company in California. No wonder he seemed to be impatient at being pressed into the service of his very famous soon-to-be sister-in-law.
No wonder he’d been professional enough to Google the weather. Becky wondered why she hadn’t thought of doing that. It was nearly the first thing she did for every event.
It was probably because she was being snowed under by Allie’s never-ending requests. Just now she was trying to find a way to honor Allie’s casually thrown-out email, received that morning, which requested freshly planted lavender tulips—picture attached—to line the outdoor aisle she would walk down toward her husband-to-be.
Google, that knowledge reservoir of all things, told Becky she could not have lavender tulips—or any kind of tulip for that matter—in the tropics in June.
What Google confirmed for her now was not the upcoming weather forecast or the impossibility of lavender tulips, but that Drew Jordan was used to million-dollar budgets.
Becky, on the other hand, had started shaking when she had opened the promised deposit check from Allie. Up until then, it had seemed to her that maybe she was being made the butt of a joke. But that check—made out to Happily-Ever-After—had been for more money than she had ever seen in her life.
With trembling fingers she had dialed the private cell number Allie had provided.
“Is this the budget?”
“No, silly, just the deposit.”
“What exactly is your budget?” Becky had asked. Her voice had been shaking as badly as her fingers.
“Limitless,” Allie had said casually. “And I fully intend to exceed it. You don’t think I’m going to be outdone by Roland Strump’s daughter, do you?”
“Allie, maybe you should hire whoever did the Strump wedding, I—”
“Nonsense. Have fun with it, for Pete’s sake. Haven’t you ever had fun? I hope you and Drew don’t manage to bring down the mood of the whole wedding. Sourpusses.”
Sourpuss? She was studious to be sure, but sour? Becky had put down the phone contemplating that. Had she ever had fun? Even at Happily-Ever-After, planning fun events for other people was very serious business, indeed.
Well, now she knew who Drew was. And Allie had been right when it came to him. He could definitely be a sourpuss! It was more worrying that he planned to take off his shirt. She had to get back to business.
“Mr. Jordan—”
“Drew is fine. And what should I call you?”
Barnum. “Becky is fine. We can’t just throw a bunch of tables out on the front lawn as if this were the church picnic.”
“We’re back to that headache.” His lips twitched. “I’m afraid my experience with church picnics has been limited.”
Yes, it was evident he was all devilish charm and dark seduction, while it was written all over her that that was what she came from: church picnics and 4-H clubs, a place where the Fourth of July fireworks were the event of the year.
She shifted her attention to the second no. “And we absolutely need some sort of dance floor. Have you ever tried to dance on grass? Or sand?”
“I’m afraid,” Drew said, “that falls outside of the realm of my experience, too. And you?”
“Oh, you know,” she said. “We like to dust up our heels after the church picnic.”
He nodded, as if that was more than evident to him and he had missed her sarcasm completely.
She focused on his third veto. She looked at her clumsy drawing of a small gazebo on the beach. She had envisioned Allie and Joe saying their vows under it, while their guests sat in beautiful lightweight chairs looking at them and the sea beyond them.
“And what’s your complaint with this one?”
“I’ll forgive you this oversight because of where you are from.”
“Oversight?”
“I wouldn’t really expect a girl from Michigan to have foreseen this. The wedding—” he managed to fill that single word with a great deal of contempt “—according to my notes, is supposed to take place at 4:00 p.m. on June third.”
“Correct.”
“If you Google the tide chart for that day, you’ll see that your gazebo would have water lapping up to the third stair. I’m not really given to omens, but I would probably see that as one.”
She was feeling very tired of Google, except in the context of learning about him. It seemed to her he was the kind of man who brought out the weakness in a woman, even one who had been made as cynical as she had been. Because she felt she could ogle him all day long. And he knew it, she reminded herself.
“So,” she said, a little more sharply than intended, “what do you suggest?”
“If we scratch the pavilion for two hundred—”
“I can get more people to help you.”
He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “I can probably build you a rudimentary gazebo at a different location.”
“What about the dance floor?”
“I’ll think about it.”
He said that as if he were the boss, not her. From what she had glimpsed about him on the internet he was very used to being in charge. And he obviously knew his stuff, and was good with details. He had spotted the weather and the tides, after all. Really, she should be grateful. What if her bride had marched down her tulip-lined aisle—or whatever the aisle ended up being lined with—to a wedding gazebo that was slowly being swallowed by water?
It bothered her to even think it, but Drew Jordan was right. That would have been a terrible omen.
Still, gratitude was not what Becky felt. Not at all.
“You are winning the headache contest by a country mile,” she told him.
“I’m no kind of expert on the country,” he said, without regret, “but I am competitive.”
“What did Allie tell you? Are you in charge of construction?”
“Absolutely.”
He said it too quickly and with that self-assured smile of a man way too used to having his own way, particularly with the opposite sex.
“I’m going to have to call Allie and see what that means,” Becky said, steeling herself against that smile. “I’m happy to leave construction to you, but I think I should have the final word on what we are putting up and where.”
“I’m okay with that. As long as it’s reasonable.”
“I’m sure we define that differently.”
He flashed his teeth at her again. “I’m sure we do.”
