Saying Yes To The Dress!

He wasn’t sure he liked that amount of perception. He didn’t say anything.

“Actually, I think you don’t like weddings, period.”

“What is this, a party trick? You can read my mind?” He intended it to sound funny, but he could hear a certain amount of defensiveness in his tone.

“So, it’s true then.”

“Big deal. Lots of men don’t like weddings.”

“Why is that?”

He frowned at her. He wanted to ferret out some facts about Allie, or talk about construction. He was comfortable talking about construction, even on an ill-conceived project like this. He was a problem solver. He was not comfortable discussing feelings, which an aversion to weddings came dangerously close to.

“They just don’t like them,” he said stubbornly. “Okay, I don’t like them.”

“I’m curious about who made you your brother’s keeper,” she said. “Shouldn’t your parents be talking to him about this?”

“Our parents are dead.”

When something softened in her face, he deliberately hardened himself against it.

“Oh,” Becky said quietly, “I’m so sorry. So you, as older brother, are concerned, and at the same time have volunteered to help out. That’s very sweet.”

“Let’s get something straight right now. There is nothing sweet about me.”

“So why did you agree to help at all?”

He shrugged. “Brothers help each other.”

Joe’s really upset by your reaction to our wedding, Allie had told him. If you agreed to head up the construction, he would see it was just an initial reaction of surprise and that of course you want what is best for your own brother.

Oh, he wanted what was best for Joe, all right. Something must have flashed across Drew’s face, because Becky’s brow lowered.

“Are you going to try to stop the wedding?” she asked suspiciously.

Had he telegraphed his intention to Allie, as well? “Joe’s all grown up, and capable of making up his own mind. But so am I. And it seems like a crazy, impulsive decision he’s made.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“You’d think he would have asked me what I thought,” Drew offered grimly.

A certain measure of pain escaped in that statement, and so he frowned at Becky, daring her to give him sympathy.

Thankfully, she did not even try. “Is this why I can’t have the pavilion? Are you trying to sabotage the whole thing?”

“No,” he said curtly. “I’ll do what I can to give my brother and his beloved a perfect day. If he comes to his senses before then—” He lifted a shoulder.

“If he changes his mind, that would be a great deal of time and money down the tubes,” Becky said.

Drew lifted his shoulder again. “I’m sure you would still get paid.”

“That’s hardly the point!”

“It’s the whole point of running a business.” He glanced at her and sighed. “Please don’t tell me you do it for love.”

Love.

Except for what he felt for his brother, his world was comfortably devoid of that pesky emotion. He was sorry he’d even mentioned the word in front of Becky English.

CHAPTER THREE

“SINCE YOU BROUGHT it up,” Becky said solemnly, “I got the impression from Allie that she and your brother are head over heels in love with one another.”

“Humph.” There was no question his brother was over the moon, way past the point where he could be counted on to make a rational decision. Allie was more difficult to interpret. Allie was an actress. She pretended for a living. It seemed to Drew his brother’s odds of getting hurt were pretty good.

“Joe could have done worse,” Becky said, quietly. “She’s a beautiful, successful woman.”

“Yeah, there’s that.”

“There’s that cynicism again.”

Cynical. Yes, that described Drew Jordan to an absolute T. And he liked being around people who were as hard-edged as him. Didn’t he?

“Look, my brother is twenty-one years old. That’s a little young to be making this kind of decision.”

“You know, despite your barely contained scorn for Moose Run, Michigan, it’s a traditional place where they love nothing more than a wedding. I’ve planned dozens of them.”

Drew had to bite his tongue to keep from crushing her with a sarcastic Dozens?

“I’ve been around this for a while,” she continued. “Take it from me. Age is no guarantee of whether a marriage is going to work out.”

“He’s known her about eight weeks, as far as I can tell!” He was confiding his doubts to a complete stranger, which was not like him. It was even more unlike him to be hoping this wet-behind-the-ears country girl from Moose Run, Michigan, might be able to shed some light on his brother’s mysterious, flawed decision-making process. This was why he liked being around people as not sweet as himself. There was no probing of the secrets of life.

“That doesn’t seem to reflect on how the marriage is going to work out, either.”

