Magical Weddings (69 page)

“That’s Nellie Pearle. She ran this place up until the day she died. That was a long time ago. As you can see, she was a circus freak. She made decent money as sideshow entertainment. Back in the time of the circus when it used to winter here, the sideshow entertainers found a home. Here they were normal. Here they weren’t pointed at, spit on or feared. Nellie had a very big heart. She was the matchmaker.”

“Matchmaker?”

“Yeah, like a real-life fairy godmother. If a girl needed a new dress to impress a boy, Nellie would make it for her. If a girl needed confidence to look a boy in the eye, Nellie would give her lessons in etiquette and walking with her back straight’n tall.”

“How does this make me a Pearle’s Girl, if she died long ago?”

“Nellie Pearl was such a bright soul that even death couldn’t contain her spirit.” The bartender leaned in close. “There’s a legend that Nellie appears to certain girls at the moment they need her the most.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Go on. What does she do when she appears to them?”

“I have no idea. Maybe she grants a wish or something. It’s just an old legend.” But clearly this bartender had some belief in it. Something in the way her shoulders and lips lifted a bit higher as if enjoying a happy memory.

Veronica knew what that memory was. “
You
were a Pearle’s Girl.”

The woman’s smile lifted even higher.

“Then tell me, what did you get from Nellie?”

She shrugged. “I got the guy. He came with a bar. He eventually left with another girl, but I got the bar and then a better guy. What’d you get?”

“Nellie opened my eyes to the truth about perfection. That it’s an illusion. I guess she forced me into a situation where I had to face it all and find the courage to make a choice.”

“And did you?”

“Yes.” Veronica smiled. “I did. I chose me.”

As Veronica left the bar, she paused to enjoy the vibrant sunset hues in the western sky. Davis and Piper were probably saying their vows right now. It was a beautiful night for a wedding.

“Veronica?”

She turned slowly towards a voice that sounded eerily like Lucas’. She wasn’t sure she could trust anything that happened anywhere near Nellie’s Bar.

But it was Lucas who stood a few yards away. “Piper seemed to think I might find you here.”

Veronica remembered Piper mentioning Nellie. So she was a Pearle’s Girl too. “Shouldn’t you be standing a few feet away from the bride and groom about now?”

“No.” Lucas approached slowly until he was inches away. “I am exactly where I need to be.”

“Lucas—” She felt her heart pounding faster.

“Please, hear me out? First of all, you must know that I have no idea how you ended up on the boat.”

Veronica looked up at the blinking neon sign hanging from a pole. Nellie’s name was lit up in bright carnival colors.
Fitting.
“I believe you,” Veronica said. He’d never believe the real reason. A dream would be easier to believe than an old ghost legend.

“Second, I’m sorry I managed you. Well...” His fingers shook slightly as he ran them through his hair.

The great Lucas Crowley, nervous?

“It may have started out that way, keeping you busy and away from Davis. And really the reasons don’t matter. It was wrong and I’m sorry.” He drew her in and wrapped his arms around her.

She stiffened, unwilling to hug back yet. “Was there a third thing?”

He lifted her chin with his knuckles. “Yes. I’m in love with you.”

She tried to tug herself out of his embrace. He was saying exactly what she wanted to hear. What she herself wanted to tell him. The truth of it came into her mind so suddenly that she didn’t trust it.

Yanking free from his arms, she ran across the street. She made it passed the dunes before the tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks.

Lucas caught up with her and she felt his hands on her shoulders. She turned in to him, collapsing on his chest and crying. Every bitterness and regret came pouring out in a hot, sobbing torrent.

When she was finally able to wipe the tears away, she looked him in the eyes. “How can I believe you?”

He smiled gently. “Because the truth is I’ve loved you for a long time. Probably for as long as you’ve loved Davis.” He shushed her from interrupting. “You spent all those years watching him, and I spent them watching you.”

She knew her eyes must be full of disbelief still.

“I watched you cook in the kitchen with your dad, and it probably started out as jealousy. I wanted to be standing there beside you guys, laughing and tasting and happy.”

She cupped his face. “What else?”

“I saw you grow from a skinny, quiet girl into a sneaky, creative teenager.” He laughed. “The things you did to follow Davis! You may have been shy, Veronica. But you never stayed in the shadows. You were always brave. And although everyone told you to drop your crush on Davis, you remained true to yourself.”

“That’s what you saw–in me?”

He nodded. “Then you went away for a long time.”

“But I came back.”

“You came back a woman. Braver than before. Brave enough to give me shit from the very start.”

“You were afraid of what I’d do to Davis.”

His chest expanded with a deep but shaky breath. “Honestly, I was more afraid of what you’d do to me. And I was right.”

“What did I do to you?” Her voice faltered.

“You made me choose a new path. You made me fall in love with you all over again.”

Fresh tears welled up. “You deserve better than me. You were always there, and I was too blind to see you.”

“You
are
everything I need.” He kissed the tears from her face. “You love with blind devotion and you make me feel happy. I’m not sure I ever felt that in my whole life.”

Happiness and loyalty–borrowed and blue. She could swear she heard Nellie’s big laughter far away.

“I love you, Veronica.” He threw his head back and laughed. “I can’t believe how many times I’ve said it now. I’ve never said it before.”

She looked into bright blue eyes and knew he meant every word.

“I love you too, Lucas Crowley.” Veronica threw her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a long kiss.

