Wind Chime Point

Emily looked crestfallen. “When’s your due date?”

“Mid-June,” Gabi said.

“Then we’ll move the wedding,” Emily said without even an instant’s hesitation. “A few more weeks won’t be a big deal. Boone will understand.”

“Not on my account,” Gabi objected. “You wanted to be a June bride.”

“June, July, August’it’s all the same, really. And goodness knows, Grandmother will be relieved to have an extra few weeks to plan. As anxious as she is to seal this deal, she seems to think a proper wedding can’t be planned in anything under a year. I’m testing her sense of decorum, as it is.”

“But I know you,” Gabi said. “You probably worked some sort of complicated miracle to get time off in June to do this right.”

“And now I’ll work another one for whatever the new date is,” Emily said. “I don’t want you to be miserable about the way you look, or worrying about swollen ankles or having your water break when you walk down the aisle. If I’d known about the pregnancy sooner, I’d have taken all that into consideration in the first place. It’s all good, Gabi. I promise.”

Gabi picked up the cell phone again and clicked on the image of the bridesmaid dress and a reed-thin model. “It would be nice to look like that for your wedding,” she admitted.

Emily grinned. “Then it’s settled. I’ll check with Boone and we’ll set a new date.” She glanced at Samantha. “Any complications in your life I need to know about?”

“Not a one,” Samantha responded.

“Don’t let Grandmother hear you say that,” Gabi advised. “Her meddling gene is just itching to take your life on, too. I’d lay money on that.”

“Heaven forbid,” Samantha said with heartfelt emotion. But even as she spoke, Gabi and Emily exchanged a knowing look. They might not know what Cora Jane had in mind, but they were certain of one thing’ Samantha was not going to escape their grandmother’s wiles.

* * *

Sitting on the narrow twin bed in the room she’d shared with Emily when they’d spent summers with Grandmother, Gabi felt a sense of peace steal over her. For the first time in weeks, her stomach wasn’t in knots. It wasn’t as if she’d reached any decisions overnight or written down the first word of a new plan. It was this place with the windows open, a salt-air breeze coming in and Cora Jane’s old-fashioned glass wind chimes tinkling merrily on the porch down below. The sound was so familiar, so comforting, she could have been a child again, a child without a care in the world, with the whole summer stretched out ahead.

There was a tap on the door an instant before it was flung open.

“You up?” Samantha asked, though she was already in the room and settled on the other twin bed without waiting for an answer. “How’d you sleep?”

“Like a rock,” Gabi admitted. “Best sleep I’ve had in ages.”

“Even with that noise outside?” Samantha grumbled.

Gabi grinned. “You always hated Grandmother’s wind chimes.”

“Because they make an unholy racket. I’m looking for earplugs first thing today.”

“Don’t they remind you of summer at the beach?” Gabi enthused. “They say smell stirs memories’the salt air by the ocean, cookies baking, the scent of a Christmas tree’but for me it’s those wind chimes. I feel just like a kid again.”

“Yeah, they take me back, too,” Samantha admitted. “I never slept a wink then, either.”

“How can a woman who lives in Manhattan with garbage trucks, taxis and car alarms going off in the middle of the night be bothered by little pieces of glass making music in a breeze?”

Samantha shrugged. “All in what you’re used to, I guess.” A grin spread across her face. “So, tell me about this date you have with Wade tonight.”

Gabi regarded her incredulously. “How on earth... Never mind. I know Grandmother overheard us. It’s not a date. We’re going out to grab dinner and see a movie. No big deal.”

“Sounds like a date to me, and I speak from some experience. Unlike you, I have those kind of dates on a regular basis.”

“Wade just took pity on me, that’s all. He thought I needed a distraction.”

“How thoughtful!” Samantha said, her expression amused. “You just keep telling yourself it’s as innocent as all that. I’m so mad I wasn’t there to see the two of you for myself. I would have known right off if sparks were flying. Grandmother said they were, but she’s unreliable. She sees what she wants to see. Emily doesn’t see anything except Boone these days. She didn’t even know you spent close to a half hour huddled with Wade. Her powers of observation are pitiful.”

Gabi sighed. “Is this why you wanted me to drive over here, so you could try to set me up with Wade? I thought you wanted to be supportive.”

“Nudging you in Wade’s direction is being supportive. He’s a great guy.”

“Who’s probably not one bit interested in being saddled with a woman carrying another man’s baby,” Gabi said. “What sensible man would want to sign on for that?”

“If you ask me, sensible can be highly overrated. Wasn’t Paul sensible?”

“Point taken,” Gabi conceded. “But please, please, leave this alone. I can’t take one more complication in my life right now.”

“Which is why you need someone like Wade to help you shoulder the burden,” Samantha insisted. “He’ll make you laugh. Even when you were pretending to be oblivious to him this summer, he could still make you laugh.”

“I doubt there are enough comedians in the country right now to make me laugh,” Gabi said.

“I think Wade’s up to the task,” Samantha contradicted. “Grandmother says he had you smiling yesterday. And given that he asked you out after seeing that you’re pregnant, obviously your situation hasn’t scared him off. He gets points for that, too.”

“Cora Jane needs to mind her own business,” Gabi said with frustration, unwilling to admit that it had been surprising to find that Wade wasn’t put off by her pregnancy. She wasn’t entirely sure if that made him extraordinarily rare, or perhaps just a little bit odd.

Samantha laughed at the reference to Cora Jane’s penchant for meddling. “Let me know if you find a way to make Grandmother stay out of our lives.”

Yeah, Gabi was pretty sure it was mission impossible, too.

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