by Lucy Kevin
Still, how could he forget the one perfect kiss he and Rose had shared? Because when they’d kissed that one, unexpected time, it had felt like she understood everything about him, and that they were meant for one another.
Yet he’d obviously been wrong, because she’d never so much as mentioned the moment since. And if their kiss—their connection—hadn’t meant as much to her as it had to him…well, then he would just have to keep adding to the list of things he wouldn’t say to her.
Hating how nervous and worried she looked, he had to assure her, “Your wedding is going to be perfect. Even by your crazy standards,” he teased.
“My standards are not crazy,” Rose insisted. “They’re just meticulous.”
He grinned. “Meticulous, huh?” It was so easy to fall into this playful banter with her.
Rose glanced around the room with a look that he recognized all too well after working with her for five years, as if she might go around and check everything for the party just once more.
“Maybe if I—”
RJ put his hand on her forearm. “Everything is going to be fine. Better than fine. The wedding shower is going to be perfect. Trust me.”
Rose sighed as she relaxed slightly beneath his fingers. “What would I do without you?”
It was so good seeing her finally relax a little. Just those small changes as she loosened up slightly, the tension leaving the corners of her mouth and around her eyes.
He wanted so badly to reach out and pull her closer. It wouldn’t take much to drag Rose tight against him, his hands going up to soothe the tension from her shoulders while his lips moved down to hers.
Suddenly, Rose seemed to sense how close they were too, because her breathing came a little quicker. Or was that RJ’s imagination?
Well, the heat in her eyes wasn’t, nor was that slight parting of her lips and the flush in her cheeks as she stood up. He stood up, too, knowing all he needed to do was move an inch closer and then he could—
“There you both are,” Anne said, sweeping into the room with Julie at her side.
When Julie pulled Rose away, asking a question about wedding cake designs, Anne took RJ’s arm. “It’s almost time for this bridal shower to start. Which means no men. Even you. So out you go. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
As RJ let Anne lead him to the door, He said, “Take care of her today, Anne, will you?”
She gave him a look that spoke volumes. “Of course I will, RJ. She’s my best friend and all I want is for her to be happy.”
That was all he wanted, too.
Chapter Three
Rose was trying to pay attention to Julie while she talked about cake frosting and decorations, but all she was really doing was watching RJ leave Anne’s house out of the corner of her eye.
Why did she always find herself watching him like that these days?
And why did she also find herself thinking about him even when he was no longer there?
And why, when Anne had drunkenly asked her months ago whether there was anyone who had made her feel cherished and loved when they kissed, had Rose thought of him?
After all, they were just friends.
And they’d only had one, little kiss...
The bar was full. Full enough that the two seats at the bar were the last two in the place. Couples and small groups were laughing and enjoying themselves while music blared from speakers bolted to the corners of the room. The atmosphere was just this side of raucous.
They’d been working on back-to-back-to-back weddings at the chalet for three couples who were willing to pay nearly twice Rose’s usual fee to get married on the most romantic day of the year. They’d all worked late to put on the celebrations, with Tyce providing the music, Phoebe and Anne helping out at the reception, and RJ dealing with the last minute problems that always seemed to crop up. By the time the last wedding was wrapped up, they left the chalet at an hour when most people were already home celebrating Valentine’s Day with the one they loved, out at a restaurant for a romantic meal, or toasting each other in a bar like this one.
“I can’t believe Donovan stood you up on Valentine’s Day,” RJ said, sitting down next to her.
He looked good, as usual, wearing a slightly more formal shirt and pants so that he’d fit in with the wedding guests as he worked around them during the events. Right then, though, his shirtsleeves were rolled up to show the muscles of his forearms.
Muscles she liked looking at far too much.
“Donovan didn’t stand me up,” Rose said defensively. “He called to let me know he’s going to be late.”
Donovan had been planning to take her out for a meal at a five star restaurant, but an emergency had come up at his clinic. He’d often had to wait for her to finish up with a wedding, so she told him she could certainly wait another hour or two for their Valentine’s Day dinner.
“It sure felt like he was standing you up when we were standing out in the rain,” RJ pointed out in what she felt was a particularly unhelpful way.
Still, she politely said, “Thanks for waiting with me, RJ.”
“It was my pleasure,” he said. And, strangely, it sounded like it actually was.
She looked around the very boisterous bar. “Though I’m not sure we should have gone off to a bar. We could have waited at the chalet.”
“We’ve been cooped up there all day long, working triple time. And you’ve been run off your feet today by needy brides and panicking grooms. If anyone deserves a drink tonight, it’s you.”
Rose couldn’t argue with his excellent reasoning. “You’re right, he can call my cell phone when he gets to the chalet.”
As RJ raised his arm to get the attention of the bartender, Rose decided that this was a good moment to let her hair down a little, literally, as she pulled out the clip holding her hair back in a ponytail, then shook her hair out.
“Do that too much,” RJ observed after the bartender slid their drinks over, “and you’ll have half the guys in here hitting on you.”
“I’m pretty sure that if they’re here on Valentine’s Day, they’re already with someone,” she pointed out.
