Rory turned her attention back to the harbor.
“Thanks, Rory,” Julia spoke after some time had passed.
“Oh, it was nothing,” Rory brushed it off.
“I mean it,” Jules replied with feeling. “I really needed someone to talk to. I used to be able to talk to my sister about anything, but Erin’s been so busy, and it looks like she’s battling her own crisis. I didn’t want to burden her.”
“In that case, you’re welcome,” Rory replied. The two embraced, and Rory rose to her feet afterward, making her way toward the main house.
Rory stretched across the bed to reach her cell phone on the bedside table. The ringing stopped the minute she pressed the answer button and brought the device to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Are you trying to make my family the laughingstock of the century, or have you truly gone mad?”
“Lenora?” Rory asked, sitting up in a panic. She wished she’d looked at the caller id before answering.
“Of course, it’s me. Who else could it have been?” The woman’s acerbic tone caused Rory’s skin to prickle with irritation. She rushed on. “Imagine my surprise when my son told me you weren’t available to go shopping for a wedding dress because you were no longer in San Francisco and that you’ve jetted off to Oak Harbor instead. It has occurred to me that you must be planning to sabotage the wedding— to pull such a stunt only a month and a couple of days away from the wedding.”
“That’s not…” Rory paused, realizing that she was on the verge of losing her temper. Taking a deep breath through her nostrils, she slowly released it before continuing. “I’m sorry, Lenora, that was not my intention. I needed some time away to think about everything. James and I agreed it was fine for me to come to Oak Harbor to do just that. Also, you don’t have to worry about the dress. My mom is going dress shopping with me.”
Rory’s steady breaths were the only thing she heard for almost half a minute as she waited for the woman to say something.
“You needed time to think,” the woman finally said, her tone questioning. “What is there to think about? You’re marrying one of the most eligible bachelors this side of the West Coast,” she continued, matter-of-factly. “Any woman would be tripping over themselves to have him, but he chose you and yet…you’re in Oak Harbor…thinking.” Rory cringed at the disdain in her mother-in-law’s tone as she said the last word.
“James’ is fine with it. He understands,” she reiterated, albeit more timidly than before.
Lenora pressed on as if she hadn’t spoken. “On top of that, you want to have your wedding in that awful small town.”
“It’s no—”
“It isn’t too late to change the venue back to our parish church. That’s where it should have been, after all. You can always have your second wedding in Oak Harbor if you choose.”
Rory had heard enough.
“Listen, Lenora. I am not some woman that James randomly chose to marry. I am his fiancé by choice because we have been together for more than three years, and we love each other. Whatever decision that will be made will be decided by both of us because this is a mutual partnership. Furthermore, I am not changing the venue. The wedding will be in Oak Harbor. You can either accept that or don’t come at all.”
“Well, I ne—” Lenora started, her voice full of indignation.
“I’m sorry, but I have to go now. I guess I’ll see you at the wedding.” Rory disconnected the call before the woman could get anything else out.Feeling drained physically and mentally, she decided to take a walk down to the dock after a quick shower.
Rory followed the pattern of the paved walkway with her eyes as her steps moved her toward the dock. There was a grass path to the left of the original path. It was a few meters away from where the thicket of trees bordering the property thinned to reveal the water and the reconstructed dock. Rory turned to look at the rustic-looking arbor covered by creepers decorated with flowering buds of varying shades. It was beautiful, and it led to an equally beautiful place, she was sure— her grandmother’s flower garden, gifted to her by her husband, Rory’s grandfather.
“I wish I got to know you, grandad,” she breathed out, her lips pursed in sadness. She turned back to the straight path and continued toward the dock.
Rory walked across the wooden planks of the lower deck toward the boat moored there. She smiled at the words,Silver Bulletetched on the side, the varnish causing it to glisten. Her mother had told her it was a gift to her and her sisters from their father, the words’ significance coming from their shared childhood experience. Rory kicked off her sandals and sat at the edge of the dock, her legs swinging back and forth as her toes grazed the water surface.
She looked out at the mountain ranges in the distance, ice capping a few of the rock faces that stretched to touch the blue skies. It was magnificent. Everything about Oak Harbor was magnificent— magical. How could she not choose to have her wedding here?
If only her mother-in-law wasn’t such a meddlesome person who she was quite certain now despised her. She would definitely be having the wedding of her dreams. Not the one that she now had to accept where seventy-five percent of the guests were people she wouldn’t know.
She wanted intimacy. No, she needed it. Even though she was just now building a relationship with them, her family meant a whole lot to her, and she wanted to be surrounded by them when she said her vows.
Fishing her phone out of her pocket, she dialed her fiancé.
James answered on the second ring.
“Hi,” he breathed out, his tone relieved.
