Kaye Dacus - Stand-In Groom

“Probably. But she’ll get over it quickly. She’s not one to hold a grudge. Well, in one case, but otherwise I’ve never known her to be unforgiving. And I think she has good reason to want to forgive you quickly.” Forbes’s voice took on an amused tone.

George studied the pattern of the rain washing down the paned glass, his emotions in turmoil. Fear balled in the pit of his stomach. “If I tell her I am not getting married, I’ll be in breach of contract.”

“I’ll handle that part. By this time tomorrow, that part of the contract will be null and void.”

“How?”

Forbes held his hands up in front of him. “I’ve known your employer a very long time. Suffice it to say I do have some measure of influence with him.”

A glimmer of hope burned in George’s soul. “I’m unsure of how to tell her.”

Forbes rose and crossed to join him at the window. “Don’t worry. When the time’s right, you’ll know.”

“What if I blow it? What if the time isn’t right?”

“Tulips. Purple ones. Lots of them.”

With a couple of hours before the meeting with George Wednesday afternoon, Anne headed upstairs to what used to be bedrooms in her converted Town Square row house. She sang along with Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” while she rearranged supplies in the larger of the two storage rooms. She loved having music piped through the building over the stereo system her cousin Jason had installed last year. And the five-disc CD changer she’d bought on his recommendation kept her from having to change them but once or twice a day.

The machine cycled to a new track. “I’ve got you under my skin,” she sang along with Frank Sinatra. She stopped singing. The lyrics fit exactly how she felt about George. She clamped her lips shut and refused to let the words affect her. Was she going to have to stop listening to everything because it reminded her of George Laurence?

She kicked off her black pumps and got up on the stepladder to move her Christmas decorations on the top shelf. Last Christmas had been her first in the Town Square Merchant Association, and she had joined with the rest of the members in decorating her storefront in the Victorian Christmas theme. With her love of literature, she’d tried to make hers as Dickensian as possible.

Would George have liked it?

No! She couldn’t allow herself to think about him, nor be worried about his likes and dislikes.

Sinatra faded out to be replaced by Dean Martin crooning “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love.” Anne tossed a wreath onto the top shelf, jumped off the ladder, and ran downstairs. She yanked the CDs out of the changer and replaced them with more innocuous classical music. Hopefully that would help keep her mind from wandering down treacherous paths.

Strains of Mozart, Strauss, Beethoven, Handel, and Chopin filled the office. With renewed determination not to think about George Laurence, she returned to the storage room and tried to lose herself in organizing.

As she cleaned, she mentally laid out the tables at Lafitte’s Landing for the Landry-Laurence engagement party. She still couldn’t understand why George didn’t want her to send out the invitations, but with as much other work as she’d had to do in the past two weeks, his insistence turned out to be a blessing.

The first few notes of “The Blue Danube” came over the speakers. She shook out the eight-yard length of tulle even as her feet started the one-two-three pattern of the waltz. She usually tried to get her clients to incorporate this piece into their reception music. Most under the age of forty didn’t.

Letting the music fill her, she twirled around the room, a cloud of yellow fabric billowing about her. If only—

“May I have this dance?”

Anne yelped and spun toward the door. The fabric tangled with her feet and sent her sideways into a tall metal shelving unit. Hand over her pounding heart and cheeks burning, she righted herself and turned to face George Laurence. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

George stepped forward and took the hazardous material from her, rolled it into a ball, and deposited it on a shelf beside her. Turning, he bowed and extended his right hand. “May I?”

No. She shouldn’t. It wasn’t appropriate. She placed her hand in his and let him whisk her around boxes and stacks of fabrics and bunches of silk flora.

His cinnamon eyes burned into hers. She wanted to look away, to regain some control over her actions and reactions. She couldn’t. The heat of his gaze held a future that would never come true. He belonged to someone else. He spun her as the song swelled to a close, then ended with a dip. As he brought her upright, still tight in his embrace, his breath caressed her cheek.

Fire swept through her. She wanted him to kiss her more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life.

He reached up to brush back a lock of hair that had fallen over her forehead.

As soon as he touched her cheek, she pushed away from him. “I’m sorry.” She took several steps back and tried to catch her breath.

He moved toward her, but she held her hands out to stop him.

“George, I can’t.… I don’t think I can continue as your wedding planner.”

“That’s what I came here to speak to you about.” His deep voice was soft, comforting. “You are not my wedding planner. I am not getting married.”

Lava-hot tears burned the corners of her eyes, and her chest tightened. He wasn’t getting married—

Oh no. If he’d broken off his engagement because of her, she’d never be hired to plan another wedding again. She shook her head. “No. Please don’t tell me that. I can’t—”

“Let me explain.”

She shook her head. He wasn’t getting married? She didn’t want to believe him. The possibility of making more money in four months than she had netted in the last five years vanished. She turned and escaped downstairs to the kitchen. She pressed her back against the cool wall above the air conditioner vent in the floor, her head swimming.

He descended the stairs at a more civilized pace. “Anne?” He reached for her hands. “Anne, we need to talk.”

She loved the way he said her name: Ahhnne. No. She wasn’t supposed to find any pleasure in this situation. She needed to be professional. To express her condolences and cut off all communication with him in the future. But never to talk to or see him again… ?