“Well, what does then?”

“When I figure it out, I’m going to bottle it and sell it,” she said. There was that earnestness again. “But I’ve planned the weddings of lots of young people who are still together. Young people have big dreams and lots of energy. You need that to buy your first house and have your first baby, and juggle three jobs and—”

“Baby?” Drew said, horrified. “Is she pregnant?” That would explain his brother’s rush to the altar of love.

“I don’t think so,” Becky said.

“But you don’t know for certain.”

“It’s none of my business. Or yours. But even if she is, lots of those kinds of marriages make it, too. I’ve planned weddings for people who have known each other for weeks, and weddings for people who have known each other for years. I planned one wedding for a couple who had lived together for sixteen years. They were getting a divorce six months later. But I’ve seen lots of marriages that work.”

“And how long has your business been running?”

“Two years,” she said.

For some reason, Drew was careful not to be quite as sarcastic as he wanted to be. “So, you’ve seen lots that work for two years. Two years is hardly a testament to a solid relationship.”

“You can tell,” she said stubbornly. “Some people are going to be in love forever.”

Her tone sounded faintly wistful. Something uncomfortable shivered along his spine. He had a feeling he was looking at one of those forever kinds of girls. The kind who were not safe to be around at all.

Though it would take more than a sweet girl from Moose Run to penetrate the armor around his hard heart. He felt impatient with himself for the direction of his thoughts. Wasn’t it proof that she was already penetrating something since they were having this discussion that had nothing to do with her unrealistic building plans?

Drew shook off the feeling and fixed Becky with a particularly hard look.

“Sheesh, maybe you are a member of the Cinderella club, after all.”

“Despite the fact I run a company called Happily-Ever-After—”

He closed his eyes. “That’s as bad as Moose Run.”

“It is a great name for an event planning company.”

“I think I’m getting a headache.”

“But despite my company name, I have long since given up on fairy tales.”

He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Uh-huh,” he said, loading those two syllables with doubt.

“I have!”

“Lady, even before I heard the name of your company, I could tell that you have ‘I’m waiting for my prince to come’ written all over you.”

“I do not.”

“You’ve had a heartbreak.”

“I haven’t,” she said. She was a terrible liar.

“Maybe it wasn’t quite a heartbreak. A romantic disappointment.”

“Now who is playing the mind reader?”

“Aha! I was right, then.”

She glared at him.

“You’ll get over it. And then you’ll be in the prince market all over again.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m not him, by the way.”

“Not who?”

“Your prince.”

“Of all the audacious, egotistical, ridiculous—”

“Just saying. I’m not anybody’s prince.”

“You know what? It is more than evident you could not be mistaken for Prince Charming even if you had a crown on your head and tights and golden slippers!”

Now that he’d established some boundaries, he felt he could tease her just a little. “Please tell me you don’t like men who wear tights.”

“What kind of man I like is none of your business!”

“Correct. It’s just that we will be working in close proximity. My shirt has been known to come off. It has been known to make women swoon.” He smiled.

He was enjoying this way more than he had a right to, but it was having the desired effect, putting up a nice big wall between them, and he hadn’t even had to barge in the construction material to do it.

“I’m not just getting a headache,” she said. “I’ve had one since you marched through my door.”

“Oh, great,” he said. “There’s nothing I like as much as a little competition. Let’s see who can give who a bigger headache.”

“The only way I could give you a bigger headache than the one you are giving me is if I smashed this lamp over your head.”

Her hand actually came to rest on a rather heavy-looking brass lamp on the corner of her desk. It was evident to him that she would have loved to do just that if she wasn’t such a prim-and-proper type.

“I’m bringing out the worst in you,” he said with satisfaction. She looked at her hand, resting on the lamp, and looked so appalled with herself that Drew did the thing he least wanted to do. He laughed.

* * *

Becky snatched her hand back from the brass lamp, annoyed with herself, miffed that she was providing amusement for the very cocky Mr. Drew Jordan. She was not the type who smashed people over the head with lamps. Previously, she had not even been the type who would have ever thought about such a thing. She had dealt with some of the world’s—or at least Michigan’s—worst Bridezillas, and never once had she laid hand to lamp. It was one of the things she prided herself in. She kept her cool.

