Countdown to the Perfect Wedding
He wadded up the shirt and put it in his bag of clothing, looked down at his pants and then smiled back at her. “I think I’ll stop there.”
Max laughed from his perch on the stool. “You have eyebrows like Santa.”
The man looked from Max to Amy, puzzled.
“They’re white, too,” she told him.
He brushed at them, not really getting the job done, then looked to her questioningly.
“No. Not quite, I’m afraid,” she said. “Plus, it’s in your hair.”
He dipped his head toward her, standing perfectly still then, waiting. She had made the mess. She supposed she was responsible for cleaning it up, even the part that was on him.
Cautiously, she moved close enough to brush the sugar off him, catching a whiff of aftershave, something minty and yummy smelling, somehow coming through the overwhelming aroma of sugar and lemon that permeated the room. With the side of her thumb, she reached up and stroked her thumb across his eyebrows. Nothing too scary there. But then she had her hands in his hair, his truly gorgeous hair.
Lord, it had been a long, long time since she’d touched a man—an attractive man anywhere near her age—in any way at all.
Never thought it would happen in a borrowed kitchen with her son looking on and one of the biggest messes she’d ever made in her life all around them.
She finished with his hair, trying to ignore the softness of it, the thickness, the luxurious feeling of touching him.
Darn.
She dropped her gaze, clearly a mistake as her breath stirred some of the powder that now clung to the little springy curls of hair on his chest. Not gonna go anywhere near that, she promised herself, gazing at the pretty swell of tanned skin and taut muscles that made up Mr. Perfect’s absolutely perfect-looking chest.
Max laughed again. The man, who’d looked completely at ease only moments ago, looked a little taken aback now, a little surprised, a little uneasy.
She caught a whiff of champagne on his breath. She was that close.
So, he’d been drinking. The whole long weekend was a giant party, after all.
“I think I just made it worse,” she confessed.
“I’ll live. Promise. I’ve made messes of all kinds in this kitchen and survived them all.”
“Oh, no,” she groaned. “I just remembered the housekeeper, Mrs. Brown. She told me not to dare make a mess of any kind, that she’d spent weeks getting the house ready for this, and…well…she scares me.”
“Me, too,” Max piped up.
“Me, too,” the man said. “She scares everybody. Always has.”
“You better clean up your mess, Mom,” Max said.
“Yes, I’d better,” she said, looking around once more to assess the situation and figure out where to start.
That’s when she realized how far and wide a cloud of powdered sugar could travel. It had even gotten Max, his clothes, his hair, his adorable, grinning face.
“I’ve never made a mess this big,” he claimed, making it sound like he should be rewarded for that.
“Good for you, Max,” the man said. “But your mother’s right about Mrs. Brown. We don’t want to make her mad, especially on a weekend like this. So you and I need to help your mother clean this up.”
Max frowned. “I’m not good at cleaning up messes. Mom says I usually just make a bigger one while I’m trying to fix the first one.”
“He does,” Amy agreed.
“Well, then let’s think about how to do this.” The man looked around the room, then back to Max. “Are you and your mom staying back there in the bedroom off the pantry?”
Max nodded.
“How about I carry Mad Max to the bathroom, trying not to get powdered sugar on anything between here and there, and then Max gets in the shower.”
“I already got clean once today!” Max protested.
“We know, Max,” Amy said, “but the only way all that sugar is going to come off you is if you do it all again. So, let Mr…?”
“Tate, please,” he said. “Tate Darnley.”
“Hi. I’m Amy. I’m filling in at the last minute for the personal chef who was supposed to be here for the long weekend, to keep everyone staying in the house fed, and Max….”
“I just came to play,” Max said. “There’s gonna be another boy here, and we’re going to play.”
“It would be great if you’d haul him into the bathroom for me. Max, be still, and let’s try not to make a mess along the way, okay?”
Tate Darnley carried her son as if he weighed nothing at all, through the bedroom she and Max were sharing and into the attached bathroom, then stepped back out of the way for Amy to take over.
Max grumbled, but a few moments later, he was in the shower. Then there Amy was, standing in a tiny bathroom, still coated with sugar, Max on the other side of the shower curtain and Tate relaxing as he leaned against the doorway, grinning back at her.
