Kee's Wedding by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman [Buchman, M. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Buchman Bookworks, Inc.

Chapter 8

Archie wasn’t sure if he’d eaten dinner, but he’d surely drunk it. Attempting to sleep off the aftereffects—while twisted up like a pretzel on the short couch—hadn’t worked.

Mark handed him several aspirin and a double espresso, then dug out his uniform and began ironing it for him. If there was one thing the Army taught you, it was how to have an immaculate uniform.

Kee and Dilya were gone of course.

He showered, dressed, and was fed more coffee before he truly regained consciousness. He came to stand at the altar.

“Hell of a setting you chose,” Mark sounded pleased.

Archie could only squint against the brightness of the morning. They stood at the end of the tiny harbor’s massive breakwater. To his back was a line of huge stones that were piled a story tall above the quiet Mediterranean. It was hard to believe that it served a purpose, yet he’d seen pictures of the winter storms blowing fifty feet of spray up against its stout bulwark.

In front of him Vernazza harbor stretched only a few hundred feet from side to side. In the middle floated the thirty-foot sloop he’d rented in La Spezia and brought here two days ago. That was his honeymoon with Kee—sailing along the Ligurian and Amalfi coast while Dilya was off with his parents.

Instead of romantic, it now sounded sad. Part of their courtship had been aboard a sailboat, poking their way down this very coast. But picturing someone as vital as Kee with a husband as directionless as himself…not a good image.

Vernazza itself filled the cul-de-sac formed by the sea cliffs with four- and five-story buildings clustered so tightly together that it was hard to imagine there were cobbled streets winding among them—deep in shadow and spangled with surprising patches of sunlight. The buildings were the red and oranges of sunset, accented by the lone white bell tower of the Santa Margherita church. He could just make out the clock that said ten minutes to ten o’clock. Beyond the town, a steeply terraced vineyard masked any harsh stone with a bounty of grape vines.

At the far end of the breakwater, guarding the original entrance to the harbor against pirates before the breakwater had been built, Doria Castle commanded the town. It perched atop a high rocky bluff.

Vernazza was ancient. Solid. It dated back a thousand years and might be much unchanged for another thousand.

It made Archie feel unimportant, even ephemeral.

“I have no place here.” He knew it. No place to serve. He was about to marry a woman he could no longer serve beside. What was he doing? It wasn’t right. He should—

“Been meaning to talk to you about that,” Mark was looking at him.

Archie could only look at the twin pretender version of himself reflected back at him by the major’s sunglasses. Even the uniform felt wrong. Archie had flown beside Emily for a decade since West Point and now he wore the dress uniform as if he somehow still belonged.

“You’re back on the active duty?”

“Light duty,” Archie grunted out.

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