Stand-In Groom (26 page)

“Making plans?” With Jenn’s attention on avoiding the bug, Anne unlocked the door into the hall that connected all three apartments to the back porch.

“Yeah—for your wedding.”

She dropped the heavy key ring on her foot and stifled a yelp. Her
wedding
? She hadn’t let her own mind go down that path. She didn’t want to be disappointed again when things didn’t work out.

“I mean, it’s not like we’ve actually gone out and booked the Vue de Ciel or anything. We just started looking at dresses…and flowers…”

Crazy. Mad as hatters. Her cousins— “What did you just say?”

“What? That we were looking at dresses and flowers?”

“No, before that.”

“The Vue de Ciel? Could you imagine having your reception there? Of course it would have to be at night when all the stars are out.” Jenn’s tone turned dreamy. “Being on the top floor of the tallest building in downtown; surrounded by glass overlooking the
city; the moon and stars glittering like diamonds on velvet…”

Anne dropped the keys she’d just retrieved and grabbed her phone, speed-dialing George’s number as she raised it to her ear.

Jenn stopped gushing about the location. “Who are you calling at this hour?”

Come on, George, I know you can’t be at home in bed yet
. As soon as she heard the click of connection, she started talking. “George, I’ve got it. I know Courtney was disappointed that we can’t have the reception at Jardin. But I know where we can do it.”

“Slow down. Breathe. What brought on this sudden inspiration?”

She smiled in reaction to the barely suppressed laughter in his voice. “Oh, a conversation I was having with Jenn. Next week we’ll go see the Vue de Ciel.”

“Is it large enough?”

“A long time ago, I planned a served dinner for nearly a thousand attendees and still had room for a dance floor and bandstand.” Fatigue faded as ideas started to take shape. With approximately seven hundred guests, she could have the room set with a mixture of two-, four-, and eight-person tables. The long head table would go on the west side, so they’d have the best view of the city—

“Anne? Are you still there?”

“Sorry. Just formulating some ideas. I need to get it down on paper while I’m thinking about it.” She bent down and picked up her keys.

“Are you going to get any sleep tonight?”

“Probably not. I may try to grab a thirty-minute nap tomorrow afternoon when I know everything is going smoothly.” Black and white linens with mirrors and candles as centerpieces. Only candlelight— no ambient lighting to distract from the view.

“Do try to get
some
rest, please?”

Well, a bit of electric lighting so it wasn’t so dark people would trip and hurt themselves. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll try.”

“See you at seven for breakfast?”

The enormous cake, fabulously made by Aunt Maggie, would
grace a large table on the south wall. Of course, the photographer would have to figure out how to do the pictures surrounded by so much glass. “Yes, seven at Beignets S’il Vous Plait on Spring Street.”

“Good night, then.”

“G’night.” She flipped the phone closed and started up the stairs.

“Annie? You okay?” Concern laced Jenn’s voice.

“Yeah. I’ve just got to get this all written down before I forget.” She turned and kissed her cousin on the cheek. “I probably won’t see you until Saturday.”

“Bring George by the restaurant Saturday night if he’s available. Y’all need to go on a real date and have some alone time.”

Somehow, the two of them going to dinner at Jenn’s restaurant didn’t sound like “alone time” to Anne. “I’ll mention it to him and see if he can get away.”

8

“You got in awful late last night.”

George gratefully took the blue ceramic mug full of Mama Ketty’s chicory coffee and sank onto a stool at the kitchen island. “We had to leave quite a bit undone to get home at that hour.” The rich, slightly bitter, extremely hot liquid woke up his mouth. Hopefully the rest of him would follow suit soon. After only three hours of sleep, he felt every one of his forty-one years…and then some. He’d gotten soft. Many times in the past few years, he’d had to attend to tasks for Cliff late at night and still be up at six in the morning to keep up with both their schedules. Two months away, and he’d lost the ability to hop out of bed without a minimum of seven hours of sleep when the alarm first sounded. “What time did Mr. Ballantine get in last night?”

“ ’Bout an hour before you. He was mightily fearsome when he found out you weren’t back yet.” Ketty covered her bread dough and set it aside. “Did that young man never learn how to pick up after himself?”

