Just as the kiss ended, Danielle looked into Walt’s blue eyes and said, “Oh crap.”
His arms still around her, Walt arched his brow, the corner of his lips turning up in a crooked smile. “Is that a commentary on my kiss?”
Danielle let out a sigh and moved out of his embrace, returning to her original seat. “We can’t get married after dinner. We don’t have a marriage license, and there’s no way we can get one tonight.”
“Then we get one in the morning,” Walt suggested.
“And we probably shouldn’t have just done that.” Danielle glanced around nervously.
“Embarrassed to be seen with me?” Walt teased.
“Oh, right.” Danielle rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. Kissing in a public place might not be the smartest thing to do if we want to keep our relationship under wraps for the moment.”
Before they could finish their discussion, the waitress arrived with two bowls of clam chowder. As she served the soup, Danielle pulled her cellphone out of her purse and began surfing for information on Oregon wedding licenses.
Just as the server left the table, Danielle—her eyes still on her phone’s screen—said, “I don’t believe this.”
“I take you to a nice restaurant, propose, and you start playing with your phone? What is it with your generation and cellphones?” Walt asked as he picked up his soup spoon.
Danielle lowered the phone for a moment and looked across the table at Walt. “I was trying to find where we could get a marriage license.”
“And?” Walt leaned over his bowl and gingerly tasted a spoonful of the hot soup.
Danielle set her phone on the table. “We have to go to the county office in Astoria.”
“That’s not a long drive. What’s the problem?” Walt asked.
“There’s a three-day waiting period,” Danielle grumbled and then tasted her clam chowder.
“Three days?” Walt looked up at her.
“Yes, three days. Tomorrow’s Thursday and the county office will be open. According to the website, they issue licenses from nine to four. Then we have to wait three days, but I’m not sure if that would mean we could get married on Sunday or Monday. It depends when the waiting period begins. Neither day is ideal. I don’t want to get married on Sunday, because our guests for the weekend will still be here. And Monday isn’t ideal; it’s Memorial Day. But we might be able to get someone to marry us on Monday.”
“What about in Washington?” Walt suggested. “We don’t have to get married in Oregon.”
Setting her spoon down, she picked up the phone again and searched for information on Washington marriage licenses. After a moment, she shook her head and set the phone back on the table. “They have a three-day waiting period too.”
“I’ve waited over ninety years; I suppose I can wait five more days—as long as we don’t have to wait a year,” Walt said before eating more clam chowder.
Danielle smiled at him. “It hasn’t been almost ninety years—it hasn’t even been two years since we met.”
Walt looked up, his eyes meeting hers. In a quiet voice he said, “That doesn’t mean I haven’t been waiting over ninety years for you.”
“What are you staring at?” Susan Mitchell’s husband asked her. The two sat at an inside table at Pearl Cove, some distance from Walt and Danielle’s booth.
Susan, who had been peering over the top of her menu, quickly put it on the table and looked to her husband. “I think that’s Danielle Boatman and Walt Marlow.”
Menu in hand, Mr. Mitchell glanced over to where his wife indicated. “Oh, I think it is. Do you want to go over and say hi?”
Susan quickly shook her head and picked up her menu again, opening it. “No!”
“I thought you liked the Boatman woman?” he asked.
“Awkward,” Susan said in a singsong voice while glancing through her entrée choices.
“Awkward, why?”
Susan lowered the menu and peered at her husband. “They were kissing. Right there in the booth, for everyone to see.”
“There’s hardly anyone in here, and I think we’re the only ones that have a view to their booth. But you said they were kissing?” He frowned and glanced over to Walt and Danielle a moment. “Isn’t he the one with amnesia?”
“Yes, and his fiancée was killed just two months ago.”
Her husband shrugged and looked back to the menu. “Well, if he has amnesia, he probably doesn’t remember her. What’s wrong with him and Boatman kissing? They’re both adults, single. And considering he’s staying at Marlow House, not surprising something like this might develop.”
“But he’s using her,” Susan whispered.
“Using her, how?” He frowned.
