Don't Forget Me (13 page)

“About five weeks.”

“Oh…well. That soon?” Allie swallowed hard, staring down at her hands. “That’s…five weeks.”

Kit rushed on. “Allie, it’s the perfect venue. Large enough for all your family and friends. And Joe LeBlanc is a terrific chef. Whatever he does for the reception will be absolutely wonderful. You won’t have to worry about choosing among your friends for a caterer—since it’s at the Woodrose, Joe’s the only choice. Oh, and I made sure they’ll let you do your own cake.”

Allie was still staring down at her hands, clutched tight against the table top. “My own cake.”

“I thought you’d want to.” Kit frowned. Somehow this conversation didn’t seem to be going exactly the way she’d planned. “But if you don’t want to, they’ve got a contract with a place in Austin. You could go with them.”

Allie shook her head slightly. “Bellefleur.” Her voice sounded slightly stronger. “No way I’d let them design my cake.”

“Well then.” Kit tried to keep the edge of desperation out of her voice. “You can do your own cake. And once we get the date and the venue set, the rest should fall into place pretty easily. You choose your dress, your attendants. I’ll find somebody to do the flowers and the photographs, and somebody to conduct the ceremony. We’ll need a band or a DJ for the reception, but that shouldn’t be a problem around here with all the musicians in the area.”

Allie said nothing, but her knuckles on the table had turned white.

“Aunt Allie.” Kit blew out a breath. “What’s wrong? You wanted me to do this, and now I’ve done it. Is there something wrong with the Woodrose? Something I don’t know about?”

Allie shook her head. “The Woodrose is a beautiful place,” she murmured. “It’s perfect.”

“All right.” Kit resisted the urge to grind her teeth. “Then explain to me what the problem is. Please Allie.”

Allie looked up at her, her eyes luminous with tears.

Oh shit!
Kit knelt beside her hurriedly, wrapping an arm across her shoulders. “Allie, if you don’t want to do this, now would be the right time to tell me that. It’s not a problem. Things haven’t progressed very far. We can just forget the whole thing.”

Allie shook her head vehemently. “I want to do it. I do. I love Steve.”

Kit closed her eyes for a moment, trying to reorient herself. “All right then, tell me what the problem is. You were always so good at figuring out what was wrong with me when I was a teenager, now let me help you.”

Allie rubbed her hands across her face. “It’s just that everything is going to change. I’ve been putting off all of these decisions—when the wedding will be, where we’re going to live, what kind of honeymoon I want, how many attendants. I mean, if I didn’t make the decisions, I still had options. Only now…” She sighed.

“Aunt Allie…” Kit paused, trying to figure out how to ask. “You keep saying you want to get married, but sometimes I get the feeling you’re not exactly sure that’s what you want.”

Allie stared down at her hands again, blinking. “I went to culinary school straight from high school. Did you know that?”

Kit shook her head, keeping her gaze on Allie’s clasped hands.

“I went straight into my first job after that, working my way up the culinary brigade. It took me a few years to make it to head pastry chef. More years until I had the money for Sweet Thing.” She stared out the window, her hands still clasped tight on the table.

“You’ve done really well,” Kit murmured. “I admire what you’ve done so much.”

Allie glanced back at her. “I’ve been on my own ever since I left home. And now I’m going to give it up and be part of a couple. For the rest of my life.”

“But you love Steve,” Kit said carefully.

“I do.” She nodded. “But it’s…a very big step.” She sighed again. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m a basket case, I know. Thanks for being so patient with me.”

Kit gave her shoulders a quick hug. “You’re my favorite aunt, and I’ll do whatever you want me to do. But if you’re going to go ahead with this, it’s time to get a move on.”

Allie took a deep shuddering breath. “You’re right. It’s time to put up or shut up. And I want to put up. What do you need me to do?”

“Write a check for the Woodrose so Mabel Morgenstern doesn’t give your date to somebody else. Then leave the rest to me.”

Allie nodded, wiping tears away from the corners of her eyes. “I can do that. Do you think anybody will want to come to this wedding? I mean it’s only five weeks away now.”

Kit leaned her forehead against her aunt’s dark curls. “Aunt Allie, believe me, the entire family will be here with husbands, wives, children and every significant other they can scare up. To say nothing of all the people in Konigsburg who’ve been waiting for this to happen. I only hope the Woodrose event center is big enough to hold everybody who’ll want to see you and Steve get married.”

She had the satisfaction of seeing her aunt smile, which was enough to put the butterflies in her stomach to sleep for the night. But she left the kitchen with the image of Allie, still seated at her kitchen table, staring out into the night.

Chapter Eight

Dream Kit sat across the table from Nando, staring out at the landscape beyond the balcony. He didn’t recognize the place—probably some dreamscape his subconscious had pulled out of an old movie. The sun was setting in front of them, turning the ocean waves a glorious scarlet and rose.

“I love you,” he said.

Dream Kit didn’t look at him. She was wearing something soft and billowing, white against her golden skin. He could see the smooth lines of her body through the fabric. Her profile stood out sharply against the brilliant sunset.

“I love you,” he repeated.

Dream Kit’s gaze stayed focused on the horizon. Her lips turned up in the faintest of smiles, as if she were thinking of something pleasant. Maybe she didn’t know he was there. Maybe she didn’t care.

“Kit,” he murmured. “Please.”

Below them the waves rolled to the shore, the sound distant and rhythmic. Dream Kit ignored him. Maybe he didn’t exist after all.

“Catarina…”

Blaaaaaaat!

Nando’s eyes flew open. He swatted the top of the clock with the flat of his hand, shutting off the alarm.

Guinevere regarded him steadily from the foot of the bed before opening her mouth in a gaping yawn.

Nando sighed, flopping back against his pillow again. “Morning, Bozo. How did you get in here again?”

