remodel, no wedding.
And come hell or high water, in which hell might very well take the form of Beau Stillwell, Natalie was planning and executing this wedding. Cash was being touted as country music’s next big thing, and being in charge of his and Caitlyn’s wedding would set Natalie apart as Nashville’s premier wedding planner…but only if everything went off without a hitch. She’d either be ruined or all the rage. Ruined wasn’t a viable option.
Hence, she’d finished up the rehearsal dinner for tomorrow’s wedding between Gina Morris and Tommy Pitchford, settled them and their families at the private banquet room at the upscale Giancarlo’s Ristorante, and left her assistant, Cynthia, to deal with any residual problems. Natalie had driven the thirty miles out of Nashville and parted with twenty dollars at the gate to gain entry to the one place she knew for sure she could find Mr. Stillwell on a Friday evening—the Dahlia drag strip.
Dodging a low-slung orange car with skulls air-brushed on the front and side as it pulled down the “street” in the congested pit area, she thought better a drag strip than a strip joint. Although she had thought it was pretty interesting the one time she’d tracked down a recalcitrant groom and dragged him out of a strip club. Her seldom-seen, inner wild girl had thought she wouldn’t mind doing a pole dance for someone special in a private setting.
Even though she was about five unreturned phone calls beyond annoyed, she had to admit the drag strip was an interesting place. Apparently drag racing pit areas were wherever the car’s trailer was parked. She tried to ignore the stares and titters that followed her. Maybe three-inch heels and a suit weren’t the dress code at the drag strip, but changing would have meant driving all the way back across Nashville when she’d had the girl genius idea of coming here to track down Beau the Bastard, as she and Cynthia had dubbed him earlier today when he’d blown off her call yet again.
She clutched her purse tighter against her side. There was almost a carnival atmosphere. An announcer “called” the race, giving statistics and tidbits about each driver over a loudspeaker. The cars themselves were beyond loud, spectators whooped and hollered, people zoomed around on four-wheelers and golf carts, and there was plenty of tailgating going on at the race trailers. It sort of reminded her of holidays at her parents’ house—chaos. Although, unlike at her folks’, there was at least some structure and method behind the madness here.
She passed a concession stand located behind the packed spectator bleachers and the smell of hamburgers and French fries wafting out set her mouth watering and her stomach growling, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. God, she’d kill for a greasy fry dredged in catsup right now—the ultimate comfort food. However, she was probably packing on another five pounds just from smelling them.
She walked away from the people lined up at the burger window. Directly across from the food concession, she noticed a T-shirt vendor displayed his, or her, wares. Natalie nearly laughed aloud at the one that proclaimed “Real Men Do It With 10.5 Inches.” She didn’t get the inside joke and it was rude and crude, but still kind of funny. And she had to smile at the “Damn Right It’s Fast, Stupid Ass” next to it.
She was so busy laughing at the T-shirts that catching her heel in a crack caught her totally unawares. Arms flailing, she pitched into a guy…carrying a hot dog and a plastic cup of beer.
“Damn, lady,” he yelled, “watch where you’re going.” He shot her a nasty look. “And that cost me my last eight bucks.”
Natalie righted herself, dug into her purse, pulled out a ten and shoved it in the man’s hand. “Sorry.”
Mollified by his two-dollar gain, he changed his tune. “No problem.” He looked down her chest and grimaced. “Napkins are over there.” He turned on his heel and returned to the concession counter.
She glanced down. Her favorite cream silk blouse with the lovely ruffle down the center clung to her in a beer bath. Bright yellow mustard and red catsup obscured the flowers on the left breast of her jacket. She wasn’t sure that blouse and jacket weren’t both ruined. She quelled the urge to laugh hysterically. Napkins. She needed napkins.
She started toward the round, bar-height table that held the napkins, along with the hamburger and hot dog fixings, and realized she’d wrenched the heel off her right pump when she’d stepped in the asphalt crack. She limped over to the table and grabbed a napkin.
A blonde with dark roots in jeans and a halter top gave her a sympathetic look. “The bathroom’s right around the corner.”
“Thanks.”
Five minutes later, she’d managed to work some of the mustard and catsup stain out of her jacket and she’d blotted at her beer-soaked blouse. She’d toyed with, and promptly dismissed, the notion that she’d be better off trading them for one of the graphic tees. No, that would make her look even more bedraggled than her stained clothing.
For the thousandth time, she silently cursed Beau Stillwell. This was all his fault. Maybe he wasn’t personally responsible for the asphalt crack she’d caught her heel in, but if he’d had the common courtesy to return just one of her phone calls or, at the very least, left a message for her with his secretary, Natalie wouldn’t have been reduced to chasing him all over Dahlia, Tennessee, and her heel wouldn’t have gotten stuck in the damn crack in the damn first place because she wouldn’t have been here.
She smiled grimly at herself in the chipped mirror and tucked her hair back into what was left of her chignon as best she could. She reapplied a coat of pale pink lipstick and rubbed her lips together. She didn’t care what they said on the Style Network—doing that funky top-lip-against-the-bottom-one smear smoothed out the color. Dropping the lipstick tube back in her purse, she stood up straight, squared her shoulders, and gave herself a pep talk.
Granted she fell a little short of the mark—she always aimed to project an elegant professionalism—but she didn’t really resemble the walking wounded, she reassured herself. And killing Beau Stillwell when she found him, or at least braining him with what was left of her right pump, was not in her best interest. Dead, or even slightly brained, would preclude her nailing him down as to the remodel schedule on Belle Terre, which was why she was standing in the shabby, smelly bathroom of the Dahlia drag strip reeking of beer, mustard and catsup rather than attending Nashville’s latest art gallery opening, where she was sure Shadwell Jackson III, the guy who had Prince Charming written all over him, was supposed to be.
Heck yeah, she believed in Prince Charmings and wanted one for herself. How could she be a wedding planner and not believe in happy-ever-after? She was detail-oriented and a devotee of true love—it was a career tailor-made for her.
She came from a long line of happy-ever-afters. She figured it was a genetic thing. No one in either her mother’s or her father’s families had ever gotten a divorce. And none of them were living in misery. Sure they had problems to work through, but all of them had sound marriages. Her parents were still absolutely in love after thirty-two years, raising Natalie and taking in foster kids on a regular basis.
She’d known for years what her Prince Charming would be like when he swept her off her feet. She’d always envisioned her Mr. Right as an urbane professional who donned a suit and tie every morning, refined, gallant. And instead of meeting Shad, an imminent candidate for that position, she was here, tracking down pain-in-her-ass Beau Stillwell.
She sucked in a deep, calming breath, which proved a mistake in a public toilet. Blech. She limped back outside where the scent of fast food underpinned the acrid smell of burning rubber. Beau Stillwell, did not know the measure of the woman he was dealing with. She could handle this. She would handle this.
Smoothing
