Least Likely Wedding?

by Patricia McLinn

  But it must have been an electrical shock. It was the only logical explanation.

  Apparently she’d felt it, too, because she snatched her hand back, even as she kept talking.

  “Not sure if we’ll have to dye it. It might be a little lighter than Brice the Rat Fink’s. We’ll need makeup on the neck to tone down that red. Jeff!”

  “Dye—my hair?” Rob demanded. He heard laughter from behind him.

  But Kay had spun away. “Miss Trudi, you are a miracle worker and a savior. You’ve rescued me and I can’t tell you how grateful I am. I never thought you could do it, but you have. He’s perfect.”

  “Ms. Aaronson—” Rob started.

  “Call me Kay.”

  “Fine. Kay, there must be rules about filling in for an actor.”

  “Rules?” she repeated as if she’d never heard the word. And then she had her arm around a wiry man of about thirty who had hurried up with a large plastic contraption resembling a tackle box. “Jeff, you know Brice’s hair—I want Rob’s cut like it. You make the call on the color.”

  “Got it, Kay. Chair! Table! Light!”

  Just like that, a folding chair was slid behind Rob, chopping against the back of his knees to strongly encourage him to sit. The man named Jeff opened his tackle box on a table that had suddenly materialized. A plastic bib was wrapped around Rob, and he heard scissors going at the back of his head before he could react. His hair would grow back. But there were some sacrifices he wasn’t willing to make for Bliss House.

  “Ms. Aaronson—Kay. You are not going to dye my hair.”

  She flitted in front of him again, squinting in concentration. She kept circling. The movement made the wispy ends of her dark hair flutter. Her hair smoothly followed the shape of her skull until it reached those feathery ends.

  “The color’s fine, Kay,” Jeff said between snips. “Now that I’m taking off where the sun lightened it.”

  “Better than fine,” she said with a nod as she came back into view. “Especially since this won’t be in color. If the suit fits as well, he’s going to be perfect. Absolutely perfect.”

  A smile spread across her face. Not only her mouth, though that was clearly made for smiling. But over her cheeks, into her eyes. Hell, it seemed to sparkle in the wispy ends of her hair.

  Rob didn’t know how long he’d been staring at her before he realized she was staring back at him. He didn’t know what color her eyes were. Only that they had a depth that could pull him in and never let him surface.

  And then she pivoted away, calling out, “Wardrobe! Get that suit ready! Ready to go in ten, everyone! Ten!”

  Rob Dalton wasn’t sure how much more of this he could stand.

  Kay Aaronson kept touching him. Smoothing the back of his hair, fingering the lapel of the ancient suit they’d put him in, patting his arm or his back. Everywhere that those narrow, light, quick hands touched he had that shimmering electrical sensation. Was the woman ever still?

  Oh, hell. Maybe it was this suit making him feel like a stuffed…well, a stuffed suit. And literally hot under the high, stiff collar.

  He wanted to get this over and done with. He wished to hell he was back with the compost bin. But he’d do his part for Bliss House by standing around in an itchy suit.

  His personal cheering section had expanded to include Max Trevetti and Suz Grant, the other two prime movers behind Bliss House. The construction company Max had founded and Suz had joined as his partner had nearly completed Miss Trudi’s new quarters and was renovating Bliss House in record time. They had every right to be here. Rob just wished they weren’t.

  He wasn’t concerned about them or Annette razzing him much, at least not in public. Fran wouldn’t, either. In fact, sometimes he wished… But that was another matter.

  But Steve… They’d grown up next door to each other, and sometimes they reverted to the level of kids. So if Steve let loose, it was sure to impress the hell out of this woman from New York.

  Not that he was particularly interested in impressing her. He just wanted to get this over with.

