He flashed her a grin. “Touché.”
“Thank you. So you’re thinking a strong woman for Vidar?”
“I think that would work best with him. Not a cop. If she was on the force, he would have met her already. And a transfer seems too convenient. Not that it matters—I don’t like the idea of a work relationship. He wouldn’t do that.”
“What about someone he meets locally? He goes to that coffee shop by his apartment,” she said, trying to think of who else Vidar ran into regularly in the books. “She could work there, or have just moved to the neighborhood. They could accidentally grab each other’s to-go cups.”
Jasper looked surprised. “You’ve read my books?”
She laughed. “Of course I’ve read your books. You’re a local author and the only writer I’ve ever met. Why wouldn’t I read your books?”
“I didn’t know.”
He sounded both sheepish and pleased, which oddly enough made her feel a little teary, which was craziness on a stick. Hormones, she thought again. They were powerful little creatures.
He cleared his throat. “I like the idea of someone local. She works in an office, she’s a dog walker.”
“I don’t see Vidar as a real dog kind of guy. He’s too focused on what he does. I’m not sure he’d be a good pet parent.”
“He could do it. He just hasn’t had a chance.”
Her lips twitched. “You’re defending someone who doesn’t exist?”
“Yes. He’s my guy.”
“Fine. He could love dogs.” She held in a smile. “Or cats. What if he meets a crazy cat lady?”
“No. Definitely no.”
“What about just one cat? I’ve always wanted a cat. They’re so beautiful.”
“No on the cat.”
She smiled. “Okay, she owns a restaurant, she’s a plumber, she works in a bar, she’s a teacher, she’s a...” She tried to think about what kind of career would make sense for Vidar’s lady friend.
“What if she’s a wedding planner?” Jasper asked.
Renee finished her ice cream and licked the spoon. “Really? That’s both flattering and creepy at the same time.”
“It makes sense. You’re creative and resourceful. She could be, too.”
“How would they meet? Vidar goes to a wedding?”
“He could. Someone from the force. Or a friend.”
“Not family,” she said. “He doesn’t have any. I don’t know—a wedding planner is nothing like what he does. Would they even get along? And while we’re not on the subject, where did you come up with his name? Vidar. It’s unusual.”
“I found it in a baby name book. It’s based on Norse mythology. Vidar is the son of Odin and a giantess named Grid. He’s silent and known to be strong. I thought it suited him.”
“I can’t get past his mother’s name. Grid? Really?”
“It was different back then.”
“Still. ‘This is my mother, Grid’?”
“You’re not helping.”
Renee laughed. “Okay. Vidar, son of Grid. Oh, wow, I just realized that Pallas’s name comes from Greek mythology.” She paused. “Or Roman. I think Greek. We have two mythologically based names in town. What are the odds? And back to your girl. She could be a florist, an artist. Oh, make her a glass artist. You could totally hang out with Mathias and Ronan and learn the trade. It would be very method acting. Or writing, I guess.”
“You’re feeling better.”
She smiled. “I am. The ice cream cured me, at least for the moment. Thank you for bringing it.”
“Thanks for helping me with my book.”
“We didn’t accomplish anything.”
“I have a lot to think about. That’s progress.”
“If you say so.” She thought about all they’d discussed and how he’d watched all the movies she’d suggested plus more she hadn’t. He was good at his job, doing the work and then some. He was handsome, funny, godlike in bed and successful.
“So why aren’t you married?” she asked. “Why the serial monogamy?”
“You proposing?”
“Not today.”
He grinned. “Okay, you answered my question when I asked it, so fair is fair. You know I was in the army.”
She nodded.
“Before that I was just some small-town guy. I grew up in Montana. I liked the usual outdoor stuff, had a girlfriend in high school. There weren’t a lot of opportunities and I wasn’t excited about college so I joined up right after I graduated.”
His gaze shifted past her, as if he was seeing something she couldn’t.
“I got into the military police and that was good for me. I liked my work and I was serving my country. Some days were more difficult than others.” He shifted his attention back to her. “I had several tours in Afghanistan. They got harder and by the time I was ready to rejoin the civilian world, I found myself physically intact but mentally and emotionally messed up.”
“PTSD?” she asked.
“Among other things. I had nightmares, anxiety, sleeplessness. I couldn’t focus. Some days I couldn’t stop shaking. I went through all of it. Therapy, drugs, group counseling, halfway houses. Everything helped a little but nothing helped very much. After a while I figured out I was never going to be whole. Not the way I had been. The doctors I saw talked about managing my symptoms. One day we were given an assignment to write about how we were feeling. I started writing and couldn’t stop. Two years later, I’d finished a book that had nothing to do with the war and everything to do with someone else’s problems. That was the first Vidar novel.”
She thought about what Wynn had said—that he wasn’t as broken as he thought—and wondered if it was true.
“So you’re too wounded to love anyone?” she asked lightly.
“Something like that. It’s okay. I’ve got a pretty decent life.” He grinned and got to his feet. “I never thought I’d be a writer, that’s for sure.”
