Caleb's Bride

“It’s not a floating bedroom. They’re not like that. Singles’ cruises are—” Gabby tried to remember how the brochure had put it “—a way to experience exciting destinations with a sophisticated group of like-minded adventurers.” She smiled.

“And then have sex with them?”

“Lesley.” Directing her in-law’s attention to the color photograph, she said, “Look, they have waterslide races.”

“Ahh, yes. The sophisticated waterslide race.” Lesley shook her head slowly. “Gab, I don’t get it. You’re going to apply to this cruise line, and if they hire you…do what with the barbershop?”

“I already applied,” Gabby corrected, gauging her sister-in-law’s reaction and realizing that Lesley, who should be the easiest sell of all the Coombs, was nonetheless struggling with the news. “They did hire me. I’m going to be the ship’s barber. I leave in two months.” She took a breath. “I’ve put the shop up for sale, but if I don’t get any bites, I may rent to another barber.”

Lesley was deadly silent, her eyes wide and unblinking, obviously thinking, I was so not expecting that. Her lips compressed, and she swallowed convulsively. Because she considered herself an unlovely crier, Lesley typically went to great lengths not to weep in public. Now tears filled her eyes.

Gabby’s chest clutched. Okay. First family member I’ve told…. It’s going well, I think.

“I’m going to need your help, Les,” she said, reaching across the table to pat her sister-in-law’s wrist. “I’m going to tell the family Sunday night. I want your support. I suspect Mom’s going to freak out a little.”

“Your mom is going to freak out a lot. So’s your dad. And the girls will—Oh, Gabs. Are you sure this is the right thing to do?”

“You said I should kick my life into gear.”

“I said you should have sex, not move to the Pacific Ocean.” Lesley blew her nose into a paper napkin. “You won’t even have a zip code.”

Gabby rubbed Lesley’s arm. “Not while the ship is moving. But maybe I’ll have sex with some great guy who will romance me across the high seas then ask me to have his children and settle down in a house on Moon Lake. We’ll host fabulous family get-togethers, and Kate and Natalie will frolic with my children along waterfront property. How’s that?”

Lesley gave a watery laugh. “That’s all right.” She sighed, took several fortifying sips of coffee then rallied as Gabby hoped she would. “You’ll need a makeover.” She snuffled. “Total. You can’t get on a singles’ cruise with nothing but running shoes and blue jeans in your suitcase.”

Gabby did have other wardrobe items, purchased the last time she’d tried to make herself over—for Dean. Then, her goal had been to liberate her “true self.” This time, she was totally willing to assume someone else’s true self. The self of a woman who lived life to the fullest and had never seen Jerry Maguire or heard Tom Cruise tell Renee Zellweger, “You complete me,” which had probably depressed more singles than any other phrase in the history of spoken language.

Since Lesley’s help was both required and desired for the mandated makeover, Gabby nodded agreeably. “Check.”

While Lesley enumerated the myriad other activities necessary to become cruise-worthy—ballroom dance instruction, makeup lessons, bikini-ready exercise program, waxing—Gabby remembered that she used to sit in this very diner when she was a girl, imagining the day she would eat here with her husband and children, cutting hamburgers in half for small hands, intercepting straws as they jetted across the table, wiping milk shake spills…and smiling at her man, her very best friend, as they laughed together over the chaos called life and reaffirmed with their eyes alone that they were still crazy in love.

Despite what she’d said to Les about meeting someone, moving into a house nearby and having babies, Gabby knew she didn’t have the heart to perpetuate that fantasy anymore. This time she wanted to reach for a brass ring she could actually close her slightly chubby fingers around.

Travel. Excitement. Dancing on the middle of the Pacific Ocean under a sky smattered with stars—that was within her grasp. And there might be a man, eventually. She no longer required a be-all and end-all romance. She would accept it if the universe brought her someone…nice. Lively and fun. And maybe it wouldn’t last longer than the cruise, but, hey, compared to another twenty years loving someone who didn’t love her back—

It would be plenty.

“What do you mean, you know he’s back? You’ve been in touch with him?”

Gabby cornered her brother, Ben, in the kitchen of their parents’ home as their bi-regular Sunday-night-supper-and-Crazy-Eights tournament got under way.

