“But—”
“I’ve told you what you wanted to know,” Miranda continued, ignoring the protest. “Now, let’s make some decisions about your wedding.” Choosing one of several magazines she’d brought with her, Miranda found the paper-clipped page she was after and held it up for Ainsley to see. “What do you think of having the florist do a floral bower across the sanctuary?”
Ainsley made a face.
“All right.” Miranda flipped to the next paper-clipped page. “What about an arbor going up the aisle?”
“Maybe Ivan and I will just elope.”
“Don’t be silly,” Miranda said. “I have lots of other possibilities.”
Which she did. All of them for the wedding. None of them for her own future. But that was the way it had always been. She was the caretaker, the mother substitute, the one who made the sacrifices so everyone else could have what they wanted. And right now, Ainsley wanted a wedding, so Miranda was going to make sure it was the most beautiful wedding any Danville had ever had.
And to that end, she proceeded to show the bride-to-be all the floral options she had gathered together, one by one, as possibilities.
IN HER BEDROOM, Cate looked from Kali to Kori to Will. “We have to do something about Dad before he ruins the whole summer.”
The girls bobbed their heads in agreement. “I hate coffee,” Kali announced with feeling.
“I hate the coffeehouse.” Will put the problem into perspective.
“I hate coffee and the coffeehouse,” Kori said, always ready to concur with the majority opinion.
Will sprawled on the floor, his elbows cocked at awkward angles, his hands hooked behind his head, taking up space by virtue of being mainly long and skinny, with long and skinny legs and arms to match. “If I have to go to that stupid old building and talk about Dad’s stupid idea for a coffeehouse one more time, I’m going to puke.”
“Coffee makes me puke.” Kori nodded adamantly, happily repeating words in Cate’s room she wasn’t certain she was allowed to say in her own. “We should call it a puke house instead of a coffeehouse.”
“He’s ruining our first summer in Newport.” Cate didn’t quite know how to stop him, but she knew they had to think of something. “So…” She put the question to the others, “What are we going to do?”
The four of them had been having family meetings for three years, ever since their mother found out she might not get better. Cate hadn’t liked the idea then, but she’d gone along because she understood her mom had wanted them to learn to depend on each other, to deal with certain problems as a team. Of course, Mom had meant for the family meetings to include Dad. But Cate and Will had decided there wasn’t much point in having the kind of family meeting where one person’s vote vetoed the other four, so they’d decided to have family meetings on their own, in addition to the ones they had with Dad. That way, they could work out a strategy to bring him around to their way of thinking before a vote was called. It didn’t always work—they were running about fifty-fifty since the move back to Newport—but at least Mom would be proud to know the four of them were learning to work together. At least, that’s the way Cate preferred to look at it.
“We definitely have to do something.” Will’s voice squeaked and he cleared his throat. “Fast.”
“Definitely,” Cate agreed. “He expects us to clean and paint that nasty building. It may be like ‘family time’ in his mind, but I think it’s like plain old torture.”
“It’s plain old torture,” Kori repeated.
“Family time is supposed to be fun,” Kali added.
“So how are we going to distract him?” Cate wished, more than ever, that her mother was still alive. Distracting Dad was one thing she’d been great at doing.
“We could send him on a trip,” Kali suggested. “To…to somewhere else. He used to go on trips all the time.”
“For the air force,” Will said. “He went on trips because the air force sent him on trips.”
Kori sighed dramatically. “He’s not in the air force anymore.”
“We could get him another job,” Kali said brightly. “And they could send him on a trip.”
Will continued to stare at the ceiling, as if he’d find the answer to their dilemma somewhere up there. “He’s not going to get another job in time to save this summer. Whatever the distraction is going to be, it’s got to happen soon or the four of us will spend the rest of our school break painting his stupid coffeehouse.”
“Stupid coffeehouse,” Kori repeated sadly.