  “We’re shooting the wedding of Donna Ravelle’s great-great-grandparents,” Kay said to him. “It’s a time when weddings were simple, when marriages were made from love and would last—at least that’s the view in her music video. Her song’s about her marriage breaking up after a fancy wedding. She’s looking at pictures from her wedding, and then family photos from this wedding—her ancestors’ wedding. She’s seeing how different they are. And then there are photos from her great-great-grandparents’ happy married life. So this wedding is simple, but the marriage endures. And—”

  “Excuse me. Why are you telling me this?”

  “So you know your character, get the motivation.”

  He felt the corners of his mouth twitch. That was different. Not that he didn’t smile. It was just that lately it had taken conscious effort.

  “I am not an actor, Kay.”

  “No, I know that, but…everyone fantasizes about being pulled out of a crowd and stuck in front of a camera.”

  “Not everyone. Do you?” He had no idea what made him ask that.

  “No.” She seemed horrified at the idea of being on the other side of the camera.

  God, her face was like a pane of glass.

  He was not going to stand here staring into her.

  “I have no lines, isn’t that right?”

  She nodded. “We’re shooting M.O.S.—mit out sound is what it’s called.”

  “And I understand I’m basically a prop,” he continued. “That all I have to do is stand with my back to the camera while I wear this getup. So, tell me where to stand and where to face.”

  She tipped her head. “What did you say you do for a living?”

  “I was a financial analyst. And I learned that time is definitely money.”

  “Ah.” She nodded. “Well, Rob Dalton, who was a financial analyst, you have a good point. Just don’t ever say I denied you your chance at an Oscar.”

  There came that twitch at the corners of his mouth again. “I never will, Kay Aaronson.”

  “Is something wrong, Rob?” Kay asked as they set up for the last sequence.

  “Sorry.” He stepped off his mark and shimmied his broad shoulders, drawing attention to the suit coat’s snugness there. “This suit itches.”

  Once they’d gotten past the delay—Rob had insisted she check out the legalities and technicalities of having him step in—things had gone great. He’d been standing perfectly for hours, even with the spectators clumped by the front door.

  Friends and relatives of Rob’s, she’d surmised. Kay guessed they formed two couples with one extra woman. Kay had wondered if the solo woman, who was very pretty in an understated way, might form another couple with Rob.

  She hadn’t had to guess at the connections long. Miss Trudi murmured explanations of family trees and a wedding this summer. She also said that the woman on her own was Rob’s sister. And Rob didn’t have any romantic attachments.

  Which mattered to Kay only because a girlfriend’s presence could ruin his concentration. Which had been perfect.

  Until now.

  The last few minutes he’d been twitchy. And she’d noticed every movement. She hadn’t needed her attention drawn to him, because it was already there. Simply because he was so vital to the shoot. And it was such a relief that he filled out that suit so well. Especially through the shoulders. And the chest. And his rear end. And those long legs. And his neck, especially his neck. The high shirt collar had made Brice look as if his head sat directly on his shoulders, but Rob had the right proportions to carry it off.

  Who knew they grew financial analysts built like this in Wisconsin? Her parents’ financial consultant was a sweetheart, but he had more chins than hair and a bottom-heavy physique built for creaking back in leather chairs.

  “I told you it scratches,” Laura, the actress playing the bride, said with gloomy satisfaction. “Whenever Brice touched me, I cam
e out all over in hives, because that thing scratches like crazy.”

  Laura had said something about hives, but Kay had thought she was complaining about Brice, not the suit.

  Before Kay could respond, Miss Trudi appeared and took Laura firmly by the elbow, leading her away. “Now, Ms. Ontorio, I’m certain you were taught that what you felt was an itch, while the action in response to an itch is a scratch.”

  Laura responded with a “Huh?”

  Kay should be ordering Miss Trudi to return her leading lady right now, but she was too glad to be spared a moment to get her stopgap leading man back on track. That was the only reason.

  As Miss Trudi and Laura rounded the corner to the kitchen, Kay heard the older woman say, “Furthermore, one does not contract hives from material.”

