Least Likely Wedding?

by Patricia McLinn

  “Sorry for a tacky question,” Suz said, “but with the budget so tight, especially after the tornado, how can we afford any—?”

  “Oh, there will be no expense to Bliss House,” Miss Trudi said. “If my new guest room were complete, I would be delighted to have Kay stay with me. As it happens, however, Grita Holland left this morning for a two-month visit to her grandchildren in Kentucky. So, Kay is going to house-sit.”

  “That’s quite a coincidence,” Steve said.

  Kay didn’t see it. People went on trips all the time, and needed someone to look after their house, yet Steve looked at sweet Trudi Bliss as if she were a Times Square three-card monte operator trying to get him to put down cash.

  “And abrupt,” added Annette. “Two days ago she said she wouldn’t see those grandchildren until Christmas.”

  Now they were all eyeing Miss Trudi. Jeez, and people said New Yorkers were suspicious.

  “It is wonderful how it worked out. In addition, a donation has arrived that will defray Kay’s other expenses. But that is a matter to discuss in executive session,” Miss Trudi added quickly, as a number of mouths opened. “At the moment, I believe we should welcome Kay, and give her—”

  “Wait a minute, Miss Trudi,” Rob interrupted. “We don’t know anything about Ms. Aaronson. No offense,” he added to her.

  She didn’t say, “None taken.” It would have been a lie. He did, too, know things about her. You got to know someone damned fast under the sort of pressure they’d dealt with yesterday. She knew that he was calm, reliable, unintimidated, serious but not without humor and that he could kiss her backbone into jelly.

  What she did say was “May I?” as she touched the legal pad beside his neat stack of number-filled printouts.

  He looked unsettled, which pleased her greatly, but murmured, “Of course.”

  “Goodness. Rob,” Miss Trudi started, and she clearly didn’t appreciate his comment, either. “Kay’s family settled here shortly after Tobias Corbett himself, and I have known Dora Aaronson all her life. As for Kay, we need know no more than what we have seen—that she is a talented, lovely young woman.”

  Twin vertical furrows creased Rob’s forehead just above his nose.

  “We should know her work history.” He rubbed at the furrows with two fingers. “It’s a sensible precaution.”

  Kay leaned forward, plastering on a smile.

  “I will type up my job history as soon as this meeting’s over.” Then her triumph took a left turn. “Well, not as soon as it’s over. I have to check out of the motel before two.”

  “How will you move your luggage, dear?” Miss Trudi asked.

  “I’ll call a taxi and—”

  “Oh, dear!” Talk about mixed signals—Miss Trudi’s voice sounded distressed, but the light in her eyes said the opposite. “Tobias does not offer taxicab service. I would drive you myself if I possessed a car.”

  “Or a driver’s license,” Max muttered, then added in his normal voice, “Sorry we can’t help, Kay, but Suz and I’ve got a meeting with the state guys in Madison that we should leave for in twenty minutes.”

  “I’ve got to give Steve a lift back to town hall,” Annette said, “but then—oh, no, I’m in charge of snacks for Nell’s camp today. I’ll be there the rest of the day. But if you drive with me to drop off Steve, we can pick up the snacks and you can drop me off at the camp. It’s on the other side of the lake, but then you can have the car, as long as you’re back by three-ten—”

  “Surely there is a less complicated solution.” Miss Trudi seemed to be looking at Rob.

  “There is,” Fran said. “Rob drives Kay and me back to the house, and we get my car and then—”

  “I’ll do it,” Rob said. And didn’t he sound thrilled. “Fran, you ride home with Annette. I’ll take Kay to the motel and get her things to the Hollands’.”

  “Much simpler,” Miss Trudi said with approval. “Now, shall we present our reports to give Kay an overview of what Bliss House will offer?”

  Eleven-fifteen, his ass.

  If he’d gotten a decent night’s sleep he might have been sharper when Miss Trudi had called this morning and told him the meeting had been moved up to eleven-fifteen. He’d said Fran had already left to run errands, and wouldn’t be there until eleven-thirty, the original starting time.

