Blueberry Point Romance Collection, page 13
“Believe me, it’s more me than you.”
The concern on his face morphed into that sly, one-sided grin that always caused an annoying tingle at the base of her throat.
“Does that mean you’ll still marry me?” he teased.
First proposal today. It took less than five minutes.
Kiley backed up another step, almost losing her footing again on a slick spot. His hand shot forward to steady her at the same time she clutched the counter.
“Not if I break my neck first.” His eyes were so warm. The laugh lines fanning from the corners hinted at his sense of humor. She wiped her face and the droplets on her neck. Good thing she wore a black blouse today or the soda stains would be visible.
“That’s the closest I’ve ever come to a ‘yes’ from you,” Bret said as he took the towel back. “I should probably not let you out of my sight before our march down the aisle.”
“You have your work cut out for you.”
He stooped to pick up a few cans at their feet. “A challenge,” he whispered, which made his voice even more alluring. Kiley really had to get back to Lexi.
“Are you working all weekend?” he asked.
Kiley nodded. “The luncheon today. A rehearsal dinner at Fernando’s tonight. The Aeranelli-Blake wedding tomorrow, of course. You?”
“Just today. I’m in the wedding tomorrow. Paul Blake is my cousin.”
Kiley nodded again. Across the room, Lexi caught her eye and gave Kiley a thumbs up and a self-satisfied smirk. Nothing would make Lexi giddier than if Kiley took one of Bret’s tongue-in-cheek proposals as an invitation to ask him out.
“I like being on the other side of the bar every now and again for a wedding, don’t you?” Bret dropped his gaze to the floor again and picked up another couple cans.
“I’ve never tended bar, so I wouldn’t know.”
He chuckled. “Ah, you got me.”
Kiley smoothed her shirt hem, feeling dampness around the edge. She’d have to make a quick run to the bathroom anyway to wash the stickiness from her hands.
“I haven’t been to a wedding in a while. All of my friends have already married.”
He shook his head in mock sympathy. “Better them than you, right?”
She huffed. “No doubt. And I have a small family, so there’s not a huge cousin network, either.”
Female voices carried through the dining room. Kiley glanced through the doorway into the foyer. That would be the women arriving for the luncheon. She really needed to get to work.
“Sorry about the, ah, mess.” She took Lexi’s bottle of water on the counter.
“Here,” Bret said. He handed her the diet cola she’d been searching for before chaos erupted. “I’ve been saving it for you.”
“Thank you.” It came out as a garbled squeak. Kiley cleared her throat. “I guess I’ll be seeing you around.”
Bret wiped his hands on the towel and draped it over one shoulder, eyeing her.
“Looking forward to it as always,” he said.
Chapter Two
This was the weekend.
Bret had bided his time long enough, waiting for the ideal time to get closer to Kiley Byrne. Forget the snappy banter and the tongue-in-cheek, marry-me jokes he lobbed at her. It was time to get real. And playing groomsman instead of bartender tomorrow at Paul’s wedding gave him an advantage.
Except it didn’t. A ticking clock had only made his desperation more acute. And there was nothing cute about desperation. This was the last weekend he’d see her since she announced she’d be hanging up her camera to go back to school in January.
Back outside, he unlocked the truck topper to survey his beverage stock packed into the bed even though his thoughts were still back in the dining room. The load for this afternoon’s luncheon and Paul’s wedding tomorrow would seem daunting on a normal day. But he’d just been nose to nose with Kiley. An opportunity like that didn’t present itself every day. Now adrenalin coursed through him like the Sage River after a spring rain. This truck would be empty in no time.
Bret had parked his truck under the porte cochère since the sky had been spitting for the last few hours. At the moment, patches of blue peeked through in between the thin blanket of clouds, but rain was still in the forecast until late afternoon.
Footsteps crunched the pea-gravel drive behind him. He glanced over his shoulder as Trey Merrick, the inn’s gardener, stopped next to Bret and regarded the full truck. Trey clapped him on the shoulder.
