Grace took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Although she wasn’t very tall, the action made her seem formidable somehow. She’d probably sent many a caterer or florist scurrying. Of course, because she wasn’t very tall, the deep breath only called his attention back to the nice view he had of her cleavage. “This may not be the first wedding at Belles Fleurs, but this is the only wedding that matters for Honey and Brent.” The no-nonsense crispness of her voice snapped his attention right back to her face. “This is also my first event at this venue, so I have nothing other than your assurances that you and your staff are on top of this. And I’m very sorry, but your assurances are not enough. Honey has had enough of an upset this week with the change in coordinators, and I do not want her worrying about details falling through the cracks. I realize that this meeting might be an inconvenience to you, but my job is to make Honey’s day perfect, and for that to happen, I have to make sure that you and your staff do your jobs.”
There was an insult implied in that statement, but it was nonetheless true, and she stared him straight in the eye as she waited for his response. He couldn’t exactly argue with her without sounding like a complete jackass. And while he’d known the Moreau and Delacroix families his entire life, that would not stop Judge Moreau from coming down on him like the Wrath of God if anything went wrong. “Extra starch in the napkins. Check. Next?”
At least Grace was gracious about it, moving on immediately. Once she was satisfied with the layout of the ballroom—and he had a small moment of satisfaction when she conceded he was right about the floor plan—she moved on through the house, making notes the entire time. The tour finally ended in the kitchen, and he watched as she cast a critical eye over the gleaming stainless steel surfaces. That was a step over the line. “I assure you, my kitchen meets the highest standards of cleanliness and quality.”
“Oh, your reputation precedes you there. I have no doubts.”
“Then would you like to go over the menu?”
“No. I’m aware that you, Honey, and Brent designed this menu specifically to highlight their favorites and your signature dishes, so I’m not going to question the choices. And again, your reputation precedes you. I’ve heard that your crawfish bisque is divine.” Seemingly on cue, her stomach growled and a pink tint crept to her cheeks.
“Maybe I should get you some.” She started to protest, but he was already moving toward the fridge. “We happen to have some left over from an event last night. It’s easily reheated, and very nice with a glass of white wine. Have a seat—”
Grace moved so quickly, one would think he’d offered her poison on roadkill. “That’s quite all right. I think we’re done here. Thank you for your time.” The words were coming out in a rush, that earlier cool professionalism gone. “Here’s my card, call me if there are any problems, otherwise I guess I’ll see you tomorrow for the rehearsal. I’ll show myself out.” A second later, she was gone, and he was still standing there with a hand on the fridge door, wondering what the hell had just happened.
This was just too weird. He put the bisque on to heat anyway and poured himself a glass of wine, replaying the events of the last hour in his mind. Grace Henson definitely didn’t like him. He didn’t know why, but that much was obvious. She was acting a bit like a one-night stand he’d forgotten to call the next day.
But she certainly knew a lot—about Honey, Bellefleur, and the plantation. In retrospect, he could see that she definitely had a familiarity with the bigger picture that Honey’s original planner had not shown at their first meeting. That didn’t fit with the way she was acting, though.
It was certainly a puzzle, and he seemed to be missing a piece or two. Thankfully, he knew exactly who to call to get those missing pieces in place.
He stirred the bisque with one hand and scrolled through his contact list with the other until he found the number he was looking for.
Chapter Two
Grace tried very hard not to think about anything other than wedding details on the drive back home, but Beau—and the things she’d said and done—kept coming back to make her cringe.
So much for professionalism. Could you have tried a little harder to make a fool of yourself?
Ugh. Why did seeing him make her feel fifteen again? No, not fifteen. At fifteen, she’d had the starry-eyed, wobbly-kneed crush, but while her hormones had been in adolescent overdrive, she didn’t have the experience to know exactly what two healthy people could do to and with each other.
Now she did.
That knowledge had hit her dormant adolescent crush feelings full-on, making her knees wobble in a whole new way. All the hurt feelings and old grudges weren’t nearly enough to fight it off.
Frustrated, she turned up the CD of Honey’s wedding music and pictured the processional, mentally marking the entrance of each attendant. She’d need to tell the musicians to slow down or else the flower girls would be trotting down the—
Dear Lord, he had the most amazing hands. And when she’d briefly shaken one earlier, they’d been warm and slightly rough, just enough to make the hairs on her arms stand up at the thought of them on her…
No! Focus on the flower girls, Grace.
By the time she made it home, her head ached from the battle. She dropped her bag and keys on the counter and went straight for the wine in the fridge. She’d sworn never to use alcohol as a crutch or an escape hatch, but there was an exception to every rule.
Her father hadn’t been a violent or mean drunk, just a worthless parent because of his addiction, and his twenty-year bender had left its mark on her. The whispers, the pity, and the poverty had driven her out of Bellefleur and prompted her vow to never go back.
She’d broken that vow, and not only had she survived the experience, she was pretty darn proud of how well she’d done, too. This would be a celebratory drink, not one of weakness.
