Diary of an Engaged Wedding Planner (Tales Behind the Veils Book 3)

by Howe, Violet

  He motioned toward the large wall of windows above the bed and the other windows on the wall adjacent to it. “I picked this house because it had plenty of windows so we can lay together in the light of the moon. And you always told me how much you missed your front porch back home, so I told the realtor that was a necessity. I even had the swing installed before I brought you to see it. Baby, from the moment I decided to get a house, I looked for our house. I always planned for us to live in this house together.”

  My heart melted a little. I had no idea he’d put that much thought into it. Taken me into consideration. At the same time, it still hurt. Like I’d missed out on something. I didn’t know how to just switch that off and stop feeling it. I also didn’t know what to say to ease his worried expression, so I chose what was probably the safest thing out of everything swirling around my head. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too. Probably more than you’ll ever know, but I’ll keep trying to show you.” He kissed me as he pulled my body against his.

  I pulled back, unwilling to let it go just yet.

  “It just hurts, Cabe. I appreciate you doing all that, I really do. But the house reminds me of our time apart. Painful memories. It’s something you did without me. I wish we’d found it together.”

  “C’mon, Buttercup. We have a lifetime to find houses together. Every place we live from this point forth, we’ll find together. But let’s start here. Please? Make this house a home with me. Our home?”

  It wasn’t an offer I really wanted to refuse. I did love the house. It was perfect for us, and it made me feel better to know he picked it for me. I could choose to harbor the resentment, or I could let it go and embrace the house and make it ours. Our first house.

  I didn’t answer him with words, but I think my body told him all he needed to know to understand that I agreed.

  Wednesday, June 18th

  “So, your mom’s birthday is coming up next week. What are we doing?”

  I’d debated whether or not to bring it up all day, but the date was getting too close to ignore.

  “I don’t know.” Cabe was tinkering with the secondhand lawn mower he’d bought, trying to figure out why it wouldn’t crank.

  “When’s the last time you talked to her?”

  “I dunno. Couple of weeks ago, maybe?”

  I plopped down on the back porch steps watching him, trying to decide how deep in the water I wanted to wade.

  “Does that bother you?”

  He glanced up at me and immediately turned his attention back to the motor.

  “I’m serious, Cabe. You guys used to be so close, and now you hardly ever talk. You never have told me exactly what went down. I know you’re pissed that she gave your dad your number—”

  “He’s not my dad. He’s basically no more than a sperm donor.”

  I took a deep breath and reconsidered my decision to wade into this mess. Being abandoned by his father at the age of three had carved deep scars across Cabe’s heart, and the recent events with his sister and mom had reopened old wounds.

  “Okay, but I hate seeing you and Maggie at odds like this. Y’all need to hash this out.”

  “It’s fine.”

  I waited a moment to see if he would continue, but he didn’t. “Okay. Did you guys talk about everything then? Did she say why she did it?”

  “Why she did what?” He continued to focus on the motor, but his jawline tightened. He knew exactly what I meant, and I had to decide whether or not I wanted to push him.

  “C’mon, Cable. Cut the crap. Look at me.”

  He put down the screwdriver and granted my request, disinterest clear on his face.

  “She says she didn’t give him my number or tell him to call me.”

  “Then how did he get it?”

  He stood and adjusted the position of the lawn mower. “I don’t know, Ty. Maybe he looked it up on the internet. It’s not that hard to do.”

  The mower roared to life as I opened my mouth to respond. I glared at the temperamental machine as Cabe wheeled it around to face the lawn.

  “I want to try and get the yard done while it’s running, okay?” He didn’t wait for an answer, so I stood to go back inside and postponed the discussion until after dinner.

  Later, when we had cleared the dishes from the table and Cabe was washing the last of the pans, I broached the subject again.

  “Did you ask your mom why she called him?”

  Cabe sighed and slid the heavy skillet under the water to rinse. “You’re not gonna drop this are ya, Buttercup?”

  I took the skillet from him and dried it. “No, I’m not. I want you to work it out with her. Talk to her. Look how much time we wasted with each other by not getting things out in the open.”

  He dried his hands on the towel I held and then encircled me with his arms. “You’re right. We shouldn’t waste any more time.” He bent his head and touched his lips against mine, but I pulled back before he could intoxicate me into forgetting the discussion at hand.

  “Oh no you don’t, buddy! You think you can start kissing me, and I’ll just forget all about this, but we need to talk.”

  He slid his hands under my shirt and crept them slowly up my back, unlatching my bra with a quick flick of his thumb as I struggled to remember why it was so important to resist.

  “Cabe, I’m serious. I don’t wanna blow this off. Did you ask Maggie why she called him?” I put both hands on his chest and lightly pushed back against his efforts to kiss me until he sighed in resignation and released me. I followed him into the living room, wriggling my shoulder and elbow through the bra strap and then through the shirt sleeve before repeating the acrobatic movement on the other side so I could pull it from beneath my shirt and toss it across the chair.

  “How do women do that? How do you completely remove a piece of clothing that’s underneath other clothing without taking off the top layer?”

