Linnea lowered her hand and let the sand slowly flow from her palm to form a small pile on the beach. Straightening up, she wiped her eyes, then wrapped her arms around her chest and looked seaward.
“Lovie, what do I do now?” she asked.
Her voice was carried away on the breeze.
Chapter Two
The loggerhead reproductive season begins when males and females mate in early spring off the coast. Males do not return ashore, but thirty days after breeding, females bravely return to their natal region under the cloak of night.
THE RED VOLVO wagon made its way at an unhurried pace through Charleston’s narrow streets to the westernmost side of the peninsula. The spring rain had left dark, oily puddles in the streets, and crystalline drops glistened on the leaves of the trees. The clouds had cleared, and the sun shone brightly with comfortable warmth.
Cara Rutledge breathed in the sweet-scented air through open windows. She was nearing the Ashley River when she drove past a white stucco wall that had to be a block or more in length. Then she drew up before a pair of imposing wrought-iron gates. They were open, but she let the engine idle as she stared out the windshield. In the distance, framed by the glistening water of the river, was the last surviving plantation house on the Charleston Peninsula, Lowndes Grove. The gracious white stucco-and-wood structure with its five-bay piazza and Doric columns, curved Palladian windows, and waterfront location made up every southern girl’s dream house. And this elegant venue was where Cara Rutledge was scheduled to marry David Wyatt in a late June wedding celebration.
Cara felt her heart pounding in what she thought was a mild panic attack. She leaned her head against the wheel and took a deep breath.
“You okay?” asked Emmi.
Cara turned to see her best friend leaning forward in the passenger seat, her bright-green eyes, creases deep at the corners, studying her with concern. Emmi’s red hair seemed to get a deeper flaming hue every year. It was pulled back in a clasp, revealing every soft freckle on her face. She wore a floral wraparound dress and makeup, a change from her Turtle Team T-shirt, for Cara’s meeting with the wedding planner. They were here to firm up final details and write a big check. Cara was pretty sure Emmi was more excited about the wedding plans than she was.
“I’m kind of panicking. The date is getting closer.” Cara shook her head in doubt. “I’m feeling…” She took a breath. “Trapped.”
“What? Why?”
“All this.” She indicated the venue, then added in a rush “It’s so not me.”
“What’s not you? You’re the bride, aren’t you?”
“I’m not a blushing bride,” Cara snorted. “Far from it. I’m fifty-five years old.”
“I know exactly how old you are. We’re the same age,” Emmi fired back. “You make it sound ancient. That’s not old.”
Cara sighed again. It wasn’t about age. It was more about maturity. At this point in her life she knew what she wanted, and more, who she wanted in her life. Cara didn’t doubt her desire to marry David. She loved him. Her love was hard-won after a long period of mourning for her first husband, Brett. She hadn’t known she could feel this way again. It wasn’t the act of marriage that had her quaking in her boots; it was the big, fancy wedding festivity. She didn’t believe she needed a party to make that point. And she certainly didn’t feel the need to waste a great deal of money on a party she didn’t particularly want.
Cara had grown up a Rutledge in Charleston, the daughter of a prestigious family. Nonetheless she’d fled Charleston and the South at age eighteen for points north. She’d had no one to depend on but herself to make her way in the world. Her choice, granted, but it had been a steep learning curve requiring hard work, determination, frugality, and an edge of fear. All lessons she never forgot.
It hadn’t been easy. She’d started work as a receptionist at a premier advertising firm in Chicago and gone to college for seven years at night to get her degree, all while assiduously working toward advancement during that time. She was promoted to a director of accounts by age forty. She’d been proud of that. She hadn’t asked for a dime from her parents, nor did her father offer one. Yet when she’d earned that promotion, there were no hearty congratulations from her parents. They were, she remembered, silent on the subject. Other than her mother asking, hopefully, if she had a beau, and whether she’d given any thought to getting married.
When she’d told friends of her engagement to David, however, she was met with exclamations of joy and jubilee. Some grew misty-eyed, squeezed her hands and told her she “deserved” this. As if getting a husband were equivalent to bagging a Big Five game trophy. To her mind, she’d deserved her promotions. Finding love once, she viewed as a blessing. Twice, a miracle.
“You know what I meant,” Cara said. “I didn’t grow up dreaming about my wedding. You were the one who browsed through wedding magazines, circling her favorite dresses, or table settings or bouquets. I read novels, the business section of the newspapers, did crossword puzzles. If I circled anything, it was books I wanted to read from the book review.”
“You were a nerd.”
“Proud of it,” she replied, and they both laughed.
“Look,” Emmi began in earnest, “you didn’t have a big wedding with Brett. This time you can do it proper.”
“I thought we did do it proper,” Cara replied with slight irritation. “I wore a white dress.”
“You got married at a justice of the peace. You didn’t even invite me.” She frowned. “And we’d been friends forever.”
Cara would never hear the end of that decision. Emmi had been deeply hurt. But it was what she and Brett had wanted. Cara’s mother had passed, and Brett would have had to invite his whole boisterous family if he’d invited even one of them. As Brett had put it, “I’m just happy to catch this slippery fish. Now all I want to do is reel her in.”
“Well, stop complaining,” Cara replied. “You’re invited to this one. You’re even a bridesmaid.”
“Yes, I am,” Emmi said with pleasure. Then with a smirk, “The matron of honor.” She huffed.
“But…” Cara felt like cringing. “Isn’t it a bit frivolous, even silly, for a woman my age to be having a big wedding? Aren’t we both kind of old to put on long dresses and parade down an aisle carrying flowers?”
Emmi shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe, back in the day. It used to be that if you were over forty”—she put her hand over her mouth to feign a secret—“much less fifty, you got married in a quiet little ceremony in a tasteful little suit. Preferably blue. But things have changed. You deserve whatever kind of wedding you want. Every woman does. Regardless of age.” Emmi waved her hand, conceding a point. “Naturally, you want to be sensitive about things. Like your dress—which you still haven’t purchased.” She made a face. “I’m just saying. Ticktock.”
“I know, I know.”
“And for sure you don’t want to show up in a Cinderella carriage or have smoke effects or switch the music from Pachelbel to ‘Baby Got Back.’ ”