By Wednesday, George started to relax. No news of the engagement or wedding had appeared in the celebrity press. Cliff had announced he’d be giving a press conference in Bonneterre on Friday, and a private service had been contracted to provide security that night since Cliff didn’t want the local police brought in. Courtney would arrive tomorrow, ostensibly to attend a friend’s wedding.
“George, dude, what is up with you tonight?” Rafe’s voice brought him back to the present—the Fishin’ Shack, where Anne’s cousins had gathered for dinner a night earlier than usual so both Anne and George could attend this week.
“Sorry. I’ve lots on my mind tonight. What did I miss?”
“We were wondering where Anne is. We thought she was coming with you.”
“She had a last-minute meeting with a client. Something about a dress fitting. She assured me she would arrive by seven.” George glanced at his watch. She was nearly twenty minutes late. “Obviously the meeting ran longer than she expected.”
The restaurant’s back room partially muffled the sound of the large dinner crowd in the main dining room. Jenn fluttered in with a couple of baskets of the fried balls of seasoned cornmeal they called hush puppies. When he’d asked about the name last week, Jenn had spun a tale about Southern soldiers in the American Civil War feeding bits of fried meal to their dogs to “hush” them from giving their position away to the enemy.
He’d researched it that night on the Internet and hadn’t found a more definitive answer—just a few other tall tales. Whatever their origin, he enjoyed Jenn’s version of the savory pastry, even though cornmeal didn’t rank high on his list of favorite flavors or textures.
“You gonna try something different tonight, sugar?” Jenn asked, resting her hand on his shoulder. “I’m proud that a real Englishman likes my fish ’n’ chips so much, but…”
He closed the menu and handed it to her. “I’ll make you a deal, ducky. Bring me your favorite dish—on or off the menu.”
The delighted gleam in Jenn’s eyes amused him. “Oh, George, we’re going to have so much fun teaching you to suck crawfish heads!” She left the room without taking anyone else’s order.
“George, you’re going to get a trial by fire tonight of what it means to be in Louisiana.” Jason watched Jenn as she flitted from table to table.
“My dear fellow, you forget that I am British. I’ve eaten haggis in Edinburgh and jellied eels in London. I’ve also traveled extensively and eaten so-called delicacies ranging from insects to parts of animals that were never meant to be eaten. Crawfish presents no challenge I cannot overcome.”
The expression on Jason’s face said he believed otherwise, but the young man held his tongue.
“Hey, y’all. Sorry I’m late.” Anne slid into the vacant chair beside George before he could stand and offer his assistance. Although smiling, the tight lines around her eyes betrayed her heightened stress level.
“Did everything work out all right?” Forbes, on her other side, put his arm around her.
Anne blew out a long breath and rolled her neck from side to side. “No. I’m taking the bride dress-shopping next week. She decided she didn’t want to pay the dress shop to alter her gown and instead asked a coworker to do it. Unfortunately, the coworker didn’t measure correctly, and rather than leave extra fabric to make corrections with, she trimmed all of her seams down to less than a quarter of an inch. Now the dress is too tight and too short and can’t be let back out. I know. I tried.” She rubbed her forehead, then reached into her purse and withdrew a small bottle of aspirin. “George, may I?” She pointed at his water.
He handed his glass to her. “How will she afford to purchase a new dress if she couldn’t afford to pay for alterations to the first one?”
Anne swallowed two pills with a big gulp of the water with no ice. “I can’t tell you. It’ll make Forbes mad.”
Why would Forbes care how one of Anne’s clients paid for a dress?
“Please tell me you’re not letting her take it out of your final fee.” Forbes’s voice had a growl to it that didn’t sit well with George. How Anne conducted her business was just that—her own business. Yet who was he to step between her and her cousin?
“If I don’t tell you, will you let the matter drop?” She sounded tired—defeated.
“Anne, the contract you sign with your clients is as much for your protection as it is for theirs. I drew it up specifically to make sure that if something went awry, you would still be paid. The more you do this, the more people are going to hear and take advantage of you.”
