A Moment of Bliss

by Heather McGovern

  Madison cut her eyes over at him.

  “Sorry. You just sounded so serious saying the word ‘yurt.’ It’s . . . sorry.”

  “The word ‘yurt’ is cracking you up?”

  “It’s not the word. It’s how you say it.”

  “Yurt,” she said, insistent in her volume, putting her palm out as though presenting some serious research.

  Roark finally gave up and laughed. He wouldn’t dare say that the way she said “yurt” was cute, but it was. “I’m—” He cleared his throat, pulling himself together. “I probably had too much sugar from those cookies.”

  She stared past him, over his shoulder, her lips slightly pursed, the inside of one cheek sucked in like she was chewing on it. At first he thought he’d pissed her off and potentially ruined the whole deal, but then she met his gaze, briefly. In it, he saw the sparkle of restrained laughter.

  Madison wanted to laugh too, so badly she could hardly stand to look at him, but she flat out refused. And now he wanted to make her laugh. The goal felt like a mission, and he wasn’t going to question why.

  “Is there a finished lower level since the inn is built into the mountain?” She leaned over the banister to look down.

  Roark didn’t bother looking too. His view was better. “There is. It’s about a quarter of the size of our main and upper floors. It’s finished, with a common area, a long empty room that’s yet to have a purpose, and eight suites. My youngest brother has one of the rooms down there, but I’d rather open it all up for guests so it could be something of use.”

  “Your brother doesn’t need a place to live?”

  Roark clenched his jaw on what he was tempted to say about his wayward baby brother, Trevor. He went with the politer option. “He hasn’t been here in three months, so I guess not.”

  Madison quietly considered him for a moment.

  “I’d like to come back out here at sunset,” she said, gracefully changing subjects. “If the sunsets are all they’re rumored to be, maybe we should time the ceremony accordingly.”

  Roark grabbed at the chance to talk sunsets instead siblings. “I think that’d be ideal for a wedding. And, if there’s rain on the day of the wedding, we have the great room as an alternative.”

  “It won’t rain. I don’t allow rain on my weddings.”

  He bet the weather didn’t have the balls to rain on any of her weddings.

  They both studied the skyline again, Roark keenly aware of the woman next to him. She was a beautiful contradiction.

  Stern and serious one moment, a teasing playfulness trying to break free the next.

  He didn’t want to think too much about her, or over analyze, like he was prone to do, but this time of day was always so quiet in the mountains. Like nature conspiring to make you sit and over think everything.

  The air was thicker, heavy, muffled. A shower could pop up at any minute, lasting all of five minutes before disappearing.

  Silence settled over the veranda as they both stood there, studying the cloud-dabbled sky. A combination of shadows and rays danced across the lake. The moment was oddly intimate, sharing serenity with a stranger.

  Madison sniffed. “Is that the kitchen I smell or is it still you?”

  Roark studied the dried stain on his sleeve closest to her. The sweet smell was definitely him, but he played along anyway. He sidestepped away about five or six paces. “Do you still smell it?”

  She sniffed the air again. “It’s gone. That’s good though. You smell delicious, but I don’t want other kitchen scents to travel all the way outside. No one wants eau de catfish while listening to Mendelssohn on harp.”

  Madison thought he smelled delicious. That was going to be his takeaway. “You won’t smell any catfish. Nothing but fresh mountain air, maybe the scent of roses or whatever arrangements you use. It won’t rain, the sun will be perfectly scheduled to set, on cue, and you will have the wedding of the year.”

  A quick laugh escaped. “I expect a lot. I know. What can you do about a cloudless sky, soft breeze, happy clients, and guests who are awed by the whole event?”

  Roark saw the opportunity and jumped at it. He checked off an invisible list with his finger in the air. “Done. What about a flock of doves to fly by at precisely the right time? A migration of butterflies?”

  “No, thank you. I’ve used doves before.”

  He tilted his head back. “Of course you have.”

  “Released upon the announcement of the new couple. All I could do was pray none of the birds . . . you know?”

