Surreal. This wasn’t happening. “Yes.”
The singer jumped up. “Great. Why don’t you work up some sketches? I’ll get my PA to send you the dimensions and stuff, but you should come to Nashville and see the place.”
Back to Nashville. Her stomach turned.
“What do you have against Nashville?” Carrie asked. “I can see it on your face.”
Dang. The woman was perceptive.
“Nothing,” she answered a little too quickly. “I used to live there. My, uh, ex is there.” Shut your mouth. This woman doesn’t care about your crazy ex.
“Nasty piece of work from the look on your face. Don’t worry. I have the world’s best security team. No one gets on my property.”
Chelly had a feeling she wasn’t joking.
“I’ll put some sketches together and if you like those, we’ll get the paperwork going,” Chelly said. She had no idea what kind of contracts Mari used, but it was always best to have everything laid out on paper, especially with a celebrity like Carrie.
“Yay. That was worth the stop here, after all. Well, girl. I gotta get going. Oh. You got a pen?”
Chelly grabbed one off Mari’s desk and a piece of paper. “This is my number. The one underneath is my assistant’s. Half the time she’s got my phone, anyway. And this is my email. Can you get me something together by the end of the week? We really need to begin on the space. I gotta cut my new album over the next two or three months or my record company is going to kick my butt.”
“Sure.” Chelly’s head hurt. How was she going to come up with sketches that fast? And since when do you say no to an opportunity?
“Girl, this was meant to be. You’re going to set Nashville on fire. I just know it.”
Then she was gone.
Chelly sat in the chair on the other side of Mari’s desk, staring at the wall. The door opened again, but she was too in shock to even look to see who it was.
“What just happened?” she asked.
Abbott sat down across from her. “I think you just nabbed yourself a huge client.”
“We did it. I would never have met her if it weren’t for you and Mari. She wants sketches by Friday. Friday. That’s two days away and I haven’t seen the space.”
“Mari’s having the assistant send over a lot of photos for you, and the specs. They’re being emailed to you as we speak.”
“How did Mari know?”
“I was standing outside in the hall, texting her every word. Well, as much as I could. That woman talks really fast.”
“I can’t believe all of this. When I woke up this morning—”
“I can’t believe you closed her. Want to know something supercrazy?”
“I’m not sure how much more crazy I can take this morning.”
Abbott laughed. “The assistant told Mari that Carrie has interviewed over thirty different designers in the last two months. From Nashville, LA, New York and even some from Paris and London. You were the first one she asked to do sketches. The assistant is calling it a win.”
She couldn’t wait to tell Matt. He’d be so excited for her.
* * *
“NASHVILLE?” MATT ASKED.
She glanced up at the tone. They were on the couch in the garage apartment. He was watching a baseball game, while she worked on her sketches. She’d just told him the whole story.
“Honestly, I’m not so excited about going back there, but she says she has great security. If I can find a contractor like Cal who doesn’t need a lot of managing, I won’t have to be there much until it’s time to decorate. That is if she likes the sketches, which she might not. She’s seen a bunch of different designers. Including a few famous ones. I mean, why would she want my ideas?”
“Of course she’d want your designs.” Matt put a hand on her shoulder. “She’d be lucky to have you.”
That hard tone was gone and her Marine cheerleader was back in play.
“I’m lucky to have you,” she said. “I’m nervous about working for Carrie. I mean, you’re my biggest client so far. And you’re pretty easy to please.”
Even with his compulsion to keep everything neat and organized, he’d still been wonderful.
“But you’ve been traveling the world, and you’re always working on projects and sketching. Mari believes in you. So do I.”
“Who knows what might come of it, but I have to try, right?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “I’m gonna grab a beer. You want something? A bottle of water?”
“You know what? I’ll take a beer. I want to celebrate. But just one, because I really have to work on these sketches.”
He headed into the kitchen. “I should keep some champagne on hand for celebrations like this.”
“I’m a simple girl. Beer is good enough for me.”
He popped the top and handed the can to her and then did the same with his. After taking a long pull, he sat the beer on the coffee table. “Once you turn in your sketches, I’ll take you out for a real celebration. Okay?”
He was always so thoughtful. “You don’t have to do that, Matt, really. You’re so sweet. Telling you about the meeting was the first thing I thought of when Carrie left. Well, that and how was I going to do this.”
“You couldn’t wait to tell me?” He was still standing and there was an odd look on his face.
“What?”
He reached for her beer and sat it by his on the table. Then he took her hands and pulled her up. His arms wrapped around her.
She needed to work, but then his lips were on hers and she forgot what she was thinking.
An insistent ringing pulled at her consciousness. “Ignore it,” he said against her lips.
“Ignored,” she said. Only slightly worried it might be Nashville calling.
His lips returned to hers, but then his phone started going off. And then hers was ringing again.
