A Proposal at the Wedding

Shaking her head with a pained sigh, she said, “I wish I was. She also blamed her groom, her mother and God, in that order after us, and spent an hour crying in the ladies’ room before we could coax her out after the brief rain shower ended. She ended up having a very nice, if a bit damp, wedding.”

“So that’s why you spell out in your contract that you aren’t responsible for weather or other acts of nature. Cassie thought that was funny.”

“More like a necessity. Can you put this container on that shelf, please? The top one?”

Obligingly, he slid the lidded plastic box easily onto a shelf well above Bonnie’s head.

“Thank you. You saved me from having to pull out the stepladder.”

Glancing at the high cabinets lining the no-wasted-space kitchen, he smiled. He was unable to resist patting the top of her blond head, which came just about level with his shoulder. “I have a feeling you spend a lot of time with that stepladder.”

She grinned up at him. “Are you kidding? If I ever get married, it’ll be one of my attendants.”

Even though it was only a joke, her reference to marriage made him automatically drop his hand and take a half step back from her. He tried to cover his foolish reaction by opening the second basket for unpacking. “Are there any other high shelves I can reach for you before I go?”

“As a matter of fact…” Seemingly oblivious to his awkward moment, she had him store several more items.

“I hope this gets me extra points in the class.”

Wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, she smiled. “You know I’m not grading the class.”

That fleeting little dimple at the corner of her mouth could make a man’s mouth go dry. He swallowed before murmuring, “Still…”

Draping the towel over a rack, she pushed back her hair and said, “I think it’s safe for you to go now. The parking lot should be empty. Thank you for your help.”

“I wasn’t afraid to go out with the class,” he said with exaggerated male dignity. “I just, uh, thought you could use a hand.”

As he’d hoped, she laughed again. She had such a pretty laugh, soft and musical. His lips quirked automatically upward in response and he bade her good-night with a smile. If he fantasized about parting with a kiss—well, he assured himself as he headed for his car, that was only natural considering his attraction to her. Because he sensed the attraction wasn’t entirely one-sided, he hoped maybe someday soon that fantasy could come true.

Darkness had settled fully over the grounds by the time Bonnie headed out of the inn that night. After class she’d checked on the guests playing board games in the shared front parlor, and did some prep for breakfast the next morning. Finally deciding to call it a day, she slipped out a back door onto the long wooden deck where an older couple who were staying a few days to celebrate their fifty-first wedding anniversary sat in rockers, sipping tea and enjoying the moonlight. She exchanged good-nights with them, but didn’t linger, leaving them to their quiet companionship.

Rather than heading straight into her half basement apartment, she turned at the foot of the stairs and walked along one of the graveled paths toward the back of the gardens. She needed a few minutes of fresh air to clear her head before turning in for the night. The lighting was sufficient to safely guide her steps, but not so bright as to dim the beauty of the star-­studded sky overhead. Not that she needed lighting at all. She could walk every inch of the inn’s grounds with her eyes closed.

The gardens spreading around the gray-painted, white-trimmed Queen-Anne style inn had been designed to be inviting, peaceful and reasonably low-maintenance with well-tended pathways winding through the flower beds. A large, three-tier fountain was the central attraction, with a white-painted wedding gazebo at the east side of the grounds. The east side lawn had been leveled, providing space for tents or tables and chairs for outdoor parties and receptions. Stone steps and a wheelchair ramp led down from that lawn to the lower gardens.

As she walked, Bonnie saw both the beauty of the grounds and the many backbreaking, blister-raising, sweat-drenching hours of manual labor she and her siblings had put into the restoration. They had helped their uncle Leo as often as they could, but they’d been busy establishing careers in Tennessee, so there’d been a lot of work to do when they’d officially inherited the place. Bonnie regretted none of it, and she was confident Kinley and Logan felt the same.

She paused at the back of the grounds, just before the trailhead of a hiking path that led through dense woods to the peak of Bride Mountain. They eventually planned to do a bit more development here, hoping to create a quiet meditation garden complete with a koi pond.

Movement to her right made her turn. A massive dark shape separated from the shadows to bump against her, a low rumble issuing from its throat. The dog’s head came higher than her waist, so she didn’t even have to bend to give him an affectionate pat on the head. He growled louder when she rubbed his ears, a sound that she’d always thought of as Ninja’s version of a purr. The dog almost never barked, but he made this sound frequently, leading some wary observers to think he was growling at them.

“I thought you and Ninja had already made your rounds for the evening,” she said to her brother.

His hard-carved face mostly in shadow, Logan Carmichael would probably have appeared intimidating to anyone who didn’t love him as much as his younger sister did. “Guess we’re both restless tonight. Nothing good on TV.”

“You want to come in for cake and tea? I have a little left of that coconut cake I made for dinner last night.”

“Thanks, but not tonight. Ninja and I are just going to walk the trail a bit.”

Looking up from the dog, she raised an eyebrow at her brother. “Hiking in the dark?”

“Not a hike. Just a short walk. There’s enough moonlight to guide us. And I’ve got a flashlight if needed.”

“Still…”

He chuckled and lightly flicked the end of her nose. “Afraid your ghost will get me?”

