Please Say I Do

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  “Whoops,” she said. “Better hold the juice, too.” His quick look of surprise made her uncomfortable and she scooted the bowl of peanuts closer.

  “Are you allergic to oranges, too?”

  He didn’t have to make her sound like a hypochondriac. “No, of course not. Citric acid upsets my stomach sometimes, that’s all.”

  He stared at her for a moment, then put the juice away, picked up the slender glass and set it in front of her. “One tequila sunrise, minus red dye and citric acid.”

  She regarded the innocuous appearance of the drink and wished she’d admitted her ignorance straight-out At least there wasn’t much in the glass. She could handle that piddling amount. Resolutely, she lifted the glass in a smart salute. “Down the hatch,” she said, and swallowed the tequila in a single gulp.

  An unholy fire ripped down her throat and burned like an inferno in her chest Scalding tears pooled in her eyes, but she couldn’t blink for fear of singeing her eyelashes. She coughed, choked and coughed again, ending in a hacking gasp and a pathetic wheeze. “Water,” she gasped. “Water.”

  The water was in her hand almost before the whisper was out and she gulped it down. The fire in her belly sizzled and she let her head drop back, hoping to God that smoke wasn’t pouring out of her nose.

  “Are you all right?”

  His voice floated to her through a misty heat that oddly, gently pooled into pleasure. “Fine,” she whispered raggedly. “Never better.”

  He frowned and looked—it was difficult to discern his expression without her glasses, but she thought he looked concerned. “Tequila should come with a warning label,” he said. “Want some more water?”

  She shook her head and picked up another handful of peanuts. “I’ve always thought it came with a worm.”

  “In this case, I guess that would be me. I shouldn’t have let you drink straight tequila…on the rocks or otherwise. It’s obvious you’re a novice.”

  Novice? He thought she was a novice? “Honestly, you sound like somebody’s reverend uncle. I choked, that’s all.” She pushed the glass toward him. “I’ll have another drink, Mr. Unavailable. Just like the last one.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Don’t you think you ought to pace yourself?”

  “I’m not running the Boston Marathon.” Hallie tossed a peanut into the air and caught it in her mouth. Amazing. She’d never done that before in her life. Catching his eye, she felt a little foolish and a whole lot daring. “You didn’t think I could do that, did you?”

  “Can’t say that I did.” He recapped the tequila after pouring a little in her glass. “You’re one surprise after another.”

  She nodded…although she wasn’t entirely clear on why she was agreeing with him. “You’d be amazed at the things I can do.” Hallie looked at the peanuts that kept mysteriously collecting in her palm. “Efficiency is my middle name.”

  “And what comes before Efficiency?”

  “Organization.”

  “That’s quite a name. What do your friends call you?”

  “Hallie.” She picked up the glass and turned it in her hand. “Short a, long e, silent i“ Sucking in a breath, she downed the tequila in a gulp, ready for anything except the sudden high-pitched beeping that seemed to surround her on all sides. She looked cautiously at—his name eluded her at the moment—and realized he had turned his head to see the television. Something was going on at the golf game, she decided, but even with a determined squint, she couldn’t make out the words scrolling across the bottom of the screen. “What happened?” she whispered.

  “It’s a weather advisory.” He tossed the information over his shoulder. “An update on the hurricane.”

  “What hurricane?”

  “The one that’s been building in the Pacific for the past couple of days.”

  “The Pacific Ocean?”

  His glance was sharp, as if he was checking to see if she expected an answer. She knew, of course, that Pacific was shorthand for the Pacific Ocean and that the expanse of deep blue water visible not a quarter mile from where she was sitting was, indeed, the Pacific Ocean. But if there was a hurricane out there, someone should have told her. “Impossible,” she said. “I checked the weather channel before I left Boston and there was not a single mention of a hurricane.”

  “It must have been a really long flight”

  She narrowed her eyes at the television, but the words remained fuzzy. “Tell me what it says.”

  She felt his glance but was too busy searching through her briefcase to look up. “I have excellent distance vision,” she explained. “The television is just a little too close for me to get in focus. Now, what does it say about a hurricane?”

