The Wedding Project 💍

'When The Lights Go Out' (Part Two)

"It's anaphylaxis, her body is in shock," he said, taking charge firmly but calmly. "Cal, do you have your cell phone?"

Callum nodded dumbly.

"There is a clinic on site, you need to call the switchboard and tell them to send a medic to the banquet hall. Do it now." Cal hesitated but only for a moment.

"Don't you have to, I dunno, breathe for her?" Ocean asked the vicar. He seemed far too relaxed considering the family's matron was dying on the floor in front of him.

"It won't help, we either need to reduce the swelling in her trachea or bypass it. Do you have a sharp knife?"

"Yeah..." Ocean said cautiously. "For what?"

"Have it ready just in case," the vicar answered, then shouted, "Does anyone here have peanut allergies, severe reactions to bee stings?"

A woman stuttered, "My son is allergic to bees. Jeffrey."

"Do you have an emergency kit for him?"

She nodded.

"Give me the epinephrine," he said, "his epi-pen."

"What? Why? He needs..."

Grandma Gwen began kicking at the floor, her eyes rolling back in their sockets. The vicar's voice grew sharp. "Ma'am, Gwendoline will die if you won't help her. Jeffrey will get a replacement kit, she won't get a second chance."

Startled, the woman began fumbling through her purse, then passed a small case to the vicar who opened it, fished out a squat, white and blue cylinder, and jabbed it into Grandma Gwen's thigh.

******

An hour later, Ocean found himself deeper in thought than any amount of scotch could have taken him. He leaned against a pillar in a quiet corner of the reception hall as a helicopter landed on the resort's massive lawn and inspectors filed in to interrogate guests while bridesmaids cried and Cal was ushered from place to place looking drained of life. In a way, he had been.

Canned music was still being piped into the hall. A woman had died, and the strings' playful serenade had become a dirge.

He glanced at Susan who huddled with her friends as an unfamiliar feeling welled up, a masculine urge to provide genuine comfort, without an agenda. That agenda was shot to hell anyway. It was a purely selfish thought, and it might have been shock that called it to his attention. Not even Ocean Creed at his most notorious was that shallow.

Hushed mumbles passed among the guests who remained in the reception hall. Mia alone seemed unbothered, which wasn't surprising all things considered. A part of him, the stubborn schoolboy that drove his most primal self, was able to appreciate Mia's journey into adulthood, though of course Cal's sister was off limits. The bro code must be honored.

Screw the code. Ocean shocked himself at the thought, but it wasn't because of Mia. It wasn't the code that brought him to that island or even the prospect of another conquest. He'd come for his friend. Even though he questioned Cal's decision, he came, and he really had wished them well, though he still believed a union with Anna was, at best, a misguided error.

But Anna was dead and none of his speculation mattered.

The wailing began not thirty minutes after they took Grandma Gwen to the infirmary, shaken but alive. She'd even given Cal a weak smile as they carted her away. The poor guy hadn't even regained the color in his face when Susan brought him the news, barely containing her own hysteria.

Cal was in shock, unable to grieve, unable even to process what had happened. At least that's what Ocean decided as the reason for his apparent indifference.

Anna's death wasn't an accident, and it wasn't a violent attack. Someone had premeditated cause. She had money, cash that Cal now had a legal claim to. Had he changed that much? Was he capable of something–anything–that cold? He'd never have pictured Callum marrying for money either, and yet here they were.

Deep down, where the scotch continued to scold him, Ocean felt a certain responsibility for the events that day, having urged his friend to pony up half of what, in retrospect, was a hare brained scheme. A profitable one, granted, even lucrative, but not worth an ounce of what had followed. Teasing him with visions of what could be, the grandeur that was just within reach if only... if only...

Ocean pulled himself together, wrapped himself in the entrepreneurial role that had driven him since high school, but with a new goal. The people skills he'd developed, an ability to evaluate risks, an insight that cast a light on things other people missed... with a flash of determined purpose that had nothing to do with the scotch, he approached Susan.

"Hey," he said to her, kneeling to look her in the eye where she sat, holding hands with Laura and Alex. "I'm very sorry."

Susan sniffed and looked up. There was pain there, and desperate loss, but he could see her reaching out to every source of comfort that was offered. An hour ago, he'd have read her differently, a ripe peach, soft, vulnerable and ready for picking. This new Ocean barely noticed.

"You found her?"

Susan nodded.

"Would it be ok if I asked you some questions?"