Book 7: The Island Wedding (Getaway Bay® Romance)

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Wyatt Gardner sat in his police cruiser, watching person after person walk down the sidewalk in front of him. Most of them were women, and they were dressed nicely, with wedges and pumps and skirts, so he knew they were going to the September Sandy Singles event.

That was why he’d driven from the police station to the community center, too. He just couldn’t quite get himself to get out of the car. Yet.

But he was going to get out. He was going to go in. He was going to put himself out there again. Try to find someone that he could spend the rest of his life with. He was only forty-four years old. He had a lot of life to live yet.

With Jennifer out of the house completely now, married and living her best life, Wyatt had plenty of time and money to move on. Plus, he really wanted to do the same thing his daughter had done. Find someone to love as completely as she had.

He’d been working for the Getaway Bay Police Department for twenty-three years now, and he was seriously thinking about hanging up his hat. Permanently.

But the thought of sitting around his house all day, nothing to do…he couldn’t even imagine that, and that kept him getting up every morning, running along the beach, and going into the station.

“Going in,” he said, as if he were letting his crew know at the station so they could send back-up if he didn’t check in soon. He got out of the car and looked both ways down the sidewalk. But everyone would know where he was going and why he’d come the moment he stepped inside.

Wyatt held his head high and nodded to another man as he approached. He didn’t know the guy, but most people in Getaway Bay knew Wyatt. So he nodded and stepped in line with him. “Can I go in with you?”

“Of course, Chief.” The other guy gave him a smile, and they went through the marked door so other patrons of the community center who weren’t attending the singles event could still use the facilities.

“What’s your name?” he asked the man.

“Henry Bishop,” he said.

“Nice to meet you, Henry.” They met a line, and Wyatt slowed to join it. He wasn’t particularly good with small talk, but he’d had plenty of practice over the years. “What do you do?”

“I’m a surfing instructor,” he said. “Own a little hut in East Bay.”

“Oh, that’s great,” Wyatt said. “I love surfing.”

Henry smiled at him again, and a couple of women in front of them turned around. “I’ve used your surfing lessons,” one of them said. “They were good.”

“Yeah?” Henry asked. “Who was your instructor?”

“I can’t remember.” She twirled a lock of her dark hair around her ear. “Do you give lessons?”

“Of course, yeah,” Henry said with a smile. “You didn’t learn the first time?”

The brunette shrugged. “It’s been a while, and I think I’m ready to get back in the water.”

Wyatt was pretty sure her comment was some sort of euphemism he didn’t understand, and he simply stood outside the trio as they continued to chat about surfing lessons and the best places to catch the biggest waves.

He entered last behind them, not catching either woman’s name as they moved ahead of him. The scent of coconuts and suntan oil met his nose when he entered the room after logging his name with the clerk standing at the door.

This singles event was a free couple of hours on a Friday night, and with summer in full swing, Wyatt had decided now was a great time to branch out of his usual find-a-date tactics. That honestly wasn’t hard, because he currently had no tactics to find a date. Most of the women he came in contact with were under arrest or employees. The department didn’t have rules against relationships among co-workers, as long as all the proper paperwork was filed. But Wyatt had never wanted to be with a fellow cop.

Piper had been his complete opposite in every way, and he’d loved her with everything in him. When she’d died, a piece of Wyatt had died too.

For a while there, he’d thought it was the most important part of himself. But through his grief counseling, and with the passage of time, he’d learned that he still had the capacity to love. He’d seen friends move past difficult divorces, as well as the loss of loved ones. One of his good friends from their grief meetings had just gotten married, and Wyatt had been spurred by Cal’s example to find his own date.

Tonight, he told himself as he surveyed the room. The cop inside him couldn’t help checking for all the exits and looking around for a safe place to hide should something happen. He estimated the number of people in the room to be about one hundred, and the vast majority of them were women.

Wyatt supposed he should be happy about that, but all he felt was pressure. A lot of pressure. He could get a phone number tonight from someone who wasn’t really that interested in him. She might only talk to him, because there weren’t that many other men to choose from.

He took a deep breath, stepped over to the refreshment table, which was smartly placed by the entrance, and grabbed a plastic cup of punch. With something to occupy his attention, he took a drink and surveyed the groups of women closest to him. He’d been under the impression there would be structured activities during the Sandy Singles event, but if so, they hadn’t started yet.

He’d taken one step when someone came over the microphone. “All right, everyone. We’re about to start our first speed-dating activity. I need all women on the left side of the room. All the men on the right. That’s right. Women on the left. Men on the right.”

Wyatt followed the directions, and he’d been right. Only about twenty-five percent of the attendees were men, and he hoped the organizer of these activities knew what to do with the extra women.

