Please Say I Do

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  But Jacques’s fondness for Mallomars had taken a back seat to his aversion to hurricanes, and when she left his office, she had nothing in her muumuu pocket except a recipe for disaster.

  “YOU’D BETTER COME with me.” Dan Brewster cupped Hallie’s elbow and steered her in the direction of the lanai. “Something will have to be done before Babs sees this.”

  This was a huge, flapping, hulk of canvas mounded over a mass of perspiring orchids that took up the center portion of the hotel lanai. Harold stood, arms akimbo, ball cap pushed back on his head, lips pursed in a disapproving pucker. “Never seen anything like it,” he said. “About an hour ago, a truck pulls up and the guy tells me he’s delivering flowers. I didn’t think much about it at the time, just told him to take ‘em inside to the concierge and she’d take care of the delivery. Next thing I know, I’m bein“ paged all over the place. Seems like your florist—” he looked at Hallie directly “—is closing shop today and heading inland. So your orchids arrived a day early.”

  “Babs isn’t going to be happy about this,” Dan said.

  Hallie lifted a corner flap and was nearly jerked off her feet when the wind caught it and billowed the canvas like a giant balloon. Harold grabbed the canvas and Dan grabbed her and the three of them wrestled the thing back to its anchor. “This is going to end in a lawsuit,” Hallie said, feeling the steel of desperation. “And before it’s over, the Brewsters and I will own that florist’s shop.”

  Harold shook his head. “Unless you were able to get a better contract than St Peter, that florist is covered against hurricanes and such.” He looked pointedly at the roiling gray sky and white-capped swells. “And whether you believe my bunions or the local weatherman, that there is about to be an act of God.”

  “MAYBE YOU SHOULD cancel your appointment” Rik looked up from admiring his nephew to frown at his sister. “That’s a heck of a wind out there, Lynn.”

  “Since when did you develop this overweening concern about Mother Nature?”

  “I didn’t live in the Amazonian jungle for thirteen years without learning to pay attention to the weather. And this looks bad.”

  “I’ll be back before either one of you has time to miss me. Well, before Sam does, at any rate.” Picking one last french fry off her lunch plate, Lynn popped it in her mouth, and began unstrapping Sam from the high chair. He kicked his feet and reached for Rik with a let’s-blow-this-joint expression. Rik lifted Sam out of the chair and up onto his shoulders, where the little dickens grabbed a healthy handful of his uncle’s hair and held on.

  “You’re sure he’ll be all right with me?” Rik asked, still wavering between confessing his scheme to Lynn— thereby ensuring she would cancel her appointment and never let him baby-sit Sam again—and telling himself he was worrying way too much about a harmless little joke. A baby fist bopped him on the head and he opted for confession. “Sit back down,” he said. “There’s something I have to ask you.”

  “LET ME GET THIS straight.” Lynn leaned across the table where they’d eaten lunch, no longer interested in the leftovers on her plate. “You’re going to save Jack from a loveless marriage by depositing Sam on his doorstep and telling him it’s his baby?”

  “I’m not going to tell him,” Rik hedged. “Big Bird is going to.”

  “And you think he’s going to believe that?”

  “Well, no, probably not, but he’s going to have to give it some thought. And Sam is so darn cute, how can Jack help but realize what he’ll be missing if he goes ahead with this marriage?”

  “You may be overestimating your nephew’s charm,” Lynn said as she shifted her whining, wiggling baby from one side of the narrow restaurant booth to the other. She tried to put him back in the high chair and nearly provoked a tantrum for her effort “He isn’t always this adorable.”

  Rik wished he didn’t care one way or the other what Jack did to screw up his life. But he did care. A lot. “I knew it was a dumb idea. But I thought…hoped…”

  “It is a dumb idea, Rik, and if you weren’t my favorite brother, I’d tell you exactly how stupid it is. But if you expect me to tell you not to pull this nutty scheme, you’re in for a surprise. You understand, of course, that if I didn’t love Jack almost as much as I love you, I’d never agree to the two of you passing my baby back and forth like a football. But I trust you both and I know how carefully and affectionately you treat a football. So as long as you promise me Sam will have constant, caring attention, a clean diaper and his bottle when he wants it, you have my permission to let Jack baby-sit.”

