Abby Gaines - The Wedding Plan

He rolled his eyes. “You sound like Dad. But it’s not like you’re big on reality yourself, with your romantic ideals.” He must have sensed her imminent objection, because he hurried on. “And it’s not like I haven’t helped you in the past. You used the fact we were ‘dating’ to make your father feel better about you turning down a full ride to Berkeley.”

Lucas had been hopping mad with her about that. But she’d wanted to stay with her father. They were each other’s only family, and family was important. But Dad wouldn’t have wanted to “hold her back,” so Lucas had grudgingly let her claim a closeness they didn’t have. While her dad had been disappointed she wasn’t going on to further study, he’d been happy that she and Lucas were together.

“I’ve already done my share of helping you out,” she said. “I was your decoy for six months when that captain’s daughter was after you. We didn’t ‘break up’ until you were assigned to the ship you wanted.”

“I know, but—”

“And what about when you were worried Dwight might use his influence to keep you out of a war zone? I gushed for three months about how thrilled I was that you were fighting tyranny on foreign shores. I did a great job.”

Their strategy had been simple, but effective. Since Lucas and his dad had a weird don’t ask, don’t tell policy on any number of subjects, Dwight would never discuss Lucas’s love life with him. Instead, Merry informed her own father of their latest status, knowing that he would pass it to Dwight over their weekly game of pool, or while they tended meat on the grill.

“In hindsight,” Lucas said, “I don’t think Dad would have intervened. So that one doesn’t count.”

“It counts,” she retorted. “Then there was that ex-girlfriend’s wedding I had to attend as your date.” Lucas had wanted to make it clear to the groom he wasn’t pining for the bride.

“You’ve been a trouper,” he said insincerely. “One more time, Merry, that’s all I’m asking. Then you and Patrick can ride off into the sunset spouting poetry or whatever it is you romantic types like to do.”

She smacked his arm before she remembered that touching him wasn’t a good idea. Too much room for confusion.

Boo yipped, as if questioning her intent; his Lassie face had lengthened in anxiety.

“Fine,” Merry said.

He stopped. “You’ll do it? You’ll ask my dad to request a retest?”

“Yes, I’ll do it,” she said. “What are friends for?” He was right; they did help each other out when they could. And if he went back to the Gulf, she wouldn’t see him for another year, by which time there was a faint chance they would both have forgotten Baltimore.

Not.

“Thanks, Merry,” he said.

For one horrendous moment, she thought he might kiss her.

Then he said, “I’ll ask your dad to put in a good word, too. I need all the help I can get.” Mission accomplished, he strode toward the workshop, distancing himself from her with every step.

He wrenched the iron door along its track, pausing halfway, then finishing the job with renewed vigor. He disappeared inside.

Ten seconds later, Merry heard a shout. And despite all the denials she’d issued to Lucas, in that instant, she knew.

She sprinted after him.

Her dad was lying on the floor of the workshop, next to the hull of the half-formed yacht. Lucas had one hand on his pulse, the other wrapped around his cell phone.

CHAPTER THREE

“WHEN WILL THEY TELL ME what’s going on?” Merry gripped the edge of her plastic chair in the ICU waiting room that the hospital had assigned to “Family of John Wyatt.”

“As soon as they know something.” Lucas was doing a good job of acting as if she hadn’t asked that question twenty times already. She wondered if the U.S. Naval Academy ran classes in Maintaining a Rocklike Calm in a Crisis. Lucas would have aced it.

“I called my dad,” he said. “He and Stephanie are waiting for a sitter for Mia, then they’ll be right here.”

“They don’t need to come.” Her father and Lucas’s had been there for each other at all the most important events of their lives. She wanted this to be a little glitch, not a defining moment.

She and Lucas lapsed into silence again. When a nurse stuck her head around the door, they both jumped.

“A doctor will be out to see you in about ten minutes, Ms. Wyatt.” Her gaze drifted sideways to Lucas. Her eyes widened and she smiled. “Thank you for your patience.” She left the room with a lingering glance over her shoulder. Not at Merry.

“If you’re looking for a date, you could be in luck,” Merry said.

“Not interested.” Lucas stretched back in his chair.

“I didn’t ask,” she said. “Are you seeing anyone at the moment? Other than me?”

It wasn’t much of a joke. Still, he smiled. “Currently single. There was someone last year, before I was shot down—a nurse on my aircraft carrier. She married another guy. Lucky for you, I wasn’t invited to the wedding, so I didn’t need a date.”

Merry forced herself to keep talking so she wouldn’t fall into a panic about her father. “That seems to be a recurring theme. Girlfriend breaks up with you, then marries someone else six months later. Do you think the adrenaline rush of getting away from you makes them crazy?”

“She proposed to me, and I turned her down. She found a man who wanted the fairy-tale wedding. End of story.”

Lucas stood and crossed to a poster of CPR instructions on the wall. He began reading, though Merry suspected he knew the details inside out from his military training. Her dad had still had a pulse when they’d found him, so CPR hadn’t been necessary. Maybe she should take a refresher course, so that next time…

She shied away from the thought. Yeah, Dad was sick, but the dialysis was working. Whatever this episode was, he’d get past it. They’d get past it. “Why didn’t you want to marry her? What was wrong with her?” Easier to analyze Lucas’s patchy dating history than her father’s health.

Lucas leaned against the wall, obscuring useful advice about clearing the airway before commencing CPR. “Nothing. She checked all the boxes.”

“Loves the navy, built like a Victoria’s Secret model…” Merry counted points off on her fingers.

He grinned. “Pretty much.”

So Merry’s small breasts had turned him off. The only kind of Victoria’s Secret model she could be was for one of those bras that transformed nonexistent boobs into almost-cleavage. “She sounds perfect.”

“She was turning thirty,” Lucas said.

Merry gasped. “An old hag!”

His mouth quirked. “Her biological clock was ticking. When I said I wasn’t ready for marriage, she asked me to be a sperm donor.”

“And you didn’t want to?”

“If I was going to procreate, I’d want to raise the kid myself.” He sat down again, this time several seats away from Merry.

Of course he’d want to do it himself. He would never shirk a responsibility. But there was more to parenting than that, or there should be.

“Being a dad is a big deal,” she limited herself to saying. John Wyatt was the only parent she knew. He’d not only been a wonderful father, he’d kept alive the mother she didn’t remember. If she lost him…

“Snap out of it, Merry,” Lucas said. “Don’t assume the worst.”

“Quit ordering me around.” Her reflexive reaction.

“You never could do as you were told.” He shook his head with mock disappointment.

“You never could explain why I had to be the petty officer third class, while you always got to be the captain.”

He blinked at the reference to that childhood resentment. But she felt suddenly like a child. Vulnerable to loss.