Page 13 of Beached Wedding

“In a sec.” Fliss might have been about to ask me what was wrong, but the screen door abruptly scraped open.

“Hi!” Whitney appeared in a bikini top and short-shorts. Her blond hair was freshly blown out, bangs cutting a wispy line across her graceful eyebrows. She wore full make-up and sandals with a low heel. “We were just saying you two ought to be here by now. Where’s Shane?” She glanced around with a welcoming smile, then responded to a questioning voice on the patio, “Yes, they’re here. Come out,” she urged with a wave as she ducked back outside.

I bit back a groan of frustration and forced myself to walk out to where the red brick patio was surrounded by thick, well-watered lawn. The grass ended abruptly between the trunks of a pair of palms that framed the azure waves crashing onto a tiny, private beach. A warm breeze came off the water as a fine, cooling mist. It condensed on the table and chairs that sat beneath an open yellow sun umbrella.

Mom and Oliver rose. Everyone wore a welcoming smile and looked beyond me to the empty space where Shane was supposed to be.

As I searched for the words I needed, Whitney asked, “Did Shane go see his parents?”

“No.” I hugged myself a little harder.

“Nap?” Oliver took off his cap to scratch his balding head, waiting for Joanna and Whitney to sit before he sank back into his own chair. “How long was his flight?”

I unclenched my jaw and admitted, “He didn’t get on the plane. He’s not here.”

Whitney snorted in exactly the way I had when Fox had said it. Like it was a joke. Except it stung so deep when she did it, I couldn’t help but glare at her.

“Seriously?” Whitney sobered. “Did he miss it?”

“He doesn’t want to get married.” Saying it aloud sent a fresh wave of humiliation through me, one that nearly closed my throat.This is what I get for reaching too high.

Mom snapped her spine straight, nearly coming out of her chair again. “I don’t understand.”

Me, neither. “He stayed in Sydney. The wedding’s off.” And saying it aloud made itso real.

“Are you being serious right now?” Whitney’s eyes were round with disbelief.

“Well, you knew he didn’t want to marry in Hawaii,” Mom scolded.Scolded. “I told you?—”

“Mom!” I bit out. “Can we save the post-mortem for after the body is cold?God.”

“What are you going to do?” Whitney asked, frowning with confusion. “About moving?”

“I don’t know, do I?”

“Don’t yell at me. It’s not my fault.”

“Can I do anything?” Oliver wore a concerned frown. “Talk to the hotel for you?”

Oh, God. I dropped my head into my hand. I hadn’t even thought of that.

“Yes,” Mom said decisively. “Get your money back. Whitney, call to change our flights?—”

“No!” Whitney cried. “This is our vacation. We’re here. We’re staying. But are you moving back in here with us?” Whit wrinkled her nose. It had been fine for a night, but, “Maybe you and Fliss can share the pullout and Ryan can have Fliss’s bed in Mom’s room? It was fine for him to be in our room last night, but not all week.”

“My stuff’s in the hotel.” I had walked it over before I left for the airport. I had registered and asked them to leave it in our suite, anticipating that Shane and I would be going straight up there when we got back.

I was going to have to quit thinking this day couldn’t get worse, because it definitely could.

“I’ll come with you,” Fliss offered. She was suddenly right beside me, pushing in for a hug the way she had been doing all her life.

I automatically closed my arms around her wiry frame. For one second, I let myself cling to the youngest, slightest, most supportive person here.

“I’ll do it myself,” I said into hair I’d been combing since it had first grown in. It took everything in me to keep from breaking down. “I need to be by myself for a bit.”

“Are you sure?” Fliss’s mouth was pulling down with deep empathy.

I scraped the heel of my hand beneath each eye and nodded, then walked out, struggling to see the paved pathway into the hotel.

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