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  “True. Now turn.” Vanessa motioned with her hand, and Mia pivoted slowly. “It’s perfect, Mia. Everything about it, from that soft off-the-shoulder neckline to the full skirt. And that fabric is to die for… silk as thin as a sheet of tissue paper.” She found herself tearing up. “You are going to be one stunning bride, girl.”

  “Thank you,” Mia whispered, a bit teary-eyed herself.

  “It is gorgeous on her, isn’t it?” The saleswoman beamed and fussed with the row of covered buttons that ran down the back of the dress. “I swear, when I see a bride in a dress that looks as if it had been designed just for her, it makes my day. And this gown was certainly made with a figure like yours in mind, Mia.”

  “I knew it was the one the first time I saw it.” Mia smiled and turned just a bit to see the back in the three-way mirror, where she met Vanessa’s eyes. “I wanted a dress that would knock Beck’s socks off.”

  “That’s the very least it will do,” Vanessa assured her.

  Mia returned to the dressing room to change, the saleswoman disappearing with her behind the curtain to assist. When she emerged with the gown in hand, she turned to Vanessa and said, “Are you sure you don’t want to take another look at that dress? You never know…”

  “Trust me,” Vanessa told the saleswoman. “I know. Never is the operative word there.”

  Mia’s dress was carefully slipped onto a form, then tucked into its garment bag. The saleswoman accompanied Mia and Vanessa to the car, and gently secured it in the backseat. She hugged Mia and made her promise to send pictures of the big day.

  Mia slid behind the wheel and eased her new Malibu into traffic.

  “For the longest time, it seemed as if the wedding would never get here. Now it’s eight days away and I can’t believe it’s going by so quickly. I don’t know how I’ll get everything finished in time.” Mia shook her head. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I decided to bake cookies for the favors instead of buying something.”

  “You were thinking it was your mother’s favorite cookie recipe,” Vanessa reminded her, “and that would be one way of having her there with you.”

  “She always made them for family occasions. She always let us help, all four of us. I just don’t know how we’ll get them done.”

  “We’re going to bake on Thursday next week, and we’ll box the cookies and tie pretty ribbons around them on Friday. All will be done on time, so relax.”

  Mia grinned sheepishly. “You’re probably so tired of hearing about this wedding, the flowers and the invitations and the seating chart and the favors and everything else. Since you’ve been through it all yourself, I guess it’s old hat to you.”

  “Not really.” Vanessa turned her head to look out the side window. “I never really had a wedding.”

  “What are you talking about? You were married before.” Mia frowned.

  “Twice. But I never really had a wedding, not like what you and Beck are having,” Vanessa explained. “The first time was in a Las Vegas chapel, and I wore leggings and a sweater and my bouquet of silk flowers was borrowed from the wife of the Elvis impersonator who owned the place. I had just turned eighteen. The second time I wore a short blue dress I’d bought on sale at the department store where I was working and carried some yellow roses I’d bought for myself on the way to city hall, where a judge performed a two-minute ceremony.”

  Vanessa watched a shadow cross Mia’s face, then added, “It’s all right to say it.”

  “Say what?” Mia hedged.

  “Say that you’re sorry, or, ‘oh, I didn’t know,’ or whatever it is that you’re thinking.”

  “I was thinking that I was sorry that neither of them were right for you,” Mia admitted. “That I’m sorry that you didn’t have the hoopla.”

  “In retrospect, it would have been wasted hoopla, since neither husband number one nor husband number two was worth it.”

  “Ness, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking that all this might bring up bad memories for you.”

  “Oh, sweetie, those memories are there, regardless,” Vanessa assured her. “Some things just never go away, you know?”

  “I’m sorry,” Mia repeated.

  “Why be?” Vanessa forced a brightness she didn’t really feel. “You have every right to be excited and happy and chatty about your wedding. For heaven’s sake, Mia, you’re marrying one hell of a great guy.”

  “I am, aren’t I?”

