A Camden Family Wedding

“So,” he said when they’d gone through it all by the time their burgers arrived, “we’ll be seeing a lot of each other....”

“Until the wedding, yes, we will be,” Vonni qualified.

He smiled as he checked out his bacon-and-blue-cheese burger. “Is that my limit? GiGi’s wedding? If I haven’t convinced you to come on board with Camdens by then will I have lost you for good?”

Leaving Burke’s Weddings and working for Camdens—that should have been what she’d thought about since meeting him. But somehow every time it had come to mind, so had he, and she’d just ended up thinking about him.

A really good reason not to accept his offer....

“I’m happy where I am and doing what I do,” she hedged.

“Great bargaining chip!” he proclaimed, sounding undaunted.

Then, just when Vonni thought he was going to launch into more sales pitch, he instead said, “We don’t know much about the man responsible for our makeup line. Tell me about him.”

“My grandfather?”

“And how he came up with formulas for makeup.”

“Seriously?” Vonni said, doubting that he was genuinely interested.

“Seriously.”

One of Vonni’s big turnoffs on her manhunt had been men whose attention wandered when she talked. Certain that would happen with Dane Camden, she decided any kind of turnoff was a good thing. So she said, “My grandfather was a chemist. Well, he’d actually just graduated with a degree in chemistry when he was recruited into the army during World War II. He was put to work creating skin camouflage.”

“Camdens’ award-winning makeup line began as war paint?”

“That’s what I was told. When my grandfather came out of the army—”

“Abe—that was his name, right? Abe Hunter?”

“Right. When he came home he had some trouble getting a job. My grandmother had read an article about Max Factor and she actually came up with the idea that my grandfather adapt his formulas for camouflage into makeup that women could use. You didn’t know this?”

“Until recently all we knew was that once upon a time there was an obscure brand of makeup that my grandmother and my mother and my aunt all used and loved. So when my great-grandfather—H.J.—decided to add a makeup counter to Camdens stores, that was the brand he wanted to carry. And he bought the formulas for it in order to produce it, too. That’s it. That’s all that any of us knew until... Well, like I said, recently.”

“But now you know more?” Vonni asked.

“Some,” he said, taking a turn at hedging himself. “We just came across a little more information.” His eyebrows pulled together in a half frown.

But he obviously wasn’t going to tell her more than that because then he said, “So your grandfather developed the makeup and started his own company with it....”

“Actually, it was my grandfather’s cousin, Phil, who did the business end of things. Phil was a car salesman and he thought that he and Abe could go into the cosmetics business. My grandfather would be in charge of development and production, Phil would do everything else—marketing, sales, delivery. And Hunter Cosmetics was born.”

“It was in its infancy when H.J. came on the scene, right?”

“It was in the initial stages of succeeding,” Vonni corrected. “And it wasn’t only H. J. Camden who came to my grandfather and Phil with their offer. There was someone named Hank, too...”

“My grandfather, H.J.’s only son—Henry James Junior. He was called Hank.”

“Ah.” Vonni had known the name, not the relationship. But she didn’t judge the son to be any better than the father.

Not that there was anything hostile in her tone. Instead, it was neutral, conversational. The same way Dane’s was, probably because what they were talking about was so far removed from them both.

“I knew there were two Camdens who met with my grandfather and Phil,” Vonni said. “They didn’t want to just buy the products for their stores, though, they wanted to buy out Hunter Cosmetics.”

“It’s something H.J. started and something we’ve stuck with—if it’s more cost-efficient for us to produce what we sell, that’s what we like to do.”

Vonni wanted his attention to wander, wanted him to start texting someone while he only half listened to her—things that had happened on bad dates—but Dane was still interested. He was participating. Being open and sharing information with her. Providing a good exchange.

Why couldn’t you be someone different and have come around months ago?

But he was who he was and it wasn’t months ago, so she forced herself to steer away from that dangerous train of thought and focus back on what he was saying.

“But H.J. and my grandfather wanted Abe and Phil to come to work for them,” Dane added. “The plan was to have Abe continue to mastermind the cosmetics line, and hire Phil in sales.”

