He looked away from her to the black and shredded bunting. “You won’t like it,” he said simply.
“I know. But I think you have to say it, anyway.”
When he shook his head and tried to walk away, she caught his arm. “I know you blame me. I didn’t know that could happen when I put the batteries in there, the fact of the fire is all my fault. You can say that.”
“Okay.” While he still struggled to maintain control over his anger, he figured he was able to confirm what she believed. “It is all your fault. I know you didn’t mean to cause this...” He swept a hand at the mess before them, then dropped it to his side. “But you did. I know you’re sorry, but it doesn’t help much, so you don’t have to say it again.”
She appeared to take that with good grace, though her hands worked nervously where she clasped them in front of her. “I wouldn’t have hurt you for the world.”
Allowing himself that small latitude to let her know he blamed her seemed to be a get-out-of-jail-free card to the part of his anger already escaping his control.
“I know,” he allowed, “but all those glitz-and-glamour things turned on you to bite me. I mean, who orders floor chandeliers from Paris?” he asked scornfully. Then he pointed to the threads of black tulle still attached to the loft railing. “And your sparkling stuff almost ignited the loft! This place would have been a total loss.”
He let that sink in, taking some satisfaction from the wounded look in her eyes. But he couldn’t stop himself from talking. “You couldn’t let them have the quiet little ceremony they wanted. No, it had to be a Hollywood production with exotic lights and decorations. I didn’t complain when you volunteered me to host a wedding, then took over my house like it was your own private photo shoot location, and had scores of people coming and going all day long.”
He turned to the mess and shook his head, his color a little pale. “This is more than I’m willing to deal with.”
* * *
THE WORDS WERE a sharp stick to the heart. While she understood his anger, she didn’t quite get his inability to see that it had all been an awful accident, and her love of fashion and glamour had nothing to do with it. She had to hear the words in no uncertain terms.
“The destruction is more than you’re willing to deal with?” she asked in a steady but raspy voice. “Or I am?”
“You are,” he said without even having to think it over. He turned and looked directly into her eyes. “You are,” he said again. “I knew it in the beginning, but I wasn’t worried because all I did was promise to get you safely from Texas to Beggar’s Bay. Then you had nowhere to stay, so it was the gentlemanly thing to do to invite you to stay here. I didn’t think you’d end up taking over my life, my house and now, probably, my homeowner’s insurance plan.” The words had remained calm and quiet and therefore sounded even more lethal—and final—than if he’d shouted them.
“All right,” she said, gathering up the shreds of her heart, her dignity and her fragile ego. She tightened the blanket around her. “What do you want to do about the wedding?”
“We’ll have it on the back lawn as you told Corie,” he said, indicating the stream of sunlight through the front window, sparkling on the many puddles inside the house. “It’s a beautiful day—outside, anyway—and Ben and Corie are my friends. You should probably find somewhere else to spend the next few nights of your stay. Too much smoke in here.”
“She can stay with me,” Diane’s voice said. Cassie and Grady turned in unison, surprised by his mother’s presence. “Corie called me,” she explained, looking from one to the other like a mother breaking up an argument between her children and not sure which one started it. Then her eyes went over the destruction and she put a hand to her heart. “Grady. I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks, Mom. I’ll survive.”
“Of course, you will, sweetheart.” She went to Cassie and wrapped her in a hug. “And you. You must feel awful.”
“How do you know what happened?” Grady asked.
“Corie overheard your conversation with the fire chief and told me. My God, what a mess.” She finally turned to Grady with a determined smile. “You can stay on my sofa, and Jack says Donald can stay with him and Sarah. They’re not moving into the new place for another couple of days. So. Let’s see what shape the kitchen’s in.”
“I walked through,” Grady said. “I think it’s mostly smoke-damaged. The food might smell like barbecue, but I think we can use the room.”
“I understand Gary’s bringing over his generator.” Diane hooked an arm in Cassie’s and drew her toward the kitchen. “I love the sound of an outdoor wedding at night in January. I think it helps us start the new year with confidence and determination.” She flung an arm out theatrically. “We roll with the punches.”
* * *
IT WAS GOOD that Diane was a woman with a lot to say. She asked Cassie what the plan was; Cassie explained that so far it was pretty loose, but that they keep all the food in the kitchen and carry it out to the back lawn where the tables and chairs would be placed. The big indoor bouquets could be separated into smaller ones for the tables. It should be a cold but beautiful evening for a wedding reception.
Diane picked up the theme and ran with it. She volunteered a pergola she’d bought for her garden. Grady had painted it white to match her fence but hadn’t been free to help her install it yet. She thought it could be used for the spot where the bride and groom would exchange their vows. “The flowers are coming this morning, right? We’ll just put them on the pergola without bunting.”
Bunting. Flaming bunting. Cassie felt a clutch of pain in her chest. You are more than I’m willing to deal with. Grady’s words replayed in her ears, echoed in her brain, caused pointed pain in her chest.
“Don’t stop to think, sweetheart,” Diane said, nudging her with her elbow as they stood side by side at the kitchen counter, looking out the back window. “We have a wedding to pull together. And look!” Elk munched on the salmonberry bushes in the distance. “Nature’s even coming to the party.”
