The Wedding Plan. Abby Gaines
at home…
Change wasn’t always a good thing.
“I’m a bit young for a midlife crisis, Dad,” Lucas said evenly. “I know who I am, and I know what matters. Will you help me or not?”
His father picked up a fat, cigar-shaped gold pen and flipped it between his fingers. “What does Merry think you should do?”
“We haven’t talked lately, and I haven’t seen her since I got into town. I came straight to you.”
Merry Wyatt was the daughter of John Wyatt, retired navy lieutenant and Dwight’s best friend. John and Dwight had served in Vietnam together, on a submarine, back when they were practically kids. John had saved Dwight’s life. Which Lucas assumed was why his unsentimental father had always shared John’s desire to see Lucas and Merry’s childhood friendship evolve into a romantic attachment.
He and Merry had humored their dads by dating once a year for the past, what, nine years? Yeah, nine, starting right after Merry graduated from high school. That first date had been a disaster, but some of the others had been…interesting. Over the years, each of them had used their on-again, off-again “romance” to their own advantage. Such as the year Lucas had claimed a back-home girlfriend as an excuse to refuse the attentions of his captain’s daughter without offending the captain.
Their last date, six months ago in Baltimore, was responsible for the recent radio silence he and Merry had been observing.
“You should ask her what she thinks,” his dad urged. “Merry’s a sensible girl.”
Sensible wasn’t the word Lucas would use. But if talking to Merry would help bring Dwight around…
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll go see her now.”
Sooner or later, they would have to meet up again. Might as well be now.
Merry was the forgiving type…wasn’t she?
She’s a romantic. An idealist. Idealists are quick to forgive.
Dwight beamed in approval of the plan. Since his father wasn’t the beaming type, Lucas found it creepy. Still, he took advantage of that approbation to push his luck. “Dad, you didn’t say if you’ll help me get a retest.”
An appeal against medical disqualification would require Dwight to pull strings. Something he had an aversion to.
Dwight steepled his fingers on his desk. “I’ll think about it. How long are you staying?”
“Until you’ve thought about it,” Lucas said.
* * *
LUCAS SLID OPEN THE double-wide, yellow-painted iron door of Wyatt Yachts’ waterfront workshop. The track needed oiling; Lucas despised the effort the movement took.
A year of rehab on his right hand and it still felt as if muscle and sinew could turn to water at any moment. Part of his rehabilitation had been schooling his expression to not show pain.
He stepped into the workshop. The familiar smells of wood, mineral oil and polyurethane overlaid with salt hit him. High above his head, light filtered through salt-crusted windows, set below the roof trusses. The scale of the building dwarfed the overturned wooden hull in the middle of the floor, and dwarfed the man who was buffing it with sandpaper even more. Not for John Wyatt the electric sander, not once he got beyond the first stages. Wyatt Yachts created handcrafted wooden yachts, and it had a waiting list a mile long—even with Merry running the admin side so that John would be free to do what he loved most.
The older man must have heard the clank and rattle of the sliding door, but he didn’t look around. He wouldn’t, until he’d finished the line he was sanding. Back in high school, Lucas used to work here over the summer, so he knew John’s methods. The place hadn’t changed a bit.
Lucas veered right, toward the end of the workshop that had been closed off to make an office and kitchen. A large window allowed people in the office to look out, and vice versa.
No sign of Merry.
Relief mingled with irritation. Now that he’d decided to clear the air, and to ask for her help, he didn’t want to delay. Of course, he might have ensured a better response if he’d called her in the past six months. Or emailed. Or texted. He should probably have told her he was coming, at least.
He’d hoped it might all blow over if they didn’t speak for a while.
At last John straightened, one hand pressed to the small of his back. “Lucas, when did you get in?” He came over and clasped Lucas’s hand in both of his. “How’re you doing? Your dad tells me you’ll be out by year-end. Must be disappointed.”
That was more like it. John knew how Lucas felt.
“I am,” he said, returning the handshake. “But how are you?” John had always had a spare build, but today he looked almost skinny, and his grip was bony.
John rubbed his back again. “My kidneys are giving me trouble. I’m on the blasted dialysis twice a day now. At least the hospital has set me up so I can do it here, or at home.” It was a cheerful grumble, the way a guy might complain when someone drinks the last of the two-percent, forcing him to pour skim milk over his cereal.
Or when he’s being pursued by an enemy aircraft, faster than him and with more firepower, and he doesn’t want his buddies to know he’s terrified.
Lucas had seen a flash of terror in John’s eyes.
“Your blood pressure still bad?” he asked. It was the older man’s hypertension that had damaged his kidneys in the first place. “You seen the doctor lately?”
“The doctor can’t do a thing to knock my BP down.” John chuckled, as if it was all a joke. “Though Merry has me on egg-white omelets.” His heavy sigh suggested his only daughter had devised a particularly cruel form of torture.
“Tell it to Amnesty International,” Merry said from behind Lucas.
When he turned around, she was crossing the workshop. She must have squeezed through the sliding door he hadn’t managed to open very far. She wore skinny jeans and a pale green T-shirt that crossed over in front, creating a deep V. With her shoulder-length, light brown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, she looked more or less the way he remembered her at twelve years old.
She’d been eyeing her dad with loving exasperation, but when she turned to Lucas, the loving disappeared.
To be replaced with an entirely adult glitter in her gray eyes. A woman-scorned kind of glitter.
I should have called.
“Lucas, I didn’t realize you were coming home.” Which was more or less the same as you should have called, uttered in a cool, distant voice that didn’t suit her at all.
“Surprise,” he said, forcing a smile. He stepped closer.
John would think it odd if he didn’t at least kiss her cheek. No need to broadcast their rift to her dad, and therefore to his own father.
Lucas pressed his lips to Merry’s cheek.
And was startled by a rush of sensation, of memory that he’d thought he’d put behind him, provoked by the scent of her skin. It was sweet, like the wild strawberries they used to pick at the start of summer. If he moved an inch or two to his right, to her lips…and if she opened her mouth…he knew she would taste of wild strawberries, too.
No, no, no. Not going there.
Merry took a step backward, away from his lips. Her face was stony.
With disconcerting slowness, Lucas’s brain resumed normal service. That concussion must have done even more damage than the doctors knew.
John chuckled as he looked from Merry to Lucas. “Have you two had another tiff?” he said indulgently. “Why don’t you go to dinner tonight, clear the air?”
Merry