Authors: Mariah Stewart
“Good timing,” Brooke replied. Hoping to ingratiate herself with Deanna, she added an honest compliment. “By the way, everything was delicious. You guys earned an A-plus in my book.”
“Thanks.”
Deanna passed a stack of empty plates to one of her helpers.
Vanessa swept into the room in a tea-length rose chiffon dress. “How are we doing in here?”
“We’re doing fine. I’m just getting the desserts ready. The party is fabulous,” Brooke told her.
“The party
is
fabulous, thank you. Deanna, the food was everything you promised. Everyone’s raving about the Asian beef and the roasted vegetables.”
Deanna’s “thank you” was overlooked as Vanessa paused to watch Brooke stack cupcakes on one of several three-tiered displays she’d brought with her. “Oh, look. These match my dress.” She pointed to a trio of dark rose cupcakes that were still in the box.
“That one’s raspberry,” Brooke told her. “It has a little bit of ganache inside as a little surprise.”
“Oh, yum.” Vanessa picked one out and peeled the paper back. “Sorry. I can’t wait.” She took a bite. “So delicious. So … oh, man, that ganache just blends perfectly with the raspberry in the frosting. Wow, Brooke. Just … wow.”
Deanna’s head lifted and her eyes shifted to the cupcakes.
“Glad you’re enjoying it.” Brooke’s smile was sheer satisfaction. She’d worked for several hours to ensure that the flavors of the ganache and the frosting balanced each other. The look on Vanessa’s face told her she’d succeeded. “Ness, you have frosting on the right side of your mouth.”
“I’m so happy that everything worked out just right tonight.” Vanessa grabbed a napkin and touched it to the spot. “Did I get it?”
Brooke nodded. “Everything looks beautiful. I love the decorations.”
Deanna’s head came up again and she sighed heavily, as if disturbed by the chatter.
“Steffie loves those little white fairy lights. She says she’s going to have her entire wedding reception built around them.” Vanessa rolled her eyes. “As long as she doesn’t set them all to ‘blink’ at the same time, it should be fine.”
“Speaking of which, Dallas just told me that she and Steffie have agreed to have their weddings on the same day at the inn.” Brooke went back to stacking the cupcakes.
“I saw her speaking with Grace in the foyer a few minutes ago. I wonder if she’s told her about needing a more experienced wedding planner.”
“She did and Grace agreed.” Steffie came in through the door that led into the dining room and deposited an empty champagne bottle in Vanessa’s recycling bin. “Deanna, everything is to die for. Your reputation is well earned.”
“Thank you,” Deanna replied somewhat stiffly. “I’m glad you’re satisfied.”
“Totally,” Steffie assured her.
“So Grace is going to talk to Lucy?” Vanessa asked.
Steffie shook her head. “Grace suggested that Dallas call Lucy directly. She thinks it will have more of an impact if Dallas asks her, and she’s probably right.”
“How does an event planner say no when Dallas MacGregor asks her to do her wedding?” Brooke nodded. “Makes sense to me.”
“Right. So Dallas is going to give her a call tomorrow.” Steffie watched Brooke open another white box of cupcakes. “Can I have that white one? The one with all the coconut on top?”
Brooke handed it to her.
“I love vanilla. It’s my favorite flavor,” Steffie told them.
“I thought lemon was your favorite,” Vanessa reminded her.
“That, too.” Steffie bit into the small cake. “This is too delicious for words. I want these for my wedding.”
“Since I understand that’s going to be a shared event, you might want to discuss it with your future sister-in-law,” Brooke pointed out. “She might have other ideas.”
“We already talked about it. We’re having wedding cake
and
cupcakes.” Steffie took another bite. “Everything frosty white, like snow, since it’s going to be winter. Except you guys are all going to wear plaid.”
“Plaid?” Vanessa and Brooke asked at the same time.
“Uh-huh.” Steffie took the last bite, then wiped her hands on a napkin. “The MacGregor tartan. You’ll love it.”
“Does this mean Wade is going to wear a kilt?”
“Brooke, what a great idea.” Steffie nodded. “I like it.” Steffie turned as one of the waitstaff carried a tray in and set it on the counter near the sink.
Vanessa opened the refrigerator. “We need more champagne for the toast.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Deanna told her. “You just go on back out there and enjoy your party.”
