Tess in Boots (24 page)

CHAPTER 26

I wasn’t ready to give up
on Carl’s Creek. Maybe Jake was. Maybe Sara was. Maybe Thatcher was. But I wasn’t. I was in love with this place: with its beauty, with its history. No, I wasn’t ready to let it go at all.

And I was willing to do something drastic to save it.

I stood in the main field, shading my eyes from the sun and watching a team of workers scramble to set up the big white tent we ordered from the rental company.

This was no ordinary tent. It was like nothing
I’d ever seen before. Several large chandeliers hung from the ceiling, surrounded by billowing gauzy fabric draped over white twinkling lights that would cast a soft glow as evening fell. It looked ethereal, magical, like something out of a dream.

And that was only the beginning. All around me workers bustled with their preparations.
They unloaded items off a nearby truck: gold Chiavari chairs, big round tables, and boxes of ivory linens. Tall, intricate candelabras filled the barn where the ceremony would be held. There were small catering tents set up behind the barn, where they would be hidden from the guests’ sight.

All the pieces
were starting to come together. It was a good thing because I spent the past few days concocting and perfecting a plan to save Carl’s Creek, and it was all riding on this wedding going off without a hitch. Well, that and a certain aspiring news reporter.

Natalie.

When we spoke last week, I invited her to come take a look at the vineyard today so she could get a visual of the wedding setup. But since then, another reason for her visit came up, one she wasn’t even aware of yet. One that could change things in a big way, for her, for me, for everyone.

I watched her get out of the car and approach the tent in awe. She spotted me
, and I waved her over.

“
Oh… my… lands.” She put her hands up to her cheeks. “This is gorgeous. It’s stunning. I want it. All of it. Where do I sign?”

I laughed.
“You like it?”

“
It’s incredible. I can’t get over it. I’m… I’m speechless.” She turned to face the tent again, her mouth gaping open.

“
Come, let me show you the ceremony area,” I said. “It’s a work in progress, but you can still get the picture.”

We entered the barn, where, true to his word, Jake installed a swinging wooden door to replace the plastic sheet. Chairs were set up in rows on either side of a makeshift aisle, with candelabras placed up front to stage an altar area.

“Look at the way the light peeks through the beams!” Natalie let out a squeal.

“
I know. It’s one of my favorite parts, too.”

She turned to me, hands clasped together, eyes wide with excitement.
“So? Can you book me? Please, please, please?”

I smiled.
“It just so happens we’re wide open. Well, after Friday, that is.”

She lunged for me and wrapped her arms around my neck, nearly knocking the wind out of me.
“Oof.”

“
Sorry.” She stepped back and smoothed her skirt. “But thank you. So much. This is perfect.” She took another look around and turned to me with a distressed expression on her face. “How much is this going to set me back?”

“
Well, I wanted to talk to you about that.” I stepped toward the bar and gestured for her to follow me through the door to the back room. I pushed the door open, and she stepped inside before me. As I followed her, I peeked over my shoulder to make sure no one was around.

I placed my clipboard down and leaned with my back against the countertop.
“You can see for yourself how perfect Carl’s Creek is for a wedding.”

She nodded.

“This place could be huge, if we could get the word out. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to kick our advertising up a notch. The ad in the paper’s good, don’t get me wrong, but I’m thinking bigger. Beyond local. I’m thinking I want to put this place on the map as
the
place for a destination wedding in the South. And I’m thinking maybe you can help me.”

I glanced at her to make sure she was still listening. She was.

“And in return,” I said, “I’ll waive your event hosting fee.”

“
Get
out!
” She jumped and clapped her hands. “I’m in. How can I help?”

“
Well…” I shifted my weight from one foot to another. Here it came. Once I set this wheel into motion, I knew it couldn’t be stopped. But it had to be done. “I’ve been keeping a little secret. About this upcoming wedding.”

Natalie leaned forward.

“The bride and groom have been low profile.
I
don’t even know who they are. They sent a personal assistant down to coordinate the details. They seem to have a ton of money. But that’s all I know. That’s all any of us know.”

“
Really?”

“
Uh-huh. Which leads me to believe they’re—”

“
Famous! They’re famous, aren’t they?”

“
We don’t know for sure, but it seems that way,” I said.

