Vivienne’s fingers froze on the gearshift as she put it in Park. No, the biggest surprise was seeing the sexy and unpredictable Cole Dalton on the roof of the depot, hammering in new shingles. He turned to look in her direction, and she took a few steadying breaths as he pulled a small, blue square of fabric from his back jeans pocket and wiped his forehead.
She thought about grabbing her phone or tablet and pretending she was busy on a call or returning emails, but Cole had obviously already caught her staring at him, because he was now descending the ladder propped up against the side of the building. Vivienne’s mouth went dry. The tool belt slung low across his hips caused her gaze to focus on that area of his body and she reached up to make sure her sunglasses were still covering her eyes.
Reminding herself that she was a professional, Vivienne sucked in one last gulp of air and climbed out of her car. Instead of the straw cowboy hat she’d seen on him before, he was wearing a bright green ball cap, and judging by the dampness of his thin white tee, he’d ditched his usual flannel work shirt long ago. Just below the edge of his short sleeve, a tattoo peeked out with the letters USMC.
She swallowed as he walked toward her, wiping his hands on the back of his jeans. Vivienne told her muscles to unclench and tried for a casual greeting. “I can’t believe how far along you guys are.”
“Thanks. My brothers and I have been working around the clock to get the place in shape for the wedding. Personally, I don’t see why Zach and Lydia are so hell-bent on rushing things along, but I figure the sooner we get them off on their honeymoon, the sooner the rest of us can get to work on actually building the main house and setting up for the cattle.”
“Well, three more weeks and I’ll be out of your hair for good.” Vivienne’s smile hardly slipped out of place. She’d planned weddings in shorter amounts of time, so it wasn’t like this was much of a challenge for her. But she’d also never had Estelle breathing down her neck about bringing in more business while simultaneously having to fight her attraction to one of her client’s brothers.
Confusion marred his brow for a brief moment before he jerked his chin toward her empty arms and asked, “Where’s your trusty binder?”
“Oh. It’s in the back. I’m supposed to meet Lydia here at noon, but I wanted to come early and set up a few decoration samples for her to decide on so I can place orders. Do you know if the electrical stuff is finished inside the freight house? I brought some strings of lights I wanted to test out.”
“That was one of the first things we got sorted out.” He tapped on the cordless drill holstered inside his tool belt. “You know men and their power tools.”
Actually, what Vivienne knew about handyman cowboys wouldn’t even fill a shot glass. And with how dry her mouth had grown in the last sixty seconds, she could sure use a shot of something right now.
They were facing each other over the hood of her Jetta and, since Cole didn’t seem to be in any hurry to return to work, she stammered, “So, uh, I’ll just head on over to the freight house and let you get back to your roof.”
He tipped his cap but didn’t turn away.
“Okay, then.” Vivienne gave an awkward nod and pivoted toward the rear of her car, using her remote to pop open the trunk. She’d just go about her business and, hopefully, Cole would get the hint that he should go about his.
Instead, the sound of crunching gravel followed her, and she felt the heat of his nearby presence as she stared at the cardboard box of mason jars and stacks of table runners. “Here, let me help you carry this stuff.”
Before she could refuse his offer, he’d already stepped in front of her and hefted out a roll of burlap and a spool of twinkling lights. “You don’t have to do that. I can get it...”
Her protest died as he walked off, balancing his loads under each rounded bicep. As she watched his backside, her heart skipped several beats before she grabbed a centerpiece in each hand and rushed to catch up. Thank goodness she’d learned her lesson about wearing heels out here in the country. Today she’d thrown on her favorite pair of Chuck Taylors after choosing an outfit that she didn’t mind getting dirty.
Fortunately, the freight house was no longer dirty at all. In fact, the windows had been thoroughly scrubbed—with several broken ones replaced—and the floors had been swept out. The cobwebs were long gone and the place was no longer littered with rodent droppings. “Wow. This is even better than I’d expected.”
Cole set his load down in a corner before taking the flowers out of her hands. “Are you serious? It looks like an empty old warehouse in here.”
“I know! That’s the look we’re going for.”
Doubt flashed in his cool blue eyes, but his only response was a slight shake of his head. “I guess you’re the wedding expert.”
“Trust me.” This time she gave him the saucy wink, then spun around and hurried back to the car before he could see the heat staining her cheeks.
They didn’t speak again until they’d brought everything inside, which took only two more trips, since the man could carry more than half his body weight in tea-light candles. Vivienne did a mental inventory to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, then stopped short.
“Hey, Cole, Zach picked up a banquet and sixty-inch round from the office a few days ago. Do you know where he put them?”
He took off his cap and ran his hand through his short black hair. “I have no idea what you just said.”
“They’re tables.” Vivienne extended her arms as far as they’d go. “One’s sixty inches in diameter. The other is a long rectangle for banquet seating.”
“Right. I don’t speak wedding.” He just spoke power tools. And probably trucks and cattle and semper fi. “We stored them inside the depot when we sealed the concrete floor in here. I’ll grab them for you.”
