The man, red in the face with fury, stood nose to nose with Steve, who was dripping wet and blinking.
“Hey!” Nate Briggs cried, and stepped in between his brother and the irate man.
“It’s all right,” Steve said. He put his hands on his older brother’s shoulders and gently moved him aside.
The two brothers had similar features, seen in the blunt shape of their noses and their sharp jawlines, but not so much that you could tell they were brothers right away. Steve was clearly younger, with short-cropped dark hair and a slender build. Nate was shorter by a few inches and stockier, as if he’d been built to carry more than his fair share of life’s burdens.
“If you could just get me a towel, that would be great,” Steve said.
Nate didn’t look like he wanted to move. He stepped into the other man’s space, crowding him. Then he reached out and swiftly patted the man down as if searching him for a weapon. In a low voice he growled, “Put one finger on him and I’ll destroy you, Tony.”
The man called Tony barked a laugh devoid of humor. “Your brother already did that.”
Nate glanced between the two men, obviously unsure of what was happening. He reached behind him, grabbed a clean hand towel off of the bar and handed it to his brother. Steve patted dry his face and the front of his elf suit, taking his time, not rushing despite being on the receiving end of Tony’s malevolent stare. When he was finished, he tossed the towel back on the bar and held out his hands in a placating gesture.
“Tony,” Steve said. His voice was calm and cajoling. “Let’s go somewhere and talk privately.”
“Talk?” Tony cried. “You want to talk now? After you’ve kicked me out of the firm and ruined my life? I’d say it’s a bit late for a talk, wouldn’t you?”
“It’s clear you’re upset,” Steve said. He looked and sounded perfectly calm and reasonable, even wearing his elf suit, which was no small feat. “Let’s take a minute to calm down.”
Steve went to take his arm, but Tony yanked it away. “Calm down? I’ve lost everything because of you! I’m not going to calm down. You’ve sent me to hell, and I plan to drag you down with me!”
He threw a punch at Steve, but it was a wild swing, sending him teetering to the side. Nate leaped into the fray, using Tony’s own momentum to bring him to the ground. He put his knee in the middle of Tony’s back and held him there while Tony thrashed, trying to buck him off. He glanced up at his brother.
“What do you want me to do with him?”
“Walk him out,” Steve said. He shook his head. “There’s no reasoning with him when he’s like this.”
“Reason with me?” Tony howled. “You never even tried. You just ruined everything that was important to me—my wife, my career, my life. Well, now you’re on notice, Briggs. I won’t rest until I’ve taken everything from you. Don’t forget. I know everything about you.”
Steve’s face became a cold, hard mask. Gone was the jovial host in the elf suit. Instead, his eyes frosted with a ruthlessness that was icy sharp, so much so that Lindsey was surprised it didn’t cause Tony to spontaneously freeze. She shivered.
“I didn’t ruin your life. You did,” Steve said. “You’re an alcoholic, Tony, whether you want to admit it or not. I’ve offered to help you time and again, and that offer still stands, but I won’t let you destroy everything we’ve built. When you’re ready to talk, I’ll be here.”
“You sanctimonious pr—” Nate hauled Tony to his feet, cutting off his ranting words. With a hand on the back of his neck, Nate half lifted and half dragged Tony toward the door.
“Sorry, but the party’s over for you, Mancusi,” he said.
Tony fought Nate’s hold, trying to wriggle loose, but Nate held him without any visible effort. Sully leaned close to Lindsey and said, “Nate was All-State for wrestling. That guy’s never going to shake him off.”
“I’m going to have my driver take you home, Tony,” Steve said. “We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
“There’s nothing to talk—”
Whatever Tony had been about to say was cut off as Nate tightened his grip and pushed him through the crowded house and out the front door.
The partygoers were all silent as they processed the scene they’d just witnessed. Sensing the plummeting mood, Steve raised his hands wide and said, “Don’t let that Ebenezer ruin the party, everyone! Eat, drink and be merry! DJ, hit us with some rockin’ tunes!”
The DJ nodded, and upbeat holiday music swelled from the speakers all around. People began to chatter again, and the party atmosphere slowly returned, although a bit more subdued and with a ripple of gossipy whispers running through it.
Steve laughed with the people around him with a shrug that seemed to say, What can you do?
Lindsey noticed that the set of his shoulders was stiff and his good humor seemed forced. Not that she could blame him given what had just happened. She knew it was none of her business, but she wondered who Tony Mancusi was and why there was bad blood between him and Steve, especially as the Steve she knew was unfailingly thoughtful and kind.
“What do you suppose that was all about?” she asked Sully.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I do know that Tony and Steve have been partners in their law firm, Briggs and Mancusi, for years, but it sounds as if they’ve parted ways.”
