CHAPTER NINE

      BECKY PLUNKED HERSELF down like a dog at obedience class who was eager for a treat. Drew picked up the blanket and placed it carefully over her shoulders, then sat down in the sand beside her and pulled part of the blanket over his own shoulders. His shoulder felt warm and strong where her skin was touching it. The chill left her almost instantly.

      He pried the lid off one of the jars and handed it to her with a spoon.

      “Have you ever been to Hawaii?” He took the lid off the other jar.

      “No, I’m sorry to say I haven’t been. Have you?”

      “I’ve done jobs there. It’s very much like this, the climate, the foliage, the breathtaking beauty. Everything stops at sunset. Even if you’re still working against an impossible deadline, you just stop and face the sun. It’s like every single person stops and every single thing stops. This stillness comes over everything. It’s like the deepest form of gratitude I’ve ever experienced. It’s this thank-you to life.”

      “I feel that right now,” she said, with soft reverence. “Maybe because I nearly drowned, I feel so intensely alive and so intensely grateful.”

      No need to mention sharing this evening with him might have something to do with feeling so intensely alive.

      “Me, too,” he said softly.

      Was it because of her he felt this way? She could feel the heat of his shoulder where it was touching hers. She desperately wanted to kiss him again. She gobbled up strawberries and cream instead. It just made her long, even more intensely, for the sweetness of his lips.

      “I am going to hell in a handbasket,” she muttered, but still she snuggled under the blanket and looked at where the sun, now a huge orb of gold, was hovering over the ocean.

      He shot her a look. “Why would you say that?”

      Because she was enjoying him so much, when she, of all people, was so well versed in all the dangers of romance.

      “Because I am sitting here watching the sun go down when I should be getting to work,” she clarified with a half-truth. “I knew Allie’s faith in me was misplaced.”

      “Why would you say that?”

      “I’m just an unlikely choice for such a huge undertaking.”

      “So, why did she pick you, then?”

      “I hadn’t seen her, or even had a note from her, since she moved away from Moose Run.” Becky sighed and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Everyone in Moose Run claims to have been friends with Allison Anderson before she became Allie Ambrosia the movie star, but really they weren’t. Allison was lonely and different, and many of those people who now claim to have been friends with her were actually exceptionally intolerant of her eccentricities.

      “Her mom must have been one of the first internet daters. She came to Moose Run and moved in with Pierce Clemens, which anybody could have told her was a bad bet. Allie, with her body piercings and colorful hair and hippie skirts, was just way too exotic for Moose Run. She only lived there for two years, and she and I only had a nodding acquaintance for most of that time. We were in the same grade, but I was in advanced classes.”

      “That’s a surprise,” he teased drily.

      “You could have knocked me over with a feather when I got an out-of-the-blue phone call from her a couple of weeks ago and she outlined her ambitious plans. She told me she was putting together a guest list of two hundred people and that she wanted it to be so much more than a wedding. She wants her guests to have an experience. The island was hers for an entire week after the wedding, and she wanted all the guests to stay and have fun, either relaxing or joining in on organized activities.

      “You know what she suggested for activities? Volleyball tournaments and wienie roasts around a campfire at night, maybe fireworks! You’re from there. Does that strike you as Hollywood?”

      “No,” he said. “Not at all. Hollywood would be Jet Skis during the day and designer dresses at night. It would be entertainment by Cirque and Shania and wine tasting and spa treatments on the beach.”

      “That’s what I thought. But she was adamant about what she wanted. I couldn’t help but think that Allie’s ideas of fun, despite this exotic island setting, are those of a girl who had been largely excluded from the teen cliques who went together to the Fourth of July activities. She seems, talking to her, to be more in sync with the small-town tastes of Moose Run than with lifestyles of the rich and famous.”

      “It actually makes me like her more,” he said reluctantly.

      “I asked her if what she wanted was like summer camp for adults, to make sure I was getting it right. She said—” Becky imitated the famous actress’s voice “—‘Exactly! I knew I could count on you to get it right.’”

      Drew chuckled at Becky’s imitation of Allie, which encouraged her to be even more foolish. She did both voices, as if she was reading for several parts in a play.

      “Allie, I’m not sure I’m up to this. My event company has become the go-to company for local weddings and anniversaries, but— ‘Of course you are up to it, do you think I don’t do my homework? You did that great party for the lawyer’s kid. Ponies!’

      “She said ponies with the same enthusiasm she said fireworks with,” Becky told Drew ruefully. “I think she actually wanted ponies. So I said, ‘Um...it would be hard to get ponies to an island—and how did you know that? About the party for Mr. Williams’s son?’ And she said, ‘I do my research. I’m not quite as flaky as the roles I get might make you think.’ Of course, I told her I never thought she was flaky, but she cut me off and told me she was sending a deposit. I tried to talk her out of it. I said a six-week timeline was way too short to throw together a wedding for two hundred people. I told her I would have to delegate all my current contracts to take it on. She just insisted. She said she would make it worth my while. I told her I just wasn’t sure, and she said she was, and that I was perfect for the job.”

      “You were trying to get out of the opportunity