by Kaye Dacus
“They should be numbered on the back, so put the face against the wall.” She directed them toward the far corner as George and the other three boys carried in another.
“What’s this music?” one of the boys asked, but a sound pelting from her three cousins stopped him from further comment.
“Guys, I’ll tell you what I’ve told these three.” Anne put her arm around the shoulder of the boy who’d asked and drew the others in with her gaze. “If you really want to woo a woman, don’t play any of that hip-hop, R&B junk. Show her you have style. That you appreciate the finer things in life—like the classics. This is the most romantic music in the world. And it’s a lot easier to dance to.”
“Don’t laugh,” Jonathan chimed in. “It really works. How d’you think I got Kelli to go out with me?”
Anne laughed with them as they trooped out to bring in the next two boards. She pulled out the diagrams she’d composed with the designer, along with her measuring tape.
“Looking for a carpenter?” A woman about ten years Anne’s elder entered, juggling two-by-fours more than twice her height.
“Hey, Pamela! The pictures look fantastic.” Anne reached for the end of the boards. “I’ll help you bring the rest of this in.”
“Nah, Trevor came with me to help. You just get to marking where everything goes, and I’ll get to work on these brackets.”
Following the measurements on the chart, Pamela and her husband installed the mounting boards, which would be removed and the holes filled and stained to match the paneling afterward. They used an impressive arsenal of power tools and laser levels that shot a line all the way down the length of the room. Anne took the thumbnail printout of the pictures around and slapped the corresponding panel numbers up where she wanted them, using the high-tech tools of a Magic Marker and sticky notes.
She hummed along with the music, singing when she didn’t have to concentrate so hard.
The rented ironwork arrived as the last of the mural boards were unloaded. “Just stack those up there in front of the stage area. We have to get the pictures up before we can do anything with those.”
“I hope you’re going to take lots of pictures of this for your Web site, Annie.” Bryan kissed her on the cheek. “I can’t wait to see what it looks like all put together.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to see the photos.” George cuffed the younger man around the back of the neck and escorted him back out the door.
She frowned, trying to figure out what that comment meant. His employer was supposed to be media shy, given that he’d gone to great lengths to make sure his wedding planner didn’t know for whom she was working.
Her timer beeped at a quarter after five as she posted the last two numbers. Time to order pizza. She snagged her planner and phone and perched on top of the ice chest to call her favorite Italian restaurant. No fast-food pizza for this crew, with as hard as they were working.
She stood when George and the boys approached, pointing at the cooler. “What do y’all want on your pizza?” A cacophony of answers showered her and she reduced it down to one word: everything.
George fished his wallet out and handed her a credit card. “Expense account.”
Excellent. One less thing for her to have to keep track of. “Thanks.” With the boys’ chatter, Pamela and Trevor’s power tools, and the music, which the guys had turned up to hear over the rest, Anne stepped into the office and pulled the door closed behind her. She ordered from Giovanni’s all the time, and they always accommodated her, no matter the volume of food she needed.
When she opened the door, all she could hear was music and voices—no power tools. Hopefully Pamela hadn’t run into a problem. She hurried down the hall into the ballroom.
The seven college boys swayed back and forth, arms around each other’s shoulders, singing “That’s Amore” at the top of their lungs, doing their best to drown out Dean Martin. Pamela and Trevor Grant waltzed across the empty parquet floor, sawdust and all.
“See, that’s what I was talking about.” Anne had to raise her voice for the guys to hear her. “That’s romantic music.” She gasped when George grasped her hand, pulled her out onto the dance floor, and twirled her around.
“Yes, it is.” His breath tickled her ear as he drew her close and swung her around the room.
The grace she’d only had a taste of that afternoon when he’d surprised her in the supply room proved to be greater than she’d suspected. Heat burned through her T-shirt at the small of her back where he held her. Muscles rippled under the gray cotton fabric where her hand rested on his shoulder. Her trainers squeaked against the shiny wood floor.
