One Hot Summer (27 page)

Then again, a billion dollars was a lot of caliber.

Cambelle clapped with her fingertips. “That's him. That's my Wynd. TMZ is calling us WestWynd. Isn't that perfect?”

Don't think of the two of them kissing … don't think about the two of them having—
“Oh my. Wow. That's … wow. You've dated him how long?”

“Four weeks. That's enough time to know,” Helen said. “It's magic. There's no other way to describe it. He's magic to my Cambelle's muse. The fire to her flame.”

“He's all that and more.” Cambelle swooned.

“And you want me to plan your wedding?” Remedy said.

“Of course they do.” Ty's voice made Remedy jump. She'd forgotten all about him.

“I know we can trust you,” Cambelle said to Remedy. “You understand what it's like to live in the public eye. Constant vigilance is what it takes. The only photographs of this wedding that we want in magazines are the ones we sell to them.”

“Of course. We'll hire the best security in the world to keep this wedding on the down low,” Ty said.

“We'd never thought of Cambelle getting married somewhere as—well, no offense, Ty—coarse as Texas, but your mom can be very persuasive,” Helen said.

And that, right there, told Remedy everything she needed to know. Her stomach twisted into a knot. “Yes, she can.”

“Let's sit down,” Ty said. “Tell us how we here at Briscoe Ranch Resort can give you both the wedding of your dreams.”

As they found their seats, Remedy ignored her growing anger over her mom's motives for springing this on her and tried to recall her usual questions for new clients. She blurted the first one that came to mind. “Have you given any thought to a specific color palette or theme?”

“We want understated elegance,” Helen said.

“And fireworks,” Cambelle added.

Helen raised her arm in a sweeping gesture. “Think pots of blue orchids lining a marble tub in Paris, the Eiffel Tower outside the window. Think timeless, as Cambelle and Wynd's marriage will be.”

“Lots of fireworks,” Cambelle said, bouncing in her chair. Her eyes went wide. “Do you think you could find exotic parrots with feathers that match our color scheme to have on display?”

“We're going for understated elegance,” her mom scolded.

Ty nodded, clearly on board with all this insanity. “Parrots are elegant.”

“Actually, uh, live animals aren't the most reliable option at weddings. So many things could go wrong,” Remedy said.

Cambelle pouted—an actual, honest-to-god toddler pout. “I want parrots.”

“Then parrots you shall have. Parrots and fireworks and anything else that will make this the best day of your life.”

Forget his reputation as a villain or a killjoy or a doting father—Ty Briscoe was a shark of a salesman. No wonder he was so successful.

Cambelle gave a swish of her hand. “Oh! I have a new idea. A theme. I was thinking on the drive from the airport about this. Mom, what do you think about Redneck Chic?”

Um … what?

Helen clapped. “Isn't that a riot? Cambelle's got such an artist's eye, always has.”

“I want horses and red Solo cups and hay bales and parrots and fireworks.”

“Done, done, done, done, and done,” Ty said. “And did you know we have a specially designated barn just for weddings?”

They did? That was news to Remedy.

“I think your guest list will be too extensive to hold the reception there, that will need to be in our grand ballroom, but the barn would be perfect for photographs or perhaps the rehearsal dinner,” Ty said.

Helen slapped her knees. “What a hoot! Oh, Cambelle, this is meant to be. Wynd's going to love it as much as he loves you.”

“What is the wedding date you're aiming for?” Remedy asked.

Cambelle squirmed anxiously, but Helen patted her knee. “That's the catch.”

Remedy scooted to the edge of her chair. That stress knot in her stomach turned to lead.

“It's no catch,” Ty assured her. “No catch at all. Our girl Remedy here has everything under control.”

Remedy unclenched her teeth. “What's the catch, Helen?”

Cambelle burst out, “We have to get married on the last Saturday in August.”

“Next year?” Remedy squeaked.

“Next month.”

“Six weeks,” Ty said. “Plenty of time.” He winked at Helen for good measure.