“Oh. Well, in that case, sure.” Vanessa took Steffie’s arm. “Come on, guest of honor. Let’s find your guy and get ready for some toasting.”
“You, too, Brooke,” Steffie told her.
“I’ll be out in just a minute.” Brooke finished setting up the tiered displays and stepped back to admire her work. “Nice,” she said to herself.
“We’ll take it from here, Brooke.” Deanna held the door open as her staff filed in, carrying the plates and bowls and trays they’d removed from the dining room. “If you’re finished …?”
“I have a few trays to do, but you can go on and put those displays out as soon as the dining room table is clear.” Brooke arranged cupcakes on silver trays along with some chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne truffles she’d picked up at the gourmet shop on her way over. From a cooler, she selected several white orchid blossoms and used them to decorate the all-white cupcakes that she’d placed on the white doilies on one tray, and added purple orchids to the tray of chocolate cupcakes. Pleased with the finished product, she stepped back and told Deanna, “They’re all yours.”
Deanna’s gaze went from tray to tray. Finally, she said, “They’re beautiful. I love orchids. They add
such an elegant touch. Usually I like to put the desserts together myself, but I couldn’t do a better job than you did. You really do have a knack for this.”
“Thank you. That’s really nice of you to say.” A startled Brooke removed the apron and hung it in Vanessa’s pantry.
“Oh, I’m not being nice,” Deanna assured her. “I’m impressed. Any chance I could talk you into doing some work for me over the holidays? I have a lot of parties on the calendar, and after seeing what you’ve done here, I’d love to be able to include your cupcakes in the portfolio when I meet with my customers.”
“We can talk about it. Sure.” Brooke nodded.
“Great. I’ll give you a call.” Deanna popped open several bottles of champagne.
Brooke drifted into the foyer, a small smile on her lips. It was all she could do not to pump her fist in the air and shout “YES!” If Deanna Clark contracted some work for her this winter … well, she could almost smell her success.
Feeling more optimistic and more relaxed than she had for days, she stood in the living room doorway. From there, she could see into the dining room and the small sitting room in the front of the house.
Standing room only
, she mused.
“Is there anyone in St. Dennis who isn’t here tonight?” Jesse Enright appeared at her elbow.
“I was just thinking the same thing.” She glanced from room to room. “And I can’t think of anyone. Steffie probably should have held this at Wade’s aunt’s house over on River Road. It’s much larger and has more rooms than Vanessa’s bungalow.”
“I’ve been past that place,” he said. “Berry Eberle’s place, right? The big house on the point right where the river hits the Bay?”
Brooke nodded. “But I understand why Vanessa wanted to be the one to host the party. She and Stef are best friends.”
One of the waiters approached carrying a tray of champagne flutes. Jesse took two and handed one to Brooke.
“I’m guessing you could probably use this,” he said.
“More than you know.” She took a sip. “Thanks. I mean, thanks for everything. For coming to my aid earlier, for all the help. I was so rattled when those boxes fell, I don’t know that I would have had the presence of mind to have done anything but toss the fallen cupcakes and cry.”
“Nah, you’d have figured it out,” Jesse assured her.
“I don’t know. When I say I was rattled, I mean, my mind turned into a big black void.”
“How’s the dragon lady?” Jesse nodded toward the kitchen.
“Deanna? She was pretty testy there for a while, but once she saw my pretty little cupcakes and saw how Vanessa and Steffie reacted to them, she took a closer look and decided she liked what she saw.” Brooke leaned a little closer to Jesse and added, “She wants to talk to me about possibly working with her on a few holiday parties.”
Jesse touched the rim of his glass to hers. “To your success, then.”
“I will most certainly drink to that.”
Brooke raised the glass to her lips, but before she
could take a sip, Gabriel Beck, Vanessa’s half brother and the town’s chief of police, known to everyone as simply Beck, called everyone to the dining room for the congratulatory toasts to the engaged couple. The overflow of guests filled the foyer.
“We’d like the members of the wedding party to come in here,” Beck said when the noise level began to die down.
“Excuse me,” Brooke said to Jesse. “That would include me.”
She made her way through the crowd to the dining room, looking back once to see that Jesse’s eyes followed her every step of the way.