George snorted. He’d picked up Cliff’s discarded couture clothing
from the bedroom, bathroom, and dressing-room floors this morning. “Apparently not. But it keeps me in cash.”

“You gonna clean up after the little miss like that, too, once they’re hitched?”

“In the three days she’s been back, have you seen her put anything down where it doesn’t belong?” His brain started clicking better as the caffeine took effect. “No, Miss Courtney appreciates the fact I have enough to do with looking after Mr. Ballantine. She hardly allows me to do anything for her.”
And treats me like I’d always hoped a daughter would…
That poor girl. Did she know what she was getting herself into? He had no doubt Cliff was head over heels in love with her. But as soon as Cliff announced their engagement, the media would pursue her as they had Princess Diana. George hoped he’d be able to protect Courtney from the worst of it.

“I s’pose y’all will be getting in late again tonight.” Disapproval dripped from Mama Ketty’s words.

He caught her about her thick waist as she tried to brush past him. “I’m terribly sorry, lovey. I know you worry.”

The muscles in her cheeks twitched as she tried to hold on to her scowl. “Don’t go tryin’ to butter me up. I told you when you first came here that I work better with a regular schedule. Now you got people coming and going at all hours….” She harrumphed, kissed the top of his head, and continued to the pantry.

“Sorry, what people coming and going?” He checked his watch. Six thirty. He needed to leave in a few minutes to meet Anne for breakfast—and coffee. He swirled the bit of black liquid still remaining in his cup and chuckled. He needed a cup of coffee to wake up enough to go to a coffee shop for breakfast. He really was getting old.

“Them movers that came yesterday after you left.”

Frowning, he followed her into the storage room. Fresh spices and dried herbs mingled with the odor of the onions and garlic cloves in the wire basket suspended by a long chain from the high ceiling. “What movers?”

Mama Ketty balanced near the top of the stepladder. She glanced over her shoulder and handed him a large sack of cornmeal. “They came to the service entrance and knocked. Said they had furniture for the upstairs that they was to deliver to Mr. George Laurence. I figured since you and Mr. B. weren’t here it was okay, so I let them in. I had Miss Courtney’s dinner just coming out of the oven, and I came back to the kitchen. But when I checked on them half an hour later, they weren’t moving any furniture, and one of them was coming out of the office. Said he was leaving you a note that they had the wrong furniture and had to go back to the store.”

“Oh, love a duck!” The pantry door slammed against the wall in response to George’s hasty retreat. Had they been reporters? Had they found anything? He hadn’t thought it would be necessary to lock the office when he was out of the house. He kept the file cabinets locked unless he needed something out of them.

The dark wood door swung open at his touch. Nothing appeared to be out of place.

The computer. He dropped the bag of cornmeal and turned the machine on. It didn’t require a password to get into the main operating system. Most of his files were encrypted, but what if they’d copied them and had a computer elsewhere that could get into them?

“What’s wrong?” Ketty wheezed, out of breath from running after him. “Did I do something I oughtn’t have?”

He stared at the blue Welcome screen. How difficult would it be for them to figure out his password for the confidential files was anne0608? The “anne” part they might figure out if the perpetrators knew Anne was planning the wedding. What they didn’t know was that he’d first met her on June 8.

The image of the Big Ben clock tower with a purple evening sky behind it replaced the start-up screen. A yellow bubble popped up in the right corner. Y
OU HAVE FILES WAITING TO BE WRITTEN TO THE
CD. T
O SEE THE FILES NOW, CLICK THIS BALLOON
. His heart sank when the window opened and he saw the list. Five files. The RSVPs
and travel arrangements for the engagement party. The guests for the wedding ceremony. The invite list for the reception. And the detailed questionnaire he’d filled out for Anne.

He hoped the thieves had been thwarted by the unreliable CD burner. But half the time when he used it, that message popped up even after the files had been successfully copied to a disc. He closed his eyes and rubbed them with the heels of his hands, hard enough to see stars.

The dulcet chime of his Westminster clock marked forty-five minutes past the hour. Mama Ketty’s warm hand rested on his shoulder, and she leaned over him to look at the screen. “What’s all that?”

