As soon as she returned to her table, Anne wrote down all the details of her conversation with the potential new clients. Of course, if they really wanted to get married in three or four months, she might not be able to take them on. Her schedule was so full now she rarely got more than four or five hours of sleep every night of the week. Just about the only remnants of her personal life she hadn’t given up were church, Sunday dinners with the entire extended family, and Thursday night dinners out at Jenn’s restaurant with the cousins.
In five years, her business had gone from operating out of the second bedroom of her apartment to allowing her to lease a storefront on Town Square. Six months ago, she’d purchased the Victorianturned-triplex, where she’d lived in the second-floor apartment for nearly five years. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined she’d be so successful. Of course, the article about her in Southern Bride back in January had helped.
Satisfied vindication filled her. Her ex-fiancé might have taken her for all she was worth ten years ago, but she’d still been able to get out of debt and make something of herself.
Good grief. Why did she still feel she had something to prove to him? Just because she’d supported him until he’d become a megamovie star whose photo graced the front cover of every gossip magazine and tabloid known to man. Just because she’d dropped out of graduate school to go to work full-time to be able to send him rent money out in Los Angeles—
“Here you go.”
She jumped at the sound of the waiter’s voice and quickly closed her planner and put it on the floor. “Thank you. It looks wonderful.”
“Enjoy.”
Pushing aside the memories of her first and worst relationship, Anne determined to enjoy her meal and not let the past interfere with the present. The only thing she could do was make sure she never let another man use her and dump her again. She deserved better.
As she savored each bite of the eggplant roulade, she let her gaze wander across the restaurant to make sure she didn’t miss seeing or speaking to anyone else she knew. Casual conversations with acquaintances could turn into referrals. At the sight of her cousin Forbes, with his dark good looks, halfway across the room, she paused. Women young and old turned to cast admiring glances in his direction.
Who was he with? Seated, the other man appeared to be about the same height as Forbes with a more slender but still athletic build, while his slightly too-large nose and sharp chin gave him a distinct profile.
Something stirred inside Anne that she hadn’t felt in a long time— interest. He wasn’t conventionally handsome—nothing compared to her cousin—but the way his sharp features softened when he smiled at the waitress created a tingling sensation in her stomach that she hadn’t felt since high school. He had medium-brown hair but looked like he was graying a bit at the temples, adding a distinguished air. She should go over and speak to Forbes so she could meet this handsome stranger. But if they hadn’t tried setting her up with him, he might be married—
“Is everything okay with your dinner?” The waiter replaced her half-full glass of soda with a fresh one.
“It’s lovely, thank you. My compliments to the chef. There’s just no way I can eat such a generous serving in one sitting.”
“I understand. Can I get you another box?”
“Yes, please. And if you can go ahead and bring my check, I’d appreciate it.”
“Yes, ma’am. Can I interest you in a dessert to go? Tiramisu, maybe?”
She smiled and shook her head. “I’ll have to pass.”
In a few minutes, she boxed up the remaining half of her meal, all the while keeping tabs on Forbes’s table to make sure they didn’t leave before she managed to get over there or catch his eye. She left enough cash in the black folder with the receipt to cover a generous tip and picked up her purse, planner, and to-go boxes.
She crossed the room, stopping twice to speak to acquaintances and see baby pictures or leave a few business cards for any newly engaged couples they might know. Keeping her attention anywhere but on the handsome stranger proved difficult. She must learn his identity.
When she drew near, Forbes glanced in her direction. “Here’s someone you should meet,” he said to his dinner companion. Forbes stood to draw her into a hug, his grin creasing the corners of his grayish blue eyes.
“Hey. I didn’t want to interrupt, but I couldn’t just leave without stopping to speak to you.” She turned and smiled at the stranger, who’d also stood. He was a couple of inches taller than she, but more slender than the men she usually found attractive. She gazed into eyes the color of light-roast cinnamon hazelnut coffee, and her heart fluttered. Fluttered! Like some addlepated schoolgirl.
She regained control of her senses and extended her right hand. “Good evening. I’m Anne Hawthorne.”
His grasp was firm, his skin soft. He worked indoors, probably at the law firm with Forbes. Then why hadn’t she met him at the office Christmas party?
“George Laurence, ma’am, at your service.”
Tingles danced up and down her spine. A British accent! She’d always dreamed of marrying a man with a British accent.
Get ahold of yourself, girl! You’re thirty-five years old, not some starry-eyed teenager. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Laurence. So how do you know Forbes?”
The Englishman cleared his throat and looked at her cousin. She frowned.
Forbes rested his hand on her shoulder. “George… represents someone I work with.”
Hopefully he wasn’t in town briefly for a trial or something like that. “So you’re a lawyer, too, Mr. Laurence?”