“
Oh! Oh I can’t believe it!” She fanned herself with her hand. “I’m getting married at a celebrity hot spot! Can I come to the wedding and sneak a peek? Please? Pretty please? I’ll pretend to be a waitress. I’ll stay out of the way. I promise I won’t make a scene.”

It was all going according to plan so far. But here came the crucial part. I smiled at her.
Come on, Natalie. Don’t let me down.

“
Actually, yes. But I want you to do more than sneak a peek. I want you to cover the story.”

Natalie looked as if she might melt into the floor from excitement.
“Me?”

Perfect. It would be smooth sailing from here.
“Uh-huh. They’re going to be here Thursday night for a rehearsal. I was thinking you could come and pose as my assistant. Snap a couple of photos, make notes of the details. Then write up a story and send it out that same night to some of the bigger papers, entertainment websites, wherever you want. The key thing I need you to do is to mention Carl’s Creek by name, so we can get some good exposure. If this turns out anything like I expect it to, the story is going to take off. And who knows? Your career might take off with it.”

I took a deep cathartic breath. There. It was done. On the one hand, it felt awful betraying Viv like this. She asked us to keep a low profile, and we agreed to do so. This was in direct violation of our agreement.

But on the other hand, where was Viv now? She left me in the ditch to handle everything on my own. I knew full well leaking this story had the potential to create a complete media circus on the day of the wedding. And truth be told, I hoped it would. We could always call the cops to clear things out if it got too crazy. The point was, with the right media exposure, we’d be booked up for at least a year’s worth of weddings by next week. There’d be no need to sell the vineyard. Jake and Sara could stay and make things work.

And for Natalie, breaking this type of story could launch her journalism career and get her away from writing obituaries in The Middle of Nowhere, USA. I was doing her a favor. I was taking a chance on her, in the same way Jim
took a chance on me all those years ago when I first started at Stevenson.

Natalie
wrung her hands. “Oh, wow. Oh. I… I don’t know what to say.”

“
Say you’ll help me?”

“
Of course! Of course I’ll help you! Thank you so much for this. This could be huge for me.”

“
That’s fantastic. And you’re welcome. I hope it is.”

“
What time should I come Thursday?”

“
I’m meeting the couple right here at five, and the rehearsal starts at six,” I said.

“
Perfect. I’ll be here at four-thirty, so I can catch the big entrance.” She gave another excited clap of her hands.

I smiled.
“It’s a plan.”

“
And you’ll book my wedding?” she asked.

“
Oh, yeah.” I reached for my clipboard. “What’s the date again?”

“
May nineteenth,” she said.

“
May nineteenth,” I echoed, scribbling down the date. “Sounds like a lovely day for a wedding.”

CHAPTER 27

“This says,
Congratulations, Ron
.”
I furrowed my brow at Lulu Millwood’s grandson, who was holding a big white cake box in one hand and tapping on his phone with the other.

“
Yeah? So?”

I sighed.
“This is the wrong cake. It’s supposed to be a wedding cake. And it’s not supposed to be here until tomorrow.”

“
Oh.” He nodded without looking up from his phone. “Tomorrow. My bad. I’m at the wrong place. Happens all the time.”

Fantastic.

“It’s okay.” I forced myself to stay calm. “You’ll be back with our cake tomorrow, then?”

He looked confused for a second, but then his face registered a hint of recognition.
“Oh, yeah. Tomorrow. Sure.”

“G
ood. Because it’s important. Really,
really
important.”

“
Really important. Right.”

“
Right. Well… see you tomorrow.”

I reached out to close the lid on the box and waited for him to leave. But he didn’t leave. He stood there for a while, looking up at me with a silly grin on his face.

“Yes?” I asked. “Do you have a question?”

H
e kicked at the ground with his toe. “Uh, well, my friends and I, we’re having a party next weekend. We all pooled our money together. And we heard you were, well, we were wondering if you could…”

I gasped and lifted a hand to silence him. Up until now, I kept a good sense of humor about the absurd rumors flying around about me. But this wedding had me on edge, and I was about ready to snap.

“Let me stop you right there. Young man, I am a
wedding planner
. And a lady. And that’s no way to talk to a lady.” My voice grew louder with every word. “Furthermore, I don’t think your grandmother would like it one bit if she heard about this little party you’re having with your friends. Where are your friends’ parents?”

