Lavender Dreams

Chapter 2 - Badly Done

Hotel in Friday Harbor. May 27, 2006. Saturday morning.

Sara opened her eyes with a gasp. I'm Darcy!

She sat up, noticing the sound of the shower and the scent of lavender. Had the herb lived up to its reputation for soothing sleep? She'd certainly slept deeply, but the echoes of the dream still disturbed her. Lost in her thoughts, she was surprised to hear Neal wish her a good morning. She looked up to see him dressed in blue jeans and a cream henley-style shirt.

"The shower's all yours," he said, and she finally got out of bed. Twenty minutes later there was a room-service breakfast laid out on the table, and she took a seat beside Neal.

"I had the strangest dream," she said while he poured them coffee, "and now I feel like I should apologize for fantasizing about you in the role of Darcy."

He raised a brow. "That must have been quite a dream."

She told him the bits she could remember, including how dismayed she was to find out she was Darcy. "I mean, he's a romantic figure by the end of the book, but he's so obnoxious at the start that I was really annoyed to find I was in that role."

"Your dream cast Henry and Eric as Jane Bennet and Bingley." Neal frowned. "It never really occurred to me before that Bennet from Pride and Prejudice is the same as my dad's last name. Spelled a little differently, but still, I guess it makes sense that in your dream you associated me and Henry with the Bennet family."

Sara looked down at her plate as she gathered her thoughts. She hadn't wanted to remind Neal of his complicated relationship with his parents. "What stands out to me from the novel was that Darcy interfered with Jane and Bingley's romance. He separated them." She paused to bite into an almond croissant. "Yesterday I wasn't as thrilled as you were about Henry and Eric wanting to propose to each other, but I didn't know why. I think the dream was showing me the answer. I'm worried that they're rushing things."

"They've been living together nearly six months," Neal reminded her.

"But I've been in London most of that time, so to me it feels like they just moved in together. And this is Henry's first serious relationship since he came out."

Neal pushed away the fruit salad he'd been eating. "Are you saying you don't think they should get married?"

She ignored the temptation to quibble about terminology and to point out that same-sex marriages still weren't even legal in most of the U.S. All they could have in New York was a commitment ceremony, not a true wedding. "No, I'm just trying to explain why I had reservations when you first told me about their plans. But then I talked to Eric last night and came away convinced that he's really in love."

"So you'll help scout out locations that would work for a proposal?"

Sara smiled. "We'll find something so romantic that our Pride and Prejudice counterparts would swoon."

Neal grinned back. "Tell me more about how much you admire my fine eyes."

#

After breakfast, Neal and Sara joined other members of the wedding party in kayaking around part of the island. Neal was surprised how cold the water was this time of year, and he was grateful for Michael's insistence that participants don waterproof layers over their clothes. Fortunately Michael had rowed competitively in college, as had many of his friends, so each kayak carried at least one person who knew what they were doing.

Neal tried to keep an eye out for potential spots for a romantic proposal. However, most of his attention went to the wildlife. Michael's sister Naomi identified many of birds they saw, sharing her binoculars with the other passengers in the kayak. And then they spied a pod of black-and-white orcas. One swam near them for a time, and then breached, sailing majestically through the air before disappearing underwater and rejoining the pod.