Please Say I Do

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Dear Reader

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  Dear Reader,

  We’re so glad you could join us in beautiful Hawaii for what promises to be another perfect wedding! But wait—let’s hear it from the mother-of-the-bride herself, Babs Brewster:

  “Weddings, schmeddings! I can’t take any more! First my daughter Stephanie misses her own wedding, then Bentley, my other daughter, introduces me to her phantom husband we’d only seen in photos. But as soon as I ask about grandchildren she goes into a tizzy. And now there’s that fool wedding coordinator, Hallie. Is it too much to ask that the very expensive professional—and proper Boston girl, I might add— not be seen slung over the best man’s shoulder like a bad lounge singer? And if that’s not enough, there’s that blasted hurricane coming and we’ll probably all be washed out to sea! I ask you, what’s a mother to do?”

  You’re about to find out as we bring you the third book of THREE WEDDINGS & A HURRICANE, a hilarious trilogy from friends Debbi Rawlins, Jo Leigh and Karen Toller Whittenburg. We hope you haven’t missed a single moment of the fun!

  Happy reading!

  Debra Matteucci

  Senior Editor & Editorial Coordinator

  Harlequin

  300 East 42nd Street

  New York, NY 10017

  Please Say “I Do”

  Karen Toller Whittenburg

  Chapter One

  Hallie Bernhardt settled her glasses on the tip of her nose and stared over the round pewter frames until the hotel clerk’s welcome-to-the-Islands smile and Hawaiian-print shirt blurred into a slightly less annoying bril-liance. “I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake,” she said, tapping the registration form on the counter between them. “This can’t be my room.”

  He glanced at the number beneath her pink-tipped fingernail, then checked the computer screen again. “Ms. Bernhardt?” he asked. “You’re with the Brewster wedding, right?”

  “Yes.”

  He tapped more keys, frowned, tapped a few more, then flashed that bright white smile again. “No, ma’am, no mistake. Room 1413 has been reserved for you. It’s one of our Love Nest rooms and is normally used for newlyweds, but Mrs. Brewster insisted you have an ocean view.”

  Ocean View? Oh, jeez. “No, no,” she said. “You don’t understand. I’m the wedding coordinator, Hallie Bernhardt. B-e-r-n-h-a-r-d-t. I specifically requested a single room on the ground floor.”

  His smile didn’t waver. “There are no guest rooms on the ground floor, Ms. Bernhardt.”

  “The next floor up, then.”

  He shook his head without even checking the computer first. “I’m afraid we’re overbooked this week as it is, and Mrs. Brewster did go to a great deal of trouble in trying to move everyone to the same floor.”

  Hallie shuddered, imagining the entire Brewster clan surrounding her on every side. “There has to be another room,” she said a little desperately. “I cannot spend an entire week in this room on that floor with them!”

  “This is peak honeymoon season. I wouldn’t know where else to put you.”

  “Switch me with someone. Stephanie Brewster won’t be here until later in the week. Give me her room.”.

  “I’m sorry, but that room is already occupied by Ms. Brewster’s fiance, Mr. Keaton.” He delivered that information as if he was sure she’d be pleased to hear it. “There’s a possibility a room on the twelfth floor could become available later, but I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be separated from the family.”

  Oh, yes, she would. She really would. “I’ll take it,” she said. “The Brewsters will never miss me.”

  “It’s nothing definite, Ms. Bernhardt. The room is reserved for the rest of the week. I wouldn’t want you to count on it.”

  Flattening her palms on the counter, Hallie leaned forward, just managing to control the impulse to grasp his floral-print collar and yank him across the desk to face her. Tilting up her chin so she could see through the lenses of her glasses, she read the name Kimo, on his gold badge, then shoved the glasses onto the bridge of her nose so she could keep him in focus.

