The Bride Plan

“All right, all right, I get it. You start at seven. At least now I’ll be prepared.”

“But hopefully not armed,” Jace said, actually feeling a little sorry for her. Nobody liked to wake up thinking the world was about to end. But not sorry enough to keep him from beginning to unbutton his shirt, because he wasn’t blind, and he’d noticed how she’d been looking at him. Faintly mad … but at least marginally interested. Which was good, because he was feeling pretty interested himself. It was a good enough reason for making a jerk of himself, if he were still in high school. But what the hell. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Ms. Burton, I’ve got to get to work.”

Chessie’s eyes widened slightly as she watched him strip out of his shirt and toss it over an azalea bush that was still blooming. Smiling, he grabbed a short pry-bar from Jimmy’s tool belt and headed for the rear of the house even as she was making a pretty fast retreat back down the path to the side door leading into the Victorian.

Safety glasses in place, he inserted the pry-bar and began stripping off a length of siding, the morning sun feeling good against his bare back.

“I thought Bob was going to be on-site. You working this job yourself, Jace?” Carl asked in confusion.

“I am now. Bob can take over for me at the Carter house. If that’s all right with you, of course.”

“She is cute, I’ll give you that,” Carl said, getting back to business. “I just didn’t think you’d noticed.”

“Oh, I noticed,” Jace said, giving the siding another rip.

“A four-man crew?” Carl persisted. “We’ll get done faster than we thought. The boys and I were hoping for a full month’s work on this one.”

“Do I look like a man in a hurry to you, Carl?”

The older man laughed and slapped Jace on the back. “Why, you dog, you. You really did notice.”

Chessie held the phone to her ear, listening to the rings. “Pick up. Pick up, pick up. Pick-up-pick-up-pick—Marylou! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Chessie? Is that you?” Marylou asked, her voice gravelly with sleep.

“Yes, it’s me. Why didn’t you tell me construction started today? At the crack of dawn! And that man, that Jace something-or-other? Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

“Jace Edwards? What about him? Wait. Hold on a sec while I get up, go in the other room. No, Ted, nothing’s wrong. It’s just Chessie. Go back to sleep, darling. Okay, now I’m in the hall and he’s already snoring again. That man sleeps with the easy innocence of a baby, I swear it. Only louder. Now, what about Jace Edwards?”

“Oh, come on, Marylou. I wasn’t born yesterday. That wavy black hair you’d love to run your fingers through, those light gray eyes that have those sexy smile crinkles around them. That tan. That tall Greek-god body—he stripped to his waist, Marylou. Right in front of me! Shoulders that go from here to there, a waist without a single inch-to-pinch of fat hanging over his belt. Washboard abs, isn’t that what they’re called?”

“I guess so. He didn’t strip for me, darn it, but your mental picture is almost as good. The man is a hunk. So where’s the problem?”

“The problem, Marylou-the-matchmaker, depends on whether or not you checked out his real credentials. The ones that matter. You know, the ones where we find out if he’s any good at his job. This is my house he’s tearing into. I want to know if he knows how to hammer a nail into a stud, not that he is a stud. Oh, God, that’s sounds bad, even for me. But you know what I mean.”

“Jace comes very highly recommended, Chessie. And I am not matchmaking. I gave up on that long ago. I had some success with Claire and Nick, but you’re a hard case. I’ve taken the pledge, no more trying to set up Chessie, okay? I want to keep my success ratio high.”

Chessie finally subsided onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar that made up one side of her kitchen. “I overreacted,” she said, lowering her head into her hand. “Made an idiot of myself. I’m sorry.”

She wasn’t sure, wouldn’t be able to swear to it in any court, but she got the feeling she could actually hear Marylou’s smile, and she hung up as soon as she could.

What was the matter with her? Oh, okay, so her house was being ripped apart, and her routine along with it. But that was to be expected. She’d just been surprised, the noise had startled her out of a deep sleep. She could be forgiven for that, or at least she could rationalize her actions to herself.