  “The best. And it’s going to be a glorious spring day, and it will be the most beautiful wedding ever. Everything will be perfect.”

  “It will, mostly thanks to you.” Mia nodded. “I can’t thank you enough for all your help.”

  “It’s nothing. I’m a party planner at heart. Besides, Beck’s the only brother I have. I want his day to be wonderful.”

  “Maybe someday we’ll get to return the favor.”

  “Uh-uh. Don’t even think those evil thoughts. Marriage is not for me. I learned that the hard way.”

  “Hey, you’re young, and you never know…”

  “Trust me.” Vanessa shook her head. “Been there, done that. Got the scars to prove it.”

  The fingers of her right hand rose, and without thinking, she traced a raised line under her shirt, one that ran from just above her left breast to her collarbone. It was only one of the many scars Vanessa bore, one of the many reminders that “bliss” didn’t always follow “wedded.”

  *

  Hal Garrity draped his baited line over the index finger of his left hand and let the heavy string drop over the side of his boat into the shallow waters of the Chesapeake. He’d opted for the old rowboat this morning, since the shallows where he preferred to crab was no place for the Shady Lady, his cabin cruiser. This was his favorite time of day-just as the sun rose-and his favorite pastime: sitting in the small craft that had been seasoned by many years of crabbing and had weathered many a storm, much like Hal himself.

  It was early in the season, so he didn’t expect to bring in as many crabs as he might in the summer months, but that didn’t matter. He’d take whatever he caught into the police station and fire up a pot of water and steam those blue claws for whoever was lucky enough to be on duty at the time. The size of the catch wasn’t the point of spending a few hours out here or drifting along in the nearby river. The point was having a few hours away from everyone and everything, a few hours to think about things that were on his mind. Today, he had his family on his mind.

  First there was Beck. It seemed like only yesterday he’d shown up on Hal’s doorstep, surly and disrespectful and about as full of attitude as a boy could be. It had taken awhile, but he’d worked it all out of him, taught the kid the things he needed to know. By the time Beck graduated from high school, pretty near all of the rough spots had been ironed out. He’d grown into one fine man, and it had given Hal no small amount of satisfaction over the years to have watched his son grow into his own. In his heart, Hal knew that it was he who’d helped mold the unruly boy into the outstanding young man, and he secretly guarded the pride he felt in the job he’d done.

  He and Beck had been their own little clan for a long, long time, and that had been just fine with both of them. They understood each other, knew each other’s moods and silences the way parents and children do. Then one day, there was a tentative knock on his door, and when he’d opened it, there stood the loveliest young woman. She was tall and had long dark curly hair, and he’d suspected that under all that makeup, she was probably as beautiful as one of those magazine models. They were in the midst of one of those uncommon early snowfalls, and there were flakes melting in her hair and on her eyelashes.

  “Are you Hal?” she’d asked in that scared-to-death voice.

  “I am,” he’d told her.

  “I’m Vanessa,” she’d said simply, and looked up at him with the palest blue eyes, and in that moment, he’d known exactly who she was. “My mother told me it was time I met you and Beck.”

  “How is Maggie?” he�
��d asked as he’d opened the door to invite her in, then closed it behind her.

  And with that, Hal felt his family circle was complete. He had his son, and with Vanessa’s arrival, he had a daughter. Oh, he knew he wasn’t her biological father, and she was already in her twenties when she showed up at his door. But he’d taken the girl into his heart, and he’d been the kind of father she’d needed, and he’d never for a moment regretted having opened his door to her. In many ways, she’d suffered from a lack of good parenting-just as her half brother had-and God knows the girl had a lot of baggage, but inside, she was as sweet a girl as Hal had ever known. As sweet as Maggie had been, when he’d first met her, before he’d gone off to war and fate had had its way with the both of them.

  Ah, well. He sighed and gently raised the string in response to the slight tugging he’d felt. That milk had been spilt ages ago, and he’d long since quit crying over it. He and Maggie had each traveled their own paths in the years that followed. Hal was a man with few regrets, but he’d never looked back on his time with her without wondering what might have been. He’d loved Maggie Beck with all his heart, and he’d never loved another woman since.

