10. Chapter 10
10
Chapter 10
Blue
Unlike the afternoon sky, which was clear and calm, Blue’s stomach—and emotions—swirled, taking hazardous flight, like the impending hurricane. How dare Sean! How dare he act like he knew her better than Jonah after all these years and say she didn’t like the spotlight.
She didn’t like it, and did her level best to avoid it—even when Jonah was trying to get her to be on his show—but that wasn’t the point.
And what was with him telling her he’d never be comfortable seeing her with someone else and then just walking off like that—without even giving her the chance to reply? She squeezed the buttery leather seats at the sides of her hips in a death grip.
“I wonder how often your boy and his crew actually find treasure,” Jonah said, parking behind Leather and Lace. Blue lived in the apartment above her store. He stared at the leather console of his Porsche like he was a million miles away and didn’t expect her to answer.
So she didn’t.
Sean just walked away like he had the right to the last word. And after he’d been the one to end it all those years ago! The nerve of the man.
“So interesting that he’d go from being a SEAL to a treasure hunter,” Jonah said. “I mean, there’s got to be money in that. Why else would he do it?”
“Because he loves the ocean,” Blue answered absentmindedly.
“He can’t love it that much,” Jonah laughed.
What was she doing torturing herself by going back to that moment, that phrase, that glint of longing in his eye before he turned away? She and Sean were through, had been a long time. And she had a good man who wanted to marry her.
“Maybe for our next show, we’ll dive in some wrecks,” Jonah said. “That’d be something our viewers wouldn’t expect. With sharks. What do you think?”
What did she think? She thought a lot of things. But right now, she was wondering what it was she was waiting for. The past was obviously in the past. She took a fortifying breath of new car smell and spun in her seat to look at Jonah. “I want to get married.”
“Whoa, darlin’,” Jonah said holding up both his hands, his eyes wide. “What?”
“I want to get married,” Blue repeated.
Jonah grabbed her hand and played with the ring he’d given her. “We are.” He laughed. “As soon as you pick a date.”
“How about tomorrow afternoon?” Before the hurricane hit pushing back the chance of getting married to weeks, or months maybe. It was crazy, but they could do it. They would have more than enough time to plan the kind of wedding she wanted and then her new life could really start and she could leave her past behind for good.
Jonah turned in his seat to face her. “Tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” she said. “We can do a cozy civil wedding and then hunker down for the honeymoon while the hurricane blows over.”
He lurched across the seat, slid his too-soft hand around the back of her neck, and kissed her. She ignored the guilt building in her gut and the significance of it. She didn’t want to think about that. Not now. “Darlin’, you’re making my dreams come true.” His blue eyes sparkled with excitement.
She forced a smile. “So we’re a go?”
“I’ve been waiting for you to set a date for months. This is perfect. Yeah, we’re a go,” he said and kissed her again. “What changed your mind? It wasn’t Sean, was it?” He let his hand slip from her hair.
Blue swallowed hard. “Yes, but not in the way you think.”
“What way am I thinking?” He sat back.
“I just realized that waiting for life to happen isn’t the way I want to live,” she said. “I want to marry you. I don’t want to wait anymore.” What could the purpose be in that? There wasn’t one. She had a man who loved her, one she loved. They got along well and had a lot of things in common. And Jonah would never leave her. Not ever. He was a safe choice. And frankly, she couldn’t hurt him either.
Jonah gave her that blinding smile of his. “Tomorrow it is.”
He kissed her once more.
* * *
Not even an hour after the Emergency Alert sounded and Diamond Cove was already a mass of activity. There were lines of cars down the street from the gas station, and the two grocery stores in town were packed with people carrying toilet paper under both arms.
Blue turned right off of Main Street onto Turks Lane and admired the cute houses designed from seven different floor plans, and painted a hundred different shades of blue and cream. Her dad’s was the second on the right—a little, two-bedroom bungalow in need of a paint job.
She parked in the driveway behind his Harley and hurried up to his door, letting herself inside. This was the moment she dreaded since telling Jonah she wanted to marry him ASAP. There was no getting around it though. She wanted her dad there, so he needed to know. Between the wedding and the hurricane, she was a ball of nerves—although she opted to blame the hurricane. This was her first after all—she should be a wreck. Right?