But Drew Jordan had that look of a man who could turn a girl inside out before she even knew what had hit her. He could make a woman who trusted her cool suddenly aware that fingers of heat were licking away inside her, begging for release. And it was disturbing that he knew it!

He was laughing at her. It was super annoying that instead of being properly indignant, steeling herself against attractions that he was as aware of as she was, she could not help but notice how cute he was when he laughed—that sternness stripped from his face, an almost boyish mischievousness lurking underneath.

She frowned at her computer screen, pretending she was getting down to business and that she had called up the weather to double-check his facts. Instead, she learned her head of construction was also the head of a multimillion-dollar Los Angeles development company.

The bride’s future brother-in-law was not an out-of-work tradesman that Becky could threaten to fire. He ran a huge development company in California. No wonder he seemed to be impatient at being pressed into the service of his very famous soon-to-be sister-in-law.

No wonder he’d been professional enough to Google the weather. Becky wondered why she hadn’t thought of doing that. It was nearly the first thing she did for every event.

It was probably because she was being snowed under by Allie’s never-ending requests. Just now she was trying to find a way to honor Allie’s casually thrown-out email, received that morning, which requested freshly planted lavender tulips—picture attached—to line the outdoor aisle she would walk down toward her husband-to-be.

Google, that knowledge reservoir of all things, told Becky she could not have lavender tulips—or any kind of tulip for that matter—in the tropics in June.

What Google confirmed for her now was not the upcoming weather forecast or the impossibility of lavender tulips, but that Drew Jordan was used to million-dollar budgets.

Becky, on the other hand, had started shaking when she had opened the promised deposit check from Allie. Up until then, it had seemed to her that maybe she was being made the butt of a joke. But that check—made out to Happily-Ever-After—had been for more money than she had ever seen in her life.

With trembling fingers she had dialed the private cell number Allie had provided.

“Is this the budget?”

“No, silly, just the deposit.”

“What exactly is your budget?” Becky had asked. Her voice had been shaking as badly as her fingers.

“Limitless,” Allie had said casually. “And I fully intend to exceed it. You don’t think I’m going to be outdone by Roland Strump’s daughter, do you?”

“Allie, maybe you should hire whoever did the Strump wedding, I—”

“Nonsense. Have fun with it, for Pete’s sake. Haven’t you ever had fun? I hope you and Drew don’t manage to bring down the mood of the whole wedding. Sourpusses.”

Sourpuss? She was studious to be sure, but sour? Becky had put down the phone contemplating that. Had she ever had fun? Even at Happily-Ever-After, planning fun events for other people was very serious business, indeed.

Well, now she knew who Drew was. And Allie had been right when it came to him. He could definitely be a sourpuss! It was more worrying that he planned to take off his shirt. She had to get back to business.

“Mr. Jordan—”

“Drew is fine. And what should I call you?”

Barnum. “Becky is fine. We can’t just throw a bunch of tables out on the front lawn as if this were the church picnic.”

“We’re back to that headache.” His lips twitched. “I’m afraid my experience with church picnics has been limited.”

Yes, it was evident he was all devilish charm and dark seduction, while it was written all over her that that was what she came from: church picnics and 4-H clubs, a place where the Fourth of July fireworks were the event of the year.

She shifted her attention to the second no. “And we absolutely need some sort of dance floor. Have you ever tried to dance on grass? Or sand?”

“I’m afraid,” Drew said, “that falls outside of the realm of my experience, too. And you?”

“Oh, you know,” she said. “We like to dust up our heels after the church picnic.”

He nodded, as if that was more than evident to him and he had missed her sarcasm completely.

She focused on his third veto. She looked at her clumsy drawing of a small gazebo on the beach. She had envisioned Allie and Joe saying their vows under it, while their guests sat in beautiful lightweight chairs looking at them and the sea beyond them.

“And what’s your complaint with this one?”

“I’ll forgive you this oversight because of where you are from.”

“Oversight?”

“I wouldn’t really expect a girl from Michigan to have foreseen this. The wedding—” he managed to fill that single word with a great deal of contempt “—according to my notes, is supposed to take place at 4:00 p.m. on June third.”

