Violet Frost took careful steps toward the handcrafted driftwood altar. The February wind teased her cheeks and sneaked under the hem of the delicate wool cloak she’d been unable to resist buying for the occasion. The most adorable baby in the world snoozed in her arms, perfect from the red curls on the top of her head to the tiny UGG boots on her feet. An atrociously hot man waited at the end of the aisle for her.
None of it, save the cloak, was hers.
Exactly how she wanted it.
The baby? Her niece, Iris, three months old and sound asleep in a crocheted blanket, clueless of her role in her parents’ wedding rehearsal. The gorgeous being standing at the altar, smirking like he knew a secret about her? Her brother’s best man, the owner of Oyster Island’s most popular—read only—pub.
Her neck heated, despite the cold air. Matias Kahale did know a secret about her. One that was not allowed to disrupt her brother’s wedding weekend, thank you very much.
She shot him a stern look and continued her slow stroll between the few dozen chairs lining either side of the aisle, ready to be filled with family and friends for tomorrow’s ceremony. Dew tipped the ocean-side lawn of her childhood home. Her heeled Fluevog shoes exposed the tops of her feet, and the soft blades of grass dragged like chilly ribbons on her skin, even through her tights.
The altar, backlit by the afternoon sun lazily kissing the watery horizon, couldn’t have been a prettier setting for Violet’s brother Archer’s wedding. Especially since he was marrying Violet’s best friend. In twenty-four hours, Violet would get to call Franci her sister for real.
A wedding of her own, though... No, thanks. No need to try and fail to have one of those again.
No doubt Matias shared the desire to avoid saying vows. She was surprised he wasn’t breaking out in hives from standing so close to an altar.
She never would have known that from just looking at him, though. The best man appeared born to make romantic declarations with the Pacific at his back. God. It almost hurt to look at him, with his dark, wavy hair tossed by the wind into beautiful chaos. The knitted sleeves of his thick fisherman’s sweater were trying and failing to contain his biceps, and the cream color highlighted his bronze skin, tanned deeper than usual after a ski holiday he’d taken at Mount Baker last month.
And those talented pub owner’s hands, tucked into the pockets of his jeans... Argh. She stifled a groan, remembering the last time she’d let herself enjoy the thrill of those hands on her skin.
By the curious heat in his gaze, the memory wasn’t far from his mind, either.
Once a year, she let herself clutch those arms and fall into that stare.
Once a year, in October.
Not February.
Five years, and no one had found out about their agreement.
And if the infernally sexy look on his face blew their secret out of the water, she’d march him out to the end of Archer’s long dock and push him into the frigid ocean. On an island where everything was everyone else’s business, secrecy was both a necessity and a luxury.
This weekend in particular.
Until she saw Franci and Archer’s wedding go off without a hitch, she’d be antsy. The couple had been through so much before falling in love. They deserved a perfect day.
Smiling at the bride’s brother, Sam, who was doing special duty as the officiant, Violet took her place across from Matias, managing to avoid his piercing gaze.
“How’s the flower girl?” Sam murmured.
“Sleeping like a baby,” she said, earning an eye roll from the best man. She ignored him and waved her free hand at Sam’s attire, his blazer and dress shirt a few steps up from Matias’s lack of formality. “Looking snazzy, Walker. Nice work dialing back from mountain man.”
His cheeks pinked, and he ran a hand over his short auburn-tinged beard. “Kellan gave me a trim. Picked out my jacket, too.”
“Happy to be useful, love!” Sam’s adorable Irish fiancé called from the front row of chairs.
“God, you’re sickening,” Violet mock complained. The couple was coming up on their first anniversary. “When are you setting a date?”
“As soon as we decide where in the world we want to get hitched,” Sam said, peering down the empty aisle with knitted brows. “Wherever it is, we’ll be more on time than my sister.”
“I’m sure it will be perfect.” And no matter what continent they chose, Violet would attend and cheer them on. Maybe even get misty, because between the two grooms, at least one of them would cry, which would make her well up, too. A perfect new chapter in their love story.
Sam and Kellan, Franci and Archer... They could keep the matrimonial happiness. Of all the parts of today and tomorrow, the only one Violet coveted was having a sweet baby like Iris.
Maybe Violet needed to do what Franci had done. Get pregnant from a one-night stand with a tourist, deliver the baby while trapped by a record-breaking windstorm with only her best friend’s brother for company and then realize she was head over heels for him.