The room was suddenly filled with Palmer women, plus Grandma and Oliver. Sarah and Helen started making the wear-warm-coats calls and Corie and Cassie ran out to greet the Beggar’s Bouquets’ truck as Diane left to snag Grady and Ben to pick up her pergola.
The day went on and Cassie went with it, carried on the tide of rescuing Corie and Ben’s wedding. She didn’t think about what would happen when the wedding was over. Whether she would go back to Paris early, or with her father, or just off somewhere else to finally let herself think things through. To understand how what had looked so promising could have fallen apart so quickly because of batteries and a set of keys.
Her mind continued to drift in that direction, but she called it back for what she was determined was the final time. She went in search of Jack.
* * *
BY LATE MORNING the men were setting up the pergola at the far end of the yard then holding the ladder steady while Sarah and Cassie draped the flowers.
“They’re so beautiful,” Sarah said, holding a length of the strand up, her arms wide apart. Jack placed a hand strategically on her backside so she didn’t fall off the ladder. “Have you taken a close look, Cassie? The pinks are gorgeous and my dried hydrangeas are just the blue the flowers needed.”
“You were absolutely right.” Cassie touched a fingertip to the large flower made up of so many tiny ones. It had been dried at the peak of its fall color. What in summer was a bright blue turned shades of pink and purple and soft blue when the weather changed. They were a perfect complement to the pink roses and the Gerbera daisies.
By noon, everyone had helped haul out the rented tables and chairs, and Donald produced a catered lunch from the Bay Bistro.
“I was going to make sandwiches,” Diane said when he suggested they put together two of the table
s and have lunch outside.
“This probably won’t be as good,” he said diplomatically. “But it’s easy and paper goods can be thrown away. It won’t slow down your work in the kitchen for the wedding.”
An old bedsheet from the linen cabinet near Grady’s room covered two tables. Diane directed Soren to a stack of paper plates and plastic cups on the kitchen counter. He disappeared inside. She handed Rosie a bag of plastic utensils and napkins. “You want to put these at every place?”
Donald had brought what seemed like a sampling of the bistro’s entire lunch menu. Plates were passed around, amid conversation and laughter, and Cassie took a moment to commit the scene to memory.
This was exactly what she’d longed for all her life. She’d been happy with her father, then with her many friends, but family and those pulled into the family’s orbit were what set a person’s place in life.
She belonged here. This group loved her and grounded her, and she loved them. She didn’t want to leave—even to go back to work in Paris and New York, but these people were Grady’s friends, too. No, they were now more than that. Grady and Diane had earned entry into the Palmer-Manning clan. Even Oliver had been taken in. Her own father had belonged long ago and been welcomed right back again.
She was the only one out of Grady’s circle. She looked across the table and saw him in conversation with his mother and her grandmother, and felt a pointed lump in her throat. It looked as though he was being his charming self despite what he must be feeling at the mess she’d created today.
She tried to console herself with the thought that he might feel differently tomorrow, after he’d calmed down. The damage was alarming but not irreparable. She’d asked Jack to suggest a cleanup service, then a contractor who worked with log homes. She’d already made the calls and asked them to come for estimates tomorrow. Afraid Grady would balk at her taking the initiative, she hadn’t asked him, but simply done it.
Now, feeling sure that these people would all be happy together, even if she wasn’t among them for a while, she felt a buoying of spirit.
She glanced at her watch. Almost one. Hurrying inside for a trash bag, she ran back out to collect the paper goods and marshal her forces.
She gave everyone assignments and sent Corie and Ben home to relax and prepare for their wedding.
Jack playfully disagreed. “No, no. Why should Ben get off so easy? He should stay and help.”
Ben gave him a bland look. “Funny. I have to wrangle Soren into a suit and tie. No getting off easy there.”
Rosie folded her arms, looking grim. “I have a really pretty dress, and Mom says I have to wear a coat over it so I don’t get sick.”
“We’re all going to wear coats,” Cassie said, then had a thought. “Don’t you still have the coat with the angels on it that Corie made you for Christmas? That was pretty amazing.”
Corie had made each of the children in the foster home a coat made of pieces of other garments put together in the most colorful and creative way.
Rosie’s eyes lit up as she turned to Corie. “Did we bring it from Texas?”
“We did. I know right where it is.”
Rosie stood and pulled on her hand. “Then let’s go so we won’t be late.”
Corie tried to help clean up first, but Cassie shooed her on her way. Once she and Ben and the children were gone, everyone got serious about cleaning up and getting ready, making sure everything necessary for the wedding was in place.
By midafternoon all the tables had been covered with rented white cloths and each white, wooden chair had been decorated with the raffia ribbon and a Gerbera daisy tied to the back’s crosspiece.
Vases had been collected among the family to hold the flowers placed in the center of every table. By three thirty, all the women stood in a group in the middle of the yard and looked around. Ben and Grady had brought out the armoire to hold wedding presents. It should have a frivolous purpose, she thought, before it took up residence in an office.
