Taken aback, Meredith glanced at Anne. “The hospital?”

“Didn’t I tell you? I volunteer in the pediatric cancer unit on Saturday mornings.”

Could this guy be any more perfect? He was going to make someone a great husband someday. “No, you never told me. What led you to do that?”

“I’ve been doing it since I was fifteen and my youngest brother was diagnosed with leukemia.” Someone yelled his name in the background. “I’ll have to call you back, Mere.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.” She closed the phone and dropped it in her purse.

“The hospital?”

Meredith told her.

“He sounds like a keeper.” Even though Anne leaned over to pull out the binder of her wedding plans from under the desk, it wasn’t quick enough to keep Meredith from seeing her amused smile.

“For someone else, maybe.”

Anne snapped upright. “What?”

“I just don’t feel that way about him.”

“Not everyone falls in love right away. Sometimes it needs a chance to grow. I’ve planned plenty of weddings for people who were friends for years before they fell in love with each other.”

Friends for eight years before falling in love? Meredith shook her head. “I’m giving it a chance—it’s not like I have a lot of other options at this point in time.”

“You know I’ve been praying for you about this, right?” Leaving the binder on her desk, Anne came around to sit in the chair beside Meredith.

Emotion lumped up in Meredith’s throat, forcing her to nod as her only reply.

“Have you been praying about it?”

She nodded again.

“More than just, ‘Please, God, send me a husband’?” Anne’s blue eyes twinkled.

Meredith laughed. “Sometimes. But most of the time it’s, ‘Please, God, let me get over Major so I can fall in love with someone else.’”

“Oh, I can so relate.” Anne sighed. “Before I found out George wasn’t the one marrying Courtney Landry, that was my almost hourly mantra—‘Lord, please don’t let me be falling in love with a client.’”

“But he turned out not to be the one getting married, and he fell in love with you.”

“Right. But what I’m saying is that God did answer my prayer—granted in a rather roundabout fashion, but He answered. You have to trust that God will answer your prayer ... just maybe not in the way you expect or on your timeline.”

Meredith groaned and slumped down in the chair to rest her head against the top of it. “Maybe I should pray instead that He’ll take away my desire to get married. Then it won’t matter if the man I’m in love with doesn’t return my feelings.”

“Maybe you should pray for the patience to hold on until Major realizes what he’s missing.” Anne stood and picked up the binder.

“Right. And let God make me wait another eight years? I know what His sense of humor is like. No way I’m praying that!” She let Anne pull her out of the chair and followed her cousin to the small table in the bay window overlooking Town Square in the front of the building.

“Then I guess you’ll just have to muddle through.”

“Thanks. You’re tons of help.” Meredith stuck her tongue out at the woman who’d been her best friend since before she could remember.

“Well, you could always just talk to him.”

“Who?”

“Major—I thought that’s who we were talking about.”

“Talk to him?”

“About how you feel.”

“No way. Call me old-fashioned, but I firmly believe that a man should make the first move.” Meredith pulled her own folder of information for Anne’s wedding out of her bag. “Can we focus on you now, instead of me? You are getting married in a week, you know.”

“Nine days.”

“Right. Nine days. And there’s still lots to do, so let’s get to it.” Meredith pulled out her to-do list and started reviewing everything they’d accomplished since their last war-room briefing.

But she couldn’t put Anne’s words out of her head. Talk to Major about her feelings? What if he once and for all told her he could never feel that way toward her?

No, she’d rather live with the pain of unrequited—but hopeful—love than to know for sure that she would never have a chance at love with Major O’Hara.

Chapter 21

“Forbes, I saved you a seat.” Meredith waved at her big brother, who’d just entered The Fishin’ Shack.

“Thanks, Sis.” Forbes looked somewhat frazzled, which served as partial explanation as to why he was so late for the Thursday night cousins dinner. He walked around and greeted everyone at the table before taking the chair between Meredith and George.

“Tough day?” Meredith moved her purse from the table to the floor.

“Somewhat. But I’m no longer at work, so I refuse to think about it further. How was your day off? Did you and Anne get everything done you wanted to do today?” Forbes poured himself a glass of iced tea and doctored it with three packs of sweetener.

“There are still a few loose strings, but Anne will have everything tuned up and ready to go by the time we get to church for the rehearsal Friday evening.”

“I’m sure she will. I just hope we can all live up to her exacting expectations.”

“Hey—I heard that!” Anne leaned around behind George and poked Forbes’s shoulder.

“What? Anne’s here?” Forbes winked at their cousin.

Once the subject of the wedding had been brought up, it consumed quite a bit of attention around the table. Certain that no one was paying any attention to her or Forbes, Meredith leaned closer to him.

“What do you know about Major’s family?” she asked softly.

“Excuse me?” Forbes looked startled.

Maybe she should have figured out a better way to broach the subject, but she wasn’t sure how much time she would have before they were drawn back into the general conversation. “Major’s family. What do you know about them?”

“He was raised by a single mom.”

“I know that. But do you know anything more specific? I mean, you two are pretty close friends.” She twisted her napkin in her lap.

The little upside-down Y formed between Forbes’s brows. “I think that’s something you should ask Major.”

She sighed in frustration. “I have asked him, and he won’t tell me much more than what you just did.”

