Going to the Chapel: A Novella (6 page)

Sympathy for Elsa mushroomed inside Izzy. No family? Not even a sister to fight with and . . . love?

Battling tears for the woman, Izzy waved for him to follow her to the consultation desk in the bridal boutique section. “Now, sit down and tell me more about Elsa.”

Unable to resist, she reached across the desk and squeezed his hand. “I promise you, I’ll do everything I can to give her the wedding of her dreams. Your Elsa is a lucky woman to have a fiancé like you.”

A sliver of guilt needled Levi at the look of sympathy in Izzy’s eyes. Dammit, she’d actually teared up when he’d implied his fiancée was ill.

Why had he concocted that lie?

Because he had to fabricate a believable story. What reason other than illness would any woman not insist on coordinating her own wedding plans? Didn’t females live for this kind of stuff?

“So,” Izzy said with a small sigh. “Tell me what you and Elsa have in mind for your special day.”

“Elsa loves the mountains,” he said, ad-libbing. “She used to come to Georgia to visit family years ago and has fond memories of this area.”

“The mountains are beautiful,” Izzy said. “But different from Texas. That is where you’re from, isn’t it?”

Levi shifted. He was supposed to extract information from her, not the other way around. “Yes.” From his undercover work, he’d learned to keep the story simple or else he’d get caught in his lies. “But since this area is special to Elsa, we want the wedding here.”

Izzy gave him a warm smile. “How long will you be in town?”

“As long as I need to be,” he said. She raised a brow, and he continued, “To get the plans in order, that is.”

“Do you have a date in mind?”

“Like I said, she has her heart set on a Christmas wedding. Christmas Eve, to be exact. Do you have that date available?”

She fidgeted, then made a show of looking at her computer as if she wasn’t sure. But from what he could tell, the business had barely opened.

“If not—”

“No, no, that date would work for us. It just doesn’t give us much time to plan.”

“What can be so complicated about planning a wedding?”

Izzy laughed, her golden hair spilling around her shoulders in waves and drawing his gaze to the long, slender column of her throat. Her skin looked like peaches and cream.

“Spoken like a man,” Izzy said with a twinkle in those sky-blue eyes. “First of all, we set the venue, which we have done. That is, if the little chapel on the hill works for you. But that depends on how many guests you have. It’s not very large. I’d say it holds about seventy-five people, so if you’re thinking a big guest list—”

“No,” Levi said. “We want something small and intimate.”

“The chapel is perfect for an intimate ceremony,” Izzy said as if she thought he was a real romantic. “Have you seen it?”

“Just the photographs on the website.”

“We’ll take a ride and I’ll give you a tour in a few minutes.” She swung her laptop around to face him, then slid into the chair beside him. Her feminine scent wafted around him, distracting him, and making his body harden.

He forced himself to breathe and glanced at the computer.

“Let’s discuss the type of theme you want for the ceremony and decorations,” Izzy said.

“Theme?”

“Yes. We can do a traditional Christmas wedding or you can choose an alternative.” She clicked through several pages of themed weddings ranging from a cowboy wedding to a Hawaiian luau to a disco setting to an adventure theme where the bride and groom, both dressed in mountain-climbing attire, dangled off the side of a cliff as they exchanged rings.

“Have you and Elsa discussed anything specific?” Izzy asked, obviously proud of her smorgasbord of ideas. She’d also used something called Pinterest to categorize wedding gowns, cakes, flowers, decorations, and grooms’ attire into modern, traditional, vintage, hip . . . the categories boggled his mind.

“Levi? Any idea?”

“A traditional Christmas theme,” he said, determined to make this simple.

“Good. That will be gorgeous. And just what the town needs.”

“What the town needs?”

She tangled her fingers in the folds of her skirt. “What with the economy and all, the town has had its troubles. Bringing romance and new businesses back to Matrimony, and a wedding on top of that, will boost everyone’s spirits. Why, it already has!”

She sounded as if she’d started this hocus-pocus One Stop Weddings to boost the town’s economy. Did the town know she’d funded her little enterprise with stolen money?

“Then you’re a local hero, huh?”

Her cheeks reddened as if she was embarrassed. “Hardly. My sisters and I created a scandal ten years ago. I don’t think the old-timers will ever forget it.”

“A scandal?”

She fiddled with her hair. “My poor aunt Dottie tried to raise us to be ladies, but we were always getting into trouble. One night we got into a huge catfight in the Triple D—”

“The Triple D?”

“The Dairy & Donut Delite.”

He remembered the photo of this infamous catfight from the archives of the local paper. “But you’ve changed?”

She shrugged. “Verdict’s still out on that,” she said with a laugh. In spite of the fact that he suspected she was a liar and con woman, he would have enjoyed seeing her half-naked, rolling on the floor in ice cream while she and her sisters went at it.

“Let’s go see the chapel now,” Izzy said, oblivious to his thoughts. “That is, unless you have somewhere else to be?”

“No, now’s fine. After all, that’s why I’m in town.” Although churches were the last place on earth he felt comfortable.

It was something his mother had said when he was small—that he had the devil in his soul. He’d always felt like lightning would strike him down the moment he stepped inside a sanctuary.

Still, he had started this sham, and he had to find out the truth behind Izzy Sassafras.

He steeled himself against her seductive eyes—no way would he fall for her southern charm and lies.

Izzy’s heart melted every time Levi said Elsa’s name. He obviously adored the woman and wanted to make her happy.