But who could rationalize her reaction to Jace Edwards.

“That was bad,” she told herself as she headed for the shower. “That was very, very bad. Another minute and you would have looked like a construction-worker groupie, if there is such a thing. From now on, Chessie Burton, you are going to avoid the man.”

If you have to tie yourself to the mast and have your eyes covered and your ears blocked up, just like that mythological Greek guy did when he faced the Sirens, she added mentally, right before opting for a cold shower.

Chapter Two

“I said,” Chessie repeated, this time half screaming the words, “you look beautiful in that gown! The mermaid style is perfect for you!”

Oh, brother. How was she supposed to sell gowns, make her brides feel special, when she had to shout over the sounds of hammering and electric saws and—she nearly jumped out of her skin as somebody dropped what sounded like a half ton of boards all at one time.

Helen Metcalf looked into the three-sided mirror and shook her head. “The style is good, but there’s not enough bling. At my age, I need some bling, to take the attention away from my crepey neck.”

“You don’t have a creepy neck,” Chessie assured her, once more speaking over the noise of an electric saw.

“I hope not! I said crepe, not creep. Anyway, I don’t think this is the one. Then again, it’s so difficult to concentrate with all that noise. What’s going on out there?”

As she helped Helen out of the gown, Chessie explained about the construction that had already been going on for an endless three days, and would continue for at least another month, or so Marylou kept telling her.

“Ooh, construction workers. With tool belts and tight jeans and bare chests. Lead me to them,” Helen said, heading for the window in her strapless bra, French-cut silk panties and little else. She pulled back the drapery and leaned her head to one side, looking toward the rear of the building. “Oh. My. God.”

Chessie twisted her hands together in front of her, longing to punch something. Or someone. He was out there without his shirt again, the great big show-off. Jace Edwards. Owner of Edwards Construction, owner of his own built-in six-pack, and all round pain in her rump. Helen wasn’t the only person to have had that oh-my-god reaction, one way or another, to Jace Edwards.

“He’s just a man without a shirt, Helen.”

“No, my Joe is just a man without a shirt. That out there is a whole ‘nother story, that’s what that is. Can you just imagine him with butter on top?”

Chessie had to laugh. “Helen, you’re getting married.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Helen backed away from the window. “Right, married, which isn’t the same as dead, even if it felt like it with my ex. I’m still allowed to look, I just can’t touch. Have you? You know—touched?”

No, but not for lack of thinking about it, Chessie said inside her head. Outside her head, she said, “Not interested.”

“Really? Are you ill?”

Chessie blinked. “No—why?”

“Because if you’re not at least a little bit interested in that, maybe you want to consider vitamins or something.”

“I can’t believe you teach kindergarten,” Chessie said, motioning for Helen to raise her arms so another mermaid-style gown could be dropped over her head. “What a potty mouth you have.”

“It’s a part of my girlish charm. Ah,” she said, smoothing her hands down over her hips as Chessie did up the concealed zipper. “Now, this is more like it. I love the neckline, and the way it seems to give me a shape, which I’d pretty much thought I’d lost after the third kid.” She turned about to see the sweep of the demi-train, and then turned back to stand foursquare in front of the mirror.

And didn’t say another word for a full minute.

Chessie recognized the signs. She quickly grabbed the elbow-length veil and secured it to Helen’s blond curls and then handed her a bouquet of deep-purple-silk calla lilies.

Then she handed her a tissue.

“This is the one, isn’t it?” she said after Helen wiped her cheeks and blew her nose.

Helen nodded, clearly not trusting her voice. For all the woman’s bravado, her insistence that it was only a second wedding, a formality really, and she didn’t expect to feel “special,” Helen Metcalf was suddenly feeling special. Every bride deserved to feel that way.

Chessie handed her over to Berthe to discuss built-in bras and how to bustle the small train for the reception, and headed for her office, deliberately averting her eyes from the door leading to the side yard and, if she simply made a left, to the back of the house and the construction.