A dry laugh bubbled up. Don’t get your hopes up. Being a single mom would be really tough. Her midwifery practice demanded so much of her time—and her emotions. Violet saw people at their most vulnerable, at their best and at their worst. The highs and lows of pregnancy, the ways a delivery could go sideways, the difficult postpartum days—a person needed the most reliable partner for it all.
She’d proven herself soundly incapable of finding someone to trust with those moments.
Up until now, she’d contented herself with shepherding other mothers’ babies into the world. Times like this, though, snuggling Iris and seeing the changes her sweet face had already gone through since her momentous arrival in the middle of a November superstorm, made her wish for her own miracle, no matter how impossible it had seemed in the past.
Her eyes stung. She suppressed a sniffle.
“Violet?” Across the altar, Matias raised a thick dark brow. “You okay?”
“Of course!” Iris’s big brown eyes flew open. Shoot. “What, I’m not allowed to get emotional at my brother’s wedding?”
“It’s not the actual wedding yet,” he said.
“It’s his wedding weekend. Close enough. I don’t plan on restricting my joy to tomorrow alone.”
“You don’t look joyful.”
His soft words were too much.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” she snapped.
Both he and Sam looked at her in silent question.
Matias’s gaze stayed on her, heavy and meaningful. The last time he’d served as a best man, the groom had bolted the night before the wedding.
The wedding that should have been Violet’s.
Really, she should have warned Archer and Franci against having Matias in their wedding party. The guy was clearly bad luck.
“Uh, Violet?” Sam said. “Were Franci and Archer not following you?”
Wow, way to get tied up in her thoughts. She hadn’t clued in to the lack of bride and groom. “They should have been. I left them in the sunroom.”
The couple had decided to walk down the aisle together instead of Franci walking with her dad or going it alone. The gesture of walking toward their future together warmed Violet’s soul. She didn’t have a lot of confidence in relationships, but she did in Archer and Franci. They’d made it through a birth that had gone more than sideways—because of a road getting washed out during the storm, her brother had actually delivered Iris. And they’d survived the postpartum weeks, too. He wasn’t Iris’s biological father, but he’d be her dad in every way that mattered.
“I saw them through the window, but now I don’t,” Sam said.
“Must have found something diverting,” Matias murmured. “Probably each other.”
His gaze suggested he thought the couple was on to something.
“Come on, Matias, they wouldn’t fool around now,” Violet said between clenched teeth. Nor should we. Ever.
She hadn’t anticipated ignoring the best man to be a part of supporting Franci and Archer. She and Matias were ultracareful not to clue anyone in on their hookups. But for whatever reason, he was staring at her like she’d painted the fuchsia and tangerine streaks across the sky.
No, that wasn’t quite right. There weren’t actual emotions behind his attention. Just sex. Shaking her head at him, she looked the other way.
“In what world would you have expected Franci to be on time, Vi?” Sam asked. “Even for her own wedding?”
She glared at him out of loyalty to her friend, though of all people, Sam dealt with his sister’s inability to keep time the most. He owned Oyster Island’s local dive shop, where Franci was the manager and Archer led the dive crew.
“They were literally right behind me.” Though the rehearsal was starting fifteen minutes late because Iris had taken a long time with her afternoon feed.
Iris squawked.
“Exactly, sweet pea. You defend your mama.”
The baby’s lower lip stuck out, and she let out a single wah.
“Oh, hey, shh.”
The next wah drowned out the acoustic guitar music coming from Sam’s phone.
“Shh, shh, shh,” Violet soothed. “We want this perfect for your mom.”
“If she ever gets here,” Sam said dryly.
Iris’s cries went from complaints to a wail.
Violet rocked from one foot to the other. “Oh, lovey, hush. I had one job today.” She glanced up at Matias. The corners of his mouth turned down in concern. His eyes had lost their heated edge.
They were still magnetic.
“Two jobs,” she whispered to the squalling baby. The tiny face reddened by the second.
Matias crossed in front of Sam to stand next to Violet. “If this one’s job number one,” he said in a low voice, “what’s the second?”
Stop staring at you.
Matias had inherited his striking looks from his Kānaka Maoli father and his Austrian runway model mother. It was hard to look away sometimes.
Objectively.
She muttered some comforting nonsense to her red-faced niece.
Matias added a low shush to her own and scooped the baby out of her arms. Iris immediately quieted, staring up at her rescuer with wide, curious eyes.
A low growl escaped Violet. “I can’t believe she likes you better than me.”
“She doesn’t,” he replied in a low voice. “She can just tell you’re stressed.”
“Well, yeah. There’s a lot riding on this weekend.” Violet squinted at the house to see where the hell her brother and her best friend had ended up.
