I Thee Bed.... Jule McBride
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everything’s going to be fine, Edie assured herself, shaking her head to clear it of confusion. And yet, she was scared. A few weeks ago, an unidentified intruder at the Darden estate had fired gunshots while Julia and Edie’s sister, Marley, had been jogging in the woods. According to Pete Shriver, the incident was probably some sort of scare tactic. As he’d put it, “If someone wants you dead, they can usually do it, Edie. But this guy’s only sending letters and shooting bullets that never seem to find a human target.” Pete had said that the bullets found lodged in the trees indicated the perpetrator had aimed high, which meant he hadn’t really been shooting to kill.
Not that such information gave Edie comfort. She was a wedding planner, for heaven’s sake. A diehard romantic. That her hearts-and-flowers business would wind up involving bodyguards had never once occurred to her.
Welcome to my life, she thought now. Her pulse was still skyrocketing, and as she worriedly licked her lips, she scanned her eyes slowly over the premises—first over the interior of the reception area, the neat desk, the muted carpet, the shelves lined with wedding-planning books. And then she looked through the windows. On one, the words Big Apple Brides were painted in gold. Draped with satin swags, both glassed cases brimmed with wedding items: champagne glasses, a hope chest, garters and bouquets. A winged mannequin wore a gown of white feathers, a bed waited in invitation, and roses were strewn across the floors. The effect was pure fantasy, inviting couples to come inside the shop and create their ultimate dreams.
There! Her heart beat double time. Yes…she recognized the man who was walking past now! She’d seen him more than once this morning. It wasn’t her imagination. He didn’t look dangerous, though. In fact, he was the picture of respectability, wearing a dark gray wool coat open over a light gray suit. His hair was short. Now he passed the window again, as if trying to decide whether or not to come inside.
A walk-in? Yes, she thought with sudden relief. That was probably the case. Ten to one, he was considering proposing to his girlfriend. After Stacy and Reggie were gone, he’d probably come inside to get estimates for a wedding. While paying for the event was the bride’s family’s responsibility, traditionally, the escalating cost of creating a perfect day was prompting more grooms to pitch in, sometimes even bearing the whole cost.
Good. Edie was so desperate for clients that she suddenly felt tears pushing at her eyelids. Not that she’d cry. Still, she simply couldn’t stand one more thing in her life going wrong. And since starting Big Apple Brides had been her life dream, she really wanted it to fly. If the guy didn’t return, Edie decided, she’d call Pete Shriver, just to make sure he hadn’t put another security man on detail outside her shop without telling her.
What a day! Months, she mentally amended. Ever since she’d been hired to plan the Darden wedding, her life had spun increasingly out of control. The latest challenge was that her assistant, Cheryl, had quit. In itself, this would have been upsetting, but Cheryl’s reason for leaving made things much worse. She’d run off with a man she’d met at Big Apple Brides—a man who’d come into the shop with his fiancé to plan their wedding. Now Cheryl was vacationing with him in St. Martin.
Unbelievable, Edie thought, suddenly fuming. Even worse, the stack of résumés faxed to her by a head-hunter had hardly turned up the perfect replacement. Besides, Edie couldn’t pay enough to attract the sort of assistant she really wanted. Before hiring the head-hunter to screen applicants, most people who’d responded to her newspaper ad had shown up with tattoos and visible piercings. One had brought her dog. Another was addicted to chewing grape gum and was furious when Edie had told her she couldn’t read novels on the job.
The man outside had vanished, so Edie turned her attention back to Stacy, who was saying, “Oh, Reggie, look, here’s the list of songs Julia Darden’s playing. I really do like her dress. I think I’d like to have one just exactly like it. What do you think, hon?”
“Please,” Edie managed, still feeling caught between a rock and a hard place. “We’re going to have to move out of the conference room—”
“But we’re hiring you because you’re planning the Darden wedding,” persisted Stacy.
“Of course,” Edie agreed, glad for the business, “but I want to help you consider all the possibilities for your own wedding. So, if we could…”
Just as Stacy replaced the drawing of Julia’s dress, a male voice sounded from behind Edie. “The dress really is stunning.”
Edie turned, and when she saw the man framed in the door, she felt as if her whole world was sliding off-kilter again. It was the guy who’d been lurking outside. He breezed past Edie, heading for Stacy with a proprietary air as if he owned the place, and Edie wondered what was going on. Was he an acquaintance of Stacy and Reggie’s? Had he been waiting for them? He was even better looking up close. Medium height, medium build, brown hair, brown eyes. A small mole by his mouth. Nothing special, but the whole package was appealing. So was the whiff of cologne he left in his wake.
Edie’s jaw slackened as she watched him shrug out of a silk-lined coat that seemed to float down the arms of his snazzy suit. He clapped Reggie hard on the shoulder, then thrust out his hand, offering a quick, rough handshake. “Name’s Seth Bishop.”
Which meant he didn’t know Stacy and Reggie, after all.
Nevertheless, he slid his hand under Stacy’s elbow as if they’d known each other for years, then began steering her gracefully from the room, staring down at her from the vantage point of comparable height and sending her an utterly disarming, charming grin that clearly mesmerized the woman. As he passed Edie, he winked, and while she was still gaping, he took advantage of her stupefaction to deposit his coat into her arms.
“Thanks,” she managed.
“No, thank you,” he said, guiding Stacy across the threshold and into the next room, where Edie had been trying to direct her for the past ten minutes. As Edie and Reggie followed, the man calling himself Seth Bishop said, “That dress is great, but Julia Darden’s one of those tall, skinny, willowy types…”
Stacy, who’d looked as if she’d been placed under a spell a second ago, now glanced over her shoulder at Edie, frowning. “Are you saying I’m not—”
“Scrawny?” He laughed. “Absolutely not.” Turning, he winked at Reggie. “Julia’s beautiful, yes. But in a sort of supermodel way. She’s got a figure that needs to be fleshed out a bit, which is why Ms. Benning helped her choose the Empire gown you were admiring. You, however—” he glanced from Stacy to Reggie for support “—have other…” He paused delicately, as if searching for a word, then settled on, “Assets. And so, I think Ms. Benning intends to show you gowns that Julia Darden couldn’t have gotten away with wearing…gowns that can show off your figure, and—”
“You’re saying you think my figure’s better than Julia Darden’s?” Stacy asked breathlessly, chuckling with delight.
“Well,” conceded Seth Bishop. “We don’t like to compare clients.”
The man was acting as if he worked here! Unsure whether she should be furious or relieved, Edie decided it was in her best interests to simply hang up the man’s coat and start hauling down books of dress-design illustrations. The next hour passed in a blur. Seth Bishop, whoever he was, was a real hard-sell animal. He appealed to the couple’s vanity and their pocketbook, but his methods hardly mattered because by the end of the hour, Stacy and Reggie were well on their way to creating their own dream wedding, rather than copying Julia Darden’s.
Edie and this stranger had worked together beautifully, too, hand in glove. After setting Stacy and Reggie up with a future appointment, the man even showed the couple to the door, and when he shut it behind them and turned around to face her, Edie found herself laughing, dryly saying, “Should I be impressed or terrified?”
He raised a thick, dark eyebrow, his lips upturning in a warm, inviting smile, his dark eyes sparkling. “Terrified? Of me?”
Leaning against the desk behind her, Edie crossed her arms, surveying him a long moment.