Don't Tell the Wedding Planner

by Aimee Carson

She discreetly fished her small pocket watch from the bodice of her princess dress, her favorite costume to date. The overdress of robin’s-egg-blue split in front, forming an inverted V to showcase the design of the white satin and gold brocade pattern beneath.

  And, despite the fear now curled around her spine and setting up house, she had to laugh at the expression on Matt’s face.

  “I was thinking I’d like to get you out of that dress and see how you’d look in chain mail.” His sex-filled smile started a thrumming vibration in her belly and spread outward. “With nothing underneath. So...” he said.

  He leaned in close, sending a spike in her pulse, heat between her legs and anxiety twisting in her stomach.

  “How long?” he finished.

  “My assistant volunteered to oversee the cleanup,” she said. “And I already spoke to the vendor who supplied the table and chairs, so I’m free to go.”

  Free to go.

  Free to go where? Back to her place with Matt and have sex? Or free to go back to her regularly scheduled life, the one without Matt in it?

  “Perfect,” Matt said, steering her in the direction of the parking lot.

  Swallowing hard, she glanced down at her dress and smoothed a hand down her skirt. “How did your week at Manford Memorial go?”

  “As uneventful as ever,” Matt replied.

  She pounced on the one thing she knew for sure. Matt held no deep abiding affection for his job or his hometown. Surely that meant he’d be willing to move? No matter how much she loved him, she simply couldn’t afford to start all over again.

  Desperate for something to do with her hands beside reach for Matt, she picked up her skirt as she walked. “Have you ever thought about living somewhere other than Manford?”

  Matt shot her a guarded look, the expression doing little to ease her nerves. So she hurried on before she lost her courage completely.

  “You know, find a new job?” she said.

  “Why should I?” His steps slowed a little, making it easier to match his stride. But his tone was wary. “It’s home.”

  Her feet fumbled, and Matt reached out briefly to steady her. Jeez, his hand on her arm wasn’t helping to calm her down. But she couldn’t just take him home to her bed without finding out more.

  Callie opened her mouth to speak but failed at making a sound. She swallowed hard, forcing her mouth to cooperate. “But have you ever considered taking a part-time job somewhere else?” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “Moving your home base?”

  Matt kept his eyes firmly ahead. “Like where?”

  The loaded question felt like a shotgun aimed at her heart. Was he avoiding her gaze because he wasn’t sure of the direction of the conversation? Or did he know and simply wanted to avoid the topic altogether? One thing she knew for sure, she’d never know unless she asked. And sleeping with Matt now that she’d figured out she loved him would make letting him go harder in the end.

  “Like here,” she said. “In New Orleans.”

  Several seconds passed with only the sound of the gravel beneath their shoes, and Callie felt every crunch like a kick to the chest.

  “I could certainly look into doing recurrent shifts as a traveling doc in their E.R.,” he said.

  Not exactly the answer she wanted to hear. But the response felt encouraging.

  “How often could you get down this way?” she asked.

  “I could pull off six, maybe seven days a month.”

  Six days a month? And he’d be working busy shifts. What kind of life would that be for the two of them?

  Callie came to a stop and stared up at him. “That’s not much time.”

  A small breeze kicked up, and the setting sun finally sank beneath the tops of the oak trees, casting a shadow across them both.

  “Callie.” With a sigh, Matt turned to face her, and she could see the conflict in his expression. “I can’t leave Manford.”

  The words sliced through her like a sharp blade through whipped cream cheese.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  Matt looked out across the parking lot. Several seconds ticked by. Callie expected him to come up with something noteworthy, given the amount of time he spent formulating his response. But when the words came they were incredibly disappointing in their simplicity.

  “It’s my home,” he said.

  Callie slowly inhaled, searching for strength, before blowing out her breath in one long exhale.

  “People move all the time, Matt,” she said. “And it’s not as if you love your job there.” She waited for him to look at her again. When he kept his eyes on the park, the trees fading as dusk claimed the rest of the landscape, she went on, “I know you don’t. So don’t even try to pretend that you do.”

  “I never said I did.”

  She stepped closer. “So move down here.” Callie longed to get some sort of a response from the man. When nothing was forthcoming, she tried again. “Make New Orleans your home base. Tommy’s married now, Matt. He’s moving on with his life.”

  Callie died a million deaths waiting for him to respond.

  “I know,” he said.

  Did he? Tommy seemed to be moving on with his life. But not Matt.

  “Are you planning on going on the honeymoon with them?” she asked dryly.

  “Jesus, of course not.”

  Fear and frustration made her words harder than she’d intended. “Then why not move?”

  Matt strode several feet away before stopping, his back to her. He shoved his hands into his hair, leaving sandy tufts sticking up. When he finally turned to face her again, the look on his face was one she’d never seen before.

  “The last time I left Tommy for too long I came home and found him unconscious on the couch.” He stared off in the distance, and she knew by the look on his face he was seeing now what he’d seen back then. “He’d gone through rehab number four and had been doing well for months. But I knew right away he wasn’t just sleeping. Everything was off. The room felt wrong. Tommy looked wrong. Damn, the very air in the room felt wrong. I couldn’t wake up him up. And—”

  His voice grew so hoarse it died out, and Callie reached out to gently wrap her fingers around his wrist, the look on his face heartbreaking.