“We’re going to divide the women into three groups,” the woman at the mic said. “Men, I hope you have a drink nearby and are ready to chat.” She beamed at the right side of the room, and Wyatt swallowed his nerves.

He was good at talking to strangers. He could make someone he suspected of heinous crimes talk to him, trust him, connect with him. A woman was somehow harder, but he pushed his nerves away.

He didn’t want to live the next thirty years alone. Or even another one.

So he put a smile on his face, took the seat he was given, and prepared himself to talk to people for the next couple of hours.

A woman with dirty blonde hair sat in front of him, her blue eyes sparkling like sunlight off the ocean. Her hair was all piled up on top of her head like she’d walked into the event from off the beach, and Wyatt smiled at her.

Not his type.

But he could be nice. “I’m Wyatt Gardner,” he said, extending his hand.

“Everyone knows who you are,” she said with a smile. She put her hand in his and cocked her head. “I’m Bridgette Baker.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said, thinking he was a better liar than he’d like to be. The small talk was small with Bridgette, and when the bell rang, the women got up and moved down a seat. Wyatt looked to his right, realizing he had a very long night ahead of him.

After five rounds of speed-dating, he’d taken two slips of paper from women he would not be calling, and he got to his feet when the organizer said, “Five-minute break, and then we’ll start with the second group of women.”

Yeah, Wyatt wouldn’t be. He’d thought this Sandy Singles event was a good idea, and he was willing to admit it when he was wrong.

He headed for the door, not caring how many people saw him. The whole island knew about Piper’s death, and they’d just assume he was still too broken up over her death to date. Or they’d speculate that he’d gotten an emergency call. In fact, he pulled out his phone and looked at it, tapping as if sending a text to someone very important.

In truth, the only place he needed to be was on his couch, a really great fish taco in his hands, and the television lulling him to sleep.

Pathetic, maybe. But right now, Wyatt was okay with that.

In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of someone directly in front of him. Someone he was about to run into. He looked up at the same time he collided with the woman, who obviously hadn’t been watching where she was going either.

“Oof,” she said, and to Wyatt’s great horror, she fell backward. Her eyes widened, and she cried out as she fell in super-slow motion. Wyatt tried to reach for her, but she flailed out of his reach. Way out of his reach, because he’d just bowled over Deirdre Bernard.

She hit the ground, and everything that had slowed down raced forward again. “Deirdre,” Wyatt said, his voice mostly air. He hurried over to her and knelt down. “I’m so sorry.” He didn’t quite know where to put his hands.

His brain screamed at him to do something helpful. Apologize. Say you’re ready.

He just hovered above Deirdre, his memories streaming through him now. Memories of the relationship they’d tried. The things she’d said to him when they’d broken up. All of those were true, and Deirdre deserved some credit for Wyatt’s reappearance at the grief meetings on the island.

Their eyes met, and Wyatt put his hands at his sides. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” she said, and Wyatt wanted to smooth her hair, tuck the errant locks behind her ear, and apologize for not being ready last time.

Could there be a this time?

“Let me help you,” he said, giving her his hand and helping her stand up. “Sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“I wasn’t either.” She smoothed down her blouse and looked at Wyatt fully again. “Look at us, running into each other. Literally.” Deirdre smiled, and Wyatt remembered how beautiful she was when she did. His heartbeat accelerated, and he definitely wanted a second chance with this woman.

“What are you doing right now?” he asked boldly.

“Right this second?”

“Yeah.”

She looked over her shoulder toward the room he’d just exited. “Well, there’s this singles event a couple of my girlfriends came to. I’ve been waiting in the car, and—” She gave a light laugh. “I finally decided to come in.”

“I was just headed out, and I’m starving. Do you want to grab some dinner?”

“With you?”

“Yes,” Wyatt said, hoping she wouldn’t say no. How humiliating would that be?

Deirdre narrowed her eyes slightly and seemed to peer directly into his soul. “Wyatt, you’re a great man. But I don’t…it didn’t work last time, and I don’t think it’s going to work this time.” She patted his bicep as she stepped around him.

Wyatt turned, speechless, and watched her enter the Sandy Singles event room.

What a disaster. Swallowing back his embarrassment, Wyatt held his head as high as he could as he walked out of the community center and back to his cruiser.

There weren’t enough fish tacos on the planet to erase this night from his memory.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐  “WANT TO READ A WELL WRITTEN SERIES? Do you like to read a series of books with strong characters that experience life's ups and downs with optimism? If you do, then you will love this seven-book series by Elana Johnson.” ~Janet

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “This is the 5th book I've read written by Elana Johnson; she has done a great job at writing a good book; I can’t wait to read more of her books. The storyline caught my attention at the very beginning and kept me interested throughout the entire book. I loved the chemistry between the characters.” ~Jeanne R.