“You have powdered sugar all over you, too. Worse than Max did. Maybe even worse than I did,” he told her.
She turned and looked in the bathroom mirror, wincing at the image reflected back at her. She was covered in powdered sugar, too.
“Are those suitcases on the bed yours and Max’s?” Mr. Perfect asked.
She nodded, and he grabbed them both, setting them just inside the bathroom door.
“Thank you.” Amy pulled out Max’s pajamas, ready to tuck him into bed. “Max, remember soap and shampoo. It doesn’t count if you don’t use those.”
“Awe, Mom!”
“I mean it, Max,” she said, raising her voice to talk over the sound of the shower, trying to put fantasyland firmly behind her.
“Great kid,” Tate said softly.
“Thank you.”
“I bet there’s never a dull moment with him around.”
“Never.”
“What is he? Five? Six?”
“Seven,” Amy told him, then could read exactly what he was thinking.
She’d started young with Max.
“I was sixteen when he was born, living on my own with him by the time I was seventeen.”
Tate nodded. “That must not have been easy.”
“No, but Max was worth every bit of it.”
“Then I’d say Max is a lucky boy,” the man said.
Chapter Two
Okay, that was a comment right out of fantasyland.
Maybe she was dreaming after all.
Because most men were freaked out by the idea that she had a son she was raising on her own, and none of them seemed too concerned about whether she was a good mother to Max—one reason she’d stayed far away from men for the past seven years.
“Thank you,” she said, as she looked up at this man, Tate Darnley.
Where did you come from? she wanted to ask him. How could you be so perfect? Or at least, seem so perfect?
There had to be a major flaw in him somewhere, something she just hadn’t seen yet but would no doubt discover at any moment. Some crushing flaw. She told herself to focus, that there was work to do, a giant mess to clean up, and yes, she really had been a little afraid of Mrs. Brown and her spotlessly clean house, her admonishment to Amy not to dare mess up anything.
Amy started unbuttoning her white chef’s coat, wanting to leave it in the bathroom, because it really was coated with sugar and wearing it while trying to clean up the mess in the kitchen would only make more of a mess. Glancing up, she saw that Tate was still there, backing out of the doorway to the bathroom now, a little flare of something in his eyes, as she watched him watch her.
“Don’t worry,” she said, laughing a bit. “I’m not…I have something on under this.”
“Of course.” He nodded, still watching, still looking a bit puzzled and confused.
What she had on was a plain black tank top with spaghetti straps and a built-in bra—nothing fancy, nothing too revealing and exceedingly comfortable. It got hot in a kitchen in a chef’s coat.
So why did she feel as self-conscious as if she’d just peeled off her clothes down to the skin? What a weird night.
“So,” she said, looking up at him and trying to pretend a nonchalance she certainly didn’t feel. “I should get back to the kitchen.”
He nodded, still standing in the doorway, took a tentative step forward, watching her as he did, like she might want to run away and wanting to give her a chance. “You’ve still got powdered sugar in your hair.”
“Oh. Forgot.” She started swiping at it, sugar going this way and that as she brushed her hands through her hair and along the braid. It just wasn’t working, and she finally took her hair out of the braid.
“Bend forward,” he said. “I’ll get it.”
And then he had his hands in her hair.
Nothing overtly sexy about it, just that she loved it when anyone fooled with her hair. Even the hairdresser. It was one sad but true little secret thrill she’d allowed herself over the years. Letting a really cute guy cut her hair. And now, Mr. Perfect had his hands in it, brushing out a cloud of powdered sugar onto the floor.
She whimpered a bit, hopefully nothing that could be heard. And yet, she couldn’t help herself. Mr. Perfect had his hands in those little curls of hair at the nape of her neck, then brushing along her shoulders, her collarbone and then her chin.
He backed up suddenly, like a man who’d been burned, then said, “Looks like some of it got down the collar of your chef’s coat.”
Okay, that was it. She had to get out a little bit more. Obviously it was time, when she started to melt from a guy brushing sugar out of her hair.
He finally stopped, stepping away from her. “I did what I could, but…”
He certainly had. More than enough. And the way he was looking at her…she moved quickly, ruthlessly, to tug her hair back into place in the braid.
