Authors: Mariah Stewart
“What are you doing New Year’s Eve?” Cam asked as he was getting ready to leave to meet Wendy in Baltimore for dinner, a yearly event.
“Nothing. You want to be my date?” Ellie fastened the top button of his jacket against the cold air.
“I want you to be my date for Lucy and Clay’s wedding at the inn.”
“I’d love to be your date. I heard it’s going to be the Big Event.”
“Lucy’s a famous wedding planner. Wedding planner to the stars and other assorted celebrities. So yeah, it’s going to be big.”
“I think Paige is supposed to be doing something for that wedding. Like hand out programs or something. She asked Gabi if she wanted to do it with her.”
“Then we’ll make it a family affair.” He kissed her, called good-bye to Gabi, who’d gone upstairs to write in her journal, and left.
A family affair
.
Long after he drove away, those words were ringing in Ellie’s ears, wonderful and terrifying at the same time.
E
llie wasn’t sure exactly when the thought occurred to her, but once it did, she knew it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t hard to figure out the best means of accomplishing it.
“I must say, I was happy that you called and gave me a good excuse to leave the inn,” Grace said when she met Ellie at Cuppachino. “I’m nearing the breaking point with Lucy’s wedding. Honestly, that girl is a whirlwind. You can’t believe what she’s doing in our ballroom for their reception. And with so little time to plan, so little time to make it happen. She makes my head spin.”
“But you’re happy about the wedding, right?” Ellie asked.
“Delighted. I love Clay like a son. It’s exactly what I wanted for Lucy. He’s the right man. I think they’re going to be very happy together.” Grace frowned. “It’s just that the wedding preparations are making me crazy.”
“Well, only a few more days, and it’ll be over.”
“And then I’ll be crying in my tea that it all happened so fast.”
Ellie sipped her coffee and tried to decide how to open the conversation. She’d tried memorizing a few lines but it sounded stilted and phony.
“Grace, I need your advice on something.”
“Oh? A problem?”
“One I created for myself.” Ellie told Grace the full story of Gabi’s coming to live with her. “When I met with Jesse that first day I came to St. Dennis, I told him I was going to drop the Chapman from my name and go by Ryder. I was so afraid of the backlash against my father, so afraid that people would hate me if they knew who I was. Chapman’s not such an unusual name, but if everyone knew I was Lynley’s daughter, they’d know exactly who my father was.”
Grace listened intently, stirring her tea.
“Jesse told me that I should keep an open mind and give people a chance to get to know me, that people here weren’t as judgmental as I assumed they’d be. But I’d been so badly burned during and after the investigation, by people I’d known and worked with for years, that I couldn’t believe that strangers would be any more kind to me than my so-called friends had been. He said that people here were warm and friendly.” Ellie smiled weakly. “But I told him I wasn’t here to make friends.”
“And yet you have, in spite of yourself,” Grace pointed out. “People here do like you, Ellie.”
“I’m regretting those words. I regret that, right from the start, I didn’t own up to who my mother was.” Ellie’s hands were folded on the table. “I don’t want to hide who I am anymore. I’m embarrassed that, at thirteen, Gabi has been braver than I, that she hasn’t made any effort to hide who her father is. I’m
sorry that I started this charade, but I don’t know how to set things right now. I was hoping you might have some suggestions.”
“Well, dear, it’s easy enough to get the word around. A ‘By the way, were you aware …’ or a ‘You know, of course …’ ” Grace patted Ellie’s arm. “And we could do that interview we suggested when we first chatted.”
Ellie flinched. She did remember. Her reaction had been somewhere between “Over my dead body” and “Hell, no.”
“We can focus on the fact that you’ve inherited the house from your mother and you’re remodeling it. And there’s the angle of how many generations of women in your family have lived there. We can mention Clifford or not.” Grace paused as if to consider this option. “Everyone in town knows that Lynley was married to the scoundrel; I’m not sure we need to mention his name.”
“But we probably should, if I’m going to go back to using Chapman.” Ellie thought for a moment. “Do you think people will resent me for having lied?”
“Let’s think of it as an omission more than a lie. Besides, how many people have you actually met as Ellie Ryder? Other than those people who have become your friends, of course.”
