Marie Ferrarella - A Wedding for Christmas

CHAPTER ONE

SHE SAW HER through the window.

Curious, Christina Roman MacDonald made her way to the garden. Her older sister, Alexandra, was just standing there, staring off into the horizon from the looks of it.

For most of her twenty-eight years, Alex had been the very definition of a workaholic, a veritable tribute to perpetual motion. Seeing her so still wasn’t normal.

But then, this wasn’t exactly a period of business as usual for her sister. Not with the all-important step she would be taking in just six short weeks.

“Having second thoughts?” Cris asked, coming up behind Alex.

The gardener, Silvio Juarez, had just finished mowing the lawn and the air was heavy with the scent of freshly cut grass.

Caught off guard, Alex whirled to find her sister standing behind her. “About?”

“Running for prom queen of Munchkin High,” Cris said impatiently. Most brides-to-be lived and breathed wedding details this close to the event. Alex, apparently, was different. “About getting married, of course.”

Alex merely shook her head. “All my doubts had come before Wyatt’s proposal and I’ve long since worked them out of my system.” Clearly, she was looking forward to being his wife.

“No, no second thoughts,” she replied with a small, peaceful smile.

“Regrets, then?” Cris guessed, watching the set of Alex’s shoulders. The two girls were closer than most. She could draw clues from Alex’s body language. “Prewedding jitters?”

“No,” Alex answered and then pointed out, “and it’s too soon for prewedding jitters.”

Cris laughed shortly. “Tell that to Stevi,” she said. Of their younger sisters, Stephanie, two years Cris’s junior, was the temperamental artistic one. “By the time your wedding day arrives, she’ll have gone through three meltdowns. I’ve never seen her quite like this. At the very least, you’d think she was the one getting married, not you.”

Alex gave a half shrug. Stevi tended to get caught up in whatever she was doing. The moment she’d heard that Alex was marrying Wyatt, she’d volunteered to handle all the details. Alex had been glad to have one less situation to deal with.

“Maybe she thinks that if it’s not perfect, I’ll hold it against her,” Alex speculated. “She should know better.”

“She should,” Cris agreed, coming to stand beside Alex in the garden, “but you know Stevi. She’s a bit of a drama queen when her nerves get strung out. Maybe you shouldn’t have put her in charge of your wedding.”

“As if I’d had a choice,” Alex said with a smile. Stevi had commandeered the position. “Too late now. Besides, she was following me around on her knees until I finally gave in.” She eyed Cris. “What would you have done?”

That was an easy one, Cris decided with a grin. “Eloped.”

It was Alex’s turn to laugh. “Right. Sorry, I forgot who I was talking to. The daughter who eloped and almost broke her father’s heart.”

“Don’t exaggerate,” Cris chided. “Dad knew the reason.” And so did Alex. She’d met her late husband’s parents at Mike’s funeral, and although polite, they were so formal Alex had told Cris she was completely uncomfortable in their presence, something that rarely happened to her. “We did it so Mike wouldn’t have to invite his parents to the ceremony and be forced to put up with them trying to talk him out of making ‘a foolish mistake he’d regret for the rest of his life,’ as they said.”

“They were—and are—snobs and I’ll always hold it against them that we didn’t get to see you as a blushing bride,” Alex said, immediately defensive on her sister’s behalf. “Speaking of which...”

“Yes?” Here it is, Cris thought, the reason Alex was standing pensively out here rather than working at the front desk.

“I’m as calm about the wedding as a human being can be,” she told Cris. “I feel like I’m finally getting it right.” She pointed to the azalea bush that someone had given their father at their mother’s funeral. A healthy plant, it seemed to bloom at odd times, generally when something momentous was occurring in their lives.

This time, though, Cris took the words to mean that Alex felt she had been a screwup until a couple of months ago, whereas nothing could have been further from the truth.

“Don’t run yourself down,” Cris insisted. “You’ve been Dad’s right hand—sometimes his left one, as well—for years now, running the inn when he was sick, being here day in, day out, no matter what else was going on. It even took you longer to graduate from University of San Diego because you were here all the time, performing feats of magic—”

Alex waved off her sister’s accolades. “Not quite. And I wasn’t talking about my work anyway. I meant the direction of my life.”

She glanced around the garden and it seemed to her that despite the fact they were in San Diego, it was November, yet the garden was in full bloom. The sight filled her with joy.

“I always figured that running the inn would be it for me. You know, like being here would be the sole purpose of my life. Making sure things ran smoothly while I watched you and Stevi and Andy get married, have kids. Grow,” she added wistfully.

“Grow what? Fat?” Cris asked with a laugh.

Alex shook her head. “No, just grow. As women, as people,” she elaborated, then added for good measure, “become multidimensional.”

This definitely did not sound like the Alex Cris had grown up with. She scrutinized her sister.

“Are you feeling all righ? You’re getting me a little uneasy. You’re beginning to sound like some college professor OD’ing on Adlerian self-actualization. Besides,” she added with a touch of asperity, “I didn’t exactly ‘grow’ as a wife.”

“That’s because you weren’t allowed to be one for very long,” Alex reminded her. Cris and Mike were barely married before he was shipped out to Iraq, where his young life was cut short by a roadside sniper. The letter from Cris telling him she was pregnant was found in his breast pocket. “Next time will be better.”

“Not going to be a next time,” Cris informed her with quiet conviction.

Alex’s mouth curved in a smile. “I think Shane’s got other ideas on that subject,” she said. They’d hired the general contractor for the latest renovations to the 120-year-old inn. Aside from excellent references, Shane McCallister was also the older brother of one of Cris’s high school girlfriends.

Alex’s pending nuptials had her evaluating everything around her with fresh eyes, and the way Shane was looking at Cris spoke volumes.

“Now you’re babbling,” Cris said dismissively, then eyed Alex. “This is your clever way of deflecting questions, isn’t it?” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not prying, Alex, I was just being concerned about you.”

“I’m fine,” Alex replied with finality, calling an end to what she deemed an unnecessary discussion.

“Then what are you doing out here, communing with the azalea bush in the middle of the morning?” Cris didn’t add that the behavior just wasn’t like Alex, but her tone implied it.

Impatience creased Alex’s brow. “It’s called taking a break, Cris.”

That was fine, except for one thing. “You don’t take breaks.”

“I didn’t used to take breaks,” Alex corrected. “This is the new, improved me.” Alex smiled. “‘The times, they are a-changin’,’ little sister,” she added glibly. And then she glanced at her watch. Alex-in-Charge was back. “Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen, working on lunch, using whatever time you have left before your three-foot assistant gets sprung from kindergarten? According to my calculations, Stevi should be picking Ricky up soon and bringing him home. Don’t forget, Wyatt’s back in L.A. for a week, so he’s not here to play with your energized off-spring and be his sidekick.”