“Great!” he said. “Tell me where the sparkling water is and I’ll get us some while you do this.”
He was pitching in? That had never happened before. For what Burke’s Weddings charged, people expected to be pampered. But again, there was nothing ordinary about this situation. Or maybe about Dane Camden, either....
Vonni considered declining his offer, but she liked that unaffected part of him too much to squelch it, so she told him where to find the water and let him get it.
By the time he returned, Vonni had everything ready to go.
“Appetizers,” she announced as they sat in their respective seats—Dane at the head of the table and Vonni next to him on his right.
She explained what each offering was and then they tasted them, with Vonni taking only tiny bites because she knew she wouldn’t be able to make it to the end if she didn’t, and writing down Dane’s likes and dislikes as they went along.
They might not have agreed on chicken wings the night before, but other than that, Vonni had to admire his choices. There was nothing he liked that she didn’t, nothing he disliked that she didn’t agree with, and for all the same reasons.
Along with eating, she also showed him portfolios from the photographers she recommended. Not only did that get something else accomplished, but it also allowed them some much-needed pauses in all the tasting. And left Vonni approving of his eye for photography as much as his palate.
There were just so many sides to the man. And she hadn’t found one yet that was bad....
They took the longest break before they started on the cakes, assessing the caterers and deciding which one to use and what menu to go with.
Then they moved on, making quicker work of the cake tasting before Dane texted his grandmother his recommendations, including a four-tier cake with chocolate on the bottom, carrot on the second tier, and white for both of the top two, all covered in silver-gray fondant and adorned with green fondant vines and multicolored flowers.
When his grandmother texted back her approval of everything, Dane held up his hands as if he were crossing a finish line and said, “Done! For tonight, anyway.”
“I’ll call everyone tomorrow morning to let them know,” Vonni said.
But despite the fact that they were finished, he showed no signs of leaving. Instead, he sat back in his chair, rested an arm on the table and said, “I keep wondering about something you said last night—that you and Chrystal Burke are friends—”
“We are.”
“But I at least know of Chrystal Burke even though we haven’t formally met. So if she and I run in similar circles—the way you said last night—then you must, too. And how could I possibly have missed you? Believe me, you are not overlookable....”
The flattery caused Vonni to smile involuntarily. “Chrystal and I are friends—we grew up together. But we haven’t ever run in the same circles,” she said.
“How does that work?” he asked, confused.
“My mom was Chrystal’s mother’s personal assistant. She started that when I was two and since Chrystal was also two, I sort of came along as a package deal to be Chrystal’s playmate.”
“So you went to work with Mom every day at the Burkes’ house?”
“Right. That way my parents didn’t have to pay for day care, my mom was always close by and I had the advantages of the Burkes’ nursery and nanny.”
“And when it was time for school?”
“The Burkes’ influence helped get me scholarships to the same private schools Chrystal went to—all the way from preschool through high school. So Mom could bring me along to work with her in the morning, the Burkes’ driver would take us to school and pick us up afterward and I’d go back to the Burkes’ until Mom was done for the day.”
“And college?”
“For college I got my own scholarship on merit, but it was for the Denver campus of the University of Colorado, and Chrystal went to Denver University, so that was the first time we parted ways. But by then my mother and I were living in a cottage on the Burkes’ estate, and Chrystal just commuted for classes every day to DU, so we were still close.”
“Just not running-in-the-same-circles close?”
“She ran in the Haves circles, I ran in the Have-nots circles,” Vonni said simply enough.
“So you and Chrystal Burke were friends at home, but she snubbed you at school?”
“She didn’t snub me. She just had her friends and I had mine—the way sisters do, I guess.”
“Were you okay with that?” he asked as if he was reserving judgment on Chrystal until he heard the answer.
“I actually was,” Vonni assured him. “I think the world of Chrystal. But when it came to my other friends I liked the more—” she didn’t want to say anything that might insult him so she chose her words carefully “—the more straightforward, unaffected kids—”
Although as she said the words, she realized that they seemed to apply to him, too. And that was why it was becoming increasingly difficult not to like him. He wasn’t pretentious or snobby, he wasn’t full of himself, he wasn’t any of the things that were so pervasive among Chrystal’s crowd. Any of the things that could so naturally have come from being who he was.
“My friends were the other scholarship kids,” she went on. “The practical kids. The kids who had to be practical the way I did. I never wanted to put on airs or pretend I was something I wasn’t. Or that I had things I didn’t have. With my friends, I didn’t need to.”
“Okay, but you can’t tell me that—looking the way you do—every guy in every school, including the Haves, didn’t want to...fraternize with you.”
Flattering again. And again Vonni couldn’t help smiling. She appreciated that he thought that.