“Correct.”

“If you Google the tide chart for that day, you’ll see that your gazebo would have water lapping up to the third stair. I’m not really given to omens, but I would probably see that as one.”

She was feeling very tired of Google, except in the context of learning about him. It seemed to her he was the kind of man who brought out the weakness in a woman, even one who had been made as cynical as she had been. Because she felt she could ogle him all day long. And he knew it, she reminded herself.

“So,” she said, a little more sharply than intended, “what do you suggest?”

“If we scratch the pavilion for two hundred—”

“I can get more people to help you.”

He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “I can probably build you a rudimentary gazebo at a different location.”

“What about the dance floor?”

“I’ll think about it.”

He said that as if he were the boss, not her. From what she had glimpsed about him on the internet he was very used to being in charge. And he obviously knew his stuff, and was good with details. He had spotted the weather and the tides, after all. Really, she should be grateful. What if her bride had marched down her tulip-lined aisle—or whatever the aisle ended up being lined with—to a wedding gazebo that was slowly being swallowed by water?

It bothered her to even think it, but Drew Jordan was right. That would have been a terrible omen.

Still, gratitude was not what Becky felt. Not at all.

“You are winning the headache contest by a country mile,” she told him.

“I’m no kind of expert on the country,” he said, without regret, “but I am competitive.”

“What did Allie tell you? Are you in charge of construction?”

“Absolutely.”

He said it too quickly and with that self-assured smile of a man way too used to having his own way, particularly with the opposite sex.

“I’m going to have to call Allie and see what that means,” Becky said, steeling herself against that smile. “I’m happy to leave construction to you, but I think I should have the final word on what we are putting up and where.”

“I’m okay with that. As long as it’s reasonable.”

“I’m sure we define that differently.”

He flashed his teeth at her again. “I’m sure we do.”

“Would it help you do your job if I brought more people on-site? Carpenters and such?”

“That’s a great idea, but I don’t work with strangers. Joe and I have worked together a lot. He’ll be here tomorrow.”

“That wouldn’t be very romantic, him building the stuff for his own wedding.”

“Or you could see it as him putting an investment and some effort into his own wedding.”

She sighed. “You want him here so you can try to bully him out of getting married.”

“I resent the implication I would bully him.”

But Becky was stunned to see doubt flash across those self-confident features. “He isn’t talking to you, is he?” Becky guessed softly.

She could tell Drew was not accustomed to this level of perception. He didn’t like it one little bit.

“I have one of my teams arriving soon. And Joe. I’m here a day early to do some initial assessments. What I need is for you to pick the site for the exchange of vows so that I can put together a plan. We don’t have as much time as you think.”

Which was truly frightening, because she did not think they had any time at all. Becky looked at her desk: flowers to be ordered, ceremony details to be finalized, accommodations to be organized, boat schedules, food, not just for the wedding feast, but for the week to follow, and enough staff to pull off pampering two hundred people.

“And don’t forget fireworks,” she added.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” she muttered. She did not want to be thinking of fireworks around a man like Drew Jordan. Her eyes drifted to his lips. If she were ever to kiss someone like that, it would be the proverbial fireworks. And he knew it, too. That was why he was smiling evilly at her!

Suddenly, it felt like nothing in the world would be better than to get outside away from this desk—and from him—and see this beautiful island. So far, she had mostly experienced it by looking out her office window. The sun would be going down soon. She could find a place to hold the wedding and watch the sun go down.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll find a new site. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve got it.”

“Let’s do it together. That might save us some grief.”

She was not sure that doing anything with him was going to save her some grief. She needed to get away from him...and the thoughts of fireworks he had caused.

CHAPTER FOUR

“I’D PREFER TO do it on my own,” Becky said, even though it seemed ungracious to say so. She felt a need to establish who was running the cir—show.

“But here’s the problem,” Drew said with annoying and elaborate patience.

“Yes?”

“You’ll pick a site on your own, and then I’ll go look at it and say no, and so then you’ll pick another site on your own, and I’ll go look at it and say no.”

She scowled at him. “You’re being unnecessarily negative.”