“I have to get back to the kitchen,” she said firmly. “I don’t want anyone else to see the mess I made. Max?” she raised her voice to make sure he heard. “I’m going to leave the bathroom door open just a crack, and I’ll be right next door in the kitchen, okay? Your pajamas are right outside the shower. Come find me when you’re dressed?”
“Mom, I’m not a baby!” Max protested.
Mr. Perfect laughed and said, “Come on. I’ll help you clean up.”
Don’t, she thought. Just…don’t.
But he followed her back into the kitchen. Powdered sugar was on the countertops, the sink, the floor and, in what seemed like some cosmic joke, coating the top of the lemon bars.
“Look at that,” she said, pointing to them. “That’s why I went and got the extra bag of powdered sugar. To coat the top of the lemon bars, and somehow, by dropping it, I managed to do just that. Do you ever feel like the world is just sitting back and laughing at you?”
“Not very often. Although,” he said, staring at the lemon bars, “I will cop to coming in here planning to beg, borrow or steal one of those.”
She grabbed a dessert plate from the cabinet, a fork and served one to him at the breakfast bar that was part of the big island in the middle of the kitchen. “I think you’ve earned it.”
He held up a hand to refuse. “I promised to help you clean up.”
“I know, and I appreciate it, but right now, the lemon bars are still warm. They’re even better when they’re still warm from the oven.”
He hesitated, sat on one of the high stools, picked up the fork but didn’t use it. “The other thing is, I kind of promised Max I’d help him get another one, too. Or maybe…just a bite of mine.”
She shook her head. “The kid never quits. Never. Not with anything.”
Tate Darnley shrugged. “I had to ask. We bonded over our desperate desire for dessert.”
“I’ll save him some crumbs,” she said. “Unless you want to share yours with him.”
“I don’t think I like the kid that much,” he said, holding a forkful to his mouth and sniffing it like it was some kind of fine wine and he was drunk on it already.
Amy had grabbed a hand towel, planning to start cleaning but couldn’t help herself. She had to watch him take that first bite. She loved watching people who really loved her food, and she wanted very badly for him to absolutely adore hers.
He put the forkful in his mouth, his lips closing around it, eyes drifting shut and groaning in an exaggerated but highly flattering way, savoring every bit.
“Oh, my God. That’s amazing!” he proclaimed.
Amy laughed like she hadn’t in years, feeling silly and free and just plain happy.
“Thank you, but I know it’s not that good,” she insisted, leaning against the other side of the kitchen island from him, purposely keeping a good foot and a half of counter space between them.
“No. I mean it.” He groaned again, the sound to her lonely ears seeming decidedly sexual in nature. “I could die happy right now. It’s that good.”
“Then you’d never get to finish eating it,” she told him, gazing up into the most gorgeous pair of chocolate-brown eyes with lashes a woman would kill for, thick and full and dark.
“You’re right. I can’t die yet. I’ll eat the whole thing, and then…” He took another bite.
Amy laughed again, thinking it was an absolute joy to feed some people, to feed this man, especially.
He licked his lips, groaned again and now he smelled like lemon bars.
He’d taste that way, too.
She couldn’t help the thought. It was just there. She loved those lemon bars, and it occurred to her that she’d never tasted one on a man’s lips. And she wasn’t going to let herself start now.
She wasn’t even sure if he was just happy and having a good time, enjoying something sweet, or if he was flirting with her. Honestly, it had been that long since she’d been out in the man-woman world that she wasn’t sure.
This could all be wishful thinking on her part, nothing but a little bit of champagne and a great dessert to him. Although he did have a look that said perhaps he shouldn’t be sitting here laughing and having such a good time while eating her food.
She glanced down at his hand, looking for a wedding ring and finding none. Okay, he wasn’t wearing a ring. So what? Some men didn’t. And even if he was free as a bird, it didn’t mean anything.
He took another bite of his lemon bar, still appreciating every bit, still being very vocal in that appreciation, then adding, “I mean it. Never in my life have I—”
All of a sudden, Amy heard a hard tap-tap-tap of high heels across the hard tile floor of the kitchen. Tate obviously did, too, because they both turned toward the sound. She hadn’t heard anyone come in, had been sure they were alone.
