One Hot Summer (31 page)

Ty gave a hard laugh and got in Micah's face. “Do not forget that little discussion that you and I had a few weeks ago. All I have to do is say the word and the county council will strip you of your fire marshal duties faster than you can say ‘job demotion.'”

Micah had never told her Ty had threatened him like that. Why would he hold back such a critical piece of information from her? She shoved the question to the back of her mind and instead focused on the horrible realization that Remedy's uncanny ability to create disaster, along with her relationship with Micah in general, had played a pivotal role in Micah's job being compromised. It was unbearable.

She marched back to Ty and Micah and wedged her body between the two men, facing Ty. “Don't go to the county council yet. We'll find another way to smooth things over with Wynd and Cambelle, and all the other upcoming brides and grooms. We don't need fireworks that badly. I'll figure something else out. Something even better.”

“Stay out of this, Remedy,” Micah said.

“She will not stay out of it, because she's going to fix it,” Ty said. He shifted his beady eyes to Remedy. “Do you not think I know your career is riding on this wedding? Do you think I don't know what happened to you in Hollywood with that Zannity couple? Do you think if you are responsible for another celebrity wedding disaster that you'll ever find work again?”

No, she didn't. But it was a possibility she'd refused to dwell on.

“I own you, young lady, and you will make this right for all of us or I'll see that you never work in Texas or Los Angeles or anywhere else in the event-planning industry ever again.”

“Don't threaten her again or you and I will be exchanging more than words,” Micah said.

Ty sniffed, then turned his head and spit on the ground. “I've said my piece. And if Remedy and you do what you're obliged to, then I won't have to go threatening either of you again. This is all in your hands now. Your futures are up to you.”

With that, he strode away.

Micah and Remedy watched him go in stunned silence, both of them fuming.

“Of all the goddamn jobs in the world, the woman I love is working for my oldest enemy, who's now using that fact to try to coerce us both,” Micah said quietly.

The woman he loves?
“We won't let him coerce us. He's not
that
powerful.”

Micah gave her a grim smile. “Is that your trust fund cushion talking right now?”

Maybe it was. But Remedy refused to go down in flames in her chosen profession again, no matter how much money she had in the bank. “Micah…”

He held up his hands. “Wait, please. I don't think it's the right time for us to talk, we're both so pissed off and emotional.”

She'd never been so relieved at a suggestion before. “You're right.”

“Good, okay. You're not going to say anything more, and I'm not going to say anything, either. And we're each going to walk away and get some air and calm down. Separately. And then we'll talk tomorrow.” She could hear the leashed fury in his tone and could well imagine the effort it was taking him to keep his cool.

Another round of angry tears threatened. “Yes. Agreed.”

“I'd better get back down there. It's going to be a long night of paperwork and cleanup.” Then he was gone, walking back toward the resort the same way Ty had gone, disappearing into the smoky darkness.

 

Chapter Seventeen

Remedy never left the hotel that night after the fire. She'd tried to rest her head on the desk in her office for a while but gave up the effort as useless and instead passed the hours by scribbling ideas and notes for upcoming weddings on a notepad, but it was tough to feel creative given all that had transpired. In the end, she crumbled up the pages of notes she'd written and threw them away.

By sunrise, her mind was churning faster than ever but not getting anywhere productive. Restless and needing a change of scenery, she grabbed a coffee from the hotel kitchen, then wandered throughout the resort and grounds without knowing where she was headed. Her job, her reputation, her parents' reputation. Micah's job, the safety of Ravel County, her relationship with Micah, if he didn't break up with her over this—it was all so fragile, as though she were juggling eggshells.

It wasn't until she stopped in front of the fountain in the lobby that she knew her next move.

Brides by Carina, Carina Briscoe Decker's bridal boutique, opened into the lobby next to the men's formal-wear rental shop. A glass wall adjacent to the boutique's storefront offered resort visitors a view of Carina's workshop and a taste of her process for creating exquisitely crafted couture wedding gowns. Today, the glass wall revealed the workshop to be empty of people, though several partially constructed dresses adorned headless mannequins and a piece of fabric rested beneath the needle of a sewing machine, as though she'd walked away in mid-stitch.

