Planning for Love

by Christi Barth

  “What’s your problem?” The man gently settled his bagpipe on a chair and turned to confront Ben, hands on hips.

  “Struck me funny, is all.”

  “You wouldn’t be making fun of my name, would you, laddie?”

  Another snort escaped him, this time of disbelief. “No way is that really your name.”

  Ivy’s eyes shot daggers at him as she rifled through her stack of contracts in a leather portfolio. “Please don’t exacerbate the situation, Bennett.”

  “Hey, it’s a good marketing ploy. Robert Bruce happened to be the biggest hero in Scottish history. Takes a big pair to borrow the name of the guy who freed his country from England.” Ben stroked his chin. “A lot to live up to—some might even say disrespectful.” Although unprofessional and plain wrong to goad the man, he still found it irresistible. This made his fourth wedding in three weeks, and he was fed up with self-important jerks. He simply didn’t give a damn about this crap show anymore. Thanks to his promotion, today’s event hummed with a last day of school sensation of impending freedom.

  “Are ye casting aspersions on my lineage?” Robert Bruce bristled like an over-furled rooster.

  “Come on! Using the word laddie doesn’t make you Scottish. I peg your real accent as pure Long Island, not Loch Ness.”

  Bruce’s shoulders slumped. And with his next words, the burr disappeared completely. “Alright, you got me. I’m just trying to make a buck. People like to think they’ve hired the real McCoy. What’s the big deal? It’s not a crime.”

  “No, but extortion is.” Ivy charged forward, brandishing a sheaf of papers. “My clients paid you in good faith, and you storm in here demanding more? How dare you?”

  “All they gave me was a deposit. I don’t care about their good faith. I want my five hundred dollars.” His tone was surly.

  “Then you’d better check your bank account, because that’s where it is.” Ivy thrust the papers under his nose. “Isn’t this a receipt, signed by you, acknowledging that Tracy paid you in full over a month ago?”

  The seconds ticked by in silence as Bruce skimmed the paper. Then he crumpled the receipt into a tiny ball and tossed it over his shoulder. “Like I said, just trying to make a buck. Works most of the time.” He picked up his bagpipe.

  “I won’t tell anyone about this if you agree to stay and play for the entire cocktail hour,” she bargained.

  “Hey, I’m only supposed to play the ceremony.”

  “True. But if you don’t stay, I’ll get on every wedding website and blacklist you. Then I’ll contact the Better Business Bureau and have them investigate. Wouldn’t it be much less trouble for both of us if you stay an extra hour?” Her tone was sweet and beguiling, in stark contrast to the down and dirty nature of her threat. It was beautiful to watch.

  “Now you’ve got me over a barrel. Guess I’ll stay.” Bruce scooped up his bagpipe. “This job used to be easy. Damned interfering wedding planners ruin everything,” he grumbled as he stomped out of the hall.

  “Did you get all of that?” Ben asked Ollie.

  “You bet. Great stuff!”

  “Miss Rhodes, you sure know how to deliver the goods. We haven’t even seen the bride and groom yet and we already have some great footage.” Ben bounced on the balls of his feet in excitement. Talk about ending with a bang. He might not care about the show, but he still loved a great piece of film. “This is going to be one humdinger of a wedding.”

  “You’re lucky I don’t throw you out on your ass!” Ivy hissed. Her glossy lips thinned in anger. “Pull another stunt like that and both of you will be on the sidewalk before you can blink.”

  Hmm. So a bit of hellcat hid under the elegant pink dress. Every few minutes she revealed a new side. It sure wasn’t boring to hang out with her. “Don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. But whatever Ollie did, I’ll make sure he apologizes.”

  “Not him, you idiot. You’re the one who screwed up!” Her voice rose to a near screech by the last word. And of course, Ollie kept rolling.

  “Turn off the camera and give us a few minutes,” Ben ordered. No way would he allow raw footage of him being scolded by someone who looked like a bridesmaid.

  “You don’t have long,” Ollie warned. “I saw some limos pull into the lot right before I came in. This place is about to be flooded with happy wedding people.”

  “Go get some best wishes interviews. I’ll be right behind you.” Ben grabbed Ivy’s hand and dragged her back to the window and a shred of privacy. “Was it really necessary to yell at me in front of my assistant?”

