Emilie Richards – The Parting Glass (страница 3)

Of course, what sounded like a trio of happily-ever-afters wasn’t. Not quite. Each sister still faced considerable hurdles, but Peggy didn’t want to think about her own. Not for the moment. Today was Megan’s day.

“Remember the last time we stood around the parking lot like this?” Casey said, as if she knew what was going through Peggy’s mind. Both Peggy’s sisters had consistently read her thoughts since the day she was old enough to have any.

“We were at gunpoint,” Peggy said. “And Niccolo walked by and saved us. Now he’s about to marry our sister. Odd how things happen, isn’t it?”

“I peeked inside. I can’t believe what they’ve done, can you?”

“They” was the Donaghue family—and everyone in Cleveland who was related to them or wanted to be. A veritable horde of friends and family had descended that morning to scrub and decorate the saloon where Megan and Niccolo’s reception would be held after the ceremony at St. Brigid’s.

Peggy checked her watch. “I still have a million things to do before Kieran wakes up.” The atomic clock had nothing on Peggy’s toddler son for keeping life precisely on schedule.

“You’re still planning to leave him upstairs with a baby-sitter?”

“He’ll be happier. Everybody will be happier.”

“The old place looks great. The way it did when we were kids and Mom was in charge of family wedding receptions. Megan’s going to love it.”

Peggy knew better. Someday Megan, their oldest sister, would look back at this day with appreciation, even nostalgia. But today she wouldn’t notice a thing. If all the signs were correct, Megan was going to walk through her own wedding ceremony and reception like a newly sentenced prisoner on her way to serving a lifetime behind bars.

Casey grinned. “Okay, maybe she’s going to be a little jittery, and maybe she won’t notice every little detail….”

“Come on, we’ll be lucky if she’s only comatose. I don’t understand why she and Nick didn’t elope.”

“She didn’t want to set that kind of example.”

“For who?” Peggy realized “who” the moment she asked the question. “For me? Megan was afraid if she eloped, I’d copy her someday?”

“I think that’s part of it.”

“Unbelievable.”

“And I think Nick wanted a real wedding,” Casey added, before Peggy could expound. “He wanted his kids to witness it. They take a lot of interest in this kind of thing, even though they’ll never admit it.”

The kids Casey referred to were a large group of teens and pre-teens, including those who were so relentlessly decorating Niccolo’s car. Altogether there were more than a dozen verging-on-delinquent and occasionally endearing adolescents who were part of an organization called One Brick at a Time. Niccolo Andreani was the director, founder and jack-of-all-trades who ran it.

“So Megan’s doing this wedding for everybody else?” Peggy said.

“She won’t talk about it, so I’m just guessing. But you know she’s been a wreck ever since she agreed to marry Nick. She adores him, so it can’t be regret. I just think she hates being the center of attention. She’s happiest when she’s running everybody else’s lives from the sidelines.”

“Well, it’s about time she had her day, whether she wants it or not.” Peggy glanced at her watch. It was ten, and the wedding was at one. “What’s on your list for the rest of the morning?”

“About a million things before I help Megan dress, including a hair appointment.”

“Well, I have about a dozen more on mine. Then I have to get dressed, get Kieran set up—”

“And pack.”

“I have everything ready to go. Aunt Dee came and got our suitcases early this morning, so I can clean up tonight after the reception and they won’t be in the way. Megan’s already advertising the apartment.” Peggy tried to stave off further discussion of her impending departure. There had been dozens of such conversations, all of them fruitless, since she had announced she was moving to Ireland for a year. “Right now I’d better get busy. Because Kieran really is due to wake up—”

A gust of wind nearly lifted her off her feet, and this time it sent her smashing into Casey. Peggy’s shriek was eclipsed by an earsplitting crack. For a moment she was so disoriented that the sound didn’t register. Then in horror she turned her head toward the car and saw disaster swaying just above it.

“Get away from the car! Everybody! Now!” She extricated herself from her sister, and almost as one body they hurled themselves forward. “The tree—”

Winston and his crew were tough guys, but they were also survivors. Instinctively they scattered like the leaves that were raining from the big maple tree positioned just over Niccolo’s new Civic. A horrifying screech, like ten giant fingernails on a heavenly blackboard, rent the air. Then, as Peggy watched in horror, the tree wobbled uncertainly and split in two.

