Page 102 of Summer on Sunshine Bay

The door opened, and their daughter stuck her head out. “Sorry. Faith and Sheena are at the beach house. They got an earlier flight. Oh, and Jennifer thinks she might be able to make a last-minute change to the bouquet and table arrangements. She wants to know your favorite color and favorite flower, Mom.”

“Red and roses,” Eva and James said at the same time.

Lila grinned. “I’ll give you five minutes, and then I’m coming to get you, Dad.”

“She’s bossy just like you,” Eva said at the same time James said, “She’s bossy just like you.”

They laughed, and then James said, “She’s happy.”

“Of course she is. This is what she wanted.”

“You didn’t ask me to marry you because of Lila, did you?”

“No. I love our daughter, and I’d do just about anything for her, but not this. I asked you to marry me because it’s what I want. More than anything. Although in a way, it’s because of Lila that I confronted my fears, facing what was keeping me from making a commitment to you. I’m proud of her. She’s strong and brave.”

“Of course she is. She’s your daughter.” He glanced at the door. “We need to stop talking and start kissing before she comes and drags me away.”

Three minutes later, Lila was back. “Promise me you won’t change your mind and leave me standing at the altar,” James said.

“I’ll be there,” Eva said, unable to contain the tremor of nerves in her voice.

“Cross your heart and hope to die,” their daughter said.

Eva repeated the words and made the sign of the cross over her heart.

***

Eva had been determined to keep her promise the day before. She loved James and saw no reason why she wouldn’t be at the altar on time. But she froze at the top of the stairs that would take her to the beach where James waited for her. He stood under a driftwood arch draped in flowers with white voile sheers blowing in the ocean breeze. Her heart was racing, and the lush bouquet of red roses clutched in her hands was shaking.

“Mom, are you okay?” Lila whispered.

She shook her head. Her family closed around her. “You’ve got this, Zia,” her nieces said.

“Sing,cara. Sing the song you picked for James,” her mother said, and then she began humming Christina Perri’s “A Thousand Years.” It had taken Eva hours to find a song that captured what she was feeling and how she felt about James.

Bruno, her sister, her nieces, and Lila joined in with her mother, and then Eva began singing the lyrics, quietly at first, in barely a whisper. Her mother nudged her, and as Eva began the walk down the stairs in her bare feet, her dress fluttering in the breeze, she caught James’s eyes. He wore a white shirt and black suit, no tie, the sun shining down on him, casting him in a golden light. His eyes held hers, a soft smile on his handsome, familiar face, a face she had loved for what felt like a thousand years. Her heartbeat slowed, the bouquet steadied in her hands, and her voice soared.

The chairs on either side of the red petal-strewn aisle in the sand were filled with family and friends. It looked as if half of Sunshine Bay had come to their wedding. James and Grace’s daughters sat in the front row. Sheena looked like her mother, and Faith looked like her father.

Everyone stood, turning, as she walked to James, standing in front of the arch, his feet bare in the sand. She held his gaze, focusing on him and not the flutter of nerves as the song ended.

“And who gives this woman to this man?” Father Patrick asked, directing his question to Eva’s family, standing behind her.

“I do. I give myself to him,” Eva said. Her mother, Bruno, her sister, and her nieces kissed her and took their places in the first two rows with David and Jennifer. Lila kissed her and then went to kiss her father before taking her seat with Sheena and Faith.

James reached for Eva’s hands, turning her to face him. “And I give all of me to her.”

Father Patrick asked if anyone objected or had a reason why they shouldn’t marry. Eva sighed when Johnny, the owner of Surfside; Tim, the owner of the garage; and Ryan held up their hands. The pretty blond girl she’d met at Last Call gave Ryan a look, and he lowered his hand with a grin.

James glanced at Father Patrick and shrugged. “This is what happens when you marry one of the Heartbreakers of Sunshine Bay.”

“I’m officially out of the heartbreaking business,” Eva whispered to James.

He grinned. “Yeah, and I think that’s what they’re objecting to.”

When her family turned in their chairs to give the men the Rosetti stare, Johnny and Tim lowered their hands.

James, holding both of Eva’s hands, repeated their vows. Sheena and Faith gave their father Eva’s wedding band, and he slipped it onto her finger.

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