After a long and exhausting weekend of weddings that ended with a blessedly small but decently lucrative one on Sunday evening, Eliza walked to the kitchen table in Lincoln's house the following Monday a little before six and set down the many tote bags she carried.
Each held an assortment of wedding regalia, from invitation samples to table favors to popular color schemes and what could be done with them, her portfolio of photos including flower arrangements, food selections, and options. The list was endless.
Over the years, she'd accumulated quite a bit of leftover wedding supplies, given to her by brides who didn't know what to do with it all afterwards. Her three-bedroom home in Carolina Cove consisted of her bedroom and two storage rooms she could barely walk through.
Organizing her "stash" had been on her long list of to-dos forever, but she'd never found the time to make it happen. And though business had slowed due to her breakup with James, she'd filled the time with networking events in an attempt to salvage her career.
Eliza had just pulled the packs of invitations from the logo-ed material as the first item to go over with the happy couple when she looked up at the sound of a high-pitched squeal.
Piper played in the pool—with her gorgeous daddy. Her shirtless, tattooed, and impossibly muscular daddy.
"Like what you see?" Amelia asked softly.
Eliza flushed and ducked her head so that her hair hid her face, rummaging around in the bag to unload the rest of the samples. "Just checking o-on her. I heard her scream."
"Mmm," Amelia said. "I told Lincoln you were here. He's on a call but will be in as soon as he can. Oh, these are beautiful. It's going to be hard to choose," she said, flipping through the invitation sets.
"Since it's happening quickly, simple is best, but you definitely want to do something more than an e-vite."
"Yes. Absolutely."
"Did you give any more thought as to your color scheme?" Eliza asked, taking a quick peek out the window and struggling to not swallow her tongue.
Apparently playtime was over because father and daughter were now exiting the pool. Water sluiced down Carter's hard, muscled body, and his biceps bulged when he raked his fingers through his wet hair, the act delineating every taut muscle in his abs.
He had tattoos on both arms, though one of them snaked up his shoulder and onto his upper chest.
"But then maybe we could just have everyone come naked and bring in a Mariachi band."
"Mmm." Eliza blinked, her brain replaying Amelia's words and homing in on the last part of the sentence. "I'm sorry, what?"
Amelia grinned and shook her freshly highlighted head at Eliza.
"He's a really nice guy. Just so you know," Amelia said.
Eliza forced her attention away from the window and shook off the awareness Carter's nearly naked body had brought about. "I'm not looking."
"Oh, yeah, you were."
"No, I mean… I suppose I was looking," she said, her face flaming hot, "but I'm not interested. In Carter o-or dating. That's not my focus right now."
"I see. Well, if you change your mind, just know that he's one of the good guys."
"I won't," Eliza said, settling on dumping the contents of the last bag she'd carted in. "Let's start with invitations, shall we? I brought ten of my favorites, but if those aren't to your liking, I have plenty more to look at."
"No, I like all of these. Especially… this one, I think," Amelia said, holding up a card featuring various pearlized seashells and starfishes, with gold seahorses, with silvery-gold script. "It's elegant, understated, and perfect for a coastal wedding."
"Awesome," Eliza said, lowering herself into a chair so she could open her wedding bible and begin Amelia's packet of information. Every detail went into the packet Eliza carried with her so that she was never without the bride's information and no mistakes would be made. "I have plenty of those on hand and can have them printed quickly. So you have had a chance to pull addresses for your guest list?"
"I have, but, um, about that. Lincoln and I both have more friends and associates we'd like to include. Will that be a problem?"
More people meant more tables, more chairs, more flowers, more supplies, more invitations. "What are we talking?"
As though summoned by his fiancée speaking his name, Lincoln entered the kitchen from somewhere in the house.
"Eliza, good to see you again. Thanks for coming."
"Hi, Lincoln," Eliza greeted. "My pleasure. The sooner we can make decisions on all of this, the better."
"Lincoln, do you have any idea on how many guests you're up to now?" Amelia asked. "Mine went up by twenty-two."
"Oh, probably the same number at least," Lincoln said.
At least? When the rule of thumb was always to round up, twenty-two equaled twenty-five. And twenty-five times two… "Fifty… on top of the forty we'd discussed?"
Carter and Piper entered the house, and Eliza found herself struggling to breathe once more. Didn't the man own a shirt? He had a towel wrapped around his neck, but it didn't cover nearly enough of him.
Add that to the guest list mushrooming at such a rapid rate, and she wondered if the tiny spots in front of her eyes were from stress or lack of food.
"Hey, you ready for a snack, sweetheart?" Lincoln asked his niece.
The little girl nodded before she spotted Eliza and came running over to her.
"Piper, you're wet," Carter said, his tone one of warning.