“Phil wasn’t thrilled with that,” Vonni said, repeating the story she’d been told several times growing up. “He’d gone from selling cars to co-owning Hunter Cosmetics. He didn’t want to go back to just selling again. And my grandfather didn’t want either part of the deal—he didn’t want to hand over his formulas to anyone and he didn’t want to go to work for Camdens. So they said no to the offer.”

“Then H.J. sweetened it. Considerably,” Dane filled in, popping a French fry into his mouth.

“That didn’t matter to my grandfather,” Vonni said. “But the second offer was substantially higher—”

“And at that point Phil liked the idea of all the money he could make selling out,” Dane said before taking a drink of his beer. “I guess your grandfather hadn’t taken out patents on his formulas....”

“No. He was keeping them as trade secrets, locked in a safe that only he and Phil knew the combination to. When the offer to buy the formulas went up, Phil stole the formulas and sold them to H.J. and Hank. Then he disappeared with all the money.”

“Hunter Cosmetics was set up in a way that allowed Phil to make the business deals, right? Even without Abe’s say....” Vonni had the sense that Dane was being more careful about what he said.

“It was my grandfather’s biggest regret. So the sale was binding and my grandfather had lost his formulas. Phil and the money were nowhere to be found. And H.J. and Hank Camden got what they wanted.”

Raising one eyebrow, Vonni gave Dane a challenging look. “But they knew, didn’t they? And rather than do the ethical thing—rather than making sure my grandfather was in on the agreement—they turned a blind eye and bought stolen property.”

Dane flinched with flourish. “Ouch!”

They were talking academically and there continued to be nothing hostile in Vonni’s tone—or in her feelings about something that had happened so long ago. So she smiled and went on, purposely maintaining the challenging look on her face. “The formulas belonged to my grandfather. Phil stole them from him. Your family bought them. Do you see it differently?”

“To be fair, when Phil made the deal, he said Abe had changed his mind.” But Dane wasn’t defensive enough to sound as if he totally believed the party line.

Vonni pooh-poohed him. “Come on, they had to have know that wasn’t true. My grandfather said he’d given them a once and for all no that same day. And Phil had to have shown up in the middle of the night to sell the formulas because my grandfather had locked them in the safe at midnight and when he found it empty first thing the next morning and couldn’t reach Phil, he called H. J. Camden. He could only get Hank, and Hank played innocent but he confirmed that they already had the formulas in hand, along with the paperwork that made them property of Camdens. If you believe it went down like that honestly, then it’s because you want to believe it,” she accused.

“I’ll concede that it wouldn’t happen like that today,” he said with a somewhat shamed smile. “And that H.J. or my grandfather or somebody should have confirmed the sale with Abe rather than just taking Phil at his word—”

“In the middle of the night,” Vonni pointed out again with a facetious laugh.

“But the money was paid out to Hunter Cosmetics, not to Phil personally—”

“A check that no one offered to stop payment on even if there was a chance that Phil hadn’t cashed it the minute the banks were open that day.”

“Phil claimed that he and Abe would both be coming to work for Camdens after all,” Dane said. “And even though Phil and the money were gone, Abe still could have done that.”

Vonni laughed once more and shook her head. “There was no way! My grandfather wasn’t going to go to work for people who had helped rob him, working on exactly what they’d robbed him of. Would you?”

“No,” Dane confirmed.

And since his tone held a certain amount of concession to what Vonni was accusing his family of, she conceded a little, too.

“It wasn’t as if my grandfather didn’t blame Phil for stealing from him—he did. He knew that was who stuck the knife in his back. But he gave the Camdens credit for twisting it because they bought the formulas they had to know weren’t coming to them legitimately. So yes, growing up I did hear the Camden name said like a curse, but it wasn’t as bad as what was said about Phil.”

“Who was never heard from again? Or was he?”

“No, no one in the family ever heard from him or knew what happened to him.”

“And Abe died in 1976?”

“Someone in your family kept track of him?”

“When the new information about H.J. and Hunter Cosmetics came to light recently, GiGi did some research.”

“Yes, that’s when he died. After open-heart surgery.”

“But between 1953 and then, what did he do to make a living?”

“He worked for a company that produced hair products, developing shampoos and conditioners and that kind of thing.”

“So he went on.”