  “Lessened their load midflight?”

  Madison laughed. Finally, with the quickest flash of white teeth before she covered her mouth, she let herself laugh. “Yes. Everything worked out, but I prefer to stay away from live animals at my events.”

  “I don’t blame you. But I bet somebody, some day, will want to ride in on a horse. Or off on a horse. There will be something involving a horse in your future.” He was teasing her, but she was laughing. He sure as hell wasn’t going to squash it now.

  Madison gave him a stern look that was nothing but playful. “Bite your tongue. I like a challenge, but you could curse me with some kind of cowboy-themed ceremony and horses all over the place.”

  He shook his head. “Potentially a lot worse than doves . . . if you know what I mean.”

  This time her burst of laughter echoed around the veranda. She clamped a hand over her mouth again. “Don’t say that. Don’t even put that out into the universe.” She spoke from behind her fingers, but it sounded like she was smiling.

  “I should take it back?” Roark grinned too.

  She dropped her hand. “Yes, definitely.”

  “I take it back. No horse weddings. No doves. Butterflies will be the extent of any living props at your weddings.”

  “Butterflies I can handle. Thank you.”

  Madison was definitely smiling. No tight politeness from earlier, not a sly business smirk, but a full-on, light-in-her-eyes smile. Roark had finally managed to say something funny.

  He wore a dopey grin right now, he just knew it. The pull in his face, the warm hum along his cheeks. Dammit, he probably looked ridiculous, but he couldn’t help it. He’d gotten her to laugh.

  Madison grabbed up her portfolio and straightened. “Um. I should probably . . . talk to your hospitality manager? And see more of the restaurant before the dinner crowd arrives?”

  Roark dropped his smile. “Yeah? I mean, yes. He is in charge of hospitality, after all. Wright might be free as well. I need to finish up some things in the office.”

  A moment for Roark to refocus on business and not on whatever the hell he was doing might be a good idea, but he wasn’t ready for Dev to take over the tour completely.

  In fact, he downright didn’t want to give her up. “How about, when you’re done in the restaurant, you can stop by the office and we’ll see the rest of the inn?”

  Madison nodded, and her feet click-clacked, rapid fire, against the veranda’s stone floor as she hurried back inside.

  Roark followed, made the polite introductions, and got the hell out of the restaurant. He made it to his office, closed the door, and slumped in his too big, too old desk chair.

  What in blazes was he doing?

  He wouldn’t deny he found Madison attractive. Insisting otherwise was pointless, and he didn’t do things that were pointless—but damn. He needed to get himself together.

  Madison was gorgeous, smart, and he was about two seconds from asking her out for drinks. The problem was, she wasn’t some woman he’d met in town. She was a potentially huge client for Honeywilde, and clients and guests were off limits.

  Not only that, but he knew better than to flirt with her. It was unprofessional. Madison probably got hit on by businessmen all the time, and he bet she loathed it. Roark wasn’t going to be that guy. He wasn’t that guy. That guy was an ass.

  Now . . . if he’d met Madison at a pub or been introduced by friends, that’d be a different stor
y. He’d ask her out for coffee or lunch, then a dinner date. But that wasn’t the case here. She might be booking an event here, and that mattered above all else.

  No. She would book an event here; he’d see to it. Honeywilde had to have this. Madison had done enough research to know the inn’s business had been off the last decade or so, and they’d done enough research on her to know she coordinated the kind of events that could help the inn out of its financial hole.

  His grandfather’s pride and joy, the Bradley legacy, had gotten so close to foreclosure it still gave Roark heartburn, but his parents broke up the shares of Honeywilde and entrusted it to their children before they retired.

  Roark inherited the majority, took out the loans to fix the place up, and he and his siblings would be the ones to turn it around.

  They had to survive this winter first though, the dead time for mountain hospitality, and the preceding fall season was looking pretty bleak.

  “Where have you been?” Roark’s sister burst into his office and circled his desk in a tornado of Post-it notes and riotous red hair. A huge mop of chocolate hair and four legs followed, tongue out like this was the best game ever.

