The Wedding Bargain

by Lee McKenzie

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “Let’s make sure Paige catches my bouquet.”

  “This is just a tradition based on some crazy superstition. Catching it doesn’t guarantee a wedding.” Although come to think of it, Rory had caught Nic’s bouquet last fall, and look at her now.

  “It’s symbolic, and it definitely seems to be Paige’s turn, don’t you think?”

  The only thing Jess knew for sure was that it wasn’t hers. “How am I supposed to make sure she catches it?”

  “There aren’t that many single women here, and the only two you really have to watch out for are Mitch’s cousins. Those two little brats have actually made a bet on which of them will snag it.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Although short of tackling them, she had no idea how to prevent them from being contenders.

  She joined the group of single women on the small dance floor and took stock of the situation. Since there’d almost certainly be another round of wedding bells in Paige’s future, it sort of did make sense to let her catch the bouquet and give everyone a chance to gush about her being the next to tie the knot. The groom’s teenage twin cousins had other ideas. They had already staked out their respective territories at the front of the small group of single women and were glaring at each other.

  Amateurs, Jess thought. This would be like taking candy from a couple of babies.

  For a split second she allowed her attention to be diverted as she searched out the man named Michael. He was watching her, and she was surprised to feel her own competitive nature kick in. Part of her was tempted to ditch the stupid shoes, roll up her sleeves—if she had any—and grab that sucker when it sailed over Rory’s shoulder. Not that she wanted to get married—far from it—but catching the bouquet would show Michael…

  Show him what? She had absolutely no idea. Besides, she had agreed that Paige should catch it. So instead of going on the offensive, she positioned herself directly behind the twins.

  Rory surveyed the group before turning her back on it.

  Jess adopted the best linebacker stance her shoes would allow.

  The band riffed a suitably dramatic tune, but the drum roll was drowned out by cheering.

  In case a change to running back was necessary to get the bouquet to the intended receiver, she toed off her shoes under the dress.

  With the precision of a rocket launcher, Rory propelled the bouquet over her shoulder.

  Jess blocked the twins and held them out of range.

  The bouquet headed straight for…oh, hell. So much for Rory’s aim. It was heading straight for Jess.

  She let go of one twin, reached for the stupid flowers and volleyed them in Paige’s direction.

  A surprised Paige fumbled the bouquet but didn’t drop it, and Jess grabbed the unfettered twin before she could make a lunge for the daisies.

  The bride whirled around, quickly surveyed the situation and gave her a thumbs-up.

  The twins gave her a pair of matching glares.

  Paige, clutching the bouquet in both hands, laughed and looked at Andy.

  Gotta love it when a plan comes together. “Sorry, girls,” Jess said to the irate teens. Not that she meant it. They couldn’t be a day over seventeen, which meant they were way too young to even think about getting married.

  Nic was in stitches. “Nice save, Jess. And nice catch,” she said to Paige.

  In every respect, Jess thought as she glanced from Paige’s blush-pink cheeks to Andy’s bewildered smile. Very nice catch.

  Jess hiked up her full-skirted dress and stuck a foot into one of her shoes. Her toes complained vigorously. She crammed her other foot into its shoe and was hobbling off the dance floor when she spotted Michael near the bar. His gaze was still on her, and he still looked amused. Was he entertained by life in general, she wondered, or was he laughing at her? He picked up two glasses of wine and walked toward her.

  I guess I’m about to find out.

  He handed one of the glasses to her.

  She accepted, knowing without asking that this time it was merlot.

  “My money was on you catching that bouquet.” So he had been laughing at her.

  “It wasn’t my turn.” She stopped herself before blurting out that there was no point, since she didn’t have a man in her life. He didn’t need to know that she had made up her mind a long time ago—at fourteen, to be exact—that it would take a very special someone to make up for the bad example set by her mother’s endless string of boyfriends.

  “Those shenanigans seemed to take your mind off the dress.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Earlier you were concerned that it would reveal too much.”

  He was right. For those few moments while it was her job to get the bouquet in Paige’s hands, she had completely forgotten about the dress.

  “So you had nothing to worry about.” His gaze traveled over the top of her dress.

  Sure. Nothing to worry about.

  “I understand you’re not seeing anyone.”

  How the hell had he figured that out? “That’s a pretty big leap. Just because I didn’t bring a date to the wedding doesn’t mean I’m not seeing anyone.”

  “I’m not big on assumptions. I’d rather have facts, so I asked the mother of the bride if you were involved.”

  There was something surprisingly suggestive about his inference. “Involved as in…?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Was she supposed to be flattered that he’d gone to the trouble to find that out? “All right, then, it only seems fair that I have a few facts about you.”

  “What would you like to know?”

  “Are you ‘involved’ with anyone?”

  “Not at the moment.” He touched her glass with his.

  Interesting. She was tempted to ask if he was on the rebound, but that might sound as if she had more than idle conversation in mind. Instead, she decided on a different line of questioning. “How long have you known Rory’s mother?”

  “Several years. We met at one of her art exhibits.”

  Also interesting. She was usually quick to figure out what people did for a living, and she had not pegged Michael as an artist, or even an art aficionado. “Are you in the art business?” she asked.