“Not exactly.” Had he grimaced? Frowned? Grinned? The expression was there and gone before she could be certain.
“It’s complicated, Anne.” Forbes squeezed her shoulder. “I thought you were waiting on someone, or we would have asked you to join us. How was your dinner, by the way?”
Okay, obviously this guy was working on some case that was so confidential they couldn’t even discuss it in front of her. “The food was great. I hadn’t planned on eating alone tonight, but you know, ‘the best-laid plans…’ ” Her cheeks burned as she was conscious of George Laurence standing next to her. Time to try to make a graceful exit. “Well, I’d best be going. As I said, I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“George, if you’ll excuse me for a minute, I’d like to walk Anne out to her car.” Forbes herded her toward the front door, stopping with alacrity, although only for a moment, when a family acquaintance recognized them. On the way past the hostess stand, Anne took one more peek at George Laurence, now sitting by himself at the table. Handsome, British, and at least six foot two.
She bit her bottom lip to contain her grin and braced herself for the heat as the air-conditioning chased them out the door. “Why haven’t I ever met him before?”
“Because he just arrived in town today.” Forbes tucked her left hand under the crook of his elbow, then took her food boxes and planner. “All kidding aside, what happened with your date, Annie?”
“I don’t know. I was running a few minutes late, and when I arrived, he wasn’t here. After I’d been here awhile, I called to check to see when he was coming, and some gal at his office told me he’d gotten called in for a breaking news story. So I had dinner by myself—” Her left heel caught in a crack in the cement parking lot and the shoe twisted out from under her. Thank goodness for Forbes’s supporting arm, or she would have fallen face-first onto the pavement—which would have been a fitting end to a night like this.
“Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.”
“He left word that he’d call me tomorrow.” She stopped at her car, pressing the unlock button on her key-fob remote, and took her food and planner from her cousin. Forbes opened the door for her, and she ducked in to set her things atop a stack of files on the passenger seat. She narrowly missed hitting her head on the door frame as she stood. “Of course, I can’t imagine why he’d rather go out with me and not with Jenn.”
Forbes placed his hands on her cheeks and pulled her close to kiss her forehead. “Because you are a beautiful and interesting woman, Anne. Any man would be lucky to have you. If we weren’t related—” He waggled his well-groomed eyebrows.
She groaned. “Forbes! I really wish you’d stop saying that. It’s bad enough that half your coworkers think I’m your wife because you take me to every office party.” If they weren’t related, he’d never have given her a second glance. Not someone as good looking and popular as he’d always been. Of course, she had somehow been noticed by—
No. She’d already determined not to think about that tonight. That part of her life was long over and done with. “Tell me about this George guy.”
“He’s not for you, Anne.”
“I didn’t notice a wedding ring.”
“No.” Forbes ran his fingers through his short, dark auburn hair.
She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. Forbes never touched his hair for fear of messing it up.
“Just take my word for it. He’s—not available.”
“Oh, so he’s—” She stopped when he pressed his fingers to her lips.
“Not available. Leave it at that, please?” He kissed her forehead again. “Now, go home and get some rest. I’m sure you have a very busy day tomorrow.”
“Rest?” She kept from snorting as a rueful laugh escaped, but just barely. “Do you see the stack of file folders on the passenger seat? It’s a wedding weekend, honey. I wouldn’t have taken the time to do more than pick something up at Rotier’s on my way home tonight if Jenn hadn’t insisted I go out with—” She snapped her fingers, her mind drawing a blank on her no-show date’s name.
“Danny?” Forbes prompted.
“Yes. With Danny.” She opened the car door. “Oh, and Forbes?”
“Yes?”
“Should your friend George ever become not not available, you’ll let me know, right?”
“You’ll definitely be the first person I’ll tell. Good night, Anne.”
She waved as he walked away, then got in the car and put the top down to enjoy the evening air.
Whatever Forbes meant by “not available,” God hadn’t let her cross paths with George Laurence for no reason. For the first time in her life, she wasn’t just going to take Forbes’s word.
George sipped his water. Anne Hawthorne. Something about her just wouldn’t let him be. She was pretty, yes. Tall for a woman, with a striking figure as well. But he’d met hundreds, perhaps thousands of beautiful women in his life. No, it was something in the expression of her eyes—something real that he wasn’t used to seeing.
Setting his goblet back on the table, he took a deep breath and blew it out. Lord, how did I get rooked into this scheme? I only signed the first contract five years ago because it ensured me a work visa and job security. This is the first time since then I’ve truly resented anything my employer has asked me to do. How can I live a life pleasing to You if I’m practicing deception? Yet how can I refuse when it means going back to England? If You can just get me through the next seventeen months until I can apply for citizenship—
The chair across the table scraped against the ceramic tiles. George conjured a smile for Forbes. How did this man know Anne Hawthorne?