  “That apple vendor is trying to rob us blind,” she complained, the dog, Beau, barking in agreement. “He’s priced those apples like they don’t grow everywhere up here. I told him no thanks, buddy.”

  She bumped around behind his chair, shuffling through the folders on the credenza until one fell off.

  “May I help you find something?”

  “I need the number for that produce guy. The one right outside of town, family farm. I bet he’d hook us up with some apples, and in the spring he sells strawberries. Wright wants to make his apple crumble thingie for Sunday brunch this weekend. Sunday brunch is the restaurant’s busiest time.”

  She said it with such conviction, like Roark needed to be convinced. Right now, the restaurant was what kept them afloat.

  “I know Sundays are busy.”

  “Then you know Wright has to make his apple crumble thingie and we kind of have to have apples for him to make it.”

  He scrolled through the contacts in his phone until he reached the number for Stewart Farms. He forwarded it to Sophie’s phone and it rang in her pocket.

  She wrinkled her nose again. “I do not have time to talk to anyone right now.”

  “It’s me, Soph. I just sent you the number to the farm.”

  “Oh.” She checked her phone, then almost dropped it when she clamped her hand down on his arm.

  “Ow.” For someone so tiny, she had a grip like the jaws of a pit bull.

  “That event planner, the one who did the big wedding in Charleston—Madison. She’s supposed to be here today.”

  “Yes. She is here.”

  “Oh my god. Where? When?”

  “She got here about an hour or so ago and I showed her around.”

  Sophie threw her hands up. “Why didn’t you say so? How did it go? What did she think? Is she going to book us? She used to work for Echols Events and they handle some big names. A big-name event is exactly what we need.”

  His little sister had done the recon on Madison as soon as she’d called to make an appointment. Sophie had said the name sounded familiar, and sure enough, Madison’s name had shown up in a Charleston style magazine in an article about a big wedding, right before she left her employer to go into business on her own.

  Roark stood, hoping to corral his sister’s anxiety. Beau was right beside him. “This might be a big event, Sis. Let’s don’t get too far ahead of ourselves. She hasn’t booked us yet, but I think it’s going really well. She likes the place so far.”

  “We could use a successful wedding on our books.”

  He didn’t have to be reminded of that fact. “Soph.” Roark towered over her, so he put his hands on her shoulders and bent his knees so she wouldn’t have to crane her neck. After all the years of reassuring Sophie that everything was going to be okay, he automatically took that position anytime she worried about anything. “I’m taking care of it. Everything is going to be okay.”

  “Where is Madison now?”

  “She had some questions about the restaurant and a few details, so I left her with Devlin.”

  Sophie looked at him with bug eyes. “You left her with Dev? Since when is that a good idea?”

  “Never, but I can’t cut him out completely. He’s already giving me the stink eye every chance he gets. If I interrupt him now, it’ll be next year before he stops pouting.”

  “Don’t be like that. See, this is why the two of you fight.”

  “We fight because he wants an on-staff sommelier, classes for yoga and cooking, even freaking ballroom dancing. He acts like we’re the Sandals of the Smokies.”

  Sophie bumped his arm with her fist. “Dev is a good businessman, like you, but he’s . . . creative. Imaginative, and that’s a positive. Y’all balance each other out.”

  Roark barked out a laugh and had to dodge another one of her punches that looked like it held more force.

  He put his hands out to block her tiny fists of fury. “The important thing is, the tour with Madison is going well and I’ll finish when she’s done talking to Dev.”

  “Oh, you’ll finish it? You don’t want your hospitality manager to take over?” She stepped back and somehow managed to look down her nose at him.

  “No, I don’t. Besides, Madison and I speak the same language. We have . . . rapport.” He was not going to say chemistry, however tenuous it might be.

  His sister gave him her patented flat stare that held about a thousand accusations and never failed to make him feel guilty, even when he’d done nothing wrong.

  “What?”

