Christmas Wedding (Cliffside Bay #9)

Chapter 1 Rafael

RAFAEL

If he hadn’t known the depth of his mama’s love, Rafael Soto might have suspected she was trying to kill him. The murder weapon? A bouquet of burning sage. He’d survived three tours as a Navy SEAL and was about to go out not in a blaze of glory but in a cloud of smoke.

A feverish glint in her normally warm brown eyes, Mama waved the smoky death stick in a rhythmic sashay in front of his face. Swells of smoke swirled around his head, and the foul smell crawled into his nose and throat. Tears leaked from his eyes.

“Marriage Curse be gone,” Mama said.

Behind her, Mama’s best friend, Ria, performed what sounded like a Gregorian chant while hopping on one foot in front of the Christmas tree.

In hindsight, he should not have bought Mama a laptop computer and installed high-speed internet in her apartment.

Since then, she’d become a search engine connoisseur.

Sadly, knowledge was not power when it came to Mama.

Knowledge was dangerous. Had he known she’d use it to search for a cure to a family curse and subsequently use all the remedies on him, he would have rethought the expensive internet package.

Turns out, there were blogs dedicated to all things mystical and magical. Mama and Ria had found every single darn one of them.

His mother, the irrepressible Mama Soto, believed their family suffered from what she’d named the Marriage Curse.

Her certainty wasn’t completely unfounded.

For three generations, the women in his family had raised children alone, after no-good, lying cheaters had done what they do best. Betray.

Deny. Leave. It was like a tagline for the men in his family.

Rafael didn’t believe in the curse. Many marriages ended in divorce.

It didn’t mean your family was cursed. Did the women in his family have questionable judgment in spouses?

Affirmative. Rafael’s first marriage, decided in haste before he shipped out to basic training after graduating from high school, had ended as all Soto marriages of the past. By a no-good, lying cheater.

Not him, but her. While he trudged through sand in a foreign country, his wife had taken up with her coworker.

He’d received not so much as a Dear John letter.

So, yes, in the past, he and his mama and grandmother and great-grandmother had chosen poorly.

However, that was before he found Lisa Perry.

The love of his life. An angel who walked the earth and had somehow, by a miracle that could only be a gift from God, fallen for him.

In two days, they would exchange vows in the winter wonderland of Emerson Pass, Colorado.

Lisa dismissed his first marriage and the curse.

She and her best friend Pepper Griffin called it a “starter marriage.” Not uncommon, according to an article they’d read in one of those fashion magazines he now found tucked into every nook in his apartment.

The theory was that young people marry for a few years and then divorce, almost as if they need a practice run before finding the right person.

It didn’t even count, Lisa reasoned. Plus, it was ages ago. He was young and dumb. All true.

He didn’t believe in the curse. Not really, anyway.

Mama, on the other hand, firmly believed that somewhere along the way, her grandmother had committed a transgression against a witch from her village in Mexico.

She didn’t know the exact nature of the crime but assumed it was something to do with a man.

“Witches are especially vindictive when it comes to matters of the heart,” she’d said.

How Mama, a devoted Catholic, reconciled magic and her religion was just one of the mysteries of a complex woman.

Regardless, she insisted that if something wasn’t done before the wedding, his marriage to the love of his life would end in tragedy.

Which was how he ended up by the front window of her apartment, praying no one walked by to see his humiliation.

His mother lived in one of two first-floor apartments of his restored Victorian, located slightly off Main Street of their small beach town.

With the curtains open, anyone could see right into her living room.

His primary reason for buying the building was to make sure his mother and Ria had a place to live during their retirement years.

A few months ago, he’d gotten them settled into their side-by-side units on the first floor.

Mama and Ria kept busy playing bridge, volunteering at the church, taking walks on the stretch of beach at the end of town, and getting into his and the rest of the tenants’ business.

Not that he was complaining. He could rest easy now. The neighborhood in Oakland where they’d lived before had kept him awake nights worrying over their safety.

All was well now that he could keep a close watch on her. Unless she managed to kill him.