  Rik made a face and reached for Sam. “I won’t let anything happen to him,” he promised as he lifted the little guy across the table. “You can depend on that.”

  She scooted out of the booth, pulling the diaper bag behind her. “If I couldn’t, believe me, he’d be coming with me.” She waited until they were almost at the door before she hit him with the one question he should have expected all along. “Who’s the girl?”

  “Girl,” he repeated. “I don’t know any girls, Lynn. Except you, maybe.”

  “Woman, then. Come on, who is she?”

  “Who is she who?”

  “The person who put that sparkle in your eyes. If you’ve met someone, you’d better tell me.”

  “You always ask me this, Lynn, and I always answer the same way.”

  “Sparkling eyes are a result of clean living,” she repeated dutifully.

  “And B vitamins,” he added. “I despair of ever getting you to remember that part.”

  “Well, I despair of ever having a sister-in-law.” She wrinkled her nose in disappointment. “I’d hoped that since you’re starting your new business here and looking for a house to buy that maybe there was a woman involved. I want you to find the right woman, get married and have cousins for Sam. He needs someone to play with, you know.”

  “He has Keanu.” Rik raised the baby in the air and blew bubbles on his belly, causing Sam to laugh aloud. “And he has me. Why would he want some other baby stealing the limelight?”

  “He just does,” Lynn said. “So any chance he may get a kissing cousin anytime soon?”

  Rik tried to look suitably shocked, although the idea was not without appeal. He could imagine a couple of cute kids with their mother’s funny haircut and John Lennon glasses. Whoa. That was moving pretty fast, even for a take-action kind of guy like himself. “No chance, kiddo,” he told Lynn firmly. “I’m already behind the production curve as it is. Even if I got married tomorrow, it would take nine months to deliver a cousin for Sam the Man here. And I’d want to spend a little time just being married before starting a family. That’ll make Sam at least three or four and past the point of caring about a younger cousin, believe me.”

  “Which tells me nothing about the current state of your love life.”

  “Exactly what I intended.” He held open the door and they walked out of the restaurant and into the sting of the tropical wind. Rik used his body to shield the baby carrier—with Sam tucked inside—from the damp air. “You’re sure it’s all right if Sam spends the afternoon with Jack?”

  “You’re the one who sounds uneasy,” Lynn said with a short laugh. “Trust me, Rik, Jack isn’t going to be fooled by this. He knows me. He knows about Sam. It may take him a few minutes to figure this out, but I can’t believe it will take much longer than that.”

  “Jack hasn’t seen you since you stopped wearing braids and overalls, and the only picture he’s seen of Sam is the one where you and Keanu are in Washington, D.C., and the three of you are knee-deep in snow. Sam was only three months old then and bundled up so well he could have been a monkey. I don’t think Jack will connect the name with you, either, because I usually refer to Sam as Keanu, Too. So, there’s a chance it will take a while to discover just whose baby this really is.” Rik shrugged. “It’s my only hope of getting Jack to stop and think about what he’s actually doing with his life.”

  Lynn slipped her arm in his and pecked him on the
cheek. “I’m so proud you’re my brother,” she said. “And I’m so happy you’re going to be living here, where I can see you more than twice a year.”

  “I bet you say that to all your brothers.”

  “Yeah, I do. You and all those other imaginary siblings we never had.” She caught the handle of the carrier and lifted the blanket so she could kiss Sam goodbye. “You take care of your uncle, you hear? Don’t let him get in any trouble and don’t pay a bit of attention to any story he tells you about me and a rock star, understand?”

  “Now you’ve done it,” Rik said, turning the carrier so the contact between mother and baby was lost “Now I’ll have to tell him. Go on to your doctor’s appointment. He’ll be just fine.”

  She pinched Rik’s side with firm affection. “You make certain he stays that way.” Then, bowing her head against the wind, she jogged off to her car.