  They’d made great progress, filling in close-ups of Laura from over Rob’s shoulder, or with only the back of his head showing. All they had left was having the bride come down the front stairway and practically fall into her new husband’s arms before they left on their honeymoon.

  Kay turned back to Rob, prepared to address his comment about the suit as if there had been no interruption. She’d gotten better at that in these past three hours. At the start, any little interruption and her attention would skip to something else. Like how thick and dark the lashes around his serious eyes were and—

  Uh-oh.

  “Wool,” she blurted out.

  The seriousness in his eyes eased a couple degrees. “Is that filmmaking slang? Or the latest New York buzzword?”

  “No. I mean the suit.” Did he have any clue how delicious he looked in that old-fashioned suit? “It’s wool. Are you allergic?”

  “Not allergic, just blessed with nerve endings. How did the other guy stand this getup?”

  Get up. No, no her mind would not go there.

  “He had special silk underwear—sort of trouser liners. Had that written into his contract.”

  And Brice hadn’t been shy about prancing around in the liners. She’d bet her return ticket to New York that a serious, solid man like Rob Dalton would never flaunt himself in his underwear. Well, except maybe for an interested audience of one.

  Boxers or briefs?

  With some guys it was obvious, but Rob she could see going either way. Boxers’ solid tradition and roominess would suit him. But then so would the athletic spareness of briefs.

  Sometimes you could see a line that told the story. And you could see other things that told a different story, though with this old-fashioned suit…

  Kay sucked in a breath, jerked her gaze away from his wool-covered crotch, and looked directly into his eyes. He knew exactly where she’d been looking, and had probably read her every thought.

  Oh, Lord, please not every thought….

  “In his contract, huh? He must have worn costumes like this suit before,” Rob said.

  He’d had her. Flopping around on the riverbank. Ready to be thrown into the frying pan. And he’d let her off the hook.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. And she saw from a glint in his eyes that he knew the apology extended beyond an itchy wool suit. “They wore more underwear back then. If long underwear would help, maybe we can scare some up.”

  “Thanks, but you said we’re nearly done. And it’ll be better for your filming to have me itching—as long as I don’t scratch anywhere, uh, inappropriate—than having me sweating like a horse.”

  “You’re right.” No, no she would not imagine him sweaty. And inappropriate spots to scratch were totally off the mental menu. “Sorry for the discomfort.”

  She looked away from him…and right at his friends. Who were all looking back at her with intense interest. They looked like nice people. Not the kind to guess how she’d been envisioning their friend and brother.

  What was the matter with her? She did not like this type at all. She liked them dark and dangerous, or blond and artsy, or red-haired and intense, or…

  But never controlled and solid citizen and calm. A financial analyst for heaven’s sake!

  No, wait. He’d said he was a financial analyst. As in used to be. So what was he now?

  Not that it mattered. She was leaving tomorrow, never to return to Tobias. Better—much better—to keep her mind on her work and her plan.

  “Not your fault,” he said. “Shall we get started on this shot?”

  “Of course.” She grabbed on to that idea with both hands, ignoring his friends, ignoring him and—most of all—ignoring herself, while she got busy corralling Laura and the crew.

  “Okay,” she said to Rob and Laura when everything was ready to go. “The bride and groom are about to go off on their wedding trip. The bride comes down the stairs in her traveling dress, the groom is waiting. Rob, put one foot on the bottom step and extend your hand—you’re so eager to touch her, you can’t wait for her to come to you. And then pull her into your arms. And the bride, Laura—you go right to him. The kiss during the ceremony was solemn and formal, but this kiss is the two of you truly starting the love affair your marriage will be. Okay? Got it?”

  “Yeah,” Laura said with little interest.

  “Yes,” Rob said.

  “Okay, let’s do it.”

  It was a waste of tape. Laura could have been on her way to a life sentence. And Rob bore a remarkable similarity to a hunk of cast iron.

  “Laura, this is your chance to shine. The camera will be all on you, as if it were your lover. Give it something to love back. Let’s try it again.”

