One-Off (5 page)

“I know.”

She was so calm I thought maybe she was pulling one over on me. I was too tired to deal with whatever she was pulling. “Then how?”

“You’re my MOH, sweetie. You’re organized, have good taste, and I trust you. Plus, you’ve listened to what I’ve wanted at my wedding for years.”

“What exactly are you saying?” I had to get her to say it because what I thought I heard was that she wanted me to plan, organize, and execute her wedding for her. Me, the queen of wedding haters, the czar of marriage embargos, the supreme leader of nuptial negativity.

“We have to keep the date and we have to get this story now. That leaves you to make my wedding go off without a hitch.”

“What?” I shot out of my chair and began pacing the length of my office.

“Ainsley will help. That way Colin will feel like he’s represented. I told him you could handle it on your own, but he wants Ainsley’s input.”

I could say no. It was something I screamed in my head while reading every stupid romance where the woman gets into a harebrained situation with an arrogant man or woman and just sticks around to deal with it instead of saying no or walking away. I could walk away. Stupid and harebrained weren’t in my default settings. I didn’t have to go through three weeks of ridiculous wedding planning with a woman I never wanted to think about again let alone deal with. All I had to do was open my mouth. Who the hell tries to plan an elaborate wedding in three weeks anyway? Who the hell agrees to a long-term work assignment with everything still left to do in planning her wedding? Who the hell asks her best friend who detests weddings to finish everything for her? I didn’t have to do this.

Just say no. Say it.
“Sure.”

And the nightmare begins.

Six

This time I wasn’t the one gawping. I had to admit, it wasn’t a good look, but I couldn’t blame the wedding planner for staring at us like this. I’d be staring at us like this if I’d heard the news I just delivered.

“But…?” Even his snapping fingers failed him. He didn’t have either of his pretty assistants to support him through what must be devastating news.

“Aye,” Ainsley agreed. So far she’d been civil since meeting up outside of his office. I was certain the civility would drop as soon as we were alone because she couldn’t be any happier about this situation than I was.

“I don’t understand,” Gaylord repeated for the third time. “How, when, how?”

“They’re on their way to South America right now. We’re here in their place.” I tried not to let my exasperation show. I was stuck doing this and even I wasn’t as disbelieving as he seemed to be.

“But you couldn’t possibly, most certainly not, this is highly unusual.” He managed to snap his fingers this time and both assistants appeared beside him. They took one look at their boss and dropped into seats flanking him, pulling out notebooks.

“I’m sure this isn’t what you’re used to.” I tried to ease the news for him. He seemed to be taking it harder than we were.

“But the decisions!” he said without one trace of a lisp.

I felt a smile pull at my mouth. It took shocking news for him to drop what I assumed had to be an act. “We’re going to handle those.”

“But it’s not your wedding,” he insisted.

“We know that,” Ainsley gentled him through the hard news.

“How can you possibly?” His eyes shot to both of his assistants. They seemed as perplexed as he was.

“What’s your real name?” I asked to jar him out of the cycle he seemed to be in.

“Huh?” Even his posh accent failed him on that one. No lisp, no posh accent, we were getting down to the real guy here.

“Your name. Garth, Gavin, Garrett? It’s not Gaylord.”

“How do you know?” one of his assistants jumped in.

I slid my eyes to the prettier assistant. “I read people.”

“You can’t know,” the other assistant said.

“Gary,” he admitted.

I nodded and tried to keep my smile from flaring. “It’s nice to meet you, Gary. The act isn’t necessary with us. We’re all under a tremendous amount of pressure on this date, so let’s just get through it as real as possible. Okay?”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t call it an act. It makes everyone more comfortable. Women expect me to be over the top and men are more comfortable with that because I spend a lot of time with the brides.”

“I understand, but Dallas and Colin aren’t like that. And we’ve got a mess on our hands here.”

“I just don’t see how we can pull this off.”

“We’re not thrilled either,” I included Ainsley even though I wasn’t sure that was how she felt.

“You understand that these decisions come with monetary outlays that can’t be recovered.”

“Yes.”

“That anything you decide can’t be undone, not at this late date?”

