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“Mr. Jordan—”
“Drew is fine. And what should I call you?”
Barnum. “Becky is fine. We can’t just throw a bunch of tables out on the front lawn as if this were the church picnic.”
“We’re back to that headache.” His lips twitched. “I’m afraid my experience with church picnics has been limited.”
Yes, it was evident he was all devilish charm and dark seduction, while it was written all over her that that was what she came from: church picnics and 4-H clubs, a place where the Fourth of July fireworks were the event of the year.
She shifted her attention to the second no. “And we absolutely need some sort of dance floor. Have you ever tried to dance on grass? Or sand?”
“I’m afraid,” Drew said, “that falls outside of the realm of my experience, too. And you?”
“Oh, you know,” she said. “We like to dust up our heels after the church picnic.”
He nodded, as if that was more than evident to him and he had missed her sarcasm completely.
She focused on his third veto. She looked at her clumsy drawing of a small gazebo on the beach. She had envisioned Allie and Joe saying their vows under it, while their guests sat in beautiful lightweight chairs looking at them and the sea beyond them.
“And what’s your complaint with this one?”
“I’ll forgive you this oversight because of where you are from.”
“Oversight?”
“I wouldn’t really expect a girl from Michigan to have foreseen this. The wedding—” he managed to fill that single word with a great deal of contempt “—according to my notes, is supposed to take place at 4:00 p.m. on June third.”
“Correct.”
“If you Google the tide chart for that day, you’ll see that your gazebo would have water lapping up to the third stair. I’m not really given to omens, but I would probably see that as one.”
She was feeling very tired of Google, except in the context of learning about him. It seemed to her he was the kind of man who brought out the weakness in a woman, even one who had been made as cynical as she had been. Because she felt she could ogle him all day long. And he knew it, she reminded herself.
“So,” she said, a little more sharply than intended, “what do you suggest?”
“If we scratch the pavilion for two hundred—”
“I can get more people to help you.”
He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “I can probably build you a rudimentary gazebo at a different location.”
“What about the dance floor?”
“I’ll think about it.”
He said that as if he were the boss, not her. From what she had glimpsed about him on the internet he was very used to being in charge. And he obviously knew his stuff, and was good with details. He had spotted the weather and the tides, after all. Really, she should be grateful. What if her bride had marched down her tulip-lined aisle—or whatever the aisle ended up being lined with—to a wedding gazebo that was slowly being swallowed by water?
It bothered her to even think it, but Drew Jordan was right. That would have been a terrible omen.
Still, gratitude was not what Becky felt. Not at all.
“You are winning the headache contest by a country mile,” she told him.
“I’m no kind of expert on the country,” he said, without regret, “but I am competitive.”
“What did Allie tell you? Are you in charge of construction?”
“Absolutely.”
He said it too quickly and with that self-assured smile of a man way too used to having his own way, particularly with the opposite sex.
“I’m going to have to call Allie and see what that means,” Becky said, steeling herself against that smile. “I’m happy to leave construction to you, but I think I should have the final word on what we are putting up and where.”
“I’m okay with that. As long as it’s reasonable.”
“I’m sure we define that differently.”
He flashed his teeth at her again. “I’m sure we do.”
“Would it help you do your job if I brought more people on-site? Carpenters and such?”
“That’s a great idea, but I don’t work with strangers. Joe and I have worked together a lot. He’ll be here tomorrow.”
“That wouldn’t be very romantic, him building the stuff for his own wedding.”
“Or you could see it as him putting an investment and some effort into his own wedding.”
She sighed. “You want him here so you can try to bully him out of getting married.”
“I resent the implication I would bully him.”
But Becky was stunned to see doubt flash across those self-confident features. “He isn’t talking to you, is he?” Becky guessed softly.
She could tell Drew was not accustomed to this level of perception. He didn’t like it one little bit.
“I have one of my teams arriving soon. And Joe. I’m here a day early to do some initial assessments. What I need is for you to pick the site for the exchange of vows so that I can put together a plan. We don’t have as much time as you think.”
Which was truly frightening, because she did not think they had any time at all. Becky looked at her desk: flowers to be ordered, ceremony details to be finalized, accommodations to be organized, boat schedules, food, not just for the wedding feast, but for the week to follow, and enough staff to pull off pampering two hundred people.
“And don’t forget fireworks,” she added.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing,” she muttered. She did not want to be thinking of fireworks around a man like Drew Jordan. Her eyes drifted to his lips. If she were ever to kiss someone like that, it would be the proverbial fireworks. And he knew it, too. That was why he was smiling evilly at her!
Suddenly, it felt like nothing in the world would be better than to get outside away from this desk—and from him—and see this beautiful island. So far, she had mostly experienced it by looking out her office window. The sun would be going down soon. She could find a place to hold the wedding and watch the sun go down.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll find a new site. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve got it.”
“Let’s do it together. That might save us some grief.”
She was not sure that doing anything with him was going to save her some grief. She needed to get away from him...and the thoughts of fireworks he had caused.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_d7116a06-bdf8-54f8-860a-9b31b4f5c18b)
“I’D PREFER TO do it on my own,” Becky said, even though it seemed ungracious to say so. She felt a need to establish who was running the cir—show.
“But here’s the problem,” Drew said with annoying and elaborate patience.
“Yes?”