Carina wasn't on the boutique's storefront side, either, but when Remedy approached the sales counter she caught a glimpse of Carina tucked in a cluttered storage room, perched on a stool while straddling a dress-clad mannequin.

Remedy knocked on the counter as though it were a door. “Carina?”

Carina didn't seem to hear her but continued to embroider a flower with white thread onto the dress's bodice. Maybe this wasn't the best time. Or the best idea. Maybe Ty had already filled his daughter in on Remedy's wedding-planning defects and Carina would pounce on the opportunity to defend her father's actions.

But that was silly. Carina had been nothing but kind to Remedy, and if anyone could help Remedy figure out how to appease all the warring parties tugging at her for allegiance it would be Carina. After all, one didn't achieve patron saint status by accident.

Remedy walked around the counter and knocked on the wall next to the storage room door, harder this time. “Excuse me, Carina?”

Carina's fingers froze, a needle in one hand. She glanced at Remedy. “Remedy? Hello. I hope you haven't been standing there long. I get so absorbed when I embroider. It's like a free stitch meditation.”

Remedy would have to take her word for that. “Would you mind if I came in?”

Carina moved a bin of threads off the stool to her right and patted it. “I told you when we met that my door's always open, and so it is. Come on in.”

Remedy took a seat, her eyes on the gown that Carina had been working on. Delicate white-and-gold embroidery swirled through the bodice and skirt. “This dress is exquisite.”

“Thank you. I'm definitely partial to it.”

“What are you doing working back here and not in your workshop?”

Carina offered a disarming smile. “Yeah, about that. I thought my mom's idea of building a window into my workshop was genius, like free advertising. I honestly didn't think I'd notice or care about random resort guests watching me work because I get so focused on my projects, as you saw just a moment ago.”

“I take it that turned out not to be the case?”

“Uh, no. When I go in that workshop, it's like there's a force field around it keeping my muse from entering with me. I can't accomplish a single creative thing when I'm in there. Even when no one's got their faces pressed up against the glass, I still feel like a zoo animal.”

Made sense to Remedy. “I think I'd be the same way.” She doubted she'd be nearly as effective at her job if the resort added a window through which guests could watch her. “We're event planners. We prefer to work behind the scenes. We don't want to be the scenes.”

“Amen to that.”

And there was Remedy's opening. “Speaking of event planning, I could use some advice on dealing with your father.”

Carina's chuckle was filled with affection and warmth. “He's not the easiest person to work for, is he?”

“No, he's not.”

“He gets into this zone I call bulldozer mode where he plows over everything and everyone in his path,” Carina said.

That was the perfect description of the man.

Carina cringed. “I can tell by your expression that you've experienced bulldozer mode for yourself. I'm so sorry. You did the right thing coming to me. Tell me what's going on and we'll see what we can do to fix it.”

Carina's eagerness to help and her deprecating humor about her father had already helped set Remedy's mind at ease. Drawing a fortifying breath, she plunged into a retelling of the WestWynd situation and the stalemate between Ty and Micah, with Remedy caught in the middle.

Carina listened without interrupting, then said, “I always felt that Micah and my dad didn't get along because they were too much alike.”

Yeah, no.
“You think so?”

“I do. They're turf defenders. It's as if they each had this big cosmic stick that they each drew a circle with, then put everything and everyone they care about inside it. And now they pace around the outside of the circle like a guard, ready and willing to fight to the death to defend it all. It's sweet, really.”

“You're right. They're a lot alike. But it's only sweet when the rest of us aren't caught in the middle,” Remedy said. “How do I appease both of them, as well as the bride and groom? And in four weeks. It's feeling impossible right now.”