Still, the tiny pop of the cork coming out of the bottle was the sweetest sound she’d heard all day. I’ve totally earned this. Drinking straight out of the bottle was tempting, but she reached for a glass instead.
She took a long drink and sighed, closing her eyes as the smooth pinot loosened the painful knot in her stomach. Then she kicked off her shoes, untucked her blouse, slid a CD into the player, and collapsed on the couch in a boneless heap. A second later, she sat up, unclasped the hook of her bra, and pulled it out through the armholes of her shirt. The extra padding had done its job. She’d caught Beau looking down her shirt more than once. She just hadn’t expected his actions to affect her so strongly. How embarrassing—and it didn’t matter if Beau knew it or not. She knew, and that was bad enough.
And I have to go back there. God, she was an idiot. While Beau might not have been able to place her today, the chances of her making it through the weekend without him finding out were slim. Actually, they were more like none. Even if Honey didn’t tell God and everyone immediately, the entire population of Bellefleur would be there, and she didn’t dare hang her hopes on the possibility that the entire town had selective amnesia. The only saving grace was that both Friday and Saturday would be busy—both for her and for Beau. They’d be in the same place, but by necessity, their interactions would be brief and about business. She could hang on to that, if nothing else. Maybe she should have fessed up immediately and saved herself the trouble.
Although it had been nice to see him without him seeing Gracie Lee…
Ugh. If she survived this, she was never, ever going back to Bellefleur again. She’d have nothing left to prove to anyone.
She let that thought buoy her until the second glass of wine kicked in, taking the edge off her frazzled nerves. After changing into a comfy pair of shorts and a tank top, she went to the kitchen and tossed a frozen dinner into the microwave. Looking at her almost empty wineglass, she debated another, finally deciding to at least wait until dinner was served.
Hard on that thought, there was a knock at her door. She opened it, only to have her brain freeze when she foun
d Beau standing there.
“You lied to me.”
The words didn’t make any sense, but neither did the fact Beau Vaughn was at her door. Beau Vaughn. Here. Looking absolutely yummy in faded jeans and a plain gray T-shirt that clung to a nicely shaped set of pecs before tapering in at his waist. Weren’t chefs supposed to be chubby from sampling their own food? As those thoughts tumbled over themselves, his words started to unscramble themselves in her mind, but they didn’t seem to mesh with the smirk on his face. How much had she had to drink? “What?” she managed to get out.
“You lied to me. I asked you if I knew you and you said no.” An eyebrow went up, mocking her. “That was a lie, Gracie Lee.”
The “Gracie Lee” seemed to snap the world back into focus, and the shock of seeing Beau on her welcome mat turned to anger at seeing him there. “Why are you here? And how did you know where I lived, anyway?”
“To answer your first question—because you lied to me. In answer to your second, you’re listed in the white pages.”
Damn it. “I did not lie to you. And even if I did, that doesn’t give you the right to stalk me.”
There was that smile, but she refused to be charmed by it. “Coming to visit an old friend hardly counts as stalking. And you did. Lie,” he clarified. “I’m wondering why.”
“We’re not old friends.” She nearly choked on the word and the ridiculousness of the idea. “You asked if you knew me, and the answer is no. You don’t know me. Not now and certainly not then.”
“That’s semantics, Gracie Lee. I—”
Her skin crawled. “It’s just Grace,” she snapped. “Not Gracie Lee.”
An eyebrow went up in question. “And Henson. You on the run from something?”
Just my past. “I started over. New town, new name.” Beau started to say something, but she cut him off. “I answered your questions, now please answer mine. Why are you here?”
“Can I come in first?”
“No!” It was horribly rude, but the answer exploded from her lips without forethought. She just didn’t expect for him to look so shocked and slightly hurt from the word.
He stepped back, confusion written across his face, and tucked his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “Well, that was… unexpected.”
He’d probably never had a woman turn him away, and that thought sent a little spurt of nasty pleasure through her. It wasn’t exactly the same thing he’d done to her—nowhere near—but she felt slightly avenged nonetheless. “Is this about Honey’s wedding?” she asked.
“No.”
“So you drove all the way here just to call me a liar to my face?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “When you say it like that…”
Talk about ridiculous… Standing here like this, him outside and her blocking the door like a bouncer at a speakeasy waiting for the password. But she couldn’t let him in. She wasn’t even wearing a bra, for God’s sake. She crossed her arms over her chest to try to hide that fact and brazened through. “Well, mission accomplished. Anything else?”
His attitude made a complete turnaround. “Actually, yes. I’d love to know exactly what I did to piss you off.”
The question sounded genuine, if peevish, but she searched his face for signs he was jerking her around. She found none, and a laugh escaped. “You really don’t know, do you?”
“I wouldn’t be asking if I did.”
“That figures.” She leaned against the doorframe. “The spring dinner dance.” She got nothing but a blank look. “Your senior year?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“God, you don’t even remember. Wow.” When Beau shrugged, she rubbed her hands across her face. “I don’t know why that doesn’t surprise me. Search your memory. Like two weeks before the dance, you and Lindsay had the big dramatic breakup—”
He rolled his eyes. “That I remember.”