  “Okay, Sam, my man,” Rik said to his nephew. “This is our big adventure. I really hope you like Big Bird.”

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Hallie’s voice echoed up the stairwell and Rik jumped a guilty foot Spinning around, he let go his hold on the fire escape door, which clicked shut behind him as he watched her climb the last few steps to reach the landing.

  “Babs isn’t out there, is she?” Hallie asked in a conspiratorial whisper.

  He shook his head, his vocal cords paralyzed by the start of surprise she’d given him. Or maybe it was the way she looked with her hair combed, but still tousled, her body disguised by the tentlike muumuu and her eyes clear and focused behind the duct-taped glasses. He would have cleared his throat then, but couldn’t because his heart was in it.

  “I came up the stairs—thirteen flights—just so she wouldn’t be able to corner me in the elevator.”

  “Who?” he asked huskily, lost in the sudden wonder of being near her again.

  “Babs. Who else?” Hallie looked at him with concern, then reached for the door, but he stopped her by putting his hand over hers.

  “You don’t want to go out there,” he said.

  “I don’t?”

  “No.” He did not want her walking out and into the discussion going on in the hallway between Jack and a big yellow bird. A delaying tactic was obviously in order, so with no hesitation and a still-racing heartbeat, he kissed Hallie the way he’d been thinking about kissing her all day.

  It was better even than he’d imagined. And when he drew back to share a smile with her, she sagged against him, obviously a little weak in the knees, as well. “Where have you been all day?” He caressed her cheek with a gentle stroking of his finger. “I missed you.”

  “I’ve been in the hotel all day. So, what are you doing in the fire escape? Are you hiding from Babs, too?”

  He shook his head and thought quickly. “It’s, uh…Celeste.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded for effect and hoped she was buying this. “She…he…came back to get my measurements.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “It is?”

  “Mmm-hmm. She told me she’d fit Dan’s and your tuxes Saturday morning.”

  “I don’t see how she…he…can do that.”

  Hallie smiled. “It’s only you that needs fitting. She can hem Dan’s trousers and make what few adjustments are needed for you on-site.”

  “She…he…didn’t measure me.”

  “She eyeballed it.”

  “What?”

  “She said she has a good eye for size.”

  “If my tuxedo is too small, my size and I are going to be offended.”

  “You’ll get over it” She reached for the door handle, then paused. “Is Celeste really out there?”

  “Let me look.” He cracked the door, checking for Big Bird tracks and making certain Hallie couldn’t see anything except him, blocking her view. “Whew! She’s gone”

  “I can’t imagine what she was doing back here, anyway.”

  “Probably looking for her tape measure.”

  Hallie sighed. “I have her tape measure because I was supposed to measure you.”

  He closed the door. “You,” he said, tapping her lightly on the chin, “may measure me anytime, anywhere, any way you want.”

  “Appealing,” she said. “But not on my schedule.”

  “Cancel something.” He reached for her. “Cancel everything for the rest of the day.”

  She came up on tiptoe to kiss him and make him all weak in the knees, then she pulled back with a frown. “Get out of my way. I have to bake a cake.”

  “What?”

  “Jacques the chef has left the hotel. He’s going inland before the hurricane hits.”

  “Would that be the hurricane that’s going to miss the island by miles?”

  “That’d be the one.”

  “Hasn’t he heard the weather reports?”

  “He’s been listening to Harold’s bunions.” She tilted her head to the side to look up at him. “Have you ever baked a cake?”

  “I’ve made cornbread in a skillet. Does that count?”

  “I don’t think Babs will be happy with a cornbread wedding cake. Charles will just have to do the best he can.”

  “Charles?”

  “The assistant chef.”

  “Well, there you have it,” Rik said, pleased to be able to stand here and watch the expressions passing over her face. “You don’t have to bake a cake. Chef Charles will be glad to do it for you.”

  “It’s my responsibility to see that Stephanie and Jack get the cake they ordered, and if I have to supervise the entire baking process, then that’s what I’ll do.” She bypassed him entirely and caught the handle, moving him aside as she pulled open the door and stepped into the hallway.

