"I do."
The priest smiled and held his hands up, one hand over Eileen Sweet, and the other over James Bollinger. Darcy thought her mother looked stunning in the dress they had picked out for her, and next to her James cut a very impressive figure in his tuxedo. They leaned in to each other, and their kiss was perfect.
Darcy looked down at herself in the bridesmaid's dress, a peach colored, pretty thing that left her arms and shoulders bare, a white sash at the waist with a huge bow that sat at her left hip. Grace wore the same dress, only with more material at the stomach to cover her baby bump.
Standing in the huge meeting room of the Town Hall, Darcy waited for the cold, jittery feeling she had experienced here while talking to Giattano Franco to repeat itself. It didn't. Whatever spirit had been focusing its attention on her then was silent now.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the priest said to the small group gathered in the Hall for the wedding ceremony, "it is my pleasure to present to you Mister and Missus James Bollinger."
Darcy hadn't been sure about how she would feel when she saw this. Her mother, kissing a man in wedded bliss who wasn't her father. She had been prepared for a flurry of emotions from anger to worry or even resentment.
Instead, all she felt was happy.
With the ceremony concluded, they went to Helen's café for the reception. A table had been placed along the one wall and loaded with finger foods and drinks and of course the amazing wedding cake. It was four layers high, with white merengue frosting and pink piping made to look like bows and streamers. On the top, a bride and groom stood holding hands and looking into each other's eyes.
The tables and chairs that usually crowded the place had been removed to clear the white and black tiled floor. With the help of the store's stereo system, music played and everyone danced and laughed long into the night and toasted the bride and groom.
Jon and Darcy danced to several songs before a slow one came on, and then they danced some more, holding each other very close. She put her head down on his shoulder and let him lead her in a slow circle.
"This is nice," she said.
"Yes," he agreed. "It is."
"You promised to stay forever," she reminded him for the tenth time. Not that she was counting.
He laughed out loud. Darcy felt the same warmth inside of her that she had felt when he had finally answered her question and told her that yes, he was going to move back to Misty Hollow. He didn't want to be apart from her any more. Those words had been almost as sweet as the wedding vows that Eileen and James had written themselves and recited to each other.
The only glitch was that he had promised his current chief over in Oak Hollow that he would see the investigation of their string of burglaries through to its end. How long could that take, though? Days. Weeks at the most. She was a patient person.
No. No she wasn't, but she was going to be this time. Jon would come home to her. It was worth it.
She remembered her dream, where she and Jon had danced so wonderfully at a wedding. This wedding. The dream had come true, here in this moment, with the two of them holding on to each other and rekindling a love that had never really been gone.
She made a soft little noise in her throat, expressing the pleasure she felt.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Nothing," Darcy told him. "This is like something from a dream. That's all."
"I wish I could have dreams like you do."
His fingers stroked the back of her neck, gently. "I'm living a dream now," she told him. "You can share it with me. I'll let you."
He chuckled and kissed the top of her head. "So, I have something to tell you," he said.
"I swear to you," she grumbled, "if I hear you start one more conversation that way I'll have Smudge claw all of your socks to shreds."
He laughed, tucking his cheek against her hair. "It's a good something this time. I promise."
"Really? What is it?"
He gracefully bent her backward into a dip, and locked his eyes with hers. "You remember how I was going to have my guys check on the Handyman Express people? The Whedons?"
"Yes," she said, breathless form how he was holding her.
"Well, they did." Bringing her back up, he twirled her and then pulled her back into his chest, and they danced. "When they ran a proper background check, they found an outstanding warrant for Cassidy. It's from a department that's a long way from here, but they figured it was enough to get him talking. Guess what they found when they went to arrest him?"
"What?"
"The stuff from the burglaries that have been happening over there."
He waited for her reaction. Darcy pushed back to look at him, her eyes wide. "Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously. Turns out our friends the Whedons were using their business to scout out which homes had stuff worth stealing. Giattano Franco unwittingly gave us the tip we needed to solve those cases."
"So, wait." Her heart fluttered. "Wait, does that mean what I think it means?"
He nodded. "It sure does. That was the last thing holding me from coming back here. The chief in Oak Hollow is really happy. He offered me a raise to stay on, but I explained that I had a life to get back to."
Darcy wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips against his. That was the best news she'd heard in a very, very long time.
Her mother came over some time later to point out how the song had ended already. They could stop dancing now. Darcy caught Grace's wink, and all she could do was smile back.
The next day, everyone slept in. Everyone except Darcy.
Belinda had come back not long after Rita and Giattano had been arrested. Darcy had explained to her the whole entire situation, how there were no ghosts in her house and the whole thing had been about the money that everyone suspected Belinda of having.
