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

  He reached up, touching her cheek. “I like the view better from here.”

  “That’s enough,” Ryan Callahan said, a warning in his voice as he strode out of the café. Taking Jimmy’s elbow, he steered him toward the steps. “Becca’s right. It’s time for you to go home.”

  Jimmy jerked his arm free and Ryan pushed him, hard, toward the stairs. Jimmy stumbled, hiccupped, then burst out laughing as he looped his arm around Ryan’s shoulders. “How about a game of pool at Rusty’s?”

  “Sure,” Ryan murmured. “Right after I shove you off the pier to sober you up.”

  Joe Dozier, Della’s husband, peeled off from the group of watermen and followed Ryan to lend a hand. The rest of the islanders watched them go with a mixture of pity and disapproval on their faces. All except for one man—Becca’s father—who was staring down into his soda, his head bent in shame, unable to even look at the spectacle Jimmy was making of himself.

  Because that had been him once.

  “How about a cup of coffee?” Annie suggested lightly from behind her. “I just powered up the espresso machine.”

  Becca shook her head. She didn’t need a cup of coffee. What she needed was for Jimmy to quit drinking and take care of Luke, for Tom to stop bailing on her, and for the board to drop their threat to close the school.

  She looked back at Luke, who was standing now, unsure of what to do as he watched Jimmy walk away. Becca pushed off the railing, starting toward the steps.

  Shelley stopped her. “I’ll go,” she said. “I’ll tell Luke to come up to the porch and have something to eat with us.”

  Becca nodded, still so angry she could hardly speak. Spotting her best friend, Grace Callahan at the other end of the porch, Becca strode over to her. “We need to talk,” she said, motioning for her friend to follow her around the side of the wraparound porch so the rest of the islanders couldn’t hear them.

  “What’s up?” Grace asked.

  Becca paused under a beam covered in wind chimes made of tinted sea glass. “What do you know about Lydia Vanzant?”

  “Nick Foley’s ex-wife?”

  Becca nodded. She didn’t care if Shelley thought their chances of saving the school were almost nonexistent. There was no way she was going to let a woman with an axe to grind against her ex-husband use them in some petty game of revenge.

  Grace Callahan was one of the top political reporters for The Washington Tribune, the largest newspaper in D.C. If anyone could dig up information on the governor’s former spouse, it would be Grace.

  “Not that much,” Grace said. “I mean, I know she had a hell of a reputation as a public school administrator, but you probably know more about that than I do. Other than that, I haven’t read anything about her in years—at least not since the divorce. Why? What’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  A child’s laughter drifted in from the yard, and they both turned, watching Della adjust Taylor’s flower crown so it wouldn’t slip into her eyes while she filled her plate with food.

  “Would you let me know if you hear anything, or see her name mentioned anywhere?” Becca asked.

  “Sure,” Grace said. “Is there anything in particular you want me to keep an eye out for?”

  “No,” Becca said as sunlight filtered through the glass, casting a kaleidoscope of colors over the side of the café. “But feel free to dig as deep as you want.”

  Colin drove through Severna Park, the affluent suburb north of Annapolis where he’d lived as a child. Waterfront estates sat back on sprawling lawns, surrounded by manicured gardens and hundred-year-old shade trees. Long paved driveways were filled with expensive cars, most likely belonging to family members who’d gathered together for the Easter holiday. In a few of the yards, children chased each other around, laughing and scouring the ground for eggs.

  When he felt the familiar tug of longing for a family of his own, he clamped down on it. It had been over a year since he’d let his mind wander down that path. Holidays had always had a way of busting big fat holes through his defenses.

  He’d spent most of the day alone, declining his father’s invitation to join him and Natalie at church that morning. He’d never been particularly religious and he had no desire to be part of the obligatory photo op at the charity event afterwards. Holidays, in his family, had always been more about how to gain a political edge over an opponent than anything else.

  Besides, he thought, as he closed in on the last driveway at the end of the street and caught a glimpse of his childhood home—a three-story brick mansion with white columns and a sweeping view of the Severn River—he knew better than to show any signs of weakness around his mother.

  He turned into his old driveway, passing under ten evenly spaced, perfectly pruned maple trees. Rolling to a stop beside the brick walkway, he cut the engine and stepped out of the truck. A curtain moved in one of the downstairs windows as he walked up to the door and knocked.

  He waited, listening to the sound of her footsteps getting closer.

  When the door swung open, his mother took one look at him and her expression turned stone cold. “You’re not welcome here.”

  “It’s not a social call.”

  She tried to close the door in his face, but he’d been expecting it, and stopped the heavy mahogany panel with his palm.

  “What do you want?” she asked coldly.

  “To talk.”

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Then you can listen.” He pushed the door open the rest of the way and walked past her into the house. “Because I have a few things to say to you.”

  His childhood home looked exactly the same—the cold gray interior, the white leather furniture, the polished marble floors and glass tables. The windows were shut, the air set to sixty-eight degrees, just as it had always been, even though the weather outside was perfect and everyone else had their windows open to let in the fresh air.