Dad sat at the table, reading a paper. He said his shop opened too early in the morning to read it before work, so he liked to read in the afternoon. Sun filtered through the shades, lighting his paper in a nice afternoon glow.
“Hey, bright eyes.” Dad glanced up at her and smiled. “How’s things?”
“I’ve been calling you for the last fifteen minutes,” she said, pulling up a chair next to his at the table. Her tone was tight and her neck ached. She rolled her head around trying to loosen it up and it cracked in about ten places.
Dad felt his pockets for his phone and came up empty. “I must have left it at work. What’s up, sugar pie?”
“There’s been a hurricane warning, it’ll be here in thirty-six hours,” she said.
He put his paper down.
“I pulled up a list of things to do to prepare. We’ll need to get working on it.” She stared down at her phone as she added, “Oh, and Jonah and I are getting married tomorrow,” she said. “Can you call Marshall Stroup? I’d like him to marry us.”
“Marshall?” Dad parroted, eyes wide.
“Yeah,” she said without looking up. “I think he once said that he’d gotten an online certificate so he could officiate at a cousin’s wedding. Using him will be a lot easier than trying to find a priest before a hurricane, and I would’ve invited him anyway.” Stroup had been their contact agent for years. She wouldn’t exactly call him a family friend under normal circumstances, but he was the closest they had.
Blue headed for the refrigerator, avoiding meeting Dad’s eyes, and grabbed herself a Cherry Pepsi from the fridge. He never touched the stuff but kept a supply for her visits. Consulting her phone she said, “We need to get your windows boarded up, and probably the shop too—though it has those big metal shutters.” Come to think of it, every building in Diamond Cove had shutters. Looked like they had long ago prepared for a hurricane. Probably wasn’t their first.
“Wait, hold up.” Dad followed her into the kitchen. “Go back to the part where you and Jonah are getting married.”
She nodded and opened her soda, taking a sip. “I just said there’s a hurricane coming, and that’s what you fixate on?” Shouldn’t the life-or-death situation take precedence? She was counting on it.
“There sure is a hurricane coming, Hurricane Bluebell St. James,” Dad said, placing his hands on his hips. “She blows through, yanking people up by their roots, and spinning them around until they can’t tell which way’s up.”
His words hit their target, deep and hard, reminding her of all the lives she’d ruined. Her dad’s, her brother’s, Sean’s, her own. She slammed her soda down, and it frothed over the side with a fizzing sound, and over the side of her hand like a wave, soaking it. She reached for a paper towel and wiped off her hand and then the counter. Silence wove around the two of them and then worked its way between the words she grasped for.
She didn’t want to do this, so she tried changing the subject. “Did you know there’s a barber in town named Ryker Rockefeller?” That was news he should probably be aware of.
“Stop trying to change the subject.” Dad came up beside her. “You’ve been pushing this wedding back for months. What’s brought this on?”
“Nothing,” she said, and grabbed a towel to clean up her spill. “It’s just time. I’m done waiting.”
Dad took the towel from her. “Don’t marry him.”
She faced her dad. “Why not?”
He folded his bulky arms over his chest. “Because you don’t love him. You love Sean.”
“Well, Sean’s not an option, Dad.” She grabbed the towel from him. “Hasn’t been for a long time.”
“Vittoria!” he slammed his hand down on the counter with a loud, reverberating slap. “Don’t settle for second best. Fight for first.”
She faced him as her emotions whipped around inside her like pinball getting whacked at every turn.
“Please, don’t let me see you suffer a loveless marriage like I did.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t make me suffer that.”
She shrugged his hand off her shoulder. “Who says it’s loveless?” It wasn’t loveless but it was less love. But she wasn’t blind to the fact that Jonah didn’t love her like Sean did. He couldn’t. They were different men and she was a different woman with both of them. So what if she liked the version of herself she was with Sean more than the Jonah version? That was not the point. The point was that she wasn’t going to wait around for Sean ever again! He’d made his choice and she’d had to live with it even when it made her ache and for a while, she’d even lost her creative spark.
She had that back now. Had worked hard to turn it into a thriving business. Without Sean!
If she could do that, then she could get married too.
“I’m marrying Jonah tomorrow. If you don’t want to witness the travesty of my loveless marriage, then don’t come. But I hope you’ll be there.” She headed for the front door. “I’m going to close the shutters.”
This was it. She was finally moving on with her life. No turning back now.