Please Say I Do

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  A thrill of attraction rolled over her like a high-speed roller coaster and she swallowed hard, knowing he was only teasing her about last night, wondering how he could take her breath away with just one lazy smile. “I’ll be the one in the red sarong and sweater,” she told him. “You won’t be able to miss me.”

  The corners of his mouth curved with a rueful frown. “Maybe that’s the problem,” he said. “I’m Jack’s best man and you’re Stephanie’s wedding coordinator and I just wasn’t able to miss you.”

  Then he walked out of the bar, shoving his hands into his pockets and bowing his head as he stepped into the full force of the wind.

  Chapter Eight

  Rik walked the beach until he was soaked to the skin and tired of fighting the relentless wind. Which took less than ten minutes. The last weather report he’d heard still put Hurricane Bonnie far out to sea and a long way from Hawaii’s shores. The local meteorologist was predicting more of the same wind, rain and fussy ocean, but nothing worse. Rik was ashamed of himself for having even a half-formed wish that the hurricane would hit close enough to interfere with Saturday’s wedding.

  Not that he’d liked any of the thoughts he’d had in conjunction with this wedding. If the best he could do to rescue Jack was hope for an act of God, he wasn’t much of a best man and even less of a friend. What kind of friend fancied himself in love with his best friend’s bride-to-be, anyway? A desperate friend. A lonely friend.

  Rik stooped, steadying himself with one hand while using the other to write “Rik loves Stephanie” in the wet sand. But the letters vanished as fast as he drew them, leaving nothing to mark his place, denying the message he had meant to write. He brushed the sand smooth and began once more, only to give up when the same thing happened again.

  If he really loved Stephanie, why had he decided to come to Maui with Jack instead of heading straight to Honolulu and camping out on her doorstep? If he was really determined to stop this wedding, why wasn’t he negotiating directly with her instead of wandering on this stretch of beach, trying to think of some way to interfere.

  He wouldn’t have even dreamed of making a protest if he’d believed for a single instant that Jack was in love with Stephanie. Or she with him. He’d watched the two of them during the time she’d visited their South American camp. She and Jack shared a history, certainly, but they acted more like brother and sister than friends who’d grown to be lovers. They weren’t lovers. He knew he was right about that. He was right about this marriage being a sham, too. He just couldn’t figure out why Jack would go ahead with it, couldn’t understand why his friend was choosing to settle for much less than he deserved.

  After Saturday, Stephanie would have her trophy husband who lived his life a world away from her, and Jack would have…what? The same life he had now, only without a hope of ever finding someone to share it.

  Digging down, Rik brought up a seashell from its watery hiding place and brushed off some of the wet sand with the pad of his thumb. The action made him think of Hallie, dusting her hands in the stairwell, saying she washed her hands of him. The memory brought a smile and then a chuckle as he recalled how fast he and Jack had gotten out of the room when Celeste started snapping that retractable tape measure. What a spectacle they’d made of themselves.

  Hallie had won that round in the battle of the sexes. She had come out smelling like a rose. Why, she’d even tried to warn him and he’d been too obstinate to listen. He’d just kept on teasing her, flirting with her, enjoying the way her eyes got wide with excitement, then narrowed with suspicion, and the way her lips formed that little O when she was thinking.

  Married. He still couldn’t believe it He’d have sworn Hallie was single…and apt to stay that way. She had an untouched quality, a certain candor about her that had made him think she was both inexperienced and distrustful of men in general.

  Obviously, he’d overrated her innocence. Hallie was not only married, she was here alone, and she hadn’t even batted an eyelash before announcing that she didn’t wear her wedding ring because it got in her way. That had taken him by surprise. Knocked the wind right out of him.

  How could a woman who was superstitious, wary of caffeinated and decaffeinated beverages, overzealous about the citric acid she did or didn’t put in her stomach and afraid of everything from heights to hurricanes be on the lookout for a vacation affair? If she was—and he couldn’t think of any other reason she would have made that remark about her wedding ring—she was a better actress than any he’d ever seen on film. And she didn’t know the first thing about love…the faithful, rock-solid and honest love that gave marriage a foothold on forever.