She pulled away. As she yanked, though, he let go and the momentum threw her off balance. She reached for the wall to steady herself.

Lord, what do I say to him? I don’t know what to do. Help me, please. She took as deep a breath as her constricted chest would allow and turned to face him.

His eyes were soft, like melted milk chocolate. “Are you all right?”

She nodded but looked away. Why couldn’t she resist this attraction?

“Until yesterday, I’ve been bound by a contract my employer asked me to sign.”

My employer. When would he just be forthright and honest with her? She tried to speak, but her voice came out as a squeak. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you. I’ll call all of the vendors we’ve already signed this afternoon and let them know to cancel the contracts.”

He frowned. “No, no. You don’t understand. I’m not the groom. I never was. The groom is my employer. He wants to remain anonymous—to keep the wedding plans out of the media. He sent me here as his stand-in—to plan his wedding by proxy.”

Stand-in… Anne’s knees buckled, and the ivy-stenciled walls started to go dark in her peripheral vision. She felt an arm around her waist, and suddenly she was sitting on a hard chair with her head being pushed down.

She waved her arms above her head and knocked his hand away. “I can’t breathe.” She sat up and wished she had done it slower, pressed her hands against her temples, and closed her eyes.

“Can I get you a glass of water or something?”

She opened her eyes. George knelt in front of her. George. She’d wished for this all along. He wasn’t getting married. “I think I’m having a nervous breakdown and hallucinating all at the same time.”

Chuckling, he reached for her hands, folded them atop each other, then held them between his. “You’re not hallucinating. Nervous breakdown, maybe. I didn’t mean for it to happen this way, but now you know.”

Anne’s heart connected with the imploring look in his eyes. “Let me make sure I’m clear on this. Everything we’ve discussed—the vendors we’ve booked, food we’ve tasted, venues we’ve visited— none of that was for you?”

The skin around his eyes crinkled in the way she loved as his smile grew. “Correct.”

Concentration on the subject at hand was hard when he looked at her that way, but she persevered. “The contract you signed with me isn’t for you but for someone else?”

“Yes.” He leaned forward.

Anne shifted to her right a bit so her knees didn’t impede him from getting closer. “And you couldn’t tell me before, but now you can?”

He shrugged. “I should have found a way to tell you from the beginning. But my—”

“I know. Your employer.” She tried to ignore the tingles that climbed up her arms from the way he rubbed his thumbs against the backs of her hands. If George was here on behalf of his employer, and George and Forbes had been working on something together— this wasn’t just a case of George withholding his identity from her. Both of them had been lying to her for nearly three weeks.

She pulled away from him and crossed the kitchen to lean over the sink, just in case her churning stomach decided to give up its contents.

“Anne?”

“Forbes has known all along, hasn’t he?”

“Known? Yes. He is the one who presented me with the contract.” George’s voice faded out as if he realized he was revealing too much.

She backed away, holding her hands out in front of her, palms out. “I don’t believe this.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

She should have known better. She’d forgotten the only thing Cliff had ever taught her—never trust anyone.

* * *

George moved closer. Anne’s Wedgwood blue eyes turned a stormy gray, her cheeks went pale, and she wouldn’t make eye contact with him. “Anne, it’s not what you’re thinking.”

“You have no idea what I’m thinking.” Anger, quiet but potent, laced her words.

He should have known it wouldn’t go well. “I’m sorry. Can we sit down and talk?”

“No. I just need you to leave.” Her smooth alto voice was emotionless, flat. She gave him a wide berth and opened the back door.

Fear—deep down and abiding—took root in George. Only once before had he ever fancied himself in love. That had been a mistake. Looking at Anne, he now knew the true nature of love. He couldn’t risk losing her.

“Anne—” His cell phone interrupted him with Courtney’s ring. He ignored it. He had to talk to Anne. To explain. To apologize. To beg her forgiveness. To have her look at him again with the longing in her eyes even her best expression of professionalism hadn’t been able to mask.

“Please leave.” Tears escaped onto her porcelain cheeks.

His heart ached. He’d caused this pain. “Anne, I’m so sorry.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Please. I’ll do anything to make this up to you.”

She wouldn’t look at him, just turned her flooded eyes toward the floor.

Rather than stay and cause more damage, he opened the glass storm door and trudged down the steps. The door clicked shut behind him with a crack that ripped through his heart like a bullet.

God, what am I going to do? No immediate answer came.

The carriage house–style lights lining Main Street flickered past as he drove down the wide, tree-canopied boulevard. How happy he could have been here! Even with the nearly unbearable heat and humidity, Bonneterre was the first place in more than twenty years that had truly felt like home.

For the second time in his life, he’d taken someone else’s advice on how to tell a woman he had feelings for her. The first time, he’d merely been embarrassed by the outcome. He could only pray this time he hadn’t ruined the chance for future happiness for both of them.

He couldn’t leave things like this. He grabbed his PDA and scrolled down to Anne’s number. He was immediately connected to her voice mail.

“This is Anne Hawthorne. I am sorry I cannot take your call at the moment. Please leave me a message, and I’ll get back with you as soon as I can. Thanks!” Her cheerful recorded voice twisted his innards with guilt.