Sunset Bridge (39 page)

Of course, there was no cake. Wanda’s Wonderful Pies had
made dozens of Wanda’s newest creation, the Key to Happiness Pie, which was a ramped-up version of her signature Key lime, with a coconut crust and coconut meringue. Wanda’s new assistant had worked tirelessly. She was a young woman who liked baking nearly as much as Wanda did and promised to be the permanent addition Wanda needed.

“Okay,” Wanda told Olivia. “You know what to do.”

The girl nodded and took off through the screened porch, straight down the steps to Rishi, who was standing close by with Lily and Vijay. She consulted with him, then waved at Wanda in the doorway. Wanda, who’d already gotten the band’s attention, gave the signal. They quickly finished up an old-fashioned fiddle tune, paused to prepare, then launched into the song that would begin the ceremony.

“All set?” Wanda asked. “The kids are lining up.”

“Never Ending Song of Love.” Tracy looked out, and saw Marsh and Bay waiting at the end of the grassy aisle leading down from the porch. “Marsh picked this one. He said the lyrics are true. From the first time we met, he knew. Of course, it took him a while to figure that out.”

“Not just him, dear,” Alice said.

Tracy stared out at all the people she had come to love. Then she looked at the women surrounding her. “Thank you. All of you.”

“We’re out of here,” said a misty-eyed Wanda. “There go Lily and Olivia. And Vijay. He’s protecting that ring with his life. I’ll be surprised if he lets Bay have it to hold for his dad.”

Tracy kissed each of them as they started across the porch. Since no one from her family was present, the women had decided to give her away themselves. There had been no question of dressing alike, but each woman wore a dress she had
chosen in a jewel tone that suited her. They walked up the aisle after the children, Janya first, then Wanda, then Alice. After a moment Tracy came down the steps and walked slowly behind them as people stood.

At the front, Alice’s minister waited to begin the ceremony. He was a good-natured man who hadn’t balked at any of Tracy’s unusual requests. The women parted, and Marsh stepped over to take Tracy’s hand. He was wearing a dark suit and a warm smile. Without waiting until the ceremony was over, he turned, pulled her close and kissed her, to the applause of all those who had gathered. Bay stepped forward and gave her a hug.

“Dearly beloved,” the minister began when the applause died, and Tracy and Marsh were facing him again.

Tracy, who had never expected to be this happy, thought no words had ever suited an occasion more than those.

After photos of the bridal party had been taken, Janya looked for her husband to relieve him of some of the burden of two little ones. Rishi was a good father, but together the children were a handful. Nowadays, when Vijay got going, he was hard to stop.

She found Rishi balancing plates of vegetables and dip, and a squirming Lily. She took the little girl and kissed her hair before she straightened the lopsided bow perched on top. From the corner of her eye she watched Vijay picking through the food on the children’s table. Tracy had told her not to worry. She had asked Phillip Callander to make the children’s table vegetarian.

“Lily was a star,” Rishi said. “And so was our Vijay.”

Janya liked the sound of “our.” For a moment she felt a lump deep in her throat.

“I could not tell the others,” she said. “So don’t expect to be congratulated. They will know soon enough. But today was Tracy’s day. I didn’t want to steal her spotlight.”

“Janya, they would have been thrilled.”

“They will still be thrilled tomorrow, or when Tracy and Marsh come home from their honeymoon.”

“Then we will have a celebration. In our new home. With our children.”

This time the word
our
brought tears to her eyes.

Last week the second set of grandparents had finally turned down the agency’s offer of custody. Yesterday the social worker, Miss Crede, had made a surprise visit to say that once the families in India had seen enough information about the Kapurs, both sets had agreed that the children should stay where they were and grow up in the United States, the country of their birth, and had signed papers to that effect. Both sides had expressed a hope that someday the children would be brought to India to meet their extended family. Perhaps losing Harit and Kanira had softened their outlook. Janya and Rishi intended to honor that request.

Now the adoption itself was merely a formality to be accomplished when all the paperwork was finished. The children were as good as theirs.