“I've been there, and am I going to share with you what I learned the hard way as a wedding planner. You have something that neither my father nor Micah nor the bride and groom have. Artistry. You're not a project manager or a vender coordinator; you're the artist, the mastermind. Don't give them what they think they want. Distill that down to what they're really trying to tell you. In this case, my father and the wedding party both want spectacle and grandeur and Micah wants safety. That's totally doable.”

At Carina's words, a lightbulb went off in Remedy's head. “Oh my God, you're right. I could explain how their idea is pedestrian. Fireworks at a wedding happen all the time. They're nothing special.”

“Exactly,” Carina said. “Open their eyes to artistic possibilities that are beyond what any of them could imagine in their nonartist minds. Give them something beyond their wildest imagination. Being a wedding planner can so often feel like you're powerless, that you're nothing but a well-paid servant. But neither my father nor the bride and groom hired you because you're good at doing others' bidding. They're paying you to take control. So take control.”

*   *   *

Remedy was too restless to be contained in her stuffy cottage. Though hundreds of disparate ideas and Carina's advice rambled through her mind, none of those work thoughts compared to the dread and anxiety she felt about making things right with Micah. So much so that she found herself slipping into her shoes and heading down the stairs from her back deck into the woods, headed to the place where it all began for them.

She walked along the same shady path she'd taken the day Chet and Dusty had crashed through the creek after their runaway cooler, then followed the winding trail upstream, zigzagging close to the road, then down to the water's edge, all the way to where the creek met the river. After slipping off her shoes, she stood where Micah's chair had been planted in the sand that first day they'd met, where he'd sat on his throne looking like he was the redneck king of Texas.

She kicked the water, then again, splashing her frustration out. When she'd flown into Texas as a bright-eyed city girl, she'd had a plan. She'd known exactly what she wanted with her career and her life. She'd known what she didn't want—to get stuck in Texas. So then, when had getting stuck in Texas started to sound so right? How had everything gotten so complicated?

The most worthwhile things in life are complicated.

Carina had told Remedy not to give her clients what they thought they wanted but something beyond their imaginations. But the joke was on Remedy, because that was exactly what had happened to her in her life. What she and Micah had together was beyond anything in Remedy's wildest dreams, and the affection she felt for the sweet, quirky town of Dulcet and its citizens was something she could have never predicted, not in a million years. Instead of excitement that a little slice of home was coming to visit her, her instincts were shouting at her to protect this rural haven from Hollywood's toxicity.

Closing her eyes, suddenly weary, she lowered herself into the water and sat, relishing the bite of cold that seeped through her dry-clean-only skirt suit. She stretched her legs out and watched the mottled pattern of shade and sun through the water on her skin.

A sound of wings against air had her peeling her eyes open again. A dozen or more of Skeeter's homing pigeons had landed a few feet away. All eyes were on her.

“Hey, guys. What's your deal, huh? Why are you stalking me like this? I'm sure Skeeter misses you.”

One of the birds got brave and skittered closer to her hand. Remedy held perfectly still and held her breath. The bird climbed onto the back of her hand. “So we're buddies now?” she said under her breath.

The bird cocked his head and blinked.

Buddies, then. Though these wild friends had very little in common with her wild friends back in Los Angeles.

She maintained her frozen state until the bird thought better about being so close to her and skittered off to rejoin his pigeon pals. Content, Remedy sank into her arms, tipped her head up, closed her eyes, and let the tinkling sound of the water, the rustle of leaves above her, soothe her frayed nerves. As her peace expanded, she started to notice other, less obvious sensory delights, the tickle of the water between her toes, the musty smell of forest dampness, the sound of insects, and the cooing of the pigeons.

She might be in Texas, but the Frio River felt exotic and tropical. She let the details soak into her imagination. Maybe someday she could use this place as inspiration for a tropical wedding. The southeast end of the resort's golf course was bordered by a lake that included mangroves, which made Remedy think of the Amazon River and damp, dense jungles. She could hang LED lanterns in the trees and string lights overhead. On the golf course there would be plenty of room for a tent and a band and a—