  In retrospect, her airy, “That will be quite all right,” should have alerted him to a setup.

  Miss Trudi Bliss had ideas about throwing him and Kay together.

  Bad ideas.

  Very bad, considering he’d felt as if he’d been hit in the gut when he came around the corner and saw Kay sitting there, a breeze ruffling the fluffy ends of her hair, the way his hand might if he were…

  But he wasn’t.

  In a few weeks, Kay would be back in New York and he would have changed his life, returning to Tobias for good. Not even the strongest chemicals could interact half a continent apart.

  “For historical accuracy, I started with the original garden plans we found in one of Miss Trudi’s scrapbooks,” Fran was saying.

  Rob had argued that Kay could be filled in one-on-one. Miss Trudi had insisted everyone could use an update so it was more efficient to do both together now, over sandwiches. Max and Suz led off with a construction update, followed by Annette on the craftspeople who would display their goods and Steve on the town’s cooperative efforts concerning parking, lighting and other services. Rob had resorted to making notes on all this on the back of his copy of the budget, since Kay had appropriated his legal pad.

  “We also need to appeal to modern tastes,” Fran continued, “so the gardens contribute to an overall atmosphere that opens the wallets of our customers.”

  Chuckles came from all around.

  “Color is vital. My aim is to have the color change with the seasons, to encourage customers to return frequently to see the garden—and of course stop inside and purchase crafts.”

  “Perfect, Fran!” said Suz.

  As Fran talked with enthusiasm about the gardens, Rob became aware of a solidifying concern.

  Fran had been building her own life in Madison when their father became ill. She’d given that up and returned “temporarily” to nurse him. Temporarily had turned into years. Would she leave if she’d planted her heart and soul along with these roses and daylilies and peonies she was talking about for the Bliss House gardens?

  Plus, every time she said “heritage” or “antique,” he felt the Bliss House budget cringe. Then there was the matter of labor. This didn’t sound like a few volunteers throwing petunias in the ground.

  Somebody should start reeling in the string on her kite, gently bring her back to earth. He looked around the table. Steve smiled and nodded. Max took notes on coordinating construction with Fran’s plans, Annette and Suz looked rapt, and Miss Trudi had tears in her eyes. Tears of joy.

  He cut a look toward Kay, to his right, with her chair pushed back a little, her head bent over his legal pad. Then he saw her hand moving in quick strokes.

  Sketching.

  It took another instant to realize she was sketching what Fran described. She was on her third sketch of the same area—the main garden off the south side of the house—and each sketch different. Winter, spring and summer. Clear as day, they reflected the descriptions Fran gave of how the gardens would vary by season. How on earth did Kay translate those differences with only a pen? Every line was blue, yet he could swear he distinguished colors. And not solely from what Fran had said. Something in the way Kay made the shapes conveyed color. Amazing.

  The tightening in his gut unfurled like one of those buds opening. If Fran’s gardens were half as wonderful as these sketches, there was no question they would have to go ahead and buy the plants and put them in the ground. Afterward, he’d encourage Fran to open her wings—while he’d be left to give the Bliss House budget CPR.

  Then Rob looked beyond the marvel of what she was creating to Kay.

  Other than
for her hand, she was utterly still. Almost as if all the energy and intensity that usually shot out of her like flares concentrated into a single beam channeled through her hand onto the paper.

  “Rob?”

  He looked up to find everyone else watching him watch Kay.

  “The budget report?” prompted Fran.

  As he reminded them about all of the budget realities, he saw from the corner of his eye Kay flip his pad to a new page. No longer drawing, she waggled the pen between her fingers, bounced her foot and chewed her lip.

  “Once I see the details on this timely grant Miss Trudi produced—” Miss Trudi smiled serenely at him “—I’ll know if we’re covered on Kay’s expenses. But unless Miss Trudi finds more miraculous money, the budget remains as tight as ever.”

  That left one person at the table who hadn’t said anything.

