by Regina Cole
“Good,” Chandler said, and the two of them started walking together. As they proceeded down the walk, Eliza’s hand bumped into Chandler’s. Without even thinking, she reached out with a pinkie and caught his. The touch, so simple, rocketed up her arm and curled around her brain, which was purring like a kitten. Why did that feel so good?
Chandler didn’t try to grab her hand, he just kept his pinkie linked with hers.
She bit her lip and didn’t look at him. If he’d have tried to deepen their touch, she could pull away. But she’d initiated this. How could she back out without making it weird?
Shit. What was she doing? She’d told Chandler that she just wanted to have fun. But now she was leaning on him like he was a friend, or something more. This wasn’t smart, not at all. But she couldn’t stop herself—didn’t want to.
“I guess you’re headed over here to help out with decorations, too, right? Greg roped me into it this morning. He said that you guys were kind of short-staffed with Rachel being pregnant and Stacey feeling bad.”
“Oh God, Stacey. I haven’t heard how she was since I got back from the station. Is she okay? Do I need to take her anything?” Eliza’s concerned glance flew back to the main tower, where all their rooms were.
Chandler used her distraction to lace his fingers through hers and squeeze, palm to palm. “She’s fine. I took her a coffee a little while ago. She just needs some rest.”
Eliza shot him a doubting glance. His voice had been a little too comforting, too bright. He was hiding something.
“Maybe I should go see her myself. I mean, she might want some company.”
Chandler shook his head. “She’s resting, and besides, we’ve got to get the decorations finished before the rehearsal tonight. Bree’s about to have a nervous breakdown, and you’re the only healthy and able bridesmaid left. Come on, she needs you.”
“You’re right.” He was, but she didn’t have to like it.
Together they pushed through the doors to the event hall. The entryway held a large round table with a huge floral centerpiece. Three hallways spoked from the foyer, and on the leftmost branch was a sign with an arrow. “Wedding Reception.”
“I guess we go this way?”
Eliza swallowed, but her mouth was dry. “I’d say just follow the sounds of the hysterical yelling?”
Oh Lord, she’d been afraid of this.
“Mom, I told you, you can’t switch the place cards around. They’re in those spots for a reason, I set up the seating chart myself.” Bree held both hands out to her mother, whose arms were flapping around like a frantic chicken’s wings.
“The Childresses are some of our oldest friends. How can you think to seat them with the Ballards? Don’t you remember what happened in ninety-seven when we were invited to that cocktail party? Evian Childress spilled her drink all over Bonnie Ballard’s exquisite hand-woven rug. Imported from Turkey, it was, and then ruined.”
“Evian was four. She spilled her Kool-Aid. It happens.” Bree’s temper was beginning to show, but her mother was having none of it.
“It will be a disaster. And Lance Yarvey next to Francesca Ramone? Darling, please, they’ve been having a secret affair for the last ten years!”
“Then they’ll have a lot to talk about,” Bree snapped, slamming a handful of place cards down on the white tablecloth. “I can do this without you.”
“My God, what have I done to have such an embarrassment for a daughter?” The tears were flowing now.
As nice as it would have been to stay by Chandler’s side and avoid the confrontation, Eliza knew what she had to do. She rushed to their side.
“Hey, Mrs. Hough! Oh gosh, you’re so gorgeous today! That color lipstick looks amazing on you. You’ve got to tell me what shade it is.”
“Hello, Eliza,” Bree’s mother sniffed, dabbing ineffectually at her tears. Bree rolled her eyes as her mother continued, “Thank you. It’s Canterbury Coral.”
Drawing the woman’s arm through hers, Eliza kept up a stream of questions and compliments. Moving toward the corner of the room, she caught Bree’s eye. A sad, but grateful smile graced the bride-to-be’s face. She resumed setting out the name cards in the appropriate places, more than likely having to check over her previous work to make sure her mother hadn’t wrecked everything.
Chandler moved to her side and placed a friendly hand on her upper back. Eliza snapped her gaze forward.
