Page 41 of The Vineyard Bride

Lola shivered.“I don’t know what’s gotten into me.Since Tommy and I got engaged, I’ve been full-speed-ahead.”

“Minus that interruption with the blizzard,” Christine reminded her.

“Yes.Minus that.”Lola bit down on her lower lip and glanced toward the far wall, where a photograph of Susan, Christine, Lola, and Anna hung.The photo of the four original Sheridan women had been taken in 1995, the year that Lola had lost her front teeth.She looked silly and sweet.

“It’s her, isn’t it?”Christine murmured, glancing back toward the photograph.“I think it hung heavily on Susan when she married Scott, too.”

“It’s just so strange that we’re all back.We’re all still here.And I still half-expect her to find a way back into our lives,” Lola whispered.“Like that nightmare will reverse itself, and we’ll all just get to live out the rest of our days here.”

Christine jumped onto the couch next to Lola, sliding a hand over Lola’s smooth hair and holding her in a nourishing hug.After they shared a long sigh and a moment of silence, Audrey leaped through the back door, dressed in nothing but a swimsuit and a pair of tennis shoes.A hand lifted, she hollered, “There she is!The bride!”and leaped onto the couch next to Christine and Lola, miscalculating their sorrowful hug as a joyful one.

Lola took this opportunity to brighten her emotions.

“Are you wearing that tonight, Maid of Honor?”Lola teased.

Audrey giggled and glanced down at her bare midriff.“I thought I’d give the people what they want.”She then tugged at a tiny bit of skin, leftover and sagging from her pregnancy.“How do you get rid of this?”

Christine laughed.“Talk to me when you had a baby after forty.”She patted her own stomach, which looked tight under her shirt yet was, apparently, a bit of a mess up close.“Not that it wasn’t worth it.”

“Always worth it,” Audrey returned.“RIP my beautiful bikini body.”

“All bodies are bikini bodies.”Amanda stepped out of the kitchen with a carrot stick raised, heavy with hummus.

“I think we had better get ready to go!”Susan hollered from the top of the staircase before emerging in her off-the-shoulder dark purple dress that shimmered around her knees.Her makeup was sublime, her hair styled in a half-up-do, and she’d donned a beautiful golden bracelet, which caught the light from the hazy afternoon.

Lola’s dress for the evening hung in Susan’s guest bedroom.It was ivory and up to her neck, cutting off at the knees to allow her to wear her signature bohemian boots.Christine followed her in to help with makeup, suggesting that they do something a bit more “out there” and “in your face” that evening to contrast with the more subdued, “bridal” makeup of the following day.As Christine styled her, she closed her eyes and lost herself into the beauty of the music Audrey played on the surround-sound speakers.

The rehearsal at Grange Hall was set to begin at five o’clock in the afternoon.Susan drove Lola, Christine, Audrey, and Amanda in Scott’s truck, as Scott was off the island that evening to take care of some freight line duties.“He’ll be back tomorrow, though, won’t he?”Lola asked, suddenly worried that a puzzle piece of the family wouldn’t be there for their big party.

“You can’t keep Scott away from a party,” Susan affirmed as she escalated the speed, pushing them faster toward Grange Hall.“He’s supposed to be on the island by six in the morning if you can believe it.Kellan’s with him, too.Working odd jobs on the freight liner this summer for extra cash.The poor kid!Waking up at four in the morning with his dad.”

“I wouldn’t be able to manage it,” Audrey offered simply.

“But you have to wake up all the time for Max,” Amanda pointed out.

“True.But we just hang out in the warmth of my bed, relaxing.Not out on the Sound somewhere, freezing our butts off,” Audrey countered.

Together, the Sheridan women bubbled with laughter and conversation all the way to gorgeous Grange Hall, the site of tomorrow’s wedding.Audrey leaped from the truck and lifted a hand to help Lola down to the sidewalk below.

“I don’t need as much help today,” Lola said.“But tomorrow, with that long skirt—”

“I’ll be your guide,” Audrey offered mischievously.“Don’t you worry about a thing.”

Several members of the Sheridan and Montgomery families had arrived for the rehearsal, including Claire and Charlotte, who Lola had begun calling “the Wedding Sisters,” as Charlotte was a wedding planner and Claire always did the flowers.Tommy had a couple of sailing buddies all lined up, waiting for the rehearsal to begin.Amongst them was not Stan Ellis, the man Anna had had an affair with all those years ago— the man who’d ultimately made the mistake that had caused Anna to lose her life out on that boat.

Good, Lola thought to herself selfishly.I don’t want him here.

Forgiveness was a beautiful thing.Lola could describe the benefits of it to herself time and time again, saying that it opened her mind and her heart and her soul to other possibilities and worlds.But she knew, in another way, she would never truly forgive Stan Ellis for what he’d done.

Her father had already arrived and stood off to the left of the church with Scott, Zach, and Tommy.Lola hugged her father lovingly, dipping her nose into the soft fabric of his button-down.

“There she is,” Wes breathed.“The most beautiful bride of Martha’s Vineyard.”

“Oh goodness.Don’t you compliment her too much.It’ll go to her head,” Zach teased.

“Good to see you too, smartypants,” Lola quipped, sticking out her tongue playfully.

“The bride is such a lady,” Tommy said, dropping forward to kiss her on the cheek.

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