The Bride Plan

“Uh—Jace?” Carl said, backing up as the woman advanced on him. “You wanna come back here a minute?”

Jace tipped back his baseball cap as he approached, holding on to the bill as he said, “Ma’am. Your neighbor didn’t tell you we were beginning construction today?”

“Neighbor? What neighbor? I—” she gestured rather wildly toward the building “—I own this place.”

This was Chessie Burton? For the next four weeks or so, he could come to the job site and she’d be here? Every day? And who said the gods weren’t kind?

“So you’re Chessie Burton? Marylou’s business partner?”

“No. Marylou is my business partner. I’m the senior part—Oh, who cares? I live here. You should have checked with me before you started playing the “Anvil Chorus” on the back of my house.”

He could kiss her. Right here, right now, for no good reason he could think of, Jace really wanted to kiss her. She was so damned cute …

“What’s the matter? Why are you grinning like that? And another thing—who the hell are you? Do you know it’s only seven freaking o’clock in the morning? What do you do for an encore—march a brass band through here? Maybe some elephants bringing up the rear?”

“Name’s Jace. Jace Edwards. Elephants? Let me guess. Not a morning person, are you?” Jace asked, doing his best not to laugh. God, she was magnificent. A little on the wacko side of normal, maybe, but he hadn’t seen anything this good in the morning—or at any time, come to think of it—in a long, long time. Maybe never.

She rolled those big blue eyes. “Oh, he made a funny. Ha. Ha.”

The sound of industrious hammering and ripping of siding quickly followed. Clearly, Carl and the crew had heard enough.

She waved the TV remote in Jace’s face, then seemed to realize she was holding what might be construed as a weapon, and lowered her arm. “Make … them … stop.”

“You don’t want the addition?” He was being mean to a clearly upset woman, but he couldn’t help himself.

“No—yes! Yes, I want the addition. I just don’t want it at seven o’clock in the morning. I don’t want anything at seven o’clock in the morning, at least not until I’ve had my coffee, damn it! And stop grinning at me like that. What did you say your name was again?”

“Jace,” he told her, this time leaving off the Edwards as he held out his hand to her. “And you’re Chessie Burton. I think Marylou and I had some miscommunication when we met here two weeks ago to plan out the job. In a couple of ways.”

“Uh-huh,” Chessie said, holding out her own hand, and then quickly transferring the remote to her left palm before she shook hands with him. “I was working a wedding and couldn’t be here. Look, I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot here, and I’m sure you and Marylou will work together just fine, but one minute I was asleep, and the next I thought the world was about to end. I’m not usually so … so fierce.”

“Apology accepted, Ms. Burton.”

“That wasn’t an apology, it was an explanation,” she said, turning mulish again.

“Okay. And while you’re explaining—what’s with the TV remote?”

“I fell asleep on the couch last night,” she said quietly, her freckled cheeks blushing a pretty pink. “I don’t know why I’m holding the stupid thing. Are you going to start every morning at seven?”

“I’ll talk with the guys. Maybe they’ll want to go eight to six instead of seven to five. Of course, then Carl over there won’t be able to pick up his grandson from his day care, and Jimmy’s a newlywed, and you know how new brides are. Oh, and George has to get home because his wife works part-time at—”

“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.

She inspected the progress each night, after Jace and his crew departed, but she had made it a point not to go outside while they were on-site. Not to offer them a pitcher of iced tea, not to ask any questions, not to complain about the noise … and definitely not to peek at Jace Edwards sans shirt.

Okay, once. Yesterday afternoon. Just that once she’d sneaked upstairs and looked out the third-floor attic window, just in time to see him holding up the garden hose over his head, rinsing himself off to stay cool she supposed, and then shaking his head like a dog to rid himself of the excess water. She’d thought, I could lick it off, and then mentally slapped herself upside the head, because she didn’t think that way. Who thought that way?

Helen Metcalf, probably. That woman had more fun in her mind than Chessie had awake and upright.

One hand on the doorknob to her office, a thought struck Chessie. By staying away, wasn’t she making it pretty obvious that there was a reason she was staying away? After all, any normal person wanted to see what’s going on when the thing that was having something going on with it was her very own house, her very own business.

Why, he was probably out there right now, laughing at her, thinking he’d scared her away.

The nerve of the man!