Franci and Archer finally emerged from the sliding door on the back of the house and came out on the deck.
“Sorry!” Franci called. Her red curls were rumpled, and her lips were puffy.
Nudging Violet with an elbow, Matias said, “Told you.”
The couple approached the far end of the aisle, hand in hand. Franci’s brows knotted in confusion, and she stared at Violet and Matias. “Weren’t you going to stand on opposite sides of Sam?”
“Iris took umbrage with me,” Violet admitted.
The baby squirmed in Matias’s arms, seeming to search for where her mother’s voice was coming from.
“And apparently Matias, too,” Violet added. That took the sting off a bit.
“Hmm,” Franci said. “If Iris isn’t going to want to be with you, Violet, maybe we need to change things up.”
Violet’s stomach tightened. She knew as much as anyone here—more, when it came to most of them—how unpredictable infants could be.
It still felt like she was failing her friend, who’d been so hoping to have Iris at the altar.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine tomorrow,” Violet said.
Franci shook her head. “Let’s try something different. You can take my bouquet. I’ll take my baby.”
Violet smiled. “Aw, that will be perfect.”
“And you and Matias can walk down the aisle together.”
His mouth quirked, a glint in his eyes as he studied Violet’s face. “Also perfect.”
The elbow she planted in his side earned a satisfying oof.
A few minutes later, she stood at the start of the aisle next to him, no baby in her arms to supply any sort of distance between the burly bar owner and herself. She gripped the paper-towel-roll handle of the ribbon-and-bow bouquet she’d crafted for Franci at the wedding shower. The thin cardboard crumpled.
Matias held out his elbow, something flickering in his gaze to which she didn’t want to get near.
Or that’s exactly what I want.
If she was being honest with herself, she had for a long time, ever since the first anniversary of her fiancé leaving Oyster Island to join a mainland brewing empire. Her ex had walked out right before their wedding rehearsal. Deserting Matias, too, and the plans he and Lawson had been about to implement for a brewery of their own. Exactly a year later, she’d been sitting at Matias’s bar, pretending her drink was celebratory.
Matias had known the truth, damn him.
In that ill-considered moment when she and Matias had comforted each other over their lingering grief and upset, things had gone too far. The following year, too.
And the year after that.
Tradition. An odd one. But once a year never hurt anyone.
There were people you had relationships with and people you had flings with, and thanks to his love-’em-and-leave-’em tendencies and being one of her brother’s best friends, Matias was neither. He was...a habit.
A hot one. A pin-her-up-against-the-wall one. A make-her-forget-her-own-name one.
Nothing permanent, though.
Violet didn’t blame him for his shortcomings. Life hurt a whole lot less when you planned for an expiry date, a truth she’d lived since Lawson left. None of the women or men she’d dated had been serious.
Matias’s mouth curved up at the corner, like he knew her mind was drifting to places beyond platonic neutrality.
She cupped the inside of his forearm with tentative fingers.
“Come on, Violetta. You can do better than that.” He covered her hand with his free one, way more intimate than they should have been. Something the groom did, not the best man.
“That’s not my name.” Glowering at him, she nudged his fingers until he dropped the gesture.
Sam motioned for them to approach, and they did.
“Hey. Slow down, speed racer,” Matias said. “Is walking down an aisle with me so terrible?”
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“You know.”
“I do?” His confusion seemed genuine.
Her heart twisted at him saying those words as they were approaching an altar.
She slowed even more and lowered her voice. “You’re looking at me like...like it’s still October.”
“Octo—” Realization dawned in his pools-of-chocolate eyes. “You mean November.”
A thrill ran up her spine. Right. November. They may have cheated on their once-a-year deal the night after Iris was born. “Whatever the date, stop it.”
“Our thing wasn’t on my mind, Violet.” Sincere promise melted into his tone.
“What was?” she grumbled.
After a pause that lasted almost the rest of the trip down the aisle, he said, “You, and Law. Wondered if it was bothering you this weekend.”
“Pfft. Why would it?”
He squeezed her hand before releasing her to stand on the bride’s side of the altar. “Focus on what we have, right?”
“Focus on Franci and Archer,” she whispered.
If she let the memories of her own canceled wedding distract her, she wouldn’t be fully present for two of her favorite people. She needed to make new memories to replace the old ones. Even if the wedding day would never be her own.