Guinevere rose smoothly to her feet, stretching from her haunches to her tail. As usual, she ignored him, thumping heavily to the floor and stalking majestically toward his partially open door.

He still couldn’t figure out how she managed to get it open every night. Maybe she was concealing a pair of thumbs somewhere around the apartment.

Right. Thinking about the stupid cat is a great diversion.

He sighed again. He’d had the same damn dream for three nights running now. It always went the same way too. He kept saying
I love you
, and Dream Kit seemed to be totally unaware of his existence.

He had no idea what it meant. All he could say for sure was that it left him both miserable and hard, which was a really shitty way to start the day.

In reality, of course, he’d never told her he loved her. Except in those last panicked messages on her voice mail that she might never have heard. Yet another one of his screw-ups, part of the whole epic screw-up that was his relationship with Kit Maldonado.

He should have told her. At least, he should have tried.

“Hindsight,” he muttered. “Always dead on.”

He pushed himself out of bed, pulling the spread up over the tangled sheets. Guinevere regarded him impassively from the corner next to the door as she gave herself a quick wash. He also had no idea how he’d come to acquire his very own feline BFF, but for some reason the cat had decided to bond with him.

Oh well, at least one female felt like doing that.

“C’mon, Bozo,” he muttered. “Time for breakfast.”

Kit stood in the doorway of the Rose, watching Elaine try to take care of a table of four. She got two of the orders mixed up, but the people at the table seemed pretty good-natured about it. And at least this time she remembered to fill their water glasses. Of course, she also forgot to ask the two customers who had ordered wine if they wanted another glass. Kit caught a couple of eye-rolls. She’d have to grab Elaine before she moved on to serving the two-top at the side of the room and then pour the wine before she forgot all about it.

Kit had become the restaurant’s de facto sommelier when she’d realized, somewhere around her first day, that Elaine seemed unable to fill a simple wine order without bringing the wrong bottle or misusing the corkscrew. And putting a sharp implement in Philip’s hands while he was serving some of his more demanding customers seemed like a very poor idea. At some point, she’d have to show Elaine how to open a wine bottle correctly, but right now it was just easier to do it herself.

At least Elaine was now managing to get her salads to the tables before the entrées most of the time, something Kit had already had to caution her about twice. Philip was putting the food out with his usual stone-faced efficiency. Kit had decided by the end of her first week that getting Philip to smile was definitely not part of her job description.

She sighed, pulled Elaine aside to remind her about the wine, and grabbed an iced tea pitcher to take care of a couple of refills before heading off to find the right wine bottle. Gabriel gave her his usual leer, but she ignored him. His libido fell under the same heading as Philip’s lack of smile—not worth her effort to correct.

At least the rush had begun to subside and it hadn’t been as hectic as some days. Since Brenner’s didn’t serve lunch, the Rose had the upscale trade all to themselves, assuming the lunchers in question didn’t mind driving half a mile out of town to the inn. Judging from their capacity seating over the past week from eleven thirty until one thirty, most people in town didn’t see that as a difficulty.

Kit ran credit cards for Elaine and gave Phillip change, careful to include a lot of small bills in the probably vain hope that they’d leave him a decent tip. She’d heard him grumbling about his take-home pay a couple of days ago. Yet he hadn’t seemed to make the connection between his surly demeanor and the amount of money his customers left behind.

The last few diners lingered over their drinks, gazing at the afternoon sunlight dappling the smooth green lawn outside the French doors. By next month the temperature would be spiking into the eighties on most days, but for the moment it was still relatively pleasant. The Rose’s gorgeous location was one of its biggest attractions, and she figured they’d start outside seating in another week or so, provided she could convince Mabel to let her hire another waiter.

Kit heard the swish of a door opening, and watched Joe LeBlanc saunter out of the kitchen and through the dining room. A few diners looked after him curiously. Apparently, he wasn’t yet as well known to civilians as he was to the town’s professional foodie population.

“Hey darlin’,” he drawled. “How’s things? Lunch crowd happy?”

“Doing well. Looks like the roasted corn chowder was a hit.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He wiped his damp face with a napkin, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the hostess desk. “Ran out halfway through. Have to maybe move that higher into the rotation. We didn’t do as well with the mahi mahi, though. I’m still getting a feel for our customers, I guess.”

“I’d say you’re doing fine.” Kit watched Gabriel clear another table. “We’re doing major business, and the crowd is getting bigger every day. I’m going to talk to Mabel about getting another busboy and at least one more server. People should concentrate on the food instead of grousing about the service.”

“Yeah, that’s the least of what we need—experienced waiters would be a nice change. And we could use a pastry chef too. Maybe we should double-team her—you broach the subject and I’ll go in for the kill.”

Kit leaned back on the desk beside him. “I also need to talk to you, as a matter of fact.”

His mouth spread in a slow grin. “Oh yeah? What about, darlin’?”

Kit grimaced. “About the menu for my aunt’s wedding. I just scheduled her into the event center because there was a cancellation. It’s at the middle of next month, and I don’t even know what we can set up in the way of food when we don’t have that much time.”

“Miz Allie’s getting married?” His smile broadened. “Hell, every foodie in the Hill Country will probably show up. We’ll have to do something special for her. And a month’s plenty of time to come up with some good stuff, believe me.”

Kit felt like a large weight had lifted from her shoulders for the first time since she’d talked to Allie the night before. “Really? That’s such a relief.”

“I’ll do her proud, Scout’s honor.” He sketched a quick cross on his broad chest.

“I believe you.” Kit glanced back across the restaurant with its muted colors, the rolling green hills stretching beyond the French doors. “This has such potential. It’s a beautiful location and your food is spectacular. All it needs is a couple of nudges to become a destination restaurant.”