Helen reached across and clasped Ty's hand. “Excellent. Of course, Wynd told us to tell you he'll be paying you a premium for the trouble.”

If Remedy squinted hard, she could probably see actual dollar signs in Ty Briscoe's eyes. She stood and slid along the front of Ty's desk, facing Helen and Cambelle and trying to gain some sense of control over the spiraling conversation. “And … and … how many guests, approximately?”

“Five hundred.”

A five-hundred-guest wedding and reception with beefed-up security and live animals and fireworks. In six weeks. With Remedy already executing more than twenty weddings in the interim, as well as the Firefighters' Charity Ball in two weeks.

Oh boy.

*   *   *

Three hours later, Cambelle and Helen preceded Ty and Remedy out of the resort's special event barn, ready to be whisked away to the resort's day spa for complimentary treatments at Ty's invitation in advance of their late-evening flight on a private jet to New York to be reunited with their beloved Wynd.

Ty lingered just inside the barn door. “Nice work, Remedy. I knew you were a gamble worth taking. With your parents' help, Briscoe Ranch is on target to be the next hot celebrity wedding locale.”

Remedy stopped in her tracks.
Her parents' help? Oh, hell, no.
Her mom might have persuaded Cambelle and Wynd to hold their wedding at the resort, but that sort of thing couldn't keep happening. How could Remedy forge her own path in the industry if her parents didn't give her a chance?

“All due respect, but you hired me, not my parents.”

“On your parents' recommendation.”

“Excuse me?”

He pulled a red handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the sweat on his forehead, though his eyes remained cold and sharp. “Before I made my final decision to hire you, your parents called me personally. I assumed you knew that.”

No, she most certainly did not. “They called you … together?”

“Separately. One after the other. But they both said the same thing. That given their influence in the industry, I'd be a fool not to hire you. They were right.”

The number-one rule of wedding planning was not to let 'em see you sweat. That went for brides—and bosses. She'd deal with her parents later, but before Ty left she had one last point to hammer home. “My point was let's not forget that my parents aren't the ones who will be planning this wedding. I will. And all of Wynd's and Cambelle's celebrity friends who attend will be seeing my genius, not my parents'. When word of mouth starts to spread around Hollywood about Briscoe Ranch”—and about her skills as a wedding planner—“which it will, immediately, it will be because I made it happen, along with you and the resort's many exceptional qualities. Let's keep the credit where the credit's due.”

Ty's smile was as unexpected as it was disarming. “You're a lot like me, you know. Ambitious. I had opportunities handed to me, just like you, and I realized right away that it's not about who opens the door for you but about how driven you are when you walk through it.”

She hoped to God that the two of them were nothing alike. “Yes, sir.”

“How about I deliver the Wests to the spa and leave you to get a head start on planning this wedding?” Ty said.

“Thank you. There's no time to lose.”

He flashed her one last smile. “Not for the ambitious.”

The moment the door shut behind him, Remedy dropped to a hay bale, overwhelmed and in disbelief at the surreal turn her day had taken. She wasn't sure what had her more off-balance. The tight time frame? That her Hollywood past had descended into her present life? That twenty-nine-year-old Cambelle was marrying her sixty-five-year-old producer? That having the wedding at Briscoe Ranch had been Remedy's mom's idea?

No. Remedy knew the answer. It was the revelation that Ty Briscoe had hired her not because of her credentials or vision but because her parents had gone behind her back to ensure it. As though they didn't believe in her ability to forge her own career separate from them.

She would never forget the look on her mother's face when she told her she was let go from her job in Los Angeles because of the Zannity scandal. She would never, ever get over her father's palpable disappointment in her in that moment. Disappointment that was apparently so dire that her parents had actually, for once in their lives, overcome their mutual distaste of each other to conspire together.

And yet, if they hadn't intervened, would she not have gotten this job that she was genuinely enjoying? Maybe Ty was right and it didn't matter who opened the doors of opportunity for you, but there was opening doors and then there was coddling a grown, intelligent, ambitious woman who had expressly asked her parents to stay out of her business. Maybe she should be thanking them.