He shrugged. “I’m just making the point that we could, potentially, go on like that endlessly, and there is a bit of a time crunch here.”

“I think you just like using the word no,” she said grumpily.

“Yes,” he said, deadpan, as if he was not being deliberately argumentative now.

She should argue that she was quite capable of picking the site by herself and that she had no doubt her next selection would be fine, but her first choice was not exactly proof of that. And besides, then who would be the argumentative one?

“It’s too late today,” Drew decided. “Joe’s coming in on the first flight. Why don’t we pick him up and the three of us will pick a site that works for the gazebo?”

“Yes, that would be fine,” she said, aware her voice was snapping with ill grace. Really, it was an opportunity. Tomorrow morning she would not scrape her hair back into a careless ponytail. She would apply makeup to hide how her fair skin, fresh out of a Michigan winter, was already blotchy from the sun.

* * *

Should she wear her meet-the-potential-client suit, a cream-colored linen by a famous designer? That would certainly make a better impression than shorty-shorts and a sleeveless tank that could be mistaken for underwear!

But the following morning it was already hot, and there was no dry cleaner on the island to take a sweat-drenched dress to.

Aware she was putting way too much effort into her appearance, Becky donned white shorts and a sleeveless sun-yellow shirt. She put on makeup and left her hair down. And then she headed out of her room.

She met Drew on the staircase.

He looked unreasonably gorgeous!

“Good morning,” she said. She was stupidly pleased by how his eyes trailed to her hair and her faintly glossed lips.

He returned her greeting gruffly and then went down the stairs in front of her, taking them two at a time. But he stopped and held open the main door for her. They were hit by a wall of heat.

“It’s going to be even hotter in two weeks,” Drew told her, when he watched her pause and draw in her breath on the top stair of the castle.

“Must you be so negative?”

“Pragmatic,” he insisted. “Plus...”

“Don’t tell me. I already know. You looked it up. That’s how you know it will be even hotter in two weeks.”

He nodded, pleased with himself.

“Keep it up,” she warned him, “and you’ll have to present me with the prize. A king-size bottle of headache relief.”

They stood at the main door to the castle, huge half circles of granite forming a staircase down to a sparkling expanse of emerald lawn. The lawn was edged with a row of beautifully swaying palm trees, and beyond that was a crescent of powdery white sand beach.

“That beach looks so much less magical now that I know it’s going to be underwater at four o’clock on June the third.”

* * *

Drew glanced at Becky. She looked older and more sophisticated with her hair down and makeup on. She had gone from cute to attractive.

It occurred to Drew that Becky was the kind of woman who brought out things in a man that he would prefer to think he didn’t have. Around a woman like this a man could find himself wanting to protect himself—and her—from disappointments. That’s all he wanted for Joe, too, not to bully him but to protect him.

He’d hated that question, the one he hadn’t answered. Had he bullied his brother? He hoped not. But the sad truth was Joe had been seven when Drew, seventeen, was appointed his guardian. Drew had floundered, in way over his head, and he’d resorted to doing whatever needed to be done to get his little brother through childhood.

No wonder his brother was so hungry for love that he’d marry the first beautiful woman who blinked sideways at him.

Unless he could talk some sense into him. He cocked his head. He was pretty sure he could hear the plane coming.

“How hot is it supposed to be on June third?” she asked. He could hear the reluctance to even ask in her voice.

“You know that expression? Hotter than Hades—”

“Never mind. I get it. All the more reason that we really need the pavilion,” she said. “We’ll need protection from the sun. I planned to have the tables running this way, so everyone could just turn their heads and see the ocean as the sun is going down. The head table could be there, at the bottom of the stairs. Imagine the bride and groom coming down that staircase to join their guests.”

Her voice had become quite dreamy. Had she really tried to tell him she was not a romantic? He knew he’d pegged it. She’d had some kind of setback in the romance department, but inside her was still a giddy girl with unrealistic dreams about her prince coming. He had to make sure she knew that was not him.

“Well, I already told you, you can’t have that,” he said gruffly. He did not enjoy puncturing her dream as much as he wanted to. He did not enjoy being mean as much as he would have liked. He told himself it was for her own good.