The boy took a step back and
stammered.

“
I thought so. Look, kid. Me and your grandmother, we’re like this.” I crossed my fingers and held them out in front of my face. “So you run along, and I want to see you back here tomorrow morning, minding your manners and carrying the right cake. You do that, and Grandma won’t have to hear a word about this. But if the cake is a minute late, even
one minute
, so help me I will call your grandmother and tell her everything you just said to me. I have her on speed dial.
Don’t
test me. Do you understand?”

He nodded.
“Cake. Tomorrow. Yes.”

I shook my head and watched as he turned and walked away in a daze.

“And don’t forget to eat your vegetables!” I shouted after him.

It was Thursday afternoon, a little before one o’clock on the day of the rehearsal, and things were
not
going smoothly. Right before the wrong cake arrived, I sent away a delivery of a few dozen hot-pink roses.

“
These are pink,” I said to the woman handing me paperwork to sign.

“
I know. Aren’t they just beautiful?”

“
They’re supposed to be peach.”

“
Peach, you say?” She looked half-worried, half-puzzled.

“
Yes. Peach.”

She bit her lower lip and checked her paperwork again.
“Oh, dear.”

I rubbed my temples in an attempt to quell an impending headache.

“We can fix this,” she said. “Yes, we can fix this. I
think
we can fix this.”

I bit the insides of my cheeks as I helped her load the hot pink roses back in the truck, and then watched as she sped away.

So here we were, twenty-four hours before the wedding, with the wrong flowers and the wrong cake. This wasn’t looking good at all.

Maybe it
was naïve to think I could pull the rest of the wedding off on my own, to have so much riding on every last detail being perfect. If things kept going like this, I’d have an angry couple on my hands, along with a huge public relations crisis. I could see the headlines now:
Up A Creek: Carl’s Creek Celebrity Wedding A Disaster.

I should have run away with Viv.

Better yet, I should never have come here at all. The stress of the wedding caved in on me from all sides, and I longed for the predictability of my old life. I longed to be back at Stevenson, behind my desk, where even though things were crazy and high-pressure sometimes, they still made sense to me. I longed to take back what I said to Logan that night, our last night together; to go back to being blindly and foolishly in love with him. Maybe if I hadn’t acted so crazy, things would have fizzled out with this other woman before I ever knew about it. Or maybe they would never have even started to begin with.

I longed to have never seen the beauty of this place. To have never grown attached to it, to have never felt like it had become a part of me somehow. And I longed to have never met Thatcher. I wished I could erase him from my memory, scrub him away like a doodle drawn with a dry
-erase marker. Because as much as I tried not to think about him, I couldn’t get rid of the dull ache that settled in my heart after he left.

Why did he get involved with me in the first place if he was just planning to
walk away like it was no big deal? I’d asked myself that question at least a hundred times since I last saw him. But it didn’t matter. He was gone. I was stupid to let myself fall for him. Like I was stupid to think I could handle this wedding on my own.

I was grateful for the
one thing going right today, one saving grace in the midst of all the chaos: the rehearsal dinner setup. DJ wasn’t kidding. Her parents
did
know how to throw together the most adorable picnic I’d ever seen.

They spent the last hour setting up a row of picnic tables, banquet-style in between the grapevines. The tables were adorned with charming gingham linens and simple arrangements of white daisies. Behind the barn, they set up their own catering tent.
A delicious wood-smoked smell came from that direction.

At least
something
was going as planned. I stood at the edge of the grapevines, admiring the beauty of the tables and taking deep breaths to calm myself down.

Jake appeared by my side and
bumped his hip into mine. “You ready to get your dance on?”

“
Are you insane?” I didn’t mean to, but I snapped at him.
So much for being calm.

“
Snippy, snippy. You need to relax, Tessy. Everything’s done. Except for my moves. I’m still working on them. What do you think of this one?” He bobbed and weaved to music only he could hear.

I shook my head.
“First of all, I do
not
need to relax. Second, you will
not
be dancing. And you will
definitely
not be doing that… I don’t even know what to call it. What
is
that?”

“
It’s my groove, Tessy.” He spun around in a circle. “And I’m gonna get it on.”

