sweat streaks, clothes dirty. She could tell they were exhausted and exhilarated at the same time.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Kidnapping,” Bryce announced.

  “Kidnapping?” Amanda said from the doorway.

  “How exciting!”

  “You’re going to be next if you don’t smarten up about Charlie,” Bryce informed her darkly. “You’re killing that guy.”

  “Mind your own business,” Amanda told him snippily.

  Samantha tried to take advantage of the interchange to slide toward the bathroom where she could lock the door, but Mitch caught her, picked her up, tossed her over his shoulder and headed down the steep stairs with her. The dog bit him.

  He handed her easily to Jake and scooped up Waldo and placed him back inside the door. “I thought you were getting rid of that dog?”

  “Nobody wants him,” she said. It was true. She had interviewed about a dozen prospective owners for Waldo. Twice he’d even gone home with them. But he’d been back the next day, wagging his tail joyously when he saw her.

  A moment later she was pinned between Bryce and Jake in the back seat of Mitch’s station wagon.

  “You stink,” she told her brothers.

  “That’s what happens when you work around the clock,” Bryce said.

  “What’s going on?” she asked him. “I was in the middle of a good movie. And a good bucket of ice cream.”

  “Oh, well,” Bryce said. “You know where to find sympathy. In between—” he paused at Mitch’s glare in the mirror, and came up with a version altered from the usual ribald ones the boys used “—sympathize and sympathetic in the dictionary.”

  Her brothers had mollycoddled her for about twenty-four hours after she had announced to them that she was never speaking to Ethan Ballard again. Her brothers’ idea of mollycoddling was Mitch delivering fresh fish off the dock, Jake buying her a new fishing spool for her rod and Bryce cleaning the salt off her sailboat for her.

  And then, obviously figuring that was enough tenderness, not wanting to turn her into a wimp, they’d stopped. Stopped calling, stopped dropping by, suddenly frantically busy. She’d assumed they were uncomfortable with the intensity of her emotion. Now she saw it differently.

  Up to something. She really should have guessed sooner.

  Suddenly, even though it was dark, she recognized the road they had turned onto. Or was it? The sign Annie’s Retreat seemed to be missing.

  “What are we doing here?” she whispered.

  “We’ve been gettin’ ready for a wedding,” Jake announced.

  Mitch turned around and reached over the seat, clubbed his brother on the ear—affectionately, but still making his point. “Shut up,” he said. “Next thing you know, you’ll be proposing for him.”

  “For who?” she demanded, but her brothers had gone very silent. “Let me out,” she said. “Let me out right now. I’ll walk home!”

  Mitch surprised her by complying; he slammed on the brakes. Jake bailed out and held the door for her.

  And that’s when she noticed the torches burning bright on both sides of the pathway.

  “You just follow the light,” Mitch said softly out his open window. “It will lead you home.”

  And then he backed the vehicle out of there, and left her standing alone. It seemed to her she had a choice to make.

  She could stand there in the dark.

  Or she could go toward the light.

  And wasn’t that a choice all people had to make, sooner or later? Wasn’t that a choice she had made when she had spoken so cruelly to Ethan the night she had found out her store had sold?

  She had decided to walk in darkness.

  How often were people allowed to make that choice again?

  Slowly, and then more and more rapidly, until she was running, she followed the path lit by the torches.

  At the end of it was the cottage. A single light glowed within, the light of home, the light that every heart that had wandered until it was weary dreamed of seeing.

  She was no longer making a choice. She was being guided by something bigger than herself as she put one foot in front of the other and walked to the door that Ethan held open for her.

  He closed it behind her, and she looked at him, and seeing him so close made her realize she had missed him even more than she had thought, and she had thought she had missed him to the point of dying.

  He looked as bad as her brothers, though at least he had showered. But the handsome plains of his face were whisker-roughened, and he looked utterly exhausted. And yet a light shone in his eyes that took her breath from her.

  He said nothing. Just wrapped his arms around her, pulled her tight into himself, rested his chin on top of her head and sighed.

  After a long time, she stepped back from him, drank in his face once more and then, finally, not liking that she was responsible for the torment she saw there, looked around.

  The interior of the cottage had been completely gutted. All that remained were the original hardwood floors and the fireplace.

  “You bought it,” she whispered.

  “I did. The bride price.”

  She could not believe the changes he had made. When she had first looked at this place, she had said it would be a crime to change it.

  But then, she’d had a known allergy to change.

  And looking at what he had done: at how the space had opened, how the light would pour into every corner in the daytime, at how it would feel in here, airy, bright, clean, she realized to not change would have been the crime.

  And that was the crime she had been committing against herself. And against him.

  She looked at him again and allowed herself to call him, in her mind, what he was to her. Beloved.

  “I’m so sorry, Ethan. I’m so sorry for the accusations I made. It was never, ever about you. I’ve been terrified of change. I’m so mixed up…and so afraid.”

  She thought maybe it was the first time since her parents had died and she’d had brothers to live up to that she had admitted being afraid.

  It didn’t feel like a weakness to do it. It felt brave to let another person see, finally, who you really were.

  “I know you’re afraid,” he said, “and I have some bad news for you. I didn’t buy the store. Artie and Annie did. She wants to open her hand-painted-rug shop there. That’s why they were suddenly so eager to sell, and why they called me back. I told them the truth about our first visit here.”

  Sam felt, looking at him, he was showing her what real bravery was. It was making a mistake, admitting it and then going on.

  All this time, she had been so worried about losing Groom to Grow. How could it be possible that it felt so right that that lovely old couple had bought it?

  Maybe it felt right because Sam had decided to be truly brave and that meant relying on your heart for your strength, not your house. Certainly not your business.

  “It’s time for you to come home, Sam. To me. And this place. So you don’t have to b
e afraid anymore. I love you, Samantha Hall. I have loved you from the moment I saw you save that bouquet from the chocolate fountain when it was so apparent that was the last thing you wanted to do. I suppose I could live without you, but it seems like it would be a joyless existence, and I don’t want it.”

  He went down on one knee, fished a box from his pocket, opened it.

  Inside was a perfect, beautiful ring. The diamonds winked with captured light.

  “I can’t promise you a life where nothing bad ever happens,” he said quietly. “I can’t promise you a life with no more heartbreaks, much as I want to. But I can promise you days lived fully, that will fill us up with the strength to deal with life’s blows when they come. I cannot imagine my life without you in it. I want you to marry me, for real this time.”

  “Oh, Ethan, I don’t deserve—”

  But he silenced her with a look. “It’s kind of a yes or no thing.”

  “Yes,” she said, and he slipped the ring onto her finger, picked her up and waltzed her around the enormous expanse of the room he had been working on, and even though the space was altered from what it had been when she first saw it, she felt it again.

  The future shimmered in the room, danced with them. She could hear the laughter of friends, and the crying of babes, the squeals of children, the cheers of men watching baseball games, the quiet companionship of women.

  She could feel the love of her parents, finally victorious, finally going on. Through her.

  “Soon,” he said breathlessly, not letting her go, burying his face in her neck, kissing it. “I have to marry you soon. Because I can’t keep my hands off you much longer, and your brother Mitch will kill me if I don’t do this the honorable way.”

  For a moment, she thought she might have to talk to Mitch again, remind him she was an adult woman. But then she realized she just had to surrender and let her brother love her the way he loved her. In time, he would see she was an adult, her actions speaking louder than her words, and then he would treat her like one.