Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
PAUL
The yacht is wearing more flowers than I’ve ever seen on a non-floral surface.
Delilah has been aboard since five a.m., and the result is staggering—garlands of white roses and eucalyptus draped along every railing, arrangements of dahlias and peonies lining the grand salon, greenery woven through the staircase banister in a way that makes the whole yacht smell like a garden.
The altar—if you can call it an altar when it’s positioned on the bow of a mega yacht—is a wooden arch wrapped in magnolia branches and twinkle lights.
Twinkle lights. The same kind Emma has on her houseboat. Of course they are.
I’m standing in the marina office in the one suit I own—the same one I wore to Holly’s funeral, which is a thought I’m choosing not to dwell on.
I had it dry cleaned. It still fits, mostly.
The shoulders are tight in a way that suggests I’ve been doing more physical labor than suit-wearing in the past decade.
“You clean up decent,” Justin says from the doorway. He’s in khakis and a button-down, looking approximately as comfortable as a man wearing a costume.
“This is ridiculous.”
“You’re a guy who owns one suit. It’s fine.”
“Same thing.”
He almost smiles. Today must be special.
The marina is chaos in its finest clothing.
Guests are arriving by car, by boat, and in one memorable instance, by helicopter—Levi’s manager, who apparently believes that ground transportation is for civilians.
The parking situation alone would make a city planner weep.
I’ve got boats double-parked at slips, a valet team that’s never valeted in a marina before, and Aubrey Wheaton—the wedding planner from Maple Creek—directing traffic with a clipboard.
“Paul.” Aubrey materializes beside me. Red hair pinned up, white blouse impossibly crisp despite the humidity. “The string quartet can’t find their staging area.”
“Port side of the main deck. Second door past the galley.”
“And the caterers from The Salty Pearl need access to the auxiliary kitchen.”
“Amber knows where it is. She did the walkthrough yesterday.”
“And there’s a man in a kayak with a camera.”
“Again?”
“Different kayak. Different man. Same camera.”
I grab the radio. “Dawson, we’ve got another one. Port side, near slip six.”
It crackles. “On it, Dad.” A pause. “Finch says this guy has a telephoto.”
“I don’t care about his equipment. Just move him away from the yacht.”
“Copy that.”
I watch through the office window as Dawson’s boat—a seventeen-foot center console that has never looked more official—cuts through the harbor toward the kayaker.
Finch is standing at the bow with his arms crossed, sunburned and serious.
The kayaker takes one look at him and starts paddling backward.
The kayaker retreats. Dawson gives a thumbs up.
This is my life now. A marina manager in a suit commanding a teenage naval defense force against paparazzi in recreational watercraft.
Holly would be dying.
I see Emma for the first time on the dock near the gangway.
She’s in the bridesmaid dress—a deep blue-green that matches the water behind her, straps that cross in the back, bare shoulders.
Her hair is up, loose pieces falling around her face.
She’s got her camera around her neck because she’s doing double duty today—bridesmaid and photographer—which means she’ll be standing beside Delilah during the ceremony and also somehow capturing it from behind a lens.
She hasn’t figured out the logistics of this yet. Nobody has. It’s going to be a beautiful disaster.
She sees me. I see her see me. We haven’t spoken in five days.
“You’re in a suit,” she says.
“You’ve got a camera strapped to a formal gown.”
“I’m multitasking.”
“You’re going to trip walking down the aisle with a Nikon hanging from your neck.”
“I’ve thought about that. Aubrey worked it out.”
“Of course she did.”
“I remove the Nikon for the processional and hand it to my second shooter.”
We both glance at Mads, nine months pregnant and attempting to zip her bridesmaid dress with the resigned determination that breathing is optional for the next four hours.
“At least someone has a plan,” I say.
“I heard that,” Mads calls from across the dock. “And I’d like to point out that I’m growing a human being and still showed up on time, which is more than I can say for the string quartet.”
Emma bites her lip. She’s trying not to laugh. I’m trying not to look at her shoulders. Neither of us is succeeding.
“Paul.”
“Yeah.”
“That suit works on you. Really works.”
She says it quietly. Not flirting, just honest. It slips out before she can stop it.
“You look —” I stop. Swallow. Start again. “The color is nice.”
“That’s it?” She raises one eyebrow. “I’m in the best dress I’ve ever owned and the best you can do is ‘the color is nice’?”
“I’m not good at this.”
“I’ve noticed.”