  The second time was worse. Rob did okay, stepping up and reaching toward his bride as instructed. Laura looked suitably passionate this time, but she looked past Rob, as if she wanted to lock lips with the camera. When she did connect with Rob, it was a pathetic keep-as-much-of-my-face-in-the-frame, don’t-mess-up-my-makeup-or-hair smooch.

  “No! No! Did you hear me at all?”

  Laura jumped back from Rob. She wasn’t used to Kay snapping—none of them were. But for heaven’s sake, they were so close to being finished, and to mess it up so badly…

  She took Laura’s hand, drew her aside. “Stand here, and watch.”

  She dashed up the stairs to Laura’s mark, spun around and found the actress studying her nails. “Laura!” She waited until the younger woman looked up, then pinned her with her eyes. “Watch. Because next time I want you to do it exactly like this.”

  She drew in a breath, set the mood in her head, and only then did she look at Rob.

  He looked up at her. His face was serious, but there was something so alive in his eyes she couldn’t look anywhere else.

  He had extraordinary eyelashes. In an utterly masculine face, they were thick and lush and dark, both top and bottom, so from a distance they gave the impression his eyes were dark, almost smudgy. But this close, and especially with his eyes trained on her so intently, between the dark, dense fringe shone silvery eyes flecked with green and brown. Unending eyes.

  She started down the steps to him. Not because her timing dictated the move, but because she wanted to see those eyes closer. When he stepped up and held out a hand to her, her pace quickened. One more step—

  And then she was there, in his arms. He drew her in. She wound her arms around his neck. Their mouths met.

  And Kay Aaronson burst into flames.

  Chapter Two

  Rob Dalton had decided against becoming a rocket scientist in fifth grade, the moment the homemade gunpowder he’d created to fuel a homemade rocket blew up in his face.

  His parents had come thundering down the basement steps in response to his yowl, his father trying to hold back his mother—to protect her in case it was the worst—and his mother refusing to be held back. The expressions on his parents’ faces made more of an impression than the explosive flash.

  His mother had checked him for major damage, waving her hand to dispel the smoke. His father had stamped out the smoldering remains of his rocket. He’d gone to school for two weeks with singed eyebrows, to the merciless delight
of his classmates.

  Although that project went up in smoke, its lessons stuck with him. Plan. Prepare. Check. Then recheck. Pay close attention to timing—if he’d waited another minute before bending over the mixture he wouldn’t have forfeited his eyebrows. And don’t mess around with chemicals, which can be perfectly benign individually but explosive together.

  Now, he’d broken that rule but good. All it took was a kiss. And the chemicals packed in the restless frame of one woman.

  A stranger. Edgy, nervous, never still. Jumping from thought to thought. Talk about volatile chemicals. A filmmaker for God’s sake. A New Yorker about to return there. And the woman who’d jumped back from him as if there really had been an explosion.

  He’d forgotten every element of that childhood lesson. Along with messing with volatile chemicals, he hadn’t planned, prepared or checked, much less rechecked. And the timing—it couldn’t be worse.

  “Laura, let’s go! This is it—no more rehearsal. We’re going to shoot this time. Let’s wrap this up. Jeff! Cameron! Let’s go, let’s go!”

  Kay whirled in among crew and support staff like the rotators of a blender. She hadn’t looked at him once.

  “Wow! That was something.”

  Steve arrived, with the rest of them right behind. Steve and Max grinned. Annette and Suz looked at each other, then from him to where Kay had disappeared. Fran looked only at him, worried.

  “That was, uh—” Steve paused “—quite a performance.” Rob saw the devilment in his friend’s face; he’d been the prime tormenter about the singed eyebrows, too.

  “Yeah, it was. A performance,” he said. “I think I’m getting the hang of this acting.”

  “Acting? If that was acting—”

  “Steve, come on, we’re in the way.” Annette tucked her hand into her husband’s arm. “They’re trying to finish.”

  “All right, all right. See you later, Rob.”