Lynda Haviland shares her chaotic and creative life with her chef husband, two artistic teenagers, and an aging bearded dragon. She admits to being heavily influenced by hazelnut coffee, chocolate with caramel, and romantic comedies.
Something Borrowed, Something Blue
is a stand-alone romantic short story written for the Magical Weddings Boxed Set. But Nellie Pearle can’t be contained. Look for her and other oddly entertaining residents of Pearl Key in an upcoming paranormal suspense series. Visit her anytime online at
LyndaHaviland.com

Witches of Lane County

Jody A. Kessler

Copyright © 2015 by:

Jody A. Kessler

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief
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“When you finally marry me, Aspen Morgan, we’ll live right here,” Rook says while lying on his back, daydreaming beneath the perfect sun-drenched sky.

He reaches across our picnic blanket and takes my hand in his. My bones feel delicate in his strong, muscular grip as he tucks it neatly against the front of his chest. His love seems to trickle all the way from his heart down to his fingertips warming my cool skin.

How does the saying go? Cold hands, warm heart? I wish that were the case. But it seems that like Rook’s warm hands, his heart is continually handing out love and affection, and in perfect contrast, my icy touch resembles the chill that always shadows my heart.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m in love with Rook Avesbury. More in love than I ever thought possible. But life as a Morgan doesn’t include marriage.

What I wouldn’t give to be allowed to let this blossom into the relationship he wants. The relationship we both want. Unfortunately, history, along with the family I was born into, isn’t going to allow Rook and I to have much more than a fling no matter how deeply I long for more.

He releases my hand and pushes himself up. “We’re sitting in the exact spot of our future home. If you want, I’ll make us a porch swing so we can watch the sun set together and then wait for Castor and Pollux to reveal themselves in the night sky.”

I raise a wary eyebrow at him.

“See those trees?” He points to the west where a line of tall pines block the view of the Pacific. “I’ll cut them down and build a barn for Snowdrop and Perry out of the timber. Then nothing will block our view.”

“Rook, you’re too much. You know I love this land, but it’s yours, and I don’t want you making promises when I can’t commit. It’s too soon and I can’t get married.” I’ve been repeating these words for too long and too many times. Maybe not out loud, but at least in my own mind. Months have flittered by when I meant to end things with him after the first few weeks.
How have I let this continue for so long?
I’ve lost count of the days—and the months. Life has become like the dance of the whirling dervish since Rook found me on the beach walking Basil.

“Nothing is too much for you. If you don’t want to live here with me after I get back from the astronomy internship, then we can go wherever you want. I’d live in Quebec, or Yugoslavia, or even on the far side of Jupiter as long as you agree to let me come with you.”

“Does Jupiter have a backside? I know he has an eye, but the anatomy of a planet is out of my scope of knowledge. And we wouldn’t want to move there without checking out the neighborhood and the schools.”

“You’re a very funny girl, aren’t you?” he says, not a bit amused. “Now listen to me,” he adds, his voice becoming more serious. “Callisto and Europa will have to wait a few years. We’ll get settled right here on the northwest coast and then we’ll see about traveling to worlds beyond our imagination.”

“Who in heaven’s name are Callisto and Europa?” I ask, feigning naiveté. We both know that astronomy and astrology are two subjects that any respectable witch cannot escape, having had them shoved down her throat from the time she is old enough to glance up at the stars.

He raises a stern but sensible brow at me, and the corner of his mouth almost cracks with the good-natured humor that I know is his normal mind-set. But he hangs in there and doesn’t break character just yet. “Okay. I take it back. The moons of Jupiter would hardly be a suitable place for the love of my life. You’ll have to adjust to living on my land where you can have all the freedoms of the forest and the sea. It’ll be a sacrifice, I know, but I have faith in you.”

I smack his thigh playfully with the back of my hand for being facetious and silly. Sometimes I think the man was born in the wrong time. I’m not sure what period in history he should have been born in, but the twenty-first century doesn’t seem appropriate for such a sappy romantic.

He captures my hand once more and presses his lips to my knuckles. All I can do is give him a bemused smile and then look away attempting to hide my regret.
How can I begin to tell him the women in my family don’t get married?
We don’t settle down to raise children with the men of our dreams. All the Morgan women for as long as anyone can remember have been single. There are a few stories about great loves, but the greater the love, the more profound the loss.
How could I do that to Rook? Just look at those eyes. Full of promises and dreams and a hope for a future that I can’t give him. He doesn’t deserve tragedy. He doesn’t deserve me.

“Aspen, why is this the part that always makes you clam up? What is it you’re not saying? I know you. You don’t think that after seven months I know you as well as I claim to, but the truth is, I knew you from the second I looked into your golden-brown eyes. You were smitten with me, and trying not to show it, but I could see straight through you that day on the beach, and I still can.”

Is it fair that Rook is so sensitive? How can a man with such strength and power, and with a body the gods would envy, be so perceptive as well? He shouldn’t be allowed to have so many positive attributes. Although, if you were to ask him, he’d say his sensitivity was a negative quality, not a positive one. Most people don’t make accurate assessments about the gifts they’re given in life and Rook is no exception.

I try to explain. “The best human faults don’t hurt others. Like self-sabotage. Only one person gets injured. But then there’s me. I have the other kind of flaw. The kind that causes tears and misunderstanding. I can’t be in a committed relationship, Rook. And I can’t tell you why, other than to say I’m not the marrying kind of girl.” There are too many words coming out of my mouth, but not enough clarification. The real explanation can’t be said aloud. I’m making the situation between us worse so I shut my trap and refuse to bury myself deeper in the mire of miscommunication.