บททั้งหมดของ EVERY BRIDE NEEDS SOMETHING "BLUE": บทที่ 11 - บทที่ 20

“This has nothing to do with you and yours,” Jonah said tersely. “Done quite well without interfering in each other’s business now for well on a hundred years. I expect we can manage a few more without you riding to the rescue.” He all but spat the last words.“With all due respect, it’s not up to you what I do or don’t do, or why I choose to do it. You don’t know me. Never met me. Nor I, you. I was raised to think about Jeremiah’s branch of the family much the same as I imagine you were raised to think about Jedediah’s. And you know, I thought it was a pile of horseshit then, and nothing I’ve heard or learned since has ever changed my mind. Holding the sins of the fathers against their offspring, who haven’t so much as laid eyes on each other in generations? What possible good does that do?”“Stops them from doing any more harm to each other,” Jonah said, his eyes flat, his tone even flatter. “All that matters.”“Seems to me it’s more a bunch of stubborn old men who’d rather sacrific

Hannah smiled, winced as it pulled bruised skin, but didn’t stop smiling. “Yeah, that might fall into the category of TMI, at least as it pertains to older brothers.” She shifted her gaze from Alex to the house, stunned all over again by just how much had been accomplished in such a relatively short time. “I meant thank you for this.” She took in the new shakes, the renovated and freshly painted frames around all the dormers inset into the roof, the siding, the porch . . . all of it. She looked to Alex. “You fixed my heart, my soul,” she said. “The house, but even more, the tower. It’s . . . majestic now. Like it should have always been. I can’t believe you did that.” She laughed a little self-consciously. “How did you do it?”Alex beamed with pride, clearly pleased by Hannah’s reaction, and maybe a little relieved as well. “It’s what MacFarlands do,” she said simply. “We let the lights shine again.”Hannah could only shake her head. “You have no idea how much that—” She paused, let o

“I’ve missed you so much,” Fiona said, sniffling again, her face pressed against the annual police picnic T-shirt Barbara had given Hannah yesterday so she could get out of her Willy Wonka death-by-chocolate shirt.With the memory of her now-ruined silk blouse, Hannah’s thoughts went immediately to Calder Blue’s twinkling, whiskey-colored eyes as they’d shared that private joke grin. Bastard, she thought, but realized she was grinning again now, even as tears pricked at the ends of her eyelashes.“I have, too.”“It’s so good to have you home. To be home.” Finally, Fiona loosened up her death grip and noticed Hannah’s T-shirt. “Barbara?”Hannah nodded. “My blouse—well, you saw it. Everything happened so fast, and I guess I was more out of it than I realized. I didn’t even think about my luggage until I got to Barb’s last night. It was still in the back of my car. I picked it up this morning from Sal and he loaned me his nephew’s car to use.”“So, I saw,” Fiona said, waggling her eyebro

Calder paused on the sidewalk and looked up at the towering oak tree. There was nothing particularly special about the tree itself, except for the fact that it was growing straight up through the interior of a small antique store, and right out through the roof. MOSSYCUP ANTIQUES, the oval sign read. The background was navy blue, the store name in raised white script, and the oak tree—a mossycup oak, he presumed—was in beautifully rendered gold relief in the background. “Founded: At the Beginning,” he murmured, reading aloud the small line of script under the store name. Hmm. The beginning of what?He’d noticed the eccentric little place on his way into town the day before—it was hard to miss—and decided he’d stop in on his way in that morning to talk to Owen Hartley, owner of Hartley’s Hardware and the new mayor of Blueberry Cove. More importantly to Calder, he was apparently the town historian as well.Calder’s meeting with Winstock had been pushed back from dinner the previous even

Just get back on the horse and ride it already! She gave a rueful smile, thinking that sentiment applied to so many things in her life at the moment. Not a single one of which she felt remotely ready to climb back up on, much less let loose for a long ride. And that visual made her thoughts swing right back to Calder Blue. Oh, for the love of . . . She groaned, tempted to pull over, lean forward, and just rap her forehead repeatedly on the steering wheel. However, she’d already been punched in the face with one steering wheel this week, so clearly that wasn’t going to knock any sense into her.She turned into the parking lot of the Rusty Puffin. She’d promised Fi she’d help decorate for the rehearsal party after stashing Alex’s present in Gus’s office, but at the moment her thoughts weren’t on hanging copious quantities of tissue-paper wedding bells and crepe-paper streamers. Her thoughts were still all tangled up with Calder Blue. And climbing up on . . . things. And riding them. Har