“People at First Families Day. People at dinner on Thanksgiving at the inn. Mr. Enright, for one.”
“People you meet once might tend to remember your first name more than your last.” Grace waved her hand dismissively. “And for the record, Curtis knew exactly who you were.”
“He did?”
“Of course. He wrote the wills for both Lilly and Lynley. He knew there’d been no sale of the house.” She took another sip of her tea. “I think you’ll find this will be all
much ado
as far as most people are concerned.”
“Except for those people who invested in my father’s company.”
“There may be some of that. There were some who invested with him because he was Lynley’s widower. So there may be some backlash, but you’ll survive it.”
“You’re right. I will.” Ellie nodded.
“Now, we have a little time.” Grace pulled a notebook out of her bag. “Let’s take care of that interview right now. I can run it in my paper on Thursday so it’s done before the wedding. I hear you’re coming with Cameron. Such a nice young man …”
Ellie could hardly believe that the room she entered was actually in Maryland and not a tropical place. The lobby and the ballroom of the inn sported a forest of palm trees, the trunks and branches of which had been wrapped in tiny white lights. Real orchids of every color, appearing to grow on the branches, delicately scented the air. Silver pitchers on each table held lush arrangements of orchids, stephanotis, pale pink roses, dusty miller, and ivy. The cloths covering the tables were silvery gray and the napkins were palest pink. Somehow, in the shortest possible time, the ballroom had been turned into a subtle fantasy of flowers and soft lights. It was the most romantic wedding Ellie had ever attended.
The ceremony itself was performed by Reverend Alston at the church in town that both Lucy and
Clay’s families had attended for many years. It, too, was handsomely draped with flowers and candlelight. Lucy had asked her business party, Bonnie Shaefer, to be her maid of honor, and Brooke, Clay’s sister, to be her lone bridesmaid, and Clay had tapped Cameron for his best man. Clay’s business partner, Wade MacGregor, and his eight-year-old nephew, Logan, served as ushers. Because there’d been little time to prepare, Lucy opted out of having a slew of bridesmaids.
“I don’t have time to deal with the drama of bridesmaids’ dresses,” Lucy had told Ellie when they ran into each other at one of the houses on the Christmas Tour. “This one doesn’t like that color, that one likes the color but not the style. I only had a few weeks to put this all together. I didn’t have time for dress drama. Brooke understood completely, and chose a dress that she and I both liked. So much easier when you’re only dealing with one or two other people.”
Lucy did have time to find a dramatic dress for herself: a pure white silk floor-length sheath with one shoulder and silk-covered buttons all the way down the back. There was a wide sparkly belt complemented by long sparkly earrings, and a long lace veil that both Grace and Grace’s mother had worn. Escorted down the aisle by both her mother and her brother Daniel, Lucy carried an enormous bouquet of orchids and wore high silver shoes that added four inches to her petite height.
“Gorgeous.” Steffie Wyler, seated behind Ellie and next to Vanessa and her husband, had sighed.
“Totally.” Ellie had turned around to agree.
“I heard the ballroom is drop-dead magnificent,” Vanessa whispered.
“It is. Wait till you see,” a wide-eyed Steffie said. “I peeked when I dropped off ice cream before we came to the church. It’s gorgeous.”
“Shhhhh …” A woman at the end of Ellie’s row hushed them.
Steffie mouthed the words “You’ll see,” and turned back to the program, which her niece Paige and Gabi had handed out at the door to the church. The two young girls wore white blouses and black straight skirts, and had carried out their duties in a mature manner that made Dallas, as stepmother of the former, and Ellie, as sister of the latter, quite proud.
The church was still dressed for the holidays, resplendent in white poinsettias, the altar marked with urns filled with evergreens and hollies, to which Lucy had added twinkling lights. The ceremony was brief but deeply personal, the minister having known both the bride and the groom from their preschool days. Lucy and Clay wrote their vows together, promising to be “best friends always, to celebrate the passing of the seasons together, to greet each new day with love, and to never be too busy to spend an afternoon crabbing on the Bay.”
