little white container of bubbles and blowing, her lips pursed in a way that some men might have called sexy. Parker wasn’t calling it anything. This woman was messing up his carefully planned day and his escape from all things wedding-related.
She gave Parker a stern look, which only made him more aware of how amazingly expressive her eyes were. Immediately, he squelched that thought. He wasn’t in the market for a woman, especially not a petite pirate who had boarded and was taking over his …
Wedding chapel, he thought, then quickly changed it to building. Damn it, given the situation with his business and the board, the very last thing he needed was a functioning wedding chapel or distractions from the very real problems he needed to solve. He certainly didn’t want to have to deal with pretty trespassers with full berry lips. And bubbles.
Parker frowned, eager for this fiasco of a wedding to end so that he could find out what was going on. As he watched, the Elvis impersonator, the man who had officiated at the wedding and the woman who had played the piano made their way outside, the pink beauty gave them their containers and wands, and the bride and groom were treated to a rainbow of bubbles floating down on them and popping sloppily as they kissed.
The pink lady, aided by an elderly woman with a cane, turned on some soft music and uncovered a small wedding cake. Then the pretty redhead shifted gears, grabbed a camera and began shooting pictures as the bride and groom fed each other cake and shared a dance. Somewhere along the way, the papers were signed, the bride and groom left, and Parker found himself standing next to the pink princess.
“So …” she said, gazing up at him and finally losing the smile she had maintained for the past thirty minutes. Her brown eyes looked worried. “If you don’t know anyone from that wedding party and you’re not a bill collector or a police officer, who are you?” Then her eyes suddenly brightened and the smile reappeared. “I know. You must be a prospective groom. You want us to conduct your wedding. Forgive me for not thinking of that sooner. It was just … your suit … I’m not quite used to seeing that kind of quality, but don’t worry. We know how to step things up a notch when we need to. I guarantee you won’t regret coming to the Forever and a Day chapel.”
“Too late,” he said, frowning down at her. “I already regret it.” He looked down to where some bubble solution had landed on his cuff.
“Oops, I’m so very sorry,” she said, reaching out to rub it off. Her slender fingers brushed the back of his hand. As she moved closer, trying to undo the damage, he breathed in the faint scent of lavender, of … woman, and his entire body tightened. Ridiculous. She was a total stranger, and even if she weren’t, he’d made too many mistakes with women. Serious, life-changing mistakes that had left him reeling and had nearly caught others in the crossfire. So … no. Definitely no.
The beauty must have felt the same way, because she quickly jerked her hand away. A pink smudge of cake frosting remained on the sleeve of his suit where her fingertips had slid against him, and he almost felt the small gasp whoosh out of her.
“I’m ninety-nine-percent positive that will come out,” she promised with a blush. “You could give it to me. I could fix it.”
Parker felt an unfamiliar urge to smile, but he restrained himself. There appeared to have been a lot of “fixing” going on, given the fact that the building was supposed to be unoccupied.
But the outcome of this wasn’t going to be fun or funny. He lost the urge to smile. “I think not. We’re done here,” he said.
Those pretty brown eyes blinked. “Excuse me? Does that mean you won’t be having your wedding here?”
“If I were ever going to have a wedding in this lifetime—and I don’t plan to—then no, it wouldn’t be here.”
“Because we’re not up to your style?”
“Because I’ll be selling the building and I doubt that the next owner will leave it intact.”
Parker would have sworn that those big brown eyes couldn’t have opened any wider or looked more distressed, but he would have been wrong.
“Sell the building?” Her words came out on a whisper. “But this is Tillie’s building.”
He thinned his lips. “I assume you’re referring to my aunt Mathilda and she’s …”
“She passed away,” the woman said quietly. “You’re her heir? She had an heir? A real live heir?”
The woman was clearly distressed to learn of his existence … and possibly the fact that he was still among the living. “I’m Parker Sutcliffe,” he said, “and I never met my aunt. And you are …?”
“I’m … well, I’m …” She had a look in her eyes that Parker recognized from experience. She was searching for a good story to tell him, so he gave her his best don’t-even-bother-trying-to-lie icy aristocratic stare, the one he’d learned to use on the servants before he could even talk.
She blew out a breath that lifted those pretty copper bangs, took a deep breath and stood tall, or at least as tall as someone whose head barely reached his shoulder could. “I’m Daisy Lockett. I live here.” She pushed her chin up. “We live here,” she said with a touch of defiance. She gestured toward the woman with the cane, the minister and the organist who were gathered on the other side of the room looking worried.
“You live here,” Parker repeated as if his brain had gone dead. And maybe it had. He’d been expecting an empty building and when it hadn’t been empty he’d assumed that someone was simply borrowing the facilities, but … tenants? And not just tenants but a too-pretty woman with eyes like melted chocolate along with three frail elderly people?
Parker narrowed his eyes. He didn’t care for this turn of events at all. Unpredictable, possibly messy situations were at the bottom of the list of things he liked. After all the drama of the past year and his disastrous personal relationships with women, he was ready for something a bit more boring.
But that was apparently not an option. Parker looked down into those worried dark caramel eyes. Daisy Lockett’s hair looked soft and disheveled, the way a woman’s hair would if a man had just taken her to bed and plunged his fingers into it. She had her index finger between her lips, either nervously chewing on her fingernail or not so nervously licking cake frosting off her pink fingertip.
He caught himself wondering which it was. Stupid. Did it matter? What mattered was that she was living under his roof. Admittedly a roof he hadn’t even known about until last week, but one that he now possessed. Which meant that anything that went on inside this building could be tied to him, and right now—especially now—he didn’t need any bizarre or provocative stories circulating about him.
“My aunt passed away a couple of months ago,” he said. “So why are you still here? And why didn’t the authorities or the real estate agent know that there were people in the building? Would you like to explain all that to me, Ms. Lockett?”
Parker crossed his arms over his chest and frowned down at Daisy Lockett. It was a look that had cowed employees much bigger than she was.
But to his surprise, the woman called his bluff. Tiny as she was, she stood taller. She crossed her arms, too, something which was, he surmised, supposed to make her look fierce, but given the generous curves of her breasts only made her look … interestingly hot.
Stop
