Andrea Bolter - Her Las Vegas Wedding

“I like sweets. So what?” she challenged Shane’s disapproving expression. He had no business becoming the third man prying into her affairs. She should just get that six feet and two inches of cardboard out of the bungalow tonight and be done with it. Hopefully Reg would ask for it tomorrow.

Yet somehow she liked it right where it was. Those deep, dark eyes of Shane’s were magnets that pulled her in and wouldn’t let go. She wanted to dive into those eyes, to understand the complexity, agony and secrets she knew lay beneath them. As nice as the furnishings in the suite were, Shane was clearly the focal point.

Once she emptied her suitcases, she picked out a nightgown and went to change in the bathroom so as not to let Shane’s photo see her naked. Bonkers, she confirmed to herself, but did it anyway.

After she pulled back the covers on the bed and climbed in, she realized she wasn’t the slightest bit tired. So she didn’t turn off the bedside lamp. She examined Shane’s full lips. Wondered how that beard stubble would feel against the delicate skin of her neck. Scratchy and rough in the most divine way, she figured. And she pondered his tangle of dark hair, the snug fit of his jeans, those leather cord bracelets!

No, Audrey didn’t lie down and go to sleep. Instead, she bolstered up her pillows. Leaned back and laced her fingers behind her head.

She was going to win this staredown with Shane.

Even if it took all night.

* * *

Shane leaned back against one of the archways in the wedding pavilion, an outdoor terrace space shaded by an awning and edged by long rectangular planters filled with desert succulents. The late afternoon sun had moved toward the mountains and he crossed one leg over the other and folded his arms across his chest to settle in for a gander at the spectacle at hand. The pain-in-the-behind photographer who had just tortured him through a session in the restaurant was now at work on Audrey and Reg.

The guy and his assistant buzzed around like bees. Positioning Reg’s hand a couple of inches higher, repinning one lock of Audrey’s glossy hair, patting Reg’s face with a cloth.

Shane didn’t like the way Audrey was fashioned today. Was that some stylist’s idea of the blushing bride to be? The updo hair was far too prim for someone as sexy as Audrey. The floral-print dress and pink shoes looked too country club. That sweet image was pretty on some women. But it just wasn’t Audrey. He wanted to smear that pink lipstick right off of her mouth.

He chuckled to himself as the bees swarmed around the happy couple, posing them this way or that. If it was up to him, he would have Audrey in a bloodred dress cut way down to there, fitted enough to hug every one of her tempting curves. He’d leave that exquisite blond hair unfastened and free. And he wouldn’t allow a speck of makeup to come between her smoothness and his hands or mouth.

There he went again, conjuring up improper images about the woman who was betrothed to his brother! And even if she wasn’t, he was never going to marry again so he didn’t need to be fantasizing about what his fiancée would wear in their engagement photos. Ridiculous.

Daniel Girard appeared from the other end of the pavilion nicely dressed in a beige suit.

Shane had on his signature chef’s coat and jeans.

“Daniel, Shane, we’re ready to bring you in for a couple of shots,” the head bee called.

With a roll of the eyes, Shane trudged over. The Murphy brothers with their partners in business, and now in life, the Girards. Shane was apparently about to become Audrey’s brother-in-law.

He had burned the few photos of him and Melina that they had taken the day they went to a justice of the peace in New York to become a legally married couple. It had been a no-fuss ceremony. Afterward, they’d had lunch with Reg, Shane’s parents and Melina’s mother. Melina’s estranged father was not in attendance.

When he looked back on it, Shane wasn’t really sure why he had agreed to marry Melina. It was she who’d wanted to. As a young man with the level of fame the restaurants brought, Shane attracted more than his fair share of chef groupies. He supposed Melina pressured him into marriage to try to insure his fidelity. The truth was that he’d been so immersed in cooking and the restaurants at that point, she needn’t have worried. Though he did seek acclaim, he had no interest in sexual dalliances.

Melina was an outcast blueblood. Her father, a wildly successful mogul overseas, had cut her off because of her party lifestyle, but that hadn’t changed her ways. Shane met her at an art gallery opening after he had returned to New York once the LA restaurant was up and running.

She was an eccentric who sang in a band. As a young star chef, Shane had temporarily enjoyed the diversion of her rock ’n’ roll crowd, who were in great contrast to the luminaries of New York who came into the restaurant.

But he’d tired of the superficiality of Melina’s orbit. And had become acutely aware that they were not growing closer. They were not turning marriage into a foundation to stand on together. Their apartment was not a home.

It had been a reckless and immature decision to marry Melina. Even their nuptials were a spur-of-the-moment plan on a Tuesday afternoon. They had never been right together.

His four years with her were now comingled with memories regarding the horror of her death. The phone call from the highway patrol. Police officers who were gracious enough to come to the cabin to pick him up during the snowstorm and drive him to identify his wife’s body.

Shane hadn’t even been a guest at a wedding in many years, so he’d forgotten about all of the pomplike engagement photos. Now, the next wedding he’d attend would be his brother’s. Studying Audrey again, whose mere being seemed to light something buried down inside of him, he simply couldn’t picture her and his brother together.

Reg seemed ill at ease with this photo shoot, breaking frequently to text. They hadn’t had a chance to talk privately last night, but Shane could tell his brother was bearing the weight of the world on his slim shoulders.

After the last photos were taken and the bees left, Reg’s phone rang and he took the call. Shane didn’t like the look of alarm that came over his face. “Rick in New York.” Reg identified the caller. “Shane, take Audrey into the kitchen and show her the progress you’ve made on the cookbook so far.”

“Alright, let’s go.” Shane took Audrey by her hand, which was even tinier and softer than he’d imagined it was going to be, and tugged her in his direction. There wasn’t much to show her but maybe it was time he assessed what he had.

In the restaurant kitchen, Shane rifled through the papers on his desk, all of which needed his attention. From under them he pulled a tattered manila folder. He dumped its contents onto a countertop.

Audrey looked surprised but managed a pursed lip.

“This is how I work,” he said.

Ideas for recipes were written on food-stained pieces of paper. On napkins where the ink had smeared. On sticky notes that were stuck together. On the backs of packing slips from food deliveries. On shards of cardboard he’d torn from a box. There was one written on a section of a dirty apron.

“O...kay,” Audrey prompted, “tell me exactly what’s here.”

He glanced down to the front of the floral dress she was wearing for the photo shoot. The pattern of the fabric was relentless in its repetition of pink, yellow and orange flowers. Begonias, if he had to guess. The way she filled out the dress sent his mind wondering about what sweet scents and earthly miracles he might find beneath the thin material.

Shane wanted to know what was under the dress, both literally and figuratively. She was an accomplished woman yet he thought there was something untouched and undernurtured in her.