She took the stairs two at a time and headed for her kitchen and the full pitcher of iced tea she had just happened to make that morning because … Well, it didn’t matter why she’d made it. She dumped the ice out of a tray and into the pitcher. She tucked a stack of tall plastic cups under her arm, grabbed the pitcher and headed back down the steps before she could change her mind.

Over to the door. Out onto the three concrete steps leading down to the concrete path that led to the rear of the house. Down the concrete path, the cups beginning to slip out from under her arm. Around the corner to the picnic table they’d pushed over to the fence and out of the way.

All done without thinking, because thinking was dangerous. Almost more dangerous than counting up the muscles on Jace Edwards’s rib cage and getting to, yup, solid six-pack.

“Anyone thirsty?” she called out, smiling at the crew in general, her gaze sliding over the four men, landing on none of them. “I’ve got some iced tea.”

All four men put down their tools and approached the picnic table, three of them murmuring thanks as they took turns pouring iced tea, and then heading for the shade of the red maple at the back of the yard.

Jace Edwards poured himself a cup as well, but then stayed where he was. Which was much too close to Chessie. He smelled like sun and some spicy cologne and a little good old manly sweat, and she had to clear her throat before she could talk to his chest … she winced, lifted her head to readjust her gaze … before she could talk to him.

“How—how’s it going?”

“Not as well as we could have hoped,” he told her, and then drained the glass in a few manly gulps as she watched his throat work and felt suddenly quite thirsty herself. “You’ve got some dry rot we have to take care of before we go much further. Some wet rot, too. Both kinds. I told Marylou yesterday when she was here. She told you?”

“No,” Chessie said, looking worriedly at her house. “She didn’t tell me. How bad?”

“We won’t know that until we check a little more, but I don’t think it could be too extensive.”

“As in not too extensive to be too expensive?”

He smiled at her. Those light gray eyes—she hadn’t known she could like light gray eyes—sort of twinkled as the laugh lines around them crinkled. “That, too. You’ve had some water, rain most likely, get in between the original siding and the add-on. And the original siding, being wood, started to grow some mold. The rain gutter was pulled away a bit along the lower back roof, probably from all that ice we had last winter. The slate on the roof is good, nearly indestructible, so at least you’ve got that in your favor.”

“There’s mold under my siding? Isn’t that dangerous?” Chessie plunked herself down on the picnic-table bench, figurative dollar signs circling just above her head. “Does all the siding have to come down?”

“That’s the good news. The siding is already down. That’s how we saw the mold damage and got rid of it, replaced all the damaged boards. What it means, mostly, is you were hearing a lot more ripping and hammering the past two days than you probably counted on.”

“I didn’t count on any ripping and hammering,” she admitted quietly. “I was sort of hoping it would all happen magically. You know, like little elves showing up in the night, and the next thing I’d know I’d have an addition.”

“Little elves? With little tool belts? Tiny little velvet-covered hammers?”

“Magic wands, actually,” Chessie said, trying not to smile. “And wings. Don’t forget the wings.”

“I’m trying to picture Carl with wings.” He shook his head. “Nope, not happening.”

“I don’t think the look would be too good on you, either. Although the pointed shoes might be interesting. Look. I … I, um, I’m sorry about the other morning. We sort of got off on the wrong foot, didn’t we?”

He smiled that I-know-what-you’re-thinking-and-I might-be-thinking-it-too smile again. Damn, his teeth were white! She tried to picture him standing in front of his bathroom mirror, struggling to apply whitening strips like in the commercials, but that image wouldn’t form, either. He was just one of those naturally drop-dead-gorgeous human beings. She shouldn’t blame him, he probably couldn’t help it.

“I don’t know. I thought it was … interesting. I’ve never before been attacked by a TV remote.”

“I usually make a better first impression. Although you probably should be glad I didn’t fall asleep holding the glue gun.”

“I can think of better things to take to bed with you than a glue gun.”

Chessie felt her cheeks going hot. She wasn’t going to touch that statement with a ten-foot pole. “I didn’t fall asleep watching TV in bed. I fell asleep on the couch because I was supposed to be making little bows and sticking them on—Never mind. Let’s just say my life is going to get easier once this addition is done and I have an actual workroom.”

