The Wedding Dance (2 page)

“But I thought you were going to do it,” Rose said.

RJ shrugged, gesturing to the remains of the gazebo. “I can’t leave this to potentially fall down and hurt someone on site.”

Tyce edged over to Phoebe and whispered, “Is it just me or is that the lamest excuse ever?”

“You haven’t heard mine yet,” she whispered back while Rose was busy looking over the half-dismantled gazebo.

“You have an excuse?”

“No,” she admitted, “but I’m working on it.”

“I guess you’re right, RJ,” Rose finally said. “The gazebo probably should come down today so we don’t run into any problems.”

“Exactly,” RJ agreed. “Plus I still have a complete recreation of Tara from
Gone With The Wind
to fit together for Marge Banning’s wedding. Like you said, just because it’s the woman’s third wedding, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it right.” RJ nodded to where Phoebe stood. “Phoebe will do a much better job of putting together general ideas for the garden than I could, and I’m sure she’d be happy to help. Right, Phoebe?”

Rose looked over at her. “Would you mind? I know it’s a lot to ask, but you only need to go up to the site with Patrick while he surveys it, take a look around, and work out what the contractors should do with the gardens. It’s easy, really.”

Correction,
thought Phoebe.
Two out of those three things were easy.

Spending the day that close to Patrick Knight would be anything but.

The trouble was, Phoebe still didn’t have an excuse to bow out that was even half as good as RJ’s. The dead roses pricked her fingers through the garbage composting bag as she clutched it tightly and she was just about to remind Rose about all the cleanup she had to do when RJ beat her to the punch.

“Don’t worry about picking up the rest of the roses and flower arrangements,” RJ told her. “I’ll clean them up after taking the gazebo down.”

Phoebe looked over at Patrick who was watching the conversation with a bemused expression on his face. If it was a purely professional trip, how bad could it really be? And Rose was both her employer and her friend. Could Phoebe really say no? Especially considering Rose’s expression was practically pleading, and she almost never did that.

“Sure, Rose,” Phoebe finally said with a smile, “I’d love to help you out.”

Chapter Two

Patrick wasn’t sure why his brother hadn’t wanted to come along to the site as they’d planned, but every time he glanced over at the passenger seat of his SUV and saw Phoebe sitting there, he was glad RJ hadn’t.

As Patrick drove, he found his gaze drifting over to her again and again. She had been beautiful the previous night at the wedding, but even in more casual clothes she was stunning. Her figure was great, her pretty features were exquisite, and he could easily imagine kissing those full lips. Very easily...and with great pleasure.

“So where is Rose’s property, exactly?” Phoebe asked, breaking Patrick out of that very distracting line of thinking.

“The plot’s in the Sea Cliff district,” he said. “It’s not much of a drive.”

Which was a pity. He could have driven beside her for the rest of the day quite happily. Unfortunately, she would probably notice if he took a few detours.

“Sea Cliff is an impressive neighborhood,” Phoebe commented. “Donovan and Rose must really be investing in this.” She shook her head. “I’m still a little bit shocked at how easily your brother roped me into this.”

“I’m glad he did.”

He could have sworn Phoebe stiffened before saying, “Why don’t you tell me more about the site?”

The deflection was obvious, but Patrick went along with it. For now. “It’s a great spot. There’s a good view, plenty of space for a garden, too. It’s going to be a fun one to work on, lots of possibilities.”

“You sound like you really enjoy your job.”

Patrick shifted gears going down the hill. “It’s an easy job to enjoy. I get to build places that will make people happy and be lived in for years to come.”

“Seems to me most architects want to leave their stamp on the world. Don’t you?”

Patrick shook his head. “I do that kind of thing when the client wants it. I’ve done it before, but I mostly prefer to create spaces people can enjoy.”

That was always the challenge, to figure out exactly what would make people happy. What, he wondered, would Phoebe enjoy? What kind of date would she love? Houses were personal things, where you had to get to know the people involved if you wanted to have any chance of giving them a space to live and grow in. Patrick liked to think that dates were pretty much the same.