With a thunderous roar, followed by the scream and crunch of metal, the half closer to the saloon fell on Niccolo’s car, flattening the roof and hood. The other half of the tree remained awkwardly, tentatively erect. Nick’s car looked like a week-old sandwich fished out of a teenager’s bookbag.

Peggy did a frantic head count and assessment. The tree had fallen just slowly enough to give the kids time to get away. They looked shaken, but unharmed.

“Everybody’s okay,” Peggy said. She repeated it as a question and got satisfactory answers from all the kids. Winston herded them to the other end of the lot, where they shouted and pointed excitedly.

“It missed the saloon,” Casey said, her voice shaky. “But, lord, Peggy, that door into the kitchen isn’t going to open again until we get a crew out here. It opens out, and the tree’s smack against it.”

Peggy raised her voice over the intensifying wind. “Who cares about the door? What about Nick’s car? How are we going to tell him, and what are he and Megan going to use on their honeymoon?”

“They—they can take mine on the trip. Jon and I can make do with one car until they get back.”

“We still have to tell Nick.”

“Yeah? Exactly when?”

Peggy was still trying to process this disaster. She was the most analytical of the sisters, but analysis was beyond her at the moment. “How would you like to know something like that right before you head off for your wedding?”

“Wouldn’t.”

“Can we keep the kids quiet?”

Casey glanced over her shoulder, and the wind whipped her hair over her eyes. “Winston can. Besides, it was probably his idea to have Josh bring the car over. He’ll want to take as much time as he can owning up.”

Family and friends began pouring out the front doors of the saloon.

“St. Patrick and all the saints! Better call a tree service,” somebody shouted.

Another voice chimed in. “Get a wrecker.”

Casey documented the obvious. “Any sane person would cancel the reception.”

Peggy was trembling now, a delayed reaction that grew more ferocious as she realized just how lucky everyone had been. “You said it yourself. We have a blocked exit. Legally we have to lock our doors.”

Casey put her arm around Peggy’s shoulders. “That’s the good thing about the Donaghues. Not a soul who’s invited to the reception will report us.”

“Casey, do you think maybe we could deed this parking lot to the city and get it out of the family once and for all?”

Two hours later Megan Donaghue stared into the full-length mirror on Casey’s bedroom closet door. A disgruntled woman in unadorned ivory silk gazed back at her. “I really don’t know how I got talked into this. I look like a lampshade.”

Casey spoke from the floor below. “You look gorgeous, and there’s not one inch of frou-frou on that dress. If it were any simpler we’d call it a slip.”

“I should have worn a suit. Only suits make me look like a penguin. How come you got the legs, and Peggy got all that gorgeous straight hair, and I got—” She paused. “Nothing. Not a damn thing.”

“Apparently Nick thinks you have some redeeming feature, and if you don’t stand completely still, I’m going to stick this needle someplace it wasn’t meant to go.”

Megan knew her sister and stopped wriggling. Besides, Casey had seemed unusually edgy since Megan had arrived at the house. She didn’t want to take any chances. “Maybe it’s just momentum. You know? Maybe we just fell into this and kept falling, and eventually he just couldn’t figure out how to get out of it. Maybe he’s been trying to tell me he doesn’t want to marry me and I haven’t been listening.”

“Megan, Niccolo’s been trying to get you to marry him for two years. That’s what you weren’t listening to. Then you finally stopped making excuses, and here you are.” Casey stabbed her needle into the portion of the hem that had come unsewn.

Megan stared at her image in the mirror. She had hoped that on her wedding day, at least, a voluptuous redhead with a come-hither expression and tits would stare back at her. Real tits that filled out a bodice, tantalizing and promising. Instead she saw a short, compact body and the rectangular face that went with it. Granted, there was nothing seriously wrong with the face. The features matched well enough; the amber eyes were large, the expression forthright, and the bright red curls had been tamed into a semblance of order by Casey’s own stylist.