  He supposed he ought to be grateful she’d been honest with him. Not that he was actually considering her subtle offer of an affair. Sure, he found her attractive and he had enjoyed kissing her. But if he’d had any suspicion she was married, those kisses wouldn’t have happened. There were unwritten rules regarding how to behave with married women, and he’d privately sneered at any male who wasn’t man enough to abide by them.

  So where did that leave him? Alone on the beach, congratulating himself on having principles before he’d even been officially propositioned, plotting ways to stop his best friend’s imminent marriage, writing an invisible love letter in the sand to that same best friend’s fiancée while thinking about kissing another man’s wife. “You have been in the jungle too long, Austin,” he said aloud.

  The wind turned the words back on him, unimpressed by his claim to honor. Hell, he was no better off than Jack. He lusted—no, yearned—for a love of his own. He wanted a home and someone in it he wanted to come home to. But choosing Stephanie as his intended mate, based on little more than his own fantasies that she would turn out to be that someone, was every bit as bad as Jack choosing to marry her to fulfill whatever honorable promise he believed he had made.

  With an underhand toss, Rik flung the tiny shell into the wind and watched it fall not a foot from where he was standing. There it would stay until either the tide carried it back out to sea or some romantic soul rescued it and carried it home to decorate a sunny windowsill.

  He wondered what sort of home Hallie lived in and if it had a window that basked in morning sun and if she collected seashells. Not likely, he realized. The shell would remind her of the beach, which would remind her of palm trees, which would remind her of Hawaii’s exotic fruits, which would remind her of citric acid, which would upset her stomach, which would pretty much take away any pleasure the shell might offer.

  He thought about the perky way she’d asked Kimo for a glass of water and the face she’d made when he’d told Kimo to leave out the lime. A smile began somewhere deep inside him but vanished like his scribbling in the sand. What the hell was wrong with him? First he kissed her. Then he kissed her again. And the moment she told him she was married, he couldn’t utter the invitation to dine with him fast enough.

  Even now, all he could think about was the way she looked in those duct-taped John Lennon glasses and the way she squinted when she wasn’t wearing them. The way her hazel eyes looked green when she laughed. The way her nose crinkled just a little and how the gesture made him want to touch her forehead and smooth away her worries. And he couldn’t stop thinking about the way she’d arched those sassy eyebrows and snapped that silly measuring tape at him. And he liked the saucy way she had of flipping that ridiculously flattering hairstyle.

  So, okay, she was married, and that meant he’d keep his distance. But it wasn’t against any moral law he knew of to have dinner with her.

  Battling the wind, he bent to pick up the shell he’d tried to toss aside. Brushing it off for the second time, he dropped it into his pocket. He liked the thought that Hallie might actually have a windowsill and that this small gift from the sea might wind up sitting on it

  HALLIE LEANED FORWARD, her energy focused, her sights set on her goal. “All right,” she said. “A case of Mallomars now and another at Christmas. That’s my final off
er.”

  “No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” Jacques, the chef, waggled a finger in front of her face. “I am an artist I cannot sell my passion for such a price!” He rolled his scornful eyes to the ceiling, as if he couldn’t believe she w ould suggest he could prostitute himself for his art.

  “It’s your decision, of course. If you don’t want the goods, that’s fine with me. I’m sure one of your assistants will make the cake to meet Mrs. Brewster’s requirements. It won’t be the masterpiece you would create, of course, but I’m sure it will be wonderful just the same.”

  His eyes narrowed on her. “Wonderful? Ha! You think it could be wonderful? A cake—” he pronounced it in a distasteful two syllables, cake-cah “—made by an assistant unskilled in the art of creation? Ha!”

  Obviously, it was a rhetorical question, so Hallie smiled and upped the pressure. “I don’t suppose your protégé—what’s his name? Chef Charles?” She nodded, pleased by the dark scowl settling on Jacques’s brow. “Does he have a sweet tooth, too? Would he make the cake as requested for a couple of pounds of chocolaty, marshmallow-filled, gooey-sweet Mallomars?”

