Contract signed, Todd added the information to the email he sent to Lydia every day, keeping her updated on what her business was doing.
After she had checked out of the hospital, feeling as if she’d fully mentally recovered from her ordeal, Lydia had sent for her mother and the two of them had been vacationing in Hawaii. She wasn’t ready to return to Georgia and the daily dealing with people. He could understand that. Todd was used to working on the Walker Ranch and only dealing with his cousins and his uncle. Being in town, among his sisters and his cousins’ wives, and the people that came in to see the venue, he’d talked to more people in a few months than he had his entire life.
As he sent off the email, he thought about being surrounded by people. He’d found, to his surprise, he hadn’t minded it as much as he’d thought he would. Though, he’d much rather be on a horse riding the pastures in the sunshine. That time would come. The most important thing was to have Lydia healed.
He heard the door open to the reception hall, and not expecting anyone, he jumped up from his chair behind the desk and headed out to see who had come in.
Again, there was no surprise when he saw Phillip Smythe saunter in. He’d become a regular visitor over the past few months, but mostly he was looking for information on Lydia.
“Hey, Phillip. Looks like a storm might move in this afternoon.”
With his hat in his hands, Phillip ran his fingers over the brim. “Yeah. You can tell it in the moods of the people. Everyone has a little bite in them today.”
And Todd figured Phillip would see that most. Perhaps those were the times when everyone was being pulled over for speeding, and here Todd thought they had a quota to meet.
“Have you heard from Lydia?” Phillip asked, and Todd was grateful he wasn’t one to beat around the bush. He wasn’t sure he could have continued a conversation about the weather.
“I just sent her an email. I booked another wedding for June.”
Phillip nodded. “She’s doing okay?”
“She emailed yesterday and said they were doing fine. I think her mother will head back the first of the month, and from the sounds of it, Lydia’s ready for that too. She never says when she’ll be back, but that things are good.”
“Good. Don’t tell her I asked. It’ll just make her mad.”
Todd never offered the information, but from time to time Lydia would ask if Phillip had been in to check on her. When Todd would tell her he’d stopped in, she didn’t have a snippy retort. Perhaps she was healing from all things that had once bothered her, including Phillip Smythe.
When the door to the hall opened again, his sister Pearl walked in, and as always she commanded the room.
“I thought I saw your cruiser outside,” she said moving in toward Phillip and pressing a kiss to his cheek.
Pearl was a ray of sunshine wherever she walked, Todd thought. She had a confidence he’d never had, and a professionalism that made her very successful as a bridal consultant.
With her husband Tyson, Lydia’s brother, she owned half of the building that housed the Bridal Mecca, a conglomerate of stores that catered to brides. It had been a risky business proposition that had paid off.
“I have a platter of sandwiches over at my store that needs eaten,” she offered to both of them. “We scheduled a bridal party to come by this morning to choose the dress, and the groom chose someone else. So, there’s lots of food.”
“I don’t…” Phillip began, but Pearl cut off his words just by lifting one of her perfectly manicured fingers.
“You can stop and get a bite to eat. Even if you take it with you.” She then turned her attention to Todd. “And you, you’d better come get your share. Maybe take some home for dinner. I’m telling you, they’d planned for a big party.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
She seemed satisfied when she nodded, and then she took Phillip by the arm and escorted him out of the hall.
It took Todd another ten minutes to add in the information Bethany had sent him about Lydia’s other businesses. Her business partners would answer to Bethany, she would answer to Todd, and he would pass on the information to Lydia. He would never understand how one woman could keep that much data in her head—as Lydia must have always done. Every time he looked at a spreadsheet, he swore he was triggering a migraine.
When he heard the door open again, he figured his sister came to pull him away from the desk. “I said I’d be there, didn’t I? There is no need to keep pestering me,” he said loudly and expected a nasty reply.
“Mr. Walker?” He heard the soft voice ask and could feel the heat fill his cheeks from sheer embarrassment.
Todd rose from behind his desk and walked out to the hall where he found Jessie Hanson standing on the dance floor. She didn’t sport the same dress she’d worn that morning when she met him with her sister. She’d pulled her sandy hair back into a ponytail, and she had on a pair of yoga pants and a tank top that showed off her muscular shoulders.
Todd wondered if he’d gasped when he’d seen her. She was mesmerizing.
“I’m very sorry for my greeting,” he said as he walked toward her assuming his best business posture and smile. “I had just been talking to my sister.”
“It’s okay,” she said on a laugh and her head dipped as she did so. “I wanted to see if I could look at the space again. If you’re busy, I can plan to…”
“I’m not busy at all. Let me get the keys and I’ll walk over with you,” he offered as he turned back to the office to get the keys and catch his breath.
This woman, whom he’d now seen twice, had his attention. She wasn’t dainty or soft, which he had to assume would make most men turn the other way, but he was the opposite. He couldn’t help but stare—and that was unprofessional. Surely she’d had enough of that in her life. Women over six feet tall probably didn’t get a lot of glances that weren’t just fixated on their height.
Retrieving the keys, he turned off the computer monitor and the lights, and closed the door behind him.
“If you don’t mind, can we walk through the parking lot and around the building? I just need to make sure everything is being kept up.”
“Of course,” she agreed, and followed him to the door.
He didn’t need to look at anything, and it would take them two minutes longer to walk around the back. But he didn’t want to walk past his sister’s store and risk his entire family seeing him do so with a woman—a fascinating woman.