  Two steps into the living room, he froze when he saw the pictures.

  Of Hayden.

  Everywhere.

  Jesus.

  Hayden blowing out the candles on his third birthday cake. Hayden learning how to ride a bicycle. Hayden winning first prize at the school science fair. Hayden posing with his prom date on the front steps. Hayden graduating from high school.

  There were no pictures of Hayden in his uniform, after he’d joined the Navy at eighteen. And there were no pictures of Colin, not even in the background of any of the shots.

  Colin looked back at his mother.

  She regarded him coolly, her arms crossed over her chest. “Do the pictures make you uncomfortable?”

  “No,” he lied.

  “They should.”

  Every muscle in his body clenched, walling off the grief. He tried not to think too much about Hayden. He’d never thought too much about the scrawny kid who had followed him everywhere, like a shadow, when they were growing up. By the time his brother had finally earned his respect, and a tentative bond had begun to form between them, it had been too late.

  Five years had passed. Five years, three months, and seventeen days since Hayden’s P-3C Orion had been shot down in Iraq.

  His mother had cut him out of her life that day, the final resounding click in a door that had begun to swing shut a long time before that. It was hard to believe that this woman, this stranger, had ever loved him. But she had. At least for the first eight years of his life.

  Until Hayden had come along.

  Her miracle child. The child she had given up hope of having so many years before. The child who, if he had come along earlier, would have been all his parents had needed.

  Instead, they’d resorted to adoption. And they’d gotten Colin. Because power couples like Nick Foley and Lydia Vanzant needed at least one child to soften their image, to gain the respect of other hardworking mothers and fathers, to tap into those deep-rooted family values that lived in the hearts of so many U.S. voters.

  The memories re
ached up through the floorboards, cold fingers of loneliness and bitter resentments. He tried to force them back, pushing them into the dark corner all SEALs saved for thoughts that no longer served them. He hadn’t come here to relive that time in his life, to remember how alone and unwanted he had once felt. It had been here, in this house, when he’d learned—for the first time, but certainly not the last—how easily he could be cast aside.

  He had tried everything to win his mother’s love back after Hayden came along: getting straight A’s at school, excelling at every sport, joining all the clubs she encouraged him to, eventually getting accepted at the same Ivy League college she’d attended herself. But it had all been in vain.

  The day Hayden had been born, he had ceased to exist in his mother’s eyes.

  Turning his back on the woman who still stood in the doorway, he spotted the laptop sitting on the writing desk beneath the wide window overlooking the backyard. A single spreadsheet covered in numbers was open on the screen and the words, “Consolidation,” “Renovation,” and “Demolition” stood out in bold block letters at the top of the columns—words that could only have to do with one thing.

  “I know you’re still angry with me, but if you need someone to attack, take it out on me,” Colin said. “Don’t take it out on Dad.”

  “He asked for this.”

  Colin turned. “How?”

  “You think I don’t still have friends in his office? You think I don’t know about his decision to move funds allocated for education into a jobs program for veterans?”

  Colin cursed under his breath. “I know you didn’t agree with the war, and you’re entitled to that opinion. But spending money on going to war and taking care of the men and women who served in it when they come home are two very different things. You can’t be against helping the people who fought for your freedom.”

  “They should never have been over there in the first place.”

  Colin struggled to control his temper. “The people who went overseas volunteered to go. They wanted to go. You can’t punish them for that. If Hayden was here, if he was the one standing here, asking you to support his friends when they came back home, you would be the one in Dad’s office right now, fighting to move funds from every other program in this state to help veterans.”

  Grief and anger flashed through Lydia’s eyes. “But Hayden’s not here, is he? He’ll never be standing here. Because of you.”

  Colin took a step toward her. “Hayden’s death was not my fault.”

  “You knew he would follow in your footsteps,” Lydia accused. “He idolized you.”

  “Hayden was eighteen when he enlisted.” Colin’s fingers curled into fists at his sides. “He was capable of making his own decisions.”

  “You encouraged him.”

  He hadn’t, Colin thought. He had tried to talk him out of it. But what was the point in arguing about it now? Hayden was gone and nothing either of them could say or do would ever bring him back.

  “Sometimes,” Colin said, meeting his mother’s gaze across the room. “I think you wish I’d died instead of Hayden.”

  “You’re right,” she said, opening the door. “I do.”

  Curled up on the sofa in her living room, Becca stared at the blank sheet of paper in her lap. It shouldn’t be this hard, she thought. All she needed were a few sentences, a few simple phrases that captured her feelings. She didn’t want to be overly gushy or use fancy flowery prose. Not when she had to say the words out loud, in front of over a hundred and fifty people.

  She shuddered. How had she let this wedding get so big?

  All she’d ever wanted was something simple, quiet, just family and a few close friends. She would have been perfectly happy to wake up on a pretty weekend morning, put on her mother’s wedding dress, walk across the street to Magnolia Harbor, have one of the boat captains marry her and Tom, and head over to the café for a celebratory lunch.

