Wind Chime Wedding (A Wind Chime Novel Book 2) Read online

  “Colin—”

  “Put her on, Dad.”

  “What?”

  “Put her on,” Colin repeated, leaning his shoulder against the unpainted doorframe. “I know she’s sitting right next to you.”

  There was another long pause before his stepmother’s smooth, cultured voice drifted through the line. “Colin, honey, I need to know who you’re bringing to the dinner Saturday night.”

  “Hi, Natalie.”

  His stepmother sighed. “Why do you insist on making this difficult for me?”

  Colin smiled. “Because I don’t need you to set me up.”

  “But I have so many friends with nice single daughters.”

  “I don’t need you to set me up,” he repeated.

  “But what about Priscilla Davenport’s daughter, Julie—remember her? Your father said you two went to pre-school together.”

  “Oh?” Colin said. “Were we an item back then?”

  “Please be serious, Colin. Julie just moved back to the area and she’s recently divorced. I think you two would really hit it off.” She added a note of hope into her voice. “I could arrange for you to sit together on Saturday night…”

  “Natalie.” Colin pushed off the doorframe. The woman was relentless. “I’m bringing someone.”

  “Who?” she asked, surprised.

  “You’ll meet her on Saturday.”

  “Won’t you at least tell me her name?”

  “No.”

  His stepmother lowered her voice to a whisper. “She’s not one of those women you pick up at the bars, is she?”

  Colin choked out a laugh. “What?”

  “I know what goes on in downtown Annapolis on the weekends,” she huffed. “I hear things.”

  Colin rolled his eyes. “I’m not bringing a woman I picked up at a bar.”

  “Then who is she?”

  “Someone you’ve never met before.”

  “How…mysterious.”

  Yes, Colin thought. She was. She was so mysterious she didn’t even exist yet.

  “You’d better not be making this up,” Natalie warned. “Last time you told me you were bringing a date, you came alone, and there was an empty seat beside you all night. We had to put your father’s jacket on the back of your chair so it didn’t look like you’d been stood up.”

  Colin shook his head, smiling. No one at that party had thought he’d been stood up. But appearances were everything to his stepmother. And ever since she’d taken it on as her life’s mission to find him a wife, he hadn’t had a moment’s peace. If he had to spend one more night talking to a woman who made him want to claw his eyes out from boredom, he’d lose it. “There won’t be an empty seat this time, I promise.”

  “I wish you would tell me who you’re bringing,” she said. “What if I forget her name when I’m introducing her to people?”

  “You won’t forget her name,” Colin said. Natalie Foley never forgot a name. “I’ll see you on Saturday.” Ending the call, he slipped his phone back in his pocket.

  Jimmy walked out to the porch, unscrewing the cap off a tarnished silver flask. “I made a few calls. Looks like I can get a bigger crew here to start on Monday.”

  “Thanks,” Colin said.

  Jimmy handed him the flask.

  Colin took it, walking down the steps to where a pile of raw lumber sat under a blue tarp. He lifted the tarp with the toe of his boot, inspecting the quality of the wood.

  “I saw your picture in the paper last weekend,” Jimmy said.

  “Yeah?” Colin said distractedly.

  “Who was that woman you were with?”

  “Last weekend?” They were all starting to run together at this point. Letting the tarp fall back into place, he glanced back at Jimmy. “Christy Caraway, maybe?”

  “Christy Caraway of Caraway’s Crab House? The heir to the biggest chain of seafood restaurants in the Mid-Atlantic?”

  Colin nodded, taking a sip from the flask.

  Jimmy whistled. “I’m impressed.” Leaning back against the house, the contractor dipped his hands in his pockets. “Nice rack, too. Have you seen her naked?”

  Colin smiled. “She’s easy on the eyes, but that’s about all she’s got going for her.”

  Jimmy grinned. “She looked pretty good in that picture.”