  “Look, Kimo, I don’t mean to be difficult, but I’ve been on a plane so long I thought I was going to have to have the seat belt surgically removed from my hips. Flying makes me nervous, and when I’m nervous, I eat. So I ate everything I could beg from the flight attendants and even embarrassed myself by swiping food’ from my neighbor’s tray. Then we hit bad weather and I spent the rest of the trip holding a little paper sack over my face, in case the turmoil in my stomach stopped going around and around and headed upward.

  “The woman in front of me insisted I take a couple of her motion-sickness pills, which I accepted to be polite and had no intention of taking, except I dropped them into my pocket with my vitamin C, and just before the plane landed—the most bone-jarring landing I’ve ever experienced—I swallowed all of the tablets before I remembered they weren’t all vitamins. The pills looked like Tic Tacs and I honestly believe she gave them to me hoping they’d have a placebo effect. I’m only telling you that so you’ll understand this was no ordinary trip across the Pacific and I’m still a little shaken by it.

  “On top of that, I’d hardly set foot on the island before I discovered my luggage never even made it onto the plane with me and is now somewhere on its way to Argentina. As if that isn’t enough, this is—beginning to end—the worst hair day of my entire adult life. Normally, I’m a very nice person, Kimo, but I can’t promise continued civilized behavior if you keep insisting that the only room available is the thirteenth room on the thirteenth floor!”

  His smile barely drooped before it made a dramatic comeback. “The hotel doesn’t have a thirteenth floor,” he said brightly. “We skip that number because some people think it’s bad luck.”

  She was sorry now she hadn’t grabbed his collar and given it a good yank. “Give me a different room, Kimo. I need one very badly.”

  “But this is a lovely room,” he assured her. “With a spectacular ocean view.”

  She cringed at the thought, took off her glasses, folded the earpieces across each other and tucked them into the outside pocket of her small leather briefcase. Then she took a deep breath and focused on the blur that was Kimo’s face. “I’m afraid of heights, okay? And I get seasick just thinking about watching waves erode the shoreline. So I don’t need a room with a view. I need to be as close to the ground as possible, in a room with even numbers. That’s what I requested and that’s the room I expect you to give me.” Hallie pushed the card across the counter. “Consider it your random act of kindness for the decade.”

  With a nod of wary confusion, Kimo took her registration and eased a step away from the desk. “I’ll do my best, Ms. Bernhardt.”

  “Thank you, Kimo.”

  “It’s Kee-mo,” he said. “Not Ky-mo.”

  “Whatever,” she muttered under her breath, before crooking her head politely and correcting her mispronunciation. “Thank you, Kee-mo.”

  He smiled broadly, apparently thrilled by this sign of cooperation. A sweet-smelling breeze zipped through the open lobby, ruffling the fronds of the plants and rudely flipping up the hem of Hallie’s gored skirt. She slapped at the fabric and wished she’d gone with her first instinct and w
orn a straight-skirted suit instead of this flibbertigibbet of a dress. The suit would have been hideously uncomfortable on the trip, but at least now she’d look professionally wrinkled instead of dismally rumpled, and her skirt wouldn’t be swirling around her thighs.

  A second gust of wind lifted her skirt and she batted it down, but the trickster breeze flipped it up from behind. With a gasp, Hallie spun around to protect her backside from further exposure and spied a cool, dark cave of a bar. Normally, she steered clear of alcoholic beverages—no point in killing off brain cells before their time—but one of those icy drinks with the little umbrellas was suddenly very appealing. After all, she was in Hawaii, and considering the day she’d had and the week she was facing, a few brain cells seemed a small price to pay for a few minutes of relaxation. She was absolutely certain she couldn’t feel worse.

  “I’ll just wait in the bar until you find a room for me.” She offered the information to Kimo with a backward glance, clamped a restrictive hold on her immodest skirt and headed for the cabanalike bar. Paradise Bay was spelled out in some sort of ropelike material over the grass-hut entrance. Inside, the decor was strictly island eclectic, and outside, the wind danced a mean hula, setting the canvas canopies of the tables sashaying like a dancer’s grass skirt.

