Wedding Vows: Just Married: The Ex Factor / What Happens in Vegas... / Another Wild Wedding Night

“Is this how most of your dates go?” she finally asked him.

He shook his head. “No. Most are much, much worse.”

To her surprise she burst out laughing. “So you’re saying this is bad?”

He immediately tried to reassure her that they weren’t bad. He liked her a great deal and it was refreshing to be able to spend time with someone who enjoyed discussing business.

She reached out and touched his hand, which was cool and dry. “But there’s no spark, is there?”

The gray eyes she liked so much lifted to hers. “No.”

She sipped her coffee, thinking she’d miss this quiet, unassuming man who was so easy to talk to and who she’d never imagine getting caught with a half dressed woman on his arm. “I’ll miss you.”

“I hope we can still see each other. This can be a lonely city when you’re not part of a couple. I’d like for us to stay friends.” He shifted the sugar until it was exactly in line with the napkins. “At least until one of us starts seeing someone seriously.”

She was oddly flattered. “I don’t have many male friends. I’d like that.”

When they parted he kissed her cheek and she went home alone. Even though she’d changed the sheets after Dex left her, and that had been almost a week ago, she still couldn’t seem to get the elusive scent of him out of her bed. She knew it was only her memory playing tricks on her, but oh, it had been a mistake to let him into her bed again.

She’d gone out and bought all new furniture after they split up and the first item she’d purchased had been that bed because she never wanted to sleep alone in the place they’d once shared so much.

Now he’d come and polluted her bed with his presence, and the room was thick with the memories of their night together, the passion, the heat, the searing intimacy.

Oh, she’d slept with a couple of men after her divorce, but not for a while now, mainly because no man had ever come close.

So she went back to planning joyous occasions for brides who didn’t know what they were letting themselves in for, giving them the magical day that would seal their doom. Then she came home to a house that had never felt empty until Dexter forever stamped his presence onto it.

Another week and one more dismal date with a guy who claimed to be a marathon runner, a millionaire investor and a philanthropist. Ten minutes in his company told her he was a compulsive liar since he was overweight, smoked, seemed to think Dow Jones was a baseball pitcher, and sneered at a sad-looking street person.

Would you like to go to dinner tonight? Ron asked her. They had fallen into the habit of e-mailing a few times a week and she enjoyed a certain quiet humor about him, plus the fact that he was pretty much who he said he was.

She was busy with meetings and a bridal show, plus she had a meeting with Sophie Vanderhooven scheduled for the next morning. Sophie had said Dex would probably be at the meeting, which meant he would probably drop by her place since they seemed to have fallen into some kind of ex-with-benefits scenario.

Of course it was a bad idea to sleep with her ex. But ice cream and chocolate bars were bad ideas, too, and she was just as addicted.

I think I’d better— She stopped herself with a start before turning down this nice, uncomplicated single man in order to sit home in case her cheating ex should decide to drop by for sex. What was she doing?

She resumed typing. I think I’d better start inviting you places since you always seem to do all the work. But yes, I’d love to.

Do you like Chinese food?

Heat washed over her. She e-mailed back. No food that involves chopsticks.

Then he mentioned a popular American eatery downtown, which could have no awkward memories attached to it. She agreed.

I’ll pick you up at seven.

Perfect. He was the kind of man who treated her like a date even though they were friends which was fine with her. It was nice not to have to drive in heels and figure out parking.

He was prompt as always, but she was ready when he arrived.

Over dinner she finally told him that she might be interested in his services and described a few accounting muddles.

He nodded. “I think I might be able to help you. What I should do is give you a couple of references of other customers so you can get a sense of my work.”

Once dinner was over he drove her correctly home. It was only ten o’clock and she got the feeling that he was in no hurry to head to his lonely house. “Would you like to come in for coffee?” She hesitated, then clarified, “And I do mean coffee.”

“Do you have decaf?”

“Of course.”

“Then I’d like to.”

Since he was more worried about caffeine than her hot bod she didn’t fret about him getting the wrong idea about her invitation. While she went into the kitchen to make the coffee, he settled himself in her living room with the day’s newspaper.