“Then I can’t believe you’re going around behind his back asking me to divulge whatever he may have told me in confidence. Really, Mere, I thought you had higher principles than that.” Though his words came across as angry, all she could see in his eyes was discomfort.

“I’m just worried about him. He had to leave the banquet early last night—some kind of an emergency. I wanted to make sure everything’s okay, and if not, to see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

With meticulous movements, Forbes unfolded his napkin and draped it across his lap. “As I said, it’s something you’ll have to ask him.” He turned his attention to the wedding talk, effectively cutting off any further questions from Meredith by the angle of his body.

Eventually, the discussion of Anne’s wedding waned. Across the table, Rafe said, “Hey, Mere, how’s the work on your house going?”

“Great. I talked to my contractor this afternoon, and he said it’s looking like they might be done early.”

Rafe’s left brow shot upward. “Your contractor? Would that be the contractor you’ve been dating?”

“I’m not dating him.” Her pulse quickened—she hated being the source of her siblings’ amusement. “We’re just friends.”

“Really? What would you call it when you go out to romantic restaurants for meals alone with him?” Jenn joined in on the teasing.

“I’ve only been out with him a couple of times. We’re still just getting to know each other.” Meredith glanced at Anne for help, but her cousin was listening to something George was whispering in her ear.

Rafe laughed. “You met him on New Year’s Day, right? Jenn would be practically engaged if she’d met someone six or seven weeks ago who’d asked her out.”

“Take it back!” Jenn laughed and punched their younger brother in the arm.

Meredith laughed, too, glad not to be the sole recipient of the ribbing.

“Hey, did y’all know Meredith’s going to be on TV tomorrow?” Jenn turned a saucy smile toward Meredith.

So much for not being the sole focus of her teasing-prone family.

* * *

The next morning, Meredith’s desk was piled with messages and paperwork, as it was every time she took a day off—only today it was compounded by the fact they’d had a massive, midweek event.

“Corie?”

Her assistant appeared in the door, still in her jacket with her backpack hanging from one shoulder. “Yes?”

“What time do I have to be at the TV studio?”

“Let me check the e-mail.” She disappeared for a couple of minutes then reappeared sans coat and bag. “It says you should plan to arrive no later than ten o’clock.”

Meredith glanced at the clock in the lower right corner of her computer monitor. Seven forty-five. “Can you give me a heads-up at nine thirty if it looks like I’m not paying attention to the clock?”

“Will do. Want to go over the stuff from yesterday so we can get started on reports?”

Not really. “Sure. But give me a minute to get some coffee.”

“I’ll come with.” Corie grabbed her big, hand-painted ceramic mug from her desk and walked with Meredith to the executive kitchen. “How was your day off?”

“Fun. Anne and I got a lot of last-minute stuff done for the wedding.” She told her assistant some of the details of what they’d accomplished.

Her mother’s executive assistant greeted them in the dining room, coming from the kitchen with three mugs of coffee. Meredith waited until the kitchen door closed behind them then turned and grinned at Corie.

“I guess I’m not letting you live up to your title of executive assistant.”

“You know I really wouldn’t mind getting your coffee for you.”

“Not to demean the other executive assistants, but you’re more valuable to me than just someone to fetch and carry at my whims.” Meredith pulled out the coffee carafe and poured Corie’s coffee first. “In case I haven’t said it recently, you’re a vital part of this team; and at your annual appraisal in April, we’re going to be discussing moving you into a junior event planner position.”

Corie’s brown eyes lit up.

“Now, I can’t promise that will happen. You of all people know what the approval process is like around here. But I think I can make a pretty convincing case on your behalf.”

They doctored their coffee with flavored creamers and sweeteners and returned to Meredith’s office. Over their morning caffeine fix, Corie reviewed the messages she’d taken on Thursday, as well as everything she’d handled on her own.

Once Meredith was up to date on everything that happened in her absence, Corie went back to her desk with the folder of receipts and invoices Meredith had worked on organizing last night after she got home from dinner. She e-mailed the rough spreadsheet to Corie, who would work some kind of magic on it to generate all kinds of comparisons and charts and departmental breakdowns of how much money Meredith had spent on behalf of B-G on the banquet. Thank goodness someone from the HEARTS Foundation board handled everything connected with the money from the auction. One less thing for Meredith to have to deal with on the back side of the event.

She spent the morning returning phone calls from yesterday—as well as answering those coming in—and was about to go get a second cup of coffee when Major knocked on the open office door.

The sight of him was enough to make her bite the inside of her cheek to keep from telling him how much she wished he wouldn’t keep her at arm’s length, that he would let her into his life, even just a little bit.

“You ready to go?” He wore his burgundy jacket—the one that made his eyes look almost purple.

She glanced at her watch. “Oh, mercy. I didn’t realize it was nine thirty already.” She jumped up from her desk then leaned back down to get her purse out of the bottom drawer. She stood slowly. “Are we going together?”

“I figured we could—save gas, you know.”

“Oh. I just didn’t know if you had to be there longer or something.” She shrugged into her suit coat and grabbed her planner from her briefcase—the planner where she had all of the notes she’d written down, things Alaine had asked her to think about so she’d know what to say about the event when Alaine asked her questions live on air. “I’ll drive.”