Читать книгу The Bride Plan - Кейси Майклс, Kasey Michaels - Страница 7

Elizabeth Hollingswood sat on a blanket on the grassy hillside overlooking the baseball diamond, her friends Claire and Nick Barrington occupying the next blanket. The sun was bright, the freshly mowed grass smelled wonderful and the small white petals of the flowering crab trees that lined the street bordering the ball field, loosened by the breeze, made Elizabeth think of a soft, fragrant snow shower. It was a perfect afternoon. Well, at least for those not suffering from pollen allergies, she corrected mentally as Nick sneezed.

It was another spring, and another Grasshopper baseball season. Elizabeth smiled as she watched her husband, Will, going through the signals from the third-base coaching box, first touching a finger to his nose, then to his chin, and then tipping his cap before rubbing a hand across his chest and beginning again, the signals now to cap, chin, nose.

“Look at Mikey just standing there at the plate with that dazed expression on his face,” Elizabeth said, sighing as she reached for her bottle of water. “He doesn’t have a clue what Will is trying to tell him to do.”

Nick grinned at her. “I think I’ve got it about figured out. He’s either telling him to bunt … or blow his nose. Ah, here we go. The direct approach.”

Elizabeth watched as Will called for time, and then motioned for Mikey to meet him halfway along the baseline. A whispered conversation accompanied by more cryptic hand gestures followed; Mikey returned to the plate and promptly struck out, ending the game.

“Well,” Nick said, standing up, and then helping his pregnant wife to her feet, “that wasn’t so bad. Fourteen to two.”

“You can say that,” Elizabeth groused. “You don’t have to go home with the coach and the kid who made the last out. If Danny says one wrong word to his brother I’m going to have to murder him. For the second time this week,” she added as she folded the blanket.

The twins, Mikey and Danny, along with Sean, Nick’s son from his first marriage, ambled up the hill to gather the fruit and juice boxes it had been Claire’s duty to provide as team mom for the day.

“You okay, Mikey?” Elizabeth asked him quietly.

“Sure, Mom. Pops says it was his fault for telling me to swing. Gotta go, we have to collect the bases and hand out the treats.”

Claire looked over at Elizabeth. “Pops? That’s new, isn’t it?”

Elizabeth nodded, feeling her cheeks flush. Her first husband, Jamie, father of the twins, had died nearly six years ago, and her marriage to Will was not quite a year old. “They said they felt funny calling him Will, and all the other kids have dads. But they didn’t want to forget their own dad, so they came up with Pops. Will doesn’t say much about it, but I know he’s pleased. So am I. Kids need to be kids.”

“I think it’s terrific. Sean’s mother is still in the picture, although not as much as any of us would like, so I’m Claire to Sean. But sometimes he slips. I don’t say anything about it, either. But, yes, I’m pleased. Uh-oh, here comes Marylou. Look at her trying not to do a flip in those high heels. Do you think there’s something wrong at the shop? I hope nothing’s happened to Chessie.”

Marylou Smith-Bitters, thrice-married socialite and now not only Chessie Burton’s good friend but also part owner of Second Chance Bridal and Wedding Planners, did a quick two-step down the grassy slope before grabbing on to Elizabeth’s arm to stop herself from a headlong plunge down the remainder of the hill.

“I’m so glad I found you both together,” she said rather breathlessly. “We’ve got a problem. A b-i-i-g problem.”

Elizabeth, who had taken a part-time job at Second Chance a few months earlier, replacing Eve D’Allesandro, who had taken off for the south of France with Elizabeth’s employer, the novelist Richard Halstead, sighed and shook her head. “It’s Doreen Nesbit again, isn’t it? You’d think that by the time you got to your third groom, you’d learn to pick one who isn’t a control freak. He’s had her change the table favors three times already.”

Marylou waved her fire-engine-red-tipped fingers as if erasing Doreen Nesbit from the conversation. “This isn’t about the business—and, no, he didn’t change the favors again. I told him I’d tell Doreen about his little friend who works at the ice creamery on Broad Street if he tried.” She took a deep breath and let it out dramatically. “Here’s the deal, and it’s deadly serious. Chessie has to get married.”