“He opened a bank account from me, but he didn’t have any of his own money to deposit, so Danielle loaned him five thousand dollars. She said he was waiting for a refund from the airlines.”
“That was generous of her. But I suppose she can afford it.”
“I know she can afford it—and obviously so does he. When he brought in the refund check from the airline, it wasn’t enough to cover what Danielle had given him, but he never paid her back anyway. And then he deposited a large check from Danielle. He said she had purchased those reproductions he’d commissioned. According to him, that check was to pay for the paintings.”
“They obviously have some arrangement worked out between them,” he suggested.
“He’s seducing her! Taking advantage of her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You didn’t see how they were kissing; I did!” Susan snapped.
“It’s none of our business.”
“Danielle Boatman is my friend—and she is a client of the bank. I don’t want to see this guy clean out her bank accounts. How do we even know if he has amnesia?”
“Susan—”
“And why doesn’t he have any of his own money? We know he and his fiancée were going to Europe after they left Marlow House. If he doesn’t have any cash, what were they planning to spend there? Like I said, the only deposits he’s made into his bank account have come from Danielle and the airline refund. It’s just not right.”
Her husband let out a sigh and glanced briefly to Walt and Danielle’s table and then back to his wife. “Maybe he intended to use credit cards, or perhaps his fiancée was planning to pay the expenses in Europe.”
“Now he expects Danielle to pay his way?”
He shrugged. “Maybe Marlow doesn’t have any of his own money. Maybe that’s why he’s really staying at Marlow House.”
“Isn’t that what I was just saying?” She frowned.
After dinner and dessert, Walt ordered them each a brandy.
As Danielle sipped her drink, she said, “I never do this.”
“Do what?” Walt asked.
“Have an after-dinner drink. It’s all very…sophisticated,” she said in a haughty voice followed by a giggle.
His eyes on Danielle, he smiled. Lifting his glass in salute, he said, “This is a celebration.”
“So it is.” She grinned, her gaze never leaving his as they each sipped their brandy.
“I want to get you an engagement and a wedding ring—but it all seems very awkward, since it’s your money, even what’s in my bank account.”
Danielle shook her head. “A good share of my money was yours. And even if that wasn’t the case, you have the money from the ticket refund and the sale of the portraits.”
“Which is technically Clint’s money,” Walt reminded her. “I’m actually destitute.” He sounded more amused than distraught.
“It is an unusual situation.”
Walt chuckled. “The understatement of the century.”
“Anyway, there’s no reason to buy rings now, it’s not like I can wear them—I can’t even wear an engagement ring or people would start asking questions.”
Walt set his glass on the table and reached over, taking hold of Danielle’s right hand, gently massaging her index finger with his thumb. Looking at her hand, he asked, “What happened to that ring you used to wear?”
“My aquamarine one? It’s in my jewelry box. I just haven’t worn it much lately. Why?” She looked from the hand he held to his face.
“Aquamarine is your birthstone, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Still holding her hand, his thumb caressing her index finger, he said, “I remember noticing your hands when we first met—they’re so graceful—feminine. I remember the ring. We were in the kitchen, when you told me I was dead.” He smiled and released her hand.
“Well, someone had to tell you,” she teased.
“You know what I’d like us to do?” Walt asked.
“What?”
“We need to find a jeweler, one who can take some of those gold coins and make them into a wedding band. It can be your wedding ring for our secret marriage, and later, when we say our vows again, I’ll buy you a wedding set—whatever you want. You can wear the gold band on your right hand, and if anyone asks, you can tell them the truth—that it’s made from some of the gold coins.”
The gold coins Walt referred to were once owned by him and his business partner, Jack. Jack, who had been staying in the house Ian and Lily now owned, across the street from Marlow House, had hidden the coins under some floorboards in a closet. After they were discovered, the courts decided the coins legally belonged to Danielle Boatman. Walt’s estate had been left to the mother of Danielle’s great-aunt Brianna. After the mother died, it went to Brianna. Brianna left her estate to Danielle, which included what had come from the Marlow Estate—which, decades later, included the gold coins hidden under a neighbor’s floorboards.
“I think I like that idea,” Danielle told him. “I just have to find someone who can do it.”