“Sorry about that. Dessert?”
George declined. “You know the wedding planner well, then?”
“The—Anne? Yes, I’ve known her all my life. She’s my cousin.”
His cousin. George kept his grin in check. Whether she was his cousin or his sweetheart shouldn’t matter. She was still beyond his reach. The contract addendum litigated that. Maybe once his employer revealed the truth at the engagement party…
But by then, George would have been lying to this woman for more than a month. She would hate him, and her hatred would be well deserved. By then, he would probably hate himself as well.
To keep from dwelling on such thoughts, he turned his attention to his dinner companion. “When will the plumbing be repaired so Mrs. Agee and I can move into the house?”
“A few days more—probably next Monday or Tuesday. When does Miss Landry arrive?”
“Sunday evening. She has planned to lodge with a childhood friend while in town.”
“Good.” Forbes folded his napkin and laid it beside his empty plate. “Although it’s not generally known who owns the house, it’s better if she is seen only with and around people she’s known all her life. Less suspicion will be raised that way.”
“Would it be better if I stayed elsewhere?” Although he loathed the idea of spending the next five weeks in a hotel, better that than reveal his employer’s secret before the time of his employer’s choosing.
“No. I think you’ll be fine staying out there. The rumor around town is that the property was purchased by a wealthy out-of-towner, and you’ll serve as the mysterious, eccentric new owner for the time being.”
“Does Mrs. Agee know—?”
“Who her real employer is? No. She signed a contract with a confidentiality clause, but we felt at this time she didn’t have a need to know. When the time is right, she’ll be informed.”
George nodded at the waitress to take his dinner plate and waved off the dessert menu. “And Ms. Hawthorne? If she were to sign a confidentiality agreement?”
“No.” Forbes’s expression became courtroom-caliber serious. “She is not to be told until the day of the engagement party. I don’t—she doesn’t need to know you aren’t Courtney Landry’s fiancé. Of course, that means you will have to handle some details yourself.”
Some details? George nearly laughed at the understatement. How was Anne Hawthorne supposed to pull together an engagement party when seeing the invite list might tip her off as to the true identity of her client? And what about the invitation itself? It couldn’t have the name George Laurence on it. He’d have to do that, too. The more he thought about the event, the more tasks he discovered would fall to him to accomplish.
At least the next few weeks wouldn’t be boring.
As she climbed the back stairs to her apartment, Anne juggled her duffel bag, attaché case, purse, stack of files, and the cup of gourmet coffee she’d stopped for on the way home. As soon as she dropped everything but the coffee cup on the kitchen table, she realized she’d left the food in the car.
She jogged back downstairs, retrieved it, and went up to the apartment on the third floor where, as she expected, the door was unlocked. In the dark kitchen, she found a grease pencil in a junk drawer, wrote a note on the lid of the top Styrofoam box, and put them both in Jenn’s refrigerator.
Back in her own apartment, she turned on the computer in the guest bedroom, started the music media software, and filled the apartment with the dulcet tones of crooners such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Kay Starr, and her favorite of all, Dean Martin.
Singing along with Dean’s “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head,” she returned to the kitchen and retrieved her mail from the floor where Jenn or Meredith had slid it under her back door.
She’d be surprised if George Laurence was any younger than forty.
Astonished by the wayward thought, warmth washed over her at the memory of the intensity of his gaze earlier.
Since her broken engagement ten years ago, every time she’d felt the least attracted to a man, her internal alarms had gone off. She trusted the instincts born of experience to keep her from being hurt again. But the entire time she’d stood there talking to George Laurence, all she’d felt was a profound sense of interest in getting to know him better.
God, what are You trying to tell me? Is he the one? Is this finally the answer to my prayer for a husband?
No answer came to her over the soft warbling of Frank Sinatra crooning “The Coffee Song.” The fact that her mind had instantly jumped to wondering if George Laurence was her future husband did bother her a bit. After everything she’d been through, the desire to maintain her independence—as a person and as a professional— kept her working eighteen to twenty hours nearly every day. Yet deep down, she just wanted to fall in love with someone and experience his falling in love with her in return. Not wanting anything from her, just loving her.
George Laurence seemed like the kind of man who had everything together. His expensive suit and shoes, grooming, and impeccable manners stood as proof of an established man comfortable with himself and those around him. So many of the men she’d gone out with at her cousins’ behest were still trying to “find” themselves, even into their late thirties or early forties, and wanted to be with a woman who would have a stabilizing influence on them.
Anne, however, didn’t want that kind of turmoil in her life. She wanted a man who knew what he wanted out of life, a man comfortable with himself, and with simple tastes—classic music and movies, dining out—who didn’t mind the hours she put into her business.
