Wooing The Wedding Planner

“She’s marvelous,” Roxie said and meant it. “I don’t know why I was worried.” She had asked Briar to tag along. Vera and her husband, Constantine, had invested in Briar’s bed-and-breakfast. The Strongs and Savitts were on first-name terms, and Roxie had hoped that having Briar around would help make the introduction to Byron’s mother less uncomfortable after her awkward outburst over the phone.

In the end, Roxie hadn’t had anything to worry about. Just as Briar had assured her, Vera was just as easy to get along with as Byron. Though hearing Byron’s name in conjunction with the word easy made images come to Roxie’s mind that would’ve made Olivia proud...

“Serendipity Lane?” Briar said as they passed the sign. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s nice,” Roxie acknowledged as they both took a look at the neighborhood. “Very nice.” The area was clean and heavily residential. The trees were aged behemoths. Roxie could tell the homes were older. Most had been treated to modern face-lifts.

Vera’s SUV pulled to the curb behind a mailbox with the numbers 77 painted on it. “This must be the last one,” Roxie said.

“Ooh,” Briar said as Roxie parked behind Vera. “Would you look at that?”

Roxie’s jaw dropped as she peered through the passenger window at the grand white Victorian. All the houses on the street were nice. But this one... It was like a celestial winter faerie palace, only more homey than extravagant. The front yard was large, rectangular. A picket fence framed annual springtime beds.

High on the second floor, there was a big round stained-glass window. The last light of day shined on it, making the wavy iridescent streaks of the orange sun hanging low over azure blue waves glow.

The breath rushed out of her. Her voice was scant when she finally found words. “Holy wow. It’s like utopia.” There was a wraparound porch with a large cushioned lay-back swing. She could imagine herself lounging there in the summer. She could hear the wind blowing through those ancient trees and the ice clinking against the sides of her tea glass.

The vision was so tangible, she had to blink to bring herself back to the wintry present. She barely remembered to grab her purse before joining Vera on the sidewalk, Briar right behind her with Harmony on her hip.

“What do you think?” Vera asked. The woman didn’t look old enough to be the mother of a thirtysomething-year-old man. Though one thing Byron and Vera did have in common was their striking good looks. With dark hair flowing down her back in waves, a tailored red dress cloaking her hourglass figure and towering Mary Jane heels, she looked more like one of the glossy coanchors of Entertainment Tonight than the low-key small-town real estate agent that she was. “I think we saved the best for last.”

“You aren’t kidding,” Roxie murmured. “I’ve always had a thing for Victorians.”

“Wait until you get a load of this one,” Vera advised as she rooted through her purse for the key. She led them up the sidewalk to the porch steps. “It’s a family house. Built in 1949 by Con’s uncle for his wife when he brought her over from Greece to live out the rest of their lives here.”

“How sweet,” Briar said, peering through the glass surrounding the front door as Vera bowed to unlock it. “I love houses with a story behind them.”

Vera swung the door open and turned back to them. “After you, dears.”

“Thank you.” Roxie stepped over the threshold. The flooring struck her first. It was spectacular. Walnut. There was crown molding. No doubt the interior had been updated within the last ten to fifteen years. The small cut-glass chandelier over the entry caught her eye. Drops of foggy sea glass dangled from the fringes. She had to stop herself from touching it.

“From the island of Santorini,” Vera explained, “where Athena and her sister, Con’s mother, immigrated from after the Second World War.”

Beyond the foyer, she caught sight of the staircase in the living room. It arched to the right, and curlicue ironwork made up the banister. “Oh, my word.” She lowered her voice in automatic reverence. “Vera, this is stunning!”

“It doesn’t even have that old house smell,” Vera boasted. “There’re three bedrooms, an office, two full baths and one half bath. There’s a full laundry service in the basement. The furnishings are optional. You can get rid of everything, keep everything, or pick and choose what you need until you get the desired result. Not to mention the detached garage. There is a tenant in the loft above...”

“That’s fine,” Roxie said automatically. She took a peek into the dining room on the right. More sea glass. And windows. Windows everywhere—thin, tall, lovingly trimmed in a fleur-de-lis motif. An archway led into the kitchen. “Would you look at this, Briar?” Roxie asked as she spun in a circle, taking it all in. “Better Homes and Gardens better watch its back.”

“Glass-front cabinets.” Briar sighed. “I’ve always wanted glass-front cabinets. And double ovens. And stone!” She ran her hand over the stonework surrounding what had likely once been a wood-burning hearth and stove. “I could die here.”