He was good at doing things for other people’s own good. You could ask Joe, though his clumsy attempts at parenting were no doubt part of why his brother was running off half-cocked to get married.

“I’m sure we can figure out something,” Becky said of her pavilion dream.

“We? No, we can’t.”

This was better. They were going to talk about practicalities, as dream-puncturing as those could be!

The plane was circling now, and they moved toward the airstrip.

He continued, “What you’re talking about is an open, expansive structure with huge unsupported spans. You’d need an architect and an engineer.”

“I have a tent company I use at home,” Becky said sadly, “but they are booked nearly a year in advance. I’ve tried a few others. Same story. Plus, the planes that can land here aren’t big enough to carry that much canvas, and you have to book the supply barge. There’s only one with a flat enough bottom to dock here. An unlimited budget can’t get you what you might think.”

“Unlimited?” He heard the horror in his voice.

She ignored him. “Are you sure I’d need an architect and an engineer, even for something so temporary?”

He slid her a look. She looked quite deflated by all this.

“Especially for something so temporary,” he told her. “I’m sure the last thing Allie wants is to be making the news for the collapse of her wedding pavilion. I can almost see the headlines now. ‘Three dead, one hundred and eighty-seven injured, event planner and building contractor missing.’”

He heard her little gasp and glanced at her. She was blushing profusely.

“Not missing like that,” he said.

“Like what?” she choked.

“Like whatever thought is making you blush like that.”

“I’m not blushing. The sun has this effect on me.”

“Sheesh,” he said, as if she had not denied the blush at all. “It’s not as if I said that while catastrophe unfolded all around them, the event planner and the contractor went missing together.”

“I said I wasn’t blushing! I never would have thought about us together in any way.” Her blush deepened.

He watched her. “You aren’t quite the actress that your employer is.”

“I am not thinking of us together,” she insisted. Her voice was just a little shrill. He realized he quite enjoyed teasing her.

“No?” he said, silkily. “You and I seeking shelter under a palm frond while disaster unfolds all around us?”

Her eyes moved skittishly to his lips and then away. He took advantage of her looking away to study her lips in profile. They were plump little plums, ripe for picking. He was almost sorry he had started this. Almost.

“You’re right. You are not a prince. You are evil,” she decided, looking back at him. There was a bit of reluctant laughter lurking in her eyes.

He twirled an imaginary moustache. “Yes, I am. Just waiting for an innocent from Moose Run, Michigan, to cross my path so that in the event of a tropical storm, and a building collapse, I will still be entertained.”

A little smile tugged at the lips he had just noticed were quite luscious. He was playing a dangerous game.

“Seriously,” she said, and he had a feeling she was the type who did not indulge in lighthearted banter for long, “Allie doesn’t want any of this making the news. I’m sure she told you the whole wedding is top secret. She does not want helicopters buzzing her special day.”

Drew felt a bit cynical about that. Anyone who wanted a top secret wedding did not invite two hundred people to it. Still, he decided, now might not be the best time to tell Becky a helicopter buzzing might be the least of her worries. When he’d left the States yesterday, all the entertainment shows had been buzzing with the rumors of Allie’s engagement.

Was the famous actress using his brother—and everyone else, including small-town Becky English—to ensure Allie Ambrosia was front and center in the news just as her new movie was coming out?

Even though it went somewhat against his blunt nature, the thought that Becky might be being played made Drew soften his bad news a bit. “This close to the equator it’s fully dark by six o’clock. The chance of heatstroke for your two hundred guests should be minimized by that.”

They took a path through some dense vegetation. On the other side was the airstrip.

“Great,” she said testily, though she was obviously relieved they were going to discuss benign things like the weather. “Maybe I can create a kind of ‘room’ feeling if I circle the area with torches and dress up the tables with linens and candles and flowers and hope for the best.”

“Um, about the torches? And candles?” He squinted at the plane touching down on the runway.

“What?”

“According to Google, the trade winds seem to pick up in the late afternoon. And early evening. Without any kind of structure to protect from the wind, I think they’ll just blow out. Or worse.”

“So, first you tell me I can’t have a structure, and then you tell me all the problems I can expect because I don’t have a structure?”

He shrugged. “One thing does tend to lead to another.”