He moved close, bent down and kissed the top of her head. “Thanks for talking to me tonight. I hope you feel better soon.”
“I will. The first twenty-four hours are the worst for me. By the morning, I’ll be fine.”
“I’m glad.” He touched her cheek. “I’ll show myself out. See you soon.”
She nodded and he left. When he was gone, she stretched on the sofa and thought about all they’d talked about. Jasper was an interesting guy. Under other circumstances, she just might want to test her friend’s theory about his condition. But as things were, she would be foolish to even try. Love was not happening—at least not for her. Given her past, she was going to have to go it alone. But for this moment in time, Jasper was exactly right.
* * *
RENEE HUNG UP the phone and did a little shimmy in her chair. Having the disparate elements of a wedding start to come together always made her happy. When a seemingly impossible item—like a request for half the chairs at the reception to be black and the other half to be white, while all of them had gold cushions—worked out, she felt as if she could achieve anything. At least when it came to weddings. Ride in on a hot air balloon? Done. A vegan cake so delicious no one would guess its lack of dairy and eggs? Easy-peasy. Talking dolphins? Renee winced. Best not to go there, she thought, entering the information about the chairs on her computer and saving it so it flowed through to her tablet.
She was about to call yet another vendor about yet another challenging request when Jasper walked into her office and smiled at her. Her body reacted immediately, reminding her that it had really liked this man and the things he’d done to her and hey, her period would be over soon so maybe they should set up a date or something.
Instead of going down that path, she settled on the more conventional and safe, “Hi.”
“Morning. You have a minute?”
If he was wi
lling to take off his clothes and have his way with her, she had several, she thought dreamily, only to remember they were in her office and she should probably play just a little harder to get.
“I do,” she told him, motioning to one of the chairs in front of her desk. “What’s going on?”
“I’ve been thinking about what we talked about last night. I want Vidar’s love interest to be a wedding planner. It gives her access to a lot of people he wouldn’t normally come in contact with and it gets him out of the station. He was in there a lot in the last book. We both need a break.”
She was still processing his announcement so could only ask, “You and Vidar need a break?”
“Uh-huh. I thought I could follow you around for a few weeks, learn about the business and—”
“No,” she said firmly, as all thoughts of them having another close encounter faded from her mind. “You’re not getting your serial killer cooties on my weddings. I’m a big believer in keeping the energy positive and flowing forward. Do you know what a serial killer would do at a wedding?”
Jasper stared at her, his gaze intense. “That’s what I was thinking. I want the serial killer to be a wedding crasher.”
“No,” she said firmly. “Just no.”
“No what?” Pallas asked, walking into the office. “Oh, hi, Jasper. Did I know we had a meeting with you?” She frowned. “You’re not getting married, are you? I mean of course you could if you wanted, I just didn’t think you were seeing anyone right now. Are you?”
Renee tried to act normal. She had no idea what he would say to that question and was incredibly grateful when he simply smiled and said, “I’m doing research for a book. I want to give my hero a love interest in the last book of the series and I’m thinking she’ll be a wedding planner.”
“Oh, Vidar’s going to fall in love?” Pallas sighed. “That’s so great. I love that. He needs a woman for sure. He’s way too alone all the time and with his dark thoughts and all. A wedding planner would be perfect. Weddings are positive and upbeat and happy.” She smiled at Renee. “Are you going to help him? That’s a terrific idea. Let him follow you around and stuff. Jasper’s the kind of writer who gets the details right.”
Renee held in a groan.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” he said, smiling winningly at Pallas. “I’d really like to follow her around and get to know the business.”
“Sure. Whatever you need.” Pallas turned to Renee. “I’m assuming you’re fine with it. Being married to an artist, I know how important it is to go with the flow when they get an idea in their head. So we’re good?”
Renee sighed. “We’re good.” She waited until her boss left before glaring at Jasper. “If I didn’t know better, I would swear you’d planned that.”
“You know I didn’t.” He leaned back in his chair and rested his ankle on his opposite knee. “Sometimes I get lucky.”
“I’ll say,” she muttered, ignoring the potential double entendre.
“You could have told her no,” he pointed out. “You could have said I would be in the way and you didn’t want me around to taint everything with my serial killer cooties.”
An excellent point. She could have and she hadn’t so this was partially on her. While Pallas might not have understood Renee’s reluctance, she would have respected it. So why had she just sat there like a lump? Did she want to spend the time with Jasper? Did she want to help with the book? Did she not want to have to think about that question right now?
“I’m not in a place to discuss that,” she told him firmly. “So let’s set some ground rules. Weddings are incredibly stressful for everyone involved. It is a special day for the bride and the groom and no matter what, they come first.”
“Agreed.”
“You will not offer suggestions or opinions, make faces or otherwise indicate you think what they’re doing is anything but magical.”
“I’d never offer an opinion.”
