Cara Colter - The Wedding Planner's Big Day

Drew was just not sure who would think of Allie Ambrosia as the underdog. He may have been frustrated about his inability to read his future sister-in-law, but neither sensitive nor sweet would have made his short list of descriptive adjectives. Though they probably would have for Becky, even after such a short acquaintance.

Allie? Brilliant, maybe. Though if she was it had not shown in her vocabulary. Still, he’d been aware of the possibility of great cunning. She had seemed to Drew to be able to play whatever role she wanted, the real person, whoever and whatever that was, hidden behind eyes so astonishingly emerald he’d wondered if she enhanced the color with contact lenses.

He’d come away from Allie frustrated. He had agreed to build some things for the damn wedding, hoping, he supposed, that this seeming capitulation to his brother’s plans would open the door to communication between them and he could talk some sense into Joe.

He’d have his chance tomorrow. Today, he could unabashedly probe the secrets of the woman his brother had decided to marry.

“And you would know Allie is sensitive and brilliant and sweet, why?” he asked Becky, trying not to let on just how pleased he was to have found someone who actually seemed to know Allie.

“We went to school together.”

Better still. Someone who knew Allie before she’d caught her big break playing Peggy in a sleeper of a movie called Apple Mountain.

“Allie Ambrosia grew up in Moose Run, Michigan?” He prodded her along. “That is not in the official biography.”

He thought Becky was going to clam up, careful about saying anything about her boss and old school chum, but her need to defend won out.

“Her Moose Run memories may not be her fondest ones,” Becky offered, a bit reluctantly.

“I must say Allie has come a long way from Moose Run,” he said.

“How do you know? How well do you know Allie?”

“I admit I’m assuming, since I hardly know her at all,” Drew said. “This is what I know. She’s had a whirlwind relationship with my little brother, who is building a set on one of her movies. They’ve known each other weeks, not months. And suddenly they are getting married. It can’t last, and this is an awful lot of money and time and trouble to go to for something that can’t last.”

“You’re cynical,” she said, as if that was a bad thing.

“We can’t all come from Moose Run, Michigan.”

She squinted at him, not rising to defend herself, but staying focused on him, which made him very uncomfortable. “You are really upset that they are getting married.”

He wasn’t sure he liked that amount of perception. He didn’t say anything.

“Actually, I think you don’t like weddings, period.”

“What is this, a party trick? You can read my mind?” He intended it to sound funny, but he could hear a certain amount of defensiveness in his tone.

“So, it’s true then.”

“Big deal. Lots of men don’t like weddings.”

“Why is that?”

He frowned at her. He wanted to ferret out some facts about Allie, or talk about construction. He was comfortable talking about construction, even on an ill-conceived project like this. He was a problem solver. He was not comfortable discussing feelings, which an aversion to weddings came dangerously close to.

“They just don’t like them,” he said stubbornly. “Okay, I don’t like them.”

“I’m curious about who made you your brother’s keeper,” she said. “Shouldn’t your parents be talking to him about this?”

“Our parents are dead.”

When something softened in her face, he deliberately hardened himself against it.

“Oh,” Becky said quietly, “I’m so sorry. So you, as older brother, are concerned, and at the same time have volunteered to help out. That’s very sweet.”

“Let’s get something straight right now. There is nothing sweet about me.”

“So why did you agree to help at all?”

He shrugged. “Brothers help each other.”

Joe’s really upset by your reaction to our wedding, Allie had told him. If you agreed to head up the construction, he would see it was just an initial reaction of surprise and that of course you want what is best for your own brother.

Oh, he wanted what was best for Joe, all right. Something must have flashed across Drew’s face, because Becky’s brow lowered.

“Are you going to try to stop the wedding?” she asked suspiciously.

Had he telegraphed his intention to Allie, as well? “Joe’s all grown up, and capable of making up his own mind. But so am I. And it seems like a crazy, impulsive decision he’s made.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“You’d think he would have asked me what I thought,” Drew offered grimly.

A certain measure of pain escaped in that statement, and so he frowned at Becky, daring her to give him sympathy.

Thankfully, she did not even try. “Is this why I can’t have the pavilion? Are you trying to sabotage the whole thing?”

“No,” he said curtly. “I’ll do what I can to give my brother and his beloved a perfect day. If he comes to his senses before then—” He lifted a shoulder.

“If he changes his mind, that would be a great deal of time and money down the tubes,” Becky said.

Drew lifted his shoulder again. “I’m sure you would still get paid.”

“That’s hardly the point!”

“It’s the whole point of running a business.” He glanced at her and sighed. “Please don’t tell me you do it for love.”

Love.

Except for what he felt for his brother, his world was comfortably devoid of that pesky emotion. He was sorry he’d even mentioned the word in front of Becky English.