Mrs. Hough craned her neck to see what was going on behind her. “What is it? Has Sabrina done—”
“No, no, I just have a little headache. I didn’t sleep well last night.” Eliza said as she held open the door of the event hall for Mrs. Hough.
“Well, I expect not. Gladys told me about that policeman coming to get you this morning. You girls were up to no good last night. I’ve told Sabrina time and again that she can’t pretend to be a teenager anymore. Why, she’s twenty-six! How she can possibly keep dancing and drinking like that and expect to be seen in a positive light, well, I—”
Eliza just smiled, nodded, and walked Mrs. Hough as far as she could from the event hall. She’d find someone else for the woman to glom onto, and then circle back to help with the decorations.
She’d thought she wanted to stop holding Chandler’s hand, but not like this. Her fingers felt empty without his.
Chandler watched as Eliza skillfully drew Sabrina’s mother away from the confrontation. For a moment, he just stood, almost in awe of what he’d seen. She’d taken what was a pretty volatile situation and completely defused it. Even skilled mediators weren’t always as successful.
She was good. But then again, he’d known that before this had happened.
“Are you okay?” He moved to Sabrina’s side, patting her back. “I know how family can get sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Sabrina said with a weak smile. “She’s always like this. I didn’t really want her to come, but Greg reminded me of how much worse she’d be if she missed it, especially if Daddy came. I agreed, but now I’m wondering if it could be any worse than this.”
Chandler followed Sabrina’s gaze over to the departing couple. Eliza held the door open for Mrs. Hough, but before they exited, he caught Eliza’s eye. A small smile passed between them, and a warm feeling took up residence in Chandler’s chest.
“You like her, don’t you?”
The quick change of subject took him aback. “Who?”
“Eliza.” Sabrina straightened a place card and stepped back to study her diagram. “The two of you look great together, you know.”
“Really? Well, she’s incredible. She’d look great standing next to anyone.” He wasn’t trying to butter up the best friend, he was just being honest. Eliza could stand next to a hobo and make him look good.
“It’s more than that. I think you scare her, but in a good way. You should keep it up.”
“Scare her?” This was getting more and more weird. Wasn’t he supposed to be calming Sabrina down and helping decorate? How’d he end up getting a crash course in Eliza Jackson 101?
Sabrina sighed as she made her way to the stage at the far end of the patio. Bags of decorations were there, left by the wedding planner before she’d taken a team to prepare the area for the ceremony.
“Eliza’s a little different. She’s coming out of her shell here, and that’s awesome. But it’s a big change for her. You see, at home she’s become pretty introverted, because her . . .” Sabrina trailed off as Chandler took a heavy candle stand away from her. He started walking it in the direction she pointed, but she didn’t continue her sentence.
“Eliza doesn’t seem that introverted to me.” Well, she had a couple of times, if you didn’t count the few minutes she’d told him in explicit detail what she wanted to happen between them in the bedroom. He counted them, over and over again.
“It doesn’t matter why she’s that way at home. What does matter is that she has a good time here and now, and I think you’re good for her. If you want to be, that is. So she mig
ht kick up a fight, but that’s fine. Let her. But don’t let her push you away.”
Chandler grunted as he put the wrought-iron stand down near a grouping of tables along the wall. “I don’t intend to.”
“Good.” Sabrina put white pillar candles atop the stand. She glanced backward as the door to the patio squeaked open. “Now’s your chance to stick around. Why don’t the two of you start winding the tulle around the backs of the chairs? I need to scoot over to the beach and make sure Greg’s doing okay with the ceremony decorations.”
Without waiting for an answer, Sabrina waved to Eliza and hurried off in the direction of the beach where the ceremony would take place.
“Where’s Bree heading off to?” Eliza frowned at her friend’s departing back.
“She’s going to check up on Greg and the wedding planner. I don’t know why she hired a planner. She seems to be micromanaging everything herself.”
Eliza shrugged a narrow shoulder. “That’s Bree. She’s pretty particular.”
Chandler bent and picked up a bag of white netting. “She left us with instructions. Is this tulle?”