When she returned, he politely folded the paper and accepted his coffee.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“Do you really think there’s someone out there for you? A soul mate if you like?”

Ron pondered the question, the way she found he tended to ponder most inquiries. “I think it would be sad to live the rest of my life alone,” he said at last. “I have Beth, of course.”

“Beth?”

“My new golden retriever.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll be picking her up Thursday. She’s a pup. Would you like to see a picture?”

“Of course I would.”

He pulled out his wallet and showed her a truly adorable puppy that she could tell from the snap was all bounce and bubble.

“But I’d like to have a family and someone to come home to. I don’t think I’m meant to live alone.”

“I can understand that.”

He crossed his ankles neatly in front of him and frowned down at them. The light from a table lamp glimmered on his glasses. “I was never the guy all the girls went crazy over. I suppose I keep hoping that someday I’ll meet a nice woman who doesn’t need to be dazzled, but is willing to settle down with a very average, reliable man. I realized years ago that I was never going to set the world on fire. But I’m a good accountant and I think I’d be a good husband and father.”

She found herself warming to his honesty. “I think you’d make a wonderful husband.”

“What about you?”

She made a face. “I found my soul mate. Didn’t work out quite the way I planned.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, well. At least I found out while I’m still young enough to try again. But I seem to keep meeting the most horrible men.”

“I’m sure the women are worse.”

She reviewed her brief dating history. “Couldn’t be.”

“I had a kleptomaniac who stole all the cutlery off the table when we had dinner, and then lifted the tip off the table. It wasn’t until I realized my credit card was missing and went back to the restaurant that I found out what she was like.”

“Oh, no,” she cried in ready sympathy. “Did you get your card back?”

“Yes. Fortunately I cancelled the card before she could do much damage.” He sent her a wry grin. “But I can never show my face in that restaurant again.”

While they chatted companionably over coffee, and shared dating disasters, she discovered what she’d begun to suspect, that apart from his years away at college, he’d lived with his widowed mother until she died and still occupied his childhood home.

“Have you thought of moving?”

“Why would I? It’s a nice solid home in a good area of town. No, I plan to stay.”

“I think we’re both stuck in the past a little bit. Maybe we simply need to shake things up a bit. We could move.” She placed her empty coffee cup on the table in front of the couch.

“But I don’t want to move.”

She glanced around her town house. “I don’t want to move, either.”

He put down his own cup. “I should go.” But the way he said it she felt that he didn’t relish going home to an empty house just yet.

“I was going to watch the late show, do you want to join me?”

“Yes.” He took off his jacket and settled beside her on the couch. It was nice to have the company, she realized. Nice to relax and not have to talk after the stress of the past few days. She’d been knocking herself out putting on back-to-back weddings and then trying to get ready for an upcoming bridal show, plus there was the whole Dexter situation. He either kept her awake all night in passion or in trying to figure out what she was going to do about him.

She yawned, hugely, tried to concentrate on what Jimmy Fallon was saying. After the commercial break he was going to interview a young actress about an upcoming movie.

But she never saw the interview. Before the opening monologue was over, she was sound asleep.

SUN STREAMING IN HER WINDOW woke Karen. She blinked, slowly, wondering where she was and what was different from most mornings.

With a start, she realized she was dressed in last night’s clothes and the warm weight resting against her wasn’t Dexter.

It was Ron.

Sound asleep and looking rather forlorn, he had an arm thrown around her while her head rested on his shoulder.

“Ow,” she said, raising her head and trying to rub the stiffness from her neck.

Either her speaking or moving woke Ron, who blinked owlishly a few times and glanced around.

“Oh,” he said, when his puzzled gaze encountered hers. “I guess we fell asleep.”

“I guess so.”

She didn’t know which of them was more embarrassed, as they moved to opposite sides of the couch. She rose, pulling her skirt into place as she did so. “Would you like some coffee?”

“Oh, uh.” He cleared his throat, put on the glasses that had fallen onto the floor, glanced at his watch. “No, thank you. I’ve got to get back to my place and get ready for the day. I’d better be going.”