“Oh boy.” I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“When did you become such a stiff?” he asked. “You used to love dancing.”

My phone rang.

Great. What now? The band calling to cancel, perhaps?

“
I have to take this. I’ll see you later. And no dancing. We’re supposed to be professionals. All right? Promise?”

“
I can’t hear you, Tessy. This is my jam.”

I left Jake dancing alone in the field as I answered the call.

“Hello?”

“
Tess?” There was a man’s voice on the other end of the line. A familiar voice, but I couldn’t quite place it.

“
Yes?”

“
It’s Jim.”

Jim? Jim Pierce? From Stevenson?
Yes, I realized. It had to be.

“
Jim! How are you?”

“
I’m good. How are you? You find anything yet?”

I hesitated. How to answer this question? I didn’t want to disappoint him; didn’t want to admit that instead of looking for a real job, I was currently playing the role of air traffic controller to a whirlwind of cake and flower deliveries. And oh yeah, I wasn’t getting paid.

“I did,” I chirped. “Just a temporary gig.”

“
Temporary? Oh, good. So you’re available then?”

Available? For what?

“Uh-huh,” I said, unsure of how to respond.

“Great
. Listen, I’ve taken a new position, managing a financial firm, right outside of the city. And you’ll never guess what I need.”

I didn’t answer.

“A marketing director,” he said.

“
You’re kidding.”

“
I’m not. So, will you come work for me?”

Wow. Minutes ago I
wished for my old job back, and here it was being handed to me out of nowhere. I would be a fool not to take it.

And yet, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment, too. Because taking a job with Jim meant this little escape of mine was over. It couldn’t last forever, I
knew that all along.

But still. Deep down, perhaps there
was some part of me that
liked
not knowing what tomorrow would bring. Some whimsical part of me that thought maybe, just maybe, I’d stay here and make a life for myself. Or go somewhere new, even. Maybe it wasn’t so much the place that mattered, I realized, it was the possibilities. Maybe that’s what I’d fallen in love with here.

But our time on the vineyard was coming to an end. Even if the plan to save Carl’s Creek worked, and Jake and Sara got to stay, it didn’t make sense for
me
to stay here. I had a career to get back to. It was time to move on. And this dream job offer from Jim landed in my lap. Of course I would take it. It was a sure thing.

“
I would love to, Jim. I can’t thank you enough.”

“
The pleasure’s mine. When can you start?”

I looked around the field. There was still so much to do.
I’ll be there in an hour
, I wanted to say. But I had to see this through. For Jake.

“
I need a little time to wrap things up here,” I said.

“
Do you think you could swing two weeks?”

“
Yes. I can do that.”

“
Great. I’ll shoot you an email tonight with details and an official offer.”

“
Okay. Thanks, Jim.”

“It’ll
be nice to have you back, Tess.”

“
It’ll be nice to
be
back.”

I hung up the phone and stared at it for a while.
Would
it be nice to be back? I hoped so, but I wasn’t sure.

I sighed. There was no time to worry about it. I needed to head up to the guest cottage and clear out my stuff. Starting tonight, the cottage would be used as
a bridal suite. I spent all day yesterday cleaning the place like a madwoman. Sara ran into town for me and picked up fancy hand soaps, a bottle of champagne, fresh fruit, and a flower arrangement to make it nice for our guests.

I tucked my clipboard under my arm and began the long walk up to the cottage. Back to the place where it all began
, where I first got the idea to turn the vineyard into a wedding venue. It was hard to believe it was just a few weeks since then. In so many ways, it felt like a year. Mainly because of how much things changed; how much
I
changed.

When I climbed about halfway up the hill, I turned back to get a bird’s-eye view of the grapevines. It was funny
how a shift in perspective could make some things easier to see. I thought back to what Thatcher said on the day they pruned the vines.

A lot of those branches died a long time ago, but the grapevines still hold on. They don’t want to let go of what’s comfortable.

For me, the past few weeks were as he’d described: a time to let go. And it had been a little devastating, hadn’t it? Losing my job, losing Logan, losing Thatcher.

Yet here I was, still standing. And stronger in some ways.

All I needed now was a little bit of sun.

Oh,
how I hoped it would come soon.