Chapter Twelve

 

 

She shifted against him, fitting her body to his in a way that made him crazy with wanting the woman even though he was barely recovered from round one. “No rules. I think I can do that.”

“So you’ll stay the night?”

She grinned at him suddenly. “I packed a toothbrush and fresh panties.”

It was far into the night when they fell into a sleep of exhaustion. Usually he preferred sleeping alone but he found himself curling his body around hers, as though he could protect her from the stresses in her life, protect her from the pair of sharks that were her employer and his wife.

He woke suddenly, realizing something wasn’t right, and then noticed she wasn’t in his bed any longer. He blinked at the clock. It was morning, but still early.

He rose slowly, stretched, and grabbed his robe out of the closet.

He padded downstairs, wondering where she was and walked in on an interesting sight. She had her back to him. She must have raided his wardrobe while he was asleep for she was wearing one of his white T-shirts, which hung nicely, barely covering her butt, showcasing her shapely legs.

She’d figured out the sound system and had some kind of pop music station on. She was dancing a little. The air was rich with the smell of the coffee he used. Her comfort with technology had paid off since you practically needed an engineering degree to operate his coffee machine.

And she was cracking eggs into a bowl, humming.

A rush of affection hit him. She seemed so happy, so at home in his kitchen. She was making him breakfast. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had cooked him breakfast.

“Smells great,” he said.

She turned, as pretty in the morning light as she’d been last night. “I have never cooked in a kitchen that is so amazing. It makes me want to buy recipe books and experiment with exotic ingredients.”

He walked up and hooked his arms around her, pulling her in for a long kiss. “Can you cook?”

She sent him her most appealing, impish grin. “If I had a kitchen like this, I could learn.”

She could, however, make world-class eggs, a skill he complimented her on as he forked down the buttery soft scrambled eggs, the toast and fresh fruit. She even made coffee exactly the way he liked it. Industrial strength.

He was about to suggest a shower together when her phone rang. She glanced at it and as she was about to take the call, he said, “That guy treats you like a slave. I’ve a damn good mind to tell him what I think of him.”

“Go ahead,” she said, clicking through and offering him the phone.

It was a dare. A silent dare and Prescott wasn’t one to back off from a challenge which she should know better than anyone. He narrowed his gaze at her. Took the phone.

She let it go which suggested to him that she was as sick of Rupert calling her at all hours as he was.

He said, “It’s Saturday morning and Holly is taking the weekend off which is her legal right.”

Stunned silence greeted him. At least he supposed it was stunned since Alistair Rupert didn’t seem like a guy who wasted time on silence. Then a voice he recognized said, “Darling? What are you doing answering Holly’s phone?”

Holly’s eyes were dancing as he stood there, busted.

“What are you doing calling it?” he countered.

His mother sighed. “I know you’re right, she deserves a weekend off, but I accidentally deleted the RSVP list for the wedding. I’m sure Holly has a copy.”

He handed the phone over and, as the conversation continued, discovered that of course his mom wanted so much more from Holly than a list.

He tried to read the paper and ignore the conversation, but he heard something about monogrammed cookies and room blocks and a gift table.

He turned a page noisily.

He raised an eyebrow when she got off the phone with his mother. She said, “I need fifteen minutes with this phone and then I’m yours.”

“Fifteen minutes?”

“Yes.”

He looked at her, wondering what she could possibly accomplish in fifteen minutes. It took him that long to settle to something and really engage his focus. She clearly misunderstood his expression for she snapped, “Promise. You can time me.”

He decided he would.

As he watched, she pulled out her phone and began typing. Was she making notes? Texting? Impossible to tell. Then she made a call to the hotel where the overnight guests were staying. She managed to wheedle an extremely good block room rate and, he wasn’t quite sure how she did it, but when she got off the phone, she’d talked the manager into supplying the hotel’s shuttle bus to take guests to the wedding and bring them back to the hotel at no extra charge.

While he watched, she seemed to fan information and requests out to a larger network. “Iris. Monogrammed cookies, outsource?” she muttered aloud as she texted.

At thirteen minutes, she wrapped up and gave him a big smile.

“Okay. Good. That’s under control.”

“I have to ask. What did you do just now?”

She wrinkled her brow as though already forgetting. “Iris is making monogrammed cookies as a table favor, but Caitlyn thinks she’s taken on too much and another baker can do them. Caitlyn’s mother wants sugared almonds. Her family weddings have always included them and they are, apparently, good luck. So I sourced and ordered some.”

“Why can’t Caitlyn’s mother do tha—”

“I get the feeling Caitlyn’s mother is a little difficult.”

“Great.”

“I also confirmed the hotel room block, emailed your mom the RSVP list, confirmed the photographer and the minister and updated the checklist.”

“I cannot believe you did all that in under a quarter of an hour.”

She walked over and kissed him. “I am great at multi-tasking.”

“And I am great at doing one thing at a time.”

She sighed. “Yes, but my millions of things at once are pretty unimportant. Your one thing is that you design spaces that become part of history. You’ll always be remembered. My multi-tasking?” She shrugged.