Elizabeth and Claire exchanged puzzled glances, which left it up to Nick to put his foot in his mouth all by himself: “She’s pregnant? I didn’t even know she was dating anyone.”

The puzzled glances turned to twin expressions of female disgust.

“One, husband mine, pregnancy does not mean an automatic walk down the aisle. And two … well, you’re right. Chessie hasn’t had a date since the last time Will set her up and she made us all promise to kill her first if we ever got it into our heads to set her up again.”

“Are we done?” Marylou asked, adjusting the pearls at her throat. “Ready to get back to the problem? Which means, by the way, listening to me.”

By this time Will had joined them, and Elizabeth quickly put a finger to his lips before he could say anything. Clearly Marylou was on a mission, and when Marylou was on a mission people with an even cursory sense of self-preservation stayed out of her way.

“It’s Richard Peters,” Marylou said, and then sighed for dramatic effect. “He called the shop an hour ago. He called last week, but I thought I’d gotten rid of him by saying Chessie moved to Boston and I was the new owner of the shop. Anyway, Missy took the message and was about to deliver it to Chessie when I intercepted her. The child nearly swallowed her gum, which she knows full well she’s not supposed to chew within five miles of the wedding gowns.”

Will, who happened to also be Chessie’s cousin, slipped his arm around Elizabeth’s waist, which was rapidly disappearing as she was now six months pregnant. “Rick Peters, Marylou? It isn’t an uncommon name. Doesn’t mean it’s him.”

“What am I missing here? Who’s Rick Peters?”

“Nick, shhh,” Claire warned quietly. “We’re in the role of audience here.”

“Rick Peters is the guy who left Chessie at the altar so he could run off and elope with the maid of honor,” Elizabeth whispered.

“Damn.”

“Oh, please, Claire,” Marylou said, “you’re being too polite. I can think of much better words. And it is that Rick Peters, Will, because his message was that he wanted Chessie to know he’s moved back to Allentown and he’d like to take her to dinner. The man is scum. And you know what’s going to happen, don’t you?”

“Chessie might say yes,” Will said, nodding his head as if in agreement with what Marylou hadn’t said. “That’s always been her problem. She’s too damn nice. It’s been six years or so, and I’d still like to bust the guy one in the chops.”

“We could form a line, and all of us take a shot at him,” Marylou agreed, “but that isn’t going to solve anything.”

“And getting Chessie married would?” Elizabeth asked, feeling she’d at last gotten a firm grip on Marylou’s strategy. “Isn’t that just a little bit drastic?”

“Drastic times call for drastic measures,” Marylou pronounced. “Now, it only took me twenty minutes to drive over here, so maybe my plan doesn’t have all the bugs worked out of it yet, but here’s what I’m thinking.”

“This should be good,” Nick said, earning him a jab in the ribs from his loving wife.

“We’re all going to find Chessie a prospective groom. All of us,” she stressed, glaring at Nick. “Even you, Will, although you really need to cultivate a more acceptable circle of male friends to draw from, Counselor. Chessie says if she sees another lawyer she’s going to have to hurt you.

“Anyway, that’s the plan. We keep Chessie so busy with blind dates and discreet setups that she has no time to listen to Rick Peters tell her what a huge mistake he made and how now he wants her back. Because we all know how that works—they always want back what they once had and then tossed away. Men are so predictable it’s almost embarrassing.”

“He’s divorced?” Claire asked, but then shook her head. “Never mind, of course he is. I won’t even ask how you know that, Marylou. Sorry for the interruption. Go on, please.”

Marylou smiled, rubbing her palms together as she neatly stepped into the role of general of this campaign she’d concocted. “Peters isn’t just visiting. He’s back to stay. Which means we have to get Chessie settled, sooner rather than later. Agreed? We’ll call it TBP—The Bride Plan. Each one of us produces a prospective groom. We’ll make up a schedule so we don’t accidentally double book Chessie for the same date. If we find enough of them, one of them is bound to stick, right?”

“Like bubble gum to a wedding gown,” Elizabeth said quietly.

“She’ll thank us one day,” Marylou said, her smile now only slightly apprehensive. She looked at her friends for reassurance. “Won’t she?”