Then he started to sing. No, not sing. Croon. Just like Dean Martin. Her knees wobbled. His gaze captured hers, and the rest of the world disappeared. The song ended, and he twirled her, then pulled her back into his arms and dipped her. Gently, he raised her until their noses almost touched.
His gaze dropped to her lips, and he swallowed hard. “We need to talk.” His voice cracked.
“Yes.” She allowed him to take her hand and used the silent walk to the office to regain her composure. Once inside the small room, she perched on the edge of the old wooden desk.
He closed the door and leaned against it. “Anne, there’s so much I want to say to you, but…”
“But you’re bound by your word to your employer not to.” She smiled. “I know I’ve put you in a difficult place by demanding that you be completely honest with me. I don’t expect you to tell me what you’ve sworn to keep secret.” She dropped her gaze to her clasped hands. “We all have secrets.” She had to tell him about Cliff. Before he found out from someone else. “Speaking of secrets, there’s something I need to tell you.” She glanced at him.
His relaxed posture encouraged her. “Anne, no matter what you tell me, it won’t change the way I feel about you.”
The way I feel about you…and that was? Her heart careened. Not what she was here to discuss with him. Focus! “Before we figure out what our relationship is, there’s something in my past you should know. I…” It was one thing to tell a family member. Quite a different thing to tell the man working his way into her affections. “I’ve told you I was engaged to be married a little more than ten years ago.”
His easy expression didn’t change, except for a slight raising of his dark brows. “I never expected you wouldn’t have broken relationships in your past.”
Oh, it had been broken, all right. “That’s not the whole story.” Trepidation coursed through her. “I was engaged to Cliff Ballantine. Back before he was ‘Cliff Ballantine.’ ”
“And?”
“And…” She shrugged. “I just thought you should hear it from me before someone else in the family slipped up and let it out.”
He nodded, seeming to contemplate her words. “May I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Do you still…have feelings for him?” He crossed his arms and leaned his head to the left.
“If contempt counts as having feelings for him, then yes. You know what happened—he took advantage of me and then left me in the lurch when he didn’t need me anymore.” At his silence, she dropped her gaze. Meredith had been right. The truth about her past upset him.
The tips of his athletic shoes appeared beside hers. He cupped her chin and raised her head. “Then he’s the biggest fool in the world.” He leaned forward and kissed her, his lips warm, soft, and electric.
Tears burned twin trails down her face. She touched his cheek, and he trembled. He raised his head, gave her another quick kiss, then pulled her into his arms. “Oh, I’ve wanted to do that for so long.”
Lightning bolted through her when he kissed the side of her neck. “I’ve wanted you to do that for a long time.” She stepped back. “But George, until I’ve figured out how to forgive Cliff, I’ll never be over him. I’ve been praying about it, but I just can’t seem to get over the anger.”
He to
ok a tissue from the box on the desk and dried her face. “Perhaps if you talked to him.”
“Ha!” She shook her head. “There’s no way I’d ever be able to get in touch with him. He’s probably surrounded by people whose only job is to keep commoners like me away from him.”
George traced the contours of her face with his fingertips. “You’d be surprised what God can bring about.”
“You’re such an optimist.” She stepped back into his open arms and relaxed into his embrace. “The only way I’d be able to talk to Cliff Ballantine is if he were to walk through those doors.”
A sound rumbled in George’s chest. “Stranger things have happened.”
Chapter 20
Headlights flashed in Anne’s rearview mirror. Who in the world would be pulling into her driveway at three o’clock in the morning? She parked and cut off the engine, then reached into the center console for her pepper spray.
The car pulled up beside her, and she released a shaky breath when she recognized Jenn’s classic Mustang. Wearily, she climbed out and fumbled with her keys to locate the master for the back door.
“You just getting in?” Jenn called in a hushed voice.
Anne nodded. “And I feel guilty about leaving when I did. There’s still so much to finish tomorrow—I mean today.”