Jesse stood near the back of the crowd of well-wishers and listened as first Beck made a toast, followed by one given by Dallas, then another by Grant. His mind began drifting back to that moment earlier when he’d crossed Cherry Street at the top of the block just as Brooke began to park the car. He’d just made it to Vanessa’s driveway when Brooke stumbled and fell forward and the tower of white boxes began to shift. If he’d been two steps sooner, he’d have been able to prevent the top boxes from toppling.
The look on Brooke’s face had been sheer panic and total devastation when those three boxes hit the ground. He understood what it meant to need to make a great first impression, how sometimes the direction of your life could depend on it. He was glad that he had been there to lend a hand and to help put a smile back on her face.
It was a beautiful smile, and a heart-stoppingly beautiful face. Hadn’t his own heart all but stopped
when she’d walked up to him and called his name a few minutes ago? Through the crowd he could see her, and he was finding it hard to look away.
“Enright.” Clay appeared at his elbow.
“How’s it going?” Jesse whispered so as not to be heard over the toasts that were still being made.
“Good. You?”
“Can’t complain.”
“Heard what you did for Brooke this afternoon. Thanks for helping her out. She says you saved the day for her.”
Jesse nodded, his eyes still on Brooke.
“You … ah … interested? In my sister, I mean?” Clay asked.
“Might be.” Jesse’s gaze remained straight ahead.
“You want a tip?” Clay leaned in closer. “Don’t let her know. Let her think you only want to be her friend, and for God’s sake, don’t ask her out.”
“Sounds like something a big brother would say when he thinks someone wants to date his sister,” Jesse muttered. “Actually, sounds like something I did say when my little sister—”
“No, I’m serious. And for the record, she’s older.” Clay took a few steps back toward the foyer, to the very edge of the crowd, and he gestured for Jesse to follow. “Look, if you ask her out, she’ll go out with you one time, and after that, she’ll be busy every time you call her.”
“So you’re saying that if she thinks I’m interested in her—should I be, that is—”
“She’ll turn you off like a light switch.”
Jesse just stared. It was a novel way of scaring off a potential suitor for your sister. He might try it sometime.
It was too late to work on Jonathan, he reasoned, but if Sophie ever came to her senses and dropped that jerk, maybe the opportunity might arise at some point in the future.
“Look, I’ve been watching guys make fools of themselves over Brooke since I was a kid, but she’s always been picky. Now, since Eric, she’s even worse. You can ask any single guy in St. Dennis, since most of them have asked her out. And she’s gone out with most of them. Once.” Clay pointed across the room to a tall blond guy. “One time. And see the guy in the navy sport jacket? One date.” He pointed throughout the crowd and repeated, “One date. One date … and oh, yeah, there’s Owen Petrie. One date. Go ahead. Ask any one of them.”
Clay lowered his voice even more. “If you’re really into Brooke, don’t let her know.”
It wasn’t anything Jesse hadn’t heard from other people, but it was interesting to hear Clay’s take on the situation.
“So how do I get to know her? That is, if I wanted to.”
“You run into her here and there, you talk, you make nice, you let her know that you like her but let her think it’s only friendship. But don’t ask her out. I mean it. Every guy in town has tried. With Brooke, it’s one and done. If you don’t want to be done, just be her friend until she decides she wants it to be something else.”
“And if she never does?”
“Then you’re no worse off than you were before.” Clay paused. “My sister’s had a rough time these past few years.”
“I heard about her husband.”
“I’ve tried talking to her, told her she needs to start to make a life for herself, but she just can’t seem to get past it.”
“Could you?”
Clay thought it over for a moment. “I think losing someone you love puts a hole inside you that’s bigger than anything you can imagine—bigger than anything I can imagine, anyway. But I also think that sooner or later, you’re going to have to start filling that hole in. Brooke’s been in mourning for more than two years now. It’s not that I think she should forget about Eric. He was one hell of a guy and she loved him. He’s the father of her son. But she’s very young—much too young—to … well, to give up on life.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Jesse asked.
“What you did for her today was pretty decent. And it’s obvious that you’re interested in her.”
“So you’re giving me the inside word as a thank-you?”
Clay shrugged. “I guess you could put it that way.”
“Then when do I get to go out with her?” He added, “Assuming, of course, that I wanted to.”