BRIANNA SPENT THE night chasing sleep. She tried telling herself that it was because she was in a strange room. Which couldn’t be the reason because, first of all, it was her old room. She’d spent her entire life in it from the moment her parents had brought her home from the hospital until she’d left for college. Maybe the bed was too hard. Or too soft. Or maybe it was the sound of the breeze in the trees. After all, it had been years since she’d heard that soft nighttime sighing. She’d become far more accustomed to the steady drone of traffic outside her bedroom window.
It couldn’t be that Seth had broken their date. It wasn’t even a real date. That would make her too pitiful for words. And would make working together impossible if she didn’t get her act together and put the man out of her head. He had always been, and still appeared to be, in love with his wife. Maybe someday he might meet a stranger. A woman who worked for one of those charities he contributed his time to. Or a chef from a Seattle restaurant who’d decide to move to a small town that certainly could use a high-end restaurant.
The odds of him suddenly looking up and noticing her in a romantic way for the first time in thirty-one years had to be about the same as being struck by a meteor while walking along the waterfront. It wasn’t going to happen, so despite her well-meaning family and friends suggesting otherwise, she was simply going to put any romantic thoughts of Seth Harper out of her head and consider him solely as her friend and contractor. Period.
After stopping by Cops and Coffee for a double shot to add some much-needed caffeine into her bloodstream, she wandered down to the dress shop Ethel Young had told her about. A girl with blaze-red bangs and striped blue, magenta and fluorescent green hair pulled into a high ponytail was rolling down the blue-and-white-striped awning. Her clothing—black leggings printed with spider webs, a black T-shirt that proudly proclaimed I’m the Black Sheep of the Family, and lace-up over-the-knee boots wasn’t all that encouraging.
“Don’t worry,” the girl said, her silver nose ring and multiple ear studs sparkling in the morning sun. “I just work here. I’m not the style director.” Hazel eyes, emphasized with heavy cat-eye liner and kohl shadow, swept a look over Brianna’s coral shirt and white clam diggers. “Dottie’s going to love dressing you. I swear to the Goddess that woman’s goal in life is to get every Northwesterner looking like a unicorn vomited out rainbows.”
While that was neither an appealing nor complimentary image, given what Brianna was wearing, she decided to take it as an encouraging statement rather than criticism. “Ethel Young sent me here. And Kylee Cassidy recommended it, too.”
“Ethel buys a lot of stuff here,” she said. “Most people in town do. Kylee gets a lot of props for her photo shoots, too. My wedding dress was from here.”
“You’re married?” Since she was wearing rings on every finger, including her thumbs, and two toes, the one on the fourth finger of her left hand hadn’t given that fact away.
“Yeah.” She held out an arm sporting a tattoo of a guy who looked like a cross between a Hells Angel and Alice Cooper. “I’m Velvet. I chose the name because it means I’m excited by change, adventure and excitement. We’re also visionaries and fight being restricted by convention, as my shirt obviously points out. But we’re also optimistic, energetic, intelligent and make friends easily.”
Her smile was as wide as a half moon. “Thorn is my life mate. People with his name are creative, drawn to the arts and often choose careers in the limelight. That’s why he’s a musician. He’s a wonderful man, but a little reckless with his time and money, which is why I had to put him on a budget. I may be a rebel, but we have a child coming, so we have to work on our adulting skills.”
“I’ve never had a child, but that seems like a necessary skill,” Brianna said, thinking of Kylee and Mai.
“I used to babysit my brothers and sisters, so I’m really good with kids. I’m going to be a great mom, and although Thorn was an only child who was left with nannies all the time, I know that once he gets the knack of it, he’ll be great. He’s already recording the playlist for our baby’s birth. He’s very techy and can change the songs and rhythms to match how I’m supposed to be breathing.”
She splayed fingers covered in silver-and-black-striped glitter over her stomach. “We’re doing natural.”
“That’s great.” Personally, if she ever did have a child, Brianna thought that she’d rather have drugs. Lots of them. And often.
“What’s your name?” Velvet asked.
Since the sign in the window showed another five minutes before the store’s opening, and she was enjoying a conversation that didn’t demand much back from her, Brianna responded.
“Brianna’s a beautiful name,” Velvet said. “It’s not Goth, but it is Celtic, which is way special. Did you know it means strong? It also has the same psychic numerology number as Velvet, so we must be a lot alike.”
“I grew up Irish Catholic. I tend to follow rules.”
“So you say. But I bet you have an inner, adventurous rebel you just haven’t met yet. I have a BFF who’s a Celtic kitchen witch. She makes herbs that’ll cure anything. Even morning sickness, which, don’t worry, I checked with my ob-gyn to make sure they were safe.”
“That’s definitely adulting.”