  Jacques slapped his fist on the desk, his Mallomar addiction lowering his bushy eyebrows into a fierce frown. At last, Hallie thought, progress.

  Jacques glared, but she was unmoved.

  He tried a pout, but she remained calm.

  He caved in, and she was gracious.

  “You drive a difficult bargain,” he said. “But okay. I make this…this six-layer plain vanilla cake—” his lips curled in distaste “—as this crazy Brewster woman wants.”

  “With the champagne fountain in the middle.”

  He shuddered but still managed a snarl of agreement. “With the fountain.”

  Hallie stood and offered her hand to seal their deal. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, chef. Mrs. Brewster will be so pleased you’ve changed your mind.”

  “You will send down the box of cookies now, yes?”

  “Jacques, you know I can’t do that until after I see the cake on Saturday morning.” She picked up her briefcase.

  He followed her to the doorway. “It is sad that a proud man can be brought to his knees by a demanding woman.”

  Hallie gave him a commiserating smile and hoped he didn’t find out that the promised box of cookies wasn’t even on the island.

  It was lost—God knew where—with her luggage. But the airline was bound to find everything before Saturday. She’d be sitting pretty by then. As she left the office, Hallie shuddered to think what he might do if the Mallomars failed to materialize. But she wouldn’t think about that negative possibility. Positive. She would maintain her positive attitude. At least until after she’d spoken to Harold about decorating the hotel lanai.

  “ORCHIDS ALL ALONG HERE.” Her hand swept the length of the lanai. “And all along here. Across the front rail there and—” like a divining rod, her finger hovered, then specified the exact location “—all around the fountain.”

  Harold surveyed the scene with his hands stuck in his hip pockets. “That’s a lot of orchids,” he said. “But I can tell you right now they won’t look so good after a couple of minutes in this breeze.”

  Hallie pointed to the side of the lanai that faced the ocean. “What if we hung a tarp across there?” she suggested. “Wouldn’t that block most of the wind?”

  Harold just looked at her. “You’ve never been this close to a hurricane before, have you?”

  “No,” she admitted, wishing he would talk faster so she could conclude this discussion and get back inside. The ocean was entirely too close, its roar too deafening, its salty mist too sticky. And she wasn’t wearing a hat “I avoid sun, storms, wind and rain whenever possible.”

  “You’re not going to avoid this storm. I’ve already tried talking to Mrs. Brewster and I know what you’re up against with her, but you’d be ahead of the game to just up and tell her now that this wedding isn’t going to happen.”

  “If the wind hasn’t died down by tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to suggest we move everything inside to the ballroom.”

  The groundskeeper guffawed, then shook his head in a slow, you’re-not-listening-to-me movement. “I’ve lived on this island for sixty-odd years, Ms. Bernhardt, and I can tell you that the wind isn’t going to die down. Not tomorrow. Not the day after. I like you, and that’s why I’m gonna tell you for a fact there’s a hurricane on the way and there isn’t going to be any kind of wedding at this hotel come Saturday.”

  “The hurricane is moving away from Hawaii,” she said with sheer stubborn confidence. “All the weather reports agree on that”

  “You can take my word for it or not as suits you. But when my bunions ache like they have lately, I know there’s a mother of a storm coming at me. Take my word for it, Bonnie isn’t headin’ out to sea.”

  Hallie did not want to hear a hurricane update from anyone who consulted bunions rather than scientific charts, but he sounded so sure, so depressingly definite. “I appreciate your concern and your prediction, but I can’t cancel this wedding,” she said. “Not today, not tomorrow and certainly not Saturday.”

  “Suit yourself. I’m only trying to give you a bit of a warning.” He rocked back and forth on his heels, hands still stuck in his pockets, his mind made up.

  “So when the orchids arrive, you’ll set them out as I’ve indicated, correct?”

  ‘I’ll make sure they’re put just where you told me to put ‘em, but I’m not giving any kind of guarantee they’ll be there five minutes afterward.”