He shook his head. “Trust me, there are plenty of single guys in a bar like this, and all of them are waiting for a woman like you.”
She laughed, flattered by the admiration in RJ’s eyes despite the fact that she had a fiancé. “I don’t think that’s very likely.”
His eyes darkened as he gazed at her across the table. “I think you might be surprised, Rose.”
She wasn’t able to pull her gaze away from his when, suddenly, the bartender cut the music and waved his hands for silence.
“All right, everybody. We all know that today’s a very special day. Which is why we’ve decided it’s also the day you all get a chance to win five hundred bucks. The rules are simple. Ladies, grab your gentlemen and give them a big Valentine’s Day kiss. The best kiss of the night takes the money. Are we all clear?”
That got a few cheers from the crowd, especially when one bubbly and frankly quite drunk-looking woman grabbed the surprised-looking man next to her and planted a kiss on his lips.
“Well, it looks like we have someone to get us started,” the bartender said. “Now, who else do we have? Who wants that five hundred dollars?”
Rose laughed along with the rest of them, but she could see how uncomfortable RJ looked right then. Given that he worked at a wedding venue, he surely couldn’t have a problem with seeing people kiss in front of him, so it had to be something else, didn’t it?
What then?
The bartender was walking past couples in the bar by now, asking them one-by-one to give it their best shot. If anything, that seemed to make RJ even more uncomfortable.
Was it the money?
RJ was such a talented landscaper that she knew he could have made big bucks with his own business. Instead, he’d chosen to work for her, for a salary that was perfectly fine, but would never make him wealthy.
Was he thi
nking about everything he could do with that five hundred dollars, if only she could loosen up and help him win it?
“Would you like to take a shot at it?” Rose asked him.
“What?” He looked shocked by her suggestion.
Since she couldn’t bring up the money and bruise his pride, she said, “You probably cancelled your own Valentine’s Day plans to wait with me. The least I can do is help you win the big prize here tonight.”
RJ shook his head. “I didn’t have any plans.”
Now that was hard to believe. A great looking, wonderful guy like RJ didn’t have some girl waiting for him on Valentine’s? There was something very wrong with the world if that was the case.
With tequila buzzing around inside her on top of the champagne she’d had earlier at the wedding, Rose couldn’t help feeling that there ought to be laws against men as good looking as RJ being left alone on Valentine’s Day.
“Why not?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “You know how things get. Everything’s booked, and then when you actually decide to make plans, there’s nowhere left you want to take someone.” He paused. “And no one you really want to take.”
To Rose, all of that sounded like a lie. Like RJ wouldn’t have been able to book the perfect date ahead of time? Like he wouldn’t have been able to make it special for some lucky girl?
Unless…well, everyone knew how much prices went up for Valentine’s Day. After all, hadn’t they done so at the chalet for the three weddings?
Maybe she’d been right with her first guess, and he simply couldn’t afford to take a woman out on a night like this. Considering she was going to be spending the evening in a restaurant with Donovan where the meals cost enough to bankrupt a small country, that didn’t seem fair. Not at all.
“Now then,” the bartender said, turning to her and RJ, “onto our next happy couple.”
“Sorry buddy,” RJ started to say, but Rose didn’t let him get any further than that. She’d kept him at work late on Valentine’s Day, he’d stood in the rain with her until Donovan had called, and working for her was the reason he couldn’t afford to take a girl out on a nice date this evening.
She was going to make certain he won that five hundred dollars.
Rose wrapped her arms around RJ’s neck, pulled him close and kissed him.
She started out softly, learning the contours of his lips with hers while she closed her eyes. She kept kissing him like that until he dragged her off of her bar stool, pulled her tight against his muscular body, and kissed her back with so much passion that she couldn’t help but surrender to him totally.
Rose explored RJ’s mouth hungrily. His kiss was perfect, and exciting, and dangerous all at once, even as the feel of his lips against hers made the moment feel so natural and safe that Rose wanted it to last forever.
Finally, they pulled back to cheers and whoops from the rest of the bar. Rose stepped back, red-faced, hardly able to believe what she’d just done.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the bartender said, “I think you’ll all agree that we’ve found tonight’s winners!”
Rose pushed the memory back into the recesses of her mind. Their kiss hadn’t meant anything. It had just been a stupid gag to help RJ out. It hadn’t been real.
She had Donovan. She was marrying Donovan.
Donovan, who was just about as perfect a man as any woman could wish for. In fact, if she’d sat down and designed her perfect man, he’d be everything her fiancé was. Great looking. Successful. Hard working. Confident. Sophisticated. Stable.
So why did she keep thinking about that darn Valentine’s Day kiss?
Why did thoughts of that kiss keep popping into her head regardless of what she was doing, so that she had to beat them back by reminding herself of just how perfect her fiancé was?
Rose was only too grateful when the doorbell rang and the first guests arrived.
Chapter Four
Anne’s house was packed with women. Everyone who worked at the Rose Chalet, along with a couple of old school friends, people Rose had met either through their weddings, or their friends’ weddings…and this was just the bridal shower.
