Page 16 of All You Need Is Love

Shannon glanced up. But instead of prying, she simply looked at him, eyes soft, offering comfort without the necessity of words. Then she went back to busying her hands.

What was wrong with him? He never talked about this.

Marshall cleared his throat. “Anyway, I admire you and your talents. I don’t have an artistic bone in my body.”

Shannon moved to the kitchen, opened a drawer, and pulled out a cardboard rectangular tube. “Thankfully, you don’t have to be artistic to use plastic wrap.”

Grinning, he popped up from the chair and snagged the yellow box from her hands. “Aye, aye, captain.”

While she finished situating the rest of the cookies on her platter, he wrapped the others with plastic.

“So why did you need a breather earlier? Overwhelmed at the sheer volume of Bakers?”

“Yes. Totally. How do you keep them all straight?”

“It helps that I’ve lived here my whole life and they’re my family.” She placed the last brownie on the platter, nodded, and dusted her hands together. “Besides, it’s all I know. They’re all I know. What about you? You said you were an only child?”

“Yeah, so all of this is the exact opposite of what I know.” The plastic crinkled against his fingertips as he stretched it across a glass platter. “I always wanted a brother or sister—even a cousin—but it was just me, my dad, and my mom. Then they divorced when I was eleven, and my mom and I moved to New York City to live in the house my grandparents left her when they died.”

He opened his mouth to finish the story—Mom’s car accident when he was twenty, Dad’s subsequent move to Los Angeles—but stopped. What was he doing, telling her his life story when they’d just met?

But Shannon took the information in stride, not flashing him pitying looks like he’d half expected. “I guess we’re always uncomfortable with what we aren’t used to. I wouldn’t know what to do without a crowd to hide me away.”

The teeth of the cardboard tube grated against his finger as he tore off a long piece of plastic. “No offense, but you don’t exactly blend into the crowd.”

When she didn’t answer, he peeked at her. She stood stock-still, hands frozen in the air, hovering above the platter, her eyes locked on him, the strangest look on her face.

Maybe awe? Confusion? A tinge of anger?

Uh oh. What had he said?

He forced a chuckle. “Well, it looks like we’ve got enough cookies to feed an army. And I’m guessing those burgers are just about done, so …”

For a moment, Shannon didn’t move. She swallowed hard. But then her trance cleared. “Right. If you don’t mind, let’s move some onto the dessert table set up outside.”

“Sounds good.”

They each gathered up a few platters, and he followed her through the door. Instead of having dispersed, the crowd stood in mostly silence, riveted on a man and woman standing on a couple of chairs in the center of the courtyard.

The woman looked a lot like Shannon, with blonde hair that fell to the center of her back, but she was taller and built more like an athlete. The guy, whose hand she clutched in her own, had dark hair and a beard, and he stared down at the woman with all the love and affection a man could possibly have for a woman.

The way Marshall’s dad used to look at his mom. Before.

He shook off the thought and zeroed in on what the blonde was saying. “I know this will come as a surprise to you all, but last night, Derek and I eloped!” The crowd erupted into applause and whispers of surprise, but they quieted down again when the woman started speaking. “Don’t worry, we’ll still have a reception this winter—after the vineyard harvest, of course—but we just couldn’t wait to start our lives together.”

Then she turned and kissed the man deep and long. More hoots and hollers broke loose from the Baker clan.

Shannon slipped through the crowd, heading for a folding table with a big empty spot. Marshall followed.

After setting down her two platters, she pushed the heel of her hand against her eye. Whoa, was she crying?

He placed his platters next to hers. “Hey, you okay?”

“Me? Oh yeah, fine.” Shannon’s smile wobbled.

He shouldn’t touch her—not with the way his arms itched to pull her against his chest—but he couldn’t help his hand cradling her elbow as he tugged her away from the crowd. “What’s wrong?”

For a moment, she didn’t speak, just shook her head. “That was my cousin Ashley and her fiancé—husband—Derek. She called me after you and I met this morning and told me about her elopement. But hearing it again, out loud …”

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