Maybe there
was
one good man left in the world.

“Do you want to take two cars or one?” Izzy asked as they stepped outside. “I’d offer to drive, but my little bug won’t give you much leg room.” Besides, it looked pathetic with that big dent in the front. She had no idea where she’d get the money or time to have it repaired.

Levi’s mouth twitched with a frown when he spotted it. “You had an accident?”

“Tried to avoid hitting an”—she stated to stay armadillo but didn’t want to mention that she’d come from Texas—“animal in the road and I hit a tree.”

“Ah.” He gestured toward a black SUV parked on the street. “We’ll take mine.”

She climbed in the passenger side, surprised by his politeness in opening the door for her. Once she’d tied herself to Ray, his manners had soured like sweet milk left out in ninety-degree summer heat.

When she got in, she glanced around for any signs of his fiancée—a lipstick, sweater, pair of panties on the floor—but saw nothing.

“You asked me if I was from Texas,” Levi said as he pulled away from the main street. “Does that mean you’ve been there?”

The chapel was only a couple miles away, set on a beautiful hill surrounded by roses that surprisingly, in spite of the weather, grew most of the year. Another part of the magic.

Izzy chewed her bottom lip for a moment. “Um, I took a trip there a long time ago. Pretty country, but I missed home.” Well, she had missed her sisters. And now she was back, she realized how picturesque and tranquil the rolling hills, trees, and mountains were.

With winter setting in, they might have snow, which would give the mountain peaks a majestic look.

“About the date—you realize that Christmas Eve is only two weeks away. That gives us a short window of time to narrow down details.”

“Yes, I know,” Levi said as he maneuvered the switchbacks on the curvy road. “I guess that means we’ll be spending a lot of time together.”

A frisson of something warm tingled inside her. Spending time with this hunky man would be fun.

Except he was engaged to another woman.

And she needed this job, this wedding, to be perfect. After all, she could build off it to advertise for the future.

She didn’t want to disappoint Aunt Dottie—or Daisy or Caroline, even though a wall as big as Lookout Mountain still stood between the sisters.

He veered onto the graveled lot of the little white chapel, which was set at the top of a hill, the sweeping live oaks and magnolias set against the mountain ridges. Gold flowerpots holding poinsettias flanked both sides of the door, the stained-glass windows glittering in the midday sunlight.

He parked and cut the engine, and she watched him study the chapel. “This is it, the magic chapel?”

Did she detect a note of derision in his voice? No . . . she’d imagined that. “That’s what the locals say. But I think the real magic is the love that a couple brings to the chapel.” She swallowed back a retort about her own failed marriage. “Just like you and Elsa will bring.”

Okay, maybe she sounded sappy now. But how romantic that this man would oversee the wedding plans to make his bride happy?

“We do have something special,” Levi said.

She looked into his dreamy eyes. “Was it love at first sight?”

He jammed his hands in the pockets of his jacket as if the question made him uncomfortable. “Yes. Love at first sight.”

No wonder Elsa had fallen for him. “Ah.” Izzy’s heart fluttered. “How did you two meet?”

He paused for a moment, then cleared his throat. “She came to my ranch, the Silver Dollar, interested in taking riding lessons. She said it was something she’d always wanted to do but never had the chance.”

He hesitated, obviously lost in the memory. Maybe still moved by the first time he’d seen his precious Elsa.

“That’s a lovely story.” She couldn’t help but compare it to the way she’d met Ray. Bertha had broken down, and she’d been stuck in a muddy ditch. Even though he’d been dressed in a suit, he’d stopped to help her. She’d thought he was smart and charming and heroic, that he was her savior.

Now she’d wrecked the same car running away from him because that knight in shining armor had been a rat disguised in fancy clothes paid for by another woman.

“Do you have a picture of Elsa?”

He looked startled for a moment.

“Is there something wrong?” Izzy asked. “It’s probably none of my business, but was your fiancée in some kind of accident?”

“Yes, an automobile accident, but she’s healing nicely.” He gestured to his cell phone. “My battery is dead, or I’d show you a photograph.”

“Oh, well, maybe once you charge your phone.”

He tilted his Stetson back and looked down at her, his dark eyes narrowed as if he could see straight through her. “How about you, Izzy? Do you have someone special in your life?”

His question caught her off guard. She didn’t intend to discuss Ray with him or anyone else. “No,” she said. She really never had, at least not anyone who’d looked at her with the affection she heard in this man’s voice when he talked about Elsa. “But if I did, I’d want to get married in the little chapel. It’s so peaceful. Sitting on the hill like this, you can practically hear the angels singing their blessings.”

Of course, she’d have to file for divorce first.

A troubled look flickered in his expression, and she feared she’d gone overboard with her spiel. She’d have to be careful not to pour on the sappy stuff too thick. Women fell for it, but men’s minds worked differently. It was a mystery she’d never understand.

But Levi seemed totally smitten by his fiancée. He was a rarity—strong and sensitive—and straight. What a lucky girl Elsa was to have found him.

Levi pressed the silence button on his phone, hoping it didn’t buzz and alert Izzy to the fact that he’d lied about his battery.

It hadn’t occurred to him that she’d ask to see a picture of his fake fiancée.

Izzy climbed from the SUV and led him up the cobblestone path to the front porch of the chapel. With fresh white paint, the stained-glass windows shimmering in the sunlight coming off the mountain and the Christmas poinsettias, it looked like a postcard.