  “For two seconds I couldn’t find a pulse,” he said.

  A chill swept up her spine and traveled out her limbs. Goose bumps pricked her arms, the hair at the back of her neck standing on end. Matt’s words came out rushed.

  “And suddenly all the tough love you’ve come to accept as necessary just doesn’t matter anymore,” he said.

  “He’s been clean for two years, Matt,” she said softly.

  “Which is why I started taking the occasional locums jobs in Miami and Los Angeles. But I can’t be gone that long.”

  “I’m in love with you.”

  The stunned look on Matt’s face would have been funny if she hadn’t been hurting so much. She hadn’t meant to say the words yet. And she certainly hadn’t meant for them to come out the way they did. So plain. With no lead-in. Nothing, no sign from her to prepare Matt for what would follow. But maybe the simple statement would knock some sense into the man.

  Callie stared at Matt, her mind spinning as she tried to make sense of the words. At first she thought his resistance simply meant he didn’t feel as much for her as she felt for him. But the look on Matt’s face now told her the truth. He did care about her. No telling how much, but enough that he clearly didn’t want to leave. But he just couldn’t let his worries about Tommy go.

  Matt had suffered so much through the years, and his fear for Tommy was deeply entrenched. There’d be no reaching the man with easy words. She was going to have to be brutally, brutally honest with him to get him to see reason. He loved his brother too much, had s
uffered too much to let the issue go easily.

  And, as hard as it was going to be, she had to fight. She deserved a chance at happiness. And Matt deserved so much more than he had in his current life.

  She steeled herself against the pain she knew was sure to follow. “So that’s what this is about.”

  Matt’s expression grew guarded. When he said nothing, she went on, no matter how much it hurt him in turn. Matt couldn’t be allowed to continue to sacrifice himself, not when her bluntly harsh words had a chance of getting him to see how much more he deserved out of life. “What is with you and this martyr complex?” she said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do,” she said softly.

  “Look, is this really necessary? I’d hoped to enjoy the rest of my time in New Orleans with you.”

  Anger flared, pushing the tender feelings to the back of the line. “And that will be...what? Two, maybe three days?” She forced herself to maintain his gaze. Heart thumping, she tried to keep the bitterness at bay, but his unwillingness to even consider a change hurt like hell. “I understand you want to stick around and be there for Tommy if he needs you. And I suppose you have to do what you think is right. But I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Do what?”

  “Love you. Settle for a few days here and there. I’ve put my life on hold and now that I’ve rediscovered how much life there is to live outside of work, I don’t want to settle anymore.”

  Matt stared off into the shadows growing along the trees lining the park. A muscle in his jaw ticked, and, for the second time that day, Callie fought the tears of frustration and anger and pain that were gathering at the corners of her lids. He didn’t look torn, signaling she at least had some room to convince him to change his mind. He looked resigned.

  And that hurt worst of all.

  “You’re right,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to settle for whatever time I get to snatch here and there. You deserve a full-time relationship, not a part-time one. You also deserve better than to continue to endure your mother’s insinuation that you’ve settled for less with your job. Maybe you should tell her exactly how you feel instead of letting your guilt keep you silent.”

  Matt unlocked her car and opened the door for her. Muscles tight, head aching, heart hurting, she gathered up her dress and slid into the driver’s seat, fabric billowing around her legs. She gripped the steering wheel and willed herself to calm the heck down so she could at least say goodbye without sounding like a total wreck.

  Hand on the roof her car, Matt leaned in to press his lips to hers.

  “Goodbye, Callie. Thanks for making Tommy and Penny’s day special.”

  Matt straightened up and stared down at her for three more heartbeats. And then he turned and headed across the parking lot.

  TEN

  One week later, Callie sat in her office and twisted off the top of her bottled water, staring at her laptop in the center of her desk. As she tried to compose a reasonable answer to her latest Ex Factor question, she avoided looking at the tiny camera eye centered at the top of the computer screen. And desperately tried not to remember how Matt had looked the night of their Skype sex.

  She pressed her palms over her eyes. Maybe if she pushed hard enough she could force the images from her brain. Unfortunately, her brain was still filled with visions of Matt wearing nothing, long muscular legs stretched out before him. The broad shoulders and the hard chest and the flat abdomen. She loved the way his sweatpants had been slung low over his lean hips. Better still? Those sexy hands satisfying his body while she urged him on with her words. The sight of the successful conclusion would be her undoing for some time to come.

  Throat dry as yesterday’s leftover toast, she reached for her bottle of water and swallowed gratefully.

  She might never be able to sit through a video conference again without thinking of that moment. A fact that would prove incredibly inconvenient today when she’d had a Skype session with the mother of the bride of next week’s Pride and Prejudice wedding.