“Thank you. I can’t tell you how relieved my parents were. But of course, they just think I’m going through a phase, because I changed my name from Madison to Velvet when I was seventeen, after I went to a Midsummer’s Night Renaissance Faire. I went with friends dressed up like a tavern wench, because that was the cheapest costume I could find, but then I discovered they were having a Goth event, and although all the princess, fairy and pirate costumes were cool, Goth spoke to me in some elemental way and it still fits four years later, so I can’t imagine changing. Did you ever have anything like that? Where you just know in your heart that it’s where you belong?”
“Yes. I have. In my case, it’s a house.”
“Oh, wow!” The cat-lined eyes widened. “You’re the one who’s going to restore Herons Landing.”
Brianna laughed, not as surprised as she might have been. “Word gets around.”
“It’s all everyone was talking about the other day in Cops and Coffee.” She glanced at Brianna’s cup. “I see you’ve already discovered it. I love those guys, even if, in another life, they might have wanted to take me to the gallows for witchcraft. You taking on a project like that also reveals that whatever you say about being a rule follower, you’ve got an adventurous streak because, like everyone’s saying, you’d have to be crazy to even try a project like that. Which, thinking about it, gives you and Seth Harper a lot in common. It was obvious he loved the house when he bought it to keep it from greedy developers.”
Brianna was saved from responding to any of that flurry of topics when the door opened and an apple-shaped elderly woman wearing an orange-and-yellow hibiscus-printed top with a pair of tangerine cropped pants greeted her with an even wider smile than Velvet’s.
“You’d be Brianna Mannion,” she said. “Ethel told me to expect you.”
Of course she did.
“I’ve been living in Las Vegas,” Brianna said, though she suspected the shop owner already knew that. “And before that, Hawaii. I haven’t owned anything appropriate for the Pacific Northwest for a very long time.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. I see you’ve already met Velvet. She’s been a godsend to Doris and me. Doris is my twin sister. After nearly nine decades, she still has a tendency to play the older sister card, despite having only beat me here by four minutes. At any rate, although we didn’t want to give up working when we lost our lease on the Oregon coast, we also worried whether or not, at our age, we’d be able to handle all the orders and paperwork and such that running a business entails. But then Velvet showed up. She’d just graduated with a degree in marketing from WSU and was looking for work. So, here we are. Still kicking.”
She waved her into the store that, from what Brianna could tell, was divided in half, one side offering neutral colors, the other as bright as the talkative woman herself. One look at Doris, and Brianna understood the division of the store. Although they might be twins, while Dottie looked ready to take off on a Caribbean cruise, Doris could have fit easily into San Francisco, or New York. She was wearing a black twinset over tan slacks, and in contrast to the dangling shell earrings her sister was wearing, a pair of discreet but very good pearls adorned her earlobes.
“Sister, look who it is!” Dottie said. “Sarah’s girl, home from the desert!”
“Ethel told us you might be dropping in. It’s lovely to meet you.” Doris’s voice was as reserved as her clothing, but still warm, as she held out her hand. “Your mother has wonderful taste. She was the one who helped us arrange the store, which works much more efficiently than the jumble we had in our previous two locations.”
“It was Sarah’s idea to create zones,” Dottie explained. “But the best thing is how she suggested we hang separates together, to encourage customers to mix and match between the brights and neutrals.” She waved her hand, tipped with turquoise nails, at the wall displays that did, indeed, offer enough possibilities to have shoppers considering items they might have overlooked or weren’t sure about pairing together.
“I like that idea. I’ve gotten used to colors, but thought I’d have to switch entirely back to Pacific Northwest colors. Then Mom showed me the variety of natural shades I’d always taken for granted.”
“Dottie worried about giving up colors, too,” Doris said. “Because most people think browns and dark greens because of the forests. And gray from the rain and fog. But we’ve always had a mix that reflects our disparate tastes. Your mother showed us how to display them.”
“And Velvet pointed out that we were missing the wedding market,” Dottie popped in. “After all, this is Honeymoon Harbor, so taking advantage of that natural customer base only makes sense. She built us a website and had us reprise our old slogan we had back in our first store in Coldwater Cove.”
“You bring the groom; we’ll provide the dress,” Velvet said. “They were afraid it’d sound old-fashioned, like snagging a guy was still a woman’s main goal, but I convinced them it was old enough to be retro.”
“So, if you’re ever in the market for a wedding dress, you won’t have to go to Seattle or Tacoma,” Dottie said. “And if we don’t have what you want, Velvet can get it for you from anywhere in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
“That’s handy to know.” Brianna had no idea how fast a lamb shook its tail, but since she didn’t foresee herself buying a wedding dress anytime soon, it didn’t matter.
“This is the one Kylee chose.” Velvet had gone over to an alcove that showcased the gowns and brought back a black strapless midi dress with oversize, embroidered and beaded red, yellow and purple flowers.
“It’s stunning.” And perfect. Trust Kylee not to go with traditional white.
“Isn’t it? We ordered it from Italy. She’d met a designer on a train while traveling there and apparently swore if she got married, she was getting her gown from her.”