  “Rapport?”

  “What?”

  She rolled her eyes and turned for the door. “Nothing. Just get us this wedding. Then you can do whatever you want with your rapport.”

  Chapter 3

  Madison squeezed her phone between her shoulder and ear, and made a beeline toward her Audi. The line rang and rang, until finally Whitney picked up.

  “Hello,” the future bride sang into the phone.

  “It’s Madison. You were right. Honeywilde is perfect.”

  Whitney squeaked into the phone. “I know, right? Did you get it booked?” The famous lead singer didn’t have to tell Madison how eager she was to have her dream wedding at her dream location; it oozed from every word.

  “Not yet. I just finished the tour with the general manager and I’m about to meet with him to make an offer. I have to play it cool versus gushing over how gorgeous it is up here.” She walked around her car, enjoying the private moment to admit how freaking beautiful yet quaint this place was.

  “You’ve seen it now, so you know why I have to have it. Growing up, we went there almost every summer. Pay them whatever they want to clear their schedule and book it.”

  Easier said than done. “You know I can’t pay them whatever. Your manager already chewed me out about this event, then he went after you. I’d like to keep the price within reason and keep him off our backs.”

  Whitney groaned. “Phil is such a dick sometimes. I’m sorry. I know he’s looking out for us, but still.”

  She wasn’t wrong. The band’s business manager was a nightmare. Regardless, Madison’s job was to turn this whole thing into the couple’s dream come true. Not just for them, but for her. If she pulled off this high-profile wedding, her one-woman business would be set. No more backstabbing coworkers, no more sexist boss, no more constant threats of losing her job because someone else didn’t do theirs. “Try not to worry about Phil. You hired me so I can worry about all of the logistics and you don’t have to. I’ll make it work. You have music to tend to.”

  “When are you going to tell him we need the whole place for a week, in like, less than a month?”

  “I won’t be telling him ‘we’ need anything. He doesn’t know who is getting married yet.” Because that’d jack the price up enough to m
ake manager Phil’s nonexistent hair curl.

  “So he could still say no and slam the door in your face? You can tell him it’s us. Maybe it will help.”

  “He’s not going to slam the door in my face.” She bet it’d been months since Honeywilde was booked to full capacity. Madison wasn’t just offering full booking, whether the rooms were used or not, but hefty events costs. The inn needed that kind of money, the same way she needed this wedding to be a success.

  Besides, she wasn’t letting the big-name cat out of the bag unless she had no choice. “I’ll lay out an offer and we’ll massage the deal until it’s done.”

  “Oh, I hope so.” The wistful longing in Whitney’s voice betrayed her youth. The bride and groom were in their early twenties and, by all accounts, desperately in love.

  Madison wouldn’t say it to them—could never say it to any client—but she thought anyone getting married was out of their mind. She’d gotten close enough to dream about it once, when very young and stupid. Her dream had been built on lies, believed by a silly girl who should’ve known better than anyone else. Weddings were part of her job, not part of her life plan.

  “There’s no need to hope,” she reassured her bride. “I’m going to make this happen.”

  Madison hung up and dropped her phone in her bag. This deal would be agreed upon and this wedding would turn out flawless. She didn’t have anything else to fall back on, so she simply wouldn’t fail.

  As much fun as she was having dealing with Roark, this was the kind of high-profile gig that could make or break a career. She smoothed down her suit jacket and ran a hand over her hair. She wasn’t primping for Roark; she was preparing for battle.

  She found Roark on the veranda, sitting with his back to her at a little bistro table they must’ve moved outside from the restaurant. An empty chair sat on the other side of the table, facing the mountains and an imminent sunset.

  “This is cozy.” She put her things down and joined him. “Romantic” was the word echoing in her brain, but she knew better.

  Firstly, she worked in the industry of everlasting love and romance, so she was immune to fanciful stuff like this. Secondly, Roark was admittedly jaded himself. She recognized a kindred cynic when she met one and, most importantly, there was no reason for him to try to romance her.