won’t do anything to hurt your wedding,” Nate promised.
Hunter reached over and squeezed his shoulder. “I know you won’t. You’ve always looked out for me.”
“Someone had to,” Nate said. He loved his brothers and had always been the one to stand up for them.
“You two done over there?” their mother asked.
“Yes, ma’am. I was just saying how much I liked the mandarin filling,” Nate said, luckily recalling the last cake he’d tasted.
“That’s the one I am leaning toward as well,” Ferrin said.
“Honey, that’s my favorite, too,” Hunter said, giving his fiancée the sweetest, sappiest smile Nate had ever seen. What the hell had happened to his brother?
“Then it’s decided,” Kinley said. “I have your other preferences marked down. Are you happy with this bakery? We can have one of our specialty bakers from Beverly Hills fly in and talk to you as well.”
“We’d like to keep it local as much as we can,” Ferrin said. “Hunter and I want this to be as authentic as it can be.”
Kinley made some notes in her notebook, her hand gliding across the page. Nate couldn’t help remembering the tomboy she’d been and the time he’d caught her sitting under one of the scrub oaks out in the pasture crying because her teacher said she had the worst handwriting in the class.
He shook his head. Where had that old memory come from? He had spent hours under that tree showing her how to write until her handwriting had been passable. It wasn’t that he’d had the greatest handwriting, but Nate had never liked to be second best at anything. So he’d practiced a lot, and he remembered how grateful little Kinley had been that he’d helped her.
The women had moved to leave the room, but Ethan and Hunter hung back. Hunter just shook his head, but Nate noticed that Ethan watched until Kinley had rounded the corner.
“Dang. That Kinley sure has changed,” Ethan said. “She makes a man—”
“Don’t. She doesn’t make you anything, Eth.”
Both of his brothers turned to stare at him, and Nate knew he’d showed his hand without meaning to. But he wanted her. She had been his once and he knew himself well enough to know that he was going to try to make her his again. He didn’t think it would last longer than it took her to plan Hunter’s wedding, but damned if he was going to let any other man—especially one of his brothers—make a play for her.
“The lady might have something to say about that,” Ethan said.
Nate shrugged. “We’re having drinks tonight.”
Ethan put his hands up. “Fair enough. I was just saying she sure isn’t the girl who used to follow us around on horseback.”
“No, she isn’t,” Nate agreed. He thought of all the changes he’d seen in Kinley and how much he appreciated each one of them. She’d been a party girl once, but she’d matured past that and he could see that she was stronger now. She’d changed and he acknowledged that he hadn’t really, but one thing he knew for sure was that he still wanted her. And he was pretty sure they weren’t finished with each other yet.
There had been something in her eyes when he’d shaken her hand earlier, maybe attraction, maybe something more. Whatever it was, he was hungry to explore it.
* * *
Ferrin was a marked contrast to the bride Kinley had been working with that very morning. They were in the office at the bakery discussing a few details. Where a true bridezilla would never take any of the first things that Kinley offered, Ferrin pretty much did. Her mom was a professor at UT Austin and wasn’t able to make the cake tasting, so Ferrin did ask if Kinley would mind very much if they waited to finalize the cakes until her mom drove over on Saturday to give her opinion.
That was a very easy yes. Food was easy, Kinley thought, or it should be most of the time. It was a little bit funny to see all of the Caruthers brothers sitting around trying cake and pretending they cared what it tasted like, because even Ma Caruthers—as she’d always insisted Kinley call her—knew her boys weren’t interested in cake flavors. They were here because Ferrin had asked Hunter to give his opinion and had suggested his brothers might want a say as well.
It was sweet.
The bond between the Carutherses was one of the many things that Kinley had always envied about them. Being an only child hadn’t been a burden, but it had been lonely. Her parents both had demanding jobs that kept them away from home most of the time. She’d spent a lot of her childhood alone or tagging after the Carutherses. Now she was planning a wedding for Hunter... It was almost too much to be believed.
She made a few more notes. “Ferrin, what’s your schedule like for the rest of the week? I’d love to get your dress selected. I have some designers that I like to use who are in New York and Beverly Hills, but also I have a friend from London who is just starting out. Her dresses are exquisite and I think they would flatter you.”
“I’m teaching at Cole’s Hill Community College on Thursday and Friday morning. But I’m free in the afternoon,” Ferrin said.
“That’s fine,” Kinley said. “I can forward you the look books so you can go through the sketches and photos before you start narrowing down your choices.”
Hunter came in as they were talking, and Kinley was very aware that Ethan and Nate were right behind him. She wasn’t sure what they had been discussing, but given the way all three men stared at her...she guessed she’d been the topic.
“Hunter, y’all are free to go. We are going to be discussing the dress, and I want to surprise you on the big day,” Ferrin said.
“Sounds good to me,” Hunter said, coming over and giving her a kiss before leaving the room with his brothers behind him.
“Do you want my opinion?” Ma Caruthers asked. “I know you have your mother and you might want to make the decision with her.”
“I’d love your opinion,” Ferrin said, then turned to Kinley. “Tell me more about what will happen after I look at the designs in the books. Pretty much my entire bridal experience has been limited to episodes of Say Yes to the Dress. And I don’t know how much of that is real or not.”
“Well, once we have an idea of the type of dress you want, I’ll get samples in similar styles shipped to us and then we’ll arrange for you to try on all the different dresses until you narrow it down to a designer or a type of dress you like. Then someone from the designer you’ve chosen will be assigned to you to come out here and fit and measure the dress properly,” Kinley said. Finding the perfect dress was really Kinley’s favorite part of the wedding planning service. She was naturally organized, so the other parts of her job were easy and almost routine. Every wedding had food and cake and wine and music. But it was the dress and the theme that the bride selected that set each wedding apart.
“That sounds...exhausting,” Ferrin said. “Also a little daunting.”
Kinley walked over to the bride-to-be, who was a few years older than she, and put her arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry about anything. I will be by your side the entire time and we are going to plan the wedding of your dreams.”