  They all looked good in the pictures, Colin thought. Every woman his stepmother set him up with was the same: attractive, wealthy, well connected, and only interested in him for one reason—because he was the governor’s son.

  He’d been engaged to a woman who’d only wanted him for his status before—for being a SEAL. He hadn’t realized it at the time, but his ex-fiancée had made it perfectly clear when she’d broken up with him a week after he’d returned from Afghanistan without his leg, saying she couldn’t marry an amputee.

  Gazing out at the wide expanse of water, he watched the late afternoon sunlight glint over the surface. He could hear the water lapping against the rocks along the shoreline, the wind whipping at the layers of plastic covering the gaps in the walls where a few of the downstairs windows were being replaced.

  There was no going back, no point in remembering what he’d lost or who he’d once been. This place was his future. And the first step was opening by Memorial Day.

  Nothing was going to get in the way of that.

  Screwing the cap back on the flask, he tossed it to Jimmy.

  Now, all he needed was to find a date for Saturday night.

  It was close to four o’clock when Becca walked out of the elementary school. The parking lot was empty except for the few cars that belonged to the teachers who hadn’t left yet—teachers who were going to find out next week that they would soon be out of a job.

  Unlocking her Toyota Corolla, she set her purse in the back seat, and looked across the street at Magnolia Harbor. April winds whipped at the sailboats in the slips. Halyards clanged against metal masts and white caps chopped over the surface of the Chesapeake Bay. She could hear the gravelly voices of several watermen talking to each other as they prepped their lines and traps for the morning.

  The teachers weren’t the only ones who would be out of jobs soon. The watermen on this island had been struggling to make ends meet for years now. Many of them, including her father, had already taken on second and third jobs on the mainland.

  Their hearts might still be out on the water, but deep down, they all knew that their way of life was slowly dying.

  You picked a good time to leave.

  Opening her driver’s side door, Becca slid behind the wheel. How was it a good time to leave when everything was falling apart? It felt like a betrayal, escaping just in time. Like she was turning her back on her friends.

  She pulled her phone out to see if Tom had called her back since she’d left him a message an hour ago, but there was only a single text message from Jimmy Faulkner, the contractor in charge of renovating the waterfront inn where her wedding would be held in three weeks.

  Ran into a setback. Call me.

  Fantastic, she thought, dropping the phone onto the seat beside her and easing out of the spot. What else could go wrong today?

  Turning right out of the parking lot onto the long flat road leading toward the inn, she watched a lone osprey glide over the thin fingers of water that snaked in and out of the marshes. She still couldn’t believe Shelley hadn’t told her the school was in danger of being shut down. Up until an hour ago, she’d thought they told each other everything.

  Was this the beginning of what her new life was going to be like—her friends hiding their problems from her because she was leaving?

  She didn’t want to be cut off from her community, from being a part of this island.

  It wasn’t like she was moving across the country.

  D.C. was only two hours away.

  Dodging a pothole, she fought back another wave of uneasiness as a thick hedge of hollies and blackberry bushes gave way to a private stretch of land surrounded on three sides b
y water. A pale yellow inn with white shutters and a wide front porch sat at the end of a curved oyster shell driveway. Two trucks were parked outside: Jimmy Faulkner’s red Ford and Colin Foley’s dark blue Chevy.

  Her heart did a funny little flip flop in her chest at the thought of running into Colin. She hadn’t seen much of him over the past several months. He spent most of his time in Annapolis and only came down to the island on the weekends, while she spent most of her weekends in D.C. with Tom.

  As far as she knew, he was still working on his father’s reelection campaign.

  She paused, her eyes widening. Maybe Colin could help them. It might be too late to make any changes to the education budget for next year, but if the governor could promise an increase for the following year, maybe it would be enough to convince the board to keep the school open.

