“Yeah, I knew that was probably the case,” Andy said, trying to sound brave. Alice had a sudden image of him as a kid, chin quivering. She’d have done anything to protect him. She still would.
“So, what have you been up to?” Andy asked, in that determinedly cheerful voice he was so good at. “Meet any cute guys on your tropical vacation?”
Alice smiled despite herself, thinking about how far beyond ‘cute guy’ Graham was. “Oh, yeah,” she said lightly. “I met my mate.”
This silence was more shocked than weird. “What?!” Andy demanded. “Mates are a real thing? Who is this guy? What do you mean?”
Alice turned to see Mary and Amber walking up the stairs from the pool deck, waving as they approached.
“Mates are real,” she told Andy. “He’s a great guy, you’d love him, sorry, got to go! Losing the signal, whoops!”
She hung up on him, thinking with amusement that she’d just given him a great deal to fill the weird silences with next time he called their parents.
“You ready for your big moment tomorrow evening?” she asked Mary as they came up to the bar with her and asked for water from Tex.
“It still feels utterly unreal,” Mary confessed to her. “I can’t even keep track of the days here, and suddenly, it’s going to be tomorrow.”
“The last guests are coming in on the morning flight,” Amber said. “So, we’ll do the spa tomorrow after lunch and everything else is already in place. Tony swears he has not lost the rings and checks on them every hour on the dot,” she promised.
“It’s weird not having anything else to do,” Mary said. “I don’t know what to do with myself. My last day being unmarried!”
Alice yawned. “I was thinking about a nap, myself,” she offered.
“Were you busy last night?” Mary teased.
Alice grinned sheepishly.
“I could use a siesta before dinner,” Amber agreed, rubbing her belly.
Mary threw up her hands. “Fine! Naps it is.”
They finished their drinks and wandered through the cultivated greenery back to their cottages, Alice careful not to think of anything but how pleasant things were now.
She didn’t need to borrow trouble from the future.
Chapter 30
“Oh, Graham, those are gorgeous. Even better than last week’s! You’ve outdone yourself.”
Graham grunted, knowing it was the truth as Chef picked up one of the tomatoes he’d just brought to the kitchens and admired its perfect, unblemished skin and bright color.
“These will be the crown of the meal,” the cook said in delight. “Scarlet said there was an extremely important guest arriving in time for dinner tonight.”
Breck, laying out the ingredients to stuff them with, gave Graham a suspicious look. “You wouldn’t happen to know who, would you? She was very mysterious about it.”
“Scarlet is good at mysterious,” Graham said with a shrug.
Chef gave a booming laugh. “There’s an understatement.”
“Chet.”
Magnolia was standing in the back of the kitchen, her violet silk dress swirling around her.
Graham might have thought he had simply misheard the cook’s name, but Chef’s face sobered instantly. Magnolia always had his attention in some measure, but now she had it completely.
“He’s here,” she said simply.
If Graham had not been looking directly at Chef, he would not have believed the number of emotions that could cross a single person’s face in such a short time. It settled into something determined and apprehensive—a perfect match to Magnolia’s.