“We get it, Gary.” I glanced at Ainsley again. She must have been angry with her cousin when he dropped the news on her. Had she told him he was crazy? That she couldn’t possibly make these decisions for him? To even ask this of her was preposterous?

“You’ve got flowers tomorrow,” Gary told us. “Caterers the next day. Table settings the following.” His words seemed to trip over themselves.

“We’ll be there,” Ainsley said.

“Has she even decided on colors?”

“Yellow and silver,” I said as Ainsley said, “Blue, green, and purple.”

“Um,” Gary murmured as he looked between us.

“What?” I said to Ainsley.

Her surprise mirrored mine. “That’s our family tartan. Colin must have said.”

“Dallas doesn’t know anything about it.”

“You can’t even agree on the colors,” Gary wailed.

“Excuse us a moment,” I said. He glanced at me then nodded to his two assistants as they left the room. I looked at Ainsley and tried for reasonable. “This is unbearable. I get that.”

“Do ya?” A twinkle returned to her eyes. “That’s a first.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We were once in an untenable situation that you made us endure for a year.”

“Oh, please.” I pushed out a long breath. “You are not bringing up the stupid subletting thing again. Haven’t you moved on from that?”

“We looked for months for that apartment. Had it just so. I agreed to live with those three girls and you just waltz in like you own the place and take Marnie’s spot.”

“I didn’t take her spot. She rented it to me because she left school and didn’t want to leave you in the lurch. That’s a good roommate. It sucks that you didn’t like it, but there’s nothing I can do to go back in time and fix it. So let’s move on, shall we?”

“Paid three quarters of what we were.”

“You’ve said, over and over. But it wasn’t like Marnie left you to make up the rest.”

“You were almost a bairn.”

Not true. I hadn’t been a baby for years by the time I met her. “I was twenty-one.”

“Loud and ungrateful.”

“I wasn’t either of those things.”

Her eyes flicked about, trying to come up with other things about me that annoyed her. “What happened to your red?”

I sat back, stumped. “My red?”

“Aye, lass, your red. Glorious dark, pure red.” Her eyes skimmed over my hair. “It was the best bit about you.”

She’d liked my red hair? She never told me that. In fact, barely anyone liked my hair. Oh, they might comment favorably on the uniqueness, but no one wanted it. Most people poked fun or wondered how I could coordinate my wardrobe with the color. After my internship, I started dying my hair. At first, I just toned down the red to strawberry blond, then I went all out to auburn, heavier on the brown than red. Brownish auburn is taken seriously in the news business. Red is not. Which reminds me, I’d forgotten to make that hair appointment. My auburn was becoming redder by the day. Not tomorrow because we had the florists. Or the day after because we had the caterers. And something else the day after that.

I caught her eyes sliding back over my hair. It wasn’t the same style either and I really didn’t like wondering if she cared less for that, too. “At least you liked something.”

“I don’t like that you’re hiding your Scottish by covering the red.”

That was a bit of a sore subject, not that she knew the full story. Just a glossed over version that I was half Scottish thanks to a father I’d never met. She didn’t know that my mother had tried everything to make him happy with fatherhood, including letting him choose my name. I hadn’t known the significance until I’d met this Scottish repository of knowledge known as Ainsley. She was less than pleased that I hadn’t known about the MacKinnon clan inhabiting the Isle of Skye, but then again, she was less than pleased about a lot of things with me.

She also didn’t know that I’d never felt half Scottish, only full Italian from my mother’s side. That had changed after grad school when I visited Scotland and the Isle of Skye for the first time. One mention of my last name at check in and someone knew the right MacKinnon which led to my grandmother turning up at the hostel where I was staying. Neither of us knew about the other, thanks to a lie my father had told her about my mom having a miscarriage and insisting on divorce because she couldn’t get over it. Our first meeting ended with my grandmother pulling me out of the youth hostel and settling me into her home. We bonded over the next two months as I explored the country, always returning to her home base in between short trips. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life, and I now truly felt half Scottish thanks to the relationship I’d built with her before she passed away two years ago.

“One more thing you don’t like about me. Big surprise.”

“You haven’t answered the question.”