Matias walked into The Cannery in the middle of the rehearsal dinner, carrying a backpack full of his casual clothes and a folded, empty garment bag. He’d just done one final, panicked suit fitting at the seamstress’s place next door to Wharf Street Grocery. He resisted the urge to tug on his collar, even though his tie was doing its best impression of a guard dog’s choke chain.
Sidling up to the bar, he nodded at his cousin, Nic, who was stacking glasses. Twenty, with the spirit of the herd of seals that terrorized the harbor with their big eyes and endless energy, he worked for Matias a few times a week to pay for college. In a few months he’d be shifting from attending online and would be off to Boston to start a prestigious internship with a physics professor. Matias couldn’t tell if his cousin was excited or scared pantsless.
“That what you’re wearing tomorrow?” Nic asked with a whistle. “Too classy for this joint.”
Not wrong. No one wore suits to eat at his pub. “I’d better change before I get gravy smears on it.”
Nic nodded. “The wedding poutine’s been a hit tonight. Good thing you ordered extra yams.”
Matias had made the dish as a wink and a nod to the bride’s copper hair.
He wiped the top of the bar down as insurance before leaning on the aluminum top. He’d crafted the fixture with the help of Sam and Franci’s dad, a local woodworker. They’d used brushed metal, salvaged wood, elbow grease and a lot of love. Successfully, too—the handsome piece was Matias’s pride and joy. The whole pub was, especially when it was full to the brim with people he loved. He might never have a woman in his life long-term, but he damn well enjoyed his friends and family and loved giving them a meeting place where they could laugh, celebrate and even commiserate.
With his to-do list done for the evening, he could enjoy himself for a few hours. His best friend was getting married tomorrow, after all. It wasn’t all work, even though the pre-wedding festivities were happening at The Cannery.
The same precious face he’d been staring at all day was amongst a sea of smiles at a crowded table, a frowning island in the middle of the revelry.
He shook his head. If he didn’t do something, Violet would end up miserable the whole weekend.
Couldn’t have that.
He crooked a finger.
She blanched, shook her head and forced a grin.
Not good enough, sweetheart. He wasn’t going to give up so easily. He motioned with his whole hand.
Her eyes threatened murder.
He laughed and shook his head. Later, then.
“Pour me a Coke?” he asked Nic, who was still behind the bar. His cousin would be coming to the wedding tomorrow with his girlfriend, who happened to be Franci’s younger sister. The two of them were head over heels. Probably thought they had the rest of their lives together.
Matias had had too many short relationships to count. He sympathized with loving the excitement, the infatuation, but was dubious about what came after. He wasn’t going to tell that to his cousin, though. He didn’t wake up in the morning and aim to tromp on dreams. The kid could learn his own lessons. Maybe even beat the odds at some point, if not with Charlotte.
Matias was all out of gambles, himself.
“It’ll cost you double,” Nic joked as he tilted a glass and filled it with the soda gun.
Matias flipped him the bird and took the drink. He headed for the hall to the employee spaces in the back, scanning the crowd for anything out of place. More out of habit than anything—no one at the private function was going to cause trouble.
The pub, sectioned into cozy nooks with movable frames made of wood and sisal rope, was half-full of people at this point. Tomorrow’s ceremony and reception were going to be small, but a ton of Oyster Island folks had wanted to help celebrate the happy couple. Matias had opened up The Cannery to a larger invite list, with most of the bill generously footed by Archer’s parents. Two-dollar drinks and food on the house, nachos and the poutine that earned the pub a spot on a few “best bites in Washington State” blogs.
Violet and her mom had jazzed up the decor for the celebration, adding forest greenery and flowers to the usual fishing nets, floats and driftwood. The Cannery had been an actual salmon cannery back in the early 1900s. The property had been in the Frost family for decades, originally owned by a small group of Swedish immigrants, including Violet’s maternal great-grandfather. A number of the rambling collection of buildings sat unused, but Matias had been leasing the old cannery’s cafeteria area from the Frosts for almost a decade now. Part of the row of old offices on the other side of the parking lot had been converted into Violet’s clinic and apartment, as well as a clinic for a local physical therapist and a naturopath. In the back, next to the water, sat the empty warehouse. Matias and his old business partner, Violet’s ex, had dreamed about putting a brewery in there once upon a time.
His heart twisted. Yeah, he’d lost his business partner. But Violet had lost the person she’d chosen to be her partner in life. And she’d been putting up a good front throughout the chaotic month and a half of Archer and Franci’s wedding plans, but he could see it starting to wear on her. His clumsy attempts at flirting with her had only tightened the tangle of emotions on her face.
He’d need to do better tomorrow.