Jenn skirted her car and put her arm around Anne’s waist. “If Fridays weren’t one of my busiest nights of the week, I’d offer to help.”
“I know. Thanks. How come you’re getting in so late?”
“I went out with some of the staff for midnight breakfast after closing. Sort of a celebration. We scored a ninety-eight on our latest health inspection.”
“The surprise inspection? Jenn, that’s great.” Anne looked down to find the right key for the back door.
“So was George there tonight?” In the yellow glow from the porch light, mischief glimmered in Jenn’s eyes.
Anne’s cheeks burned, and she focused on getting the door unlocked.
“Anne?” Jenn grabbed the keys. “Something happened tonight, didn’t it?”
The memory of George’s kisses—the one in the office and his good night just a few minutes ago—sent goose bumps racing up and down Anne’s body.
“Oh my goodness. He kissed you, didn’t he?”
Was she that easy to read? She nodded, unable to speak.
Jenn hopped up and down, her blond-streaked red ponytail bouncing about her shoulders. “I knew it! I knew it! I knew the first time I saw him he was the one for you.”
Anne laughed. “Jenn, the first time you saw him, you thought he was a client I was planning a wedding for.”
She shook her head. “Nope. Even then. I knew somehow the two of you would end up together. He was too interested in you to be engaged to someone else.” She waved her hand to fend off a dive-bombing june bug. “Meredith and I started making plans as soon as she met him.”
“Making plans?” With Jenn’s attention on avoiding the bug, Anne unlocked the door into the hall that connected all three apartments to the back porch.
“Yeah—for your wedding.”
She dropped the heavy key ring on her foot and stifled a yelp. Her wedding? She hadn’t let her own mind go down that path. She didn’t want to be disappointed again when things didn’t work out.
“I mean, it’s not like we’ve actually gone out and booked the Vue de Ciel or anything. We just started looking at dresses…and flowers…”
Crazy. Mad as hatters. Her cousins— “What did you just say?”
“What? That we were looking at dresses and flowers?”
“No, before that.”
“The Vue de Ciel? Could you imagine having your reception there? Of course it would have to be at night when all the stars are out.” Jenn’s tone turned dreamy. “Being on the top floor of the tallest building in downtown; surrounded by glass overlooking the city; the moon and stars glittering like diamonds on velvet…”
Anne dropped the keys she’d just retrieved and grabbed her phone, speed-dialing George’s number as she raised it to her ear.
Jenn stopped gushing about the location. “Who are you calling at this hour?”
Come on, George, I know you can’t be at home in bed yet. As soon as she heard the click of connection, she started talking. “George, I’ve got it. I know Courtney was disappointed that we can’t have the reception at Jardin. But I know where we can do it.”
“Slow down. Breathe. What brought on this sudden inspiration?”
She smiled in reaction to the barely suppressed laughter in his voice. “Oh, a conversation I was having with Jenn. Next week we’ll go see the Vue de Ciel.”
“Is it large enough?”
“A long time ago, I planned a served dinner for nearly a thousand attendees and still had room for a dance floor and bandstand.” Fatigue faded as ideas started to take shape. With approximately seven hundred guests, she could have the room set with a mixture of two-, four-, and eight-person tables. The long head table would go on the west side, so they’d have the best view of the city—
“Anne? Are you still there?”
“Sorry. Just formulating some ideas. I need to get it down on paper while I’m thinking about it.” She bent down and picked up her keys.
“Are you going to get any sleep tonight?”
“Probably not. I may try to grab a thirty-minute nap tomorrow afternoon when I know everything is going smoothly.” Black and white linens with mirrors and candles as centerpieces. Only candlelight— no ambient lighting to distract from the view.
“Do try to get some rest, please?”
Well, a bit of electric lighting so it wasn’t so dark people would trip and hurt themselves. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll try.”
“See you at seven for breakfast?”