“I think it looks pretty good,” Cassie said, relieved that everything had been pulled together despite the circumstances. She took a big whiff of the cold, late-afternoon air and marveled that the Riviera rat she’d been, the one who’d loved sunshine and warmth, was morphing into a coastal Oregon woman who didn’t mind the fog and the rain. Though there was none of that today. It was a golden day, just for Ben and Corie.
“Thank you so much for all your hard work.” She looked at everyone and smiled. Sarah’s hair was tucked under a baseball cap. Helen wore a woolly watch cap and Grandma had tied a pretty blue scarf that matched her coat around her hair. She still looked glamorous. Only Diane was without something covering her hair, and Cassie guessed it was because she’d gotten her new ’do the day she bought her suit, and loved it so much, she didn’t want to cover it.
Cassie had tied her hair in a high ponytail then knotted it into a disheveled bun. “Thank you, also, for giving up your hair appointments so we could go to plan B and still make a beautiful wedding for Corie and Ben.” When she called to cancel the appointments, she promised to send a check, anyway.
Sarah hugged her. “Well, of course. That’s what family does. And, frankly, this has been more fun than I’ve ever had at a hair appointment.”
“Absolutely.” Helen pointed to the half circle of chairs placed around the pergola. They would later have to be moved to the tables, but for now they had been arranged with military precision. “I defy any wedding planner to do a better job than we’ve done.” She smiled at Cassie. “Actually, we did have a wedding planner. You have been amazing!”
She couldn’t take that compliment to heart. “I burned down the venue, Helen.”
“It was an accident,” Diane insisted. “And look at what you’ve made out of a hopeless situation.”
“Success,” Grandma contributed. “That’s my girl.” She came to wrap an arm around her. “You’ve brought my family back into the light,” she said with a sincerity that touched Cassie to her core. “I don’t understand what happened with your mother, just that I continued to love her but felt as though she cloaked us in darkness. But you and your sister and brother are such miracles of love and caring. I’m so proud to be your grandmother.”
“Oh, Grandma.” Cassie embraced her, struck by how sad her life must have been when her daughter had become someone she could no longer understand. Cassie couldn’t remember her mother, but she’d always felt a nugget of love for her.
As dusk began to settle over the backyard, there was the sound of male argument then laughter, as Jack, Gary, Oliver and her father walked out of the kitchen onto the lawn, each carrying a standing chandelier.
Corie felt instant panic. All she could think was that Grady would hate using them after what had happened. She ran to stop Jack, who was heading for the aisle between the rows of chairs.
“Jack!” she whispered, catching his arm, steadying the chandelier as he stopped in surprise. “I’m sure Grady won’t want to use these.”
“He’s the one who told us to bring them out. They needed a little wiping off from the smoke, but they’re unharmed.” He looked up and down the aisle, the other men stopping behind him.
“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just have the bride carry a candle?” Gary teased.
“It would have been easier to have the wedding in the house,” her father added, the stand of the chandelier wrapped protectively in his arms as he smiled at her over it. “Where we could flip a switch and the lights would go on.” Then he closed his eyes and shook his head. “Oh, yeah. You burned the house down. I forgot.”
“Harsh, Mr. Chapman,” Oliver said. “Funny. But harsh.”
Grady came out of the back, carrying a chandelier, his expression carefully controlled—no smile, no frown.
“Where do these go?” he asked Cassie. His light eyes rested on her, but
they said nothing.
Picking up the challenge, she looked into his gaze, wanting to make him react to her. “You don’t mind using these?”
He arched an eyebrow. “The batteries were the problem, not the chandeliers. And these things did come all the way from Paris. Shame to waste all that effort.”
Was that a slam? Or was she being too sensitive? Didn’t matter, she decided. He was entitled to a snarky tone.
She walked the men up the aisle and had them place the chandeliers in two rows at eight-foot intervals. Grady ran back to the house for the sixth chandelier and put it in place.
“Light them!” Sarah said as the women crowded around. “I have to see, and it’s almost dark.”
Each man turned the switch and Sarah ran up to light the last one.
A collective gasp confirmed what Cassie had suspected. They were even more beautiful outside than they’d been in the house.
Helen pointed into the distance behind the pergola where there seemed to be small, round, dancing lights in the distance. “What are those?”
Everyone turned in that direction, mystified.
“The elk are watching us,” Grady replied. “Apparently they’re coming to the wedding. Or, at least, plan to observe from a distance.”
There was a moment of quiet while everyone strained to see.
“What are we going to do for lights after the wedding when people are eating?” Helen asked.
“I’ve got spotlights back here,” Grady replied. “And we can distribute the chandeliers among the tables. I’ve got batteries.”
Cassie glanced away from him at her watch. Would she ever hear that word again without her heart seizing? She drew a breath. “Okay. Four o’clock. We’d all better get a move on.”
Everyone dispersed with shouts of “See you in an hour!” Fortunately no one had far to go home.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WHILE GRADY WALKED his mother to the car, Cassie hurried into the house. It hadn’t occurred to her earlier to check on her dress, but now that the wedding was less than an hour away, she wondered in a little panic if the smoke and water had ruined it. There were still puddles all over the great room floor.
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