Here Comes the Groom
A GANSETT ISLAND SHORT STORY
“Tell me again why I gotta wear a tie ta this thing,” Ned Saunders said as he tried to remember how to knot the damned thing. He hadn’t worn one in years. “It’s dinner at Maddie’s house. Why’s it gotta be fancy? I ain’t fancy.”
“Because Maddie said it’s a dress-up dinner party, so we’re getting dressed up. It won’t kill you.”
“Very well might,” he muttered. He’d been in a foul mood for weeks now, and he was well aware that others were beginning to notice.
His buddy Big Mac had called him out on it recently, asking him what had crawled up his ass and died.
He was smack in the middle of an epidemic of weddings and engagements.
Everyone was tying the knot except for him—and he’d waited the longest.
They’d been stymied every time they tried to set a date since Francine’s divorce had been final. He’d pitched the idea of a surprise wedding to her, and she’d loved it. They’d even set a date for that, only to have Seamus and Carolina beat them to it.
Even Grant and Stephanie were finally getting married in a couple of weeks, and they’d been dragging their feet for a year now!
It wasn’t fair. He’d been waiting more than thirty years to marry his gal.
He was almost to the point of whisking her off to Vegas just to get it done.
Except… He didn’t want to do it that way.
He wanted his people there with him, including her daughters, who’d become his girls since he’d been with their mom.
He wanted their grandkids there and all their friends.
Tomorrow he was going to figure this out once and for all. They were going to set a damned date and stick to it. Let anyone try to stop them.
“Ready?” Francine asked.
He glanced at her and did a double take at how beautiful she looked. She’d had her hair done earlier in the day, and every one of her auburn locks was shining and gorgeous.
“What’re you staring at?”
“I’m starin’ at the gal I love. She takes my breath away.”
“You charmer.”
“I ain’t feedin’ ya bull, doll. I look atcha, and I get all tangled up inside.”
Francine smoothed her hands over the lapels of his one good sport coat. “I feel the same way about you and our lovely life together. Every day I’m thankful you gave me another chance.”
“Gave ya another chance,” he said with a laugh. “As if I had a choice. Ya have my heart, doll. Ya always have.”
She kissed him. “Let’s go have dinner with the kids so we can come home and continue this conversation.”
It still astonished him, even after more than a year of living together, that he got to come home with her every night and sleep with her in his arms after dreaming about her for lonely, empty decades.
Since they’d been forced to dress up, he broke out the vintage Cadillac he’d bought from the Chesterfield Estate for the drive to Mac and Maddie’s house. They arrived to a mess of cars in the driveway, leading all the way out to Sweet Meadow Farm Road.
“I thought it was just us and the kids,” Ned said glumly. He was hardly in the mood for another festive party with all the happily married couples in their lives.
“That’s what I thought, too. They must’ve invited the whole gang.”
“Great.”
Ned held her elbow as they went up the stairs to the deck, where the gathered group tossed something at them and yelled, “Surprise.” He held up his arm to protect his face from whatever was flying at him. Rose petals rained down upon them.
“Surprise?” Francine said. She turned to him. “It’s not your birthday or mine.”
Mac and Maddie approached them, holding glasses of champagne and wearing broad smiles. “It’s not your birthday,” Maddie said, kissing them both. “Welcome to your wedding.”
Ned figured he’d heard her wrong until things began to happen all around him.
Frank McCarthy stepped forward with a marriage license for him and Francine to sign. Maddie and Tiffany signed as their witnesses.
Next came flowers for both of them, as well as Maddie and Mac and Tiffany and Blaine. Ashleigh, Thomas and Hailey finished out the wedding party he would’ve chosen for himself.
“I don’t understand,” Ned finally said when he could get a word in edgewise.
“You wanted to get married and couldn’t find a date,” Big Mac said, “so Mac and Maddie found one for you.” Big Mac put his tree-trunk arm around Ned. “All you gotta do, old pal, is stand there and get married.”