He pulled her down to the couch beside him. Gave her a quick hug. “My brother and his fiancée will never forget their wedding and my mom will never forget that you helped her. Maybe that’s what you’re really good at. Putting people and things together. Making it all work.”

“So, you’re saying we can’t all be brilliant architects?”

“Somebody has to order the wedding almonds,” he agreed with great seriousness, earning him a grin.

The phone buzzed again and he watched her struggle with herself before turning the damn thing off. “Don’t you ever unplug?”

“No. It’s my job.”

“Nobody is supposed to work 24/7.”

“One day, I hope to get promoted so I don’t have to. I don’t have the luxury you do, of going off and sitting in nature.”

“Where would you go if you did?” he asked, finding himself curious. He was a creature of the land but, based on the properties she’d been showing him, she was drawn to the ocean.

“I love Point Reyes. I like to go there and watch the gray whales when they migrate or dolphins or seals or whatever’s passing. Sometimes there’s nothing and I watch the waves and the seabirds. I could stand at the lighthouse forever.”

“Okay, that’s an afternoon. What if you had, I don’t know, a week?”

“An entire week? All to myself?”

“Unplugged,” he reminded her.

The look she sent him suggested that was never going to happen, but she played along like a good sport. “I think drive down the Pacific Coast Highway. Take the scenic route and stop at every little town I felt like stopping at.”

“Have you never done that?”

“No. I always take the fastest freeway. I don’t have time for a slow lane full of pretty views and clogged with tourists.” She made a wry face. “That’s kind of a metaphor for my life, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “You miss a whole lot of pretty when you speed down the highway of life.”

Holly flopped on the couch with an untidy heap of bridal magazines scattered around her. Some had pages ripped out of them, some had colorful sticky notes protruding like multi-colored spines.

Maria walked in and immediately plopped herself beside Holly on the couch, grabbing one of the magazines with a sigh of pleasure. “Usually you’re reading some boring business thing. This is so much better.”

“This would look good on you,” Holly said, pointing to the dress that had caught her eye the second Maria walked in. Traditional like Maria but also a little bit sexy.

She felt the wistfulness coming off Luis’s girlfriend. “I would love to wear that dress. Heck, I’d love to get married. I don’t even care if I wear jeans.”

“Does Luis know?”

“We have to save enough money for the wedding first.”

“I can plan your wedding for you. I’m brilliant at it. I think Caitlyn and Evan’s wedding will be amazing. And I’d love to take on the challenge of making a magical wedding on a budget.” She ripped out the page for Maria and handed it to her. Then went back to her reading, trying not to frown.

She felt Maria’s gaze on her face but pretended she was riveted by the new and innovative uses for ivy in weddings. “I’m thinking of everything in indoor/outdoor terms. Getting married in October in the Pacific Northwest and hoping for a garden wedding is close to crazy, but that’s what the happy couple wants, so we have to make something flexible enough to work in or out.”

“Has he asked you?” Maria finally said.

“Has who asked me what?”

But they both knew.

“Has Prescott invited you to be his date for his brother’s wedding?”

“No. But I didn’t expect him to.” Oh, okay, she’d really, really hoped that Prescott would ask her to be his date for his brother’s wedding. She could admit this to herself even as it made her roll her eyes.

“He should invite you,” Maria said. “You’re seeing him, aren’t you?”

“By seeing him, do you mean I’ve pestered him and practically forced him to agree to design a house for the boss I hate?”

Maria did one of those soft-voiced Spanish phrases that she suspected was an appeal to the saints. “No. I mean seeing him as in you went for dinner, in a limo, and you didn't come home for two days.”

“You noticed that, huh?”

She nodded.

“Well, okay, we got close. But I don’t think it means anything. I have to be practical about this. Prescott Chance is out of my league.”

“No, Holly. He’s not.” She was quite serious.

She snorted. “Have you seen the guy? He’s gorgeous and he’s successful and he’s rich, and, and…” She began flipping through the magazine, finally found the page she was looking for. A full page ad for the most exquisite underwear, modeled by the most exquisite looking woman, all dark hair and huge, mysterious eyes and a body that probably made the underwear look better than it did on its own. “That woman? She and Prescott used to date. She’s Italian.”

Maria swallowed, noisily. “That must be Photoshopped, or airbrushed or—no woman is that perfect.” They both stared at the woman. She was ridiculously perfect. “How do you know he went out with her?”

“I researched him. I know as much as it’s possible to know about that man without high-level government clearance.” She sighed. “He dates supermodels and minor royalty and . . . and I’m this messy woman with freckles and scars on my legs from playing field hockey.” She stared morosely at Seniorita Perfecto.

“She’s probably an airhead,” Maria decided.

“Do you think Prescott cares? Do men ever care about her brain if the woman on their arm looks like that?”

“Well, he’s not going out with her anymore, is he?”

“He’s not going out with me, either.” She had to face facts. “I haven’t heard from him.”