  Stepping out of the car with a renewed sense of hope, she saw the sheen of wet paint on the front porch steps and headed around the side of the house to the backyard. The faint scent of viburnums, sweet and spicy, filled the air when she spied the man down at the dock talking on his cell phone. Colin Foley’s back was to her, but there was no mistaking those broad shoulders, that tall commanding frame, that thick shock of black hair that had grown even longer since the fall.

  When he turned, and their eyes met across the long stretch of lawn, she felt the punch of heat roll all the way through her.

  “Enjoying the view?” a deep voice drawled.

  Becca jumped and spotted Jimmy leaning against the side of the house for the first time. “I didn’t even see you there.”

  “Clearly.” Jimmy chuckled, lifting a flask to his lips and taking a long sip.

  Becca narrowed her eyes, picking her way through the piles of raw lumber to where he stood. She watched him lower the flask until it dangled loosely from his fingertips, almost like an extension of the rest of his arm.

  No one should look that natural holding a flask.

  Jimmy had always been a drinker, but after his younger brother—Luke’s father—had passed away in January, things had taken a turn for the worse. A few of the islanders had talked about confronting him, but so far he hadn’t done anything to hurt anyone besides himself.

  Becca wasn’t crazy about the idea of waiting around for that to happen. She knew far too well the effects alcoholism could have if left unchecked. She held her hand out for the flask, intending to pour the contents onto the grass as soon as he gave it to her.

  Jimmy grinned, slipping it into his back pocket. “Why don’t you join me at Rusty’s tonight? Let me buy you a real drink?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Why not?” He pushed off the side of the house, looking her up and down suggestively. “You’re still single for three more weeks.”

  Becca took in his red rimmed eyes, unshaven face and unwashed flannel shirt. Part of her wished she could say something to convince him to clean up his act, if not for himself, at least for his sister-in-law. Courtney and Luke both needed him right now. But she knew better than to have that conversation when he’d been drinking. “I’m engaged. That doesn’t exactly make me single.”

  He took a step closer. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re still single until you walk down that aisle.”

  Becca felt a prick of irritation. Jimmy had always been a flirt, but lately his advances had gotten more persistent. “It’s not going to happen, Jimmy.”

  He reached up, picking a piece of Easter grass out of her hair. “I like it when you try to be stern.”

  She caught the sharp stench of whiskey on his breath and took a step back, putting more distance between them. “I got your text message,” she said, changing the subject. “You mentioned something about a setback.”

  He let the piece of plastic grass drop to the ground. “We found a crack in the foundation this morning. It’s going to push everything back a couple of weeks.”

  “A couple of weeks?” Becca’s brows shot up. “That only leaves one week to finish the rest of the renovations before the wedding.”

  Jimmy nodded.

  Becca looked back down at the man on the dock. “I think I’ll walk down and see if I can do anything to help.”

  “Suit yourself.” Jimmy pulled his flask back out of his pocket. “If you change your mind about tonight, you know where to find me.”

  “I’m not going to change my mind.” She turned, bristling at the sound of his low laugh as it followed her across the yard. She didn’t like the thought of Luke staying at his uncle’s house when Jimmy was drinking this much. She knew what it was like to watch someone drink to the point of blacking out each night. She knew what it was like to try to help them stumbling and staggering into bed only to find them passed out on the floor the next morning, still cradling the bottle from the night before.

  She knew how helpless it could make you feel, wondering if it would ever stop, wondering what you had done to cause it, wondering if one morning you would try to wake them up and find that you couldn’t.

  She made a mental note to talk to Courtney this weekend. She knew Luke’s mother was busy, but if she had to schedule a haircut to get some time with her, she would. Things couldn’t go on like this. If no one else was going to intervene, she would take matters into her own hands.

  Passing the old swing hanging from the branches of the black walnut tree, she let her fingers trail over the weathered ropes before stepping onto the wooden planks of the dock. “Hey,” she said, just as Colin ended his call.

  “Hey, yourself,” he said, smiling and pocketing his phone. “Long time no see.”