  “Maybe not,” she conceded after a moment. “But I don’t have time to play nice. We’re about to be overrun with guests.”

  He had a watch, didn’t he? Why did everyone keep drumming that into his head? “Yeah, I get that. Mind telling me why you’re so pissed off?”

  Ivy huffed out a breath. “I was handling the bagpiper. Or at least, I was until you barged in and made fun of him. You escalated the situation unnecessarily.”

  She had a point. Worse, she had a really good point. The kind of mistake even the greenest rookie wouldn’t make. Part of him was big enough to admit that. But the other part, the this is my last day and I don’t give a damn part wasn’t ready to roll over. Perversely, the need to defend himself reared its ugly head.

  “Come on, the guy was a jerk. He tried to scam you for five hundred bucks!”

  His rebuttal fell on deaf ears. Her scowl didn’t change. Ivy crossed her arms. She looked like a stern pre-school teacher. It was adorable and intimidating at the same time. “And by following my standard procedures, I caught him and put an end to it. All you did was enrage him.”

  Deflection hadn’t worked. Maybe a change of subject would take the edge off her anger. “Before everyone gets here, we should go over the itinerary for tonight.” He reached into his back pocket for his crumpled copy of the schedule.

  “It’s your job to record the action, not take part in it.” Guess she wanted to linger on his mistake like a tongue poking a sore tooth.

  He flattened the schedule onto the windowsill. “Ouch! The truth really does hurt.”

  “So you agree your actions were ill advised?”

  Her relentless badgering wore him down. Time to give in. “It was stupid. My head’s not really in the game today. Sorry.” To his complete surprise, a smile broke across her face.

  “See? Now I can trust that you won’t let it happen again. Every wedding comes with one stumbling block, and hopefully this was it.” She stuck out her hand. “Let’s aim for a drama-free day.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” Ben took her hand, but didn’t shake. Instead, he rolled it over and traced the inner length of each finger with a feather-light touch. When she responded with a full body shiver, he finished by dropping a kiss on the inside of her wrist where her pulse throbbed furiously. “Am I forgiven now?”

  “For what?” Ivy asked on a breathy sigh.

  Ben knew enough about women to keep his chuckle all to himself. Still, it felt damn good to fluster the seemingly unflappable planner. “You know, waving a red cape in front of our pseudo-Scottish piper.”

  “Oh. Oh!” Ivy’s eyes snapped back into focus, and she jerked her hand out of his. “Fine. Just behave yourself the rest of the day. I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

  I just bet you will, he thought, enjoying the view of her tight ass twitching beneath the satin skirt as she all but ran out of the room.

  * * *

  Ben’s trained eye took in the scene spread out before him like a postcard. Guests clustered on the flagstone patio behind the brick building. The florist had anchored the long runner bisecting rows of white wooden folding chairs with pots bursting with some kind of red and yellow blooms that echoed those in the bride’s bouquet. Wildflowers clumped together in a serpentine border fronting the wide expanse of a clear blue pond. No doubt it’d make for a beautiful shot. He lowered his video camera and called over his shoulder to Ivy picki
ng her way across the moss-covered paving stones.

  “Fifty bucks says the skydiver lands in the kangaroo pen.”

  Ollie gave his lens a final wipe with the polishing cloth. “I want in on that action. Fifty from me on a pond splashdown.”

  “Oh, for goodness sake!” Ivy stopped dead in her tracks. Her head swiveled from one man to the other, then back again. “I don’t wager against my client’s perfect day. Since that’s why they hire me, it strikes me as a bit counterintuitive.”

  Ben shrugged with one shoulder, the other currently weighted down beneath his camera. “Well, you could put your money on him sticking the landing, but frankly, it’s a sucker bet.”

  “No betting.” She waggled a finger in front of his face, the nail painted the same toe-shoe pink as her dress. “You’ll jinx the whole thing. Brides are highly superstitious.”

  “So we won’t tell her.” Ollie caught the cautionary look of death glared his way, and turned tail. Coward. “I’ll be in position over by the guests if you need me.”

  “We’re a go in three minutes. Exactly,” Ivy called after him.