Maybe.

She dialed her mother's number. As it rang, she felt seventeen again, with the part of her that was desperate for freedom warring with the self-doubting part of her that feared herself incapable and wondered if independence was worth the risk of her parents' disappointment.

“Sweetie! What a nice surprise. And me without champagne!”

“It's not that kind of call.” Her pulse beat in her throat. She hated confrontations with her parents. Hated them more than anything in the world. Her parents were her home, her people. Nothing made her feel more drifting and lost and alien than being at odds with them.

“What's wrong, dear?”

She swallowed hard. “I saw Cambelle and Helen today. Cambelle and Wynd Fisher are getting married here, at Briscoe Ranch.”

Her mother gave a whoop of triumph. “Isn't that wonderful? You should see them together, Remedy. He's crazy about that girl. I was bursting, having to keep that secret from you for so long.”

Remedy shook her head. “He's only crazy about her because he's a senior citizen and about to marry a woman thirty-six years younger than him.”

“Don't be such a sourpuss. They're great together. You'll see.”

“Mom, Helen said it was your idea to have the wedding at Briscoe Ranch. Is that true?”

“Of course, dear. It was the least I could do for my darling daughter.”

“I wish…” Tears pricked Remedy's eyes.
Damn it.
She stood and paced to the nearest window. “You should have come to me first to make sure it was okay with me. You need to let me handle my life. You—”

“You're not happy?” It was a question that seemed borne from genuine confusion.

Remedy's instinct to avoid conflict by lying was a strong one. But her parents had crossed the line and it had to stop. Right now. “No, I'm not.”

“That doesn't make any sense. Cambelle and Helen are like family. And Wynd is a close friend of your father's. There was no question that you were going to do them this favor.”

Did her mom even realize she was fabricating the truth? “According to Helen, there was a question. She said they'd needed some convincing because Cambelle didn't want to get married in Texas.”

“And, you know,” Mom continued, as though Remedy hadn't spoken, “this wedding is a bit of a favor to you.”

Remedy spun away from the window and flattened her back against the wall. So then, her mom really didn't have faith in her to fix her own problems. Well, that cleared up a lot. But Remedy wanted to hear her admit it aloud. “A favor to me how?”

Mom huffed, indignant, as though this was common knowledge that didn't need spelling out. “Remedy, please. This is your shot to get back in the media's good graces. This is what you were waiting for to redeem your reputation so you can come home. You should be grateful for this opportunity instead of picking it apart to find the flaws.”

Micah was right. Telling someone that they should be grateful was the apex of obnoxiousness. “It wasn't your place to fix this for me. It's manipulative.”

“Oh, honey, don't be that way. We were devastated when you became persona non grata in our circles. No parent should ever have to hear the kind of slander we were subjected to about you. It broke our hearts. We're only trying to help.”

“Since when do you refer to you and Dad as ‘we'? You hate each other.”

“We don't hate each other. We have a child together, for God's sake. We still talk, especially when you need us.”

Remedy couldn't wrap her brain around that one, not after years of listening to them each complain about the other's lack of communication, from her dad missing Remedy's school events and blaming her mom for not telling him about them to her mom bitching about her dad's failure to inform her of travel plans he'd invited Remedy along on. “I'll plan Cambelle and Wynd's wedding, but after this, no more help from you. Or Dad. When I make my triumphant return to Hollywood, it's going to be on my terms, because
I
revitalized my career, not you.”

That had been her goal all along, but it didn't explain why the words sounded hollow to her heart all of a sudden. She was falling in love with the quirky town of Dulcet and its even quirkier resort. She wasn't ready to end things with Micah. Was she really that person who'd walk away from a good job, a good town, and a good man to mollify her ego and show up all the people who'd spurned her? That plot belonged in one of her mother's movies, not Remedy's life.

“Don't be mad at us, sweetheart. We're trying to help you bust out of there.”