  I flopped down on the couch next to him. “Years of practice. Don’t change the subject.”

  “She called him to discuss what happened at Galen’s house. She didn’t know he was going to call me.”

  “Does she call him often?”

  Cabe shrugged. “I don’t know. You’d have to ask her. He’s not something we discuss.”

  “How could you guys not talk about this? Have you seriously never asked your mom if she kept in touch with him?”

  “I don’t know, Ty.” He rubbed his face and ran his fingers through his curls until they stood out in a snarled mess. “I told you I wanted nothing to do with the man. Asking a lot of questions about him didn’t seem to be a good way to pretend he didn’t exist, you know?”

  “This blows my mind. I don’t get it.”

  “Oh really?” He tilted his head to one side and lifted his eyebrows with a smile. “You don’t get families not communicating? How many times a month do you talk to your mom? How many times has she visited here or you visited there since you moved away? And by the way, have you told her yet we’re engaged?”

  I drew in a deep breath and pinched my nose against the headache just starting behind my eyes. “We’re not talking about my family right now. Stay on topic.”

  “You can’t sit there and act like it’s so foreign to you that my mom and I wouldn’t want to rehash something uncomfortable to discuss. You haven’t even shared something that should be happy news. I mean, as far as I’m concerned, our engagement is happy news.”

  “Of course it is. I just haven’t really talked to Mama since you proposed. So you’ve already told your mom, then?” I tried to deflect the line of questioning back to him.

  “She knows I bought the ring. I thought maybe we’d tell her it’s official when we see her on her birthday.”

  “So we are going to see her on her birthday?”

  Cabe cupped my cheek in his hand. “Yes, Buttercup. I’ll call her tomorrow and see where she wants to go. Okay?”

  I nodded and turned my head to kiss his hand.

  �
�So I don’t understand,” I said, unable to drop it. “If she didn’t give him your number, why are you still mad at her?”

  He dropped his hand and laid his head back on the sofa with his eyes closed.

  “I’m not mad at her, Ty. There’s just been a lot of crap, you know? She and I have both said and done some things that are hard to move past. But we’ll work through it. It’ll be okay. Can we please talk about something else now?” He rolled his head to the side to look at me. He half-grinned, hopeful I’m sure that I would give in and drop the topic.

  It still bothered me, though. I guess maybe it was because there was so much he had kept from me regarding his mom and sister. I still felt like I was in the dark. Like I didn’t know everything going on. From the bits and pieces of information I had, it didn’t make sense that the two of them would have such a rift between them.

  Maybe I’ll feel better once I see him and Maggie together next week. Maybe it’ll be back to normal and all will be okay.

  Saturday, June 21st

  A hellacious storm tore through in the wee hours this morning. The thunder woke me a little before four, crashing and rumbling like multiple explosions had been triggered just outside the house. The windows rattled and the old boards creaked as the wind battered us with rain.

  Deacon paced and shivered, mumbling and whining like he always does when the weather turns bad. Poor dog. Summer in Florida is not the place to be if you’re terrified of thunderstorms. Although I must admit, this was much worse than our standard run-of-the-mill afternoon storm. This was more like Armageddon. I pulled Deacon up on the bed next to me and smoothed my hands over his fur, whispering, “It’s okay, baby. You’re alright.” Even though I wasn’t so sure we weren’t all going to be blown away.

  I thought Cabe was going to sleep through the whole thing. I was sorely tempted to jab him in the side and wake him up to suffer through it with us, but before I could act on those impulses, a dazzling bolt of lightning lit up the whole room followed by a huge clap of thunder that nearly shook the house off its foundation. Cabe didn’t flinch at the bright light or the deafening boom, but he certainly woke up when Deacon jumped right in the middle of his chest, barking and moaning as if he was trying to save Cabe from an imminent demise.

  The sky flashed again, followed by another splintering crack of thunder, and this time Cabe was awake for it.

  “Holy hell! What’s going on?” He sat up and tried to push Deacon off him as the dog dug in for dear life.

  “Storm. It’s really bad. I can’t believe you’ve been sleeping through it. Deacon’s wigging out.” And so was I.

  “Power’s out,” Cabe said as he looked at the clock on his nightstand. “Wonder how long it’s been out?”

  “For about twenty minutes now, but the storm’s been raging almost an hour.”

  He rolled to face me and petted Deacon, who was curled up and shivering between us.

  “You been awake?”

  I nodded. “I’m hoping this blows over before my wedding. Heather and Sean are such a nice couple. I don’t want their wedding day ruined.”

  The thunder popped again, and Deacon yelped. Cabe looked up at the ceiling as the wind howled across the roof.

  “Forget the wedding. I’m hoping it doesn’t ruin our house.”

  It had passed in another half hour, and we finally got Deacon calmed down and got back to sleep around five. I was relieved to see blue skies and sunshine when my alarm woke me at seven.

  When I had the pre-ceremony photography going smoothly, I left Heather and Sean in Charlotte’s not-always-capable hands so I could drive over to the reception hall to check their progress.