He let out a defeated breath. “Confidential documents about the wedding. Those blokes weren’t movers.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I knew I should’ve called you when they showed up. But they knew your name. …” She squeezed his shoulder. “Do you s’pose they’re reporters?”

Nodding, he shut down the computer. “I’m certain of it.” He patted her hand. “Our saving grace is that Mr. Ballantine will make the announcement just a few hours from now. If they can get through my password and figure out what the files mean, we can only hope they try to keep the information for themselves. After the press conference this afternoon, everything will be public knowledge, and they’ll lose their exclusive story. Just pray they can’t break those passwords.”

8

Anne checked her watch again and flipped open her phone. She didn’t even have to look at the keypad as she punched in the code to speed-dial George. He was always on time. She hoped he hadn’t overslept. Too much still needed to be accomplished before the florist arrived at noon.

After one ring, he answered. “Good morning. Sorry I’m running behind schedule a bit.”

“I was starting to worry about you. What’s your ETA?”

“I’m turning onto Spring Street as we speak. As soon as I overtake this lorry that’s pootling down the lane, I should be within sight of the coffee shop.”

She laughed. “
Pootling
? That’s a new one on me.” She craned her neck to see down the road. “Ah, there you are. See you in a bit.”

“Toodle-oo.”

Taking a deep breath to calm her racing pulse, Anne tucked the phone in her pocket. Would he regret his actions last night? They’d spent so much time trying to avoid the attraction between them, she didn’t know how easy showing affection for each other would come for either of them. Yet as she watched him unfold his lanky frame from the low-hung convertible, she wished he’d stop
pootling
and get over here and take her in his arms and—

She tried to control the size of her smile as he approached.

He clasped her hands and gave her a quick kiss on each cheek. “Good morning.”

Disappointment surged, but she tamped it down. Standing on the front porch of one of the most popular coffee shops in midtown probably wasn’t the best place for the kiss she’d hoped for. “Good morning. You look tired.”

“And you, m’lady, look fresh as if you’d just returned from a long holiday.” He tweaked her chin, then motioned her toward the door. “Shall we? I don’t know about you, but I could use a lot more coffee this morning.”

“More? As in, you’ve already had some?” Anne reached for the door handle, but George was faster. She loved being treated like a fine lady…especially by him. Her male cousins were all gentlemen, but sometimes they forgot to open doors or allow her to enter ahead of them. George never forgot. More often than not, he asked her to wait for him to perform his chivalrous duty.

He gave her half a grin. “I had to or I was afraid I might fall asleep driving here.”

“Good morning, Anne!”

She turned and greeted the three young women behind the counter, introducing George. While he read the menu board, one of the girls handed Anne her usual.

“That looks good.” George leaned over and took a whiff of the enormous muffin.

“This is a tall caramel vanilla latte with a splash of hazelnut and a glorious morning muffin, still warm from the oven.” Her stomach growled at the aroma of the dark bran pastry filled with raisins, grated carrots, walnuts, and dates, not to mention the cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar, and honey. She took a sip of her coffee and closed her eyes as she imagined the tingle of the caffeine rushing to every nerve in her body. She’d have to have at least one more of these before she’d have enough energy to get anything accomplished this morning.

The three baristas gave Anne a pitying look when George ordered a “large coffee, black.” She rather liked the fact he was a no-frills kind of guy. Forbes had probably given closing arguments in court that were shorter than the description of the specialty espresso he drank.

Melted cheddar cheese oozed from George’s croissant, and the salty fragrance of the ham made Anne wish she’d ordered that instead. Oh well. Maybe next time. She found an unoccupied table on the back deck that overlooked Schuyler Park and pulled out her list. Halfway through, though, George’s attention seemed to be elsewhere.

She set the notepad down on the table and pinched off a chunk of her muffin. “What’s going on, George?” She popped the bite in her mouth and savored the chewy sweetness.

The faraway glaze slowly left his eyes. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”

“Just trying to find out why you haven’t heard a word I’ve said since we sat down.” She really didn’t have time for him to be unfocused today.

He sipped his coffee and dabbed the corners of his mouth with the white paper napkin. “I do apologize. Pray, continue.”