“About that. I was only inside the building the day Marylou and I took the tour. Since then, I’ve been working from the measurements and drawings I made that day, and I think I might have a better suggestion now for the egress from your bedroom to the upstairs workroom. You’d have more wall space for shelving, which I think you’ll probably want to have in there.”

“Really? I, um, I guess we could go inside and you could … check that out?” My bedroom? He wants me to lead him to my bedroom? Hoo-doggies, I couldn’t have just stayed inside and let them find their own iced tea?

“That would be the plan. If you don’t mind? Marylou explained that you didn’t want anyone inside during business hours until it was totally necessary. We’re halfway through the framing, and as soon as we’re under roof, it’s going to be necessary. Let me get my plans, and I’ll meet you inside.”

He was reaching for his shirt as she nodded and headed back down the cement path, her mind retracing her steps this morning as she got dressed and raced downstairs for an early delivery. She knew she hadn’t made up her bed, but she didn’t really care about that. It was what she’d done with the clothes she’d stripped out of last night before she’d gotten into that bed that she couldn’t remember.

All she’d need would be for Jace Edwards to ask to see her room for some reason, and then let him walk in there to see her leopard-skin-patterned underwire bra dangling from the doorknob to her bathroom. That was a visual to make her carefully straightened hair curl.

Once inside, she broke into a run, climbing the stairs in record time to do a quick grab-and-stash of anything she didn’t want him to see. She’d just grabbed the bra from exactly where she’d left it—hanging on that doorknob—when she heard a knock against the door frame in the living room.

“The lady downstairs said I could come up. Chessie?”

“Yes, I’m here. Come on back.”

She lifted her pillow and shoved the bra beneath it, and then quickly sat down on the side of the bed.

Then just as quickly sprang back up again, as if the mattress was on fire. Was she out of her mind? Who sat on a bed when a man was on his way into the room? Women with ideas in their heads that didn’t belong there, that’s who!

Jace stuck his head and shoulders around the doorway, and then smiled. He was wearing his shirt, she’d give him that much. But he couldn’t have buttoned it? “Hi, again. I brought the plans and a measuring tape. Are you sure I’m not disturbing you too much?”

Oh, the many ways she could take that statement!

“No, no, it’s fine.” She turned in a small circle, her hands sort of aimlessly fluttering until she stopped them by entwining her fingers until her knuckles probably showed white. “Mi casa es su casa for the duration, or whatever. You were, uh, talking shelves?”

“Yes, a sort of combination hallway and storage area. Instead of the door opening directly into the workroom. Too boxy, you know? I was taking the easy way out, I guess. Here, let me show you.” He unrolled the plans, blueprints, whatever they were, and laid them on the bed. When the large, crinkly papers tried to roll into a cylinder once more, he picked up a sneaker that had found its home on the floor last night, and placed it on the left edge of the papers.

Then he moved to grab the pillow and use it to hold down the other edge He’d half lifted it before she could react.

“No!” Chessie grabbed his hand, then quickly let it go, as if it was also too hot to handle. “That probably won’t work. Feather pillow, you know. Too, er, too light. I … I’ll just sit here and hold them down.”

“Okay,” Jace said, looking at her in some confusion. “You’re a funny girl.”

“That’s what I’m told. A real laugh a minute,” she said through clenched teeth and a smile that hurt her cheeks. “So, uh—these are the plans?”

Commanding herself to calm down and—for God’s sake—shut up, Chessie did her best to listen, nod in the right places and pretend she didn’t notice that he was only two feet away from her. Not exactly invading her personal space, but since this particular personal space happened to be her bedroom … well, yeah, maybe he was. Him and his cologne and his open shirt and his laugh lines and his … no, she wouldn’t think about his bare chest. She’d never had a thing for bare chests, not ever. On her list of what attracted her to men, bare chests wasn’t even in the top five. So why was she so suddenly fixated on his?

“And then I figure we can paint it all purple and put a cherry on top.”

“Uh-huh—What?”

“Then you are listening. I wasn’t sure.”

She got to her feet, the crinkling sound of the plans rolling back into their cylinder shape closely following. “Oh, cripes, I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening. Could … could you maybe just … back up a little?”

“I could,” he said, not moving. “But we probably ought to get this over with.”

“The …” She cleared her throat. Honestly, she was never at a loss for words. If anything, she talked too much. Just ask her cousin Will, he’d tell him. “You mean … talking about the plans?”