The swinging door to the kitchen thwapped shut behind Matias. He nodded at his small kitchen staff and called out a greeting, then answered a few questions about tomorrow’s dinner service, which he’d be missing for the wedding.
As soon as he could, he escaped into his office, closed the door and started stripping out of his suit, forcing his stiff hands to relax. He couldn’t take the bad memories out on the garment. It needed to stay pristine for his stroll to the altar Franci’s dad had built.
His stroll with Violet, now. Walking down the aisle with her had been hard to process. Something about her wearing her delicate cloak, a bouquet of gift bows shaking in her grip and a vulnerable plea in her sea-blue eyes, had shaken him to his core.
Down to his underwear and socks, he hung his fancy duds on the hangers his seamstress had given him. He dug through his bag and grabbed his jeans.
The door opened behind him, then quickly slammed shut.
He jumped and turned.
A fuming Violet stood before him. Her usually straight hair was still in the long, loose curls from the rehearsal, a style she didn’t usually favor. Her arms crossed under her small breasts, tugging the fabric of her dress tighter and serving up a hint of cleavage. He’d tasted that sweet cleft on each of the five nights he’d enjoyed being in her bed. He knew how to make her gasp.
Right now, all he was making her do was glare.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said, pretending it was the norm for him to be standing around his office in his underwear. With a quick what’s-going-on brow lift, he got back to getting dressed, putting on his jeans.
She eyed his chest.
“Like what you see?” he said.
“You were doing the same to me.”
She was tall, only four or so inches shorter than his own six-one. The fabric of her dress swished around her long legs, touching her as he longed to do.
“Guilty,” he admitted. “Your dress is a stunner.”
“You’re guilty, alright. You have my mom asking me what the hell was going on with you beckoning me across the bar. I had to make up an excuse about best man/maid of honor duties.”
Nerves tingled up his neck. He needed to impress the Frosts this weekend. After some long years of penny-pinching, he almost had the money saved to consider his own brewing expansion into the warehouse, without Lawson. One more good summer with The Cannery, and he’d have the necessary nest egg.
He’d considered talking to the Frosts about it this weekend, in fact, given they were visiting the island. Even since moving to the mainland, they hadn’t ever indicated they wanted to do anything with the warehouse space. It was a weird shape for most businesses, and it wasn’t easy to do anything that turned a profit on Oyster Island. It would still be perfect for a brewery, though. He could at least test the waters, give them a heads-up he was interested. On Sunday, of course. It’d be tacky to talk business at the rehearsal or on the wedding day.
The sweater he’d had on earlier was too hot to wear in a crowded pub, so he grabbed a black polo from the stash he kept in his office.
Violet averted her sharp gaze from his chest, fixing on the neat piles of paper on his desk. Pink splashed across her cheeks.
“We could cheat on our deal, you know,” he murmured, sliding back into his shoes and stepping close enough to trace her flushing skin.
He didn’t.
But feeling the heat off her body, he wasn’t sure why he was holding back.
“You know we can’t.” Regret lingered in her tone.
“We’re the ones who made the rules. We get to decide when to break them.”
They had last year, the night Iris was born. He knew they had to be careful, though. Too many times outside of their October-eleventh-only deal, and they’d be tiptoeing toward the fling they both knew they had to avoid. And yet...
“You don’t think it would be appropriate?” he continued. “Letting off a little steam every time Franci and Archer share a big milestone?”
She laughed dryly. “I don’t think it works that way.”
“It works however you want it to, Violetta.”
“Well, make sure it doesn’t work in front of my mother.”
Leaning in close, he pressed a soft kiss to her temple. “The things I keep thinking about? I definitely wouldn’t be doing them to you in front of your mother.”
Her breath caught, and she clutched the front of his shirt with a hand, her pale pink nails scraping the skin beneath.
Another kiss, redolent with a light floral fragrance from whatever she’d used to fix her curls in place. Reminded him of his grandmother’s garden in Hawai‘i.
He lightly nipped her earlobe. “And she’s not here now...”
“Mati, I—argh!” She nudged him away with a palm to his chest. “My family didn’t get the day they’d planned for with Lawson and me. This is their one shot at a functioning wedding. We can’t be a distraction.”
After yanking open the door, she stomped away.
Hmm. Lawson was on her mind. And it would be a shame if it meant she didn’t enjoy her brother’s big day. Seemed like something he’d signed up for as best man.
He wasn’t about to fly a banner behind a prop plane to advertise he knew exactly how to pleasure the maid of honor.
But if no one knew what was going on... That wouldn’t hurt a soul.