“Looks like you’re running late today. Need a hand?” Trey asked.
Bret scratched the stubble on his jaw. Forgot to shave, darn it.
“I’d appreciate it. My morning jumped to noon in like five minutes.”
“Happens to me every day, especially when the leg doesn’t give me trouble.” Trey was a good guy, always ready to jump if someone needed help. Despite a bum leg from a car accident, Trey found a way to meet the physical demands of his work around the inn’s grounds.
Bret hadn’t expected the day to start off with a call from his ex. Or that his twelve-year-old son Dalton would end up in the school office with a fever as Geena caught a last-minute business flight to Charleston. No one could say he wasn’t a dedicated, loving dad, but he always seemed to be the one to step up for his son’s sick days, baseball games, or whenever he needed a ride to a friend’s house. There was never a heads-up, this-might-happen-later alert from Geena. Her chaotic schedule affected both Dalton and him.
So, Bret had taken Dalton home to grab some clothes, then drove the twenty minutes back to Dentsen to his parents’ house so they could keep him company until after Bret worked the luncheon. Guilt ate at him. Work and this wedding had wheedled their way into one out of two weekends this month he officially got with Dalton. And now Dalton might not even be up for the wedding tomorrow if he was still sick.
Trey trailed behind him as they carried a load of boxes into the walk-in pantry beside the kitchen where he stored his beverage stock until it was ready to use. They made one more trip until Trey excused himself to talk with a delivery driver from Buds N’ Blooms.
Back behind the bar, Bret busied himself with unloading ice into the bin, careful not to make too much noise and distract the ladies who mingled at the other end of the dining room. Darcy Stetman appeared, pointed out the bar, and announced it was open if they’d like to get drinks before salads were served. Her throaty voice carried with no trouble. He smiled when she referred to him as “Bret of Beverage Central.”
He smoothed his tie and readied his banter as two women sauntered toward him.
“Good morning, ladies.”
The tallest woman, wearing a green floral dress, rested her elbows on the counter. She craned her neck to see past Bret to the back counter where he’d propped the chalkboard with the usual choices plus two custom drinks he’d concocted with the help of the bride-to-be. The woman’s many metal bangles brushed together.
“What can you make me that’s fruity and non-alcoholic?” she asked.
“Do you like ginger?” He flipped over a flared cocktail glass and set it on the counter between them.
“I adore it.”
“Then I think you’ll like a Ginger Ovation. It’s orange juice, tonic water, and ginger root. I’ll even throw on a mint leaf for garnish.”
“You’re too kind,” she said.
A younger woman waiting behind the green-dress lady put her finger in the air. “I’ll have one too, please.”
Bret nodded. “You’ve got it.”
While he prepared the drinks, he listened.
“I wonder if he’s on the menu?”
“I dare you to ask him,” the green-dress lady whispered loudly enough for him to hear.
The younger woman snickered. “You’re wicked, Mary.”
“Oh, this is nothing, honey. I would have scored an evening out by now back in the day. Go on, ask him. I’m dying to hear what he says.”
He steeled himself in anticipation for the question, but it never came.
Bret was used to flirty comments. He played along, careful not to cross the line into anything too questionable. Sometimes he had to cool his schtick down when someone took him too seriously. Once, out of the blue, a young woman came around to his side of the bar and tried to kiss him. He’d barely registered what she was doing before her tongue landed on his cheek when he deflected the kiss. All in the name of making her plus-one for the wedding jealous. It was part of the game, but sometimes a crazy one at that.
By the time he mixed the two drinks, the rest of the party had joined the line. Most of the orders were simple. Sparkling waters, two mimosas, and a few more Ginger-Os once word got around. It was a pretty drink, a little bubbly tinged with gold, and topped with a mint leaf. Across the room Kiley huddled with Lexi over the dessert table. A pyramid of cake platters holding cupcakes was a pretty, if precarious, arrangement to be around for Kiley. She liked to joke about being named “Queen of Disasters Big and Small” by her college newspaper staff. Some story about tripping over the sound equipment cords at a campus music fundraiser topped them all. He’d banged his head on the bar from doubling over to laugh when he’d heard her tell it.