CHAPTER THREE

“SINCE YOU BROUGHT it up,” Becky said solemnly, “I got the impression from Allie that she and your brother are head over heels in love with one another.”

“Humph.” There was no question his brother was over the moon, way past the point where he could be counted on to make a rational decision. Allie was more difficult to interpret. Allie was an actress. She pretended for a living. It seemed to Drew his brother’s odds of getting hurt were pretty good.

“Joe could have done worse,” Becky said, quietly. “She’s a beautiful, successful woman.”

“Yeah, there’s that.”

“There’s that cynicism again.”

Cynical. Yes, that described Drew Jordan to an absolute T. And he liked being around people who were as hard-edged as him. Didn’t he?

“Look, my brother is twenty-one years old. That’s a little young to be making this kind of decision.”

“You know, despite your barely contained scorn for Moose Run, Michigan, it’s a traditional place where they love nothing more than a wedding. I’ve planned dozens of them.”

Drew had to bite his tongue to keep from crushing her with a sarcastic Dozens?

“I’ve been around this for a while,” she continued. “Take it from me. Age is no guarantee of whether a marriage is going to work out.”

“He’s known her about eight weeks, as far as I can tell!” He was confiding his doubts to a complete stranger, which was not like him. It was even more unlike him to be hoping this wet-behind-the-ears country girl from Moose Run, Michigan, might be able to shed some light on his brother’s mysterious, flawed decision-making process. This was why he liked being around people as not sweet as himself. There was no probing of the secrets of life.

“That doesn’t seem to reflect on how the marriage is going to work out, either.”

“Well, what does then?”

“When I figure it out, I’m going to bottle it and sell it,” she said. There was that earnestness again. “But I’ve planned the weddings of lots of young people who are still together. Young people have big dreams and lots of energy. You need that to buy your first house and have your first baby, and juggle three jobs and—”

“Baby?” Drew said, horrified. “Is she pregnant?” That would explain his brother’s rush to the altar of love.

“I don’t think so,” Becky said.

“But you don’t know for certain.”

“It’s none of my business. Or yours. But even if she is, lots of those kinds of marriages make it, too. I’ve planned weddings for people who have known each other for weeks, and weddings for people who have known each other for years. I planned one wedding for a couple who had lived together for sixteen years. They were getting a divorce six months later. But I’ve seen lots of marriages that work.”

“And how long has your business been running?”

“Two years,” she said.

For some reason, Drew was careful not to be quite as sarcastic as he wanted to be. “So, you’ve seen lots that work for two years. Two years is hardly a testament to a solid relationship.”

“You can tell,” she said stubbornly. “Some people are going to be in love forever.”

Her tone sounded faintly wistful. Something uncomfortable shivered along his spine. He had a feeling he was looking at one of those forever kinds of girls. The kind who were not safe to be around at all.

Though it would take more than a sweet girl from Moose Run to penetrate the armor around his hard heart. He felt impatient with himself for the direction of his thoughts. Wasn’t it proof that she was already penetrating something since they were having this discussion that had nothing to do with her unrealistic building plans?

Drew shook off the feeling and fixed Becky with a particularly hard look.

“Sheesh, maybe you are a member of the Cinderella club, after all.”

“Despite the fact I run a company called Happily-Ever-After—”

He closed his eyes. “That’s as bad as Moose Run.”

“It is a great name for an event planning company.”

“I think I’m getting a headache.”

“But despite my company name, I have long since given up on fairy tales.”

He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Uh-huh,” he said, loading those two syllables with doubt.

“I have!”

“Lady, even before I heard the name of your company, I could tell that you have ‘I’m waiting for my prince to come’ written all over you.”

“I do not.”

“You’ve had a heartbreak.”

“I haven’t,” she said. She was a terrible liar.

“Maybe it wasn’t quite a heartbreak. A romantic disappointment.”

“Now who is playing the mind reader?”

“Aha! I was right, then.”

She glared at him.

“You’ll get over it. And then you’ll be in the prince market all over again.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m not him, by the way.”

“Not who?”

“Your prince.”

“Of all the audacious, egotistical, ridiculous—”

“Just saying. I’m not anybody’s prince.”

“You know what? It is more than evident you could not be mistaken for Prince Charming even if you had a crown on your head and tights and golden slippers!”

Now that he’d established some boundaries, he felt he could tease her just a little. “Please tell me you don’t like men who wear tights.”

“What kind of man I like is none of your business!”

“Correct. It’s just that we will be working in close proximity. My shirt has been known to come off. It has been known to make women swoon.” He smiled.

He was enjoying this way more than he had a right to, but it was having the desired effect, putting up a nice big wall between them, and he hadn’t even had to barge in the construction material to do it.

“I’m not just getting a headache,” she said. “I’ve had one since you marched through my door.”