A Camden Family Wedding

“And the weekend—after the weddings on Saturday, and Sunday...” she said as if challenging him to back out.

“I’ll be available whenever you can fit me in.”

“Okay, then. I’m already swamped tonight working on place cards for five hundred but hopefully sometime tomorrow or tomorrow night I’ll come up with the list and a schedule that we will have to stick to. Maybe we can meet again on Wednesday night?”

“I’ll clear all decks.”

“Then I guess we’ll do a wedding. In two weeks.”

The grin again. “I guess we will,” he confirmed.

Vonni took her business card from her binder, along with her standard contract for him to look over, and the printout of what her services entailed.

Then, with nothing more to discuss at that moment, she stood to go.

“I’ll show you back to the elevator,” Dane offered, and she again had to give him points for courtesy.

While they were retracing their steps through the outer office, he said, “And when you’re not thinking about my grandmother’s wedding, think about your name on signs in every Camden Superstore—”

He raised an arm and swept his big hand across an imaginary banner. “Weddings by Vonni Hunter,” he said as if reading what the signs would say.

But Vonni had had an entirely different sign in mind for years now. Stylishly painted in script letters on the shop’s front window, Burke’s Weddings would be replaced with Burke and Hunter Weddings.

She didn’t say anything, but he must have sensed her lack of enthusiasm for his offer because as the elevator doors opened and Vonni stepped inside and turned to face him, he said, “Just think about it. And let me know when and where Wednesday.”

“I will,” she answered, pushing the button for the lobby.

Then as the doors began to close, he cocked his head to one side and said, “Wow. Yeah. Beautiful eyes...”

Which was strange because that was exactly what she’d been thinking the minute she’d turned and looked straight at him—how terrific looking he was and what beautiful blue eyes he had....

But then the doors closed completely and the elevator began its descent.

She was thinking about Dane Camden on the entire ride down, though.

And how she could definitely see his appeal.

Even if she had no intention whatsoever of tapping into it.

Chapter Two

“How can you be so hard to get hold of when you’re taking care of a sick friend in Northbridge where there’s next to nothing to do?” Dane had finally connected with his grandmother after four calls to her cell phone the next morning.

“Oh, Dane, I’m sorry. We needed to take Agnes to physical therapy so that’s where I was, and I forgot to bring the cell phone with me when we left,” Georgianna Camden explained. “Is anything wrong?”

“No, everything’s fine. But if you’re gonna make me put on a pinafore and do your wedding like a girl, then you have to at least be available, Geege,” he chastised, using his particular pet name for her.

“You’re wearing a pinafore? That I’d like to see,” she said with unabashed glee.

“I figure that’s next since you’ve given me a job one of the girls would be better at. You know I’m not ever going to have a wedding of my own, so it isn’t as if I’ve paid a lot of attention to what goes on at them. And now you want me to plan one? Come on, me?”

“Jonah and I are doing just fine, thanks for asking,” GiGi said, ignoring his complaint.

Jonah Morrison was GiGi’s fiancé, a man she’d known since they’d both grown up in the small Montana town of Northbridge.

“And how’s Agnes?” Dane asked, knowing he was being cautioned not to venture too far from the manners his grandmother had taught him.

“She’s doing well. Her knee replacement was a success and she’s even getting out of the wheelchair to use the walker a little.”

“Tell her hello for me and that she’d better be ready to get out on the dance floor for your first anniversary.”

GiGi laughed and relayed both messages to her friend.

“Agnes says she’ll be ready,” GiGi repeated, though he’d already heard the seventy-nine-year-old herself in the background.

“I guess if I’m going to have a first anniversary, that must mean I’m getting the wedding when I want it?” GiGi asked.

“I met with Vonni Hunter last night and she says it won’t be easy, but yes, she’ll do it. I still don’t understand why you want me to organize it,” he persisted. “I don’t know anything about weddings. I don’t even pay attention when I go to them, I just look for the bar.”

“And whatever single women you can pick up,” his grandmother muttered.

He laughed. “That’s what single guys do at weddings.”

“Sorry, but I elected you to be my proxy,” GiGi said remorselessly. “Just let the wedding planner guide you.”

The prospect of being guided by the delicious Vonni Hunter did make the situation more palatable. But he wasn’t going to admit that to his grandmother.

“Planning my wedding,” GiGi went on, “will teach you what goes into the process and give you some background for setting up the stores’ wedding departments.”

“Developing the wedding departments is business. That I can do. And I’m fine taking my turn at making amends for old H.J.’s wranglings.” H.J. was H. J. Camden, Dane’s great-grandfather and the founding father of the Camden empire. “But all the frilly details for one specific wedding—”

“When have you ever known me to be frilly, Dane?”

The thought made Dane smile despite the fact that he was in protest mode. His grandmother was a tough cookie and she was right—there was nothing frilly about her.

Still, he liked giving her a hard time. “This stuff is frilly all on its own. Better suited to the girls than to me.”

But his grandmother was adamant. “It’s you I’ve asked,” she said with finality. She obviously had no doubt that he’d do it—how could he deny any request from the woman who had taken him and the rest of his siblings and cousins in to raise when they were orphaned by a plane crash that had killed their parents?

“Okay, but if you end up with cigars as wedding favors, it’s your own fault.”

“There will not be cigars as wedding favors. There will be little bags of candied almonds—five in each bundle for good luck.”

“See? That’s not something I know about—”

“Which is why we have a wedding planner. Now tell me about Vonni Hunter,” GiGi commanded.

“Jade-green eyes.” Dane said the first thing that popped into his head.