Now, standing just inside the kitchen door was one of the most polished, perfectly put-together women she’d ever seen—a tall, regimentally thin blonde, wearing what Amy suspected was a very expensive designer suit, a cool, assessing look on her face and a hint of fire—possibly outrage—in her eyes.
“Never in your life have you…what, darling?” she asked.
Amy gulped, thinking this woman might be even more frightening than the housekeeper, Mrs. Brown, and feeling as if she’d been caught red-handed and not with a mess that had anything to do with sugar.
“Victoria?” Tate said, getting to his feet and going to her side, giving her a little peck of a kiss on her perfectly made-up cheek. “I didn’t know you were here.”
She laughed, clearly not amused. “Obviously.”
“I was going to say,” Tate told her, “that I’ve never tasted anything as delicious in my life as these lemon bars Amy made.”
A beautifully arched eyebrow arched even higher at that, Victoria’s look saying she didn’t believe a word of his explanation, although her gaze had to take in the fact that he had indeed been sitting here eating a lemon bar, Amy firmly on the other side of the kitchen island, not doing anything but…
Well, admiring the sights and sounds of him eating that lemon bar. But that was it. Everything else had been pure fantasy. Amy stepped back, clutching her dishcloth and wishing she could disappear behind it.
Victoria turned to Tate and asked, “Where are your clothes?”
Okay, that didn’t look so good—the fact that he was standing there in nothing but his pants.
“They’re right here,” Amy said, grabbing the white garbage bag that contained his things. “I had a little accident with some powdered sugar, and it got all over his shirt and…the rest of his things. Sorry.”
He walked over to her and took the clothes, mouthing “sorry” and looking like he meant it. Then he said out loud, “Thank you, Amy. I didn’t introduce the two of you. Victoria, this is Amy…I’m sorry, I don’t think I got your last name?”
“Carson,” Amy told them both, trying to look like someone who didn’t matter at all, someone here just to cook and stay out of the way and certainly not cause trouble.
“Victoria, this is Amy Carson,” Tate said. “Amy, this is Victoria Ryan, my fiancée.”
Fiancée?
“You two are the ones getting married?” she asked, smiling desperately.
“Yes. In four days,” Victoria said coolly, nodding barely in Amy’s direction. “And you are…?”
“House chef for the weekend. Something came up at the last minute with the man Eleanor hired, and she asked me to fill in,” Amy said, still clinging to that smile.
Victoria gave her the once-over, much as she’d done her shirtless fiancé, a most thorough assessment, then said, “You certainly don’t look like a chef.”
Amy felt her cheeks burn and felt decidedly bare everywhere else. “I made a mess of my chef’s coat, too.”
And then realized it sounded like they’d had some kind of crazy food fight, which she supposed was better than what it might have sounded like, with all that moaning and groaning Tate had been doing when his fiancée walked into the kitchen.
This was bad on so many levels.
She looked down at the floor, at the mess she was standing in, up to the ceiling, to the wide swath of countertop between her and Ms. Perfect, the perfect companion for Mr. Perfect. And then Amy’s gaze landed on the lemon bars. Thinking she had nothing to lose, and that the silly things did tend to put most anyone in a good mood, she picked up the platter they were on and held them out to Victoria.
“Lemon bar?” she asked.
“No, thank you,” the woman said.
“Well, we should let Amy get back to her work,” Tate said, then looked down at what was left of the lemon bar on his plate. Looked longingly, Amy thought, despite what had just happened.
His fiancée saw him, too, and shot him a look that said, “You’re kidding, right?”
He just smiled, grabbed the thing and practically shoved the rest of it in his mouth, and then led his fiancée out of the kitchen.
Amy stood there, watching them go, not listening in but not really able to keep from hearing as they walked away, either.
“What was that?” Victoria asked.
“Nothing. She told you that she spilled some powdered sugar. It was like a mushroom cloud, rising up and enveloping everything in its path—”
“Sugar? That’s what you have to say? Sugar? Tate, we’re getting married in four days—”
Tate tried to respond. “My clothes are right here in the bag. You can see for yourself—”
“You can’t do this now. Not now.”
“I didn’t do anything. Nothing happened. I stopped to talk to her little boy—”
“I didn’t see any little boy—”
“He was a mess, too. We put him in the shower—”
“We?” Victoria asked.