“I can help.” She might not have broad shoulders or sinewy forearms or six-pack abs like him, however, she’d certainly carried her fair share of folding tables. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t exactly sure about his abs, but his shirt was thin and tight enough to suggest that there might be a few ridges underneath.
Vivienne quickly caught up alongside him so that she wouldn’t be forced to examine his body as they made their way to the depot. He opened the blue door, which had been painted to match the large sliding shed-style doors on the freight house, and extended his arm, indicating she should enter first. A shiver shot down her spine as she wondered if he was now going to be the one studying her from behind.
The depot was a one-room building, only about nine hundred square feet, with a long, dusty counter dividing the majority of the space from the back wall. She pointed to a small enamel basin affixed to a corner with some broken pieces of wood framing out a square around it. “Does that sink work?”
“It might have at one point, since we found some pipes running from that corner to the main water line. Our best guess is that someone had started building an indoor restroom for the public to use, but then business tanked and the thing never got finished.”
Vivienne tapped her chin with two fingers, looking between the fixture and the counter. “How hard would it be to install a bigger sink? Only temporarily?”
“Why would someone only need a temporary sink?”
“I was thinking that the caterers could work out of here.”
“You want us to build you a kitchen?”
“Not for me. For the caterers. And not an actual kitchen. That would be terribly expensive and would probably require building permits. With only three weeks to go, nobody has time for that. But with the counter already here and a bigger sink, the caterers could do some of the food prep and staging here, which would save time and cut down on costs.”
“I suppose we could do that.”
She swiveled in his direction, her palms held up. “Unless you guys had another plan on how to use this building.”
“Well,
since we can’t bulldoze it because it’s a landmark and it’s too small for a stable, I have absolutely no idea how to put it to good use on a ranch. I’ll ask around and find you a bigger sink.”
For the first time all morning, Vivienne’s smile wasn’t forced when she looked at him. “Thank you.”
“I’m glad to help.” His eyes lowered to her lips and a rush of warmth swirled in her tummy. She told herself to take a step back, but her feet stayed planted where they were. Instead, her gaze dropped to his mouth and when the corner tilted up into a knowing smirk, Vivienne gasped.
The short intake of air startled her back to reality and she recovered by clearing her throat. “I should probably head outside to get away from all this dust.”
Whipping around to the door, she took several purposeful strides, praying that he wouldn’t notice how shaky her legs had suddenly become. Cole’s voice stopped her when she got to the threshold. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Like what?” she asked, making a pretense of searching her surroundings for forgotten items, without actually turning around and facing him again. She’d definitely left her pride behind somewhere, but she bit back that response.
“The banquet and sixty-inch round?”
She narrowed her eyes before realization dawned. The tables. The whole reason for coming in here with him in the first place. “Of course.”
Luckily she needed to take only a couple steps back before she could cut a diagonal path to the front wall where they were propped. She started to roll the bigger one, then froze when his hand covered hers. “I didn’t mean for you to take them with you. I planned to carry them. I just needed you to tell me where they go.”
“I can help,” she said, rotating inward to slip her hand out from under his warm, strong fingers. But the maneuver was a mistake, because she hadn’t anticipated how close he was behind her and she ended up two inches away from the wall of his chest. And he still hadn’t released her hand, preventing her from moving too far. She inhaled deeply, catching his scent of fabric softener and hardworking male.
“Let me do it for you,” he replied, his voice low and his breath a soft caress against her forehead.
Tilting her face back, she melted under the intensity of his eyes and couldn’t look away. Vivienne no longer knew what he wanted to do for her, but she parted her mouth, about to allow him full access.
Cole moved in closer, his head dipping down toward hers. But before his lips could make contact, a horn blasted outside.
* * *
Cole couldn’t believe he’d been right about to kiss the wedding planner before the boisterous caravan of his extended family honked their arrival. He’d known his aunt Rita and uncle Charles had told all of his cousins that everyone was going to pitch in today to help get things finished in time. Just like an old-fashioned barn raising. Minus the barn.
But he hadn’t expected them all so soon. Of course, he also hadn’t expected to get distracted by pretty Vivienne Shuster.
They’d both jumped apart so quickly when that first horn sounded, the table they’d been fighting for control over almost went crashing down to the floor. Then her face had turned a charming shade of crimson, and she’d blinked several times before whirling toward the door and leaving him holding the sixty-inch round.
Now, two hours later, Cole watched her from his perch on top of the rafters in the freight house, where he’d been hanging all these ridiculous twinkly lights. Uncle Charles had volunteered to string the things up, but Cole couldn’t very well let his father’s older brother risk breaking his neck by climbing up and down the ladder so many times.
Plus, it gave Cole an excuse to stay inside where Vivienne was busy working. She was fifteen feet below him, standing with Lydia and Aunt Rita as they surveyed the different table settings she’d arranged. From up here, all the plates and flowers and different-colored tablecloths looked like a bunch of fuss. But judging by the way the other women were oohing and aahing over Vivienne’s displays, it was evident that she must be fairly good at her job. Not that he was any clearer on what exactly her job was.