“To raise his family and have a pretty regular sort of life, sometimes wondering out loud just how rich he might have been if things had been different.”

Dane absorbed that shot with a stoic nod of his head. “Well, if you come to work for us we’ll see what we can do to make it up to him through his granddaughter.”

Vonni laughed again, realizing that it had been fun going back and forth with him, and she had to give him credit for working the conversation back to his job offer. “Oh, you’re good.”

He grinned, and everything was worth it to get to see that.

“I’m just saying....” He shrugged and her gaze went to broad, broad shoulders hugged impeccably by his dress shirt.

“You’re just saying I should do what my grandfather wouldn’t—give up a partnership and being my own boss to go to work for Camdens.”

“You’d still be a boss. To hundreds. With not that many of us over you.”

She had a sudden, vivid image of Dane Camden over her, but it was purely physical and inappropriate and she chased it away.

“But in the meantime,” he said as he paid the bill that had arrived when they’d finished their burgers, “just keep thinking it over and let’s do this wedding for my grandmother.”

“That I can do,” Vonni said.

“Without any hard feelings for what happened before?”

“Without any hard feelings for what happened before,” she agreed.

And she meant it.

But as they left the Cherry Cricket and said good-night with plans to meet again Thursday evening, it occurred to Vonni that she was having some softer feelings for Dane Camden that she didn’t want to have.

That she shouldn’t have.

Softer feelings that she wasn’t going to let get the best of her.

Even if she was beginning to understand some of the things she’d heard about him and why so many women in his circle wanted a turn with him.

Whether or not it would get them to the altar.

Chapter Three

“Georgianna Camden is getting married? Now, that’s a wedding I’ll have to show up for!”

The excitement in Chrystal Burke’s voice was unmistakable when Vonni told her Thursday afternoon that Georgianna Camden’s wedding was the latest job to come their way.

Although Burke’s Weddings had been Chrystal’s college graduation gift from her father, Chrystal only came into the shop sporadically. For an hour here or an hour there, she dropped in to have Vonni update her on what weddings Vonni was doing and—if the bride or groom were of interest to Chrystal—to hear all the details and dig for dirt. But she never offered to help. The actual work was done by Vonni.

Then, if it was a wedding Chrystal wanted to attend but hadn’t already been invited to, Chrystal came to the wedding itself—under the guise of the wedding planner—to basically become one of the guests anyway while Vonni oversaw and coordinated the event and ensured that it went smoothly.

It was the way things had been for the eight years Burke’s Weddings had been in business—at least after the first few months when Chrystal had come in every day, from opening to closing, and learned that a job was not her cup of tea.

“And am I understanding right—did you say that you’re doing all the planning with Dane Camden?” Chrystal asked.

“His grandmother is spending time in Montana with a sick friend and can’t do it herself. So yes, you heard right—Dane Camden is acting as go-between, with Mrs. Camden having final say long-distance.”

“You know, I never got a turn with him....” Chrystal confided as if the idea titillated her.

Vonni’s mother, Elizabeth Hunter, had been the personal assistant to Chrystal’s mother, Helene. Since both women had had two-year-old daughters when Elizabeth started the job, Vonni had joined Chrystal in the nursery every day, under the supervision of the nanny.

As a result, Chrystal and Vonni had grown up together, friends on opposite ends of the silver spoon, but friends nonetheless. They’d even gone to the same schools until college. Their relationship was sisterly but they had very, very different personalities.

“But you’re married again,” Vonni reminded Chrystal with a touch of reprimand in her voice. “Marriage number two—that you swore you were going to make work. So you can’t have a turn with him now, either.”

“Maybe I should do this wedding....” Chrystal suggested.

“What do you mean?” Vonni asked, feeling unusually territorial suddenly.

“You know, I could be there for your meetings with Dane Camden. Go along to check out the church or the reception venue or whatever....”

In other words, Chrystal would be there to flirt while Vonni was trying to do a rush job on the Camden wedding.

Chrystal wasn’t malicious or spiteful. She just tended to be flighty and self-centered. And since Vonni knew that about her, she didn’t ordinarily take offense to what Chrystal said or did. But for some reason Chrystal taking an interest in spending time with Dane Camden rubbed Vonni wrong.