Her phone chirped the Pink Panther theme. She unclipped it, flipped it open, and pressed it to her ear. “I wondered when you were going to call.”
Meredith laughed. “I didn’t figure you’d be home any earlier than now, but if you were still on your date and having a good time, you wouldn’t answer. So?”
She filled her cousin in on the evening, and by the time she got to seeing Forbes, she heard Meredith’s SUV pull up the driveway. Although she trusted her completely, something kept Anne from telling her about how she felt when she met George Laurence. Anne wasn’t sure herself what her feelings meant. She needed time to pray…and time to get to know him better.
“Do you want to come up for a few minutes?” Anne asked, crossing to the kitchen window that overlooked the carport.
“You working tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“Just for a minute, then—Jenn sent some peach cobbler for you.”
Anne opened the door and closed the phone. Meredith Guidry’s strawberry blond head came into sight in the dim stairwell. Anne met her on the landing and accepted a plastic tub of the still-warm dessert while leaning forward to kiss Meredith’s cheek.
“Did y’all have fun tonight?” She ushered Meredith into the kitchen.
“Turned out to be just Jenn, Jason, Rafe, and me. Seems it was a big night to have other plans. How much work do you have left to do tonight?”
“A few hours. What was Rafe’s big announcement?” Anne closed the door and leaned against the kitchen cabinet. Meredith, Forbes, and Jenn’s younger brother piloted the private jets owned by their parents’ commercial real estate and investment corporation.
“He took a job with Charter Air as a senior pilot or something like that. He said he wanted to do more flying and less paperwork— Daddy had him working in the capital ventures office when he wasn’t flying. Since Mama and Daddy aren’t traveling as much, they decided to sell off the two company jets and sign a contract with this charter service.”
Anne’s stomach churned at the thought of flying.
“Of course, that means Rafe will be gone a lot more now,” Meredith continued. “Most of his flights will be single-day round-trips, but occasionally he’ll be gone overnight. He’s going to get to fly bigger planes, too. Not the big commercial planes, but the kind that carry about thirty passengers—”
Bile rose in the back of Anne’s throat, and clamminess spread over her skin. That was the same size plane…
“Oh, Annie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to remind you of— here.” Meredith pulled over one of the tall, ladder-back chairs from the table. “Sit down and put your head between your knees.”
Anne sank into the chair, drew a few deep breaths, and tried to smile. “I’m okay. It’s been a long time since I’ve had that kind of reaction just from someone talking about planes.”
“You sure you’re okay?” Meredith crossed the kitchen, took a glass out of the cabinet, filled it with water from the refrigerator door, and handed it to Anne.
Anne sipped it and pressed the cold glass to her forehead. “I guess I’m just tired. You’d think after twenty-seven years and thousands of hours of therapy, I’d be over the fear.”
Meredith gave her a sympathetic smile and rested her hand on Anne’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
Patting Meredith’s hand, Anne set the glass on the table and rose, her knees not too weak to support her. “I know you are. If you talk to Rafe before Sunday, tell him congrats from me.”
“I will. Good night, Anne.”
“Sweet dreams, Mere.”
Shutting the door behind her cousin, Anne took a few more deep breaths and tried to put the images and sensations from a lifetime ago out of her head. The best way was to concentrate on something else.
Work.
For the next two hours, she focused on entering data into the software her cousin Jason had written for her to help with organizing seating arrangements at events, then moved on to making lists of everything that needed to happen in the next forty-eight hours— not just for the wedding on Saturday, but for weddings coming up in the next few weeks as well.
Why was George Laurence in town, and why was Forbes being so secretive about it?
She shook her head and returned her attention to the half-finished checklist on her computer screen—and saw she’d typed George Laurence’s name. She deleted it and continued working, only to have the memory of their brief encounter pop up when least expected.
At 2:00 a.m., she finished the last list, saved everything, e-mailed the files to herself at work, and shut down her computer. When she finally climbed into bed, she grabbed her burgundy fabric–covered prayer journal and fountain pen filled with purple ink from the nightstand:
June 1—Lord, I know there’s a reason why You had me meet George Laurence tonight. I’ve never felt this way about any other man I’ve only just met. Could he be the one You’ve had me waiting on for so long? I don’t know what Forbes meant by “not available,” but I do intend to find out. You showed me tonight that I need to take that first step on my road to my own happy ending. Thank You, Lord, for the confirmation I’ve made the right decision.
She set the journal aside and pulled out her worn, black leather Bible, flipping it open to where the ribbon held her place from this morning. She’d read the twenty-seventh Psalm many times in her life, but this night, the last two verses stuck in her mind: I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord.
She closed her eyes and cleared her mind. “Lord, I’ve been waiting for a very long time. Please let this be the answer to my prayer. Let George Laurence be the one.”