Rose couldn’t help thinking what it would be like at her actual wedding, with just about everyone she and Donovan had ever met showing up. At least, it had seemed that way when they’d been putting together the invitations. She noticed the pile of gifts on one of the side tables; she was amazed to see how thoughtful her friends were.
“You look so beautiful,” Marge Banning said, having arrived a short while after her niece, Whitney. As the Rose Chalet’s most regular client, not to mention being distantly connected to Donovan’s family through one of those complicated networks that involved the very rich, of course she had been sent an invitation to Rose’s wedding shower.
“Thank you,” Rose said. “Can I get you a new drink or a bite to eat from the buffet?”
Marge gave her a warm smile. “This day is about you. Just like your big day is going to be. Somehow you’re going to have to figure out how to sit back and enjoy it, aren’t you?”
Rose tried hard to smile at the thought of letting everyone else take care of the details. Anne took her arm a moment later and brought her over to a couple of old school friends who were reminiscing about old times.
“You look so elegant now,” one of them said. “I bet you’re going to look amazing on your wedding day.”
Rose tried to imagine it. Anne had been quite coy about the dress designs so far, taking measurements but insisting that Rose had to trust her vision for the design. And she did, of course. How could she not trust her friend?
It was less that Rose couldn’t envision the dress...and more that she’d been finding it hard to imagine the day itself.
She tried to visualize herself standing under the gazebo, waiting in a pristine white dress for Donovan, but every time she closed her eyes the man she saw standing at the altar wasn’t Donovan, it was—
“So, where is my son’s bride?”
Rose tensed slightly at that voice, cultured and throaty. Vanessa McIntyre had arrived.
Hurriedly, Rose smoothed down her dress, feeling like she was back in school being summoned to the principal’s office. She’d met Donovan’s mother a half-dozen times, and after each dinner party she’d come away feeling as if she should be trying a lot harder when it came to measuring up to Vanessa’s son.
“Vanessa, I’m so glad you’re here.”
Donovan’s mother was tall, and her hair was short and elegantly styled, showing off features that made her look a lot younger than her sixties. If Rose was half as fit and toned at that age, she’d be very grateful.
Vanessa leaned forward to not-quite kiss both of her cheeks. She wasn’t a woman who was big on physical contact.
“I wouldn’t miss out on the chance to spend time with my son’s future wife, now would I?”
She pressed a small, but tastefully wrapped package into Rose’s hands. Even without opening it, Rose knew it would be expensive. Tasteful. And, quite likely, glitteringly useless.
Vanessa looked around the room. “Well, isn’t this a quaint little place to hold a party?”
“My friend Anne owns this house,” Rose explained as Anne heard her name and came over to say hello. “Anne and I have been best friends since we were children and she will be my maid of honor at the wedding.”
“It’s lovely to meet you,” Vanessa said as she shook Anne’s hand, her rings glittering with jewels, her manicure perfect. “You don’t see many houses this old in San Francisco these days. They usually get knocked down to make way for more modern structures.” Vanessa didn’t say whether she thought that was a good thing or not. “How many bedrooms does it have?”
“Three,” Anne replied, fortunately nonplussed by the rather forward question.
“How cozy. Do you have children?”
“No, I’ve just recently gotten engaged.”
“Well,” Vanessa said, “that’s good.
It means there’s plenty of time to find someplace big enough to hold a family.”
“Would you like a canapé?” Rose offered hastily.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t.” Vanessa patted her trim waistline. “I have my diet to think about. As do you, I’m sure,” she added with a pointed glance at Rose’s stomach, “just like every bride who wants to look her very best for her wedding.”
With that, Vanessa drifted off to shmooze with the two members of the Banning empire who she’d just realized were in the room. She quickly had Marge and Whitney in a corner, talking to them about a fashion house she’d just invested in.
When the doorbell rang again and Susie Martin walked into the room, Rose was touched to see that her mother had put on a dress rather than just showing up in her work clothes. Even so, the contrast with Vanessa McIntyre couldn’t be more pronounced.
Susie was a little shorter than Rose, with a body that had long since gone from curvaceous to simply comfortable. She had the same creamy skin and fiery red hair that Rose did, but where Rose carefully controlled her hair with plenty of conditioner and some savage work with the comb each morning, her mother’s hair was wildly frizzy.
“Oh, don’t you look just perfect!” Her mother pulled Rose into a big hug. Fortunately, she thought as she let herself sink into her mother’s warmth for a few seconds, she didn’t smell of the disinfectant from the bowling shoes today.
After they pulled apart, her mother greeted Anne with her customary ebullience. “Anne, there you are. Still happy with that gorgeous private detective of yours? I’m so thrilled for you. Of course, my girl has found herself a very handsome man of her own, hasn’t she?”
Rose hurried to catch up with her mother, who was hitting the buffet by that point, grabbing a delicately spiced chicken leg and setting to work on it while holding a glass of wine in her other hand.
“I can’t wait to meet Donovan’s mom. Is that her?” Without waiting for Rose to reply, she strode over to Vanessa, whose smile turned a little glassy when Susie juggled her chicken and wine glass into one hand, thrusting the other out for a handshake.