What would it be for Phoebe? Dinner and dancing? Patrick liked to be more original than that, but that very originality had let him down a few times in the past. Women who would have been perfectly happy at a nice restaurant generally didn’t react well to men who suggested hang gliding as a first date. Only, what did those first date dinners ever achieve? They got two people into a situation where they might be willing to sleep with one another afterwards, but they were always so busy playing the game that they never really got to know one another any deeper than that.

He couldn’t see the point. He wanted to know a lot more about Phoebe than that. He was
attracted
to her a lot more than that. Yet maybe the classic option was the best one in this case. She was as elegant as one of those flowers she arranged so deftly, so maybe she was the kind of woman who would expect a restaurant.

Patrick wasn’t about to risk letting the obvious attraction between them slip away just because a normal first date wasn’t his idea of a great time. Besides, he’d already danced with Phoebe once, and the memories of how good it was to hold her in his arms were still fresh.

They turned into the Sea Cliff District and Phoebe marveled, “You weren’t kidding about the view, were you?”

He couldn’t take his eyes off of her as she looked out at the ocean with wonder in her eyes. He’d wanted to date her from the first moment he’d seen her working at the wedding the night before.

Hopefully, she felt the same way.

* * *

Rose and Donovan’s plot had enough space for a huge house and garden, along with the kind of view Phoebe doubted anyone could ever get tired of. Although in her experience, didn’t people always find ways to get tired of everything sooner or later?

“Phoebe, could you hold this for me?” Patrick passed her a striped ranging pole.

“Oh, so
that’s
why you needed me to come out here with you,” Phoebe said, smiling, even as she stepped into some soft, damp dirt. She really wasn’t wearing the right shoes for a muddy building site. “Where do you want me?”

The answer to that turned out to be lots of different places, with Phoebe leaning against the pole while Patrick took measurements. It wasn’t exactly how she had imagined spending her day, but it was interesting to see the kind of planning that went into a place like this.

As they worked, Patrick asked her questions about her opinions on the landscaping options. “Do you think we should put in ice plant on the side of the site to stabilize the slope down to the ocean?”

Phoebe shook her head. “It’s such an aggressive species that it grows over the delicate native flowers. Besides, the roots aren’t deep enough to really stabilize the soil...and I suspect the neighbors won’t be too pleased with a cascading wall of ice plant.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to scare off a delicate flower,” Patrick murmured as he looked around at the site. “Should I plan for putting all the garden space at the front of the house, rather than the ocean side to protect the plants from the sea air?”

“As long as we stick to local varieties, it shouldn’t be a problem. San Francisco flowers tend not to be quite as delicate as they look.”

Patrick nodded, his gaze holding on hers a beat too long. “Good to know,” he said, but even as he turned his focus back to the job at hand, she couldn’t seem to get her heart beat to settle down to a normal rhythm around him.

He was in his element as he discussed layouts and possibilities, options for changing the basic plan, and where the gardens could go. Even as she struggled to keep up in her heels, she had to admit that it was nice to be around someone who was so passionate about what he did.

“What do you think about putting some pacific coast irises in here?” she suggested, pointing to an area that looked perfect for them.

Patrick hesitated. After a second or two, Phoebe figured out why. Laughing, she said, “You haven’t got a clue which plants I mean, have you?”

“Honestly?” Patrick admitted, “I don’t know much about plants, apart from the standard ones.”

“You really are the black sheep of the family, aren’t you?” she teased. “All those generations of landscapers, including your brother, and you go off to build houses instead.”

“How did you know I keep a close eye out for relatives waiting to ambush me with wheelbarrows?” They both laughed, but then Patrick said, “Seriously, though, they’ve been great about my breaking the family tradition to create buildings instead of gardens.”

She couldn’t look away from his strong hands as Patrick packed up his surveying equipment. Were they done already? It seemed like they’d hardly been there any time at all, and Phoebe had really enjoyed spending the day with Patrick.