Thirteen months younger than Gabby, Ben was still single, lived over an hour away in Bend and played the field with a success that rivaled George Clooney’s, but he usually managed to come home for Crazy Eights Sundays. And for the food.

“Don’t your girlfriends feed you?” Gabby asked, tugging on his sleeve to capture his attention and save the relish tray from demolition.

Ben popped two stuffed olives in his mouth before turning to lean against the kitchen counter. Lazily crossing his ankles, he winked. “That’s not why I date them, Gabrielle. Did Mom make rolls?”

“Ben.” She gritted her teeth. “I’m asking you a question. Have you been in touch with Caleb Wells for a long time?”

Possessed of the trademark Coombs red hair, but in a much darker, more auburn hue, Ben was too handsome and too chill for his own good. Their parents had always said that if a major earthquake hit Oregon, Ben would find out about it two days later on the evening news. He did everything on Ben time, including answering direct questions.

“What’s a long time?” he murmured now, eyeing the refrigerator as if the decision to walk over and examine its contents merited further deliberation.

“For cripe’s sake.” Gabby fished more olives from a jar and plunked them next to the gherkins on the neon-orange plastic tray her mother had left out for her. “Two months. Have you been in touch longer than two months?”

Ben’s green eyes examined the pot lights their parents had recently installed in the kitchen ceiling. “Two months sounds about right.”

“How did he find you? Facebook?”

“No, he phoned. Dylan gave him my number.”

“Dylan? He’s been in touch with Dylan?”

Ben shrugged. Reaching for a jar of roasted peanuts, he unscrewed the lid and shook out a handful. “He may have gotten in contact with Jeremy first. I’m not sure.”

“What?” At the mention of their youngest brother, Gabby upset an olive that rolled across the counter and onto the floor. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? What about Mom and Dad? Did Cal contact them, too?”

Crunching peanuts, Ben squeezed one eye shut, peering at his sister as if viewing her under a microscope. “Have you considered tranquilizers for this condition, Gabrielle, because, you know…” He sailed his hand like an airplane a few inches above his head. “Over the top.” He tossed a peanut in the air, catching it in his mouth. “What’s the problem, anyway? As I recall, you didn’t care one way or the other when Cal disappeared.”

Lowering her eyes, Gabby grabbed a towel to mop up olive juice. “I don’t like surprises, that’s all.”

“Hmm.” The doorbell rang, and, brushing the salt off his hands, Ben headed toward the doorway. “I hope Mom and Dad do.”

“What?” Gabby said, looking after her brother’s retreating form, but he either didn’t hear her or didn’t bother to respond and continued out the door.

Gabby remained in the kitchen, finishing the relish tray and wondering what was the matter with her. Ben was right: Her reaction to Cal Wells was over the top. In all likelihood he’d had so many, er, partners since her that he barely remembered he’d once spread a Navajo blanket beneath a giant oak and had seen her, the girl he’d practically grown up with, naked in the moonlight.

Gabby ate an olive. And then a gherkin.

Cal wouldn’t mention that night to anyone in her family. Would he?

Shaking her head, she dismissed her own anxieties. Because, come on, even if he did mention it, they were all adults, right?

She put three more olives in her mouth.

Please, God, I will do anything. Don’t let him mention it.

She couldn’t imagine having one of her brothers or—please strike me dead first—her parents finding out she’d begged Cal to make love to her.

Eeeeyeesh. What a sparkling romantic history—unrequited love with Dean and embarrassing teenage sex with Cal.

Her new life couldn’t start soon enough.

Picking up the relish tray, she headed for the living room where her family was assembled. Her brother Dylan and his girlfriend, Julie, were the recent arrivals, which meant everyone but Jeremy, who was backpacking across Ireland with a friend from grad school, was present. For the moment, she had to push aside the problem of Caleb and concentrate on the news she had for her family.

A florist by trade, Julie was handing their mother a vase of summer blooms.

“Those are gorgeous, Julie!” Lesley called out from the floor, where she and her two daughters were playing The Bee Game. “Dylan, please marry her so we can get a family discount on lilies. I love stargazer lilies.” She leaned back to see her husband, who was on the sofa, sharing a beer with his father. “You’re taking notes, right?”