Just Married!: Kiss the Bridesmaid / Best Man Says I Do

“The dog comes,” she said, “and if you don’t like it, or they don’t like it, tough.”

There. That was more like the real Samantha Hall, not like that woman who had stared back at her from the mirror in Sunsational, sensual, grown-up, mature, feminine.

Despite her attempts to harden her emotions, Samantha could not deny Annie’s Retreat was a place out of a dream she had, a dream that she had been able to keep a secret even from herself until she saw this place. These large properties were almost impossible to come by anymore on this coastline.

It made her remember that once upon a time she had dreamed of turning her love of all things animal into an animal refuge, where she could rescue and rehabilitate animals. Given her nonexistent budget, Groom to Grow had been more realistic, and she still ended up caring for the odd stray, like Waldo, that people brought in. But looking at this property she felt that old longing swell up in her.

The road ended in a yard surrounded by a picket fence, the white paint long since given way to the assaults of the salt air. Early-season roses were going crazy over an arbor; beyond it she could see the cottage: saltbox, weathered gray shake siding, white trim in about the same shape as the paint on the fence.

An attempt at a garden had long since gone wild, and yet it charmed anyway: daises, phlox, hollyhock, sewn among scraggly lawn, beach grass and sand.

A path of broken stones wound a crooked course to the house, where red geraniums bloomed in peeling window boxes. The path ended at an old screen door; the red storm door to the cottage was open through it. Sam could look in the door: a dark hallway burst open into a living room where a wall of salt-stained windows faced an unparalleled view of a restless, gray-capped sea.

She was here to look at a cottage out of a dream, a cottage she would never own. She was here with a man out of a dream, a man who was as unattainable for her as the cottage. No matter what he said about her being good enough and trying to impress her.

Ha-ha.

Waldo jumped up on the door, put his paws on the screen, sniffed and let out a joyous howl. A small dog came roaring down the hall, skittered on a rug, righted itself and rammed the door. She was out and after a brief sniff, the two dogs raced around the yard, obviously in the throes of love.

If only it was that easy for people, Sam thought. Though she could fall in love with the man beside her in about half a blink if she allowed herself to.

Not that she would ever be that foolish!

A tiny gnome of a woman came to the door, smiled at them from under a thick fringe of snowwhite hair. She opened the door to them, glancing at the dogs with tolerance.

Then she looked at them with disconcerting directness, her smile widened and she stuck out her hand. “Annie Finkle.”

Ethan took it, introduced himself, then hesitated before he said, “And this is my, er, fiancée, Samantha Hall.”

Samantha glanced at him. He was either a terrible liar, or after downgrading her from the wife position, didn’t even want her to be his fiancée!

She decided, evil or not, to make him pay for that. She looped her arm around his waist, ran her hand casually and possessively along his back, just as she had seen in-love couples do. The way her life was going this might be as close as she would ever get, so she was going to enjoy every minute of it.

And enjoy it even more because it made him so uncomfortable.

“Darling,” she breathed, following Annie into the living room, not letting go of her hold on him, “isn’t this the most adorable house you’ve ever seen?”

“Adorable,” he croaked, and she looked at him and enjoyed the strain she saw in his face. He tried to lift her arm away from him, but she clamped down tighter.

It was a delightful room, completely without pretension. It had dark plank flooring that had never been refinished, and a huge fireplace, the face of it soot-darkened from use. Worn, much used couches faced each other between the huge window and the fireplace. The entire room cried home.

“I love the floor coverings,” Sam said. “They’re unbelievable.”

Annie beamed at her. “I hand-paint historic patterns on oilskins. I make more of them than I can use, unfortunately. Artie would like me to open a shop, but I’m probably too old.” But even as she said it, she looked wistful. She brought herself back to the moment. “This is my favorite room in the house.”

“I love it, too,” Sam breathed. “I can just see myself sitting in that rocking chair in the winter, a fire in the hearth, watching a storm-tossed sea.” Then she realized it didn’t feel like a game, so she upped the ante to remind herself this was fantasy. “Maybe,” she cooed, “there would be a baby at my breast.”

Something darkened in his already too dark eyes. The set of his mouth looked downright grim as he looked at her. She knew she was playing way out of her league, and she didn’t mean baseball, but she stroked his back again, even though it made her stomach drop and her fingers tingle.

She should have known not to even try to get the best of him, because he leaned close to her, inhaled the scent of her hair and then blew his breath into her ear.

“Stop it,” he growled in a low tone, and then he gently nipped her ear, just to let her know if she wanted to play hardball he had plenty of experience.

The tingle Sam had been experiencing in her fingers moved to her toes. And back up again.

“Oh,” Annie said. “Babies! And you’d come in the winter?”

“If I owned this place,” Sam said, “I doubt I’d ever leave it.” No, she could see herself here as if it would be the perfect next stage of her life, not the place of change that she had feared, at all.

She could see all her friends gathering here, the Group of Six not disappearing, but expanding as they acquired mates and children, the circle growing in love and warmth. She could sense those unborn children, see them screeching and running on the beach, toasting marshmallows on bonfires at night, falling asleep in parents’ arms.

This house cast a spell on Sam that made it so easy to see her brothers, settling down at last, coming here with their wives and children, raising another generation who loved Cape Cod year-round.

This was the kind of place where friends and family gathered around the fire on deepest winter nights. Where they played rowdy card games and hysterical rounds of charades, enjoying sanctuary in the love and laughter of friends from the bitter winter storms.

Why was it, it was so easy to imagine Ethan, an outsider to that circle, as being at the very center of it? Why is it she knew that he would slide into the circle without creating a ripple, as if he had belonged there always?

Was it the place that created this sensation of belonging? A longing for things that weren’t yet, but that she could sense on the horizon?