“Some might say the families were heartless to abandon their grandchildren,” Rishi said. “But I think they knew this was best for them.”

Janya stood on tiptoe and kissed her husband, a rare public display of affection that made him blush. Since the day of their marriage they had gone from strangers to friends, and now they were parents. Along the way, she thought, she and Rishi had become lovers, as well. She couldn’t imagine sharing her life with anyone else.

“Rishi, I am good at keeping secrets. I kept this one, but there is another I have kept, as well.”

He looked as if a year of guessing would not provide an answer. She relieved him of the burden.

“My mother is coming to meet her new grandchildren, and to give us advice on how to be parents. She will be here next month. As yet, there is no return date on her ticket.”

“She is coming…here?”

“I will do what I can to prepare.”

“In a million years you could not do enough.”

They gazed at each other, and then they began to laugh.

Wanda wasn’t much for crowds anymore. Fighting her way to go anywhere had no appeal, but this crowd parted just ahead of her, and she was suddenly staring at Derek Forbes, who left his enthusiastic audience to come to her side, grab her and swing her around.

“Put me down, you foolish man,” she said, hoping he would ignore her.

He did ignore her long enough to give her a big hug before he released her.

She put her hands on his shoulders and examined him closely. She’d known he was coming, but she hadn’t been sure how he would look. “You don’t look that much the worse for wear. You being a real-life hero now and all.”

Derek’s bold dive into the bay had been an amazing feat, but it hadn’t been without repercussions. He had been badly bruised during the rescue, and he’d injured his back. As soon as the hurricane passed, he had flown back to California, where he had been ever since, recovering and working on the film. Wanda had evaded his phone calls, but there was no evading the man himself.

He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her off to one side. People were staring and pointing, but nobody in the awestruck assembly approached them.

“Quite a day,” he said. “The bride looks glorious.”

Wanda thought so, too. “That darn storm brought a few good things along with it.”

“I’m sorry about your house.”

“I hate to say it, but it was time for all of us to move on. Nobody wanted to be the first, and I guess Phyllis took care of that. But it hasn’t changed anything important. We still get together on Thursday nights at somebody’s house. Tracy’s the only one left on the key, but once that new bridge goes up, nobody’ll be more than ten minutes from anybody else.”

“And what about you?”

“Me? Well, Ken and I are living in a rental condo for now. We kind of like it. Might stay—”

He laughed and shook her shoulder playfully. “You know what I’m asking. What have you decided to do about the
franchise?
”

The jig was up, and Wanda knew it. She tried to think of a nice way to let him know her decision, but Derek saw the answer in her eyes. “You’re not going to do it, are you?”

“I keep telling myself I’m crazy. It’s the chance of a lifetime.”

“Well, maybe not. If it’s not what you want.”

She tried to come up with the right words.

Derek’s offer had forced her to think about some unpleasant facts. As a girl she had avoided higher education, despite her guidance counselor’s urgings, married young, chosen a good, stable man, given birth to one son and one daughter and avoided any job she would have to take home at night. She had made friends with women like herself, the wives of
other cops, servers at her restaurants, who had a similar outlook on life. Not until she’d gone to live at Happiness Key had she gotten to know women who were substantially different.

Somehow, through all that, and with the support of family and friends, she’d gained the confidence she needed to open her own shop. Then Derek had come along and offered to make her a Betty Crockerstyle icon, and he’d turned her head for a little while, that was for sure. But there was no fool like an old fool. If that hadn’t been a cliché, she would have coined it herself.

“See, here’s what I figured out,” she said. “Some part of me wanted this whole thing with you to be a big honking success. I wanted to wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and know I could be real proud of myself ’cause all of a sudden I was somebody special.”

“Wanda—”

She held up her hand so she could finish. “The thing is, Deke, I realized I already
am
proud, and I already
am
special. See, I guess I just don’t need to be famous, too. It was tempting, kind of an ace in the hole on the proud-of-myself front, but it comes with too much attached. I don’t want to fly around the country and give interviews and show up at pie shop openings. I don’t want to work any harder than I already do. In fact, I want to work less, not more. I want to bake pies, come up with new recipes and still have time to chew the fat with my customers. That’s all. Then I want to go home and hang out with Kenny. I want to spend time with my kids and grandkids. I want to help Janya and Tracy raise their families.”