  “So, Kay,” Rob said, “what’s your plan?”

  “Plan?”

  “Yes. Your goal for promoting Bliss House’s opening and the steps that will get us there.”

  She smiled. It was a little too bright. “I don’t have a shred of a plan.”

  “Of course she doesn’t have a plan yet,” Suz said. “She hasn’t even had a chance to unpack.”

  Murmured comments about giving Kay time flowed around the table.

  “We don’t have time. We need a plan fast,” Rob said flatly. “In fact, we need a plan that’s fast, good and cheap.”

  Their second drive to the motel was even more heavily silent than the first one.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” Rob said in front of room seventeen. “That’ll give you time to pack. Leave anything heavy for me.”

  Swinging her legs out of the car, Kay shot a look over her shoulder. “I’ll do that.”

  As he watched her unlock and enter the room, he debated whether she had slammed the car door or just closed it firmly.

  Now, an hour later, standing in the doorway of her motel room, he knew she had slammed it.

  That became clear when she opened the door to his knock, took one look at him, said “Oh, it’s you,” and turned and headed for the round table in the corner that held a laptop, mini-printer and other electronic gear.

  “Ready?” he asked, eyeing an empty suitcase on the bed and clothes hanging in the open closet.

  “No.” She returned and handed him papers. “I printed these for you, and here’s your legal pad back.”

  As soon as he took possession of them, she went to the far side of the bed and began piling items into the suitcase.

  He sat in the worn tweed chair next to the table. He looked at the legal pad first. She’d torn off the pages with her sketches, curls of leftover paper indicating she’d jerked them loose, possibly in anger. He checked the trash can nearby, but it was empty.

  The six printed sheets she’d given him had five to seven blocks of information on each. He riffled the pages, catching phrases about sketching at children’s parties, portrait sketches of tourists, managing a do-it-yourself ceramics outfit, docent at various art museums, Web site design, arranging, coordinating and promoting art-themed tours for New York visitors, working at a frame shop, a degree in film, movie gopher.

  Good Lord, and he probably hadn’t seen half of it.

  “This could have waited until after you’d settled in,” he said.

  “If you didn’t find it satisfactory, how could I know I was going to stay? I don’t recall all the contact numbers, but you should find enough people I worked with who will assure you I’m not an embezzler or some other kind of criminal.”

  “There’s no guarantee,” he said under his breath. She frowned but before she could say anything, he added, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You’re angry.”

  “Yes, I’m angry.”

  But as she said the words he knew they weren’t entirely true. She wasn’t only angry, she was hurt. And he’d done the hurting.

  That didn’t mean he’d feel guilty. He’d acted reasonably and responsibly.

  “I have an obligation to Bliss House,” he said. “This was a small precaution in an unusual situation.”

  She gave a disbelieving grunt. “I’m not going to hurt Bliss House, for heaven’s sake! And somehow this doesn’t feel like it’s about Bliss House. It feels like it’s about me and—”

  She stopped as abruptly as if someone had jabbed her pause button. Lips parted, eyes wide, the only movement her chest rising and falling. That was plenty. The movement brushed the curve of her breast against the black fabric of her top, catching the slanting light so it outlined, almost as if he could feel—

  Oh, no, he wasn’t letting his mind go there. At least not while he was awake and had control of it. Last night’s dreams he couldn’t do anything about, but conscious, he would keep control.

  She blinked and gave a fine shudder.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Just fine. It was one of those moments…you know, when you’re talking, not watching what you’re saying and suddenly the words coming out of your mouth open vistas and reveal insights and precipitate epiphanies.” She looked at him expectantly.

  He looked back.

  “You don’t have moments like that?” she persisted.

  “No. I think before I speak.”

  “Always?”

  “Always.”

  “Too bad.” She sounded genuinely sorrowful. “Well, I’ll share this one with you. I was talking about how I’m no threat to Bliss House and your distrusting me feels like it’s about me, and I was about to say I don’t get it, when suddenly I did. Get it, I mean. And I’m flattered.”