  “’The National Weather Service has upgraded the tropical storm in the Pacific to a hurricane” he read for her. “’With winds approaching seventy miles an hour, Hurricane Bonnie is moving in a southeasterly direction and, on its current path, will pass to the south of the Hawaiian Islands late Thursday. Residents are advised to prepare for high winds, heavy rain and possible swells. Stay tuned to this station for further updates.’” He turned back to her. “That’s the same bulletin they’ve been giving since yesterday.”

  Hallie found the glasses and put them on, no longer caring that, since the haircut, she looked like a studious Cabbage Patch Kid in them. “Well, all I can say is they’re flat-out wrong about the rain, because there is no way I’m going to let bad weather ruin Stephanie’s wedding.”

  “Stephanie? You’re here for Stephanie Brewster’s wedding?”

  He sounded incredulous and, with her glasses on, she got a full dose of the question in his gorgeous blue eyes. “I’m the wedding coordinator. Bernhardt Bridal of Boston. That’s me. I’ve been planning this wedding for months, which is not nearly enough time to arrange the kind of ceremony Babs Brewster expects, but I’ve managed to put together something very nice…even though it all had to be done by telephone and despite the fact that I’ve yet to speak with the bride. Do you know her?”

  “We’ve met,” he said crisply. “I’m the best man.”

  “You’re the best man? In Stephanie Brewster’s wedding?” Her voice bounced inside her head in a funny kind of echo. “No, you’re not I personally sent in the measurements to Mr. Aloha Formalwear and you weten’t on the list.”

  “You didn’t have my name?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m positive your measurements weren’t on there…” The echo was getting worse, but she hung doggedly to her train of thought. “I’m a professional and I would have remembered the size of this.” Reaching across the bar, she put her hand on his biceps and squeezed. His hand came over hers, engulfing, electrifying, and she tried to recall what the hell she’d been thinking. She brought up her chin. “I’ll bet you’re wondering what I’m doing, aren’t you?”

  His smile was entirely too sexy and her glasses made focusing on him entirely too easy. “Why don’t you tell me?” he suggested in a soft, insinuating tone of voice.

  “I’m measuring your arm,” she said, as if it should have been obvious and as if her fingers weren’t itching to give his arm just a brief massage. “Of course.”

  “Of course,” he repeated. “And did you reach a conclusion?”

  She wished she could reach the peanuts. “Just as I suspected, you weren’t on the list I mailed to Mr. Aloha.”

  His fingers stroked the back of her hand. “You can tell that by copping a feel of my arm?”

  “I did no such thing.” Jerking her hand from his touch, she grabbed the bottle of tequila. “I don’t ‘cop’ feels, as you so inelegantly put it. Your arm is not that extraordinary, and besides, I don’t even know your full name.” With that, she poured another drink and tossed it back as if she’d been doing it for decades.

  He moved his face closer, altogether too close for comfort. “Rik Austin,” he said. “That’s Rik. Short i, no c. Austin, as in Texas.”

  Austin, Texas, buzzed through her brain like a pesky mosquito, an
d Hallie frowned as she tried to remember the point she wanted to make. “This is Hawaii.” That wasn’t it. “You can’t be the best man because he’s from the same place as the groom is…and it isn’t Texas.”

  “Jack and I worked together in South America and his arm is approximately the same size as mine.”

  Hallie looked at him. “Are you trying to confuse me?”

  “No, but I can’t think it would be very difficult to do at the moment.”

  “Well, you’re wrong,” she told him with feeling. “Because I know exactly what I’m doing.” To prove it, she ate another handful of peanuts and washed them down with more tequila.

  “You should go slow with that stuff.” He reached for the bottle, but she moved it out of the way.

  “Uh-uh-uh. I’ll have you know I take my vitamins every day, rain or shine, and I feel perfectly fine, thank you, Uncle Rik.” Hallie was amazed at the purling laugh that floated past her lips and right over the lovely buzz inside her head. “I never knew a tequila sunrise would taste so good.”

  “You should see what I can do with a screwdriver.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I had that once. On my honeymoon. It made me sick.”

  “The drink or the honeymoon?” His smile faded as she frowned at him. “Sorry,” he said. “Bad joke.”

  “To be honest, I can’t remember.” Her frown deepened. “It must have been the drink. Honeymoons don’t make people sick.”

  “That would depend on whose honeymoon it is.”

