Saltwater Secrets (The Coleman #14)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

S pringtime bride Hilary Coleman linked arms with her father as they prepared to walk down the aisle.

Her father, Roland Coleman, was nervous, which was a rare sight for a man like him, a man born into one of the wealthiest families on Nantucket Island, a man who, since the age of eighteen, had performed every professional and family act with an air of gravitas and confidence.

Hilary considered what to say to the man who’d given her life, the man whose nerves had everything to do with her own happiness.

Hilary tilted her head up to try to catch her father’s eye. The string quintet performed beautifully, their harmonies drawing into the dense blue sky. Just now, her older sister, Sam, walked down the aisle, carrying a bouquet of lilies.

“Dad?” Hilary finally mustered, her voice wavering. “Dad, are you all right?”

Her father flinched and looked at her. His eyes glinted with tears. “I’m fine, honey,” he said, although it was clear he wasn’t. “I’m just thinking.”

Hilary yearned desperately to know what was on her father’s mind. So often, he was tight-lipped about his emotions, eager to appear the strong man he knew he needed to be.

Her father cleared his throat. Out of the corner of Hilary’s eye, she spotted the wedding planner, speaking into her little radio, trying to keep the flow of the day going forward.

Far down the aisle waited Marc Halton, the father of Aria and the love of Hilary’s life, the man who’d given up everything of his life out West to build a fresh one with Hilary here on the island.

Their love had both come out of nowhere and also announced itself as always having been there.

It was like Hilary and Marc had been too stupid to notice it or unwilling to interrupt their fine but loveless lives, for whatever reason.

Two years ago when Hilary had been diagnosed with a serious form of glaucoma and she’d needed assistance post-surgery, Marc had stepped in.

Blindness had been a fear and a very real possibility.

It had been Hilary’s greatest terror never to see her daughter’s face again.

But she’d realized that never seeing Marc’s would be nearly as bad. It would be a nightmare.

Finally, her father spoke. “You deserve every happiness, Hilary. I’m just so grateful that you’ve found real love. It doesn’t happen for everyone.”

Hilary’s heart pumped. She followed her father’s gaze to find that he was now eyeing her mother, Estelle, in the crowd. Estelle, who’d turned around to watch her daughter and husband as they prepared to take this first step.

It was Aria’s turn to walk down the aisle, guiding her mother’s way.

When Hilary had asked her twenty-three-year-old daughter to be her maid of honor, Aria had sobbed with joy.

As a child, Aria had always privately dreamed of her parents getting back together.

When Aria had told this to Hilary many years ago, Hilary had explained to her daughter that she and Marc had never really been “a thing.” Marc had been a friend, a fling.

Hilary hadn’t wanted to let herself hope for a future like this. Maybe she hadn’t known how.

Today, I’m marrying Marc Halton. It’s the second-best day of my life—after Aria’s birth, of course , she thought, drawing breath and telling herself to remain in the moment.

The wedding planner gave her cue. Suddenly, it was time for Hilary and Roland to walk down the aisle, toward Marc and the pastor who would guide them through their vows and bring them together in legal and holy matrimony.

Every eye was on Hilary, and her smile grew wider, more beautiful, and filled with hope.

Surrounding them was every family member, every Nantucket friend, every one of Marc’s best friends from San Francisco, and every member of Marc’s family.

They’d spared no expense, thinking, Why the heck would we do that?

When Roland and Hilary reached the head of the aisle, her father kissed her on the cheek and stepped back to join Estelle.

Aria was just a few feet away, holding a bouquet.

She was crying quietly, so much so that they’d probably have to fix her makeup after this for photographs.

But Aria’s smile lit up the room. I love you , Aria mouthed to her mother.

Marc couldn’t see her because his sights were set entirely on his bride.

Finally, Hilary drew her eyes to Marc, who gazed at her with wonder and love. In so many respects, Hilary couldn’t believe how lucky she was. In so many respects, she hadn’t expected such a marvelous life, one with Marc at her side.

The week after the wedding, Hilary and Marc left for a two-week honeymoon in the South of France.

They began in Nice and made their way west through Antibes, Cannes, and St. Tropez.

The water was a sparkling turquoise, and the food was divine and filled with butter and the very best and stinkiest cheeses Hilary had ever had.

Their hotel in Nice was in the center of the old city, surrounded by what felt like crumbling walls and old-world bakeries, but after that, they rented a beautiful house along the water, a house made of glass and stone that allowed them a perfect view of the sea.

After that, filled with obsession for the sea, for three days, they rented a sailboat and bummed along the coast, kissing and drinking champagne.

Because the Mediterranean Sea felt vast and formless, they never lost sight of the glossy and creamy French coastline.

But they caught the wind in the sails and streamed until they grew tired and found gorgeous edges of the coast to drop anchor and relax.

The best part of the honeymoon was the conversation.

Hilary and Marc could talk about almost everything with intellectualism and humor and flair, which was a skill they’d found initially back in university, one that had followed them through years of co-parenting and friendship and now into marriage.