“You say that now, but when Wendy and William want to get married while riding the prize pigs they both raised, you might find yourself with a thought or two.”
“Prize pigs?”
“It’s an example.” She glared at him. “I’m serious, Jasper. For you this is work, for them, it’s their lives. They will remember their wedding forever. You can’t get in the middle of that.”
“I know that, but why do you think I’d want to get in the middle of anything?”
“You get involved in your research. You learn by doing. I’ve heard about the fighting sticks and who knows whatever methods you use to figure out how to do stuff. I don’t want you getting into that level of detail with my weddings.”
“You’re really protective of them.”
“Of course I am.”
He put both feet on the ground and leaned toward her. “Renee, I give you my word that I won’t get personally involved in any of your weddings. All I want to do is observe you and learn about what you do.”
“It all sounds fine,” she grumbled.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Oh, I believe you mean what you say now. But I don’t trust you not to change the rules.”
“That will never happen.”
“Sure. You go to hell for lying, same as stealing.”
He grinned. “I haven’t heard that one in a long time.”
“The point is still valid.”
She knew she was going to regret allowing him into her world and at the same time she was oddly excited about the idea of Jasper learning about what she did. Later, she would have a serious talk with herself and figure out what exactly was going on with her brain. But until then...
She unlocked a drawer in her desk and pulled out a tablet and charger.
“You’ll need the tablet to keep up with what’s going on with the various weddings,” she told him. “I have a firm ‘you break it, you bought it’ policy, so respect the property.”
He studied her. “You’re tough.”
“Yes, I am. You need to respect that, too.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He picked up the tablet and turned it on, then waited while it booted. “How did you get to be a wedding planner? Is it something you study?”
“Not exactly. I was a marketing major in college.” After her attempt to get into fashion had failed spectacularly, she thought sadly. “I liked marketing but I didn’t love it. On a whim, I applied for a job as a wedding planning assistant in Bel Air.”
“Fancy.”
“It was. I discovered I had a flair and one thing led to another. After I learned the business, I started looking for a different location. That led me to here.”
His gaze settled on hers. “I’m glad it did.”
The quivers in her tummy were unexpected but very nice. “Me, too.”
He glanced at his tablet. “It’s ready.” He looked again. “How many weddings are in this thing?”
Renee picked up her own tablet and glanced at the index. “We average one and a half weddings a week or about seventy-five a year. We can hold as many as three a week—Friday night, Saturday and Sunday—but we try not to. Everyone gets too tired and cranky.”
He shook his head. “That’s a lot of weddings.”
“It is. Most of the weddings we’re doing these days are multiday events. With the entire wedding party coming into town from somewhere else, it makes sense. We can host a rehearsal dinner on Friday night and a brunch on Sunday morning with the wedding as the main event on Saturday. As soon as bride and groom sign with us, they have their own file. You’ll see their names listed in alphabetical order, bride first.”
She looked at him. “We usually have the most contact with the bride. If we have two men getting married, or two women, we list under our point of contact. All right, click on Jackson/Kincaid.”
Jasper did as she asked, then looked at the d
isplay. “I get it. There are tabs for every category. Guest list, flowers, catering, decorations. Huh.” He touched the display. “So the calendar tells you what needs to be done when. Green means it’s good, yellow is pending and red is trouble?”
“Exactly. I can easily print the calendar. I can also print out a to-do list for each wedding. Every week I print out a master list, so I know where we are on each wedding and what needs to be done and the status on pending orders. Because Happily Inc is a wedding destination town, our vendors work with us all the time. I don’t have to worry that Silver won’t show up with the bar, or Gary won’t deliver the right number of chairs. In some ways, we’re able to pass on some of the work directly to our vendors, which keeps costs down.”
She showed him a basic contract and talked about the various weddings coming up in the next few weeks.
“I’d like to go to one,” he said.
“You’re not crashing a wedding. It wouldn’t be right.”
“Could I work at one?”
Renee pulled up her wedding calendar, then tabbed through the various menus. “The apple wedding is coming up. The drinks are all premixed, so you could talk to Silver about helping her. If you know how to be a waiter, then you could talk to the catering company.”
“I’ll go see Silver,” he said. “I think I’d do better with drinks than food.”
“There is less to go wrong.”
He flashed her a smile. It was a good one that had her toes doing a little curl in her sensible pumps.
“What other themes do you have coming up?”
“Can’t get excited about the apple wedding?” she asked, her voice teasing.
“I’m going to see it for myself, and that will be plenty.”
She looked at the calendar. “It’s fall so we have some that are just seasonally based. There’s a Halloween wedding, which should be interesting, and a football wedding.” She looked at him. “It’s more Dallas Cowboys–based than generic football. I was a little nervous, but it’s turning out beautifully. The wedding colors are the silver and blue. The bridesmaids are all in silver and the dresses are gorgeous. I’m getting excited about it. We’re also doing a Scottish wedding. That couple lives in Sedona so we have most of our meetings in person. With the other couples, most of the meetings are teleconferences.”
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