The Wedding Kiss (6 page)

“I’ll do whatever you need me to do,” he said with feeling. “Knowing how much you like roses got me thinking about the traditional rose ceremony.” The traditional version was simple: an exchange of roses between the mothers of the bride and groom during the ceremony. “Just two people exchanging roses might be nicely symbolic,” he explained, “but it feels like it isn’t big enough. So why not have everyone at the wedding exchanging roses? All the guests on your side and all the ones on Donovan’s.”

He watched her face light up at the idea, before she too-quickly stamped out her obvious pleasure. “Thank you for the idea, RJ, but I don’t think it will work. Not when Donovan will have so many more guests than I will. His family, his colleagues, his most important clients.”

“We can figure it out,” RJ insisted, even though it annoyed him that Donovan should have more guests than Rose at their wedding, as if Rose’s friends and family didn’t matter the same way his did. “I was thinking of rigging up a topiary runner over everyone. If I put it together as a lattice work, I can make it look like it’s raining rose petals as you walk along the aisle, and then as you walk past each pair of people in the ceremony, they can step in and exchange roses.”

For one more short moment, RJ thought Rose might go for it. Her eyes certainly seemed eager, maybe even a little dreamy, yet he could see the instant when she reconsidered…and made her final decision.

She shook her head. “No, we can’t do that. It’s too messy. Too showy. And the rose ceremony has been done too many times before. It has all the problems that getting married under the gazebo did.”

Which, as far as RJ could see, mostly consisted of Donovan’s mother not thinking it was up to her standards.

Was Rose really going to try to design her entire wedding to live up to what she thought Vanessa McIntyre would like?

“It’s not elegant enough,” Rose continued. “I want my wedding to have style. I want it to be absolutely perfect, with nothing going wrong.”

Rose, of all people, should have known that weddings were big, messy,
fun
events. Yes, there was space for style and elegance, but even then, most couples tended to let their hair down a little during one of the most important days of their lives.

Only, to RJ’s ears it sounded like Rose wanted her big day to be like a catwalk show. Beautiful to look at, but without any actual substance.

He felt like there were two Roses these days. There was the woman she so obviously thought she ought to be, the person Donovan wanted her to be. That was the woman who seemed to be so willing to put aside her wedding arrangements just because of what people thought.

Then there was the
real
Rose. The woman who rolled up her sleeves and helped him pound in nails and dig in the garden. The woman who devoured chili fries in diners.

The woman who had kissed him.

Yet he knew if he said any of that, Rose would simply deny it and pull away from him.

So instead of
saying
it, he needed to
show
her the difference. Chili-fries in the diner had been a start, but he needed to do more.

“Are you sure you don’t want to try the rose ceremony?” he asked one more time. “It seems to me that it would be so perfect for you, Rose. For who you really are.”

“Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

A flare of anger at just how wrong she was, had him quickly coming back with, “Well then, tomorrow we should do some research. You know, so that I can actually be a help to you, rather than just guessing about what you’d want.”

“Research?” Rose asked. She sounded suspicious now, but RJ wasn’t going to let it go that easily.

“We both agree that it’s vitally important for a bride’s wedding to reflect her true self, and you don’t think I’ve got it so far?”

Rose hesitated, then shook her head.

“So tomorrow,” RJ continued, “why don’t you take me somewhere that will show who you really are? Somewhere that will give me plenty of inspiration for your wedding day.”

Rose paused. “I don’t know, RJ. I have so much to do now with helping Phoebe, Julie and Tyce.”

“They’re total pros and you know they can deal with any problems they run into. But I might not be able to produce the perfect wedding setup for you without your help. I mean, look at my first two attempts.”

“I guess,” Rose said slowly, “that makes sense.”

Tomorrow morning, he’d let Rose hold the reins, but in the afternoon, RJ vowed that he was going to finally get a chance to show Rose who
he
thought she was.