“I, uh...” How to say this part without offending him? “I wasn’t very trusting of the Have guys. There were too many times when one of my friends let herself be swept off her feet by one of them and got burned. We were okay to...mess around with, but in the end we weren’t who they were going to bring home. I knew that no one wanted to take me to the country club and introduce me as the daughter of Mrs. Burke’s assistant.”
“You must have known some pretty shallow guys.”
Vonni shrugged, not wanting to get into the subject, since Dane might have fit that description in the past even if he didn’t seem to now.
“Were you happy to go to the private schools or would you have rather gone to public school?”
“I never went to public school so I don’t know the difference. But I loved school,” she said. “The way I loved going to the Burkes’ with my mom every day before that. Until my dad died they were both places that were... I don’t know, so much calmer and more controlled than home was, I guess.”
Dane frowned. “There were problems at home?”
“There were problems between my parents. They both loved me and I knew that, but they were not what you would call happily married. In fact, sometimes I thought they hated each other.”
“For any particular reason...?”
“Like cheating or gambling or drinking or something? No. I think they just grew not to like each other. They married right out of high school—they were only kids. If they had met when they were adults, they probably wouldn’t have gone out on a second date—they didn’t like to do the same things, they didn’t have the same interests, they didn’t see eye to eye on anything. But by the time they were their adult selves and discovered they were so different from each other, they were married and had me.”
“No more than you?”
“Nope, just me. And it was one of those stay-together-for-the-kid things. Where the kid wished they wouldn’t....” That wasn’t something she told too many people.
Dane laughed kindly. “You wanted your parents to get divorced?”
“I sort of did. They fought night and day, about everything, big and small.”
“In front of you?”
“That isn’t ever where it started, no—they put effort into keeping it under wraps. But it would go on and on and get so heated that eventually they couldn’t hide it.”
“That does not sound like a good way for anybody to live,” Dane commiserated. “For them or for you—no wonder you were happy to go to school. And then your dad died?” he asked carefully.
Vonni laughed wryly at the caution in his tone. “My mother didn’t kill my father, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“It crossed my mind,” he admitted.
“But actually the fighting and my father’s own anger did,” she added sadly. “He stormed out of the house during one of their screaming matches—it was something he did pretty often. I was watching from my bedroom window and he nearly hit the tree across the street from our house because he just gunned the ignition backing up. The tires were screeching when he drove off and about an hour later the police showed up. He’d been driving really, really fast—they’d calculated his speed at over eighty miles an hour. He’d blown through a stop sign at the bottom of a steep hill, lost control of the car and rolled it. Luckily he hadn’t hit anyone else, so he was the only casualty, but he died at the scene.”
“I’m so sorry. How old were you?”
“Twelve. In the end I guess they were married till death did them part in the worst way,” Vonni said sadly.
“And now you’re a wedding planner—there’s some irony in that.”
“I know,” Vonni answered with another dry laugh. “Maybe I’m trying to make happy marriages to compensate. Or prove to myself that they can exist. I know I had friends whose parents were happily married and I guess maybe I still wanted—want—to believe it’s possible for two people to find each other, make a life together, build on that and live happily ever after.”
“I think it’s possible. Anything is possible,” Dane said. But it sounded as if it was purely academic to him.
“It just isn’t something you’re looking for yourself,” Vonni pointed out. “Not now. Not ever. Never,” she said, repeating what he’d told her when they’d first met and she’d assumed the wedding he was hiring her to plan was his own.
“Right,” he confirmed simply.
“Well, at least you’re honest,” Vonni said with a genuine laugh, thinking that she wouldn’t have wasted as much time as she had if some of the men she’d dated had been as direct.
“Anyway,” she said, getting back to the subject of her friendship with Chrystal. “After my dad died, Mrs. Burke offered a cottage on the Burkes’ estate for my mom and me to live in. So even though Chrystal and I had different groups of friends, we really did grow up like sisters from the time we were both two all the way through college. I was the wedding planner and the maid of honor for her first wedding, but no, I don’t get invited to the parties or the charity events she gets invited to. I don’t belong to her country club, and her friends still aren’t my friends.”
“So the odds that you and I have been at the same place at the same time are slim,” he finished for her. “And it isn’t that I’ve overlooked the unoverlookable.”
“Unoverlookable—should I add that to my dating profiles?” she joked.
He laughed. “You say that as if you have a lot of those.”
Whoops. She was aware that she’d already done more talking about herself than she probably should have—the man just seemed to draw her out and he was an extremely good listener. But she didn’t have any intention of telling him about her husband-hunting past on top of it.
“Oh, yeah, I have dozens of dating profiles,” she answered so facetiously it sounded as if it was a lie.
“Well, by all means add unoverlookable. Because you are.” He was watching her intently and his expression said that he was enjoying the view. Then, in a more intimate tone, he said, “And I’m reasonably sure that if I’d ever run into you before I would have remembered. You’re unoverlookable, noteworthy and unforgettable....”
