Kasey Michaels: The Bride Plan

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.

“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.”