“I have a question for you.”
Bret had been so lost in thought for a moment that he startled at the voice. Heat stung his cheeks. It was Green-Dress Lady again. Surely, she wasn’t back for her second drink already?
“Shoot.”
“My niece Amanda over there.” She waggled an arthritic index finger in the direction of the closest table. There, Amanda smiled demurely and gave him a little wave.
“She’s wondering if she knows you from somewhere. Did you by chance live in Duluth at one point?”
“I did for about two years.” He gave the bar a quick swipe with his towel.
“Maybe she saw you on campus then.”
He glanced again at Amanda who looked decidedly too young to be in college when he was at UMD.
“Could be. Or maybe Gellert Park? Spent a lot of time there with my wife and son. That water park was the place to be in June and July.”
Nailed it. Green-Dress Lady’s smile dropped a bit. The wife and son mention never failed. The ex-wife clarification was but an unnecessary detail.
“Maybe.” She backed away. “By the way, the drink? Fab.” She gave him the “ok” sign.
Bret nodded. “Happy to hear you liked it.”
He straightened his tie as he watched the two women regroup. Green-Dress Lady shared what she learned. The younger woman frowned and turned pink, glancing at Bret. Another day, another hope dashed. Bret sighed. He squatted beside the refrigerator to run the wet rag over the stickiest of spots on the floor.
He’d suffered through a dry spell himself these last two years. Once Geena made it clear she had bigger aspirations than staying with him, he put himself into a self-induced, no-dating zone. Making Dalton his sole focus took precedence over everything else. And Geena coped with the breakup by going in the opposite direction. More work, more play, less time for Dalton. Luckily, her parents and his folks were hands-on grandparents and lived in Dentsen and Hendricks respectively.
“Bret, I have a request.” Kiley leaned over the bar, her eyes wide, blue pools.
He stood. “What’s up?”
“The bride-to-be wants a photo with you and her signature drink.”
He slid a clean glass across the counter. “With me? Okay.” He laughed. This was a new one. “It’ll just take me a minute to mix. Then you can shoot ’til your heart’s content.”
“It’s not that simple.” Kiley rolled her eyes.
“No?”
She shook her head and leaned even closer toward him. “She wants everyone in the photo holding a drink. And you in the middle.”
Oh.
He did a quick head count in the room. Twenty-two drinks, give or take a few. That might wipe out his orange juice supply. Given the cost of that number of drinks, it was a pretty pricey photo op.
“It’ll take me about ten minutes. But doable.” He flashed a grin and started lining up glasses. “How many do I need exactly?”
“Twenty-three, please.” Kiley fiddled with the camera around her neck, squinting down as she played with the lens. “I have to hand it to you. You took that better than I would have.”
He played it off with a shrug. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. Mixing drinks isn’t as stressful as, say, asking out the girl of my dreams.”
Kiley chortled and gave him a quick look before turning back to the camera. “I find that hard to believe. I mean, from what I’ve seen, you’ve had sooo much practice refining your delivery.”
He scooped ice into the glasses before starting at the beginning again, adding tonic water to ten glasses. Next, the blood orange juice. Kiley stopped working on her camera to watch him. He’d have to skimp on the fresh ginger, too.
“So, you think I’m some kind of charm-slinging Casanova who never gets turned down?”
“You said it, I didn’t,” Kiley mumbled, looking over her shoulder toward the group.
“As a matter of fact, I can’t remember the last time I went out with someone on an actual date.” He added a bit of ginger and a mint leaf to each of the red plastic drink skewers. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Kiley had moved the camera, letting it hang at her side from its strap. When he glanced up, Kiley stared at him with a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“That makes two of us. It’s so much simpler, isn’t it?” she said finally with a flippant tone. She hugged her arms against her chest. “That really is a pretty drink.”