  The string went taut and Hal held fast with one hand and grabbed the long-handled net with the other. He peered over the side of the boat slowly, and saw the large jimmy feasting on the chicken neck he was using as bait. He lowered the net into the water and scooped up the male blue claw in one motion, then dumped it into the pot that sat on the floor near his feet. He covered the pot with the lid, and dropped the nibbled-on chicken part back into the water.

  And now, Hal reflected, his circle was about to expand again. Soon he’d be welcoming another daughter into the fold. Mia Shields was about as well matched to Beck as any woman could be, in Hal’s estimation. She’d been an FBI agent for a number of years before quitting and moving to St. Dennis. It had been a case that had brought her to town, but it had been Beck who had brought her back when the case was over. She quit the Bureau, applied for a criminal investigator’s job with the county when the first opening appeared, and as far as Hal knew, Mia never looked back. She and Beck were cut from the same cloth, in some ways, and were different enough in others to balance nicely, Hal thought. He was looking forward to the wedding, looking forward to letting that circle continue to grow. Who knows, there could be grandkids one day.

  Wouldn’t that be something, he mused, and couldn’t help but smile at the thought. An old confirmed bachelor like me, a grandfather. Wouldn’t that just be something…

  Another tug on the line, another grab for the net, another crab for the pot. This one clung tenaciously to the net, and a few minutes passed before Hal was dropping his latest catch into the pot with the others and replacing the lid. He heard a clatter of claws inside the pot and hoped they wouldn’t battle to the point where they dismembered each other.

  “Settle down there, boys,” he told them as he slipped his string into the water.

  He hunched over slightly, leaning on the arm that rested on the side of the boat. The sun was up now, though not enough to bring any real heat yet. Still, he reached into his pocket with his free hand and took out his sunglasses and put them on. The dark glasses always made him smile.

  “They’re so Hollywood, Hal. You look mysterious and oh so very cool in those,” Vanessa had told him when she’d given them to him as a just-because present.

  Well, cool he was not, he knew that, but it tickled him that she’d thought of him on one of her buying trips.

  They say that a leopard can’t change its spots, but that was one girl who sure did change hers. Smart as a whip she was, smart enough to take one look around St. Dennis and figure out that the women there in town did not apply their makeup with a trowel, and did not wear their clothes tight enough to look like second skin. She knew right away that she wanted to stay and she wanted to be accepted, but she knew she’d have to adapt to fit in, and she did, without anyone even telling her. She just knew her old ways were not going to cut it here, so she washed her face, chucked most of her clothes, and settled in to her new skin like she’d been born in it, like the clothes she used to wear and the makeup she used to hide behind had been waiting all those years to be shed.

  Another yank on the string and another crab for the pot. He’d have to be careful, or there’d be nothing left of those fellows. They didn’t especially like being crowded, though the ice should keep them somewhat sedated.

  This brother of Mia’s-Grady-Hal couldn’t help but wonder about him. He wasn’t sure he was getting an accurate read on the boy. He’d been in the FBI for nine years, then quit and moved out full-time to Montana to the house where his wife had been murdered. Murdered on orders from their own brother, because of something to do with some dirty business the brother had been into. Vanessa jokingly referred to Grady as Mountain Man, and last night at dinner she’d begged Hal to take him out on the boat while he was here.

  “Please, Hal. Take him crabbing. Or take him out to fish,” she’d pleaded. “I promised Mia I’d find things to keep him busy. Almost every night of the week before the wedding, there’s something planned… dinners or whatever. But there’s nothing during the days. Could you please take him out one day? I can’t promise he’ll be good company, but it’s so important to Mia that he not be left to sit in his room at the Inn by himself.”

  “Now, Ness,” Hal had replied. “Any man who spent nine years in the FBI can probably find something to occupy his time if he has a mind to. And if he’s anything at all like his sister, he’ll be pleasant enough to be around. I’m more than happy to offer to take him out on the boat, but if he isn’t inclined, I’m not going to force him.”

