boat and bounced onto the dock. She had no choice but to follow it. When she turned to thank Verne for his trouble, the boat was already spearing a path through the waves toward the opposite shore.
Meghan lifted the suitcase and held it over her head. The lopsided old boathouse built on stilts over the water wasn’t nearly as charming as the château, but it was probably dry.
The light show dancing in the clouds above her head helped make up her mind. Meghan tucked the camera bag under the hem of her shirt and made a break for it.
Fumbling with the rusty latch, she shouldered the door of the boathouse open and tossed her suitcase in first to protect the bag of Oreos she’d stashed inside of it.
Her eyes adjusted to the gloom of the boathouse more quickly than her nose adjusted to the musty smell emanating from a mound of moldy life jackets stacked in the corner.
From the sound of the rain battering the window, Meghan guessed she’d be stuck here awhile. She wrung the water out of her hair, wrestled a sweatshirt out of the bottom of the suitcase and pulled it on over her wet T-shirt. Picking through a mishmash of garden furniture, she unearthed an old wicker rocking chair. Minus the cushion.
Meghan settled into it and tucked the headphones from her iPod into her ears, while she attacked the first row of cookies, vowing to stop after four. Or five.
Closing her eyes, Meghan let the praise music wash over her. If she couldn’t work in her studio, music was the next best thing to guide her thoughts back to God. And at the moment, she knew she needed a long conversation with Him so she wouldn’t unravel at the seams.
I don’t have a clue what you have planned, Lord, but here I am. Or here am I, as Isaiah would say. I’d rather photograph animals than people, but I want to help out Dad. For some reason he thinks Ms. Bonnefield is a wounded soul—and you know Dad can never turn his back on a wounded soul.
Something she and her father had in common.
Meghan’s “Amen” came out in a yawn, reminding her she’d been up since dawn. She pushed aside the package of Oreos and decided to rest her eyes for a minute. When the rain subsided, she’d find the caretaker and explain why she’d shown up a week early.
The lightning had moved inside the boathouse.
Meghan’s eyelashes fluttered and she realized she must have dozed off for a few minutes. Confused, she blinked at the bright beam of light aimed directly at her face. It wasn’t lightning. It was a flashlight.
Panic suddenly slammed her heart against her chest.
Because on the other end of the flashlight was a…man. The shadows obscured his features but she could see the broad outline of his shoulders as he loomed above her.
She struggled to sit up, shielding her eyes with one hand.
“Are you the caretaker?” She croaked. Rats. What was his name? She couldn’t remember. “Mr. Um…”
The light suddenly shifted from her face, trailing a path down her soggy frame and lingering a moment on the package of Oreos balanced on her knee.
“Bert,” he finally said.
Meghan wondered if all the men in the area had something against speaking in complete sentences. She plucked the headphones out of her ears—no wonder she hadn’t heard him sneak up on her—and pushed her fingers self-consciously through her tangled curls.
Way to make a first impression, Megs. Soaking wet and sound asleep. And probably smelling a bit more like Smith and Wesson than a person in polite company should smell.
Not that the present company seemed very polite…
She took a deep breath. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Meghan McBride.”
“You’re the…wedding planner?”
Meghan’s laugh rippled around the boathouse. He thought she was Bliss Markham? Caitlin would be on the floor when she heard that one.
“No. I’m the wedding photographer.”
Chapter Two
And Cade had assumed the day couldn’t possibly get any worse.
Since breakfast, he’d had three phone calls from his aunt Judith, all reminding him about wedding details he’d rather forget. The owner of a local landscaping business had been next, telling him they were backing out of the agreement “for reasons they’d rather not discuss.” This meant Aunt Judith had been calling them with reminders, too. But they had the luxury of being able to simply walk away from her constant micromanaging. Unlike Cade, who was family. All he could do was exercise the self-control his father had spent years developing in him and attempt to bring some sanity into the nightmare everyone else insisted on referring to as a wedding.
In the afternoon he’d had a surreal twenty-minute conversation with a woman named Bliss Markham, whose voice fluctuated between a clipped British accent one minute and a Southern drawl the next.
And then he’d lost the dog.
And accidentally found the wedding photographer.
He hadn’t even known his sister had hired one. The last he’d heard, Parker had decided against a professional photographer and wanted disposable cameras available for the guests. Cade had a hunch Aunt Judith had had something to do with the latest reversal in plans.
His lips twisted. Aunt Judith had something to do with most of the changes made in the past few weeks. When she hadn’t been able to change Parker’s mind about her choice of a groom, she’d retaliated by attempting to take over everything else instead.
Not that Cade blamed her. It was a Halloway family trait they all shared to some degree.
A polite cough yanked his attention back to the moment. And to the woman sprawled in the wicker chair.
Staring down at Meghan McBride, Cade pushed aside the unwelcome thought that she looked like a pre-Raphaelite model come to life. Oval face. Wide-spaced, gray-green eyes. Damp copper curls spilling over her shoulders. The only thing that didn’t fit was the wide, engaging smile on her face.
Cade suddenly realized she’d extended her hand. Time to play nice. He reached out and closed his fingers around hers, but instead of immediately releasing his grip, he drew her to her feet.
It was getting late and he still had to find the dog.
Something hit the floor and Meghan McBride gave a startled yelp. Cade pointed the flashlight down and watched sandwich cookies roll away in every direction.
Meghan’s sigh echoed around the room. “Did you ever have one of those days?”
Cade turned toward the door, surprised by a sudden urge to smile. “Never.”
“Right.” The undercurrent of laughter in her voice sent Cade off balance. And he wasn’t sure he liked the feeling.
There’d been more than enough upheaval in his life over the past few weeks. The only reason he’d returned to the island was to tour the estate before meeting with the Realtor. He hadn’t