  Rik followed her, practicing a speech in his head in case he ran &-fowl of his own plan and had to convince someone he’d never seen Big Bird before in his life. There was one lone yellow feather on the carpet outside Jack’s room, and of course, Hallie saw it

  “Wonder where that came from,” she said as she unlocked the door of their room and walked inside.

  He picked it up and carried it into the room with him. “It’s from a rare bird. A Storkus Rentalis. That’s the scientific name for Hawaiian chicken.”

  Hallie laughed. “I suppose these Hawaiian chickens are migrating to the Big Island and stopped to spend the night at Paradise Bay.”

  He shrugged and closed the door. “Well, even chickens get a night out every now and then.”

  “And how do you know so much about chickens?” “That’s easy,” he said. “I’m Superman.”

  Taking off her glasses in one seductive move, she sauntered slowly toward him. “Superman,” she crooned, playing him like a banjo. “Something very sinful is about to happen to you.”

  “My mother warned me about women like you. She said you’d have Kryptonite in your pocket and lust in your heart.” Hallie’s march on his Atlanta didn’t falter. “I’d almost given up hope of ever meeting one, though.”

  With a determined look in her eyes, she put her palms against his chest and pushed him onto the bed. Grabbing the hem of her muumuu, she pulled it over her head and Rik lost what little reason he had left

  Lost it, that is, until he heard the faint, distant and unmistakable sound of a baby’s cry. Sam. “Well, hell,” he said.

  Chapter Twelve

  “You’re supposed to fold in the egg whites, not beat them into a frenzy.” Frowning fiercely, Chef Charles snatched the wire whip and the bowl of cake batter away from Hallie. He gestured toward the door, flinging the whip with wide, wild abandon and splattering her with tiny flecks of batter. “Go.”

  She wiped her face with the corner of her apron, feeling particularly useless and completely annoyed. Men, she thought. Powermongers, every last one of them. Give an assistant chef free rein, and he turned out to be a commando just like the one before him. Give a man a piece of your heart, and he decided he had better things to do. Rik had played her like a violin. He’d shown her a whole n
ew world of feelings, made her hunger to explore them, then when she tried to do just that, pfft, he disappeared. One minute on the bed. The next minute, out the door. No explanations. One minute, Bring it on, mama! and the next minute, Well, hell! and gone with the wind. So she’d bundled her disappointment and come down to lend Charles a hand with the cake. Now he was showing her the door.

  “Look, Charlie,” she began.

  “Charles,” he corrected. “Chef Charles.”

  Hallie dusted her hands on the front panel of her apron. “Look, Chef Charles” she said, wondering where these guys came by their pompousness. “It’s my job to make sure this wedding cake is made to Mrs. Brewster’s specifications. If you don’t want me to help, I’ll just stand over here and observe.” She scooted into an inconspicuous corner. “Think of me as quality control.”

  “Think of me as out of control,” he replied snippily.

  Hallie didn’t see why he was so upset “You know what a great opportunity this is for you to prove yourself. With Jacques gone, you can create your own masterpiece.”

  “A vanilla cake with a champagne fountain,” Chef Charles said with a sneer. “I am an idiot to agree to make such a cake.”

  He was even beginning to sound like that id-ee-ot Jacques, pronouncing words as if he’d been raised in Provence instead of Iowa. “The hotel has a stake in this,” she said.

  “Hotel, ha!”

  Hallie looked around the busy kitchen, noting the hurry and scurry of the staff, the shouted calls for a waitperson to take up a room service order. Then her gaze landed on a familiar face.

  “Kimo,” she said. Then again, louder. “Kimo!”

  He looked up and gave her a frazzled smile. “Hello, Ms. Bernhardt. Is there something I can get for you here in the kitchen?”

  “No, thanks. I’m just baking a cake.”

  He nodded, as if she had every right to be in the midst of the chaotic kitchen. “I hope you can find space in the oven,” he said. “With the road washed out between the resort and the rest of the island, we’ve been swamped with food orders.”