A Misty Harbor Wedding by Marcia Evanick

don’t mind me opening them.”
    â€œNot at all.” He moved the chess set to the top of a display case. “Sorry, I guess the aroma can be a little overbearing.”
    Juliet wondered if her eyes were watering. The stench of burnt tobacco and cigars permeated everything in the entire shop. How did Gordon Hanley, the man who was her biological father, stay in business? “You don’t have to apologize. I’m just not used to smokers, that’s all.”
    â€œIt’s a nasty habit.”
    She smiled. “Yet you do it.” Her mother told her Gordon Hanley had been a dramatically romantic figure, that every college girl had dreamt about. She tried to picture what Gordon had looked like twenty-six years ago. Sitting across from him, she could see what her mother had meant. Gordon was still a good-looking man, in a Gothic sort of way. He must have been stunning back in his youth. He was tall and thin with an angular face and flowing long black hair that was now streaked with gray. The man who had fathered her looked like a poet.
    â€œI’ve never touched a cigarette or a cigar. Now a pipe is a different story.” Gordon picked up a glass of soda and relaxed into the chair. “A man needs a vice or two to stay sane in this world.”
    â€œI could think of worse vices.” She now understood where she got her height, her dark hair, and her metabolism. Her mother and sister, Miranda, constantly groused about how she could eat anything and not gain an ounce, while they just looked at food and their jeans got tighter.
    â€œLike having a child and never giving one dime of support?”
    She worried her lower lip at the serious change of topic. A touchy subject, by the tone of Gordon’s voice. “From what I’ve been told, you didn’t know my mother was pregnant or about me till I was fifteen. My mother asked you not to interfere or contact us.”
    Gordon didn’t deny that statement. “When did Victoria tell you about me?”
    â€œTwo months ago. We were having a family dinner when the topic of who had what blood type came up. Mom changed the subject and then asked me to stay after my brothers and sister left.”
    â€œBrothers and a sister?”
    â€œYou don’t know?” She stared at Gordon Hanley, her father, and realized he knew about as much about her life as she knew of his. Absolutely nothing. “I have two brothers and a sister.”
    â€œVictoria had four kids?” He chuckled at the thought. “I remember her once telling me she wanted a large family. I’m glad she got what she wanted.” There was a touch of sadness in his voice.
    â€œKen’s twenty-four and a police officer with the Boston P.D. Brad’s twenty-two and just graduated with a degree in criminal justice. He followed in Ken’s footsteps last month.”
    â€œAnd your sister?”
    â€œMiranda’s twenty-one and the spoiled baby of the family. She has one more year of college and then she’s determined to go to law school.”
    â€œThey’re all in law enforcement?” Gordon seemed intrigued by the idea.
    â€œDad, I mean my stepfather, was a detective for the Boston Police Department.” For twenty-four years she had called Ken Carlyle Dad. Was she really supposed to be calling him stepfather now? And what was she supposed to call Gordon Hanley? She couldn’t bring herself to call him Dad, and “Mr. Hanley” sounded asinine considering the situation. “Gordon” had the best ring to it, but so far she had avoided calling him anything.
    â€œWhat do you do?”
    â€œI’ve always been the oddball of the family. I’m an elementary school teacher. I teach third grade at a school right outside the Boston city limits.” No wonder she’d never felt the slightest desire to follow in her father’s footsteps like the rest of the kids. Ken Carlyle hadn’t been her