She had looked at Darcy in a very straightforward way, the smile on her face sad. "My Dominic always pinched a penny until it screamed. Even so, there is no money. Those two fools are going to get themselves sent to jail for nothing. He left me what little he had. The money got spent up a long time ago. The only real treasure he left me is the one I showed you. The memory of him."
Then she had smiled at Darcy as she turned away. "You're wrong, though. He is here. He's watching over me."
Darcy hadn't had the heart to argue with her.
Now, more than a week later, Belinda had called her at the break of dawn. Darcy had grabbed the phone off the bedside table before it could wake up the entire household, careful not to disturb the snoring Jon Tinker lying in bed next to her. When Darcy mumbled a sleepy hello, Belinda answered with just six words.
"I want to show you something."
So, tired and wishing the world could just stop for one day, Darcy had put on the first pair of jeans she came to and a long-sleeved t-shirt and her sneakers, and borrowed Jon's car keys. She left a note that didn't say much. She had no idea what Belinda could want to show her, or how long it would take.
Traffic had been almost nonexistent and it had only taken Darcy a few minutes to get to Belinda's house. She was waiting at the front door when Darcy arrived. "Come on in, dear. I knew you'd want to see this."
Darcy followed her to the secret door, the two of them not saying anything at all. She couldn't help but notice that the television stand had a fine layer of dust on it, and that some of the photographs on the walls were just a bit crooked. No need for Belinda to clean up night after night anymore, with no one breaking into her house to mess it up.
Belinda worked the complicated lock, and the secret door opened.
Down in the basement, Darcy was struck again at how amazing Dominic Franco's life must have been. All of these articles and playbills and newspaper photos to commemorate what he loved doing best. An amazing tribute to an amazing life. No wonder Belinda called these her treasures.
"Here," she said to Darcy, standing with her hands clasped together, her eyes riveted to one picture in particular. She might have been a statue standing there in a long white dress, except for the way her lip twitched in a smile and a tear rolled down her cheek.
Darcy followed Belinda's gaze. It brought her to the one picture that wasn't from Dominic's storied Broadway career. The photograph of him dancing with Belinda in their younger days. Even in black and white, their expressions radiated love and happiness.
The picture was moving.
She blinked her eyes several times to be sure she actually was seeing what she was seeing. Inside the confines of the rectangular photograph Belinda and Dominic moved in time to silent music, around and around the dance floor, her dress flowing, his one arm wrapped around her waist. It was like a window back on time.
"How is that…?" she started to ask. That's when she felt it. A presence. A warm, comforting feeling, like having an old friend coming to visit. Before this moment, whenever Darcy had tried to reach out with her sixth sense to look for a ghost in Belinda's house, there wasn't any to be found.
There was one now.
"Dominic," Belinda whispered, putting a name to the spirit in the room with them. "My Dominic."
Slowly, so slowly that Darcy didn't notice it at first, the framed picture began pushing out from the wall. She reached out for it just as it fell, catching it, saving it from crashing to the carpet below. Belinda took it gently from Darcy's hands, staring at the old photograph even though it had stopped moving again. It had become just a snapshot of a memory once more. Maybe in Belinda's mind she could still see that dance from so long ago, when she had been with the love of her life and they'd had all the time in the world.
Behind where the picture had hung a moment before, the paint on the wall bubbled. A long, oval blister formed with a sound like a whispered sigh. Then it split and cracked and crumbled into pieces so small they might as well have been dust.
The fractured paint misted down to the floor at their feet. Behind was a square panel of the wall that was different than the rest. Plain wood instead of sheetrock. Maybe ten inches square. At the top of the panel was a hole no bigger around than a finger.
Whether it was Dominic guiding her or her own intuition, Darcy suddenly understood. The hole was a handle. Using her index finger she pulled the piece of wood away. It gave slowly. It had been sealed in place for years, most likely. Once removed, it revealed a cubby hole.
And in that, was exactly what Darcy had expected to find.
Dominic had indeed been saving his pennies. A lot of them, by the looks of it. He'd saved it all for Belinda in the form of twenty dollar bills. A small fortune sat before them. A fortune that Dominic had hidden away here until the time was right. Apparently, he'd run out of days in his life before he'd found the right moment to show Belinda what he'd done.
So he was showing her now.
Darcy brought out a stack of twenties still in their bank wrapper. She handed it to Belinda, who took the time to kiss the photo in her hands before accepting her husband's parting gift.
"Thank you, Dominic," she said, her voice shaky with emotion and tears. "I love you, too."
--End--