  Dropping her briefcase flat on the bar, Hallie set her hips on one of the stools with a flippant little swivel. The bar was nearly deserted—which she thought was unusual, considering Kimo’s assertion that the hotel was overbooked. On the other hand, Paradise Bay was a honeymoon hotel that catered to newlyweds, who undoubtedly preferred the privacy of their suite to all other diversions. Honeymooners, she’d heard, slept late, stayed up late and got drunk on love. On her own disastrous honeymoon—six long years ago—Brad had just gotten drunk.

  Looking around for the bartender, Hallie caught the eye of the man sitting at the other end of the bar. He watched her with a benign, but purely sexual, admiration, assessing her ass-ets in that annoying way of men who had passed the impulse of youth and wanted women to believe they could afford to be ever so much more selective. Lifting her chin and clasping her hands together on the bar—just shy of a bowl of peanuts— she pretended to be unaware of his presence. Above the bar, a television screen displayed a scene of verdant grass with the kind of hushed commentary common to televised golf. At least golf was a quiet game. No crunching of bones. No blasts from the referee’s whistle. Just the nice crack of a club striking a harmless little ball. Steepling her hands, she tapped the two index fingers together and waited for the bartender to return to his post

  Patience wasn’t her strong suit, though, and she swiveled the bar stool around to face the empty tables. Propping her elbows on the counter, she leaned back and tapped her foot against the rung of the stool. She tossed her head, flipping her long, honey brown hair into a cascade down her back…at least it would have been a cascade two days ago. She kept forgetting she’d had it cut in its current trendy, frivolous, barely shoulderlength and very shaggy style. How long before she stopped tossing her head like some horse shaking its mane, she wondered. She must look like an idiot

  Her glance slid to the man at the bar…and recognized the curve of his lips as amused interest All right, so he probably thought she was flirting with him. Ha! Fat chance. Not that he wasn’t attractive, if one liked the rugged-individualist type. Even in the festive, Hawaiian-print shirt, he looked ready to run out and climb a mountain on the off chance someone should challenge his masculinity. His hair was black with a few strands of silver tossed in for contrast, his skin was a rich, deep tan…. Obviously an outdoorsman, although she’d have to see more than his muscular upper half to decide if he looked capable of scaling mountains.

  He lifted his glass in mute acknowledgment of her appraisal and she jerked her gaze to the front. She wasn’t interested, no matter what he thought. He obviously believed he was invincible, which was the only reason she could think of to explain why some people ignored the warnings of countless dermatologists and exposed their skin to too much sun. There was no excuse for playing ultraviolet-ray roulette these days. She had been careful to pack plenty of sunscreen, longsleeved shirts and no less than three large-brimmed hats. Of course, all her foresight wasn’t going to do her much good if her luggage didn’t show up soon.

  “If I get sunburned,” she said aloud, “I’m suing the airline, the hotel and the guy who gave me this haircut.”

  Rugged Individualist looked up. “Bad flight?”

  His voice was deep, smooth and pleasant Why didn’t handsome men ever have high-pitched, squeaky voices? She turned her head slowly with eyebrows lifted. “Excuse me?”

  He swiveled to face her, his beer clutched in his hand, his smile lazy and so inherently sexy she nearly slid off her stool. “I said,” he repeated, blatantly ignoring her discouraging tone, “did you have a bad flight?”

  Ordinarily, she would have ignored him, but pent-up frustration pushed the words right out of her mouth. “The worst…and they lost my luggage. Then when I finally get here, the hotel wants to put me in the thirteenth room on the thirteenth floor!”

  “I didn’t think hotels had thirteenth floors.’ “My point exactly. You’ve been lulled into that perception. But if you think about it, skipping a number doesn’t make it disappear. So no matter what they call it, the floor after twelve is still the thirteenth floor”

  “Can’t say I ever thought about it that way.”

  “It amazes me that more people don’t.”