“Not by choice, at least on Tony’s end,” she observed. “He resembled a crazy ex-girlfriend there.”
“He did, didn’t he?” Sully agreed. “Still ready to leave?”
“More than ever,” she said. “I don’t like drama.”
“Same.”
They made their way through the crowd, pausing by Steve to say good night.
“I hope that scene Tony made isn’t driving you out,” Steve said. “There’s plenty of life left in this party. We’ve only just begun. We’re just about to start up the karaoke.”
“Which is exactly why we’re making our exit,” Sully joked. “Seriously, we were on our way already. We have a dog who worries if we’re not home by curfew.”
Steve nodded with a small smile. “That must be nice, to have a furry buddy waiting for you.” He glanced between the two of them and looked like he wanted to say something more but then changed his mind. “I’ll see you kids at your wedding rehearsal, if not before.”
“Sounds great,” Sully said, and shook his hand.
Lindsey gave him a quick hug. “Thanks for a . . . er . . . festive party.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s been that,” Steve said. He gave them a comical look, but the amusement didn’t quite reach his eyes.
It struck Lindsey as they walked through the house that for a man who had a stunning home and a gorgeous wife and who, by all accounts, was successful and living his best life, Steve Briggs looked incredibly lonely, standing there in his elf suit with his pointed hat drooping a bit to one side. Maybe she was wrong, but still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Steve Briggs’s life was desperately unhappy.
The following morning was cold and crisp. It was Sunday, so the library was closed, giving Lindsey and Sully plenty of time to run out to Bell Island and assess the situation. Violet and Nancy were joining them, since they had volunteered to help manage what looked to be a much larger wedding celebration in any way they could. Lindsey was grateful for their support.
Bundled against the cold, they met at Sully’s office on the town pier. His tour boats had been put up for winter, and he was operating just the water taxi for the island residents until spring, when the tours around the Thumb Islands would start back up.
They walked down the pier to the stairs that led to Sully’s dock. His boat was bobbing on the water, waiting for them. Lindsey glanced across the bay and noted that the water looked choppy. She glanced up, wondering if the low-hanging thick gray clouds were going to give them a snowstorm.
Sully helped Violet and Nancy into the boat while Lindsey untied the lines. She tossed the rope to Sully, pushing off and jumping aboard like a regular sailor. She took her seat beside Sully’s captain’s chair while he fired up the engine and steered them away from the dock. The bay was a no-wake zone, which was fine with Lindsey because out on the open water, the air temperature dropped, and adding speed would only make it even colder.
The archipelago that made up the Thumb Islands included scores of very large rocks that lurked just beneath the surface. At low tide, they were easy to spot, but at high tide, it took someone who knew each and every island to be able to navigate through them without grounding their boat. Sully, having grown up on the islands, was that navigator.
He kept one hand on the wheel and turned it ever so slightly, adjusting the boat just enough to miss whatever lurked below. Lindsey, who was not a big fan of deep dark water, shivered in her puffy coat.
“You all right?” Sully asked.
The understanding in his eyes made it clear he knew she wasn’t reacting to the cold.
“I’m fine,” she said. She glanced around them at the relentless stretch of water, broken up only by the islands that jutted up out of its dark depths. “Is it just me, or is there an ominous feeling to the water today?”
Sully followed her gaze. Then he glanced up. A single snowflake drifted down and got stuck on his thick eyelashes. Lindsey smiled as she reached up with gloved fingers and wiped it away.
“It could be the change in weather that’s spooking you,” he said.
“Maybe.” Except Lindsey liked snow. She loved the first snowfall of the season, mostly because it meant more indoor time spent reading by the fire, but also she loved how everything was coated in a pristine blanket of white. It felt as if the world had been tucked in and told that it was time to be still and silent. It was, in many ways, calming.
She also loved the crunch of it under her boots, the way Heathcliff romped around like a nut, trying to catch the snowballs she tossed into snowbanks. She liked sledding and building snowmen and walking until her feet throbbed from the cold and her nose felt as if it were going to fall off. So while she supposed the change in the barometric pressure could be what was making her edgy, she didn’t think that was it.
Sully studied her closely. “It’s not the weather, is it?”
“I just have this feeling of something not being right,” she said. “I can’t shake it.”
He met her gaze. “This doesn’t have to do with us getting married, does it?”
She shook her head. “No, not at all. I’d marry you right here, right now.”
“Well, I could look into the maritime laws on weddings,” he teased. “We’ve got two witnesses aboard.”
“Don’t tempt me,” she said. She glanced out over the water. The persistent feeling that something was off wasn’t going away. “Maybe I’m just overtired.”
