Wind Chime Wedding (A Wind Chime Novel Book 2) by Sophie Moss Page A

loneliness and bitter resentments. He tried to force them back, pushing them into the dark corner all SEALs saved for thoughts that no longer served them. He hadn’t come here to relive that time in his life, to remember how alone and unwanted he had once felt. It had been here, in this house, when he’d learned—for the first time, but certainly not the last—how easily he could be cast aside.
    He had tried everything to win his mother’s love back after Hayden came along: getting straight A’s at school, excelling at every sport, joining all the clubs she encouraged him to, eventually getting accepted at the same Ivy League college she’d attended herself. But it had all been in vain.
    The day Hayden had been born, he had ceased to exist in his mother’s eyes.
    Turning his back on the woman who still stood in the doorway, he spotted the laptop sitting on the writing desk beneath the wide window overlooking the backyard. A single spreadsheet covered in numbers was open on the screen and the words, “Consolidation,” “Renovation,” and “Demolition” stood out in bold block letters at the top of the columns—words that could only have to do with one thing.
    “I know you’re still angry with me, but if you need someone to attack, take it out on me,” Colin said. “Don’t take it out on Dad.”
    “He asked for this.”
    Colin turned. “How?”
    “You think I don’t still have friends in his office? You think I don’t know about his decision to move funds allocated for education into a jobs program for veterans?”
    Colin cursed under his breath. “I know you didn’t agree with the war, and you’re entitled to that opinion. But spending money on going to war and taking care of the men and women who served in it when they come home are two very different things. You can’t be against helping the people who fought for your freedom.”
    “They should never have been over there in the first place.”
    Colin struggled to control his temper. “The people who went overseas volunteered to go. They wanted to go. You can’t punish them for that. If Hayden was here, if he was the one standing here, asking you to support his friends when they came back home, you would be the one in Dad’s office right now, fighting to move funds from every other program in this state to help veterans.”
    Grief and anger flashed through Lydia’s eyes. “But Hayden’s not here, is he? He’ll never be standing here. Because of you.”
    Colin took a step toward her. “Hayden’s death was not my fault.”
    “You knew he would follow in your footsteps,” Lydia accused. “He idolized you.”
    “Hayden was eighteen when he enlisted.” Colin’s fingers curled into fists at his sides. “He was capable of making his own decisions.”
    “You encouraged him.”
    He hadn’t, Colin thought. He had tried to talk him out of it. But what was the point in arguing about it now? Hayden was gone and nothing either of them could say or do would ever bring him back.
    “Sometimes,” Colin said, meeting his mother’s gaze across the room. “I think you wish I’d died instead of Hayden.”
    “You’re right,” she said, opening the door. “I do.”

    Curled up on the sofa in her living room, Becca stared at the blank sheet of paper in her lap. It shouldn’t be this hard, she thought. All she needed were a few sentences, a few simple phrases that captured her feelings. She didn’t want to be overly gushy or use fancy flowery prose. Not when she had to say the words out loud, in front of over a hundred and fifty people.
    She shuddered. How had she let this wedding get so big?
    All she’d ever wanted was something simple, quiet, just family and a few close friends. She would have been perfectly happy to wake up on a pretty weekend morning, put on her mother’s wedding dress, walk across the street to Magnolia Harbor, have one of the boat captains marry her and Tom, and head over to the café for a celebratory lunch.
    But once