Her stomach rolled as the memory came back. “The next day, I was waiting for you in the parking lot…” She knew the second that he remembered. “Yeah. That.”
“What? You told me that you would just love to go with me to the dance in Lindsay’s place…” She felt her lips tighten at his sarcastic tone, and a second later his eyes widened. “You were serious about that?”
Her head was about to explode. “Well, yeah.”
“You were a freshman,” he said, like that explained everything.
“So?” This was not going as planned. “Katie Carter and Melissa Wilson told me that you wanted to ask me to go with you, but that you weren’t sure if I had a boyfriend or something, and because I was younger and you didn’t know if I was allowed to date…blah, blah, blah.” She should have known better, known that the school’s Mean Girls were simply looking for amusement at her expense. Even after nearly ten years, she could still hear Katie and Melissa mocking her in the aftermath and feel the rock in her chest. It was the kind of hurt and shame that neither time nor distance could ever completely diminish, and no one could outgrow. “I was stupid to believe them, but I had this huge crush on you and they did a good job convincing me. You didn’t exactly let me down easy, you know.”
He actually looked guilty. “I thought you were just messing with me. That one of the guys had put you up to it for a laugh.”
“No. Katie and Melissa got the laugh. And they made sure everyone knew how I’d stepped above myself and how you’d shot me down. For the next three years, no one let me forget it, either. For God’s sake, people wrote ‘Just say good night, Gracie’ in my freakin’ senior yearbook.”
“Ouch. I really didn’t know. I’m sorry, Grace.”
The apology seemed sincere, but damn it, she didn’t want to be mollified by an apology a decade after the fact. That humiliation had spurred her, and she’d nursed it in order to get where she was today…
Beau sniffed, pulling her out of her thoughts. “Um, what’s that smell?”
The rapid change of topic startled her, but then the smell hit her nose. “Damn it!” She ran for the microwave. The stench of melted plastic was even worse when she opened the door, and the tray burned her hand when she grabbed it, causing her to drop the whole thing onto the counter where overcooked faux gravy splashed everywhere and burned the back of her hand, too. “Fucking hell!”
“Here. Under the tap.” Beau guided her hand under the cold water and held it there when she yelped. “Give it a second,” he coaxed.
“The stupid timer is broken. I normally stand there and watch it, but I got distracted by you…” She trailed off as she realized Beau was behind her, close enough that she could feel the denim of his jeans brushing against her bare legs. His hands were warm against the skin of her wrist, and his breath stirred the hair at her temple when he exhaled. The muscles in her thighs contracted, and the water sliding over her hand and arm didn’t feel quite as cold now. She swallowed hard. “Why don’t you come on in?”
He chuckled and his chest brushed her back. “It seemed like an emergency.” She reached for the tap, but he stilled her hand. “Not yet. One thing I know a lot about is burns. The longer you cool it down, the better it will be.”
Something felt lodged in her throat, so she nodded instead.
“Can I ask what that is? Or was?”
The confused disgust in his voice helped her find her own. “It was my dinner.”
“You were actually going to eat that?”
He sounded genuinely horrified, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “That was the plan, yes.”
“That’s disgusting, Grace.”
“It’s not too bad. For a frozen meal, at least.”
His sigh sounded almost pained. “Just keep your hand under the water.” Using a towel, Beau moved the remains of her dinner to the trash, then turned on the exhaust fan. “It will take a while for the smell to clear.” Beau moved comfortably through her tiny kitchen, obviously used to handling these kinds of disasters. When he went and closed the front door, though, her apartment felt even
smaller.
She was alone. With Beau Vaughn. It was a teenage fantasy come true—except in that fantasy, she hadn’t been nursing a burned hand. And she’d been better dressed. And Beau had begged her forgiveness on bended knee with a dozen roses and a carton of ice cream in hand first.
This wasn’t any kind of fantasy-come-true, but she was quite alone with Beau and he seemed to be making himself at home. It was surreal, if anything.
The big question, though, was why she wasn’t asking him to leave now.
She had an aloe plant in the kitchen window, and Beau broke off a few leaves before turning off the water and guiding her around the counter to a stool. There, he patted her hand dry with the towel and gently smoothed the sticky gel over the burns. It was a slow, gentle caress, and not entirely medicinal. It sent a shiver over her skin.
She couldn’t smell the burned plastic anymore. Every time she inhaled, she got a nose full of Beau’s scent—something herby and spicy, and she wondered vaguely what he’d been cooking because she was suddenly very hungry.
Yes, that weird feeling in my stomach is just hunger—for food. That’s all.
Beau’s eyes flicked to her chest and then quickly back to her hand. She surreptitiously snuck a peek down as well and wanted to die. No bra, cold water, proximity to Beau… her nipples were sticking straight out, extremely noticeable under the thin cotton.
Beau stepped back and cleared his throat. “Better now?”
She swallowed against the disappointment that flooded in with the distance between them. “Much better. Thanks.”
“Good.” Draping the towel over his shoulder, Beau opened her fridge door. “But you still need your dinner.”
When Honey Got Married Page 2