Ellie looked upon the cocktail hour at the inn as a sort of coming-out—the first time she was in a crowded public place since Grace’s interview ran in the
St. Dennis Gazette
. While the paper had played up Ellie’s relationship to Lynley, and had barely mentioned her father, there was no question that the cat was definitely out of the bag, just as Ellie had wanted it to be. For every person who made a comment about
her father—polite or otherwise—there were ten who wanted to talk about Lynley. Before the reception was over, Ellie had compiled a list of older residents who remembered Lilly and who might be excellent sources of information for Carly’s book.
“Are you having a good time?” Cameron’s arms slid around her on the dance floor and they swayed to the band’s rendition of “Wonderful Tonight.”
“The best time ever.” Ellie leaned back to look into his eyes. “I feel … I don’t know …
free
, I guess is the right word.”
“Free to be Ellie Chapman?”
“Yes, but more than that.” She looked around the floor and saw several of her new friends dancing and chatting with their significant others. Steffie and Wade. Vanessa and Grady. Brooke and Jesse. “I feel like I’ve come home. I feel like I’m where I was meant to be all along.” She grinned. “Do I sound like Dorothy from
The Wizard of Oz
?”
“I don’t know, was that the clicking of heels I just heard?”
“Quite possibly.”
They moved around the dance floor, cheek to cheek, and Ellie closed her eyes, just to savor the moment. She’d made a decision tonight, one she’d share with Cameron before the night was over, and she hoped he’d understand. She had only to find the right moment.
It came just before midnight. Cameron had gotten into a conversation about flavored beer with Clay and Wade and Ellie had wandered out onto the inn’s lovely front porch. She’d been standing near one of the fireplaces and had absorbed more than her share
of heat from the blaze. The air outside was cool but was welcome on her skin—for about the first two minutes. She wasn’t dressed for the evening’s chill, having splurged on a pretty but thin metallic tank top and wrap from Vanessa’s shop. She turned to go back inside when she felt a warm jacket slip over her shoulders.
“You’re shivering,” Cameron said as he wrapped his arms around her from behind.
“Thanks. I was just thinking I should probably go inside. It’s cooler than I thought.”
“Pretty night,” he said, making no effort to move.
“It’s a beautiful night. It was a beautiful wedding. I can’t remember ever attending a wedding where I felt so much love in the room. It really was extraordinary.” Ellie sighed. The wedding she would have had with Henry would have been nothing like Clay and Lucy’s. Thank God she’d not married that man. For one thing, she’d never have come here, never have met Cameron.
“It was that. Beautiful bride. Handsome groom.” Cam kissed the tip of her ear. “Not to mention the best man.”
Ellie turned to face him. “You
are
the best man, Cam. You’re the best man I’ve ever known. It seems that the worst time in my life has brought me to the best. The best place and the best man.” She touched the side of his face. “I have something to say to you, and I hope you understand.”
“Uh-oh. Is this where you tell me that Carly sold all those paintings for millions and you don’t need the money from the sale of the house, so you can just leave now?”
Ellie felt him tense in her arms.
“Because I need you to know that I’d give up buying the house if you’d stay.”
“You love that house.”
“I love you more.”
“Do you?” Her eyes searched his face.
“I do.”
“Then that makes this easier.” She took a deep breath. “I have decided to stay in the house. I really feel that I’m meant to be there, that St. Dennis is where I’m meant to be. That house … it’s been a sanctuary to so many troubled souls over the years. My mother. You and Wendy. Gabi. Me. We’ve all been affected by it. When I came here, I didn’t expect to be healed of the pain of the last year, but I have been. I’ve realized that the past just doesn’t hurt as much, it doesn’t matter so much anymore. I don’t want to leave.”
“I’m so glad that you’re staying.” He lifted her in his arms and swung her around, his mouth finding hers in the process. When he set her down on her feet again, he said, “You know, I never believed that someone could sweep into your life and that you’d know that that person would change your life. That’s what I felt when I first saw you. It scared the crap out of me—I saw what that kind of love did to my father—but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I guess it happens that way sometimes. The fact that you were living in ‘my house’ did complicate things a bit. I wanted the house, but the more time we spent together, the more I realized that it was you I wanted most.”
“Then you’ll like the rest of it.”
“The rest of what?”
A cheer went up from inside the inn as the countdown to midnight began.