Sully tugged her out of her seat and pulled her close. He wrapped an arm around her and said, “Whatever is bothering you, we’ll figure it out together.”
Lindsey tipped her head back and studied him. This. This was why she was marrying him. There was no other person she’d ever met in life whom she could imagine sharing all of her burdens with—real or imagined—than him. He was her missing piece. He had been since the first time they’d met. She kissed him quickly, glancing over her shoulder to see Nancy and Violet pretending to look elsewhere while they covertly grinned at each other.
Their happiness for her and Sully dispelled Lindsey’s gloom. As he cut the engine and slowed the boat, banking it against the Bell Island dock, Lindsey hopped out and tied the boat in place. In a few days, they’d be here for their wedding, and despite the current guest confusion, she couldn’t wait.
Bell Island was one of the biggest of the Thumb Islands, and as such was one of the few that had electricity. There were four houses on it, one of which was the Sullivans’. Lindsey and Sully led Violet and Nancy up the stairs at the end of the dock to his parents’ house above. A large grassy area and a small forest of trees separated the four homes, giving them each a quarter acre of privacy.
The sky was grayer than before, and another snowflake drifted down from above. A snowstorm was definitely on its way. The wind whipped across the island, darting through the branches of the trees that were leafless, making Lindsey hunker into her coat.
“Hello!” Sully’s mother, Joan, called from the front porch of their house. “Come on up and get out of this weather.”
They didn’t need to be asked twice. Both Nancy and Violet led the way, darting inside the large brick house seeking warmth. Sully and Lindsey followed.
Sully’s mother fussed over them as she took their coats and settled them into the front parlor, where a fire was crackling in the fireplace. She hugged Lindsey tightly and said, “You must be frozen. Mike is bringing tea.”
Lindsey glanced at her future mother-in-law’s face to see if there was any indicator that she was upset about Lindsey’s mix-up with the invitations. But Joan Sullivan looked at her with the same affection as always. When she stepped away, Lindsey leaned close to Sully and said, “You did mention the situation with the invites to your parents, right?”
He turned and smiled at her. “Yup.”
“And you’re sure they’re not mad?”
“Of course, not,” he said. He took her hand in his. “They don’t care. Ian and Mary had their wedding on the island, and it was easily twice as many people.”
“Yes, but they also got married in the spring,” Lindsey said. She glanced out the window at the center of the island, which was one large dried-up lawn surrounded by large trees. They had planned to have the wedding in the house, but now she suspected they were going to need a really big tent, the sort that could have heaters and side flaps to keep the wind out. What a disaster! How was she even going to arrange for that stuff on such short notice?
“You’re fretting again,” Sully said. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out. I promise.”
Lindsey sighed and moved to stand by the fire, letting its heat wash over her.
The Sullivans’ house was one of the oldest Thumb Islands houses and was registered as a historic landmark. As such, it retained its Victorian charm, meaning it was made up of many small rooms. There was no open floor plan here, keeping it cozy and full of old New England charm.
Violet and Nancy took seats in the cream-colored armchairs situated on each side of the fire while Sully joined Lindsey in front of the hearth. Sully’s father, Mike, arrived in the room, bearing a fully loaded tea tray.
“This will help to warm you up,” he said. He was big and broad like his son, but his hair was gray and he wore glasses, giving him a scholarly look. Lindsey knew that he and Joan had bought their island home when they were first married and had raised Sully and his sister, Mary, here. Sully’s father had worked as an accountant, commuting off-island for years. With the rise of online business, he’d been able to stop commuting and now worked exclusively from home.
“Hot tea, how perfect,” Nancy said. She’d brought a tin of cookies with her and handed them to Joan, who looked delighted.
She lifted off the lid and grinned. “Molasses cookies. My favorite.”
Joan poured them all tea, and Lindsey gratefully took the thick ceramic mug in both hands, letting it warm her fingers.
“Looks like there’s going to be some snowfall,” Mike said. He and Joan sat on the sage green loveseat, leaving Lindsey and Sully to sit on the stone hearth facing them. The entire room was done in sage green and cream, with one wall full of books and a vintage acoustic guitar on a pedestal in the corner. Lindsey found it very soothing.
As everyone began to debate the incoming snow—weather watching being a daily pastime for New Englanders—the feeling of dread that had been swirling inside her began to abate. Sully’s parents seemed not to be in a dither about the change in the wedding numbers, so she supposed she shouldn’t be either. Still, she felt as if the upcoming wedding was the proverbial elephant in the room.
