Caffrey Aloha

Chapter 9

Saturday afternoon. January 1, 2005.

Noelle Caffrey Winslow and Joe Burke were married in a small chapel in Waikiki. Noelle wore what El described as a "creamy white silk sheath," and Joe wore a tux. Peter had to admit he'd done his share of complaining when it came to the dratted bow tie for his own tuxedo. But while he wasn't sighing over the ceremony like many of the guests in attendance, he could acknowledge that Joe and Noelle looked supremely happy. That, in addition to the gleam in El's eyes when she looked at Peter in the tux, made the formalwear worthwhile.

After the wedding they walked to a walled garden. They could hear the surf, but had a measure of privacy from hotel guests. A white, tent-like covering overhead protected them when a shower rolled onshore. As the event planner, El had arranged a light dinner with guava chiffon pie for dessert. And of course there was champagne.

The compromise reached the previous night was that Julia was named the poker champion, but Henry retained the right to make the toast at the reception. A waiter brought a bottle of champagne and handed it to Neal. There'd been a flat wooden box next to Neal that Peter had assumed was a gift for Joe and Noelle, but Neal now opened it to remove a short sword. He stood and said, "When I mentioned to my fencing team's captain that I was going to a wedding, he suggested I open the champagne for you with a technique called sabrage. I've been practicing for a month, because I wanted to get this right." He faced away from the guests, and with a single sweep of the blade removed the top portion of the bottle. He turned the bottle as the champagne bubbled over, to remove any shards of glass, and then he filled the flutes.

Henry raised his glass and faced the newly married couple. "Mom and Joe first met at the Burke family cabin early last year, and I was there to see Joe beg for Mom's phone number." Guests chuckled. "I was happy for Mom then, and I was happy when I learned they were engaged." Looking at Joe's daughters he said, "Like many kids of divorced parents, I worried that my mom wasn't dating because she thought it would upset me. I felt guilty that she was alone." Rosalind and Viola nodded in understanding. "I was glad she found someone. Knowing Peter already, I figured Joe would be a good guy, but we used FBI and Win-Win resources to be sure." He grinned at Neal, who had found an excuse to link Joe to a case in order to justify an FBI background check. Again, people chuckled.

"I didn't know about that," El murmured to Peter.

"I learned about it after the fact," Peter replied. He hadn't been thrilled about it, but his second-in-command had made an argument for Neal deserving the peace of mind that came from knowing Joe wasn't the mess that Noelle's first husband had been.

"To be perfectly honest, I came here to support my mom, because I knew this would be a big deal for her. But I've already got two big families – the Caffreys and the Winslows. Sure, I wanted to get to know the Burke family better, but I had no intention of being more than casual acquaintances with most of you." He smiled ruefully at Luke and Betty and Joe's daughters. "Then over the last week you all crept under my defenses. I never would have believed there was anything missing in my families, but you've filled a hole I didn't even know was there. And so I stand here to say I'm honored to be related to the Burkes by marriage, and I'll strive to be worthy of the honor." He turned his attention back to Joe and Noelle. "I'm happy for you, and surprisingly happy for me, too. Thanks for bringing the Burkes and Caffreys and even the Winslows together." He raised his glass higher. "To family! Welcome one and all."

"To family!" everyone else echoed.

Henry sat down across from Peter and grinned. "This means I can add Henry Burke to my list of aliases for Win-Win cases. Neal, you can make me an ID, right?"

"Baltimore driver's license?" Neal asked.

Henry considered it a moment. "Let's make it New York."

Not wanting his nieces to start asking Neal for fake IDs, Peter turned the conversation to other topics. "This is certainly different than last New Year's Day," he said to Henry during the meal. "For me 2004 started in a hospital in Connecticut when things went wrong on Neal's first undercover op. I was dealing with loopy Neal in the emergency room."

Henry nodded. "And that got the year off to an interesting start for me, too. I got a message from the hospital as his emergency contact. Neal texted to say he was all right, but when I called his phone to double check, you answered. That would have been the first time I spoke with you."

"Up till then, I had my doubts whether you really existed. When I first met him, Neal was using Henry Winslow as an alias, and I thought it was just another name he'd made up. He'd told a few stories about you, but he made them sound like a joke. At one point he called you a trickster god, like Coyote."

Henry preened and Neal rolled his eyes while saying, "I did not call you a god. What I said is that you were the type of mischievous person who inspired those myths."

After the meal and an hour of dancing, the wedding couple left for the airport, where they took a flight to Maui for their honeymoon. The guests went their own way for the remainder of the evening, and it was still rather early when El led Peter up to their room to show how much she appreciated his willingness to wear the tuxedo.