“It’s got to be someone,” Cate said, coming up with an idea. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea, but then she didn’t like the prospect of cleaning and painting that skanky old building, either. “We’ve got to find someone to distract him, not something.”
Will sat up. “Brilliant,” he said. “Awesomely brilliant.”
Kali and Kori exchanged puzzled looks.
Cate nodded. It was the only possible solution. “But how are we going to go about finding him a date?” Ugh. She didn’t like the idea of that either. But this was an emergency. “He’d kill us if we got him a blind date.”
“He’ll probably kill us if we just tell him he needs to go on a date.” Will hugged his knees, thinking hard. “What about the Internet? We might find someone there.”
Cate shook her head. “We’d be grounded for the rest of the summer the minute he found out we know how to bypass the computer’s parental controls. It’s got to be a dating service. A place with real people who can match him up with someone without him knowing about it.”
“No one can do that, Cate. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to know he has a date.”
Sometimes, she wished Will wasn’t always so literal. “I heard Grandmother and Maggie talking about a matchmaker. We could ask Grandmother about that.”
Kori’s eyes widened with excitement. “Let’s ask Maggie instead,” she suggested. “Maggie will tell us anything…and she’ll never in a million years tell Dad we asked.”
“Good thinking, Kori.” Cate smiled, not exactly comfortable with the idea of her dad dating anyone, but desperate to get out of working on his “family project.” “We’ll ask Maggie.”
Kali giggled. “Maggie will tell us all we need to know.”
Kori giggled, too. “This family meeting is adjourned,” she said.
Chapter Three
Ainsley held up the fabric swatches, fanning them out in a rainbow, wondering what would happen if she said she wanted one of the bridesmaids in each color. Not that she particularly wanted a rainbow of attendants. Especially not this rainbow. But so far her primary enjoyment in this plethora of wedding plans had been imagining what her sister would have to say about various improbable, impractical scenarios.
Miranda, what do you think about serving pie instead of wedding cake? Ivan really likes rhubarb pie and…
Miranda, what about decorating with butterflies instead of flowers? Yes, real butterflies. I saw this magazine article…
Miranda, what if we used a lot of different colors? It would be fun to mix and match the bridesmaids’ dresses with the guys’ cummerbunds, don’t you think?
Ainsley didn’t actually mention any of her irreverent ideas to Miranda, but she and Ivan had thoroughly enjoyed imagining what the reaction might have been if she had. She felt a little guilty about laughing, when her sister was going to so much trouble to make everything perfect. And it would be perfect. No doubt about that. Not one of these fabric swatches was anything less than beautiful. Silks, satins, blends. Not a dud to be found among her options. Each fabric was the best in quality, the richest of colors. Regardless of which one she opted for, Ainsley knew Miranda would match everything else in the wedding, from flowers to frippery, down to the smallest nuance of color. The whole affair would be a masterpiece of color coordination, a symphony of shading.
And all Ainsley had to do was choose one color, one single fabric swatch.
I like the Mojave Blue
, Miranda had said. But it’s your wedding.
My wedding, Ainsley thought, distracted by the delicious thought of Ivan. The feeling snuck up on her, out of nowhere, and she hugged it to her heart a dozen times a day. She was going to marry the most wonderful man in the world and, for all she cared, the bridesmaids could wear red feather boas and silver tap shoes.
“You’re doing it again.” Lucinda, IF Enterprise’s wild-child receptionist and secretary, walked into Ainsley’s office, message slips fluttering in one hand, a large iced cola cooling in the other. “That dreamy, lost-in-lust smile. Why don’t you marry the man and save me the trouble of having to pull you back to boring reality a dozen times a day?”
“Exactly my plan,” Ainsley said. “All I have to do is choose the right color.” She held out the swatches. “Pick one.”
Lucinda gave a little shrug, indicating that her hands were full. “Go with the blue,” she advised. “Miranda will look stunning in that color and since it’s her wedding…oh, whoops. It’s not her wedding, is it? Well, since it’s your wedding, let me give you another word of advice. Choose the color she likes and save yourself the time it’ll take for her to change your mind.” The message slips drifted down onto Ainsley’s desk. “There, see how simple that was?”