“Mai’s wearing a western-style white strapless sheath gown, with a red kimono sash embroidered with gold butterflies that falls down her back, instead of a train.” Dottie reached beneath a shelf and brought out a sketched design. “In Japan, apparently it’s traditional for brides to wear white for the ceremony, then change into red for the reception. So, wanting to be modern, but also wanting to pay homage to all the women in her family who were married in the traditional style, she decided to embrace both looks in one dress. We’re having this custom-made by a seamstress we work with.”
“It’s beautiful.” Which was a wild understatement. “My mother told me they were carrying red and yellow tulips from Blue House Farm,” Brianna remembered. “These will be perfect.”
“Won’t they? It’s going to be a lovely wedding,” Velvet said. “Thorn is playing.”
“They booked a rock band?” Somehow Kylee had forgotten to mention that part when talking about her upcoming wedding.
“Oh, no.” Velvet laughed. “He graduated from the famous Berklee school of music in Boston. He can play anything. In fact, he did a chamber music gig last weekend in Tacoma. He and Kylee have been working on the playlists for weeks. It’s going to be a nice mix of a bit of everything.”
“I’ll be needing a dress.”
“Of course. Kylee will want you to go with whatever you like,” Dottie said.
“But we can show you what the other two girls chose,” Doris suggested. “I think the style would suit you well.”
She turned the pages to a dress with short capped sleeves, a tightly fitted bodice and a shirred skirt that flared out just above the knees.
“Chelsea chose purple because it works so well with her hair. Amanda went with yellow, which is a hard color to pull off, but with her coloring it works. I think red would be very flattering with your hair.”
“Red always stands out,” Brianna demurred. “I’d feel conspicuous, and although no one can outshine Kylee, it doesn’t feel right on her special day.”
“How about this?” Dottie jumped in, pulling out a swatch of material. “This deep blue will be amazing with your hair and eyes. I swear, when all you girls get together, it’s going to look like a garden sprung up in their backyard.”
“Which already has a pretty special garden.” Brianna ran her hand over the piece of silk and decided that Dottie and Dorothy arriving in town must’ve seemed like a godsend to all the women in Honeymoon Harbor.
“Oh, so you’ve seen the house?” Doris asked.
“Yesterday. I love everything about it, including the landscaping. I’ve organized a lot of hotel weddings, but from what I’ve heard, this is going to top them all.”
“Oh, it’s going to be beautiful. Seth did such an amazing job on the house. It reminds me of something from a fairy tale,” Doris said, revealing an inner romantic Brianna wouldn’t have guessed was hiding inside her.
“Seth did an amazing job,” Dottie echoed. “He’s going to be a member of the wedding party.”
“Oh?” Brianna did her best to hide her surprise, even as she wondered why he’d left out that salient fact.
“Well, it’s only right, given how close they’ve all become. And it’ll be good to see him have something to celebrate,” Doris said. “It’s been painful watching him grieve.”
“I still miss my Harold.” Dottie put a hand over her heart. “He passed last year when a brain aneurysm we didn’t even realize he had burst. I wasn’t there, but his pickleball partner told the EMTs that he was running to return a serve, then just collapsed. And that was it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“So was I. Especially since I felt guilty for not having been there when it happened. Fortunately, I had Doris and Hayden, Harold’s twin brother, to lean on. It was Doris’s idea that we open this shop. She thought I needed a new challenge.” Eyes that had moistened brightened. “And she was right. Then Velvet and Thorn joined our little family, and now it’s going to be like we’re having a grandchild.”
“Since my parents are still in Spokane, and Thorn’s snooty, uptight parents don’t approve of our lifestyle, you’re going to be the main grandparents,” Velvet assured them, gathering them into a group hug that Brianna could tell invaded Doris’s personal space a bit more than she would have liked, but the elderly woman was kind enough to join in.
“I love this dress,” she said. “I don’t usually wear jewel tones, but I think this will work.”
“It’ll be fabulous,” Dottie assured her.
“And elegant,” Doris said.
“You’ll rock the garden,” Velvet assured her.
Getting down to business, the sisters fluttered around the shop like sandpipers skittering along the waterline, gathering up clothing from display racks. Doris, unsurprisingly, chose taupe, black and cream, while Dottie dove into the bright hues and floral prints. While they had her down to her underwear, they also measured her for the dress that would be custom-made by a local seamstress.
Nearly an hour later, longer than Brianna had ever spent shopping, she was wearing a pair of cropped khaki pants, a T-shirt with a bright blue heron printed on the front and a pair of blue-and-fluorescent-green tweed sneakers.
“We just got that shirt in yesterday afternoon,” Dottie told her as she cut off the tag.
“Which is prophetic,” Velvet claimed. “It’s absolutely a sign that you were meant to be living in Herons Landing.”
Just as she’d never believed in the ghost, despite her Irish heritage, Brianna had never been much for prophecies and other woo-woo ideas. But as she left the shop with bags bearing the store’s dancing deer logo filled with jeans, shirts and several of the Pacific Northwest’s ubiquitous hoodies, all in various weights designed for layering, and a scarlet red slicker, she decided she liked that idea. A lot.