Cathryn Parry - The Long Way Home

Who, as a result, was not happy with Natalie.

True, the closing fees weren’t a lot of money. But the fees added up. And Maureen’s business, added up, would go a long way toward giving Natalie’s father the confidence that he could leave the business safely in her hands, rather than selling out to a stranger.

Loud organ music burst forth from the choir loft. The bride’s processional was beginning, and Maureen appeared at the end of the aisle, looking beautiful and composed as she held her father’s arm. The guests, about seventy-five in number, rose to their feet with a collective sigh.

Natalie pasted a smile on her face. As much as her instincts told her to run away—to cut out early—she needed to stick it out.

* * *

BRUCE WAS IN NO MOOD to walk down memory lane. Sitting for two hours in Route 95 traffic tended to do that to a guy.

He parked the Mercedes at a lot a few blocks from the beach then cut through the laneway behind a nightclub. The music spilled into the open air, a song from twenty years ago when he’d been a kid. It reminded him of summer campouts and days spent with his buddies in the neighborhood. It made him feel old and nostalgic and depressed. Those had been good days, and they were gone. Good friends who he hadn’t spoken to in years. Most of them he didn’t even know where they’d ended up.

Hell. If he was going to survive this visit, then he needed to stop thinking like that. His lifestyle had served him well for fifteen years since he’d left town. So he yanked open the door to the hotel where all the trouble had started, and marched inside as if it didn’t matter. He quickly checked his computer and his suitcase with the bellhop in the corner—a habit he’d adopted because valuables were generally safer when he tipped someone to watch them rather than leaving them alone in a car in a public parking area—and then shook out the tuxedo jacket he carried and shrugged it over his shoulders, where it weighed heavily.

The reality was, he was so late that for all practical purposes, he had missed his sister’s wedding. His first responsibility was to find Maureen and smooth things over with her.

He passed behind a brass luggage cart and glanced through the lobby windows to the crowded boulevard outside. Darkness was falling. Tourists were wandering past, dressed in flip-flops and shorts. In all these years, not a thing about Wallis Point had changed. This beach town was small, provincial and predictable—and it made him feel trapped. He loosened his tie. He couldn’t wait to get out of here.

As luck would have it, Maureen was standing alone, in the hallway before the ballroom. When he saw her, he felt himself smile. His sister broke into a grin and ran to meet him.

“Hey, Moe,” he whispered, once he had her in a bear hug.

“You’re late and I hate you,” she whispered back, “but at least you came.”

“I’m sorry, I got held up.”

She pushed back and looked at him. “Don’t think I don’t know how hard it is for you to be here.”

“I’m fine.” He didn’t want to talk about his self-imposed exile with her, especially today. “This is your wedding, don’t let me ruin it for you.”

He dug in his pocket. His sister liked pretty things, and he’d done his best to find her a copy of the earrings she’d been admiring in a jewelry store window last Thanksgiving, when the family had come down for their yearly party at his house in Florida. He pressed the box into her palm.

Her eyes widened as she opened it. “Bruce, these are sapphires.”

“Yeah, something blue,” he said.

She stood a long time, clutching the box and blinking at him. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her skin was pale.

His antennae went up. “Where’s Jimmy? Is everything okay with you two?”

A big, sloppy smile crossed Maureen’s face, which was great to see, because Maureen usually looked hard and focused. She’d built a solid career for herself and her daughter, and he was proud of her.

“Come on,” she said, tugging on his arm, “I’ll take you to see him.”

“Wait.” He pulled out an envelope from inside his jacket pocket. He’d stuffed some cash inside. He wouldn’t do anything so tacky at any other wedding, but this was Maureen, and he knew the importance she placed on security. “This is for you. It’s spending money for your honeymoon.”

“Excellent,” Maureen said, and tucked the money inside her bra.

He relaxed. That was the Maureen he knew.

“And now...” She poked him in the chest. “I want you to stop skulking around out here. Go into the ballroom and spend time with the family. Nina has gotten so big lately. She’s been asking about her uncle and she’s been looking forward to her trip to Disney World.” Maureen put her hand to her mouth.

“What’s wrong?”

But Maureen shook her head, blinking rapidly, as if she was upset about something. Before Bruce could question her further, Jimmy came over and put his arm around her shoulders. Jimmy was small and slight, shorter than Maureen. Where Maureen could be fierce and strong-willed, Jimmy was steady and calm. He ran his own independent home-computer consulting business, so in a sense, he and Bruce were in the same industry.

“We need to get inside for the cake cutting,” Jimmy said to Maureen.

“Right,” Bruce said. “You two go on. I’ll join you in a bit.”

“Where are you going?” Maureen asked.

“Ah...” Now that he was here, the best he felt he could do was to disappear into the woodwork and observe the festivities from afar. And there was only one other guy he knew who would be happy joining him there.

“I’m looking for Gramps,” he said to Maureen.

Her mouth tightened. “He’s not here.”