  She wanted to consider that, but the thought sort of wisped away. “You know, Rik, I don’t usually drink anything except bottled water. But I like tequila.”

  “The feeling will pass, believe me.” He clasped the bottle of tequila, preparing to put it away, but divining his intention, Hallie closed her hand over his. She liked the warmth and shape of his fingers under hers, and she told him so in a smile. “You know, Rik, someone said they put worms in this stuff.” Lifting the bottle, Hallie laid her head on the bar and looked up at the concave glass bottom. “You know what I think, Rik? I think Stephanie should have planned her own wedding, instead of letting her mother do it for her.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to get married.”

  There was a distinct interest in his expression that Hallie didn’t miss, despite the distortion of the thick glass bottle. “Naturally she wants to get married. The money’s already spent, the arrangements are all made, the ceremony is set, Babs Brewster has rounded up the whole family and herded them over here. The wedding will be perfect. So, of course Stephanie wants to get married.”

  Rik looked pointedly at the palm trees outside, which were swaying dramatically with each new breeze. Taking off her glasses, Hallie followed his gaze, then poured a bit more liquor into her glass, set the bottle on the bar and tossed back the drink. “Stephanie is getting married Saturday if I have to kayak out into the Pacific and personally tie a knot in Hurricane Bonnie’s tail.”

  Rik’s eyebrows went up in that wickedly sensual arch. “You’re a braver man than I.”

  “That’s because I’m a woman. It’s easy to be brave when your entire future comes down to one wedding.”

  “I hope you’re exaggerating, because a future is a lot to risk on a simple ceremony.”

  “Simple?” Her laughter sounded too loud in her ears and it occurred to her, with woozy clarity, that maybe those funny little white pills hadn’t been Tic Tacs after all. “Simple,” she repeated, shaking her head. “Weddings are never simple. Even simple weddings aren’t simple. Even small family weddings aren’t simple. Outof-town weddings aren’t simple. Weddings like Stephanie Brewster’s definitely aren’t simple. Just perfect. They have to be perfect, you know. All of them. And that’s my job. That’s why the Brewsters hired me. To make this wedding perfect. And I will. Or my name isn’t—” She paused and waited for the answer to click into place. “Hallie Bernhardt,” she finished, tapping the counter for emphasis. “ That’s me.”

  He leaned his elbows on the counter and clasped his hands only inches away from the peanut bowl and her restless fingers. ’What difference does it make if the ceremony’s perfect? The couple’s just as married no matter what happens during the actual wedding.”

  “You’re wrong,” she stated emphatically, wanting more than anything to dip into the dwindling mound of peanuts. “Dead wrong. I can tell you for a fact that what happens during the wedding can make or break the marriage.”

  “I’d be more inclined to believe that Babs Brewster has threatened murder if the wedding doesn’t come off as perfectly as she’s planned.”

  “The way things have gone so far, murder is a distinct possibility.” Hallie wished she could lay her head on the bar and close her eyes for just a minute. There seemed to be a Grand Canyon-size cavern inside her head, where all the words she said and all the words he said collided and split into a million echoes. “At the moment, I think it’s a toss-up whether her hit man gets to me before I get to her. On the other hand, maybe I’ll just wait here and let him come to me. Madame Sally warned me that I’d meet someone dangerous.”

  “I’m not dangerous,” Rik said with showy deference. “Just a touch uncivilized.”

  Hallie looked up at him and decided that if Babs Brewster knew how susceptible she was to dark-haired men with blue eyes, Rik would be the perfect choice of hired gun. “Madame Sally must have been talking about Jose Cuervo. She’s always told me I don’t have the aura to attract dangerous men.”

  “I think you’re attractive.”

  “But you’re not dangerous, are you? Just uncivilized. And for the record, there’s a big difference between being attractive and being attracted. Besides, you’re just being nice because you know I have really bad hair.”

  “I like your hair.” He slipped the tequila bottle out of her reach and under the counter, but she didn’t try to stop him. Her skin felt strangely elastic, and she thought that if she stretched out her hand, it might snap back and hit her in the nose.

  “Do I look okay to you?” she asked.

  “You look fine to me…which is a lot better than okay.”

  “I mean, my face isn’t sagging or anything?”