“Joan, Mike, I know Sully told you about the invitation mix-up, and I just want to apologize,” she said. “I can’t believe I made such a big mistake—huge, in fact—and if you no longer want the wedding to be on the island, I completely understand.”
Mike and Joan exchanged a look, the sort that encapsulated an entire conversation without words, as only a couple who’d been married for forty years could have. Then Joan turned to Lindsey and said, “Oh, honey, it’s okay. We can handle this. Truly, it’s no problem.”
“Absolutely,” Mike chimed in. He grinned at her. “If we survived Mary and Ian’s wedding, we can handle anything.”
There was some good-natured laughter, and Lindsey glanced around the room. Both Violet and Nancy had been at Mary’s wedding, which had been a few years before Lindsey had moved to Briar Creek, and they were chuckling as well. She suspected if Mary’s husband, Ian, known for his gregarious personality, was involved, then it had been quite the shindig.
“It was that big?” she asked.
“It was over-the-top,” Sully said. “Picture the annual Briggs Bash on steroids. And that’s putting it nicely.”
“Oh, wow,” she said.
“Exactly,” Nancy said. “It was all anyone talked about for months.”
“Your wedding will be just as lovely. Don’t you worry,” Joan said. She reached across the space between them and patted Lindsey’s knee.
“I don’t need or want anything like that,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, the smaller and quieter the better.”
Joan and Mike exchanged a smile, and then Mike turned to Sully and said, “She really is your soul mate.”
Lindsey felt her face get warm, but Sully put his arm around her and pulled her close, kissing the top of her head. “Yes, she is.”
“We will make sure you two have the perfect wedding,” Joan said. “Don’t you worry.”
Lindsey sagged against Sully. She hadn’t realized she’d been so tense about the whole wedding thing until she didn’t have to be anymore. What a relief.
While they enjoyed the tea and cookies and the heat of the fire, the six of them began to plan how to handle the expanded guest list. Ideas for the wedding and how to host it were kicked around, and Lindsey felt her spirits lift. It was going to be okay. They’d figure it out. She could feel a surge of optimism that even though there would be more people than she had planned on for the wedding, at least it would still be on the island, and they could try and keep the intimate feeling she and Sully had hoped to achieve.
“Come on.” Sully pulled Lindsey up to her feet and said, “Let’s go take a walk and clear our heads.”
Lindsey put down her teacup and nodded. “All right.”
Violet, Nancy and the Sullivans smiled at them as they departed the room in that doting way people did when watching a future bride and groom. It made Lindsey self-conscious, but it also warmed her heart. Although being a bride had never been a do-or-die ambition for her, she was overjoyed to be Sully’s bride. He had become her best friend over the past couple of years, and she loved him with more depth of feeling than she had ever thought possible.
They bundled up in their coats, hats and scarves and stepped out into the gray winter day. No snowflakes were falling, but the temperature had definitely dropped since they’d arrived. Lindsey huddled close to Sully as he led her from the house and down a path that circled the outer edge of the island.
The air was surprisingly still, and Lindsey squinted up at the heavy blanket of clouds above them. The atmosphere was thick, and she knew that the snow would come, and it would be heavy. It was just a matter of time.
“Your parents are being very understanding about the wedding,” she said.
“Nothing ruffles their feathers,” he said. “I think it’s a perk of living a life on an island. They’re always just a little bit removed from it all.”
“I still don’t see how we can have a hundred people show up,” Lindsey said. “It’s winter. Where are we going to put them all?”
“You heard the folks. We have some options. We’ll figure it out. I promise,” he said. He sounded as unflappable as his parents. Lindsey had never loved him more.
They hiked up to the highest point on the island, which overlooked the cove where there was a small sandy beach that was shared by all the residents. The frigid air hurt Lindsey’s lungs, and she released her breath in a plume of steam. She watched it fade and then turned her head to take in the sight of the village on the shoreline across the bay. Bell Island wasn’t that far out, and the view of Briar Creek was unencumbered by other islands.
She could just make out the steeple of the church in the center of town, and beside that the police station, the town hall and the stone facade of the library. The library had been built out of an old captain’s house, so it sat prominently in the center of town and offered a spectacular view of their patch of Long Island Sound. As always, Lindsey felt a surge of pride for the place that felt like a second home to her.
A sudden breeze kicked up, and a hank of hair blew across her face. She went to brush it aside when, out of the corner of her eye, a splash of green against the beige sand caught her attention. She leaned forward and peered more closely. The shape took form, and she felt her stomach plummet.
With shaky fingers, she reached out and grabbed Sully’s arm. He was gazing out at the horizon and when he turned to face her, his eyes narrowed in concern.
“What is it?”
“Over there,” she pointed. “I think there’s a body on the beach.”