They laughed and pulled apart.
“It’s Mari.”
“It’s Brody.”
They both answered.
“This better be good,” Matt said. “What? Yes, she’s here.”
“Mari, what’s going on?” Chelly asked. “Are you guys okay?”
“Yes,” her friend said. “Brody,” she yelled, “hang up. They’re together. I’ll put her on speaker.”
“He hung up,” Matt said, waving his phone.
“I’ve got them on speaker,” Chelly said.
“What is going on?”
“We’re getting married,” Mari and Brody said together.
“Uh, yeah. You’re getting married in October. Fall wedding. It’s what Mari always wanted,” Matt said.
She and Matt looked at each other as if their friends had gone off the deep end.
“No. Saturday. We’re getting married Saturday in Houston. And we need you guys there,” explained Brody.
“What happened? She’s not pregnant, is she?” Matt joked.
Everyone laughed.
“Yes, she is,” Mari said. “The doctor confirmed it this morning.”
“Oh,” Matt said. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh,” Brody said. “Still not sure how it happened.”
“Dude, we’ve had the birds and the bees chat. Do I need to go over it again?” Matt teased.
“Funny,” Mari said.
“I’m so happy for you both,” Chelly gushed. “But why Houston? Everyone you know is here.”
“My dad’s still doing chemo down there. It’ll be his last week. But he can’t travel. Not yet. And we want him there.”
Chelly choked up. That they would go to all that trouble for his dad. She sniffed.
“Tell us what you need,” she managed to get out. Even though she hadn’t known Mari and Brody
long, she felt quite close to them.
“Nothing except for you to show up,” Mari said. “We’re keeping it simple. I’m making my bouquet. Brody just bought me a dress. And his dad already found the minister for us. So that leaves our friends. We decided friends, family and maybe some cake. Abbott’s working on that. Simple.”
“Sounds wonderful. Of course we’ll be there for you,” Chelly said. “Right, Matt?”
He was smiling so big. “Hell, yes. Just tell us what time and where.”
“We’ll text you the info. See you soon.”
They hung up.
“So not the flu,” Chelly said. “I thought it was weird to have that this late in the summer.”
“Well, now we know the flu is sometimes code for baby.”
“That’s why she couldn’t make it to the meeting this morning. She was at the doctor.”
Ah. The funny look Abbott had given her when she said Mari had the flu.
“Saturday.”
“That’s really fast.”
“Yep,” he said.
“We have to get them a gift. And I’ve got to get these sketches done. And I need to run out to the river house tomorrow. Gotta look at paint colors in the sunlight.”
“They have one of those register thingies. It was on their save the date invite they sent out last month. If you check online and tell me what I should get, I can handle the gift. I can also drive to the river house and decide on the paint colors.”
“I can do the paint colors. But I will definitely take you up on picking up the gift.”
“We make a great team,” he said.
She glanced up at him. He had the biggest smile on his face.
“Yes, we do. You’re really happy for them, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “I like it when good things happen to good people. They are some of the best. They’ll make great parents.”
That’s when it hit her. He wanted what Brody and Mari had.
In fact, if she was honest, she did, too. Someday.
Just not right then.
“They will.”
Crap. Crap. In all the crazy, she’d forgotten the most important thing.
Keeping her heart safe.
She glanced up at him, her big tough Marine who was beyond happy for his friends.
Her heart wasn’t safe.
It wasn’t safe at all.
15
“YOU ARE THE most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen,” Chelly said to Mari, “but if you don’t stop squeezing those flowers so hard you’re going to break the stems.” They were with Mari’s sister, mother and Abbott, who was doing some last-minute altering of the dress.
“How could I have gained three pounds in two days?” Mari fretted, her hands shaking slightly.
“You’re pregnant,” they all said in unison.
“And it’s no big deal.” Abbott smiled. “I just had to let out an inside seam. Take a deep breath.” That had been part of the problem. Mari put the dress on and it buttoned up, but she couldn’t breathe. They were worried she might pass out.
The bride took a deep breath, and the whole room seemed to relax with her. “I can’t believe you found such a beautiful dress so quickly, one that needed so little fixing,” Chelly said.
“It was Brody. After we had everything confirmed by the doctor, he took me home so I could nap. Because I’d spent the last two weeks thinking I had the flu and a baby hadn’t even... Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen yet. It was all a bit much and I might have had a tiny breakdown and screamed at him to go away. When I woke up there were presents. A dress and these shoes. He bought me such lovely girly shoes. In the right size.”
“I helped,” Abbott said. “Might have been my favorite shopping trip ever. That Marine in a bridal store trying to show the owner your shape. And then telling her that you looked like an angel and that he needed a dress that looked like something an angel would wear.”
“That might be the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.” Chelly teared up a little. These big tough guys all seemed to have such a tender side. She had to include Matt in that description. Now it was her turn to take a deep breath.