“All right. Well.” She had no idea what to say. “Thanks for last night.”

He stood up and seeing him so rumpled made her realize what a meticulous dresser he usually was. He looked exactly like a man who’d slept in his clothes. His hair was up on one side and his sweater askew. “I had a nice time, too. I’m sorry that I fell asleep.”

This was the most ridiculous situation. In spite of herself she laughed. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

He smiled perfunctorily, slipping his feet into his loafers. “No. I won’t be telling anyone.” He rubbed at his stubbled face. “Sometimes, it gets lonely. Living alone.”

“I know. Look, I’m putting on coffee anyway. You should at least have coffee.”

He shook his head. “Perhaps I could use the bathroom before I leave?”

“Of course.”

She started coffee and then he appeared in the kitchen. He’d obviously washed his face since the hair above his forehead was damp. A droplet of water clung to one eyelash. He looked oddly adorable and she felt more like his mother than a date as she led him to the front door once he’d refused once more to stay for coffee.

“Why don’t you come to my office tomorrow? I could show you around and then show you my books which are, I admit, a bit of a mess.”

“Certainly. I could do that.”

“I’ll even buy you lunch. You haven’t lived until you’ve tried Chelsea Hammond’s lasagna.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

She opened the door as he leaned in to kiss her cheek.

“Good morning,” a cheerful male voice boomed out from the other side of the open doorway.

Ron’s lips hadn’t even reached her cheek before darting off again.

Oh, horror of horrors. If there was one person in all the world she wouldn’t have wanted to know about her little escapade, it would have to be the man currently striding up her front walk with a box in his arms. She said the first thing she thought of. “What are you doing here?”

“Delivering a bridesmaid gown.” He nodded to the man standing awkwardly by her side. “Not for me, you understand.”

“Of course.”

She and Ron stood rooted foolishly in her front doorway. The day was overcast and cold. A light frost covered the ground. Dexter removed one of his driving gloves and held out his hand to Ron. “Dexter Crane, delivery boy.”

Automatically, the men shook hands. “Ron Turgison, CPA,” the befuddled man beside her replied.

“Ah, a good man to have around.”

Another beat passed. Finally, she reached for the box Dex was holding and at the same time Ron said, “Well, goodbye. I’ll call you.”

He left and Dexter walked into her house without an invitation. “Now that’s nice. A man should always call after he spends the night at a woman’s place. Good manners.”

“Would you drop the Cary Grant act?” She put her head in the hand that wasn’t holding the box. “This is so not what it looks like.”

“No?” Dexter said mildly. “It looked pretty clear to me.”

The sheer enormity of trying to explain what had just happened was too much for an uncaffeinated woman to handle. “I need coffee. Before I speak, I need coffee.”

He followed her.

When she reached the living room she discovered the television was still on. She’d somehow slept through an entire night of late-night, even later-night, after-late, late shows and infomercials and early, early, early shows without ever waking. She put the dress box down and picked up the remote to snap off the TV.

She stomped into the kitchen and then snapped, “Why are you delivering things to my house at seven-thirty in the morning?”

“The slick answer is that Andrew surprised Sophie with a first-class plane ticket to Italy. She sends her apologies, she won’t be able to make your meeting. However, she picked up a sample of the bridesmaid dress in New York for you to match flowers and things. Since I had to come back to Philly, she asked me to deliver the dress.” He stuck both gloves in the pocket of his overcoat, slipped it off and laid it over the back of one of her kitchen chairs. It was too long and the gray wool bunched on the tile floor. “The honest answer of course is that I wanted to see you.”

And she supposed he’d come early enough that they could indulge in a pre-work quickie. Except that he’d found another man leaving her house as he was arriving. What a mess.

She shouldn’t be embarrassed. She was a single woman. Why shouldn’t she have men coming and going at all hours? But she did feel foolish. “I never should have slept with you again,” she snapped.

“Pour the coffee. You’re never at your best before the first cup.”

“Stop reminding me that you know me so well.”