  Funny joke, seeing as how she had no way of knowing when this guy would plummet from the sky. Except that she didn’t crack a smile. Ben scratched behind his ear, trying to appear nonchalant. Wedding planners could be very territorial. Treading lightly didn’t begin to describe the caution he’d use for fear of being seen as questioning her judgment. The only thing worse than a bossy planner was a ticked off, bossy planner.

  “Don’t you want to wait until you at least have a visual of the skydiver?”

  Ivy loosened her death grip on her leather portfolio to grab her skirt before it brushed the tall, weedy-looking things lining the path. “Oh, I’m not worried about Alan. He swears he can adjust his descent and land on the proverbial dime. Besides, all my weddings start on time.”

  Ben had rolled tape professionally on almost one hundred weddings. Add to that the dozen he’d attended personally, it made him, if not an expert, at least well versed. Which meant he could count on one hand—scratch that. He couldn’t think of a single time a wedding began at the appointed hour. She must’ve fallen back on her standard convince-the-rubes-five-thousand-dollars-is-reasonable-for-a-wedding-planner spiel by spitting out that empty promise. But they were both vendors. Comrades in arms, for the day, anyway. He wanted to hear her real stats.

  “No need to over-inflate your success rate for me. I’m not in the market for a planner.”

  “Did I not enunciate?” She slowed her speech and over-pronounced each word. “Every wedding I run starts on time. Ask anyone.”

  His jaw dropped. Literally unhinged like a cobra getting ready to swallow an entire wombat. “In that case, you’re more than a mere planner. You’re a freaking miracle worker. How do you do it?”

  “I find that people tend to rise to whatever expectations are set for them.”

  Ben mirrored her smug, single eyebrow raise and tossed her words back at her. “Really? I find that, given the opportunity, people tend to disappoint on a global scale.” The woman didn’t just wear rose-colored glasses. She lived in a fluffy, cotton candy bubble. One day reality was bound to fly through her air space and crap all over it.

  They rounded the copse of trees hiding the bride. Or rather, the trees that almost managed to hide the super-puffy satin skirt. A red and yellow tartan draped from one shoulder to a belt at her waist. The identically colored bouquet cascaded down to where Ben guessed her knees must be. Her face, though, shone with all the incandescence of his best flash. A light meter couldn’t begin to capture the beams of joy radiating from her eyes.

  “Tracy, you are a vision.” With an exaggerated bow, Ben dropped to one knee and kissed her hand. But he also carefully anchored the camera with his other hand, rolling every second. You never knew what would be worth keeping until the editors hacked away at hours and hours of footage to find the cringe-worthy moments that brought the viewers back every week.

  “Usually I’d disagree, but today I truly feel beautiful. Good weather, good hair day, great dress. It’s everything I’d hoped.” A tiny, vertical line appeared between her brows. “Or am I so excited I overlooked something? Something obvious and important. Do I have a long string of toilet paper stuck to my shoe?” Like a dog chasing its tail, she turned in a slow circle, looking back over her shoulder.

  Ivy smoothed a light hand down the veil, then reached down to twitch Tracy’s skirts even fuller. “No toilet paper, I promise. You shouldn’t worry about those things. It’s why you hired me, remember? To take away all the stress and details of today so you could sit back and bask in starting your new life with Seth.”

  “You’re right. I’ve spent the last fourteen months obsessing over every tiny detail. To say it’s hard to let go, relinquish control, is an understatement.” Tracy’s self-deprecating grin quirked up the corners of her glossy lips. “But I knew I wouldn’t be able to enjoy today if I tried to do it all myself. And my friend Brittney said you were wonderful. You made sure she had fun while you ran the wedding like a Swiss clock. Knowing that makes it a little easier to relax.”

  “I’ll make sure there’s a glass of champagne in your hand as soon as you and Seth finish recessing down the aisle,” Ivy promised. “Bubbles tend to jump start the relaxation process.”

  Ben marveled at her calm. In his experience, the term wedding planner was synonymous with four-star general. Someone who barked orders into a headset. Bullied the wedding party into order. Ran circles around the bride, fussing and twittering. But not Ivy. She acted as more of a sounding board for the bride, almost like the foam covers around microphones that filter out ambient noise. Even more surprising, she seemed genuinely happy for Tracy. Hard to believe, since an hour before she’d been filled with resentment at being blindsided into appearing on WWS, all courtesy of the bride.