“Yes…I mean…Victoria, I am not this guy. You know that. I am not this guy—”
“I thought I knew that—”
“You know it. I’m not.”
And then Amy couldn’t hear any more.
They were gone.
Whew.
The weekend—and especially the job—had to get better from here, she told herself.
Eleanor felt a tad guilty when she saw how upset Victoria was, although it was reassuring that Victoria was at least capable of showing enough emotion to be upset. Maybe she wasn’t entirely as unfeeling as Eleanor feared.
“See, we told you to just let it be and see what happened,” Gladdy told her, having stood there beside Eleanor the whole time and listening to the whole encounter.
“It’s a start, I suppose,” Eleanor admitted. Still, time was so short, and she just wasn’t sure if anything could truly change the planned wedding at this late date. Tate loved plans, loved making them and then meticulously carrying them out, and the plan was to marry Victoria on Saturday.
“Suppose?” Kathleen gave a dismissive huff. “Look at Amy’s face right now, now that your godson’s gone, and tell me you can’t see exactly what she’s thinking.”
Eleanor peered around the corner once again and into the kitchen. Amy stood leaning back against the cabinets, eyes half shut, head tilted up toward the ceiling, a dreamy look on her pretty, young face.
“She’s thinking…it’s been a long time since she’s been anywhere near a man—any man—let alone one so gorgeous.”
“You got all that from one look?” Eleanor asked.
“No,” Gladdy admitted. “I know that from talking to her. Believe me, it’s been a ridiculously long time, but she’s had Max to take care of all on her own and work that barely pays their bills, and there just hasn’t been time for herself or anyone else. I doubt she’s had so much as a date in the last year.”
“Gladdy and I used to beg to be able to babysit for her while she went out,” Kathleen explained. “And the poor thing just wouldn’t do it. Said she’s sworn off men or some ridiculous thing like that.”
“Sworn off men? You brought someone here to lure my godson away from his fiancée within four days’ time, and she’s sworn off men? You didn’t tell me that,” Eleanor complained.
“Well, Amy obviously knows that was a mistake right now. Remember the way she looked when Tate took off his shirt? Or when she brushed sugar from his hair?”
“Yes.” Kathleen sighed, looking wistful. “Nothing like the sight of a beautiful man or the feel of running your fingers through his hair, that delicious feeling of anticipation of so much more.”
“It’s a beautiful thing,” Gladdy said.
Eleanor had to admit, “I don’t think Tate’s ever looked at Victoria like that.”
“Like he wants to drag her off into some dark corner and have his way with her?” Gladdy offered.
“Yes. Although, I’m sure he’s not a drag-her-off-into-a-dark-corner-and-have-his-way-with-her kind of man,” Eleanor admitted.
“What a pity.”
“Maybe we can change his mind,” Gladdy said. “Or maybe Amy can.”
Later that night, Tate sat outside on the patio, talking to one of his oldest and best friends. He still felt befuddled and was determined to lay out his supposed crimes in the most straightforward way possible in order to evaluate the seriousness of his offenses.
“So,” he concluded his scary tale of sugar-filled bliss in the kitchen that had turned to near-disaster in the blink of an eye, “let me have it. How bad do you think it was?”
“You got sugar all over you, took off a lot of your clothes, helped her get her kid in the shower and moaned and groaned while eating her lemon bars as Victoria walked in?” Rick asked, leaning back in the wicker patio chair.
Tate nodded. “That was it.”
“This other woman…she didn’t touch you?”
He frowned. “She brushed some sugar off me. Off my hair and my clothes.”
“And you didn’t touch her?”
“No,” Tate said quickly, then had to backtrack. “Wait. I did. I helped brush powdered sugar out of her hair. And off her neck. Maybe…yeah, her collarbone, I’m afraid.”
Rick frowned. “And you liked it, right?”
“I did.” Tate shook his head, the point where he crossed the line, right there. The neck. The collarbone. “That’s when I knew I was in trouble, when I knew I was doing something I probably shouldn’t have, as a man who’s engaged and getting married in four days.”
“Yeah, I’d say that’s where you messed up,” said Rick, who’d been married all of a year. “Tate, it’s not like you suddenly don’t notice other women or like you’re just…dead inside. It’s just that, you don’t get yourself into that kind of situation with another woman—”