  He rubbed his forehead. “Flattered?”

  “It is about me. Specifically, it’s about kissing me. And I’m flattered that you think I’m such a femme fatale that I could push you into bad judgment. And all from one innocent kiss.”

  He wouldn’t put innocent and that kiss in the same sentence.

  Another man might have tried to deny it or at least delay it. But lying went against the grain, and delaying…well, he’d had his fill of delay this summer.

  “You’re probably right.”

  She arched one eyebrow, unsatisfied. She wanted her pound of flesh…and if he didn’t watch it, a certain part of him was going to feel like considerably more than a pound of flesh.

  “You’re right.” He dropped the qualifier. “It was partly about that. I won’t forget my responsibilities because of one hot kiss. Under the circumstances it would be bad judgment for there to be any more between us.”

  “I wasn’t asking for more,” she snapped back.

  He wanted to argue. Wanted to say her eyes had asked for just that when he’d found her on the patio at sunset, after the shoot. Wanted to say the asking hadn’t been entirely gone this morning. Wanted to say she would kiss him back if he kissed her. And he’d be willing to test that right now.

  Not a good idea.

  “Kay, you’re an incredibly appealing woman and I…” Better not to get into how she appealed to him. He cleared his throat. “It doesn’t make sense to pursue it. We’re from different worlds. And the timing couldn’t be worse.”

  “Because I’m leaving later or because I’m staying now?”

  She’d cut to the bone with one slice. He didn’t know if that made him fear her or admire her more. But he couldn’t give her anything less than an honest answer.

  “Both.”

  She tipped her head, studying him. “Fine.”

  She folded a dark gray T-shirt into the suitcase.

  “Fine?” he repeated.

  “Yeah. We forget the kiss. It’s not like we won’t be able to keep our hands off each other for the eight weeks I’m here.”

  He could tell her he’d be gone before she was, and by the time he finished dealing with what he’d left behind in Chicago and returned to Tobias for good, she’d be gone.

  “So, we work together as colleagues,” Kay said, and the moment was past. Cr
azy to think about opening that topic with her anyway. If he told anyone, it wouldn’t be a stranger.

  “Colleagues,” he repeated.

  “Sure. And the first thing I want to know so I can do a good job,” she said briskly, “is more background on Bliss House being turned into a craft center. When my grandmother recommended it for the shoot, she only told me about it being Miss Trudi’s family home.”

  He told her about Miss Trudi’s dwindling financial resources and how the Victorian mansion had been crumbling until Steve and Annette arrived at a solution. Miss Trudi donated the seventeen-room house and grounds to the town of Tobias. A cozy, modern apartment had been built for her in one corner of the property. The rest had become the craft center to give Tobias’s craftspeople a retail outlet and to attract visitors. Damage from a tornado last month had set back the schedule, but they’d adjusted and were on track for the opening in mid-October.

  All through his speech, she’d peppered him with questions.

  “So the kitchen’s being made into a tearoom with the patio accommodating more customers in the summer, but what about the—”

  She’d moved on to the last of her hanging clothes, when he interrupted. “You do know it’s summer, don’t you?”

  She followed his gaze to the top she held. “It’s sleeveless.”

  “It’s also black. That suitcase looks like the inside of a cave.”

  “Black goes with everything, it’s always appropriate, and it’s a great backdrop for other colors.”

  “What other colors? Most people wear light colors in the summer, you know. To stay cool.”

  “Black is good for the city.”

  “Doesn’t show the smog?”

  “I heard you’ve lived in a high-rise in Chicago for years. Not exactly down on the farm.”

  He surrendered with a gesture. “Okay, okay. Just don’t blame me if you’re hot.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it. But the second meaning for his words had clicked in his head before her reaction. What worried him was whether that meaning had clicked in his head before he spoke the words.

  “Well, isn’t that an interesting comment—” her eyes widened with the least convincing rendition of innocence he’d ever seen “—from the man who thinks before he speaks?”