“Yes.” Eliza laughed. “Your face when you asked that . . . It’s not poison, you know.”
So what if he’d exaggerated his ignorance? It got him that adorable laugh, so the slight deception had been totally worth it.
“We’re supposed to wrap this around the chairs. I guess like that one.”
Together they examined the two chairs that had already been done, by Sabrina or the wedding planner earlier, Chandler guessed, and then they started at the head table. Gregory and Sabrina’s chairs first. Chandler held the bolt of tulle and unwrapped it while Eliza took the end and guided it through the slats of the painted-black chairs. Finishing at the back of the seat with a poufy white bow, Eliza snipped the tail with a pair of scissors.
“That’s close enough, right?”
Chandler stepped back and took a critical eye. One side of the bow was at least double the size of the other, and the whole contraption leaned sharply to the left. The tails were uneven, and the extra tulle sagged at the back of the seat. Well, to be perfectly honest, it looked like shit. Biting his lip, he glanced back at the dark-haired, scowling woman.
“You’re right. It’s awful. You want to wind?”
“I didn’t say it was awful,” Chandler protested lamely.
“You didn’t have to. I have eyes. Here, switch with me. I told you I’m not super girly.”
She hadn’t said anything of the kind, but Chandler didn’t point that out. He just grabbed the end of the tulle that Eliza passed him, and between the two of them they unwrapped the mangled mess that she’d made of it.
Chandler began wrapping while Eliza held the extra bulk of the material. A comfortable silence fell between them as Chandler tied an expert knot at the back of the chair.
“You’re pretty good at that.”
“Thanks.” Chandler grinned as he started on the next chair. “I guess those summers I spent working on my dad’s fishing boat were enough to teach me a couple of knots.”
“Your dad’s a captain?”
“Was. He owned a commercial fishing boat for a few years while I was a teenager. It was hard work, but I enjoyed it.”
“That’s great.” Eliza cut the end of the tulle as he held it out for her. Tucking the scissors back into her waistband, she moved around the table after Chandler as they prepared to wrap the next set of chairs. “It must have been great bonding time for you and him.”
She was more right than she knew. Those memories were some of the most precious ones he had. Chandler set his jaw as he knelt down to get a better angle on the next chair.
“Why did you quit?”
He didn’t want to say, but he wanted to know her more, and that street went both ways. He took a deep breath before answering.
“I didn’t exactly quit. Right after my senior year of high school my parents were both killed in a car accident, and the boat was sold to pay off their remaining debts.”
The bolt of fabric clattered to the floor, and Chandler turned at the noise. Eliza was kneeling down and wrapping the extra fabric around her arm.
“Sorry about that, I guess I’m kind of klutzy.”
“No, it’s okay. Let me help.”
He reached for the bolt of fabric, but her fingers fumbled again and she dropped it. They both reached for it at the same time, hands touching beneath the silky white netting.
He didn’t think, he just took her hand and squeezed. She squeezed back.
“I’m sorry that happened to them, and to you,” she whispered. The sun was peeking through the vines in the pergola above them, throwing sunny spots on the top of her hair, making it look like shiny, melted chocolate.
“It’s not your fault,” he whispered back, leaning closer.
“I know. But I can still be sorry.”
His hand found her cheek, his thumb rubbing across the soft skin. Her eyelids fluttered shut, and his thumb continued to caress her face.
“Don’t be sorry for me, Liza. Just let me kiss you.”
She nodded, and so he did.
13
Eliza knew she shouldn’t have let him kiss her. It was too much like caring. This didn’t have anything to do with a vacation fling, with a sexy stranger getting physical just for the fun of it. This was too close. But damn it, he felt good. And she’d wanted to help heal the pain she saw in his eyes when he’d mentioned his parents’ deaths.
The kiss was soft at first, gentle, lips and breath mingling, Chandler’s hand holding hers inside an envelope of flowing white fabric. But before she could lose her head and open her mouth to him, he pulled away.
“Thank you,” he said simply, and resumed wrapping the tulle around the chair.
