“Yep,” Everett said.
“I’m the chef for that thing,” Zach said. “I’ve spent the past few weeks training all these caterers, some of which I’ve worked within the past, and others... not so much.” He snapped the oven door back into place and then slipped his hands across his apron. “I have this busboy, Ronnie, who works with me at the bistro. Suffice it to say; the kid is an anxious wreck. But he looks at this wedding as another chance to prove himself. I’m a sucker, I guess, and I’m letting it happen. But the first time he drops a tray at this multi-million-dollar wedding...”
Christine snuck up behind Zach and wrapped her arms around his middle. Her eyes connected with Everett’s. “Don’t mind him. My boyfriend is a little cynical when it comes to all this.”
“Not cynical. Just worried,” Zach said, rubbing her arms.
“Don’t bring all those doubts in here,” Lola said. “You’ll make a mess out of Charlotte.”
“But it’s not like anyone has seen Charlotte in the past hour,” Audrey insisted.
Susan shot through the group again, grabbed a spare plate, and filled it with various things from the dining room table—appetizers, she called them. She then pointed to a big vat and said, “Aunt Kerry made some of her famous clam chowder. If you don’t eat some of it, she’ll never forgive you.”
Everett poured some clam chowder into a small bowl and then sat on the floor near Audrey’s feet. This motion put him face-to-face with a beautiful orange kitty, who looked at him ominously. Wes bent down to bring the cat into his arms.
“Don’t mind him,” Christine said. “He’s a New Yorker through and through. Still hasn’t taken to the whole family dynamic thing.”
“Oh, but he loves me,” Wes said, singing the words.
“Yeah, yeah. He loves Dad,” Christine said, rolling her eyes.
Through all this, Everett was suddenly struck with the realization that the young woman in the portrait in the lobby of the Sunrise Cove Inn—the woman who seemed to be Lola, Christine, and Susan’s mother—wasn’t among them.
His heart darkened.
Again, he felt the push to call his own mother.
But it was still early on the west coast.
And what could he possibly say?
That moment, another knock rang through the house.
“That’s probably Stan,” Lola said. She popped up from her chair and stretched her legs toward the back door. Moments later, another older guy followed in after her. She gestured toward him and said, “Everett, this is Stan. Stan, this is Everett. This is Stan’s first Thanksgiving with us, isn’t it, Stan?”
Stan looked about as nervous as Everett felt. He prayed that his face wasn’t so blotchy and that his hands didn’t shake. In the awkwardness that fell, Tommy strode forward and placed a hand on Stan’s lower back.
“I got a chair all set up for you, Dad,” he said. “Just this way.”
Dad? They didn’t look anything like one another. Everett snapped a pretzel between his teeth and made peace with never really understanding the Sheridan clan at all.
Everyone seemed locked into their own conversations, which left Everett to stir in his mind for a second. He turned his head right so that his eyes peered through the legs of the dining room table and toward the yonder bedrooms. One of the doors was open, just a crack to reveal a lilac-painted bedroom.
He had a hunch that someone was in there.
He could feel someone’s voice, echoing through the crack.
You had to focus on it to know it was there.
Everett stood, placed his half-eaten appetizer plate on the counter, and snapped his hands together to scrub off the crumbs. When he reached that crack in the door, he bent down, curiosity taking hold of him. Nobody else in the dining area, kitchen, or living room noticed him.
“I understand that Ursula, I do,” a voice said.
The voice was beautiful, fluid, girlish yet sure of itself. Everett would have said it reminded him of a song if he had been the sort of poetic human to do something like that (which he wasn’t).
Still, the voice itself captured his curiosity, along with his realization that, in actuality, this woman spoke to Ursula Pennington herself.
“I understand it’s been a hard journey,” the woman continued. “And that the private plane wasn’t as well-stocked as you’d been led to believe. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in charge of that portion of your...”
Oh, this poor woman. Everett had dealt with a number of celebrities over the years, but it never seemed to get easier.
“You’re still on track to arrive tomorrow afternoon, aren’t you?” Charlotte asked. “No, no. I understand that it’s essential you eat only fish in the days leading up to... I’m sure you’ll look remarkable in your wedding dress. It was how many million dollars? Oh. Yes, that should be enough, then. ... No, it was a joke. Terribly sorry. Yes...”
Everett chuckled to himself. Ursula had trapped her. Now, this woman was in a kind of labyrinthian hellscape for the next two and a half days—maybe a little bit more. He pitied her.
Suddenly, however, the door yanked open, and there she stood: the wedding planner.
And her eyes reflected danger.
She knew he’d been spying on her.
He had been caught.
Chapter Nine
Charlotte still felt vaguely a part of another world. Ursula’s voice—now a borderline screech, so close to the wedding—still filled her ears as she stood, her chin lifted, her eyes peering into the most glorious cerulean ones. The man in the crack of the door at the Sheridan house was entirely too handsome, his dark brown hair shaggy, but in a model-way, and his lips just the slightest bit crooked, as though he was always on the verge of uproarious laughter.
“And what else, what else...” Ursula continued, clucking her tongue over the line. “I swear, there was something else I wanted to go over with you. Gosh, I just cannot...”
“You know what? You can give
