In the lull before dessert, Samantha glanced across the room and noted that both of Boone’s parents were missing. She scanned the crowd, but couldn’t spot them.
“Uh-oh,” she murmured and went looking for Ethan. When she found him, she leaned in close to whisper, “Your charges seem to have escaped.”
He glanced down at her, his eyes filling with alarm. “What?”
“Boone’s mother and father are AWOL.”
Ethan muttered an expletive. “Help me look, okay? Any sign of their spouses?”
She nodded in the direction of the table where one of the couples had been seated earlier. Now the stepparents were huddled together there, minus their mates. Neither looked especially happy. It did not bode well, she decided.
“That can’t be good,” Ethan said, expressing her own impression.
“Just what I was thinking. Any thoughts on where Mom and Pop might be?”
“Hopefully far, far apart,” he replied. “You check the ladies’ room and any other nooks and crannies in here. I’ll check the men’s room, then scout around outside.”
Samantha tried to open the door to the ladies’ room, but found it to be locked from the inside. Since she knew it was a large restroom with many stalls, she also knew that locking the door was unnecessary unless someone had sought out privacy. Her stomach sank.
“No, please, no,” she whispered, waiting for Ethan to come back before she did anything else. She pressed her ear to the door, then groaned, a sound that seemed to be reflective of the passionate noises coming from inside the restroom.
Ethan appeared within minutes, took one look at her and asked, “What?”
“I can’t be sure, but I think they’ve locked themselves in there,” she told him.
Ethan stared at her. “But why?” he asked, then gasped as understanding dawned. “Are you sure?”
“Take a listen,” she said, stepping out of his way.
He put his ear against the door, turned pale and jumped back. A smile tugged at his lips and before Samantha could react to that shocking sight, he was laughing. He grabbed her hand and tugged. “Let’s get away from here.”
“But shouldn’t we do something?”
“I’m not breaking down that door,” Ethan said. “How about you?”
“They could be killing each other,” Samantha said, casting a last worried look in the direction of the restroom.
“Did you hear any screaming?”
She shook her head. What she’d heard definitely wasn’t screaming, at least not the shouts of someone in trouble.
“Then let’s hope for the best,” he said.
“Which is what exactly?” she wondered. “That Boone’s long-divorced-and-now-remarried-to-others parents are in there getting it on?”
“Not a scenario I especially want to lock in my head,” Ethan said, “but yes. That’s the one that makes it none of our business.”
Samantha was outside before her own laughter started. “We can never tell Boone and Emily about this, can we?”
“Maybe someday,” Ethan said. “When we’re all very, very old and sitting on a porch somewhere with very strong beverages.”
Samantha gave him a wistful look. “Do you think we’ll know each other then?”
Ethan held her gaze, then caressed her cheek with a tender gesture. “I’m starting to think we can count on it.”
When he draped an arm around her shoulders as they walked along the marina, she snuggled into all that strength and heat and took comfort in his words. It was far from a commitment, but on the eve of her sister’s wedding, it gave her hope that he might be opening his heart.
17
Samantha stood in the back of the church and watched as her father nervously ran a finger under his shirt collar. Sam Castle in a tuxedo with that bit of distinguished gray in his hair was an impressive sight.
“Dad, you look incredible,” she told him. “You were made to wear a tuxedo.”
Rather than looking reassured as she’d hoped, he frowned. “Do you know one of the things I regret the most?” he asked. Then, without waiting for a reply, he answered his own question, “That I wore one so seldom with your mother.”
“The two of you weren’t exactly big partygoers.”
“Precisely my point. She loved getting dressed up for fancy parties, and I couldn’t be bothered. She stopped showing me the invitations after a while. I inadvertently cast her in this role as dutiful corporate wife, then wouldn’t cooperate with any of the things she considered to be important, no dinner parties, no charity balls. Worse, I neglected her.”
“I’m sorry.” She wanted to tell him it wasn’t true, but she couldn’t. Obsessed with his work, he’d emotionally abandoned all of them.
“Let it be a lesson to you, Samantha. Life is short. I always thought there’d be time to do the things your mother wanted to do sometime down the road. There wasn’t.”
“Mom understood your priorities,” Samantha reminded him. “She was proud of you and your work.”
“She shouldn’t have had to understand or to take a backseat to my priorities, not a hundred percent of the time, anyway,” Sam Castle replied. “She should have been my priority. She and you girls.” He glanced inside the church. “She should have been here for this.”
“I think she is,” Samantha said softly. “And she would be very happy that you’re putting us first now.”
“Too little, too late.” He waved off the comment. “Not the time to be dwelling on my mistakes. From here on out, actions will speak louder than words. I will be here for all of you. I owe it to your mother, to you and to myself. Maybe I’ll do better by my grandchildren than I did by you girls.”
He studied her for a minute. “You assigned to keep my nerves from getting the