“She likes the blue.”
Lucinda’s eyes widened in patently dramatic surprise. “Sometimes I think I must be clairvoyant.”
“Either that or you eavesdrop at the doors.”
“That, too.” Luci sat on the corner of the desk and sipped her soda.
Ainsley gathered up the message slips, still excited at having her own office and actually getting calls. Not that she got that many, but just seeing her name on the slip was enthralling. She loved the moment of discovery, the thrill of finding out who had called while she was out or otherwise occupied. There had been a time when none of the messages that came in were for her, the matchmaker’s apprentice. But lately she was receiving more calls. She even had one client who had sought her out specifically and hadn’t been a referral from Ilsa Fairchild. Ilsa Braddock. Ilsa was married now and spending less time providing matchmaking services. Which could be the real reason Ainsley was getting more calls. But she didn’t care.
She loved everything about her career. She even loved doing the mountain of research that Ilsa insisted was the foundation for finding the possibilities. There were still moments when she couldn’t believe Ilsa had given her this opportunity, couldn’t believe such a wise, wonderful woman had seen the potential in her—Ainsley Danville!—and taken her on as an apprentice. It was a dream come true. The work wasn’t easy, but Ainsley knew she couldn’t have found a more rewarding career field. Even if there were still members of her own family who didn’t take her job too seriously. Or believe it could last.
But she didn’t mind. She loved her job. Ivan loved her and was happy that she found her work as satisfying as he found his. And that, really, was all that mattered. That and the progress she was making toward her goal of being a full-fledged matchmaker and not just an apprentice.
She leafed through the slips—four calls. Three of them from Miranda. “Listen to this, Luci,” she said, and read one aloud. “‘Call church. Make appointment for prenuptial counseling. Ditto caterer.’ Does that mean I have to be counseled by the caterer before I can order the cake?”
“Couldn’t say,” Lucinda replied. “I didn’t go the wedding route. Come to think of it, I’m not married. That must be why I’m the calm, down-to-earth woman you see before you. Or wait…it could be that I’m still sane because Miranda isn’t planning a wedding for me.”
Ainsley sighed and exchanged the pink message slips for the Mojave Blue sample swatch. “It’s going to be a lovely wedding. You know it will.”
“Yes, and you get to wear The Dress.”
“And marry Ivan.”
“And marry Ivan,” Lucinda repeated with a grin. “So what are you waiting for? Pick up that phone and set up your prenuptial cake-counseling appointment.”
But the phone buzzed suddenly with the sharp tones that meant Ilsa was calling via the intercom. Ainsley punched a button to answer. “Yes, Ilsa?”
“Could you come into my office, please? I’d like you to sit in on a, uh, consultation.”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Who’s in with Ilsa?” she asked Luci, grabbing up her notepad and pen. “Male or female?”
Luci scooted off the desk. “One male, three females.”
“Four? That’s odd.”
“Wait until you see them.”
“Why? Are they really old or something?”
“They’re really something.”
“That’s all you’re going to tell me?” Ainsley paused at the door and let Lucinda precede her into the hallway. “Once in a while, it wouldn’t hurt you to be a little like my sister and tell me more than I really want to know.”
“I think they’re the potential client’s kids,” Luci volunteered, although still ridiculously stingy with information. “But I wouldn’t swear to it.”
Ainsley thanked the receptionist with a roll of her eyes. A potential client’s children. That could be interesting. Or not. It didn’t often happen that a family member came in to request help in making a match for a parent or child, sister or cousin, but it did happen. The Braddock matches, for instance, had all come about because Archer Braddock had asked Ilsa to find love matches for his three grandsons. And that had turned out beautifully for all. Ainsley had had somewhat less success playing matchmaker for her cousin, Scott, but that had worked out for the best, too, in the end.