“But I do,” he said softly. He didn’t sound irate or angry, but she could tell he was waiting for the explanation she’d promised him.

As she turned to pour coffee, she wished she were at least wearing her heels and didn’t look as disheveled as she was certain a mirror would confirm. She poured two mugs of coffee, adding milk only to hers, milk and sugar to Dex’s as she knew he liked it.

She pushed the mug at him and drank her own gratefully. Then she caught his gaze. If anything he was looking slightly amused.

“Let’s sit down. I can’t stand you towering above me.”

They sat at her kitchen table since she didn’t even want to think about what had happened when they’d sat side by side on the stools at her counter.

She said, “Ron’s a guy I met online.” She glanced up and then down at her coffee. “He’s nice.”

Still Dexter didn’t say a word.

“We went out for dinner last night and then we came back here to watch the late show. I know it sounds unbelievable, but we both fell asleep watching TV. We’d just woken up when you got here.” She traced her finger over the handle of her green pottery coffee mug. “I didn’t sleep with him.”

“Thank you for telling me,” he said and sipped from his matching green mug. “You still make the best coffee of anyone I know. Maybe it’s the beans. I should find out from you where you get them.”

Coffee beans? He wanted to talk about coffee beans? What kind of emotional game playing was this?

“Dexter, I’m telling you the truth. I know it looks like Ron and I spent the night together—” She stopped, realizing they had in fact spent the night together. “I mean, had sex, but we didn’t.”

“Yes. You said that. I heard you.”

Irritation, completely irrational but red-hot, geysered through her. “Fine. Don’t believe me. I don’t know why I bothered trying to explain anything. Forget it. Think whatever you want.”

A hand, long-fingered and strong, came to rest on hers where it lay fisted on the tabletop. He squeezed her fingers, causing her to look up and meet his gaze. To her astonishment, he smiled at her, with warmth and humor. His hand felt warm and comforting enclosing her own.

“Here’s the part where I get to give you a little lecture, for your own good, and you get to listen.”

If it was anything about safe sex she was going to hit him over the head with her coffee mug, she decided, tensing.

“Maybe nine out of ten men would see a man with really bad bed-head leaving your house at seven-thirty in the morning and figure you’d spent the night doing more than watch Craig Ferguson—”

“Jimmy Fallon.”

“Whoever. The point is, you told me you didn’t sleep with him, and I believe you.”

She glanced sharply up at him, having a hard time accepting that he was telling the truth. Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Here’s the really good part, so listen carefully.” He leaned closer, and she saw that he’d shaved extra close this morning, and that his eyes were direct and honest. “I trust you.”

“But—”

“That’s it. I trust you. If you tell me you were annotating some obscure line in your taxes, or calculating your 401K contributions all night, I’ll believe that, too.”

She yanked her hand out from under his, no longer feeling comforted but smothered. “Oh, no. I’m not going to let you do this. You’re trying to compare Ron leaving my house fully dressed to finding that woman half-naked and wound all over you? The two aren’t even remotely similar.”

He leaned back in his chair and raised his mug in a mock toast. “They are so similar that poetic justice is written all over this scenario.” He slugged back another jolt of coffee. With a well-pleased expression on his too-handsome face, he rose. “Well, I’ve got a meeting at nine. I’d better get going. I’ll see you around.”

He walked out and she jumped to her feet to follow him.

“Don’t you dare try and suggest that you’re a better person than I am because the cases aren’t remotely similar. You can say whatever you like but you knew from the first second that I hadn’t had sex with Ron.”

He’d reached the front door but he turned, laughter sparking in his eyes.

“Karma may be a bitch, but today she’s my bitch.”

14

WITH A DEFT TWIST of her wrist that she’d perfected over the years, Laurel created the pink icing petal of a rosebud just bursting into bloom. Sure, she could create any kind of cake she was asked for, but it was always reassuring to come back to tradition.

No one would believe her, so she never bothered to voice the thought, but she loved creating the traditional wedding cakes. This one was a perfect delight of white icing over three separate layers of traditional fruit cake, which she made herself from her Irish grandmother’s recipe. The only color was provided by the pink roses which exactly matched the color of the bride’s bouquet. She’d sourced a few extra roses from the florist and matched the color perfectly, adding darker shadings with a paintbrush.