Mama promised this was the last of five rituals that she and Ria would use to drive away the Marriage Curse.

They had consisted of a bath in salt water while murmuring the Lord’s Prayer, twelve days of an aura-purifying ceremony performed at sunrise using scorched lemon halves pressed against his skin, praying to angels during the full moon, a bath in rose water while sucking on a piece of fennel, and finally, burning sage to pull the curse from his soul.

He now suspected the rituals were successful because they killed the damned rather than cured them.

“This is for your own good,” Mama said, as if reading his mind.

“How much longer?” he asked before a fit of coughing overcame him.

Ria finished the sonnet with a hearty amen.

“Now. Done.” Mama stepped away. For a moment, eyes narrowed, she scrutinized him.

Then her mouth turned upward in a triumphant smirk, seemingly satisfied that this last torture session had accomplished her goal.

With the sage held above her head like a torchlight, she headed for the kitchen, leaving a swirl of smoke behind her like a pet snake.

He put his head between his legs and breathed in and out. Did burning sage do any permanent damage to one’s lungs? He hoped not, because he had so much to live for. Despite Mama’s obsession with the curse, he was certain that nothing, other than death, could pull him away from his love.

After gathering himself, he stood on trembling legs. Mama returned from the kitchen with a cookie and a glass of milk. He wished she’d stuck with this as her cure for all ills as she had when he was a child.

“Here you go, my brave boy,” Mama said.

He took the glass and chocolate cookie from her outstretched hands. “This was the last of them, right?”

“According to our research, yes.” Mama crossed her arms over her reindeer sweater. “We took extra precautions by performing all of the rituals. There’s nothing more we can do.” The last sentence was said in the tone of a stoic. Fate would now take over. It was out of her hands.

Thank God.

A rapid tap on the door drew his attention. It was Lisa. Her appearance took his breath away. Would that ever change? He didn’t think so. She halted just inside the entryway and waved her hand in front of her nose. “What’s that hideous smell?”

“Mama’s last and final cure,” he said.

Lisa’s brow furrowed slightly, just enough that he could tell she was displeased.

No one else would detect the subtle change to her otherwise placid expression.

She loved his mother and would never say anything to hurt her feelings.

However, this whole ritual ordeal had worried and irritated her.

He held out his arm and she tucked into him.

“Are you all right?” Ice-blue eyes peered up at him.

Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

She wore only a hint of makeup on her fair skin and looked casual and comfortable in a pair of loose jeans and a red sweater.

No one would know that she was the “it” girl of Hollywood if they didn’t know who she was.

Her Midwestern sweetness remained, despite all the money and fame thrown her way over the last year.

He assured her he was fine and asked about her final wedding dress fitting. “Everything good?”

“Yes, the alterations were perfect.”

“And you still love the dress?” He’d learned since falling in love with Lisa that women sometimes changed their minds about their outfits. Usually just before it was time to leave for an event, the rejected items tossed onto the bed like discarded friends.

“Yes, I still love my dress. Not as much as I love you, of course, but a close second.”

“As long as I’m still in the lead,” he said before planting a kiss on her nose. “Let’s go upstairs and finish packing.”

They said goodbye to Mama and Ria, then climbed the stairs to their apartment on the third floor.

Rafael owned the building, a Victorian mansion he’d converted into six apartments.

He and Lisa lived in one of the third-floor units, next door to Stone and Trey, his business partners in the construction and design company Wolf Enterprises.

As they passed through the second floor, he heard the happy chattering of David’s small children coming from their apartment.

Lisa put her finger over her lips, to indicate they tread lightly.

If Laine and Oliver heard their aunt Lisa on the stairs, they’d want her to come inside to play with them.

David was Lisa’s twin and the newest resident of what the tenants had nicknamed the Victorian.

He’d moved the children out from Iowa after he lost his wife.

The timing was perfect for Wolf Enterprises.

They’d needed an architect. He’d needed a job.

David had been a rising star at this firm in Iowa, and from the plans he’d designed for them, it was easy to see why.