  “Thank you, Harold. I’ll take my chances.”

  He shrugged. “Just so long as you know that whoever’s footin’ the bill may just as well kiss his cash goodbye and toss it into the wind.”

  Hallie couldn’t think of a single positive thing to say except “Goodbye.” Some people, she thought as she walked out of the wind, were just born pessimists. Obviously Harold didn’t know that, between them, she and Babs had enough determination to carry off a dozen weddings, under circumstances much worse than this. He’d undoubtedly seen his share of hurricanes. He just didn’t know the power of positive thinking.

  HALLIE COULDN’T BELIEVE she had dressed for dinner. Well, really, she had only taken off the sarong, pressed out the wrinkles and put it on again. But this time she’d wrapped it around her and tied the ends over one shoulder, leaving the other bare. Amazingly, that had changed the look of the dress and her look right along with it. She’d experimented with her hair, drawing it up at the temples, then down on one side, then pulled back away from her face entirely, and finally left it alone to fall as it may around the single, fragrant plumeria flower she’d tucked behind her ear. Either she was getting used to the haircut or Rik’s remark had altered her perspective on it.

  She checked her image in the mirror, still amazed at how different she looked. Her eyes shone with satisfaction. No surprise there, really, considering the problems she’d handled like a pro that afternoon. Everything had turned out exactly as she wanted…with the possible exception of Harold’s dour forecast. But the orchids would be delivered the day after tomorrow. Jacques had agreed to make the cake to Babs’s specifications. The minister of Stephanie’s choice had dropped by and surprisingly passed Babs’s inspection with flying colors. The musicians, a three-piece combo, would arrive tomorrow to check out the Huki-lau Room, where the reception would be held. She hoped Babs wouldn’t find fault with their contemporary mix of classical music.

  Hallie smiled at herself in the mirror. This wedding was going to be perfect. There was nothing to worry about at all. Even tonight’s weather report had been upbeat, predicting the hurricane would lose strength as it passed to the north of Hawaii, leaving Saturday’s forecast as sunny and mild and a perfect seventy-eight degrees.

  She’d spoken to Earlette at the front desk and found out the boutique would be open again by tomorrow. So even though she hadn’t had time to check out the shop Celeste had suggested, and even if
the airline didn’t find her lost luggage, she’d still be able to buy something suitable to wear. Turning, she admired the drape of the sarong. Maybe she should consider changing her style. Wearing bright colors gave her confidence. Why, she wasn’t even tempted to put on Rik’s sweater again, even though she had a feeling that sitting across the dinner table from him, having her bare shoulder under his admiring eye might just give her goose bumps.

  But she would risk it. A few goose bumps in exchange for this exhilarating sense of adventure seemed a fair trade. In fact, she was looking forward to seeing Rik’s face when he saw her. His blue eyes would darken. He’d smile that really wonderful, exciting smile that made her feel as if she had a shot at winning the lottery. He’d say something terribly nice and complimentary like…

  “Are you through in the bathroom yet?” A rap on the door followed his words and Hallie sighed. So much for romance. Sharing a hotel room and a hotel bathroom didn’t make for the perfect date. Still, Earlette had assured her the problem would be corrected just as soon as the computers and the staff got their act in sync and located an empty guest room. So, for tonight at least, she and Rik would start and end their date in the same room. Which might be nice. Or awkward. Or awful. What if he wanted to kiss her good-night? What if she wanted him to?

  Well, of course she’d want him to. His kisses had been very nice even when she hadn’t been expecting them. To imagine a kiss she could plan for, anticipate… Goose bumps marched down her shoulder at the thought. So, okay, there would be a good-night kiss. She just had to decide if it should happen outside in the hallway before they came into the room. Or whether it was safe to have the kiss once they were already in. The hallway held the advantage of being semipublic and therefore ensuring that her hands stayed on his shoulders and his stayed circumspectly at her back. Kissing in the room had the disadvantage in terms of ready access to the bed in case things got a little overheated, but the definite advantage of being able to brush her teeth first.