The girl gave her a damp hug, and Eliza welcomed the distraction since it gave her time to regroup from the change in numbers on a wedding that already pushed her physical limits. "It's fine," Eliza said. "Hugs are precious, damp or not." And she'd take all the hugs she could get right now if it would temper the anxiety rising inside of her like a tsunami.
She never wanted to disappoint a bride, especially not someone so integrated into her inner circle of friends the way Amelia was as Marsali's client and Mac's neighbor. But they hadn't even started planning and the guest list had doubled.
Eliza felt Carter's gaze on her, but she wasn't quite able to make eye contact.
"I went to school again today," Piper said.
"You did? How did it go?" she asked, focusing on Piper's sweet face.
"Great! But Mason fell down and hurt himself and he cried."
"Oh, well, I hope he's okay," Eliza said, unsure of what else to say.
"He is. He got a big Band-Aid, though. It had turtles on it."
"Piper, let's let Eliza work while we get that snack," Carter said. He placed a large hand on his daughter's shoulder and gently steered her toward the fridge.
Eliza tried not to focus on the fact that, as he did so, she was on eye-level with his abs.
"Well, one thing to mark off the list is the venue. We're having the wedding here," Amelia said. "Well, at Mac's. He's offered us the use of his yard."
"Carter, too," Lincoln said to Amelia. "Which made me think of how much you liked the tent at that wedding on Friday. There's plenty of room to do that there."
"Oh, there is!" Amelia said.
"Maybe we could have dancing around the pool here, the wedding in Mac's yard, and a tent with food in Carter’s?"
Lincoln made it sound so easy, but he was talking about three different stations that would need setup, and… a tent? That tent? The fourteen-months-to-plan tent?
It wouldn't have been such a demanding thing to consider had she not lost yet another of her part-time employees to James's new business venture as her competitor. She'd have to find help, and—
"That would be perfect!" Amelia said. "I hadn't had a chance to tell Eliza about Mac's offer, but how great would that be? We won't have to scramble to find a venue, and I could get ready here in the house. We could store everything here or maybe Carter's as it arrived? I hate to impose but—"
"Fine by me," Carter said from his position across the room.
"Eliza? What do you think?" Amelia asked.
She thought it was fourteen months of planning squeezed into less than two weeks. The venue change was nice and worked in their favor, but securing tents for the date could be tricky depending on scheduling, not to mention catering since they weren't using a hotel…
"Wasn't that wedding huge?" Carter asked. He'd lifted Piper onto a stool, where the little girl now ate a banana. "Kind of over-the-top?"
"Yes," Amelia said, "but we wouldn't do anything nearly that elaborate."
Eliza inhaled and forced herself to gather her dwindling energy reserves. "I will do whatever you need me to do," she began, "but I need definitive numbers. And you'll have to choose a menu by the end of tonight so I can contact caterers, and once that's established, there's no changing things without serious cost increases." And stress.
"What if we didn't do a sit-down dinner," Lincoln said. "Make things more casual?"
"She still needs numbers," Carter said.
Eliza made eye contact finally and realized with a pinch in her heart that he was taking up for her. Trying to get the happy couple to realize the time crunch was definitely an issue. The problem? She didn't need his help. "Hors d'oeuvres would be easier," she said. "And give us a lot more breathing room to make any last-minute changes because we could supplement shortages from local restaurants."
"I like that," Lincoln said. "I always try to support local businesses."
She exhaled and managed another breath as the tightness in her chest eased. "Well, going that route, we could actually set up something with a few waiters roaming with edibles and champagne," she said, thinking on her feet.
She could probably hire waitstaff from the restaurants themselves, people looking for extra cash for a couple of hours' work. "That wouldn't require a full dinner menu, which would require renting plates and utensils and the like."
"I like the sound of that," Lincoln said. "So long as Amelia agrees."
"Yes," Amelia said immediately. "Especially the part about the ease of adjusting for changes. The more people find out, the more they express an interest, and I hate to be the one saying, 'No, you can't come.' Especially when one of them is Oliver Beck."
Marsali's Oliver? Interesting.
And great publicity. But his presence would mean less likelihood of no-shows because attendees got to rub shoulders with the A-list actor.
That kind of free publicity could definitely increase business.
And since paid publicity wasn’t something she could afford right now, it made getting this wedding just right all the more important. "Okay, that would definitely be the best way to go. So we're thinking a tent for Carter's yard, standing tables intermixed with regular, and three hundred chairs to scatter between the three yards with emphasis in the ceremony and tent area?"
"Yes, that sounds perfect," Amelia said, her expression filled with bridal excitement. "What's next?"
Eliza inhaled and braced herself. "Menu. What are eating at this reception?"