But that didn’t make any sense. Maureen and Bruce had lived with Gramps and Nana during Bruce’s last two years of high school, when their parents had been in Florida on a long-term job assignment. Nana had passed on a year ago, but there was no way Gramps would miss Maureen’s wedding. “Why isn’t he here? Is he sick?”

Maureen sucked in her breath and stared at him. “He’s fine,” she snapped. “He just couldn’t make it.” She had a set to her chin that Bruce didn’t like. He didn’t like at all. “We’ll talk about this later.”

Later he was leaving. Later he had a flight to catch.

“Fine,” he said.

He’d call Gramps and get the whole story when he had the time. Which right now, he did not.

Because he needed to get out of here. He needed to separate from these people and this life he wasn’t a part of anymore. He needed to be free.

But this was Maureen’s wedding day, so he gave her and Jimmy a lazy smile instead. “Sure. We’ll talk later.”

“Come into the reception with us,” Maureen pleaded. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

Nope, sorry. He wasn’t being introduced to anyone. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.” He nodded to Jimmy. “You two go on. I’ll meet you inside.”

They nodded—Maureen reluctantly, Jimmy with more force, and they left for the ballroom, Maureen’s train dragging along the carpet. Bruce watched them until they disappeared inside, then he headed in the opposite direction down a short, musty back hallway.

One of the advantages of working here in high school was that he knew the floor plan of the rambling old hotel. Rounding a corner, he ducked inside a doorway and climbed rickety stairs until he came to a balcony of sorts.

Years ago, during the hotel’s big-band heyday, this had been the pit where the orchestras were set up to play. The bands were gone, but the dusty space still gave a great view of the dance floor.

He stood near the railing with a bird’s-eye shot of the conga line that snaked around the room. The men wore dark suits and the women black dresses. He remembered the invitation Maureen had sent: black-and-white informal. Maybe that was the latest style. Maureen was always up on design. She had started out being interested in fashion, then interior design, and now she’d morphed into staging and selling beach houses. Hard-nosed and practical, that was always Maureen’s thing.

He crossed his arms and glanced down. He knew roughly half the people—Maureen’s half, and they were relatives. As for Jimmy’s half, he didn’t know many in that crowd. They were younger than him. Still, he couldn’t be sure they didn’t know who he was.

Damn it. He had done his job. He’d shown up, he’d greeted Moe and made her happy, now why couldn’t he quietly escape through a side door, for her sake?

And then he saw the leggy blonde. Standing alone by the windows, she was the only person besides him who seemed out of place.

Sure, she was dressed like everybody else, in a black cocktail dress, but in every other way, she stood out from the crowd. She was...self-contained, for one. A real stunner, but in a fresh-faced, natural way, with little, if any makeup or jewelry. Her thick, honey-colored hair was long, loose, undone. It made her look sexy without even trying. But most of all, he liked that she wasn’t driven to snake around the room in the communal conga line, or to belly up to the bar, joking with the families, or even to sit at the cleared dinner tables, drinking coffee and chatting with the more subdued relatives, because she was disconnected from them, too. That much was obvious.

And then she calmly pulled out her phone to check her messages.

He liked that. He liked that...a lot.

“Who are you?” he muttered aloud.

Jimmy spoke up behind him. “That’s Natalie.”

Bruce swiveled to face his new brother-in-law. “Is she a relative of yours?”

“No.”

“A friend of Maureen’s?”

“Yes.”

His heart sank. Messing with a friend of his sister’s was a terrible idea. Unless...

“Is she an old friend that Moe hasn’t seen in a while, or a work friend she sees every week around town?” Because the former wasn’t too bad, but the latter would be fatal.

Jimmy blinked and stared at him. Bruce waited.

“No,” Jimmy said.

“No?”

“No.”

Bruce waited some more, but Jimmy added nothing. Like so many of the hard-core engineers and techies Bruce knew, getting Jimmy to open up was like pulling teeth.

“How does Maureen know her?” Bruce asked patiently, figuring an open-ended question was his best bet. Enough of the yes/no conversation.

“They went to school together.” Jimmy blinked at him. “I have to take you downstairs now. Maureen wants you in the ballroom with her.”

“Right.” Bruce swept his arm forward for Jimmy to precede him. “Don’t worry, I’m right behind you.”

As Jimmy traipsed down the creaking stairs, Bruce hung back for a last look at pretty Natalie. With her thumb on her phone’s screen, she was scrolling through her messages, unruffled by the music and the dancers in the wedding reception swirling around her.

Like an oasis of calm.

He needed calm. He needed an oasis, too, since it was clear Moe wasn’t going to allow him to escape until the very end of her reception.

Would it cause problems for Moe if he approached Natalie? If she and Maureen had gone to school together, then that meant Natalie had attended the state university where Maureen had majored in business. She couldn’t be a high school friend because he’d known all her friends before he’d left home. Knowing Maureen, Natalie was a dorm-mate invited to the wedding as courtesy. She would be out of Maureen’s life just as quickly as she’d been invited back in.

Like he would be, too.

No. It was too risky.

He was about to leave, when Natalie glanced up at him. He froze as she studied him from head to toe. Then she calmly met his gaze.