Vera laughed. “You haven’t seen the living room.”

Here the clack of Roxie’s heels echoed off high-arched ceilings. She’d thought old houses such as this were built tight with rooms closed off from one another under squatted ceilings. But this house breathed, the living room spilling up into the second-floor landing. More windows here, high and arched with transoms peering out onto a charming patio with a bricked fire pit. There was a fenced-in backyard that would be green and fragrant in spring and summer. Roxie stopped in front of the center window. Framed between the panes was one of those rare Japanese magnolias overflowing with plump pink blossoms.

Briar leaned toward Roxie’s shoulder and lowered her voice. “If you get this house, I’ll be insanely jealous, but at least I can visit. Or live in the kitchen. I’ll cook. Cole can do yard work. We could make it work.”

“It’s mine,” Roxie chanted. “All mine, I tell you.” She blinked, cleared her throat and shook her head. “Sorry. Don’t know where that came from. I haven’t seen the upstairs and I know. I just know, Briar. It’s like knowing you want to marry someone.”

Briar smiled at her. “You’re glowing. It’s good to see your glow again, Roxie.”

Roxie whirled around to Vera. “I’ll take it. Can we sign now? I want to sign now.”

Vera held up her hands. “Wait a second. You haven’t seen the bedrooms or the basement. There could be leaks. Rats the size of armadillos... And I’m your Realtor.”

“I’ll call the roofers,” Roxie claimed. “I’ll call the Schwarzenegger of exterminators. I have to have this house, Vera. You tell me what we need to do to get this done tonight and we’ll do it.”

Vera opened her mouth to speak, but the faint sound of Jimi Hendrix’s guitar wafted from her boho purse. She pulled out her cell phone and frowned at the caller ID screen. “So sorry. It’s my youngest. She’s flying in from Africa early tomorrow. Do you mind?”

“Of course not,” Roxie said.

“Seriously,” Vera cautioned, “take a walk upstairs. Leaks and rats excluding, I’ll have the papers for you in the dining room ready to sign as soon as you’re finished.”

As Vera answered the call, Roxie and Briar gleefully sprinted up the stairs to find out what other treasures the house had to offer. The stained glass was even more exquisite up close as the last wavering light of the afternoon cast rioting crystalline swaths from floor to ceiling.

Roxie found a room to set up her sewing. Wide with the high boughs of the Japanese magnolia aligned in the single picture window, it was a creative space if she’d ever seen one. There were built-in shelves where she could arrange fabrics and an alcove perfect for her sewing and embroidery equipment.

In the master suite, she gawked at the turtleback ceiling...and frowned over an overlarge television set up on an otherwise gorgeous antique dresser. The dresser could stay. The television...it stuck out like a sore thumb. The bed was built up on a platform to distinguish it from the sitting area. She’d trade the bed frame for the iron one she’d bought after the divorce. It would work well with the curlicue iron accents she’d seen throughout the house.

Briar, Harmony now snoozing on her shoulder, stepped out of the walk-in closet across the room. “There’s enough room in here for the Duchess of Devonshire’s trousseau. Wigs and all.”

“Don’t tease me,” Roxie advised, moving toward the closet door to peek inside, too.

“Have you checked out the bathroom?” Briar asked, pointing to the closed pocket doors. She reached for the slight parting between them. “If there’s a whirlpool tub, I might have to hate on you a little bit.”

“Fair enough,” Roxie said as she peered over Briar’s shoulder.

Briar slid the pocket doors back. They whispered along the tracks in the wall. Steam greeted them. Roxie squinted through it. Just as Briar tensed beside her and reached out to grip her arm, a long form took shape before her. “Um, who...”

The intruder stood at one of the matching sinks, a razor raised to his chin. As the doors clacked against the jamb, he jerked and grunted a pained cry. He turned partway toward them, his hand clasped to his chin. Briar’s gasp reverberated off the periwinkle tiles and Roxie exclaimed, “Byron!”

Shock and bemusement flashed across his face. He didn’t say a word, just stared at them.

She stared back. He wasn’t Byron. He was naked Byron. Or...almost-naked Byron. How could she not have known all this was under those suits and ties? His skin was the color of golden piecrust hot and fresh from the oven. There wasn’t an ounce of body fat on him. The bastard. Everything was ripply and muscly, sprinkled with a fine dusting of dark hair that looked so soft that Roxie had the dubious urge to run her fingertips through it. He would have been bare if not for the black briefs hugging his... Roxie’s cheeks heated quickly when words like cruller, bear claw, sweet roll rushed through her mind. Damn it, Liv!

