Page 45 of Beached Wedding

I crouched to catch his arm before he was dragged into deeper water. Ryan was taking his beating like a champ, laughing as he blinked and coughed up a mouthful of seawater.

“I could eat.” Fliss nodded with enthusiasm.

“We should get out of the sun for a while,” I said.

“Can we come back after lunch?” Ryan asked as we gathered our things.

“We should check in at the villa, see if your Dad and Whitney are back,” Ashley said.

“I’ll return the boards and meet you at the restaurant,” I said as Fliss rinsed them in the surf and stacked them.

“Thanks.” Ashley made such a pretty picture with her sun-kissed cheeks and relaxed smile as she looked up at me, I had an impulse to kiss her.

What the fuck, Wiley.

I made myself walk away, disturbed by these thoughts that would not stay behind the firewall, but our conversation from this morning kept coming back into my mind. I hadn’t fully articulated my thoughts on marriage and family to myself until I’d said them aloud to her. It felt strange, as though my robe had slipped open again. I wasn’t ashamed, but I felt like I’d revealed too much.

And what was with her being so adamant against coming to Sydney? If she wanted to stretch her wings beyond Pine Grove, whynotSydney?

Why did I even care? She was a grown woman. She could make her own choices.

I just didn’t like the idea of being out of the picture, completely oblivious when life’s inevitable garbage truck rolled over in front of her.

I hiked back to the open-air restaurant and saw Ashley greeting Whitney and Oliver. She hugged her sister, but her profile was really stiff. Her smile seemed forced. Fliss stood beside them, her expression that of a beauty pageant’s second runner up. She wore a weak smile on an otherwise devastated face.

“G’day,” I said as I joined them. The stench of the proverbial garbage truck was thick on the air. “How was the botanical garden?”

“Life changing.” Whitney stretched her arm toward me, ensuring her hand was in a slant of sunshine.

The diamond ring on her finger flashed with shards of broken light.

ASHLEY

“Oliver proposed,” I informed Fox, trying to bury my ‘can you believe that’ screech deep in my chest, butseriously?

“Congratulations.” Fox reached past me to shake Oliver’s hand.

A waiter approached with menus and asked if we needed a bigger table.

“Join us,” Eddie insisted to Whit and Oliver.

“We only came to share the news,” Whitney protested. “Mom was organizing lunch at the villa.”

“Let me buy,” Oliver insisted. He was glowing like a bride. “Text Joanna to join us.”

“Mom never looks at her phone. Fliss, run and ask Grandma to join us,” Whit ordered.

Fliss was hungry and tired, but she disappeared so fast, people probably thought she had robbed the place.

Oliver offered me a smile of remorse.

“I didn’t mean to be insensitive by proposing when you’re...” He couldn’t even finish the sentence. “I’ve been planning this since we booked the trip, thinking I would do it after the wedding. Then I honestly meant to put it off until we were homeagain. But when we got to the waterfall…” He looked at Whitney, gaze all helpless and hapless and smitten.

Oh, God. How could I hate him when he looked at my sister like that?

“It was so perfect.” Whitney locked eyes with him, expression equally sappy and soft. “The sun was coming through the trees in little beams, making a rainbow in the spray. No one else was around. The birds were singing and the air smelled amazing. I’ll never forget it. I said I loved him and he said he loved me and we kissed. Then...” She blinked fast and gave a little sniff of gathering tears. “He asked me.”

My heart panged at how romantic it sounded.

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