Married One Night

“Like white on rice,” Monica informed her. She dug her keys out of her purse. “I’m gonna take the little boy home.”

Olivia stopped her before she could get behind the wheel. “Take it easy on him.”

Monica chuckled. “I’m going to get him some hot coffee, give him a cold shower, then a religious experience.”

Olivia smiled and shook her head. “No shame.” As Monica shut the door and cranked the car to life, Olivia waved to Skeet. The car pulled out of the parking lot, and she turned to Gerald. “Thank you,” she made herself tell him. “It would have taken both me and Mon to haul him out of there. He might be a lightweight, but he’s big enough to be a linebacker.”

Gerald’s verdant eyes gleamed with laughter in the dark. He’d undone a couple of buttons on his shirt. Not that she was looking at the skin beneath. So not looking... “He revealed to me his intentions to marry her.”

Olivia laughed. Really laughed for the first time that night. “I can’t wait to see how that goes over.” When he only eyed her in the low light, she felt that stir underneath her skin. His effect on her combined with the chill in the air made her shiver. “We’d best go inside. I’ll finish cleaning up.”

“And perhaps you could give me that tour,” Gerald suggested, opening the door for her.

“Oh, right. Well...” She’d told him she would, hadn’t she? No use trying to get out of it. Lifting her hand to encompass the west wall, she began her spiel. “The profiles are explorers and original settlers. The Spanish arrived first, around fifteen-hundred. They fought the Muskogee tribes who lived here first, circa fifteen-forty.”

Gerald peered closely at a line of text under one of the more prominent profiles. “‘Bahía del Espíritu Santo.’ Bay of the Holy Spirit?”

“That name changed when the French came through in the early seventeen-hundreds to establish Fort Louis de la Mobile,” Olivia continued, on a roll now as he looked at her with interest. “They made Dauphin Island a seaport and founded the French Louisiana capital at Mobile. Then, of course, the land was bought up by the American government. Alabama eventually became a state but decided to cede from the Union in 1861 when civil war broke out. And that led to the Battle of Mobile Bay in August of 1864.”

Gerald glanced over the most intricate carvings in the room—seven late-nineteenth-century ships. “And these were the vessels lost?”

“Their wrecks still lie on the floor of Mobile Bay,” she explained. “My grandfather researched the ships carefully in order to re-create them.”

“It’s impressive work,” he mused, running his fingertips over the bow of the CSS Gaines.

Olivia swallowed hard when she caught herself staring at his hands—again. They were nice hands, she had to admit. But she wasn’t going to think about the many things they’d done to her on their wedding night. No sirree. Turning, she walked to the other side of the tavern and the map etched on the opposing wall. “This is my favorite. You can see all the bay’s cultural landmarks, down to the cotton. It was the bay’s chief export in the nineteenth century. Here’s the Fairhope Pier. And here are all the Eastern Shore townships, and across the bay the cities there and the USS Alabama.”

“Was this fort used in the Civil War, too?” he asked, pointing to the star shape at the bottom of the map.

“Mostly in the War of 1812,” she told him, meeting his stare with a catty expression, “when you British attacked during the Battle of New Orleans.”

“Ah,” he said, unable to fight a grin. “Yes, well, there’s no use apologizing for my ancestors. So which hurricane is this?” he asked, pointing to the large rotated eye at the entrance to the bay.

“Frederic,” she answered. “That was 1979 and it was pretty catastrophic. Memories of it were still fairly fresh when my grandfather first started carving the tavern walls. That’s actually sort of where my parents got the name for this place—Tavern of the Graces. They were interested in buying the property but thought that Frederic would level the building as well as Hanna’s Inn when the storm came through. But by the grace of a higher power both were still here after Frederic passed through. They took it as a sign and put all their money into renovating it.”

“And ‘Jubilee’?” Gerald said, pointing to the word scrawled into the wood vertically along the Fairhope shoreline. “What does that stand for?”

“It’s a natural phenomenon that takes place at night in the summertime. Fish, shrimp and crabs gather close to shore in hoards and make it easy to catch them in large numbers.”

“And it only happens here?” he asked, surprised.

“It’s been reported elsewhere, but Mobile Bay is the only place where it happens regularly each year,” she said. “It’s the fourth largest estuary in the country.”