Often, they found themselves discussing Aria, Aria’s future, and their hopes for her.

It was only then that the conversations took a funny turn, one that meant that they couldn’t say the whole truth.

Neither of them wanted to admit that they thought Aria was sort of in a rut.

“Her career is doing so well,” Hilary said for perhaps the twelfth time, readjusting the halter top of her swimsuit and reaching for the big bottle of sunscreen.

“Sometimes when we’re working together, it feels like she can read my mind and doesn’t need to ask what I want her to do.

Sometimes I think the clients even prefer her creative flair to mine! ”

Marc smiled and spread his hands out across the flat of his stomach. “I’m not surprised about that. I told you how she used to redecorate my place in San Francisco when she came to visit?”

Hilary chuckled. “Did she ask before she did anything?”

“Never.” Marc shook his head.

“You were angry, weren’t you?” Hilary remembered Marc’s bachelor pad and how sacred the space had been to him.

“I couldn’t stay angry for long.” Marc shrugged. “She made everything feel more seamless. It was like she understood my life and habits better than I did. And it all looked so artistic! Obviously, I knew she got it all from you. I couldn’t match a tie to a pocket square to save my life.”

“She’s brilliant,” Hilary said again. She was always saying it, so that Marc wouldn’t get the hint that she felt any differently—despite this “rut” business.

“She really is.”

There was a moment of silence, during which they listened to the lap of the waves against the boat and watched the clouds billow above them.

“Then why does it feel like she’s stuck?” Marc cried out, breaking the quiet.

Hilary flipped onto her stomach and leaned her chin on her fists. “It isn’t for me to say who she should date. I know that.”

Marc caught her eye.

“But things with Thaddeus haven’t felt exactly easy lately,” Hilary said tentatively. “I think she’s trying to keep it from me. But I heard them fighting a few weeks ago.”

“I heard them fighting about a month ago,” Marc said conspiratorially.

“I think she wanted to hide it from us because of the wedding?” Hilary suggested. “I mean, it looked like they were really happy at the ceremony itself. And they certainly danced all night.”

“But everyone gets swept up at weddings,” Marc pointed out.

It was true, Hilary knew. Her heart pounded with grief at the thought of her daughter’s potential future breakup.

Nobody wanted their children to go through hardships.

She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve really liked Thaddeus over the years.

I know he has a difficult past.” She was referring to the fact that previously, Thaddeus had done some unscrupulous things to pay the bills for his overly large and underprivileged family.

He’d even sold a few drugs, which was nothing he was proud of and everything he’d tried to overcome.

Still, as Aria’s mother, it wasn’t easy for Hilary to forget this fact.

“Thaddeus sure has changed,” Marc said then, sniffing.

“For the better, in many ways,” Hilary agreed. “Despite all this fighting. Not that I could make out what the fights were about.”

“I was surprised when he started taking online university classes,” Marc said. “And pleased! I never wanted his background to get in the way of what he wanted to do, whatever that ended up being.” He didn’t mention that Thaddeus had changed his major several times since then and felt wayward.

“And he’s always there for Aria,” Hilary recounted.

“I just wonder if they rushed into moving in together,” Marc said. “Not that I think people should wait as long as we did to announce their love for one another.”

“We aren’t the model,” Hilary agreed, reaching for her new husband’s hand.

“But, you know, Aria’s still only twenty-three years old!” Marc said. “I sort of want her to spread her wings and fly a little bit. I want her to know that her first serious relationship doesn’t have to be her only relationship.”

Hilary pondered this. “It’s sort of what people on Nantucket do, right? They fall in love, and they stay in love. It’s what she knows.”

“Do you think we should tell her that it doesn’t have to be this way? That if she’s unhappy, she can leave?” Marc suggested quietly.

“I don’t think it’s up to us to say that,” Hilary said. “She’s twenty-three, like you said. She has to make her own mistakes.”

“I thought all the hard years were in the past,” Marc joked. “I thought it ended with the teenage years.”

“I don’t think it’s ever really over.” Hilary thought of her own mother and father, of the guidance she’d sought in them and still so often needed. “Thank goodness, actually.”

Marc laughed. “She’ll always need us.”

“She’ll always have us when she needs us,” Hilary said, her heart feeling squeezed.

She popped up and kissed Marc on the lips, feeling the French sunshine on the back of her neck and the salt in her hair.

Suddenly overheated, she leaped from the edge of the boat and into the turquoise water, allowing herself to drift deeper into the surf than ever before, so deep that she felt a tremendous pressure in her ears.

Before she emerged, Marc joined her in the water, and they kissed several feet below the surface, their hearts pounding.

Hilary was forty-five years old and probably too old for a baby, she knew.

But it didn’t mean she didn’t sometimes fantasize about starting a new era with Marc, doing all the messy baby and toddler stuff with him by her side.

It sometimes made her heart ache to remember that he hadn’t been there for so many of her soft and beautiful moments with baby Aria.

But it was a miracle that he was here with her now, and they’d come together after so many years apart.

She didn’t want to take it for granted.