“You’d still be there, too,” Chrystal said, “so it isn’t as if I’d be alone with him or doing anything I shouldn’t. I’d just be...you know, working.”

Vonni took a breath and held it to fight the increasing annoyance she felt.

She didn’t understand why she felt it, but it was eating her alive.

It wasn’t as if she was interested in Dane Camden, she thought as she attempted to sort through her feelings and get them under control. He hadn’t been arrogant or conceited or conniving or upper-class smarmy the way she’d expected him to be, the way she’d found too many of the other entitled rich boys she’d learned in adolescence to stay away from. But she still wasn’t interested. Even despite the fact that he had a good sense of humor, that he seemed humble and down-to-earth, that he was agreeable and cooperative and accessible. And not at all conceited—because if he was aware of how incredibly handsome he was it didn’t show.

But no matter how many positive attributes he had, Vonni was off the find-a-husband carousel, and even if she wasn’t, Dane Camden was absolutely not someone she would even think of going after.

So what she was feeling about Chrystal tagging along couldn’t have anything to do with the man himself.

It was just the inconvenience, Vonni decided.

Because she did have a job to do. And she was in a huge hurry. Too much of a hurry to be able to afford the distraction Chrystal would cause—that was why she so, so, so hated the thought of Chrystal butting in on this.

Banking on the fact that she knew Chrystal well, Vonni decided to call her bluff.

“Maybe you should just do this one yourself,” Vonni challenged with an edge she couldn’t quite keep from her voice, even though she’d convinced herself there was nothing personal in her feelings. “It’s June and I have more weddings on my plate than I can handle already. I only took this one on because—” not because Dane Camden was involved or had great hair or the bluest eyes she’d ever seen or the best shoulders “—because it’s a Camden wedding and I didn’t dare turn down something that could be a gold mine for the future. But if you want to start working again—”

Oooh, that had come out a little bitchy.... But Chrystal didn’t seem to hear it.

“Oh, I don’t want to do the work!” Chrystal said guilelessly.

“And because of time constraints he’s scheduled all nights and this weekend,” Vonni continued in a more conciliatory tone, still with the goal of making things sound unappealing, but trying to make it seem as if she was only thinking of her friend. “What would you tell Richard about not seeing him from now until after this wedding in order to spend that time with Dane Camden—who I believe Richard hates because two of his old girlfriends left him to date Dane Camden instead, didn’t they?”

Chrystal made a horrified face. “Oh, Richard would have a fit! He does hate Dane Camden—I forgot about that.”

“Plus this has to be done in such a hurry that it’s going to be business, business, business—there won’t be a minute to spare,” Vonni went on bleakly. “And meeting with Dane Camden isn’t even a drop in the bucket—he’ll be in and out and then there will be orders and paperwork and calls and scheduling and confirmations and all the details that will have to be done without him...”

Chrystal made a face. “I forgot about all of that. And no, I couldn’t do nights or this weekend—Richard and I are going to Napa this weekend to see his mother.” Chrystal sighed regretfully. “But Dane Camden...I’ve barely gotten to see him across a room at parties. I can’t ever get anyone to introduce us—men are afraid if they do, you’ll go off with him and leave them behind, and other women just want him to themselves.”

Vonni was quick to assure herself that that wasn’t what she was doing—even unconsciously—that she was not feeling the urge to keep him to herself.

“How is he—up close and personal?” Chrystal asked confidentially, as if to find some appeasement.

“I’m just working with him. We haven’t been—and won’t be—up close or personal.”

“Still, you’ve talked to him—I haven’t even done that.”

“He’s very nice,” Vonni conceded. “He has good manners—old-fashioned good manners—holding the door and ordering for me—”

“You’ve been out to eat with him?” Chrystal demanded, sounding jealous.

“Just at the Cherry Cricket for a dinner meeting because it was the only time and place we could both fit it in.”

“But it was just the two of you and he ordered for you? That sounds like a date.”

There was no question in Vonni’s mind that last night had been a business meeting, not a date. And she made that clear to Chrystal. All the while not admitting that she had still gone away from her time with Dane feeling as if she’d been on a date. With someone she wanted to see again....