The enormous cake, fabulously made by Aunt Maggie, would grace a large table on the south wall. Of course, the photographer would have to figure out how to do the pictures surrounded by so much glass. “Yes, seven at Beignets S’il Vous Plait on Spring Street.”
“Good night, then.”
“G’night.” She flipped the phone closed and started up the stairs.
“Annie? You okay?” Concern laced Jenn’s voice.
“Yeah. I’ve just got to get this all written down before I forget.” She turned and kissed her cousin on the cheek. “I probably won’t see you until Saturday.”
“Bring George by the restaurant Saturday night if he’s available. Y’all need to go on a real date and have some alone time.”
Somehow, the two of them going to dinner at Jenn’s restaurant didn’t sound like “alone time” to Anne. “I’ll mention it to him and see if he can get away.”
* * *
“You got in awful late last night.”
George gratefully took the blue ceramic mug full of Mama Ketty’s chicory coffee and sank onto a stool at the kitchen island. “We had to leave quite a bit undone to get home at that hour.” The rich, slightly bitter, extremely hot liquid woke up his mouth. Hopefully the rest of him would follow suit soon. After only three hours of sleep, he felt every one of his forty-one years…and then some. He’d gotten soft. Many times in the past few years, he’d had to attend to tasks for Cliff late at night and still be up at six in the morning to keep up with both their schedules. Two months away, and he’d lost the ability to hop out of bed without a minimum of seven hours of sleep when the alarm first sounded. “What time did Mr. Ballantine get in last night?”
“ ’Bout an hour before you. He was mightily fearsome when he found out you weren’t back yet.” Ketty covered her bread dough and set it aside. “Did that young man never learn how to pick up after himself?”
George snorted. He’d picked up Cliff’s discarded couture clothing from the bedroom, bathroom, and dressing-room floors this morning. “Apparently not. But it keeps me in cash.”
“You gonna clean up after the little miss like that, too, once they’re hitched?”
“In the t
hree days she’s been back, have you seen her put anything down where it doesn’t belong?” His brain started clicking better as the caffeine took effect. “No, Miss Courtney appreciates the fact I have enough to do with looking after Mr. Ballantine. She hardly allows me to do anything for her.” And treats me like I’d always hoped a daughter would… That poor girl. Did she know what she was getting herself into? He had no doubt Cliff was head over heels in love with her. But as soon as Cliff announced their engagement, the media would pursue her as they had Princess Diana. George hoped he’d be able to protect Courtney from the worst of it.
“I s’pose y’all will be getting in late again tonight.” Disapproval dripped from Mama Ketty’s words.
He caught her about her thick waist as she tried to brush past him. “I’m terribly sorry, lovey. I know you worry.”
The muscles in her cheeks twitched as she tried to hold on to her scowl. “Don’t go tryin’ to butter me up. I told you when you first came here that I work better with a regular schedule. Now you got people coming and going at all hours….” She harrumphed, kissed the top of his head, and continued to the pantry.
“Sorry, what people coming and going?” He checked his watch. Six thirty. He needed to leave in a few minutes to meet Anne for breakfast—and coffee. He swirled the bit of black liquid still remaining in his cup and chuckled. He needed a cup of coffee to wake up enough to go to a coffee shop for breakfast. He really was getting old.
“Them movers that came yesterday after you left.”
Frowning, he followed her into the storage room. Fresh spices and dried herbs mingled with the odor of the onions and garlic cloves in the wire basket suspended by a long chain from the high ceiling. “What movers?”
Mama Ketty balanced near the top of the stepladder. She glanced over her shoulder and handed him a large sack of cornmeal. “They came to the service entrance and knocked. Said they had furniture for the upstairs that they was to deliver to Mr. George Laurence. I figured since you and Mr. B. weren’t here it was okay, so I let them in. I had Miss Courtney’s dinner just coming out of the oven, and I came back to the kitchen. But when I checked on them half an hour later, they weren’t moving any furniture, and one of them was coming out of the office. Said he was leaving you a note that they had the wrong furniture and had to go back to the store.”