“I don’t need to.” People without red hair never understood why someone with red hair would choose to hide it in brown or blond.

“I’m happy to see the freckles.”

I laughed. “Can’t really get rid of those.”

“Why would you want to?” She smiled, the freckles on her face stretching across every surface. A lighter tone than mine, they could disappear when she got a tan. Mine did not.

“Ladies?” Gaylord-Gary brought our attention back when he reentered the room. “Did they make a decision on invitations?”

“No,” I responded.

“We have several samples here, but they’ll probably want custom.”

“Unique,” Ainsley confirmed.

“Then you’ve got to get to a shop tonight.” His fingers snapped and the hot as hell brunette slapped something into his hand. “Here’s the best in town. They can do rush orders. I’ll call ahead to let them know to expect you.”

I was still keying all the duties onto my phone when he started pushing us out the door. There were a million things to do before this stupid wedding. I didn’t think we had a chance of getting it done.

“It’s best if you decide on the wedding colors before you get there. Maybe the walk will help.”

He hadn’t lost his optimism. I only hoped it would rub off on us before we both went crazy.

Seven

Who knew paper came in so many varieties? I never cared and still didn’t, but somehow I needed to. Ainsley studied each sample as if trying to carbon date them. As an academic, I’d defer to her on paper quality.

“I’ve narrowed it down to these.” Ainsley looked up from the pile she’d culled through. It still looked too big to me. “How does Dallas feel about recycled paper?”

“I don’t think she has any emotions about it.”

She glared at me a moment before shaking her head. “I wish Colin’s mum was still alive. She would love to help with this.”

My eyebrows shot up. Colin hadn’t told me he’d lost his mother. He spoke of his dad often, but I thought that was because they only lived an hour apart. I assumed his parents were divorced like Dallas’s. “I didn’t know.”

“Do you think Dallas does?”

I pushed back against my chair and let out a breath. “What are you saying?”

She shrugged and looked away.

“That he wouldn’t share that with her or that she doesn’t care enough to learn anything about him?” I persisted. “And be careful what you say here because that’s my best friend you’re disparaging.”

Her lips twitched, a sign she was about to launch into another nine rounds of trading barbs. I didn’t have the energy. “When did you get so protective?”

“I’ve always been.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“You wouldn’t have seen it.”

“Nay, I wouldn’t have. Nor other things I’m learning.” She smirked and I had to keep from reaching out to wipe it off her face. She was trying to bait me into discussing something she thought she knew about me, but unlike when I was in grad school, I’d learned not to rise to the bait. All part of being an adult. An adult who still wanted to bite back at this irritating woman.

“Let’s just try to get through this night, okay?”

“No comeback? Have you lost your touch?” Challenge flared in her eyes.

Having the aid of fourteen years hindsight, I’d begun to wonder if she really liked the back and forth we’d shared at Columbia. At times I found it invigorating and fun, but my younger self let insecurities overtake the fun more often than not. “You catch more flies with honey.”

“Why would I want to catch any flies? They hardly live long enough to make for good pets.”

“For the love of—” I cut myself off when I recognized she was kidding. “It’s a saying here. I’m sure you have sayings in Kiltland.”

Her mouth clamped shut, but she couldn’t hold in the silent laugh. “Kilts are comfortable.” She must have spotted my exasperated expression. “Fine, do you have a point?”

“Neither of us wants to be here. Just let me handle this alone.”

“Why?” Curiosity turned to overconfidence. “You don’t think those two are suited, do you?”

“Don’t you?” I knew my astonishment showed. “You? Ms. Happily Ever After?” That was our roommate’s nickname for her because Ainsley would always encourage her and our other roommate to give their seemingly endless supply of boyfriends another chance.

Her finger tapped her chin in thought. “Daft narcissist with big boobs and self-doubting, workaholic nice guy? Most definitely not.”

So that’s where the hesitation came from. It wasn’t just that Dallas didn’t make the greatest first impression with the whole Scotland is the same as England discussion. It seemed that she had the same doubts I had about them rushing into this. She was worried for her cousin, but her characterization of him seemed to date back to when they were kids. And she definitely had Dallas wrong.