And maybe, just maybe, that version would include her loving him the way he’d always loved her.

Chapter Eight

Rose was in the chalet the next morning looking at a drawing for a new flower arrangement when RJ walked in and she completely lost track of her train of thought.

“Are you ready to go, Rose?”

There was part of her that wanted to find an excuse not to do this. It wasn’t like they could afford the time away from the wedding preparations, and the thought of spending the day with RJ was…well, actually, it felt pretty good.

Which was exactly the problem. Being with RJ shouldn’t be so good all the time.

Even so, she’d given him her word. And she never went back on her word.

When they went out to his truck, he asked, “So, where are we headed so I can learn who the real Rose Martin is?”

She gave him directions and he drove without asking any other questions. Apparently, he was willing to be surprised, and she was happy to sit with him in comfortable silence.

With Donovan, she’d have found something to talk about, even if it was just some story about the internal politics of the plastic surgery world. Comfortable
wasn’t a word she’d ever use to describe Donovan. Dangerous
wasn’t either.

How, she found herself wondering, could RJ be both comforting and dangerous at the same time?

It was another five minutes before they reached the gallery. RJ found a parking spot out on the street, looking up at the building as he did so. “This is the place that reflects the real you?” he asked with more than a little skepticism.

“Absolutely,” Rose replied. “Donovan took me here about a month ago. He knows the owner of the gallery. It’s very beautiful. Very refined. I’m sure we’ll be able to find lots of inspiration for the wedding inside.”

“Okay,” he said in an easy voice, “but I was hoping you’d take me somewhere that’s personal to you.”

“This
is
personal to me,” Rose insisted. “Well, for both Donovan and myself. It’s a place that we’ve spent time together.”

She could remember the first time she’d come to the gallery with Donovan during a private showing. Both the art and the customers had seemed so pristine and perfect, and at first she hadn’t felt like she fit in at all, almost as if everyone was speaking their own private language. Yet Donovan had slowly started to introduce her to people, the gallery’s owner had seemed nice, and Rose had gradually found herself feeling more and more at home.

If only she could make RJ understand…

Hold on. Why was it important that he understood? He just needed enough to be able to produce a workable wedding setup, she reminded herself. That was all.

They went inside, and RJ took a long look around at the pieces on display before turning to her. “So, which piece do you want to show me first?”

The artwork displayed was of many different styles, from jagged sculptures constructed from pieces of found metal, to paintings that were little more than blocks of color, and even a few fabric pieces that were as much simple design pieces as they were art. Rose waved RJ over to one of the closest sculptures, purely as a place to start.

“So,” he said, “why this one?”

“Well…” She tried to think of something she liked about this particular sculpture. “I like the way it takes ordinary objects and reuses them, along with the fact that it takes mundane things and makes them special.”

“Funny,” RJ said in a considering voice, “over the years we’ve worked together and have been friends
,
I’ve never seen you drawn to anything so cold and sharp.” Before she could interrupt him, he said, “You’ve always appreciated beauty, and softness, and things that make you laugh.”

Warmth at his words warred with the frustrated realization that he wasn’t giving her a chance to show him how she’d changed. But before she could explain herself any better, the gallery owner, Millicent Richards, moved to their side.

She was quite easy to recognize, thanks to outfits that were as much art installations as garments. Her features had the tight, symmetrical perfection that kept Donovan and the other plastic surgeons in his office booked solid.

“Hello, Millicent.” They air-kissed each other on both cheeks as if they were in Europe rather than San Francisco. “I’d love for you to meet RJ. We work together at the chalet. RJ, Millicent owns this gallery.”

“It’s so nice to meet you, RJ,” Millicent said, with an appreciative gleam in her eye for the good looking man standing before her. One bright enough that Rose felt a wave of possessiveness rush through her before she could stop it. “Can I help either of you find something today?”