She rolled her eyes. Her brother and sister had always teased her about being the only one in the family who believed the more-than-a-century-old legend that a ghostly bride was occasionally seen on the grounds of the inn, almost always glimpsed by couples on the verge of committing to happily-ever-after. Uncle Leo swore that he and Aunt Helen had seen the bride the night he proposed. They had enjoyed a blissfully happy marriage until her death had parted them.

Since Kinley had tumbled into love recently with travel writer Dan Phelan, she had been quieter on the subject of the ghost bride, about whom she’d once had very strong—and somewhat negative—opinions. Kinley had been concerned that having a ghost legend attached to their newly reopened inn would be a negative factor, garnering the wrong sort of attention or discouraging the wedding clientele they hoped to attract. Now she merely got a funny look on her face on the infrequent occasion when the bride was mentioned. But characteristically gruff and pragmatic Logan still managed to get in a few cynical jabs toward Bonnie’s admitted romanticism.

Refusing to take the bait this time, Bonnie simply shrugged and retorted, “I’m more concerned about you becoming the next ghost to haunt the inn. Don’t fall off any embankments and break your neck while you’re out walking off your restlessness, okay?”

“I won’t. And if I do, I promise to haunt you only on your birthdays and Christmas.”

Laughing softly at his rare joke, Bonnie pushed her hands into her skirt pockets as she watched man and dog disappear into the dark woods. Something crinkled crisply against her right hand and she pulled out the check Paul had given her. Glancing down at it, she smoothed the paper slowly between her fingers, thinking of Paul’s distinctive jade eyes and charming, slightly crooked smile.

The more time she spent with him, the more she liked him. Though she’d tried to be more subtle than Jennifer, she thought she’d made it clear enough that she wouldn’t mind spending more time with him. If her recently reawakened feminine instincts could be trusted, he felt the same way about her. Maybe she’d hold off a bit on that online dating profile.

Something moved at the corner of her vision, this time in the densest part of the woods. Thinking it might be her brother and his dog, she turned, but saw nothing there but the thinnest line of late-night mist. She shook her head, deciding she must be more tired from the long day than she’d realized.

Holding Paul’s check tightly in one hand, she headed for her apartment, telling herself she should put him out of her mind for the rest of the night. As if that were possible.

Chapter Three

The woman who sat across the coffee shop table from Paul Thursday afternoon was gym-toned and impeccably styled, not a blond hair out of place, her makeup subtle but perfect. Though he knew her to be only fifteen months from turning forty, Holly Bauer looked a good half decade younger. In fact, she’d been mistaken for twenty-one-year-old Cassie’s older sister rather than her mother.

Appearing to be a polar opposite to his sleek, fashionable wife, Holly’s husband, Larry, was pudgy and habitually rumpled, with a shiny, balding head and kind, twinkling brown eyes. He had a brilliant mind, a generous heart and an infectious smile. Holly adored him, as did Cassie. Paul was fond of the guy, as well.

Holly sipped delicately from her coffee—black, no sugar—then set the cup on the table. “So, anyway,” she said, continuing the solemn conversation they’d been engaged in for the past fifteen minutes, “I thought you should be told right away. And I believed I should be the one to tell you, rather than Cassie. After all, this move will affect you, too, in a way.”

“In a rather big way,” he agreed, tugging at the open neck of his polo shirt which felt as though it had somehow tightened. “I’ll miss you guys.”

Holly had just informed him that she and her family would be relocating in August, only a week after Cassie’s wedding. Holly had accepted an offer from a law firm in Dallas and Larry was taking a faculty position teaching in the engineering department at UT Dallas. The twins were understandably nervous about changing high schools and leaving their friends, but also excited about moving to Texas. Paul had known the move was a possibility, but now Holly had confirmed that it had become a reality.

“We’ll miss you, too,” she said with a sincerity he didn’t doubt. “The first question Jenna asked when we told them was whether you’ll be moving, too.”

He supposed he could understand Jenna’s assumption. After all, twelve years ago he’d followed the family to Virginia from North Carolina, where he and Holly had both grown up, when Holly and Larry had moved here for Larry’s career. Without close family of his own, there’d been no reason for Paul to remain in North Carolina rather than settle close to his daughter. He’d found a teaching position very quickly, bought a nice little house with three extra bedrooms for when Cassie and her siblings visited overnight, and he’d been happy here as part of their extended family. But as much as he cared for them, he couldn’t see himself following them to Dallas. Not with his daughter married and living in London.

He forced a smile for Holly’s benefit, hoping it looked natural. “I won’t be moving to Dallas.”

Holly nodded as if she had expected that decision. “It’s going to be hard to say goodbye—for all of us,” she murmured, just a little tremor in her voice.

Reaching across the table, he took her hand and gave her fingers a squeeze. “It won’t be forever,” he assured her. “I expect to be invited to the twins’ birthday celebrations and graduations, and I’ll try to be there if I can get away. And if they want to come back here to visit their friends during vacations and holidays, they’ll always have a room in my house.”

She squeezed his hand in return before reaching again for her coffee. “It’s going to be terribly hectic for the next few weeks, of course,” she said, her voice steady again. “Getting ready for the wedding, preparations for the move, and the twins will want to attend as many parties and get-togethers with their friends as they can manage.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”