“You’ll pick a site on your own, and then I’ll go look at it and say no, and so then you’ll pick another site on your own, and I’ll go look at it and say no.”
She scowled at him. “You’re being unnecessarily negative.”
He shrugged. “I’m just making the point that we could, potentially, go on like that endlessly, and there is a bit of a time crunch here.”
“I think you just like using the word no,” she said grumpily.
“Yes,” he said, deadpan, as if he was not being deliberately argumentative now.
She should argue that she was quite capable of picking the site by herself and that she had no doubt her next selection would be fine, but her first choice was not exactly proof of that. And besides, then who would be the argumentative one?
“It’s too late today,” Drew decided. “Joe’s coming in on the first flight. Why don’t we pick him up and the three of us will pick a site that works for the gazebo?”
“Yes, that would be fine,” she said, aware her voice was snapping with ill grace. Really, it was an opportunity. Tomorrow morning she would not scrape her hair back into a careless ponytail. She would apply makeup to hide how her fair skin, fresh out of a Michigan winter, was already blotchy from the sun.
* * *
Should she wear her meet-the-potential-client suit, a cream-colored linen by a famous designer? That would certainly make a better impression than shorty-shorts and a sleeveless tank that could be mistaken for underwear!
But the following morning it was already hot, and there was no dry cleaner on the island to take a sweat-drenched dress to.
Aware she was putting way too much effort into her appearance, Becky donned white shorts and a sleeveless sun-yellow shirt. She put on makeup and left her hair down. And then she headed out of her room.
She met Drew on the staircase.
He looked unreasonably gorgeous!
“Good morning,” she said. She was stupidly pleased by how his eyes trailed to her hair and her faintly glossed lips.
He returned her greeting gruffly and then went down the stairs in front of her, taking them two at a time. But he stopped and held open the main door for her. They were hit by a wall of heat.
“It’s going to be even hotter in two weeks,” Drew told her, when he watched her pause and draw in her breath on the top stair of the castle.
“Must you be so negative?”
“Pragmatic,” he insisted. “Plus...”
“Don’t tell me. I already know. You looked it up. That’s how you know it will be even hotter in two weeks.”
He nodded, pleased with himself.
“Keep it up,” she warned him, “and you’ll have to present me with the prize. A king-size bottle of headache relief.”
They stood at the main door to the castle, huge half circles of granite forming a staircase down to a sparkling expanse of emerald lawn. The lawn was edged with a row of beautifully swaying palm trees, and beyond that was a crescent of powdery white sand beach.
“That beach looks so much less magical now that I know it’s going to be underwater at four o’clock on June the third.”
* * *
Drew glanced at Becky. She looked older and more sophisticated with her hair down and makeup on. She had gone from cute to attractive.
It occurred to Drew that Becky was the kind of woman who brought out things in a man that he would prefer to think he didn’t have. Around a woman like this a man could find himself wanting to protect himself—and her—from disappointments. That’s all he wanted for Joe, too, not to bully him but to protect him.
He’d hated that question, the one he hadn’t answered. Had he bullied his brother? He hoped not. But the sad truth was Joe had been seven when Drew, seventeen, was appointed his guardian. Drew had floundered, in way over his head, and he’d resorted to doing whatever needed to be done to get his little brother through childhood.
No wonder his brother was so hungry for love that he’d marry the first beautiful woman who blinked sideways at him.
Unless he could talk some sense into him. He cocked his head. He was pretty sure he could hear the plane coming.
“How hot is it supposed to be on June third?” she asked. He could hear the reluctance to even ask in her voice.
“You know that expression? Hotter than Hades—”
“Never mind. I get it. All the more reason that we really need the pavilion,” she said. “We’ll need protection from the sun. I planned to have the tables running this way, so everyone could just turn their heads and see the ocean as the sun is going down. The head table could be there, at the bottom of the stairs. Imagine the bride and groom coming down that staircase to join their guests.”
Her voice had become quite dreamy. Had she really tried to tell him she was not a romantic? He knew he’d pegged it. She’d had some kind of setback in the romance department, but inside her was still a giddy girl with unrealistic dreams about her prince coming. He had to make sure she knew that was not him.
“Well, I already told you, you can’t have that,” he said gruffly. He did not enjoy puncturing her dream as much as he wanted to. He did not enjoy being mean as much as he would have liked. He told himself it was for her own good.
He was good at doing things for other people’s own good. You could ask Joe, though his clumsy attempts at parenting were no doubt part of why his brother was running off half-cocked to get married.
“I’m sure we can figure out something,” Becky said of her pavilion dream.
“We? No, we can’t.”
This was better. They were going to talk about practicalities, as dream-puncturing as those could be!
The plane was circling now, and they moved toward the airstrip.
He continued, “What you’re talking about is an open, expansive structure with huge unsupported spans. You’d need an architect and an engineer.”
“I have a tent company I use at home,” Becky said sadly, “but they are booked nearly a year in advance. I’ve tried a few others. Same story. Plus, the planes that can land here aren’t big enough to carry that much canvas, and you have to book the supply barge. There’s only one with a flat enough bottom to dock here. An unlimited budget can’t get you what you might think.”
“Unlimited?” He heard the horror in his voice.
She ignored him. “Are you sure I’d need an architect and an engineer, even for something so temporary?”