He was going to cry, goddamn it. Right in front of everyone. He was going to actually cry. Here, standing before him, ready to stand up with him and Francine, was the family he’d always wanted but never had. He spared a glance for Francine and discovered she was already crying.
To hell with it, he decided as he stopped trying to fight his way through the emotional wallop. “’Tis a heck of a thing ya’ve done here,” he said to Mac and Maddie. “Thank you.”
“So you’re happy about it?” Maddie said. “I told Mac if you were mad, it was all his idea.”
“It was all my idea.”
Maddie patted his face indulgently. “Yes, dear.”
“Well, it was.”
“I’m very happy bout it,” Ned said gruffly as he sniffed. “Never been happier bout anything.”
“I knew you would be,” Mac said with a big smirk for his wife.
Frank rubbed his hands together. “What do you say, Ned? Francine? Shall we do this? It’s been a full week since I married Laura and Owen. I’m starting to get twitchy for another wedding.”
“I ain’t got a ring fer her,” Ned said, feeling suddenly panicked. They were really going to do this. “I need a ring. She deserves a ring.”
“Gotcha covered.” Mac produced rings from his pocket. “We took the liberty of choosing these for you, but the store said you can return them if there’s something you’d rather have.”
“I don’t know what ta say. Ya thought of everything. Ya even found a way ta get a tie on me.”
“That was the hardest part,” Maddie said, patting her new stepfather’s chest.
Tiffany and Blaine hugged and kissed Ned and Francine.
“This is so exciting!” Tiffany said to her mother. “I almost told you about it five times this week!”
“I kept the secret,” Ashleigh said to her grandmother.
“Yes, you did, sweetheart. I had no idea!”
“Places, everyone.” Maddie clapped her hands. To Ned, she said, “You stay here with Mac and Blaine.”
Ned let her position him where she wanted him.
His heart was beating so fast he worried he might pass out or something equally embarrassing.
But this was the moment he’d waited so long for, and nothing was going to ruin it for him or Francine.
So he took a series of deep breaths, hoping to calm his racing heart.
He gestured to Big Mac. “Come ere.”
Big Mac walked over to him. “I’m here.”
“Stay. Need ya right here with me.”
His best friend hugged him. “You got it, buddy.”
Big Mac shook hands with Mac and Blaine as he joined them.
Looking around at all the faces gathered before him, Ned saw everyone he loved in this world.
The five McCarthy kids, who’d grown up with him as their beloved adopted uncle, his buddies from the morning meetings at the marina and the friends like Luke Harris, who’d become family to him over the years.
He wiped his eyes and tried to keep his emotions under control even as he realized he was fighting a losing battle.
Evan and Owen played gentle guitar music as Ashleigh and Thomas came outside, holding hands.
Ned loved those kids so damned much. He couldn’t wait to watch them grow up and to spoil them the way any good grandfather would.
Next came Tiffany, looking gorgeous and elated as she preceded her equally beautiful sister Maddie through the door.
Maddie carried Hailey in her arms, and the baby blew kisses that made his heart melt.
Ned held his breath, waiting for Francine to appear, and when she did, she carried a bouquet of white flowers and wore a smile that stretched across her pretty face.
The sight of that face and that smile settled and calmed him. In a few minutes, she would be his wife, and they’d get the rest of their lives together. Nothing had ever made him happier than that did.
The rest of it was a blur. Vows were spoken, rings were exchanged, and Frank pronounced them husband and wife.
Ned hugged her and kissed her—probably longer and deeper than was technically appropriate, but who the hell cared?
Francine, his Francine, was finally his wife, and it was all because their kids had loved them enough to do this for them.
Standing hand in hand with his new wife, surrounded by the family he’d always wanted, Ned Saunders considered himself the luckiest man on earth.
Turn the page to read Shane and Katie’s story, Kisses After Dark!