Heron's Landing. JoAnn Ross
about fishing or crabbing, but if Seth was going to be out there with her brothers, she wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to show him what a perfect girlfriend she’d be. The fact that he’d never experienced that hoped-for epiphany hadn’t been for her lack of trying.
The announcement to return to her car came over the speaker and five minutes later, as she drove off the ferry onto the cobblestone street created from the same stones as many of the town’s buildings, she felt an internal click that told her she’d made the absolutely right decision.
Pages from Captain George Vancouver’s ship logs, housed under glass in the town historical museum, revealed his awe at the towering, snowcapped mountains, deep green rain forests that come nearly to the water’s edge, crystal rivers, tumbling waterfalls, beaches and sapphire water studded with emerald islands.
By the late 1800s the town had become a bustling seaport, banking on a rich future. A building boom gifted it with an abundance of ornate Victorian homes perched atop the green bluff overlooking the bay. A town built and populated by dreamers, its port frequented by vessels from faraway places, the early economy had been built and supported by timber and shipping.
Unfortunately, too much of what was now Honeymoon Harbor had been constructed on the shifting sands of speculation that it was primed to become the capital of Washington State. Dreams were dashed when the boom collapsed and the population had declined drastically.
Although it never became the major shipping harbor people had hoped for, the royal trip that had resulted in the town’s name change, along with the magnificent monument Franklin Roosevelt later designated as a national park, had created a renaissance that resulted in an influx of visitors who continued to arrive at the harbor’s dock on gleaming white ferries like the one that had brought Brianna home.
The town had been divided between residential and business. Most of the buildings along the water were commercial, designed to serve arriving and departing ships. Originally built of wood from the bustling timber trade, they’d been reduced to ashes during a devastating fire that had swept through the waterfront. Meanwhile, the homes, including the Victorians the town had become known for, had been built on the bluff overlooking the harbor, which had allowed them to escape the firestorm.
Tempted as she was to drive out to the house, she reluctantly decided it made sense to go home, see her family and get a good night’s sleep before contacting the Realtor in the morning. As much as Honeymoon Harbor looked much the same as it had when she’d been growing up here, there had been changes. An old warehouse had been turned into condos, the real estate sign out in front offering spacious, remodeled lofts. She dropped into a coffee shop by the ferry terminal that hadn’t existed when she’d returned for Zoe’s funeral two years ago, and stood in line to buy a salted skinny caramel mocha latte from one of the owners, whom, she learned from their brief conversation while he prepared her drink, was a former undercover Seattle vice detective. Which, she supposed, explained the earring and the dreadlocks.
There were other new businesses, as well, including her uncle Mike’s art gallery, which would prove handy when it came to decorating her inn. Honeymoon Harborites preferred to buy local whenever possible, and in her case, it was even better when one of the businesses was owned by family.
She came up to the wide, grassy green square that had always been the centerpiece of the town. A lacy white Victorian gazebo—built by a Harper for the royal visit, where the Mannion mayor had handed the Montacroix king and queen the key to the city—had immediately proven popular with the honeymoon trade. Even today Brianna’s attention was drawn to a tall, familiar redhead snapping wedding photos of a smiling bride and groom.
Growing up, Kylee Campbell and Zoe Robinson had been Brianna’s best friends. They’d been inseparable, the self-named Three Musketeers, except for those times, as they’d segued into their junior and senior years of high school, when Zoe had begun spending more and more time with Seth Harper.
Pulling into a parking spot, Brianna sat in the car, watching as Kylee posed the couple in various ways while another woman set up reflector boards. They were apparently coming to the end of the shoot. After taking a few more photos next to the fountain bubbling away at one end of the green, Kylee exchanged a few words and hugs with the couple. Then, as she turned to walk away, Brianna got out of the car.
“Well, look who finally made it home,” Kylee called out, emerald green skirt flowing around her ankles, revealing a pair of purple Chucks as she ran across the parking lot toward Brianna. The other woman, who’d finished packing up the equipment, followed at a more sedate pace. “I was beginning to think we’d lost you to Sin City forever.”
Kylee threw her arms around Brianna and gave her an even more enthusiastic hug than she’d shared with the bride and groom.
“Wasn’t going to happen.”
Before her sudden change in her career, Brianna’s destination track after Vegas had always been New York (her goal had been the Waldorf Astoria, currently under renovation), then London’s Claridge’s, before reaching her personal pinnacle: the Hôtel Plaza Athénée, which might not be Paris’s flashiest hotel, but to Brianna’s mind was the most luxurious, romantic and, with its glorious views of the Eiffel Tower, iconic.
Bygones.
“Do I dare hope you’ll be here for our wedding?” Kylee asked. “Believe it or not, Seth’s mother is going to be the officiant.”
“Caroline Harper is a minister now?”
“She was ordained online about a year ago. She doesn’t have an official church or anything, but has become very spiritual, in an earth mother New Agey way. More and more people have been turning to her for their weddings. And not just the retro hippy crowd, but remarrying widowers or divorcés, who want more celebration than signing papers at the courthouse, but also don’t want to lock themselves into any established religious belief system.”
“Trust you to have a unique wedding.” Caroline Harper had always been a creative thinker and, like Brianna’s own mother, was actively involved in community service. Performing weddings sounded like just another step along her life’s path. She did wonder how Mr. Harper, who’d never seemed that conducive to change, had taken to his wife’s apparent midlife transformation. “Now I’m even more looking forward to being part of your special day.”
“So you’re staying?”
“How could I not?”
“Oh, that’s so great!” She pumped the hand not still holding the camera into the air. “I didn’t want to dump any guilt on you, but I’ll admit to being disappointed when you said you had that big deal convention to deal with.”
Magic Marketplace, the world’s largest fashion show, which attracted nearly a hundred thousand visitors, many of whom had booked Midas two years in advance, had been going to keep her in Las Vegas. Missing her BFF’s upcoming wedding had been on the top of Brianna’s list of life regrets. Now, thinking how events turned out, she should be grateful for Doctor Dick turning her life not upside down, but right side up.
“My priorities were screwed up,” she admitted. Hyatt had denied her request for time off when she’d asked two months ago, but she’d also known that if she’d put her foot down and made certain her duties were well covered, he would have let her get away for at least the day of the wedding. But her damn pride, believing that only she could handle such a large event, had outranked what would be, so far, the most important day of her remaining best friend’s life. Which went right along with her recent thoughts about not having any true friends. Because, in order to have a friend, you had to be one. Something she’d failed at. Miserably.
“Don’t even worry about it. I totally understood.” Kylee turned toward the woman who was, in appearance, her physical opposite. Where Kylee was tall, with wild masses of curly red hair that tumbled over her shoulders, her wife-to-be was petite with an asymmetrical black bob. “I’m sorry. I was so excited to see you, I got sidetracked. This is Mai, the grand love of my life. Mai, Brianna.”
“I’ve heard a