Vonni laughed in embarrassment at the accolades and felt the need to make light of it. “Uh-huh, that’s me, all right. Everyone says so.”
“They should because it’s true,” he said sincerely. Then his ruminative smile became a grin and he said, “And you blush nicely, too—I don’t run into that much in my circles....”
Vonni felt the heat in her face but hoped it wasn’t showing. “Maybe I’m allergic to something we ate.”
He laughed an appreciative laugh, and that just added to her flush. Plus it didn’t help that Dane’s eyes remained on her, studying her as if he were cataloging what he liked. All she could think to do was get back to business.
“So...” she said in a more professional tone. “I need to have a look at the house where the wedding reception is being held to get an idea of the layout, where it’s best to set tables and chairs, what will work for the flow of things. It’ll be at your grandmother’s house, right?”
“Right. Where I grew up,” he answered with some amusement in his tone that told her he knew she was using the change of subject as a dodge. But he cooperated anyway and said, “How about tomorrow?”
“The sooner the better,” Vonni told him. “But I have overlapping weddings tomorrow—one at eleven in the morning and another, much bigger one at two that will keep me busy until at least seven tomorrow night—”
“I told you I was at your disposal, so whatever works for you—we can do it after the second wedding tomorrow night.”
“Could we do it at eight—just to be safe?” she asked as if she were stretching a boundary.
“Sure,” he answered without hesitation.
“At least with your grandmother out of town it shouldn’t disturb anyone.”
“Actually, Margaret and Louie are there but they won’t mind. I’ll call and warn them we’re coming.”
“More family?”
“Family, yes, but not related. Margaret and Louie Haliburton. They live there and take care of the place inside and out, but they’ve worked for GiGi for so long they’ve become her best friends, and we all consider them family. So much so that rather than play favorites by choosing among the grandchildren, GiGi asked Margaret to be her matron of honor, and Louie is giving the bride away—that’s how close they are.”
“That’s nice,” Vonni said, but at the same time thinking that Mrs. Burke would never have included Vonni’s mother that way, and about the fight Chrystal had had with her parents to have Vonni as Chrystal’s attendant at her first wedding. They’d considered it unseemly regardless of how close Chrystal and Vonni were.
“So if you have a morning wedding, you probably want to get home,” Dane said, sounding guilty. “I shouldn’t have kept you here talking.”
“It was me doing all the talking,” she pointed out.
“At least let me help you clean up and I’ll walk you out to your car so you don’t have to go into that dark parking lot by yourself.”
She wished she could take him up on his thoughtful offer. But she couldn’t.
“Thanks, but I have more work to do tonight before I can head home. Two weddings means two sets of last-minute details to check on.”
“Is there anything I can do to help? How about if I clean this up while you handle your details?”
Vonni appreciated his consideration but she couldn’t let her client—a Camden—essentially act like her janitor.
“Absolutely not. I’ll probably let this all wait until morning, and just get to the other things I need to accomplish before I can go home,” she lied, having every intention of not leaving tonight until the place was clean.
“You’re sure there’s nothing I can do? I am the one who heaped another wedding on you when you’re already booked....”
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“No, honestly. But thanks, anyway.”
He stood then—tall and lean and broad-shouldered, looking too good in his casual-Friday khakis and buttercream-colored shirt to say good-night to.
Which was all the more reason to do it, she told herself as she walked him to the front of the shop and unlocked the door to let him out.
“I’ll text you GiGi’s address and the directions to the house,” he said as Vonni opened the door and leaned against it to hold it for him. “I’ll be there to meet you, but don’t worry if something happens and you can’t make it right at eight. I’ll wait.”
“I’ll let you know if I’m going to be any later.”
“And how about dinner? I could order something in or we could go somewhere when you’re finished checking out the place—I want to feed you since I’m extending your day.”
“My caterers usually provide the staff with food to keep us all going—not what’s being served at the wedding, but sandwiches and things. So I’ll probably have eaten.”
He nodded and for no reason Vonni could understand it hit her all over again how strikingly handsome he was.
“Okay, then...” He seemed to be stalling as he studied her once more with those intensely blue eyes. “Try not to work too hard tomorrow....”
“Tomorrow is what all the work is for, and I’ll just be orchestrating and overseeing,” she said, not sure if she was making sense.
Because suddenly she was really only thinking about Dane and the pure magnetism he exuded.
And how truly fabulous his lips were.
Suddenly she was really only wondering if he was as good with them as she’d heard....
No, no, no! Not the kissing thoughts again!
She tried to curb them but he was standing very close in front of her, looking down at her with those deep blue eyes, and they were just so...in position....
Then he reached a hand to her upper arm, to the skin left bare by the cap sleeves of her white summer shirtwaist dress.
And he used that hand—big and warm and strong—to give her a little squeeze....
A Camden Family Wedding Page 7