A Bride Until Midnight / Something Unexpected: A Bride Until Midnight. Sandra Steffen
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was, they’ve found me. She waited, unmoving.
“Can you say tall, dark and handsome?” Josie asked, oblivious to Summer’s inner turmoil.
Oh. Okay. Summer could breathe again, because that description ruled out Drake and her father.
When she’d first moved to Orchard Hill and shortened her name and bought her inn, she’d often caught herself looking over her shoulder. There had been times when she’d been certain someone was following her. She wasn’t afraid, physically, of her former fiancé or her father. It was the havoc they could wreak and the media circus they were capable of creating that she so dreaded. Her father had connections to people in high places. She’d seen him in action with her own two eyes and knew he had the ability and the capability to ruin people for pleasure or personal gain.
Nothing had ever materialized out of those certainties that she was being followed. Eventually her paranoia subsided. She relaxed and began to enjoy the life she was painstakingly building, but old habits died hard, and this morning dread had reared.
“He had the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen on a man,” Josie continued.
Summer knew only one man who fit that description. “I think you’re referring to Riley’s brother Kyle. He’s staying at the inn this week.” Offhandedly she asked, “What did he want to know about me?”
“Oh, your favorite color, what kind of flowers you like, that sort of thing. Now, I can’t say more without spoiling the surprise, but it’s like I told him, a man never goes wrong with red roses. Come on back. I’ll show you what I had in mind for Madeline’s bridal bouquet.”
Summer had been on edge these last few days because Kyle was a reporter. Other than choosing his profession, he’d done nothing to warrant her distrust. In fact, except for asking her a few questions about her background, which was a very normal thing to do when people were getting to know one another, he’d done nothing except come to his brother’s aid, sample a bowl of crème brulee at three in the morning and beguile her with his wit and charm over breakfast.
He’d hinted about making love, but she’d been thinking about that, too, so she could hardly chide him for it. She was beginning to like him. Summer took pride in the fact that she showed everyone common courtesy. She granted people who earned it her respect, but her affection wasn’t given lightly. And she liked Kyle Merrick, truly liked him.
After consulting with Madeline over the phone, Summer finalized the order for the flowers for the wedding. Josie Rose was right. The bridal wreath spiraea, lilacs and baby’s breath were going to be perfect compliments to the sprigs of apple blossoms from Madeline’s family orchard. She spoke with Chelsea first and then Abby, as she started back toward her car. Since the rain had dwindled to a mild sprinkle by then, she didn’t even bother with an umbrella.
She smiled a greeting to Brad Douglas, one of the accountants with the CPA firm located across the street, waved to Greg and Celia Michaels, owners of the antique store around the corner, and held out a steadying hand to Mac Bower who’d been the proprietor of Bower’s Bar & Grill for sixty-five years.
A pair of strappy, high-heeled sandals in the window of the shoe store on the corner caught her eye. Lo and behold, they were even on sale.
The world felt like a very good place, indeed.
Chapter Six
The door between the kitchen and dining room was open when Summer returned to the inn late that Friday morning. As she hung her shoulder bag on the hook next to the refrigerator, she could see all the way to the parlor where Kyle was reading a magazine. He looked pretty comfortable hunkered down in an old leather chair favored by many of her guests. His elbows rested on the padded arms; one ankle balanced on his opposite knee.
She left her new shoes in her room then went to the registration desk in the foyer to check for messages. Catching a movement in her peripheral vision, she glanced up and found Kyle looking at her over his magazine.
She closed the inn’s website and gave him her full attention. “Did you need something?”
“I wanted to give you these.” He reached beside the chair. When he stood, he had a bouquet of flowers in his right hand.
The gesture stalled her heartbeat and invoked a sigh, for the flowers weren’t red roses at all, as Josie Rose had hinted. They were daffodils, at least two dozen of them, all yellow—bright, sunny yellow, Summer’s favorite color. She didn’t remember walking into the parlor, but she must have because she found herself standing before Kyle, her mouth shaped in a genuine O.
He looked pleased with her response, and it occurred to her that looking pleased looked good on him.
“I have something else for you.” He turned and bent at the waist, a marvelous shifting of denim over man. Just as quickly, he was upright again, and in his other hand was an ornately decorated box of Godiva chocolates.
She almost moaned. “You’re very fattening to have around. Did you know that?”
“Women worry too much about their weight.”
With a tilt of her head, she said, “You’re saying you would date a woman who weighs three hundred pounds?”
“As long as she put it in the right places, sure.”
Summer laughed out loud, and it sounded far sexier than she’d intended. After thanking him for the bouquet and the chocolates, she said, “You’re a wise guy, definitely.”
His grin was approving and mischievous, his posture relaxed. “I can’t take sole credit for the system of analysis. It was a Merrick brother joint effort a few years back. You don’t want to know what prompted it. Which reminds me. Riley said I’m to meet with you here at five to eat cake.”
Well, she thought.
So.
Okay.
Something was seriously wrong with her ability to think in complete sentences, but she finally managed to say, “Someone from the bakery is bringing an assortment of sample wedding cakes here about then.”
There was a nagging in the back of her mind again. What was she forgetting?
“I’ll see you at five,” Kyle said as he settled back into the chair and picked up his magazine.
Summer took the gifts to the kitchen where she put the flowers in water and the chocolates in the cupboard behind her baking supplies. All the while, something continued to bother the back of her mind.
What on earth could she be forgetting?
Freshening guest rooms took approximately two hours each day. Summer began on the first floor and worked her way upstairs. Being careful not to disturb personal belongings such as clothes, cameras and laptops, she straightened desks and dresser tops, smoothed wrinkles from beds and fluffed pillows. She made sure faucets weren’t dripping and rugs were straightened. She also put out clean towels.
Often she listened to music and let her mind go blessedly blank while she performed these daily tasks. This afternoon, she found herself thinking about Kyle’s five classifications of men. Her father and former fiancé fell into the first category. By Kyle’s exposition this type was the worst, but that came as no surprise to Summer.
Since coming to Orchard Hill, she’d met a few men she considered users, several losers, a smattering of smart alecks and even a dumbbell or two. Kyle was right. The wise guys were the most entertaining. Madeline’s three older brothers, Marsh, Reed and Noah Sullivan, belonged in that category, and so did Madeline’s fiancé, Riley.
When Summer finished freshening the guest rooms on the first two floors, she carried her basket of cleaning supplies and another armload of fresh towels up the staircase leading to the attic apartment. She knocked to be sure Kyle wasn’t inside. As she’d suspected, the apartment was empty.
Unlike the other rooms