Laurel loved her job. She’d always enjoyed baking and art growing up and had never realized she could put the two together in the perfect career until she landed a part-time job working in a bakery one summer.

She’d been hired to fry donuts, but when the donuts were done she was free to help whoever needed her. Sometimes she greased the bread pans, sometimes she washed gunked cooking pots in a deep stainless steel sink, but her favorite task was helping the cake decorators. An apt and eager pupil, she was soon learning everything she could about the art and science of cake making and decorating and before long she had certainly outstripped her mentor in originality if not technique.

Her cakes might have remained nothing more than a fun summer job if she hadn’t been asked to make a wedding cake for a young couple who begged for something different. After asking them about their interests and discovering they were avid skateboarders, she created a skateboard park out of cake and icing, assuming at worst that she’d be fired and at best that she’d give the two getting married what they actually wanted.

She didn’t get fired. She started getting orders of her own and, luckily, the senior cake decorator didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she helped Laurel turn some of her crazier ideas into reality, teaching her how to perfect her fondant and how to add tensile strength to her icings.

At the end of high school, she’d gone to a baker’s college and after working in New York for what was basically a wedding cake factory, she’d come home to Philly and started out on her own.

Meeting Karen the wedding planner and then Chelsea Hammond, the caterer, had been amazing. She didn’t like selling herself, she loved to create cakes. By joining up with Karen and Chelsea, they did the selling and she did the baking and icing of fantasy to traditional cakes and everyone was happy.

In the big industrial kitchen where Chelsea’s catering business was located, she had her own section. Originally, the idea had been for the two to share the kitchen but the truth was that Chelsea’s business had grown so fast that she could well afford the space all to herself.

And Laurel was doing so well with her cakes, frankly shocked at the prices Karen and Chelsea charged for her creations, that she could have moved to a new place.

But she liked working here and Chelsea claimed that she was the kitchen muse so they’d worked out a deal where she paid much less than half the rent and enjoyed working in the busy kitchen. If the noise got too much, she could always slip the Panda earbuds into her ears and turn on her iPod, but she rarely did. She found that she worked best with the bustle of a busy kitchen surrounding her, the good-natured back and forth of the catering staff and the occasional rushes.

Today, however, there were no rush orders, it was midmorning and she was alone in the kitchen but for Anton who was brewing up a batch of leek-and-potato soup for the front takeout crowd.

The kitchen door swung open and she heard Karen’s voice. She turned, surprised, for Karen didn’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen being, as she’d admitted to Laurel, too much of a food junkie to trust herself.

“You’d be amazed how much food comes out of this kitchen in a busy week,” she was saying in a tour guide tone. Laurel noticed the man at her side was nodding, looking around him with interest.

He was the most nondescript person she’d ever seen. Average height, average weight, average build, his hair so indeterminate a color you couldn’t call it dark or light. On a woman it would be termed mousy, she supposed.

He wore the dullest gray suit she’d ever seen with a burgundy tie like the kind her dad wore. His face was pleasant without being in any way remarkable. He had no distinguishing marks. His glasses probably came from a big distributor. If someone had asked her to describe him, she couldn’t have made him sound any different than half the male population.

“This is Laurel, our genius cake decorator. Laurel, Ron.”

“Hello, Laurel.” Even his voice was average, neither high or low-pitched, not loud or soft.

“You’d make a perfect spy,” she said, not realizing she’d voiced the thought until she heard her own words.

Behind his glasses his gaze sharpened on hers and it was the first thing about him that was noticeable. He had beautiful gray eyes. But still, gray. “Pardon?”

She spent so much time with tiny plastic brides and grooms and animals made of fondant that she’d forgotten how to be around normal people. She felt the foolishness of her remark, saw that Karen was looking at her in a funny way, and blurted, “I read a lot of spy novels. I was thinking you’d be hard to describe. It’s one of the things that makes a good spy.” Like keeping your mouth shut.