She turns back toward the yacht. I stand there in my one suit, watching her walk away, and I think: five more days. She asked for space. It’s been five. She said a week, maybe two. Be patient. Be patient. Be —
“You’re staring,” Justin says behind me.
“I’m surveying the premises.”
“You’re surveying with your jaw clenched and your eyes gone soft. That’s a man about to do something either very brave or very stupid.”
“I should inspect the walkway.”
“It’s fine. I reinforced it myself.”
“Inspecting it anyway.”
Harold has positioned himself at the bow of the yacht with a champagne flute, looking like he personally commissioned the sunset. Which, knowing Harold, he probably tried.
He’s wearing a suit I’ve never seen before. Pocket square. Cufflinks. His hair is combed. Grandma Hensley is beside him in lavender lace, and they are holding hands, and I have questions that I’m not going to ask because some things a son doesn’t need confirmed.
“Paul.” Harold raises his drink. “Beautiful day.”
“Half the town is on my dock, Dad. Plus whatever Hollywood people Levi couldn’t uninvite.”
“Structures have margins.”
“Structures have lawsuits.”
“You worry too much. Always have. Your mother used to say you worried in utero.”
She pats my arm. “Your father told me to tell you to relax, but since he never relaxes about anything either, I’m going to skip that part and just say: you look handsome, dear. Emma is a fool if she doesn’t snap you up.”
“With all due respect —”
“I have a notebook, Paul. I’ve been tracking your situation since March. You’re behind schedule. My records suggest you should have declared your intentions by Memorial Day.”
“Your records.”
“I’m very thorough.”
She squeezes my arm and turns back to Harold, who winks at me over her head.
I retreat to the ramp, which is fine, because Justin reinforced it, because Justin is good at his job, and I need to stop checking things that don’t need checking and start dealing with the fact that Emma is on this yacht in that dress and I have approximately three hours before this wedding ends and I lose my excuse to be in the same room with her.
The ceremony is at sunset.
Guests arranged in white chairs on the yacht’s main deck. The string quartet plays something soft and classical that I can’t name but that sounds like the ocean feels. The altar—the arch of magnolia branches—is framed against the sky, which is doing its best impression of a painting.
The bridesmaids come down the aisle. Jo first, then Michelle, then Mads—magnificent and enormous and daring anyone to comment—then Jessica, then Emma.
Emma without the camera. Aubrey’s plan worked: Lottie is stationed at the back with the Nikon, capturing shots from the guest perspective.
Emma’s second shooter, hired specifically for today, is positioned at the side.
Emma will rejoin the photography after the ceremony, but for the processional and the vows, she’s just a bridesmaid.
Just.
She walks down the aisle in the blue-green dress, bouquet in her hands—Delilah’s wildflower creation, loose and natural, like something picked from a meadow—and when she passes my row, she looks at me.
Not a glance. A look. The full, steady, unguarded version. Five days of space and silence and counting seconds, and she gives me all of it in one look as she passes.
I forget how to breathe. Which is inconvenient for a man sitting in the third row trying to look composed.
The groomsmen take their places. Grayson.
Scott. Brett. Asher, who is somehow both Jo’s son and Dean’s stepson and the most confident twenty-something on this yacht.
They line up beside Levi, who is standing at the altar looking like he’s been waiting twenty years for this exact moment. Which he has.
Then Delilah.
She comes down the aisle on Eleanor’s arm—her mother, because her father David is gone and Eleanor wouldn’t have it any other way.
Delilah is wearing white. Simple. No train, no veil, no excess.
Just the dress and the flowers in her hair and the look on her face when she sees Levi standing under the magnolia arch.
I’ve seen a lot of things on this dock. Storms, sunsets, heartbreak, healing. I watched Holly take her last breath in a hospital room with fluorescent lights and machines that beeped too loudly. I’ve stood in this marina a thousand mornings wondering if I’d ever feel anything that big again.
Watching Delilah walk toward Levi—watching two people who found their way back to each other after twenty years of wrong turns and silence—something shifts in my chest that I haven’t felt in eleven years.
The minister speaks. Vows are exchanged. Levi’s voice shakes on “I promise,” and Delilah laughs through her tears, and Grandma Hensley blows her nose so loudly that three rows of guests turn around.
Rings. Kiss. The entire yacht erupting in applause while the sun drops below the horizon and the sky catches fire.
I look at Emma from my seat. She’s crying. Camera forgotten. Bouquet trembling in her hands.
She mouths something. I can’t make it out. But I think—I hope—it’s I’m done with space.