“And then he said he and his dad found a chapel and that we were getting married because his kid was going to have his name from the get-go and he wasn’t taking any chances. Then he showed me the dress, and I could not have picked out a more perfect one.”
It was gorgeous from the sweetheart neckline to the covered buttons down the back, to the beautiful beaded lace that shimmered ever so slightly when she moved. “That was all him,” Abbott said. “They showed him thirty different dresses, so it wasn’t like he picked the first one. He was so serious about it. Cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“And now I’m getting married.” Mari said that last part on a whisper. “Today.”
“Are you having second thoughts?” Chelly shouldn’t have said it, but she also didn’t want her friend to feel trapped. “I mean, I know you love him, but you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
Why won’t my mouth stay shut?
Everyone turned to stare at her and then Mari started laughing. She waved a hand in front of her face. “Oh, whew. I needed that. I don’t feel trapped at all. I can’t wait to marry him. He’s the best thing that has ever happened to me. It’s just happening really fast. But I kind of love that you were ready to grab a getaway car and run if I needed you to.”
That’s what Chelly did. She ran.
She shrugged. “Just looking out for my friend.” And then she winked at her to make it seem like she’d been joking, even though she hadn’t.
They left the room by the side of the chapel to enter the chapel proper.
Brody’s dad and the CO stood up for the groom. Abbott and Mari’s sister were beside the bride. The little chapel had beautiful stain-glass windows, and the colors shone through on the couple as if they were blessed.
They were. While Chelly had never been a fan of weddings, this one tugged at her heart. Maybe because she understood how much love they shared as a couple. Never in her life had she seen a bride and groom more perfect for one another. It was a heartwarming moment.
Matt squeezed her hand as the couple said their I dos. She glanced up to find him fully engaged in what was happening. Was this what he wanted? A trip down the aisle?
She wasn’t sure if she could commit to a lifetime of anything. Even with someone as wonderful as Matt, and she was fairly certain there would be no better man for her.
But trapped with the same guy until death do us part seemed pretty permanent. Chelly wasn’t sure she could do permanent.
Her career was taking off, and if she was lucky enough to get the job in Nashville, it might mean a lot of travel. She had a feeling that he wouldn’t be thrilled about that.
He was still constantly going over her numbers and double-checking that everything was as she said it was. She didn’t blame him, but it sometimes bothered her that he didn’t fully trust her to do the job right.
Everyone stood as the couple came down the aisle hand in hand, giant smiles on their faces.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone happier,” Matt said.
She nodded.
The rest of the wedding party came down the aisle. Then the minister announced, “The bride and groom, and their families, would like you to meet them at the reception across the street.”
Mari had only wanted cake, but her parents went all out and rented an Italian restaurant for the reception. Once they’d crossed the street, Matt took her in his arms outside the restaurant.
“Have I told you how beautiful you are today?” He kissed her cheek.
“Only five or six times. It’s okay. I’m sure you’ll make it up to me.” That was one of the things
she adored about him. He always took notice of what she wore, or if she’d tried something different with her hair. In so many ways, especially the ones that counted, he was the perfect man.
He squeezed her tight and nuzzled her ear. “Tell me how I can make it up to you.”
She turned her head so her lips were at his ear. “Hot. Sex.”
He growled. “Woman, I’m hard as a rock.”
“Marine, are you going to introduce me to your date?” His CO was standing next to them. They jumped apart.
They’d been so absorbed in each other they hadn’t noticed.
“Crap,” she said out loud, before wincing. “Sorry, I mean. I didn’t mean to make out with the Marine in his uniform. I know you guys are picky about that sort of thing. Please don’t be angry with him. That was all my fault.”
What was with her mouth? It just wouldn’t stop today.
“This is my, uh, my girlfriend, Chelly,” Matt said.
Girlfriend? She guessed she was, but it was the first time either of them had verbalized it. For some reason it felt a bit awkward. Perhaps because his boss was totally giving them the stare down.
“Chelly, this is Commander Gray.”
She held out her hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, sir. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
He shook her hand. “Call me Brenton. Mari told me that you’re also a designer.”
They’d been talking about her? “Yes,” she said uncertainly.
“We weren’t gossiping,” he said. “When the lieutenant didn’t show up at our last get-together, I asked where he was. She said you weren’t feeling well, and that he was looking after you.”
“Yes,” she said, feeling guilty for keeping Matt from the party. “I’m not used to the humidity or the heat down here. I guess it sort of got to me that day.”
“I’m glad you’re feeling better. And I hope you’ll be at our Fourth of July event next weekend.”
“We wouldn’t miss it, sir,” Matt said, probably because he’d failed to mention it to her. “I guess we’d better get inside.”
He guided Chelly through the doors.
Why hadn’t he told her about the event?
Make Mine a Marine Page 12