  “That’s good enough for me.” Vanessa had nodded. “I don’t know what he’s like. My guess is that he’s duller than dull-I mean, let’s face it, he’s been living alone in the mountains for a couple of years now, so he’s bound to be a dud. And he’s probably fat, you know, from lack of activity. But I don’t want Mia to be worrying about a thing.”

  Hal had patted Vanessa’s hand and assured her that he’d be around to help make the loner feel part of the group.

  “Well, if anyone can make this guy feel at home, it would be you,” she’d said.

  “We’ll give it our best. Mia’s family now, so whatever it takes to make her happy is what we’ll do.” And with any luck, the guy will have his sea legs before too long, and we can spend a little time out on the Bay, Hal thought. He and Grady were both former law enforcement, so they’d have that at least to talk about. Hal wasn’t worried about entertaining Mia’s brother.

  There was a clatter in the pot, and he raised the lid to take a look. One of the males was getting feisty with the others, so Hal poured a little more ice into the pot, and decided to call it a day. He settled back on the seat and positioned the oars, and started to row back toward the dock. He’d drop the crabs off at the station, then go home and take a shower. He had an appointment to have his tux fitted that afternoon, and he didn’t want to be late. On his son’s wedding day, he wanted to look the part not only of a proud father, but of the best man.

  And wasn’t that something, he thought as he rowed through the gentle waves. He was going to be the best man at his boy’s wedding. Yes, sir, that was sure something else.

  Chapter 4

  WHERE have you been?” Mia watched her brother climb the three short steps to the deck behind Hal Garrity’s house, where a party honoring the upcoming nuptials was in full swing. She had one hand on the railing, the other wrapped around a flute of champagne, and a frown on her face.

  “If I’d known such a warm welcome awaited me in St. Dennis, I’d have been here sooner.” Grady smiled at his sister’s indignation. He couldn’t help himself. She looked almost fierce. “Is this the look you save for the bad guys? ’Cause I know that I would be shaking in my shoes if you stared me down like that. Specially if you were armed.”

  Mia laughed in spite of herself.

  “I was gettin
g worried when I called the Inn a few hours ago and they said you hadn’t checked in yet,” she told him. “I thought you would have been in town long before now.”

  “Did I miss something?”

  “Well, no,” she admitted.

  He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Well, then. No harm, no foul, right?”

  “Right.” She grudgingly nodded. “You’re pardoned.”

  “You said Sunday; it’s Sunday. The invitation from Beck’s dad said four in the afternoon. It’s four-twenty,” he pointed out. “Some people would consider that fashionably late.”

  She laughed again and handed him a glass of champagne, but he waved her off.

  “Cowboys don’t drink champagne,” he told her, tongue in cheek. “I’m going for one of those manly beers over there in the cooler.”

  He moved through the crowd to the cooler. His hand plunged into the ice and came out with a cold bottle. He popped off the cap and took a long drink. After the long drive he’d made that day, the beer tasted terrific.

  “Gray, you remember Beck.” Mia was at his elbow with her fiancé.

  “I do.” Grady extended his hand to the man his sister would marry. “Congratulations, Beck. I wish you all the best.”

  “Thanks, Grady.” Beck took the proffered hand and shook it. “We’re really glad you could make it.”

  “Nothing could have kept me away.”

  “Awww, Grady. That’s sweet.” Mia hugged him. “Now, may I assume that your room at the Inn is okay?”

  “It’s terrific. It faces the bay and it has a balcony. Thanks for arranging it.”

  “Anything to keep you happy so that you’d want to come back for a visit sometime.” She poked him in the ribs. “So where the hell were you and why haven’t you answered your phone for the last three days?”

  “Checking up to make sure I didn’t chicken out?”

  “Don’t change the subject. Where were you?”

  “Actually, I was hiking the Grand Canyon,” he told her. “And my phone wasn’t picking up signals.”