She rested her fists against the edge of the table. George wished there was some way he could help. Without knowing her any better than he did, he wasn’t sure if she would see any action or words on his part as support or as butting in.
“Forbes, I know for you, as a lawyer, this is going to be hard to understand. My client’s happiness matters more to me than if I get paid next Saturday or if I get paid in miniscule installments for the next six months. It’s not as if I’m hurting for income now like I was a few years ago. This girl is a nursing student who works part-time as a waitress.” As she talked, her voice got softer, her words faster. “She’s already spent more money on the wedding than I advised because she’s trying to make both mothers happy, even though they’ve refused to pay for anything. What should I tell her, Forbes? What?” She shrugged and held her hands up toward him. “Should I tell her she should just wear her next-best dress? Maybe see if she can borrow a friend’s old wedding gown? Tell me. You apparently know better than I do how to run my business.”
Stunned silence filled the room. Jason and Rafe stared at Anne, mouths agape. Jenn dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her napkin, moved to emotion either by Anne’s story or by the conflict between her cousin and older brother. Meredith glared daggers at Forbes. George suppressed a smile, proud of Anne for taking a stand.
Forbes cleared his throat. “Anne, I apologize. It’s not my place to lecture you on how you run your business. I know if you wanted legal advice, you’d come to me. I just don’t want to see you lose that business because you let clients overspend their budgets and then not pay you.”
“I have never had a client not pay me everything due, including my fee. Sometimes it just takes longer.” She rested her hand on her cousin’s arm. “How do you think I got as successful as I am? Not because I was a hardnose about people paying me every penny the moment I thought it should be paid. My brides recommend me to their friends because I’m willing to work with them and do what it takes to make their weddings the most joyous events of their lives. I’m so sad for this young woman because the happiness that she should be feeling this week has been overwhelmed by the fact that she made an error in judgment and her dress was ruined. Forbes, what if it were Mere or Jenn or Marci or Tiffani? I can be a blessing to this girl, show her the true generosity of Christ’s love, and maintain my integrity and my conscience. We’ve already worked out a payment plan that she can afford.”
Forbes rested his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her close to kiss her temple. “I am so happy you never decided to become a criminal defense lawyer.”
Lafitte’s Landing echoed with the hushed tones of student workers late Thursday afternoon. Anne dropped her duffel bag on the floor just inside the main ballroom. Her cousins Kevin, Jonathan, and Bryan and several of their friends approached her.
“Thanks for coming, guys. Here’s the deal. Within the next couple of hours, I expect several deliveries of large items. I’ll need y’all to help unload the trucks and bring everything in. Once it’s all here, then we’ll worry about where it goes. Any questions?”
“Yeah—what time’s dinner?” Bryan elbowed one of his friends and winked.
“Pizza. Six o’clock. On me.” Even though she was paying them to be here, college boys couldn’t go but an hour or two without eating. Instant gratification to keep them happy until they received their paychecks next week. “Oh, and there’s a big ice chest full of sodas in my car if one of you will go out and get that.”
Footsteps reverberated from the tiled entry. She tingled from blond hair to pedicured toenails. George strolled in, twirling his key ring around one finger. How could she not have noticed his muscular physique before? His snug, heather gray T-shirt clung to the contours of his shoulders, chest, and upper arms as if he should be on a TV commercial for exercise equipment. His worn-in jeans looked like they’d been tailored to fit. He’d had his hair trimmed since she last saw him, and his milk chocolate eyes sparkled when their gazes met. He had no right to look so utterly sensuous when she was trying to maintain a safe emotional distance.
“Hello! Delivery!”
Anne jerked out of her trance at the shout from the opposite end of the building. She grinned at George. “Looks like you timed your arrival perfectly.”
His forced frown couldn’t quite draw down the corners of his perfectly shaped lips. “And here I’d hoped I’d missed all the manual labor and would be able to stand back and direct.”
“Nope. That’s my job.” With a sweeping motion of her arm, she invited him to join the boys, who trooped toward the service entrance. “What was it you said earlier this morning on the phone about doing whatever I need you to do?”
“You thought I was serious?” He tucked his hands into his pockets and rocked from heel to toe.