  His smile was easy on her eyes. “No sags, wrinkles or makeup lines.” He stroked the furrows of her forehead, smoothing out the frown, and she wished he would keep touching her that way until she fell asleep. “There,” he said. “Perfect.”

  She sighed, knowing that if she could figure out how, she’d wrap herself around him and purr. Definitely time to move on. Putting her hands on the bar, she pushed herself upright. “I think I’ll see if they’ve found another room for me yet. I’m feeling a little jet-lagged suddenly.” Slipping off the bar stool, she teetered and caught her balance with a hand on the countertop. She licked her lips, wondering why her mouth suddenly had such a dry-roasted feeling. How many drinks had she had? Two? Three at the most. And there hadn’t been more than a drop of tequila in each one. Still, she wasn’t used to drinking at all and she probably shouldn’t have combined alcohol and all those salty peanuts. Some things just weren’t meant to be together. She knew that for a fact, and now she knew she’d have been better off to wait in the restaurant with a glass of water and a bowl of papayas. But then she wouldn’t have met Rik and found out she needed to take his measurements.

  Which was a good thing, because how could anyone have a perfect wedding if the best man wore khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt during the ceremony? But she’d take care of it. There was always some last-minute detail to handle at a Bernhardt Bridal wedding. Nothing big, just some little thing overlooked. And little things could ruin a wedding…and her reputation. She would write herself a reminder in her Day-Timer. Call Mr. Aloha, she mentally noted. Get him to come over and measure the best man. Walking slowly but steadily, she reached the doorway and batted what seemed like an acre of dried grass out of her face. The lobby stretched before her in a shiny expanse of sea green, like a mirage on summer pavement. With a blink, s
he adjusted her focus and started toward the distant front desk.

  RIK WATCHED HALLIE Bernhardt walk into the arch of dried grass at the entrance of the bar. She slapped the grass away, then paused to straighten her shoulders before she took the first confident—if slightly wobbly— step across the lobby. Unless he missed his guess, she was ten minutes or less from passing out, and when she woke up, she was going to wish she’d never heard of Jose Cuervo or a tequila sunrise. She probably wasn’t going to remember him too fondly, either.

  What a package of problems she was, he thought as he picked up her forgotten briefcase. It would take a man years just to figure out everything she was allergic to. And she had that clipped Boston accent. Nothing like Stephanie’s softer tones, mellowed by years away from the city of her birth but still reserved and quiet. No, Hallie Bernhardt talked like a Bostonian, and had told him more than she realized.

  Until she’d sashayed in, Rik had been enjoying the quiet dusk of the open bar. He’d savored the rapid crashing and ebbing of the tide, inhaled the fragrant wind and appreciated the shelter of a real roof over his head. Hallie obviously didn’t enjoy quiet, didn’t know how to listen to the pounding surf, didn’t know how to hear the sound of the wind as it tried and failed to find her. Over the course of his years in the Amazon, he’d learned a healthy respect for nature as well as an admiration for her unpredictability. And here, in this ridiculously luxurious hotel, he met an unpredictable woman who, despite the image she tried to project, was about as sophisticated as a chimpanzee in a fashion show, a woman who prided herself on her organization and efficiency and walked off without her briefcase.

  Setting the leather satchel behind the bar, Rik smiled at her threat to tie a knot in the tail of a hurricane. She was interesting. No, more than that. She was fate.

  He believed in allowing the forces that be to direct his energy and to deliver whatever he needed to his doorstep. And, just as he’d been wondering if that philosophy could survive outside the jungle he had called home for thirteen years, Hallie had walked in to prove it once again. She was Bernhardt Bridal, the ringleader of the committee that had planned Stephanie’s wedding. The wedding he had been sitting here quietly plotting to sabotage. Just as he was coming up empty on ideas about how to stop the woman he loved from marrying the wrong man, the wedding coordinator walked in and started talking. If he could have chosen a better person to meet at this particular moment, he couldn’t think who it might have been. Stephanie wasn’t here yet Wouldn’t arrive until Friday, just before the Saturday ceremony. Jack, the groom, and Rik’s best friend in the world, was here but not talking. Jack thought he was committed to this marriage already, thought it would hurt Stephanie if he bowed out, gracefully or otherwise. Rik hadn’t been able to talk a grain of sense into that hard head of his.