“He didn’t call?”

She shook her head, miserable.

“Oh, that’s bad.”

She nodded. After the two amazing days and nights with Prescott she’d fallen and hard. When he’d driven her home so she could get back to her overscheduled job, he’d kissed her goodbye and everything about the kiss said he’d call her. That they’d spend time together in the very near future.

And it hadn’t happened.

“Then why are you looking at bride magazines?”

“I’m still helping his mom. And besides, I love doing it. Planning a wedding is so much more fun than organizing Rupert’s calendar and doing the grunt work on deals that are designed to make Rupert richer and to screw over everybody else. It’s not exactly a career to get warm and fuzzy about.”

Maria stared at her. “You know what you should do? You should become a wedding planner.”

Holly flicked another page. “I would love to do that. Can you imagine spending your life helping people create the perfect day? Making everything magical.”

“Hey, I do enough hair on wedding days. Those are the most stressful days in the salon. Bridezillas and Momzillas and bridesmaids with PMS.” She shuddered. “No thank you.”

“Clearly, you have never worked for Rupert. Or Mrs. Rupert. Rupert is like all those monsters combined in one mean little package.”

“You have all the qualifications. You can deal with difficult people, you can do a million things at once, and people like you.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I should.”

They kept flipping through magazines and she could tell that Maria was falling under the spell of the magic of the bridal magazine. She had a bad feeling she was going to hear about it from Luis when he came in, but when he did, sweaty and limping from a soccer game in the neighborhood, he dropped his bag in the hall, kicked off his cleats and, seeing the two women on the couch surrounded by reading material said, “What’s up?”

“Bride porn,” Holly admitted, feeling a bit guilty.

“Really?” He limped over, gave Maria a kiss and said, with his crooked grin, “Is there something you wanted to ask me?”

She giggled and blushed. “It’s not for me to ask.”

“Go on, you could get down on bended knee. I wouldn't mind.”

“You’re the one who has to get on bended knee,” she reminded him.

He pointed to his knee, the source of the limp since he’d managed to tear all the skin off the knee cap. “Can’t. You’ll have to do it.”

She smacked his shoulder. “Be serious. You need a shower.” She grimaced as she looked at his wound. “And a bandage.”

But later, when Maria had walked over to the market to buy dinner ingredients, which they usually did together, he made his knee the excuse for not joining her and Maria went alone. The door had barely shut behind her when he said, “Holly, what’s going on?”

He was never usually serious so she had to adjust to a serious Luis. “What do you mean?”

“Maria and the wedding magazines. Is she really jonesing for a wedding?”

Holly started to reassure him that the magazines were hers, which they were, but when she thought back on the afternoon they’d spent, two girls poring over hairstyles and discussing floral arrangements and where they’d go on their honeymoon, she’d caught a real wistfulness coming from her friend. But Luis and Maria had been together a long time. Why was he asking her? “Don’t you and Maria ever talk about this stuff?”

“Well, no. Not really. I mean, obviously we’re together, and I love her, but I don’t know. It’s kind of been working okay as things are. I don’t see a big reason to change the situation, you know? You’re a great roomie and we’re trying to save up. One day, I guess we’ll get married.” He talked the same way he would if he were talking about one day going deep sea diving or one day seeing the pyramids.

She realized, even as she opened her mouth, that chances were, if she told him what she suspected he needed to know, that she’d once more find herself looking for an affordable place to rent. But she liked Luis and she liked Maria and she liked them together.

“You know what I think? I think—what’s a special place for you and Maria?”

He thought for a long moment. “She loves Twin Peaks, you know how you get up there and you can see the whole city and the bay. And at night. She loves to go there at night, when it’s clear and you can see all the lights.” He seemed uncomfortable telling her this, but she was only glad he’d been able to think of a place that was special to Maria.

“I think that if you were to dip into your savings and buy her a diamond ring and take her to Twin Peaks and, if you were to propose to her there, in a place that’s already special to her, that it would be one of the happiest moments of her life.”

He gulped. “You don’t think she and I should start talking about it?”

“No. I don’t. Maria’s old-fashioned and romantic. She’d tell that story to her parents and her cousins and her girlfriends and her customers in the salon. And I think she’d say yes.”

“Wow.” He paced the main room of the apartment. It didn’t take long. “You mean, like soon.”

“Yeah, I mean, like soon.”

“What about you?”

“No. Thank you. You’re a great guy, but I don’t want to marry you.”

He threw a bridal magazine at her, and she ducked easily so it hit the wall with a splat. “I mean, you’ll be losing the world’s greatest roommate. What are you going to do about that?”

She was filled with affection for him, for Maria, for the wedding she was pretty sure she’d plan. She was really going to miss Luis. “Thanks for even considering me. It will take a few months to plan the wedding. That will give me some time to find a new place.”

“Wow. You really think she’s ready to get married, huh?”

She walked over and stood right in front of him. “Yes. I really do.” Then she grinned. “But I’d make sure the ring was returnable.”