  He sipped his beer and his gaze slid away from her. Hallie had seen that reaction before, although usually not quite so early in a conversation. High-maintenance female, he was thinking. Trouble. Steer clear. In another couple of minutes, he’d finish his beer and leave the room. Not that she minded. She wasn’t interested in starting anything with Mr. Individualist…or anyone else. She had far too much to do, far too much riding on this one wedding, far too many other things to think about. Her brief marriage had been more than enough exposure to relationships, anyway, thank you very much.

  “So, what’s wrong with the haircut?” His question startled her, and from across the distance of five bar stools, she felt a singe of heated awareness when her eyes met his. He had vivid blue eyes, expressive eyes, and she sent up a mental note of thanks that she had excellent distance vision. If he were any closer, she’d have to put her glasses back on and then he’d leave the room for sure. “I’m sorry,” she said politely.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘What’s wrong with the haircut?’”

  The haircut. She’d almost forgotten. “Oh, please, don’t be patronizing,” she said on a sigh. “I’ve had a miserable day and I don’t need some stranger trying to tell me this isn’t the worst haircut he’s ever seen.”

  He regarded her thoughtfully, then set his beer bottle on the bar. “I believe you could use a drink, Ms.—”

  “Bernhardt,” she supplied testily. “Not that it’s any of your business. And there isn’t a bartender here to fix a drink if I wanted one, which I did when I first walked in, but now I don’t.”

  He slid to his feet and strolled toward her. Okay, so he probably did scale mountains on his coffee break. But just because he was tall and good-looking and had a slow, sexy walk was no reason to let him labor under the illusion he would get anywhere near first base with her. Luckily, the closer he got, the fuzzier he looked, and by the time he stood next to her, he had acquired a nicely blurred quality.

  “I’m Rik.” He extended a hand.

  Hallie did her best not to squint and bring him into sharper focus. “Yes?”

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Ms. Bernhardt,” he said pointedly, picking up her hand in his warm, solid clasp and giving it a shake. “And now that we’re no longer strangers, I’d like to know what’s wrong with your haircut Personally, I think it’s cute.”

  Cute. Oh, great. As if she needed to hear that! She withdrew her hand from his. “You’re wasting your time, Rik. I ma
y be alone, but I’m not available.” She swiveled to face the bar and give him the full benefit of a cold shoulder, even though her palm tingled from the heat of his touch and she couldn’t keep from rubbing it briskly up and down her leg.

  “As it happens, Ms. Bernhardt, I’m also alone but unavailable. Let’s drink to that happy circumstance, shall we?” He was suddenly on the other side of the bar across from her. “What will you have?”

  “Do you work here?”

  “Nope. I’m merely a guest who doesn’t mind lending a hand when needed.”

  “There are rules about that sort of thing, you know.”

  He cocked an eyebrow in a disarmingly attractive disregard for authority. “Rules don’t scare me much, Ms. Bernhardt. Now, what can I get for you?”

  “Something refreshing, maybe with one of those little parasols. Any suggestions?”

  “A mai-tai, maybe. Or a tequila sunrise. That’s very popular around here. So is Sex on the Beach.”

  Hallie’s gaze flew to his and her hand dived for the peanuts. She wondered if his significant other realized he was on the loose. “Sounds too gritty for me. I’ll have that middle thing,” she said, then, not wanting to appear totally unsophisticated, added, “on the rocks.”

  “One tequila sunrise coming up.”

  He set a slender glass on the counter and she watched with interest as he added ice and a small measure of tequila. Not much alcohol in this drink, she thought, doubly pleased with her choice…until she saw him pick up a bottle of bright red liquid. “Oh, don’t put that in.”

  He looked at her, then at the bottle. “But this is grenadine. The drink won’t taste right without it.”

  “I’m allergic to red dye,” she told him. “The drink will be just as good without adding that.”

  “Red dye,” he repeated, and set the grenadine aside before retrieving a container of orange juice from below the counter.