“You want a life.”

That just about said it all. She nodded.

“You think I don’t understand?”

She supposed maybe he did. Who would understand better?

“How about just selling me your recipes, then?” he said. “Could you do that? I bet you could use the income. Those grandkids have to go to college. You could hire more help at your shop and not work as hard as you do.”

“You would do that? You would buy them?” She considered for a moment. Then her eyes narrowed in speculation. “Maybe give me royalties?”

He laughed. “You would have been good to have in the business. But yes, your pies are the best. Maybe you could do a little training at the first shop I open, just to get things rolling. But all on your own terms.”

“I’ll think about that.” She gave him a huge smile. “But I won’t take too long. I think we have a deal.”

They were six dances into the reception and two away from cutting the pies before Tracy could get Maggie off to one side. Alice was dancing with Roger, who looked wonderful in a suit that actually fit. Felo, in a lavender linen shirt that looked as if it was straight from Havana, was dancing with Wanda, who looked as happy as Tracy felt. Tracy figured she and Wanda had a long conversation coming. She’d seen her friend talking to Derek Forbes.

Now she grabbed and embraced Maggie, who looked gorgeous in a cocoa-brown silk suit over a black lace camisole.

“I knew you were coming, but I was starting to worry,” Tracy said.

“It’ll be a lot easier to see you once the bridge is repaired. Your wedding guests took up the ferries for almost two hours.”

They embraced once more, just because they could. After
the rescue, Tracy had visited Maggie in the Palmetto Grove hospital, and once Maggie was recovering at home, Tracy and Marsh had driven to Miami for a night of Cuban food and a tour of the city. Still, every time she saw her friend she remembered how close they had come to losing her. Only Felo and Ken’s dogged determination and savvy had convinced a rescue team to go into the heart of the storm to find Maggie. Despite all odds against locating her, they had already been out searching when the GPS coordinates were relayed to them.

“It was a beautiful wedding,” Maggie said. “I want one just like it.”

“Are you making an announcement here?”

Maggie held out her hand, where a single diamond solitaire looked perfectly at home. “Maybe as soon as this summer.”

Tracy gave her a warm hug. “Then you’ve worked things out! I’m so glad.”

“We got some help doing it,” Maggie said, hugging her back. “I’m still working on some stuff, but at least I’m finally dealing now. Mom doesn’t know yet, but I’m going to tell her in a little while. I want to have the ceremony when she and I have time to plan it together. Before school starts in the fall.”

“I’m so happy for you!” Tracy hesitated. “School?”

“Law school. I’ve been accepted at UM. I still want to put away the bad guys and make sure it’s done right. But I belong in the prosecutor’s office more than I belong in a cop’s uniform.”

“It all worked out for you. I’m so glad.”

“And for you,” Maggie said. “Wild Florida’s buying Happiness Key? Mom says it’s almost final?”

“They’re going to use the land as an outdoor classroom for schoolkids. They’ll have one small building for administration
and a lab, probably where the old office used to be, then they’ll put in platforms to house the kids in tents so they can camp overnight. They’ll be studying all kinds of things. Flora, fauna, tides, weather patterns, water quality.”

“You’re okay with it?”

Tracy looked up, and saw both Felo and Marsh bearing down on them. “I am. Once it’s finally up and running, I may even join the staff. Who knows the place better? And I’ve been promised by the man in charge that our whole Happiness Key gang can still use our favorite beach whenever we’re together.”

Marsh put his arm around Tracy’s waist and pulled her close. “I hear we’re supposed to cut the pies in a minute. Then you and I have a plane to catch.”

Tracy greeted Felo, who kissed her soundly in congratulations.

“Plane?” Maggie asked.

“Costa Rica. For a week. Alice and Roger are staying with the kids,” Marsh said.

“An eco-resort with a spa,” Tracy said. “We’re learning to compromise.”