Flustered, she balled her hands into fists, physically forcing her gaze anywhere but on his...accoutrements. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Me?” he asked. Before he could go further, he looked beyond her and Briar into the bedroom and paled considerably. “Ma?”

Vera’s voice cracked like thunder. “Byron Atticus Strong!”

As if realizing he was bare as a bumpkin, he reached down to cover himself. Roxie’s face flamed hotter at the move and she covered her mouth. “What is this, a town meeting?” he asked.

“Why the Dickens aren’t you next door?” Vera said sharply.

“Next door?” Roxie asked. The truth hit her flat in the face. “You’re the tenant?” Of course he was the tenant.

“I used to be,” Byron answered. “Now I live here.”

Briar’s mouth formed into an intrigued O. She then cleared her throat and gestured toward the bedroom door. “Harmony and I will just tiptoe downstairs and wait.” She cast her eyes in Byron’s direction, fighting a grin. “Hi, Byron.”

He pressed his lips together. “Briar.”

Roxie waited until Briar was gone before lifting her shoulders. “What do you mean you live here now?”

Byron glanced around her to his mother. “By any chance, have you spoken with Pop about the house lately?”

“No,” Vera said. “Why?”

Byron cursed under his breath. His gaze veered back to Roxie. “If you’re interested in leasing the Victorian, you’re going to be disappointed.”

“Why?” Roxie asked, fearing she knew the answer already.

“Because it’s mine,” Byron finished. “Sorry, duchess.”

CHAPTER FOUR

THE SOUND OF hushed arguing echoed into the dining room from the kitchen. Byron fought the urge to scrub his temples, where his irritation was starting to collect. Whatever satisfaction and tranquility he’d found under the rain showerhead in the master bath had vanished under storm clouds of hassle.

Byron pushed aside the spray of flowers in a beveled vase at the center of the table so that he could see Roxie sitting opposite him. She looked near perfection again in a navy blue dress belted in white sateen. Her hair was drawn back from her face at the nape. A string of pearls rested against her neck. Despite her polish, she couldn’t hide the strain he saw around the lines of her mouth.

The voices in the kitchen rose several notches, his mother’s whisper rising to a shriek as his father’s exasperation rose to a muffled shout. Byron rolled his eyes toward them. “Sorry about this.”

Roxie jerked a shoulder, glancing past him at the archway through which his parents had disappeared. “Mistakes happen.”

“Yeah. They do.” When her gaze settled on him again, that unblinking stare of hers fixating on his face, Byron pushed up the sleeves of the denim button-up he’d donned quickly when he realized he had unwanted company. He and Roxie hadn’t exactly parted under normal terms Tuesday morning. The whole thing had ridden on the back bumper of his mind—the kiss, the awkward lull that followed and the entire sleepless night he’d spent on her floor.

The wine hadn’t been enough to forget her sleepy eyes, the lure behind them that had hooked him like a fish. He wished he didn’t remember what it was like to kiss her. Every time he’d thought about it over the last two days, he’d felt that hook dig in a little further.

He stanched the flow of his thoughts, skimming the edge of his index finger under his nose. “Since the two of them aren’t getting anywhere, maybe you and I could straighten this out.”

Roxie’s shoulders squared against the back of the chair. “Okay.”

“My mother probably told you that this is my great-aunt and great-uncle’s place. Since starting the accounting firm took a chunk out of my savings, I moved into the loft above the garage to build my savings back. On Monday, Athena gave my father the go-ahead to offer it to me outright.”

Roxie’s brows gathered. “But your mother thought the house was still available.”

Byron wondered whether to tell her that the deal with Athena and his father wasn’t concrete. Instead he said, “I figured word got around to my mother, seeing as she and Pop are still married and all.” He stopped to let the spirited debate in the next room speak for itself.

Roxie fiddled with one of the pearl and diamond drops at her ears. “So I guess since you’re practically moved in and the house is in your family, I don’t stand much of a chance.”

“Sorry,” he said again and meant it when he saw the crestfallen look on her face. Guilt flared in the pit of his stomach and spread outward. He smoothed his hands over his knees when the urge to reach out to her nearly broke loose. He scanned her long lids as her gaze fell to the folder on the table in front of her.

The folder. Byron frowned at it and the family logo printed on the front. Inside would no doubt be the lease agreement. His brows came together. His agreement with his father was only verbal.

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