Which only meant that matches resulting from family intervention weren’t necessarily a bad thing. In some instances, Ainsley thought they were very nearly essential. Why, she would put together an introduction of possibilities for her own sister in a heartbeat if she thought she could get away with it. That would give Miranda something besides Ainsley’s wedding to obsess over. That would put a damper on some of those sister-to-sister phone calls. That would provide a distraction Miranda badly needed.
Ainsley had asked Miranda to plan this wedding. She’d wanted her sister to handle the details. For one thing, Ainsley wasn’t all that interested in the planning part, and for another, she knew Miranda, above all, loved to be needed. For a long time, it had been Miranda who was the caretaker, the one who made certain Matt, Andrew and Ainsley felt secure, were happy, who always put their needs above her own. But they were all grown-ups now, and Ainsley thought it was high time Miranda had an outside interest. Not her landscape-design career, which, of course, she did to perfection. Not the interior designing she referred to as her hobby, but which she did with the same no-holds-barred, list-making attention she gave to everything else. Not the multitude of fund-raising commitments she undertook for the good of the Foundation. No, Miranda needed something that wasn’t under her control. A romantic interest. A man who could charm her all the way to her toes, sweep her off her feet and catch her as she fell. Ainsley would love to see that happen to Miranda because she loved her sister and wanted very much for her to find the happily-ever-after she so often denied she wanted. Ainsley would also love to be the matchmaker who facilitated that romance. What a coup that would be.
Ainsley was still smiling at the idea when she walked into Ilsa’s office and saw the four little Shepards sitting on the sofa. Well, two of them weren’t little, exactly. Teenagers or close to it. And she didn’t know for certain that they were Nate’s children. But she felt it was a good guess, based on a better intuitive feeling. And the fact that two of them were identical twins.
“Hello,” she said, trying not to show any of her very real surprise. Not so much that the children were here in Ilsa’s office. That didn’t seem nearly as odd to her as the idea that she’d just been thinking about how to distract Miranda and here, suddenly, might be the opportunity. But she was getting ahead of herself, as she often did. “I’m Ainsley Danville, Mrs. Braddock’s assistant.”
“I’m Cate Shepherd.” The older girl bounced to her feet and stuck out her hand in a way that suggested she was a little nervous. She was young, thirteen at most, Ainsley decided, although she obviously wished to appear much older. Her hair was striking in its oddity—red, blue and a shade closer to banana yellow than blond. Her clothes—low-cut striped capri pants, purple crop top with Who Me? splattered across the front in rhinestones—were designed to make a statement.
What statement, Ainsley wasn’t entirely sure, but she shook the girl’s hand with solemn formality. “It’s nice to meet you, Cate,” she said.
Cate made a sweeping gesture with her expressive hands and turned to give her brother a commanding look, then plopped back onto the sofa as if she couldn’t think of what else to do.
The boy surged to his feet from a sixty-degree slump, hand outstretched, surprising Ainsley with his height. Andrew had been the same at that age, she recalled. Not so much taller than she had been then, but appearing taller just by virtue of being so lanky and loose-limbed.
“I’m Will,” he mumbled.
“Hello, Will,” she replied and shook his hand.
He glanced at the two little girls, who remained seated and somewhat tangled together—one’s doggy ear blending in with the other’s, two little arms wrapped at the elbow, two legs butted up close as if they had only three legs to share between them. “KaliandKori,” he said, running the two names into one. “They’re twins.” He nodded in Cate’s general direction. “And we’re twins.”
“I’m a twin, too,” Ainsley said conversationally, sinking into the remaining chair. “I have an older brother, an older sister, and Andrew, my twin brother.”
Kali and Kori exchanged glances, processing this possible kinship.
“They’re here about their father.” Ilsa leaned forward, the slightest frown at the corners of her mouth. She looked uncertain about what to do with these four youngsters. “We were just discussing him when you came in.”
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