“He’s pleasant enough company,” was all she would admit, however. “And nice looking—better in person than in any pictures I’ve ever seen of him. But you must know that because you’ve seen him. Otherwise, he’s just another guy.”

“And wasted on you right now,” Chrystal said in a chastising tone because she didn’t agree with Vonni’s current course of taking a break from the husband hunt.

“And definitely wasted on me,” Vonni agreed.

“You’re serious about the no-men thing, aren’t you?” Chrystal said disapprovingly.

“Yes, I am,” Vonni confirmed.

“You’re losing valuable time, you know.”

“I’ve already lost valuable time. Years and years of it. I’ve been on the husband hunt since college. It’s been my second job.”

“Still,” Chrystal persisted.

Vonni had been over and over this. With Chrystal, and on long-distance phone calls with Vonni’s mother in Arizona who was in the blush of new romance with a man she’d met at the retirement community she’d moved into. Neither Chrystal nor Elizabeth liked the idea of Vonni taking a hiatus from the husband hunt, and Vonni was almost as frustrated with defending her decision to them as she was with the husband hunt itself.

It was that frustration that pushed her into a rant. “I’ve been on every internet dating site, Chrys. I’ve gone to every dating event I’ve ever heard of. I’ve done blind dates, dates with friends who I thought maybe could become more than friends, dates with guys I wasn’t attracted to just in case an attraction might develop. I’ve been on dates with newly divorced men to see if I could snatch them up before someone else did. I’ve been there for a widower so when he finished his grieving I might be the one he turned to for the future. I even paid the eighteen-hundred-dollar fee to that private matchmaker and took all of her criticism and all of her advice, and still no husband. Instead, I’ve invested myself in relationships with go-nowhere, commitment-phobic men and ended up with nothing but lost time, lost money and lost energy.”

All the while putting her life on hold.

And that was what she wasn’t going to do anymore.

“I’m taking Vonni time,” she said to Chrystal, what she’d told both of the naysayers several times. “At least six months of Vonni time.”

“I just don’t understand that. Vonni time? It just sounds boring. And lonely. What are you actually going to do?”

“I’m going to get a dog. I’ve always wanted a dog, but thought I should wait—husband first, then a dog. Now I’m just going for the dog. I’m going to buy a house to bring that dog home to. I’m going to decorate that house with no one in mind but me. I’m going to take a real vacation to somewhere that isn’t a meet-a-man destination or cruise or resort. To somewhere I just want to go for the fun of it—”

“It won’t be fun if you don’t have someone to share it with.”

Vonni pointed an accusing finger at her friend. “That’s the kind of thinking that’s kept me putting everything off. And what do I have to show for it? No husband so no dog, no house, no vacation to anywhere worth going, no nothing. I’ve denied myself what I wanted because fate has denied me a husband. Well, no more! Fate may deny me a husband forever, but I’m giving myself the rest.”

Chrystal looked at her with pity and shook her head. “We’ll find you a husband. I’ll talk to Richard—some new lawyers have come into his practice. Maybe one of them is single.”

“It doesn’t matter if they are!” Vonni nearly shouted. “I don’t care. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to meet them. I can’t, Chrystal. I’m tired—exhausted—by the husband hunt. It’s drained me dry. It’s sucked the life out of me. And for now I’m done! I just have to be.”

“I think that’s dumb. Especially now. You’re thirty. Every year—every day—you let go by without trying to get a man puts you a day closer to being forty. Or fifty. Or sixty. And alone with nothing but a dog and a house and some vacation snapshots you had to ask a stranger to take of you.”

“Thank you for making it sound awful,” Vonni said, laughing because to her the course she’d set for herself for at least the rest of the year didn’t feel oppressive, it felt freeing.

“Let’s look at it like this,” she reasoned with Chrystal. “I’m only thirty. I can afford to take six or eight or ten months off the husband hunt to concentrate on myself, to regroup, to recharge, to reset. Then, when I can face it again, I’ll be fresh and maybe instead of attracting another man who takes, takes, takes and doesn’t give back, another man who doesn’t have any intention of ever getting beyond the have-a-good-time stage with any woman, I’ll attract the kind of guy who wants the same things I want.”