Rose forced herself to smile at the other woman. “Actually, we’re here to get some last-minute inspiration for the wedding, as RJ is helping me put it all together.”

Millicent nodded as if it made perfect sense that they would have come to her gallery for inspiration. “Do let me know if I can help in any way. I’m very much looking forward to the wedding. You’re really very lucky to have captured Donovan McIntyre’s eye, as you know. All of the other girls in our circle are jealous beyond belief that he’s taken. Then again, the two of you really do make the perfect couple, with the way your coloring perfectly complements his. Well done, Rose.”

A potential customer caught Millicent’s eyes and she hurried off before Rose could insist that jealousy, “capturing,” and complementary coloring had nothing to do with her upcoming marriage to Donovan. She and Donovan were marrying one another because they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. Why else would they build such a lovely home together, or make such an effort to ensure that their wedding was going to be absolutely perfect?

She tried to turn her focus back to looking through the pieces on display with RJ, but it wasn’t easy to do so when he was gazing at her with such intensity. It was almost as if he was trying to see all the way inside of her.

With a hand that she willed not to shake, she pointed out a delicately painted watercolor of a woman who looked formal and elegant. “That’s what I’m looking for,” she explained. “A sense of refinement and beauty for my big day. Does that make sense?”

“I’m starting to get the picture.”

They kept walking around the gallery, stopping in front of each of the pieces. Some were abstract, others were more classical. RJ kept asking her questions about her reactions to each piece.

It was actually a lot of fun, getting a chance to take the morning off from wedding preparations. Even better, she had to think so hard about her reaction to each piece of art that she couldn’t spend every second rewinding back to the way they almost kissed on Sunday morning.

It had been one crazy moment, just as the previous Valentine’s in the bar had been. A temporary infatuation and nothing more.

Knowing it was best if they kept their focus on the wedding, she asked him whether it would be possible to create a Grecian feel for the Rose Chalet in the four days remaining.

“If that’s what you really want, I’ll find a way to do it.”

“That’s great,” she said. “I’m glad we did this.”

RJ smiled at her, and she worked to ignore the warmth that coursed through her as he said, “I am, too. It’s made things a lot clearer.”

Yes, it definitely had. Rose checked the time. “Why don’t we go get some lunch? There are some great little places nearby that Donovan has taken me to. My treat as a thank you for all this effort.”

“If you really want to thank me,” RJ suggested, “why don’t you spend a little more time with me after lunch? There’s somewhere I’d like to take you, actually.”

“Where?”

“That part’s a surprise. I think you’ll enjoy it, though, and it won’t keep you from heading back to the chalet for too much longer.”

She hesitated. There wasn’t much time left before the wedding, and there was still so much to do. But the only real reason she had for saying no was if she thought she couldn’t control herself around RJ.

A couple more hours with him was the perfect way to prove to both of them that she could.

She smiled at him. “You’re on.”

Chapter Nine

Lunch had been everything RJ would have expected after spending the morning at the pretentious gallery. It had been a fancy place where the other customers looked at him strangely for wearing jeans and boots. Clearly, in their world, men didn’t have jobs that involved getting their clothes dirty.

The food itself was a long way from the re-imagined simplicity that Julie and Andrew had been putting together for wedding clients at the chalet. Even Rose didn’t seem to be getting quite as much out of the meal as she wanted to pretend, and RJ was only too glad when they finally got going.

The timing, fortunately, was perfect for his part of their day’s plan. Neither of them spoke as he drove to the other side of the city. He loved how they didn’t always have to talk. He enjoyed joking around with Rose too, but being comfortable enough around one another to let things be quiet and still for a while was also special.

“Okay,” Rose said eventually, “enough mystery. Where are we going?”

RJ pointed to the sports field that was just coming up on the left of the truck. “We’re here.”

He found a spot to park and when they got out of the truck they were immediately surrounded by a small horde of kids who barely came up to their shoulders. They were all wearing identical baseball uniforms.