  It was an easy set, only fifty guests with a buffet, but since Heather and Sean and most of the guests were professional ballroom dancers, we’d ordered a huge dance floor to accommodate their repertoire of moves. I was a bit nervous about it being set correctly or the tables looking lost at the back of the room.

  I was relieved to see that the manager on duty at the Garden Club was Ivan. His laidback personality and easy smile always made for a pleasant event.

  “Good day to you,” Ivan said as he bowed dramatically. “Your linens and Chiavari chairs have arrived. Haven’t seen the dance floor yet, but they’ve got plenty of time.”

  I glanced at my watch and frowned. The dance floor had been scheduled for delivery at eleven. It was only twenty after, so they weren’t terribly late, but with such a huge installation, I wanted to know the set-up was going well before I headed back to the ceremony.

  “We had a couple of huge limbs down with some debris on the patio, so we’re clearing that now. I’ll be out there if you need me,” Ivan said. “Quite a storm, huh?”

  I nodded as I searched the wedding file for a delivery contact number. My call was answered with immediate hold music and no person.

  Servers were beginning to arrive around me, folding napkins and fluffing linens across the tables as they all discussed the early morning storm and their lack of sleep because of it.

  After what seemed to be an eternity but was probably only a couple of minutes, a frazzled voice replaced the hold music.

  “This is Shelia, have you been helped?”

  “No, Shelia, this is Tyler Warren over at the Garden Club. We have a dance floor scheduled to be delivered for a wedding today. It was supposed to be here—”

  “We aren’t doing any deliveries today.”

  I hesitated, unsure I had heard her correctly.

  “I’m sorry. Did you say—”

  She cut me off again. “Lightning hit our building. Knocked out the computers, the main power, the well. Everything’s fried. We can’t make any deliveries today.”

  I blinked and tried to comprehend what she was telling me.

  “We have a wedding this afternoon. The dance floor was supposed to be delivered at eleven.”

  Shelia groaned in exasperation. “Like I said, we aren’t making any deliveries today.”

  My mind refused to accept her words. “But, but I have a confirmation. We’ve booked the dance floor and the wedding’s today. I confirmed with Ronnie yesterday.” I stared at my handwriting on the purchase order. C/W Ronnie 6/20. Clear as day.

  “That may very well be, but we don’t have any computers. We don’t have any power. We have no way of knowing what orders were supposed to come in or go out. We have no idea what inventory we had or where it was scheduled to be. I’m sorry, but we can’t make any deliveries today.”

  “But I have a wedding.” This couldn’t be happening. I had a confirmation. A purchase order. I’d confirmed yesterday that the dance floor would be delivered today.

  “It’s Saturday. Lots of people have weddings. And birthdays and bar mitzvahs. But we can’t see inside our warehouse. No lights. We can’t tell what was ordered and what was paid for. No computers. We can’t make deliveries today. Now I’m sorry, but as you can imagine, it’s a little crazy here and the phones are ringing off the wall. They’re the only thing working it seems since we can’t even use our toilets with the well blown out.”

  Panic spun my brain in circles as reality started to set in. “Wait, can I talk to Ronnie?”

  “Ronnie’s out back with Jorge trying to get the well going. He can’t help you.”

  “But I confirmed with Ronnie yesterday. We talked about the wedding in some detail. I’m sure he’ll remember me.”

  Shelia sighed again, her patience with me wearing thin on her already frayed nerves. “It don’t matter if Ronnie remembers you or not. We aren’t making any deliveries. Period.”

  “But I have a wedding. It’s someone’s wedding. They’re ballroom dancers. Like professionals who travel all over the world dancing. The dance floor is probably the single most important thing in the room other than the band. I can’t have them arrive and there be no dance floor!”

  My voice sounded shrill and high-pitched even to me. The air in the room was suddenly too thick to breathe, and the world seemed tilted a little
too far in one direction. I closed my eyes against the dizzy sensation.

  Shelia exhaled loudly and restated her position. “I’m sorry. There is nothing I can do. We aren’t making deliveries today. Now I have to answer the phones, hon.”

  “But if I could just talk to Ronnie? He’ll remember. I’m sure of it. I have a fifteen by fifteen dance floor for only fifty guests. It’s over twice the number of dance tiles y’all would normally send out. We discussed it yesterday at length because I was concerned about it fitting in the Garden Club and he was saying y’all were pretty well booked today and he wanted to know if I could use less tiles but I told him about the professional dancers and that I needed it as big as possible.”

  My words rushed out without any pause in case she was going to hang up, my Southern accent coming through full and thick as it always does when I’m stressed. Her silence on the other end made me think perhaps she really had hung up, but then she sighed again.

  “Look. I’d love to help you. I would. But you have no idea how big of a mess we got over here. I can’t just start sending out trucks with tiles and tables and such without knowing where anyone’s going and who’s paid and who hasn’t. We can’t make any deliveries today.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to calm my voice. “I understand, but I have a purchase order right here that shows it’s been paid in full. It shows exactly how many tiles I need. Is there some way I could fax it to you or…” I stopped as I realized the stupidity of the question. “Maybe I could just read it off to you, and then show it to the driver when he got here?”