But she certainly knew how to orchestrate all his relatives to do her bidding. And she was so subtle and diplomatic about it, doing that chin-tapping thing, tilting her pretty little head and wondering out loud about a possibility; half of them hadn’t even noticed that she was adding to their workload. In fact, right this second, his baby brother Shawn and his cousins Eli and Derek were at the lumberyard in town buying up a truck bed full of wood because Vivienne had suggested that a gazebo would be perfect between the two aspen trees outside.
Booker, his oldest brother, and Zach were proving their lack of plumbing skills by installing a new sink and vanity in the old freight office, which was currently undergoing renovations to be turned into a restroom for guests.
Wherever there was a broken-down mess, or even just a plain, empty space, Vivienne Shuster had an idea of how to improve upon it—usually in the most simple and inexpensive way. More important, she had an uncanny knack of relaying her vision with so much enthusiasm that everyone was eager to see it to fruition.
Hell, even he’d offered to build her a kitchen inside a hundred-year-old shack that had been nothing but an eyesore only a month ago. Still. Annoyance had prickled at his skin every time one of his single male relatives jumped at the opportunity to impress her. Not that he was jealous or anything. It wasn’t like he wanted to be attracted to her. He certainly had no intention of acting on that attraction, despite how close he’d come to doing just that inside the train depot. It was simply that he didn’t want anyone else helping her carry tables.
Hooking the staple gun onto his belt, Cole surveyed the final strand of lights and called out, “Okay, Dad, plug them in.”
But the bulbs stayed unlit.
“Dad?” Cole braced his hands on the wooden beam so he could lean over and search for the older man.
“Phil’s outside with Garrett,” Uncle Charles offered as he navigated a huge box strapped to a dolly. “They’re looking at the old train tracks, trying to figure out how to make them safe so that nobody trips over them.”
Lord, all his family needed was to have one of the partygoers indulge in too much of Homer Gilmore’s spiked punch—which had been rumored to be responsible for many Rust Creek Falls weddings not too long ago—and risk twisting their ankles or doing a face-plant on the Dalton property.
As he climbed down the ladder rungs, Cole made a mental note to look into whether they might need an extra insurance policy. He shook his head. “And Dad thinks Garrett is the best one to come up with a safe solution?”
Uncle Charles shrugged and replied, “He’s pretty mechanical. Besides, everyone else was already working on something.”
“This is an accident waiting to happen,” Cole muttered to himself, and since he was striding past the women as he said it, three sets of eyes turned to look at him.
Vivienne handed a mason jar full of flowers over to Lydia and said, “You guys talk over which option you like best. We can always use the burlap for the chair sashes if you’d rather have the linen runners on the tables.”
Cole continued past them, but before he knew it, Vivienne was matching his pace and gave his arm a gentle tug. Her soft touch caused him to almost lose all sense of direction and he slowed down.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice hushed as her concerned eyes darted back toward Lydia. While Cole appreciated the fact that Vivienne didn’t want to worry his soon-to-be sister-in-law, this new development was a pretty big deal.
“Oh, nothing. Except for the fact that we have half a mile of broken-down railroad tracks all over our property, and someone thought it would be a good idea to get a bunch of people wearing high heels and slick cowboy boots together at night, serve gallons of rum punch and then send them out to walk around in the dark.”
“But Garrett sai
d he could fix it.”
“Clearly you don’t know my brother.”
When they got to the door, he looked at Vivienne in time to see her eyes widen and her throat constrict as she swallowed. “Enlighten me.”
“Garrett would just as soon build a roller coaster on those tracks rather than pull them up. Wait.” He stopped when they got outside and planted himself in front of her. “Can we even pull the things up? Are they part of the landmark preservation thing my dad agreed to?”
Her only response was to bite her lower lip, again reminding him of the fact that he’d almost kissed her earlier today. What had he been thinking? What had any of them been thinking?
He groaned and continued walking. “Man, I can’t believe we didn’t do something about this sooner.”
“Cole,” she said, catching up to him again. “There’s always a workable solution.”
He kept walking. “Did they teach you that in wedding-planner college?”
“No. Life taught me that. And just for the record, my degree is in business administration. Wedding planning is only my fallback career.”
Cole drew up short, immediately feeling like a jerk for making the snide remark. Especially because he knew what it was like to have a fallback career. If it were up to him, he’d still be in the Marine Corps. He’d also still have his mom here, but he couldn’t go back in time and fix the past. He could only solve today’s problems.
Guilt washed through him. “Sorry. That was a crappy thing to say. I didn’t mean to insult your profession.”
“Listen, you’re not the first family member I’ve dealt with who thought hiring an event company was a waste of money.” Her smile would’ve been more reassuring if it matched her eyes.
“I know I acted that way at first, but you’ve really taken a lot of the pressure off my brother and Lydia. I know they’re both overwhelmed with throwing this thing, and you’re so good with Lydia, giving her ideas and suggestions without bullying her into what you think she should have.”
The Maverick's Bridal Bargain Page 5