That dangerous grin of his nearly dismantled her resolve. “ ‘Deadly serious,’ if I recall correctly.”
His laughter filled the cavernous room…and her heart. “You’ve got me there. I’d best go see where I can lend a hand, then.”
To keep from watching him walk across the room, she turned to her bag and withdrew several CDs. She’d gotten keys to everything in the building from Meredith, including the cabinet containing the sound system components. She dropped five discs into the CD changer, switched on the surround sound, and enveloped the hall with the classic tunes and sultry vocals of Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Dick Haymes, Bing Crosby, and Nat King Cole.
“Annie, these are so cool.” Jonathan and three of his buddies grasped the corners of an enormous board. She’d gone through thousands of stock photos of Mardi Gras to find images that would add ambience. Each had been enlarged, cut into four pieces, and mounted to twelve-feet-wide-by-eight-feet-high boards and would cover the walnut paneling of the room, stacked two high.
“They should be numbered on the back, so put the face against the wall.” She directed them toward the far corner as George and the other three boys carried in another.
“What’s this music?” one of the boys asked, but a sound pelting from her three cousins stopped him from further comment.
“Guys, I’ll tell you what I’ve told these three.” Anne put her arm around the shoulder of the boy who’d asked and drew the others in with her gaze. “If you really want to woo a woman, don’t play any of that hip-hop, R&B junk. Show her you have style. That you appreciate the finer things in life—like the classics. This is the most romantic music in the world. And it’s a lot easier to dance to.”
“Don’t laugh,” Jonathan chimed in. “It really works. How d’you think I got Kelli to go out with me?”
Anne laughed with them as they trooped out to bring in the next two boards. She pulled out the diagrams she’d composed with the designer, along with her measuring tape.
“Looking for a carpenter?” A woman about ten years Anne’s elder entered, juggling two-by-fours more than twice her height.
“Hey, Pamela! The pictures look fantastic.” Anne reached for the end of the boards. “I’ll help you bring the rest of this in.”
“Nah, Trevor came with me to help. You just get to marking where everything goes, and I’ll get to work on these brackets.”
Following the measurements on the chart, Pamela and her husband installed the mounting boards, which would be removed and the holes filled and stained to match the paneling afterward. They used an impressive arsenal of power tools and laser levels that shot a line all the way down the length of the room. Anne took the thumbnail printout of the pictures around and slapped the corresponding panel numbers up where she wanted them, using the high-tech tools of a Magic Marker and sticky notes.
She hummed along with the music, singing when she didn’t have to concentrate so hard.
The rented ironwork arrived as the last of the mural boards were unloaded. “Just stack those up there in front of the stage area. We have to get the pictures up before we can do anything with those.”
“I hope you’re going to take lots of pictures of this for your Web site, Annie.” Bryan kissed her on the cheek. “I can’t wait to see what it looks like all put together.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to see the photos.” George cuffed the younger man around the back of the neck and escorted him back out the door.
She frowned, trying to figure out what that comment meant. His employer was supposed to be media shy, given that he’d gone to great lengths to make sure his wedding planner didn’t know for whom she was working.
Her timer beeped at a quarter after five as she posted the last two numbers. Time to order pizza. She snagged her planner and phone and perched on top of the ice chest to call her favorite Italian restaurant. No fast-food pizza for this crew, with as hard as they were working.
She stood when George and the boys approached, pointing at the cooler. “What do y’all want on your pizza?” A cacophony of answers showered her and she reduced it down to one word: everything.
George fished his wallet out and handed her a credit card. “Expense account.”
Excellent. One less thing for her to have to keep track of. “Thanks.” With the boys’ chatter, Pamela and Trevor’s power tools, and the music, which the guys had turned up to hear over the rest, Anne stepped into the office and pulled the door closed behind her. She ordered from Giovanni’s all the time, and they always accommodated her, no matter the volume of food she needed.
When she opened the door, all she could hear was music and voices—no power tools. Hopefully Pamela hadn’t run into a problem. She hurried down the hall into the ballroom.
