Christmas Wedding: Cliffside Bay Read online

  9

  Lisa

  * * *

  Lisa and Rafael’s reception took place in the lodge’s ballroom, designed with the same rustic wood and high ceilings of the lobby. Tonight, the room reflected the sparkling snow and green trees, as if they were chosen to pay homage to the splendor of the natural world outside the picture window. Glass orbs, each lit with a flameless tea light, hung in varying heights from the ceiling. Their guests dined on Rafael’s favorite, fried chicken and all the fixings. Because of the intimacy of their wedding, all the guests could fit around a long and skinny table. Plant terrariums filled with holly, green hydrangeas, alabaster roses, and pillar candles on silver holders served as centerpieces.

  The room bubbled with energy, like the champagne bubbles that floated to the tops of their glasses. Voices and laughter rocked the very floorboards under her silver-sandaled feet as she looked down the long table at all the people she loved and who loved her. She and Rafael sat together on one end, with Pepper and Stone on one side of them and David and Maggie on the other.

  Pepper was directly to her left, so she was able to lean close to speak softly in her ear. “I get it now. Why you wanted this for me.”

  Pepper just flashed her a droll grin, as if she knew all along that this day would be perfect. Pepper had known that Lisa would cherish the memory of this day. Even though there were many times along the way Lisa wished they’d eloped, she would have regretted it. If they had, she would have missed out on all this love. This incredible outpouring of support and good wishes for her and Rafael. Pepper had known.

  “Everything was perfect,” Lisa said.

  Pepper squeezed her hand under the table. “I’m glad.”

  “Thank you…for doing this. For insisting I have the wedding I always wanted.”

  “That’s what friends are for,” Pepper said. “And I am pretty awesome.”

  “You are.”

  They giggled like the college coeds they once were before clinking glasses.

  She glanced at her mother, then her father, who sat together at the end of the table chatting with Pepper’s parents. They seemed to be holding it together, for which she was grateful. Her gaze traveled around the table and landed at last on her twin brother.

  David met her gaze, then winked at her. There was no need for words. They’d shared the most intimate of spaces in their mother’s womb. She guessed they’d held hands in there, already promising to take care of each other.

  Maggie tilted her head toward her husband as he spoke near her ear, then laughed. Lisa and Pepper had never heard Maggie laugh like that until they visited her in Cliffside Bay for the first time. She’d laughed, of course, but not like that—not with her whole body. To see Maggie with Jackson flooded Lisa with joy. She looked over at Pepper and Stone. He’d just stolen a piece of her chicken, and she was pretending to stab him with her fork. Pepper, playful, lighthearted, as she’d always been, but now it wasn’t tinged with bitterness. Pepper had been healed by her Stone.

  Love was a fine, fine thing.

  She understood something then she hadn’t before. This, right here, was the reason people had weddings. The event was more than just a pretty dress and fun party. Weddings were about community—a village coming together to celebrate the union of two of their own. This gathering was a declaration of their support and a promise to be there in the good times and bad. Together, as a tribe.

  She was distracted from her thoughts when the toasts began. Soon thereafter, the lights dimmed for the dancing portion of the evening.

  It surprised her when Maggie and Lisa walked up to the raised platform. The hired wedding band had already set up their equipment and now joined her two friends on stage. Although she would have loved to have Maggie and Pepper sing, she wanted them to have fun as guests, not as hired musicians. Maggie pulled her guitar strap over her shoulders to sit on a tall stool placed near a microphone. Pepper remained standing and spoke into the other microphone. “We have a little surprise for Lisa. Over the last six weeks, Maggie and I have been teaching Rafael how to dance.”

  “Dancing in front of people is his worst nightmare,” Maggie said.

  “And he’s a former Navy SEAL, so we don’t know how that can be,” Pepper said.

  Laughter erupted from around the room, which gave Lisa a moment to take in what they were saying. Rafael had taken dancing lessons. Stunned, she stared at him. He was a man who thrived on routine and predictability. She would never have predicted he would do something so unexpected. “But you don’t dance,” she said to him.

  Rafael grimaced and ran a finger under the collar of his dress shirt, as if it were too tight. “I do now. I’m not saying I’m good, but disappointing you is not something I plan on doing today or any day of our married life. Dancing is important to you, so it’s now important to me. I took some lessons from two of the three best dancers in Cliffside Bay.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  He held out his hand. “May I have this dance?”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded, then gave him her hand. As he lifted her to her feet, the guests all cheered.

  He guided her out to the middle of the dance floor. Maggie plucked a few notes from her guitar before leaning into the microphone. “I was so touched by his gesture that I wrote a song for their first night as a married couple. Pepper’s going to help me sing it.”

  Pepper adjusted her microphone as she spoke. “She calls this, ‘The Angel and the Soldier.’”

  They walked to the middle of the dance floor, and he took her in his arms as Maggie and Pepper sang the opening notes of their song.

  They’d taught him well. He was as agile on his feet as he was in the bedroom. She let him lead her across the dance floor as the words of Maggie’s song made her chest ache with love for her friends and her soldier. The song told of their love-at-first-sight type of love and of a man who saw an angel every time he looked at his bride.

  “You should be careful,” she said into his ear as Pepper and Maggie joined voices on the second chorus. “Now that I know of your hidden talents, I might ask you to dance with me in the kitchen every night.”

  “I would love to dance with you in our kitchen. Or anywhere else there are no other people.”

  She pressed her body closer to his and looked up into his eyes. “You have a deal, Mr. Soto. If you dance with me in the kitchen, you get a free pass everywhere else.”

  “I’ll take that deal, Mrs. Soto.” He pressed his mouth gently against hers and kissed her as they swayed to the music. He tasted of wedding cake and champagne. The scent of tonight, her wedding night.

  Dancing with Rafael was as effortless as floating on a cloud and completely worth waiting for. Their first dance. This was the first and only time they would ever have a first dance. That was the trouble with firsts. There was only one.

  She put that aside and fell into the moment, knowing that to dwell on the past or the future meant you missed the present. The song ended, and the guests broke into applause. Lisa and Rafael held on to each other, still swaying to the memory of those last notes as their friends and families flooded the floor to join them in a collective dance of celebration.

  Indeed, love was a fine, fine thing.

  About the Author

  Tess Thompson Romance...hometowns and heartstrings.

  USA Today Bestselling author Tess Thompson writes small-town romances and historical fiction. She started her writing career in fourth grade when she wrote a story about an orphan who opened a pizza restaurant. Oddly enough, her first novel, "Riversong" is about an adult orphan who opens a restaurant. Clearly, she's been obsessed with food and words for a long time now.

  With a degree from the University of Southern California in theatre, she’s spent her adult life studying story, word craft, and character. Since 2011, she’s published 20 novels and 3 novellas. Most days she spends at her desk chasing her daily word count or rewriting a terrible first draft.

  She current
ly lives in a suburb of Seattle, Washington with her husband, the hero of her own love story, and their Brady Bunch clan of two sons, two daughters and five cats. Yes, that's four kids and five cats.

  Tess loves to hear from you. Drop her a line at [email protected]