  But once the planning had started, and Tom had begun adding people, the guest list had taken on a life of its own. At this rate, close to half of Tom’s law firm would be showing up.

  Maybe that was why she was having so much trouble writing her vows.

  It wasn’t a fear of public speaking. She’d gotten over her shyness of talking in front of large groups of people a long time ago. But she was used to talking to students, parents, and other teachers. She was used to talking about the curriculum, teaching methods, and plans for the next school year.

  She was not used to talking about her feelings. She had never been very good at talking about her feelings, even with her closest friends, let alone in front of a crowd of people, many of whom she didn’t even know.

  But it had been her idea that she and Tom write their own vows. It seemed so much more personal to say what was in your own heart rather than recite the canned script everyone else used.

  Pressing the tip of her pen back to the paper, she scrawled, “Tom, I love you. I’ve loved you since we were sixteen. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you, to give you children, to grow old with you. I can’t wait for our lives together to finally begin.”

  That was it, right?

  That was all she had to say.

  Simple. Honest. True.

  A tug of uneasiness nagged at her as she reread the words. Something still felt off. Something…she couldn’t put her finger on.

  A knock on her door had her pushing the notebook aside. “Come in,” she called, relieved by the interruption. It was probably her father, wanting to borrow some laundry detergent or coffee for the morning. Or maybe one of her students. She had told Luke to come over if he ever needed anything.

  When whoever it was didn’t just walk in, as most of her friends and neighbors would without a second thought, she stood and crossed the room to the door, opening it. The last thing she expected was to find the man who’d been invading her every thought for the past few days filling her doorway.

  “Colin,” she said, surprised. “Hi.” Glancing down at the oversized flannel shirt she was wearing over a thin tank top and cut off shorts, she quickly wrapped the plaid material around her midsection. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

  “I should have called first.” His voice was low and deep. It rumbled through the quiet neighborhood streets.

  “No. It’s fine. You didn’t need to call. My door is always open.” She stepped back, motioning for him to come in.

  He walked inside, his gaze sweeping around her cluttered living room filled with wedding projects and packing boxes. Becca closed the door behind him, feeling suddenly self-conscious. Colin had never been to her house before. She imagined what it must look like through his eyes: the student artwork hanging on the walls, the antique knickknacks on the bookshelves, the hand-me-down furniture and mismatched lamps, the woven rugs covering worn wooden floorboards that squeaked when you stepped on them.

  To her, everything about this house was cozy, comforting, familiar.

  But she and Colin had come from very different backgrounds.

  “I’m sorry about the mess.” Gathering up an armful of magazines from the seat of the leather chair across from the sofa, she gestured for him to sit.

  He walked over to the chair, resting his hands on the back, but he didn’t sit.

  Becca paused, noticing his tense expression for the first time. “Is everything all right?”

  “No.”

  Her brows drew together at the hard edge in his voice. The sun had set and dusk was settling over the island. Even with a few of the table lamps burning, the lighting was dim, making his features appear harder, his eyes an even deeper shade of blue.

  She waited, watching him as the silence stretched on. She had never seen him like this before. He was usually so calm, so lighthearted, so quick to fill the silence with a question or a casually flirtatious comment. She could sense the restless energy rippling off him now, the anger simmering beneath the surface.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” he said final
ly.

  Becca picked up the notebook she’d been using to work on her vows, quietly closing it and setting it on the table between them.

  Colin’s hands tightened around the back of the chair. “The complication with the school I mentioned the other day might be a bigger problem than we thought.”

  “It is…Lydia?” Becca asked.

  He gazed back at her, obviously surprised that she knew.

  “Shelley told me,” Becca explained. “She thinks your mother’s offering her services as a consultant to get back at your father.”

  “She’s right.”

  Becca’s heart sank. She had been hoping all day that Shelley had been wrong, or at least, if she hadn’t been, that Colin would be able to appeal to his mother on their behalf. The fact that he was here, in her house, bearing bad news, meant that he must not think he had any sway over her. “Are you close with your mother?”

  “No.”

  Maybe that was why he was so upset, Becca thought. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “A few hours ago.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t close.”

  “We’re not.” His gaze drifted over to the window. “I went to her house this afternoon for the first time…in a long time. I thought I might be able to reason with her.”

  “It didn’t go well?” Becca ventured.

  He shook his head.

  She wished he would sit down. She wished he would tell her what was wrong. She couldn’t stand to see him like this. “Why aren’t you and your mother close?”

  He looked away, saying nothing.

  Unable to stop herself, she walked out from behind the coffee table and placed a hand on his arm, pulling him toward the chair. “Colin, please sit down. Talk to me.”

  He didn’t move, but he did look at her. Becca’s breath caught when she saw the raw emotions in his eyes—grief, anger, pain. She could feel the warmth of his skin pulsing beneath her palm, a sharp contrast to those cool blue eyes and that calm exterior she had never seen a single crack in until now. The muscles in his arm flexed under her fingers, hard knots of tension, coiled, ready to spring.