The seven college boys swayed back and forth, arms around each other’s shoulders, singing “That’s Amore” at the top of their lungs, doing their best to drown out Dean Martin. Pamela and Trevor Grant waltzed across the empty parquet floor, sawdust and all.
“See, that’s what I was talking about.” Anne had to raise her voice for the guys to hear her. “That’s romantic music.” She gasped when George grasped her hand, pulled her out onto the dance floor, and twirled her around.
“Yes, it is.” His breath tickled her ear as he drew her close and swung her around the room.
The grace she’d only had a taste of that afternoon when he’d surprised her in the supply room proved to be greater than she’d suspected. Heat burned through her T-shirt at the small of her back where he held her. Muscles rippled under the gray cotton fabric where her hand rested on his shoulder. Her trainers squeaked against the shiny wood floor.
Then he started to sing. No, not sing. Croon. Just like Dean Martin. Her knees wobbled. His gaze captured hers, and the rest of the world disappeared. The song ended, and he twirled her, then pulled her back into his arms and dipped her. Gently, he raised her until their noses almost touched.
His gaze dropped to her lips, and he swallowed hard. “We need to talk.” His voice cracked.
“Yes.” She allowed him to take her hand and used the silent walk to the office to regain her composure. Once inside the small room, she perched on the edge of the old wooden desk.
He closed the door and leaned against it. “Anne, there’s so much I want to say to you, but…”
“But you’re bound by your word to your employer not to.” She smiled. “I know I’ve put you in a difficult place by demanding that you be completely honest with me. I don’t expect you to tell me what you’ve sworn to keep secret.” She dropped her gaze to her clasped hands. “We all have secrets.” She had to tell him about Cliff. Before he found out from someone else. “Speaking of secrets, there’s something I need to tell you.” She glanced at him.
His relaxed posture encouraged her. “Anne, no matter what you tell me, it won’t change the way I feel about you.”
The way I feel about you…and that was? Her heart careened. Not what she was here to discuss with him. Focus! “Before we figure out what our relationship is, there’s something in my past you should know. I…” It was one thing to tell a family member. Quite a different thing to tell the man working his way into her affections. “I’ve told you I was engaged to be married a little more than ten years ago.”
His easy expression didn’t change, except for a slight raising of his dark brows. “I never expected you wouldn’t have broken relationships in your past.”
Oh, it had been broken, all right. “That’s not the whole story.” Trepidation coursed through her. “I was engaged to Cliff Ballantine. Back before he was ‘Cliff Ballantine.’ ”
“And?”
“And…” She shrugged. “I just thought you should hear it from me before someone else in the family slipped up and let it out.”
He nodded, seeming to contemplate her words. “May I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Do you still…have feelings for him?” He crossed his arms and leaned his head to the left.
“If contempt counts as having feelings for him, then yes. You know what happened—he took advantage of me and then left me in the lurch when he didn’t need me anymore.” At his silence, she dropped her gaze. Meredith had been right. The truth about her past upset him.
The tips of his athletic shoes appeared beside hers. He cupped her chin and raised her head. “Then he’s the biggest fool in the world.” He leaned forward and kissed her, his lips warm, soft, and electric.
Tears burned twin trails down her face. She touched his cheek, and he trembled. He raised his head, gave her another quick kiss, then pulled her into his arms. “Oh, I’ve wanted to do that for so long.”
Lightning bolted through her when he kissed the side of her neck. “I’ve wanted you to do that for a long time.” She stepped back. “But George, until I’ve figured out how to forgive Cliff, I’ll never be over him. I’ve been praying about it, but I just can’t seem to get over the anger.”
He took a tissue from the box on the desk and dried her face. “Perhaps if you talked to him.”
“Ha!” She shook her head. “There’s no way I’d ever be able to get in touch with him. He’s probably surrounded by people whose only job is to keep commoners like me away from him.”
George traced the contours of her face with his fingertips. “You’d be surprised what God can bring about.”
“You’re such an optimist.” She stepped back into his open arms and relaxed into his embrace. “The only way I’d be able to talk to Cliff Ballantine is if he were to walk through those doors.”
A sound rumbled in George’s chest. “Stranger things have happened.”