  He hesitated before answering, which made her suspect he was hiding something.

  “Business, yes,” he said finally. “Not art. As it turns out, your friend Nicola’s husband is also a colleague of mine.”

  Jonathan was a lawyer. “Do you work with him?” she asked.

  “No, I’m not a lawyer. Just a client.”

  “One of their criminal cases?”

  His laughter was genuine. “Good one. I try to stay out of trouble, or at least not get caught. Besides, Jonathan is a corporate lawyer.”

  Did that make Michael a corporation or just someone who worked for one? She owned her own business, but the only time she’d talked to a lawyer was when she had settled her grandfather’s estate.

  “You haven’t tasted the wine.”

  Neither had he, she noticed. She obliged and took a sip. “Nice.”

  He looked taken aback, as though he’d expected her to say something else.

  “Very nice.” To emphasize her point, she took another drink.

  He gave the wine in his glass a gentle swirl. “Does the Whiskey Sour have a wine list?”

  “Not a list, exactly, but I do stock two kinds of wine.”

  “What are they?”

  “Red and white.”

  His laugh was even sexier than his smile. “Seriously?”

  Completely serious. “I really want to reinvent the place as a cocktail lounge, but right now most of my patrons are beer drinkers. A couple of my friends—Nicola and Paige, who is one of the other bridesmaids—drink wine, so I keep a few bottles on hand.”

  “Tasting a wine should be like a first kiss. You need to take your time and give it all your attention.”

  He tipped his gla
ss slightly to one side. “Did you notice the color of this one?”

  Other than it being red, she had not. She focused on the glass for a moment and wondered if she’d ever find out what a first kiss with him would be like. She looked up at him and realized he was waiting for her answer. She managed to shake her head.

  He tipped his glass slightly to one side. “If the light was better, you’d see it’s not red. It’s a deep shade of garnet.”

  All she saw was a pair of dark blue eyes. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s well aged.” He straightened his glass.

  “No offense, but doesn’t wine tasting strike you as being kind of pompous? I mean, they’re pretty much all the same.”

  His only response was a stunned expression, but he recovered quickly. “Tell me something about yourself.”

  “Uh, what would you like to know?”

  “Something I wouldn’t expect to hear.”

  Would her wanting to explore the whole kissing thing be unexpected? Probably not. “I used to be a high school teacher and I have a brown belt in karate.”

  “Really? I guess that’s one way to keep students in line.”

  She smiled at that. She wasn’t cut out to be a teacher, but fortunately she’d never had to rely on the martial arts for classroom management. It had come in handy with a couple of her mother’s boyfriends, though. One in particular.

  Snap out of it, she told herself. She usually didn’t dwell on the past, so why did it keep shoving its way into her thoughts tonight? Maybe it was being around Rory’s family, or maybe it was the unexpected attention from a handsome stranger who avoided answering questions about himself, but had no trouble wheedling information out of her.

  Michael swirled the contents of his glass, but he was studying her intently. “So before you taste the wine, you have to smell it.” He held it out to her. “Inhale slowly, and really think about the scent.”

  In her book, there weren’t many things more pretentious than wine tasting, but she played along and took a sniff. “It sort of smells like cherries.”

  He smelled it. “You’re right. Ripe cherries, and just a hint of spice.”

  Her insides went wobbly. “Your turn. To tell me something unexpected about you, I mean.”

  He hesitated, as though trying to think of something that might interest her. “I’m restoring a 1954 Morgan.”

  Michael’s hands didn’t look anything like the mechanics’ hands she often saw wrapped around beer mugs at the Whiskey Sour. “Are you actually doing the work yourself, or are you having it restored?”

  “A little of both. You know something about cars?”

  She cupped both hands around her glass. “A little. My grandfather had an old MGB. I used to help him work on it from time to time, and a lot of his friends are…were…mechanics. Some of them are still regulars at the bar.”

  “You should hold your glass by the stem,” he said. “That way you don’t transfer the warmth from your hands to the contents of the glass.”

  “Oh.” She adjusted her hands accordingly.

  “I rebuilt the engine myself. With my brother, actually. We’ve been working on it together. It’s a nice change of pace from…what I usually do.”

  Okay. Maybe the brother was a mechanic.

  “Now you should taste the wine again,” he said, but he reached for her hand and stopped her before she could raise the glass to her lips. “Let it slide over your tongue and around the inside of your mouth before you swallow it.” His voice had taken on a sinfully deep tone and she swore it was reverberating through his hand and up her arm. “Try it.”

  She took a sip and so did he. She watched his mouth, and didn’t swallow until he did.

  “What do you think?”

  She was at a loss for words, and that almost never happened.

  “Peppery, just a hint of oak,” he said. “Full-bodied.”

  “Yes. You took the words right out of my mouth.”

  He smiled at her. “Can you still taste it?”

  She thought about that for a second or two, and nodded.

  “That’s one of the best characteristics of this particular wine. It has a long, warm finish.”

  Holy crap. She should ask about his car, or his brother or what kind of business he was in. Instead she took another slow, careful sip of wine, imagined she was being kissed, and contemplated everything implied by a long, warm finish.