  But of all the things she missed about Matt, many a sexy episode aside, she missed his smile the most. The sexy half smirk, that teasing hint of a grin. And her favorite? The smile accompanied by that spark of full-on humor in his eyes. She wished she could hang a poster on her wall with all the various looks. But that would only remind her of what was missing in her life.

  And that something was Matt.

  Callie slumped in her seat. The first few days after the wedding, she’d hoped that he’d call her up to say he’d rethought his position. But as one day slipped into the next, she began to wonder if she should consider moving. But leaving New Orleans, her family and her business?

  She couldn’t imagine life so far away from the city, the bayou of her childhood and Aunt Billie. As strained as their relationship was, she’d even miss her parents. And she’d just started reconnecting with the extended family she hadn’t seen in years. She couldn’t leave now.

  A knock sounded on her door and a head full of brown hair poked through.

  Callie sat up in surprise. “Mama.”

  Her mother rarely came to visit at the office. Usually it was Callie making the trip across town to see her parents.

  “Hi, honey. You look...off,” her mom said.

  A sad smile crept up Callie’s face. “I’m feeling very off.”

  Her mother settled into the seat across from Callie and folded her arms across her lap. She looked ready to wait until Callie explained.

  “The Paulson wedding was a huge success,” Callie said

  “So I heard. That’s nice.”

  Nice.

  Snippets of the event had been broadcast on two local cable channels. Tommy and Penny’s brief interview had been picked up by a syndicated news channel and been aired across the country. Callie had received more business inquires in the past week than ever before. Business was booming, and Callie would probably need to hire extra help to keep up with the work.

  But all she got from her mother was nice.

  “What happened with that doctor you brought to the reunion?” her mother said.

  The muscles in Callie’s stomach clinched. Something in her mother’s voice rubbed Callie wrong. It was the same tone she’d used the first time they discussed Callie’s screwup in college. The tone that held an implied “What now?” Ten years later and her mother still expected bad news at every turn. And, as bad news went, this was the worst Callie had ever experienced.

  Matt...gone.

  And if she could blurt out the truth to Matt, there seemed no point in keeping anything from her mother now. “I’m in love with Matt Paulson.”

  Something flickered in her mother’s eyes, but her expression didn’t budge. “I figured out as much on my own.”

  “You did?”

  “Well, I am your mother.” Her mother shrugged, as if the act of giving birth to Callie somehow had provided Belle LaBeau a peephole into Callie’s heart. “And it’s not like you did a very good job of hiding the fact. I could tell by the way you looked at him at the reunion. When he laughed, your whole face would light up.” She hesitated and then smoothed a hand down her pants. “You certainly never looked at Colin like that.”

  This time Callie did groan. Good God. How long before her mother let this issue go? Callie had recovered from the breakup years ago. Did her mother need therapy to get past this and move on?

  “Mama, Colin and I have been over for years. He’s happily married to a woman I consider a friend.”

  “I’m well aware of that.” A soft smile appeared on her mother’s face. “I happen to know the woman who planned the wedding.”

  In the end, Callie lost her battle with a wry grin.

  “I’m not stuck on Colin,” her mother went on.

 
; The news surprised Callie, because she sure couldn’t tell by her mother’s action. Every single visit with her mom had ended with Colin being mentioned at some point in time.

  Callie sat up straighter in her seat. “Then why are you constantly bringing him up?”

  “Only because he’s the last man you’ve brought around to visit your family. At least, he was until Matt came along.”

  The mention of Matt’s name brought a fresh wave of pain, her heart aching. Callie shifted her focus to the window that overlooked the warehouse district of New Orleans. The day sunny and bright, but inside Callie’s office felt dark.

  “You’re happy arranging weddings for other people, yet you haven’t had a serious relationship in ages,” her mother said. “What happened with Matt?”

  Callie’s voice sounded as hollow as she felt. “He went back home to Michigan. And he’s kind of stuck living in Manford. It’s...” Callie paused trying to think of an explanation that wouldn’t be an invasion of Matt’s and Tommy’s privacy. “It’s complicated.”

  Her mother crossed her legs and studied Callie for a moment. And in one of those moments known horribly well by kids the world over, Callie knew her mother was about to offer advice. Whether Callie wanted it or not.

  “You could move up to Michigan,” she said. “Maybe even finally realize your dream of finishing college.”

  Callie’s heart slowly slipped to her toes.

  “I don’t want to go back to college,” Callie said.

  “But that was all you talked about in high school.”

  “That was the dream of an eighteen-year-old who had no real idea what she wanted to do with her life,” Callie said. “It was always more your dream than mine.”

  Her mother looked knocked flat, and a stab of guilt struck Callie again. She never meant to be quite so truthful.

  “Look, Mama,” Callie said. “I’m sorry you and Dad sacrificed so much to get me into a great school.”

  Her mother straightened her shoulders. “Your dad and I sacrificed so you could make something of yourself.”

  Callie dropped her head into her hands. “Mama.” Callie managed not to let out a moan. Barely. She looked up again. “I love my job.” She dropped her hands to her desk and met the brown gaze of her mother sitting on the other side. “This is exactly where I want to be. I’m my own boss and I have a very successful business. I appreciate all you and Dad have done for me, but—”