Children of the Sea 02 - Sea Fever

tonight.”
     
    “I am enjoying myself. Any chance to serve something besides red sauce and lobster rolls . . .”
     
    “The menu’s great,” Cal said. “Everything’s great. Those crab patties—”
     
    “Mini blue crab cakes with chipotle aioli and roasted red pepper sauce,” Regina said.
     
    “— are really something. You did good.” His eyes were warm.
     
    Regina flushed all over at the compliment. She had done well. With less than a month to plan and prepare, with only a clueless bride and the groom’s awkward sister for support, Regina had pulled off the wedding she’d never had. The rented tent was warm with lantern light, bright with delphinium, daisies, and sunflowers. Crisp white linens covered the picnic tables, and she’d dressed up the folding chairs from the community center with flowing bows.
     
    The food—her food, mussels steamed in garlic and white wine, bruschetta topped with basil and tomatoes, smoked wild salmon with dilled crème fraîche— was a huge success.
     
    7
    “Thanks,” she said. “I was thinking I might talk Ma into adding some of these appetizers to our regular menu. The mussels, maybe, or—”
     
    “Great,” Cal repeated, but he wasn’t listening any longer. His gaze slid beyond her to his bride, Maggie, dancing with his father.
     
    Margred’s dark hair had slipped free of its pins to wave on her neck.
    She’d kicked off her shoes so that the hem of her flowing white dress dragged. She was looking up at Caleb’s father, laughing as he executed a clumsy turn on the floor.
     
    The naked intensity in Cal’s eyes as he watched his wife closed Regina’s throat.
     
    In her entire life, no man had ever looked at her like that, as if she were the sun and the moon and his entire world wrapped up in one. If anyone ever did, she would jump him.
     
    If Cal ever had—
     
    But he hadn’t. Wouldn’t. Ever.
     
    “Go dance,” Regina said. “It’s your wedding.”
     
    “Right,” Caleb said, already moving.
     
    He turned back a moment to smile at her and order, “No more work tonight. We hired the youth group to give you a break.”
     
    “You know you have to watch those church kids like a hawk,”
    Regina called after him.
     
    But that was just an excuse.
     
    The truth was she would rather schlep glasses and scrape plates than have the same conversations she’d had before with the same people she’d known all her life. How’s the weather? How’s your mother? When are you getting married?
     
    Oh, God.
     
    8
    She watched Cal circling the dance floor with his new bride—slowly, because of his limp— and emptiness caught her under the ribs, sharp as a cramp.
     
    Grabbing her glass and the open bottle of Prosecco, she walked away from it all, the music, the lights, and the dancing. Away from Bobby behind the bar and Caleb with his arms around Margred.
     
    Regina’s heels punched holes in the ragged strip of grass. Drawn by the rush and retreat of water on the rocks, she wobbled across the shale. A burst of foam ran toward her feet. She plopped onto an outcrop of granite to remove her sandals. Her bare toes flexed in the cool, coarse sand.
     
    Ah. That was better.
     
    Really.
     
    She poured herself another glass of wine.
     
    The level in the bottle fell as the moon rose, flat and bright. The sky deepened until it resembled the inside of a shell, purple and gray. Regina rolled her head to look at the stars, feeling the earth whirl around her.
     
    “Careful.” The deep male voice sounded amused.
     
    She jerked upright. The contents of her glass sloshed. “Cal?”
     
    “No. Disappointed?”
     
    She’d spilled on her dress. Damn it.
     
    Regina’s gaze swung to the tent and then swept the shore, searching out the owner of that voice.
     
    There, standing barefoot at the edge of the surf as if he’d just come out of the sea instead of simply wandering away from the wedding reception.
     
    Her heart pounded. Her head buzzed from the wine.
     
    Not Caleb. She squinted. He was too tall, too lean, too young, too . .
    .
     
    9
    His tie was loosened, his slacks rolled up. The gray light chased across his face, illuminating the long, narrow nose; the sculpted mouth; the eyes, dark and secret as sin.
     
    Regina felt a pulse, a flutter, of pure feminine attraction and scowled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
     
    He laughed softly, coming closer. “They look good together— Caleb and Margred.”
     
    She recognized