More than she could remember enjoying herself with a man in a very long time.

“I helped out a bit as a kid,” Patrick continued, “but the garden just wasn’t quite where I fit, you know?”

Phoebe gestured at the nearby houses. “And this is where you fit in?”

He nodded. “I love to create things. To build something out of nothing.”

“So what had you turning your focus to homes?” Phoebe asked as Patrick led the way back to the car and put his gear in the trunk.

“I’ve done a few big offices and public buildings,” he told her, “but I wanted to build things that would have more of an impact on peoples’ day-to-day lives.”

When was the last time she’d met a man this modest? She knew first hand he’d won an award for “changing the face of the modern city landscapes” because she’d given in to curiosity and looked him up on the internet after returning home from the Rose Chalet the night before.

All because of one sweet slow dance she couldn’t stop thinking about.

“Everyone thought I was crazy,” Patrick continued. “They told me that family homes were what you did when you couldn’t get work doing ‘real’ architecture. But residential architecture was what it felt right for me to do.”

“It sounds like you go a lot by what feels right, don’t you?”

“All the time,” he agreed. “If you never take risks, you never get any rewards worth having.” His gaze had gone from easy to intense in an instant and Phoebe’s heart pounded in response to his nearness.

“So now you go around designing houses as a favor to your brother?” Phoebe joked, trying to lighten the mood between them.

“Actually,” Patrick said, “I was going to ask you about that. Do RJ and Rose get along well?”

She thought about the way her boss and RJ sometimes seemed as if they were flirting with one another, despite the fact that Rose was engaged to someone else.

“Yes, they get along. Why do you ask?”

“I actually didn’t hear about this project until Donovan contacted me. He’d read a piece in Architecture magazine where I was talking about bringing modern ideas to family homes, and we went from there. I didn’t even know there was any connection to my brother at all until he mentioned the Rose Chalet.”

Phoebe would have thought RJ would have been only too happy to help Rose out by suggesting his brother as architect. Then again, maybe he’d assumed that the Rose Chalet’s owner had everything under control. Rose generally did, after all.

“What will you do next for the house?” she asked, curious now after seeing what went into the initial architectural planning stages.

She could tell he was pleased by her interest as he replied, “I’ll spend some time speaking with them to get a better idea of what kind of couple they are. For instance,” he explained, “are they going to be the kind of couple who spend all their time in the kitchen cooking together? If so, I’ll shift the focus of the house so that the kitchen is the central space and the other rooms are less important. Or are they the kind of couple who like to cuddle up together on the sofa watching Sunday football? Are they going to spend all their time hosting friends? Are they going to want their own spaces in the home, or do they do everything together?”

Phoebe found herself suddenly imagining a home with a large atrium, filled with plants. A home with a nice, warm living room where everything happened, a smaller kitchen, because they’d eat out a lot, and a big bedroom, because they’d be spending a lot of time there. They’d probably need a study, too, so that Patrick could have somewhere to fill up with blueprints and scale models while he…

Hold on, why was she thinking about Patrick like that?

And why was it still so darn easy to picture him coming out to the sun-filled atrium bearing coffee while she carefully teased exotic flowers into growing the way she wanted them?

She was still trying to deal with those very unexpected visions when Patrick said, “I’m glad you came to help with the initial survey of the land, Phoebe. I’d love to take you to dinner. Would you join me?”

* * *

Phoebe looked startled by his question, her cheeks flushing beautifully. “You want to go out on a date with me?”

“I enjoyed dancing with you last night, Phoebe, and I’m enjoying being with you now even more.”

She took a step back from him, shaking her head as she said, “Last night, dancing, it was a mistake.”

“A mistake?” He frowned, wondering yet again, why she was suddenly so skittish around him after they’d been working together so well for hours. “It definitely didn’t feel like a mistake at the time.”

He thought he saw momentary indecision move across her face before she tamped down on it and the light that had been in her eyes all day dimmed slightly. “I don’t think that we’re right for one another, Patrick. Not when we seem to want two very different things out of life.”