She didn’t move for a moment, because she wasn’t sure what to do. Grab him and kiss him again? Touch that warm, beautiful body of his, so tantalizingly close to her? Stretch out on the table and fuck him like a horny teenager?
Maybe not that last one, because a group of voices was coming near. Scrambling, Eliza gathered the tulle and stood, hoping what had just happened wasn’t written plainly all over her face.
“That looks great,” Bree said with a smile. Gregory stood beside her, holding her hand. There was an odd look on his face, as if he was trying to hold back anger. It was a tight, drawn, closed expression. Eliza stepped nearer to Chandler, and Greg’s eyes narrowed a bit further.
“Chandler is much better at this than I am,” Eliza said with a nervous laugh. “You should have seen the chair I did.”
“Eliza’s not the girliest girl you’ll ever meet,” Sabrina said, poking Gregory in the side and getting a halfhearted smile in return. “When we went out to the clubs together in college I always had to dress her first. If not she’d have worn jeans and a ratty T-shirt on the dance floor.”
“I think she’s doing a good job on her own now,” Chandler said, eyeing the outfit that Eliza had worn to the police station. It was a pair of Bermuda shorts with a flowing turquoise tank. Simple but comfortable and it fit well. In any case, hearing it from Chandler was nice.
“Do you want us to finish this, or do we need to do something else?” Eliza didn’t know what else to say. She certainly wasn’t going to comment on her newly acquired fashion sense, that was for sure.
“Oh no, it looks wonderful, doesn’t it, Greg? We were getting in the planner’s way, so she sent us off. Actually, we’re going to go over our vows.” Bree looked down, a shy smile on her face. It was an unusual expression for her. Normally Bree was so vivacious and bubbly, not really mushy or sentimental. But seeing how her friend felt about Greg made Eliza a bit less nervous about the angry-looking man.
“Okay. I’ll see you at the rehearsal then?”
Bree nodded, Greg waved to Chandler, and then the happy couple walked away together. Eliza watched them go, gripping the tulle a little tighter when she saw Gregory’s shoulders tighten in response to Bree cuddling his
arm close.
“I worry about her.”
“Who, Sabrina?”
Eliza blinked. She hadn’t realized that she’d voiced her concern aloud until Chandler responded. Whoops.
“Sorry, that was an inside thought.”
Chandler put the finishing touches on the last bow of that table. “For what it’s worth, I think Sabrina is perfect for Gregory.”
“But what if he’s not right for her? He seems really uptight and irritable.”
Chandler frowned slightly, taking the end of the fabric she handed him at the last set of tables.
“Gregory’s been through a lot. He and I both have, really. But he’s one of the best men I know. He saved my life eight years ago. I’m sure Sabrina will be safe and taken care of with Gregory.”
“Saved your life? How did that happen?”
Chandler closed his eyes, and Eliza wondered if she’d pressed too hard. So far, Chandler had revealed a lot more of himself to her than she had. His honesty and transparency was pretty refreshing, actually, and was part of the reason her passion-soaked brain had been comfortable enough with him to ask for some kinky favors in the future. Of course, tying up and spanking were pretty tame compared to what she’d asked Tyler to participate in, the whole reason her hometown thought she was a freak. She shuddered, but then Chandler spoke and she was able to shove her bitter thoughts down.
“It was a case of wrong place, wrong time, really. About a year after my parents died I was in downtown Charlotte, visiting Greg and his parents, my aunt and uncle. We’d gone out to a restaurant together, but I had parked in the wrong deck. It was only about four blocks away from the restaurant, but it was through a rough part of town. I got mugged and the guy pulled a gun.”
Eliza’s stomach dropped and she covered her mouth with her free hand. “Oh no.”
Chandler didn’t lift his gaze from the motion of the tulle in his hands. Over and under the slat, between the next, pass through, repeating the motions until the slats were covered in twists of gauzy white fabric.
“The guy pulled the trigger, but I ran and his shot went wide. Gregory had driven around the block to make sure I didn’t lose my way. He saw the guy chasing me, gunned the motor of his pickup, and knocked him down. The mugger was injured, but not seriously.”