  Chapter Two

  Michael Morgan followed his real estate agent out of the shabby building she’d just shown him in the South of Market district and waited on the sidewalk while she locked the door. The large windows overlooking the street had been boarded up with plywood, and that had been covered with several coats of paint in an unsuccessful attempt to keep graffiti under control. Even the big for-sale sign had been tagged so many times, it was almost unreadable. It was the third place he’d seen and the least disastrous, which wasn’t saying much.

  “It definitely needs work,” the agent said. “I do think it has potential, though. Nice high ceilings and all that exposed brick. And there’s already lots of new development nearby.” She had helped him find the two previous locations for his new wine bars—the first at Fisherman’s Wharf and the second on Nob Hill—and she now had a good sense of what he wanted.

  This place was a dump, but she was right, it had potential. A trendy-looking deli and coffee shop had recently opened across the street, a new residential building next door boasted upscale loft condos and there was more new construction on the next block. On the downside, this place required a major renovation and he had no idea how much of the building’s character and existing structure could be salvaged, or how much capital he’d have to sink into it.

  “It is a good location,” he said. “Let me talk to my sister and find out when she can check it out. She’s the architect who’ll be handling this project.”

  “Of course. If it makes life easier for you, have her call me directly and we’ll set up a time.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that.” Michael unlocked his car, got in and checked his cell phone for messages. Nothing that couldn’t wait. He pulled up his sister’s private number and studied the building’s facade while he waited for her to answer. The windows and front entrance were set in brick arches. The second-story windows were tall, almost floor-to-ceiling on the inside. He could picture them with ironwork Juliet balconies on the outside, and maybe some planters.

  “Hey, big brother. What’s up?”

  “Hi, Lexi. I’ve just toured a possible location for the new wine bar in SoMa. Any chance you can take a look sometime this week?”

  “I’ll be happy to.”

  He gave her the real estate agent’s number and said he’d leave it to her to set up an appointment. “I guess I’ll see you at home tomorrow.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it. What time will you be there?”

  “I’m driving up first thing in the morning. I have a meeting with Ginny at the winery, then I thought I’d hang out with Ben for the rest of the day. What about you?”

  “I plan to catch up on some work here and leave around lunchtime, but I’ll take a look at this place before I go. The party’s not till six, right?”

  “That’s right, but I think Mom would like you to be there a little before she serves dinner.”

  “Gee, you think?” Lexi laughed. “Oh, hang on a sec.”

  He waited and listened to her give a series of quick instructions to an assistant.

  “Okay, I’m back. I’ve already told Mom I’ll be there before dinner, and she talked me into staying the night. I also told her that if she wants us to drop everything and spend the whole day up there, then she shouldn’t throw a party in the middle of the week.”

  He was willing to concede that Lexi made a good point, even though he didn’t agree with her and neither would their mother. As far as Sophia Morgan was concerned, nothing was as important as family, and he felt the same way. As much as he had wanted to build on his father’s
business—and so far his success had exceeded even his expectations—he had done it as much for his family as for himself.

  He divided his time between his family’s home in Napa Valley and his apartment in San Francisco, which meant he was back and forth fairly often. His sister Ginny and her husband lived in the valley at one of the family’s vineyards. Lexi was the only one who’d chosen a career outside the family business and made a permanent move to the city. She was a shrewd businesswoman, even a little hard-nosed at times, and was also the only one of his siblings who was periodically at odds with their mother. The fireworks had started the day she hit puberty, escalated through her teen years and finally settled into an accepting but arm’s-length relationship around the time she left for college.

  “Has our mother ever thrown a party that wasn’t on the actual day of someone’s birthday?” he asked.

  “No, but it’s not like Ben would know.”

  “Ah, but she would,” he reminded her.

  “Yeah, I know, and I’ll be there. I will. Just not for the whole day.”

  “Okay, okay. No guilt trips from me. I’ll see you sometime tomorrow afternoon.”

  He tossed the information packet from the Realtor into the glove compartment, took out a pair of sunglasses and flipped open his appointment book. This had been his last scheduled meeting for the day. Now he’d satisfy his curiosity about a little bar called the Whiskey Sour and the high-spirited redhead who ran the place. He’d thought a lot about both since he’d met her at Rory and Mitch’s wedding on Saturday evening, and he was looking forward to seeing her again. This time on her turf.

  He was more interested in her bar than he was in her, though. She had implied that her business wasn’t doing all that well, so there was a very good chance she’d consider selling. And if she hadn’t considered it, well, he could be persuasive.

  Still, she was an intriguing woman in her own right. That amazing cascade of red hair would make any man a little crazy, and those piercing green eyes could cut through any pretense. He didn’t often meet a beautiful woman who didn’t use her looks to her advantage, and that’s what had intrigued him most. She had introduced herself simply as Jess, but it had been easy enough to find out that her name was Jessica Bennett. She was the owner and sole proprietor of the Whiskey Sour, and according to the telephone directory she rented an apartment about six blocks away. Which might sound a bit stalkerish, but he’d learned the hard way to check out people, especially women, before letting them into his life.