  A breathtaking smile washed across Ivy’s face. The power of it rocked Ben to his core. Just a smile, right? People smiled a dozen times a day. Half the time it was an involuntary reaction, at best. So why couldn’t he resist zooming in, right past Tracy to fill the screen with her twinkling hazel eyes?

  “Tracy, are you ready to marry the man of your dreams?” she asked.

  The bride took a deep breath, held it, then nodded. Ivy stepped out from the cover of the trees and raised her arms. Ben trailed her, seizing the opportunity to be the lone voice of reason.

  “You’re really not going to wait for the skydiver?”

  “No need. He’ll drop down right on time.”

  Maybe with her head so firmly in the clouds, she imagined she could see the parachute unfurling already. All Ben knew was that the clear April sky above didn’t hold a plane for as far as he could see in any direction. “Sure, in a perfect world. But this world of ours is light years from perfect.”

  “Your lack of faith is astounding, and more than a little insulting.” She moved her arms up and down in wide gestures, out to the sides.

  “What are you doing? Trying to flag down the next plane that soars by and hope it’s got a spare set of wedding rings and a guy willing to jump down with them?”

  “Semaphores.”

  Ben blinked. “You lost me.”

  “A signaling system, usually with flags. Of vital importance to the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. Lets me communicate with my assistant Julianna silently, to let her know we’re ready to begin. I picked up the basic alphabet years ago as a lifeguard.”

  He craned his head to see a short woman with a sleek brunette pixie cut signaling in their direction from the open second floor porches where the guests congregated. Ben hadn’t noticed Ivy even had an assistant. Talk about working smoothly behind the scenes! His admiration for her skill kicked up another few notches. With her running the show, his last official event for WWS might just come off without a hitch. And wouldn’t that drive his producers nuts!

  “So no headsets or walkie talkies for you two?”

  Ivy snorted. “It’s
a wedding, not a space shuttle launch. They’re a measure of last resort for oversized events.”

  Ben pressed on. Maybe the viewers would be interested in the behind-the-scenes minutiae. Of course, he really wanted to see if she’d throw off her own vaunted schedule by talking with him. “Such as?”

  “Filipino weddings, for example, utilize sponsors in the ceremony. Their typical bridal parties are over fifty people. Imagine that many people squeezed up the stairs, into a choir loft to line up for the processional. If I’m at the back with the bride, there’s no way to see or hear the front of the line. Times like that, Julianna and I utilize electronics out of necessity. But for a wedding this size, I’d call it sheer pretention.” She walked to the edge of the pond and waved at the first bridesmaid and groomsman. Each of the four pairs floated in their own swan boat. Ben hoped none of the groomsmen’s legs gave out midway. Paddleboats could be a real workout.

  With perfect synchronicity, the ear-splitting drone of the bagpipe rent the air as the first boat began to move. Ben made sure to get a close up, past the giant curved fiberglass swan neck to the red and yellow tartan yarmulke atop the groomsman’s head. It matched the pattern in the sash around the bridesmaid’s waist. By the time this wedding ended, his eyes would be bleeding red and yellow. One by one, the boats slowly glided across the pond. Ben kept one eye fixed on the cloudless sky.

  To his surprise, a small biplane sputtered into the airspace directly overhead. As the first boat docked, a dark speck dropped from the wing of the plane. Seconds later, a red and yellow plaid parachute ballooned open, slowing the fast free fall. Ivy might’ve actually pulled off this crazy, complicated plan. Deep down, though, Ben still hoped the guy would land in the kangaroo pen.

  “Tracy, as soon as Alan lands you’ll start up the path,” Ivy reminded her. Both women stood, riveted, eyes trained on the now visible man waving a small pillow. Down he gently plummeted.

  Even though he’d told Ollie to get the skydiver, Ben couldn’t resist tracking the descent with his own camera. At this point, a landing on the kangaroos or antelope didn’t appear likely. Alan used his free arm to tug on ropes that corrected his course. By the time the last boat docked, he floated directly over the pond. The center of the pond. Zooming in, Ben could see lines of grim determination around his mouth as he yanked at the cords, but it was too late. With a mighty splash, Alan landed in the water, his parachute a bright spreading splotch on the serene blue surface.