Children of the Sea 02 - Sea Fever

One
     
    THE NIGHT THE ONLY ELIGIBLE MAN ON THE island got married, Regina Barone got drunk.
     
    Getting laid would have been even better.
     
    Regina looked from Bobby Kincaid, whose eyes had taken on the wet glaze of his beer bottle, to fifty-three-year-old Henry Tibbetts, who smelled like herring, and thought, Fat chance. Anyway, on an island with a year-round population of eleven hundred, a drunken hookup at a wedding reception could have serious consequences.
     
    Regina knew all about consequences. She had Nick, didn’t she?
     
    The wedding tent’s tiebacks fluttered in the breeze. Through the open sides, Regina could see the beach where the happy couple had exchanged their vows— a strip of shale, a tumble of rocks, a crescent of sand bordering the restless ocean.
     
    Not your typical destination wedding. Maine, even Maine in August, was hardly Saint Croix.
     
    4
    Regina hefted a tray of dirty glassware and then spotted her son, standing beside her mother at the edge of the dance floor, jigging from foot to foot.
     
    She felt her mouth and shoulders relax. The glasses could wait.
     
    Setting down her tray, she crossed the big white tent. “Hey, good-looking.”
     
    Eight-year-old Nick turned, and she saw herself in miniature: dark, Italian eyes; thin, expressive face; big mouth.
     
    Regina held out both her hands. “Want to show me what you’ve got?”
     
    Nick’s initial wariness dissolved in a grin.
     
    Antonia Barone took his hand. Her mother was in full Mayor Mode— a hard red slash of lipstick and her two-piece navy dress. “We were just about to leave,” Antonia said.
     
    Their eyes clashed.
     
    “Ma. One dance.”
     
    “I thought you had work to do,” Antonia said.
     
    Ever since Regina had offered to cater this wedding, her mother had been bitching about her priorities. “It’s under control.”
     
    “Do you still want me to watch him tonight?”
     
    Regina suppressed a sigh. “Yeah. Thanks. But I’d like to have a moment first.”
     
    “Please, Nonna,” Nick added.
     
    “It’s not my decision,” Antonia said, her voice suggesting it damn well should be. “Do what you want. You always do.”
     
    “Not recently,” Regina muttered as they moved away.
     
    5
    But for the next ten minutes, she enjoyed the sight of Nick hopping and sliding, clapping and turning, laughing and carrying on like any other eight-year-old.
     
    The music shifted and slowed.
     
    Couples took their turn on the floor.
     
    And Regina, her sandal straps biting into her toes, delivered Nick back to her mother.
     
    “Midnight for us, kiddo. You go home in the pumpkin coach with Grandma.”
     
    He tipped his head up to look at her. “What about you?”
     
    Regina brushed his dark hair back from his face, letting her hand rest a moment on his smooth cheek. “I’ve got to work.”
     
    He nodded. “Love you.”
     
    She felt a burst of maternal love under her breastbone like heartburn.
    “Love you.”
     
    She watched them leave the white rental tent and climb the hill toward the parking lot, her square mother and skinny son casting long shadows on the park grass. The setting sun lingered on the crest, firing the bushes to fuchsia and gold like the enchanted roses in a fairy tale.
     
    It was one of those summer evenings, one of those days, that almost made Regina believe in happy endings.
     
    Not for her, though. Never for her.
     
    She sighed and turned back to the tent. Her feet hurt.
     
    Mechanic Bobby Kincaid was tending bar for the free beer and as a favor to Cal. Bobby earned good money in his father’s garage. These days every sixteen-year-old on the island with lobster money burning a hole in his pocket had to have a car. Or a pickup.
     
    6
    Regina sidestepped as Bobby attempted to grab her ass. Too bad he was such a jerk.
     
    “Hi, Bobby.” She snagged a bottle of sparkling wine from the ice-filled cooler and wrestled the wire cage around the cork. “Let’s do a quick refill of all the glasses, and then I want those cake plates off the tables.”
     
    “Hey, now,” rumbled a deep male voice behind her. “You’re off duty.”
     
    Regina’s heart beat faster. She turned. Strong, tanned hands, steady green eyes, and a limp he’d picked up in Iraq. Police Chief Caleb Hunter.
     
    The groom.
     
    Plucking the bottle of Prosecco from her grasp, Caleb filled a rented champagne flute and offered it to her. “You’re a guest. We want you to enjoy yourself