“Thank you. And I’m not so sure about that. I feel like I’m missing out.” He bit down on his lip, hoping that didn’t sound like he was fishing for a date. Even though he kinda was.
At that moment, the mother of the bride hurried up to the bar. “Are these ready?” she asked as she gathered three drinks.
“I have a tray if that’s easier.” Bret handed over one of the round, silver bar trays, which the woman commandeered before the words were out of his mouth. She squeezed eight drinks onto it and then realized it was too heavy. Three drinks were promptly unloaded before she scurried off again.
Kiley let out a noisy sigh. “Missing out on what—this?” Kiley swept her hand toward the drinks, almost taking one out. Her eyes grew wide with alarm.
He gritted his teeth. “Careful there, Bumblebuss.”
Her brow arched as she tried to stifle a grin. “It’s Miss Bumblebuss to you.”
“Now we’re back to formalities.” The remaining glasses were lined up and filled with tonic water. He could handle this blindfolded. Good thing since his all of his senses were abuzz with the present company.
“Just keeping it professional.” She tapped the counter with her palm. “Anyway, if dates lead to all this chaos, no thank you.”
“I don’t know how you can write it off at your age. Mr. Right may be out there somewhere.”
Kiley huffed humorlessly. “I might have believed that when I was twenty, but Mr. Right turned out to be Mr. Way Wrong.”
“Uh oh. I haven’t heard this story.” It might explain a lot.
She waved it off with a hurried flip of her hand. “It’s so much a part of the past that I’ve almost forgotten about him.” Kiley looked over her shoulder again. “I’d better get back to the group. Your spot will be saved when you’re finished here.”
Bret watched her walk back to the group, dribbling what precious orange juice he had left down the side of one glass. If he made it through this weekend without humiliating himself, he hoped to be Mr. Give Me a Chance.
Chapter Three
Kiley checked her watch. Forty-five more minutes and then she could leave this luncheon and take a quick nap. She’d like to look at these photos and maybe send a few teaser proofs out so she could concentrate on the wedding tomorrow.
“I’m ready.”
Bret whispered it in her ear as he breezed past her toward the ladies. While he handed out the rest of his drinks, Kiley pretended she didn’t notice how most of the women fawned over him. He really ate it up. There might not be a bigger flirt in her life than Bret.
Lexi leaned in. “He’s a little insufferable, isn’t he?”
“He definitely soaks it up.”
“Thank goodness Tom isn’t such an attention hog. I mean, he’s definitely more outgoing than I am but this”—she gestured toward Bret—“takes extroverted to a whole different level.”
Kiley chuckled. “You have to admit he’s entertaining.”
“And he does have a good heart,” Lexi offered.
“But let’s not get carried away.”
“Or what?” Lexi paused to give her a long look. “You might fall for him after all?”
“I’ve said it a hundred times. I don’t have time for that.” She took one last sip of water, set the glass on the table, and brushed her hands together. “I’d better tell him where we want him to stand, or they might rip his shirt off trying to situate him themselves.”
Bret held one drink above his head. “Looks like I made one too many,” he crowed. “Whoever can reach it, it’s yours.”
The group surrounded him, clamoring for the drink. Or at least that was the excuse for some of them to get super close. Now there wasn’t any doubt in her mind. Bret was the biggest flirt she’d ever seen.
Lexi gave them directions, and after a harried minute of posturing and chatter, the ladies finally surrounded Bret who beamed in their midst. It was almost the perfect setup for the photo. Kiley checked them in the viewfinder, then looked up at the group.
There were two ladies too near the edge of the frame. She moved out from behind the tripod and walked toward the group.
“Can you scootch together a little more? You two are too far away from the others.”
One of the women fanned her face. “I get a little claustrophobic in groups.” She blew the air from her cheeks.