  She nodded, trying not to notice the way his thin gray T-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and muscular chest. A pair of worn jeans hung from his narrow hips and his work boots made a dull thudding sound against the wood as his long legs ate up the pier.

  If it weren’t for the subtle difference in the drape of the denim against his left leg, she would never know there was a prosthesis hidden beneath his jeans. Not that the loss of a limb seemed to be affecting his love life in any way. His picture had been in the newspaper several times over the winter and a different gorgeous woman had been hanging on his arm in every shot.

  Annie and Della had started taking bets at the café on which one he’d end up with.

  When he paused in front of her, she had to tilt her face to look up at him. At five-foot-two, she was short compared to most people, but Colin towered over her by more than a foot. “How’ve you been?”

  “Good.” He shifted a little to the left, so he was blocking the sun. His features came into view even sharper—that strong chiseled jaw, those wide slashing cheekbones, that full, sensual mouth. “Busy. You?”

  “Yeah, me too,” she said, suddenly at a loss for words. She had forgotten she tended to get a little tongue-tied around Colin. There was something about those cool blue eyes that unnerved her…and made her feel things she really shouldn’t be feeling when she was engaged to another man.

  Her gaze shifted away from his face and she struggled to think of something else normal and natural to say.

  “I just got off the phone with Will,” Colin said. “He said to say, hi.”

  She brightened slightly. “How’s he doing?”

  “Anxious to get back to the island.”

  Anxious to get back to Annie was more like it, Becca thought. Will had fallen head over heels for the single mother when he’d come back to the island on temporary leave last fall. The two of them were engaged now. In a few weeks, they, along with Annie’s eight-year-old daughter, would be moving into the private wing that had been added onto the inn over the winter.

  Jimmy and his crew had managed to build a brand new addition that fit perfectly with the historic structure. The contractor might be teetering on the edge of alcoholism, but no one would ever question his ability to get the job done, and get it done right.

  Getting it done on time was another matter entirely.

  “Jimmy told me about the crack in the foundation.�
��

  “Yeah.” Colin rubbed a hand over his jaw. “The timing’s unfortunate. We’ll have to hire a bigger crew to get the place ready in time, but it’s either that or push back the opening, and we’re not pushing back the opening.”

  She’d figured he’d say that. “Can I do anything to help?”

  He shook his head. “We’ve got it covered.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked, surprised by the confident tone of his voice. “Because Jimmy said—”

  “Let me handle Jimmy.”

  Becca’s gaze flickered down to the long, lean muscles of his forearms where he’d rolled up his sleeves and the big, wide-palmed hands that had earned him the reputation of being one of the Navy’s deadliest snipers before his career had been cut short.

  She had no doubt the former SEAL could handle their small town contractor.

  “So,” she said, forcing the thought of what other skills those hands might have out of her mind, “how’s the campaign going?”

  “Pretty good. My father’s not thrilled that I’m cutting out early, but he’ll get over it.”

  Becca nodded, remembering that when Colin had first raised the idea of the rehab center to Will, he had suggested they open by the fall. But once Will had signed on and Colin had started rounding up funding, things had picked up speed fast. The two men had pushed the opening date up to Memorial Day.

  Colin gazed out at the water, watching a pair of ducks paddle toward the marshes. “I’m just happy not to think about it when I’m down here.”

  Of course he would want to escape the campaign when he came to the island, Becca thought. According to Annie and Will, Colin had never wanted to work on his father’s campaign. He had only agreed to it because it would mean that he’d get to spend six months rubbing shoulders with some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in Maryland—people who might be interested in investing in the veterans’ center.

  Unfortunately, she really wanted to talk to him about politics right now.

  “I always feel like a weight has lifted when I cross the Bay Bridge. Like all that”—Colin gestured behind him toward the Western Shore, which was home to the cities of Baltimore, Annapolis, and the sprawling outskirts of D.C.—“is worlds away. I can’t wait to move here full time in a few weeks.”