Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,119

last line in Much Ado about Nothing, and as Law approached it, he felt like he’d run a marathon. He was sweaty and exhausted. But also exhilarated. He took a deep breath and delivered the play’s final line, “‘Strike up, pipers.’”

He was cueing the celebratory music, both because the bad guys had not prevailed and because there’d been a double wedding. A wedding that had come complete with a kiss. “‘Peace,’” he’d gotten to say to Maya, “‘I will stop your mouth.’” And then he’d kissed her.

He had a feeling that getting her to stop talking by kissing her was going to become a regular move for him.

The “pipers” heeded his call, but of course, in Maya’s creative production, that meant a pop version of the play’s earlier song started blasting through the theater’s speakers.

They were supposed to dance, to do some Two Squared choreography, but a man had to draw the line somewhere. So he folded his arms, raised an eyebrow, and leaned against a “tree” to watch the others frolic.

Maya came over to him and tried to get him to dance, but he wasn’t having it.

“Come on,” she whispered, pulling on his arm as the crowd cheered.

“Dream on.” He would die before he did Holden Hampshire’s choreography. The guy had done him a solid with the decoy texts, but dancing was not happening.

“Please?” she wheedled as the crowd kicked it up a notch, hooting and clapping rhythmically. “Because you loooove me?”

“Nope,” he said, but his face was about to crack open from smiling.

“What if I told you—”

“Peace,” he interrupted. See? This line was already coming in handy. “I will stop your mouth.”

And he did.

After the curtain call, they were mobbed. Law hadn’t thought about this aspect of things, so focused had he been on the dual projects of the play and the grant.

They were swarmed by the cast and crew first, and since everyone wanted to talk to either him or Maya, they were drawn away from each other. He kept glancing at her, trying to figure out a way to get back to her.

Then the townspeople started pouring in, including Karl and Pearl and Eiko. They were carrying a crown and trident, and they were making a beeline for Maya. How was that possible? He had literally stuffed the ballot box with votes for Pearl.

“Sorry,” he said, interrupting Sawyer, who was jawing about how he’d known all along that Law and Maya would end up together. Law forced his way through the crowd, ignoring everyone’s exclamations and congratulations. He had to get to her before the old folks did.

They beat him by a few seconds. They’d started talking to her, but her attention shifted to him when he broke into their circle. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi.”

They stared at each other with goofy grins on their faces. To think that she was his. That he was hers. That they were done with the feud. Or maybe that the feud was never going to end? That part of things was confusing. But why should it be otherwise? Confused was his default mode when it came to her.

Pearl started trying to hand the mermaid crown to Maya, and that tipped him out of his slack-jawed paralysis. “Okay, so here’s the thing. I tried to get someone else elected mermaid queen. I really did.”

“But everyone just wants you, hon,” Eiko said. “We saved the coronation for now because we didn’t want to upstage certain other people’s plans.” She shot a bemused look at Law. “But you won in a landslide, Queen Maya.”

Which, again, was impossible. He had personally stuffed a hundred counterfeit ballots into the box. He’d even bought a gallon of paint so he could slip them in while Karl was distracted mixing it. He turned to the old folks. “I will fight you over this. I respect you all, but I will fight you.” He swung his attention back to Maya, who looked like she was trying not to laugh. “I swear to God, I didn’t do this. I tried to undo this.”

“It’s okay.” Maya took the crown from Pearl. “I actually secretly like being the mermaid queen.”

Huh? “You do?”

“Yeah, I just never wanted you to know I liked it.”

Wait. What?

“I mean, when have I ever seen a starring role I didn’t love?”

“All right, then,” said Karl. “That’s settled.”

The old folks started herding Maya toward the backstage exit. He followed. What else was he going to do?

And hey, he’d get to watch her as mermaid queen again. He couldn’t think